The Spirit of Protestantism

by M.S.C., S.T.D. Leslie Rumble

In the year 49 A.D. an incident occurred at Athens which is not without contemporary interest. On that occasion St. Paul stood up in the midst of the Areopagus and told the Athenians that of one single stock God "has created the whole human race and made them live all over the face of the earth ... in order that they should seek God, and perhaps grope after Him and find Him, though He is not far from any one of you. For in Him we live and move and have our being." Past ignorance, he said, "God has it is true overlooked, but now He calls upon all men everywhere to repent" (Acts 17: 26-30). Had he gone on from there, St. Paul would certainly have stressed that as we are all one in Adam, much more should we be one in the second Adam, Christ.

MODERN SEARCH FOR UNITY

It was with this last thought in mind that just one year short of nineteen hundred years afterwards, in 1948 at Amsterdam, the World Council of Churches was formed by leaders of the Protestant Churches. Concerned over divisions among Christians, they were anxious that those divisions should be ended. They realized that the followers of Christ everywhere all over the face of the earth were intended by Him to be united in one single Church. Whatever God may have overlooked in the past, they felt that now in a special way He called upon divided Christians to repent, and to seek unity and find it.

The Catholic Church could not formally participate in the work they then inaugurated. She had to remain an onlooker, sympathetic indeed, but unable to accept basic principles which implied that the Church herself had been rent asunder. Christ guaranteed until the end of time the unity of the Church He established; and part of the faith of Catholics is that (being God) He could and did do what He said He would do. Divisions from the Church may occur. There can be no division of the Church. The divinely-guaranteed unity of the Church can never be destroyed however many may forsake her. So the Catholic Church must stand seemingly aloof, gently yet firmly insisting that the unity non-Catholics seek she already possesses, that it is not far from any one of them, since where-ever they go they will find her there and have but to return to her fold to share in it once more. For the Catholic Church knows herself to be the Church which Christ Himself established; and that such elements of revealed truth as enable non-Catholics to live and move and have their very being as Christians at all are of her and will be found in her together with much else Christ intended them to have and which they have unhappily lost.

Thanks to a book of outstanding importance published over thirty years ago by Dr. Karl Adam, Professor of Catholic Theology in the University of Tubingen, Germany, an increasing understanding and even appreciation of the Catholic attitude have been enkindled among the ranks of non-Catholic scholars. In 1924, Karl Adam gave a series of lectures on Das Wesen des Katholizismus. Published in book form, translations were soon available in almost every European language, that in English as The Spirit of Catholcism first appearing in 1929. This last edition has gone through some twenty reprintings. How widely Karl Adam's treatise has been read is evident from quotations of it to be found in almost every serious Protestant writer on ecumenical subjects, whether in German, French and Italian works, or in those of both the old and the new worlds in English. And always his exposition of Catholicism is treated with profound respect.

Karl Adam told his non-Catholic readers that the essence of Catholicism is to be found not in the merely external and institutional aspect of the Catholic Church, but in her organic unity with Christ as His Mystical Body. He warned them, however, that "only the man who himself lives in the Catholic life-stream, who in his own daily life feels the forces which pulsate through the vast body of Catholicism and make it what it is: only he can know the full meaning and complete reality of it." Still, writing as one with that experience, he invited them to try to follow what he described as "an analysis of the Church's self-consciousness."¹

INITIAL CONFUSION

If non-Catholics welcomed Karl Adam's exposition of Catholicism, Catholics have not had an opportunity of welcoming any similar account of Protestantism; and Protestants themselves acknowledge the provision of such an exposition to be an impossible task.

A Presbyterian, Robert McAfee Brown, has recently attempted one in his book, The Spirit of Protestantism.² Of it he writes: "This book was originally conceived because there appeared to be no comparable Protestant counterpart to Karl Adam's The Spirit of Catholicism; namely, a book that tried to describe the faith unashamedly from the inside in such a way that it might also communicate to those on the outside." He admits, however, that he can offer no analysis of a "Church's self-consciousness," for "even if there were a spirit of Protestantism, no Protestant could write about it in the definitive way, for example, that Karl Adam writes about the spirit of Catholicism. Catholicism is 'there.' It has recognizable boundaries. It has discernible practices. It has infallible dogmas .... But Protestantism is not 'there'; it is all over the place. It does not have recognizable boundaries . . . discernible practices . . . infallible dogmas; at most it has a body of shared convictions (with) sharp differences about convictions that are not shared." He feels compelled, therefore, to add: "The convictions attributed to Protestants in this book . . . the reader is at liberty, if he so desires, to translate into statements by the author that read, 'This is what I believe.' "³

We are left with the impression that there is no such thing as Protestantism, but only Protestants. There is such a thing as the spirit of Catholicism, but no such thing as the spirit of Protestantism. There are many forms of Protestantism with a diversity of spirits which, alas, entered into the "swept and garnished" houses the reformers built for themselves.

CATHOLIC INTEREST

The fact remains, however, that there was a Protestant Reformation from which all professing Protestant religious systems are directly or indirectly derived, and a renewed Catholic interest in these systems is both necessary and timely.

It is necessary, for a lot of inherited misinformation concerning this whole subject has been current for centuries. Writes Joseph Clayton: Thousands of Catholics are content to dismiss the Reformation as a mere revolt, the rebellion of bad men inspired by greed and moved by the devil to overthrow true religion.

Thousands of Protestants complacently regard the Reformation as a great awakening, a glorious work blessed by God and carried out by good men divinely inspired. Now obviously both these judgments cannot be true. And, indeed, neither is true, for both are fancy pictures painted in good faith but falsely drawn for want of knowledge. Ignorance and prejudice are responsible—rarely deliberate falsehood—for the errors—and the nonsense—that pass for history.⁴

The timeliness of further consideration has been brought to the notice of Catholics by the declared purposes of Vatican II in regard to our separated non-Catholic brethren. On Pentecost Sunday, 1960, Pope John XXIII announced his intention of creating a special Secretariate to cater for them, thus enabling "those who bear the name of Christian but are separated from this Apostolic See . . . to follow the work of the Council and find more easily the path by which they may arrive at that unity which Christ wants." And the duly-constituted Secretariate in turn has set on foot inquiries in order to ascertain "(a) what the various non-Catholics here and now have in common with the doctrines, discipline and worship of the Catholic Church, and how they differ in these matters; and (b) what desire different groups have for unity, and in what ways the Catholic Church can help them towards true unity."

We Catholics have to remember that one cannot be a Christian and escape the reach of one's Christianity into the ranks of all who, though differing from us, claim to profess that same religion. Religious indifference is an evil thing if it means holding that one form of religion is as good as any other regardless of what its teachings in themselves may be; but it is also an evil to be religiously indifferent to the welfare of those who happen to profess other religions. It is necessary, however, to have some understanding of other religions if any real progress is to be made in dealing with the problems arising from them; and it is here that difficulties abound.

PROTESTANT SPOKESMEN

Since we ourselves never tire of urging Protestants, "If it's anything Catholic, ask a Catholic," it is only fair to allow Protestant spokesmen themselves to explain Protestantism to us. But a study of their expositions reveals how little able they themselves are either to identify it or explain its real nature.

The Methodist Dr. Albert C. Knudson says that the sense in which the term Protestant is commonly used covers "all Christians (other than those of the Eastern Churches) who are not in communion with Rome." He feels compelled to add, however, that "neither the Anglo-Catholics nor the more rationalistic and humanistic sects can be taken as typical of historic Protestantism.The main stream of Protestant life and thought has been fundamentally evangelical."⁵

The term "evangelical" is a question-begging one, but, letting that go, we can follow Dr. Knudson's guidance at least by interrogating those whose claim to the title he himself would not dispute.

The 1950 Free Church Report, presented to the Archbishop of Canterbury under the title The Catholicity of Protestantism, suggests that Protestantism "is so many-sided, enduring and expansive that it is well to be clear about the chief traditions within Protestantism." These, we are told, are "embodied mainly in six world-wide communions," which are listed as Lutheran, Presbyterian, Anglican, Baptist, Congregationalist and Methodist.⁶

There seems to be something arbitrary about the exclusion of other and lesser Protestant groups, but even if we restrict ourselves to the six denominations mentioned, it is not very easy to decide what are the cardinal principles of Protestantism and how they are to be interpreted.

The Congregationalist Truman B. Douglass defines Protestantism as "an organized and continuing objection to some central beliefs and practices of the Roman Catholic Church and it cannot be understood apart from this 'protest against.' It is also a positive declaration of convictions which are regarded as essential to the Christian faith and message. . . . It therefore comprehends both negative and positive elements-emphases of rejection and of restoration." Declaring that the most succinct way of setting forth the central teachings of Protestantism is by contrasting them with Roman Catholic dogma, although such a method does not do full justice to it, he lists:

1) Justification by faith and not by works;

2) The primacy of the Bible as the living Word of God addressed personally to the believer and the community of believers;

3) The priesthood of all believers;

4) The Church as the fellowship of all believers, to the exclusion of the Roman Catholic hierarchical principle;

5) The duty of all to witness and to render Christian service in social life;

6) The belief that, despite diversities, the essential unity of the Church has not been lost.⁷

A Presbyterian, James H. Nicols, lists Protestantism's basic teachings as follows:

1) The sole Headship of Christ—to the exclusion of the Pope as Vicar of Christ;

2) Free salvation through the redemptive work of Christ;

3) The Church as an evangelical fellowship;

4) The Bible only as the revelation of God in its great central affirmations;

5) Conscience as ethical guide in striving for evangelical perfection.⁸

Neither the Congregationalist Douglass nor the Presbyterian Nicols tells us whether he intends to give a list according to the order of importance. However, the Methodist Dr. Albert C. Knudson, mentioned earlier, declares expressly that he intends to do so in his catalog of basic doctrines. Incidentally, he introduces us to the growing liberalism in the ranks of Protestant theologians.

LIBERAL PROTESTANTISM

Dr. Knudson insists that the cardinal principle of Protestantism is "the inspiration of the individual and the consequent right of private judgment," as opposed to Rome's claim to be the authoritative interpreter in religious matters. On all else, he says, a compromise with Rome might be conceivable, but not here. Continuing in the order of importance, he lists (2) justification by faith only; (3) acceptance of the Bible, although not according to the old idea of biblical authoritarianism which has been undermined by philosophical and biblical criticism; (4) the priesthood of all believers as opposed to Rome's mediatorial sacerdotalism; (5) the "self-verification" of faith, since the modern theory of knowledge shows that there can be no purely external and objective authentication of truth. The ultimate standard must be in the mind itself. Religious experience validates itself without need of an infallible Book or an infallible Church. Protestantism stands for the individual's independence and for the self-sufficiency of spiritual religion. "Others," he concludes, "would no doubt construct somewhat different lists, but in the end these probably would amount to about the same thing.⁹

Still more radically liberal is the German Lutheran Walther von Loewenich who holds that no grounds for certainty are provided by Bible, Church, or any of the set Creeds. All can be dispensed with except the acknowledging of Christ as Lord and a readiness for a life of discipleship. There can be no going back to earlier truths once thought to be absolute and embodied in Protestant "Confessions of Faith." "We should be disregarding our cultural and ecclesiastical situation," he writes, "if we tried to maintain or frantically to restore the status quo of Reformation times. In the long run a return to the past would not stop short with the Reformation, but sooner or later would lead us back to the Roman Catholic Church."¹⁰

Commenting on such liberalism, the Eastern Orthodox theologian, L. H. Zander, says in his study of Ecumenism: "From our point of view it is a disease of Protestantism and a degeneration of Christianity." The Oratorian Father, Louis Bouyer, a convert from French Protestantism, remarks that by these liberals "the Reformers are treated as ancestors to be venerated and subsequently ignored," but that the Reformers themselves "would not have hesitated to brand liberal Protestants, with characteristic force, as infamous heretics."¹²

How great have been the inroads of liberal Protestantism even among Anglicans has been at least well illustrated by the story of the young candidate for the ministry who told his bishop that he doubted whether in conscience he could proceed to ordination. When the kindly bishop asked the source of his scruples, the young man replied that he was greatly concerned about the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion. The bishop reassured him by saying that they were a mere formality, not to be taken seriously. "Nobody believes in them nowadays," he said. "But the trouble is that I do!" the young man replied. Apocryphal as the anecdote undoubtedly is, the driftage to liberalism which gave rise to it was, and is, very much a reality.

APPEAL TO "INSIDE" KNOWLEDGE

In view of the different and conflicting expositions of Protestantism—many examples similar to the above could be given—the question arises: "Is Robert McAfee Brown justified in saying that Protestantism can be understood only from the inside?"

There are Catholics who might seem to agree with him. Thus Father John Courtney Hurray, S.J., says that he would insist on a principle "stated by John Stuart Mill when he said, in effect, that every position should be explained and defended by a man who holds it, and who therefore is able to make the case for it most completely. . . My own view is that the only path to genuine understanding of a religious faith lies through the faith itself. The possession of the faith is therefore the proper qualification of the professor who would wish to communicate a critical understanding of it."¹³

While, however, it can readily be conceded that the Christian who wants to understand, say, Hinduism or Buddhism needs the explanations of a well-informed believer in Hinduism or Buddhism, the case is not quite the same where it is a question of Catholics understanding Protestantism. For Protestants profess also to be Christians, and that makes it a defensible proposition that Catholics, who possess in its fullness the religion from which Protestants have derived any genuine elements of Christian truth which they possess, will be better able to understand Protestantism than Protestants themselves. In other words, the man with the full truth may be more likely to understand the outlook of the one acting on a half-truth than the victim of the half-truth himself.

As far as religious experience based on truths possessed in common is concerned, fervent Catholics have that experience in common with fervent Protestants. On the other hand, in so far as Protestants—in varying degrees—have abandoned much that we Catholics have retained, we know what they lack while they do not understand the deficiencies of their own versions of Christianity. From this point of view, Protestantism will be better understood from inside Catholicism than from inside itself! Of course, it could be said that Protestants at least understand better how they can be content with less than that with which we Catholics could be content. But that is more a matter of religious psychology than of religion itself.

PERSONIFICATION OF PROTESTANTISM

For the understanding of what is called the "spirit of Protestantism" there is another matter which seems urgently in need of clarification. Careless thinking in regard to it leads almost inevitably to fallacies.

In our actual relationships with non-Catholics we are not dealing with Protestantism, but with Protestants. There is a religion called "Catholicism." There is no religion called "Protestantism." Catholicism is a specific, not a generic term; Protestantism is a generic, not a specific term.

Again, if we do speak in a generic sense of Protestantism as a movement, since Protestantism as such has no subjective dispositions, it is formally heretical in the objective doctrinal order, and the only spirit it would tend of its very nature to instill would be an heretical one. When, however, we speak of Protestants who can have subjective dispositions, we say, making every allowance for their sincerity, that they are only material heretics. The spirit by which they are animated, in so far as they have a common spirit precisely in virtue of their being Protestants, will be one of negation and of opposition to Catholicism; although happily blended with this will be other elements born of such truly Christian convictions as they still retain. But these latter convictions will not be specifically Protestant.

Naturally, if only because of the exigencies of everyday usage, it is impossible not to speak of Protestantism, but in doing so there is always the danger of generalization, and then of personifying an abstraction.

In his recent book, Protestantism, Father George Tavard does not seem to have altogether avoided this tendency. He introduces his treatment of the subject by declaring it to be his aim to show "the Protestant spirit as it is expressed in its more important manifestations." Yet before long he is urging "particular care not to confuse the doctrine of the reformers with certain of its subsequent deformations. If these precautions are adopted, it will then be seen how much closer is the profound spirituality of the Protestant mind to Catholicism than it believes itself to be."¹⁴

Such a passage leaves one asking what is the profound spirituality of the impersonal Protestant mind? Surely here, above all, we must speak of the minds of Protestants. They are the ones with whom we have to do. What is their "profound spirituality," and according to the theories they do hold, not those we think they ought to hold? Practice we can leave aside since it is a question of religious principles. But even in theory can we hold that Protestants have a "profound spirituality" of outlook much closer to Catholicism than they themselves believe it to be? If their spirituality has been conditioned by "subsequent deformations," then it is not the kind they would have, had they been true to the original reformers. Had they that kind, it might have been closer to Catholicism; as it exists now, it is not. And it is difficult to see how such considerations contribute toward an understanding of the contemporary "spirit of Protestantism" as it is expressed in its present-day manifestations.

THE "BOUYER" THESIS

Father Tavard adopts the thesis of Father Louis Bouyer in The Spirit and the Forms of Protestantism. It is a thesis which has been welcomed by some Catholic theologians, but which has met with considerable reserve on the part of others, a reserve which further thought will probably tend to intensify rather than dispel.

In his introduction to the book, speaking of conditions today, Father Bouyer declares "Protestantism as an institution or rather complexus of institutions hostile to one another as well as to the Catholic Church" to be absolutely incompatible with "Protestantism as a genuinely spiritual movement stemming from the teachings of the Gospel."

If that be so, modern Protestant theologians will scarcely be able to describe from the inside a Protestantism which they themselves do not understand in such a way as to communicate authentic ideas of it to those on the outside. However, let us continue with what Father Bouyer has to say.

He insists that it is essential, in order to get the vital core of Protestantism, to show "that there is no intrinsic connection between what it affirms and what it denies . . . for it has come to associate inseparably, but quite artificially, the positive statements of the Reformation with certain negations, so that these have come to seem equally characteristic of its nature."¹⁵

For him the truth is that genuine Protestantism, far from consisting of negations and a subjective individualism, has a most positive content and collective impact. He admits that all the positive principles of the Reformation were derived from Catholicism—principles forgotten or neglected by far too many Catholics; and that Protestants were impoverished by the loss of ex opere operato sacramental means of grace; but negative principles are not really of the essence of Protestantism. Its purpose is to present biblical Christianity, and the fruits of real religion are apparent in a constantly renewed collective experience of a life steeped in the biblical outlook. Protestantism is Christian, but only in so far as it adheres to the essential features of the Reformation as envisaged by Luther and Calvin, not in departing from these as modern Protestants have done.

One cannot but feel that Father Bouyer is writing here in the light of an idealism born of his own former experience of Protestantism as religion, rather than from a strictly historical and theological point of view. For the fact remains that both Luther and Calvin pitted the Bible as interpreted by themselves against the authority of the Catholic Church; and that rejection of Catholic authority will remain as an essential feature of Protestantism as long as it survives as Protestantism.

Father Bouyer himself was not unmoved by this aspect of it and could scarcely have believed it to be an unessential ingredient of Protestantism. As the Lutheran Jaroslav Pelikan observed, after reading Father Bouyer's book: "The quest for certainty . . . led Louis Bouyer through Karl Barth to Rome, for in Barth's emphasis upon the authority of the word of God Bouyer found the first step towards the authority of the Church as the spokesman for the word of God."¹⁶

That other denials of Catholicism are not equally as characteristic of the real nature of Protestantism as this basic denial of the authority itself of the Catholic Church is indeed hard to accept.

THE "PROTEST" IN PROTESTANTISM

Religious experience as such is not specifically Protestant. If one speaks of love of God, devotion to Christ as Lord and Savior, religious earnestness, prayer, conversion, self-denial, efforts at Christian virtue and felt spiritual consolations to be found among good Protestants, one could equally well be speaking of the experiences of good Catholics.

We have to ask what Protestantism precisely as Protestantism, whether as manifested in this or that type of Protestantism, has in it which makes one a Protestant and not a Catholic. And here we undoubtedly meet with negations, associated with them being a positive presentation of Christianity inadequate as regards such elements of Christian truth as it contains, inaccurate as regards its specifically Protestant doctrines. In other words, the nature of Protestantism is not less to be discerned in its denials than in its affirmations.

If "there shall arise false Christs and false prophets . . . to deceive if possible even the elect,"¹⁷ these will in some way or other look like Christ and seem to speak like men inspired, or they would deceive no man—certainly no man of good will. Yet the apparently good and true in their teachings will be blended with positive and dangerous errors.

Father Bouyer asks: "How was it that, starting from positive, orthodox, traditional principles, never abandoning them entirely, and periodically returning to them, the Reformation became something individualistic, heretical and negative?"¹⁸

But did the Reformation start from positive, orthodox, traditional principles? It retained some of these, to be sure, but it did not begin from them. It began from unorthodox doctrines which could be neither upheld nor propagated without a repudiation of the authority and guidance of the Catholic Church. The protest against that authority is essential in Protestantism.

When, therefore, Father Bouyer says that "Protestantism is Christian, not in its departure from the primitive and essential features of the Reformation, but in its adherence or return to them,"¹⁹ must we not say that a return to the principles of the reformers themselves would be a return to the very cause of the later developments of Protestantism Father Bouyer so deplores? Far from departing from the basic principle of Luther and Calvin, modern Protestantism has but pressed that basic principle to its logical conclusion. Told that there is no need to accept the authority and guidance of the Catholic Church, the next step for disciples of the reformers was to say that there is likewise no need to accept their authority and guidance. The result could only be a trend toward the progressive fragmentation which many Protestants themselves find so distressing today.

THE BREAKING OF "IMAGES"

In these ecumenical times a growing anxiety has developed concerning the false "images" Protestants have formed of Catholicism, and Catholics of Protestantism; and the appeal is for an iconoclasm—in a quite good sense of the word—by which false "images" will be broken, and new and truer ones created. For this it is necessary that Catholics and Protestants should learn to respect each other's sincerity and try to understand each other's religious outlook. Our dispositions must be conciliatory, since nothing worthwhile can be built on the ruins of charity.

When, however, it comes to substituting favorable for unfavorable "images" and Catholics are advised to say all the good they can of Protestantism, not looking for what is wrong with it in order to refute it, our moves to avoid Scylla find us confronted with the Charybdis of another false "image" developing among Protestants, this time the "ecumenical image" of what is called a new kind of Catholicism.

It was not without reason that the Holy See warned Catholic spokesmen to "take a firm stand against any exaggeration of the shortcomings on the Catholic side coupled with a glossing over of the Reformers' errors . . . so that the real point, a falling away from the Catholic Faith is obscured and barely perceived."²⁰

There is no need to deny the true and good to be found in the various forms of Protestantism side by side with the false and the bad. But the converse remains that much that is false, both in theory and practice, remains side by side with the true and the good. Protestantism is essentially a blending of both good and bad characteristics equally to be taken into account. The Congregationalist Truman B. Douglass, quoted earlier, defined Protestantism as "an organized and continuing objection to some central beliefs and practices of the Roman Catholic Church, and it cannot be understood apart from this 'protest against.' It is also a positive declaration of convictions regarded as essential to the Christian faith and message."

TOWARD BALANCED JUDGMENT

The Holy See, therefore, was justified in directing Catholic bishops to "be on their guard against those who under false pretexts stress the points on which we agree rather than those on which we disagree"; in declaring that among the matters to be made particularly clear is "the Roman Pontiff's primacy of jurisdiction and the certainty that true reunion can only come about by the return of dissidents to the one true Church of Christ"; and in cautioning against any "so-called 'irenicism' which through imprudence gives rise to false opinions and misleading hopes which can never be fulfilled."²⁰

An example of the false "ecumenical image" of a non-papal Catholicism is that given by the Episcopalian Theodore O. Wedel in a book with the suggestive title, The Coming Great Church. In it he writes:

Dr. Paul Tillich, in a prophetic article, predicts the coming of this post-Protestant "Catholic" age. It is, quite possibly, at our very door. When it is called "Catholic," this does not mean a return to the medieval Church—far less a submission to papal Rome. It may find its forms, indeed, in history. But it will also be a fresh creation of the Holy Spirit. That is why one may venture to speak of this rediscovered Catholicism by a new name. I call it here the "Great Church." The phrase is increasingly used. Those who employ it include in its meaning a return to the Church of history, but they also envision a great dawn.²¹

A great dawn of that kind is but a dream; and Catholics do no service to Protestants by helping in any way to foster such an illusion. The problem confronting us is indeed an exceedingly complex one, to which there is no simple answer; but it is essential that we approach it with complete, and not partial, views only. In a sonnet to a friend, Matthew Arnold said that his "even-balanced soul . . . saw life steadily and saw it whole." In trying to estimate the spirit of Protestantism and the future prospects of Protestant-Catholic relationships we need an equally steady, complete and balanced judgment, toward the formation of which a concluding article ("Protestantism: Its Basic Trends") in the next HPR issue will possibly make some small contribution.

Notes

¹ Op. cit., English Edition, 1938, p. 5.

² Oxford University Press, New York, 1961.

³ Ibid., pp. viii-x

⁴ The Protestant Reformation in Great Britain, 1934, p. xv.

⁵ Protestantism. Nashville Methodist Commission, 1944, p. 125.

⁶ Lutterworth Press, 1950, p. 17.

⁷ A Handbook of Theology, Meridian Books, 1958, p. 284.

⁸ The Meaning of Protestantism, Fontana Books, 1959, pp. 94-156.

⁹ Protestantism. Nashville Methodist Commission, 1944, pp. 126-133.

¹⁰ Modern Catholicism, Macmillan, 1959, p. 364.

¹¹ Vision and Action, Gollancz, 1952, p. 69.

¹² The Spirit and the Forms of Protestantism, Harvill Press, 1958, p. 7.

¹³ We Hold These Truths, Sheed and Ward, 1960, pp. 138-9.

¹⁴ Hawthorn Books, New York, p. 31.

¹⁵ Op. cit., p. 45.

¹⁶ The Riddle of Roman Catholicism, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1960, p. 193.

¹⁷ Matt., 24:24.

¹⁸ Op. cit., p. 16.

¹⁹ Op. cit., p. 15.

²⁰ Instruction Ecclesia Catholica, December 20, 1949.

²¹ The Coming Great Church, by Theodore O. Wedel, 1947, p. 23.

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