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any system of relationship to the state; it is a spring always wound up, always ready to come into play, which acts at the very moment that it is least expected to do so. That diamond wall that the Roman Church has raised around herself, protects her less surely than does this living wall ever ready to close round Protestantism; this wall, of which truth and the human conscience are the foundation-stones and the bulwarks. Whatever institutions may do, the intercourse between the members of this Church and the source of life and light, may always be renewed and is never completely interrupted. Protestantism will one day give to itself guarantees against temporal power, or against the temptations it may have to adhere thereto, but meanwhile one does not see that the progress of liberty has injured that of Protestantism, nor the progress of Protestantism that of liberty.

The human mind takes long strides, but makes still longer halts. The halt which the Protestant principle has imposed on itself has lasted three centuries. The semi-Catholicism in which we were contented to rest is henceforth exhausted; there is nothing now vivacious except thorough Catholicism and thorough Protestantism; there is nothing living but the gospel. It is necessary both that our Protestantism should become Christian, and our Christianity Protestant.

Yes, I believe that Catholicism must be destroyed, not with the steel of the law, but by the sword of

the Word. I do not shrink from this consequence of the principle that I have advanced; I say that a Church which by its intolerance is opposed to the gospel is not a Christian Church; that a Christian must desire and demand its destruction; that he must labour with all his strength to bring it about, in order to see it one day replaced by that Church which, conformably to the teaching of its Master, invites us to prove all things, and knows no truth but what is united with love. This is the aspiration, the task of all true Protestants; as to the means, they are those employed by the apostles.

As extremes touch, we should not be at all amazed if we surprised ultra-Calvinism in the very attitude of Catholicism on these subjects, as on many others; there are views on the assurance of salvation which amount to the unqualified opus operatum and to sheer merit. Only in this lies the difference, and it is incalculable,-nothing chains us to our errors, and everything detaches. The book of grace and faith lies before us always open, like a vase of pure and salubrious perfume, the emanations of which necessarily rise to purify the air we breathe; and whatever be the variations of Protestantism, it is noticeable that all the symbols of the great Protestant communities are unanimous in bearing witness to those evangelical truths disavowed, or at least attenuated, by Catholicism.

Every complete truth has two sides, at all events in religion, for religion is essentially the mediatrix

which leads back all the dualities of human existence to unity; and, for the very reason that it reconciles, it confesses them. Every truth is composed of two truths united by a mystery; the abuse of the one produces the abuse of the other; Catholicism and Protestantism, considered as half-truths, mutually occasion, engender each other; and thus it is that, setting aside all passion and interest, it is conceivable that the two dogmas of which we speak should both have been formally combated by pious men. Human weakness makes it intelligible that those who thought they discerned the germs of individualism and antinomianism in the Reformation, should throw themselves into another extreme, by exalting both the authority of the Church and the importance of works. They did not see-wonderful to say that the merit of Christianity, if we may use such an expression, is just to have presented these two opposite ideas to the world; for there was no religion for humanity except on two conditions,

on one side, that man should as to his belief cease to be the slave of the soil, and, on the other, that he should renounce the chimerical hope of bestowing on himself the alms of salvation. Under different names, the authority of the Church and the merit of works were old-world prejudices that Jesus Christ came to dispel; and anti-Reformationism re-connects itself over the cross with the doctrines of Egypt, Rome, and Athens.

CHAPTER III.

THE CHURCH AND ITS ADVERSARIES.

I. DIFFERENT WAYS OF ATTAINING TO CHRISTIANITY.

1. Apologetics, their Necessity; Different Systems of Apology; Indifference.

THEOLOGY is a garrison which only saves itself by "sorties." In proportion as we fear less, there will be the less to fear; but to refuse battle would be to avow defeat. It is, besides, with polemics as with war. He must be mad who, seeing improvements made in the art of attacking places, should not care to improve the art of defending them, nor place himself, by choice of weapons and skill in using them, on a level with his adversary. It may perhaps be necessary to give up certain artillery,-that is to say, certain arguments and theses, but what of that, if better weapons replace those we get rid of?

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The Christian should not absolutely avoid encountering objections, for to answer the objections of unbelief is to give a reason for the faith he holds. Those who address their objections to a Christian, should not part from him with the unfortunate impression that he believes without proof, and that his faith is but a stupid prepossession.

This is not, however, equivalent to saying that he is bound to point out the feebleness or falsehood of each one of their arguments; it is enough if, to the reasons on which others base their infidelity, he gently and respectfully opposes those on which he rests his faith. From some we may require more than this, from none can we ask less; for the most ignorant as well as the most learned has reasons for believing, not perhaps of a similar nature, but of equal value to those of the savant and philosopher.

It cannot be denied that perfect truth corresponds in principle to perfect virtue; but this is only in principle. If this correspondence were to become a fact, constant and universal, it would, I believe, render all ulterior proof of the truth of doctrines superfluous. This one miracle verified, incontrovertible, would cause all miracles to be believed in ; none would find it difficult to accept the infallibility of a doctrine in presence of the impeccability of its partisans. But this proof of the absolute truth of any doctrine whatever does not, and never will exist.

It is on this that the necessity of a formal apology rests, as well, perhaps, as that of the whole of theology.

Christian apologies have generally been more or less occasional works, and that in two ways. Often they have been intended to repulse a recent attack directed to some particular point; and still more often without being as visibly provoked by the

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