Luther and the Diet of Worms [pp. 145-161]

ISO LUTHER AND THE DIET OF WORMS. [Nov.,
age in believing what is above and beyond the grasp of reason
upon the veracity of his Creator.
This can be easily shown, and in a few words, by an analysis
of the foundation of an act of Catholic faith. The Catholic faith
rests upon three elementary facts~the competency of human
reason, the infallibility of the church, the veracity of God. He
who undermines either Que of these three positions destroys the
Catholic faith. A Catholic who does not hold to the competency of human reason in its own sphere, upon sound philosophical principles, is bound to hold it upon religious grounds, for
be has no other competent voucher than reason for the divine
claims of the Catholic Church. This is one of the essential
principles of the Catholic Church, that she is accompanied with
ample evidence of her divine character to elicit from reason an
act of assent which excludes all rational doubt. As a divine
revelation springs from a source above the sphere of reason, it
necessitates a divinely-authorized and divinely-assisted interpreter and teacher. This is one of the essential functions of the
church, which Christ planned and the Holy Spirit incorporated,
and with which Christ promised to remain until the consummation of the world. As to the veracity of God, the third essential element of Catholic faith, this is involved in the very idea
of God's existence, which reason is competent to demonstrate.
Cleared, then, from all extraneous matter, the main point in disVute between Catholics and Protestants is this: Catholics main~ain the necessity of the divine authority of the church in a revealed religion such as Christianity, against the introduction of
human authority to be exercised, not upon the fact of revelation, but upon the contents of divine revelation.
If you ask how the so.called Reformers could venture to substitute the private judgment of man in the place of the authority
of the church within the sphere of revealed religion, when with.
out exception they held man to be "totally depraved," we
reply, in the words of the Protestant historian Guizot, "The Reformation did not fully receive its own principles and effects."
That is, the Reformation was an insult to the common sense of
mankind!
This, then, is the rational genesis of the Catholic faith. Without the competency of reason, within its proper sphere, one can
not know with certitude the church of Christ. Without the
divine authority of the churdh of Christ all cannot know with
certitude all the truths of divine revelation. Without the veracity of God one cannot believe without doubting what God has