Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 3.djvu/196

Rh have their spiritual work done for them by so competent a hand.

The Roman church claims to be a Divine institution, not at all human in origin, function, or responsibility, but wholly of God; and even to Him amenable only as a part of Himself, an expansion of the Godhead. No amount of contradiction in the Catholic doctrines, or of wickedness in, the infallible heads of the Church, diminishes the Divinity of the institution. She is one and indivisible, with absolute unity of doctrinal substance and practical form; no sects can be allowed, no historical progress in doctrine, for the ultimatum was attained at the very beginning. Accordingly the function of the Catholic priest is to administer the miraculous revelation—to dictate with authority the doctrines to be believed, the work to be done—and to communicate the vicarious salvation.

II. The German or Protestant church, entertaining these five false ideas common to Christendom, rejects the two subsidiary which are proper only to the Roman church, and developes this, which is her own peculiar and distinctive opinion: The Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are the sole depository of the miraculous revelation; they determine the doctrines to be believed, the works to be done, the conditions of salvation. They are the finality, the norm of faith and works. Conformity with them is the indispensable condition of present favour and final acceptance with God. Men must take the Bible as master; it is Divine in origin, function, and responsibility; nay, it is only an expansion of God. To the Catholic the Latin church is God, Deity embodied in the priesthood; to the Protestant the Bible is God, Deity bound up in a collection of books. The Bible contains all that man needs in theological matters, now and hereafter, all he can ever get—for it is not only God's word, but his last word, his last will and testament, for though living elsewhere He is now seceded and deceased from all direct communication with man. There is no inspiration now; it is all ended, the stream run dry. The Bible is signed, sealed, and delivered as and for the last will and testament of Almighty God.

But as there is no miraculous expounder of the miracul-