Protestantism and Catholicity. Balmes Jaime Luciano
is the best reply which they can make; it is easy to show that the difficulty remains entire. Indeed, if it be true that there has existed a society on earth which has been for eighteen centuries guided by one fixed and constant principle – a society which has known how to bind to this principle eminent men of all ages and countries, the following questions must be asked of our adversaries: – Why has the Church alone possessed this principle, and monopolized this idea? If other sects have been in possession of it, why have they not acted on it? All the philosophic sects have disappeared, one after another; the Church alone remains. Other religions, in order to preserve some sort of unity, have been compelled to shun the light, to avoid discussion, to hide themselves in the thickest shades. Why has the Church preserved her unity while seeking the light, while publishing her books in open day, while lavishing all sorts of instruction, and founding everywhere colleges, universities, and establishments of every description, where all the splendor of knowledge and erudition has been concentrated?
It is not enough to say that there was a plan – a system; the difficulty lies in the existence of this plan and this system; it consists in explaining how they were conceived and executed. If we had to do with a small number of men, in limited circumstances, times, and countries, for the execution of a limited project, there would be nothing extraordinary; but we have to do with a period of eighteen hundred years, with all the countries of the world, with circumstances the most varied, the most different, and the most opposed to each other; we have to do with a multitude of men who did not meet together, or act in concert. How is all this to be explained? If it were a plan and a system devised by man, we should ask, What was the mysterious power of Rome which enabled her to unite around her so many illustrious men of all times and of all countries? How did the Roman Pontiff, if he be only the chief of a sect, manage to fascinate the world to this extent? What magician ever did such wonders? Men have long declaimed against his religious despotism; why has no one been found to wrest the sceptre from his grasp? why has not a pontifical throne been raised capable of disputing the pre-eminence with his, and of maintaining itself with equal splendor and power? Shall we attribute it to his temporal power? This power is very limited. Rome was not able to contend in arms with any of the other European powers. Shall we attribute it to the peculiar character, to the knowledge or the virtues of the men who have occupied the Papal throne? There has been, during these eighteen hundred years, an infinite variety in the characters and in the talents and virtues of the Popes. For those who are not Catholics, who do not see in the Roman Pontiff the vicar of Jesus Christ, – the rock on which He has built His Church, – the duration of this authority must be the most extraordinary phenomenon; and it is certainly one of the questions most worthy of being examined by the science which devotes itself to the history of the human mind; how there existed for many centuries an uninterrupted series of learned men, always faithful to the doctrines of the Roman See?
M. Guizot himself, in comparing Protestantism with the Roman Church, seems to have felt the force of this truth; and its light appears to have made him confused in his remarks. Let us listen again to this writer, whose talents and renown have dazzled, on this point, so many readers, who do not examine the solidity of proofs when they are clothed in brilliant images, and who applaud all kinds of ideas when they are conveyed to them in a torrent of enchanting eloquence; men who, pretending to intellectual independence, subscribe, without inquiry, to the decisions of the leaders of their school; who receive their doctrines with submission, and dare not even raise their heads to ask for the titles of their authority. M. Guizot, like all the great men among Protestants, was aware of the immense void which exists amid its various sects, and of the force and vigour which is contained in Catholicity; he has not been able to free himself from the rule of great minds, – a rule which is explicitly confirmed by the writings of the greatest men of the Reformation. After pointing out the inconstant progress of Protestantism, and the error which it has introduced into the organization of intellectual society, M. Guizot proceeds thus: "People have not known how to reconcile the rights and necessities of tradition with those of liberty; and the cause of it undoubtedly has been, that the Reformation did not fully understand and accept either its principles or its effects." What sort of a religion must that be which does not fully understand and accept its principles or its effects?
Did a more formal condemnation of the Reformation ever issue out of the mouth of man? could any thing of the kind ever be said of the sects of philosophers, ancient or modern? Can the Reformation, then, after this, pretend to direct men or society? "Thence arises," continues M. Guizot, "a certain air of inconsistency and narrowness of spirit, which has often given advantages over it to its opponents. The latter knew very well what they did and what they wished; they ascended to the principles of their conduct, and avowed all their consequences. There never was a government more consistent, more systematic than that of the Church of Rome." But whence was the origin of a system so consistent? When we consider the fickleness and inconstancy of the human mind, do not this system, this consistency, and these fixed principles, speak volumes to the philosopher and man of good sense?
We have observed those terrible elements of dissolution which have their source in the mind of man, and which have acquired so much force in modern society; we have seen with what fatal power they destroy and annihilate all institutions, social, political, and religious, without ever succeeding in making a breach in the doctrines of Catholicity, – without altering that system, so fixed and so consistent. Is there no conclusion to be drawn from all this in favour of Catholicity? To say that the Church has done that which no schools, or governments, or societies, or religions could do, is it not to confess that she is wiser than every thing human? And does it not clearly prove that she does not owe her origin to human thought, and that she is derived from the bosom of the Creator? This society – formed, you say, by men – this government, directed by men, has endured for eighteen hundred years; it extends to all countries, it addresses the savage in the forest, the barbarian in his tent, the civilized man in the most populous cities; it reckons among its children the shepherd clothed in skins, the laborer, the powerful nobleman; it makes its laws heard alike by the simple mechanic at his work, and the man of learning in his closet absorbed in the profoundest speculations. This government has always had, according to M. Guizot, a full knowledge of its actions and its wishes; it has always been consistent in its conduct. Is not this avowal its most convincing apology, its most eloquent panegyric; and shall it not be considered a proof that it contains within itself something more than human?
A thousand times have I beheld this prodigy with astonishment; a thousand times have my eyes been fixed upon that immense tree which extends its branches from east to west, from north to south; I see beneath its shade a multitude of different nations, and the restless genius of man reposing in tranquillity at its feet.
In the East, at the period when this divine religion first appeared, I see, amidst the dissolutions of all sects, the most illustrious philosophers crowd to hear her words. In Greece, in Asia, on the banks of the Nile, in all the countries where, a short time before, swarmed innumerable sects, I see appear on a sudden a generation of great men, abounding in learning, in knowledge, in eloquence, and all agreeing in the unity of Catholic doctrine.
In the West, a multitude of barbarians throw themselves on an empire falling to decay; a dark cloud descends upon an horizon charged with calamities and disasters; there, in the midst of a people submerged in the corruption of morals, and having lost even the remembrance of their ancient grandeur, I see the only men who can be called worthy heirs of the Roman name, seek, in the retirement of their temples, an asylum for the austerity of their morals; it is there that they preserve, increase, and enrich the treasure of ancient knowledge. But my admiration reaches its height, when I observe that sublime intellect, worthy heir of the genius of Plato, which, after having sought the truth in all the schools, in all the sects, and with indomitable boldness run through all human errors, feels itself subjugated by the authority of the Church, and transforms the freethinker into the great Bishop of Hippo. In modern times the series of great men who shone in the times of Leo X. and Louis XIV. passes before my eyes. I see the illustrious race still continue throughout the calamities of the eighteenth century; and in the nineteenth I see fresh heroes, who, after having followed error in all directions, come to hang their trophies at the gates of the Catholic Church. What, then, is this prodigy? Has a sect or religion like it ever before been seen? These men study every thing, dispute on every thing, reply to every thing, know every thing; but always agreeing in