THE Christian doctrine of justification is, that it is by faith alone, with the faith itself the gift of God, so that it is wholly of the Lord in a free gift to man.AMS September 7, 1893, page 273.1

“WHATSOEVER is not of faith is sin.” Romans 14:23. Conversely, whatsoever is of faith is righteousness. Consequently righteousness is of faith only. And the faith being the gift of God the righteousness of faith is inevitably the righteousness of God. See Romans 3:22; Philippians 3:9.AMS September 7, 1893, page 273.2

IT is not by faith and works; it is by faith which works. The faith, being the gift of God, is a divine thing, bearing in it the divine virtue which conveys to every sinner who will receive it, the righteousness of God for remission of sins that are past; and in it also the divine power to keep the justified one in the way of righteousness.AMS September 7, 1893, page 273.3

FOR in the gospel of Christ “is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, The just shall live by faith.” Romans 1:17. And “in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by love.” Galatians 5:6. “Abraham believed God and it [the faith] was counted unto him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh, is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” Romans 4:3-5.AMS September 7, 1893, page 273.4

THE true Protestant doctrine of justification is just this Christian doctrine of justification, neither more nor less; while the Catholic doctrine of justification is directly the opposite of this.AMS September 7, 1893, page 273.5

THAT it may be seen how certainly this is so, we give here the Catholic statement of the case. In telling what was done in this respect, at the time of the “so-called” Reformation, the statement is as follows:—AMS September 7, 1893, page 273.6

To make up for this rejection [of the Catholic sacraments], and enable each individual to prescribe for himself, and procure for himself the pardon of sins, and divine grace, independently of the priests and of the sacraments, they invented an exclusive means, never known in the Church of God, and still rejected by all the Eastern churches and by the Roman Catholics throughout the world, by which the followers of Luther ventured to declare that each individual can secure pardon and justification for himself, independently of priests and sacraments.AMS September 7, 1893, page 273.7

They have framed a new dogma, not to be found in any of the creeds, or in the canons of any general council; I means the new dogma of justification by faith alone, or by faith only....AMS September 7, 1893, page 273.8

By adding the word alone, Protestants profess to exclude all exterior, ceremonial, pious, or charitable works, works of obedience or of penance, and good moral acts whatever, as means of apprehending justification, or as conditions to obtain it.—Catholic Belief, p. 366.AMS September 7, 1893, page 273.9

He [Luther] invented a thing which he called justifying faith, to be a sufficient substitute for all the above painful religious works; an invention which took off every responsibility from our shoulders, and laid all on the shoulders of Jesus Christ. ^{1“The Lord hath laid upon Him the iniquity of us all.” Isaiah 53:6.}—Doctrinal Catechism, p. 37.AMS September 7, 1893, page 273.10

To do these acts with a view of being justified, is, they [Protestants] say, like giving a penny to the Queen to obtain from her a royal gift. Come as you are, they add; you cannot be too bad for Jesus. Through faith alone in his promise, they assert, you can and should accept Christ’s merits, seize Christ’s redemption and his justice [righteousness]; appropriate Christ to yourself, believe that Jesus it [sic.] with you, is yours, that he pardons your sins—and all this without any preparation and without any doing on your part; in fact that however deficient you may be in all other dispositions which Catholics require, and however loaded with sins, if you only trust in Jesus that he will forgive your sins and save you, you are by that trust alone forgiven, personally redeemed, justified, and placed in a state of salvation.—Catholic Belief, p. 367. And the Italics are all in the book.AMS September 7, 1893, page 273.11

Bear in mind that this is the Catholic Church’s statement of the Protestant doctrine of justification. And bear in mind that the Catholic Church thus plainly declares that this doctrine was “never known to the Church of God,” is “not to be found in any of the creeds, or in the canons of any general council,” and that it “is still so regarded by Roman Catholics throughout the world.”AMS September 7, 1893, page 273.12

VERY good. That is correct. No true Protestant could ask for any better statement of the case. And this Protestant doctrine of justification, which is here so emphatically repudiated and opposed by Catholicism—this doctrine is the Christian doctrine of justification, as every one knows who has ever read the Bible for himself. Consequently no better evidence is needed to show that the Catholic doctrine of justification is certainly antichristian.AMS September 7, 1893, page 273.13

IT is true that that church holds what it calls faith; but instead of its being the gift of God and therefore divine, it is only the invention of men and is therefore wholly human. And being human it has neither virtue nor power of any kind or degree whatever in it for good. Here is the evidence: After citing some passages of scripture which speak of believing in Jesus, it is said:—AMS September 7, 1893, page 273.14

These texts, all of which refer to saving faith, prove beyond doubt that not trust in Christ for personal salvation, but the faith of the creed ... is the faith availing for justification.AMS September 7, 1893, page 273.15

Thus “the church’s” idea of faith is only “the faith of the creed,” and man made the creed. Therefore as the “faith” held by the Catholic Church is only “the faith of the creed,” and as only man made the creed, it follows conclusively that what she calls faith and holds as faith, is only an invention of men, and is therefore wholly human. And being only human it is utterly impotent to bring to men any shadow of virtue or power for good, and so men are left to supply the lack by penances inflicted in punishments upon themselves, by themselves to save themselves from themselves. The “faith” which the Catholic Church holds, having in it neither virtue nor power, it is impossible for her to depend upon faith alone for justification. She must depend upon “faith” and something else. And this something else, is works and penances paid in punishments which not only pay for past sins but serve “as a check to prevent us from again falling into sin.” This, for those who voluntarily go or are caused to go, in that way of salvation. And for the rest she has recourse to the help of the law and State authority to secure conformity to her way and furnish the due measure of punishment to pay for their past sins and to prevent their again falling into sin.AMS September 7, 1893, page 273.16

NOW, in the matter of Sunday legislation, and other too, have the professed Protestant churches of the United States remained loyal to the true Protestant, and Christian, doctrine of justification? or have they gone over bodily to the way and doctrine of the Catholic Church? Have they remained loyal to the true Protestant and Christian doctrine of justification by the faith of Christ alone? or have they gone in the way, and to the doctrine, of the Catholic Church of justification by “the faith of the creed,” with “recourse to the help of the law and State authority” to provide the necessary “fear of temporal punishment to act as a check to prevent” the American people from “falling again into sin”? Which of these have they done? Everybody knows, from these evidences, that they have forsaken the true Protestant and Christian way, and have gone in the Catholic and antichristian way.AMS September 7, 1893, page 274.1

AND that all may more fully see how complete is this their apostasy, we insert here Mr. Bryce’s scathing arraignment of false Protestantism everywhere, and which is as applicable to this as to all before it:—AMS September 7, 1893, page 274.2

The principles which had led the Protestants to sever themselves from the Roman Church, should have taught them to bear with the opinions of others, and warned them from the attempt to connect agreement in doctrine or manner of worship with the necessary forms of civil government. Still less ought they to have enforced that agreement by civil penalties; for faith, upon their own showing, had no value save when it was freely given. A church which does not claim to be infallible, is bound to allow that some part of the truth may possibly be with its adversaries; a church which permits or encourages human reason to apply itself to revelation, has no right first to argue with people and then to punish them if they are not convinced.AMS September 7, 1893, page 274.3

But whether it was that men only half saw what they had done, or that finding it hard enough to unrivet priestly fetters, they welcomed all the aid a temporal prince could give. The result was that religion, or rather, religious creed, began to be involved with politics more closely than had ever been the case before. Through the greater part of Christendom, wars of religion raged for a century or more, and down to our own days feelings of theological antipathy continue to affect the relations of the powers of Europe. In almost every country the form of doctrine which triumphed, associated itself with the State, and maintained the despotic system of the Middle Ages, while it forsook the grounds on which that system had been based.AMS September 7, 1893, page 274.4

It was thus that there arose national churches, which were to be to the several Protestant countries of Europe that which the Church Catholic had been to the world at large; churches, that is to say, each of which was to be co-extensive with its respective State, was to enjoy landed wealth and exclusive political privilege, and was to be armed with coercive powers against recusants. It was not altogether easy to find a set of theoretical principles on which such churches might be made to rest. For they could not, like the old church, point to the historical transmission of their doctrines; they could not claim to have in any one man or body of them an infallible organ of divine truth; they could not even fall back upon general councils, or the argument, whatever it may be worth. “Securus indicat orbis terrarium.”AMS September 7, 1893, page 274.5

But in practice these difficulties were soon got over, for the dominant party in each State, if it was not infallible, was at any rate quite sure that it was right, and could attribute the resistance of other sects to nothing but moral obliquity. The will of the sovereign, as in England, or the will of the majority, as in Holland, Scandinavia, and Scotland, imposed upon each country a peculiar form of worship, and kept up the practices of medieval intolerance without their justification.AMS September 7, 1893, page 274.6

Persecution, which might at least be excused in an infallible Catholic and Apostolic Church, was peculiarly odious when practised by those who were not Catholic, who were no more apostolic than their neighbors, and who had just revolted from the most ancient and venerable authority, in the name of rights which they now denied to others. If union with the visible church by participation in a material sacrament be necessary to eternal life, persecution may be held a duty, a kindness to perishing souls. But if the kingdom of heaven be in every sense a kingdom of the spirit, if saving faith be possible out of one visible body and under a diversity of external forms, persecution becomes at once a crime and a folly.AMS September 7, 1893, page 274.7

Therefore the intolerance of Protestants, if the forms it took were less cruel than those practiced by the Roman catholic, was also far less defensible; for it had seldom anything better to allege on its behalf than motives of political expediency, or more often the mere headstrong passion of a ruler or a faction, to silence the expression of any opinions but their own.... And hence it is not too much to say that the ideas ... regarding the duty of the magistrate to compel uniformity in doctrine and worship by the civil arm, may all be traced to the relation which that theory established between the Roman Church and the Roman Empire; to the conception, in fact, of an Empire Church itself.—Holy Roman Empire, Chap. XVIII., par. 3.AMS September 7, 1893, page 274.8

THUS certain and thus complete by every count and in every sense, is the apostasy of the professed Protestant denominations of the United States, as such. By the persistent action of their ecclesiastical leaders, these denominations, as such, have been carried clear over into the antichristian way. They have thus become the harlot daughters of “MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.” And now the voice from heaven calls, “Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.” Revelation 18:4, 5.AMS September 7, 1893, page 274.9

A. T. J.

“Note” American Sentinel 8, 35, p. 280.

ATJ

THE Philadelphia authorities recently arrested several persons for manufacturing clothing on Sunday. The accused were all found guilty, and fined under the law of 1794.AMS September 7, 1893, page 280.1

THE Christian Statesman complains that “the Government examiner continues his examination of the Commercial Bank of New York through the Sabbath, keeping half a dozen persons at Sunday work.”AMS September 7, 1893, page 280.2

THE Advent Review and Sabbath Herald of the 29th ult. states that several Seventh-day Adventists have been banished to Siberia, by the Russian authorities, for their faith. In this country they are only imprisoned and worked in the chain-gang, but the principle is the same.AMS September 7, 1893, page 280.3

THE Stein injunction still lives to trouble both the Sunday closers and the Sunday openers. The Sunday Fair does not pay, lent open gates are none the less offensive to the friends of the so-called “American Sabbath.” Mr. Crafts says that “this farce has ceased to be funny, and has become tiresome.”AMS September 7, 1893, page 280.4

THE Christian Statesman accounts for the increased attendance at the World’s Fair by saying: “It is evident that most of the Christian people who refused to attend during authorized Sunday opening do not consider the nominal re-opening under the Stein injunction anything more than a technicality, closing having been practically achieved.”AMS September 7, 1893, page 280.5

MARKED papers have been sent to us containing statements very damaging to the reputation of the author of one of the Sunday bills recently before Congress. The facts are that the gentleman is charged with seduction and breach of promise by a young lady, who says that he agreed to marry her in the event of his wife’s death. His wife did die, and he subsequently married another lady; hence the suit. The case has not yet been tried, and we are not warranted in assuming the guilt of the defendant and defaming him before the world. But even if guilty that fact could in no way affect the merits of the Sunday bill which he introduced, If a worthy measure, it could be none the less so because of the bad character of its author; while on the other hand, improper legislation does not become proper because of the good character of those who advocate it. The SENTINEL deals with principles not with men.AMS September 7, 1893, page 280.6

THAT clerical mountebank, “Father” McGlynn, has at last been permitted to “say” low mass, at which his Protestant (?) admirers are highly elated, forgetting that the sacrifice of the mass is abominable idolatry. McGlynn is and always has been a Romanist, and some of his utterances show him to be a very silly one at that.AMS September 7, 1893, page 280.7

THE Union Signal says of the meeting of the World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union to take place in Chicago in October, “May we come up to this city of seven thousand saloons on the 16th of October, trusting as of old in the God of Jacob!” All good people will certainly wish that it might be even so, but the events of the past five years have not been such as to inspire confidence that such will be the case. The trust of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union has for some years been not in the God of Jacob, but in human governments.AMS September 7, 1893, page 280.8

THOSE Protestants who have been indulging a hope that Roman Catholics in the United States were about to become hopelessly divided over the school question, and the Corrigan-Satolli imbroglio would better learn to depend on correct principles rather than on factional disputes among their enemies. The monsignor and archbishop have settled their differences, and the worm that was to have eaten the Romish gourd in the United States is dead. Rome is fast sapping the bulwarks of American liberty, and thousands of so-called Protestants, “degenerate sons of noble fathers,” are giving her active aid and sympathy.AMS September 7, 1893, page 280.9

THE Ministerial Alliance of Denver recently prepared a memorial to be sent to the President asking that he fix a day for national prayer and fasting. The address refers to the existing financial distress and the great legalized sins of the Nation, and petitions the President to set aside a day when the people shall gather in their accustomed places of worship and pray that the Nation may be rightly guided in its present sore distress. Commenting upon this fact the Catholic Review says:—AMS September 7, 1893, page 280.10

That is always the way with the ministers—looking to the State to do the work of the Church. Let them appoint a day themselves for ecclesiastical observance and request all other congregations to do the same. The President has enough to do to fulfill the duties of his secular office without meddling in the religious matters of prayer and fasting by the people.AMS September 7, 1893, page 280.11

What the Review says is true enough, but it comes with poor grace from such a source.AMS September 7, 1893, page 280.12

FELIX R. BRUNOT, President of the National Reform Association, has issued a call for “a national gathering of the friends of the Christian Sabbath and all other Christian features of our national life, with a view to secure for them abiding and authoritative expression in fundamental law,” to be held in the First United Presbyterian Church, Union Ave., in the City of Allegheny, Pa., November 14, 15 and 16, 1893. The first meeting will be at 7:30 o’clock, P.M., November 14. Mr. Brunot says:—AMS September 7, 1893, page 280.13

The whole country has been stirred by the struggle for the S’ bath. And now that the victory has been won, let the fruits be secured. Let the Christian Sabbath sentiment of the United States be crystallized in some appropriate and permanent national and legal form.AMS September 7, 1893, page 280.14

It is thus evident that the success of the National Reformers in securing congressional recognition of Sunday only encourages them to demand still greater things. The conflict has only begun.AMS September 7, 1893, page 280.15

SPEAKING of the World’s Congress of Religions to be held in Chicago, September 11-27, the New York Observer says: “The discussions will be friendly, not controversial.” But to the Catholics has been assigned the first place. The address of welcome will be delivered by Most Rev. P. A. Feehan, D. D., Archbishop of Chicago, and to this there will be it response by Right Rev. Mgr. Gadd, Vicar General, Manchester, England, and His Eminence Cardinal Moran, Archbishop of Sydney, Australia. These men will laud “the church” to the skies, and as there is to be no controversy, the speakers who come after them must either give silent consent or else lay themselves open to the charge of making an unseemly attack on “brethren.” Rome is certain to get more out of this monstrous humbug parliament than all other denominations combined.AMS September 7, 1893, page 280.16

August 31, 1893

September 14, 1893