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To: Legatus

Part the second (typos, formatting errors, dropped italics and missing footnotes all my own fault):

Looking Through Protestant Spectacles
To make sense of this sequence, we must begin where the Protestant begins: four and a half centuries ago. It must be understood that Protestantism itself is defined in the terms dictated by the tradition. In order to justify the Reformation in the first place, the Catholic Church had to be branded an impostor. The Primitive Church, the Church of the New Testament, was Protestant and somehow, somewhere, sometime, it was overwhelmed and supplanted by a tyrannical organization known as the Catholic Church.

The Visible Church Disappears
This false history of the Church founded by Christ is balanced with one of Protestantism which is equally false. To sustain the construction, the testimony of Sacred Scripture itself, and that of all history, must be ignored and denied:
The Protestant Reformation broke the rigid pattern of the Roman hierarchy and reestablished in their minds, hearts, and practice the teachings and the spirit of the New Testament and the early church. Distinct features of the Reformation, such as the priesthood of all believers, . . . Justification by faith, and the all-sufficiency of the Scriptures for faith and life, had their rebirth in the rediscovery of the early Christian church. This return to the precepts of original Christianity....’

So the Reformation, says Protestant myth, was a restoration of the early Christian church-although a new attempt is made to restore it weekly, a fact whose significance escapes the Protestant-and the “believers” in all the Protestant sects combined manifest its presence in the world today. These believers being uncountable and known only to God, the Church is necessarily invisible.

The fable which says that all Protestant beliefs come from the Bible leads the Protestant to suppose that this one, the dogma that the Church is invisible, is written someplace in the Bible, too. But the Protestant definition of the Church is found not in the Bible, but only in the novelties of the 16th-century Reformers, as is confirmed by a Protestant reference book.’ The invisible Church originated in Luther’s imagination:
[Luther] was fond of picturing to himself the community of believers as an assembly of all those who had been awakened by “the Word,” and who, in spirit, were far above the compulsion of any earthly regulations. Thus, with him, the Church ... tended to evaporate into a mere union of souls, scarcely perceptible to earthly eyes?

Here is the same invisible, and imaginary, Church of modern Protestantism: “The true Church is of the Spirit; is of those who love Christ and obey His commandments ... The Kingdom of God ... is the concern of Protestants; along with the visible Church here upon this earth.”’ (My emphasis.)

And here, the one founded by Our Lord: “In the last days the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared on the top of mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow into it” (Is 2:2). Of this Church, the church of all nations, He said: “You are the light of the world. A city seated on a mountain cannot be hid” (Mt 5:14). What cannot be hid, can be seen. St Paul asks: “What have I to do to judge them that are with¬out? Do not you judge them that are within? For them that are without, God will judge” (1 Cor 5:12-13). The Primitive Church was one visible Church, whose members were within that Church, sinners, saints, and all. Those who were not in the Church were “without”

Some Significant Clues
St Paul speaks of “the Church” seventeen times.” St. Luke eight times, and St Peter and St John once each.” “The Church of God” appears eleven times, “in the Church” twelve times, “of the Church” eighteen times, and “to the Church,” five.” The “whole Church” is seen three times, of “the churches” twenty-seven times,” and “all the churches” seven times.” The writers of the New Testament point to this visible body, the Church, in one hundred and ten references.

“Scripture” appears in the New Testament thirty-two, and “scriptures’ twenty-two times.” In only one of the fifty-four is there even a possible reference to the New Testament:
As . . . our most dear brother Paul hath written to you:
as also in all his epistles ... in which are certain things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, to their own destruction. You therefore, brethren, knowing these things before, take heed, lest being led aside by the
error of the unwise, you fall from your own steadfastness (2 Peter 3:15-17).

In the Gospels, “Church” occurs only twice, in St. Matthew 16:18 and 18:17. In every other case, says one Protestant scholar, it is spoken of as the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God, and sometimes simply as the kingdom. He adds, “In the one Gospel of St. Matthew the Church is spoken of no less than thirty-six times as `the kingdom.’ “ So the visible Church, with good fish, bad fish, and cockle in the wheat (Mt 13), is the Kingdom of God.

Justification by Faith
According to Luther, all the “believers” in the sects are “saved.” And what is it they believe? The Great Reformer explained his new, rewritten Revelation:
God says in the Law: Do this, leave that undone, this do I require of thee. But the Evangel does not preach what we are to do or to leave undone, it requires nothing of us. On the contrary. It does not say: Do this or that, but only tells us to hold out our hands and take .... He has caused His own Son to take flesh for thee, has allowed Him to be done to death for thy sake, and to save thee from sin, death and the devil; believe this and accept it and thou shalt be saved.”

Here, Luther brazenly contrasts what God requires of us as laid down in Revelation, which he labels “the Law,” with his “Evangel,” which demands nothing but the “acceptance” of a guaranteed salvation, “faith, i.e., security of salvation.” One who can be persuaded that Christ’s death on the Cross made total satisfaction for all his sins, past, present, and future, and that merely believing this satisfies all the requirements for salvation, passes from the category of “lost” to that of “saved:’ Through a series of deceptions, he has been led to put his faith in Luther’s version of Revelation, and in the promises of Luther. The “faith” of which the Protestant speaks, then, the faith of those in the sects, is not a firm belief in the written Revelation they claim Protestantism upholds against Catholicism with its invented doctrines. Instead, it consists of faith in the Lutheran sense, i.e., personal28 trust in Christ and in the salvation He offers. Faith in the whole supernatural body of Christian truth comes here so little into account that it is reduced to the mere assurance of salvation ... The Christian is “free and has power over all” by a simple appropriation of the merits of Christ; he is purified by the mere acceptance of the merciful love revealed in Christ; “this faith suffices him,” and through it he enjoys all the riches of God. And this so-called faith is mainly a matter of feeling ....

Thus the “believers” in the sects need only believe that they are saved, i.e., they need only “feel like” they are saved-”I have accepted Jesus as my personal savior”-and saved without effort, and this “faith” is what saves them. According to Protestant dogma, Catholics may claim to be Christians, may claim to believe, but of them alone, of all “believers,” can it be said with certainty that they are not “saved.” Even worse, i.e, even more irritating to the Protestant, is the importance Catholics attach to the Church founded by Jesus Christ. As Pat Robertson says, Catholics are not without a religion, but they have “wrong ideas. “ They must be brought out of “the Church, or rather the thing that called itself the Church,” and brought to a Bible-believing church, with all thirteen of its Bible verses, if they are to escape damnation. That is why the invitations from your Protestant friend are so urgent and insistent; he must bring you to his sect in order to save you.

What is Faith?
One who has faith has accepted a gift: “The precious gift of faith shall be given to him” (Wis 3:14). This infused virtue of faith enables him to perform a supernatural act: he believes what God has revealed for the simple reason that God has revealed it. “I give you to understand ... that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man; for neither did I receive it of man, nor did I learn it; but by the revelation of Jesus Christ” (Gal 1:11-12).
Here, we again fail the hidden test. No, no; this answer, and this kind of faith, will not do!

Catholics reject Luther’s invention. It is actually a superstition (”a belief or practice resulting from ignorance”), this notion that one can be saved beyond all doubt, with no effort beyond the believing. And for this stand, we have good authority: “If the just man shall scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?” (1 Pet 4:18). We add:
He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth me On 14:21); Love ... is the fulfilling of the law (Rom 13:10); He became, to all that obey him, the cause of eternal salvation (Heb 5:9); He who faith that he knoweth him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him (1 Jn 2:4).

It scarcely needs to be said that the good Protestant with whom you speak is without guile. He is only repeating the contradictions of Protestantism itself with which he has been programmed without letup since childhood. And we do not wish to impugn, even by implication, his sincerity. He is a victim of the hoax. There is a vast difference, however, between being sincere and being correct And the good Protestant we all know, who is himself proof that Protestants are very often better, and Catholics worse, than their religion, is simply wrong. The Church has the whole truth, along with everything we need for our salvation, and those outside her do not Whatever is true in Protestantism, the Reformers brought from the Church when they left Whatever is peculiar to Protestantism is false.

Protestants are in error, but the word having vanished from their vocabulary, they think error is found only in Catholicism. The one central idea to which they are wedded is that all Protestant beliefs, how¬ever they contradict each other, are true; all Catholic beliefs, with a very few exceptions, which excite little interest in their efforts to convert Catholics, e.g., Christ’s divinity, the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, are false, and must be eradicated. This is because the world, and any information about the Church which comes from outside the Church comes from the world, hates Christianity and Christ, and hates His Church, the Catholic Church, most of all: “If the world hate you, know ye, that it hath hated me before you” On 15:18); “Wonder not, brethren, if the world hate you” (1 Jn 3:13).

Some Essential Thinking
The Protestant does not think about this, but we must. Revelation is just that It is the whole of that which God, the source, has revealed to man, the recipient: “For prophecy came not by the will of man at any time: but the holy men of God spoke, inspired by the Holy Ghost” (2 Pet 1:21). The Bible is written Revelation; Sacred Tradition is unwritten Revelation.

Protestantism consists wholly of denials of, and substitutes for, revealed truth. So, as is noted above, the Protestant, in his proselytizing efforts, is necessarily restricted to declaring what he does not believe, without reference to Revelation. Next; uninstructed about Who does the revealing, and who accepts the Revelation, he erroneously identifies his own thoughts with divinely revealed truths. Then he mistakes his confident repudiations for proof that his refusal of Revelation, stated in the italicized negatives below, is equal in authority to the pronouncements of the prophets, Apostles, and God Himself:
Protestantism does not accept the seven sacraments as required by the Roman Catholic Church, because it finds only two, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, demanded by the teachings of Scripture.” Baptism is not, with most Protestants, necessarily a condition of salvation.” Protestantism repudiates “the miracle of the Mass” because it believes that no miracle occurs and that one is not at all necessary.” Protestantism ... denies that the priest has the right to forgive sins and believes that every sinner should make his confession directly to God.” (My emphasis.)

This is a misuse of the intellect, of freedom, and of Revelation. Satan bears witness that God did not give us the freedom to decide what is right and wrong, good and evil (Gen 3:5).38 This, He told us Himself Our freedom consists of freely choosing to do what is right or what is wrong, as guided by Revelation. With the intellect man can, and should, determine whether a doctrine has been revealed to us by God, i.e., whether a particular teaching is Revelation. An unhindered examination of Holy Scripture and history will aid him. A doctrine may be implicit in written Revelation. If its source is Sacred Tradition, or unwritten Revelation, the Apostles, who were instructed by Our Lord Himself, taught and believed it. Often references to it will be found in Sacred Scripture, and/or history will reflect it. One who has faith gives his free, internal assent to Revelation. When he accepts doctrine because it has been revealed, he is engaged in the exercise of freedom.


40 posted on 03/03/2015 10:08:43 AM PST by Legatus (Either way, we're screwed.)
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To: Legatus

Filled with lies and biblical ignorance...Catholics will read this while ignoring the bible...


44 posted on 03/03/2015 1:55:22 PM PST by Iscool
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To: Legatus
To make sense of this sequence, we must begin where the Protestant begins: four and a half centuries ago.

No, it 'began' with Jesus' resurrection.

You Catholics played a REALLY good first half; but you've dropped the ball.

Perhaps you need a new coach.

No; wait...

...it seems that a lot of you guys will not PLAY for the new coach.

Oh well...

49 posted on 03/03/2015 2:27:48 PM PST by Elsie
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