ments have been brought
in, so that the religion established by Christ is obscured or lost. For
Protestants the Bible only now becomes the infallible, inspired
authority in faith and morals. Interpretations by the Fathers or by the
councils are to be taken only as aids to its understanding. With this
principle is associated a second, the liberty of the individual; he
reads the sacred Scriptures and interprets them for himself without the
intervention of priests or church; and he enters by faith in Christ into
communion with God, so that all believers are priests. Here may be noted
a fundamental difference in the psychology of religion, since in the
Roman Church the chief appeal is to the emotions, while in the Reformed
it is to the intelligence. Yet this appeal to the intelligence is not
rationalism: the latter makes reason the supreme authority, rejecting
all which does not conform to it; the Bible is treated like any other
book, to be accepted or rejected in part or in whole as it agrees with
our canons of logic and our general science, while religion submits to
the same process as do other departments of knowledge. But in
Protestantism reason and the light of nature are in themselves as
impotent as in the Roman Church. The Bible interpreted by man's unaided
intelligence is as valueless as other writings, but it has a sacramental
value when the Holy Spirit accompanies its teaching, and the power of
God uses it and makes the soul capable of holiness. In all this the
supernatural is as vividly realized as in the Roman Church; it is only
its mediation which is different.

Protestantism.

These principles are variously worked out in the different churches and
variously expressed. In part because of historical circumstances, the
divergence from the older systems is more marked in some Protestant
churches than in others, yet on the whole these two principles
determine cult and in part organization. As in the Roman Church cult
centres in the mass, so in the Reformed Church it centres in the sermon.
The Holy Spirit, the determining factor in the religious life, uses the
Bible as his means, and calls the intelligence into action. The
clergyman is primarily the preacher, renewed by God's power and
enlightened by the Spirit, so that he speaks with divine authority. The
ancient Jewish prophetic office is revived, yet with a difference: the
ancient prophets acknowledged no external authority, but the Protestant
preacher is s