IN days when blessings that cost our fathers tears and blood are lightly esteemed by their degenerate descendants it is well that our attention should be called to our priceless heritage. And in the book before us Dr. Woods has done a fine piece of work. Some one has said that in controversy we should always endeavour to hit our opponent with ideas and not simply with words. It is to be feared that this is not always done, but no one will deny how strong the impact of ideas, well marshalled and bearing on the point at issue, is on seemingly impregnable positions. It is, therefore, necessary, if we are to be successful in confuting the deluding errors of Romanism, that we should be well equipped with Scripture truth, so that we may meet the enemy unashamed in the gate. These remarks recall to our memory early experiences as professed defenders of the Protestant faith, of which, I am afraid, we had very vague ideas. Near the school where we were taught there was a Roman Catholic one, and once a year the boys of both schools met in battle array armed with stones. The Roman Catholic boys had as their purpose the driving out of the Protestant boys any little Protestantism they had, and the Protestant boys, on their part, adopted the same method to drive popery out of the Roman Catholic boys. We were very zealous in our boyish ways, but with a wider knowledge and a little more wisdom we have long since seen
*Our Priceless Heritage: A Study in Christian Doctrine in Contrast with Romanism by Henry M. Woods, D.D., LL.D. London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott Ltd. Price 3s. 6d.
the folly of this method of dealing with those ensnared in the delusions of popery. The weapons of the Christian are not carnal, and, in entering this conflict, happy is he who has the Word of God as his sword, and who is equipped with the whole armour of God. There are many excellent works dealing with the errors of Romanism, exposing its subtle casuistries, its erroneous doctrines and its unscriptural practices, but we cannot have too many of these.
In Our Priceless Heritage, Dr. Woods adopts the catechetical method and makes full use of Scripture in exposing the hollowness of Romish pretensions and defending the faith of Protestantism. It is gratifying to find in these days when belief in the inerrancy of the Bible vitiates so much of the religious literature coming from the press that Dr. Woods is a whole-hearted believer in the infallibility of God’s Word. This is as it should be; otherwise, any one, combating Romanism while holding higher critical views of the Bible is like a man entering battle with a wooden sword held in a paralysed hand. It is this serious defect that robs the anti-Romanist works of Dr. Cadoux and Dr. Coulton of much of their usefulness. One has always the feeling that, able though they be, they are doing battle with Romanism while on friendly terms with an enemy—Modernism—which is sapping the very foundations on which true Protestantism is built. The works of Dr. Coulton and Dr. Cadoux may be useful as quarries from which material may be had in building up the defences against Roman Catholicism and exposing the gross misreading of history of such literary experts as Chesterton and Belloc, but they should always be read with this thought in the mind, that these writers have rejected the Word of the Lord; and what wisdom is in them? (Jer. viii. 9).
It may be advanced by Romanists that they believe in the infallibility of God’s Word. But even though this were granted, for the sake of argument, another question arises: “What do Romanists mean by God’s Word?” They mean a great deal more than Protestants do; the Word of God to them includes the Apocrypha, which is placed on the same level as the Scriptures
of the Old and the New Testaments. To all this is added tradition. They also reject Protestant translations of the Bible, as witness the following extraordinary statement made in a book—The Catholic Faith—authorised by Pope Pius X.: “If a Catholic were offered the Bible by a Protestant, or by one of their emissaries, he should reject it with horror, because it is forbidden by the Church; and if he has obtained it inadvertently, he should at once throw it into the fire or give it to his parish priest. Protestant Bibles are forbidden, because they are corrupted or contain errors, and because they are not approved by the Church and are without notes explanatory of difficult passages, and hence may do harm to the faith. And for this reason the Church forbids even translations of Holy Scripture already approved by her, if they are reprinted without explanations which she has approved” (p. 110).
When Dr. Woods deals with the key text (Matt. xvi. 18, 19) on which the whole fabric of Romanism is built he has no difficulty in showing that it hasn’t even the uncertain stability of sand for a foundation. A correct exegesis lays the whole Romish interpretation in ruins. When the Romish rule of the unanimous consent of the Fathers is brought to bear on it, the Romish interpretation fares no better. Of sixty-one expositors, seventeen explain “the rock” as referring to Peter, whereas forty-four agree with the Protestant interpretation that “the rock” is Christ’s Messiahship and Deity, and not Peter.
The Mariolatry of Rome with its gross adulation of the Virgin which passes at times into the region of blasphemy is faithfully exposed, while all respect is paid to the Mother of our Lord. It was true what Bishop Strossmayer said at the Vatican Council: “We have made a goddess of Mary.” The sophistries of the Romanists with their latreia, douleia, and hyperdouleia in a vain attempt to escape the charge of glaring breach of the divine Commandments is exposed and Scripture proofs are brought forward in opposing Romish idolatry. Dr. Woods pertinently sums up the case against Rome in this indictment: “God’s Word
thus plainly shows that Rome in worshipping saints, angels, etc., breaks God’s First Commandment; and in using images in worship, it breaks His Second Commandment.”
The Romish doctrine of Apostolic Succession is next passed in review. Our author has no difficulty in showing the Apostles had no real successors. But apart from this how can any Roman Catholic Bishop be sure that the chain has not been broken or a link missing since the times of the Apostles? What about Bishops who were consecrated by the Anti-Popes during the Great Schism? Scotland took the side of the Anti-Popes, what about the Bishops ordained by them? These are matters of history which simple-minded Roman Catholics seldom or ever seriously face in their lives.
A chapter is devoted to the development of the papal system, in which the rise of the supremacy of the Pope is discussed. When the Patriarch of Constantinople assumed the title of Universal Bishop, Gregory I, Bishop of Rome declared that the title was “a mark of Anti-Christ, a name of blasphemy.” Later this same Bishop accepted the title himself. Such is the consistency of the so-called infallible popes. It was Hildebrand, who, however, raised the papacy to its giddy pre-eminence. The Hildebrandian policy was based on the Donation of Constantine and the Isidorian Decretals, documents which are now known to be fraudulent. Roman Catholic historians and divines have acknowledged that these documents are spurious yet it is upon the alleged rights and privileges conferred in these documents that the papal supremacy is built. This is the Church, which, in our day, is making a bid to have a place at the Council Board of the Nations, so that it may assert its claims for the restoration of that supremacy which it lost.
In chapter vi. Dr. Woods deals effectively with the high sacramentarianism of the Church of Rome. He exposes the false views of Romanists on Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Baptismal Regeneration and Transubstantiation are condemned on Scripture grounds. This, it may be here remarked, is a pleasing
feature of Dr. Woods’ controversial methods—he appeals to Scripture as an end to all controversy. A chapter (viii.) is devoted to the Romish doctrine of the forgiveness of sins and over against it is set the Scriptural doctrine. “To trust in any degree of human merit,” says our author, “is a false hope which leads to eternal ruin; for it makes the Cross of Christ of none effect. If salvation is sought by works, then it is not of grace. Rom. xi. 6” (p. 123). Other chapters are devoted to Confession of sin (ix), the future state (x), the celibacy of the clergy (xi), pilgrimages, etc. (xii), Church and State (xiii), religious liberty (xiv). Dr. Woods does not belong to the modern school of religious writers who consider themselves more compassionate than the Saviour Himself. He accepts without questioning the awful truth, that there is a hell for the finally impenitent but rejects the Romish doctrine of purgatory. There is no intermediate place, all men must go either to heaven or to hell. In connection with the Romish teaching on the celibacy of the clergy, monks and nuns, this Church has become wiser than the Word of God. Dr. Woods has no difficulty in getting an array of testimonies from Roman Catholic sources which reveal the gross immorality to which this system leads. In a book we are presently reading, the writer has the same sad story to tell of the priests of certain parts of Brazil in the present day. It is also to be noticed that the Church of Rome is not consistent in her doctrine of clerical celibacy, inasmuch as the priests of the Uniat Catholics of the Greek Rite* are permitted to marry.
Dr. Woods rejects the Church of Rome as a branch of the true Church of God, but holds that there may be many true Christians (p. 72) within her borders. We will not hazard to offer an opinion whether there are few or many real Christians in the
*Uniat Catholics are those who formerly belonged to the Greek so-called Orthodox Church but who joined the Church of Rome and were permitted to keep their customs, the discipline of their clergy and their rites. An attempt has been made more than once in the U.S.A. to Latinise these Churches which have a membership of about a million adherents. These attempts have been resisted by the Uniat Catholics.—Editor.
Church of Rome; but whether few or many, they are in a Church in which they ought not to be. It is a remarkable fact that while Martin Boos, the Austrian priest, whose preaching was blessed to hundreds, remained in the Church of Rome until the day of his death all his converts left that Church immediately on their conversion.