The Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1861-01-03 00:00:00

THE DISASTROUS REFORMATION.

WHAT heart ban itiriain unmoved by the perusal
of so mournful a document as the Allocution of
Pio Norco, pronounced in Sacred Consistory last
month, and an English translation of which has
been largely circulated within these few days.
The purport of the Address is to expose the real
state of affairs, sacred and profane, as these seem
to affect the unity of the Roman Church and the
authority of the Roman See. The present aspect
of the world, " the Holy Father" does not hesitate
to tell his "venerable brethren," inspires him
with well-founded fears, it agitates him deeply,
and fills his soul with sadness.

His Holiness, before entering upon details, dis
courses on the fact that the Church has, from
its origin, been assailed by fierce and continual
tempests. Historically, therefore, it is implied
there is nothing inconsistent or wonderful in the
Church of our day having been made the sad
object of the attacks of enemies, great and
numerous—whose hatrdd, long since existing,
whose rage,.swollen to its height, appear to have
been let loose, all entire, against the Pontificate.
But, to be more specific, we are told exactly the
origin of the present calamity to the Roman See.
In fact, says the Pope to his brethren, we have
to deplore the invasion of perverse doctrine
which, sprung front the principles of the disastrous
Refornzation, has acquired almost the force of
public law ! The disastrous Reformation ! Pro-
testants will universally accept this bitter lament
as the highest compliment that has ever been
paid to the immortal memory of MARTIN LUTHER,
and perhaps the most conclusive evidence given
to this generation of the marvellous, ever-endu•
ring, and still-extending blessings reaped by the
world from the solitary studies of that once
cloistered monk, and from his gloriOus labours as
the founder of the " disastrous Reformation."
Could LUTHER now rise from his grave, and,
after calmly surveying the unprecedentedly
perilous condition of the system against which
he hurled his " disastrous" Protest, listen to
the Head of that Church confessing that the
impending ruin is the result of the principles
and doctrines of -that Protest, how would the
lion-hearted champion of the truth rejoice
over the strong seal thus set upon his great
mission! What a triumph, to hear from the lips
of the Roman Pontiff himself that the "perverse"
doctrine of Protestants had at last acquired
almost the force of public law ! Nor is this all.
Who are the men who have been active agents in
propagating these " false" doctrines which scr
terrify the Holy Father ? Have they been
thorough-bred English Protestants ? Or have
they been apostates and renegades who have re-
nounced " the one faith," and now seek to anni-
hilate the Holy Mother who reared them ?
Neither the one nor the other. These evils
inflicted upon " the Church," we are told by Pius
IX., are due to the "perversity of impious men,
who proclaim themselves the sons of the Church !"
—in other words, LOUIS NAPOLEON, VICTOR
EMMANUEL, et id genus oinne. Does not the
first-named potentate proclaim himself " the
eldest son of the Church," and does not the other
still profess his respect for the Spiritual Father?
" Yes," says the Pope, " but we must call them
the sons of darkness." The old gentleman has
finally lost his patience with his unnatural and
cruel children, and has thus remorselessly handed
them over to be tormented by the proper sable
authorities. And, yet, without the protection
afforded by the bayonets commanded by the eldest
of those " sons of darkness," the Holy Father
could not maintain his throne for a single hour !
The "false" doctrine of Protestants, to which
the Pope chiefly attributes this sad state of things,
is that which holds " that the Church is a sort of
corporation (collegium) existing in civil society,
enjoying no rights with the exception of those
which are granted to it by the civil power."
Now, we are not aware that, as here stated, there
is any such doctrine necessarily attached to Pro-
testantism. But it does not practically differ
much from the truth. At all events it is not so
wide of the mark as his immediately following
assertion that, "in reality, the Church has been
instituted as a true and perfect society, which is
not circumscribed by the boundaries of any state,
or subject to any civil power, and which exercises
its power freely and for the salvation of men in
all the quarters of the world ;" a doctrine in sup-
port of which he quotes as applicable to himself
alone, the solemn words, "All power has been
given to me in Heaven and on earth." We shall
not dwell upon the ludierotis aspect of such a
claim, put forward by an old man so nearly
bereft of all power of every kind. It may
not be out of place, however, to refer to the
fact that a claim essentially similar has
been put forth by "highflying " churchmen at
home. They also would set the ecclesiastical
above the civil authority. Let the advocates of
such extreme views reflect on the fact to which
all history as well as passing events testify, that
practically the thing is impossible, and that every
attempt to realise it must finally be disastrous in
proportion to any partial success it might meet
with, and the doggedness of its adherents. This
grand error in ecclesiastical policy led to the dis-
ruption of the Established Church of Scotland ;
and a recent attempt to act upon the same funda-
mental mistake has involved the majority who
seceded in a fresh conflict with the civil power—
a struggle which cannot fail to end in the entire
defeat of the would-be ecclesiastical despots.
Could the Puseyite party in the Established
Church of England gain a :majority, we should
soon see another disastrous illustration of such
high pretensions as to the supreme and indepen-
dent power of the Church over, and apart from,
the authority of the civil magistrate.
While the Holy Father seems to have been
deeply moved—as well he might—by the spread
of what he considers false doctrine, and on
account of the state of the Church, not only in
Italy, but in the Grand Duchy of Baden and in
Syria, in the kingdom of Corea, of the Chinese
Empire, and the countries bordering on the
tropics, the full strength of his wrath
appears to have been roused and kept
warm for an outpouring against " a most infa-
mous pamphlet lately published in Paris," which
it is lugubriously added, " has just come to add
to our sadness." It is denounced as opposed to
truth—as containing absurdities and contradic-
tions—as only fit to be'thrown aside and despised
—as intolerably audacious and impious—as tend-
ing only to overturn and rend the unity of the
Church ;—and all this because the writer pro-
poses the foundation of a national French Church,
but which should still to some extent recognise
the Pope's spiritual authority. The Pope groans
agaig as he reviews this "condemnable" papa- ,

phlet. At last he reaches a most characteristic
climax, when, with reference to the cause of all
this audacity and wickedness, he exclaims, " Be-
hold the end of these translations of the sacred
books, everywhere scattered to corrupt the faith
—this host of most shameful books, made to poison
the morals of youth—the removal from the autho-

rity of the Bishops of the education of youth,"
and so forth. These, in the Pope's " infallible'
opinion, "have no other end than to sap the
foundations of our Holy Religion 1" Thus, what-
ever otir " Holy Religion" may niean in the
Pope's vocabulary, it clearly does not mean the
Religion of the Bible.