The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1910-02-15
PEOPLES PULPIT.
Mass Meeting No. 3
CHURCH FEDERATION
Counting the Cost
What EpiscopaEans. Catholics and
Lutherans Must Surrender.

Lutherans Must Surrender.
great Protestant denominations be
thus vitalized and, In cooperation
with Catholicism, for a short while
dominate Christendom socially and
politically, crushing out individual
thought and negativing and blacklist
ing all religious teachers outside the
Federation and its Catholic Ally.
From this standpoint the Episcopal
system will lose nothing, but even be
a gamer Of prestige through the Fed
Grafton.
What Catholics Would Surrender.
For Catholics to join the Federation
would signify the surrender of great
deal, and YET, in the light Of the Twen-
tieth Century, surely much could be
surrendered without any sacrifice Of
manhood merely with the sacrifice of
a little pride. For the Church at Rome
to federate with the Protestant
Churches would mean that they ceas-
ed to protest and that she relinquished
her peculiar claims:
a. That she alone is the Church of
Christ and has authority to instruct;
(2) That she is more than a Church
or prospective Kingdom-that to her
has been committed by God the ruler
ship of the world in respect to all mat
tiers temporal and spiritual, hence that
she is the reigning Kingdom of God.
81 That her Pope is the authorized
representative of Christ, anointed and
commissioned of God to fulfill all the
prophecies Of the Scriptures respecting
the reign of Christ, his Millennial
Kingdom, etc. This claim Of Papacy
that the Pope's reign is de facto the
reign of Christ is expressed in the
declaration that he is the Oice-gerent of
Christine one reigning instead Of
Christ.
a. The doctrine of trans-substantia-
tion-that by the blessing of priest
the ordinary bread and wine are trans
muted into the actual soul of Christ
(his flesh and his blood for sacrifice
afresh in each celebration of the Mass.
Whatever may have been true in the
remote past, assuredly our Catholic
friends can no longer claim that all
the purity, all the faithfulness to God,
all the sanctity of life amongst be-
levers in Christ are to be found in
her communion. st. Paul declares, III
any man have not the Spirit of Christ
he is none of his" Surely all Chris
tians admit this standard and the cor
rectness of the Apostles teaching.
Hence the ignoring and setting aside
of all creeds and barriers which have
heretofore hindered the Unity Of the
Church of Christ might be possible.
Thus the first Catholic objection might
easily be removed in favor of Fedora
ton, or. still better, in favor of Union.
AS our Episcopalian friends fail to
prove that the apostolic succession to
ordination gave either greater wisdom
or more grace to their clergy than to
other ministers of the Gospel, might
not our Catholic friends reasonably
admit the same?
The second claim that Papacy is
Gods Kingdom, that the Popes reign
successfully as Christ's Vice-gerent,
should not be difficult for Catholics of
our day to lay aside. However strong
ly it was held in the dark past it is
surely little appreciated by Catholics
today No longer do the Popes domi-
nate the civil rulers of Christendom
And no longer do the people consider
1t wise that they should do So More
and more the masses appreciate the
fact that the original kingdom Of earth
was given to father Adam and that
mankind as his children are the nat
ural heirs Of the Inheritance More
and more the people are disposed to
consider pc0es, czars, emperors and
kings as merely figure-heads. without
any real tue OF authority from heaven
to rule or to coerce the people. More
and more the masses demand Con-
crosses, Parliaments, Reichstags and
Doumas. And more and more do they
demand that these shall reflect the
sentiments of the people in civil and
religious matters. The day of dark
ness and ignorance In which the peo-
pie believed that popes and kings were
Divineiy appointed to rule them with
Divine authority has gone by. Gen.
-eral intelligence has taught mankind
that 1t is mistake to suppose that
one God-appointed king and kingdom
were Divinely appointed to wipe anoth-
er Diyinely appointed king and king
dom off the face Of the earth. Hence
pOpes and kings now admit that they
reign by a popular sufferance, and
their appeals for money, for armies
and navies, is no longer on the score
that they were Divinely instructed to
obliterate each other, but ON the score
of self-defense.
This claim, however, wholly de-
stroys the argument that we are now
or ever In the past have been under
Christ's Kingdom, either direct or
through the popes. Neither now nor at
any other time in the worlds history
has there been reign of righteousness
such as the Scriptures declare Christ's
Kingdom shall be. May we not, then,
with good grace-Catholics and Prot
estants-admit that neither our Catho-
lie popes, emperors and kings, nor our
Protestant kings, emperors and heads
OF Churches are reigning with any
Divine authority manifest to human
judgment? Let US humbly admit the
Catholic and Protestant, to the effect
that kings and popes reign by the
grace of Colby Divine appointment.
Let us rather say that they came into
power through the exercise of brute
force and in a time Of common publ"
ignorance. Nor by this do we mean
any disrespect to the governments Of
today-rather we have shown that to-
day the people are ruling through
their Congresses, Parliaments, Reich
stays, etc., and that the kings and
emperors are mere fgure-heads of
power, more or less useful and de-
pendent upon the goodwill Of their
people.
If 1t be asked how we shall account
for the period Of the dark ages and au-
tocratic and devilish misrule, our re-
ply would be to point to the Apostles
words. He declares that Satan is the
god or ruler of this world, who now
operates through the disobedient-
through those not in harmony with
God, who constitute the vast majority
In Christendom and elsewhere. And
we remind you that our Lord Jesus
also spoke of Satan as being the
Prince Of this world or age John xii,
81, and of himself as the Prince or
Ruler of the coming Age. the Millen-
NAL Age Ochn xviii, 36).
All, yesl the sooner both Catholics and
Protestants admit what they and all