#11   ti I; /
THE
DIFFERENCE
POPERY AND PROTESTANTISM.
IN A LETTER TO AN INQUIRING FRIEND.
BY "KIRWAN."
PHILADELPHIA:
PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION,
No. 265 CIIESTNIJT SRTEET.
I
-i
BETWEEN
.1 
ox
l  i.-~-~'    I    t,
Stereotyped by Wm. S. SI:OT9, No. 19 St. James Street,
Philadelphia. 
No. 88.
A
TIHE
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
POPERY AND PROTESTANTISM.
MY DEAR SIR — You were educated in the church of Rome,
and until recently you have received all its dogmas and
teachings as true.   You have been providentially led to
question the truth of much that you once received with unwavering faith, and to feel that the religion of your fathers
and of your youth is not the religion which God has revealed for the acceptance and the salvation of men. Because you possess not the means, nor the information for
making the comparison yourself, you ask of me, for the
purpose of aiding you in your inquiries after the truth, a
brief statement of the difference between Popery and Protestantism. Most cheerfully do I yield to your request: and
most earnestly do I pray that you may be brought from
darkness to light, and from the bondage of a gloomy superstition into the glorious liberty of the children of God. The
points of difference are numerous and various; but for your
purpose and mine, it will be only necessary to indicate a few
of them.
1. They differ as to what is the church. The Papist
makes it to consist of all who submit to Christ and the Pope;
the Protestant, of all who submit to Christ. However holy
in heart, or consecrated in life, all Christians who believe not
in the Pope, are heretics and schismatics in the view of Po.
pery, and are to be regarded as infidels, Turks, and Jews!
To belong to the church of Jesus Christ, it is as necessary to
believe in the Pope as to believe on Jesus Christ? Can any
mind, save one dyed in the mingled compound of darknes
and bigotry, believe this? 
3
.1 
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
2. They difer as to the rule offaith and practice.   The
Protestant asserts that the word of God is the only and the
infallible rule of faith and practice. The Papist teaches that
"it is not merely the written word of God, but the whole
word of God both written and unwritten; in other words,
Scripture and tradition, and these propounded and explained
by the Catholic church."
This is a wide difference. The decisions of that small
book called the Bible are final with every Protestant. This
the Papist denies, and pronounces it a damning error. His
rule of faith is, first the Bible, then the Apocrypha, then
the traditions -the beginning and the end of which no
mortal knows-then the decisions and decrees of councils,
and then the interpretation of these by the church. And
whether "by the church" is meant the Pope, or a council,
or the Pope and council, is not yet determined. If, in some
things, the Protestant rule of faith is difficult to be understood,
the rule of the Papist is utterly beyond human comprehen.
sion.
3. They differ as to the use of the Bible. Protestants regard the Bible as the revealed will of God to man-to every
man. And hence they vindicate the right of every living
man to read for himself, and on his own individual responsibility to God to decide as to what it teaches, and as to what
the Lord would have him to believe and to do.  But Popery
prohibits the general circulation of the Bible; forbids its perusal, save by those who in its opinion will not be injured by
it; and supplants it among its adherents by prayer-books and
missals and manuals of devotion, whose object is to supplant
the religion of the Bible by the religion of the pri6st.  Pro.
testantism keeps burning brightly before you the light which
God has kindled in our world for the guidance of our race,
and teaches you to walk by it. Popery curses you for so
doing, removes that light, kindles up its own, and sends you
to perdition unless you walk by its dim and flickering rays.
4. They differ as to the sole obect of worship.  The Bible
teaches the unity of the Godhead.  In this the Papist appa.
rently unites with the Protestant. But while the Protestant
unites with the Bible in denouncing all worship offered to any
being save God, or even to God by the intervention of paint.
ings, pictures, or sculpture; Popery, on the contrary, teaches
that divine worship is due to the Virgin Mary, to the true
4
IV 
POPERY AND PROTESTANTISM.
cross, to the little piece of baked dough called the host, and
that religious adoration is to be paid to angels, to departed
saints, and even to relics-old bones collected from the catacombs, and, for the sake of raising their price in the bonemarket, said to be the bones of saints and martyrs.
5. They differ as to the nature of sin. Want of conformity unto, or transgression of the divine law, is the only sin
known to the Bible or forbidden in its pages. Sin is a transgression of the divine law. So Protestants believe and teach.
But Popery teaches, that to transgress its commands is sin,
and sin of the most aggravated character. It places its com.
mands in importance above the laws of God. It is far more
sinful to break Good Friday, than the Sabbath day; to eat
meat on Friday, than to get drunk on Sunday; to enter a
Protestant place of worship, than to go to the theatre; to read
king James's Bible, than to pore over Sue's novels; to deny
the infallibility of the Pope, than to burn heretics; for a priest
to get married like Peter, than to keep a mistress like Herod.
The violation of many of the laws of God it makes a venial
offence, while it pours the vials of its anathemas upon the
contemners of its precepts, and sends them to burn for ages
in purgatorial fires, or for ever in the fires of hell. It makes
that to be a light sin which God makes a most grievous one,
and makes that to be a sin which is a positive virtue. Thus
it makes void the law of God.
6. They differ as to the agency by which the sinner is re.
newed. The need of this renewal is thus taught: " Except
a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."
The agency by which this work is effected i& thus taught:
"The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Hioly
Ghost." It requires the power which originally created man
from the dust to new-create the human soul, to re-instamp on
it the lost image of God. But Popery teaches, that faith
with the other graces is infused into our hearts in baptism,
and that they are all nurtured up to maturity by confirmation,
penance, fasts, alms, the mass, and other things taught as
doctrines, which are only the commandments of men. So
that the Christian of the Protestant is made by God-the
Christian of the Papist, by man.   And the practical difference between them is oftentimes as great as is the theoretic
difference as to the agency by which they are begotten anew-,
5 
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
If, on the Papal theory, the priest refuses to baptize, how
can God make a Christian?
7. They differ as to the way in which a sinner is saved.
When a sinner asks a Protestant what he must do to be saved,
he tells him to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and he shall
be saved. Jesus Christ came into our world to seek and to
save the lost. He came not to call the righteous, but sinners
to repentance; and he invites all the weary and heavy
laden to himself for rest. As the blood of Christ cleanses
from all sin, the Protestant sends the inquiring sinner directly
to Christ, and tells him that if he believes in Christ he shall
be saved.  But the-Papist tells him to go to confession to the
priest, to do penance, to go to mass, to partake of the eucha.
rist, to give alms.especially to the priest-to keep the holy
days; and he enjoins a round of bodily service as onerous
as it is unscriptural, and which, however long continued,
leaves him utterly in the dark as to whether or not his many
sins are forgiven. He has nothing but the word of the priest
to direct or to comfort him. Is it not a wide difference
whether in such a momentous affair, we have the direction
of man and the comfort which he gives, or the direction of
God and the comfort which flows from  the direct acting of
faith upon Christ, and the appropriating of his work by faith?
8. They differ as to the mediation of Christ, as our Redeemer, with the Father.  There is nothing more plainly
taught in the Bible, than that Christ is the only "mediator
between God and man."  "If any man sin, w~ have an ad.
vocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous."* And
him the Fatlrr heareth always. This is the received doctrine of the Protestant world. Yet this part of the work of
Christ is forgotten by Popery, and his mediation is thrown
into the shade by the mediation of Mary, of Peter, and Paul;
of the holy monks and hermits; of the holy martyrs, and
virgins, and widows; of the holy doctors, bishops, and confessors; some of whom were men of God, and many of whom
were men of Belial. And thus Popery turns us away from
Christ, the only and all-sufficient Mediator, who is every
where present to hear, and whose mediation is always preva.
lent, and sends us to creatures like ourselves, of limited pow.
ers, however holy, and who, if on earth at all, or near it,
can hear but one at a time. There are many cases recorded
6
I 
POPERY AND PROTE5TANTISM.
in the history of the nations of Europe, in which desperate
men, giving up all hope of escaping the penalty of the law,
sought to bribe the ministers of justice, or to enlist the pardoning power in their behalfthrough the queen and ladies of
the court. Can this be the reason why the Pope, bishops,
and priests all over the earth, are now crowding around
Mary, and are desexting the mediatorial throne of her glorious
and glorified Son,. rho is exalted to give repentance to Israel,
and remission of sins?
9. They differ as to the state into which souls go, on their
departurefrom  the body.  The soul of Lazarus, when he
died, went to Abraham's bosom, only another name for
heaven: the soul of the rich man went to hell. When Ste
phen was dying, he saw, through the opened heavens, Jesus
standing at the right hand of God. Christ said to his sorrowing disciples, when he announced to them that his de.
parture was near, that he was going to prepare a place for
them, that where he was, there they might be also.  The
uniform opinion of the Protestant world is, that at death
the righteous go to heaven, and the wicked to hell. But Ppery teaches that the souls of the pious, after death, go to a
place called purgatory, which is neither heaven nor hell, but
some place between them, where they are purified by suffer.
ings more or less protracted, and make satisfaction more or
less complete for remaining sins; and that the power of the
Church, the efficacy of alms by their relatives, and the in fluences ofrmasses offered up, are greatly instrumental in
shortening the period of their torn ents, and in delivering them
from these awful fires.
This you will perceive is a very-wide difference. This
purgatory of Popery, the keys of whose doors are in, the
hands of the priests, is a fearful affair. It is based on the
great error, that the blood of Christ is not sufficient to cleanse
from all sin. It is an iniquitous delusion, devised by the
priests in the dark ages, for the purpose of extorting money
from poor ignorant Papists. Nothing but the doctrine of
the infallibility of the church, which stereotypes error, and
which is so shamelessly maintained in opposition to a world
full of evidence to disprove it, prevents even the priests them selves from casting it out as a loathsome and nefarious delu sion. - This is the market in which souls are the merchan.
dize, and priests are the brokers.
7 
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
10. They difer as to the object of saving faith.   The
Bible makes Jesus Christ this object. He that believeth in
the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved.  "He that believeth
in the Son hath life; he that believeth not the Son, shall not
see life."  "This is the work of God, that ye believe on him
whom he hath sent." In accordance with this is the teach
ing of the Protestant world.  But Popery says, "You must
believe all and every article, every point the Catholic Church
requires you to believe."  It also tells you, "by wilfully
erring, or denying one article of your faith, you destroy your
whole belief." That is, you may believe truly in Christ)
and in all the Bible and the Church teach, save one dogma
of the Church-as for instance, purgatory, or the infallibility
of the Pope, or transubstantiation-yet, if you fail to believe
any or either of these, "you destroy your whole belief,"
and you are lost! Is not this awful? you are lost for not
believing a lie!
11. They difer in their manner of worship. When
Christ and his apostles were in the world, their great object
was to instruct the people-to teach them the doctrines which
they should believe, and the duties they should perform.
And when the Saviour sent out his disciples, it was with the
command to "preach the gospel to every creature."   They
were endowed with the gift of tongues,. so as to preach
the gospel to all people in a language which they could understand.   And  hence  Protestants, in every part of the
world, adapt every part of their worship to the uniderstanding
of the people. Hymns of praise are sung, prayer is made,
the Bible is read, in the language of the people. How different from all this is the worship of Popery. Its prayers
are in Latin, which perhaps neither the priest nor one of the
people understands-its chantings are in the same language,
and so is its whole round of ceremony; the Mass, a most
unmeaning mass of nonsense, fills up the greater part of the
time; and if a word is uttered in your native tongue from
the beginning to the end, it is-especially in purely Papal
countries-a brief eulogy on some saint, or a brief exhortation to some superstitious observance. The worship of Pro.
testants has for its chief ends the instruction, the conversion,
-the edification of the people; that of Papists overlooks all
these, and fills up its hours of worship with a round of ceremonies as unmeaning as they are unscriptural, and which are
8 
POPERY AND PROTESTANTISM.
far more Pagan than Christian. Protestants know what they
worship; Papists do not.
12. They differ as to the power of the ministry.  Protestant ministers simply occupy the place which the Bible assigns them. They are set apart for the preaching of the
word, the administration of ordinances, and the edifying of
the body of Christ.  They work no miracles, perform no
charms or exorcisms, forgive no sins, absolve none from
punishment. They preach salvation, through faith in Jesus
Christ, to all men; they teach all men the revealed truth of
God, and assure them, that by a heartfelt belief of that truth.
and a life in accordance with it, they shall be saved. Far
different from this are the powers claimed by Papal priests.
They regenerate by baptism-they require you to confess to
them all your sins-they determine the character of those
sins as mortal or venial-they affix to each the kind and de.
gree of penance they see fit-they absolve you or not at their
pleasure-they create Christ, and offer him in sacrifice in the
massand when you die, they fit you for death by rubbing
you with olive-oil-they then send you to hell or purgatory,
as they see fit; if to purgatory, they promise to get you out
by masses proportioned, both as to price and number, to the
ability of your friends to pay for them. The Protestant minister points you to heaven by a way which, like the ways
that led to the cities of refuge in Israel, is open, straight, and
unobstructed; upon the Papal way thie priest erects his many
gates, and will not let you pass one without a heavy toll.
He carries at his girdle the keys of heaven and hell, and
claims the power of sending you to the one place or the
other at pleasure! Is not this a wide difference'
13. They differ as to what constitutes true piety in the
sight of God. The Bible says much about being "born
again;" being "renewed in the spirit of our minds;" being
"created anew in Christ Jesus."  These changes it attributes
to the Spirit, as the agent that produces them.   The love of
God which presided in the heart of Adam, as he came from
the hand of his Creator, was dethroned by his disobedience,
and the love of sin and of self went up to its vacant seat. All
true Protestants agree that the change indicated by the above
texts, consists in restoring the love of God to its rightful place
as the presiding affection of the soul. When, by the Holy
Spirit, the love of God is shed abroad in the heart, then the
9
.1 
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
individual is "born again," is "renewed in the spirit of his
mind," is "created anew in Christ Jesus."  And this is, in
the estimation of the Protestant, the main element of all true
piety. This is a change at the fountain of all moral-action,
and influences all the conduct towards God and man.
How different from this is piety in the estimation of the
Papist!  It consists in obedience to the church-in submis.
sion to her laws-in attention to her ordinances-in the punc tual performance of the ceremonies which she enjoins. If
the Papist keeps lent piously, he may sin as he lists at the
carnival-if he love the Pope, he may hate Protestants-if
he fasts on Friday, he may feast on Sunday.   The piety of
the Protestant consists in a heart right in the sight of God,
prompting to right conduct toward all men; that of the Pa.
pist consists in an external obedience to prescribed ceremo.
nial rites. And when we remember that God looks not upon
the outward appearance, but upon the heart, this is a wide
difference. When the Jews, because of the strictness of their
external observances, seemed to themselves, and to others, to
be very pious, then it was that the Saviour pronounced them
" white-washed sepulchres," and accused them of converting
the house of God into a den of thieves. St. Ignatius made
the life or death of a Moor who was riding before him to turn
upon the point whether he should take one or the other of
two roads, and bishops and cardinals have often gone out
from what were apparently the most fervent devotions, to
burn heretics. The piety of Popery is fanaticism; that of
Protestants consists in the exercise of love to God and man.
That of the Protestant is guided by the Bible; that of the
Papist, by the church and the priest.
14. They difer as to the Sacraments.  Protestants, taking
the Bible for their rule of faith, believe in only two sacra.
ments, baptism and the Lord's supper. By that of baptism,
we are admitted to membership in the visible church; and
in the Lord's supper, we commemorate the death of Christ,
in obedience to his command, "This do, in remembrance
of me." Every thing here is simple and scriptural. But
Popery makes seven sacraments; baptism, confirmation, the
eucharist, penance, extreme unction, holy orders, and matri.
mony. - And the administration of these is accompanied by
a round of ceremony as farcical as it is unscriptural, as unmeaning as it is absurd. As an illustration of all, take the
10
I 
POPERY AND PROTESTANTISm.
ceremony connected with baptism.  The water must have
been blessed on the vigils of Easter and Whit-Sunday; the
priest blows thrice in the face of the person to drive out Sa.
tan-he then makes on his face and breast the sign of the
cross-he then puts blessed salt into his mouth-he then "by
solemn prayer and exorcisms" casts out the devil-he thea
lays on him " the extremity of his stole"-he then puts spit.
tle into his ears-he then anoints him upon the breast and
between the shoulders with holy oil-he then pours water
upon his head three times in the form of a cross-he then
anoints the top of his head with holy chrism, in the form of
a cross-he then puts a white cloth upon his head-then a
lighted candle in his hand, then he is baptized. And ail concludes, if the subject is a child, with an admonition to the parents, "not to let the child lie in the same bed with them or
with the nurse, for fear of its being overlaid!" And sub.
limely absurd and foolish as all this is, it is the highest sense
compared with the ceremonies of the eucharist, in which the
priest creates Christ out of a wafer, and while he drinks the
wine himself; gives only the wafer to the people! It is
through its seven sacraments that Popery debases and en slaves its people.
15. They entirely differ as systems of salvatin. You
are new an inquirer after the way of salvation. You feet
that you are a sinner-that as such you deserve eternal
death-that your feet are sliding on slippery places-and feel.
ing that if your soul is lost, all is lost, the momentous ques tion is on your lips, " What shall I do to be saved?"  Pro testantism has but one answer to the question: "Believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved."  And while
giving you this answer, it puts the Bible into your hands as
the only infallible guide in the way to glory. About all this
there is no mystery, no priestly interference, no tax for the
bread and water of life. Christ laid down his life to save
sinners; and whosoever believes on him shall be saved, be  cause his blood cleanses all who believe in his name from all
sin. It was only when the last sands of life were running it
his glass, that the dying thief believed on Jesus; and yet
Jesus cheered his last moments by shedding down upon him
the sunlight of heaven in the blessed promise, "This day
shalt thou be with me in paradise." Such is true Protestant  ism, every where, as a system of salvation.
But how different from all this is the system of Popery,
iI 
I12 TIE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN POPERY AND PROTESTANTISM.
It takes from you the Bible, and sends you to the priest. In.
stead of sending you to God with the confession of your sins,
it sends you to the priest. Your rule of faith is the Church,
and the priest tells you.what the Church teaches. If you
believe all the Bible, and believe fully in Christ as a Saviour,
yet, if you reject any thing taught you by the priest as a doc.
trine of the Church, your faith is vain. It converts repentance into penance; and penance it converts into an awful
sacrament, which puts you as effectually into the power of
the priest, as is the bird caught in a net in the power of the
fowler.  And after burdening your conscience with ceremo
nial sins-after burdening your life with ceremonial observances-fter enveloping you in the mists of her mysteries,
and stupefying your senses with her gorgeous ritual-after
draining your purse to enrich her priests-after so perverting
your moral vision as to induce you to regard every person
not a Papist as smitten by the anger of heaven, and as an
heir of perdition, it only fits you after all, for purgatory,
where you may burn for ages in purifying fires before you
are fitted for heaven! Such are Protestantism and Popery.
As maps of the way to eternal life, the one is as simple as
truth, and as clear as the sun; the other is involved beyond
comprehension, and as dark and remorseless as the grave.
The one is the truth as it is in Jesus, the other is a damnable
delusion. The aim and end of the one is to save your soul;
of the other, to increase the power and riches of the priest.
Such, my friend, are some of the points of difference be.
tween Protestantism and Popery. Were it necessary, I might
multiply these points of difference. But I have said enough
to show you that Popery is a delusion, a fable, opposed in all
its essential points to Christianity, and unworthy of a moment's confidence; and that true Protestantism is the religion
of t.he Bible, which consults only the welfare of the sinner,
and which sends him directly to the blood of Jesus Christ for
salvation.
Let me request of you, in closing this epistle, to give up all
matters of controversy; to forget every thing but that you
are a great sinner, and that Jesus is an Almighty Saviour; and
to go to him at once, humbly and fervently, saying, " Lord,
I believe; help thou my unbelief." And you have this pro.
mnise to encourage you: " Him that cometab unto me, I will
in no wise cast out."
Yours most truly,                   KIRWAN.