Creeds Of Christendom With A History And Critical Notes

The Roman Catholic Church embraces over 180 millions of members, or more than one half of nominal Christendom. [160] It is spread all over the earth, but chiefly among the Latin races in Southern Europe and America. [161] It reaches in unbroken succession to the days of St. Peter and Paul, who suffered martyrdom in Rome. It is more fully developed and consolidated in doctrine, worship, and polity than any other Church. Its hierarchy is an absolute spiritual monarchy culminating in the Bishop of Rome, who pretends to be nothing less than the infallible Vicar of Jesus Christ on earth. It proudly identifies itself with the whole Church of Christ, and treats all other Christians as schismatics and heretics, who are outside of the pale of ordinary salvation.

But this unproved assumption is the fundamental error of the system. There is a vast difference between Catholicism and Romanism. The former embraces all Christians, whether Roman, Greek, or Protestant; the latter is in its very name local, sectarian, and exclusive. The holy Catholic Church is an article of faith; the Roman Church is not even named in the ancient creeds. Catholicism extends through all Christian centuries; Romanism proper dates from the Council of Trent. Mediæval Catholicism looked towards the Reformation; Romanism excludes and condemns the Reformation. So ancient Judaism, as represented by Abraham, Moses, and the Prophets, down to John the Baptist, prepared the way for Christianity, as its end and fulfillment; while Judaism, after the crucifixion of the Messiah, and the destruction of Jerusalem, has become hostile to Christianity. 'Catholicism is the strength of Romanism; Romanism is the weakness of Catholicism.'

In Romanism, again, a distinction must be made between the Romanism of the Council of Trent, and the Romanism of the Council of the Vatican. The 'Old Catholics' of Holland and Germany adhere to the former, but reject the latter as a new departure. But the papal absolutism has triumphed, and there is no room any longer for a moderate and liberal Romanism within the reign of the Papacy.

The doctrinal standards of the Roman Catholic Church may accordingly be divided into three classes:

1. The OEcumenical Creeds, which the Roman Church holds in common with the Greek, excepting the Filioque clause, which the Greek rejects as an unauthorized, heretical, and mischievous innovation. [162]

2. The Roman or Tridentine Creeds, in opposition to the evangelical doctrines of the Reformation. Here belong the Council of Trent, the Profession of Pius IV., and the Roman Catechism. They sanction a number of doctrines, which were prepared in part by patristic and scholastic theology, papal decrees, and mediæval councils, but had always been more or less controverted, viz., tradition as a joint rule of faith, the extent of the canon including the Apocrypha, the authority of the Vulgate, the doctrine of the primitive state and original sin, justification by works as well as by faith, meritorious works, seven sacraments, transubstantiation, the withdrawal of the cup, the sacrifice of the mass for the living and the dead, auricular confession and priestly absolution, extreme unction, purgatory, indulgences, and obedience to the authority of the Pope as the successor of Peter and vicar of Christ.

3. The modern Papal and Vatican decisions in favor of the immaculate conception of Mary, and the infallibility of the Pope. These were formerly open questions in the Roman Church, but are now binding dogmas of faith.