True Testimony Insufficient for the Protestant View
“I then said, that the more fully the imputations which were cast upon us were examined, the more unfounded they would turn out to be; so that the great Tradition on which we are persecuted is little short of one vast pretence or fiction.”
“Hence Protestants are obliged to cut their ninth commandment out of their Decalogue. “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour” must go, must disappear; their position requires the sacrifice.”
“The substance, the force, the edge of their Tradition is slander.”
“To Protestantism False Witness is the principle of propagation.”
“Taking things as they are, and judging of them by the long run, one may securely say, that the anti-Catholic Tradition could not be kept alive, would die of exhaustion, without a continual supply of fable.”
” The Tradition requires bold painting; its prominent outline, its glaring colouring, needs to be a falsehood.”
“If truth had been sufficient to put down Catholicism, the Reformers would not have had recourse to fiction.”
“Errors indeed creep in by chance, whatever be the point of inquiry or dispute; but I am not accusing Protestants merely of incidental or of attendant error, but I mean that falsehood is the very staple of the views which they have been taught to entertain of us.”
Should I keep going? I think I can easily sum up Cardinal Newman’s quotes above (drawn from just the first two paragraphs of his lecture): Protestants have to lie.
I gather that Newman’s accusatory tone towards the faith of the Reformers, with their motivations, and his writing of their disagreements off as “fictions”, “bearing false witness”, “slander”, “fable”, “falsehoods” and your word, “lie”, only demonstrates a furtive and desperate need to rationalize his abandonment of the faith he was raised in. In reality, the Reformation brought to the fore many of the abuses, false doctrines, depravities and wrongs that the Roman Catholic Church allowed to creep in and continue.
No, Protestants don’t “have to lie”. I don’t claim to always be right, but I do not intentionally lie or mislead nor have I seen much evidence of others here you so callously brand as “anti-Catholic Protestants”. I believe the gospel of Jesus Christ, as found in the sacred Scriptures speaks for itself and the heart that God has prepared to hear it and receive it certainly will. As a former Roman Catholic, I recognized that what I had been taught was not the true gospel and I realized that not by the persuasions of another person but by the very word of God. Jesus said, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand.” (John 10:27-28). I knew I had found the truth and I have never regretted it.