Are Catholics saved?

I think that it is unjust to say that this has ever yet been realised to the full. I have as bad an opinion of Popery, I suppose, as anybody here; but I do not believe that Popery is the apostasy. The apostasy is a great deal more, and a great deal worse. I believe that a man might be saved who is a Roman Catholic; I believe, in the midst of the terrible corruption and superstition of the Romish Church, there is enough of the word of God read, enough of Christ, for a poor soul to lay hold of the great truth of a Divine Person who became man and died for sinners. Hence, I believe that there have been not only Roman Catholic laymen, but Roman Catholic priests saved, and, what is more, Roman Catholic Popes. I believe Pope Leo was a good man (although he was ambitious), as also Pope Gregory the First. Alas, Gregory the Seventh was a very different man. I only refer to these as two occurring to me that seem to have strewn a fear of God and a love of His truth in the midst of abounding darkness and superstition. We must not allow ourselves to be carried away too strongly by controversy. We must bear in mind that there are persons who may be objects of divine grace under most untoward circumstances. I can conceive of a Roman Catholic being saved, but who can conceive of a Unitarian being saved? The latter denies the divinity and atonement of Christ. Indeed, anyone who denies even the true humanity of the Lord is worse than a Roman Catholic. The falling away or apostasy means the rejection of all revealed truth.

There are two great points, as I have stated elsewhere, in christian truth: first, the fundamental doctrines as to the Trinity, the person of Christ, the atonement; and then, secondly, the way in which sinners receive the value of these great facts. The question with the Romanist and the Puseyite is on the second of these points. So was it in Paul's time. No doubt the full development of apostasy will be in the rejection of the fundamental truths; but he who denies the true way of their application to the sinner is, the Apostle declares, fallen from grace, and Christ profits him nothing. That sovereign grace may pierce through the cloud, and attach the heart by living faith to Christ is, blessed be God! true; and hence men may be saved, though they are Romanists and Puseyites. But this does not hinder their system being cloud, and not light at all.

Even in Babylon, and thus late, therefore, there are those in her who are the people of God. But they are called to separation. Rome is a false system which yet retains what is saving truth. Souls may be saved in it, but the truth it holds cannot save the false system in which it is found. Truth cannot save the error men would ally with it, nor error destroy the truth. There are children of God, alas! that "suffer Jezebel," but Jezebel's true children are another matter: "I will kill them with death" is God's emphatic word. The testing-time comes when the roads that seemed to lie together are found to separate, and then the necessity of separation comes. Truth and error cannot lead to the same place, and he that pursues the road to the end will find what is at the end.

That there have been children of God ensnared in Babylon cannot be doubted by those acquainted with early mediaeval, or even later facts. There have been children of God in the position of priests, nuns, monks, cardinals, and popes. That is to say, there have been persons who manifest by their ways and their writings that they were born of God. To me this, instead of being any reason for license, is rather a most solemn warning; because it furnishes evidence how far a converted soul may be beguiled. Nothing can be more false than to argue that Romanism cannot be so bad a system because there have been Christians in it. Rather say the contrary: see the pit into which a Christian may fall! See the appalling quagmire into which a Christian may slip by yielding to human tradition and refusing to use the word of God to judge everything by! Thus to my mind there cannot be the smallest doubt that, as Romanism is the greatest religious imposture under the sun, so there have been children of God drawn into its toils, not merely as lowly and obscure members, but perhaps in its highest seats. I do not doubt that Popes Leo and Gregory, both styled the great, were Christians; nor do I mean to insinuate that these were the only two of whom we may think as saints and brethren in the Lord. My acquaintance with their personal history is not at all minute; but I know enough of them fully yet charitably to believe that there may have been Christians among them. This is humbling and most profitable for one's soul, because it shows to what a pitfall the allowance of unbelief may expose a Christian. It is evident that any one might be ensnared into it, especially such as occupy themselves with a truth — not the truth. From one thing indeed I should expect a person born of God to be kept, at any rate not to abide in, namely, what directly destroys the glory of the person of Christ. Now although Popery has brought in the most horrible enormities, both of doctrine and practice, yet thank God they have never given up those fundamental truths which the soul needs for salvation before God. Popery is distinct enough as to all this. I was lately reading a Latin book on theology which I had the curiosity to examine, a modern work of ability, partly because printed in America by a Roman Catholic Archbishop. And not a little was I pleased, in the midst of feeling what a sorrowful system it is, to find greater tenacity about the foundation truth of God in that book than in many Protestant ones of our day. For instance, one of the works strongly condemned for their looseness of doctrine and heterodoxy is Barnes's Notes on the New Testament, a very popular book. I believe it has been published in Great Britain by various editors who are thought orthodox. But this Popish bishop is quite right, because Barnes denies the eternal Sonship of Christ; and although I should be sorry to express any opinion doubting the author's personal salvation (we have nothing to do with that which belongs to God), I have no hesitation in pronouncing the Protestant commentator unsound and Archbishop F. P. Kenrick justified in his strictures as far as that charge goes.

And again, who does not know that many have allowed themselves in unholy thoughts about Christ's humanity, where Popery has been quite consistently opposed? Anything like Irvingism would have been denounced by the standards of Popery, no less strenuously than Arianism and of course Unitarianism — which is only another word for infidelity. Thus whatever error directly touched the person or natures of Christ has found decided opposition from the theologians of Rome. For this one may thank God as keeping firm the basis of grace for the myriads of souls all over the world who have been entangled in that system. For surely so far as such errors go they are fatal. He who denies the supreme deity of Jesus, or His perfect humanity, is guilty of the deepest affront to God who gave His Son in infinite love, and has sent the Spirit to uphold and testify His glory. There is nothing in the Athanasian creed objectionable on this score. I believe it to be a singularly sound production, though not meaning by this that I should think it right to subscribe to it. I have long done with endorsing the dogmas of men, however excellent in themselves. At the same time, while not willing to bind myself to human definitions of faith, I am of opinion that, put forward merely as an exposition of truth on the human and divine natures in the person of Christ, it is admirable though perhaps too scholastic in form. As for the outcry about damnatory clauses, it is all a mistake. For our Lord Himself says, "He that believes not shall be damned." Does the Athanasian creed go farther than this? No doubt some who want to do away with that creed believe it: I should be sorry to think that they do not; but if so, it seems to me that they stumble over small things.

Between the Romanist and the Christian who believes that the system which the Romanist maintains is not the truth of God but a vast system of apostate error, two questions are at issue. One of these questions is, Are the doctrines which the Romanist system teaches true? The other is, What is the authority in which man can confide in order to know that he possesses the truth? In both, the Romanist system is really infidel. I say the system, because I do not deny that some poor ignorant soul may believe in spite of the system, though its faith be all but overwhelmed by its errors. A man's constitution may, through mercy, resist poison; but this does not say that the drug, from whose effect he has escaped with that constitution ruined, is not poison.

Here are two qualifications made: (1) Such as do not hold “this doctrine.” (2) Such as are ignorant of the subtlety of Satan. In other words, any Christians found in the Romish fold are Christians, not because of the system, but in spite of the system. If Satan has sought to destroy Christianity by covering paganism with a thin veneer of Christian teaching, thank God there is in that thin veneer something of the Word of God, which He can graciously use to the blessing of souls. Difficult as it is to get hold of the Word of God in Romish circles, still they outwardly acknowledge the Scriptures, and have at least the Douay Bible in their midst. They teach the Deity of the Lord Jesus, His gracious Manhood, His atoning work on the cross, and then spoil all this with their dogmas that so largely contradict the simplicity of the Gospel, and smother it under their ornate ritualism, their services largely conducted in the Latin tongue, not understood by the common people.

Yet in spite of all this God works in souls, and we are assured there are a number of sincere Christians in the Romish system.

We have had a fair sample of Protestant (I do not say Reformation) theology, which shows their loose and human idea of faith. Romanist, and perhaps one might add Catholic, views are no better. Hence the Tridentine depreciation of faith; hence the effort to bring in love and obedience and holiness in order to justification. They feel that there must be a moral element, and their reducing faith to an intellectual reception of propositions excludes it; so that they are driven to add other things to faith in order to satisfy themselves. All this turns on the great fundamental error that the thoroughgoing Papist makes faith in the Church the resting-place of his soul and the rule of faith, not the Scriptures, nor God revealed in Christ by them. If they carried out the error to its results, no Romanist could be saved; for he believes not God's word on God's authority, but Scripture and tradition on the Church's word. By his own principle he excludes faith in God, and could not truly believe unto life at all. Only through grace men may be better than their principle, as many, alas! are worse when the principle is of God. Believing Scripture as God's word, believing God in it, is of vital moment.363a

Let not the reader misunderstand us. We are not speaking of salvation, of eternal life, or of divine righteousness, but of the true ground of gathering, the divine principle on which the Lord's table should be spread, and the Lord's supper celebrated. Thousands of the Lord's beloved people have lived and died in the communion of the church of Rome; but the church of Rome is not the church of God, but a horrible apostasy; and the sacrifice of the mass is not the Lord's supper, but a marred, mutilated and miserable invention of the devil. If the question in the mind of the reader be merely what amount of error he can sanction without forfeiting his soul's salvation, it is useless to proceed with the grand and important subject before us.

35 Now, if it be a question for heathens or Jews — for them the whole question is, just how to be saved. If they believe and are baptized, they are saved, and members, it is to be supposed, of the true church, before they have discussed its merits at all. If it be a question which arises among Christians, who seek among Roman Catholics, and Protestants, and Presbyterians, and other bodies, where the true church is to be found; if, I say, the question arises among Christians, they have not all knowledge, doubtless, but they have saving faith, or they are not Christians at all; and hence, the truth is a most sure means of ascertaining the true church. Thus, if I know, as a matter of my own salvation, that the divinity and atonement of Christ are the very truth of God, and I found everything calling itself a church which denied these fundamental doctrines, I could at once say, That is not the true church. Souls may be ignorantly in error there — may come to the knowledge of the truth and be saved; but I cannot own the body as the true church of God.

This is a very grave question - I believe, the question - between us; yet I would not willingly say so; for I believe it to be the question between apostasy and the special point of truth now. But you have put yourselves on this ground: you deny either the sufficiency of scripture, or the grace of the Spirit to use it under the faithfulness of our blessed Head's love to the Church. On this, in all our weakness, we lean. You say, "If you say in the written word," well, the Socinian professes to find his there too. Did you never hear this from other mouths, arguing against Protestant platforms, or clergymen elsewhere? I tremble - nay, but it confirms my faith - when I see arrows drawn from such a quiver. You say, "Would you receive a Roman Catholic?" If a Roman Catholic really "extolled Jesus" as a Saviour, and His one sacrifice of Himself as the sole putting away of sin, he would have ceased to hold the error and delusion by which the enemy has misled some souls (who are still, I would trust, precious to Jesus), he would have ceased to be a Roman Catholic in the evil sense of the word; and on these terms only could he be with us.