Tea at Trianon: Tim Challies: A Modern-Day Rev. Hyde

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, October 4, 2022

Tim Challies: A Modern-Day Rev. Hyde

From Tom Piatak at American Remnant:

In Dominus Iesus, the future Benedict XVI wrote that “those who are baptized in these communities are, by Baptism, incorporated in Christ and thus are in a certain communion, albeit imperfect, with the Church.”

In other words, the Catholic Church recognizes the vast majority of Protestants to be Christians. So do I.

Indeed, I am far more worried about the eternal fate of Catholics who leave the Church than Protestants who, in good faith, never become Catholics. Of course, I am delighted when anyone crosses the Tiber, and I applaud their courage in following the path of truth to its only terminus. But I think God still saves many of those who come nowhere near the terminus, provided that they sincerely follow Him and do not repudiate the Truth once they fully understand It. Even before Vatican II, Catholic theologians recognized that faithful Protestants’ undoubted belief in Christ and earnest desire to follow his example would help them to work out their salvation “in fear and trembling,” just as St. Paul worked out his and Catholics work out theirs.

Proselytism, of the type advocated by Challies for Catholics and other unbelievers, can also be an ineffective if not offensive way to evangelize. The first time a born-again Christian tried to convert me, for instance, the emotions I felt radiating from this would-be evangelizer were arrogance and disdain, not love and joy. (Read more.)