Passing now over several paragraphs containing many charges, we regret to say, in unusually bitter words, we come to the following: “The revival of the Greek learning, the study of the works of Plato, Aristotle, the classic poets, orators, and historians, with their beautiful and surprising revelations of genius, virtue, and piety, entirely independent and outside of the church and Bible, exerted an immense force in liberalizing and refining the narrow, dogmatic mind of the Christian world, refuting its arrogant pretensions to an exclusive communion with God and heritage in Providence.” If the cultivated writer of this essay had qualified the phrase “outside of the church” as I understand it, “exclusive communion” as I view it, this sentence might pass; but, as it stands, the position in which the Catholic Church is placed is entirely false, and we refer our readers to what is said on these points under the heading of “The Mission of the Latin Race,” commencing on page 5, in the last number of this magazine.
“Now the Pope,” says Mr. Alger, “excommunicates the emperor, sets up a rival, foments a rebellion among his subjects, or launches the terrible interdict on a whole nation, shutting the churches, muffling the bells, forbidding confession to the penitent, unction to the dying, burial to the dead.”[[27]] Either the author has been imposed upon by his authorities, or perhaps he has not weighed sufficiently his words. The effect of an interdict of the Pope is inaccurately stated. These are “terrible” matters, and one who is reciting history should be careful and exact in his specifications. Here, as before, he is bound to give his authorities, and learned and credible ones, or change his language.
“The repeated gross contradictions of bishops, councils, and popes, their inconsistent decrees reversing or neutralizing each other, infallibility clashing with infallibility, begat irrepressible doubts.”[[28]] This sentence may pass for a rhetorical flourish, but it involves a grave, a very grave, a most grave charge, and is backed up by no example, or proof, or relation of authorities! These cutting and slashing assertions where conscientious accuracy is required and sound scholarship ought to be displayed, place the intelligence and education of his Boston audience in no enviable light. Let us have some specimens of “infallibility clashing with infallibility” by all means:
“Luther sprang forth with one-third of Christendom in revolt at his back.... But the fundamental doctrines of the church scheme otherwise remained essentially as they had been, unchallenged.”[[29]] What a pity that the theologians of the sixteenth century had not known that “the fundamental doctrines of the church scheme remained essentially” the same! The Council of Trent, if it had only understood this, might have saved its anathemas.
“After Luther, then, we see Christendom, with fundamental agreement of belief, differing, for the most part, only in affairs of polity and ritual, split into two bodies—those who rest their belief on the inspired authority of the church, and those who rest it on the inspired authority of the Bible.”[[30]] Here again we have another fundamental erroneous idea of the church. “Inspired” authority is not what Catholics believe. This language shows poor theological training or a loose way of handling delicate and important points. But on this point we shall have more to say.
“Third,” says Mr. Alger, “a revolt of common sense against errors with which the teachings of church and Scripture were identified, but which, by the simple lapse of time, had been demonstrated to be false. For example, in the twentieth chapter of the Book of Revelations it is recorded: ‘And he laid hold of the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled; after that he must be loosed a little season.’ This passage was thought to fix the date of the Day of Judgment. And as the time drew near the terror was profound. Throughout the generation preceding the year one thousand the pulpits of the Christian world rang with this frightful text and with awful descriptions of what it implied. The fear was as intense as the belief was general.”
Has not the author of this essay taken some romancer of history or some idle tale for his authority in the above charge? When and where did the church identify her teachings with this error? We grow uneasy in asking for authorities and examples; and when we are given an example of things which are said to have taken place eight hundred years or more ago, no authority is cited to authenticate the fact. The author may have given his hearers “the result of his deepest thought,” but he is too chary of the authorities for his “historical study of years.”
“The priests,” he tells us, “from the first hour scented this enemy from afar, and declared war against it [physical science], as the meaner portion of them still do everywhere. In the twelfth century the Council of Tours, in the thirteenth century the Council of Paris, interdicted to monks the reading of works on physical science as sinful.”[[31]] We retract having said that Mr. Alger cites no authorities; he does in the above accusation, but fails to quote the decrees or give their language, or tell what kind of councils these were and what their weight. We feel suspicious, and have grounds for this feeling, and we demand more definite proofs. The charge is precise; let the proofs be equally so. Let us have the authentic decrees and ipsissima verba. This is asking only fair play. It would not be pleasant to find this accusation, on serious investigation, a misconception, or a misinterpretation, or perhaps an invented calumny, but not by our author. We take real pleasure in finding a point in which we agree with him. Here is one: they are the “meaner portion,” if there be such “priests,” who “war against” the study of “the physical sciences.” We know of priests who are devoted to the study of the physical sciences, and some who are distinguished in these studies; but we have no acquaintance with the “meaner portion” who have “declared war against physical science.” Perhaps Mr. Alger has, and, if so, he will inform us who they are.
“Ethnology,” he asserts, “multiplies the actors in its drama [that of history], and takes the keystone from the arch of the church theology by disproving the inheritance of total depravity from one progenitor of all men.”[[32]] Here the author shares the error in common with almost all, if not all, Unitarians and free-religionists. They seem not to be able to grasp the idea that the Catholic Church, in the œcumenical Council of Trent, condemned the doctrines of Protestantism concerning original sin; and, whatever may be said to the contrary, the Catholic Church never goes back on her authoritative decisions. Mr. Alger well says that the doctrine of original sin is “the keystone of the arch of theology”; so much the more reason, therefore, that there should be no mistake on a point which shapes theology almost entirely. And if he and his brethren, free-religionists and Unitarians, could be got to understand and acknowledge that the Catholic Church has condemned the doctrines of Protestantism on original sin, as well as “the five points of Calvinism”—for they go together—then there would be some hope that the gross error of identifying Catholicity and Protestantism as “fundamentally and essentially the same” on this most important subject would be corrected. The error is an egregious one, which is constantly appearing in their addresses, sermons, tracts, essays, books, weekly papers, and journals, and with that error a thousand dependent errors would disappear. But, alas! we fear that we shall have to regard this as hopeless, and resign ourselves, for the present generation at least, to placing this, with other radical errors, among the points of “invincible ignorance”! May we just here be allowed, without being stigmatized as one of the “meaner portion” of the priesthood, to put in a humble demurrer to the unsustained assertion that “ethnology” has “disproven” “one progenitor of all men”?
If the reader is weary of following up with us this labyrinth of error in this not very long essay, he will pity the present writer; for he has not touched upon one-tenth of the errors which the same short essay holds. We have been careful, too, to be silent on language which might have come from Exeter Hall ranters or from the late Dr. Brownlee, a notorious anti-popery lecturer of former days. Indeed, we can scarcely allow ourselves the freedom of expressing our feelings of indignation at reading such language coming from men who have a reputation for polite culture. “Men,” we say; for at the close of its delivery Mr. Alger’s essay was endorsed by the president of the association as “the admirable essay by Mr. Alger, at once a history and an argument, a summary of facts and also a summary of apprehensions and suggestions, etc.”[[33]] Another speaker pronounced it a “most magnificent and masterly essay.”[[34]] We are not over-sensitive in matters of this kind, and before concluding our remarks we give a specimen of the language and spirit of the “most magnificent and masterly essay.”