Protestantism is the religion of evangelism and spiritual simplicity; Romanism, the religion of legalism, asceticism, sacerdotalism, and ceremonialism. The one appeals to the intellect and conscience, the other to the senses and the imagination. The one is internal, the other external, and comes with outward observation.
Protestantism is the Christianity of the Bible; Romanism, the Christianity of tradition. The one directs the people to the fountain-head of divine revelation, the other to the teaching priesthood. The former freely circulates the Bible, as a book for the people; the latter keeps it for the use of the clergy, and overrules it by its traditions.
Protestantism is the religion of immediate communion of the soul with Christ through personal faith; Romanism is the religion of mediate communion through the Church, and obstructs the intercourse of the believer with his Saviour by interposing an army of subordinate mediators and advocates. The Protestant prays directly to Christ; the Romanist usually approaches him only through the intercession of the blessed Virgin and the saints.
Protestantism puts Christ before the Church, and makes Christliness the standard of sound churchliness; Romanism virtually puts the Church before Christ, and makes churchliness the condition and measure of piety. [382]
Protestantism claims to be only one, but the most advanced portion of the Church of Christ; Romanism identifies itself with the whole Catholic Church, and the Church with Christianity itself. The former claims to be the safest, the latter the only way to salvation.
Protestantism is the Church of the Christian people; Romanism is the Church of priests, and separates them by education, celibacy, and even by their dress as widely as possible from the laity.
Protestantism is the Christianity of personal conviction and inward experience; Romanism, the Christianity of outward institutions and sacramental observances, and obedience to authority. The one starts from Paul's, the other from James's doctrine of justification. The one lays the main stress on living faith, as the principle of a holy life; the other on good works, as the evidence of faith and the condition of justification.
Protestantism proceeds from the invisible Church to the visible; Rome, vice versa, from the visible to the invisible. [383]
Protestantism is progressive and independent; Romanism, conservative and traditional. The one is centrifugal, the other centripetal. The one is exposed to the danger of radicalism and endless division; the other to the opposite danger of stagnation and mechanical and tyrannical uniformity.
The exclusiveness and anti-Christian pretensions of the Papacy, especially since it claims infallibility for its visible head, make it impossible for any Church to live with it on terms of equality and sincere friendship. And yet we should never forget the difference between Popery and Catholicism, nor between the system and its followers. It becomes Protestantism, as the higher form of Christianity, to be liberal and tolerant even towards intolerant Romanism.
[381] It is significant that Christ uses paradosis, tradition, only in an unfavorable sense, as opposed to the Word of God, viz., Matt. xv. 3, 6; Mark vii. 5, 8, 9, 13. Paul employs the term in a bad sense, Gal. i. 14 and Col. ii. 8: in a good sense, of the doctrines of the Gospel, 1 Cor. xi. 2; 2 Thess. ii. 15; iii. 6.
[382] This is no doubt the meaning of Schleiermacher's famous formula (Der Christliche Glaube, Vol. I. § 24): 'Protestantism makes the relation of the individual to the Church dependent on his relation to Christ; Catholicism, vice versa, makes the relation of the individual to Christ dependent on his relation to the Church.' His pupil and successor, Dr. Twesten, puts the distinction in this way: 'Catholicism emphasizes the first, Protestantism the second, clause of the passage of Irenæus: "Where the Church is, there is the Spirit of God; and where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church and all grace."'
[383] This is the distinction made by Möhler, who thereby inconsistently admits the essential truth of the Protestant distinction between the visible and invisible Church, which Bellarmin denies as an empty abstraction.