s one
and only proper interpretation. Men have only come to think it "simple"
in modern days by desperately eliminating from it every element on which
all Protestants are not agreed. The residuum is indeed "simple." Only it
is not the New Testament theology! Dogmas such as that of the Blessed
Trinity, of the Procession of the Holy Ghost, of the nature of grace and
of sin--these, whether as held by orthodox or unorthodox, are at any
rate not simple, and it is merely untrue to say that Christ made no
statements on these points, however they may be understood. Further, it
is merely untrue to say that Protestant theology is "simple"; it is
every whit as elaborate as Catholic theology and considerably more
complex in those points in which Protestant divines are not agreed. The
controversies on Justification in which such men as Calvin and Luther,
with their disciples, continually engaged are fully as complicated as
any disputations on Grace between Jesuits and Dominicans.

Yet the general contention is plain enough--that on the whole the
Catholic is bound to believe a certain set of dogmas, while the
Protestant is free to accept or reject them. Therefore, it is argued,
the Protestant is "free" and the Catholic is not. And this brings us
straight to the consideration of the relations between Authority and
Liberty.

II. What, then, is Religious Liberty? It is necessary to begin by
forming some idea as to what it is that is meant by the word in other
than religious matters.

Very briefly it may be said that an individual enjoys social liberty
when he is able to obey and to use the laws and powers of his true
nature, and that a community enjoys it when all its members are able to
do so without interfering unduly one with the other. The more complete
is this ability, the more perfect is Liberty.

A remarkable paradox at once presents itself--that Liberty can only be
secured by Laws. Where there are no laws, or too few, to secure it,
slavery immediately appears, no less surely than when there are too
many; for the stronger individuals are, by the absence of law, enabled
to tyrannize over the weaker. Even the vast and complex legislation of
our own days is designed to increase and not to fetter liberty, and its
greater complexity is necessitated by the greater complexity and the
more numerous interrelationships of modern society. Laws, of course, may
be unwise or excessively minute or deliberately enslaving; yet this does
not