Mgr. Louis de Ségur: Plain Talk about the Protestantism of Today [1868]

[Stone]

XVIII. Protestantism and Infidelity.


— The infidels and rationalists of our times greatly sympathize with Protestantism and the work of the Reformation; they look upon Luther and Calvin as their grandsires, and they have reason for it. Protestants who still remain Christians will deny it, yet it is a fact that the infidelity which rends modern society is the fatal but logical consequence of the religious rebellion of the sixteenth century.

The Protestant rejects, on the claim of private judgment, a part of the Christian truths which the Church teaches to the world by the authority of Christ. The infidel, in the name of the same freedom, goes farther and rejects all Christian truths.

The Protestant rejects the Church because he does not believe it to be of divine institution. The infidel rejects Christ because he does not believe him to be really God.

It is the same principle with both. It is the individual reason which takes the place of faith, that is, of the submission of the spirit to divine authority. The Protestant, whether he believes it or not, is an infidel in germ, and the infidel is a Protestant in full bloom.*

Infidelity exists in Protestantism as the oak exists in the acorn, as the consequence is in the premise. Down the road of negation the descent is very steep and slippery. If the freedom of judgment in a Lutheran, or his reason, or the view he takes, as you may be better pleased to call it, leads him to reject the authority of the Pope, Vicar of Jesus Christ, that same free judgment leads the Calvinist to reject the real presence of our Lord in the Eucharist — a dogma, however, preserved by the Lutherans. According to the same principle, the Socinians, the ministers at Geneva, and a crowd of other ministers, following the footsteps of Voltaire and Rousseau, reject to-day the divinity of Jesus Christ, and therefore abjure Christianity and fall back into utter incredulity; and all in consequence of that freedom of conscience. But our German and French philosophers, rationalists and pantheists of all degrees, do not even stop at that — go farther, and deny the existence of a God Creator, and all by the privilege of free and private judgment.

Now, I say it again, and all Protestants must needs say it with me, this private judgment is Protestantism in its essential principle. Then Luther, the father of private judgment and of Protestantism, is the father of all infidelity, the father of all anti-Christian negation.†

Eugene Rendu, in his "Report on Public Instruction in Germany," writes: "I was in Jena two months before the opening of the Synod which was to assemble in Eisenach the pastors of the different States of Germany. Said I to a distinguished professor of divinity in the University of Jena, 'Will they discuss dogmatic questions and doctrines?' 'No,' he replied, 'only liturgy and simple questions of form will be deliberated. As for the rest, it is out of question for us to agree. When we meet on dogmatic field, pshaw! it is all over (pouf, tout disparaît!)'"

Eugene Sue, at the head of the anti-Christian league, among a thousand other things, has written the following, which I recommend to the careful consideration of all Catholics, and all the many Protestants who love truth. He writes: "Free men, radical men, and rationalists have probably been very indiscreet in attacking Protestantism — a sort of transitory religion, . . . a bridge, so to speak, over which we may reach a pure rationalism, at the same time allowing the false necessity of a worship, which the mass of the people will not as yet know how to do away with. . . . We, free-thinkers, well aware of dangers inherent to all religions, admit the necessity of a religion (transitory, it is true), for, we must say it, we need distinguish the possible from what is desirable. It must be acknowledged that there are several degrees in evil, and that the least thereof is preferable to the whole" — that is, this "whole evil" is Jesus Christ and his Church, religion, and the Catholics.

Then passing from theory to practice, Eugene Sue draws the impious rules of an association whose members shall not baptize their children, nor marry with religious rites, nor bring their dead to the Church; in one word, will altogether renounce any and every practice of religion.

Another man, Edgar Quinet, a great herald of Protestantism, and son-in-law of a parson, styles the Protestant sects the thousand gates open to get out of Christianity.

You will say, "Our Protestants generally speaking do not go so far as that." True: there are degrees in Protestantism, and absolute infidelity is only Protestantism in the highest degree.

---

* Rev. Dr. Wharton, who died in 1832 (?), minister of a Protestant church at Elizabethtown, N. J., was born of an ancient Catholic family in Maryland related to the famous Carrolls, became a Jesuit, professed in that order, and in 1774 apostatized in Worcester, England. He married twice. "Poor old Dr. Wharton is continually tortured by his conscience. His cook at the parsonage house near Trenton, New Jersey, a good Irish Catholic, fell dangerously sick, and, as no priest could be procured, Wharton said to her: 'Although I am a parson, I am also a Catholic priest, and can give you absolution in your case.' She made her confession and he absolved her." Père Grivel, who wrote this letter May 30, 1832, had this account from Mr. Wharton's nephew, a good Catholic, and a magistrate in Washington. Shortly after, the unhappy man was summoned before the tribunal of God.

* In 1852 we remember a distinguished American reviewer to assert that he knew only two consistent Protestants, to wit: Dr. Parker and Father Lampson. Our Boston friends, who must well remember the eccentricities of the latter, will at once see the point.

† Such was the feeling of Henry IV. when he was a stanch Calvinist. As regards piety he found Turk and Protestant to be alike. Said he to the Marquise of Verneuil: "D—n me, were I not Huguenot, I'll turn Turk."