Page:History of Freedom.djvu/355

 DÖLLINGER ON THE TEMPORAL POWER 3 I I

Churches, is displeasing to God, that he who helps to prolong the situation must answer for it to the Lord,-on that day four-fifths of the traditional polen1ics of the Protestants against the Church will with one blow be set aside, like chaff and rubbish; for four-fifths consist of misunderstandings, logomachies, and wilful falsifications, or relate to personal, and therefore accidental, things, which are utterly insignificant where only principles and dogmas are at stake, On that day, also, much will be changed OIl the Catholic side. Thenceforward the character of Luther and the Refonners will no more be dragged forward in the pulpit. The clergy, mindful of the saying, inter.ficite err ores, diligite h01nines, will always conduct them- selves towards members of other Churches in conforlllity with the rules of charity, and will therefore assume, in all cases where there are no clear proofs to the contrary, the bona fides of opponents. They will never forget that no man is convinced and won over by bitter words and violent attacks, but that everyone is rather repelled by them, Warned by the words of the Epistle to the Romans (xiv. 13), they will be more careful than heretofore to give to their separate brethren no scandal, no grounds of accusation against the Church. Accordingly, in popular instruction and in religious life, they will always n1ake the great truths of salvation the centre of all their teaching: they will not treat secondary things in life and doctrine as though they were of the first importance; but, on the contrary, they will keep alive in the people the consciousness that such things are but means to an end, and are only of inferior con- sequence and subsidiary value. Until that day shall dawn upon Germany, it is our duty as Catholics, in the words of Cardinal Diepenbrock, "to bear the reli- gious separation in a spirit of penance for guilt incurred in common." vVe must acknowledge that here also God has caused much good as well as much evil to proceed from the errors of men, from the con- tests and passions of the sixteenth century; that the anxiety of the German nation to see the intolerable abuses and scandals in the Church removed was fully justified, and sprang from the better quali- ties of our people, and from their moral indignation at the desecration and corruption of holy things, which were degraded to selfish and hypocritical purposes. We do not refuse to admit that the great separation, and the storms and sufferings connected with it, was an awful judgment upon Catholic Christendom, which clergy and laity had but too well deserved-a judgment which has had an improving and salutary effect. The great conflict of intellects has purified the European atmosphere, has impelled the human mind on to new courses, and has promoted a rich scientific and literary life. Protestant the- ology, with its restless spirit of inquiry, has gone along by the side of the Catholic, exciting and awakening, warning and vivifying; and e\'ery eminent Catholic divine in Germany will gladly admit that he owes much to the writings of Protestant scholars.