Michael Muller

“ The Catholic religion has covered the world with its superb monuments. Protestantism has now lasted three hundred years; it was powerful in England, in Germany, in America. What has it raised? It will show us the ruins which it has made amidst which it has planted some gardens, or established some factories. The Catholic religion is essentially a creative power, built up, not to destroy, because it is under the immediate influence of that Holy Spirit which the Church invokes as the Creative Spirit, "Creator Spiritus." ”

“ It has risen by tumult and violence; propagated itself by force and persecution; enriched itself by plunder, and has never ceased, by open force, persecuting laws, or slander, its attempt to exterminate the Catholic faith, and destroy the Church of Christ, which the fathers of Protestantism left from the spirit of lust, pride, and covetousness, - a spirit which induced so many of their countrymen to follow their wicked example; a spirit on account of which they would have been lost at all events, even if they had not left their mother, the One, Holy, Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church. ”

“ There must be storms in nature to purify the air from dangerous elements. In like manner, God permits storms - heresies to arise in his Church on earth, in order that the erroneous and impious doctrines of heretics may, by way of contrast, set forth in clearer light the true and holy doctrines of the Church. As light is in the midst of darkness, gold contrasted with lead, the sun among the planets, the wise among the foolish, - so is the Roman Catholic Church among non-Catholics. ”

“ This spirit of pride and obstinacy is also most apparent from the fact that Protestantism has never been ashamed to make use of any arguments, though ever so frivolous, inconsistent, or absurd, to defend its errors, and to slander and misrepresent the Catholic religion in every way possible. ”

“ For all are doctors, all are divinely learned: there is not so much as the meanest fanatic who does not give you his own dreams for the word of God. The bottomless pit seems to have been opened, from whence a smoke has arisen which has darkened the heavens and the stars, and locusts have come out with stings, a numerous race of sectaries and heretics, who have renewed all the ancient heresies, and invented many monstrous opinions of their own. ”

“ Then there were multitudes of wicked and avaricious nobles, who wanted but an excuse to plunder the churches, abbeys, and monasteries, whose property was held in trust for the education of the people and the care of the poor, aged, and sick, all over Europe. Then there were priests and monks eager to embrace a relaxed discipline, and many people who, incited by the cry of liberty, were ready to rush into license, and make war upon every principle of religion and social order, as soon as circumstances would favor the outbreak of this rebel spirit in individuals and masses. ”

“ England, Scotland, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Hungary, Poland, Holland, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, - every civilized nation was in the unity of the Catholic faith. Many of these nations were at the height of their power and prosperity. Portugal was pushing her discoveries beyond the Cape of Good Hope, and forming Catholic settlements in the East Indies. Christopher Columbus, a Roman Catholic, had discovered America, under the patronage of the Catholic Isabella of Spain. ”

“ The theological systems of Protestantism are as numerous as the political constitutions of France - one revolution only awaits another." - (Le Semeur, June, 1840.) It is indeed utterly impossible to keep the various members of one single sect from perpetual disputes, even about the essential truths of revealed religion. And those religious differences exist not only in the same sect, not only in the same country and town, but even in the same family. Nay, the self-same individual, at different periods of his life, is often in flagrant contradiction with himself. ”

“ Augustine says: "You, who believe what you please, and reject what you please, believe yourselves or your own fancy rather than the Gospel." The faith of the Protestant, then, is based upon his private judgment alone; it is human. "As his judgment is alterable," says Mr. Marshall, "he naturally holds that his faith and doctrine is alterable at will, and is therefore continually changing it. Evidently, then, he does not hold it to be the truth; for truth never changes; nor does he hold it to be the law of God, which he is bound to obey ”

“ This Church, deprived alike of its corporate and its dogmatic character, of its form and of its doctrine, deprived of all that constituted it a Christian Church, has in truth ceased to exist in the ranks of religious communities. Its name continues, but it represents only a corpse, a phantom, or, if you will, a memory or a hope. For want of dogmatic authority, unbelief has made its way into three-fourths of our pupils." ( L' Etat Actual de l' Eglise Reformee en France, 1844.)
Such has been Protestantism from the beginning. ”

“ Strange to say, not only the good and the wicked are found in perpetual conflict; but God, for wise ends, permits that even the holiest and best of men are sometimes diametrically opposed to one another, and even incite persecution, one against the other, though each one may be led by the purest and holiest of motives. ”

“ The contrition which is acquired by examining, recollecting, and detesting one's sins, whereby a man calls to mind his life past, in the bitterness of his soul, reflecting on the heinousness and multitude of his offences, the loss of eternal bliss, and condemnation to eternal woe, - this contrition, I say, makes a man a hypocrite, nay, even a greater sinner than he was before. ”

“ In pursuance of this accommodating doctrine, they dissected the Catholic faith till they reduced it to a mere skeleton; they lopped off the reality of the body and blood of Christ in the Holy Eucharist, the divine Christian sacrifice offered in the Mass, confession of sins, most of the sacraments, penitential exercises, several of the canonical books of Scripture, the invocation of saints, celibacy, most of the General Councils of the Church, and all present Church authority; they perverted the nature of justification, asserting that faith alone suffices to justify man ”

“ It shows itself again in the wars which Protestantism waged to introduce and maintain itself. The apostate Princes of Germany entered into a league, offensive and defensive, against the Emperor Charles V., and rose up in arms to establish Protestantism.
Luther had preached licentiousness, and reviled the emperor, the princes, and the bishops. The peasants lost no time in freeing themselves from their masters. They overran the country in lawless bands, burned down castle and monasteries, and committed the most barbarous cruelties among the nobility and clergy. ”

“ Adam could not avoid his fall; 5. a great part of mankind are created to be damned, independently of their demerits; 6. man is justified by faith alone, and that justification, once obtained, cannot be lost, even by the most atrocious crimes; 7. the true faithful are also infallibly certain of their salvation; 8. the Eucharist is no more than a figure of the body and blood of Christ. Thus was the whole system of faith and morality overturned. ”

“ The Protestant, or modern philosophical spirit, is a principle of destruction, of perpetual decomposition and disunion. Under the dominion of English Protestant power, for four hundred years, Ireland was rapidly becoming as naked and void of ancient memorials as the wilds of Africa. ”

“ Paul calls them, alter their shape, like clouds, but "feel no blow, says Mr. Marshall, "because they have no substance." They fight a good deal with one another, but nobody minds it, not even themselves, nor cares what becomes of them. ”

“ What was admired during the one decennial period is rejected in the next, and the image which they adored is burnt, to make way for new divinities; the dogmas which were held in honor, fall into discredit; the classical treatise of morality is banished among the old books out of date; criticism overturns criticism ”

“ Munzer, a disciple of Luther, set up for doctor himself, and, with Nicholas Stark, gave birth to the sect of Anabaptists, which was propagated in Suabia, and other provinces in Germany, in the Low Countries. Calvin, a man of bold, obstinate spirit, and indefatigable in his labors, in imitation of Luther, turned reformer also. He contrived to have his new tenets received at Geneva, in 1541. After his death, Beza preached the same doctrine. It insinuated itself into some parts of Germany, Hungary, Bohemia, and became the religion of Holland. ”