======================================================================== WRITINGS OF IAN R K PAISLEY by Ian R.K. Paisley ======================================================================== A collection of theological writings, sermons, and essays by Ian R.K. Paisley, compiled for study and devotional reading. Chapters: 110 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TABLE OF CONTENTS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. 00.00. Paisley, Ian R. K. - Library 2. 01.00. A Concise Guide Bible Christianity and Romanism 3. 01.01. Introduction (1-6) 4. 01.02. The Bible (9-23) 5. 01.03. The Pope (24-42) 6. 01.04. The Sacraments (43-51) 7. 01.05. Confirmation (53-54) 8. 01.06. The Lord's Supper (55-78) 9. 01.07. Holy Orders And Priesthood (79-94) 10. 01.08. Matrimony (95-97) 11. 01.09. Sin (98-107) 12. 01.10. The Forgiveness of Sins (108-122) 13. 01.11. Indulgences (123-127) 14. 01.12. Penance (128-141) 15. 01.13. Purgatory (142-159) 16. 01.14. Mariolatry (160-187) 17. 01.15. Saints, Angels, Image Worship (188-208) 18. 01.16. Rome and the Reformation (210-213) 19. 01.17. Patrick (214-228) 20. 01.18. Ecumenism (229-240) 21. 02.000. The Errores of Rome 22. 02.001. Development of Papacy from Gregory to Boniface 23. 02.002. Put Limbo into Limbo 24. 02.003. Paul VI and Aldo Moro 25. 02.005. Father Christmas Bones 26. 02.006. The Tainted Saint 27. 02.007. Canonising John Paul 28. 02.008. Rome Reaps What Sows 29. 02.009. The ‘Hell of Nuns’ 1 30. 02.010. The ‘Hell of Nuns’ 2 31. 02.011. Padre Pio Shrine 32. 02.012. Unlikely Nun Supremo 33. 02.013. Rome's Secret Weapon 34. 02.014. The Irish Republicans 35. 02.015. Irish Brigade In Italy 36. 02.016. Pope's Irish Brigade 37. 02.017. Why Pope Benedict XVI? 38. 02.018. Where Rome Is Wrong 1 39. 02.019. Where Rome Is Wrong 2 40. 02.020. Where Rome Is Wrong 3 41. 02.021. Athanasius ... Genius? 42. 02.022. 1st Pillar of Popery 1 43. 02.023. 1st Pillar of Popery 2 44. 02.024. 1st Pillar of Popery 3 45. 02.025. 1st Pillar of Popery 4 46. 02.026. 1st Pillar of Popery 5 47. 02.027. Mandatory Celibacy 48. 02.028. The Demon of Celibacy 49. 02.029. What is the Individual 50. 02.030. Infallibility of Pope 51. 02.031. The Jesuits 52. 02.032. Cult of Mary - 1 53. 02.033. Cult of Mary - 2 54. 02.034. Advance of Romanism: 1 55. 02.035. Advance of Romanism: 2 56. 02.036. Confess: Modern Sodom 57. 02.037. The Perils of Popery 58. 02.038. Purgatory Pickpocket 59. 02.039. An Exposure of Popery 60. 02.040. Popish Miracles 61. 02.041. Punishment Of Heretics 62. 02.042. The Eucharist, Or Mass 63. 02.043. Doctrine Of Oaths 64. 02.044. Who Intercedes? - 1 65. 02.045. Who Intercedes? - 2 66. 02.046. Who Intercedes? - 3 67. 02.047. Who Intercedes? - 4 68. 02.048. Who Intercedes? - 5 69. 02.049. Who Intercedes? - 6 70. 02.050. Monasteries + Convents 71. 02.051. Holy Orders 72. 02.052. Rome's Rejection 73. 02.053. Virgin Worship 74. 02.054. The Jesuits 75. 02.055. Saints And Angels 76. 02.056. Duties Of Protestants 77. 02.057. Condition / Prospects 78. 02.058. The Inquisition 79. 02.059. Popish Confirmation 80. 02.060. Popish Baptism 81. 02.061. Rome's Literary Policy 82. 02.062. Justification 83. 02.063. Clerical Celibacy 84. 02.064. Indulgences 85. 02.065. Image Worship 86. 02.066. Extreme Unction 87. 02.067. Catholic Unity 88. 02.068. Communion In One Kind 89. 02.069. Merit of Good Works 90. 02.070. Auricular Confession 91. 02.080. The Rule of Faith 92. 02.081. Papal Infallibility 93. 02.082. Luther Speak 94. 02.083. Ten Commandments 95. 02.084. Jesuit Oath Exposed 96. 02.085. Imagery - I 97. 02.086. Imagery - II 98. 02.087. Antichrist to Light 99. 02.088. Saint Worship 100. 02.089. Scarlet Woman 101. 02.090. Indulgences - Tetzel 102. 02.091. Christ and Pope 103. 02.092. Relics of Rome 104. 02.093. Refuge of Lies 105. 02.094. Papal Infallibility 106. 02.095. Rome's Immorality 107. 02.096. Infallibility 108. 02.097. Rome Unchanging 109. 02.098. True Papal Church 110. 02.099. The Mass ======================================================================== CHAPTER 1: 00.00. PAISLEY, IAN R. K. - LIBRARY ======================================================================== Paisley, Ian R. K. - Library Paisley, Ian R. K. - A Concise Guide Bible Christianity Romanism Paisley, Ian, R. K. - The Errors of Roman ======================================================================== CHAPTER 2: 01.00. A CONCISE GUIDE BIBLE CHRISTIANITY AND ROMANISM ======================================================================== A Concise Guide To Bible Christianity And Romanism Compiled by Dr. Ian R.K. Paisley 01Introduction (1-6) 1. Where do Christians get their faith? 2. What is the Bible? 3. How do Christians know that the Bible is the Word of God? 4. Who is a Christian? 5. What is the Church? 6. What is the Free Presbyterian Church? 02The Bible (9-23) 9. What does the Free Presbyterian Church teach concerning the reading of the Bible? 10. Did the Church of Rome give the Bible to all her members to read? 11. How did the Roman Index of Prohibited Books define the act of reading the Bible? 12. If a member of the Church of Rome possessed a copy of the Bible without such permission, what was the penalty? 13. How has Rome treated the Bible? 14. Is Rome the preserver of the Bible? ... 03The Pope (24-42) 23. Did Jesus Christ appoint an earthly Head to His Church? 24. What is the claim of Rome in regard to the Head of the Church on earth? 25. What is the official teaching of Rome on the Pope? 26. What text in Matthew’s Gospel does the Church of Rome use to support her claims for St. Peter being the first Pope? 27. Were the Fathers unanimous in their interpretation of the Scripture? 28. What other Scripture in Matthew’s Gospel does Rome quote to support her claim that Peter was the first Pope? ... 04The Sacraments (43-51) 43. What does Rome teach about the Sacraments? 44. Which are the Sacraments of the New Testament? 45. How may Sacraments are there according to Rome? 46. What does Rome teach in regard to what is necessary for the validity of a Sacrament? 47. Does Rome’s Doctrine of Intention not put uncertainty upon all her religious Sacraments and works? 48. What is Baptism? ... 05Confirmation (53-54) 53. What does Rome teach about Confirmation? 54. Why do we reject Rome’s Confirmation as a Sacrament? 06The Lord’s Supper (55-78) 55. What is the Lord’s Supper? 56. What does the word ’Eucharist’ mean? 57. How does the Church of Rome define the Eucharist? 58. What is the teaching of Rome with regard to the bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper? 59. Has the Church of Rome always taught this doctrine? 60. What has Rome built upon the doctrine of Transubstantiation? ... 07Holy Orders And Priesthood (79-94) 79. What, according to Rome, is meant by Holy Orders? 80. What functions does Rome actually claim for her priests? 81. What special powers does Rome ascribe to her priests? 82. Does Rome hold that priests irrespective of their morality have these transcendent powers? 83. Is there any authority in the Scripture for the doctrine of Rome concerning the priesthood? 84. What is the only mediatorial priesthood recognised in the New Testament? ... 08Matrimony (95-97) 95. What is Matrimony according to the Church of Rome? 96. Is Matrimony presented as a Sacrament in the New Testament? 97. What does the Free Presbyterian Church believe concerning marriage? 09Sin (98-107) 98. What is sin? 99. Are all sins equally wicked? 100. What does every sin deserve? 101. How does Rome divide sins? 102. How does Rome define mortal sins and venial sins? 103. What sins does Rome call mortal? ... 10The Forgiveness of Sins (108-122) 108. If the wages of sin is death is salvation possible? 109. What did Christ do in order to meet the claims of divine justice and secure salvation? 110. Was Christ’s Work as a Saviour complete, or did it need to be supplemented in any way by the work of man? 111. Are repentance and faith necessary on the part of the sinner? 112. What is faith in Jesus Christ? 113. What is repentance? ... 11Indulgences (123-127) 123. What does Rome hold as to Indulgences? 124. On what is the doctrine of Indulgences founded? 125. To what purpose is the spiritual treasury to be applied? 126. Name any object for which an Indulgence may be bought. 127. Does Rome issue Indulgences for the dead? 12Penance (128-141) 128. What does Rome teach concerning Penance? 129. What does Rome teach about the necessity of Penance? 130. By whom must Penance be administered? 131. How often must the Sacrament be administered? 132. What are the component parts of Penance? 133. When was Penance first considered a Sacrament by the Church of Rome? ... 13Purgatory (142-159) 142. What is Purgatory according to Rome? 143. On what two false pillars does Purgatory rest? 144. Explain Matthew 5:25-26 and show that it cannot possibly prove Purgatory. 145. How do you interpret 1 Corinthians 3:13-15? 146. What are the pretensions of the Church of Rome as to the relief of souls in Purgatory? 147. How do Romanists obtain Indulgences? ... 14Mariolatry (160-187) 160. What worship does the Church of Rome teach should be given to the mother of our Lord? 161. What are the grounds on which Rome bases this worship of Mary? 162. Did Rome always hold the doctrine of Mary’s Immaculate Conception? 163. In this doctrine taught in the New Testament or was it known in the early church? 164. What did St. Alphonsus Ligouri teach about those who do not worship and serve Mary? 165. Give the terms of Rome’s Decree declaring Mary’s Immaculate Conception? ... 15Saints, Angels, Image Worship (188-208) 188. What does the word ’saint’ mean in the New Testament? 189. Is the term used in an unscriptural manner even by Protestants? 190. How does Rome create her saints? 191. Prove that Rome teaches praying to and worship of angels and saints. 192. Why must we regard this doctrine of Rome? 193. What does Rome teach concerning images? ... 16Rome and the Reformation (210-213) 210. What was the reason for the Reformation? 211. How did Rome react? 212. Did the Reformation involve, as Rome asserts, heresy and schism? 213. Has the term ’Protestant’ a negative aspect and a positive aspect? 17Patrick (214-228) 214. Was Patrick the founding father of the Christian Church in Ireland? 215. How did Rome react? 216. Was Patrick sent to Ireland by the Pope? 217. What brought Patrick to Ireland? 218. Where do we find the teaching of Patrick? 219. What is the basis for the teaching contained in Patrick’s Confession and Epistle? 18Ecumenism (229-240) 229. What is Ecumenism? 230. How is Ecumenism organised internationally? 231. How is it organised in these Islands? 232. What is the declared purpose of COCBI? 233. What Churches and religious bodies are members of COCBI? 234. In what way is Ecumenism organised in Ireland? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 3: 01.01. INTRODUCTION (1-6) ======================================================================== 1. Where do Christians get their faith? 2. What is the Bible? 3. How do Christians know that the Bible is the Word of God? 4. Who is a Christian? 5. What is the Church? 6. What is the Free Presbyterian Church? 1. Where do Christians get their faith? Christians go to the Bible. 2. What is the Bible? The Bible, called the Holy Scriptures, containing the Old and New Testaments, 66 Books only, is the Word of God and the only infallible source of Divine Truth and Divine Commandment. It is without error and is infallible. Rome has added other books to the Bible, called the Apocryphal. The Council of Trent (Session 4) enumerated these books "Lest any doubt should arise respecting the sacred books which are received by the Council: * Tobias * Judith * The Dream of Mardochai (added to the Book of Esther) * Wisdom * Ecclesiasticus * Baruch * The Song of the Three Children (inserted in the 3rd chapter of Daniel, from the 25th to the 91st verse, Douai Bible) * The Prayer of Manasses * and the First and Second Books of Maccabees." We reject these books: First, they were never received, acknowledged or admitted into the canon of the Old Testament Scripture by the Jews, to whom, St Paul says, "the words of God were committed" (Romans 3:2); nor are they included in the catalogue of sacred books given to Josephus, the Jewish historian. Second, not one of the Apocryphal books was written in pure Hebrew. Third, the Apocryphal books are never quoted by our Lord or His Apostles. Fourth, they were rejected by the primitive Church (Eusebius: Hist., lib. Iv, c. 26). Fifth, they were rejected from the canon of inspired Scripture by Jerome, Origen, Athanasius, Cyril, Hilary, Gregory Nazianzen, etc. Sixth, the Council of Laodicea, held in the year 364, whose canons were received and confirmed by the Council of Chalcedon in 451, delivers the catalogue of the canonical books as they are received in the Protestant Church. 3. How do Christians know that the Bible is the Word of God? The Bible manifests itself to be the Word of God by its claim, and the proof of its claim in its majesty, purity, invincibility, infallibility, integrity and authority, but especially the witness of the Holy Spirit of God in the heart which alone is able to persuade that it is indeed the very Word of God. 4. Who is a Christian? A Christian is any person, no matter what his colour, class or creed may have been, who believes the Record that God has given of His Son in the Word of God; accepts the verdict of God upon himself as a sinner; confesses that he is lost and hell-deserving; makes bare his heart and all his sins to God only; asks to be cleansed in the Saviour’s Precious Blood, throwing himself for salvation by faith alone, through grace alone, on Christ alone. The true Christian gladly confesses: "I’m only a sinner and nothing at all, but Jesus Christ is my all in all." 5. What is the Church? The Church on earth is the whole company of all redeemed ones who have believed in Christ alone to the salvation of their souls; whose infallible rule is the Holy Scriptures; and who are seeking, by the Holy Spirit, to win lost souls for Christ. This is the true Universal or Catholic Church on earth. 6. What is the Free Presbyterian Church? The Free Presbyterian Church is a branch of the Universal Church which holds to the Bible as rediscovered at the great Reformation of the 16th century as the only final judge on all matters of doctrine and practice, and which bases its church government upon that of the New Testament. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 4: 01.02. THE BIBLE (9-23) ======================================================================== 9. What does the Free Presbyterian Church teach concerning the reading of the Bible? 10. Did the Church of Rome give the Bible to all her members to read? 11. How did the Roman Index of Prohibited Books define the act of reading the Bible? 12. If a member of the Church of Rome possessed a copy of the Bible without such permission, what was the penalty? 13. How has Rome treated the Bible? 14. Is Rome the preserver of the Bible? 15. What is Vatican II? 16. What is the attitude of the Church of Rome today to the Bible? 17. What is the official summary of the Roman faith? 18. What does this Creed teach about the Bible? 19. What does this Creed declare to be in equal footing with the Bible? 20. What are ecclesiastical traditions? 21. In practise are the Scriptures on equal footing as tradition in the Church of Rome? 22. Could you interpret the Scriptures according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers? 23. How does Rome use tradition and the teaching of the Church? 9. What does the Free Presbyterian Church teach concerning the reading of the Bible? The Free Presbyterian Church teaches that the Bible ought to be read believingly, intelligently, prayerfully and systematically by everyone. 10. Did the Church of Rome give the Bible to all her members to read? No! The Church of Rome placed the Bible in the mother tongue of the people on the Index of Prohibited Books. 11. How did the Roman Index of Prohibited Books define the act of reading the Bible? The Roman Index states, ’It is manifest from experience that if the Holy Bible translated into the vulgar tongue be indiscriminately allowed to every one, the temerity of men will cause more evil than good to arise from it.’ However, the Church of Rome did allow for written permission to be granted by a bishop to certain individuals who asked for that permission. 12. If a member of the Church of Rome possessed a copy of the Bible without such permission, what was the penalty? ’If any shall have the presumption to read or possess it without any such written permission, he shall not receive absolution until he first deliver up the Bible to the ordinary’*; that is, according to the Roman principles, his soul is damned. * The ordinary is the person who has ordinary or immediate jurisdiction on affairs ecclesiastical, usually the bishop of the Diocese. 13. How has Rome treated the Bible? Rome has done her best to destroy the Bible, should it come into possession of her people in their mother tongue. In Reformation days she consigned the Bible to the flames, and down through history practised torture, imprisonment and death on those who sought to read and believe the truths of the Word of God. 14. Is Rome the preserver of the Bible? Rome asserts that we are under her debt for the preservation of the Bible and maintains that she is the guardian of the Bible. Is this so? No, this is another lie of Rome. The Bible is not the word of any Pope or Church but is the Word of God and has been Divinely preserved by God for the world of men through His grace alone. It was safeguarded for us, not by the Church of Rome who did everything in her power to destroy the Bible, but by the Jews and the saints, for the faith was delivered to the saints - the true believers in Christ, members of the universal church. 15. What is Vatican II? Vatican II was the Roman Catholic Church Council opened by Pope John on 11 October, 1962, and closed by Pope John Paul on 8 December, 1965. It issued an update by Rome on her dogmas. Ecumenical clergy in the ’Protestant’ churches claimed that it marked a change in Rome’s doctrines. The documents issued by Vatican II explode this claim as an atrocious lie. 16. What is the attitude of the Church of Rome today to the Bible? Vatican Council II did not change in any basic way Rome’s attitude to the Bible. Rome still claims that she alone can interpret the Bible. She also still claims that religious authority is based upon the Bible plus Tradition, and directs that the Bible should only be read in versions approved by her. Such versions change the text of Scripture in order to make it bolster up Rome’s false doctrines. Further, she still claims that she alone can infallibly interpret the Bible. Vatican II - Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (18 November 1965): ’Consequently it is not from sacred Scriptures alone that the Church draws her certainty about everything which has been revealed. Therefore both sacred tradition and sacred scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of devotion and reverence [...] It is clear therefore that sacred scripture and the teaching authority of the church, in accord to God’s most wise design, are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others, and that altogether and each in its own way under the action of the one Holy Spirit contribute effectively of the salvation of souls.’ (Chapter 2, Paragraph 9) Catechism of the Catholic Church - Dublin, Veritas, 1995: ’Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, then, are bound closely together, and communicate one with the other. For both of them, flowing out of the same well-spring, come together in some fashion to form one thing, and move towards the same goal. […] As a result the Church, to whom transmission and interpretation of Revelation is entrusted, does not derive her certainty about all revealed truths from holy Scriptures alone. Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honoured with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence.’ (Paragraphs 80, 82) 17. What is the official summary of the Roman faith? The official summary of the Roman faith is the Creed of Pope Pius IV. 18. What does this Creed teach about the Bible? Articles 1 and 2 of this Creed state, ’I most steadfastly admit and embrace apostolic and ecclesiastical traditions and all other observances and constitutions of the same church. I also admit the Holy Scriptures, according to that sense which our Holy Mother Church has held and does hold, to which it belongs, to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the Scriptures. Neither will I ever take and interpret them otherwise in according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers.’ 19. What does this Creed declare to be in equal footing with the Bible? This Creed declares that apostolic and ecclesiastical traditions are on equal footing with the Bible, and teaches that they are to be ’received with equal piety and veneration with Scripture, and whosoever shall knowingly and deliberately despise these traditions is accursed.’ 20. What are ecclesiastical traditions? Ecclesiastical traditions, according to the Church of Rome, are dogmas of the church or practices of the church which are accepted by the Roman Church, but which are nevertheless nowhere found in the Scriptures of Truth. 21. In practise are the Scriptures on equal footing as tradition in the Church of Rome? No, because in practise tradition interprets the Scriptures, and tradition is further declared and decreed by the Church, and is required to be believed because the Church teaches it. So tradition, as in the Creed of Pope Pius IV, comes first, and Scripture second. 22. Could you interpret the Scriptures according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers? No, this is impossible, for the Fathers were not unanimous in their interpretations of Scripture and differed greatly in many of their interpretations of particular texts and passages of the Bible. 23. How does Rome use tradition and the teaching of the Church? The Church of Rome uses tradition and the teaching of the Church to propagate and defend doctrines and practices which have absolutely no Scriptural authority whatsoever. For example, her dogmas of the Mass, Papal Infallibility and Mariolatry. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 5: 01.03. THE POPE (24-42) ======================================================================== 23. Did Jesus Christ appoint an earthly Head to His Church? 24. What is the claim of Rome in regard to the Head of the Church on earth? 25. What is the official teaching of Rome on the Pope? 26. What text in Matthew’s Gospel does the Church of Rome use to support her claims for St. Peter being the first Pope? 27. Were the Fathers unanimous in their interpretation of the Scripture? 28. What other Scripture in Matthew’s Gospel does Rome quote to support her claim that Peter was the first Pope? 29. What text in John’s Gospel does Rome put forward to support its claim that Peter was the first Pope? 30. How should these Scriptures be interpreted? 31. What eight Scriptures show that there is no foundation in the Scriptures for the Papacy? 32. How did the Church of Rome obtain the authority she came to exercise in Western Europe? 33. Who was the first Bishop of Rome to attempt to exercise authority over other churches? 34. What happened to Victor? 35. How did the Popes in the Middle Ages attempt to establish their claims? 36. When did the Church of Rome first discover that the Pope was Infallible? 37. Did the Church of Rome, prior to 1870, believe that the Pope was Infallible? 38. What follows from this Decree on Infallibility? 39. Have official utterances of one Pope ever been condemned and rejected by another? 40. How did the Papacy define its power? 41. How did Pope Pius IX define Papal authority? 42. How did Vatican II define the power of the Pope? 23. Did Jesus Christ appoint an earthly Head to His Church? The Lord Jesus Christ is the sole King and only Head of His Church and He never appointed any earthly Head of His Church. 24. What is the claim of Rome in regard to the Head of the Church on earth? The Church of Rome claims that the Pope as the successor of St. Peter is the Vicar of Christ on earth; the Supreme Head and Infallible Teacher of the Church, and those who do not believe this cannot be saved. 25. What is the official teaching of Rome on the Pope? The Creed of Pope Pius IV Section X states: ’I acknowledge the Holy Catholic Apostolic Roman Church for the Mother and Mistress of all Churches, and I promise and swear true obedience to the Bishop of Rome the Successor to St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles and Vicar of Jesus Christ.’ 26. What text in Matthew’s Gospel does the Church of Rome use to support her claims for St. Peter being the first Pope? Matthew 16:18 : ’And I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.’ The meaning of this text is obvious. Jesus having heard from the disciples the various notions which were entertained of Him, asked them: ’But whom say ye that I am?’ and Peter, always more forward than the rest, replied: ’Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ Jesus, having pronounced him blessed, as every believer is (Psalms 32:1), said: ’Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.’ Christ in addressing Peter said: ’Thou art Peter,’ using the word ’petros’, which signifies a stone, but in referring to the rock He used the word ’petra’, which means properly ’an immovable rock’. He does not say: ’Thou art Peter, and upon thee I will build my church’, but ’upon this Rock.’ The Rock he had confessed was Christ the Son of the living God, as though He said: ’Thou art Peter, a living stone in this spiritual edifice, but upon this immovable foundation I will build my church.’ 27. Were the Fathers unanimous in their interpretation of the Scripture? The Fathers of the church, as the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Kenrick, USA, who attended Vatican I, himself acknowledged, were divided. Eight say the Rock means the twelve apostles as a body. Sixteen say it refers to Christ Himself. Seventeen say it refers to St. Peter and forty four say it means the faith which Peter professed. It is clear that the Rock of the church is the infallible Rock of Ages, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. 28. What other Scripture in Matthew’s Gospel does Rome quote to support her claim that Peter was the first Pope? Matthew 16:19 : ’And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of Heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in Heaven.’ ’The granting of the keys to Peter is quoted in proof of his supremacy.’ The keys, it is admitted, are a figure and apply to a door. Peter used the keys to open the door of the Gospel church, for he first preached to the Jews (Acts 2:41) and then to the Gentiles (Acts 10:1-48), so these words of Christ were fulfilled. The keys of the kingdom of glory belong only to Christ, for it is written of Christ that it is He that openeth and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no man openeth (Revelation 3:7). The declaration as to binding and loosing refers to all the apostles, and conferred no peculiar dignity on Peter, for Jesus says: ’Verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in Heaven.’ (Matthew 18:18) 29. What text in John’s Gospel does Rome put forward to support its claim that Peter was the first Pope? John 21:15-17 : ’So when they had dined, Jesus said to Simon Peter: ’Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto Him, Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs.’ John 21:16 : ’He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto Him, Yea, Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep. He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto Him, Lord, Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest that I love Thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.’ 30. How should these Scriptures be interpreted? The threefold question: ’Lovest thou me?’ and the threefold exhortation to ’feed’ remind us again of Peter’s thrice repeated denial of Jesus. He had disowned his Master three times. He is restored to office in a thrice repeated exhortation. He was grieved; therefore no honour was here conferred upon him (note the seventeenth verse). The commission gave no peculiar privilege to Peter. This is the duty of every minister (Acts 20:28). The very word ’Pastor’ - ’a shepherd’ - is applied in general to ministers and is derived from the Latin word ’pasco’ - ’I feed’. There is no Scriptural authority in these verses for the office of the Pope, either as an office which Peter fulfilled or which any of the bishops of Rome fulfil. 31. What eight Scriptures show that there is no foundation in the Scriptures for the Papacy? Scripture one: Christ taught that all the apostles were equal. Matthew 23:10 : ’Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ; and ye are all brethren.’ Matthew 23:11 : ’But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant.’ In Mark 10:42, when the disciples strove among each other for supremacy, Jesus said: ’Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and their great ones exercise authority upon them.’ Mark 10:43 : ’But so shall it not be among you; but whosoever will be great among you shall be your minister.’ Mark 10:44 : ’And whosoever of you will be the chiefest shall be servant of all.’ Mark 10:45: ’For even the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.’ From these passages it is evident that Christ conferred no superiority upon Peter, for if He had the strife could not have arisen, and Christ would have referred to His grant of supremacy to Peter. Scripture two: Peter himself nowhere alludes to such supremacy. He says rather: ’The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ.’ (1 Peter 5:1) He here calls himself an elder and witness, but nowhere the Vicar of Jesus Christ on earth. Scripture three: Peter was sent by the other apostles to Samaria: ’Now when the apostles which were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the Word of God, they sent unto them Peter and John.’ (Acts 8:14) Just think of ’His Holiness’ the Pope being sent by the Cardinals to preach the Gospel! It is well known that for many years Popes have not preached at all. Scripture four: A council of the apostles and brethren was held at Jerusalem, Peter was present, and yet the sentence of James was followed (Acts 15:6-29). Scripture five: The apostle Paul declares in 2 Corinthians 11:5 that he was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles, which is inconsistent with the notion of Peter’s supremacy. Scripture six: Peter, James and John are called pillars. ’James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars.’ (Galatians 2:9)Because Peter was a pillar he was not the foundation. Scripture seven: ’Paul withstood Peter to the face, because he was to be blamed.’ (Galatians 2:11) It is hardly the attitude to an ’Infallible Pope.’ Scripture eight: When Paul enumerates the various officers of the church he does not say: ’First the chief apostle’ or ’the vicar of Christ, Jesus Christ upon earth’ or ’the father of kings and princes,’ but ’apostles’ (Ephesians 4:11). 32. How did the Church of Rome obtain the authority she came to exercise in Western Europe? The Church of Rome obtained her power because she was the Church of the chief city of the West. She was rich and had a reputation for orthodoxy. At a later date the Pope’s political activity was the chief factor in increasing Papal supremacy in Western Europe. Papal supremacy has never been recognised in the Eastern Orthodox Church. 33. Who was the first Bishop of Rome to attempt to exercise authority over other churches? The first Bishop of Rome to make this attempt was Victor who in 196 AD tried to excommunicate all the Churches of Asia Minor because their method of fixing the date of Easter was different from his. 34. What happened to Victor? Victor was rebuked for his interference and his act of excommunication was set aside. This demonstrates that Papal supremacy was not then recognised by the church. 35. How did the Popes in the Middle Ages attempt to establish their claims? Popes in the Middle Ages frequently attempted to establish their claims by the use of certain decretals. These have since been proved to be forgeries. There comes to light among the Isidorian Decretals, sometime between 829 and 845, the definite statement of an edict representing the Emperor as conferring on the Pope the administration of ’our palace, the city of Rome, and the provinces of all Italy’. The Bishop of Paris (858-870) states that the Emperor Constantine after his baptism relinquished Rome to the Apostolic See. The Donation and the Document supporting it remained undisputed down to the middle of the 15th Century and was the grand basis of the Pope’s temporal power. It was exposed by numerous writers for the colossal fraud that it was and the ruinous usurpation it imposed. It is now admitted by Rome to be a fraud. 36. When did the Church of Rome first discover that the Pope was Infallible? The Church of Rome did not discover that the Pope was infallible until the year 1870 - just a century and a quarter ago. In 1870 the First Vatican Council decreed that the Pope was infallible when ’in discharge of the office of pastor and teacher of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by the universal Church’. However, he is not preserved from liability to err when he speaks as a private teacher. 37. Did the Church of Rome, prior to 1870, believe that the Pope was Infallible? No! For example, Keenan’s Controversial Catechism, a Catechism used in all the schools of Ireland, published in 1860, stated about Papal Infallibility: ’This is a Protestant invention; it is no Article of the Christian faith.’ 38. What follows from this Decree on Infallibility? It follows from this Decree that if the doctrine of Papal Infallibility is true, the Church of Rome must hold that all Popes have been infallible from the time of the first Bishop of Rome. 39. Have official utterances of one Pope ever been condemned and rejected by another? Yes. For example, Pope Honorius was condemned by the Sixth General Council in 681 and was denounced as a heretic by every Pope who succeeded him until the 11th century. Innocent I and Galacius I were condemned by the Council of Trent. Also, on various occasions two people have at the same time claimed to be Pope, and each has cursed the other as an impostor. 40. How did the Papacy define its power? The Bull of Pope Boniface VIII, Unam Sanctam, says: ’We declare, affirm, define and pronounce it to be necessary for salvation for every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.’ This Decree was declared by Cardinal Manning to be infallible and beyond all doubt an act ex cathedra (which means that it is spoken by the Pope as the universal Head of the Church on earth and with the supreme apostolic authority, i.e. an infallible statement. 41. How did Pope Pius IX define Papal authority? In the year 1866 Pope Pius IX said: ’I alone, despite my unworthiness, am the successor of the apostles, the barque of Peter; I am the way, the truth and the life. They who are with me are with the Church; and they who are not with me are out of the Church. They are out of the way, the truth and the life. Let men well understand this, that they be not deceived or led astray by soi-distant Catholics who desire and teach something quite different from what the Head of the Church teaches.’ 42. How did Vatican II define the power of the Pope? Vatican II - Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (18 November 1965): ’This is the unique Church of Christ which in the Creed we avow as one holy catholic and apostolic. […] This church, constituted and organised in the world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in union with that succession.’ (Chapter 1, paragraph 8) ’This sacred synod turns its attention first to the Catholic faithful. Basing itself upon sacred Scripture, it teaches that the church, now sojourning on earth as an exile, is necessary for salvation. […] WHOSOEVER, THEREFORE, KNOWING THAT THE CATHOLIC CHURCH WAS MADE NECESSARY BY GOD THROUGH JESUS CHRIST, WOULD REFUSE TO ENTER HER OR REMAIN IN HER, COULD NOT BE SAVED.’ (Paragraph 14) ’But the college or body of bishops has no authority unless it is simultaneously conceived of in terms of its head, the Roman Pontiff, Peter’s successor, and without a lessening of his power and primacy over all, pastors as well as the general faithful. For in virtue of his office, that is as vicar of Christ and pastor of the whole church, the Roman Pontiff has full, supreme and universal power over the Church. And he can always exercise this power freely.’ (Paragraph 22) ’Therefore his definitions of themselves and not by consent of the church are justly styled irreformable for they are pronounced with the assistance of the Holy Spirit promised to him in blessed Peter. Therefore they need no approval of others nor do they allow an appeal to any other judgment.’ (Paragraph 25) Catechism of the Catholic Church - Dublin, Veritas, 1995: ’The Church is apostolic. She is built on a lasting foundation: "the twelve apostles and the Lamb" (Revelation 21:14) […] Christ governs her through Peter and the other apostles, who are present in their successors, the Pope and the College of Bishops. […] The sole Church of Christ […] subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor or Peter and by the bishops in communion with him.’ (Paragraphs 869, 870) ’The Lord made St. Peter the visible foundation of His Church. He entrusted the keys of the church to him. The bishop of the Church of Rome, successor to St. Peter, is "head of the College of Bishops, the Vicar of Christ and Pastor of the universal Church on earth.’ (Paragraph 936) The Pope enjoys, by divine institution, "supreme, full, immediate and universal power in the care of souls".’ (Paragraph 937) ======================================================================== CHAPTER 6: 01.04. THE SACRAMENTS (43-51) ======================================================================== 43. What does Rome teach about the Sacraments? 44. Which are the Sacraments of the New Testament? 45. How may Sacraments are there according to Rome? 46. What does Rome teach in regard to what is necessary for the validity of a Sacrament? 47. Does Rome’s Doctrine of Intention not put uncertainty upon all her religious Sacraments and works? 48. What is Baptism? 49. What does Rome teach concerning Baptism? 50. What does Rome teach happens to children who die unbaptised? 51. What is the attitude of our Lord Jesus Christ to children? 43. What does Rome teach about the Sacraments? The Church of Rome teaches that a Sacrament imparts both sanctity and justice (that is righteousness) to the receiver, that this grace is contained in the Sacraments and is invariably conferred on those who do not resist the Holy Ghost; that the Sacraments are the only channels of grace and whosoever says that justification can be obtained without them or without the desire of them, or that they are instituted only for increase of faith is accursed. 44. Which are the Sacraments of the New Testament? ’The Sacraments of the New Testament are Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.’ 45. How may Sacraments are there according to Rome? The Church of Rome’s teaching on the subject of the Sacraments is as follows: ’Our Lord has instituted seven Sacraments, because they are necessary for our spiritual life. Baptism causes us to be born in Jesus Christ; Confirmation fortifies us; the Eucharist nourisheth us; Penance heals us; Extreme Unction renews our strength in the hour of death; Holy Orders perpetuates the ministers of the Sacrament, and Matrimony perpetuates the faithful who are to receive them.’ These Sacraments can be easily remembered by keeping in mind the two words ’become up.’ Taking the letters that make up those words you have Rome’s seven Sacraments:- ’B’ - Baptism ’E’ - Eucharist ’C’ - Confirmation ’O’ - Orders ’M’ - Matrimony ’EU’ - Extreme Unction ’P’ - ’Penance’ Belief in these seven Sacraments first was made binding in the year 1437 at the Council of Florence. 46. What does Rome teach in regard to what is necessary for the validity of a Sacrament? No sacrament is valid unless ’the intention of the priest goes with it.’ Where there is no right intention on the part of the priest there can be no Sacrament. 47. Does Rome’s Doctrine of Intention not put uncertainty upon all her religious Sacraments and works? Yes. It follows from the Roman doctrine of Intention that no man can be certain with the certainty of faith that he receives a true Sacrament, since the Sacrament is not formed without the intention of the minister, and no one can see the intention of another. Intention makes the priest master of the Sacraments. He can dispense or withhold grace at his will and consequently salvation. He leaves his flock in uncertainty as to whether they have ever truly been baptised, confirmed or absolved, or of ever partaken of the benefits of the Lord’s Supper or Extreme Unction! Nor on the same hypothesis can he be sure he is a priest himself, or the Pope is truly the Pope. 48. What is Baptism? ’Baptism is a Sacrament wherein the washing with water in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, doth signify and seal our engrafting into Christ, and partaking of the benefits of the covenant of grace and our engagement to be the Lord’s.’ 49. What does Rome teach concerning Baptism? The Church of Rome teaches that Baptism regenerates ’inasmuch as it confers the first sanctifying grace by which original sin is cancelled, and actual sin also if there is any.’ ’In Baptism not only sins are remitted but also all the punishment of sin and wickedness are graciously pardoned by God.’ 50. What does Rome teach happens to children who die unbaptised? Rome teaches that children dying unbaptised ’are born to eternal misery and perdition.’ 51. What is the attitude of our Lord Jesus Christ to children? Mark 10:13-16: ’And they brought young children to him that He should touch them, and His disciples rebuked those that brought them. But when Jesus saw it He was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily, I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein. And He took them up in His arms, put His hands upon them and blessed them.’ ======================================================================== CHAPTER 7: 01.05. CONFIRMATION (53-54) ======================================================================== 53. What does Rome teach about Confirmation? 54. Why do we reject Rome’s Confirmation as a Sacrament? 53. What does Rome teach about Confirmation? The Church of Rome teaches that Confirmation is ’a Sacrament instituted by our Lord by which the faithful who have already been made children of God by Baptism receive the Holy Ghost by prayer, unction or anointing with oil, and the laying on of hands of a Bishop’. 54. Why do we reject Rome’s Confirmation as a Sacrament? We reject Rome’s Confirmation as a Sacrament as practised by the Church of Rome because no such Ordinance was instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ. Rome herself cannot tell when Christ instituted this so-called Sacrament. Her answer is: ’The time is not certain but Divines most probably hold it was instituted at Christ’s Last Supper, or between the Resurrection and Ascension.’ ======================================================================== CHAPTER 8: 01.06. THE LORD'S SUPPER (55-78) ======================================================================== 55. What is the Lord’s Supper? 56. What does the word ’Eucharist’ mean? 57. How does the Church of Rome define the Eucharist? 58. What is the teaching of Rome with regard to the bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper? 59. Has the Church of Rome always taught this doctrine? 60. What has Rome built upon the doctrine of Transubstantiation? 61. How does Rome define the Mass? 62. Is the Mass according to Rome a different Sacrifice from that of Calvary? 63. What is the objective of the Mass according to the Church of Rome? 64. What does the New Testament teach us concerning our Lord’s offering for sin? 65. How does Rome contradict the teaching of the New Testament concerning the Priesthood of our Lord Jesus Christ? 66. How is Transubstantiation effected according to Rome? 67. What is the correct interpretation of the words: ’This is my Body and this is my Blood’? 68. What is the correct interpretation of John 6:54: ’Whosoever eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day’? 69. What other Scriptural facts prove the Roman doctrine of Transubstantiation is a lie? 70. Does the Church of Rome in the Sacrifice of the Mass follow the command of our Lord Jesus Christ? 71. In what language has the Mass been celebrated? 72. What is the teaching of the Free Presbyterian Church with regard to the language in which public worship ought to be conducted? 73. Has Rome’s Doctrine of Transubstantiation given rise to abominable superstitions and idolatrous abuses? 74. What is the unanswerable question which the priest of Rome must be asked? 75. How does Rome’s own two admissions expose the deceit of her Mass dogma? 76. Sum up how the Mass is opposed to Scripture and the senses. 77. How did Vatican II confirm Rome’s doctrine of Transubstantiation and the Mass? 78. Does Rome enrich herself by the Mass? 55. What is the Lord’s Supper? ’The Lord’s Supper is a Sacrament wherein by giving and receiving bread and wine, according to Christ’s appointment, His death is showed forth, and the worthy receivers are not after a corporal or carnal manner but by faith made partakers of His Body and Blood with all His benefits to their spiritual nourishment and growth in grace.’ The bread remains bread and the wine remains wine, and the command of Christ is: ’Do this in remembrance of Me.’ 56. What does the word ’Eucharist’ mean? The word ’Eucharist’ means ’thanksgiving’, and as so understood is unobjectionable, but it means something different to the Church of Rome. 57. How does the Church of Rome define the Eucharist? Rome teaches that ’the Eucharist is the Sacrament of the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ under the appearance of bread and wine’. 58. What is the teaching of Rome with regard to the bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper? The doctrine of the Church of Rome is that the bread and wine are changed ’truly, really and substantially into the Body and Blood, together with the Soul and Divinity and the bones and sinews of Christ’. This doctrine is known as Transubstantiation. 59. Has the Church of Rome always taught this doctrine? No, it was adopted by the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. It was finally sanctioned by the Council of Trent in 1551. 60. What has Rome built upon the doctrine of Transubstantiation? Rome has built upon this doctrine the service which she calls the Sacrifice of the Mass. 61. How does Rome define the Mass? Rome defines that ’in the Mass there is offered to God a true, propitiatory Sacrifice for the living and the dead, and that in the most Holy Sacraments of the Eucharist there are truly, really and substantially the Body and Blood, together with the Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that there is made a conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the Body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the Blood which conversion the Catholic Church calls Transubstantiation. Under either kind alone Christ is received whole and entire and a true Sacrament.’ 62. Is the Mass according to Rome a different Sacrifice from that of Calvary? The Mass, according to the Church of Rome, ’is not a different sacrifice from that of the Cross, it is the very same sacrifice though offered in a different way’. The Mass and Calvary ’are both one and the same Sacrifice because the victim is the same, to whit Jesus Christ, and the High Priest or principle offerer is the same in both, to whit Jesus Christ.’ 63. What is the objective of the Mass according to the Church of Rome? The objective of the Mass is: ’In this Divine Sacrifice which is performed in the Mass, the same Christ is contained and is bloodlessly immolated, Who once offered Himself Bodily upon the Cross: the Holy Council teaches that this Sacrifice is truly propitiatory, and that by its means, if we approach God, contrite and penitent, with a true heart, and a right faith and with fear and reverence, we may obtain mercy, and obtain grace in seasonable succour. For the Lord, appeased by the oblation of this Sacrifice, granting grace and the gift of repentance remits even great crimes and sins. There is the one and the same victim, and the same person who now offers by the ministry of the priests, who then offered Himself upon the Cross: the mode of offering only being different. And the fruits of that Bloody offering are truly most abundantly received through this offering so far is it from derogating in any way from the former. Wherefore it is properly offered according to the apostolic tradition, not only for the sins, pains, satisfaction; and other wants of the faithful who are alive, but also for the dead in Christ who are not yet fully purged.’ 64. What does the New Testament teach us concerning our Lord’s offering for sin? The New Testament teaches in Hebrews 10:11-15 : ’And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which can never take away sins. But this man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God. From henceforth expecting till His enemies be made His footstool. For by one offering He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.’ Hebrews 7:24-25 : ’But this man, because He continueth ever, hath unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them.’ Hebrews 9:22-26 : ’And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission. It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us. Nor yet that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others; For them must He often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.’ These Scriptures teach plainly that the Priesthood of Christ is unchangeable and cannot be transferred to others; that His offering was one offering offered once and for all; and that His offering was the offering of His shed Blood unto God; it was a bloody sacrifice, for without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins.’ Further, it was a better Sacrifice. His one Sacrifice and Offering combined all the offerings: the burnt offering, the peace offering, the meat offering, the sin offering and the trespass offering. It is better as it has eternal efficacy. It is better because it comprehends all in its scope. It is better because it cleanses the conscience. It is for us, He presents an Offering of inexhaustible merit which needs no renewing. In the Mass the lamps before the altar are significant of the imperfection of the offering of those who have to renew their light day by day.’ 65. How does Rome contradict the teaching of the New Testament concerning the Priesthood of our Lord Jesus Christ? The Church of Rome contradicts the plain teaching of the New Testament by affirming that Jesus Christ has appointed on earth a special new priesthood whose work is to offer Him as a sacrifice for sin, and also by asserting that there Mass is a repetition of the Sacrifice of the Cross through Transubstantiation. Rome teaches: ’Christ has died to institute the priesthood. It was not necessary for the Redeemer to die in order to save the world. A drop of His Blood, a single tear or prayer was sufficient to procure salvation for all: for such a prayer being of infinite value should be sufficient to save not one, but a thousand worlds. But to institute the priesthood the Death of Jesus Christ has been necessary. Had He not died where should we find the victim that the priests of the new law now offer? A victim altogether holy and immaculate capable of giving to God an honour worthy of God. As has been already said, all the lives of men and angels are not capable of giving to God an infinite honour like that which a priest offers to Him by a single Mass.’ 66. How is Transubstantiation effected according to Rome? According to Rome, ’The bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of Christ by the priest when he says the words "This is my Body and this is my Blood" in the prayer of consecration known as the canon of the Mass, when he says the prayer of consecration with full intention.’ That prayer is known as the canon of the Mass. 67. What is the correct interpretation of the words: ’This is my Body and this is my Blood’? These words of Jesus must be interpreted spiritually. The bread and wine are symbols of His Body and His Blood. As Jesus was present in person at the Last Supper when He said: ’This is my body’, and His whole Body was present, these words must have been symbolical. At the same time Jesus’ Blood had not been shed, therefore the words ’This is my blood’ must also have been symbolical. When debating Tom Corbishley, the head of the Jesuit Order, I put to him the question which he was never able to answer. Did he believe, when Jesus said: ’I am the door’, that Jesus was a literal door with four panels, a handle and a keyhole? - and when Jesus said: ’I am the true vine’,did he believe that Jesus Christ was the literal trunk of a vine tree? Figurative language such as this is used every day. For instance, a portrait of a person is painted and one describing it says: ’This is Mr. So and so.’ Now he does not mean that it is literally the person who is portrayed: he means rather that it is a representation of the person who is portrayed. ’This is My Body’ - that is the divinely appointed representation of My Body. ’This is my Blood’ - that is the divinely appointed representation of My Blood. Christ emphasised that His Feast was to be a remembrance one. ’This do in remembrance of Me.’ You can only remember a person when he is not literally and bodily present with you. If Christ is literally and bodily on the altar, as Rome proclaims, then the Feast ceases to be one of remembrance, and that destroys the very foundation of the Lord’s Supper. 68. What is the correct interpretation of John 6:54 : ’Whosoever eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day’? This passage can have no direct reference to the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper because the evident fact is that two Passovers (the Passover was a yearly feast) elapsed between the delivery of these words and the institution of the Sacrament (compare John 6:4 with John 12:1); but Christ uses the present tense: ’Except ye eat.’ It was their duty right away to eat of that spiritual food, even at the very time when He was delivering His discourse; therefore the words cannot refer to a Sacrament not even then instituted. Even Rome herself does not receive the absolute literacy of these words, for it says here that the Blood must be drunk; yet for centuries Rome refused the wine to her communicants. If the words ’Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood ye have no life in you’ referred to the Sacrament and were to be understood literally, this would prove that all who do not receive the Sacrament must perish, yet baptised infants who have not received the Sacrament, according to Rome, are saved. Moreover, if it is received literally then it proves that all communicants are saved. Rome herself will not admit that that is the case. Then what does it mean? The Scriptures are the best interpreters of themselves. It says in John 6:58 : ’He that eateth of this bread shall live for ever.’ Compare that with John 3:36 : ’He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.’ There are not two ways of salvation, one by the Sacrament and the other by faith. Eating the bread is a representation of what happens when a person believes, he partakes of everlasting life through the Son of God. John 6:35 gives the key to the interpretation: ’He that cometh to me shall never hunger’ - that is, eating Christ’s flesh. How do we eat Christ’s flesh? By coming to Him. ’And he that believeth on me shall never thirst.’ How do we drink Christ’s Blood? By believing on Him. We feed on Christ by coming to him. We drink His Blood by believing on Him. Salvation is by faith alone. In John 6:62-63 the Saviour explains His meaning clearly. He says: ’What and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where He was before. It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh (mark the words) profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.’ What was Christ saying? He was saying: ’Do you think that I am speaking of My literal flesh? But my literal flesh shall ascend to heaven, far beyond the reach of being eaten by man. The flesh profiteth nothing. Even though you were to partake of My body, it would not save your souls. The words that I speak unto you, they are the spirit, and they are the life. They have a spiritual signification and they show that you must feed on Me by faith, for he that cometh to Me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst. Jesus constantly used figurative language in order to enforce the truths which He taught. Instances of such figurative language are found also in Isaiah 55:1-3; John 7:37-39; Matthew 16:5-11. 69. What other Scriptural facts prove the Roman doctrine of Transubstantiation is a lie? ONE: The Lord’s Supper was commemorative as was the Passover. The Passover Lamb commemorated the Passover, when the Lord said ’this Passover’ He meant this commemoration of the Passover. Likewise when He said: ’This is my body,’ He spoke of the Supper as a commemorative feast to be observed in remembrance of Him. TWO: The apostolic reception of Christ’s words. The apostles, it is evident, understood our Lord as we do. They were accustomed to figurative language in which the Saviour constantly spoke and which was the current language of the day. There was no argument at the Table concerning these words: ’This is my body’, ’This is my blood’, for the disciples knew He was speaking in figurative language. THREE: The Feast is commemorative from Christ’s own words: ’Do this in remembrance of me’ and from the apostolic declaration: ’For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord’s death till He come.’ (1 Corinthians 11:26.) How could it be done in remembrance of Him if He were literally present in Body, Blood, Soul and Deity? FOUR: The words themselves refute Transubstantiation; the apostolic account is destructive of this dogma. It says in 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 that the cup is the New Testament: here is a double figure of speech. Firstly the cup is put for the wine and secondly the cup is called the New Testament.We ask: Was the cup literally transubstantiated into the New Testament? Notice the apostle used the word: ’After the same manner He took the cup’ - that is, the manner in which He took the bread. It therefore cannot and does not mean that the bread was literally Christ’s Body or the wine literally Christ’s Blood, or the cup literally the New Testament. 70. Does the Church of Rome in the Sacrifice of the Mass follow the command of our Lord Jesus Christ? No. Even apart from the idolatrous error of the doctrine of Transubstantiation the Church of Rome does not follow the command of our Lord, because the Church of Rome holds that the Mass can be celebrated without the communion of the people, and the cup can be withheld from them. ’The dogmatic principles laid down by the Council of Trent remain intact. Communion under both kinds may be granted when the bishops think fit, not only to the clerics and religious, but also to the laity in cases to be determined by the Apostolic See.’ (Chapter 2 Paragraph 55, of he Constitution of Sared Liturgy, 4.12.63) ADDITION HERE One of the dogmatic principles of the Council of Trent was: ’Under either kind alone, Christ is received whole and entire, and a true Sacrament.’ 71. In what language has the Mass been celebrated? Up until Vatican II the Mass was universally celebrated in the Latin tongue and some services are still in the Latin language. 72. What is the teaching of the Free Presbyterian Church with regard to the language in which public worship ought to be conducted? Public worship ought to be conducted in the mother tongue of the people so that, as Scripture commands, they may worship God in truth and understanding with all their heart, with all their soul, with all their mind and with all their strength. 73. Has Rome’s Doctrine of Transubstantiation given rise to abominable superstitions and idolatrous abuses? Yes. Revolting superstitions and idolatrous abuses have arisen out of the doctrine of Transubstantiation. For example, it has given rise to the Feast of Corpus Christi. Corpus Christi means ’the body of Christ’, when the host is carried round as a god and is worshipped. Also revolting rules and dogmas have been laid down by Rome concerning the correct procedure should a fly or spider fall into the consecrated wine, or the priest vomit into the wine, or a mouse nibble the consecrated bread or host. ’If any one shall say that Christ the only begotten Son of God is not to be adored in the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, even with the open worship of lateria, and therefore not to be venerated with any peculiar festal celebrity nor to be solemnly carried about in processions according to the praiseworthy and universal rights and customs of the Holy Church, and that he has not to be publicly set before the people to be adored and that his adorers are idolaters, let him be accursed.’ As the host is mere flour and water, simply a pancake, we refuse to adore it, for God is not made by hands nor can He beworshipped by anything that man makeswith his hands. Psalms 135:15 : ’The idols of the heathen are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands.’ In Acts 19:26 the apostles likewise preach: ’They be no gods which are made with hands.’ How could they have thus preached if they believed that the wafer was God? ’If after consecration a fly hath fallen or anything of that sort, and nausea be occasion to the priest he shall draw it out and wash it with wine, and when the Mass is finished burn it, and the ashes and lotion shall be thrown into the sacrarium, but if he hath not a nausea or fear of any danger he shall drink them with the blood.’ ’If the priest vomit the Eucharist, if the species appear entire, let them be reverently swallowed unless sickness arise, for then let the consecrated species be cautiously separated and laid up in some sacred place till they are corrupted.’ ’If through negligence any of the blood of Christ hath fallen on the floor, on the ground, or on the boards, let it be licked up with the tongue and let the spot be sufficiently scraped, and the scrapings burned and the ashes laid up in the sacrarium.’ 74. What is the unanswerable question which the priest of Rome must be asked? What do you break when you break the consecrated host in the Mass, as you do, putting one portion into the chalice and partaking of the portion yourself? You say the whole substance of the bread is gone but you have broken some substance. What is it? It cannot be bread, for by your showing it is not there. It cannot be the Body of Christ, for if you say He cannot be broken the immortal and impassible, what is broken when you break the host? Yet that the subject is so solemn that one would feel amused at the way in which Rome has provided for the disappearance, corruption etc. of her transubstantiated host. For example, ’if the host be putrified or musty or lost, or if a mouse eat it, through carelessness’. We ask again: What is it that becomes corrupted? It cannot be the accidents of smell, taste, look and colour. Rome tells us there is no substance there, but that of the Body of the Redeemer, but surely that cannot corrupt. One must conclude that after all has been said an done there is nothing but bread, consecrated no doubt, but bread still. 75. How does Rome’s own two admissions expose the deceit of her Mass dogma? ’The Church of Rome teaches that the Sacrifice of the Mass is an unbloody sacrifice and secondly that by it the remission of sins are procured, both for the living and for the dead. We can thus argue, the Mass is an unbloody sacrifice, remission of sin can be obtained by the Mass; therefore remission of sin can be obtained without shedding of blood. But God says in His Word: ’Without shedding of blood is no remission.’ Shall we not rather put it thus: ’Without shedding of blood is no remission. In the Mass there is no shedding of blood, therefore in the Mass there is no remission.’ 76. Sum up how the Mass is opposed to Scripture and the senses. ONE: Christ is bodily absent. The Bible teaches that Christ is bodily absent from us. He is not at this moment with His people in the flesh. He said: ’I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am there ye may be also.’ (See John 14:1-31) TWO: The law forbids the use of blood. The doctrine of the Mass involves a breach of the law of God. The law in Leviticus 17:14 forbids the people to partake of blood. The law was ratified under the Gospel dispensation in Acts 15:28 where the council at Jerusalem stated that there could be no partaking of blood. If the law of God declares there can be no partaking of blood and such a partaking is a violence to God’s holy law, how sinful must those be who claim they are partakers, not merely of the blood of an animal but of the blood of the Godman! THREE: Christ will come Bodily only at His Second Advent. The New Testament knows nothing about any doctrine that Christ comes Bodily to every altar at the whim of a bachelor priest, but the Bible states clearly: ’This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into Heaven.’ Acts 1:11. FOUR: Christ is not subject to humiliation. The doctrine of Transubstantiation - the Mass which represents that Christ is now humiliated and offered again upon the altar as a sacrifice - is totally opposed to Scripture truth. Christ’s humiliation has terminated. He enjoys the reward of His sufferings. He is exalted to God’s right hand, and no more humiliation can be His in His fleshly body. FIVE: Christ’s Body is not corruptible. Psalms 16:10 : ’Neither wilt Thou suffer Thy Holy One to see corruption.’ Yet the so-called Body of Christ in the wafer corrupts continually. SIX: The host is the work of man’s hands, as we have already seen. It is made of flour and water and baked upon the fire. SEVEN: Transubstantiation destroys the nature of a Sacrament. It destroys the nature of a Sacrament for it sets aside the great object of our Lord’s institution of His Supper. We have already seen that this was instituted in remembrance of, and to proclaim His death till He comes. If the host be Christ Himself it is not a remembrance of Him, nor is it a Sacrament or sign or remembrance of the thing signified if it be the very thing itself. 2 Corinthians 5:16 : ’Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more.’ EIGHT: The Senses and Transubstantiation. It subverts the evidence upon which all human belief and Christianity themselves rest. All our knowledge is ultimately derived through the senses which are five - sight, hearing, smelling, tasting and feeling. Were it not for the senses the apostles and we ourselves could know nothing of Christ. They saw and heard Him, the appeal to the senses as the highest evidence. 1 John 1:1 : ’That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the Word of Truth.’ Acts 1:3 : ’To whom also He shewed Himself alive, after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.’ Deprive man of his senses and he can know nothing. The apostles on the evidence of two senses believed Christ. On the evidence of all our senses we disbelieve Transubstantiation. The eyes see, the ears hear if the wafer falls on the ground, the nose smells, the hand feels, the palate tastes. The wafer is not a human body; it is only a flour and water pancake. 77. How did Vatican II confirm Rome’s doctrine of Transubstantiation and the Mass? VATICAN II - THE DOCUMENT DOGMATIC CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH (21.11.64): ’Taking part in the Eucharist Sacrifice which is the font and apex of the whole Christian life, they offer the Divine victim to God and offer themselves along with it.’ (Chapter 11 Paragraph 2) VATICAN II - CONSTITUTION ON THE SACRED LITURGY (4.12.6): ’Christ is always present in His church, especially in her liturgical celebrations. He is present in the sacrifice of the Mass, not only in the person of His minister, the same one now offering through the ministry of priests who formerly offered Himself on the Cross, but especially under the Eucharistic species. By His power He is present in the Sacraments.’ (Chapter 1, Paragraph 7) ’At the last Supper on the night when He was betrayed, our Saviour instituted the Eucharistic Sacrifice of His Body and Blood. He did this in order to perpetuate the Sacrifice on the Cross throughout the centuries until He should come again.’ (Chapter 2, Paragraph 47) ’They should give thanks to God by offering the immaculate victim, not only through the hands of the priest, but also with him they should learn to offer themselves.’ (Chapter 2, Paragraph 48) ’The dogmatic principles which were laid down by the Council of Trent remain intact.’ (Chapter 2, Paragraph 55) ADDITION - Catechism 309 78. Does Rome enrich herself by the Mass? Yes. One very prominent feature of the Mass as conducted in the Roman Church is the financial support it brings in. It is by all odds the largest income producing ceremony in the church. In Ireland there is a saying: ’High money, high Mass; low money, low Mass; no money, no Mass!’ ======================================================================== CHAPTER 9: 01.07. HOLY ORDERS AND PRIESTHOOD (79-94) ======================================================================== 79. What, according to Rome, is meant by Holy Orders? 80. What functions does Rome actually claim for her priests? 81. What special powers does Rome ascribe to her priests? 82. Does Rome hold that priests irrespective of their morality have these transcendent powers? 83. Is there any authority in the Scripture for the doctrine of Rome concerning the priesthood? 84. What is the only mediatorial priesthood recognised in the New Testament? 85. To what source is the origin of the priestly Orders of Rome traced? 86. Are the bishops and priests of Rome able to trace their decent in apostolic succession from Peter? 87. Does the Church of Rome permit priests to marry? 88. What does the New Testament teach concerning priesthood? 89. What does the Free Presbyterian Church teach concerning the ministry? 90. What does the New Testament say concerning the marriage of ministers? 91. What is the fatal error of the Romanist? 92. What conclusions must we draw from the teaching of the Scripture concerning the Romish priesthood? 93. What was the teaching of Vatican II concerning apostolic succession? 94. What is the view of the Church of Rome on the ministry of the Church of England? 79. What, according to Rome, is meant by Holy Orders? According to the Church of Rome Holy Orders is a Sacrament ’which gives bishops, priests and inferior clergy to the Church, and enables them to perform their several duties in it’. 80. What functions does Rome actually claim for her priests? Rome claims that her priests stand between God and the sinner, and Rome declares that there is no access to God but through them. This is seen in the fact that ’they negotiate with God the interests of the sinner’s salvation; they interpret for the people the Word of God; they hear their confessions of sin in the room of God and give absolution; they consecrate and offer up the sacrifice for sin which propitiates God; and finally they pronounce as God the absolution that God alone can pronounce.’ 81. What special powers does Rome ascribe to her priests? Liguori, whose works are declared to be altogether free from censure, says: ’The priest has the power of delivering sinners from Hell; of making them worthy of Paradise and of changing them from the slaves of Satan into the children of God ... What God can do by His omnipotence the priest also can do by saying: "I absolve thee".’ 82. Does Rome hold that priests irrespective of their morality have these transcendent powers? Yes. The Council of Trent declared that ’even those priests who are living in mortal sin exercise the same function of forgiving sins as ministers of Christ’, and it pronounced a curse on ’those who say that priests in mortal sin have not the power of binding and loosing’. The Church, in fact, declared in other words that the most immoral man, if a priest, holds the place of the Saviour Himself when he says: ’I absolve thee.’ 83. Is there any authority in the Scripture for the doctrine of Rome concerning the priesthood? No. The apostles were not appointed to be priests and they were never called priests. The offering of sacrifice had no place whatever among their duties. Moreover, by the Sacrifice of the Cross Christ made the end of sacrificing, for after He had offered one sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God. 84. What is the only mediatorial priesthood recognised in the New Testament? That of Christ Jesus the Great High Priest, Who by one offering has perfected forever those who are sanctified. There is a sense, not the Romish sense, in which all believers are kings and priests unto God. They offer up prayer and praise, not the bloodless sacrifice of the Mass. ’But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthoood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.’ 1 Peter 2:9. 85. To what source is the origin of the priestly Orders of Rome traced? The many grades and sub-divisions of the Romish priesthood together with their ceremonies and pretensions indicate that the details of the Romish hierarchy were borrowed from paganism. The pagans had their major and minor pontiffs, and at the head of all was the Pontifex Maximus or Sovereign (Greatest) Pontiff. This corresponds exactly with the Roman Catholic hierarchy with its major and minor prelates headed by the Pope who takes that pagan title Pontifex Maximus or Sovereign Pontiff. The Pontifex Maximus among the pagans was both king and priest, supreme in all matters temporal and spiritual. In this a Pope is his exact copy. 86. Are the bishops and priests of Rome able to trace their decent in apostolic succession from Peter? No. History being the witness they are not able to do so, and even if they were able the line of descent would not be either honourable or credible. Romish historians themselves have testified that among the most impious and ungodly men of Europe from the 9th to the 16th centuries were the popes and cardinals of the Church of Rome - men who claim to be the successors of Peter and through whom the so-called line of apostolic succession runs. 87. Does the Church of Rome permit priests to marry? The Church of Rome says that ’the clergy may not marry; marriage to them is a pollution’. 88. What does the New Testament teach concerning priesthood? The New Testament teaches that all believers are kings and priests unto God. 89. What does the Free Presbyterian Church teach concerning the ministry? The Free Presbyterian Church teaches that the ministry is an office within the church for the preaching of the Word, the administration of the Sacraments, and the care of souls exercised by those who obeying the call of Christ are duly chosen and ordained thereto. 90. What does the New Testament say concerning the marriage of ministers? The pastoral epistles teach that the ministers may marry. Also we are told that Peter, whom the Church of Rome claims to have been the first Pope, was a married man. 91. What is the fatal error of the Romanist? He places his trust in the priest and the sacrament instead of placing it in Christ with whom there is no uncertainty. Neither the work nor the Word of Christ can fail, but the work and word of the priest will fail. 92. What conclusions must we draw from the teaching of the Scripture concerning the Romish priesthood? It is that the priests of Rome are not the depositories of the grace of God: their office is without warrant, their apostolic succession is a fiction, and they themselves are usurpers who have included themselves into the place of Christ. In other words they are Antichrist. 93. What was the teaching of Vatican II concerning apostolic succession? Vatican II - the Dogmatic Constitution of the Church - stated: ’... The divine mission entrusted by Christ to the apostles will last until the end of the world ... for this reason the apostles took care to appoint successors in this hierarchically structured society.’ (Chap. 3, para. 20) Vatican II - the Decree of the Bishop’s Pastoral Office in the Church (28th October, 1965) - stated: ’... By virtue of sacramental consecration and hierarchically communion with the Head and other members of the college a bishop becomes a part of the episcopal body. The Order of Bishops is the successor to the college of the apostles in teaching authority and pastoral rule, or rather in the episcopal Order the apostolic body continues without a break. Together with its Head the Roman Pontiff and never without this Head the episcopal Order is the subject of supreme and full power over the universal Church, but this power can be exercised only with the consent of the Roman Pontiff.’ (Chap. 1, para. 4) The Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1995, para. 865 - states: ’The Church is apostolic. She is built on a lasting foundation: "the twelve apostles of the Lamb" (Revelation 21:14). She is indestructible (cf. Matthew 16:18). She is upheld infallibly in the truth: Christ governs her through Peter and the other apostles, who are present in their successors, the Pope and the college of bishops.’ 94. What is the view of the Church of Rome on the ministry of the Church of England? Rome does not recognise the ministry of the Church of England: it holds that the Orders of the Church of England are absolutely null and void, and that the Archbishop of Canterbury himself is only a lay person. Dean Jackson had this comment to make on the Romanist view of the Church of England: ’Their principle exception against our Church and ministry is that our priests in their ordination do not receive the power of sacrificing Christ’s Body and Blood in the Sacrament. But their inserting this clause into the form of ordination doth prove their priesthood to be anti-Christian.’ A former Bishop of Edinburgh commented: ’It comes then simply to this: Can we surrender the principles for which the Anglican Church has steadily contended for the last 350 years, or can we hold the doctrines of our Church and with due regard for the ordinary and rational rules by which historical documents are interpreted? Can we reconcile the sense of our historical and authoritative standards of doctrine with the authoritative doctrine of the Church of Rome? The only answer to each question: It is impossible. How then can our Orders be valid in her view? And how can we consistently desire that it should be otherwise?’ Note: Those comments are from Churchmen who in their day remained faithful to the Protestant Reformed Church of England as by Law established. What hypocrisy for Cardinal Hume to take part in the Consecration of Dr. Carey when he holds as infallible truth that the Archbishop’s Ministerial Orders are ’utterly null and void’. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 10: 01.08. MATRIMONY (95-97) ======================================================================== 95. What is Matrimony according to the Church of Rome? 96. Is Matrimony presented as a Sacrament in the New Testament? 97. What does the Free Presbyterian Church believe concerning marriage? 95. What is Matrimony according to the Church of Rome? Rome teaches that matrimony is a Sacrament appointed by Christ; that it confers grace; that celibacy is a state superior to marriage, and that the Church’s authority to alter the Levitical law regarding the impediments to marriage, either cancelling or adding to those laid down in Scripture; that the Church has a right to prohibit the solemnisation of marriage in certain seasons; that matrimonial causes belong exclusively to ecclesiastical judges and that marriage is invalid unless contracted in the presence of the parish priest or some other priest authorised by him. 96. Is Matrimony presented as a Sacrament in the New Testament? Matrimony is never presented in the New Testament as a Sacrament, but it is declared to be honourable in all. (Hebrews 13:4) 97. What does the Free Presbyterian Church believe concerning marriage? We believe that true Christian marriage takes place only in the Lord and those who are Christians should not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. They should marry their own desiring to live true to the mind of Christ, supported and instructed by the faith and love of Christian fellowship, and should, therefore, commit themselves to the solemn intention of making Christ the Head of their home and the Head of all their practices. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 11: 01.09. SIN (98-107) ======================================================================== 98. What is sin? 99. Are all sins equally wicked? 100. What does every sin deserve? 101. How does Rome divide sins? 102. How does Rome define mortal sins and venial sins? 103. What sins does Rome call mortal? 104. What sins does Rome call venial? 105. How is forgiveness obtained for mortal sin according to Rome? 106. How is forgiveness obtained for venial sin according to Rome? 107. Why has Rome devised this elastic code of morals? 98. What is sin? Sin is any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God. 99. Are all sins equally wicked? Some sins, in themselves and by reason of several aggravations, are more wicked in the sight of God than others. 100. What does every sin deserve? Every sin deserveth God’s wrath and curse both in this life and that which is to come. 101. How does Rome divide sins? The Church of Rome divides sin into two classes - mortal sins and venial sins. 102. How does Rome define mortal sins and venial sins? Mortal sin is a thorough violation of God’s commandments with full knowledge and deliberation, and venial sin is either a slight infringement of the law or it may be in some cases a great violation of the law but rendered slight through want of knowledge, deliberation or freedom. Mortal sin, as the term indicates, merits eternal punishment. Venial sin is said to merit only temporal punishment in this world and in purgatory. 103. What sins does Rome call mortal? The principle mortal sins are said to be seven - pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy and slouth. To these others are added. It has been declared by Rome, for example, a mortal sin not to hear Mass or not to keep Holy days. 104. What sins does Rome call venial? Venial sins are divided into two classes. Some are venial, that is they take people by surprise. Of this kind are all those that are not perfectly voluntary as the sudden motions of lust, anger, envy and other similar to these which exist in the mind before the reason has had time to deliberate. Other venial sins are those that are of a trivial nature, such as the theft of a pin, an apple, a farthing or a vain word or jesting lie that hurts nobody. Ligouri shows in his writings, which have been declared by the Church to contain not one word worthy of censure, that there is no sin which the Church cannot by her endless distinctions and reserve cases make venial, so that every precept of the ten commandments can be innocently broken and result only in venial sin. 105. How is forgiveness obtained for mortal sin according to Rome? Such sin must be confessed to the priest, otherwise it cannot be forgiven. If confessed to the priest, absolution is obtained in the Sacrament of Penance. By this means the eternal punishment due is escaped. 106. How is forgiveness obtained for venial sin according to Rome? Venial sins need not be confessed to the priest. The sinner must make atonement for them himself by Penance, by Indulgences or by sufferings borne in Purgatory. The right however is reserved to the Church, that is the clergy, to determine what sins are mortal and what sins are venial. 107. Why has Rome devised this elastic code of morals? By such a code of morals the Church accomplishes a twofold result. On the one hand by her mortal sins which she alone can forgive, she retains her hold upon the people through their fear of the eternal world. On the other hand by her many venial sins she ingratiates herself with the pleasure-loving multitude. Moreover, she turns her doctrine of sin to great financial profit. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 12: 01.10. THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS (108-122) ======================================================================== 108. If the wages of sin is death is salvation possible? 109. What did Christ do in order to meet the claims of divine justice and secure salvation? 110. Was Christ’s Work as a Saviour complete, or did it need to be supplemented in any way by the work of man? 111. Are repentance and faith necessary on the part of the sinner? 112. What is faith in Jesus Christ? 113. What is repentance? 114. How is God’s Word made effectual to the salvation of the sinner? 115. What is the name given to the doctrine according to which the sinner who believes in Christ receives the forgiveness of sins and is accepted in the sight of God? 116. What is justification? 117. What does the New Testament teach concerning salvation and good works? 118. What is the doctrine called which describes the making positively holy the sinner who has believed in Jesus? 119. What is Rome’s doctrine on absolution? 120. In what way is Rome’s teaching objectionable? 121. How do you understand the text John 20:23 : "Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained"? 122. How do you understand the passage in Matthew 18:18 which states: "Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven"? 108. If the wages of sin is death is salvation possible? Yes. God has provided a way by which sins may be pardoned and the sinner be saved, that He may be "just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus" (Romans 3:26). 109. What did Christ do in order to meet the claims of divine justice and secure salvation? He assumed man’s nature and became subject to the divine law. He rendered perfect obedience to that law and suffered its penalty in the place of His people. Then in token that His Sacrifice was accepted He arose from the dead, ascended up into Heaven, and now ever lives to make intercession for us. "He hath made Him to be sin for us, Who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." (2 Corinthians 5:21.) 110. Was Christ’s Work as a Saviour complete, or did it need to be supplemented in any way by the work of man? It was complete: no work of man could add to its infinite worth. Christ said on the Cross: "It is finished" and Paul declared: "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." (John 19:30 and Romans 8:1.) 111. Are repentance and faith necessary on the part of the sinner? Yes, the command is: "Repent" and "Believe"; but such repentance and faith are not of the nature of works, either preparatory for or contributory to the Perfect Work of Christ. 112. What is faith in Jesus Christ? Faith in Jesus Christ is a saving grace whereby we receive and rest upon Him alone for salvation as He is offered to us in the Gospel. 113. What is repentance? Repentance unto life is a saving grace whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin, and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, does with grief and hatred of his sin turn from it to God with full purpose of and endeavour after new obedience. 114. How is God’s Word made effectual to the salvation of the sinner? The Spirit of God makes the reading, but especially the preaching of the Word, an effectual means of convincing and converting sinners and of building them up in holiness and comfort through faith unto salvation. 115. What is the name given to the doctrine according to which the sinner who believes in Christ receives the forgiveness of sins and is accepted in the sight of God? It is called justification by faith, or by grace. 116. What is justification? Justification is an act of God’s free grace, wherein He pardons all our sins and accepts us as righteous in His sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and received by faith alone. 117. What does the New Testament teach concerning salvation and good works? The New Testament teaches that we are saved only by the grace of God, and that good works are an evidence of salvation, not the cause of it. As Martin Luther said: "A good man does good works but the good works do not make him a good man.’’ 118. What is the doctrine called which describes the making positively holy the sinner who has believed in Jesus? The doctrine of sanctification. Sanctification is a work of God’s free grace whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin and live unto righteousness. 119. What is Rome’s doctrine on absolution? She teaches that the priest pronounces absolution as a judge conveying pardon. "If any one shall say that the sacramental absolution of the priest is not a judicial act but a bare ministerial act of pronouncing and declaring to the person confessing that their sins are forgiven, provided only he believes himself to be absolved. Or if the priest does not seriously absolve him but only in joke or shall say that the confession of the penitent is not required for absolution let him be accursed." 120. In what way is Rome’s teaching objectionable? She teaches that absolution by a priest pardons the guilt and eternal punishment of sin, and that without absolution except in an extraordinary case pardon cannot be had. This puts the work of the soul’s salvation firmly in the hand and will of the priest. 121. How do you understand the text John 20:23 : "Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained"? These words can only be understood when one looks at how the apostles understood them, and the apostles understood them in the exercise of the preaching of the Gospel only. Nowhere in Scripture did they forgive any man or woman their sins, but, rather, they preached: "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life" (John 3:36) and "Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved" (Acts 4:12). "Be it known unto you, therefore, men and brethren, that through this Man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins, and by Him all that believe are justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses" (Acts 13:38-39). "And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved" (Acts 16:31). The apostles in practice showed that they understood these words to mean that ’whosesoever sins ye are the means of remitting by the preaching of the Gospel, they are remitted unto them; but whosesoever sins your preaching of the Gospel fails as the means to remit, those sins may thus be said to be retained by you, they are retained’. For the Gospel, while it is the savour of life unto life to some, is the savour of death unto death by others. This view is evident, as we have said, from the conduct of the apostles. They forgave sins by preaching and not by saying: "I absolve thee.’’ 122. How do you understand the passage in Matthew 18:18 which states: "Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven"? This refers to the power which was committed to the apostles as founders of the Christian church to release from the obligations of the Mosaic law, and to bind upon the people whatsoever was necessary. It is a power which did not descend beyond the apostles. Even if it had descended it would have pertained equally to all churches. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 13: 01.11. INDULGENCES (123-127) ======================================================================== 123. What does Rome hold as to Indulgences? 124. On what is the doctrine of Indulgences founded? 125. To what purpose is the spiritual treasury to be applied? 126. Name any object for which an Indulgence may be bought. 127. Does Rome issue Indulgences for the dead? 123. What does Rome hold as to Indulgences? She holds that the power is vested in the Church to remit the temporal punishment of sin, even when the sinner is in Purgatory. 124. On what is the doctrine of Indulgences founded? On that of supererogation according to which the superabundant merits of Christ and His saints are supposed to be lodged in the Treasury of the Church at the disposal of the Pope and his Bishops. 125. To what purpose is the spiritual treasury to be applied? By Indulgences to the remission of the pains of Purgatory. 126. Name any object for which an Indulgence may be bought. The purpose for which Indulgences may be bought varies in different countries. For example, in Spain it was possible for a thief to obtain an Indulgence to enable him to retain stolen property provided he did not know from whom it was stolen, and also provided that he gave one tenth of its value to the Church of Rome. 127. Does Rome issue Indulgences for the dead? Yes. The church of Rome issues Indulgences for the dead for the relief of their suffering in an alleged Purgatory. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 14: 01.12. PENANCE (128-141) ======================================================================== 128. What does Rome teach concerning Penance? 129. What does Rome teach about the necessity of Penance? 130. By whom must Penance be administered? 131. How often must the Sacrament be administered? 132. What are the component parts of Penance? 133. When was Penance first considered a Sacrament by the Church of Rome? 134. Is there any Scriptural authority for the Sacrament? 135. Does the Confessional give undue power to priests? 136. Where is Confession made? 137. What course is adopted in the Confessional? 138. What is the nature of the conversation at the Confessional? 139. Do you regard this system as immoral? 140. Why do you opposes oracular confession? 141. What did Vatican II teach about Penance and the Confessional? 128. What does Rome teach concerning Penance? Rome teaches it is a Sacrament "by which the benefit of the death of Christ is applied to those who have fallen after Baptism". 129. What does Rome teach about the necessity of Penance? Rome teaches it is "as necessary to salvation for those who have sinned after Baptism, as Baptism itself is for the unregenerate". 130. By whom must Penance be administered? By a priest. Baptism is validly administered by a layman, even a heretic, but Penance can only be administered by a priest. The priest may be a man of immoral character, but Rome affirms that that does not interfere with the efficacy of the Sacrament. 131. How often must the Sacrament be administered? At least once a year, the most acceptable time being Lent. 132. What are the component parts of Penance? They are three: Contrition, Confession and Satisfaction. The priest is satisfied then confers absolution. 133. When was Penance first considered a Sacrament by the Church of Rome? Not until the 13th Century. 134. Is there any Scriptural authority for the Sacrament? Absolutely none. It is in some parts of it a perversion of repentance, and in other parts it is a perversion of the ordinance of discipline. 135. Does the Confessional give undue power to priests? Yes. They acquire therein a knowledge of all family and even state secrets. Servants communicate the affairs of their masters; wives tell of those of their husbands; and ministers, governors and kings tell of those of the State. The priestly Confessor of the King of France used to say: "With my God in my hand [referring to the wafer] and my King at my knee" [referring to the Confessional] who can greater be?" 136. Where is Confession made? This depends upon circumstances, it is usually made at the Confessional Box which is erected in Churches but frequently in private rooms, those of the priest or the penitent. 137. What course is adopted in the Confessional? The priest sits while the penitent kneels and whispers into his ear. 138. What is the nature of the conversation at the Confessional? It is necessarily of the most polluted kind, because sin is the subject matter of Confession. 139. Do you regard this system as immoral? Yes. The priest’s mind is polluted by becoming the receptacle of the impurity of his flock, while again he may take advantage of the knowledge he has acquired for his own wicked purposes. 140. Why do you opposes oracular confession? (1) Because it is without authority. (2) It is an infringement upon the prerogative of God. We should confess to Him and Him alone. (3) It gives power to the priest. When he knows all secrets his power over his penitents is complete. (4) It is immoral in its tendency. The priest speaks and is specially trained and instructed to speak upon the most improper subjects to both sexes. Some of the questions asked by the priest to his female penitents are so obscene that they cannot be printed in the common language of the people. 141. What did Vatican II teach about Penance and the Confessional? Vatican II - the Pastoral Office in the Church (28th October, 1965) The matter of Penance is a central issue to the spiritual life according to the documents of Vatican II. One of the Directives to the Bishops is in the matter of Penance. If he desires to be a proper spiritual overseer to those in his Diocese he must see that the faithful take part in the Eucharist often, and this participation must be preceded by Penance. "Pastors should also be mindful of how much the Sacrament of Penance contributes to developing Christian life, and therefore should make themselves available to hear the confessions of the faithful." (Chap. 2, para. 30) Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1995: ======================================================================== CHAPTER 15: 01.13. PURGATORY (142-159) ======================================================================== 142. What is Purgatory according to Rome? 143. On what two false pillars does Purgatory rest? 144. Explain Matthew 5:25-26 and show that it cannot possibly prove Purgatory. 145. How do you interpret 1 Corinthians 3:13-15? 146. What are the pretensions of the Church of Rome as to the relief of souls in Purgatory? 147. How do Romanists obtain Indulgences? 148. Where are Masses to be obtained? 149. How does the cruelty of the priesthood appear in this respect? 150. How do the poor endeavour to make provision in order to secure the offering up of Masses for the dead? 151. Can the priest possibly say what amount of Masses shall satisfy for the deliverance of souls in Purgatory? 152. How does Purgatory contradict the Holy Scriptures? 153. How does the doctrine of Purgatory affect the Roman Catholic Church? 154. What did Vatican II confirm concerning the Roman teaching on Purgatory? 155. What happens to believers at death? 156. What happens to the wicked at death? 157. What happens to the believers at the Resurrection? 158. What shall be done to the wicked at the day of Judgment? 159. What benefits do believers receive from Christ at the Resurrection? 142. What is Purgatory according to Rome? The place of torment for those who die in venial sin or who have not paid the temporal punishment of sin, expiate their guilt previous to their being admitted into heaven. 143. On what two false pillars does Purgatory rest? The distinction of sin into venial and mortal and the extending of temporal punishment of sin beyond the grave. 144. Explain Matthew 5:25-26 and show that it cannot possibly prove Purgatory: "Agree with thine adversary quickly, whilst thou art in the way with him, lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing." The sinner is in the case of the debtor who has nothing wherewith to pay his debt. He must therefore remain in prison for ever - so the text, rather than proving Purgatory, and escape from the same, disproves any escape from punishment after death in judgment. 145. How do you interpret 1 Corinthians 3:13-15? "Every man’s work shall be made manifest; for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire." If the passage refers to Purgatory it would prove that every man must go there. That is not the doctrine of the Church of Rome. The fire is said to try not to purify, whereas the Romish doctrine is that the fire of Purgatory purifies or purges. The apostles are not referring here to sin, they are referring here to service. 146. What are the pretensions of the Church of Rome as to the relief of souls in Purgatory? Rome teaches that she can shorten their punishment by Indulgences and Masses. 147. How do Romanists obtain Indulgences? By the performance of certain actions, the offering of certain prayers and by connection with certain sodalites or societies. i.e. the Scapular, the Cord of St. Francis, the Sacred Heart, and by labouring for the perversion of Protestants. 148. Where are Masses to be obtained? The more money, the more benefit; thus the rich according to the Church of Rome have greater advantages over the poor. 149. How does the cruelty of the priesthood appear in this respect? They pretend to possess the power of relieving souls in Purgatory and yet they only offer Masses in proportion to the amount paid. 150. How do the poor endeavour to make provision in order to secure the offering up of Masses for the dead? They form Purgatorian Societies in which they pay a certain amount weekly mainly hoping that the various sums will be put to their account in the spiritual bank of Purgatory opened by the priest. 151. Can the priest possibly say what amount of Masses shall satisfy for the deliverance of souls in Purgatory? No. They do not even pretend to do this. They cannot say when the soul leaves Purgatory. 152. How does Purgatory contradict the Holy Scriptures? (1) It contradicts the Scripture doctrine of complete salvation in Christ (John 5:24). (2) It completely contradicts the teaching of Scripture that when a believer dies his soul goes immediately to Heaven (Luke 23:43 : "And Jesus said unto him, Verily, I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in Paradise." Php 1:22 : "For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better." 2 Corinthians 5:8 : "[…] to absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.") 153. How does the doctrine of Purgatory affect the Roman Catholic Church? The propagation of the doctrine of Purgatory serves to greatly enhance the financial posture of the Roman Church. Just as Jacob Macabees collected money for the sacrifice for those who had died in battle, so today sacrifices for all the dead in Purgatory are offered by priests only after they have received sums of money. What loving relative or friend would not expend great sums of money to see that a dead loved one be relieved of his or her punishment in a place like Purgatory? This is exactly what the Roman Church emphasises throughout the world. It is no wonder that the Roman Church possesses such a vast financial holdings and properties in various parts of the world. A large part of this is paid for by the monies received by the Church in return for sacrifices made for the dead in Purgatory. It is easy to see than the positive affect the doctrine of Purgatory has on the Roman Catholic Church and why they so diligently uphold it and teach it. In addition to the positive financial affect on the Roman Catholic Church the teaching of the doctrine of Purgatory also serves to assure the faithfulness of vast numbers of Roman Catholic people to the demands of the Church. Only through the priests may an individual purchase the sacrifices which are so desperately needed to release souls from Purgatory. To turn your back on this fact would only assure the extended sufferings of loved ones in Purgatory. Hence the people, in a sense, are at the mercy of the demands of the Roman Catholic priests. They must remain faithful. Outside the Church they have no hope for themselves and most assuredly no hope for their loved ones in Purgatory. Therefore, the Roman Catholic Church benefits not only financially from the doctrine of Purgatory but also in numbers of people who continue to embrace Catholicism. 154. What did Vatican II confirm concerning the Roman teaching on Purgatory? The documents of the Vatican II Council had little to say about the doctrine of Purgatory, but what they did say was quite significant. In regard to the faithful in Purgatory who are still being purified this statement was made: Vatican II - Dogmatic Constitution of the Church: "This most sacred Synod accepts with great devotion the venerable faith of our ancestors regarding this vital fellowship with our brethren who are in heavenly glory, or who are still being purified after death." [’Those still being purified after death’ obviously refers to those in Purgatory.] In essence the Synod or Council of Vatican II reaffirmed the traditional doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, especially in regard to Purgatory. In fact, it stated that "the Vatican II Council proposes again the Decrees of the Second Council of Nicea, the Council of Florence and the Council of Trent, and at the same time as part of its own pastoral solicitude this Synod urges all concerned to work hard to prevent or correct any abuses, excesses or defect which may have crept in here and there, and to restore all things to more ample praise of Christ and God." Very simply, the Vatican Council Documents merely reaffirm the doctrines affirmed in the Council of Nicea, the Council of Florence and the Council of Trent. These documents which include the doctrine of Purgatory are to be maintained, Vatican II directed, "exactly as they were written in their respective documents of these councils" (Chap. 7, para. 51). Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1995: "All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven. The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned." (Para. 1030, 1031) "From the beginning the Church has honoured the memory of the dead and offered prayers in suffrage for them, above all the Eucharistic sacrifice, so that, thus purified, they may attain the beatific vision of God. The Church also commends almsgiving, indulgences and works of penance undertaken on behalf of the dead." (Para. 1032) 155. What happens to believers at death? The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into Glory, and their bodies being still united to Christ do rest in their graves till the Resurrection. 156. What happens to the wicked at death? The souls of the wicked are at their death cast into Hell where they remain in torments and utter darkness, and their bodies kept in their graves as in their prisons until the Resurrection and Judgment of great day. 157. What happens to the believers at the Resurrection? At the Resurrection those believers that are then found alive shall in a moment be changed - and the self-same bodies of the believing dead which were laid in the grave, being then again united to their souls for ever, shall be raised up by the power of Christ. The bodies of the just by the Spirit of Christ and by virtue of His Ressurection as their Head shall be raised in power, spiritual, incorruptible and made like to His Glorious Body. 158. What shall be done to the wicked at the day of Judgment? At the day of Judgment the wicked shall be set on Christ’s left hand, and upon clear evidence and full conviction of their own consciences shall have the fearful but just sentence of condemnation pronounced against them, and thereupon shall be cast from that favourable presence of God and the glorious fellowship with Christ His saints and all His holy angels into Hell to be punished with unspeakable torments both of body and soul with the devil and his angels for ever. 159. What benefits do believers receive from Christ at the Resurrection? At the Resurrection believers being raised up in Glory shall be openly acknowledged and acquitted in the day of judgment and made perfectly blessed in the full enjoying of God to all eternity. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 16: 01.14. MARIOLATRY (160-187) ======================================================================== 160. What worship does the Church of Rome teach should be given to the mother of our Lord? 161. What are the grounds on which Rome bases this worship of Mary? 162. Did Rome always hold the doctrine of Mary’s Immaculate Conception? 163. In this doctrine taught in the New Testament or was it known in the early church? 164. What did St. Alphonsus Ligouri teach about those who do not worship and serve Mary? 165. Give the terms of Rome’s Decree declaring Mary’s Immaculate Conception? 166. What is Rome’s legend about the Assumption of Mary? 167. Has this legend been always believed by the Church of Rome? 168. When was the Assumption of Mary declared to be an official Dogma of the Church? 169. What are some of the names given by Rome to Mary? 170. What are the three names which Rome uses which more than any others exalt Mary? 171. Does Rome teach expressly that Mary has taken Christ’s place as Saviour and that she is the source of salvation? 172. Does Rome teach that Christ cannot disobey Mary’s commands? 173. Does Rome make Mary a partner mediator with Christ in the work of redemption? 174. Give a specimen of the language Rome uses to Mary which exalts her to the Godhead. 175. Describe the Scapular of the Virgin. 176. What is the meaning of this badge? 177. Is the book The Glories of Mary, from which many of the preceding extracts on Mariolatry have been taken, a reliable authority of Rome’s teaching on the subject? 178. What is the Rosary? 179. What is the Ave maria or Hail Mary? 180. Is the Rosary much valued by the Church? 181. How ought we to regard Mary? 182. To what source must the worship of the Madonna and Child be originally traced? 183. What does Rome teach about Mary’s house at Nazareth? 184. What is the irresistible inference to be drawn from Rome’s exaltation and worship of Mary? 185. Why is it wrong to worship Mary? 186. What judgment does the Word of God pass upon Rome’s doctrine and practise of Mariolatry? 187. How did Vatican II confirm Rome as a Marian sect? 160. What worship does the Church of Rome teach should be given to the mother of our Lord? Prayers are addressed to her and she is honoured with hyperdulia: this is a word coined by the Church to indicate the highest kind of worship which, according to her, may be given to a created being. A careful review of Rome’s books of devotion affords the fullest proof that among Romanists Mary divides the honours of Divine Worship and even Divinity with the Supreme Being. 161. What are the grounds on which Rome bases this worship of Mary? On the pretended ground that she was born without a taint of sin, that after death she was miraculously taken up to Heaven, and that she assists Christ in the work of Redemption. Her sinlessness is termed by Rome her ’Immaculate Conception.’ Her taking up into Heaven is termed the ’Assumption of Mary’, while her assisting of Christ gives her the title of ’Co-Redemptorist’. 162. Did Rome always hold the doctrine of Mary’s Immaculate Conception? No, the promulgation of it dates no further back than December 8th, 1854, when it was proclaimed by Pope Pius IX. Such a fact in connection with the doctrine that enthrones Mary beside Christ and declares her to be a Saviour more able and more compassionate than He, reveals a serious defect in a Church which claims to be infallible. If the doctrine were true what a loss the members of the Church of Rome must have sustained through ignorance of it for the last twelve centuries. 163. In this doctrine taught in the New Testament or was it known in the early church? The whole Word of God teaches the contrary, even as Paul declares that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Mary’s own language confirms that she acknowledged she was a sinner and needed salvation when she exclaimed: "My spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour." The teaching was unknown to the apostolic church, and in the writing of the fathers of the first five centuries it was never once mentioned. Not one great name can be quoted for it during the first eleven centuries. On the contrary, no fewer than fourteen Popes oppose it. 164. What did St. Alphonsus Ligouri teach about those who do not worship and serve Mary? He taught that those who do not serve Mary will not be saved and that we after obtain more promptly what we ask by calling on the name of Mary than by invoking that of Jesus. 165. Give the terms of Rome’s Decree declaring Mary’s Immaculate Conception? "We declare, pronounce and define that the doctrine which holds that the Blessed Virgin Mary at the first instance of her conception by a singular privilege and grace of the Omnipotent God, in virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ the Saviour of mankind, was preserved Immaculate from all stain of original sin has been revealed by God, and therefore should firmly and constantly be believed by the faithful. Wherefore if any shall dare which God avert to think otherwise than it has been defined by us, they should know and understand that they are condemned by their own judgment, that they have suffered shipwreck of the faith, and have revolted from the unity of the Church [...] let the children of the Catholic Church most dear to us hear these words and with a more ardent zeal of piety, religion and love proceed to worship, invoke and pray to the most Blessed Virgin Mary." 166. What is Rome’s legend about the Assumption of Mary? It is that Mary died at the age of 72, that all the apostles were in distant countries at the time, that they were all with the exception of Thomas miraculously conveyed in the clouds to be present at her death, that they buried her at Gethsemane, and that three days after, when Thomas appeared, they opened the tomb that he might see her, but that, though the grave had been carefully guarded, they found nothing but the graveclothes. Whereupon they concluded that she had been taken up to Heaven. 167. Has this legend been always believed by the Church of Rome? No. It was treated at first as a fable, and in the 5th century Pope Gelasius condemned it as apocryphal. Gradually however, it began to be accepted and ultimately Pope Sextus IV appointed by decree a festival in honour of the assumption, to be observed annually on 25th August. This festival is regularly observed both by the Greek and the Roman Church. 168. When was the Assumption of Mary declared to be an official Dogma of the Church? It was promulgated as a Roman Dogma in as late as 1950 by Pope Pius XII. 169. What are some of the names given by Rome to Mary? The following are only a few of them: ’Mother of Divine Grace’; ’Ark of the Covenant’; ’Gate of Heaven’; ’Morning Star’; ’Refuge of sinners’; ’Comforter of the afflicted’; ’Help of Christians’; ’Latter of Promise’; ’Treasury of Divine Grace’; ’Mother of Mercies’; ’Advocate of sinners’; ’Propitiatory of the whole world’; ’Mediatrix of Grace’; ’Way of Salvation’; and ’Queen of Heaven’. 170. What are the three names which Rome uses which more than any others exalt Mary? She is called the Daughter of God the Father, the Mother of God the Son, and the Spouse of the Holy Ghost. Such names most plainly imply that Mary is honoured as the fourth person of the Godhead, for more exalted names could not be given to the Divine Being. 171. Does Rome teach expressly that Mary has taken Christ’s place as Saviour and that she is the source of salvation? Yes. Pope Pius IX by whom the Decree was promulgated, declared that the clause in the first promise: "It shall bruise Thy head", applied to Mary, for that it was she who crushed the serpent’s head with her immaculate foot. Accordingly Romanists are taught to address Mary in the following terms: "In taking flesh in your chaste womb God has been pleased to become your debtor in order to place afterwards at your disposal all the treasures of His abounded mercy [ ]we hope for grace and salvation from you and since you need but say the words: ’Ah, do so’; you shall be heard and we shall be saved." 172. Does Rome teach that Christ cannot disobey Mary’s commands? Yes. Rome expresses it thus: "The Blessed Virgin having lodged the Son of God in her womb requires from Him as the price of her hospitality peace for the earth, salvation for the lost and life for the dead." In keeping with this is the prayer: "O Empress and our most benign Lady, by the right of a mother command thy most beloved Son our Lord Jesus Christ that He vouchsafe to raise our minds from the love of earthly things to Heavenly desires who liveth and reigneth." Rome actually declares that "all is subject to Mary’s Empire even God Himself and that God hears her prayers as if they were commands". 173. Does Rome make Mary a partner mediator with Christ in the work of redemption? Yes. She declares it to be absolutely necessary to the salvation of the sinner. Her words are: "Because men fear Jesus Christ, that Divine Person who is destined one day to judge them, it has been necessary to give them a Mediator with the Mediator, and none was so fit for this office as Mary His mother." Accordingly she teaches that "no grace, no pardon emanates from the Throne of the King of kings without passing through the hands of Mary [...]; no one enters Heaven without passing through her." 174. Give a specimen of the language Rome uses to Mary which exalts her to the Godhead. "All the earth doth worship thee the spouse of the Eternal Father. All the angels and archangels, all thrones and powers do faithfully serve thee. To thee all angels cry aloud with never ceasing voice Holy, Holy, Holy Mary Mother of God. Thou sittest with thy Son on the right hand of the Father [ ] in the sweet Mary is our Hope, defend us for evermore. Praise becometh thee, Empire becometh thee, Virtue and Glory be unto thee for ever and ever." Such language could not be matched in the world again outside the Church of Rome for utter blasphemy. 175. Describe the Scapular of the Virgin. It is a small badge, made of two pieces of woolen stuff, about the size of a hand, hanging by two little laces down from the neck upon both the breast and the back of the wearer. It has on the one side a picture of the Madonna and Child each with a burning heart. At the head of the Mother is surrounded with rays; on the other side it has the representation of the Virgin treading on the serpent. 176. What is the meaning of this badge? The legend believed by the Church of Rome is that Mary appeared in 1251 to Simon Stock, a Carmelite Friar in England, and gave him a Scapular in imitation of her own garment, with instructions that this Scapular was henceforth to be the badge of the confraternity of our Blessed Lady of Mount Carmel: and the promise moreover was given with it that whosoever would enter the confraternity of the Blessed Virgin, and wear that habit, would be absolved from the third part of their sins, and if after death they would go to Purgatory the most sacred Virgin would deliver them from thence on the first Saturday after their death. The Virgin is said to have given this promise direct to Pope John XXI. 177. Is the book The Glories of Mary, from which many of the preceding extracts on Mariolatry have been taken, a reliable authority of Rome’s teaching on the subject? Yes, it is of the highest authority along with the other writings of St. Ligouri. It was pronounced by Pope Pius VII in 1803 and Pope Leo XII in 1825 to be without error. Liguori was canonised in 1831 by Pope Gregory XVI and it was announced at his Beatification that he had performed more than a hundred miracles during his life and twenty eight after his death. The late Cardinal Wiseman declared that he could be in two places at one and the same time; so that he must have been a very fit person and proper man to expound the doctrines of Rome. 178. What is the Rosary? The Rosary is an arithmetical guide to Romish devotion of comparatively modern use in the Roman Church. It is a string of beads larger and smaller designed to aid the worshipper in repeating a definite number of Paternosters (Our Fathers) and Ave Marias (Hail Marys). There are as many as twenty forms of Rosary devotions enumerated by standard authorities. The most ordinary form has five decades (or tens) of smaller beads making in all fifty each decade separated by a single large bead making in all five. The arrangement is that for every one of the fifty smaller beads the Romanist offers up a prayer to Mary, the Ave Maria, and for every one of the larger ones he offers up a prayer to God, the Lord’s Prayer. In other words, the Romanist is taught to pray ten times to Mary for every one that he prays to God. 179. What is the Ave maria or Hail Mary? This favourite prayer to Mary consists of three parts. One, the salutation of the angel; two, the words of Elizabeth; and three, a prayer added to these by the authority of the Church. That prayer is as follows: "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and in the hour of our death Amen." 180. Is the Rosary much valued by the Church? It is the most popular form of devotion among Romanists. It has been strongly recommended by many Popes and great indulgences have been promised to those who practice it. 181. How ought we to regard Mary? We ought to hold her in respectful remembrance as one who was honoured among women in being the mother of the Man Christ Jesus: but we ought not to forget that she was a sinner even as others, saved by grace even as others. 182. To what source must the worship of the Madonna and Child be originally traced? To paganism. The ancient Babylonians worshipped a goddess mother and child; in Egypt they were worshipped Isis and Osiris; in India as Isi and Iswam; in Rome as Fortuna and Jupiter the boy; in Greece as Ceres and the Babe. 183. What does Rome teach about Mary’s house at Nazareth? Rome teaches that it was miraculously transferred in 1291 by angels from Palestine to Dalmatia, from that four and a half years after to the neighbourhood of Recanati in Italy and finally to its present site at Loretto in Italy. For this there is no proof whatsoever. The reputed house is a small brick house with one door and one window, originally of rude material and construction, but now enclosed in a splendid chapel most expensively and elaborately finished. As many as tens of thousands of Masses are said at it annually, more than forty thousand pilgrims visit it annually and its treasury of votive offerings is one of the richest in Europe. The present Pope has made it a special shrine for Mary by personally visiting it and doing homage there to Mary. 184. What is the irresistible inference to be drawn from Rome’s exaltation and worship of Mary? It is that the religion of the Church of Rome has now less claim than ever to be called Christianity. It is undisguised Marianism. 185. Why is it wrong to worship Mary? It is wrong to worship Mary and the saints because the New Testament teaches that worship is to be given to God alone and that the only Mediator between God and man is our Lord Jesus Christ. 186. What judgment does the Word of God pass upon Rome’s doctrine and practise of Mariolatry? It passes sentence of unqualified condemnation on both. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary is a denial of the universal sinfulness of the human family; and the doctrine of the Assumption and Coronation of Mary is an exaltation of the creature to a level with the Creator. The worship of Mary is idolatry of the most deliberate type and it is an overwhelming proof of the antichristian character of the Papal system. The church so-called that exalts and invokes as a Saviour the Virgin Mary in preference to Christ or even along with Christ cannot be a branch of the Church of Christ. Christ said: "He that is not with me is against me." 187. How did Vatican II confirm Rome as a Marian sect? In the statements made about Mary in the Constitutions and Decrees of that Council and especially in chapter eight of the Dogmatic Constitution of the Church. Chapter 8 is entitled ’The Role of the Blessed Virgin Mary Mother of God in the mystery of Christ and the church.’ Here are some extracts:- "In this church adhering to Christ the Head and having communion with all His saints the faithful must also venerate the memory of the glorious and perpetual Virgin Mary Mother of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ." (Para. 52) "Hence she is acknowledged and honoured as being truly the Mother of God and the Mother of the Redeemer." (Para. 53) "It is no wonder then that the usage prevailed among the holy fathers whereby they called the Mother of God entirely holy and free from all stain of sin fashioned by the Holy Spirit into a kind of new substance and new creature." (Para. 56) "Finally preserved free from all guilt of original sin the Immaculate Virgin was taken body and soul into heavenly glory upon the completion of her earthly sojourn. She was exalted by the Lord as Queen of all, in order that she might be more thoroughly conformed to her Son the Lord of lords and the Conqueror of sin and death." (Para. 59) "In an utterly singular way she cooperated by her obedience faith hope and burning charity in the Saviour’s work of restoring supernatural life to souls. From this reason she is a Mother to us in the order of grace." (Para. 61) "This maternity of Mary in the order of grace began with the consent which she gave in faith at the annunciation and which she sustained without wavering beneath the Cross. This maternity will last without interruption until the eternal fulfilment of all the elect. For taken up to Heaven she did not lay aside this saving role but by her manifold acts of intercession continues to win for us gifts of eternal salvation. There fore the Blessed Virgin is invoked by the Church under the Titles of Advocate, Auxiliatrix, Adjutrix and Mediatrix." (Para. 62) "Mary was involved in the mysteries of Christ. As the most Holy Mother of God she was, after her Son exalted by divine grace above all angels and men. Hence the Church appropriately honours her with special reverence. Indeed from the most ancient times the Blessed Virgin has been venerated under the Title of Godbearer. Especially after the Council of Ephesus the cult of the people of God toward Mary wonderfully increased in veneration, in love, in invocation and imitation. This cult is altogether special. Still it differs essentially from the cult of adoration which is offered to the Incarnate Word as well as to the Father and Holy Spirit. Yet devotion to Mary is most favourable to this supreme cult. The Church has endorsed many forms of Deity towards the Mother of God providing that they were within the limits of sound and orthodox doctrine." (Para. 66) "This most holy synod deliberately teaches this Catholic doctrine and at the same time it admonisheth all the sons of the CHurch that the cult, especially the liturgical cult of the Blessed Virgin be generously fostered. It charges that practices and exercises of devotion toward her be treasured as recommended by the teaching authority of the Church in the course of centuries and that those decrees issued in earlier times regarding the veneration of images of Christ the Blessed Virgin and the saints be religiously observed.’ (Para. 67) "Let the entire Body of the faithful pour forth perseveringly prayer to the Mother of God and Mother of men. Let them implore that she who aided the beginnings of the church by her prayers may now, exalted as she is in Heaven above all the saints and angels, intercede with her Son in the fellowship of all the saints. May she do so until all the peoples of the human family whether they are honoured with the name of Christian or whether they still do not know their Saviour or happily together in peace and harmony into the one people of God, for the glory of the most Holy and undivided Trinity." (Para. 69) Catechism of the Cacholic Church, 1995: "The Church’s devotion to the Blessed Virgin is intrinsic to Christian worship. The Churhc rightly honours the blessed Virgin with special devotion. [ ] The liturgical feasts dedicated to the Mother of God and Marian prayer, such as the rosary, an ’epitome of the Gospel’, express this devotion to the Virgin Mary." (Para. 971) "Mary - Eschatological Icon of the Church. [ ] In her we contemplate what the Church already is in her mystery on her own ’pilgrimage of faith’, and what she will be in the homeland at the end of her journey. There, ’in the glory of the Most Blessed and Undivided Trinity’, ’in the communion of all the saints’, the Church is awaited by the one she venerates as Mother of her Lord and as her own mother." (Para. 972) ======================================================================== CHAPTER 17: 01.15. SAINTS, ANGELS, IMAGE WORSHIP (188-208) ======================================================================== 188. What does the word ’saint’ mean in the New Testament? 189. Is the term used in an unscriptural manner even by Protestants? 190. How does Rome create her saints? 191. Prove that Rome teaches praying to and worship of angels and saints. 192. Why must we regard this doctrine of Rome? 193. What does Rome teach concerning images? 194. What is the second commandment? 195. What is forbidden in the second commandment? 196. How does Rome get over the second commandment which states that we must not make or bow down or serve graven images? 197. What does the Church of Rome understand by relics? 198. What are the two classes of relics principally prized by Rome? 199. Name some of the relics which are displayed and honoured by the Church of Rome. 200. What honour is said to be due to relics? 201. What fact is positive disproof of the genuiness of Rome’s relics? 202. What is the boast of the Church of Rome in regard to the working of miracles? 203. Does not the character of the doctrines, in support of which the miracles of Rome are appealed to, warrant us to reject them? 204. What is the moral code or character of Rome’s alleged miracles? 205. What was Newman’s opinions of the miracles of Rome before he turned over to the Romish Church? 206. Is this feature of Rome’s character not foretold and severely condemned in the Scriptures? 207. What is prayer? 208. What rule has God given for our direction in prayer? 188. What does the word ’saint’ mean in the New Testament? According to the New Testament all who believe savingly on the Lord Jesus Christ are saints. 189. Is the term used in an unscriptural manner even by Protestants? The term ’saint’ as a title is borrowed from the usage of the Church of Rome and is applied by her only to such as she has canonised. The custom of calling some of God’s people saints and withholding the name from others is not only inconsistent but is a concession to Romish modes of thought. Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah and Daniel were as truly saints as Matthew, Paul, Peter and John. Yet, by many the latter are called Saint Matthew, Saint Paul, St. Peter and St. John while the appellative of Saint is never given to any others. In the original Greek of the New Testament the title saint is not prefixed to the names of either evangelists or apostles. All believers are saints. 190. How does Rome create her saints? The Pope institutes first of all a formal inquiry into the qualifications of the person for whom the honour is sought - his or her character and miracles. One official, called the devil’s advocate, advances all he can against him or her and he is answered by another advocate who successfully of course defends him or her. The examination terminated satisfactorily the Pope pronounces the beatification of the candidate. Some years afterwards time having been given to collect new proofs of his merits, such as miracles performed by his relics, the canonisation takes place and his name is inserted in the Canon of saints in the Mass hence canonisation. Churches and altars are then consecrated to him or her and his remains are preserved as holy relics. 191. Prove that Rome teaches praying to and worship of angels and saints. In the Missal there are prayers such as the following: "May the intercession, O Lord, of Bishop Peter Thy apostle render the prayers and offerings of Thy church acceptable to Thee that the mysteries we celebrate in his honour may obtain for us the pardon of our sins." There is a prayer that the Romanist is taught to address his guardian angel: "O my good angel whom God by His divine mercy hath appointed to be my guardian enlighten and protect me, direct and govern me this night, Amen." 192. Why must we regard this doctrine of Rome? It is a pure invention of man or rather of Satan and wholly unwarranted in Scripture. It ignores the precious truth that Christ has come in the flesh and that in Him we have a High Priest who can be touched with the feelings of our infirmities; it is fitted to lead sinners away from Christ the only Mediator; and it is gross idolatry. 193. What does Rome teach concerning images? The Church of Rome teaches that "images are representations of Christ of His Blessed Mother or of the saints and members of the Church of Rome, members are encouraged to pay them homage and give them votive offerings". In practise this leads to the worship of images that is idolatry, which is forbidden in the second commandment. 194. What is the second commandment? "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or any likeness of anything that is in Heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them nor serve them. For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me and show mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments." 195. What is forbidden in the second commandment? The second commandment forbiddeth the worshipping of God by images or any other way not appointed by His Word. 196. How does Rome get over the second commandment which states that we must not make or bow down or serve graven images? The Church of Rome oftentimes omits the second commandment completely from her Catechisms, as for example in the Maynooth Catechism and Butler’s Irish Catechism. Having omitted the second commandment, Rome then changes the tenth commandment into two parts in order still to have ten commandments. 197. What does the Church of Rome understand by relics? The dead bodies or bones of the saints also whatever other things belong to them in their mortal life. 198. What are the two classes of relics principally prized by Rome? They are (1) Particles of the skull, bones, skin, teeth, hair, nails and drops of blood of the saints and (2) the instruments of torture by which they suffered death. 199. Name some of the relics which are displayed and honoured by the Church of Rome. The Church of Rome displays and honours among a great many other things the following alleged relics -the hair of St. Magdalene, stones thrown at St. Stephen, hay from the manger of Bethlehem, the tail of Baalim’s ass, a tooth of St. Paul, pairings of St. Edmund’s toes - and it is said there are more heads of St. Peter than one or two. 200. What honour is said to be due to relics? The Council of Trent did not define it. Modern authorities declare that relics are "dear pledges which animate their confidence in the communion and intercession of the saints", and that there ought to be rendered to them !an inferior and relative honour as they relate to Christ and the saints and their memorials of them". At the formal exhibition of relics at St. Peter’s in Rome formal and public worship is offered to them and the Pope and Cardinals kneel before them as they do before the host and the altar. 201. What fact is positive disproof of the genuiness of Rome’s relics? The fact that there are so many relics of each apostle and saint and so many duplicates of every article of primitive interest. The apostles must each have had several heads and a corresponding number of limbs to have furnished the present supply. Helena who discovered the Cross must have had three bodies as there is now one in the Church of Aracaeli in Rome, a second in the Continent of Hautvilliers near Rheims and a third in Constantinople - each one honoured as the true body of the saint. The Cross must have been of enormous size to have furnished all the pieces now exhibited. There are even relics of angels, for example the feather of Michael the Archangel. 202. What is the boast of the Church of Rome in regard to the working of miracles? She claims that that power has been transmitted to her; that her relics, images and saints have all wrought and continue still to work miracles. Cardinal Newman said: "Certainly the Catholic Church from east to west, from north to south is hung with miracles." 203. Does not the character of the doctrines, in support of which the miracles of Rome are appealed to, warrant us to reject them? Yes, God declared that any sign given or wonder wrought in support of any doctrine contrary to His Word is, without further examination, to be pronounced false. 204. What is the moral code or character of Rome’s alleged miracles? It has been to a great extent of a low unworthy and childish type. According to Schaff the miracles of the Church of Rome have been not so much supernatural and above reason but unnatural and against reason. We are told for example how St. Berinus after being full sail for France, finding he had forgotten something, walked by dryshod on the sea; how St. Dionysius after being beheaded took his head in his hand and walked two miles; how St. Anthony made a heretic’s horse do obeisance to the host by inclining his head and kneeling; how St. Hilarion in answer to the appeal of one of the faithful who patronised the turf but was invariably beaten by his antagonist gave him a jug of water with which to sprinkle his horses and the course, the result being that his horses were able to fly past his competitors and win every race! In contrast to all this the miracles of Christ were works of dignity and power which always corresponded with the object of His mission and were themselves a beautiful illustration of the blessings He came to bestow. 205. What was Newman’s opinions of the miracles of Rome before he turned over to the Romish Church? Newman said that such miracles were "unworthy of an all-wise author", and he added: "The notorious insincerity and frauds of the Church of Rome in other things were in themselves enough to throw a strong suspicion on its testimony to its miracles." After he seceded to the Church of Rome he accepted her miracles, even the bowing of her crucifixes, the winking of her madonnas and the liquidification of the blood of St. Januarius. 206. Is this feature of Rome’s character not foretold and severely condemned in the Scriptures? Yes. One of the features of the man of sin, as described by Paul, is that his coming "is after the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders [literally with all power and signs and wonder of falsehood, the term ’falsehood’ referring to each of the three preceding substantives] and with all deceivableness or unrighteousness in them that perish". For twelve or fifteen centuries the Church of Rome has filled up with her false dogmas and spurious miracles this apostolic outline of the character of the great apostasy. 207. What is prayer? Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God for things agreeable to His will in the Name of Christ with confession of our sins and thankful acknowledgement of His mercies. 208. What rule has God given for our direction in prayer? The whole Word of God is of use to direct us in prayer, but the special rule of direction is that form of prayer which Christ taught His disciples, commonly called ’The Lord’s Prayer’. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 18: 01.16. ROME AND THE REFORMATION (210-213) ======================================================================== 210. What was the reason for the Reformation? 211. How did Rome react? 212. Did the Reformation involve, as Rome asserts, heresy and schism? 213. Has the term ’Protestant’ a negative aspect and a positive aspect? 210. What was the reason for the Reformation? Rome by her domination had corrupted the Church, and those who were faithful to the Word of God sought to restore the Church to her true doctrines. 211. How did Rome react? Rome violently opposed the Reformation everywhere, and all the Churches of the Reformation were regarded as heretical because they sought to abolish Rome’s corruptions and rejected the claims of the Papacy. 212. Did the Reformation involve, as Rome asserts, heresy and schism? Certainly not. The Reformers, on the contrary, regarded the Church of Rome to have seceded from Christ and the Apostolic Church, and their aim was to return to the pure Gospel and practices and principles of the New Testament. 213. Has the term ’Protestant’ a negative aspect and a positive aspect? Yes. Protestantism involves protesting against error, but also propagating the Truth. A Protestant, therefore, in the true sense, is one who not only protests against the corruptions, abuses and apostasy of Romanism, but also bears faithful witness to the fundamental principles of the Gospel as set forth in the Word of God. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 19: 01.17. PATRICK (214-228) ======================================================================== 214. Was Patrick the founding father of the Christian Church in Ireland? 215. Was Patrick sent to Ireland by the Pope? 216. What brought Patrick to Ireland? 217. Where do we find the teaching of Patrick? 218. What is the basis for the teaching contained in Patrick’s Confession and Epistle? 219. What sacraments were observed by Patrick? 220. Was the early Irish Church subject to Rome? 221. How did Popery first gain an entrance into Ireland? 222. How did Popery gain her hold on the whole of Ireland? 223. What do the words ’for the enlarging of the bounds of the Church’ in the Papal Bull of Adrian IV teach us? 224. What happened after the conquest of Ireland by King Henry II of England? 225. What does this decision of the Synod of Cashel teach us? 226. What change was made by King Henry VIII of England? 227. What was the result of Henry VIII’s action? 228. In what sense historically may the Free Presbyterian Church claim to be heirs of the Celtic Church? 214. Was Patrick the founding father of the Christian Church in Ireland? Yes. We are correct in claiming that Patrick was the founding father of the Christian Church in Ireland. He organised the local Church in Ireland and by his missionary activities brought many converts into the Church. 215. Was Patrick sent to Ireland by the Pope? No. Indeed, the earliest testimony to that claim was made more than four centuries after his death. 216. What brought Patrick to Ireland? Patrick came to Ireland as a result of the call of God, and of a divine vision, through which he received, like Paul, a Macedonian call, in which the Irish said: ’We entreat thee, holy youth, that thou come and walk amongst us.’ 217. Where do we find the teaching of Patrick? The teaching of Patrick can be found in written works, namely, his Confession and Epistle. There is a hymn, The Breastplate of Patrick, which is by Patrick himself. 218. What is the basis for the teaching contained in Patrick’s Confession and Epistle? The basis for the writings of Patrick is the Scripture of Truth. All Patrick’s writings were Biblically founded. 219. What sacraments were observed by Patrick? The only sacraments observed by Patrick were Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and the Celtic Church which he founded believed in and practised these two sacraments only. 220. Was the early Irish Church subject to Rome? No. The independence of the early Irish Church is one of the most indisputable facts of history. 221. How did Popery first gain an entrance into Ireland? Popery first gained an entrance into Ireland in the 11th century, 600 years after Patrick. When the Danes who had settled in Ireland became Christians, they refused to acknowledge the authority and jurisdiction of the old Irish Church, and sent their Bishops to be consecrated by the Archbishops of Canterbury. The Archbishops of Canterbury were, of course, subject to the Pope, so through these Bishops, consecrated by the Archbishops of Canterbury, Popery first got a foothold in Ireland. 222. How did Popery gain her hold on the whole of Ireland? Popery gained her hold on the whole of Ireland because in 1155 Pope Adrian IV gave King Henry II of England permission to carry out the conquest of Ireland ’for the enlarging of the bounds of the Church’. The Pope made a condition that there would be in future an annual payment of one penny for every house in the land ’for St. Peter and the Holy Roman Church’. The Pope based his authority to give this permission on a document known as The Donation of Constantine, since proved to be a forgery. Henry II, however, was not able to act on the Papal Bull, so it was renewed 17 years later by Pope Alexander III. (A Papal Bull is a letter, edict or script of the Pope published or transmitted to the Churches over which he is Head containing some decree, order or decision.) 223. What do the words ’for the enlarging of the bounds of the Church’ in the Papal Bull of Adrian IV teach us? These words of Pope Adrian IV teach us that in the 12th century the Celtic Church in Ireland was not subject to the Papacy. 224. What happened after the conquest of Ireland by King Henry II of England? After the conquest, at the Synod of Cashel in 1172, it was decided ’that all things relating to religion for the future in all parts of Ireland be regulated according to the Church of England’. Note: The Church of England was at that time under the jurisdiction of the Church of Rome. 225. What does this decision of the Synod of Cashel teach us? This decision of the Synod of Cashel, which was held under the direction of King Henry II of England, teaches us that Celtic Ireland was never Papal and never inclined to submit itself to the Papacy. It needed Henry II and the English to rivet upon Ireland the yoke of Rome. 226. What change was made by King Henry VIII of England? When Henry broke with the Church of Rome over his divorce, he changed the State Church in Ireland from the Roman to the Anglican model. 227. What was the result of Henry VIII’s action? Most of the people in Ireland remained members of the Church of Rome, but the only Church recognised by the State was that set up by the King and Parliament. This situation continued until the Bill of Disestablishment, since which the former State Church has continued to use the title ’Church of Ireland’. 228. In what sense historically may the Free Presbyterian Church claim to be heirs of the Celtic Church? The Free Presbyterian Church can rightly claim to be in the true succession of the Celtic Church because of its holding to the Bible as the Infallible Word of God, its preaching of the Gospel of Free and Sovereign Grace, and its rejection of the claims of the Pope and the dogmas of Rome. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 20: 01.18. ECUMENISM (229-240) ======================================================================== 229. What is Ecumenism? 230. How is Ecumenism organised internationally? 231. How is it organised in these Islands? 232. What is the declared purpose of COCBI? 233. What Churches and religious bodies are members of COCBI? 234. In what way is Ecumenism organised in Ireland? 235. What confession did the founders of COCBI make? 236. Of what does this statement remind us? 237. What do the Ecumenical Churches demonstrate? 238. What is our duty in the face of this Ecumenical betrayal? 239. What attitude should we adopt to individual Roman Catholics and Ecumenists? 240. Does the Bible warn us of the coming of a great religious deceiver in the Church, known as the Antichrist? 229. What is Ecumenism? The term ’Ecumenism’ comes from a Greek word meaning ’the inhabited earth’. The word occurs in the New Testament in Luke 2:1, where it is translated as ’all the world’. In the 20th century in the non-Roman Catholic world it is used of a movement for Church unity which resulted from the Edinburgh Missionary Conference of 1910 and which has now evolved through the Faith and Order, Life and Work, and International Missionary Council movements into the World Council of Churches (WCC) - the term ’Christian’ being rightly excluded from the title. In the Roman Catholic world it is used for a parallel movement aiming at the eventual inclusion of all other churches and religions in the Church of Rome and is headed in that department of the Vatican known as the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity. 230. How is Ecumenism organised internationally? It is organised on the world level in the World Council of Churches and with the Vatican’s Secretariat for Unity in various International Commissions such as the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) and others representing Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans and Baptists, etc., with Rome. 231. How is it organised in these Islands? It is organised in these Islands in the Council of Churches for Britain and Ireland (COCBI), of which the Roman Catholic Churches of England, Wales and Scotland are foundation members. 232. What is the declared purpose of COCBI? The Council declares that it is ’in search of the unity for which Christ prayed’. The purpose of COCBI is to enable the Churches in Britain and Ireland to grow together and to take action together. It provides a meeting-place for Churches in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, so that they may ’share their talents and their different traditions as they seek to work together to express the unity of Christ’s people’. COCBI exists ’to help the Churches to find strength and encouragement in the sharing of worship and prayer, in undertaking joint ventures in mission and evangelism and in responding together to the needs of the human community in these Islands and throughout the world. Recognising that there still matters that divide the Churches, COCBI provides a forum within which these can be more openly faced as Churches grow in understanding and trust. In particular, COCBI holds together the work of CTE (Churches Together in England), ACTS (Action of Churches Together in Scotland), CYTUN (Churches Together in Wales) and Irish Ecumenical bodies and cc-operates with other inter-Church bodies.’ 233. What Churches and religious bodies are members of COCBI? Full Members: Baptist Union of Great Britain, Cherubim and Seraphim Council of Churches, Church of Wales, Church of England, Church of Ireland, Church of Scotland, Congregational Federation, Congregational Union of Scotland, Council of African and Afro-Caribbean Churches, Greek Orthodox Church, Independent Methodist Churches, International Ministerial Council of Great Britain, Joint Council for Anglo-Caribbean Churches, Lutheran Council of Great Britain, Methodist Church, Methodist Church of Ireland, Moravian Church, New Testament Assembly, Presbyterian Church of Wales, Religious Society of Friends, Roman Catholic Church in England, Wales and Scotland, Russian Orthodox Church, Salvation Army (British Territory), Scottish Episcopal Church, Undeb yr Annibynwyr (Union of Welsh Independents), United Free Church of Scotland, United Reformed Church, Wesleyan Holiness Church. Bodies in Association: Action of Christians against Torture, Afro-West Indian United Council of Churches, Association of Centres of Adult Theological Education, Centre for black and White Christian Partnership, Conference of Associations of Inter-Church Families in Britain and Ireland, Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Serguius, Free Church Federal Council, National Association of Christian Communities and Networks, New Assembly of Churches, Student Christian Movement, Women’s Inter-Church Consultative Committee, Young Men’s Christian Association, Young Women’s Christian Association. Observers: Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion, Free Church of England, Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, Seventh Day Adventist Church. 234. In what way is Ecumenism organised in Ireland? It is organised in the Irish Council of Churches (’Christian’ rightly excluded), whose members are: Church of Ireland (Anglican), Lutheran, Methodist, Moravian, Non-Subscribing Presbyterian, Presbyterian Church, Salvation Army, Religious Society of Friends. It works by means of its Boards of Inter-Church, Community and Overseas Affairs, and co-operates closely with the Roman Catholic Irish Commission for Justice and Peace in a Peace Education Programme. Also, Roman Catholic observers attend meetings of the Council. The Inter-Church meeting (popularly known as ’Ballymascanlon’), which brings together the member Churches of the Irish Council of Churches and the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. Having first met in 1973, it was restructured in 1985 with an Organising Committee and Department of Theology and Social Issues. Several reports have been published, understanding has grown and inter-Church Bible study has been encouraged. This inter-Church meeting gives an opportunity for all Irish Churches to co-operate and exists alongside the Irish Council of Church, from which it remains distinct. At the Swanwick Conference which set up the COCBI the Irish Inter-Church Committee was represented by Rev. G. Clifford (Roman Catholic) and Rev. D. Nesbitt (Irish Presbyterian). 235. What confession did the founders of COCBI make? ’In a real sense, we know not where we are going, still less how we are going to get there.’ 236. Of what does this statement remind us? This statement is the same in nature as the statement of the first General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, Dr. W. Vissar t’Hooft. At the commencement of that apostate body he said: ’The symbol of the World Council of Churches is a ship. It is a new type of craft. [There never was a ship like this before, and the like of it will never be seen again.] Never before have Christians of so wide a range of belief come together - given their pledge to stay together - said in effect they are all together in the same boat. [What a boat! Fellows in a ship, but not a fellowship!] This ship is on its maiden voyage. [It never sailed before.] We do not know how seaworthy the craft is, [it is certainly not A1 at Lloyds!], whether it will hold the cargo of hope put into it by Christians all over the world. [When they get old Papa in it will be too heavily burdened!] The ship is headed for an unknown destination. [Remember: this is their very own confession - they don’t know where they are going!] The ship has an inexperienced crew. For it is true of all of us what a great theologian said at Amsterdam: We are all Ecumenical babies! [Who would want to sail in a ship which never sailed before, which offered no proof of its seaworthiness, which didn’t know where it was going, and the members of the crew of which were babies?!] The members of the crew speak different languages. We do not agree on the meaning of the Church or the Lord’s Supper. It is almost as if our crew could not agree on which is the bow and which is the stern [Think of it! They don’t even know which is the back and which is the front of their own ship. Don’t you see them squabbling over which is the bow and which is the stern!?], and we begin this perilous experiment in the midst of one of the worst storms in history.’ [Would you sail in such a vessel?] 237. What do the Ecumenical Churches demonstrate? That they are seeking to be incorporated into Rome and that they have betrayed the heritage of the Glorious Reformation. They seek and work and pray for union with the Pope, whom they accept now, or will accept, as the Head of the Church. 238. What is our duty in the face of this Ecumenical betrayal? Forthrightly to cling to the Bible and separate from such churches, faithfully to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ, fearlessly to protest against the doctrines of Rome and to live as becomes those who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, and so adorn the doctrines of our Saviour in all things. 239. What attitude should we adopt to individual Roman Catholics and Ecumenists? We should act as Christ has commanded us, as good neighbours. We should look upon them as souls for whom Christ died, and we should love them, pray for them, and seek their salvation. We should evangelise them presenting Christ as the only Saviour by lip and life, and we should always remember that we are debtors to bring them the Saving Truth of Christ. 240. Does the Bible warn us of the coming of a great religious deceiver in the Church, known as the Antichrist? Yes. The Word ’Antichrist’ means ’in the place of Christ’, and that is what the Popes have done: they have usurped the place of God the Father by taking to themselves the title ’Holy Father’, a title ascribed to God alone. They have usurped the place of Christ by calling themselves ’Vicar’ or substitute of Christ, ’another Christ on earth’. They have usurped the place of the Holy Spirit, Who is Christ’s only Vicar on earth, by taking His place and pretending to do His saving work in the hearts of men. The Reformers saw the Pope for what he was. They recognised him as the one of whom the Bible warned. They dared to call him ’Antichrist’, for that is who he is. All the historic Confessions of the Churches branded him as the ’Son of Perdition’ - the Presbyterian (Westminster), the Congregational (Savoy) and the Baptist (Philadelphia). It is because blindness has fallen upon the world that even believing Christians cannot see the Pope for what he is. Cardinal Manning said: ’The Catholic Church is either the masterpiece of Satan or the Kingdom of the Son of God.’ Cardinal Newman said of Rome: ’If not divinely appointed, it is doctrinally the essence of Antichrist.’ The solemn alternative must be true, for with the Bible in our hands and history before our eyes we know that the Pope and his Church are black apostasy. In the name of Truth we must brand the Pope ’Antichrist’. C.H. Spurgeon said: ’It is the bounden duty of every Christian to pray against Antichrist, and as to what Antichrist is, no sane man ought to raise a question. If it be not Popery in the Church of Rome, there is nothing in the world that can be called by that name. If there were to be issued a hue and cry for Antichrist, we should certainly take up this Church on suspicion, and it would certainly not be let loose again, for it so exactly answers the description.’ ======================================================================== CHAPTER 21: 02.000. THE ERRORES OF ROME ======================================================================== The Errors of Rome Ian Paisley 01 Development of the Papacy from Gregory VII to Boniface VIII. 02 Put Limbo into Limbo 03 Paul VI and Aldo Moro 04 Break-Up Of Britain 05 Father Christmas Bones 06 The Tainted Saint 07 Canonising John Paul 08 Rome Reaps What Sows 09 The ‘Hell of Nuns’ 1 10 The ‘Hell of Nuns’ 2 11 Padre Pio Shrine 12 Unlikely Nun Supremo 13 Rome’s Secret Weapon 14 The Irish Republicans 15 Irish Brigade In Italy 16 Pope’s Irish Brigade 17 Why Pope Benedict XVI? 18 Where Rome Is Wrong 1 19 Where Rome Is Wrong 2 20 Where Rome Is Wrong 3 21 Athanasius ... Genius? 22 1st Pillar of Popery 1 23 1st Pillar of Popery 2 24 1st Pillar of Popery 3 25 1st Pillar of Popery 4 26 1st Pillar of Popery 5 27 Mandatory Celibacy 28 The Demon of Celibacy 29 What is the Individual 30 Infallibility of Pope 31 The Jesuits 32 Cult of Mary - 1 33 Cult of Mary - 2 34 Advance of Romanism: 1 35 Advance of Romanism: 2 36 Confess: Modern Sodom 37 The Perils of Popery 38 Purgatory Pickpocket 39 An Exposure of Popery 40 Popish Miracles 41 Punishment Of Heretics 42 The Eucharist, Or Mass 43 Doctrine Of Oaths 44 Who Intercedes? - 1 45 Who Intercedes? - 2 46 Who Intercedes? - 3 47 Who Intercedes? - 4 48 Who Intercedes? - 5 49 Who Intercedes? - 6 50 Monasteries + Convents 51 Holy Orders 52 Rome’s Rejection 53 Virgin Worship 54 The Jesuits 55 Saints And Angels 56 Duties Of Protestants 57 Condition / Prospects 58 The Inquisition 59 Popish Confirmation 60 Popish Baptism 61 Rome’s Literary Policy 62 Justification 63 Clerical Celibacy 64 Indulgences 65 Image Worship 66 Extreme Unction 67 Catholic Unity 68 Communion In One Kind 69 Merit of Good Works 70 Auricular Confession 80 The Rule of Faith 81 Papal Infallibility 82 Luther Speak 83 Ten Commandments 84 Jesuit Oath Exposed 85 Imagery - I 86 Imagery - II 87 Antichrist to Light 88 Saint Worship 89 Scarlet Woman 90 Indulgences - Tetzel 91 Christ and Pope 92 Relics of Rome 93 Refuge of Lies 94 Papal Infallibility 95 Rome’s Immorality 96 Infallibility 97 Rome Unchanging 98 True Papal Church 99 The Mass ======================================================================== CHAPTER 22: 02.001. DEVELOPMENT OF PAPACY FROM GREGORY TO BONIFACE ======================================================================== Development Of The Papacy From Gregory VII To Boniface VIII British Church Newspaper - October 2007 British Church Newspaper Now to the last great struggle. There lacked one grade of power to crown this stupendous fabric of papal dominion. Spiritual Supremacy was achieved in the seventh century, the temporal sovereignty in the eighth; it wanted only the pontifical supremacy, known as the temporal supremacy, to make the Pope supreme over kings, as he had already become over peoples and bishops, and to vest in him a jurisdiction that has not its like on earth - a unique jurisdiction arrogating all powers, absorbing all rights, and spurning all limits. Destined, before terminating its career, to crush beneath its iron foot thrones and nations, and masking ambition as astute as Lucifer’s with dissimulation as profound, this power advanced at first with noiseless steps. It stole upon the world as night. Its strides grew longer and swifter as it reached its goal finally vaulting over the throne of monarchs into the seat of God. Claiming to be the vicars of Christ, the popes knew that it would be imprudent, indeed impossible, yet to assert it in actual fact. Their prudent motto was Spes messis in semine. Discerning "the harvest in the seed", they skillfully and perservingly lodged the principle of supremacy both in their creed, and in the European mind, knowing future ages would ripen it. Papal daring and ambition At length came overt measures. It was 1073. Perhaps the greatest of all the Popes, Gregory VII, the noted Hildebrand, held the papal chair. Daring and ambitious beyond all preceding, and beyond most to follow, Gregory fully grasped the Theocratic concept. He equated the reign of the Pope with the reign of God. He tirelessly sought the subjection of all authority and power, spiritual and temporal, to Peter’s chair. "When he drew out the whole system of Papal omnipotence in twenty-seven theses in his Dictatus, he repeated the Isidorian decretals giving them the appearance of antiquity by new fictions." For example the eleventh maxim says, "the Pope’s name is the chief name in the world;" the twelfth teaches that, "it is lawful for him to depose emperors;" the eighteenth affirms that "his decision is to be withstood by none, but he alone may annul those of all men". The nineteenth declares that, "he can be judged by no one". The twenty-fifth vests in him the absolute power of deposing and restoring bishops, and the twenty-seventh the power of annulling the allegiance of subjects. Gregory flung down this gage before kings and nations - for the pontifical supremacy embraces all who dwell upon the earth. POPE v EMPIRE The mitre and the (Holy Roman) empire were now at war. Gregory sought to wrest from the emperors the power of appointing the bishops and the clergy, assuming into his sole and irresponsible hands all the intellectual and spiritual machinery by which Christendom was governed. The strife was bloody. The mitre nevertheless continued to gain steadily upon the empire. The superstitious spirit of the times helped the priesthood struggle with the civil power. Superstitious to the core, the age was nevertheless thoroughly ecclesiastical. The crusades broke the spirit and drained the wealth of the princes. The growing power and riches of the clergy militated ever more against the State. Gregory VII briefly tasted this immortal power. He saw Henry IV of Germany, whom he had smitten with excommunication, stand barefooted in sackcloth, waiting three days and nights at the castle-gates of Canossa, amid winter drifts, suing for forgiveness. Hildebrand stood on this dazzling pinnacle for a moment only. Fortunes of war quickly turned. Henry once humiliated became victor in his turn. Gregory died in exile upon Salerno’s promontory. But his successors strove by wiles, by arms, and by anathemas, to reduce the world under the sceptre of the Papal Theocracy. For two dismal centuries melancholy, stricken and bloody fields, empty thrones and sacked cities were beheld! INNOCENT III But through all this misery the idea of Gregory was perseveringly pursued, till at last the mitre triumphed over the (Holy Roman) empire and Innocent III. (1198-1216) celebrated this great victory. Pontifical supremacy had reached its fullness. One man and one will governed the world. In stupefied awe we see that colossus, Innocent III, rearing up, all the mitres of the Church on his head, all the sceptres of the State in his hand. "In each of the three leading objects which Rome has pursued, independent sovereignty, supremacy over the Christian Church, control over the princes of the earth it was the fortune of this pontiff to conquer. "Rome then inspired all the terror of her ancient name; she was once more mistress of the world, and kings were her vassals." Innocent appointed all bishops and presided over all tribunals, from the mightiest to the humblest cause. He claimed all kingdoms as his fiefs, all monarchs as his vassals; and launched with unsparing hand the bolts of excommunication against all who withstood his pontifical will. Hildebrand’s idea was now fully realized. The pontifical supremacy was beheld both in the fullness of spiritual and temporal power. But the noon of the Papacy was the midnight of the world. THE CHURCH MY SPOUSE Pope Innocent III. affirmed "that the pontifical authority so much exceeded the royal power as the sun doth the moon". As Jehovah said to his prophet Jeremiah: "See, I have set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down". Innocent boasted "The Church my spouse is not married to me without bringing me something. She hath given me a dowry of a price beyond all price, the plenitude of spiritual things, and the extent of things temporal, the greatness and abundance of both. She hath given me the mitre in token of things spiritual, the crown in token of the temporal; the mitre for the priesthood, and the crown for the kingdom; making me the lieutenant of him who hath written upon his vesture, and on his thigh, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. I enjoy alone the plenitude of power, that others may say of me, next to God, and out of his fullness have we received". UNUM SANCTUM Boniface VIII added in his bull Unum sanctum, "We declare define, pronounce it to be necessary to salvation for every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff". This subjection is declared in the bull to extend to all affairs. "One sword," says the Pope, "must be under another, and the temporal authority must be subject to the spiritual power; whence, if the earthly power go astray, it must be judged by the spiritual". Such are only a few of the "great words" heard to issue from the Vatican Mount, that new Sinai. Such contrast between the first and the last estate of the pastors of the Roman Church is lamented by the poet Dante. Addressing Peter, he says: "E’en thou went’st forth in poverty and hunger To set the goodly plant that, From the vine it once was, Now is grown unsightly bramble". Petrarch the poet amplifies the same theme: "The fire of wrathful heaven alight, And all thy harlot tresses smite, Base city! Thou from humble fare, Thy acorns and thy water, rose To greatness, rich with others’ woes". There is something here out of the ordinary course. For of the 130 Popes between Boniface III. (606), who, in partnership with Phocas, laid the foundations of the Papal grandeur, and Gregory VII, who realized it, onward through another two centuries to Innocent III. (1216) and Boniface VIII. (1303), who at last put the top-stone upon it, not one lost an inch of ground which his predecessor had gained! There is nothing like it in the history of the world. This success was audaciously interpreted proof of the divinity of the Papacy. Behold, it has been said, when the throne of Caesar was overturned, how the chair of Peter stood erect! Is not (this proof that the Church of Rome is) the Church of which Christ said, "The gates of hell shall not prevail against it?" Boasting of a supposed donation of the kingdom of Hungary to the Roman See by Stephen, a Romanist historian says, "It fell out by a wonderful providence of God, that at the very time when the Roman Church might appear ready to fall and perish, even then distant kings approach the Apostolic See, which they acknowledge and venerate as the only temple of the universe, the sanctuary of piety, the pillar of truth, the immovable rock. Behold, kings - not from the East, as of old they came to the cradle of Christ, but from the North - led by faith, they humbly approach the cottage of the fisher, the Church of Rome herself, offering not only gifts out of their treasures, but bringing even kingdoms to her, and asking kingdoms from her. Whoso is wise, and will record these things, even he shall understand the loving kindness of the Lord." THE RUIN OF ALL SAVE HER OWN But the apparent success of the Papacy when closely examined cannot be justly pronounced legitimate, or fairly won. Rome ever swims with the tide. The evils and passions of society, which a true benefactress would have made it her business to cure - at least, to alleviate - Rome has studied rather to foster into strength, that she might be borne to power on the foul current which she herself had created. Amid battles, bloodshed, and confusion, has her path lain. The edicts of subservient Councils, the forgeries of hireling priests, the arms of craven monarchs, and the thunderbolts of excommunication have never been wanting to open her path. Exploits won by weapons of this sort are what her historians delight to chronicle. These are the victories that constitute her glory! Yet another great deduction from the apparent grandeur of her success is the success the clergy. During her early career, the Roman Church rendered certain important services to society but when she grew to maturity all acknowledge that her principles implied the ruin of all interests save her own. But the career of Rome, with all the fictitious brilliance that encompasses it, is utterly eclipsed when placed beside the silent and sublime progress of the Gospel. The latter we see winning its way over mighty obstacles solely by the force and sweetness of its own truth. It touches the deep wounds of society only to heal them. It speaks not to awaken but to hush the rough voice of strife and war. It enlightens, purifies, and blesses men wherever it comes, and it does all this so gently and unboastingly! Reviled, it reviles not again. For curses it returns blessings. It unsheathes no sword; it spills no blood. Cast into chains, its victories are as many as when free, and more glorious; dragged to the stake and burned, from the ashes of the martyr there start up a thousand confessors, to speed on its career and swell the glory of its triumph. Compared with this how different has been the career of Rome! - as different, in fact, as the thundercloud which comes onward, mantling the skies in gloom and scathing the earth with fiery bolts, is different from the morning descending from the mountain-tops, scattering around it the silvery light, and awakening at its presence songs of joy. (From Wylie’s History of Protestantism, edited by Dr Clive Gillis.) ======================================================================== CHAPTER 23: 02.002. PUT LIMBO INTO LIMBO ======================================================================== The Man of Sin will change the eternal destiny of millions with a word: Benedict XVI attempts to put limbo into limbo British Church Newspaper - 8th December 2006 Dr Clive Gillis The present writer trained in operative obstetrics under a devout Irish Roman Catholic Senior Registrar in the late sixties when infant mortality was higher than it is now. I have witnessed the heart rending screams of terrified Romanist mothers when an infant died at birth. There was the desperate attempt to locate a priest to make a mercy dash to the hospital, followed by a conspiracy to fudge the time of the infant’s death to give the mother hope that the priest had arrived in time, when really she knew in her heart that the baby was consigned to limbo for all eternity. The whole business was agonising, dishonest and sickening. Limbo is a word greatly over used in common speech and literature and, of course, by journalists. The headline writers had a field day following the Pope’s attempt in early October to dismiss the idea. As the BBC put it, “Vatican is to review state of limbo”. ‘Not official’ All the comment was along the same lines - that the concept has never been official church teaching. But everybody knows Rome’s aversion to doctrine in dealing with bereaved parents, and rubbish it in private. Others believe that Pope Benedict was too intellectual to entertain woolly concepts, or that limbo was putting Rome at a disadvantage in competing with the Muslims who believed that dead infants went to heaven. Monstrous foundations So it is time to look at limbo and appreciate the monstrous foundations of this fiction before Rome can cover her tracks. And if she does succeed in extinguishing limbo, including a convincing explanation as to what happens to all its little inhabitants as a result, verbal tradition may remain the only evidence that this weird fabrication ever existed. Tangible historical evidence of limbo is already quite scarce. Limbo comes from the Latin LIMBUS meaning a hem, border, or something distinct from that to which it is attached. It blossomed as a theological concept in medieval times. The obvious place to look for an insight into the medieval mind is Dante’s Divine Comedy. Here he describes how “midway” in this life he “awoke to find (himself) in a dark wood, where the right road was wholly lost and gone”. He then describes a mammoth trek which led him on a bizarre journey through hell, onto purgatory, and finally to paradise, as he searched for the “beatific vision” of the glorified Christ. What a contrast to the apostle Paul’s comment in 2 Corinthians 5:8, “We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord”! Even bearing in mind the general opinion that Dante’s, “version of this region is more generous than most,” we nevertheless discover in the Divine Comedy that Rome has inspired some horrific imagery and appalling concepts. Dante, having entered “the hall way of the futile” and passed through “Hell gate”, encounters Charon, ferryman of the dead across the Acheron, a “joyless” great river of Hell. Once across Dante descends to the First Circle of Hell’s pit. This is Rome’s Limbus patrium which is defined in her own words as “the temporary place or state of the souls of the just”. It is in stark contrast to the never ending Limbus infantium, “the permanent place or state of those unbaptised children . . . dying without grievous personal guilt (that) are excluded from the beatific vision on account of original sin alone”. There are no agonised cries here, simply a crescendo of sighs, “quivering for ever through the eternal air ... their sorrows multiplying”. These hapless “sorrowers” are held here, “not for sin but because their merit lacked its chief fulfilment ... baptism”. These poor, unbaptised infants say, “For such defect alone - no other wrong - we are lost - without hope we ever live and long (for the beatific vision)”. One suspects many Romanists have never heard of Limbus patrium but every Roman Catholic is chillingly aware of Limbus infantium otherwise known as limbo. Reformed position The Reformed position concerning infants dying un-baptised is clearer. The Westminster Confession Ch X sec 3 states “Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated, and saved by Christ, through the Spirit”. But this could imply that there are elect infants who go to Heaven and un-elect infants who go to Hell. Subsequent commentary on this passage from the Westminster Confession has tended to be along the lines of the Declaratory Statement of the USA Free Presbyterians in 1903 which stated, “We believe that all dying in infancy are included in the election of grace, and are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, who works when and where and how He pleases.” William Shedd in his book on Calvinism thought this Declaratory Statement was not necessary and that the Puritan authors of the Confession had simply not commented upon the extent of the election, but Shedd assumes that they felt that it encompassed all dying in infancy. The Book of Common prayer 1662 states in the rubric, “It is certain by God’s Word, that children which are baptized, dying before they commit actual sin, are undoubtedly saved”. The Church of England made no clear pronouncement on the position of the unbaptised infant but the minister had to accompany the coffin to the interment and the infant buried in consecrated ground. Anglican formularies seem to follow Scripture in not expressing a definite opinion on the subject but neither did they deny the infant salvation. It has been suggested that this was to prevent infanticide. The churches that have a problem are those like Rome that teach baptismal regneration. Roman Catholicism built its limbo from the human ebb and flow of 1500 years of teaching by church fathers, theologians and popes, with each seemingly harsh edict tempered by a softer one in the way that human beings deal in their own affairs. But Pope Benedict, who claims loudly never to have believed in limbo himself, may find this unofficial fudge now so settled in the Romanist psyche that it is harder to ban it than it would be to shed a crisper teaching. One person who was influential in advancing the idea of limbo was Pope Innocent III (1161-12160). He reckoned that un-baptised babies would suffer, “no other pain whether from material fire or the worm of conscience except the pain of being deprived forever of the vision of God”. However, Thomas Aquinas felt that, if the babies were conscious of their loss, this was worse than Hell. He therefore taught that un-baptised infants never come to know spiritually what they are missing but might have a natural inkling, hence the crescendo of wistful sighs in Dante’s limbo. Decrees of urgency The agonies of those suffering the loss of baptised infants in this world are however heightened by decrees on the urgency of baptising infants to outwit the spectre of death stalking the infant. An early pope (AD 385) wrote “We desire infants ... in want of the water of holy baptism be succoured with all possible speed ... Enough of past mistakes”. The Council of Florence 1439 was so convinced of the efficacy of the actual act of water baptism that it decreed, “in case of necessity ... laymen or laywomen or even pagans or heretics may baptise provided they observe the Church’s form and intend to do what the Church does”. Threat from Islam One interesting conjecture, put forward in the press, is that Benedict, and indeed his predecessor John Paul II, who also mooted the discontinuation of limbo in favour of “a more coherent and enlightened way”, were both motivated by the threat from Islam. The BBC reckoned that this was an, “attempt by the Vatican to prevent people in developing countries with high infant mortality rates turning to Islam - Muslims believe the souls of stillborn babies go straight to paradise”. Equally widely reported is the red hot denial of Father John MacDaid, a theologian and principal of the Catholic Heythrop College at the University of London, that competition with Islam has anything to do with the move. He insists “I don’t think there is any rivalry here”. Heythrop is of course the old Jesuit institution incorporated into the university but continuing the traditional Jesuit ethos. Heythrop now promotes itself as, “a natural . .. forum for the study and practice of the encounter between Christianity and the other major religious traditions ... The Centre is committed to ... fostering the practice of interreligious dialogue". An internet search confirms that at popular level Muslims do solidly believe that if any baby dies the infant goes straight to heaven forthcoming to indicate that this general belief is Quran based. The author’s search seems rather to support one polemicist in the view that, “there is not a single verse in the Quran which says all infants that die go to Paradise”. And since the “overwhelming majority of Muslims” consider hadith (supplementary writings about what Mohammed said, did or approved of) to be essential supplements to and clarifications of the Qur’an, their pronouncements on this topic, also now accessible with search engines, are notable. They seem to show that Mohammed himself did not think it possible to know the fate of dead babies (See box below). Could it be that the learned Jesuits have seen in this question of the fate of those dying in infancy an opportunity to enter into dialogue with Islam? Sahih Muslim, Book 033: A’isha, the mother of the believers, said that Allah’s Messenger (may be upon him) was called to lead the funeral prayer of a child of the Ansar. I (A’isha ) said: Allah’s Messenger, there is happiness for this child who is a bird from the birds of Paradise for it committed no sin nor has he reached the age when one can commit sin. He said: ‘A’isha, per adventure, it may be otherwise, because God created for Paradise those who are fit for it while they verse yet is their fathers loins and created for Hell those who are to go to Hell. He created hem for Hell while they were yet in their father’s loins. Sahib Muslim, Book 033: Abu Huraira reported that Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) was asked about the children of the polytheists who die young. Thereupon Allah’s Apostle (may peace be upon him) said: It is Allah Who knows what they would be doing. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 24: 02.003. PAUL VI AND ALDO MORO ======================================================================== Paul VI and the murder of Aldo Moro: the sleeping past stirs British Church Newspaper - 10 November 2006 Dr Clive Gillis THE ELDERLY, Italian politician, Giulio Andreotti, recently published what might seem to be a trivial revelation. But, for Vatican watchers, anything he says is noteworthy. Andreotti was born in 1919. He was a fanatical Christian Democrat, the party that helped Rome to impose her political will on Italy and across Europe. He reached the zenith of his political career in the post war era when the Christian Democrats flourished, particularly in southern Italy, with the help of Mafia alliances. Cunning and power hungry, Andreotti was called ‘Mr Italy’, ‘The Power broker’ and ‘Eternal Giulio’. He served in almost every Christian Democratic government from the war until 1992 and was seven times Italian Prime minister between 1972 and 1992. He knew the five post war popes, Pius XII, John XXII, Paul VI, John Paul 1, and John Paul II, intimately. He is a devout Roman Catholic, attending mass daily, sleeping little, and an able historian. Andreotti has twice faced charges of complicity with the Mafia. Mafia supergrass Antonio Giuffre heavily indicted him. A journalist was killed in an accident in the late 1970s who was about to publish certain damaging criticisms of Andreotti made by Christian Democratic leader Aldo Moro. Moro was subsequently murdered by the Red Brigade and it is the circumstances of Aldo Moro’s murder that interest us here. But first we must look at the background of these events. Post-war popes Pius XII, the wartime Pope, was pro-Washington and when he died so did the Vatican’s intimate relationship with America. Cardinal Spellman and the two Romanists American Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, and his brother Allen, head of the CIA, were suddenly dumped. John XXIII, who followed Pius XII, could be described as pink rather than red. He was elected in favour of controversial, Russian speaking, Georgian born Cardinal Agagianian who happened to have attended the same Jesuit seminary as Stalin. But John XXIII’s successor, Paul VI, was frankly pro-communist. He had been groomed as a potential pope by a faction in the Vatican from WWII. He promoted communism both within Italy and outside it. Italians have a curious affection for communism. This is a reaction to the papacy in their midst. Paul VI mobilised radical socialists and Marxists, the world over, in a socialist Catholicism serviced by “worker priests”. He published an encyclical Progressio Populorum openly espousing communism and condemning “the imperialism of money”. He popularised the people’s Christ through his obessions with modern art (see illustration). Aldo Moro We return to the murder of Christian Democrat leader Aldo Moro. On March 16th 1978, Moro was kidnapped on his way to a session of the house of representatives in Italy. The Communists and Christian Democrats were expected to co-operate in times of national crisis and Moro had produced a Compromesso storico or ‘historical compromise’….... But the Red Brigade, a group of fanatical Leninist guerrillas, seized Moro in broad daylight in central Rome, his escort of five being openly murdered. After 54 days Moro’s corpse was dumped half way between the Christian Democrat and Communist HQs. This was a symbolical way of rejecting Moro’s plea, made in the course of over 50 letters he had written from the Red Brigade’s “peoples prison”, that if freed he would found a party of a ‘middle way’, that is, mid way between the Christian Democrats and the Communists. America’s Cold War rules were simple but strict - Washington would not allow a party which even allowed a residual allegiance to Moscow to govern a western country. Conspiracy theories therefore abound implicating the CIA and its secret NATO arm, Gladio, in the affair. The Pope offers a ransom So where was the Vatican’s hand in all this? The only official public response was in L’Osservatore Romano of 31st March when the Holy See offered its help in this “most painful occurrence”. But behind the scenes the Pope was a main player. According to the Pope’s Secretary, Macchi, Paul VI wrote to Moro’s wife on the 16th May, informing her of his “special prayer” to the Lord. Next day Paul VI briefed Cardinal Villot, Vatican Secretary of State, to inform Andreotti that he, “had invoked divine protection upon this dear nation to rediscover the force and courage to construct a social peace”. At this time the Pope’s Secretary, Macchi, developed the habit of “almost every evening coming to my (Andreotti’s) home so he would be able to keep the pontiff up to date ... study possible moves and mutually cheer us,” said Andreotti. And Andreotti needed cheering, pressed as he was to exchange Moro’s life for the freedom of several imprisoned Red Brigade members. This was illegal and impossible to square with his incessantly repeated vows “the state must not bend” to terrorists. However another politician had recently been released following a deal with terrorists and Andreotti’s was accused of not agreeing to the exchange in order conveniently to rid himself of a political rival. On 22nd March, Paul VI sent Macchi to tell beleaguered Andreotti that he was willing to pay “a large ransom” in exchange for Moro being released within Vatican City. But the Red Brigade didn’t seem interested. The Pope desperate So the Red Brigade spurned the Red Pope. After Easter, increasingly desperate, Paul VI grovelled to the Virgin publicly in St Peter’s Square, “We do not despair, we pray: Holy Virgin, Queen of the Heavens, Give strength to our intercession [and] to your prayers”. Moro was able to send a letter to the Vatican imploring the pope’s help on 20th April. The pope replied two days later. Macchi, the Pope’s Secretary, reproduces his actual letter. The pope demanded Moro must be liberated semplicemente senza condizioni - simply without conditions - yet in reality secret plans for a papal ransom were already afoot. From then on the Vatican lost its grip. Paul VI was near death when he presided at Moro’s funeral mass, boycotted by Moro’s family. “In bitter voice,” he blasphemously berated God and the Virgin for deserting him. “Lord Hear us. Who is it that can listen again to our lament if not you, O God of life and death? You have not answered our prayers for the safe deliverance of Aldo Moro...”. His god having failed him during Moro’s life, Paul VI prayed for the dead man’s soul. A little later he commented, “it is as if from some mysterious crack, no, it is not mysterious, from some crack the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God”. Paul VI health failed rapidly and he was dead by 6th August. A website keeps alive the view that the Pope actually died earlier and a double kept this from the world. The Pope had good reason to be bitter. Had Moro been released Paul VI’s letter demanding unconditional release would have stood as a demonstration of red papal power. And even if the secret ransom story had leaked out, a dignified silence would have enabled him to ride the storm. Andreotti’s statement This brings us to Andreotti’s recent, sudden statement. Pius VI’s Secretary, Macchi, had published a book-diary entitled, Paul VI and the Tragedy of Moro -55 Days of worries, endeavours, hopes and absurd cruelties. Andreotti’s has now stated, “There is only one omission in (Macchi’s) book, no mention of the possibility of a ransom that the Holy See was very ready to pay”. Yet on page 21 Macchi had clearly stated, “The pope gave the disposition to retrieve the necessary sum [for the ransom].” Andreotti now blames the final failure of the ransom plan on a go-between, a “character with a criminal record” who promised what could not be delivered. But Andreotti himself is still scarred with accusations of letting Moro die for his own ends. Indeed Moro told the Red Brigade interrogators that Andreotti was “cold, impenetrable ... without a moment of human pity”. So Andreotti then seeks his own rehabilitation, insisting he agonised “almost every evening” over Moro’s plight. Andreoth maintains he did all he could. So we are to believe that Paul VI, Macchi and, despite all evidence to the contrary, Andreotti, all sought to serve Moro to their uttermost in their varied stations. What does all this mean? The Pope moves heaven and earth to save Moro. Macchi praises the Pope. Andreotti praises the Pope to the heavens and Macchi to the skies. And Andreotti serves Paul VI one final time by trying to relieve him of the stigma of initiating a ransom. The club Elderly Andreotti reveals, in his Macchi obituary, the reason for still trying to ingratiate himself with the trio - Pope, Macchi and Moro. He tells us that on every August 6th, the Feast of the Transfiguration, Paul VI is remembered in St Peters. Apparently the ravages of time have left, “some gaps among us old members of the Federation of Italian Catholic University Students;” that attend this event. This fall in numbers is not due to the “August heat” (lack of zeal) or “fading memory”. Rather, “One by one we return - let us hope - to Our Fathers House [in heaven]. The new devotion to the Merciful Jesus increases ones hope that things won’t go badly [for us when we die]”. In other words, purgatory looms for Andreotti. Moreover, Paul VI, Moro, Macchi and Andreotti are, or were, all linked by an indissoluble tie which Andreotti has now betrayed. They were ideologically welded and driven Italian Roman Catholics, destined for high office from university onwards. Their membership of the Federation of Italian Catholic University Students was an unbreakable lifetime bond between them. They, with other members of the same circle, drove a political agenda that bound Italy with absolute and unshakeable ideological loyalty to the papacy for decades, regardless of the consequences. Andreotti has done his best to flatter their memories and clear his own name before the bar of history. And perhaps before he meets them again. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 25: 02.005. FATHER CHRISTMAS BONES ======================================================================== The Battle For Father Christmas’s Bones And The Light It Throws On Pope Benedict’s Schemes Benedict XVI’S 21st Century Crusade Part 1 Dr Clive Gillis A powerful body of intellectuals are dedicated to the idea of Europe as a venerable Holy Roman [Catholic] Empire. Pope Benedict XVI is their front man and deeply committed to the cause. Their manifesto is to be found in the document Le radici cristiane dell ‘Europa dall‘est all’ovest (‘The Christian roots of Europe from the East to the West’). Its cover shows an old map of Europe in the hey day of papal temporal power. This document was widely promoted when Rome hosted the signing of the EU Constitutional Treaty, which nevertheless proved to be a disaster. These people claim the patronage of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Regina Apostolorum (Queen of the Apostles). We shall return to the significance of this title in a moment. And Pope Benedict is portayed as a Crusader committed to protecting this Holy Roman Empire “from the east to the west”. Next year is the 25th anniversary of the visit of the Pope to Britain in 1982. But the truth is that Pope seems to be too preoccupied with the eastern borders of his empire to heed Cardinal O’Connor and PM Blair’s pleas for another visit to the UK, at least at the moment. The plan Benedict has been described as the “Vicar of orthodoxy”. He has bolstered his conservative image by sending aides to retrieve long discarded items of papal attire from dark corners of the Vatican. In his scarlet ermine trimmed cap or camauro and scarlet ermine-trimmed cape, the mozzetta, his press photographs bear an eerie resemblance to portraits of bygone Benedicts shrouded in the mists of time. But all this is a smokescreen behind which Benedict is launching an ecumenical crusade against the Eastern Orthodox church and its leader, His All Holiness the Patriarch Bartholomew I, who is ‘first among equals’ in the Eastern Orthodox Church. It is interesting that while recent popes have declined the triple crown, Benedict has declined coronation altogether, opting for an installation mass instead. At the time of his installation he refused to speak directly about the policies he intended to pursue, but talked about symbolism instead. “There is no need for me to present a program of governance,” he said but, “I should simply like to comment on the two liturgical symbols ... of the Petrine ministry”. These symbols are the pallium and the Fisherman’s Ring, and there is more to the Pope’s reference to them than at first meets the eye. The pallium Benedict then explained that, “The first symbol is the pallium, woven in pure wool, which will be placed on my shoulders. This ancient sign .... the bishops of Rome have worn since the fourth century.” But the pallium Benedict wore that day was the older style of pallium, broad with red crosses, and hanging down from the left shoulder, not the type worn today which hangs like a circular collar with front and back pendant strips. “This style,” he said, “is more typical of the first millennium, and similar to the omophorion representing episcopal authority in the Eastern Church” (emphasis ours) Benedict has removed the triple crown from the papal coat of arms. In its place place he has put a pallium and a mitre. But the mitre still sports the symbolic three bands of the classical tri­ple crown which Rome claims represent, “or­der, jurisdiction, and magisterium”. So Benedict is playing down the kingship aspect of the papacy and emphasising the Bishop of Rome aspect. All this looks suspiciously like a bid to make himself first amongst equals in a new ecumenical union with the Eastern Orthodox churches, which will then be gobbled up to create a new, Islam proof, super church of which the pope is the real leader. The Fisherman’s Ring The other symbol of ‘the petrine ministry’ is the so-called Fisherman’s Ring worn by the Pope. In explaining it Benedict said, “Today ... successors of the apostles are told to put out into the deep sea of history”. But who does the Pope mean when he talks of the ‘successors of the apostles?’ The Blessed Virgin Mary as Regina Apostolorum is Benedict’s Queen as the 265th successor of St Peter. But she also happens to be the Queen of the 270th successor of the Apostle Andrew, that is Bartholomew 1, of the Eastern Church. The Pope launches his crusade Pope Benedict launched his crusade against the Eastern Orthodox churches six weeks after his election. His first sally from Rome was to the ancient eastern Italian seaport of Bari (pronounced Bahrree) in the boot of Italy. Here the pope has a powerful bargaining lever with the Eastern Church. Southern Italy still maintains a Greek character. John Paul II called Bari “a bridge to the east”. It was from Bari in 1195 that Emperor Henry V1, son of the famous Barbarossa, accepted the red cross from bloodthirsty Crusader pope Urban II. Armed with this Henry set off in 1195 to recover Jerusalem. Modern crusader Pope Benedict XVI, went to Bari ostensibly to attend a Eucharistic conference. But on Sunday 29th May 2005 his true agenda became clear as he headed for the nearby esplanade of Marisabella from where departing ships of Henry’s Crusade would have once been visible. Here 200,000 people attended open air Mass, many having taken advantage of a low train fare and a new, convenient express service advertised widely in the north and making this usually hot and lengthy journey more pleasant. Benedict appeared on a boat shaped stage. “Eucharist,” he said, “is the sacrament of unity. Unfortunately, however, Christians are divided!” He went on to declare that, “We must feel all the more roused to striving with all our strength for that full unity which Christ ardently desired”. Then Benedict came to the point: “Precisely here in Bari, fortunate Bari, a city that preserves the bones of St Nicholas, a land of encounter and dialogue with our Christian brethren of the East, I would like to reaffirm my desire to ... [work] with all my might for the re-establishment of the full and visible unity of all Christ’s followers”. Fortunate Bari Why did Benedict say, “fortunate Bari, a city that preserves the bones of St Nicholas”? Well, the relics of St Nicholas are held in the Basilica di San Nicola in Bari’s old city. But this basilica along with a couple of other churches and some ancient windy streets is basically all old Bari amounts to. Without the relics of St Nicholas, Bari would be nothing. The relics, particularly the bones of St Nicholas, have brought Bari prosperity for 800 years as generation upon generation of pilgrims, not only Roman Catholics from Germany, Austria, and Belgium but also Eastern Orthodox pilgrims from Greece, Serbia and Russia have visited in droves. Now Saint Nicholas is “just about everyone’s saint”, guarding children, travellers, sailors and the sick particularly. The cult of St Nicholas has created Bari. What is more, the cult of St Nicholas has a grip on the minds and hearts of both the Catholic and Orthodox of the region. This is the St Nicholas we know in northern Europe as Santa Claus or Father Christmas. The now familiar caricature of a red coated gentleman was developed in 19th century New York where immigrant Orthodox veneration of St Nicholas was common. The bones But these bones are bones of contention as both Rome and the Orthodox claim ownership of them. And Benedict well knows St Nicholas’ bones were stolen from a well established Orthodox shrine in Turkey in 1087 and the Turks want them back. Nicholas was a fourth century bishop at Myra near Antalya on the coast in southern Turkey. He had no connection with Rome. He vigorously withstood the Arian rulers and could have been a genuine, born again Christian man. A shrine inevitably grew up and prospered at Myra. Its fame grew, based upon the miracle of ‘manna’. This was an annual sweating of perfumed liquid from Nicholas’ bones sufficient to collect in a flask. In time countless miracles were ascribed to this liquid. But the Myra shrine, being close to the Turkish coast, was well known in SE Italy. An Islamic rebellion in Turkey at the end of the 11th century gave papal raiders the chance to seize the bones, under pretext of protecting them. The raiders took them back to Bari where the Basilica di San Nicola was built to house them. To everyone’s relief the bones continued to sweat their annual flask of manna, which also happily retained its miracle working power, and does so to this day. One might add that the Vatican is still suffering the consequences of allowing scientific scrutiny of the Turin shroud, and it is wisely keeping science at bay in Bari. The Turks The Turks have a good case for return of the relics. The original raid was chronicled in enormous detail and the manuscript survives. The voices of the local monks absolutely refusing to surrender the bones still cry out from the parchment indicting Rome. The haughty reply of the crusading raiders condemns her still: “Look you, that we have not disembarked here of our own will, but we have been sent by the Pope of Route and by the Archbishops and Bishops and authorities at Rome associated with hMt and the whole Council. For all of these arrived in our city of Bari with a large host and the diverse armies of the west, en­joining on us to accomplish this worth and bring back to the Pope the remains of the saint without fail. Why even the saint himself, appearing in a vision to the Pope bade him do this with all haste”. Worse, when Vatican II demoted 90 saints as rank embarrassments in a modern world St Nicholas was amongst them, but with the proviso that devotion was allowable as a matter of personal choice. This is not how the Greeks, Serbs and Russians see it. St Nicholas is mainstream for them. Now Benedict is trumpeting the cult as a bargaining chip for a take over of the Eastern Orthodox. Islamic Turkey he believes is not worthy to have the bones, but if the Orthodox agreed to reunion they would get some sort of possession of them. But Bari would never agree to return the relics. These are the bones that work the ongoing tourism miracle. Trouble brewing Early in 2003, the bones dispute became public. A Turkish foundation dedicated to Santa Claus asked the Italian government to “retrieve the relics of St. Nicholas ... and return them to his native Turkey”. Muammer Karabalut, the foundation chairman, told the Associated Press, “We want them returned in 2003. We’re starting a campaign this year for them to be given back”. For the Turks this is possession by Antichrist. But the priests of San Nicola in Bari were equally scathing. Besides rejecting any Turkish claim to the bones out of hand, Father Gerardo Cioffari, historian at the basilica, impugned Turkish motives. “They ask for the remains only to keep tourism alive ... They don’t venerate St. Nicholas”. He pointed out that the bones are now secured in blocks of reinforced concrete (which is actually intended to precipitate the “manna”). Cioffari said that local popular piety would prevent any such return of the relics. “If the remains were moved there would be a revolution here ... Even the Vatican couldn’t do anything about it.” But the Pope has precedent upon his side. Thirty years ago, the Vatican approved the return of several relics of St. Nicholas to a Greek Orthodox Church in New York. After all, like the endless supply of wood from the true cross, there are usually sufficient of any relic to go round Meanwhile St Nicholas church at Myra has its empty crypt dedicated to St Nicholas ready and waiting for bones. Benedict’s eastern crusade is far from over, and we watch his planned trip to Turkey later this year with interest. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 26: 02.006. THE TAINTED SAINT ======================================================================== San Jose de Calasanz: The Tainted Saint The Deep Roots of Rome’s Institutionalised Child Abuse Dr Clive Gillis Had Karen Liebreich not arrived in Florence as ‘a naïve 21 year old student’ to study at the European University Institute - before the European ideal went sour - this story would be unknown. Marooned in the crumbling local archive of the Scolopi (literally ‘Pious Schools’) also known as the Piarists, she stumbled across the secret papal suppression of the order in 1646. Resisting the crafty archivist’s diversionary tactics, her quest for truth took her all the way into the Secret Archive of Rome’s Inquisition. She discovered that incriminating documents had been destroyed by guilty parties and that the order’s historians had since covered up the truth. Her expose Fallen Order is a must for any Protestant bookshelf. The late Pope’s eulogy In 1997 Pope John Paul II wrote to the head of the Piarists who governs 1,500 priests in nineteen provinces particularly in Spain, Italy, Mexico and Argentina. The Pope praised the order’s founder known in Spanish as San Jose Calasanz or in Italian as San Giuseppe Calasanzio. The Pope recalled how in 1948 ‘my venerable Predecessor Pius XII,’ in the Brief Providentissimus Deus proclaimed Calasanz to be the ‘heavenly patron of all Christian schools in the world.’ Following Calasanz’s canonisation by Pope Clement XIII in 1767, his statue was place din the right transept of St. Peters in Rome. Sadly, Calasanz’s schools were hotbeds of abuse. Worse, Calasanz personally and repeatedly protected two senior priests who led the paedophile ring in a 20 year reign of terror. This fact was known to the Inquisition and the Roman Curia. Even the pope eventually came to know of it, and did nothing. Romish paedophilia scandals always follow a certain patter, whether it be the Ferns Report in the Irish Republic, or the Cardinal Law affair in Boston, or any other. Guilty priests continue unreported to the police. They are quietly moved to new posts where inevitably they offend again. Parents and families of the abused children are ignored, disbelieved, pressurised and bribed into silence. The child victim is of no concern. Though these things are dubbed ‘a scandal of our age’ none of this is new. Calasanz was guilty of all of these strategies and that on a huge scale. His pious schools teemed with poor children for priests to prey upon. Readers will know that the success of the Jesuits was based on education. But in Europe the Jesuits provided only for the nobility. Educational opportunities for poor children in Italy were few at the dawn of the seventeenth century. 500 children within days Calasanz had come to Rome from Spain hoping to wheedle his way into a sinecure. Disappointed, he visited by chance a solitary poor school across the Tiber. Even here the priest charged a fee. Calasanz determined to create an order of teaching priests where any child with a certificate of poverty would be accepted. He opened his first school in Rome in 1600, and within days he had 500 poor children. His syllabus was a winner. The children were taught reading, writing and arithmetic, with paper, quills and ink provided free. This opened up careers in trade, secretarial work, bank clerking or warehouse factoring. The Jesuits, although innovators, insisted upon classical methods. To their horror the Piarists successfully employed new techniques. Naturally there was a stampede of aspiring poor parents applying for places. New pious schools opened every few months across Italy. Beating the Jesuits at their own game, the two orders became bitter enemies. Alas, this avalanche of demand was a paedophile’s dream. Teenagers entered the Piarist novitiate at 15, hopefully for five years of training, but in practice it seems that this did not necessarily follow. Calasanz once boasted that if he had 10,000 priests he could place them all in a month. Standards were jettisoned. Those wanting a meal ticket, those escaping jurisdiction of civil courts, and those rejected by other orders, were recruited and sent out barely trained. Some teachers were almost illiterate. A subordinate of Calasanz soon blew the whistle on this excessive recruiting. The matter reached the pope but Calasanz simply ignored an ensuing papal ban. As reports of flagrant child abuse filtered through to Calasanz, his response was always the same. ‘See that this business does not become public but is covered up …. Your Reverence must cover up everything … from the public.’ At the dame time he urged that the parents be pacified and the offending priest moved on. If in the south of Italy he was moved north and vice versa. There was never any thought for the pupil victim. Fr Alacchi Two of Calasanz’s senior priests emerged as ringleaders, fostering likeminded subordinates, thus institutionalising the abuse. Father Alacchi was also a sadistic man. What did Calasanz do? Alacchi had a genius for chatting up the rich to endow the Piarists with money and buildings, so Calasanz promoted him to roving ‘visitor general’. When more scandal emerged Calasanz sent him on pilgrimage until the heat died down. Then later he brought him back in the same role, whence more allegations arose. So he was further promoted to all powerful ‘consultor general and procurator’ thus side stepping scandal but renewing Alacchi’s access to the young. The paedophile ring was sustained by positively sheltering the culprits whilst negatively discrediting their accusers. Stefano Cherubini Worse was the case of Stefano Cherubini whose father and brother were both successful papal lawyers and whose family was at once noble and very wealthy. There was only one thing that could have made young Cherubini, for whom the world was his oyster, dash to join the Piarists at an early age. And with the poise and arrogance of breeding he took little care to conceal his activities. Evidence against him was all too abundant. The Cherubini lawyers simply closed ranks, intimidated accusers, and stole incriminating evidence. On one occasion they managed to lift a whole, carefully compiled, incriminating dossier from right under Calasanz’s inept nose to destroy it. Yet weak Calasanz allowed himself to be totally reliant upon Cherubini financially and for getting preference for the order’s affairs. So when it came to promoting Cherubini out of tricky situations the deal had to befit his rank, and despite showers of protests from accusing priests, Calasanz let him become his right hand man. This policy was even given Latin formality promoveature ut amoveatur - loosely promoted to avoid scandal. Jesuits vs Piarists When the Jesuits turned on the heretic astronomer Galileo, their rivals, the Piarists of Florence, who had now grown rich, fielded several suitable fathers to befriend Galileo. This provided the Jesuits with an opportunity to injure the Piarists, In the course of the inquisition proceedings that followed, Calasanz was deposed, and Cherubini, by exploiting his connections, assumed leadership of the order. The outcry against Cherubini took undoubted proof of his rampant abuse right into the Inquisition and thence to the Roman curia and pope. Nevertheless Cherubini remained Superior until unbridled scandal of every sort became open. Even then the pope’s inspector, although a rival Jesuit, because of Cherubini’s social rank, produced a report exonerating him. The order was suppressed in 1646 - but it was suppressed for countenancing the heretical views of Galilean views, not for their abuse. When the Piarists resurfaced, decades later, all this was buried. Cherubini was the first to leave and having private means he was the least hurt. Later historians simply perpetuated the cover up. The present writer found a 1917 copy of the widely reprinted standard history of Calasanz in an old Italian bookstore. Urbano Tosetti’s history (see illustration) commemorated Calasanz’s 1767 canonisation. Constantly reprinted it comprises 222 pages of sheer adulation. On page 173 is Rome’s bare faced lie concerning paedophile Cherubini, ascribing his belated demotion from Superior to ‘administrative incompetence’ (see illustration). Liebreich proves conclusively that Cherubini had been caught ‘red handed’ with a pupil. Further, a July 1646 letter from another priest, whilst freely admitting a ten year knowledge of Cherubini’s child abuse (roguery), actually goes on to expose the Cherubini deposition due to maladministration as a lie, as something ‘invented by the illustrious Auditors … to cover up his (Cherubini’s) roguery.’ Cherubini did not of course go to prison but simply on to another pious school in Frascati. There is in Tosetti, as with every Romanist ‘saint’, a large section glorifying Calasanz’s death. His heart, tongue, liver, spleen and cranium still reside in San Pantaleo, the order’s church fronting the Corso in Rome today. Romanists place great stress on potential ‘saints’ being incorrupt in death. To rapidly decay is a sign of questionable sanctity. So Tosetti stresses Calasanz’s body smelt of ‘fresh roses’, a crippled arm touching his feet was made whole and an apron torn in the crush to see him was miraculously repaired. Al this stuff is standard hagiography cliché. But Tosetti stresses one curious, unprintable ‘miracle’ (with a perfectly natural explanation) which was supposed to prove Calasanz’s modesty and chastity. This was clearly a concocted ‘miracle’ contrived by men who knew their order had a foul secret to bury and urgently needed pious propaganda to aid them. It will be interesting to see how Rome rehabilitates its Calasanz’s of today when their time comes. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 27: 02.007. CANONISING JOHN PAUL ======================================================================== Canonising Pope John Paul II with blood on his hands PART 1 - IS THE LATE POPE’S SHOTGUN SAINTHOOD A FOREGONE CONCLUSION? British Church Newspaper On a recent trip to Rome, to take a photograph for the BCN, the present writer queued as usual for an hour to get in to St Peters. However, having been cleared by security, it was a surprise to be presented with a choice, either to proceed to the great basilica of St Peter or join another lengthy queue into the Vatican grottoes. Nearly everybody chose the grottoes in order to file past the tomb of the last Pope, John Paul II. As the photograph shows, few by comparison simply visited the basilica. No doubt the scenes in St Peter’s Square after the last Pope died, when the crowd chanted “Santo Subito Santo Subito” (make him a saint at once), were fresh in the memory of those choosing to subject themselves to the further long wait. Pius XII, Hitler’s Pope, notorious for his silence during the Jewish holocaust, was similarly lauded after his death. But little by little contrary voices were heard and they grew into the deafening uproar that we hear today. Similarly, murmurings without, and even within, the Vatican, might yet make John Paul II’s progress to sainthood less than a done deal. The traditional protestant view is that of John Wycliffe: “In the court of Rome is the head of antichrist, and in prelates is the body of antichrist but in those clouted sects as monks, canons and friars is the venomous tail of antichrist,” and that settled the matter for those outside the fold of Rome. But today the opinion of the masses can be swayed by all sorts of considerations, as the Da Vinci Code affair illustrates. Roman Catholic anger In a recent article in The Guardian entitled, “Whatever happened to the canonising of John Paul II?”, reporter lain Hollinghead pointed out that while many are “serenely confident” that his canonisation will take place soon - and “dozens” of the necessary papal “miracles” are already on file - “not everyone in the Catholic church is supportive”. So perhaps those queuing to file past his tomb could be in for a surprise. There are many issues connected with the late Pope that Roman Catholics are angry about. For instance the Italian daily La Republica reported in April that there were rumblings of a change of heart by the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Health and Pastoral Care over the use of condoms by married couples in the third world where Aids is prevalent. Benedict XVI has called for a detailed report. The Times of India commented. “It’s likely that the pope is now willing to shift, if only for couples, the Church’s opposi­tion to condoms . .... Retired (Jesuit) Cardi­nal Carlo Maria Martini, suggested (with casuistry Loyola himself would be proud of) that married couples where one partner has HIV might use condoms against infection. Al­though this contradicts the idea that contra­ception is against God’s will and natural law, this was, the archbishop suggested, ‘a lesser evil’ than passing on the virus.” John Paul II, for whom his own Encyclical Veritatis Splendor was absolute truth, regarded condoms as part of the “culture of death” and their use even in marriage as an immoral act. Terry Eagleton, Professor of Cultural theory at Manchester University, stated, “The Pope has blood on his hands,” and he added that this Pope was more of a disaster for Christianity than Charles Darwin. Prof Eagleton regarded the pope’s views as a “grotesque irony” whereby “he condemned millions, many helpless children, to an agonising AIDS death . . . The Pope goes to his eternal reward with those deaths on his hands.” Yet on world Youth Day 2000 an estimated two million young people gathered to camp at Tor Vergata near Rome. They seem to have been less intimidated by priestly threats of purgatory and hell than their third world brethren, for it is rumoured that cleaners were afterwards faced with clearing up “drifts” of used condoms. Era of disgraceful revelations Many hold John Paul II personally responsible for failure to act decisively in the worldwide paedophilia scandal. He was notably tardy in seeing culprits brought to book. The case of Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, a “man who had knowingly reassigned dangerous and sadistic criminals to positions where they would be able to exploit the defenceless”, came to symbolise this whole disgraceful era of revelations. The Pope’s reluctance to accept Law’s equally reluctantly tendered resignation in 2002, despite Law’s glaring culpability over many years when he relentlessly covering up the tracks of numerous rabid paedophiles, still sticks in the throat of many. Far from an honest ‘hands up we’re guilty’ response, John Paul II acted deviously. In May 2001, by “changing the rules” to cover Vatican backs, he made “each case a pontifical secret ... Bishops could no longer investigate child abuse in their area, as each case had to be referred immediately to the Vatican”. This gave the Vatican carte blanche to sweep allegations under the carpet. Under John Paul II’s leadership, the Archdiocese of Portland and the Dioceses of Tucson and Spokane in America all cynically declared bankruptcy, Portland only hours before two trials began, to evade or minimise eventual pay outs to victims. Likewise John Paul II must bear sole responsibility for the plush sinecure that the sacked Law was given in the Roman Curia, “supervising priestly discipline - yes! - and the appointment of diocesan bishops,” along with the prestigious post of Arch priest of the extraterritorial Santa Maria Maggiore, one of Rome’s seven major basilicas and Rome’s premier marian church. Even in death John Paul II’s arrogance was evident. He had named Law as one of those to conduct requiem masses for his soul. Barbara Blaine together with another leader of a support group for those abused by Roman Catholic priests, attempted to stage a protest in St Peters Square during the mass. They in­tended to distribute leaflets but were rapidly removed by Italian police, no doubt fol­lowing a Vatican tip off. For a Pope who saw himself as champion of the oppressed, this was bad press indeed. Another stream of criticism centres around the self aggrandisement he engineered by his fixation with sickness and suffering. A Pole is on record as telling the BBC that, “John Paul II is the greatest man in the history of the Roman Catholic religion”. A wit replied acidly, “Surely there is one other man who trumps John Paul on that front? Graham Greene (the RC novelist and writer) once dreamed of a newspaper headline that said, ‘Pope canonises Jesus Christ,’ so perhaps the greatest man in the history of Catholicism will get around to that once he passes through the pearly gates”! Pope Redeemer of the world But there is a serious side to all this. The former athlete Pope, besides his assassination injuries, soon faced colon surgery for a benign tumour. This was followed by a fall and dislocated shoulder, and then soon afterwards by another fall and a fractured femur, and then an appendectomy in 1996. By this time his self assumed, and greatly inflated, martyr consciousness was buzzing big time. Then came his Parkinson’s disease so publicly promoted by the Vatican. But long before this, back in 1984, on the basis of his own unhappy childhood, he promulgated the decree Salvifici Doloris (the saving effect of pain and suffering). His opening statement already sounds the alarm: “In my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church”. On 13th May 1992 - the anniversary of the day when Our Lady of Fatima, in his opinion, diverted an assassin’s bullet, - he instituted a World Day of the Sick. He wrote endlessly on the subject of pain and suffering. In his thinking, he gradually moved Christ sideways whilst he himself took on the world’s salvation: “But I saw that this was not enough [,this, being the traditional activities of previous Popes]. I must lead her (the Church) with suffering. Precisely because the family is threatened, the family is attacked the Pope must be attacked, the Pope must suffer, so that every family and the world should see that there is, I would say, a higher gospel: the gos­pel of suffering, with which one must prepare the future”. Bizarre nonsense Hence when the old man slipped into depression, and then, according to some, sensory delusions with paranoid content fuelled by the imagery of the Book of Revelation, and finally a drug and illness induced semi-coma, the Vatican was forced to go along with this bizarre nonsense. Who dare gainsay an act of papal salvation for the masses? The more he suffered, the more mankind was being redeemed. Increasingly large sums of money were spent on ever new, bright ideas from hydraulic engineers for hoisting and swivelling, lowering and moving, retrieving and depositing the now almost senseless, cadaveric Pope from place to place. Defibrillators, oxygen and blood were forever present. The truth is that the Vatican and its billion adherents were in a bind. As with the emperor’s new clothes, no-one was brave enough to blow the whistle on this apparently courageous struggle to redeem “families” and “the world”. It is said that after Archbishop Rowan Williams and his party had been ushered out from the presence of John Paul II in October 2003, having exchanged blessings and presents, swopped statements and mutually kissed rings, the poor old chap asked his aides, “Tell me who were those people?” The Conservatives, particularly Opus Dei, were drawn in deeper and ever deeper, whilst liberals cringed and writhed with embarrassment. But the old Pope scolded doubters “Christ did not come down from the cross” till he had procured salvation so I am definitely not budging until my “last breath”. Ignominious climb down The bizarre result of all this, and the thing that infuriated many in the Vatican where hatreds run long, was that the Polish nobody, Stanislaw Dziwisz, who had been the Pope’s secretary and inseparable companion since the Pope’s days as bishop of Cracow, suddenly became gatekeeper to the papal presence. This was a position that Dziwisz, now all powerful revelled in. He was totally impervious to the feelings of the Vatican high and mighty, and he barred the way into the papal presence of whomsoever he wished. A further irony was that the prominence given to this theology of salvific suffering was the, platform upon which Mel Gibson’s seriously inaccurate and “sadomasochistic” film The Passion of Christ was launched. Yet, at the same time, this very film became the matter in which Dziwisz took on the Vatican and won. Apparently the ailing Pope either saw or slept through the film in private showings over several nights. To the delight of the publicity greedy film company, according to Dziwisz, the Pope said of the film’s portrayal of Christ’s passion “it is as it was”. This was the ultimate dream endorsement that money could not buy. But as soon as it appeared in the world’s media, well pushed by the film company, Dziwisz denied it. Unfortunately, haughty Opus Dei Vatican Press Officer Joaquin Navarro-Valls had been flattered by all this attention from film moguls. He had already categorically confirmed more than once that these were indeed the Pope’s words. When finally forced into an ignominious climb down by Dziwisz’s denials, even Opus must have privately seen the ludicrous plight to which John Paul II had reduced the Vatican. All this would probably not of itself prevail in the face of a billion people driven by religious fervour and intent on creating a St John Paul the Great. However there is one other significant aspect of John Paul II’s pontificate which is provoking increasing comment from the thoughtful, and which has already proved itself capable of tying the hands of Vatican Saint Makers. This we hope to cover in the next issue. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 28: 02.008. ROME REAPS WHAT SOWS ======================================================================== Rome Reaps What She Has Sown Dr Clive Gillis THE CHURCH of Rome bears much of the responsibility for the present Mary Magdalene hysteria and it is worth reviewing the reasons in more detail than was possible in our first article. Rome has declared Mary the mother of our Lord to have been immaculately conceived, preserved from sin in life, and assumed bodily into heaven, making her the perfect woman rather than a sinner saved by grace. As one Catholic girl quipped, “We grew up to believe she ran heaven”. This fostered the idea that virginity was the highest state and that sexuality was somehow defiled. As a result ordinary Roman Catholic women can feel a sense of inferiority, even guilt, as they face the realities of their own burdensome lives lurching from pregnancy to pregnancy at the behest of demanding men. Many simply despair. The Confessional Priests traditionally fostered this consciousness of defilement in the confessional with their explicitly detailed pornographic manuals for confessors, such as that of Alfonso Maria di Liguori. Here the dubious sections traditionally remain un-translated from the Latin as being too shameful. Indeed these manuals have often alerted innocent young women to vile practices which they would not otherwise have encountered. As a result the Roman Catholic Church urgently needed a human, as opposed to a super human, role model to set before its women. And what better than a really depraved woman, a brazen hussy, indeed a hardened, devil possessed harlot who wonderfully repented and totally reformed herself under the ministrations of the Lord Jesus. Such an apparently attainable ideal might offer real hope to ordinary Catholic womanhood. But there is no such character to be found in the Gospel stories. Undaunted, the popes and theologians of Rome set about inventing one. And so the myth of Mary Magdalene, the saved harlot, was born. How it was done The popes were key players in the “harlotization” of Mary Magdalene, though the process began amongst the Latin Church Fathers. Pope Gregory I gave his seal of approval in AD 591 when he took all the hints from the Latin fathers and plainly stated the matter. The eastern churches, on the other hand, had carefully teased out three Mary’s from Scripture. They took pains to distinguish the “sinner” of Luke 7:37-50 from both Mary the sister of Martha (Luke 10:38-42 and John 11:1-57) and Mary Magdalene of Luke 8:2. But Pope Gregory, in the west, insisted that, “She whom Luke calls the sinful woman, whom John calls Mary (of Bethany), we believe to be the Mary from whom seven devils were ejected according to Mark”. (Mark 16:9) The myth grows There is nothing in Scripture to indicate that Mary Magdalene was a harlot. Rome created that myth by asserting that the seven devils from which Mary was delivered were unclean spirits who drove Mary to depravity. Mary Magdalene and the woman who was a sinner are clearly differentiated in Scrip­ture. In Luke 7:50, which is the final verse of the chapter and the end of the story, we read, “And he [Jesus] said to the woman [“the sinner”], Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace”. The next chapter, Luke 8:1-56, commences, “And it came to pass afterward, that he [Jesus] went through every city and village, preaching and showing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God”. Only then is Mary Magdalene introduced ministering to him of her substance. Dublin’s Magdalene laundries So for Rome “the sinner” of Luke 7:1-50 is Mary Magdalene. The woman’s sins de­scribed as “many” become Mary Magdalene’s sins. Then, solely by prurient innuendo, her sins become sexual sins associated with her demonic possession. The clincher for Rome is that a “Mary” is found in John’s narrative anointing Jesus feet (John 12:3). But it is noteworthy that this Mary who anointed Christ is in the company of humble Martha and Lazarus and not, as Mary Magdalene, with Joannna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and other high class women. Nevertheless Rome insists that this is Mary Magdalene. Yet Mary Magdalene’s circle were wealthy enough to minister to Jesus of their substance. For them, outlay on anointing perfume would hardly amount to an act so selfless that Jesus declared it to be the woman’s memorial (Mark 14:9). The passing centuries and renaissance art, often commissioned by the popes themselves, have done the rest to establish the Magdalene myth. The recent scandal in Dublin following the finding of 133 unmarked graves in a Romanist convent, which had been one of the Magdalene Laundries where orphans perceived as the outcome of sexual sin were forced to work in inhuman conditions to redeem themselves, is just one tiny illustration of the terrible fruit of this notion of Mary Magdalene the redeemed harlot in the Romanist psyche. The Nag Hammadi Library But this view of Mary Magdalene was challenged soon after World War II with the discovery in December 1945 of the Nag Hammadi library near the village of that name three hundred miles south of Cairo. Seven Bedouin were engaged in extracting fertiliser rich in nitrates in the Egyptian Nile valley when they stumbled upon “a large earthenware jar, about two feet high with a bowl over the top sealed with bitumen”. The jar contained not scrolls but thirteen codices in leather pouches resembling books. The colourful events surrounding the discovery included several murders before the works came to reside peacefully in the Coptic museum in Cairo. The Gospel of Philip The Nag Hammadi library contained a mixture of Christian and philosophical writings including the Gospel of Philip. This apocryphal Gospel contains the notorious text, “And the companion of the [...] Mary Magdalene. [...] loved her more than all the disciples, and used to kiss her often on her [...]” The gaps in the text are holes made by white ants. The Da Vinci Code, which is only a novel, contends that “any Aramaic scholar will tell you, the word companion, in those days, literally meant spouse”. But the document is not Aramaic but Coptic. Coptic scholars say “companion” means simply “companion”. Any interested reader can follow all the half truths and assumptions from the Da Vinci Code back to their dubious source in R McL Wilson’s The Gospel of Philip published in 1962. The Nag Hammadi so-called Gospels are poison from the fevered imagination of Gnostic heretics who created a fleshly line of descendants of Jesus Christ and his alleged wife, Mary Magdalene. The Nag Hammadi find changed Mary Magdalene from a broken prostitute into a grand aristocratic priestess and wife of Christ and bearer of his priestly offspring, which fact Rome was supposed to be trying to cover up. (Conspiracy theorists lean heavily on the idea of secret sinister Vatican cover ups.) Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln’s book Holy Blood Holy Grail setting forth this new theory suited the feminist movement at that time when women were deserting the confessional in droves. The traditional ethos of Mary Magdalene the redeemed whore was discard in favour of this even less likely idea that she was a priestess, and Christ’s wife, and mother of His children. The Sermon of Gregory the Great Homily 33 is recorded in Homiliarian in evangelia, Lib. 11, Patrologia Latina, vol. 76 (Puris: J.-P Migne, 1844-1864), cols. 1238-1246. “We believe that this woman [Mary Magdalen] is Luke’s female sinner, the woman John calls Mary, and that Mary from whom Mark says seven demons were cast out.” (“Hanc vero quam Lucas peccatricem mulierem, Joannes Mariam nominal, illam else Marian credimus de qua Marcus septem damonia ejecta fuisse testator”) The seven demons Gregory identified as “all the vices” (“Et quid per septem daemonia, nisi universa vitia designantur?”) by which he means the seven so-called cardinal sins (including lust, which was understood as inordinate or illicit sexual desire). The seven cardinal sins: were first grouped as such by Gregory. The passages mentioning Christ’s casting out of the seven devils from Mary Magdalene are in Luke 8:1-56; Luke 13:1-35, and Mark 16:1-20; Mark 9:1-50. Gregory then complained that the ointment used by Luke’s unnamed sinner, now Mary Magdalen, to anoint Christ’s feet had previously been used by her “to perfume her flesh in forbidden acts.” (“Liquet...quod ilicitus actibus prius mulier intenta unguentum sibi pro odore suae carnis adhibuit”) It was Gregory who also associated her, again primarily through identification with Luke’s unnamed sinner, as a penitent when he explained that by immolating herself at the feet of Jesus, “she turned the mass of her crimes to virtues, in order to serve God entirely in penance.” (“Convertit ad virtutum numerum criminum, ut totum serviret Deo in poenitentia”) ======================================================================== CHAPTER 29: 02.009. THE ‘HELL OF NUNS’ 1 ======================================================================== Inferno Monacale - The ‘Hell of Nuns’ Part 1: Tracing it back to Rome’s Consilium emendenda Dr Clive Gillis It was little more than a century ago that angry Cardinal Manning described a run of harrowing revelations of nuns escaped from convents as one of five contemporary signs of Antichrist. Rome is now turning the tables. For instance Dava Sobel’s book Galileo’s Daughter, which concerns the astronomer’s relationship with his nun daughter, was recently a top seller, romanticising Counter Reformation nuns. But this was a special case. Although Galileo’s letters to his daughter, who was incarcerated in a Florentine convent, were destroyed for dear of the Inquisition, his daughter’s letters survive. Romanist historian Eamon Duffy describes this insight into Galileo’s feelings as “splendid and moving”. And indeed we are moved by his daughter’s insightful letters, faithfully dispatched together with supplies of his favourite plovers eggs, collars and shirts, fruit and game all conjured up from her convent prison. Warehouses for discarded women But Galileo was a unique man with one exceptional daughter. The noble nun’s sacrificial support for her famous father diverts us from the awful reality of covenant life after the Council of Trent. Sobel necessarily alludes, in passing, to some of its horrors. At least Natasha Walker of Vogue spotted that, fascinating as it was to get close to Galileo through his daughter, it did not conceal “the abyss that yawned” between their two lives. Galileo actually had two daughters and a son from an illicit relationship with a Venetian noblewoman, much younger than himself, who later married someone else. Galileo procured a fiat of legitimisation for his son, but his daughters were doomed. This was routine for the whole upper and middle classes of the day. Convents were simply “warehouses for the discarded women of middle class and patrician families”. The doom of the Galileo sisters cannot be disguised. Galileo must have pulled strings to see them both admitted to the same convent at only 13 years of age. He no doubt wished the bright older daughter to protect the vulnerable younger. In admitting more than one daughter Rome ran the risk of a particular family gaining undue influence and blocking regulations abounded. Cardinal del Monte’s letter to Galileo “concerning your daughters claustration” is still extant. Galileo is told bluntly that any admission of his daughters before the canonical age of 16, “is not allowed…this rule is never broken and never will be … When they have reached the canonical age they may be accepted by ordinary dowry; unless the sisterhood already has the prescribed number; if such be the case it will be necessary to double the dowry. Vacancies may not be filled up in anticipation under sever penalties…”. The novice mistress We find the novice mistress was a neurotic self harming psychopath “overpowered by moods of frenzies,” who, “tried twice in recent days to kill herself … she is crazy and cunning at the same time … we live … in fear of some new outburst”. The older daughter sheltered the younger by giving her sole use of their shared cell while she endured the nightly ravings of the novice mistress on her sister’s behalf. The younger sister’s love of wine, eccentricities, moods and indeptedness through internal despair. Vivid details such as extracting their own decayed teeth leaving the older toothless at 27, the enduring of bitter cold, inadequate diet and the inevitable placement over them of the unstable novice mistress as spiritual mentor are harrowing. Galileo is frequently requested to send money as the black economy thrived on nuns desperate to purchase single cells or other privileges to escape the unbearable. The older daughter seeks money from Galileo to avoid sharing with the novice mistress and again later to divert disaster as the younger sought to be Cellarer in charge of wines. The more desperate the nuns the richer the convent as the nuns would beg, borrow and steal to relieve their misery. So much for the Convent romance. Inferno Monacale Locating the voice of an ordinary Counter Reformation nun to explain this wholesale imprisonment of young girls is no easy matter. However in 1990 an Italian academic press published a little known manuscript written by a typical incarcerated Counter Reformation nun Sister Arcangela Tarabotti. Her proper name was Elena Cassandra Tarabotti, and she vividly described her feelings and experiences in a Venetian convent sometime about 1640- 1650. She wrote frankly in a cathartic manner never expecting her words to reach the outside world. Her tragic testimony was simply entitled Inferno Monacale (‘Hell of Nuns’). There is apparently no English translation as yet. Elena’s cry is the first link in a chain that leads us right back to the Consilium emendenda as the origin of what she calls the ‘Nun’s Hell’. We traced the history of the Consilium emendenda, in BCN 78, December 9, 2005. It was a secret report on the state of Rome after the Reformation in which Rome’s own top people utterly condemned her as ‘an offence to all Christendom’. Dragged at knifepoint At the time that Elena wrote, over 3,000 nuns out of Venice’s total population of 150,000, were incarcerated in as many as 50 Venetian convents, at best through gross deception and at worst having been dragged there at knifepoint. Elena daringly addresses her plaint to, “The Most Serene Republic of Venice”. She protests boldly against the flower of Venetian womanhood being forcibly imprisoned. She touchingly describes the moment of enforced consecration for all nuns as a funeral. “But turning again to the funeral ceremony, that in little or nothing is different from a (real) funeral. (The young unwilling novice) is prostrated on the stone floor. She is covered over by a black drape and a lighted candle is placed below the feet and at her head. Above her the Litany is being sung. Every sign points to a life extinct. She feels just as (if she were at) her own funeral. Under this coffin she accompanies (the singing of the Litany) with tears and gulps (sobs) sacrificing all her senses to her passion and pain . .. The course of her misfortune is irremediable.” (Author’s translation). The tyranny of their fathers And who or what is to blame for this outrage? Elena states clearly it is, “The tyranny of the fathers”. The Nuns Hell opens with a special dedication to fathers and parents who force young women to become nuns. She describes the cunning involved. Like paedophile grooming, young female relatives are taken to meet despicable nun aunts, themselves victims of enforced claustration years earlier. They meet in the neutral convent courtyard. These cynical old nuns, both out of spite and monetary inducement from the family, use ‘every art’ to befriend their young female relatives. Over a period they seduce them with an arsenal of lies concerning the wonderful life that ties ahead. So deceived were these little girls that they looked happily forward to the day they would commence their wonderful new life. Elena describes these wicked old nuns ‘weaving the most fabulous yarns undreamt of by even the most gifted and famous of poets’ to conjure the convent into ‘an earthly paradise’. Apparently the bitter old nuns even went to the length of tying sweets, sugared almonds and fruits to the tree branches to foster the deception of a life in an earthly paradise lying ahead. Greed of family and Church Why did the fathers do this? Prof Sperling of Hampshire college USA has studied numerous contemporary court cases. She confirms just ‘how greedy a nun’s relatives could be ... Most often a brother profited from a sister’s enforced monachization. This was part of a strategy to pass estates down through the male line which harmed widows, spinsters and sisters’. In the short term it protected the heredity purity of the aristocracy, but eventually the lack off offspring became critical. The Venetian elite could no longer service all the governmental posts in the Republic which had been built upon purity of blood line. Finally in 1648 the Republic had to admit rich outsiders to the governing class destroying the whole edifice at a stroke. Venice, because of its unique status, is the grossest example of something which happened to some extent across the whole of Counter Reformation Europe. So where does the Church of Rome fit into this? Clearly Rome gained immense wealth from these blood money dowries as the greedy Romanist aristocracy of Europe willingly paid to keep its blood lines pure and safeguard the future of its family lines. No one demurred at forcibly incarcerating women totally against their will. The gratitude of the Romanist rich in turn ensured their support for Rome’s expansion and co-operation in opposing Protestantism. Rome was in effect supplying prisons for unwanted family members in a context where a cloak of respectability could be given to the vilest of practices. There is a correlation between the concentration of Counter Reformation convents in an area and the success of Rome in stemming the Protestant advance. Rome wants power But what is the link between the Consilium emendenda and this iniquitous incarceration of women? The Church of Rome is shown in the Book of Revelation as a woman riding, with varying degrees of difficulty, the European political beast. Rome is not just interested in money. She is interested in power. The real force that maintained the sheer hellishness of the hell that Elena and many thousands of similar women had to endure, owed more to Rome’s ambition to rise all powerful again from the devastation wrought by the Reformation than to the desire to tap into the wealth of the nun’s families. Never again were Protestants across Europe, who were committed to marrying, rearing children in the sight of God and making their communities prosper through hard work, going to openly mock the degeneracy of Rome’s virgins. The revelations of the Consilium were the seed from which grew a severe Counter Reformation austerity, only much later to be circumvented by the Jesuits. It was this climate of hypocritical morality which goaded Pope Pius V (the excommunicator of Elizabeth I ) to enforce the Council of Trent’s dour measures against the weak and indefensible generally and against nuns in particular. Hard business decisions Celibacy, defensible only by twisting Scripture and in reality impossible to follow, had resulted in the basest scandals which in turn had ushered in the Reformation. The Reformation was now threatening Rome’s very existence. Like any Board of Directors, the Papal curia, having commissioned a report to devise strategies to save their business, were facing some hard decisions. Amazingly the Consilum’s authors actually considered dropping celibacy for all monks in orders and totally for women. This was top secret at the time. The suggestion came from respected intellectuals like Erasmus who took the view that Rome should smartly jettison celibacy as being more trouble than it was worth. Erasmus, we recall, had early espoused the Reformation but later remained in the pale of Rome. He wrote acidly against celibacy in his works Encomium matrimonii 1518 and later Institutio christiani martrimonii 1526 in which he elevates the married state above virginity. A hell for all to see The Consilium’s authors realised that if things did not change, the papacy would be swept away. So if celibacy was to continue Rome must be in entire control both of the institutions and the lives of those in them. Monasteries and convents must be squeaky clean. That is of course impossible. But defenceless, imprisoned women, coerced into celibacy by heartless Romanist families, could be put into a hell for all to see and a hell so dreadful that no Protestant could question its austerity and by implication its purity. And if achieving this public hell meant all out war with the aristocratic families of Europe, from whose ranks these pitiful girls came, so be it. No matter if such powerful families might wish some small control and a little amelioration of dire harshness in exchange for the huge dowries they were paying to get there womenfolk imprisoned. Power mattered even more than money and Rome had to get power. We shall see the abominable results in Part 2, DV. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 30: 02.010. THE ‘HELL OF NUNS’ 2 ======================================================================== Inferno Monacale - The ‘Hell of Nuns’ Part 2 Sacrificing Women For Reasons Of State Dr Clive Gillis The authors of Rome’s awful indictment of herself, the Consilium de emendanda ecclesia, were terrified lest the Reformation should overthrow the Roman Church altogether (see BCN 9 December 2005). We have to remember that the Consilium was Rome’s own judgement on herself. The Consilium even suggested abolishing priestly celibacy. It says of monasteries and nunneries, “Acknowledging that amongst nuns and virgins in cloisters ……open disgrace takes place with offence to one and all ….. which grieves Christendom ….. monastic orders …. must be ….. abolished for many of them have gotten into such bad condition and disorder that they are a grave offence ……. therefore it is our opinion that all convent orders should be abolished”. So why were they not abolished? H.C. Lea, the Victorian historian of the Inquisition, observes that, “the changes recommended in the Consilium attacked too many vested interests for even the papal power to give it effect”. The showdown came at the ensuing Council of Trent. This council dragged on from 1545 to 1563 when the luxuriously entertained delegates, “did little more than shift absurdity from one place to another and effectually correct none”. The Consilium’s moment of human compassion towards women was lost amongst politics. The Trent council was, ‘the farthest possible remote from religion of any, kind or degree,” in Rome’s history. Never has, “more self interested policy ... more immoral and dishonourable intrigue .... more flagrant injustice [towards reformers] and more violent and indecorous internal contention,” occurred in any council. Rome has produced medals of all her infamies - The St Bartholomew’s Eve massacre, the hunting down of the Hussites, the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes and dozens more. Yet no explicit medal was ever produced to commemo­rate Trent. Nuns left until last The trifling question of celibate orders and those lowly creatures, the nuns, was delayed from 1545 right until the very end of the council in 1563. The Alpine winter was setting in. The final 25th session was to be the last. Vast quantities of unfinished business guaranteed it to be the most hectic. The sated and tetchy delegates were at their lowest ebb and could not bring themselves to pay attention. The agreed date for ending the Council, the 9th December, was so near Christmas that the delegates were locked into whirlwind performances. By the end of November, “everything was tending with precipitate and indecorous speed to the termination of the council”. Many would have been happy to have scrapped the 25th session altogether. The French and the Spanish were fighting and the French were demanding “a speedy close”. At the end of November, news arrived that the pope was “dangerously” ill. In fact he only had a bad cold but the rumour grew with the tell­ing and had the desired effect of heightening the sense of haste and confusion. Conditions were thus perfect for the manipulators. All of Rome’s big earners, such as purgatory, indul­gences, invocation and veneration of relics and saints and sacred images, were shunted into this session. Vested interests could rest assured that any consideration of them would of ne­cessity be cursory, and reform, if any, would be trifling. The nuns were about the last item on the agenda. Rome terrified Needless to say, Trent rejected the idea of abolishing nuns. But if nuns were not to be a liability, the conditions of their containment would have to be strict beyond measure, and that regardless of the power and wealth of line from which these the women were the rejects. Rome, terrified of Protestant derision, was determined to leave no chink in its rigorous regime of incarceration. Nothing that could give rise to the slightest scandal would be overlooked. Rome was determined that never again would it be said by outsiders that, “violation” of nuns was “teeming” in convents which were “not convents but public whorehouses”. Trent’s rigour was to be draconian and demonstrable. For as the Council of Trent said, if celibacy was persisted with and the “foundations of all religious discipline are not carefully preserved, the whole building will necessarily topple”. The dire warning of the Consilium still had power to influence. Trent did persist and an Anathema was called down upon any who should fail to assert virginity to be a higher state than marriage. Prison camps Trent’s nun legislation was obsessive in detail. “No nun may go out of her convent on any pretext ... except approved by the bishop ... no one of any kind or condition or sex or age may enter ... without permission of the Bishop or Superior in writing under pain of excommunication”. The Bishop was to have absolute oversight of convents. He was, required regularly to inspect them with the thoroughness of a modern prison camp guard. All doors, windows and rotary turntables were to be secured with double and triple locking “and not the slightest fissure” remain for two way glances. Elaborate key holder regulations were established with guarding arrangements. There must be only one, or at the most two, entrances if part of the convent faced river or sea. If the bishop found more, he “must immediately wall them up and block them so they may no longer be used”. A record exists of the nuns of San Rocco and Santa Margarita in Venice having the ventilating holes in their latrine filled in, despite the heart of Mediterranean summers, lest by craning their necks they could glimpse the street below. These women were pitilessly denied even the embrace of their own female relatives. The regulations were as paranoid about nuns getting out as about amours getting in. There were all sorts of ridiculous anti voyeurism measures. The nuns were enjoined never, “to step a single pace,” beyond their enclosure. They could hear the mass through heavy grilles and only their disembodied voices were heard. Their lives were to be joyless, largely silent, and their time spent in bare solitary cells. Up to four unannounced spot searches were to be made by the Superior each year to purge the cells of prohibited, “books, clothes, writings, dishonest paintings, dogs, birds, or other animals”. To allow for this, all cells, had their locks and catches removed and candles had to burn all night within them. On the ridiculous as­sumption that older nuns would be trustwor­thy, they were appointed to undertake spot in­spections to detect sharing of cells by younger women. Rome’s paranoia is well illustrated by Pius V (the excommunicator of Elizabeth 1) who followed up Trent by the Bull Circa pastoralis of the 29th May 1566 confirming that once inside, nuns are to be securely imprisoned for life. The clausura decrees, Decori 1570; Deo sacris 1572 Ubi gratiae 1575, all frantically followed one upon another to ensure no loophole of hope existed for the prisoners. And it seems that even that did not fully calm Rome’s fears, for shortly after St Bartholomew’s massacre Pope Gregory XIII , “issued a clarification” consolidating earlier decrees. It did not work Did it work? Of course not. An early intima­tion that these pressurised hothouses were about to blow up reached England about 1608. A godly, erudite, protestant English diplomat in Venice, Sir Henry Wotton, who had favour with Rome and Greek Orthodoxy alike for his impeccable honesty and extensive learning, suddenly found himself writing home with some amazement: “This week hath produced here a very unexpected piece of justice, which yet I think will discover more evil than it will amend. On Wednesday last in the night were broken up eleven several doors by the public officer, for the apprehension of so many persons (whereof nine were gentlemen of princi­pal houses) accused to have lasciviously haunted the nunnery of St Anna and thence to have transported those votaries (nuns) to their private chambers in masking attire . . . And the parties (men) not being found in the said night in their houses ... were publicly summoned ... Thus far the State hath proceeded already ... to recover some reputation ... by exem­plary severity”. Worse and worse The latter state of the convents became more degenerate than the former. Men broke down walls, tunnelled underneath enclosures, bribed access, or gained legitimate access to but failed then to leave. Sometimes men would be hidden in convents for long periods being fed and secreted in storerooms by nun accomplices. Rome could not contain the scandal. The penalties for, “having had carnal commerce with a nun,” or the lesser charge of being, “found inside a convent of nuns,” became increasingly harsh. The state categorised these crimes against the “Brides of Christ” as “sacrilege”. Numerous legal reports exist of men unable to gain entry to convents involved in heavy petting through the grilles and exposing themselves from adjacent vantage points. Lesbianism no doubt exceeded this heterosexual activity. However such was the lascivious carnality of Roman priests that it did not seem to have occurred to them that anyone other than themselves could be a temptation to the nuns. Professor Judith Brown’s Immodest Acts points out this anomaly. Her study of one of the few trials for lesbianism amongst these nuns concerned a mystic nun whose lesbianism only emerged incidentally during her trial for mystic practices. Bizarre places As time passed the Counter Reformation convents became bizarre places, in many ways little different from home, and with a distinctly secular atmosphere. Family groups began to dominate nunneries in parallel to their family’s power outside. The most aristocratic nuns separated themselves, eating together and providing more luxuries for their own cells which they would even bequeath in their wills to other family members. All this intensified the misery of their social inferiors. Some of these women were intellectually able, and, freed from the restraints of rearing families, they sublimated their energies into literature and the arts. Professor Weaver of Chicago has produced an elegant study, Convent Theatre to early Modern Italy, showing how these bored women wrote and performed erudite plays loaded with classical learning. Sadly the plays became increasingly secular in theme as their souls calloused over. The nuns would dress up in outrageous worldly costumes and the convent parlour would seat the audience. Professor Monson’s Crannied Wall describes how musical nuns took both to composing and performing works, some of genuine merit. Various convents, despite the pope’s railing against the practice, suddenly boasted illicit orchestras with “lutes, guitars, violins, trombones, in addition to harpsichords”. Even large organs were smuggled in piecemeal. The following letter from an archbishop to the In­quisition is typical of the period: “It happened in a nunnery under my control ... two nuns without my knowledge had a very large organ built and brought in secretly ... and installed on one side of the choir ... and began to play it ... with dishonour”. When so many women were incarcerated, some would inevitably have exceptional talents and the popes found themselves receiving appeals from the brightest to allow further study. But the overall effect of clausura upon these hapless souls was mind numbing, witnessed to by the Punch and Judy show in Guardi’s painting. Such was the hell of counter reformation nuns. Footnote. The author would like to thank Mr David Relf who sent him an old copy of Edith O Gomm’s Perils and Trials in September 2004. This was the inspiration for these articles. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 31: 02.011. PADRE PIO SHRINE ======================================================================== Padre Pio Shrine Fever: Could It Prove Fatal? British Church Newspaper - 14 October 2005 Dr Clive Gillis PADRE PIO, now Saint Pio, was born Francesco Forgione, in Pietrelcina near Benevento, on 25 May 1887. He joined the Capuchin monks on 6 January 1903 and was ordained a priest on 10 August 1910. Pio had deserted from the army and "his spiritual director had him removed to the anonymity of a remote monastery, Our Lady of Grace, at San Giovanni Rotondo (Saint John’s Rotunda)," in Southern Italy. There on 20 September 1918 he developed stigmata of his palms "in a violent trance". Fingerless mittens, from which blood ran down his arms as he held up the mass wafer, permanently covered his hands which "remained ... fresh and bleeding," for 50 years until he died on 23 September 1968. ’Devil possessed psychopath’ A fearful Vatican launched a dirty tricks campaign to destroy him in the 60’s. The Inquisition kept him under constant surveillance. They dug up Padre Agostino, a former superior, who recalled Pio’s "terrible diabolical vision of women dancing naked about the cell where he lay sick". They bugged his confessional and accused him of seducing women and making the stigmata with nitric acid. "The founder of Rome’s Catholic University Hospital said the monk was mad, a self mutilating psychopath possessed of the devil who exploited people’s credulity. The so called ’odour of sanctity’ accompanying his wounds was no more than eau de cologne applied for an indulgent sting of self mortification. The Vatican banned him from taking Mass." Lying wonders But lying wonders continued, including being seen by several cardinals behind locked doors kneeling before Pope Pius XI begging not to be exiled to a monastery in the north when he was known to be in San Giovanni Rotondo at the time. "More ... remarkable ... was his appearance in the air over his hometown (San Giovanni Rotondo) during the Second World War. Allied pilots, based at Bari in southern Italy, were flying sorties into Nazi held territory during a search for a cache of weapons hidden somewhere in the area of San Giovanni Rotondo. In their approach to the town, several pilots reported seeing an apparition in the sky in the form of a monk with upheld hands. They also described some sort of ’force field’ that prevented them flying over the target rendering them unable to drop their bombs." Bernardo Rossini of Aeronautica Italians insists the then American Chief of Air Command flew his squadron personally and saw him. On visiting the San Giovanni Rotondo after the war the American apparently met Padre Pio, immediately recognised him, dropped to his knees and converted. The monk was becoming unstoppable. Pio canonised Consequently Pope John Paul II canonised him on June 16, 2002. By then San Giovanni Rotondo had ballooned as a sprawling shrine, its eight million pilgrims and tourists outdoing Lourdes and fast catching up with the worlds most visited shrine, Our Lady of Guadeloupe, in Mexico City. Ordinary Italians adore Pio. Peeking over the hedge of many a mason’s yard, the old staples of whiter than white, life size marbles of Christ and the Virgin Mary, have recently been joined by the short podgy friar in a bizarre trinity. Countless bars, shops and private homes have his image co equal or even in place of the Virgin Mary. Lately he has appeared on cars and long distance lorries, usurping Saint Christopher. And a real barometer of affection is his appearance on the Italian death notice. Within moments of the posting up of a new death in any hamlet curious villagers will appear from nowhere to look. Modern colour printing has allowed the departure from the formerly dour black and white writing with a little vignette of a reddish RC Christ or sky blue, veiled Virgin. Now especially south of Rome, likely as not the vignette will be the trade mark, brown hooded Padre Pio either joining the other two or even solo. Commercialisation But this very Italian phenomenon may not easily endure. The over commercialisation of the shrine could spell the death knell of the prosperity of San Giovanni Rotondo leaving the surrounding area despoiled. The town lies in northern Puglia, Italy’s heel, in an area of natural beauty covered with beech, oak, yew and pine, called the Gargano peninsula. This outcrop is a green and pleasant spur jutting out into the Adriatic Sea. It is a haven from the scorching summer heat, and it is visible scores of kilometres away from the surrounding flat featureless plain. It is traversed by an ancient pilgrimage track only recently converted into a winding road along the Stignano valley linking San Severo in the west and Monte Saint Angelo in the east with medieval San Giovanni Rotondo en route. San Giovanni Rotondo’s latter day sprawl has crept across the hillside, with little sense of planning. It totally dwarfs the historical centre and is only approached via a series of precipitous hairpin bends barely negotiable by coaches. Natural beauty destroyed Magazine and colour supplement features of the shrine usually show a collage of easily obtained, dramatic photographs. Because of the steepness of the site, the fantastic new circular church with its vast arched wood interior, colonnaded exterior, and huge bells, are easily shot against the white Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza (the hospital or House for the relief of Suffering) towering up above it and etched against blue sky. Architect of the new circular church Renzo Piano was already world famous before this assignment and his fees must have been astronomical for a church building capable of holding ten thousand people, like St Peters, but with outside space so large that many times that number can participate through a part glass exterior. The monks would have no one else. However the destruction of an area of natural beauty is evident in a distance shot. Pilgrims ’like ants’ As one approaches closer, huge cranes are everywhere. Countless hotels and apartments are still under constriction. Yet according to the guide 83 hotels and 53 restaurants and pizza houses are already open for business. Like a theme park, there is a white Disneyland type electric train to convey pilgrims around the treacherous slopes. The Hotel Gran Paradiso, supposedly occupying the prime position immediately opposite the grand papal approach to the new church, is stranded in the midst of unfinished work. Abutting this unfinished grand drive, the canny occupiers of the preexisting I Due Angeli restaurant have clearly decided not to sell. Instead they have knocked an opening to the shrine in their ugly block wall boundary and put a plank across the divide for pilgrims to climb straight in for refreshment. The owner said "they are like ants . . . but only at weekends". Indeed the vast complex seemed sparsely populated on a high summer weekday. And winter will be no time for negotiating those hairpins. £100 million annually If the money dries up disaster looms. Press reports of poor management and over commercialisation by the monks caused the Vatican to step in during 2003 and wrest financial control from the local Capuchins. The estimated annual giving by pilgrims is £100 million. Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro Valls stressed that the Capuchins will continue to take care of the sanctuary. The Capuchin’s spokesman said, "We feel like we’re returning to the dark times that Padre Pio knew, with a decision that seems to us hostile and punitive". The air of disorganisation, vulgar commercialism and uncompleted facilities suggests money may already have been squandered in a frenzied gold rush, exploiting the shrine fever, which is possibly now faltering. Perhaps that is why we were acted by young people spotting our GB plate "collecting for Padre Pio" with great fervour in unbearable temperatures at a motorway junction 50 kilometres away. A few pilgrims are rejecting all this glitz and seeking authentic Pio magic back at the old church. Metal benches have been put out for the spiritually needy to wait hours, even all night, to see one of the old capuchins who knew Pio well in the hope they can somehow get blessed through an intermediary. Fr Gino Burresi Perhaps the Vatican is regretting not crushing Pio when it had the chance. Certainly one of the first acts of Benedict XV1’s new Chief Inquisitor, Archbishop William Joseph Levada of San Francisco, following his appointment on May 16th 2005, was to destroy "Padre Pio wanabee" Fr Gino Burresi. This mystic, stigmatic, miracle working priest from near Rome "left the Oblates of the Virgin Mary in 1992 amid a bitter internal dispute and founded a new order, the Congregation of the Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Currently the Servants number some 150 members". Amazingly, new boy Inquisitor Levada managed to get the decree out by the 27th May. Amongst other things, the Inquisitors found Burresi guilty of "pseudo mysticism, as well as asserted apparitions, visions and messages attributed to supernatural origins". God’s Rotweiler, Benedict XVI, had already tried to nail him in 2002 on sexual charges and failed. The leaked Vatican decree shows the determined Benedict to be behind the lightening verdict. The ruling "stipulates that in an audience given by Benedict XVI to Amato (Inquisition secretary) on May 27, the pope confirmed the decree in forma specifica, meaning that he made its conclusions his own, and that no appeal is possible". Burresi’s alleged activities paint the picture of an out and out charlatan, beneath contempt. But so was Pio once. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 32: 02.012. UNLIKELY NUN SUPREMO ======================================================================== Rome’s unlikely Nun Supremo Cardinal Rodé’s Rapid Rise To Power Dr Clive Gillis Rome’s Nuns and monks are controlled from 3 Piazza Pio XII, in front of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome, where the ’Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life’ is located. Pope Sixtus V established it in 1586 as the Sacred Congregation for Consultations about Regulars. The power of this body is immense. "The Congregation is responsible for everything which concerns institutes…. and societies of apostolic life regarding their government, discipline, studies, goods, rights, and privileges … for matters regarding the eremitical life, consecrated virgins and their related associations, and new forms of consecrated life … and has no territorial limits (and) also can dispense those who are subject to it from the common law". Archbishop Franc Rodé And its head, Archbishop Franc Rodé, seems an acceptable nun supremo. He is particularly keen on getting unmarried people, whether female or male, sequestered in cloisters. He can quote widely from the Romanist mystics such as Teresa of Avila and St Teresa of Lisieux who said things like, "notwithstanding the grilles - or in some mysterious way actually because of them - they are present with their hidden life of love and sacrifice". Rodé also quotes freely from the late John Paul II’s Apostolic Exhortation Vita Consecrata, which tells us why Rome is so terrified by the falling nun numbers: "The monastic life of women and the cloister deserve special attention because of the great esteem in which the Christian community holds this type of life." So how did Rodé become overseer of Rome’s 783,000 vulnerable unmarried females? He ays, "I had an opportunity of breathing the clean air and sweet perfume of life totally dedicated to contemplation in a community in the diocese of Ljubljana, of which I was priest and pastor for seven years: the Community of the Discalced (barefooted) Carmelites of Sora." Recently, "The cloister accepted as gift and chosen as free response of love, twenty women young in age or with the will to live … it is indeed true that contemplatives do not grow old!" But most of Rome’s Archbishops must have nunneries in their dioceses. What was so special about Cardinal Franc Rodé? The fact is that Pope John Paul II only appointed Franc Rodé as Archbishops of Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, on March 5, 1997. Yet by February 2004 Rodé had been elevated from nowhere to be Prefect of this Congregation, a top job, as powerful in theory as leading the Inquisition. Why this sudden rise in such dizzy heights? Franc Rodé’s story is most instructive. Archbishop Franc Rode (right) shakes hand with Serbian Patriarch Pavle Slovenia Slovenia recently came fourth in a Channel 4 programme the "20 Best Places to Buy Property Abroad," beating the French Riviera, Tuscany and Florida, as "one of the most beautiful places in the world". Continually changing borders since the break up of the Austro Hungarian Empire in 1918, it lies near the eastern border of Italy, above Croatia and below Austria. It boasts a tiny strip of western Adriatic coast and a short eastern border with Hungary. Slovenia is a land of mountains, a third larger than Northern Ireland, with a population of 2 million. Slovenia became part of Yugoslavia in 1929, then fascist in Word War II, and later communist under Tito. However as Sabrina Ramet of the University of Washington writes, "Of all of the Yugoslav successor states, Slovenia has recorded the smoothest and least problematic transition toward liberal democracy and has maintained the highest level of system stability". Ramet attributes this to the fact that the Communists of Slovenia had allowed a liberal political culture to emerge as early as the 1980s. The result was a mere 10 day bloodless confrontation when Slovenia declared independence on June 25th 1990. Slovenia was already Yugoslavia’s economic heavyweight, with a thirteenth of the population of Yugoslavia but responsible for a fifth of Yugoslavia’s GDP. Entry into the EU and Nato in 2004 brought more prosperity. As a consequence, Slovenia is, "one of the most stable and prosperous of the central and eastern European economies" and enjoys, "a role on the world stage quite out of proportion to its small size". So Rome set about regaining her former hold on Slovenia. Croatia to the south is 87% Roman Catholic. Austria to the north is 73 %, but Roman Catholics in Slovenia had dwindled to only 60% of the population. Rome marginalised The fact is that Slovenia’s tolerant Communism had marginalised Rome. The political parties which emerged as early as 1988 were often atheistic peasant organisations. Independence naturally gave Slovenia’s Right wing a new opportunity. Rome grabbed it. A shaky coalition called DEMOS the Democratic opposition of Slovenia was concocted from a rag bag of six right wing groups. At the first multiparty elections, the clergy openly solicited votes for the Right. The Liberal intelligentsia from the Tito years raised the alarm Rome is back on the offensive! Apparently election documents were distributed in front of all Slovenian (RC) parish churches after Mass, with the help of the priests. Voting day was Palm Sunday and "the voters duly perfomred their sacred duty by attending the Mass and then proceeded to cast their ballot at the polling station. It was observed that the priests in some churches, toghether with their flock, prayed for the people to make a right choice." We are told that, "Later on, to make the mockery even greater, the priests explained that leaflets and prayers were meant for older people who completely forgot about the elections, especially as it is the duty of the church to explain to confused people what each party stands for". Priests were heard saying, "Elections are on Sunday! Decide so that the world and our own Slovenian history would not laugh at you! People came to church aware that they would get a red card from above if they do not make a choice acceptable to God". Janez Drnovsek DEMOS won. But the Slovenians, who had just emerged from one totalitarian ideology, did not want another. DEMOS lasted less than two years. Old Communist free thinkers, allied with Liberals in a Centre Liberal coalition, were led by left of centre Dr Janez Drnovsek, a well qualified, muti lingual economist with no love of Rome. The Vatican was now driven to engage directly in politics. Drnovsek found himself "under attack from all [RC] pulpits". And who should be found leading the battle but Franc Rodé!, Rodé at the age of 11, had fled Slovenia with his parents for Austria and later Argentina. Now he busied himself manipulating the fallout from scandals surfacing amongst the old entrenched Communists. Rodé demanded control of education and marriage ceremonies, Roman Catholic blessing of schools and public offices and a ban on new religious groups, lumping genuine protestant works with the sects and Islam. He is reported to have stated that Slovenians must either "live for God (the Roman Church) or ... for death. There is no third way." And, "what can a young Slovenian without a Christian education comprehend when he visits European museums, gazing like an idiot, which he in fact is?" Honouring Hitler’s men interestingly, Rodé joined politicians at meeting on 30th June 2000 honouring, "the Home Guards who fought in the Second World War as part of the German war machine and who in summer 1941 pledged allegiance to Adolf Hitler". These are, it seems, to be remembered with the communist partisans. They sang their old fascist anthem My Homeland. The showdown came when the Vatican recruited Rodé to reach an Accord with Slovenia. Prof Ramet writes, "In the educational sphere, battle lines have been drawn between the Roman Catholic Church and its political advocates ... and those who champion a secular state ... At the centre of the battle has been the insistence on the part of Archbishop Franc Rode ... that Catholic religious instruction be incorporated into the curriculum of state elementary schools". The Slovenian government agreed to negotiations. Article 10 guaranteed the Church’s right to establish and operate educational facilities, and declared that "other questions pertaining to education would be handled via mutual consultation between authorized representatives of Church and state". Prof Ramet continues, "Mateuz Krivic, a former justice of the Constitutional Court ... protested that Article 10 opened the door for the Church to meddle in the Slovenian educational system. Under pressure from various quarters, the Holy See agreed to a revision of Article 10, but a disputed section of Article 2, which stipulated . . . that the Republic of Slovenia and the Holy See are obligated ... to resolve open questions which are not included in the agreement, remained intact." "Archbishop Rodé stated that, quite apart from the exclusion of religious instruction from the schools, the textbooks currently in use for other subjects were atheistic and needed to be replaced ... his Church would never accept secular education." The Accord was eventually signed on December 14, 2001. Rodé prevails Krivic immediately protested that, "in case of collision of the laws of state and church, the state shall be duty bound to fully respect the autonomy of the Catholic Church and its canon law". This alarming prospect forced the Slovenian Government "to submit the Accord to its experts for further study". Krivic then protested the altered version "is even worse than the first ... If the Parliament gives the green light to this Agreement between Slovenia and Vatican, all comments about the interference of the Church in state affairs will become superfluous, because church intervention in education and other spheres of social life will become a part of daily routine". Rodé and his political priests finally triumphed in this lengthy stand off. Slovenia News announced on January 28th 2004, "Vatican Agreement Finally Wrapped Up". The National Assembly ratified it in a 44 to 12 vote. The Court did not find the agreement to be in violation of the principle of separation between the State and the Church. The following month the Vatican announced Rodé’s promotion to nun supremo in Rome. Slovenia News reported on Feb 11th 2004 that Rodé "would not relate his appointment directly to the recent ratification of this agreement between Slovenia and the Holy See". Well he wouldn’t would he. "But he did say that he learned about his promotion only a day after the ratification." No doubt Rodé was relieved when Benedict XVI confirmed this shotgun appointment in May this year. But then, they are both children of the Fascist era. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 33: 02.013. ROME'S SECRET WEAPON ======================================================================== Rome’s secret weapon for recatholicising the EU As the EU turns against Rome, so that Pope conjures up the ghost of St Benedict Dr Clive Gillis ROME IS having a rough ride on the back of an increasingly secular European beast which is now rejecting the new EU Constitution. This has led Cardinal Ratzinger deliberately to climb into the saddle as Pope Benedict XV1 in the hope of steadying the animal. In his first General Audience as Pope on the 27th April, Ratzinger explained his reasons for adopting the name Benedict: “St Benedict of Norcia ... the Great Patriarch of Western Monasticism ... Co-Patron of Europe ... [was an] extraordinary figure ... The gradual expansion, of the Benedictine Order that he founded had an enormous influence on the spread of Christianity across the Continent. St Benedict ... is a fundamental reference point for European unity and a powerful reminder of the indispensable Christian roots of its culture.” Similarly in 1980 John Paul II, following in the footsteps of all the post war popes, made a pilgrimage to the shrines which have grown up in the hills near Rome around a cave which was frequented by this sixth century hermit, Benedict. They lie above the ribbon-like town of Subaico, 40 km east of Rome, which today is choked with traffic going to the pilgrimage site. The plaque recording John Paul II’s visit to St Benedict’s monastery specifically says that he went as “una cum Europae episcopis” - as one with the bishops of Europe. How did St Benedict come to be, for Rome, “the first European”? The story is a curious mixture of fact and fable. Benedict the hermit Rome says Benedict was born in Norcia about 480 AD. He fled from the revelries of Rome and took refuge in a cave below a monastery. Benedict eventually preached to shepherds and so was invited to be the superior of a nearby monastery. But the monks poisoned their new, strict Abbott, who returned to his grotto. Later he founded St Clements in a deserted Roman villa. There he perfected a rule of monastic life, the Regula Benedicti. This embodied the secret of perfect piety, justice and order for his monastery. Pope Gregory the Great (590-604) endowed the Benedictines. The monks then went out to evangelise all Europe, including the British Isles. They applied the Regula Benedicti wherever they settled. However strange a culture or insular its people, a Benedictine monastery soon imparted, along with Christianisation, the notion of European citizenship. As a result, by the year 1000 AD there was a stable, pan-European Christianisation of the Benedictine brand, organised from the HQ in Subaico. And lo! the divided unruly peoples of pagan Europe were united as a common Christian community, Benedictine style. At least that is the story. This brings us to Benedict and Rome today. Readers will be well aware of the Vatican’s efforts after World War II to dominate Europe through the Treaty of Rome. This strategy was spearheaded by the “St Benedict for first European” campaign conceived during World War II. Pius XII may have been silent about the holocaust but he certainly made waves when one of Benedict’s early monasteries, Monte Cassino, was bombed by the allies. Churchill, unworried, correctly observed, “the enemy fortifications were hardly separate from the building itself”. But Pius castigated it as an “atrocity bombing”. He and his two successors, John XXIII and Paul VI, all vowed to use Benedict’s European credentials to bring the continent to heel. Benedict Patron of all Europe With the European ideal accelerating, Paul VI declared Benedict Patron of all Europe in the papal brief, Pacis Nuntius (‘Messenger of Peace’). This was issued on 24th October 1964 during the re-consecration of the rebuilt monastery of Monte Cassino. Pacis declares: “Messenger of peace, creator of oneness, master of civilisation and above all, herald of the religion of Christ and founder of monastic life in the West: these are the proper titles with which to acclaim St Benedict Abbott. On the fall of the Roman Empire, by then exhausted, Europe seemed to fall into darkness [as at the end of WWII!] ... bereft of civilisation and spiritual values”. Benedict, it said, “gave birth to the dawn of a new era ... bonded the spiritual unity of Europe ... this unity is an exemplary type of absolute beauty ... Pius X11 hailed St Benedict quite rightly as the Father of Europe ...Through the merits of this great Saint Our same Predecessor desired God to support the efforts of those trying to unite the European nations ... John XXIII also fervently desired that this would come about.” “We [Paul VI] also give Our full approval to this movement which is aiming to create a united Europe ... We have been happy to receive the petitions of [numerous pro-European people and institutions are listed] to declare St Benedict, Patron Saint of Europe ... this solemn proclamation ... is for us the suitable moment [to] re-consecrate to God, in honour of the Most Holy Virgin and St Benedict the temple of Monte Cassino ...rebuilt due to Christian piety ...after the horrors of the world war... May he [Benedict) watch over all European Life ....in virtue of Our apostolic power ... in perpetuity ... we constitute and proclaim St Benedict, Abbot, the heavenly principle Patron of All Europe...” “In perpetuity” is Vatican speak for “as long as it suits”. Readers will have spotted that Pope Benedict XVI referred to St Benedict as a “Co-Patron”. Eastern European politics has forced the Vatican to elevate saints Cyril and Methodius to the status of co-patrons as a sweetener to smooth the way for Rome’s invasion of Russian Orthodoxy in the east! Subaico v. secularism Today, as secular Euro-peronsalities, including Euro MPs and their people, seek to broaden and secularise the European ideal, Rome is retaliating in the guise of the Fondazione Sublacense Vita a Famiglia (‘Subaico Foundation for Life and Family’) founded in 2001 from pre-existing pressure groups. Its stated aim is to “follow the humanistic values spread throughout Europe by Benedictine monasticism”. What monks and their concubines have to do with family life is none too clear! The Foundation has widespread support from RC academics and pro-Rome Euro MPs. (See below for its numerous and influential projects*.) Grygiel’s prophetic vision Finally we quote Prof Grygiel’s prophetic vision: “Europe in the Third Millennium will either be Benedictine or will disappear as a spiritual and cultural reality, remaining a place of material riches and spiritual poverty, a peninsula of Asia and an economic and military partner of the United States. The future of Europe depends on the ability of Europeans to preserve the close ties and ideal balance between ora and labors [Benedict’s slogan ‘pray and work’ is used as synonymous with continued RC Euro-Christianisation). The future of Europe will not be decided in the great centres of political and economic power but in the tiny abbeys scattered over the entire continent...” Really? *THE SUBAICO FOUNDATION Projects include the St Benedict Prize awarded to the person who best supports Rome in secular Europe. Research by sympathetic academics is sponsored in the unique Subaico library containing early monastic manuscripts to strengthen the Benedict legend. A prestigious Schools Competition offers a prize for the best “Benedict in Europe” project. Cultural trips are organised to important sites of European romanisation. A publishing organisation Radici (‘Roots’) produces annual popular adult material on the [RC] Christian roots of Europe. Saint Benedict the First European by John Paul II, - favoured Polish Prof Ludmilla Grygiel with a forward by romanist Euro-MP Lorenzo Cesa - was presented to the European Parliament in 2004. Cesa grabbed headlines in Italy on the 30th May 2005 viciously castigating the French for their “severe judgement” on European unity. Finally should Benedict’s euro-halo ever slip the Foundation is grooming an alternative by instituting a Day for St Thomas More - on his own saints day naturally assisting experts on Europe’s [RC] Christian roots to gather at various venues for conferences. ORIGINS OF MONASTICISM WERE NOT EUROPEAN The monastic idea originated in Palestine, Syria and Egypt. It entered Europe in the third century by the vehicle of the Roman Empire. Asceticism came to Italy, Spain, Gaul (France), and hence the British Isles, along the trade routes. As pagan Rome disintegrated, the monastic ideal became popular in Europe, particularly around Rome which was now in chaos. The first European monastic writings, including the rules for monastic life, were Latin translations of eastern manuscripts. Only later did the monks produce original Latin material. Benedict is but “a shadowy figure in this history”. Probably “in the second quarter of the sixth century [he] edited, shortened, tightened and in general improved one of these monastic rules making it his own”. Gregory the Great simply gathered traditions that had passed from mouth to mouth concerning Benedict. The majority were far fetched miracle stories featured in frescoes on the monastery walls. Gregory’s famous Vita [life] of Benedict gave apparent substance to these shadowy memories. THE BENEDICTINES The Benedictines, really the Black Monks, came into their own after 800 AD when the pope and the Franks formed an alliance known as the Holy Roman Empire. They introduced a single, recognised, set of regulations to stamp out the plague of varied monks. The Franks legislated in 817 that all monasteries had to follow the Regula Benedicti. An expert confirms that, “Memory of competing rules faded and monks and nuns created the myth of Benedict as founding father of Western monasticism ... Each monastery, whether of men or women, was an independent institution. The individual newcomer joined a particular monastery ... for life ... The modern notion of a monastic order - with a table of organisation, a headquarters, meetings, and mobility between one house and another ... did not yet exist.” An 11th century psalter in the British Library depicts the monks at their zenith. An awesome Benedict is enthroned with monks before him. His halo proclaims him “father - and leader of monks” and a headband states “fear God”. A monk beneath his feet denotes a “zone of humility”. The monks present Benedict with the Regula. God’s hand emerges from a cloud proffering a stole stating “whoever listens to you listens to me”. Yet the Black Monks’ dominance only lasted three centuries. They never networked New monks, like Francis of Assisi, came along who were revolted by Benedictine degeneracy and cried for reform. Francis is really the first euro-monk who can claim to be the founder of a standardised pan-European monastic chain, governed from Assisi by a hierarchy. Luther was nailing his 95 thesis to the church door at Wittenberg before the Benedictines attempted to develop such a hierarchical structure. The epithet “Benedictine” was coined even later. The Oxford Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources puts the first appearance of a new Latin word, Benedictinus, at 1526. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 34: 02.014. THE IRISH REPUBLICANS ======================================================================== How Rome First Opposed The Irish Republicans And Then Took The Credit For Their Success Rome and Irish Patriotism - Part 3 Dr Clive Gillis MEMORIALS evoke powerful feelings, As Professor Whelan of Boston correctly states, “The 1790’s is arguably the pivotal decade in the evolution of modern Ireland ... and culminated in the 1798 Rebellion”. Therefore those people named on Irish memorials of 1798 are rightly called early founders of the Irish Republic. It was a countrywide rebellion but it collapsed quickly except in the rural Roman Catholic area around Wexford: Here it was more robust and sectarian: So, understandably, memorials recording re­publican heroism are widespread in this area. History hijacked Protestants know that their monuments record genuine, attested history. But memorials can also manipulate history. Sadly, not least for Republicans themselves, some of these Irish memorials have been hijacked by Rome. They perpetuate the notion that 1798 consisted of Rome and her people sweetly cooperating together in the early republican strug­gle. The most blatant example is the Oliver Sheppard bronze in the market square of Enniscorthy. This depicts fighting priest Fr John Murphy, rosary dangling, towering over a young patriot boy who has a pike in one hand and sword in the other. Fr Murphy is portrayed as being in early middle age, with handsome features and fine shoulder length hair. One patronisg arm is upon the boy’s shoulder and the other is raised with fingers pointing forward, exhorting the boy to go on. In reality, Murphy was an ugly, balding, podgy faced, whiskey priest, grown prematurely old. Interestingly, a contributor to The Irish Arts Review 1990-1991 comments that the bronze suggests, “a morally righteous insurrection by a devout Catholic people, led by the Catholic clergy fighting for their rights against an alien oppressor”. The writer goes on to point out that this might be a description of the alliance of the Roman Catholic church and the Irish Parliamentary party 100 years later in the battle for Home Rule, when the statue was erected, but it was simply not true of 1798. History falsified What the Enniscorthy ‘98 memorial actually commemorates is Rome’s hugely successful campaign to falsify history in the 130 years after ‘98. Regular readers will recall that the 1798 rebellion was more in the spirit of the French Revolution. The United Irish rebels who opposed British rule were actually, primarily Presbyterians. They were intellectuals and deists in the mould of the 18th Century so-called ‘enlightenment’. Through Masonic Lodges and secret societies they contacted the RC middle class for the first time since the Boyne and were thus able to recruit lowly Roman Catholics. The rebels were united by the republican, godless, anticlerical, ideology of the age of revolutions rather than by religious conviction. The Ireland of 1870 We now move forward nearly a century. It is 1870. The Irish Roman Catholic hierarchy at this time was mostly loyal to Britain in line with the Vatican’s policy of seeking to convert Queen Victoria to Roman Catholicism, hoping thereby to grab the empire wholesale. In this year the pope anathematised any Roman Catholics taking the oaths of secret societies, Rome had forgotten that the United Irishmen were a secret society requiring the taking of an oath. The priests panicked realising that the Vatican’s anathema had posthumously damned thousands of her now highly regarded 1798 “freedom fighters”. For, as we have already said, Rome was, by 1870, the beneficiary of the rewriting of the history of 1798 and the rebels were now revered by the ordinary priests and people. What is more, by 1870 the apostate Presbyterians had done their best to hide their complicity in the ‘98 rebellion, representing it instead as an unruly, Roman Catholic, peasant uprising. United Irish leaders wrote up their history to conceal their part in a failed uprising. As a result, the Roman Catholic myth of brave priest and downtrodden RC peasant united in noble struggle against the protestant tyranny of the British government went unchallenged. The Fenians But then there was a fresh complication. The Fenian Republicans who arose in the mid nineteenth century were vehemently anti Roman Catholic. Their writers began to resurrect the crucial role, of the United Irishmen as republicans, revolutionaries and architects of 1798. This gave the republican struggle of their day historical roots. Thus, Myles Byrne, who fought in the 1798 rebellion gives us an eyewitness account of it in his Memoirs published in Paris in 1863. They were eagerly read. Byrne plainly records that the Wexford rebellion of 1798, far from being a spontaneous RC peasant uprising in which the priests bravely led their people, had in fact been carefully planned by the United Irishmen for over a year. To Rome’s embarrassment, Byrne specifically states that, “the priests did everything in their power to stop the progress of the united irishmen”. Indeed modern research has shown that, “of the 85 priests in (Wexford) county in 1798 only 11 played an active role in the insurrection and many of the remaining 74 were either active loyalists or kept a very low profile”. Worse still, their bishop, James Caulfield, is on record as describing Murphy and the few other rebel priests as “the faeces of the church”. Arrival of Kavanagh But, happily for Rome, a Franciscan monk arrived on the scene at this point to salvage the heroic priest legend. He it was who ensured that Rome had a place in the annals of the Republic when the Vatican finally abandoned for Britain and went along with Republicanism. The monk’s name was Fr Patrick F. Kavanagh. He was born in Wexford in 1838 and trained in the papal states where he was acquainted with the Carbonari, the early Italian patriots. Although the Fenian rising of 1867 was a failure, Home Rule and Republicanism never again left the agenda. Fr Kavanagh as vice chairman of the Ancient Order of Hibernians (RC equivalent of the Orange Order) saw more clearly than his Vatican masters the need for further urgent falsi­fication of history. Prof Whelan confirms that, “Byrnes candid, forceful account, of the United Irishmen in Wexford became a revered Fenian text and a problem for the institutional Catholic Church”. So, “Kavanagh developed a Catholic version of the Wexford rebellion as a crusade for faith and fatherland devoid of United Irish influence”. “The rebellion itself was provoked, not organised,” so Kavanagh said. “It spread spontaneously, and its most important feature was clerical leadership - notably the heroic role of Fr John Murphy” Kavanagh dismissed the United Irishmen as irrelevant and insisted that oath bound secret societies were a liability. In Kavanagh’s history only Catholic, priests could lead a genuine nationalist movement. They alone could provide selfless dedicated leadership for the Irish, people. Kavanagh’s Popular history Kavanagh’s deliberately published his Popular History in 1870 just as RC Archbishop Cullen personally intervened to get the fiercely anti-RC Fenians specifically condemned in the papal bull issued that year. The bull anathematised secret societies, loudly proclaiming that the Fenians were “men without principle or religion”. Kavanagh cleverly published his material again in 1874, expanded by little more than rhetoric; as an authoritative pan-Irish history of 1798, to coincide with the “return to parliament of 59 Irish Home Rulers”. He castigated the new accounts, especially Byrne’s, as “inadequate”, wrote out the United Irishmen, and praised the selfless bravery of the priests to the skies. One edition would not save Rome but several generations imbibing Kavanagh over 60 years certainly did. Major republican advances were generally marked by a new edition of Kavanagh as in 1884,1898,1913,1916 (obviously to accompany the Easter Rising see illustration) 1918, 1920, 1923 and 1928. By chipping away, through skilful editing, Fr Kavanagh obliterated the role of the United Irishmen. They became simply “brave men” when accounts required their mention. The dreaded word “presbyterian” does not appear. Emergence of the Free State When the Free State emerged, Kavanagh’s assurances that humble priests were co-partners in its creation went unquestioned. And Kavanagh himself became a powerful national pundit on Roman Catholic style patriotism, that is “Faith and Fatherland” as he called it. His pamphlet on the subject dedicated to “all Irishmen who love their native land” appeared on the eve of World War 1. Fr Kavanagh died on 18th December 1918. His myth of priest-led patriotism in the genesis of the Irish republican movement continued to veil the fact that the Vatican had opposed O’Connell, had done numerous secret deals with the British Government deeply detrimental to the republicans and their priestly associates, and had endlessly persecuted troublesome pro-republican priests not least during the terrible tenant evictions of the 1880’s. So, despite all this, Rome was able to bask in the heroic glory of those she had actually condemned as “the faeces of the church”. By 1918, thanks in large measure to Fr Kavanagh, Rome’s laurels in the genesis of the Irish Republican struggle were secure. Her priests were the people’s priests. The generations fed on Kavanagh’s version of history would hear of nought else. 1918 and Kavanagh’s death That day, the day of his death, the 18th December 1918, was also a polling day. A local Wexford historian says, “the eighty year old priest had visited the poll­ing-booths several occasions. That night he died in Wexford Priory. He was not to learn that out of 106 members returned for Irish constituencies 73 were Sinn Fein candidates, pledged to the claim of Irish independence and abstention from the English Parliament. He would have found it fitting that his last day on earth was spent assisting at the birth of what he would prefer to call a Catholic Nation.” The Wexford Independent subsequently confirmed that Fr Kavanagh “had done more than any other man to perpetuate the spirit of the men of ‘98”. The Provisional IRA training manual, the Green Book, looks specifically to this election. “Commitment to the Republican Movement is the firm belief that its struggle both military and political is morally justified ... and that the Army is the direct representatives of the 1918 Dial Eireann Parliament (not convened till 1919) ... the legal and lawful government ... over the whole geographical fragment of Ireland”. Roma vincit. Finis.* * ‘Rome conquers. The end.’ ======================================================================== CHAPTER 35: 02.015. IRISH BRIGADE IN ITALY ======================================================================== The Irish Brigade In Italy Rome and Irish Patriotism - Part 2 Dr Clive Gillis WE ARE about to rejoin the Irish papal brigade as it converges on the Papal States in June 1860. But first let us eavesdrop on a Vatican conversation being held at this very time on the topic of patriotism. Odo Russell, the Foreign Office’s unofficial papal diplomat, was shocked to discover, in that same flaming June of 1860, that Pius IX always consulted Cardinal Wiseman as his “best authority on English politics”. Worse, “his Eminence [Wiseman] ... assured His Holiness sooner or later there would be a great war between England and France which would prove beneficial to the interests of the Church whatever way it ended. If England were victorious the pope would get rid of the Emperor Napoleon [Napoleon III, who was now threatening the Papal States] ... on the other hand if France were victorious ... a Roman Catholic administration ... and relief from the thraldom of her Protestant statesmen,” would soon see Britain “rapidly return to the bosom of the Mother Church”. Little wonder Pius considered that such a war would be “a great blessing”. Russell immediately confronted Wiseman over his “monstrous ... views”. Wiseman said: “The Church had ways of knowing things to which diplomacy could not have access”. But Russell insisted “Our Roman Catholics were Englishmen before they were anything else and would resist foreign invasion like true Britons,” since, “the civil and religious position of our Roman Catholics in England [is] considerably better in every respect than that of the very subjects of the Pope.” Patriotism then as now determined balances of power. Scenes in Austria In that same June 1860 Archbishop Cullen was “pessimistic”, sure that a shameful debacle was now inevitable. A preliminary report from Rome read, “We must only hope that the Irish who come here will not bring down any disgrace on our country ... there are some shocking fellows amongst the soldiers ... They get drunk and beat one another and some of the Italians into the bargain”. But at least these men had reached Italy. Austro-Irish Count Charles McDonnell, who had illegally recruited many Irishmen, marched them to Vienna to become good Catholic Hapsburgs! A spy deepened Cullen’s gloom. “McDonnell ... has kept all our young men capable of being any use, acting in Vienna and elsewhere as clerks - writing orders, telegraphic despatches etc.” Rome confirmed that, “There was quite a scene in Vienna when one of the batches was passing through. An Irishman got drunk, the Austrian police, seven in number went to arrest him, he made opposition, they drew their swords but with the shillelah (cudgel) that never missed fire he knocked down three of them and the others ran for their lives”. Bored and disgruntled The Irish recruits were sent to the Adriatic around Ancona, many in the garrison town of nearby Macerata where Pius IX could be taken if Rome fell. The Irish were bored and disgruntled that their priests had lured them out with exaggerated promises of position, pay and excitement. Cullen was informed of their displaying “nothing but discontent and fighting and wishing for this and that ... The Kerry men were the worst they wanted green uniform and Irish republican caps,” and some, “threw off the Roman cap and jumped on it”. By way of explanation to a priest, one Kerryman said; “till we meet Garibaldi we must have a spree amongst ourselves ... we are Paddies evermore all the way from the Kingdom of Kerry”. Cullen was livid. Golden promises of priests Russell’s letter of 23rd June 1860 to the FO is graphic. “The greatest dissatisfaction prevails amongst the Irish recruits of the Pope, the Irish priests ... sent to pacify them, instead of reaching submission have taken the part of their countrymen and declare they have been unfairly treated by the papal military authorities ... [yet] as far as I can ascertain they are treated in exactly the same manner as all the other foreigners who enlist in the Pope’s army. No difference is made, I believe, but these poor deluded men, relying on the golden promises of their priests at home, have found their hopes and expectations deceived ... they say they were promised two shillings a day, instead of which they receive 5 bajocchis (about four pence). 2ndly, they expected to be commanded by Irish officers. 3rd, they expected to form a legion and wear a special uniform and 4th, they complain of their beds, food, barracks ... men who enlisted as officers have been reduced to the ranks on reaching Macerata ... they ... set fire to their barracks ... [and] declared they would murder any foreign officers who attempted to command them ... the authorities at Macerata declared they preferred even a Spanish garrison to an Irish one”. Russell reminded the FO where the blame lay, “the true cause of their present disappointment must be attributed in great measure to the exaggerated promises and expectations held out to them by their priests in Ireland”. Priestly spy An anonymous leaflet circulated in Rome, Suggestions on the Addition to the Pontifical Army of Irish volunteers who offer their Serv­ices to the Holy See. The British Consul in Rome obtained and translated a copy for the FO and correctly guessed it was the work of a Roman priest. The priestly spy not wishing to misdirect this harvest of patriotic fervour, still recommended, “to govern Irish soldiers by [RC] religious motives ... making use as far as possible of the priestly influence of the chap­lain,” when all the evidence pointed to this being the worst possible course. Unruly Irish recruits were sent from the Adriatic back to Rome in the hope that, “priestly influ­ence,” might be stronger there. But in Rome the British Consul noted no improvement in their behaviour. The men remained “mutinous ...(with) much drunkenness and quar­relling ... amongst them”. Egg on his face By July, Cullen really had egg on his face. Disillusioned recruits started calling at the British Consulate in Rome complaining about priestly deception and demanding to be sent home to Ireland. Russell was soon confirming to the FO that a good many of the Irish troops had called at the British Consulate, “to be sent home to Ireland at the expense of Her Majesty’s Government”. Since the original ploy to beat British law was to send the men out as workers there seems every reason to believe Russell’s report that some of the less bright really believed they had come to labour on the railway and were shocked to find they were expected to become soldiers. ‘Horrid carnage’ Cullen in reality cared little for these men. His great fear was that this scandal should “become public knowledge”. What he feared above all was of Protestants holding him in derision. We know this from a remark several months later when Garibaldi had triumphed in the south where, according to John P Stockton head of the American Legation to The Holy Seat, amidst “horrid ... carnage” priests used their power to incite even the weak so that “infants, women, Nuns fought in despair against the troops”. Cullen’s reaction was simply, “What can you say now to Protestants when they point out the conduct of pious practical Catholics, and tell you that the Romish system produces such fruits”. Naturally before long The Times had the Irish Papal Brigade story and all Cullen could do was to issue denials. Monsignor de Merode If the conduct of the Irish priesthood had been crass, so was that of the Papal Minister of War, the Belgian, Jesuit educated Monsignor de Merode, who was regarded by many even inside the Vatican as of “impetious temperament”. He was appointed in April 1860 as much for being able to speak Italian and for having tried to sort out the pope’s disgusting prisons, as for military experience in Algeria before becoming a priest. As War Minister he promoted a state of emergency by terrorising the inhabitants of the Papal States. The Papal Post Offices were encouraged to open mail liberally and the Papal Secret police - the Sbirri - to raid houses on the slightest pretext, any whiff of treason being dealt with by imprisonment without trial. De Merode was the power behind the papal throne and pushed the war agenda drumming up the worldwide conscription programme that had so exposed Cullen to ridicule. De Merode happily dragged the motley - and some talented mercenaries - from as far as Russia and Canada. But once in Rome he felt they should all be one in the Lord’s army and he was most certainly not prepared to hear of any national interest issues, least of all from the Irish. The Orange press De Merode sought to deal with the unruly Irish brigade by a policy of dispersal and imposition of his own commanders. The Irish wished neither, and their priests fomented their distress by taking their side and encouraging them to demand more pay. By this time a trickle of men had returned to Ireland. So incensed were these returnees to have discovered the true depths of Rome’s treachery that, to Cullen’s dismay, they went straight to the Orange press to get their story out uncensored by the Archbishop’s denials. Back on the Adriatic, battle commenced in early September. Some men fought bravely enough but were decisively beaten, some were unnecessarily killed, and others disgraced themselves surrendering prematurely, all because Rome’s care of them had been so inept. The Times declared that the men’s moral fibre was “softened under the tuition of their priests ... So ends the Pope’s Irish Brigade ... It is a disgrace” [These Irish Recruits in future] will serve as a warning ... against temptations by recruiting priests”. ‘Devils in hell let loose’ Archbishop Cullen naturally saw the debacle differently. “Nothing can be more afflicting. God appears to have abandoned his people to a spirit of vertigo and the devils in hell seem to have been let loose”. By way of recompense to bereaved wives and families he promised personally to sing a requiem mass in honour of the dead. But sadly for him the matter did not rest here. Pius IX struck a silver medal to reward his surviving troops. Only 30 of well over a thousand Irishmen were still in Rome to receive it. The majority had already been taken to Genoa in the north as unwanted POW’s and were only repatriated by means of an extensive Roman Catholic church door collection back home. De Merode wished to send the medals via an Irish republican MP who happened to be an enemy of Cullen, who naturally became obstructive. De Merode responded by ordering the brigade to be reconstituted and sent at Irish expense back to Rome to receive their medals - clearly an impossibility. Apparently some medals did eventually reach Ireland. But Cullen’s secret report records his angst. De Merode, “recently sent medals … but the persons entrusted are so little respected that in their hands the medals loose their value”. Such was RC Archbishop Cullen’s disastrous failure to harness patriotism for Rome in Ireland. In the final article in this series we shall see, DV, how another priest succeeded spectacularly, where he failed. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 36: 02.016. POPE'S IRISH BRIGADE ======================================================================== ‘Into The Guts Of The Enemies Of The Holy Father’ — Raising The Pope’s Irish Brigade Rome and Irish Patriotism - Part 1 Dr Clive Gillis In 1861 Queen Victoria visited Ireland to see her son, the Prince of Wales, “undergoing military training at the Curragh in County Kildare”. The Prince had enlisted in the Second Battalion of the Grenadier Guards at Curragh Camp. It was “anticipated that the Prince would be promoted a rank every fortnight so that by the end of the period he would be in a position to command a full battalion before his parents”. And when the Royal family arrived in Ireland the Queen found the crowds “friendly and enthusiastic” as she went to see her son review the troops. This was at a time when Queen Victoria’s great Protestant Empire inspired patriotism amongst her fighting men at endless drumhead altars across the globe. Pius IX ‘ridiculous’ Pius IX’s hand picked protègè in Ireland, the romanising RC Archbishop Paul Cullen, had been in power about en years when the opportunity arose to divert patriotic feeling away from Victoria to Pius IX. This is how he did it. In those days the backward Papal States still existed as a band across the middle of Italy, and Pius IX was their despotic ruler. He was isolated and ridiculous. The Papal States were regarded as the worst ruled part of Europe. The King of Sardinia joined forces with Napoleon III to drive the protecting Austrian troops out of Piedmont and Lombardy in the north of Italy and they then encroached on the Papal territories. Sardinia gained control in the Romagna close to Rome. Thereby forwarding the aspirations of the Italian patriots under Cavour and Garibaldi. Odo Russell was an unofficial British “spectator” in Rome. Pius confided to Russell those things that he wished the British Foreign Office to know. He flattered Rusell calling him “caro mio Russell” (my dear Russell) and Pius revelled in the fact that the British found him, Pius, sufficiently powerful to require such scrutiny. Russell first met Pius on 14th January 1859 and immediately the pope insisted, defiantly, that Britain’s impression of the Papal States as despotically governed and backward was “erroneous”. He added, “We are advised to make reforms and it is not understood that those very reforms which would consist in giving this country a government of laymen which would make it cease to exist. It is called the ‘States of the Church’ and that is what it must remain … we cannot yield to outer pressure … this country must be administered by men of the Church”. Smiling Pius terminated the interview with vitriol: “It is lucky Lord Palmerston is not in office, he was too fond if interfering in the concerns of foreign countries and the present crisis would have just suited him”. Lord Palmerston acts But Lord Palmerston, though defeated in 1858, was back as British Minister only months after this remark. Palmerston immediately recognised Sardinia’s annexation of the southern portion of the Papal States. He further determined to pursue a policy of support for the unification of Italy. In the allocuation Ad Gravissimum of 12th March 1860 Pius thundered out a great excommunication of the King of Sardinia and all who had associated with him in seizing the Romagna. Meanwhile Pius prayed that “God would exterminate the new Sennacheribs”. He then set about arming himself to the teeth despite the poverty of his people. Necessary to salvation Back in England RC convert Henry Manning contended, rather lamely, for the inviolability of the Papal States and even predicted that the Papal; States and even predicted that the pope’s temporal power would in time become a dogma of the faith, necessary to salvation! This damp squib earned him the Archbishopric of Westminster but little else. Meanwhile in Ireland Cullen was determined to shame the English Roman Catholics. He had been beating the drum for the Pope and blatantly opposing both Queen and Prime Minister for some time and had surprised himself by the extent to which stirring this particular hornet’s nest had aroused patriotic feeling amongst the Irish. Enemies of the Holy See Cullen’s campaign began in August 1859 with the Irish Bishops formally notifying their flocks of “the machinations of wicked men … enemies of the Holy See … seeking to disturb the peace of the pontifical states”. Cullen circulated a long aggressive pastoral letter in defence of the pope’s temporal power. He granted that “poverty misery and crime abound” in the Papal States and mercenaries are required keep the people “in obedience”. But, he sniped, “even the British Empire is not exempt from such evils. Lately it has been considered expedient to repress them in India (the Sepoy Mutiny 1857) by fire and sword, pillaging great cities even blowing unfortunate soldiers to pieces from the mouth of the canon”. Cullen overreaches himself Cullen success was greater than he bargained for. Irish Roman Catholics were roused to fever pitch. Angry meetings were held in every large town and city and were well attended by the young. Palmerston became an object of hatred. When asked what they would do with arms if they were provided, the cry went up, “Into the guts of the enemies of the Holy Father”. Inevitably, ‘arming the pope’ could not stop at talk but had now to be made a reality. Between March and July 1860, Cullen and his hierarchy arranged a vast collection for the pope which, with patriotic spirit flowing, raised £80,000 pounds - £5 milion today - exceeding pro rata in its weekly totals anything O’Connell had managed to raise in his heyday for the Catholic Rent. Poor young Irish Romanists could not give, but they were certainly spoiling for a fight. Far thinking Cullen demurred. He had gained the power he possessed by outstripping his contemporaries in guile. He was well aware of the Foreign Enlistment Act which made it illegal to recruit Her Majesty’s subjects into foreign armies. But not wishing to appear disloyal in Rome he reported to Kirby with a sidestep; “It is nonsense to talk about getting men in Ireland - it would require two years to train them - they could to nothing”. Hence the pope also demurred. Odo Russell reported to the Foreign Office: “The pope received many letters from Ireland offering him any amount of soldiers for his army. He foresaw two reasons against organising Irish regiments: first the cheapness of wine in Italy which might prove fatal to the Irishmen; and secondly the laws of England which might involve the Pope in difficulties with Her Majesty’s Government.” Bishops enjoy subterfuge Such niceties tend to be ignored by men of action. An extremely pro-papal and incensed Austrian nobleman rejoicing in the name of Count Charles McDonnell, a man much in love with the romance of his Irish roots, appeared on the scene and swept all objections aside in a country wide recruitment campaign. So successful was he in recruiting “men and big men too” that it would have caused widespread unrest to deny them. Rome had somehow to evade the law. The plan was to sue some of the collection to cover the cost of sending these men to the Papal States as migrant labourers. One suggestion was that they should be “navvies on the railway”. Once there they would be free to enlist in the pope’s army. It is on record how much this bishops “enjoyed the subterfuge”. Cullen’s worries Cullen more insightful than his subordinates was still worried, and rightly, as events proved. He cautiously set up an “Emigration Committee”. Experienced military men were labelled “students” on all official documents. Cullen himself used the code name Dr Placido on all related correspondence. But Cullen still worried about the legality of the transition from workers to soldiers once the men arrived in the Papal States. He finally solicited a legal opinion via the Romanist MP for Limerick who reported back: “I have looked carefully at the Foreign Enlistment Act and have taken a good opinion … No one may accept a military Commission in any foreign service or enlist as a solider or sailor therein or go abroad with the intent to enlist or to endeavour to procure any person to enlist - but anyone may go into foreign service as a policeman. In other words a police force that exists in Ireland might be formed by Irishmen at Rome without offending the law.” This would be a brigade of Irish policemen. Without shoes or clothes Cullen sent the MP’s findings out to Kirby. The next day government posters appeared in Dublin on every street forbidding young men enlisting in foreign armies. Cullen sensed disaster but it was too late. “I fear many will go out warm friends and return enemies”. The proclamation simply acted as publicity to spur even more young men to go, many “without shoes” or clothes and hence with nothing to lose. Precise numbers are unclear but about a 1,000 men had gone by July 1860. Despite all the schemes to disguise the brigade, Russell reported from Rome that “a large body of Irishmen that are come to Rome disguised as pilgrims (!) … to enlist as fast as they arrive”. General Lamoriciere Cullen meanwhile gloomily reflected that, “the whole affair will end up a fiasco - like some of the Crusades”. And back in Rome these sentiments were shared by the man at the sharp end, the pope’s high command, General Lamoriciere. He knew from hard previous experience that being the pope’s mercenary would be tedious. He had upset the whole Vatican from Antonelli downwards by insisting “on free admission to the pope at any time and complete independence of all violet Monsigniori and purple Eminences”. In turn the curia were obstructive and treated him “like ice”. This was hardly the basis for an effective campaign. The papal army was so run down that the Romans quipped “Torlonia (a Roman noble attempting to reclaim land and prevent malaria) did not succeed in draining Lago di Fucino but Lamoriciere would certainly succeed in emptying the papal exchequer”. The outcome was more horrendous than even these difficulties suggest and is possibly the most tragic-comic episode in the whole story of the romanisation of Ireland. This will be covered in the next article DV. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 37: 02.017. WHY POPE BENEDICT XVI? ======================================================================== Why Has The New Pope Called Himself Benedict XVI? Benedict IX’s life offers clues to the new Poe’s intentions Dr Clive Gillis OF THE 265 popes, nine chose the name Benedict (‘Blessed’) in the first millennium, and six in the second. Christian names are given in the covenant hope that children will live up to them. Names are also significant in the realm of the occult. People take them to live up to the name’s associations. The modern Babylon, built on Rome’s seven hills, is “the hold of every foul spirit”. Here the Chilean Cardinal, Dean Jorge Arturo Medina Estivez, will have secretly asked the new pope: “Do you accept your canonical election as Supreme Pontiff? Ratzinger would next have been asked, “By what name do you wish to be called?” Ratzinger would then go to “The Room of Tears” to lament on the gravity of his responsibilities as Benedict The first thing the waiting world is told is the new Pope’s name: “I announce to you a great joy. We have a Pope. The most eminent and reverend Lord, the Lord Cardinal Ratzinger, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, who takes to himself the name Benedict.” Ratzinger will have taken that name for a reason. Gigantic power struggle­ Ratzinger’s election broke all the rules. He was the oldest Cardinal ever to become pope. Yet he went into the Conclave a likely candidate and, contrary to all protocol, emerged as Pope despite his age: What is more, a run of two non-Italian popes has not occurred since the so called ‘Babylonish captivity’, which still sends shudders around the Vatican. This was when 14th century European politics drove the papal epicentre, to Avignon. Despite all the sophisticated Vatican anti-bugging devices, the Italian newspapers seemed to know that a gigantic power struggle was in progress on the second day of the conclave. The Ratzinger camp was pushing forward like a panzer brigade flattening eve­rything before it. And whatever his travail in the “Room of Tears”, he duly emerged as pope that evening, grinning like a Cheshire cat. Futures Market got it right Stephen Evans, the BBC’s North America business correspondent gives us a clue to these events. “If you had wanted to know who was the most likely cardinal to be promoted to Pope you shouldn’t have relied on the pundits. Nor should you have taken any notice of the Vatican watchers who studied the arcane politics of the Catholic Church. Your best bet would have been ... an investment in an online futures market. They got it spot on. The Intrade futures market had Cardinal Ratzinger well ahead of the field. On top of that, it - or rather the tens of thousands of traders collectively - reckoned there was a 60% chance of there being a European pope”. Big business knew. Papal Europe must be resurrected. And who was better qualified to be the embodiment of a new Europe-centred Vatican initiative than the middle European veteran of the fascist era, Joseph Ratzinger? No to Turkey Ratzinger’s definition of “Europe” as “a cultural and not a geographical continent,” is straight out of the Book of Revelation. So is his defining of its limits: “Turkey always represented another continent throughout history, in permanent contrast with Europe … so to equate the two continents would be a mistake,” he told Le Figaro in August 2004. Challenged, he afirmed to Le Monde, “Turkey should seek its future among Islamic organizations, not in the Christian-rooted EU”. According to Zaman, the Turkish news agency, the dismayed Assembly Spokesman of the Catholic Bishops of Turkey, George Marovitch, retaliated, “I do not approve of Cardinal Ratzinger’s remarks about Turkey. What Ratzinger’s did was only to state his views on a political matter. Catholics are not bound to, these views about Turkey’s EU memership. They are now. Financial considerations Such a short conclave will already have been a welcome saving on housekeeping for a Vatican which is back in the red. Disgraced Vatican banker Paul Marcinkus observed “You can’t run a Church on Hail Marys”. Nor it seems on “arcane politics” nor the papal aspirations of the countless poor Roman Catholics of Latin America and Africa. The Time reports $840 million (£444 million) has already been paid out in the USA, historically the largest contributor to Peter’s pence, on paedophilia settlements. A host of irrefutably claims wait in the wings worldwide. But with the US dollar falling and US market supremacy threatened from the east, it is time for the, scarlet woman to dig her spurs firmly into the European beast and meet European secularism and indifference head on. St Benedict of Europe St Benedict is the papal saint of Europe. The shrine of Subiaco where Benedict founded an order of monks in AD 529 is near Rome. St Benedict’s monastic “rule” was like Ratzinger’s, conservative but not too austere. For a millennium, the Benedictines were responsible for keeping Europe in papal thraldom. Rome used the Benedictine network to influence medieval economic migration through Europe. In the same way, Rome seeks to maintain her influence, during today’s economic migration of Spanish, Portuguese, Poles and Eastern Europeans. In passing, we note that Cardinal Hume was a Benedictine and embodied the Benedictine ideal. His was the iron hand in a velvet glove which Rome claimed, “personified the final healing of the wounds of King Henry VIII’s Reformation rule” in England. St Benedict the Holy pilgrim April 16th is Cardinal Ratzinger, Benedict XVI’s birthday and also of another Benedict, St Benedict Joseph Labre, known as the “Holy Pilgrim”. This delicate youth wandered about Europe and ended up in Rome, sitting in churches all day and sleeping rough in the Coliseum at night. He eventually collapsed in a church and, holy or not, was quickly removed to a nearby butchers to breathe his last. Ratzinger would presumably see little likeness between himself and St Benedict Joseph Labre, apart perhaps for the imminence of his own demise. Pope Benedict XV Friend Cardinal Meisner says Ratzinger chose the name Benedict because the last Benedict, Pope Benedict the XV, “did much for peace in the World”. He was a tiny cripple and sat on the papal throne like a child. The Vatican has attempted to cover up his disability. He was early swept away by pneumonia. Ratzinger had a brain haemorrhage in 1991 and subsequent drop attacks. His time too is potentially short. Ratzinger’s brother thinks the conclave has signed his death warrant. If Ratzinger avoids an early stroke, he may nevertheless drag the Vatican - for who can oppose him now - into ever more fanatical stands through impaired judgement, from lack of blood circulation to the brain. So what in Benedict XV’s life could be relevant to this pope? Giacomo Della Chiesa (literally James of the Church) became Benedict XV on 3rd September 1914. Only at the end of the 20th century did it emerge that ten ballots over three days had relentlessly pushed Della Chiesa forward. This was no late compromise, contrary to what Rome has always insisted. Della Chiesa was unusual in not being the offspring of poor Italian Roman Catholic peasants made good, as were five of the 20th century Italian popes. Nor was he like the urban sophisticate who became the second world war pope; Pius XII. Della Chiesa was the real thing, a Genoese aristocrat, a bit down at heel, but with nearly a millennium of history, including the fact that his wife’s side had fielded a pope. Here was old Roman Catholic Europe writ large, as it was with Pius XII, and now once again in Ratzinger. Chastising the Orthodox Della Chiesa had to deal with a schism over modernism. This he handled with acts of compromise, always leaning to the conservative. He wooed back estranged France by canonising Joan of Arc. But his greatest challenge was reuniting the newly warring European powers under Vatican control. When Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary was assassinated in Sarajevo by a Serbian activist, Jesuit Cardinal Merry del Val had insisted that Serbia, which for him represented Rome’s mortal enemy the Eastern Orthodox ­Church, be firmly “chastised”. Rome feared the waning Ottoman Empire would allow the emergence of the Orthodox church with a revitalisation of Istanbul as a new second Rome with St Andrew’s successor, backed by Russia, rivalling the successor of St Peter. Today Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I, St Andrew’s 270th successor, still sits locked away in the Phanar district, of Istanbul. Visitors “cannot enter the Phanar’s main gate because it was welded shut in 1821 after the Ottoman Turks hanged Patriarch Gregory V from its lintel. The black doors have remained sealed ever since”. Benedict XVI, like Benedict XV before him, faces a threat from Eastern Orthodoxy. He needs a strong Rome centred Europe and Islamic Turkey to resist it, unles he can trick Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew into ecumenical compromise. Benedict XV repreatedly made overtures for peace in the first World War. His encyclicals exuded emotion and were filled with generalities to avoid upsetting any one. They were reminiscent of those of Pius XII in the second war. Benedict XV’s peacemaking efforts have been described as follows: his “idea of a general Christmas truce in 1914 as en end to what he termed the suicide of Europe was initially accepted by the Germans but dismissed by the Allies”. What is more, “in Italy where his regular intervention was resented as potentially weakening national fighting resolve, (this interference) further diluted his influence from 1915 onewards … the 1915 Treaty of London included secret provisions whereby the Allies agreed with Italy to ignore papal peace moves towards the Central Powers. Consequently, the publicaiton of Benedict’s proposed seven-point Peace Note of August 1917 was roundly ignored by all parties except Austria-Hungary. Despite requesting a role in the definition of the pace the Vatican was excluded from the Paris Peace Conference in 1919.” As he lay in his deathbed Benedict XV was attended by Monsignor Giuseppe Pizzardo, a young Vatican diplomat involved in getting Catholic Aid to the starving Soviets, secretly by-passing Lenin. Pizzardo was the Roman end of a conspiracy to proselytise the Orthodox wholesale. A ready trained army of missionaries, hyped to fever pitch by propaganda of an imminent “mass conversion to the Catholic church”, stood by. A reliable expert writes, “The hope that the Catholic church could still become the heir of the orthodox in Russia motivated this Pope to the very end. Even during the night when he died of sudden pneumonia on Jan 22nd 1922, Benedict XV called Msgr. Pizzardo to his bedside three times to ask him, ‘Have the Visas come yet from the Bolsheviks?’” And now, nearly a hundred years after Benedict XV, another Benedict must seek to unite Europe under Roman Catholicism, build a bulwark against a renewed Eastern Orthodox church, keep Turkey Islamic and infiltrate Russia by fair means and foul. Meanwhile Latin America and Africa will have to grab attention as best they can. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 38: 02.018. WHERE ROME IS WRONG 1 ======================================================================== New Book: Where Rome Is Wrong (Part One) An Exposure of Rome’s Authoritarianism, Totalitarianism and Sectarianism Dr. Ian R. K. Paisley This is a day of battle, a battle from which there is no discharge, “There is no discharge in that war”. Ecclesiastes 8:8 In every age there is room for men of peace but in no age is there room for men of peace at any price. In the day of the toughest of battles when the great cardinalities of the gospel are under the most bitter assaults the work of the gospel must be in a state of constant belligerence. God has a controversy with the people. He who is not enlisted in the Lord’s battle and is not fighting in a “no surrender” spirit has practically gone over to the enemy. The men of Church history like the Reformers were all men of war from their youth up. They were not deceived by those who speak of the Kingdom of God as the cultivation of ‘the quiet life’ religion. There is no such thing as a quiet life Kingdom of God tranquillity. The times of the battles in the Church are the times of the cauldron. The tonic for the gospel war is the battle for revival, the garments rolled in blood and the spirit of the baptism of blood. The idea of cultivating a friendly feeling all round is simply not true Christianity. The truth has no friendly feeling towards the lie. Supernatural light has no friendly feeling to satanic darkness. Evangelisation has no friendly spirit to stagnation, and what is more, stagnation is never good. Revival must always be a resurrection of new life poured out upon the church. Sympathy for evil is nothing more than the bartering of principle. There is something even worse than the passions let loose in the field of controversy. There are those who are not prepared for righteous controversy. There are those who shake off their responsibility to know and to defend the truth under the sway of selfish interests. The greatest controversies of all history have something to leave to the church, something which enriches it forever. We can well ask ourselves, ‘What was the direct result of the reformation?’ What was the result? Was it something new? No sir! Rather it was something as old as eternity, yet reborn and renewed in glorious Resurrection in Reformation Times. What engrossed the attention of Luther also engrossed the attention of the Apostle Paul. What engrossed the attention of the Apostle Paul also engrossed the attention of King David and what engrossed the attention of David also engrossed the attention of Abraham. Well, what was it? How can a sinful man be justified before a Thrice Holy God? Again that question is the great gospel question, the colossal evangelical precept. It is the Gospel, the whole Gospel and nothing but the Gospel. The Church of the Popes, the Roman Antichrists, talks about the Reformation Settlement; that the only self-pronounced true church has settled the question of the Gospel, by the settlement the church has made. There is no such settlement in the way which Rome teaches. Rather, by the true gospel Rome has been unsettled and unsettled forever until it settles down in the flames of the eternal conscious retribution of the lake of fire. Revelation 19:20 ‘And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.’ The Reformation was not the settlement it was the beginning of the overturning of the false, wrongly called, Catholic Church, until its final overturning in hell forever. Tiny men may make tiny conflict. Dwarfs may dwarf the subject. This doctrine is not national but international. It is the way of God’s Truth against the Devil’s Lie, the battle of angels, saints, apostles and prophets. Christians, play the man for the apostolic faith of Christ’s glorious gospel. There are many who are rightly alarmed at what is happening today. The Church of Rome has had a revival, wedded to the false power of Ecumenical Charismaticism. Rome has slowly but surely been healed from the deadly wound she received at the Reformation. The battle for the Free Gospel of Sovereign Grace has been robbed from the people. The Churches of the Reformation have largely laid aside the Bible, the sole ruler of faith and practice, and revived popery marches through the nation with a devilish pride and demonic audacity. The Archbishop of Canterbury is as Popish as the Clerical Bachelor on the edge of the Tiber any day. It was only when the Reformation movement was chained to the Bible that nothing could stop the prevalence of Biblical Doctrine. Forsaking the Bible, the God of the Bible has forsaken us. The fight is on in the nation against the increasing political plots and treacheries of Rome. The potsherd of the world striving with the potsherd only destroy one another and establish no truth whatsoever. But there is another sphere to the ecclesiastical sphere today and that is the European sphere. Europe, shattered at its heart at the fall of the Holy Roman Empire, is seeking to rebuild its tower of Babel confounded at the Reformation. Satan cannot cast out Satan so Church and State will come together and join one another to continue what was begun many centuries ago. A united Europe is the theme, the Order of both the political Europe and the ecclesiastical Europe. This united Europe is anti-biblical, anti-God’s law and anti-Christ. The final Apostasy of Rome is demonstrated in the steps which she took after the Reformation. THE COUNCIL OF TRENT This was a council which was different from all others. It was a finalising Council sealing the brand mark of total apostasy onto the Church of the Popes. The spiritual and moral leadership of the Reformers had rightly seceded from the putrid ecclesiastical body. All that would arise from the ghastly corpse was a stench. The Pope reigned supreme in the Council of Trent and ever since. The deification of the Pope is the final act that can well be called the apostasy of popery. The Papalising of the Church of Rome in the Second Century through the monarchical Pope was the FIRST ACT toward the spiritual and irreversible tragedy of Rome. This was caused by the deification of the monarchical BISHOP. THE SECOND ACT was the Deification of the Reigning EMPEROR, the association with the throne of the Roman Emperor Constantine. THE THIRD ACT was the final adoption of the Babylonian Harlotry of Transubstantiation. The mass was described as an atoning sacrifice for the sins of the living and the dead. It was by this that the awful power of the sacrificing PRIEST was locked around the throat of the Church. THE FOURTH ACT was the promulgation of the Immaculate Conception of Mary and her sinlessness which came about in the nineteenth century. HERE WE HAVE A FALSE GODDESS FIXED INTO THE WORSHIP OF THE CHURCH. THE FIFTH ACT IS THE PROMULGATION OF THE INFALLIBILITY OF THE POPE. Here we have fastened to the throat of the Church the fallible hand of so called infallible Pope. No wonder we say God has removed Himself from the Church of Rome. She is now no true Church but the Church of the Great Abomination, Babylon revived and the final apostasy. Having forsaken God forever, God has forsaken her forever. The Great Armageddon is her Doom and certain Damnation her never-ending end. It has been well said that the Bible has more to say to the Church than the Church has to say to the Bible and that the Bible can explain the Church as the Church can never explain the Bible. WHAT IS BEHIND THE REFORMATION? So often today Rome invites us to go behind the Reformation and discover and consider what we will find there. So be it. I will go behind Roman Catholicism; I will examine its origin. I will examine its history and I will examine what is presented as proof that Rome is pure undefiled primitive Christianity. To go behind the Reformation, to get right behind it we must go to the New Testament, the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles and the Revelation. To get behind the Reformation we get to Christ, Christ as persented in the Gospels and Epistles. The Reformation, remember, was not a new religion. The Reformation was a rediscovery of the old religion. The Gospel of the New Testament is the real Gospel of the Church of antiquity. The New Testament Church is viewed in the New Testament in its ideal sense and its local sense. There is no mention in the New Testament of the high religious state as the Church. In fact such an organisation is mentioned only in the Book of Revelation in the setting of Apostasy. Roman Catholicism as the State Religion as we know it had developed in 320AD and was connected by the international religion of the Roman Emperor Constantine. The so-called Roman Catholic Church arose as distinct from the unified New Testament Church which was a visible number of communities, holding ‘One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism’. Let me say that, at the Reformation, the Lord broke Roman Catholicism. Remember, that it was in the Second Century that there came into being, what developed into the Roman Church distinct from the local New Testament Churches. If we want to know what was behind the Reformation there was the New Testament. With the apostles dead the apostle’s ministry was still available in the New Testament. It was, above all, not so much Reformation Truth or Reformation Zeal or Reformation practice but Reformation Faith, ‘The just shall live by faith’ - the mystery of Reformation. That faith is summarised in Romans 10:4 ‘For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth’. If we go behind the Reformation we cannot stop at the first century of the early church, nor at the second century. We must rather go right back to Christ Himself, to His Advent, Incarnation, Life, Words, Miracles and Mystery and especially to His Cross work and Blood shedding, Death and Ascension for sinners. To His Prophethood, His Priesthood and His Kingship and to His present ministry in the Holiest of all and to His Second Advent, Reformation Truth is ‘We preach Christ crucified’. This is the Gospel, which brings about such revivals as the Glorious Reformation of the 16th Century. ‘Being justified by Faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ’ Pope Pius IX, the Pope who proclaimed himself ‘infallible’ was the victim of a self-idolatry which seems hardly sane, and which reminds us of some phases of another career. The German Emperor allows himself to be referred to in an expression like “the Gospel of your sacred majesty.” And Pius would use phrases like this “Keep, my Jesus, the flock which God has committed to Thee and me.” He would apply to himself, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” He regarded his troubles as a renewal of the sufferings of Christ. One of his cardinals spoke of him in 1866 as the living incarnation of the authority of Christ. Veuillot (1866) identified the crucified of Jerusalem and the crucified of Rome, as far as to say to both alike, “I believe in thee, I adore thee.” In 1868 the great Catholic Newspaper of Rome said, “When the Pope thinks, it is God thinking in him.” Faber proposed an act of devotion to the Pope as a supreme test of Christian sanctity. In 1874 a Jesuit paper applied to Pius the words, “Which of you convinceth me of sin?” And there was a hymn sung by the German Catholics celebrating his priestly jubilee in 1869, “Pius, priest, our sinful age, wondering, finds no sin in thee.”’ ======================================================================== CHAPTER 39: 02.019. WHERE ROME IS WRONG 2 ======================================================================== New Book: Where Rome Is Wrong (Part Two) An Exposure of Rome’s Authoritarianism, Totalitarianism and Sectarianism Dr. Ian R. K. Paisley We take Luther as the Representative of the true Protestant - a witness for the truth. We note him especially as he stands before the Royal and Ecclesiastical Representatives of ‘The Holy Roman Empire’ and cries out, ‘Here I stand, I can do no other. So help me, God!’ Luther, it can be truly said, was ‘great in life and in soul’. Luther’s conscience, as he inherited it from Adam, was not the driving force in his personality but Luther’s conscience reborn and sprinkled with the Saviour’s blood was the driving force within him. Although he was naturally afraid, he was as strong as a lion as he witnessed his good confession. He stood up against the so-called Almighty Church and with immeasurable independence he declared the sentence of God upon it. He had a courage more than sublime and an independence more than colossal. You see, Luther was living up to his calling. He knew his calling. The question of the difference between the Protestant and the Romanist is on this nature of revelation. The Roman Catholic knows it only as a system, the Protestant knows it as salvation. There was a difference between Luther and Erasmus. Erasmus was the champion of the new learning, the Renaissance as it is called. His claim was for intellectual freedom, a new culture with human reason, human thought, human beauty and human grace. Luther was the champion of the new birth. He was not reformed, he was regenerated. He did not have a toning up of his human life, he had an impartation of divine life. Luther was the champion of the Gospel. The Gospel had made him what he was. He had been set free not from the load of the Church but from the guilty load of his own sin. He had escaped the corruption, which is in the world through lust. His was the simplicity of faith in Christ and Christ alone. Luther had witnessed in his inmost soul the serenity of the gospel. The gospel had gone down into his heart. It was dreadful. But then came sweet grace, sweet pardon, sweet love, sweet blood, sweet cleansing and sweet forgiveness. He became a new man, a pardoned man, a justified man, a saved man, and God’s man. His was trust. His was confidence. His was life. His was power. His was deliverance. He was a Christ committed man. Two fundamentals lay at the heart of Luther’s spiritual experience. I. THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORD OF GOD II. THE FOUNDATION OF THE FAITH OF CHRIST Luther believed that the Word of God was the foundation of the Church. His faith was not built on tradition, not upon Popes and Bishops. It rested not on invention but rather on revelation. The way was opened by God alone and only God could keep it open, or keep it shut. The foundation of the Church was the Gospel. The Church is the fellowship of the gospel. The Gospel of the Church is the Act of God. In Christ reconciling the world unto Himself the gospel is the Work of God, the deed of God. The gospel is God in Christ, God in His Cross and God in Redemption. Only Christ could save. Only Christ the Saviour can save the sinner. The preaching of the Cross is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth. Luther knew the assurance of salvation. He knew that it was to be able to:- My fierce accuser face And tell him Christ had died. Luther gave back to Christianity the preaching of the simple Gospel, the New Testament Gospel, plain, simple and life imparting. When we speak of Justification by faith alone we do not speak of dry dogma but of thrilling everlasting life. ‘Justification is an act of God’s free grace wherein He pardoneth all our sins and accepteth us as righteous in His sight only for the righteousness of Christ imparted to us and received by grace alone’. Luther believed in the Church as the edifice of Grace alone. He believed in grace as the only Gospel, the Gospel of Christ who is in Himself Grace and Truth. Faith to Luther is direct contact with Christ crucified, not as a condition of grace but as He Himself. This is the true faith of Christ. It is not the faith of the Church of Rome. It is not the faith of the sacraments. Romanism is not the Gospel. The faith of the Son of God is the gospel. To believe anything else or anyone else is to commit spiritual suicide. Indifference to this is one of the ways to the death which never dies. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 40: 02.020. WHERE ROME IS WRONG 3 ======================================================================== New Book: Where Rome Is Wrong (Part Three) An Exposure of Rome’s Authoritarianism, Totalitarianism and Sectarianism Dr. Ian R. K. Paisley What is the great divide between Bible Protestantism and Roman Catholicism? It is the office and nature of the Priest. In this issue Bible Protestantism goes one way and Roman Catholicism goes the opposite way. There is on this vital subject the fork in the road. Between the Anglican and the Free Churchman the contention is also the priest. The struggle is on the one hand the priest and on the other the family. To Rome, marriage and the family are inferior. The priest represents celibacy, confession and the sharing of the secrets of marriage love to a third person. Roman Catholicism exalts the priesthood. It raises the priest to the standing of God and gives to Him the power to create God in the Mass. Roman Catholicism is priestism. It is reversal and that means degeneration. The whole idea of the Roman priesthood is one of development. The Roman priesthood grew on to the church. It had a false start, which led on to greater and greater apostasy. The Roman Priesthood is not in the New Testament. It has no place whatever there. The New Testament knows everything about the priesthood of all believers. The true and spiritual office of the whole church is a nation of priests. Neither the name nor the position of the Roman Priest has a place anywhere in the New Testament. The Church has but One Priest and that is our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ has only one spouse one bride and one wife. There are no sacrificing priests in the New Testament but One Great High Priest, Jesus the Son God. The early Church held to this truth. Augustine asserted, ‘All are priests as members of the One Priest’. It was Tertullian, about 200 AD who says, ‘Where there are three there the church is, if they be but laymen’. The Roman priesthood turned the early Church like a tide. It was the intrusion into the Church of the priesthood of paganism. It was Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage who pushed the universal priesthood of all believers aside and fastened upon the church the so-claimed magical priesthood of Rome. The evolution of the pagan priesthood in the Papist Church grew apace. No better course could be adopted in order to discover the real nature of Rome’s Antichristianity than to examine a text book which is a ‘must’ for her priests in preparation for their priesthood. Such a textbook is ‘Dignity and Duties of the Priest or Selva’. (A collection of Materials for Ecclesiastical Retreats. Rule of Life and Spiritual Rules) by St. Alphonsus de Liguori. Just how high Alphonsus is reckoned in the scale of precedence of Roman saints can be seen from the ’Notice’ which appears in the preface to the volume. It concludes with this eulogy ‘LIVE JESUS, MARY, JOSEPH AND ALPHONSUS!’ JESUS DIED TO INSTITUTE THE ROMAN PRIESTHOOD “Jesus has died to institute the priesthood. It was not necessary for the Redeemer to die in order to save the world; a drop of his blood, a single tear, or prayer, was sufficient to procure salvation for all; for such a prayer, being of infinite value, should be sufficient to save not one but a thousand worlds. But to Institute the priesthood, the death of Jesus Christ has been necessary. Had he not died, where should we find the victim that the priests of the New Law now offer? a victim altogether holy and immaculate, capable of giving to God an honour worthy of God. As had been already said, all the lives of men and angels are not capable of giving to God an infinite honour like that which a priest offers to him by a Single Mass.” The above statement is a hideous blasphemy. ‘Christ died for the ungodly.’ ‘God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets’. ‘Hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things by whom also He made the worlds. Who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.’ ‘But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God.’ The purpose of the Blood-shedding on the Cross was not to institute the massing priesthood of Rome but to purchase the redemption of the people of God. Any system which holds such an unscriptural view of the Work of the Cross as Rome does is plainly not a Christian system at all but is part of the system of Satan and Antichrist. THE ROMAN PRIEST EQUAL TO CHRIST “Were the Redeemer to descend into a church, and sit in a confessional to administer the sacrament of penance, and a priest to sit in another confessional, Jesus would say over each penitent, ‘Ego te absolvo,’ the priest would likewise say over each of his penitents, ‘Ego te absolvo,’ and the penitents of each would equally be absolved.” THE ROMAN PRIEST GREATER THAN GOD “Thus the priest may, in a certain manner, be called the creator of his Creator, since by saying the words of the consecration, he creates, as it were, Jesus in the sacrament, by giving him a sacramental existence, and produces him as a victim to be offered to the eternal Father. As in creating the world it was sufficient for God to have said, Let it be made, and it was created. He spoke, and they were made, so it is sufficient for the priest to say, ‘Hoc est cnim corpus meum,’ and behold the bread is no longer bread, but the body of Jesus Christ. ‘The power of the priest,’ says St Bernardine of Sienna, ‘is the power of the divine person; for the transubstantiation of the bread requires as much power as the creation of the world’.” “With regard to the mystical body of Christ, that is, all the faithful, the priest has the power of the keys, or the power of delivering sinners from hell, of making them worthy of paradise, and of changing them from the slaves of Satan into the children of God. And God himself is obliged to abide by the judgment of his priests, and either not to pardon or to pardon, according as they refuse or give absolution, provided the penitent is capable of it.” The practice of the Roman priesthood submerged the universal priesthood of all believers and the only real and active assertion of the believer is priesthood in the world today is in Biblical Protestantism. The Reformation purged out the pagan priesthood and banished the title “priest” as the name of the Christian minister of the Word of God. Well may we ask, what is the real nature of the universial priesthood of all believers? We as Bible believing Protestants do not reject the priesthood. That is something which is inherent to the entire church of all believers. We are a nation of priests - a royal priesthood. The Church, the whole church, is a priesthood. The Church has not got a priesthood but is a priesthood. While acknowledging the priesthood of all believers Rome goes on to virtually destroy the New Testament priesthood and to elevate its conceptions of its own pagan priesthood. The Council of Trent is specific and plain, I quote:- ‘The outward priesthood belongs not to all the faithful, but only to certain men, who are instituted and consecrated by the imposition of hands and the due rites of the Church to a specially sacred ministry. And the power of this outward priesthood is the power of offering to God the great sacrifice of the Church for the living and the dead - the Mass.’ While acknowledging the priesthood of all believers Trent exalts far above it her own unscriptural pagan priestly cult and what is more, empties the universal priesthood of all belief as the result of the pretended magic of baptismal regeneration. Trent teaches plainly that the priesthood of all believers is not theirs by virtue of their faith but in virtue of their baptism, so that the inward priesthood is wholly dependent on the pagan priests of Mother Church. Moreover it is not necessary, for the power of the outward priesthood should have the grace of the inward. The outward priest has all the power of the priest no matter how filthy he may be in his everyday living, because his priesthood rests not in his personal faith and holiness but on his appointment. He does not need to be the truly regenerated man, he only requires to be the Church created priest. Power and sanctity are not joined. They may be entirely divorced but the man is still a priest because his priesthood is not attainment but appointment. The Roman priest may be as filthy as sin but that does in no way hold against the validity of his priestly powers. He can live in sin but his powers are unchallenged and unchallengable. Roman Catholicism makes the assent of the Church an instutution instead of the Gospel. It believes in a church rite rather in Christ’s faith. ‘The two priesthoods have, in fact, nothing in common except the name. They are not an essential and spiritual connection. The cleric is above the Church; he becomes the Church; he is described as a God. He draws his official power directly from God. His is the sole medium of grace for believers, who become and remain such only through the sacraments in his hands. And yet he need not be a personally holy man.’ Bible Protestantism is in clear antagonism to Roman pagan sin- practising priests. The individual believers have no mediaterial place, Christ is the only mediator between God and man. Luther declared a simple truth when he said:- ‘We take our stand on this. There is no other Word of God than that whose publication is enjoined on all Christians’ The temper of the hour in which we live is to a large extent pagan priestliness. It longs for the material, that which is seen in its worship. It has rejected the teaching of Christ. ‘He that worships Him (the Father) must worhsip Him in spirit and in truth’. No wonder the Reformers rejected the worshp of Rome. The penitents in the worship of today dress up. The penitents in the Bible rent their clothes. We hear a lot about cultured Protestantism today. Cultured Protestantism is Protestantism without the Gospel! There are those today who are more content to be in a cultured Church than in a true Church. They respond to the amenities of a cultured society better than to the vigour of the Christian faith. ‘The real roots of the Roman reaction lie in the unrealised Romanism of Protestants. And the Protestant root of a mass priesthood is the idea so dear to the English mind, so central to a rational broad Churchism in every Church, and so plausible as the ethical movement - the idea that the best action or conduct is contributory to salvation instead of produced by it. This is the Pelagian and Synergistic (man helping God to save himself), faith of medieval Catholicism reappearing in the circles of humanist Protestantism. Nothing is in more distinct contrast with the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith alone, nor in contrast more fatal. To adopt it is in principle to renounce the Reformation, whether it be done on agnostic or on Catholic lines. The Reformation had to break away for its life both from the Catholics and from the humanists. These, as I have said, took up Luther, but he outgrew them’. ‘It was not mere sacramental works that the Reformers denied to have saving value, but ethical no less. It was not the mere ritual of worship that Paul fought when he led Luther’s way, but that of conduct as well. Man can contribute nothing to his own salvation. “Work out your own salvation, for it is God that worketh in you.” Yes, but God the Redeemer. What works in you is the redemption which you have already apprehended by faith alone. The words were spoken not to the natural conscience but to the redeemed. Any form of Synergism (man’s ability to help God in saving him) is fatal to justification by grace alone, which is the base of the true Protestant priesthood of all believers’. Christianity is a religion and a faith before it is an ethic. It is ethical because of its faith in the supreme and all-inclusive ethical act of God in the Redeemer.’ There is much we must learn and there is much we must forget. To be taught of God is to unlearn much and to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. What must I do to be saved? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Acts 16:31. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 41: 02.021. ATHANASIUS ... GENIUS? ======================================================================== Fr Athanasius Kircher SJ, Genius or Wizard? Dr Clive Gillis Readers who have chuckled over the exploits of Jesuit Father Brune and the Vatican time machine (BCN 19 September) might be interested to discover how this heady mixture of sophisticated science and black arts rose within the Society of Jesus. They will discover that one of the principle pioneers of this deadly brew is enjoying a revival both within main stream science and false religion. Our study takes us back to the hey day of the Counter Reformation. The scientific discoveries of the Jesuits in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as concerning the earth and the visible heavens, seemed endless. Their deadly but effective educational system ensured for them a steady supply of Europe’s finest minds. The Jesuits even attracted the children of Protestant parents, thus further advancing the fame of their institutions. Black arts of Babylon Many of the Jesuits scientific discoveries were genuine and have stood the test of time. But they also provided a cloak of respectability under which the black arts of Babylon were injected. When the Apostle John saw the Scarlet Whore in the Book of Revelation he was filled with admiration despite the fact that she was dripping with blood. This is a spiritual mystery. Even in the “secret histories” of the Jesuits, Fr Athanasius Kircher does not get much of a mention. He was a “flamboyant … cheerfully imperturbable character” who, un-Jesuit like, pursued his own interests, which the Society of Jesus allowed him to do for reasons which will become apparent. Kircher was born on the saint’s day of his namesake Athanasius, the sainted opponent of Arius. He was given this name by devout Romanist parents living in the heartlands of the German Counter Reformation, which had been newly wrested from the Lutherans. Three surviving brothers of five all went into religious orders without question. Young Athanasius attended a Jesuit school of which many remain in Eastern Europe to this day. He studied mathematics and was imbued with Jesuit “piety and religion”. This placed him at the disposal of his Jesuit masters. His biographers paint a picture of a lively and impulsive lad beaten into submission by the Jesuit Ratio Studiorum or education system. He had a vascular condition which resulted in ulceration of his extremities because of his love of skating on the local frozen lakes and rivers. It is probably what is called Raynaud’s Disease today. As a result his walking was painful and he feared rejection by his Jesuit schoolmasters. A lying wonder To avoid such shame he went to spend a night in prayer before a miracle working statue of the Virgin Mary at Paderborn. He recalls, “With tempestuous prayers I begged our great Mother to behold the affliction of her suffering child. Wonderful to relate, I soon experienced within me a feeling that my prayer had been heard, for I was filled with unbelievable prayer consolation. Wonderful to relate … No longer did I doubt that I would be cured … I slept with a deep sleep … in the morning I found both my legs completely cured”. That this lying wonder undergirded his whole life and handicapped a brilliant scientific mind is born out by his funding a pilgrim shrine to the Virgin in Rome in his old age. The Thirty Years War, that great Counter Reformation struggle, impinged on the life of the young Jesuit just after completing his novitiate and taking his first vows. By pretending to be stupid, the young novice had managed bravely to resist the stultifying effects of the cultish, Jesuit control of free thought. Suddenly in 1621, one of the Lutheran princes, Duke Christian of Brunswick, was found to be approaching with a large army. Brunswick’s Protestant zeal and his distress over the ruin of Luther’s Reformation garden - as Protestant Europe was poetically called - may be judged by his reputation amongst the Romanists. This good man was hailed as, “the supreme hater of Jesuits,” qualified only for his office by his dislike of Rome. The Jesuits later concocted a massive historical lie concerning Brunswick’s supposed, abominable outrages, just as they did with Cromwell in Ireland. Even a Jesuit has had to admit in our day that “modern historians dispute” this story. Brunswick called himself the “Friend of God and Enemy of Priests”. Acting dumb The College was surrounded on the 23rd January 1622. The Father Provincial and some students were seized, but Athanasius escaped and fled to Cologne. Athanasius went through a variety of Jesuit Colleges. He still kept his mind from Jesuit brain-washing by acting dumb. However his exceptional intellect had eventually to emerge. He concedes, “people could not understand how I … who seemed so backward … could know so many things which scarcely … the most erudite masters could grasp”. By the age of 23 he had a brilliant grasp of western and eastern languages, mathematics and physical sciences. His masters squandered his talent in novelties such as firework displays for the theatre to lure the aristocracy into their grip. One cannot but think of the Jesuit poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins, who had to endure similar treatment. Athanasius could not be kept back by the Jesuits. He began to move into areas of science which were developing at the time, such as magnetism and astronomy. His psychic interests were also developing, as when he had a premonition of a further Protestant onslaught, which in the event was led by Swede Gustavus Adolphus. He knew this leader also “showed no mercy to Jesuits” and Athanasius fled from Luther’s old haunt of Mainz to the South of France. Here, freed at last from the Jesuit strait jacket, his worth was recognised by Nicholas Claude Fabri De Pieresc, a wealthy Counsellor of the Parliament at Aix and patron of the sciences. So much so that when the Father General in Rome directed Athanasius to Vienna to replace no less a personage than Johann Kepler, Court mathematician to the Emperor, Pieresc intervened personally with Pope Urban VIII. Transubstantiation This was the first year of Galileo’s house arrest in Arcetri after his appearance before the Inquisition. The Jesuits were trying to suppress the idea that the earth revolved around the sun, because it threatened their Aristotelian theory of transubstantiation. Kepler had been in favour of Galileo, and the Society of Jesus urgently needed their own man on the spot in Rome. Pieresc, along with most of Europe, knew that the Jesuits were to blame for Galileo’s seizure, and Kircher had confided in Pieresc that he knew Galileo was correct. Pieresc, who was fascinated by the borderlands of science and spiritism, had his own agenda which involved Athanasius going to Rome to take up a post in the Jesuit Collegio Romano. However the Jesuit General would not back down, and so Athanasius set sail from Marseilles for Genoa to get to Vienna overland. But a series of shipwrecks saw him driven down via Corsica to Civita Vechia, Rome’s ancient port. From there he easily covered the 40 miles to the Roman college. Newton v. Aristotle And here Athanasius Kircher remained for the rest of his life. He soon filled the Chair of Mathematics at the college but was back under the stultifying intellectual restrictions of the Jesuits. A modern Jesuit writes, “Though Kircher was to devote almost half a century working as a scientist at the Roman college (neither he nor the College) was fated to play the great part one might have expected of it in the development of modern science. It would stand … on the sidelines in spite of its many brilliant professors and its occasional contributions to new science. The college was dedicated to the Aristotelian philosophy of the schoolmen, and would share in the eclipse of Aristotelianism as the day of experimental scientific method and the Newtonian age dawned”. Never has the spirit of Jesuitry been better exposed by one of their own. Amazingly, some of his jolly, showman-like nature endured despite the Jesuits, and once in Rome the Jesuit General felt Athanasius Kircher would go a long way to giving them a charismatic figure like Galileo. The University of Chicago honoured him recently by holding an exhibition from the 1st February to the 7th April 2000 in the University library. The catalogue was a limited edition of 1750 copies - and one new copy lies before the present writer. Clearly the organisers did not believe that Kircher’s contributions to pure science were sufficient to interest many people. And what contributions, from how many other Kirchers, have been lost to the world through the Jesuits? The world within the College led Kircher to flit from subject to subject. Professor Ingrid Rowland who wrote the catalogue for the Chicago exhibition, said, “He constructed mechanical devices of marvellous ingenuity (such as the magic lantern), conducted scientific experiments … devoted himself to knowing everything from the life of the tiniest worms to the outermost reaches of an infinite heaven”. His amazing museum He founded an amazing museum in the college, which was commandeered by the Italian state at the fall of Rome in 1870. “The vast range of Kircher’s activities is conveyed in the engraved title page” from a 1678 work of the Very Celebrated Museum of the Roman College of the Society of Jesus where the great man stands as curator speaking to visitors. The legend underneath says, “This workshop of Art and Nature, this treasury of the Mathematical disciplines, This epitome of practical philosophy, The Museum of Kircher …”. One can see obelisks, statues, globes, skeletons, stuffed animals and scientific instruments stretching on ad infinitum. Kircher wrote over 40 original scientific books. Most of these were published in Holland or Germany to avoid brushes with the Inquisition. He was trying to serve two masters, that is, scientific method and the Jesuit General. Unfortunately, one of his astronomical works, despite his deliberate vague use of words, seemed to indicate that the earth revolves around the sun. This was picked up by his Superiors. “He may reject the motion of the earth … and impugn it … but he does it so poorly … this cannot stand according to the doctrine of transubstantiation in the Eucharistic sacrament … Kircher’s teaching is clearly extremely dangerous to doctrine.” Black arts This was clearly unfulfilling for Fr Kircher and is probably the reason why he strayed into the parallel world of black arts and magic. Here he was a true pioneer. Here was a realm his Jesuit masters need know nothing of, as his enquiries could all be cloaked with science. Here at last he was a giant like Galileo. Professor Rowland writes, “Galileo finally tired of this continuous dissimulation (seeming to write what was acceptable for the Inquisition yet inferring something else obvious to the enquiring mind) and paid the price with enforced silence. Kircher by contrast, moved beyond hypothesis into the realm of outright fiction.” His keenest student, Johann Stephan Kestler, described him as the, “great Kircher, the most miraculous mystagogue of nature, the great magician”. Just how the tragedy unfolds of the great mind of Fr Kircher descending into the realms of satanic darkness to become a forerunner of modern satanic religion under the corrupting influence of the Jesuit system, we shall see in the next article DV. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 42: 02.022. 1ST PILLAR OF POPERY 1 ======================================================================== The First Pillar Of Popery - Part 1 Consisting Of Intemperate Railing, With Shameful Slanders And Untruths Andrew Willet DD., Fellow of Christ College, Cambridge 1562-1621 WHAT our is in this treaties following we have already partly declared in the preface. That our intent is not in this enterprise so much to charge our adversaries with such matter as may be justly objected against them, as to discharge ourselves of each unjust crimes as they do burden us withal: not to accuse, but to excuse ; not to fight, but to fence; not to dare them with our darts, but to arm ourselves against their venomous arrows, which they shoot at us. And here I say with St. Jerome, "Vulneratus nequaquam contra persecutorum tela direxi, sed meo tantum vulneri admovi manum:" Being wounded, I will not smite the striker again, but lay mine head upon mine own sore. Hier. ad Ruffin. Whereas therefore, they everywhere almost in their books and pamphlets, do lay sore unto our charge, that we are railers, reviler, liars, blasphemers, heretics, cavillers, sophisters, divided into many sects and schisms, amongst ourselves. Our best and safest way to free and deliver both us and our tense from these so unjust, untrue, sad uncharitable accusations, is to return them upon themselves, to whom they do more properly belong; and to clothe them with their own livery, which will sit more comely, without pleat or wrinkle upon their back. First of all, therefore, according to that order which we have set down, we will try and examine the modesty, sobriety, and temperance of their spirit, wherewith they are inflamed against us. First, of their reviling and bitter speech; then of their malicious slanders against us and our cause; thirdly, of their forgeries, fourthly, of the manifold untruths, which in plain English are no better than lies, which they are not ashamed in heaps to utter. First, then, concerning their contumelious and reproachful speeches, and their adders’ tongues which they smite and sting us withal, I would we might say onto them, an Augustine sometime did unto Vincentius, a young malapert springall, that unseemly taunted that reverend Father in his writings: "Siquid inter disputandum," saith Augustine, "quod ad meam contrumeliam redundat espressit non eum convitiantis voluntarie crediderim, sed diversa sentientis necessitate fecise: ubi enim hominis ergs me animas ignotus est et incertus melius arbitror meliora sentire quam inexplorata eulpare:" If any thing fall sat in disputation which may redound to my reproach, I think that he did it not so much with a mind to revile me, as being enforced by diversity of opinion; for where a man’s mind in unto me uncertain and unknown, I hold it better to think the book, than to blame what I know, not, &c. De animae Origin. Lib. 1. cap. 2. (Patr. Caill. tom. 141. p. 286-7. Paris. 1842.] So if our adversaries were carried away only in the heat of their cause, and with a blind zeal of superstition, when they spit such venomous words at us, and had not a special purpose (as we have, but :too, much experience) in so doing, to malign the truth, and disgrace the professors thereof we should be able better to brook their speeches and to bear their outrages than now knowing the contrary, we either can or will. This then is that which sometimes thrusteth us forward, when we see not so much our persons stricken and galled with their tongues, as the truth to be wounded through our sides, to speak home unto them, and to tell them them their own : not reviling, but reproving, not taunting, but telling them their fault and folly. Cresconius, an Archdonatist, doeth roundly take up Augustine, because he used these words against them, "Sicut non potest Satanus Satanam excludere:" &c. As Satan, saith he, cannot drive out Satan, so the error of the Manichees cannot overthrow the error of the Donatists. 2 Timothy 2:1-26. contra Crescon lib. 4. cap. 78. (Patr. Call. tom. 189. p. 580. Paris. 1842.] Augustine answereth very well: "Quasi (inquit) Petilianum Satanae comparavorim, ac non errorem potius. Apostolica enim mansuetodo, cum quibus modeste agi praecepit eos ipsos docet a diabolo captivatos: nec tamen quam commendavit, amisit lenitatem quia eam (quam docebat) tacere noluit veritatem:" As though, said he, I compared Petilian himself to Satan, and not his errorrrather: for so the Apostle doth say, that even they, whom notwithstanding he wisheth to be gently dealt withal, were captived and snared of the devil: neither did he in so saying offend against that lenity which he commendeth, while he utteree the truth which was not be concealed, while he uttered the truth which was not to be concealed, &c. Thus Agustine defended himself by St. Paul’s example, and sheweth, thought it be not lawful to speak evil, or to revile, yet freely to open our mouths, and to cry out against the enemies of the truth, it is not forbidden. Bernard, a late writer, and one of their Catholic doctors, as they take it (though in truth in most points in controversy between us, he is more ours thans theirs), he used the like liberty of speech in his days, and though he offended not: as inveighing against the clergy of his time, he saith, "Ministri sunt Chriti, et serviunt Antichristo:" They are the minister of Christ, and yet serve Antichrist. Serm. Sup. Cantic. 33. Yea, of the bishops themselves, and the chief of the clergy, he doubteth not to say, having first rehearsed those words of Christ to his Apostles, "Have I not chosen you twelve, and none of you is a devil? Sic facit Jesus hodie, eligens sibi miltos diabolos episcopos:" Even so doth Jesus, saith he, now-a-days, choosing many devils to be bishops. Serm. Ad pastor. In Synod. He stayeth not here, but climbeth up even unto the Pope’s chair: "Tristes vidimus, tristes eloquimur honorem ecclesiae, Honorii tempore non minime laesum:" We have seen it with grief, and we speak it with grief, that in Pope Honorius’ time the honour of the Church was not a little endamaged. Epist. 147. And in another place, finding fault with the cardinals of Rome, that they had fetched Eugenius out of his cloister, and of an abbot, made him a Pope: he taunted them in these words, "Ascendit Jericho, ineidit in latrones:" He is gone up from Jerusalm to Jericho, and the cardinals to thieves. Epist. 147. If Bernard then, a doctor of their own, could assume unto himself such liberty of speech as to term evil ministers the servants of Antichrist, bishops devils, cardinals thieves, in hatred and detestation of the corruptions of those times, I thing we may be excused, if for love and zeal of the truth, we deal plainly many times with our adversaries, and do not flatter them a whit: though I think few or none of us have used like freeness of speech as either Augustine against the heretics of the age, or Bernard against the corruptions of his time. Therefore, to conclude this point we say, as not long since a darling of their own said, yet with better right and more truly, I am sure, than he: "Now the law of upright dealing, specially in God’s cause so requiring, ye must pardon us, if as among husbandman we call a rake a rake, a spade a spade, a mattock a mattock: so among divines we call heresy heresy, and likewise falsehood, lying slandering, craft, hypocrisy, blasphemy, every such crime by his proper name, without all glossing." Harding defens. apolog. p: 52. But leaving off here in this place further to make apolgy, or to seek defence in this point for ourselves, which were a needless and superfluous labour, the writings of our learned and godly brethren are abroad to be seen and read. I trust they shall be found neither to savour of so envious a spirit, nor to be mixed with such intemperate and undigested humours, as our adversaries’ writings are sauced an powdered withal. We will now proceed (not further keep ing the reader is suspebse ,) to collect some flowers of Popish eloquence and rhetoric, which their books are beautified and adorned withal. First, we will be so bold as walk into our countryman Mr. Harding’s garden, and there a little refresh ourselves with the pleasant scent of his sweet-smelling herbs. And here, in the very entrance, I find a nosegay already gathered to my hand by that skilful and cunning gardener, not in name but in deed, Bishop Jewell. Let us take up this poesy, and smell a little thereon. Mr. Harding therefore, writing against Bishop Jewell, cloyeth and overchargeth them with these and such like sweet speeches: "Whoever heard such an impudent man? a most impudent liar, and a wicked slanderer :" Preface in defens. apol. and all because he said with Laurentius Valla, a canon of Rome, that Pope Celestinus was a Nestorian heretic. Again: "Whoever saw so impudent s man ? what shall I say to this fellow ? Fie for shame man, a minister of fables, a minister of lies! Foolish ignorance, shameless malice, so ignorant, so witless, lewd wretches, Jewish, heathenish, shameless, blasphemous villains, false ministers, false harlots, ye lie falsely, yea, ye lie for advantage, ye are impudent liars, lewd liars, heaps of lies, nothing but lies, and all is lies. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 43: 02.023. 1ST PILLAR OF POPERY 2 ======================================================================== The First Pillar Of Popery - Part 2 Consisting Of Intemperate Railing, With Shameful Slanders And Untruths Andrew Willet DD., Fellow of Christ College, Cambridge 1562-1621 But what is the cause, think you, that this meek-spirited man should be so disquieted, and make such outcries against liars? Forsooth because Bishop Jewell in one place leaveth out ‘enim,’ in another place ‘hoc,’ in another place the printer set down ‘schemate’ for ‘scismate,’ and such like. Is not here great cause, think you, to make a man thus to take on, and run out of his wits? But I say here with Jerome, "Qui mendacii alternum eriminaris, desinas ipse mentiri:" He that chargeth others with lying must leave off to lie himself. So should Master Harding have done. Hier. Apol. 2. cont. Ruffin. Is not this a sweet nosegay, think you, and is it not compounded of choice flowers? The scent is so strong to my smell, that I cannot choose but stop my nose: "Nisi," as Bernard saith, "ominum passim naribus injecto foetore, solus dissimulem pestem, nee audio nasum contra pressimum putorem propria manu manire:" Unless, as he saith, the stink smelling strong in every man’s nose, I only should dissemble the matter, and not dare to fence my nose with mine own hand against the contagious smell, &c. But let us have patience a little, and pass along to see what store of such sweet smelling flowers Mr Harding’s garden will afford us. P.40. "Thus your vain boast in wickedness wrought y the power of Satan is put to silence," because Bishop Jewell saith, that many kings and princes are fallen away from the see of Rome, and have joined themselves to the Church of God. P.42. "This is his heathenish heart: what could Porphory, of Julian, or Celsus say more?" because Bishop Jewell had said, that men even by light if nature, though thereby alone they cannot be led to the perfection of faith, yet may somewhat discern what is likely or unlikely in religion, according to St. Paul, Rom. I. 20, "The invisible things of God, his everlasting power and Godhead, are seen by the creation of the world." P.79. "We take you to be mad: would God you were not worse than mad: were you mad, you should be tied up: else were you suffered to go abroad, for fear folk would fly from you, then should you do little hurt." (Epitaph. Paulae.) So Jerome reporteth of Paula, that virtuous matron, "Quod prae nimio fervore quibusdam videretur insane, et cerebrum ejus contorvendum:" (Defence of the apology, London 1567). That for her great zeal some deemed her to be made, and that her brain had need be settled, &c. but she answered for herself, as we do in the like case, that as we are charged with madness for the love of the truth, so our Saviour Christ of his own kinsfolks was thought to be beside himself, and therefore they went about to shut him up. P.145. "How say you, Sir Minister Bishop, ought the minister to be lawfully called?" P.146. "Touching the exercise of your ministry, you do all things without order: unless ye mean such order, as thieves observe among themselves in distribution of their robberies." P.153. "If he were so foolish to think so, yet you M. Jewell in that behalf should not bear the bauble with him:" speaking of Nilus, a Greek writer, a learned man and a reverend bishop. But here I answer M. Harding, as Jerome doth Vigilantius, "Si omnes tecum fatui sunt, sapiens quis esse poterit:" if all were fools, whom you call fools we should have but a few wise men. P.162. "You shew yourself to be a man of evil disposition, no man ever said it, but Illyricus or bawdy Bale:" namely, that Pope Zosimus corrupted the Council of Nice, the truth whereof notwithstanding is proved by Bp. Jewell, out of the Africarr Council, Cap. 101, 102, 103. Concil, Carthag. 6.c.4. Concil. Forentin. Sess. 20. P.164. "You are arrant slanderous liars: how seemeth not this wicked generation to spring of the devil:" because M. Jewell saith, by the testimony of Alphons. De Castro. Sabellic. Plantina, and others, that Pope Liberus was an Arian heretic. P.189. "This sir defender learned in the school of Satan, and now lieth bound in Satan’s fetters." p.201. "Their bishops for custody of their chastity after their former old yoke-fellow’s decease, solace themselves with new strumpets." P.209. "Of what small substance this reason is, the veriest cobblers of all their ministers, if they can read any English beside their communion book, may easily perceive." Bp. Jewell telleth Harding, he might have remembered, that no long since, Julius II., of a wherry-slave was made Pope: but we have no cobblers in the ministry. P.290. "Maugre the malice of the devil and of all the sacramentaries, the old truth shall prevail:" he meaneth the conversion and transubstantiating (as he calleth it) of the bread and wine in the sacrament, into the very boy and blood of Christ. But this is no truth at all, neither old nor ancient: confessed by Dr. Tunstall, to have come in twelve hundred years after the Gospel: as in that place it is manifestly proved. P.297. "Now, sir, I report me to every man that hath sense, whether I may not lawfully give you the menti, as for manner’s sake I may use the Italian term, and challenge you in plain terms of a lie for uttering this untruth:" and yet there is no untruth uttered: see the place. P.313. "It liked your filthy spirit, with vile words, to bring that holy mystery into contempt: wherein you do the devil, author of all heresy, the greatest service that may be devised:" because with Origen he had affirmed that the bread in the sacrament, as touching the material substance thereof, goeth into the belly, and is cast into the privy. Here M. Harding much forgetteth himself, with such vile terms to slander us: for they shew a filthy spirit that use filthy words, and not the blasphemed, but the blasphemer, the reviler, not the reviled, do the devil the greatest service: for as Jerome well saith, "apud Christianos, non qui patitur, sed qui facit contumeliam, miserest:" among Christians, not he that suffereth, but he that offereth reproach, is the vile and miserable man. P.342. "The thing, which it liketh your Satanical spirit, with blasphemous words to dishonour:" he meaneth that sacrament, which indeed is by them most of all abused and dishonoured. P.359. "He calleth us cursed Canaanites". P.387. "Ye falsely, and wickedly lead the people, ye are apostates, ye are heretics, ye are impudent and rebellious children." P.404. "These defenders in conditions be like such honest women, as commonly we call scolds." P.409. "Lo, a grievous and an heavy case, that he world calleth you wicked and ungodly men: I wist, they be too blame for it, and so be they that call them thieves, which come to be promoted to Tyburn." P.446. "Your impudence of lying hath no measure nor end." P.459. "The fiends of hell were not yet loose, that begat Lutherans, Zuinglians, Calvinists: your Church is no other but the malignant church and synagogue of Satan." P.465. "Though the defender fear not to be accounted a liar, yet should he be loth to be accounted an unionist man, yea and specially a fool." P.502. "We reckon not, what Luther saith, what Zuinglius, what Calvin, what Antichrist, what Satan saith." P.506. "If this defender were compared to a mad dog, some would think it perhaps an unmannerly comparison, let the man be as he is, verily the manner and fashion of both is alike." P.510. "He calleth us light preachers, wicked vow breakers, lewd lecherous lurdens, detestable blasphemers: such is your devilish rabble, saith he:" this is M. Harding’s eloquence. P.524. "O thou captain liar: O most worthy, not the reward of a whetstone, but the judgment of a backbiter, of a slanderer, of a cursed speaker, of the accuser of the brethren, of a blasphemer, canst thou persuade thyself to get credit by lying, to seem sober by railing, honest by villany, charitable by slandering?" And all this stir is because we charge them with burning of Scriptures, which their ungodly practices here in England do notoriously shew to be true. And see here, how this unshamefaced man chargeth so reverent, so modest, so worthy a prelate with railing, villany, slandering, whereas all these are to be found more truly in himself, so that we may justly complain with that learned Father: "quid possumus facere si unusquisque se putat juste facere, quod facit, et videtur sibi remorderi potius, quam mordere:" (Hieron, ad Ruffin.) What a world is this, that every man thinketh he doth well that he doth: and that he is backbited, when himself is the backbiter. P.549. "He sheweth himself a fool, a slanderer, an unlearned man." P. 576. "Here pricketh forth this hasty defender, as pert as a pearmonger, and fain would talk with the Pope himself." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 44: 02.024. 1ST PILLAR OF POPERY 3 ======================================================================== The First Pillar Of Popery - Part 3 Consisting Of Intemperate Railing, With Shameful Slanders And Untruths Andrew Willet DD., Fellow of Christ College, Cambridge 1562-1621 P. 602. "Ye cannot abide salt, water, oil, the cross: and no marvel: no more cannot the devil, who possesseth you and rideth you." P. 607. "It should have become Scoggin, Patch, Jolly, Harry Pattenson, or Will Sommer, to have told this tale much better than your superintendentships: and if ye would needs have played the part yourselves, it would have been more convenient to have done it upon the stage, under a vice’s coat, than in a book," &c. And all this, because their practice in seducing the people of God, are compared to Jeroboam’s, who enticed the people from the true worship of God at Jerusalem, by setting up two golden calves. P. 616. "When were ever such thieves in the Church of God as ye are?" I bid. "If all ifs were true, than if heaven fall we should catch larks. And if a bridge was made between Dover and Calais, we might go to Bologne a-foot, as William Sommer once told King Henry VIII." Because M. Jewell had said, if the Church of Rome cannot err, the good luck thereof is far greater than these men’s policy: for such is their doctrine and life, that for all them the Church may not only err, bat be utterly spoiled. P. 617. "By your apostasy ye have done more wickedly, than if ye committed idolatry." P. 648. "Sirs, would ye have the common people to come to the General Councils? Whom mean ye, I pray you? Tinkers and tapsters, fiddlers and pipers, such as your ministers be? Alas, poor souls, what should they do there? for there is no tinkling*. "nor tippling, nor fiddling, nor piping; there they may shut up both budgets and mouths." But here M. Harding need not thus to have upbraided our ministers with such scoffing and jester-like terms, if he had remembered (as M. Jewell telleth him) what Alphons. de Castro reporteth of the Popes, "Constat plures Papas adeo esse illiteratos, ut grammaticam penitus ignorent." That * Yet in your late Trident chapter there was such tinkling of other men’s kettles, and tippling off their cups, that two adulterous Popish bishops came to a shameful end : whereof one was slain with a boar-spear, being found with: another man’s wife: the other was hanged in a gin laid for him in his mews, where he was wont to creep in at a window. Fox, p. 2107. many of them were so unlearned, that they wre ignorant of their grammer. P. 680. "As I cannot well take an hair from your lying beard, so wish I that I could pluck malice from your blasphemous heart." Neither doth M. Harding here content himself, thus spitefully to have entreated the living, calling our ministers, cobblers, tapsters, tinkers: ministers’ wives, sober and grave matrons, with him no better than strumpets: but he doth most unhonestly snatch and carp at the dead, and revile God’s saints, terming the book of Acts and Monuments, a huge dunghill of stinking martyrs: yea, he presumeth to sit in God’s chair, wresting the judgment out of his hand, and giving sentence of condemnation against us, "The authors and professors of them be dead and rotten in hell fire, with weeping and grinning of teeth: the like judgment look ye and your fellows to have if ye repent not." And in another place: "After ye have fried and boiled (saith he) in rancour and malice against the Church, ye are like to leap into the furnace of hell." But the writer hereof should have remembered Christ’s rule, judge not, that you be not judged: as for his corrupt and malicious judgment, we pass not: he well saith, "prima virtus Christiani est contemnere hominum judicia:" it is the first point of Christianity not to regard the judgment of men. Thus we hear M. Harding’s sugared eloquence: judge now (good Christian reader) whether this man have not been well trained up in Satans school, as he slanderously saith of us. These and such like are M. Harding’s flowers, who list to take a further view of them, shall find them to be collected as into one bundle by Dp. Jewell: where these pleasant sorts shall be offered to his smell: "Your devilish spite, your devilish wickedness, your develish villany, Satan is your schoolmaster, your father the devil: your new Church set up by Satan, you are the school of Satan, children of the devil. A page, a slave, a clawback of the devil, your reporbate congregation, your confused tents of Satan, the novice of the devil. Satan’s brood, Satan holdeth you captive, ye are fast bound in Satan’s fetters, loose apostates, proface hell-hounds, your blasphemies and Statanisms, Calvinists, Satanists: your wicked chamsbrood, your damnable side, your devilish rabble, your congregation of reprobates, your Turkish doctrine. As crafty knaves in a comedy, they are apes, they are asses," with such like: Jewel praefat, defens. Apolog. (Edit. Wykes, London, 1567). But lest we should think that M. Harding only had profited in this black and Popish rhetoric, let us see also the modesty of other men’s spirits, out of that school. We shall easily find that they are all one woman’s children, and have had all one school master, their style and speech is so alike. Bonaventure, a friar, of Lorraine, disputing with Wolfgangus, used these as his best arguments, "Thou heretic, Judas, Beelzebub." Bellarmine, the mildest and most modest child of that crew, yet sometimes sheweth the badge of his profession: "Ab alio spiritu Calvinus agitur (saith he) ut se Valentino opponat, sic inter se daemonibus colludentibus:" Praefat. In 2. contro. De Christo. Calvin being moved of another spirit, doth set himself against Valentinus, the Tritheist, who affirmed that there were three Gods: one devil thus mocking with another. Is not here (think you) a gentle reward for Calvin for opposing himself against that vile heretic, and maintaining the doctrine of the Trinity? Is not this to blaspheme the Spirit of God, speaking and writing in Calvin in the defence of the truth? But what say ye to our Rhemists, those jolly champions? If any man be desirous to know their pregnant wits and eloquent tongues, thus they write: Annot. In Acts 8:1-40. sect. 10. "Simon Magus that sorcerer had more true knowledge of religion, than the Protestants have: he blasphemed not as they blaspheme." They call us miscreants, James 5:1-20. sect. 5. and compare us to the impious sons of Ham, Galat. 2. sect. 8.: to cain, Balaam, and Korah, Judges 5:11. Yea, with a foul black mouth, they are not ashamed to call calvin, Beza, Verone, reprobates, Romans 11:33; but thanks be to God, as he well saith, "Aliter hominum malitia, aliter Christus judicat:" Hierom.ad Julian. Man’s malice judgeth one way, and Christ another; from their hellish judgement of us we appeal to Christ’s heavenly throne. Thus, at the burning of Mr. Frith, that worthy servant of God and blessed martyr, Dr. Cooke most uncharitably admonished the people that they should pray no more for him than they would for a dog. Fox, p. 1036. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 45: 02.025. 1ST PILLAR OF POPERY 4 ======================================================================== The First Pillar Of Popery - Part 4 Consisting Of Intemperate Railing, With Shameful Slanders And Untruths Andrew Willet DD., Fellow of Christ College, Cambridge 1562-1621 Now cometh in railing Cochleus, and filleth up the measure of this iniquity, writing thus most wickedly of John Huss: "I say therefore, John Huss is neither to be counted holy nor blessed, but rather wicked and eternally wretched: insomuch that in the day of judgment, it shall be more easy, not only with the infidel Pagans, Turks, Tartarians, and Jews, but also with the most filthy to lie and with their daughters, sisters, or mothers: yea also with most impious Cain, killer of his own brother, with Thyestes, killer of his own mother, and the Lestrygones, and other Anthropaphagi, which devour man’s flesh: yea more easy with those most infamous murderers of infants, Pharaoh and Herod, than with him." Cochle.lib.2. histor. Hussitar. Translated by Fox, p. 631. I marvel at my heart that they, without horror of conscience, could thus speak or write of the servants of God, or that the earth did not open under them to swallow up such blasphemers: but whatsoever they of blind malice uncharitably say or judge of us, here is our comfort, that God judgeth not as man doth: and concerning the faithful servant of God, John Huss, whose blood they unjustly split in earth, and his soul falsely condemn to hell, I say as Augustine in the like case of Cyprian: "Alia est sella terrena, aliud tribunal coelorum, ab inferiore accepit sententiam, a superiore coronam:" In Psalms 36:1-12. cont. 3. There is one throne in earth, another tribunal in heaven, he hath received sentence below, and a crown from above, &c. We need not now think it strange that the Rhemists charge us with blasphemy, Revelation 13:1-18. sect. 2.: and Harding, with sin against the Holy Ghost, because we speak against the Pope. This fellow goeth further, making the holy servant of God worse than Cain, than Pharaoh, than infidels or Pagans: I pray God it be not laid to their charge: yet they stay not here, neither are content thus to revile our persons, which might better be borne at their hands; but they open their mouth even against heaven, and spare not to blaspheme the truth which we profess. The holy communion, which we observe according to Christ’s institution, Harding spitefully calleth "a lean and carrion banquet," p. 320. The Rhemists say that "Calvin’s supper with his bread and wine," which is not his supper but Christ’s, "is like at length to come to the sacrifice of Ceres and Bacchus," John 4:1-54. sect. 4. And yet more wickedly they say, "That our communion is the very table and cup of devils, wherein the devil is properly served," 1 Corinthians 10:1-33. sect. 9. But, alas, silly men, we pity their case: they speak evil, as St. Jude saith, "of things they know not." If they understood what these holy mysteries were, they would I think be more sparing in blaspheming. We will not requite them again with the evil speech; Michael durst not do it to the devil, but the Lord rebuke them and amend them. And that it may appear how they are led with the same spirit of envy, one Jurgevicius, the Pope’s champion, writing against Volanus, a learned Protestant, thus in one sentence woundeth both him and his profession: Mendacio, 53.fol.71. "Ad vestrum (scelerate senex) prophanum panem et pcoulum suffciunt fauces," &c. Thou lewd and wicked old fellow, for your profane bread and cup, the teeth and jaws are sufficient. Likewise another of that side, called the Centuriators, which have with great labour and industry collected the centuries, atheists; a simple reward for so excellent and worthy a work. Arthur. De invocat. Sanctor. Thes. 91.c.9. But to let other pass, whose cursing and reviling speeches are infinite and too many, as also needless to be rehearsed, now in the last place I will adjoin certain flowers of our contryman, Mr Stapleton’s eloquence, collected out of his book set forth against our worthy and learned countryman, Dr. Whitakers, that it may appear what spirit they are of, that with such bitter speech and vile terms do taunt and revile the professors of the Gospel. To omit how odiously and proudly he chargeth him with ignorance and want of learning: calling him everywhere, "doctorem indoctum," unlearned doctor, and "professorem indignum," unworthy professor, not worthy to be admitted to the least degree in schools; Lib.1.c.2. sect.4. "Whitakerus quovis tyrone ineptor." More foolish than any boy scholar or new beginner; lib.2.cap.1.sect.3: yea he blusheth not to call him "scriptorem barbarum," a barbarous writer. To let pass these and such like arrogant challenges, which are common with all Papists, who boast of themselves as of the only learned and eloquent men; but alas, poor souls, it seemeth they dwell by evil neighbours, when they are fain to praise themselves. But as for M. Stapleton, he is foully overseen, in charging so worthy a man with want of learning, whose books he is scarce worth, in respect of true learning, to carry after him. And if the question be of eloquence, this Lovanian doctor’s writing is but a kind of barking in respect of the others, either for smoothness of style, or good phrase of speech. And concerning both these, namely, the choice of the words for the phrase, and the placing of them for the style, I cannot give Master Stapleton a fitter commendation than Jerome bestoweth upon Ruffinus and Jovinian; first, concerning the phrase, he thus writeth, "Tam putide et confuse loquitur, ut plus ego in reprehendeno laborem, quam ille in scribendo," &c. Apol.2.cont.Ruffin. He speaketh so grossly and confusedly, that a man may easily take more pain in mending, than he did in making: and for the style, he that readeth the Lovanian professor’s discourse, may remember what Jerome saith of Jovinian’s manner of writing: "Quotiescunque eum legero, unbicunque me defecerit spiritus, ibi est distinctio, totum incipit, totum pendet ex altero:" Adverse. Jovinian. When I read him, I find no distinction with a breath: every sentence is a beginning, and everything hangeth and is continued together. But to return to our countryman Stapleton’s rhetoric, and to let pass these before rehearsed, as the most mild and courteous terms he hath, this eloquent Lovanian professor thus sitteth upon that reverend and learned man, thus saying unto him, "Minister Sathanae effectus, professor perfidus, magister mandax et impudentissimus:" Thou art become a minister of Satan, a faithless or foresworn professor, a lying and most impudent teacher: Admonit. Ad Whitaker. "Professor asinine:" Ass-head professor, 1.1. cap. 1. sect. 12: He lieth for the whetstone: "Facis mendacium cote dignum," cap.2.sect.6: "Absurditas asinine adversarii, His asinine absurdity," lib.1.cap.7.sect.3: "Ineptissimus disputator," most foolish disputer, ibid.sect.9: "Fatuus rusticus," a clownish or rustical fool, cap. 12.sect.4: "Stultissimus," a very fool, ibid.: "Sophista impudens," and impudent sophister, lib.2.cap.5.sect.10: "Barbara impudentia," his barbarous impudence, cap.7.sect.6: He playeth the sycophant, cap.8.sect.4: "Stiltissime sophista," most foolish sophister, cap.9.sect.1: "Disputator aburdissime," most absurd disputer, ibid.sect.8: "Mentiendi consuetude in naturam tibi versa," your custom of lying is become your very nature, cap.10.sect.1. What could be said more of the devil? "Hebetudinis tuae et tarditatis," &c., your dullness and blackishness, &c.sect.10: "Mentiendi lobido vel necessitas," he hath either pleasure or necessity to lie, sect. 13: "Mendacium rotundum," he maketh a round lie, sect. 16: "Crassa ignorantia," gross ignorance. Lib.3.cap.7.sect.3: "Mendacium ridiculum et morione dignum," a ridiculour lie and fit for a fool, lib.3.cap.13.sect.1: "Mendacium nobile," a noble lie, cap.14.sect.5: "Mendacium splendidum," a notable or lewd lie, sect,8: "Mendacium stupidum," a blockish lie, cap. 16.sect.7: "Crassa stupiditas," gross blockishness, ibid.: "Stultitia et hebetudo prorsus asinine," asinine foolishness and dullness, cap. 19. sect. 11. These and a hundred such like proper rhetorical speeches our good countryman hath sent us from Lovaine, to shew how he hath profited in Popish eloquence: and to make our mouths, after he hath long dallied in words, in good sober sadness he speaketh thus friendly unto us: "Omnium quidem haereticorum et caecitas magna est, et pertinacia singularis, sed vestra hodie Whitakere, tau inquam, tuorumque convenarum haereticorum tum caecitas tum pertinacia longe maxima est:" In all heretics there is both great blindness and singular obstinacy, but thy blindness Whitakers, and wilfulness, with the rest of thy fellow-heretics, passeth all: lib.3.cap.7.sec.5. We are much beholden to you, good countryman, Father Thomas Stapleton, that worthy Lovanian professor, (for we will give you your titles), though that worthy man by put plain Whitakers with you, that you can find it in your heart to give us the upper hand in blindness and wilfulness of all heretics that ever were: but God’s curse will light upon all such heretics as are more wilfully blind and obstinate against the truth than Papists be. But here I would advise our countryman to bethink himself what he hath done, and whom he hath railed upon, namely, a man as unworthy of those taunts and slanders as any man he could have written against; whom, while he lived, was known to be a man both learned, and of a most meek and humble spirit withal; no liar, but a lover of the truth, of a virtuous and godly life; in his readings exact, grave in his sermons, in his disputations earnest, strong in argument, ready in his utterance, pithy in writing, sound in counsel, familiar in conference, wise for direction of study, and encourager of the good, a preferer of the learned, and rewarder of the painful; and what more can I say of him: as he was in his life, so he shewed himself in his end: while he lived, in good actions fervent, in his sickness patient, in death confident, and now in heaven in triumphant. Therefore I say unto M. Stapleton, as Jerome in the like case, "Non facilis est venia prava dixisse de rectis:" Hieron. Asella. It is no small fault to speak evil of the good, and perversely of the righteous: and again with St. Ambrose, "Si pro otioso verbo ratio poscitur quanto magis pro sermone impietatis peona exolvitur?! Lib.office.1.c.2. (Ambros. Oper.tom.1.p.2.Basil. 1538) If for every idle word account shall be required, how much greater punishment for wicked reviling speech is like to be endured? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 46: 02.026. 1ST PILLAR OF POPERY 5 ======================================================================== The First Pillar Of Popery - Part 5 Consisting Of Intemperate Railing, With Shameful Slanders And Untruths Andrew Willet DD., Fellow of Christ College, Cambridge 1562-1621 And yet a little further to answer in a word to this Lovanian doctor, who chargeth, as we have seen, this godly-learned man, with four especial crimes: ignorance, folly, impudence, lying. Mr Stapleton herein sheweth himself neither so deep a clerk, nor so wise a man, or of so sober a spirit as he would be taken for. As for the first, his, which the other calleth ignorance, hath been found able, (thanks be to God), to match and overmatch his Lovanian learning, or sophistry rather. The foolishness of the Gospel, and simplicity of the truth in him hath not given place to the other’s human and serpentine wisdom. Indeed, he was too modest, too mild and humble a man to deal with so proud, and vain-glorious boasters. A wrangling sophister had been fitter to answer such intemperate and immodest railing, than so grace and reverend a divine. But as for lying, take it to yourselves, both it and the father thereof. There is more truth found in a few of his lines, than in many of the other’s leaves: and more good divinity in one page, than is in that whole book. And have you been these four years in hatching so godly a bird, and bringing forth a cockatrice egg? Surely you have spent you time well. And be these the fruits we know what the tree is; what need other arguments? Your usual and customary railing bewrayeth your malicious spirit. I will omit here to make mention of another railing Romish Rabshakeh, who hath thus poured out his venomous gall of bitter words against myself, calling me "a notable liar and falsifier, filthy doctor, shameless mate, malicious minister;" charging me often, with "abominable, palpable, shameless, notorious, malicious lies:" whereas, he is not able to convince me of one lie, or untruth. But I will be sparing in rehearsing these things, being ashamed to repeat that which they blush not to write. I have set down a catalogue of such stuff and summed them together elsewhere.* Neither will I offend the reader’s ear with such virulent terms used by another, not forbearing the sweet words of "impostor, Machivell, falsifier, insolent, dishonest, fool, goose," and such like. I will be silent herein, both because I have made my apology already, but most of all for that a second reply of like bitterness, being offered by the same author to the press, was suppressed by prudent and grave authority, and (though surreptitiously allowed before) by the discreet and friendly endeavour of some, to whom I acknowledge myself much bound, both for their piety in staying of domestical contentions, which might breed scandal, and for their love in not suffering his name to be traduced, who desireth to be peaceable. But to return where I left: tell me, ye Popish pettifoggers, which have nothing more common in your mouths, than to call us asses, dolts, fools, how can ye escape that heavy sentence of our Saviour, which saith, "that whoso calleth his brother fool, is in danger of hell fire," Matt. V. But it is no new thing for heretics to rail and revile: it hath ever been their custom and guise. The Pelagians called Augustine, "cultorem demonum:" a worshipper of devils. August. Cont. Julian.1.3.c.18. The Donatists accused Cecilian, A Catholic bishop, of sin against the Holy Ghost: Aug. cont. Crescon.1.4.cap.17. So it is true, as one well saith: "Haeretici, cum perversitatis suae non possunt reddere rationem, ad mail-dicta convertuntur:" Heretics, when they find themselves not able to yield a reason of their wilfulness; then they fall to plain railing. Such plenty of scoffs and taunts, of cursings and revilings, is an evident sign of an evil cause, and bewrayeth a cankered stomach. We will not answer them in the same kind; for our cause is better, and our malice and hatred much less. It grieveth not us to be evil spoken of without cause. We are sorry for them; they hurt not us, but blemish their own credit before men, and make their account the more heavy before God. And as Gregory well saith: "quid aliud detrahantes faciunt, nisi quod in pulverem sufflant, atque in oculos suos terram excitant:" Lib.8.epist.45. What else do these slanderers, but as blow the dust upon their own faces: so our adversaries by reviling of us, do get a blot to themselves. I will shut up this place with that good saying of Bernard: "Bonum mihi, si me dignetur Deus uti pro Clypeo, libens excipio in me detrahentium linguas maledicas, ut non ad ipsum perveniant:" De considerat. Lib. 2. It is good for me, if God vouchsafe to use me instead of a buckler, I willingly do latch in myself the darts of slanderous tongues, that they light not upon him. * In the preface to the Refection, printed A.D. 1603. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 47: 02.027. MANDATORY CELIBACY ======================================================================== Mandatory Clerical Celibacy Dr. Ronald Cooke is the brother of Dr. S B Cooke, who served for many years as Deputy Moderator of the Free Presbyterian Church. Dr. Ronald Cooke The former Roman Catholic priest, L.H. Lehmann, after saying that the primary purposes for which the custom of celibacy has been retained are: (1) To maintain the principle of centralized power, and (2) To retain property for the church that otherwise would go to the priest’s family, says: "It is not for spiritual reasons that the Roman Catholic Church has for so many centuries denied legitimate marriage to its priests. Those in power have always known that it is only the legality of the marriage relationship that can be denied them, and that the custom of clerical concubinage, with resultant generations of illegitimate offspring, has always taken its place. Loss of centralized power and property titles, disruption of its authoritarians system of government, would have been the result if these generations of priests’ children in the past had been legalized. Clerical concubinage has thus been tolerated in preference to this loss of undisputed power centered in Rome. "The children of a priest in the past had the right to call him ‘Father’ only in the spiritual sense of the word. The illegitimate sons of popes, cardinals and bishops, however, were often enabled to rise to high positions in the church and state. Several popes were themselves sons and grandsons of other popes and high-church dignitaries. My researches among the collection of papal bulls reveals that concubinage among the clergy of Europe was so prevalent that it was necessary to regulate the practice by law - lest clerical concubinage itself should ever become a legal right" (Out of the Labyrinth, pp.99,100). In the ninth century, an age in which ignorance and superstition were prevalent even among the clergy, the Emperor Charlemagne, in an attempt to suppress vice among ecclesiastics, issued this edict: "We have been informed to our great horror that many monks are addicted to debauchery and all sorts of vile abominations, even to unnatural sins. We forbid all such practices and command the monks to cease wandering over the country" (T. Demetrius, Catholicism and Protestantism, p.26) The Irish historian, William Lecky quotes the following form his History of European Morals: "An Italian bishop of the tenth century described the morals of his time, saying that if he were to enforce the canons against unchaste persons administering ecclesiastical rites, no one would be left in the Church except boys. A tax was systematically levied on princes and clergymen for license to keep concubines" Bernard of Clairvaux protested against enforcing celibacy on the clergy as contrary to human nature and Divine law, saying: "Deprive the Church of honourable marriage, and you fill her with concubinage, incest and all manner of nameless vices and uncleanness." Henry Bamford Parkes, in his A History of Mexico, says: "Clerical concubinage was the rule rather than the exception, and friars openly roamed the streets of cities with women on their arms. Many of the priests were ignorant and tyrannical, whose chief interest in their parishioners was the exaction of marriage, baptism, and funeral fees, and who were apt to abuse the confessional." Many more such testimonials might be given. The widespread looseness of domestic manners in European and Latin American countries including the United States, has been and is a disgrace to religion and a scandal to Christendom. It is extremely difficult to bring a priest into a civil court for punishment because the Roman Church forbids all Roman Catholics to testify against a priest. And most such crimes have been committed against their own people - another evidence that the R.C. people are themselves the first and primary victims of their own church. Numerous Roman Catholic historians have acknowledged that the law of celibacy for priests and the vows of chastity for monks are historical failures. What we are most concerned to criticize is not the sins of individual men, but the system as imposed by the Roman Church which leads to and tolerates such abuses! When will the Roman Catholic people throughout the world open their eyes and see that the boasted holiness of their church and of their priests is a pure fiction? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 48: 02.028. THE DEMON OF CELIBACY ======================================================================== The Demon of Celibacy Dr. Ronald Cooke is the brother of Dr. S B Cooke, who served for many years as Deputy Moderator of the Free Presbyterian Church. Dr. Ronald Cooke The enemy of truth is the Devil. The Scriptures inform us that "the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them" (2 Corinthians 4:4). The Devil’s main task is to keep the minds of unbelievers blinded. In this task, Satan is assisted by false prophets and by the natural man. In our country during the past decade, the false system of Roman Catholicism that blinds the minds of those who follow it, to the true Gospel of Christ, has received unprecedented HELP to advance its cause by Writers and biased News coverage. In the past few years the news media have been praising the papacy and the false religion of Rome by printing various articles on the Pope and his cardinals. Even worse, the politicians have been aiding and abetting the cause of Roman Catholicism in these United States. Twice within the past three years Congress has taken much time away from what it should have been doing to give the United States Congressional Gold Medal of Honor, to none other than Cardinal O’Connor of New York (now deceased) and to Pope John Paul, II. Speeches were made praising these two individuals, after which votes were taken, with the Pope receiving only ONE negative vote. I would like to know the individual who had the courage to vote against such a resolution! So the politicians were fulsome in their praise of Antichristianity. But the worst debacle of all has been the praises and statements of leading evangelicals who have gone out of their way to praise the Pope of Rome and the Roman Catholic System. Billy Graham, Chuck Colson, Jerry Falwell, Jack Van Impe with others, have all been busy praising the Pope of Rome in recent years. However, the praises of the evil System of Rome have now been strangely muted! As each succeeding story of Roman Catholic priests and prelates involved in pedophilia unfolds, the efforts to PRAISE the papal system have noticeably been greatly diminshed. The Bible-believer would then think that this is a great opportunity for evangelicals to get out the true Gospel of redeeming Grace to disillusioned Roman Catholics. Instead, he sees that some evangelicals are STILL trying to defend Roman Catholicism. Recently, James Dobson, on a television talk show, June 6, 2002, said in a response to Larry King’s question about the scandalous behavior of Roman Catholic Priests, that he "was tremendously concerned for the Roman Catholic Church. I grieve for my Catholic brothers and sisters," he said, "for the priesthood is the symbol of one who speaks for God." He proceeded to say that the leaders of the "Church needed to root out this terrible problem." Here is a man who is supposed to know what Scriptural doctrine is all about. Yet he apparently thinks that if the pedophilia was "rooted out" that all would then be well. Whereas the Bible believer knows that even if every pedophile priest was removed tomorrow, the false System of Rome would remain the same as she has been for centuries. The gross spiritual darkness of the Roman Catholic System is now having much needed light shone upon it so that the evil cage of unclean spirits can be brought into better focus. (Revelation 18:2) Poor deceived Roman Catholics should be hearing a clear cut message of justification by faith alone in the finished Work of Christ, instead of hearing from self-confessed EVANGELICAL LEADERS words that seek to patch up and repair the unclean cage of false religion. These pathetic evangelicals are trying to help the cause of false religion instead of using this great opportunity to completely repudiate it, and show the ETERNAL DIFFERENCE between the Gospel of Redeeming GRACE and the helpless and hopeless system of works-religion, which leads those toiling souls, caught up in it, to a lost eternity. I believe that because men who should know better, and do better, refuse to do so, that God Himself has taken a hand and has brought about this devastating exposure of celibacy, which His Word lists in the "doctrines of devils" (1 Timothy 4:1.) God has reversed the course of fulsome praise which the world was giving to Rome, and has allowed the world to regard her with the utmost revulsion. God has obviously said, Enough is enough! If even those who claim to follow the truth are going to continue to praise this ungodly and blasphemous System, then I WILL MYSELF lift the mask behind which she is hiding, and let the world see what she is really like. I AM THE HOLY GOD IN HEAVEN WHO REVEALS SECRETS! (Daniel 2:28). So exposure has followed exposure with the Great Harlot trying to stem the tide of revelations concerning her gross immorality. Every day brings new light on the behavior of many Roman clergy. Men may pay little attention to Rome and her false doctrines, but they do get concerned when the priests and prelates break the law and engage in criminal activity. So even though some selfconfessed evangelicals may still be waffling on the merits and demerits of the Roman Catholic System, law suits are being filed all over the world seeking justice for little altar boys whom the predatory priests of Rome have violated. God is REVEALING these secrets and they are causing the "Church" to indict herself before the world, and to show the world what this "works-religion" really produces! So while all kind of damage control is now going on at a feverish pace, the tide of iniquity rolls on in spite of every effort to stem it. God seems to be saying, the news media, the politicians, and even self-confessed evangelicals may want to praise this Mystery Babylon religion, I will overthrow all their attempts to do so. "When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him" (Isaiah 59:19 b). If men, who know better, refuse to lift up the standard of truth, then the Spirit of God will step in and take over the lifting up of the standard of the truth. GOD HIMSELF WILL REVEAL THE SECRETS that evil men seek to hide. Darkness cannot stand before the blazing light of God’s holiness. While the enemies of truth try to cover up the dark errors of Rome by giving her gold medals of honor, and by praising her false system, God the Holy Spirit Who is the Author of Truth and the invigorator of Truth, will ENLIGHTEN all who will listen to Him, to the TRUE NATURE of MYSTERY BABYLON RELIGION. The Scriptures inform us that the MYSTERY of INIQUITY has been at work for a long time. This MYSTERY of INIQUITY deceives the world with all power and signs and lying wonders. The Scriptures also add that men are perishing because they received not the love of the TRUTH, that they might be saved. And for this cause God sends them a strong delusion (error) so that they should believe a lie. (2 Thessalonians 2:9-11). Notice it is GOD WHO STEPS IN HERE AND SENDS to those who received not the love of the truth, ERROR! A bible scholar commenting on 2 Thessalonians 2:9-11, wrote: Without any doubt we have a notable demonstration of this in the Papacy. No words can express how FOUL is the ABOMINATION of the Papists, how massive and shameful are their nonsensical superstitions, and how far removed their ravings from common sense. NONE WHO HAVE EVEN A MODERATE ACQUAINTANCE WITH SOUND DOCTRINE can think of such depravity without the utmost horror. How then, does the whole world gape in astonishment at them, unless it is because men have been ...turned into dunderheads? Error turns men into dunderheads so that they rave away about an evil system as if it were glorious, and give gold medals to those who lead millions to damnation. Error is supposed to be demolished with the armor of heaven. So it is very sad when those who are supposed to enlighten men with the true Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, instead aid and abet the dissemination of error and drivel. ALMIGHTY GOD has allowed a STRONG DELUSION to afflict those who refuse to receive the truth and He has also allowed them to believe the lie. Then in the midst of the confusion generated by the drivel of MYSTERY BABYLON religion, the Almighty Holy Spirit has uncovered the cage of demons, the hold of every foul spirit, and the cage of every unclean and hateful bird. (Revelation 18:2). If the Lord God cannot find a man, for He looked, Isaiah tells us in Isaiah 59:16 for a man, and wondered that there was no intercessor, THEREFORE HIS ARM BROUGHT SALVATION unto Him, and HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS, it sustained him. So when truth falls in the street and evil men flourish, it displeases the Lord, and He then steps in Himself to REVEAL the dark doings of evil false prophets. God’s Word ENLIGHTENS the mind. The Gospel comes to people who sit in darkness and when they hear it and receive it, they are brought into CHRIST’S MARVELLOUS LIGHT! So God has allowed the world to see the old Harlot of Mystery Babylon religion in her true light. Self-confessed evangelicals may paint the old Prostitute in glowing colors, but a prostitute is still a prostitute no matter how well she may be painted. God has spoken in His infallible Word about her and is now demonstrating to the world what her erroneous teachings produce. Dr. Harry Ironside said almost a century ago, "God’s call is still the same, ’Come out of her lest you be partaker of her plagues."’ Oh! Beloved reader, if you have not already done so, come out of this or any other false religion, and receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. He only can save to the uttermost all that come unto God through HIM! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 49: 02.029. WHAT IS THE INDIVIDUAL ======================================================================== What is the Individual in the Papal System? Dr. Ian R. K. Paisley I shall prove three propositions; first, that in the Romish system, the individual is blind; second, that he is superstitious; third, that he is poor. The teaching of his clergy produces blindness; his veneration for them, superstition; their authority and influence, poverty. Their teaching produces blindness. It is sufficient that the Popish system forbids the reading of the Bible. True, in Protestant countries, to avoid imputations, the Popish Church permits the sale of a book called the Bible; but that is not the question. It is, is the Bible read every Sunday in a tongue the people understand? No! There is a mass; sometimes a sermon; but never the Bible. Does your priest recommend the reading of the Bible in your families? No! Now, in a few words, are you enlightened, or are you blind, without the Bible? Ah! If the most learned of men, without it you are nothing; for through it alone moral light streams up upon the world. This is no mere Protestant opinion, for David says in his Psalms, " the Word of God is the light of our feet;" and Saint Peter, " the Word of God is the lamp which lights us in darkness of this world." Romanists reject this light; blindness is their duty. Become a tree, a block, a stone, an unreasoning beast, and you are a good Roman Catholic! But the Apostle of the Gentiles says, "give to the faith a reasonable answer." Therefore, to have true faith, you must first be persuaded of it; you must examine and discuss it well, that you may give for your faith a reasonable answer. Be Roman Catholics only because your parents were, and you are not reasonable believers, but unreasoning beasts. * A second cause of Romish blindness is the Latin worship. Having, in a subsequent Lecture, to examine this point more narrowly, I now only say to Roman Catholics who do not understand Latin, and have not a translation, my dear brethren, do you know anything about your Latin worship? When you pray to the Virgin Mary with an Ave Maria, what do you think about that Latin Ave Maria? When you pray to your Heavenly Father with Pater noster qui es in coelis, what do you know about your Pater noster? When you invoke the Virgin Mary with your Salve Regina, what do you know about your Salve Regina? More; your mass is in Latin; do you understand a word of it? Not one! + * This argument is often met with a text, " whoever does not obey you, does not obey me, and whoever obeys you, obeys me." But before, Christ said, " as my Heavenly Father sent me, I sent you; whoso will not obey you, he does not obey me," did not exclude, but included, the searching of the scriptures. Then, after having searched the scriptures, and found that the preaching of the priest accords with the Word of God, whoso disobeys the priest, also disobeys God. Saint John says, in his first epistle, " do not believe any spirit, but try the spirits." Saint Paul said to the Galatians, " examine my doctrines, and if they agree with the Word of God, embrace them; if not, I authorise you to anathematise my words." Saint Paul said to the Thessalonians, " prove all things, hold fast by that which is good." The Holy Ghost tell us (Acts, xvii.) that the brethren of Berea were praised before God, in not obeying blindly the teaching of the Apostle Paul, but controlling it by the Word of God. The conclusion is, to be a good Christian you must not blindly obey, but try and control your priest with the Word of God. + When I was in Italy, I sometimes amused myself by going into the Churches, to hear the people pray in Latin. No theatre could afford a better specimen of comedy than the people singing psalms, canticles, hymns, litanies in the unknown language, making so many and ridiculous errors, that no buffoonery on the stage could match them. Saint Paul forbids us to pray in an unknown tongue, because the heart remains untouched and cold. From such a worship the Roman Catholic goes away without profit, without moral or spiritual advantage, with a frigid heart and an uninstructed mind. The main object is, that the people may not understand; the result, that not one in ten thousand can give any reason for his worship. The last proof of blindness is that Romish priests prevent enlightenment. In Italy it is not extraordinary that people living among Romanists remain in darkness and prejudice; but, in Protestant countries, Roman Catholics, if they would, could enlighten themselves; and by discussion, sermons, lectures, newspapers, tracts, be masters of themselves, and even conclude in favour of Popery. Then it might be called their religion, being one of intelligent choice. This their priests prevent!* If they did not, their power, based on error, would vanish forever.+ My second principal proposition is, that the individual in the Popish system is superstitious, because his veneration * I can speak from my own experience. In Italy, when we preached the liberal cause, even when I was employed by Pius IX. to preach the crusade against the retrograde priests, the Jesuits forbade their penitents to hear me or Ugo Bassi. It is the same in Protestant countries. In England, the priests prevented many from hearing me; here they say from their pulpits, "You must not go." My answer is simple. If, clearly, I am not only an apostate, but a real devil, (only without the horns and tail;) if I speak falsehoods; let the Roman Catholics hear them, that thus they may confirm themselves in their apostolical Popish church; lies and falsehood cannot destroy a true church. If I be only a humbug, there is no danger in hearing a humbug. But if I speak the truth, and they prevent whom they can from hearing me, the inference is obvious. + This being the first of the free lectures announced in No. 2 of the present course, a large portion of the audience was of the lower Irish class. A storm of hisses and groans interrupted the lecturer at this point, and several ladies showed signs of alarm. He said,- I pray the ladies not to fear. A few hisses will hurt no one; and they do not spoil my facts and reasonings. Yet, it seems ungentlemanly to hiss; and where so many ladies are present, I appeal to the Irishmen to show their good feeling and good manners, by preventing the disturbance caused by a few persons. I think Ireland is often unjustly reviled. I know that the Irish priests keep the people in ignorance, and their country is frequently termed a savage country; but the way for Irishmen to escape the imputation, to show that in America, when no longer under the control of their priests, they are gentlemen,- is to restore order here, and prevent the scandal which will spread, namely, that Irishmen know not how to conduct themselves in such a place as this. It is not to Frenchmen, Germans, nor Italians that this tumult will be charged, but to Irishmen; so that their national character is at stake. But if they, or any others, hope to intimidate me from my duty by hisses or groans, they are miserably mistaken. for his clergy produces superstition. More; superstition re-acts, and increases veneration for the clergy. There is an ancient proverb- "the more blind, the more bigoted;" as veneration for the clergy increases, so does their power. No wonder then that they promote that superstition on which is based their self-interest. I now make only a few remarks on this head; it shall be handled more fully in a subsequent lecture. Especially in Ireland the Romish Clergy are worshipped as a God. In Italy, yes and no. In Germany, certainly not. In Ireland the priest as a God; the parish priest more than a God.* I say nothing, not liking to entertain my audience with particular facts; in Italy we are less bigoted; we respect our priests, for fear of the Inquisition.+ We are also more sincere; because, when, publicly, a priest lives not too correctly, we say " he is immoral."++ In Ireland and Scotland I thought that, before Protestants, they would use more caution. No -safe in the obstinate blindness of their flocks, they live, in many instances, with the greatest scandal to Christianity. The Irish persist in not perceiving. " But you see some things ," " oh! it is untrue, he is a very holy man." Were God’s word read, superstition could not be maintained, many practices of their priesthood would appear as they are, designed to make miserable slaves. I promised to expose the principal superstition of Ireland, that of the Purgatory of Saint Patrick,^^ one of the chief engines to * I know by experience that some Roman Catholics in Ireland say, " if our priest look at us severely, in an unpaternal, unfriendly manner, we fear that we are going to the devil; and if he spit against our door, and give us a blow, we fear the curse of God." Fear nothing! Or rather, fear only for your pockets- for the priest will tell you, " I will look on you as a father, if you pay me for a mass." + There are in Italy some priests who deserve a good reputation; but, so few that, when one is found, he is publicly called "the holy man." ++ We even know by name the holy and spiritual sisters of their immorality. ^^ I shall always call Patrick a great Saint, leader, and Christian patriot, very different from the Doctors Cullen, McHale, Kyle, those primates of Ireland who now act the part of despots. I repeat that the Irish are the best people in the United Kingdom for mind and Heart. enslave the Irish mind. It is founded upon a Legend from the Roman breviary.* This Purgatory is in the County of Donegal, on the Island of Lough Derg, which means, the Red Lake. To it throng pilgrims from all parts of Ireland, who, as they come within sight of the holy Island, pull of their shoes and stockings, uncover their heads, and walk to the Lake with crosses and beads in their hands. Ferried to the island, they first go and ask the blessing of the prior of the convent. They next proceed to the altar of Saint Patrick, at which they kneel and pray; and then walk seven times round the chapel, kissing twice the cross before it. Next they go to the seven hard stones, called the Penitential Beds of the Seven Saints, who, in old times, were the Seven Sleepers there. They go thrice round each bed, praying; kneel, praying also, before each bed; enter each bed separately, circulating it thrice in the inside, and pray : which done, they kneel inside each bed, and again pray. They next go to several sacred stones in the midst of the lake; they pray at the first, and walk three times round it in the water; they do the same at the second , third, and other stones, always in the water. Next, they return to the chapel, and pray to the Virgin Mary, going through her psalter, namely, one hundred and fifty aves and fifteen paters. Thus one station is finished. It must be repeated thrice a day, at sunrise, noon, and sundown. This pious labour is continued for nine days, only bread and water being allowed the pilgrims. On the ninth day, generally, the prior and heart. I am acquainted with many Irishmen, Protestants and Catholic, and I can say for myself I have found the Irish, like my own Italians, warm-minded and warm-hearted; so that I exclaim, what a pity such a people should be crushed under the feet of a Romish priesthood. * For the benefit of the Irish present, the calculations made in lecture VI., First Course, were here repeated. The Lecturer continued thus: In ancient Irish times, I suppose, there were only twenty-four hours to the day; consequently either this story is false, or Saint Patrick was neither founder of the Irish Church, nor the apostle of Irishmen. But we will disbelieve the tale, and believe in the glorious apostle. "Ab ungue leonem," "know the lion by his claws;" and so from one priestly superstition know all. takes them and imprisons them in St. Patrick’s Cave, without light, air, food or water for twenty-four hours, all which time they are bound to spend in prayer. On the morning of the tenth day they are taken out, and go naked into the lake to wash their bodies, and especially their heads, to signify that they are entirely cleansed from their sins. After this they have no fear of the second purgatory; because the monks, and especially the prayer-book, say that they will escape it’s flames, or at least , get off with a small and short penance. So efficacious is this purgatory that it not only cleanses the pilgrims themselves; but, if you pay a pilgrim to torment himself for your benefit, you may sit quietly at home, enjoying your punch and pipe, while the money you have paid him applies all his sufferings to the good of your soul, absolves you from your sins, and makes you free of purgatory in the world to come! There is the superstition! Yet it has one good. You may ask me what. I will tell you; it washes some Catholic Irishmen, who but for it, would never wash themselves in all their lives! Such are the superstitions by which the Romish Clergy increase the veneration they are regarded with; and, as a result, their authority and influence-from which flows the last branch of my lecture; namely, that the authority and influence of the priest makes the individual in the Popish system poor and miserable. In that system, the people are nothing, the priests all. Worse; as I shall prove in a subsequent lecture, the people toil, and live in misery, to maintain the priesthood in luxury. Fear and persecution uphold this system. I speak practically and knowingly, for I am acquainted with all the modes practised by priests to intimidate sincere and fearless men. They persecute their victims.* * Some time ago there was in New York a young fellow, (people told me truly talented,) who, prompted, I suppose, by his heart, spoke warmly among his fellow-Irishmen, against the tolerance, superstition, and slavery which oppress them. What followed? The priests calumniated and persecuted him, till he was obliged to fly to them, and ask their pardon. Now they support him; and he in writing and speech is their slave, a new instrument to preach papistically to his fellow countrymen. Thus do they act upon a weak heart and feeble mind. When a Protestant, even a bishop, becomes a Romanist, the Protestant public speak of the fact once or twice, and then it is a dead fact. This I call Christian charity. But when a change of religion is on the other side, calumny, and all other bad means are set at work; in the newspapers, from pulpits, in society, everywhere, incessant persecution follows. This I call a truly unchristian and uncharitable system; calumny is the daily bread of that vicious system, as its foundation is a foundation of lies. In conclusion, I will say something about myself. I fear only the judgement of God, and of true and impartial public opinion. I am here to promote truth, not to preach an American gospel, and afterwards an Italian gospel different from the former. I have but one gospel, and I will preach in my Italy what I now preach here. I disclaim all that appears in the newspapers as reports of my addresses; because, my English being bad, I can badly, sometimes perhaps not all, convey my meaning; and I pity the reporters. If any one will judge and condemn my mission from reading these reports, he will commit a fault against reason and logic. Wait till my lectures are published under my own authority; then, and then only, you may pass judgement on me and my mission. I have been accused of attacking Temperance and Woman’s Rights Societies, and warning my countrymen against joining them. I respect the rights of women-but their rights in the Church I cannot admit beyond the limits assigned by Saint Paul; when he is answered, I will concede that point. I firmly deny the calumnies spread by the Irish-American newspaper, and with all the warmth of my heart call their authors liars.* But, thank God! not all are dependent on the Romish priests; not all will sell their souls to them. Thank God! there are some from Italy, and some from Ireland too, who are strong enough, and daring enough, despite all their machinations, to preach the pure gospel of Christ. * They have imputed to me calumnies upon Irish servants in Protestant families, to deprive those poor persons of employment. Oh! coward liars, I never said such a thing! If such were my opinion, I have the courage to sustain it before this or any audience in the world. What I said was that in London, England, some Roman Catholic girls, educated in a Convent of the Sisters of Mercy to be When a leading article and a stupid letter are written against me, and a little advertisement inserted, saying, "Do not go to hear this man who preaches against our poor Irish Roman Catholic girls," I have a right to say before an American audience, that you, Irish-American, are a liar, a liar in support of your Jesuits, and archbishop, and Romish system, which cannot subsist without lies. Meditate on my final conclusion. Irishmen, you work for the freedom of your country; but, remember, never shall Ireland be free while Irishmen are slaves to their priests. Irishmen, free yourselves from your priests, and you will also free your dear country! sent as nurses and servants into Protestant families, are Jesuit females and the best of spies. It is necessary to have the logic of the Editor of this half Irish half American paper, to extract from that proposition anything calculated to warp Protestant employers against all Irish chambermaids. I repeat; I respect individuals; I have nothing to say against the Irish Roman Catholic girls or servants; but I have against girls educated at Convents of the Sisters of Mercy to be servants in Protestant families. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 50: 02.030. INFALLIBILITY OF POPE ======================================================================== The Infallibility of the Pope Dr. Ian R. K. Paisley I shall prove that this claimed infallibility is against Scripture, reason, and history. The argument is old; yet, not useless now, as it may prevent the introduction among Protestants of some pseudo-infallibility, if not of the Popish infallibility itself. This infallibility is a Romish point of faith. * It rests on the same general ground that we have already found the Pope’s supremacy placed on; namely, his being St. Peter’s successor. Now, was Saint Peter infallible? If not, his successor, as such, cannot pretend to infallibility. "Yes, Saint Peter was infallible." Why? "Because Christ promised him infallibility." When? "When he said,-Peter, Satan will tempt you, but I pray my Heavenly Father that your faith may be preserved. Consequently Peter, in matters of faith, was immutable, and therefore infallible." But, Peter was not immutable, for he really fell, and thrice denied his Devine Master; being at that moment a real unbeliever. You say, "only externally;" but is an even external unbeliever a proper authority for an infallible dictum? Peter was then an apostate; an unbeliever; therefore, not infallible. + * It is defined as such where Popery is dominant. Here, and in other Protestant countries, the priest denies this before educated people; but in Italy I never heard from a priest the slightest doubt of the Pope’s infallibility; those who do not believe in it are called heretics, and are said to be found among Protestants only. It is a main and cardinal point of Romish Faith. + The early Christians were called by the Church apostates when they merely threw a few grains of incense on the fire of a false God; Infallibility is sought to be proved by Christ’s having called Peter the rock, as the Romanists say. In a former Lecture I clearly showed that Peter was not the Rock. * "But there are texts in which Christ twice promised to be with Peter to the end of time. Do not these make him infallible?" The texts are true texts, but by no means prove infallibility. Christ promised to be with his apostles (not Peter particularly) to the end of time. Christ promised to be with them, with his Church, present with them. Does that look like appointing a successor? + Alas! for Peter’s infallibility! Poor Saint Peter was a very good man, in many instances only a man; as, when he deserted Christ in his passion, when he denied Him in his anguish, when he did not assist Him in Golgotha, when, lest he should scandalise the Jews, he abstained from the society of the Gentiles. To err is human; to be infallible is to be Divine. But, for arguments’ sake, supposing the absurdity that Peter was infallible; still, is the Pope Peter’s successor? I have clearly shown that he is not. ++ for this external sign of apostasy, (perhaps without bad design, and with internal faith,) they were expelled from the Church. When Peter thrice denied Christ, the Jews, the Woman, and the soldiers, considered Christ what He was not; had Peter confessed his Divine Master, perhaps He would have suffered so much. Yes, even the apostle Peter was an apostate for the time. * See Lecture II. First Course. The promise was given for the Church of Christ, not for the Church of Peter; in support of the Church, not a man. Saints Ambrose, Augustine, Hilary, and Eusebius, agree that Peter, not being the rock, is not infallible. + Does any one who is not about to absent himself appoint a vicar or a successor? a vicar to one who himself performs his office? a successor to one who is present and continues his functions? No; Christ Himself is always with His church. ++ The proof from the "monuments" is of the same kind as that for the Irish Wells of Saint John and Saint Coleman, whose mysterious appearances are seen every year; and for the tales about the Mamertine Prison, and the Santa Maria in via, where Peter baptised the soldiers who guarded him. "Saint Peter was at Rome, because his chair is there!" By the same rule he must have been in another place, where he never could have been. A chair used by him (‘tis said) when he was bishop of Antioch, called the Antiochian chair, is at Venice; therefore, he was Bishop of Venice! But let us suppose Saint Peter was infallible, and that the Pope is his successor, and therefore infallible; still, a great question remains,-is Pius IX. infallible? To be so, he must be a Pope; but, is Pius IX. a Pope? You wonder. But the matter really is, and always must be, one of very great doubt. To have a Pope you must have a bishop; to have a bishop, a priest; to have a priest, he must have received Christian baptism, for which, the baptising priest must have had the intention to give it. But no one can ever know he had; therefore, no one can be sure Pius IX. is a Pope. * Pius IX. then, cannot claim infallibility, even as being certainly Pope. And even if certainly Pope, he is not the successor of Saint Peter; and even if Peter’s successor, he is not infallible. Neither history, reason, nor Scripture establishes Infallibility. Hear the emphatic word of David: "Each man is a liar." Not for any man, but for Himself alone, Christ made this assertion, "I am the way, the life and the truth;" therefore, the only Infallible is Christ. But Rome has a convenient way of arguing. She knows But Venice was built nearly four hundred and fifty years after he died. Could he have been at Venice, Bishop of Venice? The Venetians were once great merchants to the east; how easily they could bring this chair to Venice from Antioch, without the original owner ever having been there! Now, suppose that wherever is a chair of Saint Peter, there he must have been. But could either that at Venice or that at Rome have been his? No! The former is of Turkish construction, and has on it some sentences from the Koran; it may be a good Mohammedan, but it is a shockingly bad Christian chair. Mohammed wrote the Koran, therefore this chair must, be at the earliest, have been made in the seventh century; Saint Peter died in the first. Is this chair his? As to the Roman chair, Cardinal Wiseman, a great giant Goliath, met a little female David, Lady Morgan, who, using, instead of a sling, a book which she wrote, gave Cardinal Goliath Wiseman a great blow! In fact she proved that he made a very unlearned blunder. But, being a prince of the Roman Church, he has the privilege of confounding all things human and divine, without any imputation either upon his purity or his learning. * Even if the baptiser intended, it is still doubtful, for the same reason, that he was a priest; and the same doubt besets us at every stage. Infallibility implies certainty; we have mere supposition. what texts mean, because she is so infallible, and she is infallible because texts prove her so. * Further she says, "If you interpret for yourself, then, in the great variety of interpretations, you stray into a labyrinth, and are lost. You must have a guide through the Bible, and I am that guide." Yes; I admit it; to read honestly and rightly, it is necessary to have a guide, and this guide is the Bible itself. The affair is a private one between the individual and his God; between the soul of the Christian and the Holy Ghost. + An infallible Church! In the sense of the Saviour, a Church is any Christian congregation, large or small. He said, "where two or three of you are gathered together, I will be with you." This promise is to any few anywhere * To be at once witness and Judge is very pleasant. The infallibility proves the infallibility! Ah! You must prove it, not by itself, nor by the Pope, nor by your Church, but by the Bible! "The Bible proves my infallibility, and my infallibility proves the Bible." "I am infallible because I am infallible." That won’t do; logicians call it "a vicious circle." + Supposing the Bible, through variety of interpretation, were not a guide, what simple, consistent, and easily consulted substitute does Rome offer? The Canon Law, the Bulls, the Bullarium, the Canons of the Councils, &c, &c. The Canon Law is in twenty folio volumes, the Bullarium in twenty-four, the Canons of the Councils in forty-five; in all ninety folio volumes! Which is more apt to vary, the Bible, the Word of the One and Immutable God, or ninety folio volumes, composed by thousands of different men, in as many different centuries? Something a little worse than the tower of Babel! Blind guides! by the time you have read them, you will be blind yourself and on the edge of a precipice. A multitude of physicians give the speediest passport to the other world, while one good and true physician heals: so this multitude of guides is the prime origin of the confusion which reigns among Roman Catholics. According to Pius IV., Romanists receive the Bible in the sense of the Church, and the Church according to the unanimous consent of the Holy Fathers. But I have repeatedly shown that they never consent on any doubtful point. They pay a tribute to the Bible, it was the Bible originated the Fathers, not the Fathers the Bible. Thus Basilius, Cyrillus and Agustine, (especially the two former,) said, "Do not receive our teachings as doctrines, but try them by the Holy Book and the Inspired Word; and if you find them according to that Word, receive them, as being so, but not as our doctrines" The majority of the Fathers recognise, not Peter, but Christ in the text of Matthew, "Thou art Peter and upon this Rock, &c." Sometimes the Church recognises the Councils as infallible, sometimes not. congregated in his name. But does this promise give infallibility? No, he will be with them to aid, guide, and save them. This is not the Popish sense of a Church. According to Cardinal Bellarmino, and Father Perrone, both Jesuits, the Church is represented by the clergy and laity together. Generally speaking, the Councils were composed of clergy alone, the laity were excluded, especially in the latter ages. This is but half a Church; and the infallibility which Christ never promised to the whole, cannot be found with the half. Councils infallible! But even that was not enough. Bellarmino goes further: he says- "they are entitled to make new dogmas of faith, and cannot err, being God himself." No! Christ’s dogmas were enough! men cannot add to them. Councils infallible! No! Not even when general, ecumenical. Some of these were composed of fifty persons, not all bishops even, but part abbots. On the other hand, some National Councils consisted of two hundred bishops. These two hundred, collected for the Church’s sake, (as at the Tridentine Council), are infallible, because an Ecumenical Council! What is the number necessary? Some say eighteen, some sixteen, some twelve! The French receive the Councils of Basle and Constance, the Italians reject them. Here is an embroilment-confusion. Where is our rule of faith, our infallibility? * Christ gave the Bible not to bodies, but to individuals, not to the Church, but to the Christians. To individuals, not to the Apostles as a body, He said, "search the Scriptures." Saint Paul said, not to * Worse: some Councils taught heresies. Constantinople taught that those baptised by heretics, must be re-baptised; one of the Councils of Laodicea, that the soul of man is a corporeal being; both heresies! Nice condemned Arius, and Constantinople absolved him. Constantinople condemned Nice, Lateran condemned Basle. A council of Ephesus condemned Eutychus, and, nineteen years afterwards, a second Council of the same Ephesus absolved him. The Ecumenical Council of Constantinople declared the bread and wine images of Christ’s body in heaven; Lateran and Trent pronounced the fullest Transubstantiation. Constantinople and Basle asserted that councils are superior to the Pope; Lateran opposed the claim. Laodicea excluded the Apocrypha. Trent adopted them all! a body, but to individuals, "try the spirit;" also, "all the Inspired Word is useful, to make the perfect man of God, and instructed in all works." If aught seem obscure, pray to God; and your guide will be not a Jesuit, a Liguorist, a Dominican, a Council, a Pope, but the Holy Ghost. Thus Infallibility is against Scripture and reason. In the last place, it is against history. When is the Pope infallible? The most severe Romanists answer, when he speaks together with a Council. But whether is it the Pope who sanctions the Council, or the Council the Pope? If either originate doctrine, and the other approve it, the part of one is useless, for the infallible can do all. "But, they are infallible together." Ay! But, unfortunately, some Councils condemn the doctrine of Popes; while, on the other hand, certain Popes anathematise many Councils! "But we have infallibility when the Pope speaks ex cathedra, namely, in a Bull." * Let us see. Firstly, we must understand the Bull. Secondly, we must be certain that the Pope wrote it freely, uninfluenced by fear. Thirdly, we must know whether the Pope invoked the prayers of the whole church. Fourthly, we must be sure the Bull was inspired and suggested by all the bishops in the world. Fifthly, we must know that the Bull was received everywhere. Sixthly, we must be sure that not one among all the bishops refused to accept this Bull. Seventhly, we must be satisfied that the Bull touches on matters of faith or of custom. When I find any one man in all the world who is reasonably satisfied on all these points, I will let him believe in as many Bulls as he pleased. + * Bellarmino says, "a bull is certainly inspired by the Holy Ghost. If you try, you will find infallibility in all the Bulls." + To try a Bull by these seven points, suppose a good simple Yankee receives one. It is in Latin; he cannot read it; he gets another man to translate it; but is he sure the translation is correct? First difficulty! Then, he will find it very hard, tedious, and expensive to fulfil the remaining conditions. He must write or go to Europe, Asia, Africa, and Oceanica, to know weather every bishop in the world gave his prayers to the Pope, whether the Bull was accepted or refused, whether it touched matter of faith or custom. It may be said, "general certainty will do." No! This is a matter of the soul’s safety, and certainly must be complete. How long will it take Jonathan More; many Popes have been declared apostates and heretics. Marcellinus paid tribute to idols. Liberius denied the passion of Christ. John XXI. was condemned by the University of Paris for many errors. Vigilius, Honorius, John XXIII. were rightly accused as heretics. The Council of Constance gave some Popes the same title. Infallible Popes! Infallible heretics! * The Romanists have a great miracle-to get honey from vinegar. Their canon admits the Book of Wisdom, which says: "No bad soul shall ever enter the wisdom of God, and his wisdom shall never inhabit a body subject to sin." Therefore the wisdom of God, which is the infallibility of God, can never be given to Popes, for they are exceedingly subject to sin! "The Popes are holy men," says Rome. Yes, antonomatically , they are styled "Your Holiness," as a King is spoken of as "His Majesty." Come with me to Rome, and enter the palace of the Vatican. You find guards, chamberlains, prelates, cardinals, surrounding the Pope, this man living in more than imperial state, yet humbly signing himself "the Servant of the Servants of God." A servant living amid the homage of a Court, like an emperor, has a little too much irony in it. On one of his fingers this man wears a ring worth eight thousand dollars, is called the fisherman’ ring-as the ring of poor Saint Peter, which probably cost two cents. to get such certainty? But, suppose he has got it-out comes another Bull; (there are not less than three thousand of them.) He will want a long life! * What is still more amusing is to see some of those infallibles fighting for infallibility with others of the infallibles like dog and cat. Gregory the Great says, he who assumes the title of the universal bishop, is Satan; and Gregory VII. says the bishop of Rome is universal. Leo IX. is for, and Gregory XIII. against infallibility. Pope Vigilius is against, and Innocent III. for Transubstantiation. Pius V. by a Bull, declared the breviary correct; Urbanus VIII. declared the breviary of Pius V. full of errors. Sextus V. pronounces the Bible published by him correct; Clement VIII. says the Bible of Sextus V. contains two thousand capital errors. Clement XIV.. by an infallible Bull suppressed the Jesuits as fatal to the church and society. Pius VII. by another infallible Bull, re-established the Jesuits as useful to the church and society. Infallible? His Holiness! But not himself alone, all belonging to him, is holy. His palaces are called the very holy places; his gardens, the very holy gardens; his stables, carriages, horses, are all most holy. A stranger sees ten, twenty, or thirty horses in the street; he asks whose they are, and is told they "are the most holy horses." This is no exaggeration, no comedy to amuse you, but a common fact. Enter the most holy kitchen, and the most holy cook, (he has no other name in Rome,) will tell you "this is the most holy plum pudding." Is the Pope infallible because "the most holy father?" Then his roast beef must be also infallible, as being "the most holy roast beef." "My Father and I alone are holy," says Christ. Be not surprised if the term applied to sinful man is also debased to things the most vile. To be always infallible, it is necessary to be always Holy; but to read the history of the Popes-a transcript of crimes the most horrible and revolting.* Oh! to learn what Popes * Take only one epoch, from the ninth to the eleventh century; and consult only Roman Catholic writers, and those among the purest, Gilbert and Baronius; who state, that many Popes were apostates, and committed crimes degrading to human nature. Formosus became Pope by invading the Basilica of the Vatican where he erected an altar over the slaughtered bodies of the people. After a little, he was overcome, and dragged to death. His successor Stephen had his body taken from the sepulchre, dressed in pontifical robes-brought into conclave, and questioned about the crimes it committed when living. Receiving no answer, Stephen ordered three fingers of the right hand to be cut off, the corpse stripped naked, and cast into the Tiber. He then excommunicated all the followers of Formosus, and cancelled all his acts, so as to cover his memory with ignominy. A few months after, another Pope restored Formosus; a few days subsequently another condemned him and all his acts; and, finally, after seven or eight years, Pope John restored Formosus to all prerogatives and rights among Popes! After the death of Stephen and Boniface, Sergius III. was Pope-called by Baronius, Assassin-one of the worst of mankind. He was made Pope through the favour of Marozia and Theodora-the story of Messalina revived! Two sons of Sergius III., who succeeded him in the popedom, were the paramours, the one of his grandmother, the other of his mother. His son John, who killed his father, and was elected Pope in his seventh year, was called the Nero and Heliogabalus of the church. He committed such enormous licentiousness, that he gave rise to the story of Pope Joan, who was not a female but a male, with the most wicked female habits. were and are, go to Italy where they are known-incestuous murderers, assassins; no better now than in former days.* Here is our moral and practical conclusion. Americans, thank God that you are without Popes in your country! Try never to have Popes dominant among you! Keep your Bible-guard your Bible-read your Bible-fulfil the command of your Bible-under the guidance of the Holy Ghost be faithful to your Bible, and to it alone! If any one endeavor to introduce amongst you human authority instead of the authority of the Bible, even though he be in Protestant disguise, Americans distrust him! Americans, beware! it is Satan introducing the Pope and Popery into your country! * Pope Gregory XVI. was a public drunkard, and publicly recognised as an adulterer. The present Pius IX. to speak benevolently of him, is a vile apostate from the Italian cause, a vile calumniator of his fellow-countrymen, and a vile leader of the cursed system of despotism now prevailing in Europe. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 51: 02.031. THE JESUITS ======================================================================== The Jesuits Dr. Ian R. K. Paisley We will consider the Jesuits, firstly, in regard to themselves; secondly, in regard to the Church; finally, in regards to society. * In regard to themselves. Many will tell me that they know some Jesuits who are very gentle, kind, and learned men. I also know many individuals whose only sin is that they are Jesuits, being otherwise charitable, pious, gentle, and learned; but that is not our question. We do not speak about individuals, but about Jesuits, as members of the Society of Jesus. Hear my popular comparison. In a picnic, each brings a dish or wine, usually the best; fish, fowl, venison, plum puddings, pies, soup, salad, champagne, claret. But suppose the director, by some caprice, mixes all together, all would cry, "very bad!" Why? The fish was good as fish, the fowl as fowl; but, when all were mixed together, they were no longer good. So, some Jesuits are very good fish, and some excellent fowl; but all together are shockingly bad. Therefore we do not speak against father Peter nor against father Paul, but against father Jesuit. * The Lecturer observed that he would give two free Lectures in this Course for the industrial classes, especially the Irish, having been invited by several Irish Roman Catholics to do so; that he was wronged when accused of assailing the Irish - for that he always asserted their genius for poetry and oratory; that it was against their priests, who enslaved them, he spoke; that the proceeds of one Lecture would be for the Piedmontese exiles. He respected highly the kind Piedmont Government, and meant it no slight; but as it was, to it, a necessity to banish those deluded men, so it was, to persons in America, a charity to aid them. "But, they are very moral." I have nothing to say against the individual morality of the Jesuits. The Pharisees presented a good exterior, but we know what Christ said of them. The Jesuits are holy outside, but, tear down the walls, as the voice said to the prophet Daniel, and you will see the abomination of desolation. The Society of Jesus has ever been considered in the highest degree immoral by all enlightened people.* But they cultivate passive obedience, and their panegyrists extol it, the worst and most dangerous of their maxims. The Jesuit is a good Jesuit only when no longer a man; let him become a stone, or as it is said by the ascetics, as a corpse, and then he is a perfect Jesuit! Obedience! to God it is a virtue ; to astute and fallible man, it is a stupidity, a vice. God created a man to be a man, not a stone; therefore to become a stone, is not a virtue before God. The first ’gift of God to man is liberty; to lose it willingly is to despise the Word of God. Every reasonable being was made to use his reason for his salvation and that of his brethren; he who renounces his reason, renounces the work of God. You guide your horses where you will, because they are irrational. When the father Superior, Provincial, and General of the Jesuits guides that body, he does not direct men, but drives beasts. This obedience is fatal to society. You call the force of an army brute, because the men blindly obey, and, generally, for the destruction of happiness and freedom. The Jesuits are called "a company " that is "an army;" without will, reason, discretion; having merely the passive obedience which belongs to "brute force." That of armies has ever been fatal to society; that of Jesuits to religious freedom, and constitutional government. But their motto is, " ad majorem Dei gloriam;" their end "the greater glory of God." Christ promoted the glory, At Montepulciano, the people and the bishop himself, on discovering the lascivious correspondence of father Gombard, expelled him. In our last crusades, when the Italian volunteers entered Modena, and despoiled the college of the Jesuits, they found and preserved a large epistolary correspondence between the holy fathers and their secret lovers of the confessional and nunnery. They do not give open scandal-thus more dangerous. the Jesuits, more instructed. Promote the greater glory, of God! Christ, to promote God’s glory, preached charity, honesty, justice, reasonable religion, the Jesuits, to uphold "Christ’s Vicar," which is their greater glory, preach mental reservation, perjury, immoralities, regicide, the subversion of society. The proverb says "extremes are dangerous;" when not content with the glory of God, as inculcated by Christ, I fear I but aid, by their means, the "greater glory" of the Jesuits. Extremes in religion lead immorality. They exclaim, "the Church cannot subsist without the Jesuits."* The primitive Church was true; it had no Jesuits. "But times and men are changed; what was unnecessary then, is necessary now." When the false Church trembled before Luther, Calvin, and other reformers, the Jesuits suddenly arose to support it. It cannot exist without them; destroy them and it perishes. Did Christ inspire Ignatius Loyola to establish the society of Jesuits? No! His true Church did not need it. Therefore, the Church which does is Antichrist’s, and Satan inspired Ignatius Loyola! The Jesuits have corrupted the worship, the morals, and the faith of the Church. Superstitions especially increased after their establishment. + * The Jesuit fathers Curci, Bresciani, Pellico, their modern historian Creteneau Joly, and many others, have repeated this little blasphemy. + From the Jesuits we have the Malabarians, infamous rites. They encouraged and supported the worship of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and the Sacred Heart of the Virgin Mary. They invented the holy farce of Good Friday called " the three hours of our Saviour’s anguish on Golgotha." They promoted the worship of the forty hours, in which the wafer is presented to the people for particular adoration. For three centuries no superstition, no idolatrous worship, has been introduced into the Church of Rome, that was not particularly patronized by the Jesuits. Some ten or twenty Years ago, they patronized the worship of Sancta Philomena, the worst among Christians, as encouraging all species of immorality. And now, especially in England and America, is cultivated by them the worship of Saint Alphonso Liguori, whose books are the most fanatical, and sometimes the most stupid, ever written among Papists. I have no time, and it is not my business now, to discover all the kinds of turpitude introduced into their theology by the Jesuit fathers Busembau, Eacobar, The morality of the Jesuits is extolled. The Protestant morality is to say "Yes" Or "NO" according to the fact. But the Jesuit is not so hampered; he has his "mental reservation"* The last degree of immorality is the theory of father Molinos, called quietism, by which all immoralities are permitted, provided that the mind be quiet in God. + The Jesuits taught the killing of kings. True many were murdered before the order existed; but that order first taught that it is honest, just, and right to kill a tyrant king, - when the Jesuits have declared him a tyrant! The cardinal point and ground of these immoralities is the theory of Fathers Tirino, Nicolai, and others, that "the end justifies the means." Saint Paul teaches otherwise; but they say, commit any amount of evil to do a little good; and as the greatest good is to promote the Jesuitical cause, to promote it, it were necessary to subvert, to oppress, all Europe, all the new World, to kill all the inhabitants of both these continents, it is right to subvert, to oppress, to kill! True to their origin (to oppose the reformers of the six- and especially Sanchez, who wrote a book on marriage. Sanchez’s treattise is so licentiously infamous, that beside it the lasciviousness of Lucretiss, Horace, or Juvenal, looks like the writing of a holy father; yet he is now a vulnerable servant of God. *An illustration. Suppose that a Jesuit, going to murder, is asked, "are you going to murder?" He replies "no;" and truly, according to his morality; because he was not, suppose, proceeding on foot, that is literally going, but was about to be carried in any sort of a conveyance, to the place of the murder! Another. In Latin volo signifies "I wish" and also "I fly." Suppose it is a fast-day, and you ask a Jesuit, in Latin, "Do you wish to eat a chicken?" he replies, "non volo." To you his answer means, "I do not wish;" but although he longs for the fowl, he does not lie, because to him it means, "I do not fly!" The Jesuit can swear thus; he is master of himself, and has a sense of his own mind, which keeps him from perjury! Very easy! Very elastic! The Jesuit can seem what he is not. Especially by the theology of Saint Alphonso Liguori, the compendium of all Jesuitical divines, if you are a Romanist, but live in America among Protestants, you can, for God’s "greater glory," seem in every way a Protestant. + Get only into this blessed state, and though you rob, kill your brother, father, wife, keep your body in lust, yet, with your mind in God, all is quietude and holiness. The parliament of Paris condemned this doctrine of Mollinos as fatal to society. teenth century), their great aim is to war against Protestantism called in their language "the bad heresy." To obtain their end more easily, they have no particular dress, place, office, nor name; so that you have Jesuits as Jesuits, Jesuits as Liguorists, Jesuits as Redemptionists, Jesuits as Capucins, Jesuits as Newmanists. They are in the dress of priests, of soldiers, of magistrates, of policemen, and so on. They are always everywhere. * Come now, and recognize if you can, the Jesuits among you in America. You often see here a Polish, French, ay, or an Italian refugee, who speaks warmly for the freedom of his native country, declaims against tyrants, tyranny, and the Pope, and wears a large moustache. You think he is an ardent exiled patriot-ah, my friends! He is a Jesuit in disguise! "Do you see any one coming in just now?" A poor, small insignificant little fellow! "Come in! You are welcome." He is no higher than Tom Thumb. With his large boots he looks more like a postilion than a Courier. He has two great spurs on his boots, and spectacles on his eyes. He looks like a Spaniard, but speaks French. "Come in; you are welcome!" I have the honour to introduce to my audience little Tom Thumb, called in New York " the Courier of the United States," the organ of the French population! Oh, my poor boy! You are the Courier of the United States, and you dare to say I am wrong when I speak so loudly and so warmly against France! My naughty boy! I am not the Courier of the United States, as I am not going to Paris, to solicit the cross of the Legion of Honour, and a pension from the bastard Bonaparte! My naughty boy! I speak warmly and passionately against France, because when a man has witnessed two thousand brethren wounded, mutilated, killed by a French army, that man never can have sympathy for the French Liberticide nation. I speak against France, not the liberal France, the patriot France, which is the minority of * Father Personio, the first Jesuit who went to England, assumed the dress of a Spanish officer, and was received as such at the Court of Queen Elizabeth. He it was who prepared the gunpowder plot. Father Garnet, the head of the plot, had five different names, as came out upon his trial. the French people, but against that France which sold her liberty for a glass of champagne at Satory. You call yourself the organ of the French population. Oh! Poor Spaniard! You are not. Read, my little boy! This is a true Frenchman; this is the great Quinet, the greatest philosopher in our ace of philosophic history, expelled from France by the Jesuits; and this true Frenchman. In dedicating, his work on the Revolution in Italy, offered it in these words: " To the exiled Italians this work is dedicated, as a personal expiation for the murder of Italy consummated by Frenchmen." This is a Frenchman who speaks thus, a true Frenchman. In Italy we honour such Frenchmen, and the France which produced such a man. Remember, my boy, remember; we have no anger against you, but we will give you an advice: " Henceforth do not call yourself the organ of the French population, but the organ of Archbishop Hughes; and never for the future, style yourself " Courier of the Jesuits throughout the United States." Such are the instruments in the hands of Jesuits for spreading and supporting their doctrines and theories. But they have a still more dangerous weapon-especially for you. Americans, remember my words. Where their males can obtain nothing, their missions are conducted by females. Accordingly, within the last ten years we find in America thousands and thousands of nuns. They go by all kinds of names - ladies of the Sacred Heart of Jesus - they are Jesuitesses! Sisters of Mercy -Jesuitesses Sisters of Charity - Jesuitesses! The crafty serpent knowing he would lose his time with Adam, tempted Eve. Painted and beautiful, he pleased her and she fell. Graceful and endearing, she pleased Adam, and he fell. Jesuit men would probably lose their time among Protestants; but when there come to America fine and beautiful sisters, nuns so well dressed and speaking French so well, kind and pious ladies drink those nuns’ words into their hearts, to be thence transmitted to the hearts of their husbands and children! Thus do nuns make proselytes: thus have they made many in England. Remember my words: To teach young girls to tend in hospitals the sick and dying, nuns, Sisters of Mercy, of Charity, are not needed because Protestant ladies, the wives and mothers of America, suffice to instruct their Protestant children. To carry the aids, of charity and mercy to their suffering fellow beings! To conclude the second branch of my argument; Frederick the Great of Prussia called the Jesuits the grenadiers of the Pope; Voltaire, the pioneers of the Pope, Niccolini, the mamelukes of the Pope. Jesuits and Pope cannot exist apart. They are the columns and the foundation of the temple of Dagon; and we invoke from heaven Samson to embrace them, Pope and Jesuits together, and give a strong and hearty pull that. Will level them with the dust, though he himself perish under the ruins. The third branch of my discourse is, the baneful influence of Jesuits upon society, great and small, public and private. We may look on society in a triple aspect, mind, heart, and pocket; against each the Jesuits are ever plotters. Against mind, especially, monopolizing education. A few instances will suffice to show their spirit and character as teachers. In Italy they are the bitterest enemies of Dante, the Shakespeare of the Italians. To suck the blood out of our nation, they exclude Dante from their schools. Their last great effort in France, (also in Austria,) was to expel the classic models of Greek and Latin literature. Why? Because those lights of antiquity are too republican for the Jesuit taste. * De Maistre and Creteneau-Joly the two greatest historians of the Jesuits, relate that in the French Revolution no pupil of the Jesuits took part. Thus, Americans, if, in the time of your Washington, as now, the Jesuits had here thousands of pupils, not one of them would have had a This was the reason given for excluding them from the University of Paris, and the schools of Rome. But they had substitutes ready; in Italy, Fathers Bettinelli and Segnieri in France, Father Bourdaloue; Jesuits instead of classics! Judge what kind of scholars are made from studying such works; Jesuit - teachers wake Jesuit scholars, pupils of no progress. Quinet and Michelet, the two greatest stars of the day, were expelled from Paris, and afterwards from France, by the intrigues of the Jesuits, that they might have their chairs for themselves. heart or a hand for his country! And they now dare to have schools in America, and find even among Americans to speak for them. Look at England! There fifty years ago Pitt and others proclaimed freedom of instruction, and permitted the endowment of the Roman Catholic College of Maynooth. It increased to thirty thousand pounds sterling a year, and what were the results? The teaching of rebellion, opposition to the law, disobedience to the sovereign; the countenancing of ribbon societies in the colleges by the priests - the instigation to riots. Learn a practical lesson on the wisdom of allowing Jesuits even a share in public education Thus do Jesuits act upon the mind and heart of a nation! But I have the strongest argument for Americans, namely, that of dollars! When coming here in the steamer Baltic I read a sermon preached for your Webster, by, I think, Theodore Parker, from which I learned for the first time that your American people are very fond of dollars. I do not despise dollars myself, for the good they can afford, nor you for loving them. But the Jesuits do not despise dollars either, and if you like a few, they like a great many. They and their emissaries have some particular arts for catching your American dollars, the art of the Confessional, and especially the art of persuading people to make last wills and testaments in favour of themselves. * * In Milan, a few years ago, the Count Melerio, one of the principal men of the city, went to the noblemen residing there, when they were near death, to induce them to leave something to the Society of Jesus. In a few years Count Melerio, it is stated, has thus procured six millions of Italian pounds for the Jesuits! It is related in a Jesuit history, that, in the beginning of this Society, its Father Rector, in Ghent, granted one Jacob Briar, on payment, of two hundred thousand florins, (that is, only one hundred and fifty thousand dollars!) a passport to defend him against every attack of the devil! The facade of a College and Church in Bologna being, unfinished, the. Marquis G-- was induced to will a large sum annually to the Jesuits, until they should have completed it. Three or four years were sufficient; but, the Jesuits enjoyed the income during one hundred and twenty-five! When they were suppressed at the end of the last century, the facade remained as it was, and it is not yet finished. Every year the Fathers were "going to complete it," but, with a little mental reservation! Watch the Jesuits, avowed or disguised, to prevent the robbery of your families, the moral assassination of your sons and daughters. In a large view of society, you still find the Jesuit influence fatal. If kings and rulers are fond of Jesuits, Jesuits support them; if they despise Jesuits, Jesuits menace and conspire against them. * Jesuits are essentially absolutists; by education they prefer despotism. + It now only remains for me to say something about yourselves, Americans. Not more than twelve or thirteen years ago I was in the Propaganda Fide, and then I knew that the Jesuits were coming to America to proselytise you. In 1847 they were really expelled from Italy, from Naples, from Piedmont, from Lombardy, from everywhere. I suspected many went to England, and perhaps more to America. People here say. "We do not know anything about that; we cannot interfere." My suspicion is now certainly; in Baltimore, the first thing I heard from Italians, was, "here, in Pennsylvania, and Virginia, there are many Jesuits; they speak French and Italian very well; they are five years here; just the time since their expulsion from Italy." This is In Naples, about eighteen years ago, a childless, dying man, whose brother, poor, honest, and celebrated for his learning, had five or six children, left eighty thousand dollars to the Jesuits, saying he did so because they were so powerful they would never allow a fraction to reach his brother, whom he wished totally cut off. By this man’s dying bed a Jesuit stood as Father Confessor, and in his last will he said, "I leave my especial curse to my brother and his children." Thus he died. This is Jesuit morality. * Remember the true history of Europe, and the doctrine of Father Escobar, about killing kings. The Father Provincial Malagrida gave the order to wound John VI. of Portugal. In the gunpowder plot there were three Jesuits, especially Father Garnet. Henry IV. was wounded to death by an assassin, and the guilt was rightly imputed to Father Gardiner. Malagrida, Garnet, and Gardiner were hung by the civil law. + It is for this reason I fear Jesuits in America. On the continent of Europe I see everywhere the combination, despots and Jesuits; in Austria, in Naples, in Tuscany, (though in disguise and by their emissaries,) in Lombardy, in the Roman States. And whenever I find a liberal and constitutional government, there I find Jesuits menacing it. the fruit of that saying of theirs, "what we have lost in Italy we must regain in America." Oh, good Americans, do you suppose they are working for the American nation, the American glory? They work for themselves and Rome alone! People ask, "What practical conclusion do you propose?" This is my answer-if I were in my native country, as, under God’s blessing, I hope to be, perhaps before the end of this year, I should say to my Italians, "To-morrow, in this land, let there be no Jesuits!" and it would be so. I preach no assassination, no murder, no killing, I say, "Go out-we will pay your expenses-go!"* In America all are free. But remember-before the revision of your Constitution all were not free to work against your law and republic Constitution. Let there be no assassination, murdering, or killing; but, watch their movements, and in the first case where you find a Jesuit really teaching a doctrine contrary to your American freedom, working practically against your Constitution and your liberty, take the opportunity-expel the Jesuits from your country, and then your freedom will be placed on a secure basis! But now a dreadful outcry-"This is preaching discord among those who lived peaceably together; the fatal lectures of Father Gavazzi!" Yes, war against the devil and evil, therefore against Jesuits and Jesuitism. War to the last, because these very insinuations prove the secret work of Jesuits among you. They excite the public press, and public men to speak these words in order to work undisturbed, and yet protected by public opinion. Fear me, reproach me, and then go forth and see whether you may not find something not very honourable for your America. In England I was told, "You will find in America stubborn independence." *In England I clearly said, "English people, you call yourselves serious and logical, but in my opinion you are very illogical. There is a law against Jesuits in your country, (contained in the Act of Emancipation,) and yet you now have, instead of fourteen Jesuits, as before the law, five hundred Jesuits, in spite of the law. I do not preach persecution, but legality. Expel the Jesuits from England, and you will be called a legal and consistent people." I find in America many and many Protestants with no independence at all, but really and truly dependant on Romanists. You have among you some politicians who cry "Peace! Tolerance! Leave all free!" Why? They expect votes from Romanists! this is really great independence! I find in America some, (fortunately not the majority,) some public writers, some belonging to the public press, editors and proprietors of newspapers, who always speak of Romanists with great deference. On Protestant glories and achievements they are dumb; but they burst into loud panegyrics, and give lengthy details, to commemorate the laying of the corner-stone of a Popish building, the last consecration by Archbishop Hughes, and the recent sermon of the Reverend Dr So-and-so. Oh great independence! They fear to lose four or five cents a week from their daily or weekly income. But why this subservience to the Popish system? I do not speak particularly about politicians, because, as it is said in ordinary, they have no religion at all; they are Christians, Jews, Pagans, Papists; it is all the same to them; they only look to their places; twenty thousand dollars in London, in Paris, or somewhere else, is the essence of their religion. But why do they and the rest so fawn upon the Romanists? They know the Romanists are united. Therefore they say, " I will pay my court to the Archbishop of New York; he can command twenty, thirty, forty thousand votes, and I will get the votes," thus they pay their court to Archbishop Hughes. Oh, Protestants! profit by the lesson. It is union among, Romanists that makes their influence. Unite Protestants, and you will hold the balance of power in this, your own country. In Baltimore I was ashamed to see a hundred and fifty thousand Protestants overawed by fifty thousand Romanists. Before the Italian exile you will not do honour to your nation if you appear to him so dependent-permit him to say, in some instances, with a cowardly dependence on Romanists. I cannot preach persecution of the Romanists, but in a Protestant country, in which Protestantism makes the freedom and the glory of the people, I cannot permit--- [The rest is lost in applause.] Remember my last word of this evening. Your glorious, your American Washington did not fight against England in order to prepare the present generation to kneel before Archbishop Hughes, or any Romanist or Papist upon earth. His toil was given, his blood was shed, that you, Americans, might be always a Protestant, and by being a Protestant, always a great, a free, and a glorious nation! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 52: 02.032. CULT OF MARY - 1 ======================================================================== Cult of Mary - Part One The Church of Rome Not A Church of Jesus Christ But The Cult of Mary Dr. Ian R. K. Paisley Rome is not the Church of Jesus Christ let alone the true Church, but rather the synagogue of Mary, a cult of papal invention. In the true Church of Jesus Christ our Lord Jesus Christ has all the preeminence. In the Church of Rome Mary, by order of the Roman Antichrists, has all the preeminence. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit are demoted to secondary places by the order of the self-professed infallible popes. The entire Godhead must stand aside for Mary - note it must be emphasized not Mary, the virgin mother of the Christ Child but a woman of Rome’s own invention as far apart from the Mary of the New Testament as heaven is from hell. It is my task to lay the foundation of Bible truth in contrast to the inventions of Popery on this subject to trace the continuing development of Rome’s falsehoods about Mary and her increasing advancement; and then to consider the exaltation of Mary to the jettisoning of the true doctrine of God. It will be my task to discuss how Rome exalts her Mary at the expense of God the Father and God the Son. MARY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT IS NOT THE MARY OF ROME The Bible Revelation of Mary the Mother of our Lord is quite easily summarized. The New Testament has little to say of Mary. Her last recorded words the Church of Rome would do well to head, ‘Whatsoever He (the Lord) saith, do it.’ Then silence. No further record of her speech. During our Lord’s ministry we read of her and her sons and daughters seeking Him and this drew from his lips the rebuke, ‘Who is my mother and who are my brethren?’ Matthew 12:46-50. Mary was present at the Cross-where Christ disassociated Himself from her giving John the duty of sonship. Notice, Christ never addressed her as ‘Mother’ but always as ‘Woman’ She is lastly mentioned as being an attendant at the pre-Pentecostal upper room prayer meeting. Professor Boettner states: ‘The apostles did not show her any special honour. Peter, Paul, John and James do not mention her name even once in the epistles which they wrote to the churches. John took care of her until she died, but he does not mention her in any of his three epistles or in the book of Revelation. When the church was instituted at Pentecost there was only one name given among men whereby we must be saved, that of Jesus (Acts 4:12). Wherever the eyes of the church are directed to the abundance of grace, there is no mention of Mary. Surely this silence is a rebuke to those who would build a system of salvation around her. God has given us all the record we need concerning Mary, and that record does not indicate that worship or veneration in any form is to be given to her. How complete, then, is the falsehood of Romanist that gives primary worship and devotion to her!’ To sum up, Mary was the Divinely chosen woman to be the channel for the incarnation in flesh of the second person of the Holy and Divine Trinity, God the Son. For the privileged of that special honour, however, she has been termed in the following manner in the Scriptures, ‘Blessed art thou amongst woman’ - not above or before or above. In the earliest days of the New Testament Church that scriptural view was upheld and affirmed. With the apostasising of truth and the development of the Papacy, Rome commenced her invention and dogma of the cult of Mary and has now produced the figure of the Roman Mary, another Mary unrecognizable as the Mary of Scripture - Mary the mannequin of the Roman catwalk. The Mother of God is Rome’s term. She is Rome’s supreme goddess and deity, her greatest idol. Mariolatry has become the greatest idolatry of the Papal system. Rome glories in 1. HER PECULIAR SINLESSNESS 2. HER ETERNAL VIRGINITY 3. HER CO-REDEMPTORIST STATUS 4. HER IMMACULATE CONCEPTION 5. HER UNLIMITED MIRACLES 6. HER BODIY ASSUMPTION 7. HER CORONATION AS QUEEN OF HEAVEN 8. HER EVER DEVELOPING POSITION AS HIGHER THAN GOD 9. HER MANY FEASTS 10. HER MANY TITLES This is a vast subject and so to cover it in an interesting manner I am going to present it in the form of a dialogue. I am indebted to an old publication, which I purchased many, many years ago for this called ‘Popery Unmasked’ by Rev. Henry Woodcock - a primitive Methodist from Cornwall. The dialogue, which I have adapted, commences in its preface with the following lines, which express succinctly my conviction: ‘Tender handed touch a nettle And it stings you for your pains Grasp it like a man of metal And it soft as silk remains. So it is with Roman teaching Give it favour and you’re caught Press it hard with Scriptural teaching And its powers will come to naught.’ My dialogue is between Mr. Twilight [T] and Mr. Daylight [D]. Mr. Twilight is an unenlightened nominal Protestant. Mr. Daylight is a well-instructed Bible-believing Protestant, not ignorant of the Roman Antichrist’s devices. T. Please inform me of the teaching of Rome concerning the Virgin Mary. D. Why, sir, the books of devotion which are sanctioned by the Papal church, contain, in regard to Mary’s power and glory, the honour which is due to her, and the miracles she is said to have performed, a mass of absurdity, falsehood and blasphemy, almost incredible. T. Be kind enough to state, in a concise a form and as clear a light as possible, the sum of Rome’s teaching on this point. D. Attend then to the following particulars:- 1. Her Titles In the devotion of the ‘Sacred Heart of Mary’ (Dublin 1840) and at page 43 we read: ‘ The Church assisted and instructed by the Holy Spirit, gives to Mary titles which resemble those given to her Divine Son. Jesus is our King; Mary is our Queen. Jesus is our advocate and mediator; Mary is also our advocate and mediatrix. Jesus is our hope, our refuge, our consolation: we say the same of Mary. Jesus is the way which leads to heaven; Mary is the gate of Heaven.’ The following titles are given to her in ‘The Garden of the Soul’ pp 260-262 (Derby Edition) where she is entreated to pray for her devotees:- * Holy Mary * Vessel of honour * Holy Mother of God * Vessel of singular devotion * Holy Virgin of Virgins * Mystical rose * Mother of Christ * Tower of David * Mother of Divine grace * Tower of ivory * Mother most pure * House of gold * Mother most chaste * Ark of the Covenant * Mother undefiled * Gate of heaven * Mother untouched * Morning star * Mother most amiable * Health of the weak * Mother most admirable * Refuge of sinners * Mother of our Creator * Comforter of the afflicted * Mother of our Redeemer * Help of Christians * Virgin most prudent * Queen of Angels * Virgin most venerable * Queen of patriarchs * Virgin most renowned * Queen of prophets * Virgin most powerful * Queen of Apostles * Virgin most merciful * Queen of martyrs * Virgin most faithful * Queen of confessors * Mirror of justice * Queen of Virgins * Seat of wisdom * Queen of all saints * Cause of our joy * Spiritual vessel. 2. The Blessings she is said to Confer ‘O generous Mary, beautiful above all, obtain pardon for us - apply grace unto us - prepare glory for us - hail, thou rose, thou Virgin Mary. Grant unto us wisdom, and with the elect to enjoy grace, that we may with melody praise thee, and do thou drive our sins away.’ - From the Hours of the Blessed Virgin. Pope Gregory XVI in his encyclical letter says, ‘And that all may have a successful and happy issue, let us raise our eyes to the most blessed Virgin Mary, who alone destroys heresies, who is our greatest hope, yea, the entire ground of our hope.’ ‘O blessed Virgin Mary, how entirely did you love your son Jesus! O cause me to love him, and that nothing in this world may ever separate me from his holy grace.’ - Douay Cat. P 122. 3. The Protection she Affords ‘I beseech thee most humbly, that thou wilt protect me this day and defend me from sin and wickedness.’ ‘I beseech and request that at the hour of death thou wilt enlighten my soul with true faith.’ ‘I pray thee, that at the hour of death thou wilt pour in, and fill my soul with Divine love.’ -From the Hours of the Blessed Virgin ‘We fly to thy patronage, O holy mother of God, despise not our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us from all dangers.’ -From Garden of the Soul, p 260 4. Her Equality with Christ and the Godhead ‘Mary is the Queen of the Universe, since Jesus is its King; thus as St. Bernard again observes, ‘As many creatures as obey God so many obey the glorious Virgin; everything in heaven and on earth which is subject to God is also under the empire of the holy Mother.’ ‘Mary is omnipotent, for, according to all laws, the Queen enjoys the same privileges as the King; and that power may be equal between the Son and the Mother - Jesus has rendered Mary omnipotent - the one is omnipotent by nature, the other is omnipotent by grace’ - From the Glories of Mary 5. She Cooperates with Christ in the great work of Salvation ‘Blessed be the man who is bound by love and confidence to these two anchors of salvation, Jesus and Mary; he certainly shall not be lost. Precious confidence! Secure refuge! Since the mother of God is my Mother also. How well founded is the good Christian’s hope of salvation, since it depends on the best of Brothers, and the tenderest of Mothers.’ ‘Jesus says in the gospel, - No one can come to me if my Father does not draw him by his grace. He says also of Mary - No one can come to me if my Mother does not attract him by her prayers.’ - From the Glories of Mary 6. She is the Source of Salvation. ‘You are the joy of the church, the support of the faithful, the glory of the universe, the astonishment of nature, the miracle of grace, the miracle of beauty, the treasure of virtue, the ocean of all grace; we run to you the advocate of sinners, the mother of orphans, the hope of mortals, the only helper of those in affliction.’ -From the Flowers of Devotion. 7. She is more Merciful than Christ ‘What shall be the fit accompaniment of one whom the Almighty has deigned to make, not His servant, not His friend, not His intimate, but his superior, the source of His second being, the nurse of his helpless infancy, the teacher of his opening years! I answer, as the King was answered, nothing is too high for her to whom God owes His life; no exuberance of grace, no excess of glory, but is becoming, but is to be expected there where God has lodged himself, whence God has issued. Let her be clothed in King’s apparel; that is, let the fullness of the Godhead so flow into her, that she may be a figure of the incommunicable sanctity, and beauty, and glory of God himself; that she may be the Mirror of Justice, the Mystical Rose, the Tower of Ivory, the House of God, the Morning Star. Let her receive the King’s diadem upon her head, as the Queen of Heaven, the Mother of all living, the heath of the weak, the refuge of sinners, the comforter of the afflicted; and let angels, and prophets, and apostles, and martyrs, and all saints kiss the hem of her garments, and rejoice under the shadow of her throne,’ - Dr. Newman’s sermon on the fitness and Glories of Mary p 348 [1850] ‘If my Saviour drive me off because of my sins, I shall go and cast myself at the feet of his mother; thence I will not rise until she has obtained my pardon, for she does not know what it is to be insensible to the voice of misery, and her pity will soften the anger of her son.’ ‘In the Franciscan Chronicles it is related that brother Leo once saw a red ladder on the summit of which was Jesus Christ; and a white one, on the top of which was His most holy mother; and he saw some one who tried to ascend the red ladder, and they mounted a few steps, and fell - they tried again, and again fell. They were advised to go and try the white ladder, and by that one they easily ascended; for our Blessed La; and he saw some one who tried to ascend the red ladder, and they mounted a few steps, and fell - they tried again, and again fell. They were advised to go and try the white ladder, and by that one they easily ascended; for our Blessed Lad stretched out her hand and helped them, and so they got safely to heaven.’ -From the Glories of Mary 8. The Praises which are rendered unto her The most conclusive proof of the absolute deification of the Virgin with which I am acquainted is to be found in ‘The Psalter of the Blessed Virgin’ - a production of the celebrated St. Bonaventure. ‘This impious book is nothing less than a parody upon the book of Psalms - the same titles, prayers and praises being addressed to Mary, which David and others addressed to the blessed Jehovah.’ The following are specimens:- Psalms 16:1-11 : ‘Preserve me, O Lady, I have hope in thee etc’ Psalms 19:1-14 : ‘The heavens declare thy glory, O Virgin Mary, and the balm of they perfume is spread over all nations etc.’ Psalms 25:1-22 : ‘Unto thee, O Lady, do I lift up my soul, etc.’ Psalms 27:1-14 : ‘O Lady, may the glory of thy countenance be my light etc.’ Psalms 32:1-11 : ‘Blessed are they who cherish thee in their hearts, O Virgin Mary; their sins will be mercifully effaced by thee.’ Psalms 34:1-22 : ‘I will bless our Lady at all times, and never shall per praise depart from my mouth.’ Psalms 42:1-11 : ‘As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thy love, blessed Virgin.’ Psalms 46:1-11 : ‘O Lady, thou art my refuge in all our necessities etc.’ Psalms 68:1-35 : ‘Let Mary arise, and let her enemies be scattered.’ Psalms 83:1-18 : ‘How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lady of Virtues, etc.’ Psalms 91:1-16 : ‘He who dwells in the confidence of the mother shall abide under her protection, etc.’ Psalms 110:1-7 : ‘The Lord has said to our Lady, my mother, sit thou on my right hand, etc.’ Psalms 150:1-6 : ‘Praise our Lady in her holiness, praise her in her virtue and miracles.’ These, Mr. Twilight, are Rome’s ascriptions of praise to Mary in prose. Hear now its poetry. For the Papists not only pray to the Virgin, they also sing to her. I could scarcely believe this until I got ‘The Garden of the Soul’ the book of devotion to which I have often referred. Then the fact became palpable. The following are parts of two hymns on page 263. ‘Loosen the sinners’ hands All evil drive away; Bring light unto the blind, And for all graces pray. Preserve our lives unstain’d And guard us in our way, Until we come to thee, To joys that ne’er decay. Hail, Queen of Heaven, the ocean star Guide of the wanderers here below, Thrown on life’s surge we claim thy care, Save us from peril and from woe.’ 9. The Miracles performed by her. ‘A devout servant of Mary went one day, without telling her husband, to visit a church of our blessed Lady, and was prevented by a great storm from returning home at night. She was greatly alarmed lest her husband might be angry at it. She, however, recommended herself to Mary, and returned home, when she found her husband very kind to her, and quite a good humour. By her inquiries she discovered, that the night before, the Divine Mother had taken her form, and attended to all the duties of the household as a servant. ‘Bernadine de Busto relates that a bird was taught to say ‘Hail Mary!’ A hawk was on the point of seizing it, when the bird cried out, ‘Hail Mary!’ in an instant the hawk fell dead. God intended to show thereby that, even if an irrational creature was preserved by calling on Mary, how much more would those who are prompt in calling on her, when assaulted by devils, be delivered from them.’ - From the Glories of Mary Such, Mr. Twilight is a fair and truthful representation of the teachings of the Papal Church concerning the Virgin Mary. T. I am appalled at the reckless idolatry of the Romish Church in thus elevating the earthly Mother of our Lord, into equality with God. I see that they place her on the throne; give her a joint honour and occupancy with the Saviour; address more prayers to her than to Christ; confide in her protection and trust more implicitly to her intercession than to Christ’s. Does such worship comport with Mary’s character, as revealed in the Bible? D. No. You may trace her life from its commencement to its close and you will not find a single instance in which her intercession was solicited or her help desired. If no other arguments existed against the idolatrous worship of Mary, the very silence of scripture on the point, ought to be decisive. After a discourse of our Lord ‘a certain woman lifted up her voice and said, Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou has sucked.’ Here was the moment for Christ to leave on record the true light in which posterity was to regard his earthly mother. Did he say, ‘The Virgin Mary, she who bare me, on her quitting this world, will be raised to the throne of God, become the spouse of the Eternal, hear the prayers of mortals, intercede on their behalf, and receive their adoration’? No, Sir. But, as if he designed, by anticipation, to discourage the idolatrous devotion of latter times, he checked the laudations of the woman, by assigning a higher blessedness and a superior relationship to those who obey his words - ‘Yea, rather blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it.’ Luke 11:27-28. Now these passages ought forever to settle the question of Mary’s supremacy, and show that Rome’s inculcation to worship Her are false, idolatrous and unscriptural. T. But do not the Papists quote Luke 1:28 in justification of the worship of the Virgin? ‘And the Angel came unto her, and said, ‘Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women.’ D. They do. But if you turn to Judges 5:24 you will read, ‘Blessed shall Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite be, blessed shall she be above woman.’ If therefore, the Virgin is to be adored because she is blessed among women, how much more is Jael to be adored because she is blessed above woman? Beside it is written, ‘Blessed is the man whose transgression is forgiven.’ ‘Blessed are the meek,’ etc And if all who are pronounced blessed are to be worshipped, why then, we converted Protestants must at once fall down and worship each other in the strains in which the Church of Rome adores the Virgin Mary! T. I see that the Mary of the Bible and the Mary of the Papacy are as unlike each other as a triangle is unlike a circle. And yet, am I to understand that she is worshipped in the present day? D. Yes. Indeed, the worship of Mary has become at the present day, more than ever a sort of monomania in the Church of Rome, and is followed out with an utter disregard of common sense and decency and of ordinary prudence and discretion. The Rev. H. Seymour, MA, who spent some months in Rome, says: ‘The worship of Mary has become predominant, it is absorbing all else. Her pictures, her images her worship, her patronage, her intercession, her churches, her convents are all preferred to ought else. ‘As the serpent rod of Aaron swallowed all the serpent rods of the Magicians, so the modern devotion for Mary has absorbed all the offerings, prayers and devotions for Jesus.’ - Pilgrimage to Rome p. 464 ‘After a few months residence in Rome,’ says the Rev. S. Vicary, ‘ a stranger unacquainted with the religion professed there, would probably conclude that the Virgin Mary is the deity of the Italians. The appearance of the interior of the churches, and many indications in the streets, would incline him to that opinion. In the former he finds various painting of her, placed generally in the most prominent place and not infrequently statues bearing her likeness or wooden figures richly attired. In the latter, he observes in the corner of most streets, busts of the Virgin with a small lamp before them, and some words underneath expressive of confidence and devotion. The altar of the Virgin has always the greatest number of suppliants while that on which stands the emblem of salvation - the cross - has but a straggling worshipper. The days set apart in honour of the Virgin are very numerous and are as much observed as the Sabbath, and probably more. The shops are closed, and to transact any business would be sacrilege. At present, the worship of the Virgin is placed upon the surest foundations at Rome. Pope, priests and people alike favour it. It is agreeable to their habits and wishes; and so firmly interwoven with their system, that I am sure they are convince, if her worship receive a wound, the fabric of their religion would fall to pieces. This article of their creed gains strength daily; and instead of giving way before extended knowledge and enlightened times; it takes a firmer hold upon their hearts and affections.’ - Notes of a Resident in Rome p. 183. T. I am now convinced that, though there may be many sincere and benevolent people in the Papal communion, yet the Papacy, as such, is guilty of worshipping the creature instead of the Creator. May God have mercy on the dupes of such a system. That is how Mr. Twilight came into the Daylight. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 53: 02.033. CULT OF MARY - 2 ======================================================================== Cult of Mary - Part Two The Church of Rome Not A Church of Jesus Christ But The Cult of Mary Dr. Ian R. K. Paisley Part One’s dialogue between Mr. Twilight and Mr. Daylight’s dialogue covered the whole sweep of Mariolatry but some matters must be surveyed and studied in reference to the Mary’s usurpation of the Father and the Son. Rome’s Idolatrous title for her idol Mary the ‘Mother of God’ The doctrine of ‘Mary, the Mother of God,’ as we know it today is the result of centuries of growth, often stimulated by pronouncements of church prelates. And yet the full-fledged system of Mariolatry is a comparatively recent development in Roman Catholic dogma. In fact the last one hundred years have quite appropriately been called the ‘Century of Mary’. As late as the fourth century there are no indications of any special veneration of Mary. Such veneration at that time could begin only if one were recognised as a saint, and only the martyrs were counted as saints. But since there was no evidence that Mary had suffered a martyr’s death, she was excluded from sainthood. Later the ascetics came to be acknowledged as among the saints. That proved to be the opening wedge for the sainthood of Mary, for surely she of all people, it was alleged, must have lived an ascetic life! The church acknowledged that Christ was born of the Virgin Mary. Apocryphal tradition built on those possibilities, and slowly the system emerged. The phrase ‘Mother of God’ originated in the Council of Ephesus, in the year 431. It occurs in the Creed of Chalcedon, which was adopted by the council which met in that city in 451, and in regard to the person of Christ it declared that He was, ‘Born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God according to the manhood.’ S. E. Anderson says: ‘Roman priests call Mary the ‘mother of God’, a name impossible, illogical and unscriptural. It is impossible, for God can have no mother. He is eternal and without beginning while Mary was born and died within a few short years. It is illogical, for God does not require a mother for His existence. Jesus said, ‘Before Abraham was born, I am’ (John 8:58). IT is unscriptural, for the Bible gives Mary no such contradictory name. Mary was the honoured mother of the human body of Jesus - no more - as every Catholic must admit if he wishes to be reasonable and Scriptural. The divine nature of Christ existed from eternity past, long before Mary was born. Jesus never called her ‘mother’; He called her ‘woman’.’ [From the booklet Is Rome the True Church? P20] Furthermore, if the Roman terminology is correct and Mary is to be called God’s mother, then Joseph was God’s step-father, James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas were God’s brothers, Elizabeth was God’s aunt, John the Baptist was God’s cousin, Heli was God’s grandfather, and Adam was God’s 59th great grandfather. Such references to God’s relatives sound more like a page out of Mormonism than Christianity. The correct statement of the person of Christ in this regard is: As His human nature had no father, so His divine nature had no mother. The Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary It is well known to all that a controversy on this subject has existed in the Church of Rome. The favourers and opponents of the notion that the Virgin was born without sin, denounced each other as heretics. The extent to which the bitterness of spirit was carried is manifest from the following passage in the Constitutions of Pope Sixtus V. ‘Certain preachers, as we have heard, of different orders, in their sermons to the people, have not hitherto been ashamed publicly to affirm in different cities and provinces, and do not desist from daily teaching, that all those who hold or agree that the same glorious and immaculate Mother of God was conceived without the stain of original sin, are guilty of mortal sin, or are heretics; that those who celebrate the service of the said immaculate conception, and those who hear the sermons of those preachers who affirm that she was conceived without this stain, sin grievously.’ - p262 Can. Et Dec. Trid. Lip 1846 The Constitutions then forbid that either party should denounce the other as heretical. In fact, so wide was the gulf between both parties, that there were certain religious services in the Church of Rome in which they could not unite. For example, in the Carmelite confraternities, offices of the Immaculate Conception are used, in which there is constant mention of the sinless conception of Mary. Now, those who dissent from that notion could not join with Carmelites in offering up such prayers, and thus Roman Catholics were so divided in sentiment, that on certain occasions they could not unite in prayer. The Council of Trent left the question undecided, but Pope Pius IX on 8th December 1854, dogmatically decreed that the Virgin was conceived without sin. In thus deciding the point – 1. He has added a new article to the creed, an article never as such until eighteen hundred years after Christ. 2. He has contradicted the views of the fathers of the primitive Church, and many of the most eminent doctors and saints of his own Church. Canus, Bishop of the Canary Isles at that time, says, ‘All the holy Fathers, with one consent, affirm the blessed Virgin to have been conceived in original sin.’ - Loc. Theol. P. 348. Colon. 1605 Thus, the Pope’s decision excited considerable commotion in the Church of Rome. The Bodily Assumption of Mary The latest addition to the long list of Roman Catholic believes (‘inventions’ might be a more accurate term) cam on November 1, 1950, with the ex cathedra pronouncement by Pope Pius XII from St. Peter’s chair that Mary’s body was raised from the grave shortly after she died, that her body and soul were reunited, and that she was taken up and enthroned as Queen of Heaven. And to this pronouncement there was added the usual warning that ‘anyone who may henceforth doubt or deny this doctrine is utterly fallen away from the divine and Catholic faith.’ That means that it is a mortal sin for any Roman Catholic to refuse to believe this doctrine. According to tradition Mary’s assumption was on this wise: ‘On the third day after Mary’s death, when the apostles gathered around her tomb, they found it empty. The sacred body had been carried up to the celestial paradise. Jesus Himself came to conduct her hither; the whole court of heaven came to welcome with songs of triumph the Mother of the divine Lord. What a chorus of exultation! Hark how they cry, ‘Lift up your gates, O ye princes, and be lifted up, O eternal gates, and the Queen of Glory shall enter in.’’ This is the type of account that might be expected from a medieval monk who was not satisfied with the information given in the Bible concerning Mary, and who undertook to describe the events as he imagined they might have happened. Here we are told that Mary was not only received into heaven, but that she was raised to a pre-eminence far above that which it is possible for any of the saints to attain. Because of her alleged co-operation in the passion of her Son, she is assigned a dignity beyond even the highest of the archangels. She was crowned Queen of Heaven by the eternal Father, and received a throne at her Son’s right hand. Thus, Mary’s body was miraculously preserved from corruption, and her resurrection and ascension are made to parallel Christ’s resurrection and ascension. And she, like Him, is said to be enthroned in heaven where she makes intercession for the millions of people throughout the world who seek her assistance. This was a natural consequence of the 1854 pronouncement of the Immaculate Conception of Mary - a supernatural exit from life. A mysterious halo of holiness falls over her entire being. Whereas the glorification of the saints will take place at the end of the world, her glorification has already taken place. While Pius XII was the Marian Pope the present occupier of the Vatican, Pope John Paul II, has exceeded him in his actions. He is the greatest Mariologist of them all. He is intent to point the world to Mary. As he does so he points the world away from Christ. The Secret Purpose of Mariolatry Dee Smith states: ‘Presiding over the two functions of Roman Catholic womanhood, the child-bearing program and the unpaid labour pool, stands the puppet figure of the Blessed Virgin, at once the instigator and the patroness. Compared with her services in insuring the cushioned privilege and power of the hierarchy by subjugating the Roman Catholic women, the enormous wealth brought to Rome’s exchequer by the financial exploitations of Mariolatry is merely incidental. Yet it is worth a glance. From the sale of ‘holy’ pictures, leaflets, scapulars, candles burned before altars, fees for masses and so on, the staggering intake at commercialised shrines such as St. Anne de Beaupre, Our Lady of Guadalupe, and others, a steady stream of gold flows into hierarchical coffers One might also paraphrase the Roman title, ‘Mother of God,’ to ‘Minter of Gold.’ But all this is nothing beside the Blessed Virgin’s vital and indispensable function in maintaining the status quo. Without the inspiration of the Blessed Virgin, the Roman Catholic woman could not be kept at her business of childbearing and drudging. Without the subjection of the Catholic woman, without her submissive acception of the yoke of Mary caricatured by the Roman Church, the all-powerful, self-indulgent ambitious men who constitute the Roman hierarchy would not be able to use their power as a weapon against human liberties and human rights. Without doubt, the devotion to the Blessed Virgin constantly impressed upon the Roman population by its clergy is inspired not by piety, but by expediency. For the clergy, devotion to Mary is not merely a matter of dollars and cents, but of survival. Their sinecure depends on it. That is the secret purpose of Mariolatry.’ The contrast between Roman and Protestant Teaching Dr. Joseph Zacchello, one time editor of The Convert, Clairton, Pennsylvania made the following statement concerning Mary’s rightful place in the Christian church: ‘The most beautiful story ever told is the story of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. And a part of that beautiful story is the account of Mary, the mother of our Lord. Mary was a pure, virtuous woman. Nothing is clearer in all the Word of God than this truth. Read the accounts of Matthew and Luke and you see her as she is - pure in mind, humble, under the hand of God, thankful for the blessing of God, having faith to believe the message of God, being wise to understand the purpose of God in her life. Mary was highly favoured beyond all other women. It was her unique honour that she should be the mother of our Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed was Mary among women. Through her, God gave His most priceless gift to man. But, though Mary be worthy of all honour as a woman favoured of God beyond all others, and though she be indeed a splendid, beautiful, godly character, and though she be the mother of our Lord, Mary can neither intercede for us with God, nor can she save us, and certainly we must not worship her. There is nothing clearer in the Word of God than this truth. Let us notice this truth as it is diligently compared with the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church and the Word of God. The following quotations are taken from the book ‘The Glories of Mary’ which was written by Bishop Alphonse de Liguori, one of the greatest devotional writers of the Roman Catholic Church, and the Word of God taken from the Douay Version which is approved by the Church. The Editor’s notice says, ‘Everything that our saint has written is, as it were, a summary of Catholic tradition on the subject that it treats; it is not an individual author, it is, so to speak, the church herself that speaks to us by the voice of her prophets, her apostles, her pontiffs, her saints, her fathers, her doctors of all nations and ages. No other book appears to be more worthy of recommendation in this respect than The Glories of Mary.’ [1931 edition. Redemptorist Fathers, Brooklyn] Note the following deadly parallel: Mary is given the place belonging to Christ Roman Catholic Church ‘And is truly a mediatress of peace between sinners and God. Sinners receive pardon by … Mary alone.’ (pp 82,83). ‘Mary is our life … Mary in obtaining this grace for sinners by her intercession, thus restores them to life.’ (p.80) ‘He fails and is LOST who has not recourse to Mary.’ (p94). The Word of God For there is one God, and ONE Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus’ (1 Timothy 2:5) ‘Jesus saith to him: I am the way, and the truth and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by me.’ (John 14:6). ‘Christ … is our life.’ (Colossians 3:4). Mary is glorified more than Christ Roman Catholic Church ‘The Holy Church commands a WORSHIP peculiar to Mary.’ (p. 130). ‘Many things … are asked from God, and are not granted; they are asked from MARY and are obtained,’ for ‘She … is even Queen of Hell, and Sovereign Mistress of the Devils.’ (pp. 127,141,143). The Word of God ‘In the Name of Jesus Christ … For there is no other name under Heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved.’ (Acts 3:6; Acts 4:12). His Name is ‘above every name … not only in this world, but also in that which is to come.’ (Ephesians 1:21). Mary is the Gate to Heaven instead of Christ Roman Catholic Church ‘Mary is called … the gate of heaven because no once can enter that blessed kingdom without passing through HER’ (p. 160) ‘The Way of Salvation is open to none otherwise than through MARY,’ and since ‘Our salvation is in the hands of Mary ... He who is protected by Mary will be saved, he who is not will be lost’ (pp 169,170) The Word of God ‘I am the door. By me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved,’ says Christ (John 10:1; John 10:7; John 10:9) ‘Jesus saith unto him, I am the way … no man cometh to the Father but by me’ (John 14:6) ‘Neither is there Salvation in any other’ (Acts 4:12). Mary is given the power of Christ Roman Catholic Church ‘All power is given to thee in Heaven and on earth,’ so that ‘at the command of MARY all obey - even God … and thus … God has placed the whole church … under the domination of Mary’ (pp 180,181). Mary is ‘also the advocate of the whole human race … for she can do what she wills with God.’ (p193) The Word of God ‘All power is given to me in Heaven and in earth,’ so that ‘in the Name of Jesus every knee should bow,’ ‘that in all things He may hold the primacy’ (Matthew 28:18; Php 2:9-11; Colossians 1:18) ‘But if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Just; and he is the propitiation for our sins’ (1 John 2:1-2). Mary is the peacemaker instead of Jesus Christ our Peace Roman Catholic Church ‘Mary is the peacemaker between sinners and God’ (p., 197) ‘We often more quickly obtain what we ask by calling on the name of Mary than by invoking that of Jesus.’ ‘She … is our salvation, our life, our hope, our counsel, our refuge and our help’ (pp. 254, 257). The Word of God ‘But now in Christ Jesus, you, who sometimes were far off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For He is our peace.’ (Ephesians 2:13-14). ‘Hitherto you have not asked anything in my name. Ask, and you shall receive,’ for, ‘Whatsoever we shall ask according to His will, He heareth us.’ (John 16:23-24). Mary is given the Glory that belongs to Christ alone Roman Catholic Church ‘The whole Trinity, O Mary, gave thee a name … above every other name, that at Thy name, every knee should bow, of things in heaven, on earth, and under the earth.’ (p. 260) The Word of God ‘God also hath highly exalted Him and hath given Him a Name which is above all names, that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in Heaven, on earth and under the earth’ (Php 2:9-10) Liguori, more than any other one person has been responsible for promoting Mariolatry in the Roman Church, dethroning Christ and enthroning Mary in the hearts of the people. Yet instead of excommunicating him for his heresies, the Roman Catholic Church has canonised him as a saint and has published his book in many editions. In a widely used prayer book, the Raccolta, which has been especially indulgenced by several popes and which therefore is accepted by Romanists as authoritative, we read such as the following: ‘Hail, Queen, Mother of Mercy, our Life. Sweetness, and Hope, all Hail! To thee we cry, banished sons of Eve; to thee we sigh, groaning and weeping in this vale of tears.’ ‘We fly beneath thy shelter, O holy Mother of God, despise not our petitions in our necessity and deliver us always from all perils, O glorious and blessed Virgin.’ ‘Heart of Mary, Mother of God … Worthy of all the veneration of angels and men … In thee let the Holy Church find safe shelter; protect it, and be its asylum, its tower, its strength.’ ‘Sweet heart of Mary be my salvation.’ ‘Leave me not, My Mother, in my own hands, or I am lost; let me but cling to thee. Save me, my Hope, from hell.’ Also in the Raccolta prayers are addressed to Joseph: ‘Benign Joseph, our guide, protect us and the Holy Church.’ ‘Guardian of Virgins, and Holy Father Joseph, to whose faithful keeping Christ Jesus, innocence itself, and Mary, Virgin of virgins, were committed, I pray and beseech thee by those two dear pledges, Jesus and Mary, that being preserved from all uncleanness, I may with spotless mind, pure heart and chaste body, ever most chastely serve Jesus and Mary. Amen.’ The rosary, which is by far the most popular Roman Catholic ritual prayer contains fifty ‘Hail Marys’ The Hail Mary (or Ave Maria) is as follows. ‘Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou amongst woman and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus, Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, Amen.’ Charles Chiniquy, a former priest from Montreal, Canada, who became a Presbyterian minister and author, tells of the following conversation between himself and his bishop when doubts began to assail him regarding the place given to Mary. ‘My lord, who has saved you and me upon the cross?’ He answered, ‘Jesus Christ.’ ‘And who paid your debt and mine by shedding His blood; was it Mary or Jesus?’ He said, ‘Jesus Christ.’ ‘Now, my lord, when Jesus and Mary were on earth, who loved the sinner more, was it Jesus or Mary?’ Again he answered that it was Jesus. ‘Did any sinner come to Mary on earth to be saved?’ ‘No’ Do you remember that any sinner has gone to Jesus to be saved?’ ‘Yes, many.’ ‘Have they been rebuked?’ ‘Never.’ ‘Do you remember that Jesus ever said to sinners, ‘Come to Mary and she will save you’?’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘Do you remember that Jesus has said to poor sinners, ‘Come to me’?’ ‘Yes, He ahs said it.’ ‘Has He ever retracted those words?’ ‘No’ ‘And who was, then the more powerful to save sinners?’ I asked ‘O, it was Jesus!’ ‘Now, my lord, since Jesus and Mary are in heaven, can you show me in the Scriptures that Jesus has lost anything of His desire and power to save sinners, or that He has delegated this power to Mary?’ And the bishop answered, ‘No’. ‘Then, my lord,’ I asked, ‘Why do we not go to Him and to Him alone? Why do we invite poor sinners to come to Mary when by your own confession she is nothing compared with Jesus, in power, in mercy, in love, and in compassion for the sinner?’ To that the bishop could give no answer. [Extract from Fifty Years in the Church of Rome p, 262] In a church in Malta, on either side eof he altar is a large picture. That on the right represents a Roman Catholic dying; the priest is present, administering the last sacraments; angels descend with hovering wings and bless him and the Virgin Mary, life size, with a halo of glory around her, is waiting to receive him into Glory; Jesus Christ being represented as a little baby is in Heaven. It is the Ashtaroth of Babylon; that is what it is. Fancy Christ Jesus being represented as a little baby in Heaven; and the Virgin Mary standing in a halo of glory, looking down at the dying man to lead him through purgatory to Glory. On the other side of the altar there is also the picture of a man dying. He is a heretic - a Protestant. The priest comes to give him the last sacraments, but he turns his head away and will not have him. Thousands of devils are represented as snapping at him, and the Lord Jesus Christ in that picture is represented as a full-sized man, with a large dagger, thrusting it into his heart and killing him. The Virgin Mary is represented as a full-sized woman, turning away weeping, and the only one showing sympathy for the fallen man. I ask you, dear friends, when our Lord Jesus Christ, who poured out His soul unto death for us, is thus represented, is it not high time to speak out, and show up such iniquitous practices? I tell you, my Protestant friends, you are getting weak as a nation, because your ministers come not out more boldly and show up this system, called in the Bible, ‘The Mystery of Iniquity’. There is too much of the feeling by which Nebuchadnezzar was animated, when he walked around Babylon and said, ‘Is not this great Babylon which I have built?’ We need more Daniels; more ministers like the three Hebrew children who feared not the furnace. There must, I say, be more bold witnessing for the Master if you are to expect God’s blessing upon you. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 54: 02.034. ADVANCE OF ROMANISM: 1 ======================================================================== The Advance of Romanism (Part I): The Present Danger S. M. Houghton MA WE live in remarkable days. In past centuries, notably from the sixteenth century onwards, our fellow-countrymen have, to a very considerable extent, held strong views about religious matters. Tolerance, a tolerance increased by the growth of world-commitments, appears to be a national characteristic of the Englishman, but, even so, in times past he held decided views about such matters as the Lord’s Day, Romanism, and education. Hence the contrast between British and Continental Sundays, the ’No Popery’ cry which was raised from time to time, and the incorporation of ’religious instruction’ in the curriculum of schools maintained or assisted by the State. Granted that much worldliness has always been evident; granted that certain elements in the population have scarcely held even to a form of godliness, much less to true godliness; yet the nation as a whole has been God-fearing in the broad sense of the term, and has held in the main to what is conveniently known as Protestantism. Not that at every period since the Reformation this has been clearly and obviously the case; the rebound from the strictness of political Puritanism after the Restoration of 1660 was very marked, and the days of the early Georges were unhappily characterised by the growth of Deism and Latitudinarianism. Yet, by and large, we have been for generations a Protestant nation, and from our shores godly evangelists have journeyed with the Word to the uttermost parts of the earth. We have seen Biblical commands and prophesies thus fulfilled to the letter before our wondering eyes. The mid-twentieth century, alas, has witnessed a tremendous spiritual landslide. It threatened two or three generations ago. First appearing as a cloud little bigger than a man’s hand, it spread with startling rapidity until almost the entire sky was black with a new form of infidelity .The renowned C. H. Spurgeon of the Metropolitan Tabernacle set his face resolutely against it- the Downgrade Controversy of the eighteen-eighties is witness to that-but the gathering clouds of his day soon resulted in the disastrous deluge which he had so clearly foreseen. It was as though he was warned of God of things not seen, or hardly seen, as yet. But the ’Christian world’ paid little heed. The landmarks of ancient time were eliminated and novel doctrines which our fathers knew not spread apace. The advent of Modernism and theological Liberalism augured ill for the professed Churches of God. Men sprang up from within the Churches whose aim was to rend accepted doctrine to shreds and to fraternise with the world. The authority and inspiration of Scripture, and much weighty doctrine crystallized in the various Creeds and Confessions, were all but repudiated. Sometimes correct phraseology was retained but given a new and explosive content. In the outcome the nation as well as the church of God was deeply affected. It could not be otherwise. In matters religious, the nation began to live on its saved-up spiritual capital and this was soon expended. Leaders in Church and State alike praised forefathers in the faith but gave little credence to their teachings. Thus John Bunyan received the honour of a stained-glass window in a national shrine, but it would not be easy to prove that the doctrine for which the Bedford tinker stood and served prison sentence received any favour in the pulpit adjacent to the memorial. Shortly and inevitably, as surely as night follows day, nothing-arianism succeeded latitudinarianism. Men in the mass forsook spiritual beliefs and spiritual religion. Congregations shrank numerically. Chapels and church buildings were increasingly forsaken. In some cases, perhaps in many, the twos and threes who survived felt unable to face the responsibilities of the position and to man the few bastions which remained; in consequence some buildings became derelict, soon to pass into mercantile hands for non-spiritual purposes. Nationally, science, pleasure, sport on an ever-increasing scale, vanity, sordid sin, lust for entertainment, and much else indicative of complete worldliness, became the fashion. Honest labour and its appropriate rewards became matters of endless contention between employers, unions, and workers. Men became aggressively materialistic in outlook and attached less and less value to Bible teachings. The authority of the Word was cast off like an outworn suit of clothes. Evolution drove Creation out of education and the schools. ’Christ was a child of His age’, ’That’s only what Paul said’, were sayings heard time and again as the godly quoted Gospel and Epistle, only to be rebuffed by unbelievers. Scoffers multiplied too as scientists poured out their theories and boasted of their achievements. Old Testament Scripture in particular was jettisoned by the many as an outmoded relic of unenlightened days, fitted to go the way of other outworn philosophies. Possibly, with the idealists, the Sermon on the Mount was here and there acclaimed as the standard of conduct at which men should aim; but belief in divine revelation, resurrection, redemption by ’the precious blood of Christ’, atonement by the wondrous unrepeatable work of Calvary, justification by faith as taught by the Reformers, and regeneration by the sole work of the Holy Spirit of God-these and truths like them were scouted as teachings unsuited to modern intellects, useful to the ancients, useless to the moderns. We live in the twentieth century, not in the sixteenth, was an oft-heard saying. The agelessness of Divine truth, and the permanence of God’s revelation, were neither recognised nor revered. The Roman Church, ancient institution as it is, has taken full advantage of this regrettable situation. As Protestantism and religious sanity have decayed, Romanism has advanced its claims and paraded its credentials. Its widespread officers, and indeed its members one and all, have been enlisted as for a crusade. Its progress in recent days is undeniable. This may seem strange in view of the scientific outlook of the age and the mediaeval character of much that is found in Romanism. If Protestantism is outmoded, why does not Romanism shrink and fade also? If science invalidates the Protestant witness, why does it not also put Romanism to flight? The answer is not far to seek. If men repudiate truth, they are in danger of receiving a strong delusion, that they should believe a lie (2 Thessalonians 2:11: ’the strong working of error that they should believe THE lie’). And furthermore, there is a glamour about Romanism which delights the natural man, and at the same time hoodwinks him. It caters for the natural senses. It provides splashes of colour to please the eye. The ear is entertained with the melodious. There is an appeal to the sense of the aesthetic. The chief representative of Rome claims to fill the most ancient of ’thrones’; he dominates the ecclesiastical world like a colossus. He goes on pilgrimage and the world wonders after him. He greets the Jewish and Moslem and Orthodox communities as one who seeks their highest interests not only in this world but in that which is to come. He continually lifts his hands in supposed blessing. At the same time he claims to exercise a universal kingship conferred on him by high heaven. The natural man is undeniably attracted by so marvellous a phenomenon. The antiquity of the Church centred on the ancient Tiber leads him to equate the timelessness of Bible truth with the travesty of that truth for which Rome stands. Here, he supposes, as he looks around for stability in a chaotic world, is an institution which has stood the test of twenty centuries and which stands like the rock of ages in this surging world of change. Surely, he thinks to himself, here is the church against which the gates of hell shall not prevail, the holy temple unto God which has the marks of eternity upon it. Are not its priests ubiquitous? Do not all the continents echo its solemn chants? Have not many and great kings of old time worshipped before its altars, and bowed their necks to its yoke? Have they not assisted its embassies to reach out to the ends of the habitable earth, so that men of all races might be caused to render obedience to the ’Vicar of Christ’? Secular newspapers take up the Roman cause and succumb to papal blandishments. One of no mean repute, hitherto supposedly nonconformist in sympathy rather than Anglican or Romanist, strangely suggests the revival of the habit of pilgrimage to holy places. Another almost openly advocates the reunion of Christendom, which would virtually mean (and who would or could deny it?) the exaltation of the Pope to world leadership in the religious sphere, the position he undeniably claims and to which, as a thoroughly practical issue, he undoubtedly aspires. Local ministerial fraternals and church councils all too frequently follow the national and fashionable line. The priests of Rome, in their various local charges, are instructed by their superiors that the time is ripe for action, and that shortly the various Protestant Churches, with few exceptions, will fall into the lap of the Vatican like so many ripe plums. Let the priests, therefore, accept membership of the fraternals, an act hitherto forbidden them, and invite Protestants to their ceremonials. Let them invite and encourage Protestants, in the name of unity, to attend Mass, to see for themselves how delightful it is for long- divided brethren to dwell together in a Roman unity. Such is the specious plea which reaches professed ministers of the Gospel, and many, alas, heed the voice of the charmer. To refuse the 4 overtures of friendship is esteemed by the majority to be an affront to an ancient and highly respected world-church. Is not Rome changing? Do not high officers of the Protestant Churches visit and exchange presents with her Pontiff? Have not her words of umbrage and bitter sorrow been replaced by the most friendly of greetings, and the ancient ’heretics’ assumed a new character as ’separated brethren’? Have not winds of change blown through St. Peter’s itself, and made a wondrous difference to the atmosphere of that ancient shrine? Is it not rumoured in Rome and Canterbury alike that the altars of the two Churches are closely akin? Rome doubtless smiles to herself as she sees the naivety with which so many of the ’separated brethren’ fall for her claims. Until now it has been high church dignitaries who have sponsored the approaches to the Vatican, though the leaven of Romanism has been working powerfully at parish church level. It is now abundantly evident that the rot has reached the rank and file of such as retain church and chapel connections. Only here and there do faithful souls and congregations bear witness to the truth of the Word and stand out uncompromisingly against the specious error. By means of the Bible Christian Unity Fellowship we desire to strengthen the hands of the true people of ’the only true God’. We wish to let them know what Rome stands for; she hides many of her teachings from Protestant view at the present time. If she addresses Protestants by the radio or other means she does not speak of purgatory, of penance, of the worship of Mary, of transubstantiation, of indulgences, of papal infallibility .She normally holds these and similar teachings in the background and brings into prominence teachings which seem to the Protestant to be marvellously akin to what he has already known. Thus is he enticed. Like the enchantress in the Book of Proverbs she prevails: "With her much fair speech she caused him to yield, with the flattering of her lips she forced him. He goeth after her suddenly as an ox goeth to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks". The second part of this article is intended to fulfil the purpose of showing what Rome’s official teachings really are. It states them concisely and simply, and without any elaborate attempt to show how they are inconsistent with, and indeed highly hostile to, Scripture truth. The clear statement of them should be sufficient to warn true believers against them. Who, with the Scripture in his hands, cannot but see the vast difference between Romanism and truth? The people of the Lord should not be ignorant of Satan and his devices. To be forewarned is to be forearmed, or it should be. Certainly we need the whole armour of God. So subtle is the foe-and Rome’s subtlety is proverbial-that, if any part of our armour is lacking, he will press his attack precisely at that point. The enemy knows how to plan a campaign, and how to launch his attacks where defences are weakest. Let us be resolved to war a good warfare, seeking as good soldiers of Jesus Christ to fight the good fight of faith and so lay hold on eternal life. Let us not forget that the national and ’ecclesiastical’ position of the generations of the future hinges, under God, on the stand we make. Christ alone is our Captain. Captains by the thousand may fill the hostile camp, but if we fight on the side of Christ, one is capable of overthrowing a thousand and two of putting ten thousand to flight. We make our boast in the Lord and not in ourselves. Of strength to fight we have none of our own. It is He who nerves our arm for the war. Courage and skill and ability to stand, alike come to us from Him. But fight we must if we would prevail. Shame upon us if we have no witness to bear for the Lord or if we prefer slothful ease! How dare we patch up ’an inglorious peace’? "The foe is stem and eager, The fight is fierce and long; But Thou hast made us mighty, And stronger than the strong". LOOK OUT FOR PART TWO : THE DOCTRINAL ERRORS OF ROMANISM ======================================================================== CHAPTER 55: 02.035. ADVANCE OF ROMANISM: 2 ======================================================================== The Advance of Romanism (Part II): The Doctrinal Errors of Romanism S. M. Houghton MA 1. THE RULE OF FAITH While Protestants teach that the Holy Scriptures constitute the sole Rule of Faith, the Roman Church, while acknowledging canonical books of Scripture (and adding the Apocrypha), claims that an unwritten word, termed Tradition, has an authority equal to that of the Scriptures. In addition she asserts that the decrees of Church Councils (particularly those of the Council of Trent, 1545-63 A.D.), and the pronouncements of Popes (and especially the Creed of Pius IV, 1559-65), are binding on the conscience. Furthermore, she claims that (a) it is for the Church of Rome to decide on the meaning of Scripture, (b) her interpretations are ’according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers’ (she closes her eyes to the fact that the Fathers were far from unanimous in their interpretations). Rome’s claim amounts to this: that the untutored layman is incompetent to decide what Scripture means, and that the ’infallible Church’ will decide this matter for him. From time to time the Roman Church adds to its dogmas (which are all binding on the consciences of Romanists): in 1854 came the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, the claim that from conception she was kept free from all stain of original sin. In 1870 the dogma of the Infallibility of the Pope was published; and in 1950 the doctrine of Mary’s Corporal Assumption into Heaven. Scripture knows nothing whatever of these assertions. 2. THE WAY OF SALVATION We need salvation because we are sinners. The Biblical doctrine is that human nature is corrupt and depraved and ’desperately wicked’ (Genesis 6:5, Psalms 51:5, Jeremiah 17:9, Mark 7:21-23, Romans 3:9-18; Romans 8:7). It distinguishes between 1. original sin (the corruption of human nature derived from Adam) and 2. (b) actual sin (the breaking of the divine law). God’s forgiveness, and His restoration of the sinner, deal with both kinds of sin, the root and the fruit. Roman teaching, however, does not look upon the fall in Adam as a corruption of man’s entire nature, a spiritual bankruptcy, but declares that it merely involves a withdrawal of supernatural grace from the soul. Correspondingly, we find that Rome’s doctrine of justification amounts to this: that, "through the merit of Christ (righteousness) is infused into us of God". This ’imparted righteousness’, which is received through faith and penitence, is rewarded by the power to earn by good works increase of grace and eternal life. In other words, justification, according to this scheme, is brought about by faith AND good works which are meritorious in the sight of God. Further, says the Council of Trent, "the instrumental cause of justification is the sacrament of baptism". Hence the key of admission to God’s Kingdom is in the hand of the Roman priest who administers the sacrament. Protestant doctrine, founded upon Scripture alone, admits ’imparted righteousness’ (i.e. sanctification) as the result of regeneration by the Holy Spirit, but asserts that justification is brought about by a righteousness, not in the sinner but in the Saviour and wrought by the Saviour, which is IMPUTED to him when he believes, and by it he is FULLY justified: ’Ye are washed, ye are sanctified, ye are justified, in the Name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God’ (1 Corinthians 6:11). (See also Romans 4:1-9; Romans 5:1-11; Romans 8:31-34). There is a vast difference between the two systems. The one implies some degree of human merit and the necessity for a mediatorial (human) priesthood; the other proclaims that all merit is in the Saviour, that all demerit is in the sinner, and that by grace, through faith (which is the gift of God), the sinner receives a righteousness which completely and eternally justifies him, and gives him a title to heaven and glory. Sanctification, which accompanies justification, gives him a fitness for Heaven, ’making him meet for the inheritance of the saints in light’. Rome’s conception of faith is likewise defective. Faith is trust, trust in and upon the Lord Jesus Christ in His glorious mediatorial all-sufficiency as Way, Truth, and Life. But Rome’s teaching is that the faith God requires is "that by which we yield our unhesitating assent to whatever the authority of our holy mother the Church teaches us to have been delivered by Almighty God". In other words, saving faith is, essentially, submission to the Church of Rome. Thus the two doctrines are mutually hostile. In fact the Council of Trent pronounces its curse on the Protestant doctrine, in the words, "If anyone saith that by faith alone the ungodly is justified … let him be anathema". 3. THE SACRAMENTS Whereas Protestants hold that two ordinances only were instituted by the Lord, namely Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, the Roman Church claims that there are seven sacraments, the other five being Confirmation, Penance (including auricular confession and priestly absolution), Extreme Unction (administered to the dying), Orders (or the offices of bishops, priests and deacons), and Matrimony. The Council of Trent anathematizes all who say that grace is not conferred (ex opere operato, which is almost equivalent to ’mechanically’) by the sacramental act. Hence sacraments administered to persons in a state of insensibility are supposed to confer grace. Baptism is supposed to confer the grace of regeneration. 4. THE MASS (the central rite of Romanism) The Roman Church claims that the sacrifice of the Mass and the sacrifice offered by Christ upon the Cross are one and the same, that is, it is alleged that the priest re-enacts the sacrificial work of Christ, and that, in consequence, his act has saving efficacy for the living and the dead. The vestments worn by the priest at the Mass are fully intended to signify all this. The ’host’ (a word derived from the Latin term for ’victim’), that is, the consecrated wafer, is held aloft and worshipped in accordance with the belief that it is no longer bread but ’the very body and blood, the soul and divinity’ of Christ Himself. This ’miracle’, performed daily by the priests on ten thousands of altars, is termed by the Roman Church, transubstantiation. Ligouri, a theologian highly esteemed by Romanists, speaks thus: "St. Paul extols the obedience of Jesus Christ by telling us that He obeyed His eternal Father unto death. But in this sacrament His obedience is still more wonderful, since He is pleased not only to obey His Father, but even man himself. Yes, the King of Heaven descends from His throne in obedience to the voice of man, and remains upon our altars according to his pleasure. In this sacrament He obeys as many creatures as there are priests upon earth". The Roman Catholic practice of withholding the cup from the laity and permitting only the officiating priests to partake of it is an outcome of the belief in transubstantiation, as it is asserted that the wafer in itself is a complete Christ. In England, in the days of Roman persecution, not a few were sent to the stake because of their insistence that the body of Christ was in Heaven at the right hand of God, and could not, therefore, at the same time be on multitudes of Roman altars. * Transubstantiation was first defined as an article of faith at the Lateran Council of 1215 (i.e., a Council held in the Lateran Palace at Rome), and the cup was withheld from the laity by decree of the Council of Constance in 1415. We claim that the whole of the New Testament is up in arms against the doctrine of the Mass, and particularly the wonderful Epistle to the Hebrews which, in itself, is an almost complete answer to the Roman position. It shows that Christ’s priesthood is an untransmissible priesthood (Hebrews 7:24) and that Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross is complete, final, and incapable of addition or repetition (Hebrews 9:11-27; Hebrews 10:1-18). The Epistle is a sublime commentary on the final triumphant cry from the tree, ’IT IS FINISHED’ (John 19:30). * The following is a comment passed by C. H. Spurgeon on certain passages in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs: "I have been often amazed and delighted with the remarkable answers which were given to bishops and priests by poor humble men and women who were on trial for their lives. Perhaps you remember that Anne Askew was asked, in order to entangle her in her speech, ‘What would become of a mouse if it ate the bread of the holy sacrament?’ She said that it was too deep a question for a poor woman like her to answer, and she begged the learned bishop on the bench to tell her what would become of the mouse: to which his lordship answered that it would be damned. Now what reply could be given to that but the one Anne Askew gave, ’Alack! poor mouse!’ I do not know that anything better could have been said… the Holy Ghost has helped His saints in time of persecution to answer well those who have accused them." (From Sermon No.2898, published on 25/8/1904). 5. PENANCE (INCLUDING CONFESSION AND PRIESTLY ABSOLUTION) Roman Catholic priests sit in the confessional as ’judges in the tribunal of penance’, and minutely investigate sins, all thoughts of shame being laid aside. The ear of the priest is described by C. H. Spurgeon as ’the cesspool of the parish’. The claim is that the priests have power from Christ according to their discretion to grant or refuse absolution. But according to Scripture the forgiveness of sins comes to a man via the preaching of the Gospel and not by way of a priestly and ’ecclesiastical’ act performed by a fellow sinner. The latter is simply a messenger of the Lord commissioned to declare the good news by the preaching of the Word. The Acts of the Apostles (e.g., Acts 2:22-40; Acts 10:44-48; Acts 13:38-41; Acts 16:30-33) is a commentary on the words of John 20:23 (forgiveness in action), and the forgiveness therein revealed was not spoken to penitents in a confessional-box, or by priestly lips, but by those who said, "Through this Man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins, and by Him all that believe are justified …" Rome divides sins into two classes (a) mortal sins which are deadly, killing the soul and subjecting it to eternal punishment, (b) venial sins, which are defined as ’small and pardonable offences against God or our neighbour’. Mortal sins necessitate the absolution which can be spoken only by the priest; venial sins (which do not exclude from the grace of God) can be expiated by good works, prayers, extreme unction, and purgatory. The New Testament knows nothing of such teaching. 6. PURGATORY Rome asserts the existence of a purgatory (a place of punishment and thereby of ultimate cleansing) after this life and before the admission of a Romanist into heaven. It is allegedly a place of fire in which the souls of the pious are tormented, possibly for thousands of years. Relatives of the departed are often urged to pay for masses to be said for the repose of the souls of the departed so that their release from purgatory may be hastened. Prayers for the dead are also urged. Rome claims that 1 Corinthians 3:12-15 teaches Purgatory. But it is to be noted that the apostle’s teaching here indicates (a) that it is works, not persons, that are tried by fire, (b) that the trial of the works takes place in ’the day’ (i.e., of Christ) not at once after death, (c) that some thereby suffer loss (whereas Rome claims that the Romanist gains by purification in purgatory) and (d) that the faithful (builder) is rewarded, for the ’fire’ proves his works to be good. Indulgences confer the remission in whole or in part of the temporal punishment due to sin, both in respect of this world and purgatory .They are issued by the pope who claims personal jurisdiction over purgatory, and are usually granted through the priests in return for gifts or services rendered to the Church, or as a reward for other ’good works’. Certain Romish saints are supposed to have performed works of merit over and above what God required of them. These works, known as works of supererogation, constitute a treasury of merit which the popes can utilise as they please. From this the unbiblical system of indulgences is operated. It was one of the evils which deeply stirred the souls of 16th century Reformers. 7. THE INVOCATION OF SAINTS AND ANGELS Romanists are encouraged to worship and invoke saints and angels, the Council of Trent affirming that this is no violation of the decalogue. It is explained that just as the lesser honour given to magistrates is not inconsistent with the greater honour paid to a king, so the adoration of saints and angels is not inconsistent with the worship of God. Texts which speak of angels refusing such adoration (Revelation 19:10; Revelation 22:8-9) are taken to mean that angels decline the honour due to God but not the inferior honour which God permits. In practice the normal Romanist probably makes little distinction between the two. He is also permitted, if not urged, to venerate statues and relics of departed saints. ’By the images which we kiss’, says the Council of Trent, ’and before which we uncover the head and bend the knee, we adore Christ’. Scripture forbids all such practices: they are a form of idolatry (Exodus 20:4; Matthew 4:10; 1 John 5:21; compare Acts 10:26 and Acts 14:11-18). 8. MARIOLATRY Mary, the mother of the Lord Jesus, is for all practical purposes almost raised, in Romanism, to the rank of Deity. They speak of her as the Queen of Heaven (compare the speech of idolatrous Jews in Jeremiah 44:17; Jeremiah 44:25). Although Romanists distinguish three kinds of worship (I. latria, the worship due to God alone; 2. hyperdulia, the worship given to Mary; 3. dulia, the worship accorded to saints ), and Rome asserts that Mary is not regarded as a member of the Godhead, it is clear from Roman Catholic writings and modes of worship, that Mary is exalted to a position little removed from that of Deity .In other words, hyperdulia shades into latria. Many Roman Catholic prayers seem to give her precedence over Christ Himself. Indeed, many Romanists believe that Christ is best approached through Mary .But this is entirely foreign to New Testament teaching. Mariolatry is based on evil tradition, not on Scripture. Why does Mary fade out of sight after Acts 1:14 if Romish tradition is true to the Gospel? We certainly need a Mediator between ourselves and God (1 Timothy 2:5), but we do not need a Mediator between ourselves and Christ; we are to come to Him just as we are. And Christ brings us to God. To effect this He ONCE suffered for sins (1 Peter 3:18). 9. THE SUPREMACY OF PETER The entire structure of Romanism is based on the assumption that Christ appointed Peter the first pope and thereby established the papacy (Matthew 16:13-19, and Luke 22:32 are supposed to certify this). But (a) Christ did not make Peter the foundation of His Church. He did not say to him, ’On thee I will build My Church’, but ’On this rock (petra, whereas Peter’s name was, in Greek, Petros; Christ uses a different gender) I will build My Church’. The Church is built on Christ as the Rock foundation (1 Corinthians 3:1-23. II), on the apostles and prophets (themselves built upon Christ) as the secondary foundation (Ephesians 2:20). Believers are built upon them, tier upon tier, and so the structure rises as ’an holy temple in the Lord’, ’an habitation of God through the Spirit’. It is vain to think that an apostle, addressed by his Lord as ’Satan’ shortly after his confession of faith (Matthew 16:23), could be a suitable foundation for the ’temple of God’. In the dispute among the apostles for precedence, the Lord did not say that Peter had already been marked out as first, and therefore James and John and the rest could not be considered (Mark 10:35-44). Far from it! Indeed, in Gospels, Acts, and Epistles, Peter, though in the front rank of believers, is not accorded any headship. It was not Peter but James who presided over the Council held in Jerusalem (Acts 15:13; Acts 15:19). In Galatians 2:11, when a vital doctrine was endangered, Paul withstood Peter to the face because he was to be blamed. Where then was Peter’s ’infallibility’? (b) Peter never claimed supreme authority and precedence over the other apostles or over the Church. In his epistles he makes no claim to an earthly headship over’ the Church. He simply terms himself an apostle and fellow-elder (1 Peter 1:1; 1 Peter 5:1-3). His demeanour after Pentecost, as depicted in the New Testament, is that of a suffering witness to his Lord. He is seen as humble and contrite, one who, having denied his Master and been restored, was able to strengthen his brethren by testifying to the wondrous grace that recovered him from his fall and recommissioned him for the service of the risen Saviour. The New Testament yields not a vestige of proof that Peter was ever in Rome. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans was written in or about 58 A.D. Romanists claim that Peter was bishop of Rome from 42 to 67 A.D. Yet, though the epistle contains many names and greetings, it makes not the slightest mention of Peter. The Second Epistle to Timothy was written from Rome, yet in it Paul says, "Only Luke is with me" (2 Timothy 4:11). 10. THE INFALLIBILITY OF THE POPE The dogma of 1870, promulgated during the papacy of Pius IX, claims that ’the Roman pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra (i.e., ’when fulfilling the office of pastor and teacher of all Christians’), is endowed with infallibility ... in defining doctrine concerning faith and morals. If anyone shall presume (which God forbid!) to contradict this our definition, let him be anathema (accursed)’. The alleged infallibility is supposed to run through past centuries as well as into future time, backwards as well as forwards. But even a scanty knowledge of History is sufficient to show the complete absurdity of such a claim. 11. CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY This is the requirement of the Roman Church that its priests monks and nuns should abstain from marriage, contrary to Scripture statement that marriage is honourable in all (Hebrews 13:4). It did not come into vogue until about 1000 A.D. Rom, teaches that celibacy is a superior state to marriage. There is much in the New Testament that conflicts with this teaching. Peter, for instance, was a married man. Paul says that a bishop "must be the husband of one wife" (1 Timothy 3:2). 12. INTOLERANCE AND PERSECUTION Notoriously Rome has been a persecuting Church. She has claimed that, if her sheep went astray and abandoned her fold it was but the kindness of pastoral care on her part to seek their recovery, and save them thereby from perdition. Thus has Rome attempted to justify the rack, the thumbscrew, and the stake. But it can only be said that the Inquisition (officially styled ’The Holy Office’) has been as unholy an institution as hell itself could have devised. "Judge", said a martyr as he was about to die, "which is the better religion, the one which persecutes or the one which suffers". Where the Roman Church has achieved full supremacy in a State it has been usual hitherto virtually to deny the right of existence to non-Roman Churches, and to demand freedom for herself alone. In modern days, however, she has somewhat changed her voice and is erroneously supposed to have abandoned her exclusive claims. Yet it is only Rome’s tactic! which have changed, not her heart and mind. She claims dominion over soul and conscience, and only bides her time in the hope that her day of power is returning. CONCLUSION Rome may seem to express deep concern for the unity of Christendom and for the spiritual and moral welfare of ’the separated brethren’, but since the unity for which she stands includes belief in the doctrines outlined above, and in others akin to them- and she makes no move to alter them, except for such minor changes as the relaxation of the rule of celibacy- it is abundantly clear that we can make no common cause with her. Should we do so, we should betray ’the blood of the martyrs of Jesus’ (see Revelation 17:6.). Rome boasts that she is ’semper eadem’ (always the same); she denies the need for reformation. But her beliefs are in many essential particulars directly contrary to the teachings of God’s Word, and we feel it vital to issue words of warning lest any whose faith, though true and saving, is feeble and uninformed, should be beguiled by Rome’s siren voice. We urge all interested parties to compare Rome’s teachings point by point with those of Scripture, and we doubt not that all who are enlightened by the Holy Spirit of God will discern the plain differences which exist, and which make fraternization with Rome an impossibility to those who hold to Bible truth. (John 17:17) ======================================================================== CHAPTER 56: 02.036. CONFESS: MODERN SODOM ======================================================================== The Confessional is the Modern Sodom From ‘The Priest, the Woman and the Confessional’ Father Chiniquy If anyone wants to hear an eloquent oration. let him go where the Roman Catholic priest is preaching on the divine institution of auricular confession. There is no subject, perhaps, on which the priests display so much zeal and earnestness, and of which they speak so often. For this institution is really the corner-stone of their stupendous power it is the secret of their almost irresistible influence. Let the people open their eyes today to the truth, and understand that auricular confession is one of the most stupendous impostures which Satan has invented to corrupt and enslave the world; let the people desert the confessional-box today, and tomorrow Romanism will fall into dust. The priests understand this very well; hence their constant efforts to deceive the people on that question. To attain their object, they have recourse to the most egregious falsehoods; the Scriptures are misrepresented; the Holy Fathers are brought to say the very contrary of what they have ever thought written; and the most extraordinary miracles and stories are invented. But two of the arguments to which they have more often recourse are the great and perpetual miracles which God makes to keep the purity of the confessional undefiled, and its secrets marvelously sealed. They make the people believe that the vow of perpetual chastity changes their nature, turns them into angels, and puts them above the co mmon frailties of the fallen children of Adam. Bravely, and with a brazen face, when they are interrogated on that subject, they say that they have special graces to remain pure and undefiled in the midst of the greatest dangers, that the Virgin Mary, to whom they are consecrated, is their powerful advocate to obtain from her Son that superhuman virtue of chastity; that which would be a cause of sure perdition to common men is without peril and danger for a true Son of Mary and, with amazing stupidity, the people consent to be duped, blinded, and deceived by those fooleries. But here, let the world learn the truth as it is, from one who knows perfectly everything inside and outside the walls of that modern Babylon. Though many, I know, will disbelieve me and say, "We hope you are mistaken; it is impossible that the priests of Rome mould turn out to be such impostors they may be mistaken; they may believe and repeat things which are not true, but they are honest; they cannot be such impudent deceivers." Yes; though I know that many will hardly believe me, I must tell the truth. Those very men, who, when speaking to the people in such glowing terms of the marvelous way they are kept pure, in the midst of the dangers which surround them, honestly blush-and often weep-when they speak to each other (when they are sure that nobody, except priests, hear them). They deplore their own moral degradation with the utmost sincerity and honesty; they ask from God and men pardon for their unspeakable depravity. I have here in my hands-and under my eyes-one of their most remarkable secret books, written (or at least approved) by one of their greatest and best bishops and cardinals, the Cardinal de Bonald, Archbishop of Lyons. The book is written for the use of priests alone. Its title is, in French, "Examen de Conscience des Pretres." At page 34 we read :- "Have I left certain: persons to make the declarations of their sins in such a way that the imagination, once taken and impressed by pictures and representations, could be dragged into a long course of temptations and grievous sins? The priests do not pay sufficient attention to the continual temptations caused by the hearing of confessions. The soul is gradually enfeebled in such a way that, at the end, the virtue of chastity is for ever lost." Here is the address of a priest to other priests, when he suspects that nobody but his co-sinner brethren hear him. Here is the honest language of truth. In the presence of God those priests acknowledge that they have not a sufficient fear of those Constant (what a word-what an acknowledgment-constant I) temptations, and they honestly confess that these temptations come from the hearing of the confession of so many scandalous sins. Here the priests honestly acknowledge that these constant temptations, at the end, destroy forever in them the holy virtue of purity.* Ah ! would to God that all the honest girls and women whom the devil entraps into the snares of auricular confession could hear the cries of distress of those poor priests whom they have tempted forever. Would to God that they could see the torrents of tears shed by so many priests, because, from the hearing of confessions, they had forever lost the virtue of purity! They would understand that the confessional is a snare, a pit of perdition, a Sodom for the priest; they would be struck with horror and shame at the idea of the continual, shameful, dishonest, degrading temptations by which their confessor is tormented day and night-they would blush on account of the shameful sins which their confessors have committed-they would weep over the irreparable loss of their purity-they would promise before God and men that the confessional. box should never see them any more-they would prefer to be burned alive, if any sentiment of honesty and charity remained in them, rather than consent to be a cause of constant temptations and damnable sin, to that man. Would that respectable lady go any more to confess to that man if, after her confession, she could hear him lamenting the continual, shameful temptations which assail him day and night, and the damning sins which he had committed on account of what she had confessed to him? No! a thousand times, no! Would that honest father allow his beloved daughter to go any more to that man to confess, if he could hear his cries of distress, and see his tears flowing, because the hearing of those confessions is the source of constant shameful temptations and degrading iniquities? Oh! would to God that the honest Romanists all over the world-for there are millions, who, though deluded, are honest-could see what is going on in the heart and the imagination of the poor confessor when he is, there, surrounded by attractive women and tempting girls, speaking to him from morning to night on things which a man cannot hear without falling! Then that modern but grand imposture, called the Sacrament of Penance, would soon be ended. But here, again, who will not lament the consequence! of the total perversity of our human nature? Those very same priests, who when alone, in the presence of God, speak so plainly of the constant temptations by which they are assailed, and who so sincerely weep over the irreparable loss of their virtue of purity, when they think that nobody hears them, will yet, in public with a brazen face, deny those temptations. They will indignantly rebuke you as a slanderer if you say anything to lead them to suppose that you fear for their purity, when they hear the confession of girls or married women! There is not a single one of the Roman Catholic authors, who have written on that subject for the priests, who has not deplored their innumerable and degrading sins against purity, on account of the auricular confession; but those very men will be the first to try to prove the very contrary when they write books for the people. I have no words to tell what was my surprise when, for the first time, I saw that this strange duplicity seemed to be one of the fundamental stones of my Church. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 57: 02.037. THE PERILS OF POPERY ======================================================================== The Perils of Popery This text is taken from The Trinity Review, published by The Trinity Foundation, P.O. Box 1666, Hobbs, New Mexico 88240 (issues 120-122). The original article is from Discussions of Robert Lewis Dabney, Volume 3, reprinted by The Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh. If the threat from popery was so great in the 1890’s, what must it be today! I have added some explanatory footnotes. - A.N. R.L. Dabney "We are relaxing our resistance against the dreaded foe just in proportion as he grows more formidable. It has become the fashion to condemn controversy and to affect the widest charity for this and all other foes of Christ and of souls." Mr. John H. Rice, with the intuition of a great mind, warned Presbyterians against a renewed prevalence of popery in our Protestant land. This was when it was so insignificant among us as to be almost unnoticed. Many were surprised at his prophecy, and not a few mocked; but time has fulfilled it. Our leaders from 1830 to 1860 understood well the causes of this danger. They were diligent to inform and prepare the minds of their people against it. Hence General Assemblies and Synods appointed annual sermons upon popery, and our teachers did their best to arouse the minds of the people. Now, all this has mainly passed away, and we are relaxing our resistance against the dreaded foe just in proportion as he grows more formidable. It has become the fashion to condemn controversy and to affect the widest charity for this and all other foes of Christ and of souls. High Presbyterian authority even is quoted as saying that henceforth our concern with Romanism should be chiefly irenical!1 The figures presented by the census of 1890 are construed in opposite ways. This gives the papists more than fourteen millions of adherents in the United States, where ninety years ago there were but a few thousands. Such Protestant journals as think it their interest to play sycophants2 to public opinion try to persuade us that these figures are very consoling; because, if Rome had kept all the natural increase of her immigrations the numbers would have been larger. But Rome points to them with insolent triumph as prognostics of an assured victory over Protestantism on this continent. Which will prove correct? For Presbyterians of all others to discount the perpetual danger from Romanism is thoroughly thoughtless and rash. We believe that the Christianity left by the apostles to the primitive church was essentially what we now call Presbyterian and Protestant. Prelacy and popery speedily began to work in the bosom of that community and steadily wrought its corruption and almost its total extirpation. Why should not the same cause tend to work the same result again? Are we truer or wiser Presbyterians than those trained by the apostles? Have the enemies of truth become less skillful and dangerous by gaining the experience of centuries? The popish system of ritual and doctrine was a gradual growth, which, modifying true Christianity, first perverted and then extinguished it. Its destructive power has resulted from this: that it has not been the invention of any one cunning and hostile mind, but a gradual growth, modified by hundreds or thousands of its cultivators, who were the most acute, learned, selfish, and anti-Christian spirits of their generations, perpetually retouched and adapted to every weakness and every attribute of depraved human nature, until it became the most skillful and pernicious system of error which the world has ever known. As it has adjusted itself to every superstition, every sense of guilt, every foible and craving of the depraved human heart, so it has travestied with consummate skill every active principle of the Gospel. It is doubtless the ne plus ultra3 of religious delusion, the final and highest result of perverted human faculty guided by the sagacity of the great enemy. This system has nearly conquered Christendom once. He who does not see that it is capable of conquering it again is blind to the simplest laws of thought. One may ask: ’Does it not retain sundry of the cardinal doctrines of the Gospel, monotheism, the trinity, the hypostatic union, Christ’s sacrifice, the sacraments, the resurrection, the judgment, immortality?’ Yes; in form it retains them, and this because of its supreme cunning. It retains them while so wresting and enervating as to rob them mainly of their sanctifying power, because it designs to spread its snares for all sorts of minds of every grade of opinion. The grand architect was too cunning to make it, like his earlier essays, mere atheism, or mere fetishism, or mere polytheism, or mere pagan idolatry; for in these forms the trap only ensnared the coarser and more ignorant natures. He has now perfected it and baited it for all types of humanity, the most refined as well as the most imbruted. I Romanism now enjoys in our country certain important advantages, which I may style legitimate in this sense, that our decadent, half-corrupted Protestantism bestows these advantages upon our enemy, so that Rome, in employing them, only uses what we ourselves give her. In other words, there are plain points upon which Rome claims a favorable comparison as against Protestantism; and her claim is correct, in that the latter is blindly and criminally betraying her own interests and duties. (1) A hundred years ago French atheism gave the world the Jacobin theory of political rights. The Bible had been teaching mankind for three thousand years the great doctrine of mens moral equality before the universal Father, the great basis of all free, just, and truly republican forms of civil society. Atheism now travestied this true doctrine by her mortal heresy of the absolute equality of men, asserting that every human being is naturally and inalienably entitled to every right, power, and prerogative in civil society which is allowed to any man or any class. The Bible taught a liberty which consists in each man’s unhindered privilege of having and doing just those things, and no others, to which he is rationally and morally entitled. Jacobinism taught the liberty of license - every man’s natural right to indulge his own absolute will; and it set up this fiendish caricature as the object of sacred worship for mankind. Now, democratic Protestantism in these United States has become so ignorant, so superficial and wilful, that it confounds the true republicanism with this deadly heresy of Jacobinism. It has ceased to know a difference. Hence, when the atheistic doctrine begins to bear its natural fruits of license, insubordination, communism, and anarchy, this bastard democratic Protestantism does not know how to rebuke them. It has recognized the parents; how can it consistently condemn the children? Now, then, Rome proposes herself as the stable advocate of obedience, order, and permanent authority throughout the ages. She shows her practical power to govern men, as she says, through their consciences (truth would say, through their superstitions). Do we wonder that good citizens, beginning to stand aghast at these elements of confusion and ruin, the spawn of Jacobinism, which a Jacobinized Protestantism cannot control, should look around for some moral and religious system capable of supporting a firm social order? Need we be surprised that when Rome steps forward, saying: ’I have been through the centuries the upholder of order, rational men should be inclined to give her their hand’? This high advantage a misguided Protestantism is now giving to its great adversary. (2) The Reformation was an assertion of liberty of thought. It asserted for all mankind, and secured for the Protestant nations, each man’s right to think and decide for himself upon his religious creed and his duty toward his God, in the fear of God and the truth, unhindered by human power, political or ecclesiastical. Here, again, a part of our Protestantism perverted the precious truth until the manna bred worms, and stank. Rationalistic and skeptical Protestantism now claims, instead of that righteous liberty, license to dogmatize at the bidding of every caprice, every impulse of vanity, every false philosophy, without any responsibility to either truth or moral obligation. The result has been a diversity and confusion of pretended creeds and theologies among nominal Protestants, which perplexes and frightens sincere, but timid, minds. Everything seems to them afloat upon this turbulent sea of licentious debate. They are fatigued and alarmed; they see no end of uncertainties. They look around anxiously for some safe and fixed foundation of credence. Rome comes forward and says to them, ’You see, then, that this Protestant liberty of thought is fatal license; the Protestants’ rational religion turns out to be but poisonous rationalism, infidelity wearing the mask of faith. Holy Mother Church offers you the foundation of her infallibility, guaranteed by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. She shows you that faith must ground itself in implicit submission, and not in human inquiry. She pledges herself for the safety of your soul if you simply submit: ’Come, then, trust and be at rest.’ Many are the weary souls who accept her invitations; and these not only the weak and cowardly, but sometimes the brilliant and gifted, like a Cardinal Newman. For this result a perverted Protestantism is responsible. If all nominal Protestants were as honest in their exercise of mental liberty as the fear of God and the loyalty to truth should make them; if they were as humble and honest in construing and obeying Gods word in his Bible, as papists profess to be in submitting to the authority of the Holy Mother Church, honest inquirers would never be embarrassed, and would never be fooled into supposing that the words of a pope could furnish a more comfortable foundation for faith than the Word of God. II I now proceed to explain certain evil principles of human nature which are concurring powerfully in this country to give currency to popery. These may be called its illicit advantages. I mention: (1) The constant tendency of American demagogues to pay court to popery and to purchase votes for themselves from it, at the cost of the people’s safety, rights, and money. Nearly two generations ago (the men of this day seem to have forgotten the infamy) William H. Seward, of New York, began this dangerous and dishonest game. He wished to be Governor of New York. He came to an understanding with Archbishop Hughes, then the head of the popish hierarchy in that state, to give him the Irish vote in return for certain sectarian advantages in the disbursement of the state revenues. Neither Rome nor the demagogues have since forgotten their lesson, nor will they ever forget it. It would be as unreasonable to expect it as to expect that hawks will forget the poultry yard. It is the nature of the demagogue to trade off anything for votes; they are the breath in the nostrils of his ambition. The popish hierarchy differs essentially from the ministry of any other religion in having votes to trade. The traditional claim of Rome is that she has the right to control both spheres, the ecclesiastical and the political, the political for the sake of the ecclesiastical. The votes of her masses are more or less manageable, as the votes of Protestants are not, because Rome’s is a system of authority as opposed to free thought. Rome instructs the conscience of every one of her members that it is his religious duty to subordinate all other duties and interests to hers. And this is a spiritual duty enforceable by the most awful spiritual sanctions. How can a thinking man afford to disobey the hierarchy which holds his eternal destiny in its secret fist; so that even if they gave him in form the essential sacraments, such as the mass, absolution, and extreme unction, they are able clandestinely to make them worthless to him, by withholding the sacramental intention? Hence it is that the majority of American papists can be voted in blocs; and it is virtually the hierarchy which votes them. The goods are ready bound up parcels for traffic with demagogues. We are well aware that numerous papists will indignantly deny this, declaring that there is a Romanist vote in this country which is just as independent of their priesthood and as free as any other. Of course there is. The hierarchy is a very experienced and dexterous driver. It does not whip in the restive colts, but humors them awhile until she gets them well harnessed and broken. But the team as a whole must yet travel her road, because they have to believe it infallible. We assure these independent Romanist voters that they are not good Catholics; they must unlearn this heresy of independent thought before they are meet for the Romanist paradise. Men of secular ambition have always sought to use the hierarchy to influence others for their political advantage; the example is as old as history. Just as soon as prelacy was developed in the patristic church, Roman emperors began to purchase its influence to sustain their thrones. Throughout the Middle Ages, German Kaisers and French, Spanish, and English kings habitually traded with Rome, paying her dignities and endowments for her ghostly support to their ambitions. Even in this century we have seen the two Napoleons playing the same game - purchasing for their imperialism the support of a priesthood in whose religion they did not believe. If any suppose that because America is nominally democratic the same thing will not happen here, they are thoroughly silly. Some Yankee ingenuity will be invoked to modify the forms of the traffic, so as to suit American names; that is all. Intelligent students of church history know that one main agency for converting primitive Christianity first into prelacy and then into popery was unlimited church endowments. As soon as Constantine established Christianity as the religion of the State, ecclesiastical persons and bodies began to assume the virtual (and before long the formal) rights of corporations. They could receive bequests and gifts of property, and hold them by a tenure as firm as that of the fee-simple. These spiritual corporations were deathless. Thus the property they acquired was all held by the tenure of mortmain.4 When a corporation is thus empowered to absorb continually, and never to disgorge, there is no limit to its possible wealth. The laws of the Empire in the Middle Ages imposed no limitations upon bequests; thus, most naturally, monasteries, cathedrals, chapters, and archbishoprics became inordinately rich. At the Reformation they had grasped one-third of the property of Europe. But Scripture saith, Where the carcass is, thither the eagles are gathered together. Wealth is power, and ambitious men crave it. Thus this endowed hierarchy came to be filled by the men of the greediest ambition in Europe, instead of by humble, self-denying pastors; and thus it was that this tremendous money power, arming itself first with a spiritual despotism of the popish theology over consciences, and then allying itself with political power, wielded the whole to enforce the absolute domination of that religion which gave them their wealth. No wonder human liberty, free thought, and the Bible were together trampled out of Europe. When the Reformation came, the men who could think saw that this tenure in mortmain had been the fatal thing. Knox, the wisest of them, saw clearly that if a religious reformation was to succeed in Scotland the ecclesiastical corporations must be destroyed. They were destroyed, their whole property alienated to the secular nobles or to the State (the remnant which Knox secured for religious education); and therefore it was that Scotland remained Presbyterian. When our American commonwealths were founded, statesmen and divines understood this great principle of jurisprudence, that no corporate tenure in mortmain, either spiritual or secular, is compatible with the liberty of the people and the continuance of constitutional government. But it would appear that our legislators now know nothing about that great principle, or care nothing about it. Church institutions, Protestant and Romanist, are virtually perpetual corporations. Whatever the pious choose to give them is held in mortmain, and they grow continually richer and richer; they do not even pay taxes, and there seems no limit upon their acquisitions. And last comes the Supreme Court of the United States, and under the pretext of construing the law, legislates a new law in the famous Walnut-Street Church case, as though they desired to ensure both the corruption of religion and the destruction of free government by a second gigantic incubus of endowed ecclesiasticism. The new law is virtually this: that in case any free citizen deems that the gifts of himself or his ancestors are usurped for some use alien to the designed trust, it shall be the usurper who shall decide the issue. This is, of course, essentially popish, yet a great Protestant denomination has been seen hastening to enroll it in its digest of spiritual laws. The working of this tendency of overgrown ecclesiastical wealth will certainly be two-fold: first, to Romanize partially or wholly the Protestant churches thus enriched; and, secondly, to incline, enable, and equip the religion thus Romanized for its alliance with political ambition and for the subjugation of the people and the government. When church bodies began, under Constantine, to acquire endowments, these bodies were Episcopal, at most, or even still Presbyterian. The increase of endowment helped to make them popish. Then popery and feudalism stamped out the Bible and enslaved Europe. If time permitted, I could trace out the lines of causation into perfect clearness. Will men ever learn that like causes must produce like effects? (2) The democratic theory of human society may be the most rational and equitable; but human nature is not equitable; it is fallen and perverted. Lust of applause, pride, vainglory, and love of power are as natural to it as hunger to the body. Next to Adam, the most representative man upon earth was Diotrephes, who loves to have the pre-eminence. Every man is an aristocrat in his heart. Now, prelacy and popery are aristocratic religions. Consequently, as long as human nature is natural, they will present more or less of attraction to human minds. Quite a number of Methodist, Presbyterian, or Independent ministers have gone over to prelacy or popery, and thus become bishops. Was there ever one of them, however conscientious his new faith, and however devout his temper, who did not find some elation and pleasure in his spiritual dignity? Is there a democrat in democratic America who would not be flattered in his heart by being addressed as my lord? Distinction and power are gratifying to all men. Prelacy and popery offer this sweet morsel to aspirants by promising to make some of them lords of their brethren. This is enough to entice all of them, as the crown entices all the racers on the race-course. It is true that while many run, one obtains the crown; but all may flatter themselves with the hope of winning. (3) Especially does the pretension of sacramental grace offer the most splendid bait to human ambition which can be conceived of on this Earth. To be the vicar of the Almighty in dispensing eternal life and heavenly crowns at will is a more magnificent power than the prerogative of any emperor on Earth. Let a man once be persuaded that he really grasps this power by getting a place in the apostolic succession, and the more sincere he is, the more splendid the prerogative will appear to him; for the more clearly his faith appreciates the thing that he proposes to do in the sacraments, the more illustrious that thing must appear. The greatest boon ever inherited by an emperor was finite. The greatest boon of redemption is infinite; to be able to dispense it at will to one sinner is a much grander thing than to conquer the world and establish a universal secular empire. The humblest hedge-priest would be a far grander man than that emperor if he could really work the miracle and confer the grace of redemption which Rome says he does every time he consecrates a mass. How shall we estimate, then, the greatness of that pope or prelate who can manufacture such miracle workers at will? The greatest being on Earth should hardly think himself worthy to loose his sandals from his feet. The Turkish ambassador to Paris was certainly right when, upon accompanying the King of France to high mass in Notre Dame, and seeing the king, courtiers, and multitude all prostrate themselves when the priest elevated the host, he wondered that the king should allow anybody but himself to perform that magnificent function. He is reported to have said: ’Sire, if I were king, and believed in your religion, nobody should do that in France except me. It is a vastly greater thing than anything else that you do in your royal functions.’ As long as man is man, therefore, popery will possess this unhallowed advantage of enticing, and even entrancing, the ambition of the keenest aspirants. The stronger their faith in their doctrine, the more will they sanctify to themselves this dreadful ambition. In this respect, as in so many others, the tendency of the whole current of human nature is to make papists. It is converting grace only which can check that current and turn men sincerely back toward Protestantism. I am well aware that the functions of the Protestant minister may be so wrested as to present an appeal to unhallowed ambition. But popery professes to confer upon her clergy every didactic and presbyterial function which Protestantism has to bestow; while the former offers, in addition, this splendid bait of prelatic power and sacramental miracle-working. (4) In sundry respects I perceive a sort of hallucination prevailing in people’s minds concerning old historical errors and abuses, which I see to have been the regular results of human nature. Men will not understand history; they flatter themselves that, because the modes of civilization are much changed and advanced, therefore the essential laws of mans nature are going to cease acting; which is just as unreasonable as to expect that sinful human beings must entirely cease to be untruthful, sensual, dishonest, and selfish, because they have gotten to wear fine clothes. Of certain evils and abuses of ancient history men persuade themselves that they are no longer possible among us, because we have become civilized and nominally Christian. One of these evils is idolatry with its two branches, polytheism and image-worship. ’Oh!’ they say, ’mankind has outgrown all that; other evils may invade our Christian civilization, but that is too gross to come back again.’ They are blind at once to the teachings of historical facts and to common sense. They know that at one time idolatry nearly filled the ancient world. Well, what was the previous religious state of mankind upon which it supervened? Virtually a Christian state, that is to say, a worship of the one true God, under the light of revelation, with our same Gospel taught by promises and sacrifices. And it is very stupid to suppose that the social state upon which the early idolatry supervened was savage or barbaric. We rather conclude that the. people who built Noahs ark, the tower of Babel, and the pyramid of Cheops, and who enjoyed the light of God’s recent revelations to Adam, to Enoch, to Noah, were civilized. Men made a strange confusion here: They fancy that idolatry could be prevalent because mankind were not civilized. The historical fact is just the opposite: Mankind became uncivilized because idolatry first prevailed. In truth, the principles tending to idolatry are deeply laid in mans fallen nature. Like a compressed spring, they are ever ready to act again, and will surely begin to act, whenever the opposing power of vital godliness is withdrawn. First, the sensuous has become too prominent in man; reason, conscience, and faith, too feeble. Every sinful mans experience witnesses this all day long, every day of his life. Why else is it that the objects of sense perception, which are comparatively trivial, dominate his attention, his sensibilities, and his desires so much more than the objects of faith, which he himself knows to be so much more important? Did not this sensuous tendency seek to invade mans religious ideas and feelings, it would be strange indeed. Hence, man untaught and unchecked by the heavenly light always shows a craving for sensuous objects of worship. He is not likely, in our day, to satisfy this craving by setting up a brazen image of Dagon, the fish-god; or of Zeus,5 or the Roman Jupiter;6 or of the Aztecs’ Itzlahuitl.7 But still he craves a visible, material object of worship. Rome meets him at a comfortable half-way station with her relics, crucifixes, and images of the saints. She adroitly smoothes the downhill road for him by connecting all these with the worship of the true God. Again, man’s conscious weakness impels him almost irresistibly in his serious hours to seek some being of supernatural attributes to lean upon. His heart cries out, ’Lead me to the Rock that is higher than I.’ But when pure monotheism proposes to him the supreme, eternal God - infinite not only in his power to help, but in his omniscience, justice, and holiness - the sinful heart recoils. This object is too high, too holy, too dreadful for it. Sinful man craves a god, but, like his first father, shuns the infinite God; hence the powerful tendency to invent intermediate gods, whom he may persuade himself to be sufficiently gracious and powerful to be trusted, and yet not so infinite, immutable, and holy as inevitably to condemn sin. Here is the impulse which prompted all pagan nations to invent polytheism. This they did by filling the space between man and the supreme being with intermediate gods. Such, among the Greeks, were Bacchus,8 Hercules,9 Castor and Pollux,10 Theseus,11 Aesculapius,12 etc. It is a great mistake to suppose that thoughtful pagans did not recognize the unity and eternity of a supreme god, Father of gods and of men. But sometimes they represent him as so exalted and sublimated as to be at once above the reach of human prayers and above all concernment in human affairs. Others thought of him as too awful to be directly approached, accessible only through the mediation of his own next progeny, the secondary gods. Here we have precisely the impulse for which Rome provides in her saint worship Mary is the highest of the intermediate gods, next to the Trinity, the intercessor for Christs intercession. The apostles and saints are the secondary gods of this Christian pantheon. How strangely has Gods predestination led Rome in the development of her history to the unwitting admission of this indictment! Pagan Rome had her marble temple, the gift of Agrippa13 to the Commonwealth, the Pantheon, or sanctuary of all the gods. This very building stands now, rededicated by the popes as the temple of Christ and all the saints. So fateful has been the force of this analogy between the old polytheism and the new. The attempt is made, indeed, to hide the likeness by the sophistical distinction between latria14 and dulia15; but its worthlessness appears from this, that even dulia cannot be offered to redeemed creatures without ascribing to them, by an unavoidable implication, the attributes peculiar to God. In one word, fallen men of all ages have betrayed a powerful tendency to image-worship and polytheism.16 Rome provides for that tendency in a way the most adroit possible, for an age nominally Christian but practically unbelieving. To that tendency the religion of the Bible sternly refuses to concede anything, requiring not its gratification, but its extirpation. This cunning policy of Rome had sweeping success in the early church. The same principle won almost universal success in the ancient world. It will succeed again here. Many will exclaim that this prognostic is wholly erroneous; that the great, bad tendency of our age and country is to agnosticism as against ill religions. I am not mistaken. This drift will be as temporary as it is partial. M. Guizot17 says in his Meditations: "One never need go far back in history to find atheism advancing half way t6 meet superstition." A wiser analyst of human nature says: "Even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things."18 This is the exact pathology of superstition. When the culture of the Augustan19 age taught the Romans to despise the religious faith of their fathers, there was an interval of agnosticism. But next, the most refined of the agnostics were seen studying the mysteries of Isis, and practicing the foulest rites of the paganism of the: conquered provinces. Atheism is too freezing a blank for human souls to inhabit permanently. It outrages too many of the hearts affections and of the reasons first principles. A people who have cast away their God, when they discover this, turn to false gods. For all such wandering spirits Rome stands with open doors; there, finally, they will see their most convenient refuge of superstition in a catalogue of Christian saints transformed into a polytheism. Thus the cravings of superstition are satisfied, while the crime is veiled from the conscience by this pretence of scriptural origin. (5) I proceed to unfold an attraction of Romanism far more seductive. This is its proposal to satisfy man’s guilty heart by a ritual instead of a spiritual salvation. As all know who understand the popish theology, the proposed vehicle of this redemption by forms is the sacraments. Romanists are taught that the New Testament sacraments differ from those of the Old Testament in this: that they not only symbolize and seal, but effectuate grace ex opere operato20 in the souls of the recipients. Rome teaches her children that her sacraments are actual charismatic power of direct supernatural efficiency wrought upon recipients by virtue of a portion of the Holy Spirits omnipotence conferred upon the priest in ordination from the apostolic succession. The Bible teaches that in the case of all adults a gracious state must preexist in order for any beneficial participation in the sacrament, and that the only influence of the sacraments is to cherish and advance that pre-existing spiritual life by their didactic effect, as energized by Gods Spirit, through prayer, faith, watchfulness, and obedience, in precisely the same generic mode in which the Holy Spirit energizes the written and preached word. Hence, if watchfulness, prayer, obedience, and a life of faith are neglected, our sacraments become no sacraments. If thou be a breaker of the law, then circumcision is made uncircumcision. But Rome teaches that her sacraments, duly administered by a priest having apostolic succession, implant spiritual life in souls hitherto dead in sin, and that they maintain and foster this life by a direct power not dependent on the recipients diligent exercise of Gospel principles. Provided the recipient be not in mortal sin unabsolved, the sacrament does its spiritual work upon the sinful soul, whether it receives it in the exercise of saving grace or not. Now let no Protestant mind exclaim: Surely this is too gross to be popular; surely people will have too much sense to think that they can get to Heaven by this species of consecrated jugglery! History shows that this scheme of redemption is almost universally acceptable and warmly popular with sinful mankind. Apprehend aright the ideas of paganism, ancient and modem: We perceive that this popish conception of sacraments is virtually the same with the pagans conception of their heathen rites. They claim to be just this species of saving ritual, working their benefit upon souls precisely by this opus operatum21 agency. What a commentary have we here upon this tendency of human nature to a ritual salvation. The evangelists and apostles reintroduced to the world the pure conception of a spiritual salvation wrought by the energy of divine truth, and not of church rites; received by an intelligent faith in the saved mans soul, and not by manual ceremonial; and made effectual by the enlightening operation of the Holy Ghost upon heart and mind in rational accordance with truth, not by a priestly incantation working a physical miracle. The gospels and epistles defined and separated the two conceptions as plainly as words could do it. But no sooner were the apostles gone than the pagan conception of salvation by ritual, instead of by rational faith, began to creep back into the patristic church. In a few hundred years the wrong conception had triumphed completely over the correct one in nearly the whole of Christendom, and thenceforward sacramental grace has reigned supreme over the whole Roman and Greek communions, in spite of modern letters and culture. How startling this commentary upon that tendency of human nature! Surely there are deep-seated principles in man to account for it. These are not far to seek. First, men are sensuous beings, and hence they naturally crave something concrete, material, and spectacular in their religion. Dominated as they are by a perpetual current of sensations, and having their animality exaggerated by their sinful nature, they are sluggish to think spiritual truths, to look by faith upon invisible objects; they crave to walk by sight rather than by faith. The material things in mammon, the sensual pleasures which they see with their eyes and handle with their fingers, although they perfectly know they perish with the using, obscure their view of all the infinite, eternal realities, notwithstanding their professed belief of them. Need we wonder that with such creatures the visible and manual ritual should prevail over the spiritual didactic? Does one exclaim, But this is so unreasonable - this notion that a ritual ceremonial can change the state and destiny of a rational and moral spirit! I reply: ’Yes, but not one whit more irrational than the preference which the whole natural world gives to the things which are seen and temporal, as it perfectly knows, over the things which are unseen and eternal; an insanity of which the educated and refined are found just as capable as the ignorant and brutish.’ But the other principle of human nature is still more keen and pronounced in its preference for a ritual salvation. This is its deep-seated, omnipotent preference for self-will and sin over spiritual holiness of life. The natural man has, indeed, his natural conscience and remorse, his fearful looking for of judgment, his natural fear of misery, which is but modified selfishness. These make everlasting punishment very terrible to his apprehension. But enmity to God, to his spiritual service, to the supremacy of his holy will, is as native to him as his selfish fear is. Next to perdition, there is no conception in the universe so repulsive to the sinful heart of man as that of genuine repentance and its fruits. The true Gospel comes to him and says: Here is, indeed, a blessed, glorious redemption, as free as air, as secure as the throne of God, but instrumentally it is conditional on the faith of the heart; which faith works by love, purifies the heart, and can only exist as it coexists with genuine repentance, which repentance turns honestly, unreservedly, here and now, without shuffling or procrastination, from sin unto God, with full purpose of and endeavor after new obedience; wh ich is, in fact, a complete surrender of the sinful will to Gods holy will, and a hearty enlistment in an arduous work of watchfulness, self-denial, and self-discipline, for the sake of inward holiness, to be kept up as long as life lasts. Soul, embrace this task and this splendid salvation shall be yours; and the gracious Saviour, who purchases it for you, shall sustain, comfort, and enable you in this arduous enlistment, so that even in the midst of the warfare you shall find rest, and at the end Heaven; but without this faith and this repentance no sacraments or rights will do a particle of good toward your salvation. Now, this carnal soul has no faith; it is utterly mistrustful and skeptical as to the possibility of this peace of the heart in the spiritual warfare, this sustaining power of the invisible hand, of which it has had no experience. This complete subjugation of self-will to God, this life of self-denial and vital godliness, appears to this soul utterly repulsive, yea, terrible. This guilty soul dreads Hell; it abhors such a life only less than Hell. When told by Protestantism that it must thus turn or die, this carnal soul finds itself in an abhorrent dilemma; either term of the alternative is abominable to it. But now comes the theory of sacramental grace and says to it with oily tongue: ’Oh! Protestantism exaggerates the dilemma! Your case is not near so bad! The sacraments of the church transfer you from the state of condemnation to that of reconciliation by their own direct but mysterious efficiency; they work real grace, though you do not bring to them this deep, thoroughgoing self-sacrifice and self-consecration. No matter how much you sin, or how often, repeated masses will make expiation for the guilt of all those sins ex opere operato. Thus, with her other sacraments of penance and extreme unction, Holy Mother Church will repair all your shortcomings and put you back into a salvable state, no matter how sinfully you live.’ Need we wonder that this false doctrine is as sweet to that guilty soul as a reprieve to the felon at the foot of the gallows? He can draw his breath again; he can say to himself: ’Ah, then the abhorred dilemma does not urge me here and now; I can postpone this hated reformation; I can still tamper with cherished sins without embracing perdition.’ This is a pleasant doctrine; it suits so perfectly the sinful, selfish soul which does not wish to part with its sins, and also does not wish to lie down in everlasting burnings. This deep-seated love of sin and self has also another result: the soul is conscious that, if it must do many things which it does not like in order to avoid perdition, it is much pleasanter to do a number of ceremonial things than to do any portion of spiritual heartwork. After I stood my graduate examination in philosophy at the University of Virginia, my professor, the venerable George Tucker, showed me a cheating apparatus which had been prepared by a member of the class. He had unluckily dropped it upon the sidewalk, and it had found its way to the professor’s hands. It was a narrow blank-book, made to be hidden in the coat-sleeve. It contained, in exceedingly small penmanship, the whole course, in the form of questions from the professors recitations with their answers copied from the text-book. It was really a work of much labor. I said: ’The strange thing to me is that this sorry fellow has expended upon this fraud much more hard labor than would have enabled him to prepare himself for passing honestly and honorably.’ Mr. Tucker replied: ’Ah, my dear sir, you forget that a dunce finds it easier to do any amount of mere manual drudgery than the least bit of true thinking.’ Here we have an exact illustration. It is less irksome to the carnal mind to do twelve dozen paternosters by the beads than to do a few moments of real heart-work. Thoughtless people sometimes say that the rule of Romish piety is more exacting than that of the Protestant. This is the explanation, that Rome is more exacting as to form and ritual; Bible religion is more exacting as to spiritual piety and vital godliness. To the carnal mind the latter are almost insufferably irksome and laborious; the form and ritual, easy and tolerable. And when remorse, fear, and self-righteousness are gratified by the assurance that these observances really promote the souls salvation, the task is made light. Here Rome will always present an element of popularity as long as mankind are sensuous and carnal. (6) To a shallow view, it might appear that the popish doctrine of purgatory should be quite a repulsive element of unpopularity with sinners; that doctrine is, that notwithstanding all the benefit of the churchs sacraments and the believers efforts, no Christian soul goes direct to Heaven when the body dies, except those of the martyrs, and a few eminent saints, who are, as it were, miracles of sanctification in this life. All the clergy, and even the popes, must go through purgatory in spite of the apostolic succession and the infallibility. There the remains of carnality in all must be burned away, and the deficiencies of their penitential work in this life made good, by enduring penal fires and torments for a shorter or longer time. Then the Christian souls, finally purged from depravity and the reaum paenae, enter into their final rest with Christ. But the alms, prayers, and masses of survivors avail much to help these Christian souls in purgatory and shorten their sufferings. It might be supposed that the Protestant doctrine should be much more attractive and popular, viz.: that there is no purgatory or intermediate state for the spirits of dead men, but that the souls of believers, being at their death made perfect in holiness, do immediately enter into glory. This ought to be the more attractive doctrine, and to Bible believers it is such, but there is a feature about it which makes it intensely unpopular and repellent to carnal men, and gives a powerful advantage with them to the popish scheme. That feature is the sharpness and strictness of the alternative which the Bible doctrine presses upon sinners: turn or die. The Bible offers the most blessed and glorious redemption conceivable by man, gracious and free, and bestowing a consummate blessedness the moment the body dies. But it is on these terms that the Gospel must be embraced by a penitent faith, working an honest and thorough revolution in the life. If the sinner refuses this until this life ends, he seals his fate; and that fate is final, unchangeable, and dreadful. Now, it is no consolation to the carnal heart that the Gospel assures him he need not run any risk of that horrible fate; that he has only to turn and live; that very turning is the thing which he abhors, if it is to be done in spirit and in truth. He intensely desires to retain his sin and self-will. He craves earnestly to put off the evil day of this sacrifice without incurring the irreparable penalty. Now, Rome comes to him and tells him that this Protestant doctrine is unnecessarily harsh; that a sinner may continue in the indulgence of his sins until this life ends, and yet not seal himself up thereby to a hopeless Hell; that if he is in communion with the Holy Mother Church through her sacraments, he may indulge himself in this darling procrastination without ruining himself forever. Thus the hateful necessity of present repentance is postponed awhile; sweet, precious privilege to the sinner! True, he must expect to pay due penance for that self-indulgence in purgatory, but he need not perish for it. The Mother Church advises him not to make so bad a bargain and pay so dear for his whistle. But she assures him that, if he does, it need not ruin him, for she will pull him through after a little by her merits and sacraments. How consoling this is to the heart at once in love with sin and remorseful for its guilt! The seductiveness of this theory of redemption to the natural heart is proved by this grand fact, that in principle and in its essence this scheme of purgatorial cleansing has had a prominent place in every religion in the world that is of human invention. The Bible, the one divine religion, is peculiar in rejecting the whole concept. Those hoary23 religions, Brahmanism and Buddhism, give their followers the virtual advantage of this conception in the transmigration of the souls. The guilt of the sinners human life may be expiated by the sorrows of the souls existence in a series of animal or reptile bodies, and then through another human existence, the penitent and purified soul may at last reach Heaven. Classic paganism promised the same e scape for sinners, as all familiar with Virgil know. His hero, Aeneas,24 when visiting the under world, saw many sinners there preparing for their release into the Elysian fields. Ergo exercentur paenis, et veterum malorum supplicia expendunt.25 Mohammed extends the same hope to all his sinful followers. For those who entirely reject Islam there is nothing but Hell; but for all who profess There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet, there is a purgatory after death, and its pains are shortened by his intercession. The Roman and Greek Churches flatter the sinful world with the same human invention. So strong is this craving of carnal men to postpone the issue of turning to God or perishing, we now see its effect upon the most cultured minds of this advanced nineteenth century in the New England doctrine of a ’probation’. Rome has understood human nature skilfully, and has adapted her bait for it with consummate cunning. Her scheme is much more acute than that of the absolute universalist of the school of Hosea Ballou, for this outrages mans moral intuitions too grossly by rejecting all distinction between guilt and righteousness. This bait for sin-loving men is too bald. It must be added that the doctrine of a purgatory and of an application of redemption after death is intensely attractive to other principles of the human heart, much more excusable; to some affections, indeed, which are amiable. I allude to the solicitude and the affection of believers for the souls of those whom they loved in this life, "died and made no sign". The Bible doctrine is, indeed, a solemn, an awful one to Christians bereaved by the impenitent deaths of children and relatives. It is our duty to foresee this solemn result, and to provide against it by doing everything which intercessory prayer, holy example and loving instruction and entreaty can do to prevent such a catastrophe in the case of all those near to our he arts. But human self-indulgence is prone to be slack in employing this safeguard against this sorrow. Let us picture to ourselves such a bereaved Christian, sincere, yet partially self-condemned, and doubtful or fearful or hopeless concerning the thorough conversion of a child who has been cut down by death. Of all the elements of bereavement none is so bitter, so immedicable, as the fear that he whom he loved must suffer the wrath of God forever, and that now he is beyond reach of his prayers and help. To such a one comes the Romish priest with this species of discourse. See now how harsh and cruel is this heretical Protestant dogma! Instead of offering consolation to your Christian sorrow it embitters it as with a drop of Hell fire. But Holy Mother Church is a mild and loving comforter; she assures you that your loved one is not necessarily lost; he may have to endure keen penances in purgatory for a time, but there is a glorious hope to sustain him and you under them. Every minute of pain is bringing the final Heaven nearer, and the most blessed part of our teaching is that your love can still follow him and help him and bless, as it was wont to do under those earthly chastisements of his sins. It is your privilege still to pray for him, and your prayers avail to lighten his sufferings and to shorten them. Your love can still find that generous solace which was always so sweet to you midst your former sorrows for his sins and his earthly sufferings the solace of helping him and sharing his pains. Your aims also may avail for him; masses can be multiplied by your means, which will make merit to atone for his penitential guilt and hasten his blessed release. Who can doubt that a loving heart will be powerfully seduced by this promise, provided it can persuade itself of its certainty, or even of its probable truth? Here is the stronghold of Romanism on sincere, amiable, and affectionate souls. Of course, the real question is, whether any pastor or priest is authorized by God to hold out these hopes to the bereaved. If they are unwarrantable, then this presentation is an artifice of unspeakable cruelty and profanity. Under the pretence of softening the pain of bereavement to Gods children, it is adding to wicked deception the most mischievous influences upon the living by contradicting those solemn incentives to immediate repentance which God has set up in his Word, and by tempting deluded souls with a false hope to neglect their real opportunity. If the hope is not grounded in the Word of God, then its cruelty is equal to its deceitfulness. But the suffering heart is often weak, and it is easier to yield to the temptation of accepting a deceitful consolation than to brace itself up to the plain but stern duty of ascertaining Gods truth. I have thus set in array the influences which Rome is now wielding throughout our country for the seduction of human souls. Some of these weapons Protestants put into her hands by their own unfaithfulness and folly. God has a right to blame Rome for using this species of weapon in favor of the wrong cause, but these Protestants have not. There is another class of weapons which Rome finds in the blindness and sinfulness of human nature. Her guilt may be justly summed up in this statement: That these are precisely the errors and crimes of humanity which the church of Christ should have labored to suppress and extirpate; whereas Rome caters to them and fosters them in order to use them for her aggrandizement. But none the less are these weapons potent. They are exactly adapted to the nature of fallen man. As they always have been successful, they will continue to succeed in this country. Our republican civil constitutions will prove no adequate shield against them. Our rationalistic culture, by weakening the authority of Gods Word, is only opening the way for their ulterior victory. Our scriptural ecclesiastical order will be no sufficient bulwark. The primitive churches had that bulwark in its strongest Presbyterian form, but popery steadily undermined it. What it did once it can do again. There will be no effectual check upon another spread of this error except the work of the Holy Ghost. True and powerful revivals will save American Protestantism; nothing else will. 1. irenical: conciliatory, peace-promoting (not ’ironical’) 2. servile self-seekers who attempt to win favour by flattering influential people 3. highest point 4. perpetual ownership of real estate by institutions such as churches that cannot transfer or sell it. 5. principal ’god’ of the Greek pantheon, ruler of the heavens, and father of other ’gods’ and mortal heroes 6. the supreme ’god’, patron of the Roman state and brother and husband of Juno; also called Jove 7. chief ’god’ of the Aztecs, a people of central Mexico whose civilization was at its height at the time of the Spanish conquest in the early 16th century 8. also called Dionysus; in Greek mythology, ’god’ of wine and vegetation 9. in Greek and Roman mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, a hero of extraordinary strength who won immortality by performing 12 labors demanded by Hera 10. in Greek mythology and Roman mythology, the twin sons of Leda, wife of Spartan king Tyndareus 11. in Greek Mythology, a hero and king of Athens who slew the Minotaur and united Attica 12. in Roman Mythology, the ’god’ of medicine and healing 13. Agrippa, Marcus Vipsanius 63-12 B.C., a Roman soldier and statesman who commanded the fleet that defeated the forces of Mark Antony and Cleopatra at Actium (31) 14. a cult: supreme worship 15. a cult: inferior worship, dulia, hyperdulia; note how Romanism prescribes and practises the same pagan cults, whereas the Bible says (Matthew 4:10): "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." 16. worship of many ’gods’ 17. François Pierre Guizot, 1787-1874, a French historian and politician who advocated a constitutional monarchy, served as premier (1847-1848), and published several historical works 18. Paul, in Romans 1:28 19. originally called Octavan, 63 B.C.-A.D. 14, first Emperor of Rome (27 B.C.-A.D. 14) and grand-nephew of Julius Caesar; he defeated Mark Antony and Cleopatra in 31 and subsequently gained control over the empire; in 29 he was named Emperor, and in 27 he was given the honorary title Augustus. 20. free 21. work of works 22. punishment 23. grey or white with age; ancient 24. in Greek and Roman Mythology, the Trojan hero of Virgil’s epic poem, the Aeneid, and son of Anchises and Aphrodite; he escaped the sack of Troy and wandered for seven years before settling in Italy 25. They escape punishment by doing penance for the evil which they have done. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 58: 02.038. PURGATORY PICKPOCKET ======================================================================== Purgatory Pickpocket Purgatory is a gigantic fraud. Dr. Ian R.K. Paisley It was in 1950 that Pope Pius XII repeated the claim when he wrote in ‘Humani Generis’ that the enlightener of the Church is not the Spirit but the teaching office of the Vatican: ‘Together with the sacred sources (Scripture and tradition) [NB] God has given to his Church a living magisterium to throw light on and explain those matters that are contained in the deposit of faith only in an obscure and so to speak implicit manner.’ So the pope has become an omnicompetent oracle. It is this replacing of Scripture and the Spirit that John Paul II admires in his forebear Pius XII. Considering that we live in a world where there is all manner of striving for the truth and demand for evidence in so many aspects of life and in the activities of people, more are happy to incorporate into their lives all manner of myths and lies and perpetuate them rather than submit and live by Truth. Certainly the compounding of error leads not to Purgatory or heaven, but rather to death and destruction - HELL. For the true believer John teaches, ‘The blood of Jesus His Son cleanseth us from all sin……If we confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness’ (1 John 1:7-9). Dear Roman Catholic reader, what does this mean. This means that it is not just some or a few sins but all sins that are forgiven through the sacrifice of Christ. No sins are left to be purged away by human merit. Further he says, ‘And I heard a voice from heaven saying write, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth: yea, saith the Spirit, that they rest from their labours; for their works follow with them’. (Revelation 14:13) Loraine Boettner explains the evil of Purgatory in this way: ‘If any one of us actually had the power to release souls from Purgatory and refused to exercise that power except in return for a payment of money, he would be considered cruel and unchristian - which he would be. [Certainly not a Christ-like example!] No decent man would permit even a dog to suffer in the fire until its owner paid him five dollars to take it out. The insistence on a money transaction before a soul can be released and sometimes money transactions over long periods of time, shows clearly the sinister purpose for which the doctrine of Purgatory was invented. The simple fact is that if Purgatory were emptied and all those suffering souls admitted to heaven, there would be little incentive left for the people to pay money to the priests.’ Purgatory is a gigantic fraud. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 59: 02.039. AN EXPOSURE OF POPERY ======================================================================== An Exposure of Popery Rev. Ingram Cobbin M.A. Protestant writers often seem to take up the pen rather in self-defence than as assailants of Popery; or, at least, they do not think of assailing it till it has assumed an imposing posture, and threatened their faith by its daring advances. Such is the relative position of Popery and Protestantism among us at the present moment, though in many other countries the former is on the decline; and every true servant of Christ is called upon to use his best efforts to repel the artful destroyer. Though apologies are offered for truth, truth needs no apology. We are accused by Papists as schismatics and heretics; but the so-called schism consists in separating from their church, and not from the church of Christ; and our heresy is shunning their tradition, and not the word of God - the only standard of truth and infallible guide of our judgments. Whatever does not come from the fountain of truth in doctrine, and whatever does not accord with the practice of the primitive church before the Fathers wrote, or human creeds were invented, or Popish councils assembled, should be avoided as we would avoid the most destructive pestilence. On these grounds would we warn against Popery as the moral Upas-tree - to come within the atmosphere of which is to inhale the most deadly poison for the soul. The limits to which this Essay is restricted, require us to plunge at once into the heart of the subject, without further introductory remarks: – THE CHURCH OF ROME IS ERRONEOUS IN ITS DOCTRINES (1) The Papists, with us, believe in original sin, its defiling and ruinous nature, its being entailed from one child of Adam to another; but for the cure of this they have, as they imagine, a special remedy, which is baptism, "rightly administered according to the forms of the church": in which ordinance the merits of Christ are applied, and thus what was contracted in generation is cleansed away by this sort of regeneration! The same doctrine is now notoriously enforced by the semi-papists who have started up in the church of England - a doctrine which at once sets aside the need of a change of heart, and deludes thousands with the idea that they have by this ordinance been made Christians, instead of having only received "an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace," which if they do not afterwards possess, will cause them to fall short of that qualification which fits for the kingdom of heaven. (2) The doctrine of Justification lies at the root of the tree of life. Without an entire faith in the merits of a better righteousness than our own, we can never be saved. So conscious are mankind of guilt in the sight of God, that all the world have virtually at least acknowledged it. Infidels themselves, in moments of danger, have trembled at the thought of eternity, and have even prayed. "How shall man be just with God?" is a question of the utmost moment; yet, deceived by the arch-adversary, men have ever been ready to prefer a religion of external forms, to a religion of the heart - an outside, to an inside cleansing: a religion in which they fancy there is much merit, rather than one in which they must be indebted wholly to Divine grace. Popery panders to this lust of pride. One article, among many others on the subject, by the council of Trent, the indisputable standard of Popery, says, "If any one shall affirm that good works do not preserve and increase justification, but that good works themselves are only the fruits and evidence of justification already had, let such an one be accursed." If justification is to be preserved by us, then the justification wrought out by Christ is, at best, but a precarious justification; and if we eau increase it, then it is incomplete justification. If we appeal to the Bible standard, the question there occurs, "It is God that justifieth; who is he that condemneth?" But Popery is a jumble on this great doctrine; it makes Christ to do part and the sinner to do part, and undervalues the efficacy of the atoning blood and all-sufficient righteousness of "the Lord our Righteousness." Thus one of its acknowledged standard authors says, "These penitential works, he [the papist,] is taught to be no otherwise satisfactory, than as joined and applied to the satisfaction Jesus made upon the cross; in virtue of which alone, all our good works find a grateful acceptance in God’s sight." Here is the most complete confusion. A man’s works must be joined and applied to the satisfaction of Christ; and yet it is in virtue of Christ’s satisfaction that our good works can be acceptable to God! If we ask how hr the efficacy of Christ’s atonement extends, we are told that it extends to all mortal sins, as if there could be any sin not mortal, and exposing us to eternal death; but then there are sins from which we must be justified by our own deeds, venial transgressions, which prayers, fastings, almsgiving, penance, and purgatory may in the end remove. While many poor souls are deluded by this doctrine of mixed justification, partly by Christ and partly by the sinner himself, the Roman Catholic church, by working on the pride of the human heart on the one hand, and on the fears of trembling souls on the other, derives no small advantage from these misnamed meritorious labours and toils. Moreover, in addition to his own good deeds, the papist can help himself from the stock of others, who need to perform them no longer! Those saints who have lived such immaculate lives, that they have done more than their duty to God and man, and have got safe to heaven with a treasure of works of supererogation to spare, are kind enough to allow the Pope for the time being to assign to such as he thinks proper "a portion of this inexhaustible source of merit, suitable to their respective guilt, and sufficient to deliver them from the punishment due to their crimes!" This doctrine was first invented in the twelfth century, and modified and embellished by St. Thomas in the thirteenth. To suppose that a sinful creature, who is bound to love God with all his heart and soul and mind and strength, could with his sinful nature perform more than is here required, is one of the most preposterous ideas that ever entered into the mind of man. The belief of such a doctrine is "the firstborn of delusion"; it need be answered but very briefly from the words of our Divine Lord himself," When ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do," Luke xvii. 10. And could we serve and worship God incessantly, with the purity and ardour of the burning seraphs around the eternal throne, we should still do no more than our duty. (3) Absolution is a power presumed to belong to the popish priesthood By this the priest pronounces remitted the sins of such as are penitent. The council of Trent and that of Florence declare the form or essence of the sacrament to lie in the words of the absolution: "I absolve thee of thy sins!" According to this, no one can receive absolution without the privity, consent, and declaration of the priest: therefore, unless the priest be willing, God himself cannot pardon any man. They found this doctrine on John 20:23 : "Whosoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whosoever sins ye retain, they are retained." Had the words implied power to pardon sins, still that power could not, from this warrant, go beyond the apostles on whom it was conferred, as was the power of working miracles. But we see no such power claimed. The apostles preached the forgiveness of sins to those that repented and believed, (Acts 3:19, etc.) and in all eases their theme was the same, "Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins," Acts 13:38. It was, therefore, no more than a declarative absolution, assuring sinners that "He pardoneth and absolveth all them that truly repent, and unfeignedly believe his holy gospel." No power here belongs to the priest; it is God only who can forgive sins. (4) Indulgences. Nearly allied to the doctrine of absolution, is the power of granting indulgences, or "a remission of the punishment due to sin, granted by the church, and supposed to save the sinner from purgatory." With alt his absolution, the good papist stops short of heaven at last; for the moment his breath is out of his body, he enters purgatory. But the keys of heaven being committed to St. Peter, and the Popes in succession, they can unlock the gates, and let in the vilest sinners that ever corrupted the world! For various prices souls may be redeemed out of purgatory, and any one may make his friends a present of a plenary remission of all sins! This is too ridiculous to merit notice, but for the awful delusion with which it is connected. The popish priest having asserted his power to forgive sins, poor souls who give credit to his assertion are naturally anxious to obtain pardon from him. But in order so to do, he requires that to him they should make confession. (5) Purgatory must here be noticed. It has been defined as "a place m which the just who depart out of this life are supposed to expiate certain offences, which do not merit eternal damnation." Now, all sin is sin; and every sin is "the transgression of the law," 1 John 3:4; and sin, then, must merit death, "for the wages of sin is death," Romans 6:23. Nor does the Scripture tell us anything about the wicked being in punishment for a limited time, or even going to an intermediate state, or passing from hell to heaven. It tells us that the duration of the misery of the wicked is like that of the happiness of the righteous, which is forever, Mark 9:14; 1 Thessalonians 4:17, etc.; that the good go instantly into the paradise of God, Luke 23:43, Php 1:23; and that the wicked as instantly lift up their eyes in torments - torments from which escape to heaven is rendered impossible by an impassable gulf, Luke 16:26. There are two scriptures on which the papists found their doctrine of purgatory, Matthew 12:32, and 1 Peter 3:8-20. The language of the former is a strong mode of expressing the unchangeable punishment of him who sins against the Holy Ghost. "It shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come." But it does not warrant us to say that any are forgiven in the world to come; and St. Paul assures us, "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation," 2 Corinthians 6:2. The second passage must be greatly wrested if we attempt to make anything more from it than what appears on its very face. Christ, who by his Spirit inspired Noah the preacher of righteousness, preached to the antediluvian sinners, now, and when the apostle Peter wrote, confined in the prison to which all unbelievers are for ever consigned. This doctrine of purgatory is, however, in harmony with the other parts of the popish creed, as it evidently leaves the work of pardon through Christ incomplete, and leaves even the best to make atonement to justice in another world! (6) The sacrifice of the mass is one of the peculiar doctrines of Popery. For not believing in this, many a one has been sent by the papists in a chariot of fire, to join "the noble army of martyrs." The mass is similar to what Protestants call the communion service. High mass is the same thing more lengthened and showy. In the early ages of the church, the congregation was dismissed before the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, none but the communicants being allowed to remain. The officiating minister said, "Ita missa est," and the congregation withdrew; hence in process of time arose the name. The mass is held to be a true and proper sacrifice for sin; and a sacrifice for the living and the dead! Here again is a reflection on the merits of the Divine Redeemer, and a vile anti-scriptural doctrine, the work of human invention. When Christ died on the cross, his work was "finished," John 19:30; and the apostle assures us that "by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified," Hebrews 10:14, Besides, a sacrifice must have a victim; but at best it is but the commemoration of the offering of the one only and spotless Victim - " the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world." Every time that mass is offered, Christ is insulted and dishonoured. There is no praise to the mass, any more than to human merit, given by the redeemed in heaven; but their song is, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing," Revelation 5:12. (7) Transubstantiation is closely connected with the preceding doctrine. A momentary glance only can here be taken of this leading article of Popery. In the Romish church the belief of this doctrine was often made a test of the faith of an individual, and was admirably evaded in those memorable lines of queen Elizabeth: – "Christ was the word that spake it; He took the bread, and brake it; And what that word doth make it, That I believe and take it." Revelation is often above reason; as, for example, in describing the nature and existence of God: "Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?" Job 11:7. Revelation is not contrary to reason, nor contrary to common sense; but nothing can be more absurd than the popish pretence of making a bit of wafer to be the body of Christ, which body, in that case, has been multiplied like the loaves and fishes, and eaten over and over again in all places, for many ages to the present time! And the words on which this doctrine is founded are known to every scholar of the humblest pretensions to mean no more than "this represents my body." A man must want common sense to suppose that Christ really gave his body to his disciples, when he administered the last supper, and yet that the same body was afterwards crucified, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven. The bread is bread that the priest gives, and the wine is wine; and what pretence soever he may make, he can make nothing more of it. Having thus briefly touched on the leading doctrines of Popery as its ground-work, the due notice of which would furnish matter for volumes, our space will only admit of a rapid glance at its practice: – THE CHURCH OF ROME IS ARBITRARY IN ITS DISCIPLINE There is laxity enough among its priests, but woe be to the poor laity that fall within its power, even if they be monarchs on their thrones. All must lick the dust before the sentence of Popes, councils, cardinals, inquisitors, and priests! Operating on the peace of whole nations, the curse or excommunication of the Pope has unseated the monarch on his throne, and sent the potentate on his knees to ask the restoration of his crown! It will be sufficient to mention the cases of Henry IV., emperor of Germany, and of king John of England. Penances the most absurd and degrading have been submitted to by the slaves of Popery, for which there is not the shadow of authority in the word of God, and which could never in their nature show real sorrow of heart, or make the least atonement for sin. What can be the real benefit derived from repeating continually as many Ave Marias, Paternosters, or Credos, as the priest may determine? from walking barefoot? from licking the dust? consigning the penitent to a hair-shirt, or obliging or advising the poor devotee to inflict sharp castigations on his naked body? THE CHURCH OF ROME IS PRESUMPTUOUS IN ITS CLAIM Its Popes, besides claiming to be successors of St. Peter, claim to sit in the seat of God himself. The man who has suffered himself to be called "Dominus Deus Noster Papa" - "OUR LORD GOD THE POPE" - is surely the apostate of Scripture, who, "as God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God," 2 Thessalonians 2:4. No being, how great soever he may be supposed to be, can forgive sins, but God only, Mark 2:7; but this the bishop of Rome and his priests, authorized by him, claim as their prerogative. With great artifice they will pretend that this is ultimately the work of God; but with the most presumptuous assumption they dare to teach their deluded votaries that it is the work of the Pope and the church! The catechism of the council of Trent declares that the Almighty has given to his church the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and that the penitent’s sins are forgiven by the minister of religion, through the power of the keys. The arrogance that presumes to dispose at pleasure of heaven itself, may easily be supposed to claim no inferior power on earth. Hence the bull of Pope Sixtus V. against Henry, king of Navarre, and the prince de Condé, claims an authority which exceeds all the powers of earthly kings and potentates. "And if," says the bull, "it find any of them resisting the ordinance of God, it takes more summary vengeance upon them, and hurling them from their throne, debases them as the ministers of aspiring Lucifer, whatever may be their power, to the lowest abysses of the earth!" Acting under this supposed authority, Pope Pins V. excommunicated queen Elizabeth, asserting that "him God hath constituted prince over all nations and kingdoms, that he might pluck up, destroy, dissipate, overturn, plant and build!" In fact, the claims of Popery for its head, have gone so far as to attribute to the pontiff all power in heaven and on earth; and it has been asserted that "the Pope could do all things, sin excepted;" that "the sentences of God and the Pope were one;" that his "indulgence remitted even the punishment of hell;" and that "no appeal could be made from the Pope to God, because he is the Christ of God!" Accursed apostasy! where a sinful man, whose carcase must soon pay the forfeiture of sin, and rot in corruption, the best emblem of his own church, presumes to claim the homage of mankind, and the prerogatives that belong only to Deity! THE CHURCH OF ROME IS INIQUITOUS IN ITS PRACTICES And what else is to be expected from a church which gives permission to do whatever is sinful. The daring sale of indulgences by Tetzel, when they excited the abhorrence of Christendom, was publicly condemned by the nuncio of Pope Leo X. Tetzel, in his zeal to raise money for the holy see, probably went further than it was thought prudent to express so publicly, for he even asserted that any one might be permitted to commit the grossest debauchery, and offer violence to the holy Virgin herself, and be forgiven by the power of the Pope, whose arms were equal to the cross of Christ! But after the death of Tetzel, A.D. 1519, a list of fees to the people for absolutions, dispensations, etc., was published in Paris, A.D. 1520. Absolution for fornication in a church was to be obtained for nine shillings; for murdering a layman, seven shillings and sixpence; for killing a father, mother, or wife, ten shillings and sixpence; for a priest keeping a concubine ten shillings and sixpence; for a layman keeping a concubine, the same sum; and for other crimes the mention of which would but defile these pages. "Such is the celebrated tax-book of the Apostolic Chancery, the publication of which stamps the church of Rome with eternal infamy." This publication was indeed, at last, partially condemned, but not till it had been a hundred years in circulation. But let us see if the holy Popes have been more holy than their doctrines, licenses, or agents. No; a worse set of men never corrupted the earth. From the time of Gregory the Great, in the sixth century, to the latest period, the Popes have been more or less of abandoned principles. There have been covetous Popes, proud Popes, profane Popes, unchaste Popes, dishonest Popes, murdering Popes, all of whose names and characters may be seen in any impartial history of these pretended representatives upon earth of Him who was "holy, harmless, and undefiled!" As were the Popes, so we must expect to find the priesthood. The "forbidding to marry," a gross mark of the man of sin, has led the popish clergy to practise all kinds of iniquity with greediness; and the secret interviews, at the confessional, with females of every class and character afford facilities for the indulgences of forbidden propensities, of which the priests have not failed to avail themselves. Facts in abundance could be related to justify this charge, but it is not pleasant to dwell upon them, and they are too well known to require reference to authorities. The monasteries and nunneries have been often described as the seats of iniquity; and, in fact, the latter were no better than brothels, of the very worst description. In the days of Henry VIII., when these monasteries were fully explored in England, the abbots, priors, and monks kept as many women each, as any lascivious Mohammedan could desire, and their crimes renewed the existence of Sodom and Gomorrah! THE CHURCH OF ROME IS CRUEL IN ITS SPIRIT Those who are conversant with its writers know the hatred which it breeds towards heretics. The council of Trent, besides anathematizing all the great doctrines of the gospel, consigned their defenders to eternal torments. "Cursed be all heretics," cried the cardinal of Lorraine, at the close of its last session; and "Cursed! cursed!" responded all the prelates. "Cursed! cursed!" echoed back the lofty dome of the old cathedral of Trent. Never had there been so much cursing "in any other synod, since the world was made." Here, too, the pages might be filled with specimens of this spirit. But let it suffice to remark how different from the spirit of Jesus, when he reproved his disciples for wishing to call down fire from heaven to consume the Samaritans: "He turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of," Luke 9:55. Carrying out her principles, the popish apostate bas deluged the earth with the blood of her victims. The murders committed by queen Mary, and by the Irish papists, are facts too welt known in history to be denied. Hundreds of martyrs have perished at the stake, thousands in dungeons, and millions form the aggregate of unfortunate Protestants, that have fallen under the bitter spirit of Popery. Papists have imitated Saul of Tarsus, when he was the messenger of death to Damascus, and haled men and women, committing them to prison; and are the fac-similes of those persecutors whom our Lord warns his disciples to expect: "Yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service," John xvi. 2. Torturing, shooting, hanging, strangling, burning alive, starving to death, in short every variety of suffering that diabolical ingenuity could invent, has been employed to glut the infernal appetites of the demons of the papacy! Among these the holy fathers of the inquisition have shared no inconsiderable part, and have become "drunk with the blood of the saints." Spain and Italy have been the slaughter-houses for the Protestants. Nor are the barbarities of Popery confined to those lands; at the present moment their horrid cruelties are not unknown in Sclavonia, and bordering countries. We may say of these blood-thirsty men, as Jacob said of Simeon and Levi, "Instruments of cruelty are in theft habitations. O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united!" Genesis 49:5-6. THE CHURCH OF ROME IS WORLDLY IN ITS POLICY Its object is to gain dominion; to get a footing in every court; to direct the affairs of kingdoms and empires; and to accumulate wealth. The Jesuits, though at times expelled or pretendedly so from Rome, have been its awful emissaries to augment its power. The intrigues and deceptions of these men would fill volumes, and the conveniency of their creed to deny or affirm anything, or assume any profession as it may serve their purpose, is too well known to need recapitulating here. These men have at times assumed so much that every papal state has alternately ejected them; and large numbers are now in this country - doubtless many under false colours - waiting the most favourable opportunities to corrupt the rising generation, and, as hr as possible, restore the dark days of former ages. The Jesuits are unchangeable. So is Popery. And to show that these observations are not without being confirmed by facts, one sufficiently strong may here be quoted. After the Reformation had been carried a considerable length in the minority of king James VI. of Scotland, it was in danger of being overthrown by the artifice of the duke of Lennox, a papist and a creature of the Jesuit court, who had acquired undue ascendancy over the young king. The ministry of the church were alarmed, and more especially when they saw several Jesuits and seminary priests arrive from abroad, and by the open revolt of some who had hitherto professed the Protestant faith. They warned their hearers of the state of things. Lennox at once publicly renounced the popish religion. But the jealousy of the nation was revived and inflamed by the interception of letters from Rome, granting a dispensation to the Roman Catholics to profess the Protestant tenets for a time, provided they preserved an inward attachment to the ancient faith, and embraced every opportunity of advancing it in secret. This discovery was the cause of originating the national covenant. Confession is of most important use in establishing this dominion over men, and even over states and cabinets. Every member of the family is inadvertently made a spy. Every secret is known to the confessor. The king and the subject become alike the slaves of the church! Such a machinery is one of the most profound pieces of policy that could ever be employed by arbitrary states, Entering into the deepest recesses of the human bosom, it brings to light every hidden thing, and at once assumes the control of every heart. Thus have papists learned to rule the world! THE CHURCH OF ROME IS SELFISH IN ITS MOTIVES There is nothing in it noble, expansive, or benevolent. While it calls itself the "Catholic" church, it is the most sectarian of all churches, shutting from heaven all that do not enter within its pale. It never teaches its votaries to wish "grace, mercy, and peace" to any but those of its own community. If the most lovely Christians in the world are not papists, they cannot offer up for them the benevolent wish, "Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity." Whatever the church teaches, or whatever it does, doctrines, sacraments, discipline, all are made to operate in filling her own gaping coffers, ever crying, "Give, give!" Idolatrous as she is in other matters, money is her chief idol. Her churches have been notorious for accumulating wealth, and so also have her convents and monasteries; and the contrivances for that purpose have been most subtle and successful. The doctrine of purgatory, in particular, has been a mine of wealth to the church. By con. signing good and bad to that indescribable yet horrible state, and keeping them there at the pleasure of the keys, mass upon mass has been heaped up mountains high, like Ossa upon Pelion; so that the poor deluded relatives of the departed have exhausted their money and patience in raising the golden ascent, by which to scale the heavens with more facility! Without going back to the disgusting period which called forth the Reformation, it is sufficient to state, that these vile sources of revenue are still especially made productive at certain periods. The Jubilee bulls every twenty-five years call the faithful to Rome by promising "a plenary indulgence, remission, and pardon of all their sins." In Spain, a lucrative traffic is driven in this article of papal merchandise. Four bulls containing special indulgences are annually sent thither from Rome, which are bought by almost all the Spaniards, at prices suited to the condition of the purchasers. One bull gives plenary indulgences to commit what would otherwise be a mortal sin, by eating various articles of food during Lent. Another relates to frauds on property, allowing the guilty participants to retain it under certain qualifications. And what is called the Defunct bull obtains a plenary indulgence for any dead person, if his soul should happen to be still in purgatory! But no release from purgatory without money! Not a single mass nor paternoster can be offered up for a poor stoner without money! And the Pope and the priest will allow the soul to suffer all the horrible torments which in their books and pictures are described as inflicted on the impenitent through countless ages, unless they have money to turn the keys, and release the poor victims from their misery. Truly, the "spirit of Popery" is the spirit. of the evil one - "the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. THE CHURCH OF ROME IS IDOLATROUS IN ITS WORSHIP The worshipping of any creature, how exalted soever he may be, or the likeness of anything "in the heaven above, or in the earth beneath", is idolatry. The Virgin Mary, the Popes, the saints, the very bones of the saints, have been and are the objects of papal idolatries. So much homage is paid to the Virgin Mary that it has been well observed by a modern deceased writer, that it looks as if the papists thought that there were four subsistences in the Godhead, the Virgin Mary being the fourth. The "One Mediator," "Jesus Christ the righteous", is lost in the crowds, or rather the clouds of petitions offered up to the Virgin. This idolatry has no seeming authority anywhere in the Scriptures but in the angelic salutation, "Hail! highly favoured, the Lord is with thee! blessed art thou among women!" and Mary’s words, "From henceforth ail generations shall call me blessed," Luke 1:28, Luke 1:48. Blessed rather signifies "happy;" and not a word is here respecting worship to be offered to Mary by future generations. But "it is a favourite mode of declaiming amongst Roman Catholic divines," says Fletcher, "to represent Jesus Christ as far more willing to listen to the prayers and intercession of the Virgin, than to those of other saints. The consequence of such representations is obvious. More prayers are addressed to the Virgin in the Roman Catholic Church than to any other saint; and in some services there are ten Ave Marias for one Paternoster," One exhortation in the Catholic school-book is, "Have recourse to her in all your spiritual necessity; and for that end offer to her daily and particular prayers." The same book says, "She is most powerful with God to obtain from him all that she shall ask of him. She is all goodness in regard to us, by applying to God for us. Being mother of God, he cannot refuse her request; being our mother, she cannot deny her intercession, when we have recourse to her. Our miseries move her, our necessities urge her; the prayers we offer her for our salvation bring us all that we desire." And St. Bernard is not afraid to say, that "never any person invokes that Mother of mercies in his necessities who has not been sensible of the effect of her assistance." The prayers to the Virgin in the Breviary are generally known; they are in harmony with the above declarations. The following are a few of the appellations of the Virgin: Holy Mother of God; Refuge of Sinners; Comforter of the Afflicted; Queen of Angels, of Patriarchs, of Apostles, of all Saints; Mirror of Justice; Seat of Wisdom; Mystical Rose; Tower of Ivory; House of Gold; and others equally extravagant. In the former, the honour due to Father, Son, and Spirit is given to a mortal - to the Virgin Mary; and the latter are too ridiculous to require comment. Popery is the same now as it was in the dark ages of the church; and the worship of the Virgin is still one of the favourite tenets of Romanism, as shown in the following extract from an encyclical letter of Plus IX. - "In order that our most merciful God may the more readily incline his ear to our prayers, and grant that which we implore, let us ever have recourse to the intercession of the most holy Mother of God, the immaculate Virgin Mary, our sweetest mother, our mediatrix, our advocate, our surest hope and firmest reliance, than whose patronage nothing is more potent, nothing more effectual with God!" THE CHURCH OF ROME IS ABSURD, RIDICULOUS, AND BLASPHEMOUS IN ITS PRETENSIONS These absurdities and blasphemies are so numerous, and so notorious, that a few only need be selected; and on these it is unnecessary largely to expatiate. (1) Transubstantiation is one of the most notorious absurdities of their doctrine. A greater insult was never offered to the human understanding. A wafer and wine are transformed by the priest into the real body and blood of Christ; and though eaten and drunk millions of times, still it is so transformed, eaten, and drunk. Truly, Catholic priests must be knaves, and those of their community who really believe this absurdity must be numbered amongst the most silly of fools. The latter deserve pity, the former only to be ranked with the greatest and most dangerous rogues in society. (2) Relics have brought no small revenue to the churches in which they have been deposited; and these have rivalled each other in the absurd inventions of Popery. At Rome are the heads of St. Peter and St. Paul, encased in silver busts set with jewels; a lock of the Virgin’s hair; a phial of her tears; a piece of her green petticoat; a robe of Jesus Christ, sprinkled with his blood; some drops of blood in a bottle; some of the water which flowed out of the wound in his side; some of the sponge; a large piece of the cross; all the nails used in the crucifixion; a piece of the stone of the sepulchre on which the angel sat; the identical porphyry pillar on which the cock perched when he crowed after Peter denied Christ; the rods of Moses and Aaron, and two pieces of the wood of the real ark of the covenant; - this is Rome in the nineteenth century! We might fill columns with relics of sacred bones, beards, hair, etc., but we must desist. In the church of the Escurial only, in Spain, there are no less than eleven thousand of these ridiculous impositions on the credulity of the weak and superstitious. The most extraordinary efficacy is ascribed to some of these relics, greatly benefiting the churches which have the good fortune to possess them. (3) Patron saints are another happy invention to bring in grist to the mill. For the accommodation of the worshippers, there are in many churches altars belonging to a variety of these. These eminent saints are many of them doctors of high repute. St. Anthony cures diseases; St. Anthony of’ Padua delivers from water; St Barbara protects against thunder and war; St. Blass cures the throat; St. Lucia, the eyes; St. Nicholas helps young women to husbands; St. Ramon protects the pregnant; St. Lazaro serves the purpose of a nurse in giving childbirth; St. Polonia preserves the teeth; St. Domingo cures the fever; and St. Roche guards against the plague! (4) The Agnus Dei is a wonderful little article. It is made chiefly of virgin wax, and has the image of the Lamb of God on it. The Pope consecrates the Agnus Deis the first year of his pontificate, and every seventh year afterwards. It is the object of much devotion; for, kept about the person, it preserves from spiritual and temporal enemies, from the dangers of fire, water, storms, tempests, thunder, lightning, and sudden and unprepared death; puts devils to flight, takes away the stains of past sins, and produces other extraordinary benefits. (5) Pardons. The marvellous ways in which these might be obtained were published in 1517, in a work entitled the Customs of London. Some of these were as follows : - In St. Peter’s at Rome, beneath the image of our Lord at the door, was one of the pence that God was sold for, the looking upon which obtained each time fourteen hundred years of pardon! Beholding a cloth made by our Lady, and exhibited on the Lady-day Assumption, obtained four hundred years of pardon! All who sat in Pope Accensius’s chair obtained a hundred thousand years of pardon! (6) Miracles must be classed among popish absurdities. St. Raymond de Pennafort laid his cloak on the sea, and sailed thereon from Majorca to Barcelona, a distance of one hundred and sixty miles, in six hours! The miracles of other saints are of a like kind. The story of the house of our Lady of Loretto being carried through the air from Nazareth by angels is another prodigious absurdity. The priestly juggle of the annual liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius at Naples is well known. Nor are these miracles yet finished: Prince Hohenloe recently revived them in Germany, and the Earl of Shrewsbury has attested a new one in Italy. How unlike are these "inventions" of Popery to the miracles of Christ and his apostles, which were wrought before the world, attested by competent witnesses, designed to confirm their mission and were all acts of benevolence. The "Miracles of the Popery" may be dismissed by writing simply beneath them "LYING WONDERS." (7) Pilgrimages have for ages been of great repute in the Church of Rome. Tribes emerging from barbarism may through this delusion have become acquainted with the blessings of civilized life; but that pilgrimages should be undertaken in the nineteenth century is another proof that Popery loves darkness rather than light. A famous shrine of the Madonna, near .Leghorn, is constantly visited; and the Dominicans have lately found an image of the Virgin there, which has brought their order into great repute. THE CHURCH OF ROME IS INSULTING TO THE WORD OF GOD It is too notorious, that in all countries where Popery prevails, the Bible is not permitted to enter. If some favourable opportunities for its access are embraced, it is soon again interdicted. The darkness of Popery cannot bear its light. Numerous proofs could be brought forward that the word of God has always been hated and destroyed by Popes and priests. The church substitutes numerous inventions for Scripture authority. Hence its Pope, falsely called the successor of St. Peter, who never was at Rome; its seven sacraments, two only of which are found in sacred writ - baptism and the Lord’s Supper; hence its purgatory pilgrimages images, and other absurdities. Though Christ has left the command, "Search the Scriptures," and apostolic authority records another, "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom," the church of Rome takes the greatest pains to keep the people in ignorance, and prevent the clear shining of this light. If it had free course, it would soon consume all her false doctrines, and shame all her absurdities and wickednesses. Nothing is hated more by Popes and priests than the Bible, and the Bible Society. Against the latter a tremendous bull was thundered forth by the Pope only as recently as the year 1824. If the Bible is occasionally found in circulation, it is grossly interpolated, its phrases are adapted to the inventions of the popish church, and its price too high for general use; and indeed, from the ignorance of the people in papal states, hut. few could use it. ‘Even then the authority of the church is paramount to everything, and nothing is to be believed in the Bible if it is not believed by the church! The Bible, God’s book, is fallible; the church of Rome its head, is infallible! THE CHURCH OF ROME IS INIMICAL TO FREEDOM To the present moment popish rulers, under the guidance of their priests, have suppressed knowledge, fettered the press, prevented free inquiry after truth, and the labours of Protestants. Papists claim everything for themselves in free countries; but popish countries allow no such liberty to Protestants. Truth is not afraid of papal error, but Popery fears the truth. How numerous have been the martyrs in old France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and other popish countries. And where now is the liberty of worship in most of them? They domineer over the minds of men, and chain both their consciences and their understandings with fetters of iron. Books adapted to enlighten the mind are excluded, while fabulous accounts of the saints are abundantly circulated. Catechisms indeed they have, but they altogether omit the second commandment. Everywhere in the churches you are urged to pray for the dead, and to drop a little money for masses for their poor souls in purgatory; but no effort dare you make to enlighten the living. In all the nations where the Reformation burst forth, it was extinguished by persecution and the inquisition. THE CHURCH OF ROME IS UNHOLY IN ITS INFLUENCES Its breath is poison, to morality. Its doctrines are calculated to encourage men to sin, because they can always obtain ghostly pardon. From its bosom spring a generation of the worst infidels, disgusted with its fooleries and enormities; and who, for want of better light, confound superstition with religion. Its trickeries and crimes which have occasionally been brought to light, have made hosts of genuine unbelievers. The practices discovered in its monasteries - often sinks of vice - and the lives of many of its clergy, have all aided to make men secret infidels, where they have not been weak enough to become dupes. Religion and pastime have been mingled together to defraud the people. The Sabbath may be desecrated by the covetous dealer or the mountebank; and the songs of the opera be listened to after the chants of the church. The fourth commandment is set aside, like the second, and papists defy the moral authority which says, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." The scenes of commerce, pleasure, dissipation and vice, which abound in continental cities on the Sabbath, mark them at once as under the dominion of "the man of sin." THE CHURCH OF ROME IS COMPARATIVELY MODERN IN ITS ORIGIN, PRINCIPLES, AND CUSTOMS Its antiquity is often a boast of the advocates of Popery; but if antiquity stamped excellency on a religion, then Paganism and Judaism are older than Popery. The church of Rome, however, boasts of its antiquity without cause. The question has been proposed by the papist to the Protestant, "Where was your religion before the days of Wickliffe?" "Where?" was the reply; "why, where yours never was - in the Bible." Primitive Christianity bears no resemblance to Popery. We find there no Popes; no cardinals; no monks, nor nuns; no holy wafer, nor holy water; no baptism of bells, nor canonization of saints; no mass, nor giant candies; no chrism, nor cross; no repeating of Paternosters nor Ave Marias; no saints’ days, nor Popes’ jubilees; no plenary indulgences, nor purgatories; no bulls, nor inquisitions; in fact, we find nothing like Popery, except what is under the ban of heaven, and doomed to everlasting destruction: the "man of sin - the son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. - That Wicked, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: even him, whose coming is after the work of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved," 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4, 2 Thessalonians 2:8, 2 Thessalonians 2:10. The Bible further delineates Popery with unmistakable accuracy: "Now the Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them that believe and know the truth." "And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will show unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication. So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness; and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet-coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour; and decked in gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: and upon her forehead was a name written MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her I wondered with great admiration. And the angel said unto one, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns. The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition." 1 Timothy 4:1-3; Revelation 17:1-8. Every part of Popery corrupts Christianity, and its corruptions have crept into its church by degrees. The Bible was not proscribed till the fourth century - this’ proscription was a novelty; the idolatry of Popery did not commence till then - this was another novelty; the clergy were not forbidden to marry till then - another novelty. Infallibility was not claimed till the seventh century; the service was not performed in an unknown tongue before that time; purgatory was then introduced. Transubstantiation was not introduced till the eighth century. Half-communion was not begun till the eleventh century. Priestly absolution and excommunication were powers not claimed till the twelfth century; nor till then was it determined that there should be seven sacraments. The sacrifice of the mass, the worship of the host, and auricular confession, were established only in the thirteenth century. Tradition did not make its claims before the sixteenth century. Thus it appears that Popery is a monster of slow growth, and all its parts have not been perfected till within a few centuries. Such is the church against whose iniquities, doctrines, and practices the martyrs protested, and sealed the truth with their blood. It is heathenish new-modelled, and Christianity foully corrupted. It is doomed to perish, but yet struggles for existence. Its throne totters, but many hands yet strive to hold it up. Its subtle agents are at work to renew its influences in this land of martyrs. The Jesuit, like a sly serpent, creeps into every hole and corner. The "slimy viper" stealthily crawls into our families, schools, colleges, universities, and senate. We trace its existence under the mitre and the cassock; we see it polluting the pulpit and the press. We should beware of its corruptions in innovating ceremonies creeping under the Protestant altars, and in leading articles published in our most popular newspapers. If we would not again fall a prey to the reptile foe, let us learn dextrously to handle the sword of the Spirit, which it cannot resist; and let us say to each other, as Jesus to his disciples - WATCH! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 60: 02.040. POPISH MIRACLES ======================================================================== Popish Miracles Dr. Ian R.K. Paisley THAT the kingdom of Antichrist may bear in full the stamp of prophecy, miracles, signs, and lying wonders, of some sort, must be mixed up with it, since otherwise it would not be the system to which the Word of God so clearly pointed. As this is a subject of such danger, especially where a tolerable measure of common sense prevails, and the habit of inquiry is being extensively formed, it might have been supposed that Popery would have been cautious in claiming too much; however, it is not easy always to combine craft with caution. A certain measure of arrogance is indispensable to her successful working among the ignorant multitude, and the difficulty is, to prevent her utterances being heard beyond the Popish camp, else she would hold one language to Papists and another to Protestants. Her great champion, Dr. Milner, who displays much subtlety, with a strange dash occasionally of indiscretion, in his "End of Controversy," lays it down as a doctrine that "God has wrought many incontestable miracles in favour of the Catholic Church, her doctrines and practices, from the age of the Apostles down to the present time." Now, here we have him. Wily and skilful as the Jesuit was, he fairly committed himself. If miracles have been wrought, they have a history through which the times, places, and persons may be got at. The doughty champion of the tiara condescended to specify two or three which he doubtless deemed the best and safest. One of these rested on the cures performed at St. Winefred’s Well, in the years 1805 and 1809. He specifies another case, well known in the annals of imposture-a cure performed by the hand of a priest, executed at a distance of some 200 years. The stock supplied in England was very small, and the last generation has not much contributed to enlarge it. It has been done in Ireland, but Irish commodities of this sort are not in demand on this side of the channel; therefore the Doctor goes back a little, and to a distance, throwing himself on the famous Francis Xavier, of whom we have the following account: — "The miracles of St. Francis Xavierus, the apostle of India, who was contemporary, with Luther, in number, splendour, and publicity, may vie with St. Bernard’s. They consisted in foretelling future events, speaking unknown languages, calming tempests at sea, curing various maladies, and raising the dead to life; and though they took place in remote countries, yet they were verified in the same soon after the saint’s death, by virtue of a commission from John III. King of Portugal, and were generally acknowledged, not only by Europeans of different religions in India, but also by the native Mohammedans and Pagans." There can be no doubt that Xavier was a very worthy sort of man, and that he manifested considerable talents and much zeal. As to the wonders he wrought in the way of conversion in the East, the thing is romance, containing very little truth. Where is the proof that he spake unknown languages without tuition? -that he calmed sea-tempests, and raised the dead to life? The thing is not meant, of course, for the meridian of Protestantism; and for that of Popery, truth is not necessary. This puts us in mind of what we read of Luther’s corpse, which could not be kept in a coffin. Night after night it always came out, and laid itself down hard by, and it was not without difficulty that the great heretic could be made to keep the peace, even when underground! It consists with our knowledge that this story, with all its concomitant nonsense, was told recently to an individual, a convert to Popery, from whose lips we had it. But they who want more of the wonders of St. Francis, may find them in his Life, which provides a very considerable supply of the article. We cannot withhold a specimen. It refers to a consecrated crucifix, for which he had an especial value; but on a sea-voyage one day, he dropped it overboard, which deeply distressed him as an evil omen and a great calamity. However, the vessel sped her way across the ocean, and he reached his desired haven, giving up the crucifix for lost, till one day, walking on the seashore, he saw the object of his reverential regard moving towards him, elevated above the surface of the water as if self-conducted, or borne by the spirits of the deep. Filled with astonishment and delight, he went to meet it, when it was reverentially deposited at his feet by a crab, which seemed to have had a Divine commission! There has been a great oversight here. What became of the crab? Why was it not secured? This would have made one of the most precious relics in Rome, and might at least have counted upon a million of pilgrims annually to worship it. But enough of St. Francis, and enough of the nonsense of which we have spoken. We willingly concede to Popery a great deal in the way of signs, and lying wonders as a kingdom of darkness; the spirits of evil may have had more to do with it than the children of light are prepared to believe; and it is also possible, indeed, it can scarcely be doubted, that millions and millions of the poor infatuated members of the Romish Church sincerely believe the lying legends, which are told them, and the mock miracles which are daily being performed in their presence. Now, the Church of Rome holds miraculous power necessary to prove the divinity of her religion, and the truth of her mission; and on these grounds she asserts that, from the days of the Apostles down to the present time, she has never been without this power of working miracles. It is her boast, that the fact was believed in all Christian countries, and in all ages till the evil hour which brought into being Luther, Calvin, and their heretical associates. Here, then, supposing the truth of the assertion, a great point is gained, and it is not without consistency that she challenges Protestants to produce their miracles in proof of their mission and the truth of their system. There is a slight hitch, however, which the Jesuits have deemed it prudent to conceal. It is not denied by the opponents of Popery that the chain of miracles has extended from the days of the Lord himself down to the present time; but there is this difference, they were first true and then false; for a period the links were gold, afterwards they became the basest metal; true miracles were succeeded by lying wonders, and hence their utter worthlessness, or rather their confirmation of the prophecy which declared that the apostasy foretold would largely deal in such things. If, in very deed, these miracles were true, they would suffice to demonstrate the divine character of Popery and the schismatic character of Protestantism, which would stand a confessed imposture. Popish miracles were most abundant in the darkest periods of Popish history. In number and magnitude, there was a noticeable abatement as time advanced. Since the Reformation, indeed, they have been gradually dwindling in number; and it deserves to be particularly noticed, that they are at this moment still confined to the darkest regions. How comes it to pass, that the Popish priesthood in Great Britain have not vindicated their claims by the exercise of miraculous power? How comes it that they have not raised the dead, opened the eyes of the blind, enabled the dumb to speak, and made the lame to walk? A few such incontrovertible exhibitions of divine power would settle the question as between them and the Protestants, and give them at once a complete, a universal, and an ever-during victory. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 61: 02.041. PUNISHMENT OF HERETICS ======================================================================== Punishment Of Heretics Dr. Ian R.K. Paisley POPERY, at the present moment, is seen under a mask, by which its true features are in a measure concealed. To serve the purpose of blinding Protestants, of furthering its own ends of proselytism, and securing the restoration of its lost power, it is prepared to say and to do almost anything, no matter how variant from its settled creed, or its past habits. It bides its time, but the moment it shall have the power, it will set all right, recurring at once to that creed, and to those habits, as the principle and the rule of its action. Whatever this priest or that bishop, or even yonder cardinal, may say to the contrary, the standards are unchanged, and unchangeable, since change would be destruction. Such is the fact in regard to heretics and heresy; they who are beyond the pale of the Romish Church, are viewed by the Vatican and the priesthood as but so many brute beasts to be taken and destroyed, the moment she shall once more possess the power. In her creed, heresy, so called, is mortal sin, and of that sin, death is the appropriate punishment! It has served the ends of the priesthood in Ireland, and also in England, of late years, to wear the badge and preach the gospel of political liberality, and a religious charity; but it is all a delusion, a simple adaptation of Popery to the deceitful fashion of the passing hour. At this moment, we have both at home and abroad, proofs of daily recurrence, that nothing is wanted but the ancient power to pursue the ancient course, to fine, to imprison, to hang, and to burn! In England particularly, this is so, where the territory is so limited, the population so thick, and communications so rapid, where such a multitude of observers are daily watching it, and where a press, faithful and fearless, is ever ready to publish its enormities. In Britain it may really be said that Romanism is a culprit in fetters, a malefactor in a mask. The waters which proceed from the throne of the Vatican are as dark and impoisoned as ever; but the streams of Protestant truth which commingle with them have done much to dilute them, and to divest them of their original pungency for evil. Nor is this state of things confined to England; to a considerable extent it prevails also on the Continent of Europe, and in the United States particularly; but every well informed man knows that the restraints which are thus imposed, are felt as a grievance too heavy to be borne; and it is ever and anon oozing out in private correspondence, and otherwise, among the clergy, the cardinals, and the priesthood in distant lands, that they are ill at ease under the "pestilent liberalism" of the time, as they deem it. The most striking and extraordinary example of the century is the late encyclical of the present Pope. Among the many other things which ought to open the eyes of the public, is the doctrine taught in that thoroughly Popish establishment, Maynooth, and also the acceptance which has been accorded generally among the Catholics of the present day to the Theology of Dens. This work deserves to be far better known, for it is among the Catholic priesthood, much what the Articles of the Church of England, and the Confessions of Faith, are amongst the Protestant Churches of Great Britain. Any man who will read this book, will see at once that he owes his protection not to the improved spirit of Romanism, but to the British Constitution; from the first page to the last, that copious publication breathes a spirit of the bitterest hostility towards Bible readers and Protestant believers. With these classes, it holds no parley. Confiscation of goods, banishment from the country, perpetual imprisonment, death in its direst forms, and deprivation of Christian burial-these are the rewards of the man who dares to assert the right of private judgment, to read, believe, and propagate the communications which the Spirit of God has prepared for his instruction. We are in a position to prove that such is the doctrine held, at the present hour, by the chief and the most gentle of the recent perverts to Popery in these realms. They confess that they do not like the idea of killing heretics-they would much prefer to convert them; but next to converting, the best thing, they hold, that can be done for their souls is, to burn them, and put an end to their career of impiety as quickly as possible! This very work of Dens, notwithstanding its horrible principles, so far from being disclaimed by the Roman clergy, enjoys the highest favour among them. So far back, indeed, as 1808, when the Popish prelates met in Dublin, they came to the unanimous conclusion, that the book of Dens was the best and safest guide in Theology for the Irish clergy, a conclusion which ought to open the eyes of Irish Protestants. That work was published expressly for the use of the Irish priesthood, and dedicated to Dr. Murray, the Romish Archbishop of Dublin; it ought to be known that four of the bishops honoured it to be the conference book for the Romish clergy of Leinster. Here, then, there is no mistake. The principles of the publication retain their ancient place in the Romish system; although, like thistles in winter, there is but small appearance above ground, and the influence of liberal government, and a free press, prevent them springing up. They who wish to understand the true character of Popery proper, at the present time, without any modification from eternal influences, have only to refer to Spain, and there to attempt to exercise religious liberty, and worship God according to their consciences, at the same time, endeavouring to carry out their convictions respecting the Gospel, by attempts to diffuse it among their neighbours; let them do this and then they will understand their position, and what they have to expect so soon as Popery shall be in England what it is in Spain. Meanwhile, the wisdom of the British people is to exercise a Godly jealousy over it, and to use every means in their power to spread the light of which it is so much afraid, and especially that glorious Gospel which can alone work its destruction. Such are the incontrovertible facts of the case; but as it may add to their force on the mind of our readers, we shall refer at once to the law and the testimony. The following is the language of one who understood the system, and therefore is well entitled to be heard: Now, as the Inquisitorial laws are general and unqualified, so must the Roman Catholic Emancipation be general and unqualified in the end-viz., the Pope must have the nomination and appointment of Roman Catholic monarchs to these realms. Ireland must be tributary to him again-the bishops and clergy must be reinstated in their glebes and church livings-the forfeited estates must be restored to the right owners, and the Established Church must be Roman Catholic! All the heretics in the land must be exterminated, and their properties confiscated, and the nation must be purged from heresy; then, and only then, will Roman Catholics consider themselves fully and unconditionally emancipated. This is what is understood by an unqualified Catholic Emancipation " (Morrissey’s Development, Part II. p. 252). The Encyclical Letter of Benedict XIV. sets the matter forth as follows: "At the close of the last year, 1750, an Apostolical Constitution was published by us, given in the Ides of March, the beginning of which is Officii Nostri,’ and which treats of the local immunity of churches. In that we, adhering to the constitutions of our predecessors, Gregory XIV. Benedict XIII., and Clement XII., having removed certain cavils and subterfuges, by which the execution of them was impeded, decreed and appointed that he who was accused of an excepted crime, if at any time he should fly to a place of protection, ought to be dragged forth from it, AS OFTEN AS PROOF SUFFICIENT FOR THE TORTURE COULD BE HAD, which should prove his crime; and that moreover he should not be dragged forth unless by the authority of the Bishop and with the intervention of some ecclesiastical person, to be deputed by the same Bishop; and at length that when he was handed over to the secular power, censures were to be declared to be incurred by the same, unless-the person who had been dragged forth was to be restored to the Church, as often as in the progress of his cause the proofs had been cleared off on which the accused was charged with the. perpetration of the crime." It is to be particularly noted, that such is the importance attached by Rome to this cruel principle, that the bull of Benedict confirms the bulls of three preceding popes, Gregory XIV., Benedict XIII and Clement XII; so that whatever is found in these bulls is ratified by the bull of Benedict XIV. The following is a sample of a series of sections, all breathing threatenings and slaughter against the people of God. Pope John XXII. thus speaks to the Inquisitors: "On your part it has been lately proposed before us, that some guilty, or suspected, or accused of heretical pravity, or being converted from Jewish blindness to the Catholic faith, and afterwards apostatizing from it, fly to churches, not as a remedy for their salvation, but that they may escape your hands, and may avoid the judgment of vengeance for their crimes, about which you have humbly implored the providence of our Apostolical See-We, therefore, endeavouring with most anxious care to extirpate the enemies of the orthodox faith, and to pluck out by the roots from the garden of the Lord such a noxious and pestiferous weed, we, by our apostolical letters, commit to your discretion, after the example of our predecessor, of happy memory, Pope Martin IV., who by his apostolical letters, commanded the-same to the inquisitors of heretical pravity appointed through the kingdom of France, as far as respects those who shall appear to you to be guilty of heretical pravity, or to be notably suspected of the same, also those accused of the aforesaid plague, also converted Jews, and afterwards apostatizing from the faith, either openly or on probable proofs, that you should freely discharge the duty of your office according to the quality of their crime, just as if they had not fled to churches, or the aforesaid places, by suppressing, without any appeal, by ecclesiastical censure those who oppose themselves." We call upon our secure and confiding Protestants, the ready-made victims of the Vatican, to ponder the foregoing. Here are bulls and principles in full operation at this moment, forasmuch as there has been no revocation, no modification. These are the permanent regulations of the Holy See, so-called, and nothing is wanted but the power to carry them into full execution. It is, nevertheless, absolutely certain that these are facts with which the great body of Englishmen are wholly unacquainted. Their charitable views of human nature are such as to lull their suspicions, and teach them to trust where they ought not simply to doubt, but indulge suspicion and alarm. If these things do not stir up the British people, nothing will but the absolute convulsion, which is certain to ensue so soon as the Romish priesthood, guided by the cardinals, shall deem it safe to make a demonstration. Nominal religion, a spurious liberality, and a culpable indifference may lead men to make light of these things; but the time will certainly come when their posterity will reap the bitter fruits of the seed which is now being so recklessly sown. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 62: 02.042. THE EUCHARIST, OR MASS ======================================================================== The Eucharist, Or Mass There is among Protestant communities a strong leaven of Popery touching the Lord’s Supper. Dr. Ian R.K. Paisley THE Eucharist, or the Mass, is a Romish Sacrament, and a perversion of what is known among Protestant as the Lord’s Supper. The first step in the process is the work of Transubstantiation, which, having considered it at length in the previous chapter, we shall here pass by. Transubstantiation being completed, the priest lifting up his eyes to heaven, says, "Take, O holy Trinity, this oblation, which I, unworthy sinner, offer in honour of the blessed Virgin Mary, and of all the saints, for the salvation of the living, and for the rest and quiet of all the faithful that are dead." Then, setting down the chalice, he says, "Let this sacrifice be acceptable to Almighty God!" This awful language, which may well make the ears of the hearer to tingle, is at this moment used throughout the Romish Church in Great Britain, Ireland, and all over the world. The Romish standard book of doctrine is prodigal of curses against all who deny that the elements are Transubstantiated into the flesh and blood, soul and divinity, of the Son of God, or that, so presented, it is "a true and perfect sacrifice offered to God." The Council of Trent is very ample in its decrees on this point, and most profuse in its anathemas on all gainsayers. The holy Synod teaches, that "the sacrifice is purely propitiatory, and that lay it the sins we commit, however enormous they be, are remitted." Let the intelligent reader mark this language! It is but a subdued specimen of the teachings of Popery on the point. From these he will see at a glance, that the one perfect sacrifice of Christ is completely set aside, and a deceitful mockery practised upon mankind. The eye of the sinner is turned from Christ, the perfect sacrifice, which was once for all made for the sins of men, and taught to look to the delusive mummeries of the priest. This is one of the most hideous features of the system. The doctrine of Transubstantiation, as a means of nourishment to the soul, with the literal flesh and blood of Christ, is sufficiently revolting, apart from all sacrificial considerations, and that delusion is innocence itself compared with the thoughts which represent it as a "sacrifice for the living and for the dead." To perfect the monstrous notion, and give it a sort of consistency, it is provided, and enforced by the most awful sanctions, that the bread and wine, after it has thus been changed into the body and blood of Christ, being his "soul and divinity," shall be worshipped! The following is a part of the dreadful decree of the Council of Trent on the subject: "If any one shall say that Christ, the only begotten Son of God, is not to be adored, in the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, with the highest visible worship, and that He is not to be worshipped with a holy and peculiar service, and to be carried about in holy processions, according to the laudable and universal custom of the Holy Church; or, that He is not to be publicly exhibited for the purpose of being adored; or, if any one should say, that those who do so adore Christ are idolators; let them be accursed. "If any one shall deny that, in the most holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, there are contained, truly, really, and substantially, the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore the whole Christ; or say that He is in it only as a sign, or figure, or by his influence; let him be accursed. "If any one shall say that, in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, the substance of the bread and wing remains together with the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and shall deny the wonderful and singular conversion of the whole substance of the bread into his body, and the whole substance of wine into his blood, the appearances only of bread and wine remaining. which conversion the Catholic Church most properly terms, Transubstantiation; let him be accursed. "If any one shall deny that in the adorable Sacrament of the Eucharist, a separation being made, the whole Christ is contained in each element or species, in the separate parts of each element or species; let him be accursed." "Q. What is the faith of the Catholic Church concerning the Eucharist? "A. That the bread and wine are changed by the consecration into the body and blood of Christ. "Q. Is it then the belief of the Church that Jesus Christ Himself, true God, and true man, is truly, really, and substantially, present in the blessed Sacrament? "A. It is, for where the body and blood of Christ are, there his soul also and his divinity must be-and, consequently, there must be whole Christ, God, and man; there’s no taking him pieces. "Q. Is that which they receive in this Sacrament, the same body as that which was born of the blessed Virgin, and which suffered for us upon the Cross? "A. It is the same body, for Christ never had but one body: the only difference is, that then his body was mortal and passible; it is now immortal and impassible." Such is the Popish Eucharist; and really it is impossible to conceive of any two subjects more unlike each other than that and the institution set forth in the Scriptures as the Lord’s Supper. Than the one, nothing can be more simple and natural-more expressive, and adapted to the object it is intended to effect; than the other, nothing can be morn irrational, unscriptural, revolting, and absurd. When men are educated to the light use of their reason, their confidence in the Romish system will be shaken. As soon as they claim the right to possess the Scriptures, and take them for their `wide in matters of faith and doctrine, the whole Papal fabric will go to pieces. The combined power of reason, and of revelation will infallibly work its entire destruction. May the Lord hasten it in his time! There is among Protestant communities a strong leaven of Popery touching the Lord’s Supper. The ideas of multitudes are vague, dark, and unsatisfactory. There is much need for minute scriptural instruction in the matter; for, as it now stands, the Communion Service is to many people a source of fear and distress, rather than of hope and consolation. It were well to hold meetings, from time to time, of the members of Christian Churches for special instruction on this as well as on Baptism, and other points connected with Christian fellowship, which cannot be dealt with satisfactorily in addresses to promiscuous congregations. Tracts, essays, and catechisms are, in their way, good and useful, but there is nothing like the living, loving voice of the Christian pastor. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 63: 02.043. DOCTRINE OF OATHS ======================================================================== Papist Doctrine Of Oaths These extracts suffice to settle the point forever, and to cut off all gainsaying. Dr. Ian R.K. Paisley IN traversing the wide domain of Popery there is no relief to the moral eye, everything is so bad that the student is inclined to think that what is at present before him is surely the worst; but the neat object which presents itself, if not worse, is at least as bad. The whole system is stamped with falsehood. There is not in it a single ingredient of truth. The language of prophecy is fulfilled in a manner the most fearful. The fit motto of everything connected with it is, "Speaking lies in hypocrisy." The whole is one stupendous fabrication. Truth would be altogether out of place in the system, falsehood is essential to every part of it, and to all its movements. The result of this is obvious: where there is no truth, there can be no character; where there is no regard to truth, promises, and even oaths the most solemn, are valueless. Let not the reader start, when we tell him that the Romish system makes regular provision for the violation of oaths. Let him listen to the Third Council of Lateran, which decreed: - That the oaths which are adverse to the utility of the church and the institution of the Holy Fathers are to be unscrupulously violated, inasmuch as they are to be deemed forgeries rather than oaths. This dreadful decree was confirmed by the eleventh ecumenical council. It is further provided by the same canon that "those who are any ways bound to heretics, should consider themselves absolved from all fidelity and obedience to them so long as they persist in their iniquity." Again, the Council of Constance signalised its sessions by a special decree in the case of the immortal John Huss, that "neither by natural, human, nor divine law, need any faith or promise which is prejudicial to the Catholic faith be kept." We might enlarge in our proofs and illustrations interminably, but sorely these may suffice. But we cannot pass by the facts supplied by the history of our own country It is known to every one at all conversant with British story that James II. Solemnly swore, at his coronation, that he would "grant, and keep, and by his oath confirm to the people of England the laws and customs to them granted by the kings of England, his lawful and religious predecessors." "That he would to his power cause law, justice, and discretion in mercy and truth, to be executed in all his judgments." This he swore, and much besides, to the same effect. Need the reader be told in what manner he observed his oath, and fulfilled his promise? The system to which he was sworn was worthy of the man, and the man most infamously illustrated the system, showing that even the oath of a Popish king is not worth a rush. Passing from monarchs to the millions, and to our own times, what has history recorded respecting the Irish Rebellion of 1798? The reader of such history requires not to be informed in what manner the Papal population of the county of Wexford conducted themselves with what coolness and promptitude they hastened to the magistrates to take their oaths of allegiance in all directions; so that they completely tranquillized the Protestants, and even threw the government off its guard, in consequence of which it was considered that a military force in that quarter-a quarter so full of loyal subjects, as was thought to be proved by the registered oaths before the local magistrates-might be almost dispensed with. Simple men! They little thought that under this smooth surface the elements of the tempest of insurrection were concealed, and that while the people were swearing in all directions their loyalty, they were with equal zeal collecting fire-arms, appointing officers, and doing all that in them lay to subvert the British throne! We may take, in closing, a glance at the continent at an earlier day, when we shall find that oaths were among the least of little things, and in no case binding where the interests of the Church and the rights of heretics were concerned. Both to kings and to individuals, dispensations were granted. Pope Clement, for example, granted to John II. of Spain, and his queen, a "dispensation from oaths taken .by them and by their successors, which they could not conveniently keep." Pope Urban was not less obliging to King Wenceslaus. That sovereign manifested humanity, and showed some respect to integrity in his dealings with heretics, more than was agreeable to the Vatican. The Pope soon settled the difficulty which stood in the way of breaking with them. To the king and those Popish subjects that might deem themselves pledged by treaties, it was intimated that they were "absolved from the observation of them, and ought not to keep them." This made short work of the matter; and however the provision might grate upon the ear of the men who had a conscience, it was remarkably convenient to the unprincipled, whether monarchs, nobles, or people. We desire deeply to impress it on the minds of our readers that this and all kindreds bulls and decrees stand at this moment part and parcel of the constitution of the Popedom. There has been no revocation, no modification, no suspension. Power alone is wanted to bring them into full force against heretics. Where there is no truth, there can be no morality, and nothing on which confidence may be placed as between man and man. We have already referred to Dens, the too celebrated author of the principal text book of Maynooth, and on this subject we may cite one of his most notable sayings: "What ought a confessor to answer," says he, being asked concerning a truth which he has known by sacramental confession alone? A. He ought to answer that he does not know it; and if necessary, CONFIRM THE SALE BY AN OATH. The subject, as it may be supposed, has been severely elaborated in Romish publications. Referring to the confessional and to the conscience, Bailly in his "Moral Theology," a text book at Maynooth, expresses himself as follows: "Again, there are five causes that take away the obligation of an oath, after the oath has imposed an obligation. One of them is, ‘If the thing sworn becomes impossible or unlawful on account of the prohibition of any superior-illicita ob superioris prohibitionem’ So that if a man takes an oath, and then his superior is pleased to prohibit the observance of it, according to the Church of Rome, the obligation of the oath is entirely taken away. "The fourth cause is, ‘the making void of the oath by him to whom the person of the swearer, or, the matter of the oath is subject.’ See how this is illustrated. ‘Thus the Superior (that is, the general,) of all the orders of the monks can validly, even without cause, make void the oaths of all his subjects.’ One of these men, Dr. Anglade, professor of divinity, is asked, in this report of the commissioners, "Where does the Superior of the Dominican reside?" At Rome. "Where does the Superior of the Franciscans reside?" At Rome. "Where does the Superior of the Jesuits reside?" At Rome. So, while we have monks spreading themselves through every quarter of our country, there is a man residing at Rome who can make void with a word-lawfully make void, as they assert-every oath of allegiance, or every other oath which all the monks in the British empire take to their sovereign or fellow-men." This is deplorable, but worse follows. Let us hear the extracts of Thelwall from Maynooth Books: "Again, there is the great question which we have heard so often imputed to the Church of Rome, and which they have so continually denied Whether faith is to be kept with heretics? Now, we have this asked and answered in Reiffenstuel. We have it here in the fifth book of his Decretals, (tit. 7, de Haereticis vi., quest. 6, vol. v. p. 205:) - Are vassals, and servants, and others, freed from any private obligation due to a heretic, and from keeping faith with him? A. -Yes. All are so by the clear disposal of the law.’ "He quotes for this the Corpus Juris Canonici, C. fin. h. T. ABS0LUTOS- They may have known that they are freed from the debt of fidelity and of all obedience to man, whosoever remained bound by any sort of covenant, through fortified by any kind of affirmation whatsoever, to those who are manifestly lapsed into heresy; where the gloss on the word Absolutes well observes, that this punishment is incurred ipso jure, so that no declaratory sentence is required if the heresy is manifest!’ It is inferred also by Farinacius, Abbas, Pirhing-‘ That he who owes anything to a heretic by means of purchase, promise, exchange, pledge, deposit, loan, or any other contract, is IPSO JURE free from the obligation, and is not bound to keep his promise, bargain, or contract, or his plighted faith, even though sworn to an heretic’ Now, recollect that this is from the class books of Maynooth, from the standard canon law, and the ethical theology of Maynooth as returned by the professors and the president himself to the British Parliament, which supports that college. Reiffenstuel quotes also a canon law, which declares that all public oaths taken by any man whatsoever in any public capacity, are totally null and void, when taken contrary to the utility and interests of the Church. Now, every class book, every standard in the College of Maynooth, declares that that single circumstance completely abrogates the oath; so that every honest man in England may see that perjury is branded on the brow of Popery. Such are the doctrines of the College of Maynooth on the subject of oaths! "One of the worst parts of this mystery of iniquity is, that very few, except the priests (and, perhaps not all of them), are at all acquainted with its depths. The laity, in general, know very little about the system; it is far too vast and varied for them to grasp; they are, and must be, guided by their priests; they rely upon their priests; they know no more than their priests think fit to tell them; they (too commonly) dare not inquire farther; and their priests (there is too much reason to fear) take very good care to let them know no more than is convenient. Furthermore, many of them would be honest if they could; but wall this awful system let them? Many of them would keep faith, and observe their oaths; but will their church permit them so to do? Some of them take an oath in simplicity and good faith; but an authority, which they dare not dispute, interposes, and tells them that it never was an oath but a perjury, BECAUSE IT IS CONTRARY TO ECCLESIASTICAL UTILITY! ! ! And then they are bound to break it!!" These extracts suffice to settle the point forever, and to cut off all gainsaying. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 64: 02.044. WHO INTERCEDES? - 1 ======================================================================== Who Intercedes? Sometime Minister of Whitebbey Presbyterian Church, N. Ireland William Rogers M.A., L.L.D. PART ONE Hebrews 7:24-25 ‘But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.’ Who intercedes? The Church of Rome teaches that we should apply to the Virgin Mary, or to other saints; that they should speak to God on our behalf; that we should appeal to saints to pray for us. But what need have we for other intercessors when we have Jesus the Son of God? In the matter of asking a favour, a great deal more depends on the person who asks for the favour than on any other consideration whatever. What encouragement I find to faith in the fact that there is One who is using all His influences on my behalf, who is constantly asking favours for me; and this One is none other than the Only-Begotten, Well-Beloved Son. Scripture links together the Son-ship of Christ and His intercession. In other words, the Lord would encourage us by impressing on us this fact, that it is the Son who is asking, is pleading on our behalf. Hebrews 4:14-15 : ‘Seeing then that we have a Great high Priest, that is passed into the Heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin’. Let us boldly come unto the throne of Grace, for we have a Great High Priest - Jesus the Son. Who has such influence with a father as a son, an only son? Psalms 2:7-8 : ‘The Lord hath said unto Me, Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee. Ask of Me, and I shall give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession’. It is the Son who is to ask. ‘If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone?’ How much more if the Eternal Son, the Only Begotten ask? In the matter of asking a favour, a great deal more depends on the person who asks for the favour than on any other consideration whatever. What encouragement I find to faith, in this, that there is One who is using all His influence on my behalf, who is constantly asking favours for me, and this none other than the Only-Begotten, Well-Beloved Son of God! Jacob prevailed. Elijah, a man of like passions with us, could shut and open Heaven. God encourages His Son to ask. Solomon’s name was Jedidiah (Beloved of God) and He shows His love to him in this way, He bade him ask what He should give him. The King told Esther whom he loved to ask, and promised it should be given her to the half of his Kingdom - but God keeps nothing back from His Son. He says, ‘Ask of me and I shall give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.’ He keeps back no part of His Kingdom. He ‘hath committed all judgement unto the Son’. No prayer of that Son was ever unanswered. Him the Father heareth always. He has only to express His wish - He can pray as no other ever could or dare. Even thus ‘Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am’. His slightest wish is a prevailing prayer. By and bye we shall see what Jesus is working for us - Meantime, oh believer, take encouragement from this thought - Does it not help thee? That at this very moment, the Only Begotten Son of God, the well-beloved Son is engaged on thy behalf; appearing in God’s presence for thee, promoting thy full salvation. ‘If thou thoughtest thou had’st all the saints in heaven and earth jointly concurring in promoting thy salvation, and encouraged with God in instant and incessant prayers to save thee, how wouldst thou be encouraged? Shall I tell thee? One word out of Christ’s mouth would do more than all in Heaven and earth can do - and what is there then that we may not hope to obtain through His intercession?’ - Goodwin. And now before we pass from this point, let us not carry away the impression that Jesus is pleading and that the Father is unwilling to grant what He asks for us. Not so, Jesus himself says, ‘I say not unto you that I will pray to the Father for you, for the Father Himself loveth you’, that is, I need not tell you I will pray for you; of course I will - and yet I need hardly; for the Father Himself loves you and is disposed to give you, even apart from My asking. The heart of David longed to go forth to Absalom. He was only waiting to find a reason for fetching home his banished. Hence when the wise woman of Tekoa pleaded for Absalom, she found the King just waiting to be gracious, longing to welcome the prodigal. So God’s heart goes forth to us and He welcomes the intercession of Christ and rejoices to bestow gifts on men, even the rebellious. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 65: 02.045. WHO INTERCEDES? - 2 ======================================================================== Who Intercedes? (Part 2) Sometime Minister of Whitebbey Presbyterian Church, N. Ireland William Rogers M.A., L.L.D. PART TWO Hebrews 7:24-25 ‘But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.’ Who intercedes? There is nothing we value so much as the prayers of the Lord’s people. How it encourages and strengthens us if we know that a number of Christian people are making us the subjects of prayer! But the prayers of all the saints in heaven and earth would not be equal in value to one word of the Lord Jesus on our behalf. What encouragement, fellow-believers, we must draw from this - we have the prayers of the Lord Jesus on our behalf. A minister once said, ‘The blessing of my life has been a praying mother’. Every Christian can go one farther than that and say, ‘The blessing of my life has been a praying saviour, One who continually makes intercession for me’. The intercession of Christ - I don’t think we have been giving it its proper place. The Importance of Christ’s Intercession. 1) We see this from the Old Testament priesthood. As the Shorter Catechism teaches us, the priest has a twofold duty, a) to offer up sacrifices and b) to make intercession. First he offered up a sacrifice to take away the sins of the people, but then he went into the presence of God as an intercessor to plead on behalf of the people. Now does not the fact that the offering up of the sacrifice was outside the Holy of Holies and the intercession within the Holy of Holies; and this other fact that while all the other priests, ordinary priests, might offer up sacrifice, yet the high priest alone could enter the Holy of Holies and make intercession - do not those two facts seem to imply that intercession was the more honourable part of the priestly office? And if so, is there not a danger not of our attaching too much value to Christ’s sacrifice for sin - for that would be impossible - but of our failing to give to His intercession that consideration and importance that are its due. 2) We see this from the way the Scriptures speak of it. For example, Romans 8:34 : ‘Who is He that condemeth? It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.’ Let God’s people be full of confidence from this fact, Christ died, but there is a ‘yea, rather’, that is, there is something that brings them a stronger encouragement even than Christ’s death, that is His resurrection. But there is a fact more assuring and encouraging still, He is at the right hand of God, ‘who is even at the right hand of God.’ There yet remains the crown, the top-stone of all assurance in the intercession, ‘who also maketh intercession for us.’ In a word, the intercession of Christ, of all the facts, is that which fills the believer with fullest assurance, for it shows that not merely His Blood as seen in His death, nor the power as seen in His resurrection and ascension, but the Love of Christ as seen in His entreaties is employed on our behalf. ‘Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum; we have such an High Priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the Heavens’ ( Hebrews 8:1) The Word ‘Sum’ means climax. The chief point is this, that is, of the priesthood of Christ with which this epistle deals, the chief, the top of all is His intercession. Let us glory above all in this, we have a great High Priest who is passed into the Heavens to appear in the presence of God for us. Wherefore He is able to complete our salvation, not - He died, but seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for us. 3) From the Design of His Intercession. He does not obtain redemption for us by His intercession. Before He entered Heaven, He had obtained redemption yes, ‘eternal redemption for us.’ ‘By His own blood, He entered in once into the Holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.’ His payment of our debt was in full. If He had come and died over again, He could have added nothing to the perfection of His redemption. What then is the value, the design of His intercession? This: by His intercession He puts us in possession of that redemption which His blood purchased for us; by His death He procures, by His intercession He applies redemption. Here is an instance often given. On the cross He not only bore the sin of many, but He also made intercession for the transgressors. He prayed, ‘Father forgive them, for they know not what they do’; and by that prayer three thousand were converted on the day of Pentecost. His intercession secured the application of the redemption which His blood purchased to the very men who had taken and crucified and slain Him. How gloriously precious Christ’s intercession, since through it we enter into the enjoyment of those blessings which He purchased by His Blood! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 66: 02.046. WHO INTERCEDES? - 3 ======================================================================== Who Intercedes? (Part 3) Sometime Minister of Whitebbey Presbyterian Church, N. Ireland William Rogers M.A., L.L.D. PART THREE Hebrews 7:24-25 ‘But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.’ The Grounds of Christ’s Intercession. The Ground on which Christ asks (or intercedes) for blessings for us. The high priest made it very plain on what ground He asked pardon and blessings for the people. Into the Holiest of all went the high priest, not without blood. He could not have gone without the blood. He could have asked nothing except on the ground of the shed blood. Let us see from two passages the ground of Christ’s intercession. 1. 1 John 2:1-2 : ‘If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous. And he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.’ His advocacy is based on His propitiation: that is, Christ died for our sins, paid our debt; and now He goes into the presence of God. He points to the full atonement, the perfect satisfaction which He rendered to God’s law, and on that ground He asks for us full pardon, our complete salvation. Are our sins never so many; never so weighty. Christ casts into the opposite scale of the balance, His sin-bearing, His atonement, His righteousness, and secures for ever our acquittal, our salvation. The Lord Jesus is not asking anything for us that He does not furnish good grounds for our getting. No, He points to His obedience, suffering and death and He asks for us that we get the full value of His finished work. 2. Hebrews 12:24 : ‘And to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel.’ All these words treat of Christ’s intercession. In the ear of the Lord of Hosts, there is nothing that seems to utter so loud a cry as blood. Oh, how the blood, the blood stained knife, the blood stained garments appeal to Heaven against the murderer! As God said to Cain, ‘The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto Me from the ground.’ The blood of Abel cried to God, cried for vengeance upon the head of Cain. But we need ‘the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel.’ Here again is blood that cries to God - what blood? The blood of Jesus Christ, Himself, the Great High Priest took into the very presence of God and sprinkled within Heaven itself on the Mercy-seat. There it lies, the blood of sprinkling. The voice of that blood cries to God; but it does not cry like the blood of Abel for vengeance. But the blood calls for the pardon, the eternal life of all for whom it was shed. ‘The blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel.’ How effectual must the cry of this blood be when it is not the blood of an ordinary saint like Abel, but the blood of the King of saints - the Lord of glory; when it cries, not like Abel’s blood, from the ground, but from Heaven, where it lies, sprinkled on the very mercy-seat; and above all, when He that was dead is alive again, and lives for evermore to plead that the cry of His blood may be heard, and the greatest sinner who comes to Him may have a full and free and present salvation! Fellow believer, ere we pass from this point, let me say this; the Lord hath done great things for us. He has bestowed on us great gifts - but sure I am of this - what we have received has come far short of the value of the blood of Christ. Now be encouraged by this thought - the Lord Jesus, by His intercession will put you and me into full possession of all the rich blessings His blood was able to purchase. Open thy mouth wide! Expect great blessings, far beyond anything you have ever got or thought of! For God’s gifts to thee shall be measured according to the value of the precious blood, and the very last farthing the blood of Christ could purchase for thee, shall be paid thee! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 67: 02.047. WHO INTERCEDES? - 4 ======================================================================== Who Intercedes? (Part 4) Sometime Minister of Whitebbey Presbyterian Church, N. Ireland William Rogers M.A., L.L.D. PART FOUR Hebrews 7:24-25 ‘But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.’ For What does Christ Intercede? If we are absolutely certain to get everything that Jesus asks for us, and it must be so, for Him the Father heareth always, how interesting the enquiry - Can we find out what Jesus asks for? His intercession in Heaven is just a continuation of His intercession on earth. This being so, we have no difficulty in finding out what He has set His heart on getting for us. 1) Forgiveness. Does He really, moment by moment, ask for me, forgiveness? Can you doubt it? He looks on that mob that crucified Him and He says, ‘Father forgive them’. How much more does the Lord Jesus ask forgiveness moment by moment for every one that looks to Him? When the wrath of God was kindled against Israel, Aaron took his censer and offered incense and the plague was stayed. But Jesus expressly says, ‘If any man’ and child of God, ‘sin we have an Advocate with the Father’. That is just the moment I am sinning, that moment, Jesus, the Great High priest is saying, ‘Father, Forgive’ If I ask forgiveness, I may doubt I get it, but if with the eye of faith, I see Jesus asking it for me, I have got the blessing - Forgiveness is mine. 2) He asks for us faith. ‘Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not.’ Many a timid one venturing on the Christian life is afraid to launch out into the deep, and says, ‘I fear I shall fall away, I am afraid of the temptations, I’ll not be able to keep it.’ Oh believer, knowest thou not thy standing in grace every moment is due to this, Jesus is every moment praying for thee? Look up, oh believer, Jesus is praying for thee this moment, praying that thou mayest have faith, strong faith, increasing faith and shall not our faith grow exceedingly, for Him the Father heareth always. 3) He asks for our holiness. What is the burden of the prayer of Him who prays for us? Sanctify them through thy truth. The deepest desire of the heart of Jesus is that we may be holy, holy in thought and word and deed - this is the very keynote of His prayer. When I look in, I feel discouraged. The heart seems to be growing harder and harder, viler and viler. But no prayer of Jesus ever failed. God will hear Him. God does this very evening hear Him. Therefore as I look up and hear the voice of Jesus praying that I may be purified and made holy, I know that even at this moment, grace is flowing into my soul and that stream will broaden and deepen until I shall be filled with that holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. What bright prospects of present holiness the intercession of Christ opens to our view. You can’t fail to get a blessing if you look to Jesus, your Great High Priest, who has set His heart upon your holiness. 4) Heaven. ‘Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am.’ We speak of the perseverance of the saints, meaning that a believer can never finally fall away. In other words that every one that believes in Jesus will at last be found in Heaven. But on what ground does this doctrine rest? On the perseverance of Christ. It is not so much the perseverance of the saint as the perseverance of Christ. The believer is as sure of Heaven as if he were already there. Why? Because no one can be lost for whom Jesus prays, ‘Father I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with Me where I am.’ Timid, trembling, doubting believer, thou mayst safely, calmly leave thy case in the hands of Jesus. His prayer for thee is, ‘That you may be with Him where He is.’ And Him the Father heareth always. 5) Our Prayers. Revelation 8:3-4 : ‘And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel’s hand.’ No prayer ever goes direct to God. It passes into the hands of Jesus. What is wrong in it, He corrects. If it is for God’s glory, He puts His name on the back of it. Now it is no longer my prayer, but the prayer of the Great High Priest, Him the Father heareth always. I find a wonderful encouragement to prayer, a wonderful assurance that prayer will be answered, in this truth: that Christ presents in His own name every prayer of mine, that is for God’s glory. I know that even now, whatever Jesus asks of God, God will give it Him. Christ prays for the Holy Spirit to be given us. Believer, Christ spreads out before God thine every want, temptation, danger. Consider the Apostle and High Priest of thy profession, touched with a feeling of thine infirmities. In prayer fix the eye on Christ’s intercession, a word from Him is more than all angels’ pleadings. Surely thou wilt get a new departure in thy Christian life, thy heart will be enlarged with the expectations of such blessings as thou hast never yet experienced, if thou dost study the intercession of the Great High Priest, and keep looking to Jesus. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 68: 02.048. WHO INTERCEDES? - 5 ======================================================================== Who Intercedes? (Part 5) Sometime Minister of Whitebbey Presbyterian Church, N. Ireland William Rogers M.A., L.L.D. PART FIVE Hebrews 7:24-25 ‘But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.’ When does Christ Intercede? Christ is doing as much work for us in Heaven, as ever He did for us on earth. Here suffering, but there, presenting His sufferings. Scripture lays great stress on this, that Christ never for a moment ceases to plead on our behalf. ‘This man because He continueth ever hath an unchangeable priesthood.’ ‘He ever liveth to make intercession for them.’ How strong that language is! The one thing for which He lives, is, to pray! He remains in Heaven as our Surety, on this condition, that He prays for us till He has us there. I am afraid there are many who have asked us to pray for them, and we did for a time. But we grew weary and negligent and soon forgot to pray for them. (We don’t need to ask Him to pray.) But Christ hath not thus dealt with us. The moment has never been since first we trusted Him that we could say ‘Lord Jesus, Thou art not praying for me.’ Samuel ceased to pray for Saul. Moses’ hands got heavy in prayer and hung down, but not so the hands of our Great High Priest. Believer, what a help to faith thou wilt find every moment if thou wilt but take time to look up - take time to say, ‘Lord Jesus, at this very moment Thou art pleading for me; asking for my full enjoyment of all those gifts purchased by Thy blood.’ Hudson Taylor says he was brought to Christ by meditating on the words, ‘the finished work of Christ’, and he says, he found afterwards that at that very time his mother was praying for him. Every blessing that visits thy soul, thou mayst trace up to this: at that very time Jesus was praying for thee. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 69: 02.049. WHO INTERCEDES? - 6 ======================================================================== Who Intercedes? (Part 6) Sometime Minister of Whitebbey Presbyterian Church, N. Ireland William Rogers M.A., L.L.D. PART SIX Hebrews 7:24-25 ‘But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.’ For Whom does Christ Intercede? Here is great encouragement to the poor sinner, to the discouraged believer. The Greek word for advocate signifies comforter. Will He take up my cause, will He plead for me? Blessed words: ‘He ever liveth to make intercession for them’ that come unto God by Him. Every word is full of blessing. 1. How am I to secure His Service? Just come. Believers are simply comers, such as go out of themselves rest not in their own works or righteousness; rest in nothing in themselves, but go out to God through Christ. To such he says, ‘Him that cometh to Me, I will in no wise cast out.’ 2. How do we come? Come unto God by Him that is Christ. How plain the language is if we remember how under the Old Testament, one who had sinned was to go to God. He was to go by a priest who would make an atonement for his sin by a sacrifice. Now Christ is the Eternal High Priest, by whom we have access to the Father, that is, a leading by the hand. Dost thou not know how to come to God? Come to Christ who died for sinners. He will take thee by the hand and lead thee to God. 3. That Come for Salvation. Perhaps you fear it is not right for you to come to God, when you aim just at your own salvation. But it is. It is the errand on which you are to come. ‘He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him.’ The Lord does not say He will do His uttermost to save you. No! he will save you to the uttermost. Notwithstanding all thy sins, thy temptations, all obstacles placed in thy way by the world, the flesh and the Devil, He will not give over - fail, nor be discouraged - till he has seen thee safe in the Father’s Heaven, saved to the uttermost. He will give grace and glory. Our last question - Will Christ on my coming to Him take up at once my cause and begin to pray for me? There are not more comfortable words in God’s book than these: ‘He ever liveth to make intercession.’ He lives on purpose to do this for sinners. It is the business of His life. When a woman appealed to Philip, King of Macedonia for justice, and he put her off she said, ‘Then cease to be King.’ If Christ would once say ‘No,’ to a poor sinner who wanted Him to take his cause in hand, he must cease to be priest. But God appointed Him by an oath to this office, He ‘sware and will not repent, Thou art a priest forever.’ His constant calling in heaven is the salvation of poor sinners that will but come to Him. Come then, O sinner, entrust thy salvation to Jesus Christ. He never yet lost a soul committed to Him. Amen. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 70: 02.050. MONASTERIES + CONVENTS ======================================================================== Monasteries And Convents Written in the year 1886 As no means are being left untried once more to stud England with monasteries, it may be proper to glance at these institutions, and to inquire into their claims to the praise and confidence, or even toleration of society. On this subject we need not argue from principles to the consequence which may probably flow from them; history has supplied innumerable facts for the instruction of mankind. The thing is not now for the first time being introduced by way of experiment; that has long since been made over half the world, and everywhere with the same results. Monasteries and nunneries are based upon the erroneous principle-that in order to eminent holiness; a man must leave the world and withdraw into solitude, and there cultivate piety and walk with God. To the simple and the sentimental there is a captivating plausibility about the idea which forms a snare into which multitudes have fallen. But it was not thus that the Son of God lived, nor thus that He commanded his Apostles to spend their days on earth after his departure. His people, He tells them, are the "salt of the earth;" but that salt may operate it must be brought into contact with the object; He tells them, they are the "lights of the world;" but if lights are to be of any use to mankind, they must not be placed in pits, or under bushels, in dens or caves of the earth. They might as well be put out at once for any practical purpose that can flow from them. Celibacy and solitude are follies of a kind very closely allied to sin. They are, in fact, a violation of principles laid deep in human nature, and of the express commands of the Word of God. The principle of monasticism is a thing which admits of no rational defence, and if tested by its universal and uniform effects, it must be visited by the united and emphatic condemnation of the human race. To speak plainly, the proper definition of nunneries, of the ancient type, is dens of debauchery, caverns of crime-which carried the palm against all competition! They have been the haunts of hypocrisy, plague spots of society, schools preparatory for perdition! It is the policy of Rome to press her claims to any particular virtue, with vehemence proportioned to her consciousness of defect in that particular. In support of this, we shall produce a fact or two: In the summer of 1835, a nunnery was opened in Edinburgh-the first there since the glorious Reformation-and on that occasion, Bishop Murdoch said, in the course of his sermon, "Scotland was once happy in her nunneries, monasteries, and convents, from whence issued a sweet odour of virtue, that attracted multitudes around to the faithful service of the world’s Creator." It certainly required no common measure of brass to utter such language in the capital of Scotland. Either the Bishop had not read the History of Scotland, or he must have presumed that it was unknown to his auditors. The history of these institutions in Scotland, is one uniform stream of enormity; a chronicle of crimes at which even now, the virtuous reader turns pale! They had worked the utter ruin of virtue in Scotland, and filled society with an element of rottenness! The land was one huge moral charnel-house; the Reformation came just in time to save it from entire destruction! The spread of these Institutions once more in England ought to be viewed with the deepest grief; and if they be allowed to exist at all, it should be under circumstances of supervision by the authorities, who may regulate, and, if needful, suppress them, and thus obviate the evils with which, in every land, they have hitherto abounded. The liberalism of our day is not without its dangers in this respect; it views all systems of professed Christianity as very much alike, and with the same indifference, if not contempt; and if the Protestant spirit of the British people prevent not, it will, before many years pass away, once more endow the Popish religion both in England and in Ireland, and at the same time extend it to the Colonies. The bulk of the statesmen of the present day do not understand Popery and from this, their ignorance, arises their fearlessness, but it requires little sagacity to foretell the consequences of a courage that proceeds from blindness. Did they know it better, they would dread it more. The rise of monasticism is not to be viewed as a light matter; it very materially contributes to the coherence of the Papal system, and to nutriment it-a fact which explains the solicitude of the Popish clergy in England; to promote the reestablishment of these institutions. Composed, as such establishments are, they cannot fail to prove centres of influence wherever they are introduced. A prior, a sub-prior, a procurator, a prefect, and sub-prefect, a sacristan, and other officers, with a strong body of "brethren," form no inconsiderable citadel in a Protestant country. Such monastic barracks become still more formidable, when it is remembered that they are all leagued indissolubly with the Pope of Rome; the general of every order of monks in the British Empire, residing at Rome, and receiving orders directly from the Pope and Propaganda. They are permitted to carry on whatever correspondence they please with Rome, with perfect secrecy; the British Government cares nothing about it; having no fears, it is heedless of safeguards. It is not so with the other chief Governments of Europe. Even the most thoroughly Papal States have been compelled to take the utmost precautions to protect themselves against the aggressive bearing of the Pope of Rome. It is not so in England where the face of the country may be covered with monasteries and nunneries which the priests may manage as they think proper, holding with Rome whatever intercourse may conduce to the furtherance of their mysterious and mischievous projects. If the system, as far as this land is concerned do not prosper, the blame must lie with the priests themselves, and not with the British Government. We cannot breathe for our country a more patriotic wish than that the attempt to re-establish monasticism may not generally succeed; for if it do it will prove here again what it did in former times, and what it is now proving in every country where it exists-the ruin of morality and a heavy curse to society! But already the progress is very great. No man that is conversant with the history of Popery in the world, can be unconcerned at the spread of these religious houses, in and around the metropolis, and throughout the provinces of England. Even since the Reformation, in countries where it is somewhat checked by the element of Protestantism, it is still a terrible evil; but it is only in countries where it is still pure and undiluted, as in Spain, that it is seen in its true character, in its frightful deformity. In the days of our grandfathers, Rome, for example, comprised a population of 138568 with 40 bishops, 2686 priests, 3559 monks, 1814 nuns, with 393 servants-total, 8492 persons living out of the fruits of other people’s industry! Thus 6285 clergy, secular and regular, were as one to every 22 persons in the population, exclusive of nuns! This, we conceive, it will be granted, is a tolerably fair supply of spiritual apparatus. Now the question is, its effects, moral and physical, on the population; and here we are not left in the dark, for history testifies that in both respects, the result was most deplorable. The author of "Letters on Clerical Celibacy," on the authority of Ballaeus states that 6000 heads belonging to infants, the fruits of illicit intercourse, were found in a fishpond; this terrible statement has been the subject of some controversy. The result at which the late Mr. M`Gavin, the celebrated author of "The Protestant," arrived, was to the effect of its being, although scarcely credible, by no means impossible, since ten years in a marshy place, not influenced by the weather, comprising 600 a year, would make up the number. (Acta Rom. Pont.," 46. 11 The Protestant;, Vol. iv. 195) Be this as it may, that infanticide prevailed to an extent the most awful, is a matter of indubitable certainty. In our own day, with a population of 131256, Rome had 1013 children exposed in a single year, which was nearly three every night, upon an average-a number which, supposing they had been thrown dead into a marsh, instead of being brought to the Foundling Hospital, would have made up the total number aforesaid in less than ten years. So late as the 25th of last January, a gentleman writes to a London journal of great repute, as follows:—"In your paper of the 17th you have inserted a letter from ` C. F.,’ relative to a strange occurrence, in 1829, at Charenton-sur-Marne. May I be allowed to state that your correspondent has made a mistake as to the locality? It should have been at Charenton-sur-Seine, near Paris. I was engaged on the works of Messrs. Manby and Wilson, under Mr. Holroyd, the engineer of the works, when time after time large numbers of infant skeletons were discovered in all parts of the premises, which, I believe, had been, a convent of a very strict order of nuns. At first we did not take much notice of the circumstance; but when the attention of Mr. Holroyd and Mr. Armstrong was called to the singular affair, we were directed to count the remains; and from that day we counted, and placed to one side, no less than 387 entire skeletons of infants. We took no account of parts of skeletons, which if they had been all put together, would have far outnumbered the entire ones which were counted. I speak far within bounds when I say that there were found not fewer than the remains of 800 children, and there was not a single bone of an adult person among them. The mayor came to the premises, and had the bones placed in boxes and privately buried in the cemetery, and orders were given to hush up the affair." When the hidden things of darkness come to be revealed, and not till then, the iniquities of Popery will be displayed in all the length and breadth, height and depth of their enormity, to the wonder of angels, and the horror of the spirits of just men made perfect! On this subject the famous Echert and Augustodinus are unexceptionable witnesses of what was passing before their own eyes. The former of these says, "I have inspected the churches of the clergy and have found in them great and endless enormities. I have seen the cloisters of nuns, which I cannot call by any more tender name, than the snare of the devil, and lo! an alien has laid waste all; the lillies of chastity are burned up, and woeful destruction is everywhere conspicuous throughout the whole world of souls." The latter says, "Look at the nunneries, and you will see in them a chamber already for the beast! There the nuns, from a tender age, learn lewdness, and associate very many companions with themselves, to heap up greater damnation; or else endeavour to keep out of sight, that they may be able yet more to let loose the reins of licentiousness. They are worse than common prostitutes, and like an insatiable whirlpool, can never be satisfied with the filth of their uncleanness! They snare the souls of young men, and rejoice if they ensnare many; and she expects the palm of victory who surpasses the rest in crimes." This is a text for Dr. Manning the next time he taunts the hierarchy of England on the subject of the doings of his Church for the poor, and of his own intended performances, through the rising monasteries and nunneries on behalf of the poor of the Metropolis. We cannot leave this dreadful subject without adding the testimony of Wolfius, to the following effect:—"The nuns only remain for me to carry my description according to promise, from the head down to the feet, without omitting any order. But of these, modesty forbids me to say more, lest we should make a long and disgusting discourse, not concerning virgins dedicated to God, but rather of houses of ill-fame, of the acts of lasciviousness of harlots, of defilements and incest! For what else, I ask you, are the nunneries in the present day but execrable brothels of Venus, rather than sanctuaries of God, and houses of resort for lascivious and filthy gallants to satiate their lusts? So that now for a nun to take the veil, is to expose herself to public prostitution." Let the people of England ponder these facts. We recoil from the statement, and, perhaps, it may wound the feelings of many a pure heart whose eye may fall upon it. But the truth must be spoken. These are not times to permit the sacrifice of that to false delicacy. It must be spoken and we will speak it, impugn it "whoso listeth." In France, at the close of the last century, there were 18 Archbishops, 109 Bishops, 16 heads of religious houses, 556 Abbayes of Nuns, 1356 of Monks, 700 Convents of Cordeliers, 1240 Priors, 15200 chapels, about 34441 parishes, 14077 convents of all orders, 122600 Monks, 82000 Nuns; the total of Monks and Nuns 204600, with revenues amounting to £26000000. Here, too, is a fair supply; if ever Popery was in a position to make a full experiment upon a great people, it was in this case, since nearly the half of the whole land in France was in possession of the Church. The question then, to be put is, what was the effect of this prodigious array of spiritual force? Was the land a Goshen of piety, a paradise of innocence? Much otherwise! It is the unanimous testimony of all truthful history, that society was corrupt at its very core? But not to lose ourselves in generals, we shall cite the great historian of Europe, Mr Sheriff Allison, who declares that "the dissoluton of manners was enormous. Twenty millions of the public debt at the time of the Revolution, had been incurred for expenses too ignominious to bear the light, or ever to be named, in the public accounts." No marvel that a revolution arose; or that Voltaire denounced the Christianity, so called, which he saw around him. But what was the effect of this all-pervading flood of Popery on the condition of the people? According to an excellent authority, Mr. Arthur Young, "labour was 76 per cent. cheaper in France than in England," a tolerably fair index to the physical influence of Popery and Protestantism respectively. Mr. Young, indeed, says,—"It reminded him of the miseries of Ireland." In this, as in everything else, the same causes never fail to produce the same effects. We might proceed to Spain and other countries, where we should find a state of things precisely similar; ignorance, idleness, poverty, misery, immorality prevailed in enact proportion to the prevalence of Popery. But after the manifestoes of Bishop Murdoch and Cardinal Wiseman, it may be well to look at home, and enquire into the effects of Romanism at the present time. Cardinal Wiseman boasted of the wonders it has performed for the poor, and of the great things that he had to do for Southwark. Now let us look at facts-facts obtained from the highest authority. The Parliamentary report on the poor, for the year 1830, states that 60000 persons in one year passed through the fever hospitals of Dublin a city not much larger than Glasgow. In the latter city-thoroughly Protestant, until polluted by Irish Papal emigration, by no means healthily situated, nor remarkable, but the contrary, for its sanitary regulations-so many patients did not pass through the Glasgow infirmary, for all sorts of maladies united, from the year 1794 to the year 1834, as did in Dublin for fever alone, arising from filth and squalor among the Popish populace for a single year! But what of crime? The following may suffice for an illustration:—"In 1833, Lord Althorp stated to the Commons, that there were 4805 crimes by parties bound by oath in one province, and 163 of these murders. Sir Hussey Vivian’s Returns in 1832 gave in all Ireland, from the military stations 1037; from Protestant Ulster, the largest of four provinces, 14! Returns from public prisons in 1819, 1820 in 1819 in the Adult Female Penitentiary, 56 -Roman Catholics 53; Protestants, 3. In the Penitentiary for Young Criminals, 105- Roman Catholics 96; Protestants 9. In 1819, convict ship, ` Benevolence,’ from Cove of Cork to New South Wales, with 153 convicts-146 Roman Catholics; Protestants, 4. In March 1820, ` Hudlaw,’ Captain Cragie, convict-Roman Catholics, 147; Protestants, 3. The proportion is nearly as four to one." We do not overlook the difference of the relative numbers of the two classes in the country. Is it true respecting religious systems, as of trees and men, "by their fruits we shall know them?" To what conclusion, then, shall we come with respect to Popery, as in actual operation before our eyes? Let it not be said that Irish crime is the result of Irish poverty, until it has been first proved that Irish poverty is not the result of Irish Popery. But we invite the objector to the Continent, and challenge him to an investigation of the statistics of crime there. What is the testimony of the President of the Tribune of Mayence? It is, that the number of malefactors in Popish and Protestant countries, is in the proportion of four, if not six, to one! At Augsburg, with a mixed population, the convicted malefactors were as five Catholics to one Protestant, taking the population, of course, at thousand per thousand. What said our own immortal Howard, the philanthropist, respecting the comparative state of crime in Protestant and Popish countries in his day? He had tested that in Italy the prisons were always crowded, as also at Venice and Naples, while in Berne, the Protestant Canton, they were always empty, and that at Lausanne, he found no prisoner, and only three individuals in a state of arrest, at Schaffhausen. These are facts which we commend to the advocates of Popery as the chief source of morality and order. As to social comfort, the same principle is found everywhere to prevail. In a lecture of the Rev. Thomas Gibson, delivered at Glasgow, which we select as a period when Popery in Ireland had not been weakened by emigration or other causes, we have a comparative view of Scotland and Ireland: "Scotland, a poor soil, 2333000 inhabitants; Ireland, a rich soil, with eight millions of people. Cotton factories. Scotland 159 Ireland 28 Wool ditto Scotland 90 Ireland 36 Silk ditto Scotland 6 Ireland 1 Flax ditto Scotland 170 Ireland 35 (Flax is a staple article of Ireland.) "The post office of Scotland yielded a gross produce of £205276; Ireland, £240471; but observe that the net produce of Scotland was £135806, of Ireland, £130497. The cities and towns bore a like proportion. To what is this owing? To irreligion and turbulence." Mr. Gibson himself testifies to what ho found in travelling over the Continent; and says he had no difficulty in a moment, in ascertaining as he passed from country to country, whether he was among Papists or Protestants. The fact appeared on the very face of society. He further observed, that civilization and social comfort rose and fell exactly in the degree in which Popery was intense, or more relaxed. The conclusion, at which he arrived, was that everywhere " Popery, slavery, poverty, squalor, and filth, kept pace with one another. The riot, folly, and excess, licentiousness of the carnival, the multitude of processions, idle shows, and runs for months together after them, and false miracles, was destructive to morality, order, and prosperity. The whole is a vast scheme to elevate the supreme dominion of a host of priests, at the expense of the universal slavery, poverty, and degradation of mankind." Reader! Such is a glimpse at the system, and we now appeal to you whether you can look upon it as a system that deserves to be viewed with favour by the friends of mankind? Can it be congruous with that religion which was heralded by angels, as fraught with " peace on earth, and goodwill to men?" Can it be justly looked upon as anything other than one of the worst elements of that mighty conspiracy against the human race, known as Popery? Had Popery nothing else evil in it but this conventual system, should not that alone suffice to call forth a unanimous shout of execration from the whole human family, followed by endeavours, intense and resolute, at its utter extirpation? It will subsequently appear, that Popish convents are fearfully on the increase throughout Great Britain. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 71: 02.051. HOLY ORDERS ======================================================================== Holy Orders On the subject of Holy Orders, as on every other, our watchword must be to the law and to the testimony. What is written? How readest thou? Dr. Ian R.K. Paisley HOLY ORDERS is an expression altogether unknown to the Sacred Scriptures, and the thing it represents would have been not less a novelty to the Apostles themselves and their disciples. Popery has assigned to it a very significant import, and clothed it with the honour of a sacrament; consequently claiming for it divine institution, a visible sign and promised grace. Like everything else in the perversions of Popery, the object here was clearly to exalt the priesthood, and to cut off all sorts of lay agency in matters appertaining to religion. The terms in which they speak of the matter are quite extraordinary. According to the Council of Trent "As the ministry of so exalted a priesthood is a divine thing, it was meet, in order to surround it with the greater dignity and veneration, that there should be several distinct Orders of ministers, intended by their office to serve the priesthood, and so disposed, as that beginning with the clerical treasure, they may ascend gradually through the lesser to the greater Orders." The gradation runs thus: "porter, reader, exorcist, acolite, sub-deacon, deacon, and priest "distinctions utterly unknown to the Scriptures. As to the outward sign claimed for a sacrament, there was such in the imposition of hands, but as to the inward grace, the thing is without foundation in Scripture, and wholly inconsistent with fact; since neither amongst Papists nor Protestants, has there ever been any ascertained connection between such imposition and the bestowment of grace, or the Holy Ghost. The Council of Trent, however, nothing daunted, declares that by " Holy Ordination, bestowed by words and external signs, grace is conferred, and that none ought to doubt that Orders constitute one of the Seven Sacraments of the Holy Church." These conclusions are, as usual, fortified by anathema. The Christian Ministry is an institution, but not a sacrament. Examination of the Holy Scriptures shows, that it consisted of bishops or pastors, or elders, or ministers-varied names for the same class -whose functions consisted in teaching and in rule; and of the deacons, whose special business it was to superintend the affairs of the Church with reference to the poor, and who appear also to have been men of eminent spirituality, and who gave themselves to promote the salvation of men through the preaching of the Gospel. This point stands intimately related to a subject of which we have in recent years heard so much Apostolic Succession. Although some branches of the Protestant Church make much of this succession, it is in vain that we look to the Holy Scriptures for anything to support the assumption. There is a broad line of distinction drawn between the Apostles and all other ministers of the Gospel, so that to allege Succession is simply to practice imposition. The Apostles were men who had seen the Lord, and received a commission from his own mouth to go and publish salvation to the ends of the earth, with the promise of His presence till their work was done. We maintain that there was no succession, and nothing bearing the remotest relation to it. We call upon those that claim to be the Successors of the Apostles to produce their authority. We beg to remind them, that the Commission of the Apostles died with them, and so did the special powers, which constituted their credentials. On the subject of Holy Orders, as on every other, our watchword must be to the law and to the testimony. What is written? How readest thou? This is the short and the sure way to put an end to all Popish pretension on the subject of Holy Orders and Apostolic succession, whether found in Rome or in regions where better things might be expected. Among the votaries of Rome, Apostolical succession means this-all the Popish Priests now on the earth, have been ordained by bishops; all the bishops now on the earth, have been chosen by the Pope, and episcopally ordained by his authority. The present Pope is held to be the last of a series ending in Peter the Apostle; while it is affirmed that Peter received his chair and his powers direct from Christ, and bequeathed them to his immediate successor, and he to his, and that thus they have been transmitted to our times. Such is the theory; and hence it is said that a Popish priest, on entering his fold, may thus address his flock: -- The Word of God which I announce to you, and the holy sacraments which I dispense to you, I am QUALIFIED to announce and dispense by such a Catholic bishop, who was consecrated by such another Catholic bishop, and so on, in a series which reaches to the Apostles themselves; and I am AUTHORIZED to preach and minister to you by such a prelate, who received authority for this purpose from the successors of St. Peter in the Apostolic See of Rome." (Milner, Letter xxix.) This at once exemplifies Apostolical Succession and Papal Unity. The Puseyites adopt the same principles, and apply it to the ministry of the Church of England. The whole of the inferior clergy have been ordained by the laying on of the hands of bishops, and all the bishops have been ordained by those who were bishops before them; and thus the line, it is contended, may be traced back to the times which preceded the Reformation, when the Church of England was a portion of the Catholic Church, in subjection to the Pope, and in communion with Rome. All this might be suffered to pass without fear or notice, did it not involve practical principles of the highest moment and the most fearful consequences. With a view to the illustration of these, we shall now adduce a series of testimonies demonstrative of identity of Popery and Puseyism, and the essentially wicked and persecuting character of both systems. 1. The only ministration to which the Lord has promised his presence, is to that of the bishops, who are successors of the first commissioned Apostles, and the other clergy acting under their sanction and by their authority. ’(Hook’s Sermon on the Established Church) The sacrament of the Lord’s Supper can only be administered by ministers duly ordained, and, therefore, it is needful to continue in a Church possessing an Apostolical Succession. (Hook’s Sermon on Training) 2. The gift of the Holy Ghost has been preserved in the world solely by means of the Episcopal succession; and to seek communion with Christ by any other channel, is to attempt an impossibility. (Preface to Fronde’s Remains) 3. No congregation, not being under this form of government, can be a true branch of Christ’s holy Catholic Church. The clergy of the Church, and they alone, are entitled to the respect and obedience of the people, as their lawful guides and governors in spiritual things; that they alone are duly commissioned to preach the Word of God, and to administer the holy sacrament. (Bishop of London’s Charges) 4. It is only this (Apostolical Succession) that can give any security that the ministration of the word and sacraments shall be effectual to the saving of souls. The Dissenters have it not. (Tract xxxv) 5. I should like to know why you flinch from saying, that the power of making the body aid blood of Christ is vested in the successors of the Apostles. (Fronde, vol. 1. p. 326) 6. The day may come when each of us, inferior ministers, may have to give up our churches, and be among you in no better temporal circumstances than yourselves; then you will honour us with a purer honour than you do now-namely, as those who are entrusted with the keys of heaven and hell, as entrusted with the awful and mysterious gift of making the bread. and wine, Christ’s body and blood.’ (Tract x. p. 4) 7. The power claimed by the Church is a vast power, which places it almost upon a level with God himself the power of forgiving sins by wiping them out in baptism-of transferring souls from hell to heaven-the power of bringing down the Spirit of God, and of incorporating it in the persons of frail and fleshly man. (Sewell, p. 247) Now we affirm, without fear of Scriptural contradiction, that the doctrine here set forth is wholly unsupported by the Word of God, and opposed to the whole current of inspiration. It assumes as truth what has no foundation whatever in fact. It assumes as fact a palpable absurdity. Granting that Peter was the first Roman bishop and pope, and that the succession really commenced, enough has occurred a thousand times over to invalidate its orders, and extinguish the fire of heaven supposed to run through the Apostolic line. In order to the continuance of the Divine authority, the spiritual power, and the sacramental efficacy, it is required that every line of the mystic chain shall be pure gold, and that not a link shall be wanting; for a single mistake, like an error in an arithmetical computation, will run through all that follows, rendering it null and void. A single error will vitiate the entire line. The Puseyites feel the force of this; and hence Dr. Hook sends forth, with our last citation, another of Dr. Pusey’s "courageous avowals:’ "Our ordinations," says he, "descend, in an unbroken line, from Peter and Paul, the Apostles of the Circumcision and the Gentiles." To deal effectually with this point, it is needful to inquire whether the " line " can be broken; and if so, by what forces? If it cannot be broken, there is an end of argument. If, according to Archdeacon Mason, (Defence of the Church of England Ministry) neither " degradation," nor " heresy," nor " schism," nor " the most extreme wickedness," nor " anything else," can divest a bishop of the power of giving trite orders, then of course the chain is strong, and all the powers of darkness cannot break it. If, according to the Puseyites, "the sacraments, not preaching, are the source of Divine grace," and if the efficacy of these is wholly "independent of the personal character of the administrator," (Tracts, Preface, 1834, No. xi.) and if it is enough that he has been episcopally ordained, then the matter is much simplified, but not strengthened; for while the utmost depravity of character, and the most impious heresy of doctrine, may, in Popish esteem, be trifling matters, yet, if a single link of the Papal chain shall be snapped, it falls asunder, and it cannot be again united. But nothing in history is more certain than that this chain has been constantly broken, in all possible ways, at one time through the electors, at another through the elected. For centuries the popes were created by the authority of the emperors, and the objects of their choice were generally anti-popes or schismatics; and popes were often made by means still more questionable. But the dreadful tale must not be told by Protestant lips, lest they should be charged with colouring. Let Baronius, therefore, speak, himself a cardinal, and one of the greatest of men. Referring to the ninth century, he exclaims, " Oh! what was then the face of the holy Roman Church? How filthy, when the vilest and most powerful harlots ruled in the court of Rome! -By whose arbitrary sway dioceses were made and unmade, bishops were consecrated, and, horrible to be mentioned, false popes, their paramours, were thrust into the Chair of Peter, who in being numbered as popes, serve no purpose except to fill up the catalogue of the Popes of Rome! For who can say, that persons thrust into the Popedom, without any law, by harlots of this sort, were legitimate Popes of Rome? In the elections no mention is made of the acts of the clergy, either by their choosing the Pope, at the time of his election, or their consent afterwards. All the canons were suppressed into silence-the voice of the decrees of former pontiffs was not allowed to be heard-ancient traditions were proscribed-the customs formerly practised in electing the Pope, with the sacred rites and pristine usages, were all extinguished. In this manner, lust, supported by secular power, excited to frenzy in the rage for domination, ruled in all things: (Baronius) Time would fail to tell of Pope Sergius and his crimes; of Theodora and Marozia, and the Papal profligates by whose iniquitous attentions they were signalized; of thirteen schisms in the Popedom during a century and a half, when rival popes, each pretending to represent Peter, contended for his chair, when popes excommunicated popes, when popes with popes waged mortal war, and when both have been removed and expelled;-of Pope Joan, the most abandoned of womankind, whom vengeance overtook, and whose turpitude was proclaimed in the streets of Rome at noonday; of Pope John XIII., transfixed with a dagger in the perpetration of an atrocious crime; of Alexander VI., who would have carried away the crown of sin from the men of Sodom! Teachers, Englishmen, Protestants! -Behold the UNBROKEN CHAIN OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION! O! Sacred Truth! Is it needful to waste another word on a system so revolting, so monstrous? Let Sewell and Seager, Hook and Pusey, and all who boast in it, enjoy all their honours, without envy and without molestation; but let them learn to do at least a slender homage to the majesty of truth, and pay some regard to the common sense of mankind! Let them cease to heap the collected filth of the universe on the pure vineyard of the Lord, and to insult the God of Heaven with impieties, by which even Hell itself is filled with astonishment! Is this the channel through which the Church of England has received her orders, and the special gift of the Holy Spirit? Is it thence she derives her "right to be sure that her clergy have the real body and blood of Christ to give to the people?" Is this the ground of the proud contempt with which many of her sons look down upon the ministry of all Christians of all countries that have not drunk of this dark Tartarean stream? Is this the " sole means by which the Holy Ghost has been preserved in the world?" Oh! matchless impiety! Compared with this blasphemy, all other blasphemy is devotion! Is this the ground of " the security " given by the Puseyites, that their "ministrations of the word and sacraments shall be effectual to the saving of souls, while the Dissenting teachers have it not?" So sure as there is truth in God, grace in Christ, and purity in the Eternal Spirit, the author of this doctrine is the " Father of Lies," Abaddon, Apollyon, the Destroyer of Men! The true doctrine of the Apostolic Succession may briefly and yet conclusively be stated: -While we reject with indignation the Popish and Puseyite doctrine of Apostolical Succession, and denounce at once its origin and character, we have charges of the gravest kind to urge against it, as an instrument of boundless mischief to the kingdom of Christ. Before these are announced, however, it is proper to state the true doctrine of the New Testament on the subject. The Apostles then, as such, had, and they could have had, no successors! but the bishops ordained over the Churches, which the Apostles and their coadjutors formed, had successors. This is the true Apostolic Succession; -the succession of the bishops whom the Apostles themselves appointed. Everything added to this is a needless supplement; everything subversive of this is arrogant impiety. As this is a matter on which great explicitness was necessary, so the Apostle, as might be expected, has been more full and more precise upon this point than upon any other connected with the New Testament Kingdom. About ordination as an act, he says but three words; of character, doctrine, and aptness to teach, he speaks with emphatic and solemn iteration. Paul, indeed, knew nothing of the things called " Deacon’s Orders " and " Priest’s Orders," as such things exist in the Church of England. With these things, and many others of which Rome and her daughters boast, Paul had no acquaintance. Archbishops, diocesan bishops, and a clergy, as contradistinguished from bishops, a clergy comprising priests, deacons, archdeacons, deans, rural deans, prebends, canons, curates, vicars, rectors, some " working,’’ others idle, the latter laden with wealth, the former pining with poverty, in all cases the recompense being in the inverse proportion of the toil -these were perfections to which the rude ecclesiastical polity of the Apostolical Age had not attained. The Apostles appointed only one class of spiritual officers, designated pastors, presbyters, elders, bishops. These terms were convertible; it mattered not which were used. All were bishops, none less, none more. 1. Character was the first point of inquiry in the appointment of bishops. The foundation of that character was the knowledge and love of God, displayed in moral excellence. "A bishop must be blameless, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality: not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; patient, not a brawler, not covetous; not a novice; one that rules well his own house; a lover of good men; just, holy, temperate, bearing a good report of them that are without." (1 Timothy 3:1-7; Titus 1:5-8) In the absence of this high personal character, no knowledge, no gifts sufficed to fit a man for the episcopal office. The bishop was to be, in all points, a striking pattern of the doctrines he was to teach. He was not to speak from hearsay, but from experience. There were in those "barbarous tunes " for the cripple no crutches; there was no Liturgy for bishops who could not pray-no homilies for bishops who could not preach; they required both to pray and preach from the abundance of the heart. They believed, and therefore they spake, that which they had seen with their eyes, which their hands had handled, of the Word of Life; that which they had seen and heard, they declared to men. (1 John 1:1-3) Here then we call upon the Puseyite teachers of our times to come forth, and stand their trial before the bar of inspiration! How comes it, that while the very heavens echo and re-echo the cry of succession, the silence of death prevails upon the subject of conversion? Is it because, to a person baptized by one of the succession, the party is already regenerate? The assumption we deny, and demand proof. The Puseyites tell us their mind with much freedom; and it is, therefore, only proper that we exercise the like frankness. The whole fabric is of the earth, and earthy. Beginning with the extremities, the probabilities of corruption and carnality increase at every remove till we reach the head. The bill which annexed the supremacy of the Church to the crown of Elizabeth, determined for ever the character of the bulk of the bishops and the clergy. By this act, the Sovereign of England was vested with the whole spiritual power: it was thenceforward competent for the Crown to make, or to unmake; to repress whatever it might deem heresy, or uphold whatever it might deem orthodoxy; to repeal or enact canons; to alter or annihilate discipline; to institute or abolish rites and ceremonies. This act, even Hume himself being judge, " at once gave the Crown alone all the power which had formerly been claimed by the popes; but which even these usurping prelates have never been able fully to exercise, without some concurrence."(Hume, chap. XXVIII) Here is a weighty truth, worthy of Puseyite meditation. The head of the nation is the head of their Church. This arrangement is, no doubt, very Apostolic! But let them ponder the facts that flow from it. We ask them, is not this your Church’s head, the fountain of its life? Are not the chances of intelligent, consistent piety, in that head, as one against millions? There, then, is your head! And should that head be a Borgias, or a Cataline, a negation of all virtues, an impersonation of all vices, diffusing poison and death through the whole body ecclesiastical, there is no remedy! Has not the head the appointment of all the bishops? Does not the character of the Crown modified perhaps, by the minister of the day, determine the character of such elections? Does any consideration; can any consideration, other than that of political interest, as a rule, regulate such appointments? In your consciences, do you believe that the New Testament rule of qualification is that by which their fitness is determined? In your consciences, do you believe that Timothy, acting under Paul’s instructions, would have ordained, over a primitive church, one in a number of those who have been made bishops of the English Church since the times of Elizabeth? The first step of the gentlemen, in their ascent to the episcopal throne, is their choice and appointment by the Crown. There can be no doubt, of course, that thus it was with the Apostles, with the bishops of Ephesus, and all the other bishops of the Apostolic Age! There can be no question, also, that the immediate successor of Peter at Rome was chosen and appointed by the Emperor previous to his ordination to the Bishopric of the World! Here all is congruity, order, and beauty! All is perfect harmony with the New Testament example! The consecration, too, is to be in full keeping with the other parts. The dean and chapter have twelve days given them to inquiry into the character of the person nominated; and if they fail to elect within this time, election becomes unnecessary, and the Crown presents without it. The dean and chapter have eight days, and the archbishop twenty; and if the former fails to perform the farce of election, and the latter to consecrate, a praemunire follows, all their goods, ecclesiastical and personal, are liable to confiscation, and themselves to imprisonment till such time as they submit! (See Tracts for the Times, No. lix) surely nothing more can be necessary to stamp the truly Apostolic character of the bishops of the Church of England Now for the numberless little links suspended from the Apostolic chain. Of the twelve thousand parishes of England and Wales, by far the greater number are in the gift of men wholly irresponsible to man, and who may feel no responsibility to God. The Prime Minister and the Lord Chancellor, likewise, have both a large amount of patronage. Now, these patrons may all be, and a very great majority of them, from age to age, have always been, mere men of the world-men who have no fear of God before their eyes. Well, in making the auxiliary links of the Apostolic chain, the first step in the process belongs to that motley multitude. With them, as a body, it lies to say who shall, and who shall not, be the spiritual guides of thousands and thousands of parishes, and millions of people! Can it be doubted, that they proceed in making parsons just as the Crown does in making prelates. In making their choice of men to enjoy their respective livings, do you believe they go about the work in the fear of God, with a constant view to the qualifications set forth by Paul in his letters to Timothy and Titus? Would not the clear possession of such qualifications be an insuperable objection to the appointment, with an immense majority of such patrons? In cases innumerable, have not the gifts of such livings been the wages of iniquity? Have not thousands and tens of thousands been thus thrust into the ministry, who possessed not one of the qualifications demanded by the Word of God? All this, to be sure, is very Apostolic! But that these gentlemen may enjoy the comfort of their lot, they must be formed into the regular line of succession, by the imposition of episcopal hands. Now comes the mystery. The day arrives; the services and ceremonies connected therewith are performed; hands are laid on the presentee, and from that moment he becomes another man. He now sustains another character, and is investe with supernatural powers! Special authority has descended on him; special virtue has entered into him. Considered as a moral being, he is not more pure! as an intellectual being he is not more knowing; he is as much a man of the world, and the slave of his passions, as ever; but he is now a successor-of the Apostle! He may sport care away, dance, hunt, play, swear, and revel; still he is in orders-he is a link of the chain, and all his deeds ministerial are valid! He can regenerate children, absolve adults, make the bread and wine into the body and blood of the Lord, and other deeds peculiar to the succession! Personal piety is, for official purposes, quite unnecessary. Matters go on quite as well without it. But suppose a bishop to have some scruples of conscience; of course, he can withhold ordination. He can; but it is at his peril that he does so. Unless he can prove to the satisfaction of a jury, in a court of common law, that the person presented to him for institution has been guilty of some particular immoral act, or maintains some heretical opinion, he loses his cause, and must ordain; and if he persist, he is liable to an action for damages. All this to be sure is very Apostolic! Our Apostolic successors, both bishops and clergy, are and ever have been chosen, to an awful extent, out of the ranks of ungodly men, by the good pleasure of ungodly men; and they have lived a life agreeably to the course of an ungodly world! From such a succession may God, in mercy, speedily deliver this and all other countries! 2. Doctrine was the second point of inquiry in the appointment of bishops. The Apostles said nothing of succession, but much of character; they rarely mentioned sacraments, but they discoursed continually of doctrine. Doctrine was the grand instrument with which they reformed the world. Paul thus counsels Timothy:- The things that thou hast heard of me, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also." He tells Titus to ordain only such men as "held fast the faithful Word as they had been taught," that they might "be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers." Hear John:-" Whosoever abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, bath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he bath both the Father and the Son. If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God-speed; for he that biddeth him God-speed, is partaker of his evil deeds:’ No matter whence men came, or to what class they belonged, if they did not bring the true Gospel in their mouths, they were at once to be rejected. This rule applied to all such, whether men or angels. "Though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed! " In the Apostles’ own days, doctrine was not everything; nor did its intrinsic importance ever after become diminished. The doctrine of Christ crucified was the power of God to the salvation of man. This doctrine was the great restorative to life, health, and happiness for a diseased world. These are facts; and here, again, we call on Papist and Puseyite teachers to stand forth and defend their systems! To such teachers, we say, How came you to lay down the principle, that " the sacraments, not preaching, are the sources of Divine grace?" How came you to say, "That in Scripture, all the words denoting a minister of the Gospel, designate him as one ministering or serving at God’s altar, not as one whose first object is to be useful to men?" How came you to say, "Usefulness to men is only a secondary object?" Was it that you might console the impotent portion of your number by the declaration-" We need not feel either guilt or shame, though we should be like those whom the Prophet calls, ` dumb dogs that cannot bark?"(Tract lxxxvii) What! successors of the Apostles, who can neither preach nor pray without book! Even if there were no guilt, should there not be some shame, in such a case? Was it thus with the Apostles? What! you endowed with gifts so precious, invested with powers, which, in your own phrase, " place you almost upon a level with God himself,"-and yet cannot pray and preach! Oh, it cannot be! Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Your case, however, is not new; your predecessors in proscription, your prototypes in presumption, the Prophets of the Jewish succession, when they had uttered much folly, not a little falsehood, and committed a great deal of iniquity, retained an inexhaustible stock of both confidence and complacency. Hear Jeremiah’s account of them: -" Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? Nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore shall they fall among them that fall; in the time of their visitation, they shall be cast down, with the Lord." Again: we ask. How came you so to trifle with the truth of God as to utter the following words?" We would not be thought entirely to depreciate preaching, as a mode of doing good; it maybe necessary in a weak and languishing state; but it is an instrument which Scripture, to say the least, has never much recommended."(Tract lxxxix) Is it, indeed, thus? England can supply a million of Sabbath school children able to confute you! With Christ and with his Apostles, after his ascension, was not preaching the one great business of life? Hear Paul: -" Christ sent me, not to baptize, but to preach the Gospel." Listen to him as he addresses Timothy: " I charge thee, before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and kingdom, Preach the Word, be instant in season, out of season." And again" How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?" And again: " It pleased God, by the foolishness of preaching, to save them that believe." You successors of the Apostles, while you gainsay their testimony, and refuse to imitate their example! That which they did only, did always, did everywhere, and gloried in doing, you do very sparingly, and deem an act at once of doubtful duty and slender benefit! Is it thus you prove your succession? In this way you will never establish your claim. Rest assured that they who most abound in the Gospel, have the best pretensions to Apostolic character. The value and supreme importance of preaching arise from the subject of it. It proclaims the Divine love; it employs moral suasion; it is the vehicle of the Gospel testimony. Preaching, without truth, the truth as it is in Jesus, would serve no end; and hence our grief over you is double. You not only set light by the ordinance of preaching, but you have despised Gospel doctrine. Have you not declared, that "the prevailing notion, of bringing forward the doctrine of the ATONEMENT, explicitly and prominently, on all occasions, is evidently quite opposed to the teaching of Scripture?" (Tracts for the Times, No. 1xxx. p. 73) And is it come to this? Is this the doctrine of men who claim to be the successors of the Apostles? Was it not Paul’s purpose, his solemn and irrevocable determination, to know nothing among men but Christ, and Him crucified? Was not every apostolic sermon, is not every apostolic epistle, full of the doctrine of the Atonement? Has not experience shown, through all ages, and through all countries, that it is the most pungent arrow in the quiver of the Spirit of God? It was Paul’s object to set forth Christ crucified among all people; it is yours to conceal it from the gaze of mortals. This is another irrefragable proof of your Apostolic Succession Again: How is it that you deny that the doctrine of Justification by Faith is an integral part of the doctrine necessary to salvation? (Fronde’s Remains, p. 332) On what ground have you asserted, "that baptism, and not faith, is the primary instrument of Justification "? (Newman, p. 260) You trample the Atonement in the dust; you deride the doctrine of Justification by Faith! Setting it down as " the essence of sectarian doctrine, to consider faith, and not the sacraments, as the proper instrument of Justification and other Gospel gifts,"(Tracts, vol. 1. p. 6 Advertisement) you make this bold avowal: -" Our chief strength must be the altar; it must be in sacraments, and prayers, and a good life to give efficacy to them."(Tract lxxx, p. 125) Such are your views on these most momentous subjects; and without going further into the statement of others; we would beseech you, by the tender mercies of our God, to consider well your position. Of the Apostles you cannot be the successors, and of the Apostolic bishops you are not. In point of doctrine, the heavens and the earth are not more widely asunder than you and they. If there is mind in man, and meaning in language, you are most fearfully perverting the truths of God! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 72: 02.052. ROME'S REJECTION ======================================================================== Rome’s Rejection of Christ’s one Offering An Exposure by Joseph Irons Joseph Irons I hasten to say a word or two, and perhaps rather severely, relative to the sinfulness of either rejecting or mocking this one offering for sin. And I do not know whether I should detain you much here, were it not for the alarming signs of the times. Who would have believed, thirty years ago, that England would have swallowed down Popery by wholesale as it has done? I remember Dr. Hawker, about as long ago as that, positively laughed at the idea – "What! Think of entering into controversy with Popery now, at this late period; it is a thing never to be entered upon or thought of." What would he say now, when, in the most plausible and Jesuitical forms, Popery is palmed upon millions in England and its colonies, in such wise as to be accounted a reasonable, and proper and excellent thing? Now I want to show my hearers, in case they might meet with any of these Jesuits, that their religion is altogether a mockery of Christ and Christianity. The extolling of the merits of Masses is a blasphemous insult to Christ, whether I look at it among mock Protestants or among those deceivers that we commonly call priests. In either case, Christ is rejected and mocked. If there need any sacrifice of the Mass, which they tell us is continually offered up, then Christ’s sacrifice is not worth my accepting - I reject Him at once if I want any other. I cannot possibly look for merit in the creature without believing that the merit of Christ is not sufficient - I cannot look for merit in the creature doing without announcing, in that very act, that I am not satisfied that Christ spoke the truth when He said, ‘It is finished.’ If it is finished, an eternal redemption is obtained; any pretension to add to it, is nothing less than a blasphemous insult to Christ. I would use stronger language if I could find it; but I merely notice the facts, leaving you to make what God shall enable you, of them. The whole farrago, of the free-will scheme is, in fact, abstract Popery and I believe all the Arminians will go over to Popery in the great crisis. They got their Arminianism from Rome - let them carry it back again, we shall be very glad to get rid of them. If there be some saving efficacy in prayer or in repentance (or, as they call it, penance) then there is something incomplete in Christ - then He had not gone to the end of the law - then He had not satisfied justice - then He had not fully glorified the Father on the earth, which He declared He had done. Popery and Arminianism make Christ out to be a wilful liar. Nothing softer than this can I use. My hearer, if you will only look at yourself as a guilty, ruined sinner as the Bible sets forth, you must come to the conclusion that nothing can meet your case but a perfect salvation, the redemption in Christ Jesus which can allow no addition. All attempts to add thereto are a rejection and a mockery of Christ. Now having named these things as boldly as I can, I want just to remind you that negotiation with the Father is not attainable by any human power but in and by this offering: ‘No man cometh unto the Father but by me.’ ‘Yes’, says the priest ‘you can come by me; or I will go for you if you will give me plenty of money.’ I will not believe those lying priests - I will believe my Lord who is a Priest forever after the order of Melchisedec. ‘No man can come unto the Father but by me’ and all that would stand in my way I would push on the one side and say: ‘Hinder me not my advocate is on high - His blood is sprinkled on my conscience - His offering is made once for all - I am coming direct to the throne to plead His merits and righteousness and I will not be hindered by mortals; I will go straight to the throne and name no other name but His for "there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved"’ Oh if my brethren in the ministry would but speak out these things we should heave Antichrist overboard, I do believe, even now. May God grant it! Now what is our negotiation with God? Nothing by way of merit, nothing by way of righteousness, nothing by way of acceptance - that is all done. I do not know how it is with you but I am obliged to come day by day, with my empty sack, for a multitude of wants to be supplied. I want more grace, more life, more love, more activity in all the graces, more deadness to the world, more fellowship with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ, more power of conquest over inbred corruption, the world, the flesh and the devil. I want supplies of all needful grace. Now I cannot get access to the throne to obtain any of these supplies but by virtue of this one offering. Do you want any other? I have been pleading it between forty and fifty years, and I have never found it to fail, and I mean to go on pleading it so long as I stay upon earth; and my Lord has graciously told me, that those who thus come to Him shall have no good thing withheld from them. Go to the footstool of Divine mercy, guilt-burdened sinner, and name the blood and righteousness of Christ. Go and point the Father to His sufferings in Gethsemane and on Calvary. Go and tell what Christ has done - perfected for ever them that are sanctified, and dare assert under all the load of your guilt, ‘Lord I believe in the efficacy and power of that offering’; and go on till you are enabled to say ‘ I believe it was offered for me’. Then begins your peace and happiness. I pray you to mark once more, that all negotiations must be successful when the name and merit and righteousness of Jesus are pleaded. This leads me to the last thought that the trust and confidence of all the elect of God will be found placed there. "Let Papists trust what names they please Of saints and angels boast; We’ve no such advocates as these, Nor pray to the’ heavenly host" -- Watts This marks the election of grace. Carry this one thought with you, that all the elect of God, wherever placed on earth, are invariably brought, sooner or later to this point of trust and confidence - to renounce all other hopes and dependencies and to rest not in frames and feelings, not in sensible enjoyments, not in sufferings, but to confide exclusively in the person, official character and perfect work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And whoever is brought there by the power of the Holy Spirit is an elect vessel of mercy, afore prepared unto glory and shall eternally enjoy the presence of that Christ, in His unveiled glory, who offered Himself once for all to redeem His Church. For it is written ‘He shall see the travail of His soul and be satisfied’ And again ‘He shall see his seed’. Therefore all who are brought by grace Divine to trust in this one offering to the exclusion of all others, most infallibly gain the realms of everlasting glory. Judge then whether it be wiser or safer to trust to the fabulous teaching of sinful, self-interested priesthood, who tell you of a multitude of sacrifices and offerings of which they are the dispensers, at a very dear rate, and which after all, leave you entangled in contingencies and uncertainties, nay, in certain ruin, or to take the infallible word of God as your guide and trust that one offering, offered once for all upon Mount Calvary, for the expiation of the guilt of all the election of grace? The former is the trap of priest-craft, the trickery of Satan, and the tribute of fools; but the latter is the truth of God, the triumph of faith and the testimony of real Christianity. Now in matters of merchandise, every man’s common sense would immediately decide where such a wide disparity exists; but, wonderful as it may appear, in matters of the highest importance man uniformly decides in favour of delusion, until the grace of God opens his understanding to understand the Scriptures and creates in him a capacity to discover the difference between things spiritual and things natural, or between material things and things immaterial. Even the avowed Infidel, if he were only to use his boasted reasoning powers, would see that the help he is giving to the advancement of Popery must terminate in the destruction of his idol - The Liberty of the Press. For wherever Popery is ascendant in power, the liberty of the press is quite suppressed; then follows the liberty of principal; after that the liberty of property and the liberty of persons; so that the word liberty, which is the charm of the present age will be annihilated as soon as Popery obtains its full power; and the wild libertinism of modern times will be exchanged for the most degrading bondage and vassalage ever known on earth. Would to God that men would think! But where spiritual understanding is bestowed and vital goodness is possessed, the Bible will be the lamp of the feet and the guide of the path, and consequently, the atonement of Christ will be the only object of faith to the utter rejection of priest-craft with all its lying wonders and unwarrantable pretensions. Being under the teaching of the Holy Spirit His testimony of Jesus is received and embraced with delight, which testimony the apostle was inspired to record thus: ‘By Him all that believe are justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses’ And ‘Being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him’ Faith receives these testimonies and sings ‘In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.’ Oh may that infallible Testifier of Jesus perform His office among us now, applying these fundamental truths with power Divine and invincible to your hearts, and Israel’s Triune Jehovah shall have all the glory for ever and ever. AMEN ======================================================================== CHAPTER 73: 02.053. VIRGIN WORSHIP ======================================================================== Virgin Worship "Oh Mary, the most sweet patron of the distressed! The most learned advocate of the guilty, and the only hope of those who despair’ the illustrious SAVIOUR OF SINNERS--hear and assist ’ me, most benignant Mother of God and mercy!" Dr. Ian R.K. Paisley THE worship of the Virgin Mary throughout the Romish Church, is one of those things which there is no denying, any more than that the sun is in the firmament. It is a prime element of the system; and were it to be taken out of her literature, her conversation, and her devotions, it would leave a void that would look like desolation. Throughout the whole of the Popedom, wherever the eye falls it lights on images of the Virgin and her child. These stare you in the face at every corner of every street; they occupy a place in every room of every house, and are prominent at every altar; they are stamped on everything. These facts are not, and cannot be denied; there is, indeed, no hesitation on the part of the priests and people in confessing them. A Papist is no more ashamed to confess that he worships the Virgin, than that he looks at the sun or treads the earth. A most intelligent and penetrating clergyman of the Church of England, Mr. Hobart Seymour, who recently visited, and for a season sojourned at Rome concerning which he has published a valuable book, declares that "the religion of Italy ought to be called not the religion of Jesus Christ, but the religion of the Virgin." The Son of God is in a great measure lost and forgotten amid the glories which surround his Mother, among the ignorant multitude. The Virgin, ever in the heart, the eye, and on the lip, is adored as their Alpha and Omega. She is, however, not merely the object of adoration; prayers are addressed to her in order to obtain all mercies of all sorts, for both worlds. She is supplicated for every thing that the sinner requires, or that the Most High Himself can give, and constantly takes precedence of the Messiah. The pattern prayer of. Pope Innocent thus addresses her: "I humbly and devoutly beg that with all the saints and elect of God, thou wouldst come and hasten to my direction and assistance, in all my difficulties, necessities, and in all my prayers." "Oh Mary, the most sweet patron of the distressed! The most learned advocate of the guilty, and the only hope of those who despair’ the illustrious SAVIOUR OF SINNERS--hear and assist ’ me, most benignant Mother of God and mercy!" What says the reader to this? Was he really ’ aware that this daughter of Abraham was viewed and adored as the "illustrious Saviour of Sinners?" Does he observe its impiety? Let him but compare the language with that of the New Testament, and see how the spirit which pervades the references which are there made to Mary, correspond with it. Nothing can be more natural than the place there assigned to "the highly honoured among women;" but surely nothing can be less congruous with the notion that she was to be viewed as a Divine person, who was to determine the life and death of the human race! There is most assuredly nothing there from which it could be imagined that she was to become the object of divine worship. The Popish fiction in this case, is the most extraordinary, since, as in the case of images, there is not even the usual fragment of Scripture on which, by the aid of perversion, combined with falsehood and forgery, a sort of foundation maybe laid for the act. Beyond Luke 1:28, nothing is said, or pretended; and there, the angel, so far from worshipping, only addressed the trembling woman with a respectable salutation, "Hail;" and is it so that Virgin Worship has no other foundation than these few simple words; and yet in spite of this, the creative spirit of the Vatican, has actually raised her into a divinity, changed the truth of God’ into a lie, and "worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator. "This is another reason for, withholding the Word of God from the people. Were a Papist perusing the Sacred Scriptures to’ investigate them for guidance on the subject of Virgin Worship; he would very speedily discover the impious deception which had been practised upon him, and with grief and scorn, rid himself of the imposture. As it is, he walks in darkness, delights, himself in fiction, and builds all his happiness upon a frail human creature like himself, and as much dependent as he on the blood and righteousness of her own son! Yet such is the principal object of Roman worship. By the young and old, rich. and; poor, on earth and ocean, she is everywhere worshipped, morning, noon, and night. Protestant travellers, in Popish countries, have all to record the infatuated perversion with which the populace give themselves up to the worship of the Virgin. The first lesson communicated to a Popish child is the duty of worshipping the Virgin, of whom he is taught to think as a sort of royal grandmother, wonderfully rich, astonishingly compassionate, and very fond of him; that constantly repeated throughout the rest of his days, and to obey it becomes his main business on earth. The Catholic schoolbook thus enjoins the duty upon every reader: "Have recourse to her in all your spiritual necessities, and for that end, offer to her daily some particular prayers, as you can find no succour more ready and favourable than hers." No fewer than five festivals are every year observed in her honour. All claim her friendship; the thought of it nerves the foot-pad to commit robbery, and when he deems it necessary, to shed blood. The heart and the picture of Mary, are as necessary to him for his daily vocation, as his poignard and his pistol! These he will kiss on the scaffold, avowing that they have the power to make death easy! Is the reader, in the exuberance of his charity, tempted to think that surely such things must refer to an age long gone by, and can have no existence now? Let him be assured that at no period of the history of the Popedom was Mary-worship more rampant than at this moment. This is one of those j things which there has not been an attempt to veil or modify for the sake of decency, or to conciliate Protestants for purposes of Proselytism. It was but j a few years back, for example, that Pope Gregory, addressing the Papal world, expressed his entire dependence of himself, and what he called his "flock," upon her "heavenly influence," and not satisfied with that, with his own pen, he indited the following language: "That all may have a successful and happy issue, let us raise our eyes to the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, who alone destroys heresies, who is our greatest hope, yea, our entire ground of hope." Here then, the Great Infallible places himself entirely at the mercy of the Virgin, and looks to her for the supply of every want; but shocking as this language is, it is by no means the worst. This famous document avows the doctrine in a manner which at once gives to Mary the precedency over her Son. Nor should it be thought a strange expression; it is in perfect harmony with all the deliverances of previous and subsequent Popes. Mary shares the glory of redemption, for example, with the Lord Jesus Christ! The language is intolerably shocking, but it is not the less true. According to the same Pope Gregory XVI, "She was elected among the daughters of Zion to be the mother of the Eternal Word of Divine Life. She was preordained to be the co-redeemer of the world!" While in the work of redemption then, she is his equal, in that of intercession, she is his superior; and hence both saints and sinners are told that they will find. their account in dealing with the Mother rather than with the Son. According to the "Popish Rambler," in its recent review of Mr. Seymour, "She is all mercy; He is both mercy and justice;" her office towards men, is purely one of "pity;" so that "a sinner’s prayers are more sure to be heard by her than by her Son!" Again, where haste is any object, she is the party with whom it is expedient to deal. We are told by Alphonsus Liguori-a great favourite, by the way, with the late Cardinal Wiseman-that prayers will often be more speedily heard in invoking her name, than in calling on that of Jesus Christ Such then, reader, is a glimpse of a subject that might be extended to a volume; assuming that you are satisfied, we have only to ask you whether the infatuation and the impiety here manifested, be not equal to anything of the sort that has ever been brought before you? Say if darkness be not essential to the Popedom; and whether the spirit of prophecy has not most correctly designated it "a kingdom full of darkness!" Would not the spread of the Sacred Scriptures be utter destruction to this, as well as its other tenets? Again then, we ask, is it a wonder that the priesthood should cherish such an aversion to the Word of God? But is it not, in very deed, a wonder that Protestants should be so indifferent to the presence and the spread of this most impious system in the British Isles? Is it not passing strange that while it comprises so much that ought to fill all good men’s hearts with grief and indignation, that they should be so apathetic, so little disposed to make adequate efforts for its check, and its overthrow? Does not Popery combine all that I, is most destructive on earth, with all that is insulting to heaven, and is it not strange that it should be viewed, not only with indifference, but even with complacency, actually finding advocates among so called Protestants, and receiving imperial endowments from the exchequer of a Protestant state? Is it not dreadful that this system, both at home and abroad, should be petted and pensioned by the Government of England? Are not these things meet subjects for a lamentation? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 74: 02.054. THE JESUITS ======================================================================== The Jesuits Englishmen! Be not deceived. You are to know that these are the men that marshal the hosts of Antichrist in your midst! Do not, therefore, underrate your danger; it is great! Dr. Ian R.K. Paisley ANY view of Popery would be seriously defective which should pass over the Jesuits, who, for many generations, have performed a part so conspicuous in the affairs of Rome. That most peculiar and dangerous class of men have earned for themselves the jealousy and hatred of no small portion of the human race. A fact so remarkable must have a cause sufficient to account for it. Whole nations, and successive generations never rise against an order of men without some sound and urgent reason, and the history of the Jesuits shows that their case forms no exception to the general rule. They have merely reaped as they sowed. Had the enemy of mankind been permitted to become incarnate and to set up a visible court on earth, the Jesuits would have supplied him with suitable ministers, bodyguard, and officers for all his objects. Gifted, cultivated, discreet, crafty, persevering, and energetic, they lay themselves soul and body on the altar of Rome, and only lived to promote her ambitious and impious projects. Never was spiritual, government so perfect; never was centralization so complete; every man was a host in himself, alike able to lead and follow-an impersonation of all the higher attributes of wickedness. They seemed spirits of darkness who had got possession of human bodies, so thoroughly were they divested of all the better attributes of man, and so thoroughly the temples of iniquity. There was nothing so atrocious that they were incapable of it, -nothing so arduous that they were not equal to it. -Truth, or principle, whether moral or religious, was ignored among them. Great for evil was their power, while their right hand was uniformly the right hand of falsehood! They seemed to have been pupils of the Prince of Darkness himself, while so successfully had their studies been conducted that each was fitted to have misled a world of innocents, or to have acted as Premier to Pan demonium! The sense of right and wrong was utterly destroyed within them. Regardless alike of God and man, promises and oaths, the moment that either was found to stand in the way of a deed which might serve the Church, it was given to the winds. The flagrant lie, the deceitful appearance, the poison or the dagger, were hallowed instruments in their hands; in the suggestion of deeds of infamy, or in their perpetration, they were equally at home; they stood -ready, at any hour, to shed the blood of saints, or of kings; everything human and divine was subordinated to this one thing-the Pontifical. glory. They met all difficulties by their never-failing maxim - "The end sanctifies the means," till at length they became the terror of the World, and odious to every friend of virtue. England, always foremost in all that is great and good, to her honour, was the first to expel them. This event occurred in 1604; and, two years afterwards, Venice, among the few things either wise or good she ever did, followed the laudable example. In 1759 they were driven from Portugal; four years’ after from France, and three years subsequently from Spain. In 1775 even Pope Clement XIV. Himself became ashamed of them; they had by this time rendered themselves such objects of fear and aversion throughout Europe that their existence could no longer be tolerated. The result was their formal abolition as an Order; but even this did not amount to much; it was merely an army disbanded, the soldiers still surviving, and ready at any moment, to be reassembled. During the long and dreadful war which desolated Europe, they were but little heard of, having small opportunities to further their plans. No sooner, however, had peace been restored in 1814, when the history of their misdeeds had almost been forgotten, than Pope Pius VII. restored them, and from that time to this they have been carrying on their machinations against mankind with as much zeal, and as little, principle as ever. England, we regret to say, is; now open to their depredations on her virtue and her religion; and, as might be supposed, they are making the most of it. From the importance Rome attaches to her conversion to the service of Antichrist, their services are eminently concentrated on her. It is felt that to recover England were to possess the whole world; her cities and plains, therefore, are once more the chief theatre of the Papal conflict. The Jesuits are her principal officers. They have been the prime instruments in the events, which a few years back convulsed her, and with them it will be, unless Protestants bestir themselves, to finish what they have so openly and hopefully begun. Such are the Jesuits; and the fact that such men can be so necessary to the Papal system, and occupy, in its movements, a place of such distinction, alone suffices to furnish against her grounds of an indictment which, if prosecuted, must issue in a decisive condemnation. It is enough to call forth the united virtue of mankind against her, and against this most dangerous class of Popish agency. Unless restrained they will become once more the right hand of the Pontificate, and the terror of the nations. Englishmen! Be not deceived. You are to know that these are the men that marshal the hosts of Antichrist in your midst! Do not, therefore, underrate your danger; it is great! But if not faithless to your principles, and to your Divine Head, victory will be yours. Your fathers encountered and overthrew them; and it is for you to repeat the deed of your sires. The weapons of the Jesuits are falsehoods, yours are truth; with these march forth in the name and the love of God, and drive them from your borders! Drive them not only from the English Church, but from the English nation. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 75: 02.055. SAINTS AND ANGELS ======================================================================== Worship Of Saints And Angels There is one peculiarity about this sin; the doctrine has not even the usual small fragment of truth to rest on. Dr. Ian R.K. Paisley AMONG the charges that are justly brought against the Church of Rome, is that of worshipping saints and angels; and it is worthy of observation, that this is not denied by the Papists themselves. We are, therefore, absolved from all necessity of an attempt at proof, and hence the controversy turns on the merit of the dead, in itself considered. Popery defends, and Protestantism condemns it; and the point to be settled is, with whom lies the truth? Who can claim the suffrage of reason and of Scripture? This point, once discussed and determined, nothing more remains; but now it may be assumed, that as the greater contains the less, if angels are not to be worshipped, men are not; and it can be absolutely demonstrated from the Word of God that angels are not to be worshipped. This we have from their own lips; it has been attempted by men, and by angels indignantly rejected. The seeds of all evil seem to have been sown in the Church about the same time. Nearly four centuries had passed away before these abominations were thought of; but, like most of the other evils to which they stand so unhappily related, it was not long in overrunning the earth. There is one peculiarity about this sin; the doctrine has not even the usual small fragment of truth to rest on. It is wholly baseless; there could be nothing found in the Word of God on which to exert the plastic power of forgery and falsehood; it rests, therefore, upon reason. Well, in the way of reason it is argued, that it is a mark of humility to approach the Most High through the spirits of the brethren that are "made perfect," rather than to go direct ourselves to the Father of Spirits, while their prayers as utterances of purity and excellence, are far more likely to be heard than those of men still compassed with infirmity, and but ill able to order their speech by reason of their darkness. The answer to such a style of talk is obvious; suffice it to say that it is to attempt to improve upon the Divine wisdom. Had this been the best plan of intercourse between God and man, it would have been a part of the Divine economy, and men would have received instructions to that effect; but no such instructions are given, the inference therefore, is clear. But the matter does not end here; the act is highly criminal; it is a direct insult to the one Mediator between God and man. Christians are permitted and commanded to pray for each other on earth, just as in all other respects, they are called upon to "bear one another’s burdens;" but no such prayer is known in heaven. It is proper, however, to hear the Popish advocates. Let us, therefore, refer at once to the fountain of Romish orthodoxy, and see how it is dealt with by the Council of Trent: "The saints, reigning with Christ, offer up their prayers to God, for man; hence it is good and useful supplicantly to invoke them; and to seek refuge (confugere, i.e. flee for succour or relief,) in their prayers, help, and assistance, to obtain favour from God, through his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who is alone our Redeemer and Saviour." The far-famed creed of Pope Pius IV. sets out with the same doctrine: That "the saints reigning with Christ are to be worshipped and invoked." Of Virgin worship we need not speak, having discussed that point in another chapter; we have here to do only with men called "saints," and of these the Papists have great numbers. Like the local deities of the heathen, they cover all places, and extend to all pursuits. Every trade and profession has its patron saint-even diseases have their controlling president; nor are the brute-beasts forgotten! The sailor hoists his flag in the name of St. Christopher; St. Agatha rules amid flames of fire, and is to be invoked to preserve from burning; students bow the knee to St. Nicolas; the painter does homage at the shrine of St. Luke; Saint Cornelia looks after the concerns of those who are subject to falling sickness; and St. Appolonia conducts the affairs of the toothache! St. Loy presides over the destinies of horses, and St. Anthony manages the swine! This may serve as a specimen of these and other saints, whose devotees rejoice in their delusion, crowding the edifices which contain the images of their respective saints, especially upon the days allotted to their honour, when they kiss and embrace them with a fanatical fervour that is altogether extraordinary. The subject is too ridiculous for reasoning; it proceeds from a state of mind which mere arguments alone will never cure; it is the fruit of ignorance which can be removed only by knowledge; it is will worship, which, while it can bring no good to the creature, cannot fail to be highly offensive to the Creator, since it impiously derogates from the honour and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. It comes under the same principle as that which pervades the discussion concerning the worship of the Virgin. It is the introduction of a class of secondary and subordinate mediators who practically have taken the place of the chief, the Lord of Glory, whom by implication, it treats as an unsuitable person for this work of mediation, in the first instance; it implies the necessity of a mediator with a mediator, which, however, as we have said, involves ultimately the exclusion of the primary mediator. The idea is preposterous, and at utter variance with the foundation of the mediatorial economy. It deserves to be viewed as a serious matter, alike affecting the glory of Christ and the best interests of mankind. The mediatorial work of the Messiah is one and indivisible; no more can He share that with his creatures, than He could the work of the atonement; and it is just as much permitted to creatures to affect to divide with Him the work of "making an end of sin "-and it is actually done hourly, and everywhere-as of interceding for the sinner. Thus, then, in all points, Popery divides with Him, or robs Him utterly of his glory. The worship of men, whether Apostles or others, is an act of monstrous impiety, full of peril to those who attempt it. But of angels little need be said beyond the fact that their worship extensively prevails in the Church of Rome, while it is wholly without foundation in the Word of God; and in all respects comes under the same condemnation as the Worship of the Saints. In harmony with our plan, however, it may be proper to show that the practice is founded on the highest Roman authority, since it is regularly provided for by the Council of Trent, in the following words: "The angels are to be worshipped, because they continually behold God, and have most willingly undertaken the charge of our salvation confided to them." The homilies of the Church of England contain some excellent thoughts on this subject, which we commend to our readers, while we have much pleasure in closing the present chapter with the admirable words of that greatest of the ancients, in whose days the evil prevailed-Augustine-who thus speaks: "I can address myself more cheerfully and more safely to my Lord Jesus Christ, than to any of the Holy spirits of God; for this we have a commandment, for the other we have none. There are many promises made to him who prays to Christ that he shall be heard; but to him who prays to saints there is not one in the whole Bible." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 76: 02.056. DUTIES OF PROTESTANTS ======================================================================== Duties Of Protestants Let the faithful of every land rejoice in the assurance that the reign of Antichrist shall have an end! Dr. Ian R.K. Paisley IN dealing with an adversary, a point of the first importance, is, to ascertain his strength, and to understand the principles of his policy. This is particularly so in the case of Rome. There is nothing in which her boasted unity is so strikingly manifested; whether in Europe, or America, in China, or in Polynesia, her principle of proceeding is one and unchangeable, and the means she employs to gain her ends are the same. Perhaps, no man ever more accurately gauged the spirit of the Popedom than Sir Edwin Sandys in his celebrated Europe Speculum. a "Survey of the State of Religion in the Western Parts of the World, wherein the Roman Catholic Religion and the Pregnant Policies to Support the same are notably displayed." This work, published in 1629, has not been surpassed in some of its views by anything which has since appeared on the subject of Popery. We offer the following, as in our judgment, thoroughly expressing the true character of the system against which Protestants have to contend: "This being the main ground-work of their policy, and the general means to build and establish it in the minds of all men, the particular ways they hold to ravish all affections and to fit each humour (which their jurisdiction and power, being but persuasive and voluntary, they principally regard), are well-nigh infinite ; there being not anything either sacred or profane, no virtue, nor vice almost, no things of how contrary condition soever, which they make not in some sort to serve that turn; that each fancy may be satisfied, and each appetite find what to feed on. Whatsoever either wealth can sway with the lovers, or voluntary poverty with the despisers of the world; what honour with the ambitious; what obedience with the humble; what great employment with stirring and mettled spirits; what perpetual quiet with heavy and restive bodies; what extent the pleasant nature can take in pastimes and jollity; what contrariwise the austere mind in discipline and rigour; what love either chastity can raise in the pure, or voluptuousness in the dissolute; what allurements are in knowledge to draw the contemplative, or in actions of state to possess the practic dispositions; what with the hopeful prerogative of reward can work; what errors, doubts, and dangers with the fearful; what change of vows with the rash, of estate with the inconstant; what pardons with the faulty, or supplies with the defective; what miracles with the credulous; what visions with the fantastical; what gorgeousness of shows with the vulgar and simple; what multitudes of ceremonies with the superstitious and ignorant; what prayer with the devout; what with the charitable works of piety; what rules of higher perfection with elevated affections; what dispensing with breach of all rules with men of lawless conditions;-in sum, what thing soever can prevail with any man, either for himself to pursue or at leastwise to love, reverence, or honour in another (for ever therein also man’s nature receiveth great satisfaction) ; the same is found with them, not as in other places of the world, by casualty blended without order, and of necessity, but sorted in great part into several professions, countenanced with reputation, honoured with prerogatives, facilitated with provisions and yearly maintenance, and either (as the better things) advanced with expectation of reward, or borne with, how bad soever, with sweet and silent permission. What pomp, what riot, to that of their cardinals? What severity of life comparable to their hermits and capuchins? Who wealthier than their prelates? Who poorer by vow and profession than their mendicants! On the one side of the street a cloister of virgins; on the other a sty of conrtezans, with public toleration; this day all in masks with all. looseness and foolery; tomorrow all in processions, whipping themselves till the blood follows. On one door an excommunication, throwing to hell all transgressors; on another a jubilee or full discharge from all transgression; who learneder in all kinds of sciences than their Jesuits? What thing more ignorant than their ordinary masspriests? What prince so able to prefer his servants and followers as the Pope, and in so great multitude? Who able to take deeper or readier revenge on his enemies? What pride equal unto his, making kings kiss his pantofle? What humility greater than his, shriving himself daily on his knees to an ordinary priest? Who difficulter in dispatch of causes to the greatest? Who easier in giving audience to the meanest? Where greater rigour in the world in exacting the observation of the church laws? Where less care or conscience of the commandments of God? To taste flesh on a Friday, where suspicion might fasten, were a matter for the Inquisition; whereas, on the other side, the Sunday is one of their greatest market-days. To conclude-never state, never government in the world, so strangely compacted of infinite contrarieties, all tending to entertain the several humours of all men, and to work what kind of effects soever they shall desire; where rigour and remissness, cruelty and lenity, are so combined that with neglect of the Church, to stir aught is a sin unpardonable; whereas with duty towards the Church, and by intercession for her allowance, with respective attendance of her pleasure, no law almost of God or nature so sacred, which one way or other they find not means to dispense with, or at leastwise permit the breach of by connivance and without disturbance." What a picture! What a cluster! How perfect the system, and how atrocious the principle by which it is animated! Such is the system against which Protestants have to contend. The point, therefore, is to ascertain how, and by what means, the contest is to be carried on. These questions we shall now endeavour to answer. First. The Holy Scriptures must always, and everywhere, take the precedence as alone the "power of God unto salvation." According to prophecy, the Man of Sin is to be "destroyed by the breath" of the Lord’s mouth, and the "brightness of his coming." The inspired page is the "Sword of the Spirit," with which he slays the enemies of the King. The hatred which the Popish priesthood bear to the Divine Word speaks volumes on this subject. Such hate is the measure of its power to convict, expose, and overthrow. Popery and the Bible cannot co-exist, one or other must succumb. Let Bible societies, therefore, be multiplied to the extent of the necessity through all the land; and let all Protestants not only support, but to the uttermost cooperate with them in the work of universal diffusion. We attach more importance to this than all other, instruments united. The Bible is the tree whose "leaves are for the healing of the nations;" let its branches, therefore, encircle the whole earth, and I the people of every clime will at length rejoice in cure and health. Secondly. Family worship constitutes another and a principal means of advancing the great work. In the reading of the Holy Word, and in the running exposition of it, which as much as may be, should be everywhere practised, endless opportunities occur for passing remarks on Popery. In family prayer, too, the subject should have a frequent place, which will greatly contribute to elevate its importance, and to bring it home to the heart and the conscience of a household. With a view to this the heads of families should endeavour to understand the subject, that they may order their words aright. Thirdly. Next to the family the Sunday school is entitled to particular notice; its exercises ought to make large provision for full instruction on this vital question. A due admixture of special instruction should be always found in the elder classes. A passing remark in the course of the school addresses may likewise have the happiest effects. Small and simple Protestant publications, suited to young people, ought to constitute an element in the Sunday school library. Appropriate exercises on the subject, might be prescribed with great benefit. The subject ought to be kept specially in view by the conductors of Christian missions-city, town, home, and foreign. The competence of the missionary should be matter of careful examination. Even now an intimate acquaintance with the subject is often called for, and the demand is continually upon the increase. Fourthly. The Common School supplies a very important means of acting beneficially on the public mind. That school was a mighty power for good in Scotland in the days of the Reformation; but that it may be so again it must be carried on by men of the same ethereal spirit-men wise in heart and full of holy fervour, fervent lovers of the truth, and intense haters of the Man of Sin. Such men will not be satisfied with the mere routine reading of the Holy Scriptures in the school; but, like the associates of Nehemiah, they will "give the sense," and cause the boys "to understand the reading." Such men will do well, at proper times, to give the scholars set addresses on subjects connected with Popery and Protestantism. There are many touching facts, incidents, and narratives which may be worked up into very effective discourses. The tale of its crimes, cruelties, and abominations will not be lost on the tender sensibilities of the young. Every schoolmaster, before his appointment, should be subjected to a rigorous examination as to his qualification for this part of his office, which should be considered vital. Fifthly. In the school of the prophets, special provision ought to be made for thoroughly indoctrinating all young men on the subject of Popery and Protestantism. To this end all the main points should be indicated in a course of lectures, combined with the reading of the best treatises on the subject; and to secure the application necessary, there ought to be on the lecture, and also upon the books, periodical and searching examinations. Sixthly. The pulpit must ever be the main instrument in carrying on the war against Popery. Much may there be effected by passing remarks in the reading of the Scriptures, by occasional references in the course of sermons, and sometimes by an entire sermon or lecture. Above all, pulpits prayer, in the midst of the assemblies of the saints, may be the means of realizing the greatest blessing. Apart from the direct benediction, which neverfails to attend the prayer of the faithful, as a moral means of impressing the truth on the mind of men, it surpasses every other. It brings the subject within the hallowed domain of conscience, and thus blends it with the governing principles of the heart and life. Time was, within the memory of a few of the living generation, when it was both most affecting, and most refreshing, to hear the elder ministers of Scotland pouring out their mighty hearts in streams of fervent supplication against Rome, with all her mysteries and all her abominations. May the ministers that now fill their places receive an abundant baptism of the same spirit Seventhly. Public lectures are a very valuable species of instrumentality, which deserves to be sedulously cultivated. This sort of labour prevailed very extensively in the times of the Reformation in Scotland and elsewhere, and vast were the benefits thence arising. Eighthly. Periodical literature is a power which can hardly be overvalued. Such publications as the Scottish Bulwark, for example, deserve a foremost place in the regard of all true Protestants. Were the Bulwark, from month to month, to find a place in every British family, it would work wonders both in generating, and in nourishing a true Protestant spirit. That alone, we should deem almost enough to give a check to the progress of the Romish superstition throughout British families. Ninthly. Good Protestant tracts cannot be too highly prized, and if largely illustrated with appropriate engravings, so much the better; the taste of the time runs greatly in that direction, and thus the truth often finds its way through the eye to the understanding. Popish tracts of this description are being prepared in large numbers, with a view to acting upon the imagination of the masses, conciliating them to Popery, and stirring them up against Protestantism. This is a point to be steadily kept in mind by local associations for the circulation of religious tracts; by a due mixture of these, much may be done to expose the evils of the Vatican. Tenthly. In meetings of Christians for social prayer, the subject should be steadily kept before the mind of both the leaders and the people. Let the downfall of the ensanguined system of Rome be matter of united, fervent, and frequent supplication. To this end, the leaders in prayer ought themselves to be thoroughly at home in the great subject, and to be well posted up in matters affecting Popery at the present time. The regular perusal of the Bulwark would be very serviceable in this matter. Such are the chief of the moral and spiritual means of checking and extirpating Popery; but that they may be successfully carried out, there must be in all things consistency in the conduct of those who aspire to that honour. For instance, it is not consistent for individuals who profess to dissent from Romanism on the ground of its truthlessness and impiety, of its corruption and cruelty, of its opposition to the gospel of mercy and its malignant enmity to Christ the Lord, in any way to lend themselves to its advancement. Is it consistent in them to give up the substance of which God has made them stewards, to erect schools, churches, so called, and cathedrals? If this be consistency we are at a loss to comprehend the nature of its opposite. Such things, however, have been done-done in many places, and to a considerable extent-done in the teeth of remonstrance from men better taught-and done apparently in a spirit of glorying in the deed as one of laudable liberality. But surely that is a questionable liberality which violates high and holy principles; which takes part with men who are enemies of the Lord, and supplies materials to sustain and extend rebellion against Him. We are at a loss to understand how any man who professes to be a Christian, can be a party to such proceedings. Such an act is one not of an indifferent character, it is a positive participation in rebellion, so far as means and practical sympathy are concerned, with the enemy of God and his Christ, and can only be set down to the score of ignorance, indifference, or infidelity! The man who does it should renounce his Protestantism. Would Knox, or Calvin, or Luther, have contributed to erect such edifices, and thus furnish the means of corrupting mankind, spreading darkness, and filling the world with death? No; they would sooner have laid their heads upon the block, have been broken on the wheel; or burned at the stake! These strictures are prompted by the knowledge of what has too often occurred in divers parts of the country. The point is one to which we attach the utmost importance. Nothing can be more incongruous than the issue from the same lips of "sweet water and bitter," than to supply materials for building a house along with materials for burning it down! Such conduct is not merely foolish, but wicked; it ranks with treason to the Most High! The Roman question is one which ought most’, deeply to interest every man in England, whether of the Church or of the world, whatever his rank or condition, his party in politics or in religion. It cannot be too often repeated that Rome is alike the fierce, the inveterate, the irreconcilable enemy of liberty, both civil and religious, all over the world. The, thraldom, which obtains in such horrid perfection in Rome, the Pope and the Cardinals wish to see established everywhere; they desire it to be taken as a’: model state. The truth of the allegation is attested by universal history. The best, and by far the greatest, example of modern times is furnished by the fearful struggle that is now going on in the New World. The Pope, crafty and false, to conciliate the Federals with their Emancipation, sent over a whining pastoral, affecting much sympathy with the slaves. The American archbishop, bishops, and clergy, perfectly understanding his Holiness, preserved their own attitude, and set their faces as a flint against the North and liberty. One of the ablest of the American journals has borne the following testimony, which we rejoice to place on record in England, as exposing the hypocrisy and wickedness of the Pope and his clergy. The journal testifies as follows: "We have, on several recent occasions, briefly discussed the attitude of the Roman Catholic clergy of this country with regard to the fearful trials to which our country has been subjected by slaveholding treason. The main facts to which we have from time to time called attention are as follows: 1. In all that portion of our country wherein the rebellion now bears, or has at any time borne sway, the Roman Catholic clergy, from highest to lowest, have, without a known exception, been among its earliest, most eager, most determined, most persistent champions. 2. In that portion of our country which is predominantly loyal, or practically under the sway of the Federal Government, the great body of that clergy are just as hostile to the struggle for national integrity and authority as they safely can be-discouraging enlistments in the national armies, and training their flocks, so far as possible, into casting a solid vote for the Opposition tickets. 3. The Roman Catholic clergy, with the voters whom they influence, have stubbornly resisted the progress of Emancipation in the Border States. They largely swelled last month the majority against it in Kentucky, turned the scale against it in Delaware, and did their utmost (in vain) to defeat it in Maryland and Missouri. 4. When the rebellion was triumphantly inaugurated in the South, the Catholic priesthood promptly adhered to it on the ground of obedience to `the powers that be,’ which are `ordained of God;’ but this rule was not permitted to operate either in the Slave States which adhered to the Union, or in those which have been recovered to it. On the contrary, though Orleans has been restored to and firmly held by the Union for nearly three years past, her Roman Catholic Archbishop and his clergy are still virulent Secessionists." Popery, then, involves pre-eminently the question of liberty; we therefore adjure every man in England to take his place in the ranks of British patriotism, and to concentrate his most intense abhorrence on the false, cruel, impious, and diabolical system! Let Rome recover her ancient sway in; the British Isles, and the people are undone! Again will the groaning of the prisoner be heard over all the land! The axe, the gibbet, and the flame will be once more in requisition; the mirth of the land will be gone, and wailing will break forth through all her borders! We likewise adjure every man, woman, and child enrolled in the Church of the living God, to watch and pray that they enter not into temptation to dishonour the memory of their noble fathers, the founders of English freedom, by bowing down to Popery, the monster that sits on the Seven Hills, destined to be "cast into the lake of fire, burning with brimstone," where the "beast and the false prophet shall be tormented day and night for ever." The victory is ultimately sure and certain, in spite of earth and hell. The days of the Church’s affliction will then be numbered; "the tabernacle of God will be with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God," and shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away." Babylon is doomed, and the hour of her Overthrow is fixed in the counsels of heaven! The day draws rapidly on when the angel of the Apocalypse will cry, "Babylon is fallen, is fallen!" "The hour of her judgment is come;" the Beast and his image shall for ever perish, and all his worshippers "shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation, and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb, and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever. And they have no rest day nor night who worship the Beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the work of his name." Let the faithful of every land rejoice in the assurance that the reign of Antichrist shall have an end! Popes, cardinals, and priests, with all that appertains to the accursed system, shall be carried away as with a whirlwind! Then will be fulfilled the words of prophecy, "Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her! And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall the great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all!" ======================================================================== CHAPTER 77: 02.057. CONDITION / PROSPECTS ======================================================================== Condition And Prospects Of Popery Written in 1886 by Dr John Campbell Dr. John Campbell THE heaviest blow ever received by Popery, was the English Reformation, from its thorough and complete nature, as compared with most corresponding events on the Continent, and from the peculiar character of the British people. But the full extent of the discomfiture was not seen till two hundred years afterwards, which revealed the place to which, in Providence, England was to be elevated among the nations of the earth; more especially has this been apparent in the course of the last sixty or seventy years. Always great as a maritime, during that period, she has become alike great as a military, power. But the loss to Rome mainly consisted in the marvellous and unparalleled increase of the numbers, wealth, and social greatness of England, from which she has become so influential in the affairs of the world-considerations which in the eye of Rome added tenfold to her importance. But her chief value in the esteem of the Vatican, as a sphere of Papal action, latterly, is the fact of her being to such an extent, a mother of colonies, each, in the end, destined to be a powerful nation, largely partaking of her own secular and exalted qualities. On these grounds, England is the richest object of conquest that Rome ever aspired to gain; the great globe itself could furnish nothing comparable to it; the Indies, with all their shining treasures, and teeming millions, are but a small portion of her dower. This, however, is only one, and that by no means the most important, view of the subject. England is the stronghold of Protestantism; in no other land, as we have seen, was the Reformation from Popery so complete, and the separation from Rome so thorough. The Churches of England and of Scotland were the most essentially Protestant institutions of the sort in Europe. Whatever imperfections may attach to some portion of the Rubric of the English Church, her glorious Articles, her admirable Homilies, and her Constitution, are thoroughly Protestant; and as part and parcel of the Constitution of the country, she has, for ages, justly been considered the chief bulwark of the Protestant cause, a magnificent monument of the great Reformation, and an appalling spectacle to the Man of Sin. But even this, however great, is not all that renders the conversion of England an object of incalculable importance to Rome. England is the home of a numerous brood of Protestant communities, every hour rising into importance, from numbers, intelligence, wealth, and organization Nonconformists, Dissenters, Methodists-all the subjects of an intense and inveterate aversion to Rome. On these and other grounds, the recovery of England was the great object of desire and labour to the Vatican. To accomplish this would have been, in effect, to accomplish everything, by laying the foundation for the rapid conquest of the whole world. Such was its own view and its own convictions, as from various authentic sources has been repeatedly proved. For thirty years last past, appearances have been such as greatly to encourage Rome in her expectation. In the excitement of these hopes, a place of great distinction was assigned to Ireland; from an utter disregard of all considerations of prudence in the article of marriage, that country became, to an extent never previously known among the nations of Europe, a great seed-bed of the human race. The Papal portion of the population multiplied with unexampled rapidity, while their poverty was such as to divest their wretched homes of all charm, and to prepare them for emigration to any part of the globe, since, whatever their fate, it could not fail to be an improvement upon the condition in which they were born. They began, and have continued to pour their living floods both into England, and into every colony of the empire, thus everywhere diluting the waters of British Protestantism, and laying the foundation of Papal influence. From this source alone, great hopes are justly entertained both at home and abroad, and it now becomes an especial study how the matter may best be conducted, so as to advance the objects of the Papacy. In conjunction with this circumstance, during the same period, the powers that be have smiled upon Popery; the ancient spirit of Protestantism in the country seemed, in a great measure, to have died out. From the hour of Catholic Emancipation, so called, Popery has appeared to be visited as by the power of a genial spring; it is everywhere lifting up its head; we see it, on the judgment-seat, in the senate, and even in the cabinet of the country. Nor have the symptoms of revival been partial; the path to rank, wealth, and promotion has been ever opening; the Polish Seminary of Maynooth, which had before obtained a small annual grant, has now received endowments more than imperial, in the form of a solemn enactment, taking it out of the annual list of senatorial benefactions, while in the British Colonies, the Popish clergy are not only in many parts endowed, but distinguished by special marks of Government favour. In the meantime, the subject of the endowment of the Popish Clergy in Ireland has once and again been a matter of reference, and incipient discussion in the Imperial Parliament; and as a further token of the disposition of statesmen, steps were taken at one period, after a separation of three hundred years, to restore diplomatic relations with the Court of Rome, but, for the present, that danger and disgrace have been averted. While all this was going on in the nation, appearances were not less hopeful in the English Church. The noble Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, which had so long been the glory of the realm, and ages bygone the impregnable citadel of Protestantism, began to show strong symptoms of relenting. Men of eminence opened their mouths in the face of the land, to denounce the Reformation. By conversation, by lectures, in the pulpit, and through the press, they advocated principles essentially Popish; and at length, one after another, they began to separate themselves and return to the bosom of Rome! In the meantime the cities, towns, villages, and hamlets of the land, gradually put on strange appearances. The effect of the lessons, which had been delivered at the Universities, began to be seen in the parish. Pulpits; and in this way Popery in the bud was being extensively manifested, and to encourage the hopes of Rome neither in the higher places of the Church, nor in those of the State, was there more than a very feeble and hesitating manifestation of disapproval. It never rose to remonstrance or reproof. At the same time the work of conversion went on in the upper classes, where the effect was increased by respectability, and wealth, and the influence thence arising. Such was the aspect of England. The spring had come and the summer was far advanced, and the field to the human eye seemed white unto harvest. All things thus prepared, the hour appeared to have arrived for the Pope to step into England as into another Promised Land, and there to clothe himself with the riches, power, and glory, of what he correctly denominated "the flourishing kingdom of England." It only remained to hoist his standard and take full possession of the British Empire, and this he proceeded to do by the establishment of his hierarchy. The tide was now at the flood, and the heart of Rome was beating high with expectation of seizing the richest prize that ever dazzled the eye of conqueror. But this was not done without protest. A minister of the Crown, Lord John Russell, was induced to write a letter of extraordinary character, so extraordinary, indeed, that it startled the nation. The composing and publication of such a manifesto was viewed in the light of a special providence. The mind of the religious portion of the community was lashed into a tempest, and a spirit of Protestantism evoked, such as excited the astonishment not only of Rome, but of every reflecting Protestant in the realm. The Minister said: - "There is an assumption of power in all the documents which have come from Rome-a pretension to supremacy over the realm of England, and a claim to sole and undivided sway, which is inconsistent with the Queen’s supremacy, with the rights of our bishops and clergy, and with the spiritual independence of the nation, as asserted even in Roman Catholic times. "I confess, however, that my alarm is not equal to my indignation. "Even if it shall appear that the ministers and servants of the Pope in this country have not transgressed the law, I feel persuaded that we are strong enough to repel any outward attacks. The liberty of Protestantism has been enjoyed too long in England to allow of any successful attempt to impose a foreign yoke upon our minds anal consciences. No foreign prince or potentate will be permitted to fasten his fetters upon a nation, which has so long and so nobly vindicated its right to freedom of opinion, civil, political, and religious. "There is a danger, however, which alarms me much more than any aggression of a foreign sovereign. "Clergymen of our own church, who have subscribed the Thirty-nine Articles, and acknowledged in explicit terms the Queen’s supremacy, have been the most forward in leading their flocks, ` step by step, to the very verge of the precipice.’ The honour paid to saints, the claim of infallibility for the church, the superstitious use of the sign of the cross, the muttering of the liturgy so as to disguise the language in which it is written, the recommendation of auricular confession, and the administration of penance and absolution-all these things are pointed out by clergymen of the Church of England as worthy of adoption. "I have little hope that the propounders and framers of these innovations will desist from their insidious course. But I rely with confidence on the people of England, and I will not bate a jot of heart or hope so long as the glorious principles and the immortal martyrs of the Reformation shall be held in reverence by the great mass of a nation, which looks with contempt on the mummeries of superstition, and with scorn at the laborious endeavours which are now making to confine the intellect, and enslave the soul." In the meantime the Bishop of London issued an impressive and explicit manifesto on the subject, and was followed in the same style, with a still more marked development of Protestant evangelical sentiment, by the amiable Archbishop of Canterbury. There was, in the meanwhile, a strange conjunction of events of another class, and of a nature exceedingly adapted to illustrate the genius and the spirit of Popery-events so appropriate and so opportune as to strike observers with the conviction that they were part of the great system of means which was being employed by the Most High to awaken the Protestants of Great Britain to a sense of their danger, and thus to prompt them to preserve the principles of their common faith. This, by reaching the courts of law, acquired a prominence, which was necessary to their proper effect on the public mind. The general question of Papal aggression was in due course brought before the Imperial Parliament, where, notwithstanding a considerable variety of sentiment among individuals, not remarkable for either their piety or their Protestantism, there was yet a vast amount of unanimity with respect to the Pope; and to crown the whole there has been, and there still is, a most significant movement going forward on the part of the laymen of the Established Church which promises, at a future day, to be productive of good and great results. But the hopes thus cherished have not been realized; we regret to say, that the prospects of Rome are only too bright. The eyes of the nation are not yet opened, and her mighty heart cannot be said to be stirred within her; she sees not her danger, and is at no pains to put on her strength to avert it. The career of the Romish church has, after all, received no check. Her hierarchal project has-not. been overthrown. The measure carried in Parliament was so much make-believe. The Popish bishops laugh it to scorn, and pursue their course as if it had no existence. Everywhere the ministers of the gospel, both in and out of the Establishments, seemed to have been awakened to a sense of their duty, and to the perils of their common Protestantism. The Press, too, was aroused to a conviction of its duty; and - both in the way of regular authorship, and through periodical organs, it put forth its tremendous power in repelling the common enemy. Still he patiently laboured on, till now his strength is more than trebled. But what of the Continent, and of other lands? There, we think, there are grounds for some slender hope. There is France, which throughout many ages was, as prophecy had pointed out, the right arm of Papal power. Popery is not there, it is true, overthrown; but still it is only in -a limited sense to be viewed as the established religion of the country. It is under the complete control of the government, and certainly the loss it sustained by the subversion of the monarchy of Louis Phillippe and the expulsion of the royal family is very great, and the priests feel it to be so. The part performed by the Republican armies at Rome in restoring the Pope and suppressing infant liberty-even that, great and mournful as was the deed, is but a poor compensation for the loss sustained in the exile of the queen of the French, for many years the guardian angel of the Romish priesthood in this country, and more especially during the latter period of her husband’s reign. We consider, therefore, that the hold of Popery in France has been exceedingly loosened, and a great step has been gained towards its ultimate destruction; more especially is this the case with the enlarged religious liberty of the land under the empire, which, although still defective, is a mighty improvement upon the state of things in the days of the monarchy. Napoleon III. knows the Vatican, and despises it. Then as to Austria and Prussia, by no means is the position of the Popedom improved there; on the contrary, although in both cases the thrones of the sovereigns have been maintained; and the priesthood has not been wrenched from its original position, yet there have been implanted in the popular mind opinions which are exceedingly adverse to the permanent reign of Papal absolutism, and which will in the end overturn the Vatican. In the smaller states of Germany, those that were visited by revolutionary tempests, the same causes to a considerable extent, an extent proportionate to the numbers of the population, have been followed by the same effects. In a word, throughout the Continent we conceive the revolutions of 1848-9 have most materially contributed to loosen the hold of the Vatican upon the nations, and to hasten the day for which all godly men are looking and longing. The last and greatest triumph is in Italy. There the temporal power of the Pope is well-nigh destroyed, the monasteries are being uprooted, and liberty, both civil and religious, is established; Bibles are sold in the streets, the press is free, and the gospel is preached without let or hindrance. Are not these tokens that the end is approaching? Then, with respect to America, it is an ascertained fact, that there every effort is being made by the priesthood, and the States-more especially the elder States-begin to be alarmed, and serious fears are entertained for the consequences of the policy which the Vatican is pursuing. It has recently appeared, on good authority, that they are making it a special study how to distribute little colonies of Catholics in all the new territories, with a view to anticipate population, and get the start of the Protestants, and to pollute the waters of the truth at the fountain. These circumstances have much, very much, to do with the emigration which is going on in Ireland. It is now clear that it is not mere want of bread that is prompting this continued stream of emigration. The priests deem Ireland safe; it is all their own. The object, therefore, of the priesthood is, in conjunction with the Vatican, and in concurrence with the hierarchy of Ireland, as much as may be, to draw off the waters of this mighty lake of the Papacy to fill the new reservoirs being everywhere created across the Atlantic. Dr. Brownlee, of New York, in his masterly work on Popery in America, remarks on this subject thus: "No great pains have been taken to conceal the facts in this matter. We have every evidence but the open confession of the conspirators. Some of the prime movers have made striking avowals. Bishop England, in a circular published in Ireland, shows that there is an organized system of means in operation to throw in upon us immense bodies of Popish emigrants. And in his late address, issued after his return from Europe, he states that `France and Germany aid the Roman Catholic missions in America.’ `The Leopoldine Institution continues to feel an interest in our concerns,’ adds he. `Rome has this year contributed to our extraordinary expenses. Even the Holy Father aids us from his private purse.’ "Charles X., when on the throne of France, gave frank utterance to his cordial co-operation with Austria. ` To educate and convert America,’ said his minister, in his published report, p. 89, `independent of its purely spiritual design, IS OF GREAT POLITICAL INTEREST.’ America begins to feel the power of Popery in matters political. Dr. Brownlee remarks: - "The Papists, we have seen, are duly organized by the Jesuits. Our unbounded freedom granted to all sects, gives dangerous facilities to foreign tacticians, who chose to operate on us, under the mask of Holy Religion. This sect has an admirable capacity for stratagem. One word from Vienna moves the Pope; his Holiness’ rescript moves the Archbishop of Baltimore; his circular, in his turn, moves each bishop here in twenty-four hours; and each bishop rules the priests, and the priests the people, absolutely and promptly, as does any captain his battalion of soldiers. "And it is a fact, that they avail themselves of all these facilities. The Roman Catholics, as a religious sect, move in a body in politics. Everybody sees it in all our cities. Their bishops have been heard to boast how many votes they can bring to the polls. It is no uncommon thing for the priest, after mass, to name the candidate from the altar, whom he commands his flock to support at the polls. I have in my possession a letter signed by two eminent citizens of Monroe County, Michigan, setting forth that this was the practice of the priests there, and that tickets were prepared by the Papists, of some particular colour, so that each voter might be duly watched by the priests’ spies at the polls. "Now, does every American citizen see that these tools, manufactured by popery-these men of ‘the mob spirit’-have actually begun their operations against us? What an appalling increase of crime, turbulence, pauperism, and brutal mobs every year! Look around you, and behold! What are the elements of these mobs on the railroads in Maryland and New York? Foreign Papists! Who caused the mobs of Philadelphia? Foreign Papists! Who caused the mobs at our elections? Foreign Papists! Who caused the mob and riot at the Broadway Hall, to put down free discussion? Foreign Papists! Who caused the unjustifiable riot of Charleston? The proud and impudent defiance given forth to public sentiment by vicious foreign Papists, from their den of pollution! Who dared ridicule our laws and government with this taunt, that `This system of government may be very fine in theory, very fit for imitation on the part of those who seek the power of the mob, in contradistinction to justice and the public interest; but this republic is not of a nature to invite the reflecting part of the world, and shows at least that it has faults. A public officer, in England, who would publicly avow a fear of executing his duty, and carrying into effect the law of the realm, ought to be, and would be, thrust from his office by public opinion. This one fact is condemnation of THE SYSTEM OF AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS, CONFIRMED LATELY BY NUMEROUS OTHER PROOFS!’ Who uttered this outrageous and treasonable insult on our American institutions? One of the Pope’s subjects, the editor of the Cincinnati Catholic Telegraph! Who holds it in his power to let loose mobs onus at his will? ` I told him,’ said the Lady Superior on her oath, I that Bishop Fenwick’s influence over 10,000 brave Irishmen might lead to the destruction of his property, and that of others!’ Who controlled the mobs of Maryland by a word, when the civil power was really not able to do it? The priest, a subject of a foreign power! Who has dared to enact civil laws, and impose them on Indians, in our land? This clique of foreign Papists. ‘On the 5th of August, 1832,’ says Baraga, in his letters to his masters in Austria, ‘the R. C. bishop called in the chiefs of the Ottawas, and made known to them some civil laws which he had made for them. The Indians received them with pleasure, and promised solemnly to obey them. The Romish missionary and chiefs administer these laws.’ Who insulted a senator of Ohio, for refusing to uncover his head before a Romish bishop, vociferating, ‘Hats off! the bishop is coming?’ A mob of foreign Papists at Cincinnati! Who have their dungeon cells under their cathedrals, in which they claim, as inquisitors of their own diocese, to imprison free men in our republic? Foreign popish bishops! And the facts respecting a man being so confined and scourged, in the cells at Baltimore, until he recanted, have been published, and not to this day contradicted! Who compel their pupils to kneel in the dust before lordly priests; and to kiss the floor, and the feet of their lady superiors? The foreign Papists do it daily in their seminaries, to crush the spirits of free republicans! Who are in the habit of uttering ferocious threats ‘to assassinate and burn up’ those Protestants who successfully oppose Romanism? The foreign Papists! I have in my possession the evidence of no less than six such inhuman threatenings against myself. Who are in the habit of bullying and insulting native Americans, and loudly boasting that in a short time the Catholics will have the power, and that the effectual plans are now in full operation to give them the complete victory over the Yankees? Foreign Papists, even of the poorest and most ignorant classes; and who, therefore, can have learned these things only from their spiritual guides! Then, as to Polynesia, some years back the ground for fear was considerable, and but for the subversion of the French monarchy, it is probable these fears would have proved but too well founded. As it is, possession has been taken of several islands, and much mischief has been done to the work of Christian missions; but the conduct of the French has been such in Tahiti, and in the other islands, and the people have been so thoroughly prepared by the Protestant missionary, that the prospects of Rome are, perhaps, nowhere darker than in those islands. There is no likelihood of advance beyond what has been already made, which amounts to very little. The French possess the island, they dictate the terms of residence alike to the English missionaries and the natives, but religiously they possess no power whatever. The recent outrage in Lifu has been disowned by the Government of France, and the Emperor, under his own hand, has given an assurance to the societies of England, that their missions shall not be molested. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 78: 02.058. THE INQUISITION ======================================================================== The Inquisition None can tell the amount of property confiscated through its means, the amount of blood directly and indirectly shed, and the extent to which it upheld the Popedom by inspiring terror throughout society. Dr. Ian R.K. Paisley THE Inquisition! This terrible word still falls heavily on the ears of mankind, and in Popish countries strikes a measure of terror into the hearts of the people; but in the palmy days of Popery, it was only another name for the mouth of hell! Most of the senior portion of the living generation whose reading lay in the direction of matters ecclesiastical, remember how their hair stood on end as they perused and pondered the terrible narratives of its cruelty and crime. That such a system could have sprung out of Popery only serves to show the character of the fountain whence such a stream emanated, or of the furnace whence such a spark was emitted. It required prodigious iniquity to give it birth, to arrange its complex machinery, and to carry on its murderous labours! It also serves as an index to the condition of human knowledge, and the state of public liberty in Europe during many ages. Such an institution was wholly incompatible with the existence of one iota of freedom, and sure it is, just as liberty has increased, its dominion has been abridged, although it is an indisputable fact that the Inquisition is not extinct, but exists and operates with considerable power at the present moment. It arose in the dark ages, and beginning its labours, it carried them on with a high hand for many generations. None can tell the amount of property confiscated through its means, the amount of blood directly and indirectly shed, and the extent to which it upheld the Popedom by inspiring terror throughout society. The system, thrice accursed, was extended, in 1571, to the western dominions of Spain, where, after working much evil in other parts of that kingdom, it might be said to concentrate its powers of mischief. But it is impossible, nor is it our object in so brief a space, to give a full view of the history and working of this infernal machine. It seizes its victims in the light, and it crushes their spirits in darkness! Who shall tell the tale of its pulley, its rack, its firepan, and its wheel? Who shall tell the number of its victims, recount their bitter tears, and broken hearts? Who shall describe the character and the conduct of the Inquisitors, their rapacity, licentiousness and cruelty? There is, perhaps, no light in which the worst attributes of human nature have been ever so impressively and appallingly displayed, as in the doings of these men. The tale of each successive day was but a fresh chapter of horror and abomination. They who have read the popular histories of it in Spain, and also at Goa, and the narrative of its opening by the armies of Napoleon in 1808, will understand us; and they who are aware of its re-establishment by the infamous Ferdinand, will see that while French liberalism opened its gates, Spanish despotism, true to its habits and its instincts, hastened once more to close them, and to re-establish the atrocious system that bad there so long prevailed to the affliction of Spain, the terror of Europe, and the disgrace of humanity. The object of this chapter is simply to connect it with the Popedom as an acknowledged institution, as a prized machine, as one of the prime ornaments of its mediaeval glory. We would impress the mind of the reader with the fact that an Inquisition still exists, and is in vigorous operation, although with more care than formerly. The instrument is worthy of the system to which it belongs; but it is surely an approach to the climax of impiety to connect such an institution with a chair which boasts to have been primarily occupied by the Apostle Peter! The subject is so full of all that is harrowing and revolting, that our soul recoils from it. Peter an Inquisitor! Peter, the President of the Inquisition! The idea is preposterous. The Inquisition was introduced to Spain about the year 1232 when Pope Gregory IX. caused inquiries to be made concerning heretics, and appointed inquisitors to proceed against them. The dreadful work went on till the year 1474, when Isabella ascended the throne. After this local inquisitions were established, chiefly at the request of the sovereigns of the various states, it having previously been customary for inquisitors to make periodical visitations, and to hold courts of inquiry. The history of the modern inquisition of Spain dates from the commencement of the reigns of Ferdinand and Isabella, ’of which by far the most complete account has been given by Llorente, the substance of which may briefly be stated. There are various classes of crimes against which the Inquisition proceeded. We cite the following: The Inquisition also proceeded against concealers, favourers, and adherents of heretics, as being suspected of professing the same opinions. The seventh class was, composed of all those who opposed the Inquisition, and prevented the inquisitors from exercising their functions. The eighth class comprehended those nobles who refused to take an oath to drive the heretics from their states. The ninth class consisted of governors of kingdoms, provinces, and towns, who did not defend the Church against heretics, when they were required by the Inquisition. The tenth class comprised those who refused to repeal the statutes in force in towns and cities, when they were contrary to the measures decreed by the Holy Office. The eleventh class of suspected persons embraced all lawyers, notaries, and other persons belonging to the law, who assisted heretics by their advice, or concealed papers, records, or other writings, which might make their errors, dwellings, or stations known. In the twelfth class of suspected, were those persons who had given ecclesiastical sepulture to known heretics. Those who refused to take an oath in the trials of heretics, when they were required to do it, were also liable to suspicion. The fourteenth class were deceased persons, who had been denounced as heretics. The Popes, in order to make heresy more odious, had decreed that the bodies of dead heretics should be disinterred and burnt, their property confiscated, and their memory pronounced infamous. The same suspicion fell upon writings which contained heretical doctrines, or which might lead to them. Lastly, the Jews and Moors were considered as subject to the Holy Office, when they engaged Catholics to embrace their faith, either by their writings or discourse. "Although all the persons guilty of the crimes above-mentioned were under the jurisdiction of the Holy Office, yet the Pope, his legates, nuncios, officers, and familiars, were exempt; and if any of these were denounced as heretics, the Inquisition could only take the secret information and refer it to the Pope. Bishops were also exempt, but kings had not that privilege." "As the bishops were the ordinary inquisitors by divine right, it seems just that they should have had the power of receiving information’s, and proceeding against the apostolical inquisitors in matters of faith; but the Pope rendered his delegates independent, by decreeing that none but an apostolical inquisitor could proceed against another. The inquisitor and the bishop acted together, but each had the right of pursuing heretics separately. The orders for imprisonment could only be issued by both together, and if they did not accord, they referred to the Pope. The inquisitors could require the assistance of secular power in the exercise of their authority, and it could not be refused without incurring the punishment of excommunication and suspicion of heresy. The bishop was obliged to lend his house for the prisoners; besides this, the inquisitors had a particular prison to secure the persons of the accused." These things are matters of history, but we should fail of our duty did we not call attention to facts which have occurred in our own day. Dr. Buchanan, the celebrated Indian missionary, paid a visit in 1808 to Goa, once so famous as the seat of a branch of the Inquisition. Goa is a place of which the world knows but little, but it has claims to notice. The province comprised two hundred churches and chapels, and upwards of two thousand priests. The doctor was anxious to obtain some knowledge of the state of things in the Inquisition, and accordingly he put himself in communication with certain Italian Jesuits; and this brought him into contact with the inquisitor, with whom he breakfasted almost daily, while he passed his evenings in the doctor’s apartment. The chief inquisitor at last turns up, and further developments are perceived by the stranger. On the following day the doctor writes: 28 January 1808. This morning, after breakfast, my host went to dress for the Holy Office, and soon returned in his inquisitorial robes. He said he would go half an hour before the usual time, for the purpose of showing me the Inquisition. I thought that his countenance was more severe than usual, and that his attendants were not so civil as before. The truth was, the midnight scene (An uproar in the gallery of the convent one night, which the doctor at first feared might be made by his servants, whom he supposed in the act of being dragged to the dungeons of the Holy office; but which, in reality, arose from the cries of a boy, who believed he had seen a spectre.) was still on my mind. The Inquisition is about a quarter of a mile from the convent, and we proceeded thither in our manjeels (a kind of palankeen). On our arrival at the place the inquisitor said to me, as we were ascending the steps of the outer stair, that he hoped I should be satisfied with a transient view of the Inquisition, and that I would retire whenever he should desire it. I took this as a good omen, and followed my conductor with tolerable confidence. He first led me to the great hall of the Inquisition. We were met at the door by a number of well-dressed persons, who, I afterwards understood, were the familiars of the Holy Office. They bowed very low to the inquisitor, and looked with surprise at me. The great hall is the place in which the prisoners are marshalled for the procession of the auto da fe. At the procession described by Dellon, in which he himself walked barefoot, clothed with the painted garment, there were upwards of one hundred and fifty prisoners. I traversed this hall for some time with a slow step, reflecting on its former scenes, the inquisitor walking by my side in silence I thought of the fate of the multitude of my fellow-creatures who had passed through this place, condemned by a tribunal of their fellow sinners, their bodies devoted to the flames, and their souls to perdition. And I could not help saying to him, ’ Would not the holy church wish, in her mercy, to have those souls back again, that she might allow them a little further probation?’ The inquisitor answered nothing, but beckoned me to go with him to a door at one end of the hall. By this door he conducted me to some small rooms, and thence to the spacious apartments of the chief inquisitor. Having surveyed these, he brought me back again to the great hall; and I thought he seemed now desirous that I should depart. ` Now, father,’ said I, `lead me to the dungeons below; I want to see the captives.’ ` No,’ said he, `that cannot be.’ I now began to suspect that it had been in the mind of the inquisitor, from the beginning, to show me only a certain part of the Inquisition, in the hope of satisfying my inquiries in a general way. I urged him with earnestness but he steadily resisted, and seemed to be offended, or rather agitated, by my importunity. I intimated to him plainly that the only way to do justice to his own assertions and arguments regarding the present state of the Inquisition was to show me the prisons and the captives. I should then describe only what I saw, but now the subject was left in awful obscurity. `Lead me down,’ said I, ` to the inner building; and let me pass through the two hundred dungeons, ten feet square, described by your former captives. Let me count the number of your present captives, and converse with them. I want to see if there be any subjects of the British government, to whom we owe protection. I want to ask how long they have been here, how long it is since they beheld the light of the sun, and whether they ever expect to see it again. Show me the chamber of torture, and declare what modes of execution or of punishment are now practised within the walls of the Inquisition, in lieu of the public auto da fe If, after all that has passed, father, you resist this reasonable request, I shall be justified in believing that you are afraid of exposing the real state of the Inquisition in India. To these observations, the inquisitor made no reply, but seemed impatient that I should withdraw. ` My good father,’ said I, ` I am about to take leave of you, and to thank you for your hospitable attentions-it had been before understood that I should take my final leave at the door of the Inquisition-and I wish always to preserve on my mind a favourable sentiment of your kindness and candour. You cannot, you say, show me the captives and the dungeons; be pleased, then, merely to answer this question, for I shall believe your word. How many prisoners are there now below in the cells of the Inquisition?’ The inquisitor replied, `That is a question which I cannot answer.’ On his pronouncing these words I retired hastily towards the door, and wished him farewell. We shook hands with as much cordiality as we could at the moment assume, and both of us, I believe, were sorry that our parting took place with a clouded countenance." The discoveries made by the armies of the First Napoleon on taking Karne and opening the Inquisition are well known, but the abomination was restored. The revolution at Rome in 1819 was the means of opening the Inquisition there, to the gaze of an astonished world. For the accommodation of the military it was intended to modify one of the convents, and in the course of the work human bones were found, and a trap-door discovered. This led to excavations being made, and further discoveries of human bones. Digging deeper still the workmen lighted upon a vault, where a great number of human skeletons were found; some of them so close together and so amalgamated with lime, that no bone could be moved without being broken. In another vault was found a vast quantity of black rich earth, mixed with pieces of decayed animal matter, and human hair of such length as to lead to the belief that it belonged to women rather than to men. From the manner in which the skeletons found in the vaults were placed, it was evident that they must have been deposited there since the erection of the edifice, which was within a period of less than twenty-four years. The bones of such a multitude of human beings, supplies volumes touching the doings of the so-called Holy Office. The full history of the dread place, however, will not be known till the day which will reveal the hidden things of dishonesty. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 79: 02.059. POPISH CONFIRMATION ======================================================================== Popish Confirmation The danger to our Protestantism is increasing every hour, and it behoves those that desire to preserve what remains, to drive the enemy from the gate, and to rid themselves without a moment’s loss of time of the Popish Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation. Dr. Ian R.K. Paisley CONFIRMATION is a sacrament of Popery, which, it is stated, "confers grace," and without which there can be no salvation, and this is to be received under pain of anathema! While Baptism gives spiritual life, Confirmation imparts strength, and of a spiritual child makes a spiritual man. The administration of the rite is gone about much in the same way as that of baptism. The Bishop anoints the forehead with chrism, saying, "I sign thee with the sign of the Cross, and confirm thee with the chrism of Salvation," at the same time gently slapping him on the cheek, "to remind him that as a courageous champion he must be prepared to brave with unconquered resolution all adversities for the name of Christ." It might be supposed that confirmation was a less safe matter than baptism, as an experiment on public credulity, on account of the more advanced years of the subjects of it; but from the pains Popery takes to withhold the Sacred Scriptures, and to keep its youth in a state of spiritual ignorance, it has little to fear from years. Accordingly the matter is not minced in the "Instructions and Devotions for Confirmation," used at this moment among the English Papists, as the following will show: "Confirmation is a sacrament instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ, to make us perfect Christians, and it is so called because it gives to them that receive it, if duly disposed, a great inward strength, a holy vigour of spirit, and firm constancy of mind for the exact discharging every duty that belongs to the Christian life, and happily finishes in them, that which baptism had begun, making them of infants in Christianity, to become perfect men."(Instruction for Confirmation, p. 4.) Now, this language is, at any rate, intelligible; and whether it be correct or not, may also easily be determined. The making a person a perfect Christian is a great work, which is not to be effected when he is asleep, or without his cognizance; he who receives "inward strength, a holy vigour of spirits, and firm constancy of mind," must be conscious of the wonderful work, the mighty change that has been effected in him; nor will he alone be aware of the fact, since it will never fail to make itself externally manifest to all beholders. But is it really so in respect to Popish Confirmation? We refer the inquirer, for an answer, full and unerring, to Popish society in Great Britain and Ireland, on the Continent of Europe, and all over the world. The allegation is equally at variance with reason, with Scripture, with experience, and with observation. Who ever met a sensible Papist, who professed to have been the subject of this wonderful change, bringing light, strength, and vigour to his soul, through the imposition of the Bishop’s hands? It is altogether a deadly delusion, a lying fable, eminently calculated to further the destruction of mankind! The "strength" it imparts, if any, is that of blind confidence; the "vigour of spirit" is suicidal presumption! This sacrament of Confirmation, so- called, is a thing wholly unknown to the Word of God. In the New Testament there is not a tittle on which it can be based; it is a pure creation of Popish craft. The word confirmation is not unknown to the Scriptures; there was such a thing as confirmation in the days of the Apostles; but no two things on earth can be more unlike each other than Apostolic and, Popish Confirmation. The one was a reality, the other is a fiction. The one was effected by the truth of the gospel, the other through an exhibition of unmeaning mummery. Nothing can be more simple than Apostolic Confirmation; it was effected by the Holy Spirit, solely and uniformly through the truth. Paul, 1 Corinthians 1:6, says, "Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you;" "the testimony of Christ," meaning the gospel, the thing believed concerning Christ, the Divine Head. It was "confirmed," that is, proved to be of God, by the miraculous powers conferred upon believers; "so that ye come behind in no gifts, waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall also confirm you unto the end." Here, then, we have a two-fold confirmation; first, of God’s testimony to man; and secondly, of man’s faith in that testimony, and both by the same means. Again, "they," the Apostles, "went forth to preach everywhere, the Lord working with them, confirming the Word by signs following." "Confirming the Word." What does this mean? It can only mean one thing-proving the Divine origin of the Word by the signs, wonders, and mighty deeds, done by the Spirit of God. Thus the Apostles confirmed Christ’s mission from God, and their own mission from Christ. Again, the Apostles came to Antioch confirming the souls of the disciples," and exhorting them to continue in the faith. To "confirm the souls," and "strengthen the faith" of the disciples, by which it is realized, meant the same thing. No ceremony whatever was connected with the deed. We hold Popish Confirmation, then, and Popish Baptism, to be a great and dangerous delusion; and it will be seen from the definitions given that they are simply two stages of the same process; the first giving spiritual life in all its parts, and the second developing those parts into maturities. We consider these errors as most deadly and would earnestly warn the people of England against them, and beseech them not to be dazzled with dignities, cardinals, princes, and popes, but to rise superior to the idolatry of -wealth, splendour, and great names, and to do homage to nothing but the truth of God set forth in the Holy Scriptures. The time is come, when the people of England must take their stand on Revelation, and with the sword of the Spirit be "valiant for the truth," fighting the battles of Gospel verity and Christian freedom, as did their fathers. The danger to our Protestantism is increasing every hour, and it behoves those that desire to preserve what remains, to drive the enemy from the gate, and to rid themselves without a moment’s loss of time of the Popish Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 80: 02.060. POPISH BAPTISM ======================================================================== Popish Baptism "If any one denies that the guilt of original sin is remitted by the grace of Christ, which is conferred in baptism . . . . let him be accursed." Dr. Ian R.K. Paisley BAPTISM is the first of the Seven Sacraments of Popery, and the manner in which it is dealt with, is a fair specimen of the manner in which Popery deals with everything, whether based on the Scriptures or on the authority of the Church. It is first to be noted then, that it is declared to be "absolutely necessary to salvation." It is broadly laid down, that "without Baptism the Atonement of the Cross cannot be applied to us; that Christ will not redeem us unless we are washed in the waters of baptism, and that no man can be justified by faith only without Baptism." (Maguire Dis. p. 151.) These absurd pretences are stamped, as usual, with artifice and mystery. The nonsense of them need not be pointed out to the well-instructed reader, who will see that the redemption of souls by Christ, whose work it seems is still to be performed, is to depend upon their being baptized, and, consequently, through that baptism brought into a state which renders such redemption unnecessary! But it were absurd to argue against such folly. The simple institution of Christ is not to the taste of the ignorant multitude that form the subjects of the Popedom; they think "it is not done well, nor orderly, unless they see conjuration, unless they hallow the water, unless there be oil, salt, spittle, tapers, and such other dumb ceremonies serving no use." (Homily for Whitsunday) Here, again, the great object is clearly to exalt the priest, and to dazzle the people. An ordinance on which the salvation of a soul is made to depend, must be a very important thing; without pomp, and ceremony, and mystery, somewhat corresponding with the magnitude of the effect to be produced, even the vulgar might be led to question whether any such effect could flow from means so simple, and thus reach conclusions that might prove inconvenient to the priesthood. The Council of Trent has a vast, even more than a usual amount of cursing, upon this subject. No fewer than fourteen anathemas are poured forth upon the heads of those who shall dare to manifest a little common sense, and venture even to hint a doubt on any of the dogmas of the Church concerning it. From the importance which attaches to this subject, it is proper to set forth in full the doctrine as it is propounded in the Canons and the Catechisms of the Council of Trent, and the "Poor Man’s Catechism," a great authority. Speaking of infant baptism, the last publication says: " If any one denies that the merit of Jesus Christ is applied to little ones by the sacrament of. baptism, let him be accursed."-Canones, Sess. v., "Decretum de Peccato." "If any one denies that infants are to be baptized, let him be accursed. "-.Ib. The Catholic form of baptism is as follows: - "At the church-door the infant is stopped, to signify that being yet a slave to the devil, he cannot enter’ the church, and that baptism gives him entrance."-Poor Man’s Catechism. "The priest then says" to the infant "What do you demand from the church of God?" -Ib. "Then he breathes in his face three times, and commands the devil to depart, and give place to the Holy Ghost."-Ib. "He then makes the sign of the cross."-Ib. The forehead, eyes, breast, shoulders, ears, are signed with the sign of the cross. "The priest now blesses salt, and puts some of it into his mouth."-Ib. "The priest proceeds to read the exorcism, commanding the wicked spirit to depart." - Ib. "Exorcism follows, which is accomplished to expel the devil and to break his strength." ("Sequitur exorcismus, qui ad expellendum diabolum ejusque vires frangendas . . . . conficitur."-Cat. II. ii. 64.) "Laying the stole upon the child, he leads him into the church."-Ib. "The priest repeats the exorcism."-Ib. "He touches the ears and nostrils with spittle." -Ib. The priest asks the infant these three things "Do you renounce Satan. and all his works? and all his pomps?" -lb. "Then he" (the infant) "is anointed with the holy oils, blessed by the bishop, on the breast and between the shoulders."-Ib. "Next he " (the infant) "is examined as to his faith: -Do you believe in God the Father Almighty?" etc.-Ib. "Then the priest asks the infant, Will you be baptized; and the reason assigned is: -the Lord has willed that no one should be enlisted in the number of his followers, except as a volunteer. Then he pours water on the head three times in the form of a cross. Then he anoints the top of the head with chrism."-Ib. "Then he puts white linen on the infant’s head. A lighted candle is afterwards put into his hand; and, lastly, the infant receives usually the name of some Saint, ` to whom he may pray, and of whom he may hope that he will come to defend both his soul and his body."’ ("Quem imitari studeat, eum quoque precetur et speret sibi advocatum ad salutem tum animi, tum corporis defendendam venturum esse."-Cat. II. ii. 73.) The effects of baptism are thus set forth: "By baptism, putting on Christ, we are made a new creature in him, obtaining the full and perfect remission of all sins."- Canones, Sess. xiv., cap. 2. "Even little ones are baptized unto the remission of sins that in them the evil which they contracted by generation may be cleansed by regeneration." Canones, Sess. v., "De Peccato." "If any one denies that the guilt of original sin is remitted by the grace of Christ, which is conferred in baptism . . . . let him be accursed."-Ib. "In baptism not only are sins remitted, but all the punishments of sin are also done away."-Cat. II. ii. 44. "The causes of justification are, the final (cause), the glory of God; the instrumental (cause), the sacrament of baptism."-Canones, Sess. vi. cap. 7. "If any one shall say that little ones, after they have been baptized, are not to be reckoned amongst believers . . .. let him be accursed."-Ib. Sess. vii. can. 13. "By baptism we are joined to Christ, the head, as his members."-Cat. II. ii. 51. "By the virtue of this sacrament, our mind is filled with grace, through which being rendered just and the children of God, we are constituted heirs of eternal salvation."-Ib. 49. "Lastly, baptism opens to each of us the way to heaven."-Ib. 57. In short, baptism is a sacrament by which infants are "cleansed from original sin," "made Christians," "born again," "born of God," "adopted children of God," and "heirs of the kingdom of heaven." "Is baptism necessary to salvation? Yes; without it we cannot enter into the kingdom of God." "It is the first and most necessary of all the sacraments. For Christ has said, Unless a man be born again of water and of the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. And the church has defined that no one can be saved, unless he be baptized, either actually or in desire." Which law (John 3:5) is to be understood not of adults alone, but also of infants." ("Quam legem non solum de its qui adulta Ttate sunt, sed etiam de pueris infantibus intelligendum esse, communis Patrum sententiaconfirmat."-Cat. II. H. 31.) Such is the Romish doctrine of Baptism, which constitutes one of the most egregious errors of the Papal Church. The ingenuity of man seems to have been taxed to the uttermost to invest the ordinance with an artificial importance and a meretricious glare in the eyes of the multitude. The marvel is, that both great and small did not, from the first, rise against the outrage on delicacy, decency, Scripture, and common sense. The mother of King James shows that there were those, in a later day, whose eyes were partially opened to the abomination. The King tells us a curious story about his own baptism, in the Premonition, before his apology for the Oath of Allegiance, he says: "The Queen, my mother, of worthy memory, though she continued in the religion in which she was nourished, yet was she so far from being superstitious therein, that at my baptism, although I was baptized by a Popish Archbishop, she sent him word to forbear the use of the spittle, being indeed, a filthy, apish trick, rather in scorn than imitation of Christ; and her own very words were, that she `would not have a debauched priest to spit in her child’s mouth."’ Every well-taught Protestant knows that baptism by whomsoever administered, has no power in any way to affect immortal mind. It cannot regenerate -that is, quicken from a death of trespasses and of sins-enlighten, convince, and convert the human soul. Regeneration is effected solely by the Holy Spirit through the Gospel of Christ, and justification, is solely by faith, and not by baptism. Adoption proceeds from the mercy of God, through faith in the Lord Jesus; and has no connection whatever with Baptism. It is worthy of notice that the Eastern Church largely participates with the Western, in heaping abuses on the ordinance of Baptism. The author of "Egypt’s Princes," makes the following extraordinary statement: "I have never, before or since, witnessed the rite administered as it then was. It was reduplicated. The first time it was mostly in Arabic. The mother, taking the child and facing the west, renounced in the name of the child, the devil, and his works and service, and then turning to the east, embraced the Saviour, and his righteousness and service. Three times the priest asked her, ` Do you embrace Christ for this child ?’ and three times she emphatically answered, ` I do.’ The priest then sprinkled water on the child, and I thought the ceremony was completed. But the two children were then taken to another part of the church, where was a font large enough for their immersion, and another priest completed the ceremony, this time all in Coptic. The children were stripped naked, and with long repetitions of prayers, they were three times immersed in the font, and then the priest commenced the process of anointing them with holy oil, which he did by dipping his thumb into the oil, and then commencing at the wrist of the child, tracing it along all its members and joints. The church was so cold that we needed our heavy shawls around us to keep warm, and the priest was an old trembling man, awkward in his manipulations; and as the poor things lay there on a garment on the ground, blue and screaming, until, utterly exhausted, they could cry no longer, I became so indignant that I could hardly restrain myself from interfering. I could no longer wonder that (as the Copts say is the case) the children are often killed by the process." If these doctrines be true, assuredly the Papists throughout all the world ought to be shining patterns of every virtue. Every Catholic is taught to say that "the end for which Baptism was instituted, was to make us Christians; to free us from the slavery of Satan, under which we come into the world; to unite us with Christ as members of his body, to give us a heart to receive all the other sacraments; and a title to an eternal and happy inheritance in heaven." (Keenan, p. 157.) It would be very difficult to put a larger amount of deadly error and impious falsehood into so small a space; every form of the sentence is a gross and fatal misrepresentation. The work of Christ, the truth of the Gospel and the offices of the Spirit in applying it to the souls of men, and the grace of God in the glorious dispensations of mercy, all are merged in Popish Baptism. The doctrine would be utterly contemptible, were it not for the awful consequences, which are said to flow from it. It is throughout, altogether false, and is such a perversion, such a caricature of the institution of Christ, as to forfeit on behalf of those who teach it, all confidence among mankind. The fabrication of such a lesson of delusion must have been most deliberate, and its authors must have been fully conscious of their own guilt in the act; in speaking so glaring a lie, they spoke it of themselves. There is not in the Word of God, the slightest foundation for the representation, which they have given, and not only given but enforced on the faith of men, under the penalty of damnation! No created mind can tell the amount of eternal ruin to souls, which has arisen from this pestilent doctrine, which merits all the anathemas that can be heaped upon it, by both earth and heaven! It is matter of regret, that a portion of the Popish leaven upon this subject has crept into divers portions of the Protestant Church, from which it cannot be too speedily purged out, since it lies at the foundation of the Romish system, the very essence of which is the doctrine of salvation, not through the Gospel but through the sacraments dispensed by men in so-called Apostolic succession. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 81: 02.061. ROME'S LITERARY POLICY ======================================================================== Literary Policy Of Rome Among the prohibited books, a conspicuous place is assigned to the Bible, especially to the English version of it. Dr. Ian R.K. Paisley FREEDOM of speech, and freedom of publication, are among the birthrights of Englishmen, and rank with the choicest blessings of which this happy country has to boast. In this respect, no land is comparable to the kind we live in. There is nothing which an Englishman ought to say, to print, or to publish, which he may not. It is much otherwise in some other lands, of whose glorious liberties much is heard. Englishmen, therefore, of all others, form the best tribunal to which an appeal can be presented on the subject of the liberty of the Press. Perhaps there are few lights in which Rome has been less looked at by the common people, although nothing more strikingly illustrates her true character than her conduct towards the Press. Her Literary Policy, as set forth in her damnatory catalogues, or indexes, both prohibitory and expurgatory, furnishes one of the most extraordinary illustrations of her spirit and character that can be conceived of. They supply, an amusing test of the degrees of merit and evangelical excellence in a literary work. It may be that some of our readers have met with the valuable and interesting publication of Mr. Hobart Seymour, a clergyman of the Established Church, entitled "Mornings among the Jesuits at Rome." That work excels most others of the same class, in its moderation and candour; and in the good feeling it displays towards the gentlemen with whom its author was in habits of intercourse; and yet it is a fact, that it has been recently honoured with a place among the books prohibited at Rome. What must be the state of things in a country which renders it unsafe to give circulation to such a book? Among the prohibited books, a conspicuous place is assigned to the Bible, especially to the English version of it. Booksellers have been severely punished for selling, or otherwise disposing of the Word of God in the vulgar tongue indiscriminately, inasmuch as none are allowed to read it without a "written permission;" no man, therefore, who possesses a Bible will "receive absolution till he has first delivered up such Bible to the ordinary; and booksellers who shall sell or otherwise dispose of them to any person, not having such permission, shall forfeit the value of the books; while regulars shall neither read nor purchase such books without a special licence from their superiors." What say our English readers to this? Rome has always been in fearful dread of the Word of God, and of every publication, the object of which was to explain it. The public have been taught to believe that the Scriptures are a large mass of poison calculated to taint the very air, and hence we find the Inquisitor General deeply lamenting that "some had carried their audacity to such an execrable extent, as to desire to read the Holy Scriptures in the vulgar tongue, without any fear of encountering the most mortal poison." Thus it is that the Inquisition talks of the book, the leaves of which were sent for the healing of the nations. We need hardly say, that from the first, English authors have held a most distinguished place in the list of condemned book, It were long to give the list of the good men who are honoured with exclusion, and whose names stand upon the roll of the anathema. While the Church of Rome owes so much to ignorance in her own community, she owes not a little to ignorance out of it. Among the points to which ignorance extends, an important place is due to the Index Expurgatorius-one of the most extraordinary illustrative documents on earth. Nothing more strikingly illustrates the true spirit of the Romish system. It is all over written with bigotry and intolerance; most impressively showing what would be the fate of the world were the priests once more to be in the ascendant. It is to be carefully noted that this once renowned, and, in Italy, still terrible document, is by no means a dead letter, but a living power for evil; it is an accurate embodiment of the soul of the system; it is throughout stamped with the sanction of the pretended successor of St. Peter, as the supreme head of the main body. The province of the Index Expurgatorius has been admirably managed by the Jesuits. It is sounded as with a trumpet, that this serious instrument has no authority whatever in Spain, in Portugal, in France, in Austria, in the Netherlands, or in the Popish portion of Great Britain and Ireland; and this is set forth as a proof that the power of the Pope on the Continent is gone, and that those lands have therefore nothing to fear in which the spirit of liberality reigns; and weak men, comprising a large number of the upper classes, and even of our statesmen, believe it. Allowing that such is the fact it supplies but little ground for those nations felicitating each other. The Jesuit is there! The Popish church in most of those nations has actually an index of her own, almost a duplicate of that very Roman index prohibitory and expurgatory. That of Spain and Portugal is even more intolerant. The Creed of Pope Pius IV. -The creed at this hour of the Roman world-holds every Catholic "to believe and profess all things defined, more especially by the Council of Trent, from which all subsequent Roman indexes followed." Whatever, therefore, be his allegations, such is his creed, and at his peril he must stand to it! Even the Maynooth Committee, in their famous examination before the Committee of the Lords in 1826, in spite of their cunning, were compelled to admit that "all Catholics will respect the prohibition of the Congregation of the Index;" that is, all Catholics will obey its high mandate denouncing the books which it denounces, and refusing to admit them into their houses. The management of this affair is mainly the business of the Jesuits, for whom it is very fit employment. But for the English Constitution, the people of this country would long since have been treated to an index of her own. It is sufficiently shown by the Rev. Joseph Mendham (Mendham, p.xvii) that all the necessary arrangements have been made, and kept in store for the fitting hour. According to that MS. "public and private libraries must be searched and examined for books, as also all bookbinders, stationers, and booksellers’ shops; and not only heretical books and pamphlets, but also profane, vain, lascivious, and other such hurtful, dangerous poisons are utterly to be removed, burned, suppressed, and severe order and punishment appointed for such as shall conceal these kinds of writings." It is the custom of Romanists, for obvious reasons to associate bad books with the Bible and works on evangelical Religion (Part 1. chap. 9, p 9495.) The same work provides for the prospective abolition of all laws "in Prejudice to the Catholic Roman Religion, and to restore and put in full authority again all old laws that ever were in use in England in favour of the same and against errors and heretics." Such were among the contemplated blessings of the Pope for ’ England, which were only kept back by the Revolution; let no man, then, err in this matter; the same things are still in store the moment that circumstances render it practicable to introduce them. Change for the better there is none; and only the ignorant and the foolish will believe there is. Let no man, we say, deceive himself as multitudes have done and are still doing. The Council of Trent, which we have so largely quoted in the present publication, is the standard of Romish doctrine. This was frankly confessed by Archbishop Murray and Bishop Doyle in the Committee of the House of Lords aforesaid, and the celebrated Mr. Charles Butler, the barrister the ablest advocate of the Popish Church in our times-acknowledges that the Creed of the Council of Trent is "an accurate and explicit summary of the Roman Catholic Faith." After this, we say again, let no man be deceived by those, who, from. Whatever cause, assert that Popery is reformed. There stand the decrees, the canons, and the anathemas of the Council of Trent, like the seven hills on which the emblematic monster sat in prophetic vision. To those Decrees, if we add the Index Expurgatorius, we shall have an embodiment of sentiments and of. Doctrine of a character that it cannot be gainsaid, nor resisted, which Will demonstrate in a manner the most fearful, the true nature of the system, which the Word of God has designated - the Mystery of Iniquity. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 82: 02.062. JUSTIFICATION ======================================================================== Justification The Council of Trent: "Whoever shall affirm that men are justified solely by the imputation of the righteousness of Christ, or the remission of sin to the exclusion of grace and charity, which is shed abroad in their hearts, and inheres in them; or that the grace by which we are justified is only the favour of God; let him be accursed." Dr. Ian R.K. Paisley The ground of a sinner’s justification before God, is the most important subject within the whole circle of human inquiry, and none ever more beautifully and strikingly expresses it than the Prophet, in the following words: "Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the High God? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old?" Popery answers this question in one way, and Protestantism in another, and on the difference depends their respective characters; every other point between the two systems as it relates to man, is comparatively unimportant, since none other comes so near to his heart and his hopes. Now the difference between Protestantism and Popery is here so great that it admits, of neither reconciliation nor compromise. The difference is just that which subsists between the creature and the Creator; in the one case, the sinner is taught to rest for acceptance with God on his own works, and in the other, on the work of Christ. Here, however, the peril is increased, from the fact of the use which is apparently made of the work of Christ. Entering on such a subject, it is easy to deal with Jews, Turks, or Infidels, whose systems exclude all regard to the person and offices of the Messiah; it is not so with Popery, which affects to make much of his atoning blood and righteousness, dealing most abundantly in the execration of all those who dare to deviate an iota from its dogmas. It allows to Christ, as the Lamb of God, in words, the honour of taking away the sins of the world, but so combines these words with others as at once to divest them of their legitimate and vital import. It allows the doctrine a place, but a place such as to dishonour Him, and to show that his work is only as the dust in the balance compared with that of the sinner himself. We appeal to the highest Romish standards, the Decrees of the Council of Trent; to which the whole Papal world bows as to an authority from which there is no appeal. According to Protestant views, the Scriptures teach that men "are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord Jesus Christ by faith, and not for their own works or deserving; wherefore, that we are justified by faith only in the most wholesome doctrine and very full of comfort." Thus spoke the authors of the Articles. Such was the doctrine of the first ages; but as Popery rose, this view gradually disappeared through the teaching of the Priesthood, till at length it was denied, and its abettors pronounced "accursed." It was under these circumstances that Luther arose, and having found the doctrine in the Sacred Scriptures, with trumpet tongue he published it to the ends of the world. To no other subject did he give such prominence; this was the very soul and essence of his system. The Romish edifice was throughout one stupendous pile of human works, inscribed in all its parts with human merit all pointing to the right they give to the sinner to stand on his own foundation before his God. All these works were intended to effect his justification, so that to attempt to compass that justification by any other means was to reduce the whole edifice to ruin, and utterly to destroy, root and branch, the Papal system. Luther clave to this point as to life—"It is," said he, "the head corner-stone which supports, nay, gives existence and life to the Church of God, so that without it the Church cannot subsist for an hour." According to him, "this Christian article can never be handled and inculcated enough. If this doctrine fall and perish, the knowledge of every truth in religion will fall and perish with it. On the contrary, if this doctrine flourish, all good things will also flourish namely, true religion, the true worship of God, and the right knowledge of everything which it becomes a Christian to know." The establishment of this doctrine was the certain destruction of the Popedom. The Papists knew it, and acted accordingly; they were prepared to move earth and hell to prevent the propagation and reception of Luther’s doctrine of justification. Great were their differences in adjusting a system of error, but in fiercely opposing and vehemently denouncing both him and his doctrine, they presented the most marvellous unanimity. In none of their many doings did they display more malignant ingenuity; nowhere did they draw more largely upon falsehood in support of error. They charged the Protestants with all sorts of absurdity, and in replying to the several objections, successively poured out their anathemas. Council succeeded Council, each adding to the error of its predecessors, till at length they completed their battlement around the Church, for entirely shutting out the righteousness of God by faith in Jesus Christ. The lessons that Popery taught to men, on this great and preeminent subject, are, primarily, to look to himself and his own works; and, secondly, to the merits of the saints; and, thirdly, should there still be any deficiency to the work of Jesus Christ. Such was the statement of their authorized standard of doctrine upon this most momentous matter; but their practical administration of it was even worse than this, for it generally made nothing whatever of Christ’s sacrifice and righteousness, but everything of man’s works. They rejected utterly and with scorn, tile idea of imputing to man the righteousness of the Son of God, or in counting and treating an individual as righteous, solely for his sake. With them "to justify" was not "to declare righteous," but "to make righteous’’ and hence they found for both the people and themselves an abundance of work in their attempts to remove sin and cultivate virtue by sacraments and fastings, prayers and purgatory, and many other modes of rendering "heaven debtor to merit," as the only sure foundation of hope of eternal life. The Council of Trent, speaking of the causes of justification, having correctly enough stated the meritorious cause, proceeds to say, "The instrumental cause, the sacrament of Baptism, is the sacrament of Faith, without which no one can ever obtain justification." Here, then, the faith according to Popery, which justifies, comes out of Baptism; to be baptized is to be a believer, and to believe with such a faith as Baptism produces, is to be justified! The Papal Church, in its great standard of doctrine, the Decrees of the Council of Trent, follows up its deliverances by rules that "all may know not only what is to be held and followed, but also what is to be rejected and shunned." As examples, we may cite the following: "Whoever shall affirm that the ungodly is justified by-faith only, so that it is to be understood that nothing else is to be required to co-operate therewith, in order to obtain justification; and that it is on no account necessary that he should preface and dispose himself by the effect of his own will; let him be accursed." "Whoever shall affirm that men are justified solely by the imputation of the righteousness of Christ, or the remission of sin to the exclusion of grace and charity, which is shed abroad in their hearts, and inheres in them; or that the grace by which we are justified is only the favour of God; let him be accursed." "Whoever shall affirm that justifying faith is nothing else than confidence in the divine mercy, by which sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake, or that it is that confidence only by which we are justified; let him be accursed." "Whoever shall affirm that justification received is not preserved, and even increased, in the sight of God by good works; but that works are only the fruits and evidences of justification received, and not the causes of its increase; let him be accursed." "Whoever shall affirm that the good works of a justified man are in such sense the gifts of God, that they are not also his worthy merits; or that he, being justified by his good works, which are wrought by him through the grace of God and the merits of Jesus Christ, of whom he is a living member, does not really deserve increase of grace, eternal life, the enjoyment of that eternal life if he dies in a state of grace, and even an increase of glory; let him be accursed." Surely nothing can be more explicit than the language of these canons, so-called, by which, amid a flood of seeming zeal for the honour and glory of Christ, the utmost care is taken utterly to exclude leis righteousness, and to deprive the sinner of all benefit from his work. Such are the lessons which, through all the earth, to the present hour, the Papal priesthood are communicating to their disciples. Is any other proof required that they teach another gospel than that which was taught by the Apostles? According to that, the sole and only foundation of the sinner’s hope was the work of Jesus Christ. As Protestants interpret the Sacred Scriptures, it is shown that men are justified not by infusing something called "righteousness," but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous in the sight of God, not for anything right or good in them, or done by them, but solely for the sake of Christ; not by imputing faith itself-the act of believing-as an act of the creature, or any other evangelical obedience due to them, as their righteousness, but by imputing to them, the obedience and satisfaction of Christ, the receiving the testimony of God concerning his Son, and trusting on Him and his work by faith, a faith which is not of themselves, but his gift. That book tells us that "we are justified by faith, without the deeds of the, law;" that being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ," and that "He is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth." From the whole strain of the Word of God, it is most clear that justification is purely an act of God’s free grace, by which sin is pardoned, the sinner accepted, and the righteousness of Christ imputed to him by faith alone; and that in this way, and none other, he acquires a right to eternal life. This faith, by which he is justified, is the source of all good works, forasmuch as it infallibly and uniformly produces love, and hence that course of action which the Apostle designates works of faith and labours of love. Those works and labours are the tests of faith; if there be no labour, there is no love. The evidence of justification is sanctification; the proof that there is a title for heaven is that there is a growing meetness for it. There is no proof of a change of state in the absence of a change of character. Sanctification is the fruit and the evidence of justification. Popery, on the contrary as we have. seen, makes sanctification a part of justification, thus excluding grace to mace way for works, and confounding the cause with the effect. It talks of the infusing of grace by baptism, as constituting the first justification, and of a subsequent increase of grace, as merited by good works, as forming a second justification positions, both at utter variance with the Word of God. Reader, the subject in both lights is now before you, and the Book of God is in your hand; what say you? According to that Book, on whose side does the truth of God seem to lie? Suffer us to ask, have you given the subject the consideration which is due to it? Have you deliberately made up your mind as to the consistency of either view with the Word of God? Have you treated it as its importance demands? If it be the primary element of the great controversy between Protestants and r Papists, is it not because it is the primary concern of a lost world? Have you made up your mind in favour of Protestantism as a system of doctrine? If so, then have you allowed it to take the personal turn which belongs to it? Have you, in good earnest, put the question already cited from the Prophet Micah, "Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the High God?" "What shall I give for my transgression, and what for the sin of my soul?" Have you arrived at any answer? and is it in harmony with what we have been setting forth as the Protestant doctrine, solely and exclusively the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ, received by faith in the divine testimony concerning Him? Has your conscience felt the burden of its guilt? By this faith has that burden been removed? Does it now enjoy peace? Are you reconciled to God? Is the love of God shed abroad in your heart? Do you claim, call, and walk with God as your father? Do you love the rest of the heavenly family? Will you abide the application of the test set forth by John, "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren?" Do you love the Lord Jesus Christ? Will you bear the further application of his own test on this point "He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me?" In a word, has the Gospel made you happy? Are you now living a life of faith upon the Son of God, as having loved you, and given himself for you? This is true religion. Happy he who can say, "This is mine!" A moment’s reflection will show you the need of this question being put by us, and answered by yourselves. The danger is very great, lest you should possess the Evangelical Protestant creed, to the exclusion of the Evangelical Protestant character. But it is to be remembered that the Sacred Scriptures are not less explicit concerning the character than concerning the creed: "Old things are passed away, and all things are become new." Allowing that such language is figurative, can anything warrant such a figure but a mighty, an all-pervading, and a permanent change? This is the great salvation-the foundation of all real lasting felicity. We say felicity, for heaven is not merely a thing of place, but of character. There can be no happiness without holiness; and holiness just means restoration to the knowledge, fervour, love, and service of God. Regeneration is that work of the Spirit upon the soul, whereby men become partakers of the Divine nature, and through that of the Divine character, and by that of the Divine blessing; hence, said Peter, addressing his countrymen, "God having raised his Son from the dead, bath sent Him to bless you by turning every one of yon from his iniquities." Protestantism is beset with perils. Men satisfied in their judgment that they have the truth of God, may hold it in unrighteousness, making religion-that which constitutes the life-mainly to consist of a body of opinions. ’thus to act will certainly be to perish! Protestantism is not merely an opinion, it is a power, whereby the human soul is renovated and the character reformed. Doctrines have no value but as the instruments of the power of God, which thereby works to salvation. Here it is that Protestant communities are weak; their people are not worthy of their principles. They do not adequately represent their principles, they belie them! Multitudes of Catholics, on the other hand, have been better than their creed, just as multitudes of Protestants have been worse. Many Catholics, in spite of the priest and the pool of lies into which they are plunged, have yet discovered and cleaved to the main truths of the Gospel, without having sufficient light to bring them out of their prison house, whereby their hearts have been purified and their souls saved. The heartfelt scorn of Popery, and zealous efforts to obstruct its deadly march, must not be confounded with the life of truth and the life of piety with repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. We therefore conjure every reader who is enthralled by Popery to burst his fetters, and come forth into the glorious intellectual liberty that the Scripture brings; we at the same time implore him not to be satisfied with anything short of the liberty wherewith Christ Jesus makes his people free. Once justified freely by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, filled with the peace that passeth understanding, richly replenished with the word of truth, and a supply of the spirit of grace, then let him come to the help of the Lord against the mighty, and let him join in the war-cry of the righteous, "No peace with Rome!" ======================================================================== CHAPTER 83: 02.063. CLERICAL CELIBACY ======================================================================== Clerical Celibacy Fornication, concubinage, adultery, if decently gone about, were safe; but it became all to beware of marriage! Dr. Ian R.K. Paisley THERE is a peculiarity about the subject of Celibacy. The chief complaint against the other dogmas of Catholicism is, that they have no support in the Sacred Scriptures, properly interpreted. Several of them, indeed, have not even the shadow of it; while the rest are founded on the most obvious and culpable perversions. In the case of Celibacy, however, it is altogether otherwise. Not only is there no Scripture which admits of being so perverted on its behalf, but there is most explicit and emphatic Scripture against it. It is expressly foretold, that among the other evil deeds of the Man of Sin, would be the prohibition of marriage. There is no point on which the Church of Rome is in such a fix. Her sin is here written on her forehead, as if by an angel’s hand, in letters of fire! The Council of Trent, in its Twenty-fourth Session, 1563, dealt largely with the question of marriage, pouring its fiercest anathema upon the heads of all who should dare to deny that marriage was one of the Seven Sacraments of the Church, and that, as such, it conferred grace! Those who maintained that persons in holy orders might "contract marriage, and that the contract is valid," were the subjects of the heaviest maledictions. Such, from that hour, has been the law of the Romish Church respecting the marriage of the clergy. All ecclesiastics, of whatever order or degree, are bound to celibacy, and the penalty of marriage is instant excommunication. They might form unhallowed connections, and live in the grossest iniquity, from the Pope downward to the humblest mendicant-that was connived at. Something, to be sure, might at times be done for the sake of appearances; but the grossest licentiousness was winked at, even when it could not be concealed. But the penalties were trifling- apparent rather than real. Fornication, concubinage, adultery, if decently gone about, were safe; but it became all to beware of marriage! Nature and reason had long rebelled against the monstrous interdict; and it was not till after a considerable time, and much conflict, that the point was ultimately carried. At last the enemies of truth and virtue triumphed, and thus was established one of the most immoral and pernicious institutions of the Popedom. It deserves remark, that the laity in general-strangely, and to their own grievous hurt-sided with the Vatican, and took part against the married priests, whom they persecuted in all possible ways, covering them with odium, and even reducing them to the sad alternative of starvation, or separation from their families! While the married ministers, in many places, were thus driven out, and no others came forth to take their places, religious services, extensively throughout Germany, were unperformed. This was only a portion, and the lightest, of the penalties the people were to pay for their folly and wickedness; and in due season, they were visited with the terrible remainder, which they suffered in the shape of a deep wound on the morals of society, and on the peace, order, and purity of their own families. It is a pleasing fact, and one which is peculiarly gratifying to Englishmen, that in no other country did the new doctrine of the celibate find so little favour with either the people or the prince as in England. The bulk of the British clergy were married, and Henry I., nobly standing between them and the fury of Rome, permitted them to continue with their families. The celibacy of the clergy is a matter of fact, which, with its effects, has come within the province of the civil, who has dealt with it as freely as the ecclesiastical, historian; and both have united in testifying that, while Popery was rampant, it was the curse of the world. The circumstances of the case are such as to demand notice. The conjunction was of a character to show that it was a deep-laid scheme of the Prince of Darkness for the destruction of the Christian religion. Let it be remembered that the mass of the clergy, the subjects of a forced celibate, were men idle and luxurious, wholly destitute of true religion, and unrestrained by the fear of God. Human nature in the hearts of such men took terrible vengeance on the abettors of the injustice done them. The very restraints put upon them only tended the more fearfully to develop the full force of their depravity. A mere digest of the history of their misdeeds would require whole volumes; but we cannot stain our pages with any attempt even at an analysis. Celibacy was enjoined upon the clergy under the pretext that it would eminently contribute to holiness; but while this was the avowed, it was very far from being the true, cause. It was a lie spoken in hypocrisy; it is, therefore, proper to say, that if superior holiness was not found, it was not sought. The object aimed at was of a wholly different nature; it was not to produce an eminently spiritual priesthood, but to fortify the Papal throne, and augment, throughout all the earth, the Papal power. As if to increase the danger, these were the men that were to keep the conscience of the female, as well as the male portion of the human race, and for that end to preside in the Confessional. These men were in the highest possible degree prepared for being themselves tempted; and, then, they were placed in circumstances of the strongest possible temptation. That the bulk of them should not have fallen, was all but impossible; that any stood, is a matter for wonder. Infernal ingenuity was never so exercised in devising means to destroy the morality of mankind. It may be doubted whether this may not be considered as the master-stroke of the Prince of Darkness. Before the rise of the Lutheran Reformation, the world was strewed, through the priesthood, with the wrecks of virtue; and no wonder if, up to the present hour, in the darkest places of the earth, the abomination remains with little abatement. The state of things was such that the bulk of modern readers have no conception of it; and it will not be without difficulty, they will bring themselves to credit the most veritable history. It may, therefore, be proper, in support of the heavy charges we have made in the foregoing paragraphs, to cite from the best authorities, chiefly Popish, a few facts confirmatory of our representations. The writings of Elizabeth of Germany, abound with charges. She says, addressing the Bishops: " The iniquity of the land, which ye have hidden for the sake of silver and gold, ascends up like the smoke of a furnace." Maimburg, a celebrated Popish writer, says, "The lives of the clergy themselves are so horribly debauched, that I cannot, without trembling, relate the hideous description." The sphere of their abominations was extended to the monasteries and nunneries-those pretended paradises of pristine purity. Cardinal Baronius, himself the last man to bring a false charge, confesses that "They were deformed with the foulest practices, and that there was no crime of which their inmates were not guilty." Mapes, the Archdeacon of Oxford, an indisputable witness, who was intimately conversant with the state of the Continent, has recorded the results of his experience thus: -There is no demon worse than a monk! All the abbots I have ever seen, by their manner and conduct, lead men to hell." The renowned William of Paris, a monkish historian of the first distinction, moreover a lover of truth and virtue, has borne similar testimony. "The clergy, according to him, "have neither piety nor learning, but rather the foul vices of devils, and the most monstrous uncleanness and crimes! Their sins are not mere sins, but rather the most prodigious and dreadful crimes! They are not the Church, but rather Babylon, Egypt, and Sodom! The prelates, instead of building the Church, destroy it and make a mock of God!" Passing on to a later time, Alvarus Palagius, a Papist, in his "Lament of the Church," makes a similar charge against the clergy. According to him, "They are addicted to feasting, drunkenness, and whoredom, which is a common vice with them; and most of them also, are guilty of the sin which is against nature. They are not examples of good to the laity, as they ought to be, but rather the contrary; for in the present day, commonly the clergy are more wicked than the laity." As bearing upon the subject of this chapter, he says, "Against that holy chastity which they have vowed to God, they offend constantly, even in public; besides those most horrid crimes, which they practice in secret, and which neither my paper will receive nor my pen will write." Let us hear another devout and faithful witness, Catherine of Sienna, who thus testifies: - "In former times, the clergy were moral and faithful, but in the present day they are wicked. Wherever you turn you behold all the clergy, both secular and religious, prelates, and those subject to them, small and great, old and young, infected with crime, pursuing riches and delights, neglecting the support of the poor and the care of souls, simonaically selling the grace of the Holy Spirit, and mismanaging the affairs of the Holy Church. That which Christ purchased with his sufferings on the cross, they waste on harlots; they corrupt souls redeemed with the blood of Christ." This bold and fearless writer, aroused by her zeal, thus apostrophized the clergy in the person of Christ, "Oh! diabolical tabernacle! I chose you to be the angels of the earth, but ye are incarnate devils, whose works ye do. Oh! wretched animal of uncleanness; thou showest thy flesh, anointed with sacred oil and consecrated to me, unto harlots; yea, thou doest still fouler iniquity." But let us hear Giesler, author of the "Text Book of History." That most competent witness, speaking of the clergy, says: "Their chief offence, their incontinence, seemed to grow worse, the more there was done to restrain it. In no century had there been so many decrees passed against the concubinage of the clergy, as in the fifteenth, yet in none were complaints so common of their incontinence (which in Italy degenerated into unnatural vices), as well as derision and lamentation over the inefficiency of all the means used to restrain them. The number of the offenders made it difficult or impossible to carry into effect the more severe punishments, whilst the avarice of the Bishops substituted a pecuniary mulct, afterwards changed into an annual tax. The commonness of the offence made it seem to the clergy a light thing; of course the laity could not be expected to view it in any other light, and in consequence the vice increased to a fearful degree." But enough! The recital of similar facts would be needless and endless, and we think more is unnecessary. This may surely suffice to show the people of England what may be the effect should Popery once more gain ascendency in the British Isles. The one great object of Pope Gregory VII was to separate the clergy as much as possible from all other interests, that they might be completely reduced to depend on the Pontiff. The policy of the measure was precisely that which regulates earthly governments, in regard to fleets and armies, a desire to build around them a wall of separation from the people, and to divest them of all social interests, rendering them of no country, and without descent, cutting off at a stroke their name among mankind, and extinguishing all their interests in the affairs which domestic relations imply, and so creating an order of spiritual soldiers, to whom all men and all countries are alike, and constituting each an impersonation of heartlessness and selfishness, growing up into misanthropists, their bosoms the grave of every charity that sweetens life and blesses society. In trying to unmake men he succeeded in making devils. Viewing the matter simply as a means to an end, the cunning of the project was equal to its wickedness. The success was complete. It greatly added to the power of the colossal engine of mischief of which it was so important a part. It was a meet step in the march of moral conquest-an additional trophy to the genius of iniquity. A body of agents were thus prepared for the doing of deeds which could not have been performed by men whose bosoms warmed with the sympathies of humanity while their hearts glowed with the charities of life. Reader! such is the Roman celibate-that celibate which is still visible and active in your midst. Of the present character of that celibate, we shall say nothing; in England it is surrounded by antagonistic forces, in such strength as to control it in its more public manifestations. It is not to be judged by present appearance. Suffice it to say, that the principle is unchangeable, and that placed in its ancient circumstances, it would be attended with exactly its ancient effects. It is essentially evil, and while it is in existence, it will continue to be a curse both to the individual and to society. It is assuredly not a plant of the Lord’s right hand planting, and a thorough Scriptural reformation of the Christian Church will root it up throughout all the earth. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 84: 02.064. INDULGENCES ======================================================================== Indulgences "Let no man deceive you with vain words." Dr. Ian R.K. Paisley The subject of Indulgences is one which occupies a conspicuous place in European history, from the relation in which it stands to the Reformation. That the doctrine may be rightly understood, it must be examined through the medium of Luther’s life and labours. In this way, and in no other, can the real truth be got at. Tetzel bent the bow of priestly imposture too far, and thus unwittingly brought upon his church all the calamities of the Lutheran revolt. This great fact has led to a vast amount of shuffling, equivocation, misrepresentation, and downright falsehood from the Papal writers who have treated of it. It is a thing-and almost the only thing of which it would seem the priesthood are rather ashamed. As it was carried on in the days of Tetzel, human nature could hardly bear it, and hence the revolt to which the excesses gave birth, and there has since been a. disposition to moderate and restrain the doctrine, and wherever the violation of truth has been wanted to serve the purpose, as usual, the father of lies has been present to give his aid. The first and just plan, however, and that against which it is in vain for the priests to object, is at once to repair to the literature of Luther’s day, which will most incontrovertibly demonstrate that the Protestant view was the true one -viz., that it is a virtual licence to commit sin. Next to this, we may have recourse to the Council of Trent, and to various authorized catechisms of the Papacy. By this, the matter must be tested, and from this there is no appeal. We set very light by the representations of Bossuet, Gother, and others, and the whole of the Irish priesthood at the present hour. The great French Jesuit, as he was wont when pressed by truth, deliberately falsified; and it is a fact worthy of notice that the Irish bishops, in 185, in their examination before Parliament, in connection with their demand for what is called Emancipation, acted a part but too much resembling that of Bossuet. Kelly, Doyle, and Murray, all varied from each other. Even the last, by far the most candid, was highly culpable in his representations. This is one of the few things in which the Council of Trent showed a spice of moderation: they appear to have been deeply impressed with the memory of the disgrace which attended the sale of Indulgences by Tetzel, and hence, while still assuming that "Christ had given to the Church the power of granting Indulgences, and that the use of them was very beneficial to the Christian people," they took care, as usual, to pour a curse on the head of all that deny it; they were careful, however, to abstain from defining what Indulgences really mean, simply designating them the "heavenly treasures of the Church." In the Papal standards, the doctrine of Indulgences is defined as that which secures not only the remission of canonical penance imposed by the Church, but a remission of the temporal punishment, with which the sins of men are visited after their guilt and liability to eternal punishment has been removed by the Sacrament of Penance; and this temporary punishment maybe endured either in this life or in purgatory, so that a man may take his choice: if he will do penance here, he may leave the world with his guilt discharged; but if not he must suffer the punishment in purgatory! They are shut up to one or the other-penance here, or penal fires there! The principle, on which Indulgences proceed, is very simple, more simple, generally, than is compatible with so much falsehood. It is assumed that fasts, alms, penance, pilgrimages, the hair shirt and the hard living, to which we have elsewhere referred, possess a power to satisfy. Should they, however, in any case fail, they are then to go for supplemental merit to the great storehouse of merit laid up in the Church, the management of which is committed to the Pope. It lies with him, therefore, to grant remission of temporal punishment on such terms as he may think proper to impose. This is called an Indulgence. It may be limited to a fixed period, or it may extend through the whole life. Neither is the benefit confined to men on earth, but maybe extended to souls in Purgatory; so that a powerful hold is gained on the benevolent and affectionate feelings of survivors, who are blind enough to believe the monstrous imposture. The conditions on which the Indulgence is granted, are very varied; sometimes one penance is prescribed, and sometimes another, but the thing is never so thoroughly Popish, and to the priestly taste, as when it is-money! Pope Leo, who understood the matter thoroughly, condescended to enlighten the world on the mystery of this merciful provision. He tells them that it was permitted to him, by his apostolic authority, to grant Indulgences out of the superabundant merit of Christ, to the saints and to the faithful who are united to Christ as well for the living as for the dead. It was a master-stroke to extend the bounty to boil worlds, since it greatly enlarged the sphere of blessing. The same Pope Leo says, "Wherefore all persons, whether living or dead, who really obtain any Indulgences of this kind are delivered from so much temporal punishment, due, according to Divine justice, for their actual sins, as is equivalent to the value of the Indulgence bestowed and received." The intelligent author of "Rome in the Nineteenth Century," described things as they came before his eyes in a residence in the Eternal City. He says, "Plenary Indulgences and remission of sins are offered here on very easy terms. I was first rather startled with the prodigal manner in which that full pardon of all transgressions which the gospel promises only as the reward of sincere repentance and amendment-language which shows our author knew but little of the gospel-was bestowed at Rome in consideration of repeating certain prayers before the shrine of certain saints, or paying a certain sum of money to certain priests, you may buy as many masses as will free your souls from purgatory for twenty-nine thousand years at the Church of Saint Lateran, on the festal of that saint, and at another on the Quirinal Hill for ten thousand, and for three thousand years, and at a very reasonable rate. But it is in vain to particularize; for the greater part of the churches of Rome and the neighbourhood are spiritual shops for the sale of the same commodity." This iniquitous system is not confined to the Continent and foreign countries: to say nothing of Ireland, it abounds in England. It is but a few years back since one was unblushingly proclaimed in the address to the British people. In 1845, the last Jubilee was called "the year of expiation and pardon, of redemption and grace, of redemption and indulgence." Papal cupidity conjured the people to turn it to account. The Vicar-apostolic of the London District exhorted his charge to make the most of it. "Only sin," said he, "can exclude you from that kingdom; only the debt of temporal punishments incurred by sin can retard your entrance into glory . . . . . Avail yourselves of every means of displaying the debt to Divine justice. Spare no pains to prepare yourselves for the remission of your sins, and for the benefits of this plenary indulgence-the happy effects will be felt by you in that peace of soul and spiritual joy which the world could never give, and in a well-grounded hope of eternal happiness." These are sentiments concerning which there can be no mistake. They form a distinction which has no foundation in the Word of God between punishment temporal and eternal-representing the eternal to be remitted, while the temporal are retained; professing to look sometimes to Christ for the remission of the eternal; and to the sinner’s own works or sufferings, for the remission of the temporal; ever and anon confounding the temporal with the eternal, and thus, teaching him to view himself as his own sole and only saviour. There is no point in which the Papal system is more vulnerable, and none through which it has received more deadly stabs from the sword of the Spirit. In spite of all that has been said, the thing, in plain expression, amounts simply to a licence of iniquity, and permission with impunity to perpetrate crimes! It is to no purpose to say that the Indulgence is only-granted after the sin has been committed, and that it has, not, a prospective, but a retrospective bearing. What child sees not that this leaves the matter precisely as we have put it? A man is going to commit a sin, and beforehand he knows the price it will cost him. The price lie stands prepared to pay. He perpetrates the enormity, and pays accordingly, and there is an end of the matter! But this is not all. Indulgences have been sold in abundance for sins to be committed! Nay, reader, start not. Tetzel himself, the Caliban of the Papacy in matters of Indulgence, did so. Hear him as, addressing the multitude, he exclaims: "Come, and I will give you letters furnished with the seal by which the sins, even those you may have a mind to commit hereafter, shall be all forgiven you. I would not exchange my privileges for those of St. Peter in heaven; for I have saved more souls by my indulgences, than the Apostle by his discourses. Indulgences not only save the living, but they save the dead too. Priest, noble, merchant, woman, young girl, young man, hearken to your parents and your friends who are dead, and who cry to you from the bottom of the abyss, ` We are enduring tortures! A small alms would deliver us; you can give it, and you will not!’ The very instant the piece of money chinks at the bottom of the strong box, the soul is delivered out of purgatory, and flies up to heaven." We might very copiously illustrate this point, but we abstain. Since it to say, that the result has been both from its prospective and its retrospective bearings, to embolden sinners in their career of transgression; and hence, it is testified by all competent witnesses who have sojourned in Popish countries, that the system of Indulgences most fearfully contributes to laxity of morals. Mr. Eustace in his "Classical Tour," thus explains the state of things in Italy when he was there, and ascribed it to the sale of Indulgences. Mr. Graham, too, tells us of an individual pointed out to him, who had stabbed his brother so that he had expired immediately after the deed. What was the result? Was the murderer apprehended and dealt with according to his wickedness? Not so! Ho repaired to Rome, purchased his freedom from the Church, and received a written protection from a Cardinal, in consequence of which he was walking about without concern-a second Cain! Reader, we have done. "Let no man deceive you with vain words." Take not the account of the matter, as you will find it in Romish books, since nothing can be more contrary to facts than the representations of the Jesuits. We appeal to history, the history of the Church of Rome, and refer you to the recent work. of D’Aubigne on the Reformation, which will supply you with facts illustrative of the basis we have laid down, and demonstrative of our entire argument. Indulgence, although one of the weaker points of the Romish system, is, nevertheless, a part in admirable harmony with the whole. It is essentially anti-Christian; no part of the mighty scheme of error and falsehood is more skilfully levelled against the grace of God and the work of Christ. None better deserves to be stamped with the image and superscription of Antichrist. It is one of the master strokes of the Prince of Darkness! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 85: 02.065. IMAGE WORSHIP ======================================================================== Image Worship "To those who diligently teach not the whole Christ-loving people to adore and salute the venerable, and holy, and precious images of all the saints; let them be anathema." Dr. Ian R.K. Paisley MAN must have religion of some sort; should he cease to worship the God who made him, he will worship the god whom he himself made-an idol graven or molten-or it may be a stock, a stone, a creeping thing, the sun, the moon, the stars, or even the devil! Men, by degrees, lost the knowledge of God a result which was the punishment of their previous misconduct, since, "when they knew God they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful;" and "because they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, He gave them up to a reprobate mind." This state of things gives a fearful significance to the second commandment, and shows how wisely, and with what decision Moses met the reigning evil of his times through the earth when he thus enacted, "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them, for I, the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation." This law not only cut down the tree of idolatry, but also extirpated its root among the Jews. This is a point on which there can be no dispute; the only question then, is, was there any loophole left for its introduction to the Christian dispensation? This question, too, we presume, can only be answered in one way. The point, therefore, to be determined, is, has idolatry found its way into any portion of the Christian Church, so called? and if so, is it the Church of Rome? The reply of the Protestants, is "Yes, she is guilty!" Such, and so grave is the charge we have to bring against the Popedom. The priest will of course deny it; and even affect to resent the charge as a calumny, and a slander. No matter. Protestants are quite familiar with this mode of proceeding. It is very convenient for the advocates of a bad cause; they will try to make the use of images among them, a very harmless and even an edifying thing; they will tell you they use images only as one does a portrait, or a bust of a deceased friend-to excite the memory of by-gone days, and to rekindle reverential affection, and that images of the Godhead are highly serviceable in helping the worshipper to stay his mind, and to keep alive the affections. This is all that can be said for the practice, but might not every word of this have been said by the Jews in the days of Moses? Did not men then require such aids at least, as much as now? But was it not found then, that the sure tendency was to stop short at the image, instead of looking through and beyond it, to the object it was used to represent? Was not this the case universally, and did not Idolatry fill the land and bring captivity and destruction upon the Jews? In this way, was not the Most High shut out from his own universe through all the world, and actually forgotten by his own creatures? Again, is not God a spirit, immortal and invisible, "dwelling in light that no man can approach unto, that no man hath seen, or can see?" How, then, is it possible to make an image, carved or molten, that shall represent the Godhead? But there is something serious in the history of this image worship, and which must not be overlooked. How came it that the Papists have taken such liberties with the second commandment, if it does not in some way militate against their system? It is an adage that wicked men never oppose the Bible till they find that the Bible opposes them. We are not without a suspicion that such is the case in the present instance. Else how comes it that in many editions of the Sacred Scriptures, which, from various causes, the Church of Rome has been induced to issue, she has actually expunged the second commandment altogether? And how is it that, as if to conceal the fraud, by still keeping up the number to ten, she has divided the last commandment into two? Does such conduct as this comport with honesty? Is there not something very suspicious about it? Such conduct is all the more suspicious when it is remembered that so strongly did the Primitive Church feel upon this subject, that many of their most distinguished ministers entertain serious scruples as to the moral character of the arts of painting and sculpture. During the first 300 years the Christian Church stood at the furthest remove from all approach to the use of images for any purpose whatever. There is no subject, -the true history of which is better known, and the unanimous testimony is to this effect. Images were first introduced as mere ornaments, by some Christians in Spain, early in the fourth century, and were promptly condemned by the Council of Eliberis, as fraught with danger; and the event has showed that the objectors were men of penetration. Images were preceded by the introduction of pictures of saints and martyrs into the churches, so called, which prepared the way for them a fact, which shows the tendency of the human mind, and the necessity of making a stand at the outset. The evil increased apace; but only still in the way of ornament, and that in the midst of opposition from many of the wise and good. By the sixth century, however, they became universal throughout Christendom; step by step they were allowed to be used as an aid to devotion by the weak and the superstitious; till at length they began to be worshipped. By this time, too, the zeal of the Councils began to relax; and, as aids, images were allowed by them, but as objects, denounced. Gregory the Great vehemently condemned them in the latter capacity; and with such effect as to give a powerful check to this incipient idolatry; and for a time, the worship ceased. The Councils gave image worship no encouragement; but in the eighth century it found zealous patrons in the lazy monks and the stupid populace. Thus much for its history; we must now bring the charge home to the Church of Rome at the present hour. As this is far from a light matter, it must be gravely dealt with, we shall, therefore, at once appeal to the standard of Popish doctrine the Council of Trent. By that Assembly it was determined, "That the images of Christ, of the Virgin Mother of God, and of the saints, are to be had and retained, especially in churches, and due honour and veneration to be paid to them; because the honour which is exhibited to them, is referred to the prototypes which they represent; so that through the images which we kiss, and before which we cover our heads and lie prostrate, we adore Christ; and pay veneration to the saints whose likenesses the images bear; as is ordained by the Decrees of Councils, particular the second Nicene." This Nicene Council speaks with still more decision on the subject of the images and saints in the following words: "To those who diligently teach not the whole Christ-loving people to adore and salute the venerable, and holy, and precious images of all the saints; let them be anathema." Image worship is not less certain throughout the Papal world than Virgin worship; the image of St. Dominic may, perhaps, in the intermediate roll, be entitled to precedence. This famous block has often rejoiced in 100,000 pilgrims paying devotions and making offerings at his shrine during a single anniversary! We might traverse the entire kingdom of Antichrist, and adduce from every part of it proof of a desperate addition to image worship; but it is useless. It is better to assume the fact, and reason upon the folly as is admirably done in the Homily on Idolatry by the Church of England. The following are extracts: "What meaneth it that Christian men, after the use of the Gentiles’ idolaters, cap and kneel before images? which, if they had any sense and gratitude would kneel before men carpenters, masons, plasterers, founders, and goldsmiths, their makers and framers; by whose means they have attained this honour, which else would have been ill. favoured, and rude lumps of clay or plaster, pieces of timber, stone, or metal, without shape or fashion, and so without all estimation and honour; as that idol in the Pagan poet confesseth, saying, `I was once a vile block, but now I am become a god,’ etc. What a fond thing is it for a man, who hath life and reason, to bow himself to a dead and insensible image, the work of his own hands! Is not this, stooping and kneeling before them, adoration of them, which is forbidden so earnestly by God’s Word? Let such as so fall down before images and saints, know and confess that they exhibit that honour to dead stocks and stones, which the saints themselves, Peter, Paul, and Barnabas, would not to be given them, being alive; which the angel of God forbiddeth to be given to him. What meaneth it that they, after the example of the Gentiles’ idolaters, burn incense, offer up gold to images, hang up crutches, chains, and ships, legs, arms, and whole men and women of war, before images, as though by them, or saints as they say, they were delivered from lameness, sickness, captivity, or shipwreck? Is not this colere imagines, to worship images so earnestly forbidden in God’s Word?" Reader! We have done! The facts are before you. Have you duly weighed them? If so, to what conclusion have you come? Is not this matter a most important addition to the fearful indictment, which the Prophets and Apostles of God have to deliver against the Church of Rome? Does not the mutilation of the second commandment alone suffice to determine the question of Papal guilt? Must there not be an intolerable consciousness that there is something in the system which cannot bear the application of that enactment? Is not the deed that of a forger, destroying the only document that can prove his guilt? How would the subject be viewed by a British judge, and a British jury? Would not the court denounce it as guilt of the deepest dye, and would not the jury, without a moment’s hesitation, and with perfect unanimity. Bring in a verdict of guilty, without recommendation to mercy? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 86: 02.066. EXTREME UNCTION ======================================================================== Extreme Unction "If any man shall affirm that the rite and practice of Extreme Unction, as observed by the Holy Roman Church, is repugnant to the doctrine of the Apostle James, and that it may therefore be altered or despised without sin; let him be accursed." Dr. Ian R.K. Paisley EXTREME UNCTION is one of the sacraments of Rome, and as such, is held to "confer grace on the receiver;" it is therefore placed on the same level with the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, Baptism, and Confirmation. Such is its position in the standards of Papal doctrine. The Council of Trent has pronounced its ever-ready anathema on every soul of man who shall deny that it is "truly and properly a sacrament instituted by Christ our Lord," so that every Papist is shut up to the faith of the dogma on peril of damnation! But as a sacrament, it is of course the channel of Divine communication, and hence anathema is the punishment of any man "who shall say the sacrament of Extreme Unction does not confer grace, nor forgive sin, nor relieve the sick." Let the Protestant reader ponder this! Popery is as profuse in its curses, as it is parsimonious in its blessings; it never blesses but for money, while its curses are dispersed gratuitously! In this case, as usual, it builds upon a single portion of the Word of God, that of James 5:14-15, which has thus been made instrumental of working a world of misery, and of extorting incalculable treasure from the human family. Great was the ingenuity of the Mother of Harlots in so applying a very simple Scripture. By these means she was enabled to extend her cruel dominion to the other world, and thus really to rob the living for an imaginary benefit to the dead! The act is one as impious as it is remorseless, and serves very impressively to illustrate the true spirit of the Church of Rome, whose chief study is, to fleece her flock from the birth of each generation to their burial. She seeks not them, but theirs; all her forces are made to concentrate upon the single point of extorting money, and this from age to age, she prosecutes without shame or pity. She everywhere seizes their substance with the most ravenous avidity. The love of lucre is with her, a ruling passion, an all-devouring flame, which nothing can satisfy. The more she has, the more she desires to have! But let us now look carefully to the matter of Extreme Unction; the use of oil for the purposes of personal unction, was, and still is, common in the East, and like the kiss of charity, washing the saints’ feet, and some other things, it was mixed up with the proceedings of the Primitive Christians. The Apostles sanctioned the custom in the exercise of their, miraculous powers; in Mark 6:13, we are told, that they "anointed with oil many that were sick and healed them." The act was significant; it arrested the attention of the infidel observer, and prepared him for what was to follow; it also tended to fix the faith of the believer on the deed which was being performed before his eyes. It was, moreover, an index of the presence, and an emblem of the power of the Holy Spirit. Thus, then, nothing could be more natural at that time than for James to enjoin the imitation of the Apostles on the churches of his day, who, among other gifts, possessed the gift of healing; but with these gifts, the application of the Unction passed away, and would have been numbered with the things which have been-things local and temporary, but for the skill, the craft, and the cupidity of Antichrist, whose genius for perversion, and imposture overlooks nothing that is adapted to mulct the foolish, and filch the property of all. In the creation of this fictitious sacrament of robbery, a very serious difficulty stood in the way; but Popery is not exceedingly scrupulous; and by withholding the Word of God, and using with the necessary boldness her authority to suppress all troublesome inquiry, she has generally succeeded in maintaining her hold on a large portion of the human race up to the present hour. This difficulty arose from the fact that the Apostolic Churches uniformly used the anointing for purposes of life, whereas "Mother Church" has uniformly used it for purposes of death! In every case, the Apostles contemplated restoration to health, and the prolongation of life; in every case the Pope and his Priests contemplate death, and the passage of the soul into the world of spirits, and affects to aid him in the prosecution of his journey thitherward! There is reason to conclude that the Apostles never used it when all rational hope of recovery was gone, while the Popish priest never uses it, while a spark of rational hope of recovery remains! In all points, then, there is not merely difference, but direct opposition, and positive contradiction between the Apostle and the Pope! Had a primitive Christian seen the administration of the Extreme Unction of Rome, it would have been to him a novelty and a mystery, leaving him at an utter loss what to make of it. The fact that this cruel fiction was ever received so extensively among mankind only serves to indicate the degree of darkness, which at length brooded over their spirits in relation to all things religious. Deeds of this description can only be done in the night; it is, therefore, no marvel that this so-called sacrament, was not generally admitted till the twelfth century, when the midnight of the Middle Age drew on. The making of so daring an experiment upon the credulity of men required the deepest shade; and truly Antichrist, with his instruments and emissaries, made the most of the dreadful hour in which the power of darkness was permitted to reign The manner of administering this fictitious ordinance displays its character; no oil is admissible but that of the olive, which must, moreover, be consecrated by episcopal hands. The application of the oil, is so gone about as to require the gravity which stupidity alone can impart, to prevent its being laughed to scorn. The thing carries quackery and imposture so obviously upon the face of it, that we cannot withhold from the celebrated catechism of the Council of Trent, a statement of the case: "The Sacred Unction is to be applied, not to the entire body, but to the organs of sense only-to the eyes, the organs of sight; to the ears, of hearing; to the nostrils, of smelling; to the mouth, of taste and speech; to the hands, of touch." "Not to the entire body, but to those members which are properly the organs of sense, and also to the loins, which are, as it were, the seat of concupiscence, and to the feet, by which we move from one place to another." If this is not the climax of impudence, the very apex of imposture, we know not where to find it. Nothing but the solemnities of the death-bed, combined with the profoundest ignorance, could suppress an outbreak of ridicule and indignation from every bystander, on beholding such an exhibition of absurdity. The Council of Trent, as was their custom, having defined their fiction, hurled anathemas at all gainsayers, and proceeded to support their conclusions by their so-called canons, closing each with the customary imprecation. "If any man shall affirm that the rite and practice of Extreme Unction, as observed by the Holy Roman Church, is repugnant to the doctrine of the Apostle James, and that it may therefore be altered or despised without sin; let him be accursed." Such is the spirit of the Vatican. Such is the mode in which it fulminates its curses against the Protestant world! Now, certainly, were cursing in point, and could it serve any really practical purpose by promoting the truth, man’s welfare and the Divine glory, Popery in this tenet, as well as in every other, would furnish the proper mark for the aggregate anathema of every sane soul among the human species. Transubstantiation is sufficiently revolting, the Mass is a horrid spectacle, and Absolution, as it respects the dangers attending it, is a step in advance in the path of iniquitous cruelty to man; but the whole culminates into a point of atrocity in this matter of Extreme Unction. It is a sight to make an angel weep, to see a creature who has been duped, deceived, and plundered through life, on having reached the end of his journey, and lying on the brink of eternity, attended by the priest, for the purpose of administering the said Extreme Unction! Let the reader only think what on these occasions is done; first then, there must be confession, which is followed by absolution; then the Eucharist, what Protestants term the Lord’s Supper, is to be administered; and the drama is to be closed with the "Sacred Chrism," applied to his eyes, ears, nose, lips, loins, hands, feet; and then, like the pilgrim of old, prepared to commence his journey to heaven, he is left to learn the dreadful delusion which has been practised upon him, by descending into the gulph of perdition! We shudder as we write! Repentance towards God, and the reason of it; faith in the blood of Christ, and the justification which flows from it; the support and consolation, the light and power of the Spirit of God-these have no place in the dying chamber of the poor infatuated Papist! No! he has been the subject of the realm of Antichrist, a realm in which Christ was not made known to him while living, and, in perfect consistency with what has gone before, Christ has no place on his death-bed; he and Christ will only come together face to face, when he shall proceed to the judgment-seat, to give an account of the deeds done in the body! We observe with what particularity some Papists dwell upon the fact that Luther, to get rid of the "Sacrament of Extreme Unction," rejected the Epistle of James. False men! As every scholar knows, it was not the matter of Unction, in the Epistle of James, that troubled Luther, not at all; but the language of James as expounded by the Papists, on the subject of Justification-a doctrine so dear to Luther’s heart, because of its incalculable importance to the hopes of men and the glory of Christ, and the abhorrence in which it was held by the Romish Church. That doctrine, apparently to the superficial reader, as stated by James, was opposed to the grace of the Gospel, and, therefore, abused by the Romanists; a fact from which, with characteristic decision, zeal, and impetuosity, Luther was led to question the inspiration of the Apostle James. Luther was great and mighty, but he was not perfect; and one of the few spots on that glorious sun was this rash conclusion; rash because, as every one who understands the Scriptures now sees, nothing is more clear than that the doctrine of James is perfectly reconcilable with the doctrine of a gratuitous justification. Paul and James are in perfect harmony. Reader! the case of the Bible and the Protestants is closed, and we ask you to deliver your verdict. Survey the subject from what point you please, and through the medium either of reason or of Scripture, or of both, and say whether it can be of God, or whether it is not a most wicked imposition practised upon an infatuated world? Let it be considered in relation to the dying, and say if the administrators of such a system be not chargeable with the blood of souls. Viewed in connection with the spirit of the Lord, say if it is not full of blasphemy. As it bears upon the subject of the honour and glory of Christ, is it not fraught with the most flagrant impiety? Ought not the existence of such a tenet to prompt every man that loves the truth, to pray for the hour when the Lord shall "destroy it by the breath of his mouth, and the brightness of his coming"? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 87: 02.067. CATHOLIC UNITY ======================================================================== Catholic Unity The unity of which Rome boasts is a fiction, a mere imagination. Dr. Ian R.K. Paisley WE hear much in these times of Catholic Unity, which has in it a good deal to captivate and charm minds of a certain order, as appears from the recent productions of the English Tractarians. There is nevertheless, perhaps, no subject on which there has been more language used with less truth. The unity of which Rome boasts is a fiction, a mere imagination. It is true, there is an external appearance of unity; there is the Pope, the head and centre of what is termed Catholic Christendom, the appointer and ruler of the Popish Episcopate, the judge in appeals of all causes from all countries. There is, to a very large extent, in all that is essentially wrong, a corresponding unity: a unity in mummery and superstition; a unity of unintelligent devotion; a unity in the preposterous use of a dead language in the presence of a living people; a union in regard to these things, and many more—all evil—there is, but there is no union in that which essentially constitutes the union of the Church of Christ. It has been demonstrated a hundred times, on a variety of matters, on which the utmost unity is pretended, there is nothing but discord amongst both Popish writers and speakers. Nor is this wonderful; the wonder, indeed, would be were it otherwise; truth is one and the same, but error is manifold and variable. When a body of honest witnesses, all competent, come together before a court of law to bear their testimony to any given point, that testimony is always substantially one, and the little differences which may creep into their evidence are among the best, the most satisfactory and the most pleasing proofs of their integrity. Thus it was with the writers of the four Gospels; their slight discrepancies are the highest proofs that can be given of their integrity, showing there was no collusion among them that each was independent, and honestly delivered the thoughts which were within him without reference to what might be said by others. Popery has affected to triumph over the diversity of sect and opinion amongst Protestants, but without just cause; forasmuch as, with seeming diversity, there is real agreement as to the one faith, the one Lord, and the one baptism. Nothing can be more erroneous than to consider the divers sects and denominations of Christians which obtain in Protestant Christendom as the subjects of so many religions. This conclusion may suit malignity to draw, but it is at variance with truth. In England, for example, the Established Church, and the bulk of Dissenters which have sprung from it, all hold the same fundamental principles. There is a measure of unity between English Churchmen and Independents, Baptists, Methodists, Moravians, Presbyterians, and others, of which Papists seem to have no conception, or if they understand, they conceal their knowledge, and declare the thing not as it is actually but as they would have it to be. The Articles of the English Church not only represent substantially, and with great clearness and beauty, the common faith of the mighty mass of Evangelical Churches in England and Ireland, but on the Continent, and in America, and all over the world. A celebrated Romish bishop published what he was pleased to call "Variations of Protestant Churches," a work which supplies, perhaps, a larger amount of misquotation, misstatement, perversion, and mutilation than any other work on any other subject, to be found in any living language. But that celebrated polemic seemed to forget that this was a game that two could play at, and the result was to bring forth Edgar’s "Variations of Popery," a work which repays him in his own coin, but upon principles of truth, fairness, and honour, in a manner for which few of the Popish prelates were, perhaps, prepared. That work cuts up Popery root and branch, not only showing the incoherence of what is not true, and the impossibility of building it up into a consistent system, but the inconsistency of its facts with sound principles, and of the whole with the Word of God. There has nowhere been produced a more damaging defence of Protestantism, and assault on Popery, since it literally demolishes the whole of the mighty Papal fabric. On the subject of this unity we cannot enlarge, suffice it to say, that there is no boast so unfounded as that of the Romish Church to unity. Protestants, on the contrary, have their head, not on earth but in heaven, where they find a unity in the glorious person and offices of Him who was their Prophet, Priest, and King; a unity in the lessons which He left for their instruction, and which have been embodied by his servants in the Gospel; a unity in all the Apostolic writings; a unity in the effects everywhere produced by the knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus, and the presence of the Spirit of God; a unity in peace, love, hope, joy, consecration, gratitude, and devotion. On this subject we have some excellent thoughts in the celebrated work of Rev. Hobart Seymour, "Evenings with the Romanists." That very enlightened gentleman has borne an invaluable testimony to things he saw and heard at Rome. The following comprises a volume in itself: — "Twenty-seven years have passed away since these conversations, of which the foregoing was a very small portion, were held. Since then I have seen no reason to change my opinions or to depart from my position. On the other hand, I have visited many lands, and have been a not inattentive observer of the working of the Church of Rome, both in the city of the Church, in Rome herself, and in almost every country in Europe." "That opportunity for observation through many successive years has strengthened my views, and I feel more strongly than ever, that of all the churches of Christendom, the very last that ought to speak of diversities or divisions, is .the Church of Rome. It is her boast and pride that she admits and sanctions almost every diversity of doctrine, and of discipline, provided there be unity in submission to the Supreme Pontiff of Rome. I have myself witnessed in the church of the Propaganda Fide in Rome during the season of the Epiphany, no less than five different churches, as the Greek, the Armenian, the Nestorian, the Syriac, the Coptic, as well as the Roman, all celebrating the Lord’s Supper, at different altars, and in different ways. The ceremonies were different. The manner of service was different. The forms of worship were different. The languages were different. In short, I have never seen or observed so great a dissimilitude between the Lord’s Supper in the Lutheran-the Evangelical, the Episcopalian, the Presbyterian, the non-conforming churches of the Protestant communion, as I have seen and observed among those sections of Eastern, churches that are joined in the communion of the Roman Church. I have witnessed seven different forms-seven different liturgies-seven different languages-and seven different modes of celebrating the Lord’s Supper, all in the church of St. Andrea della Valle in Rome. I have witnessed all the Greek rites in a Greek church-I have seen all the Armenian rites in an Armenian church in that city. Every diversity of doctrine, and liturgy and discipline, and language, is allowed and formally sanctioned, provided only all parties observe the one point of unity -submission to the supreme Pontiffs of Rome. So far is that carried, that in the Concordats or Articles of Agreement with Rome, there are special clauses reserving to whole countries the right to have their own liturgy and rites, and language, in preference to that of the Romish Church." Touching the diversities of which the Romanists have made so much, Mr. Seymour refers to the following conversation with a Jesuit: — "After some further conversation on his own experience as to such sources of difference, I asked- "Is it not a fact that the differences between the various Protestant Churches are not on articles of faith, but principally upon mere points of discipline? That one church is governed by bishops and is called Episcopalian-that another is ruled by a Presbytery, and is thence styled Presbyterian-that a third is founded on the principles of the freedom of the particular church from the authority of any other, and is on that account called Independent; that one church prefers an authorized liturgy-that another chooses a liturgy of her own selection-that a third adopts a settled arrangement of extemporaneous prayer-that one has deacons to regulate its services -that another has churchwardens to attend to its affairs-that a third is carried on without either one or the other; that one church adopts a formal catechismal instruction-that a second prefers a Sunday school system-that a third has no system at all; that one church prefers administering baptism to infants-that another decides for baptizing adults that one adopts open-air preaching and class-meetings, and assemblies in barns and out-houses-that another prefers a more formal and regulated system of public service; that one church adopts a black dress for its officiating ministers-that another prefers a white surplice-that a third will have neither one nor the other: these surely are all matters of discipline-all mere trifles that have nothing to do with articles of faith. And yet these, and such things as these, are the only, or at least the principal points of separation between the various Protestants among us." He said, laughing, that although it seemed very absurd, yet it was very true. These were not articles of faith; they were merely matters of discipline. "But are there not also," he asked, "some differences on articles of faith?" "I said- No. And then added, that when we speak of Articles of Faith, we mean the Articles of our creeds. Now, our several sects, Church of England, Church of Scotland, Independents, Methodists, Baptists, and generally all the Protestant Churches, hold each and all the Articles contained in the Creeds. There may be shades of difference as to the explanation of words and things, but they are all agreed in the main. My full conviction is that there is as close and compact a union of doctrine in the Protestant Church as in the several churches constituting the body of the Roman Church; while in matters of discipline, it was no easy matter to determine in which the greatest variety was found to exist. The great and plain truth seems to be this-Romanists have their differences about what their Church says, but they agree to refer all to the decision of the Papal See. There is their point of unity. Protestants have their differences among themselves about what the Holy Scriptures say, but they are all agreed to refer all to the authority of the Holy Scriptures. There is their point of unity." "He was very much struck with this statement; he seemed fully to take it in. It seemed to satisfy the feeling that was at work in his inner mind. He expressed himself very strongly." Mr. Seymour further expands and enforces his views in the following address to the Jesuit. After some discussions which naturally led to it, he said: - "Let it be always remembered, I said, I that union is not a necessary sign of spiritual life, as disunion is not a necessary evidence of spiritual death. If we enter a church or chapel, and observe the congregation, we are sure to find that however their hearts may be united, yet their minds, habits of thought, and reflection create certain diversities and shades of opinion. There may be union on all that is great and important, though there are diversities on matters of lesser moment. Their very diversities of judgment are a sign of mental activity and of real life. They are not dead. If then, we enter the churchyard, and sit beneath the shady cypress and the dark yew, and tread lightly the graves of the departed, there is found no disunion and no diversity there. There is no collision of mind or of feeling. All is peaceful, quiet, calm. This very unity is an evidence of the absence of all real life. They are truly dead, and all the life that is there, is that of the loathsome worm of the grave. And so in spiritual things. There is a union which is a sign of spiritual death, for it argues the absence of all intelligent activity and mental life. And there is a division, which is an evidence of spiritual life, for it proves the existence of mental thought and active intelligence. Among the mummies of Egypt, there are no religious differences, for all are dead. In the catacombs of Rome there is the most perfect union, for all are lifeless. Even among the children of the world, thoughtless, reckless as they are, there are no religious disputes, for all are spiritually dead. There are no varieties of opinion among a gallery of marble statues, for a perfect unbroken unity is evidence of death and not of life. The only true unity which is worth having, and which is quite consistent with diversity of sentiment, is the union of holy brotherhood-the union of the children of Christ the union of Christian heart with Christian heart, and the union of both in Jesus Christ, where, knowing that a perfect unity of opinion is no more possible than a perfect similarity of face, and knowing that there may be an agreement on great things, agreeing to bear and forbear, with differences on little things, the hearts of Christians may be united in brotherly love and sympathy, each with the other, and all seek and find the bond of union in Him, who is " the corner-stone in whom all the building, fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: in whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit." Ephesians 2:20-22. And this is the union of the Protestant Churches, or at least this ought to be their union. In the Church of Rome herself, we find an illustration, for she has within her bosom Jesuits, and Jansenists, and Dominicans, and Franciscans, and Augustinians, and Benedictines, and Carmelites, and innumerable other orders or sects, all differing in outward manner, all differing in their rules of life, all differing in their opinions on some particulars, especially having all different practices-superstitious practices, as I think-prevalent among them, and yet they have all this bond of union in the Pope. Whatever be their differences, and sometimes they hate, and vilify, and intrigue against one another, acting with the most hateful jealousy and malignant rivalry; yet do they all find a bond of union in the Pope. It is thus, too, that the several Protestant Churches, with their diversities of forms and sentiments, too often also acting as enemies or rivals to each other, yet find their bond of union in Jesus Christ." So much for the Popish figment of Unity of which she makes so much, and which has led astray so many people of education, position, and high pretensions in English society. All such conversions but serve to show how much ignorance may be found in ceiled houses. People ambitious to distinguish themselves by independence of thought, dart away from the beaten track of their benighted fathers and their vulgar contemporaries; they foolishly believe that different politics constitute different religions, and that mere circumstantial differences of creed constitute vital differences of faith, all which they affect to deem so many proofs of error in the matter of Protestantism. As a cure for all this, they lift up their eyes to the City on the Seven Hills, and fix them on the " Man of Sin;" and, having found in him a unity, they prostrate themselves before the "Beast," and think they have attained to an incalculable blessing, when they have merely proved false to Scripture, to reason, and to common sense! We trust the foregoing testimonies of Mr. Seymour will not be thrown away upon them, and that our labour in this matter, now more than ordinarily important as it respects the British people, will not be without beneficial effects. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 88: 02.068. COMMUNION IN ONE KIND ======================================================================== Communion In One Kind "Whosoever shall affirm that all and everyone of Christ’s faithful are bound by Divine command to receive the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist in both kind, as necessary to salvation, let him be accursed." Dr. Ian R.K. Paisley THERE is no error of the Church of Rome more easy of detection, or less defensible than that which withholds the cup from the people; language cannot make it more certain than that the Lord Jesus Christ gave both the bread and the wine to his disciples, and that they in their turn, did the same to the Churches formed under their immediate auspices. The Gospels in which the subject is mentioned, and the first Epistle to the Corinthians, have only to be looked at to render this clear beyond dispute; yet in the teeth of this fivefold demonstration, the Council of Trent issued the following dictum, fortifying, as usual, by anathema maranatha: "Whosoever shall affirm that all and everyone of Christ’s faithful are bound by Divine command to receive the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist in both kind, as necessary to salvation, let him be accursed." This is one of a multitude of reasons for withholding the Scriptures from the people, since they would at once discover the imposture. The priesthood, as if aware that a fact so clear and simple cannot be concealed, have resorted to a fetch. They maintain that the Scriptures left it indifferent to receive it in one kind or both. The proper method of meeting this assertion is just to deny it, and to call upon the priests for proof. To answer their own ends, they have mutilated the second commandment, and thence they mutilate the institution of the Lord’s Supper—in consequence of which it now ceases to be the Lord’s Supper at all, and becomes a something utterly unlike it, and unknown to the Apostles; but granting what we deny, that the wafer was a sufficient representation of the body of Christ, where is the representation of his blood that blood to which so much importance attaches in the Divine economy? So far as the people are concerned, it is wholly without representation. It is stated, indeed, that in virtue of Transubstantiation, "Christ’s whole and entire body and soul and divinity is received under one kind only"—that is, one memorial or the other, either the bread or the wine. Absurdity so revolting merits no reply other than indignant remonstrance or sharp rebuke, since it is an impious trifling of the highest subject about which the mind of man can be exercised. It is no marvel if men who have dealt so freely with the Sacred Scriptures as a whole, and who withhold from the people, should take away half the ordinance of the Supper, and so modify that which remains as to render it no longer cognisable by those whose judgments of the thing have been found upon inspired records. No two things are less like each other than the Christian Supper and the Popish Mass; that the latter might be harmonized with the former, Christ should have stood in the upper room, and having performed a variety of mysterious acts, have stood up and told his disciples that Transubstantiation was completed. They should then have knelt around Him while He placed a particle of the bread, with his own hand, successively on their tongues, protruded for that purpose, wholly withholding the wine from them, and taking it Himself. This mutilation of the original institution, more than most other deeds of Popery, bears the character of impious wantonness; it is a deed largely without a reason beyond the very obvious and serious one of carrying out the governing principle of opposition to Christ, and a determination in everything to set aside his arrangements, and to subvert his authority. This is conduct, which most richly merits, in all matters and in all respects, the designation assigned it in prophecy—"Antichrist." This is a point at which, at the outset, the Protestants yielded a very vigorous opposition, which had the effect of leading the Papal party, in the celebrated catechism of the Council of Trent, to attempt reasons which are of a character so contemptible that it would have been far more politic to have withheld them. These reasons are in substance as follows:—"It is done lest the cup, being put into the hands of the people, any of the blood of the Lord should be spilt; lest the wine should become sour when kept for the sick. Many cannot bear the taste or the smell of wine, and find it injurious to health; in many countries it is difficult, if not impossible, to procure wine; lastly, withholding it serves to overthrow the heresy of those who deny that a whole Christ cannot be received in one kind." It is difficult to deal gravely with such reasons for the act, since it is felt that to do so would be to offer an indignity to common sense. Still, argumentation on these childish and contemptible reasons has most needlessly cumbered the pages of controversy. The thing is beneath our notice. The proper way is at once to appeal to the Scriptures. It is a pure question of language in the hands of common sense. It was felt, however, that the withdrawal of the cup was a great experiment upon mankind; but they had been already so blinded and so prostrated that there was very little danger in the attempt. It was, moreover, done by degrees, and it was not until the Council of Constance, in 1415, that the decree was proposed for the universal interdict of the cup to the people—an interdict against which reason and piety so revolted that obedience was by no means general for a considerable time. There was great opposition at the Council of Trent, and many noble spirits were found loudly and indignantly denouncing the violation of Scripture and of Divine appointments. Bavaria was signalised in this way by its envoy, who, in uttering his protest, vehemently denounced the clergy, on the ground of their corruptions and profligacy. He boldly affirmed that there were not more than three or four who did not keep concubines, or who had not contracted clandestine marriages. The Bohemians occupied a position of equal honour; but opposition was to no purpose. The evil work went on till it was completed. The Council of Trent might be viewed as the mightiest muster the Prince of Darkness ever made for the overthrow of Scripture truth and its representatives. Three Patriarchs, nineteen Archbishops, one hundred and forty-eight Bishops, three Abbots, six Generals of Orders, three Doctors of Rolls, and ninety-four Divines united to decree that the believing, teaching, and preaching of the priesthood should be according to the decree. That decree was to the effect that although Christ gave to the Apostles both bread and wine, yet it was not necessary to give both to the people, but that the Church—meaning themselves—had the power to alter, or modify, or institute any ordinance. On this occasion it was further decreed that the Sacramental Communion of the Eucharist is not necessarily obligatory on children who have not attained the use of reason, for being regenerated in the laved of Baptism, and incorporated into Christ, they cannot lose the gracious state of children of God, which is acquired at that time. Raving completed the decree to this effect, as was their custom, they fortified the whole by a fourfold anathema against those who dispute it. Thus was completed one of those acts of rebellion against the Head of the Church, and subversions of his Divine authority, which so signally characterizes the entire fabric of the Church of Rome—the great, the universal, the malignant opponent of the Church of Christ. By this, as in all other acts, under pretence of magnifying Him, she pours contempt on his wisdom, and overrules his enactments, thus fulfilling the predictions that had gone before concerning herself and her Head, that he should "oppose and exalt himself above all that is called God and that is worshipped, so that he, as God, should sit in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God," 2 Thessalonians 2:4. It adds, moreover, to the system of lying wonders; one fabrication reposes on another; the mighty structure is reared by adding impiety to impiety, lie to lie, one deception to another deception. This act clearly could not have been done but for Transubstantiation. It did not necessarily arise out of that, but was sustained by it. But for this the thing could not have been for a moment defended. Its deviation from the ancient practice, and from the Sacred Scriptures, was not to be denied even by the Popish priesthood, but the authority of the Church to "alter times and laws," and the withdrawal of the Word of God from the people, set all right, suppressed every jar, and stifled all discord. Reader, the case is now complete. We will add no more. It lies with you, therefore, to form a judgment for yourself, and to declare it. Taking the Sacred Scriptures for your rule, you cannot err; and with confidence we leave the matter in your hands, willing to abide by your decision. It shall be yours to describe the character of the conduct with which the Church of Rome is chargeable in Which has yet been set before you in these pages more impressively illustrates her impiety and her malignant opposition to everything that bears the name of Christ, and presents the impress of his authority. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 89: 02.069. MERIT OF GOOD WORKS ======================================================================== Merit of Good Works The error here is deep and deadly. Dr. Ian R.K. Paisley The question of Good Works is one of infinite moment. On this subject, Popery and the Gospel teach a very different doctrine: the Pope teaches that "our good works do merit eternal life, as worthy not only by reason of God’s covenant and acceptation, but also by reason of the work itself." Such is the view of Bellarmine a Popish author of great distinction; and another of equal eminence, puts the point still more tersely. Vasquez has laid it down that "the good works of just persons are, of themselves, without any covenant or acceptation, acceptation, worlity of the reward of eternal life." The error here is deep and deadly. Where are the just men to be found to do these works while in a state of condemnation just, and yet the subjects of perdition. Besides, it is here assumed that a man may by some means become just without having eternal life, and, consequently, while in a state of spiritual death; and that, on attaining to that just state, it becomes the ground of his claim to that eternal life. The idea is as confused as it is fatal; it is at utter variance with all correct views, both of the law and of the Gospel. The sane writer has very fairly, clearly, and at length stated the Popish doctrine as follows: "Seeing the works of just men do merit eternal life, as an equal recompense and reward, there is no need that any other condign merit, such as that of Christ, should interpose, to the end that eternal life might be rendered to them. Wherefore we never pray to God that, by the merits of Christ, the reward of eternal life may be given to our worthy and meritorious works; but that Christ’s grace may be given to us, whereby we may be enabled worthily to merit this reward." Let us hear the Decrees of the Council of Trent on this subject: "If any one shall say, that the good works of a man that is justified are in such wise the gifts of God, as that they are not also the good merits of him that is justified; or, that the said justified, by the good works which are performed by him through the grace of God and the merit of Jesus Christ, whose living member he is, does not truly merit increase of grace, eternal life, and the attainment of that eternal life, if so be, however, that he depart in grace, and, moreover, an increase of glory; let him be anathema." (Sese. vi. Can. 32) This is the true doctrine of Rome on this great question. To use commercial language, the whole world is bankrupt, Christ comes to it as the possessor of boundless wealth, and gives to everyone who will receive, that he may go and trade there with to realize capital with which to clear off his obligations. Now this doctrine is untrue; this gospel is a gospel of death! It dishonors Christ and destroys men. The true gospel comes to man, not only as not just, but as dead in trespasses and sins, and provides forgiveness of all their transgressions; it confers upon them a free and full salvation, comprising both a change of state and a change of character, justification, and sanctification, a title to leaven, and a meetness for it, without money and without price. Thus, while it thoroughly clears away all past grounds of condemnation, it provides for the future by bestowing upon the penitent believer the perfect righteousness of Christ; that is, he is accounted as righteous for the sake of Christ. Up to this point the Scriptures know nothing of any good works but those of Christ; but none such appear: the mercy the believer has received fills him with love, prompts him to do whatever his Lord has commanded. The tree is now made good, and good fruits follow, and in their absence there is no proof that the tree has been medicated. Such works, however, are not his title to eternal life. He who does such works, works not for life, but from it. Such works will be, nevertheless, rewarded; but eternal life is the free gift of God, through Christ, and wholly independent of any works of merit whatever. For the ungodly, Christ died, and through his death Scripture everywhere testifies the ungodly are justified. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 90: 02.070. AURICULAR CONFESSION ======================================================================== Auricular Confession Popery ancient and modern by John Campbell D.D. compiled by Dr. Paisley Dr. Ian R.K. Paisley No portion of the Papal system presents more originality than the Confessional. The glory and the infamy of this institution is all its own. The idea never entered into the heads of the men of the ancient world. The patriarchs of mankind knew nothing of it, and the wisest seer of those days never contemplated the rise of such a scheme of deluding and imposing on mankind. As to the great legislator of the Jews, nothing was further from his imagination, nor is a single fact to be found in connection with the customs, rites, or literature of any portion of the Pagan world, from which the existence of the idea would be inferred. It was reserved for " The Man of Sin " to devise and execute this dreadful engine of tyranny and crime in furtherance of his own infernal reign! It is pre-eminently a deed of darkness, having on its forehead the stamp of Lucifer! This, like the other great elements of the Papacy, is founded on a single fragment of the Word of God. There is only one expression, which is available for the operation of the plastic power of the priesthood - James 5:16. " Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availed much." What can be more natural and proper than such an act? If you have committed a fault against a neighbour or a brother in the Lord, you have wounded him, and you have, speaking figuratively, wounded the friendship between you, and this is the only sure way to " heal the breach," which is actually the phrase current among mankind for the re-establishment of friendship. But, that friendship may be restored, there must be forgiveness, and that there may be forgiveness, there must be confession. The injunction is, " If he confess, forgive him," and what more comely and proper than that the restored friendship between two men that fear God, should be cemented by prayer? The same point is referred to by the Lord Himself in his form, " Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us." Paul speaks to the same effect, " Forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ’s sake, bath forgiven you." It is curious to observe how cunning overmatches itself. The passage in James, on which the doctrine of Extreme Unction is founded, speaks of anointing with a view to recovery; but the extreme unction of Popery is with a view to death, and is never administered till all hope is gone, and the party is expected speedily to die, and with a distinct understanding that he is to die, and that no more shall be done to save him! Hence the practice, after administering extreme unction, is to withhold food and medicine. The administration of this so-called " Sacrament" constitutes an interdict to all further recourse to either food or medicine; die he must, and there is no help for him! The doctrine of Transubstantiation also rests on a single passage in John vi. which refers solely to the doctrine of the Atonement, and not at all to that of the Lord’s Supper; and yet the whole fabric of Transubstantiation and the Mass is founded on a perversion of this single Scripture. Such exactly is the case in the matter of confession. There is but one passage in the whole Word of God that at all admits of being twisted to that purpose; but in the plastic hand of the priesthood this is enough. The word is spoken, and forthwith the fabric of falsehood arises. Now let it be specially noted that, in the words of James the. confession has nothing whatever to do with the priest. The injunction to confess is directed not to the priest but to the people, who are commanded- to confess, not to him, but to each other! Let the reader specially mark the difference. This is one of those things, which remarkably illustrate Popish progress, showing the necessity of contending with evil in the bud. in harmony with the Scriptures at the outset, the confession was promiscuous. Men. might confess to each other, to laymen or to priests, but it was at length rendered incumbent to do either the one or the other. These strainings of the Word of God paved the way for more. By degrees confession was elevated into a sacrament, which none but a priest might administer, and to that priest every member of the Papal Church roust confess at a fixed period. The next step was to lay down the doctrine, that without this confession there could be no forgiveness, and that the priest, as God’s representative, could bestow such forgiveness, and the priest only. This brought matters to a crisis; but even there the climax was not reached, nor even approached. Shame had not wholly fled the brow of the confessor, who had not yet ventured to absolve; he only prayed as follows: - "The Lord grant thee absolution and remission." In process of time, however, as the spirit of impiety waged stronger, and mankind, through increasing darkness, became prepared for further bondage, the demands increased, and prayer gave place to an authoritative act of absolution. The priest attained to the dreadful height of impiety which enabled him to utter the following language:" I absolve thee from thy sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost "-no mean contribution surely to the fulfilment of the prediction, that " The Man of Sin should exalt himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped." The institution might now be said to be complete, and only one thing was wanted to give it an authoritative stamp, and secure universal compliance with its dictum; and this was reserved for that impious convention known as the Council of Trent, which had the audacity thus to speak concerning it: -" The Universal Church has always understood that a full confession of sins was instituted by the Lord as a part of the Sacrament of Penance, and that it is necessary by the Divine appointment for all who sin after baptism, because our Lord Jesus Christ, when he was about to ascend from the earth to heaven, left his priests in his place as presidents and judges, to whom all mortal offences, into which the faithful might fall, should be honestly and fully submitted, that they might pronounce sentence of remission, or retention of sins, by the power of the keys:’ Thus, then, by a falsehood the most daring, these men give the stamp of their authority to the so-called Sacrament of Confession. But this baleful confederacy against God and man did not leave the matter here. Delighting to pour out curses on the Protestants, they thus decided: " If any one shall deny that sacramental confession was instituted, or is necessary, by Divine right to salvation, or shall say that the practice of private confession, to a priest is foreign from the institution and command of Christ, and is only a human invention; let him be accursed." What says the reader to this? The choice is given to men that know the Scriptures and fear God, of either conniving at falsehood, or being subjected to an anathema! Thus the whole institution is clothed in falsehood and steeped in impiety! A curse is here fulminated against the whole Protestant world, which the fierce spirit of Antichrist, were his power equal to his malice, would convert into a hell of torture to every soul who is prepared to stand by the Scripture law, " Let God be true, and every man a liar!" Before mankind can receive the doctrine of Auricular Confession, the light which is in them must first be darkened, till reason be utterly blinded, and conscience either seared as with a hot iron, or surrendered to the keeping of the priest, it is impossible for this institution to obtain general currency. It is the perfection of iniquity; its history, after its complete establishment, is one of unmingled infamy. It cannot be read without ineffable disgust and horror! It has been fraught with a double curse - a curse to the priest, and a curse to the people! In wickedly debasing them, he has sorely debased himself. The vampire and his victim have descended together into the depths of sin and wretchedness! Nothing ever happened among men so illustrative of the Scripture that "the wicked shall be filled with their own devices." Had the spirits of Pandemonium consulted together by what means they might best create on earth, a preparatory school for the great work of turning men into devils, they could have hit upon nothing so adapted as Auricular Confession, in the hands of a godless priesthood, the priest himself being intended to occupy the highest place, and to become the chief fiend! His crime, in part, was his punishment. In addition to his own share of inbred depravity, the corruption of a whole parish is constantly being poured into his bosom! His breath is the reservoir into which all their hearts, as so many fetid streams of depravity and impurity. discharge themselves. All those evils set forth in Scripture - " evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false-witness, blasphemies "keep rushing on in a torrent from day to day into the dark and foul abyss of his soul! A dozen or a score years of a life so spent, would serve to convert an angel into a demon! Thus the soul of the priest becomes the dread depository of the collective iniquity of multitudes. Simply to sit, as a silent auditor of the endless recitals of all sorts of iniquity, might suffice to assimilate a man to Satan, rendering a creature, whose days are but a handbreadth, as much an adept in iniquity as a being who has lived and transgressed a thousand years! But the priest is not a mere passive receiver of this aggregate wickedness; were such the fact, it would be innocence itself compared with the part, which, by the laws of his order, he is obliged to play in this tragedy of death. He is bound, in effect, to tutor the souls of his people in the science and practice of transgression. Himself a professional teacher of evil, the great subject of his study is, not the Ward of God, but the heart of man; it is his duty to sound the depth of the depravity of the human soul, -to familiarize himself with all the springs of sin, to search out the sources of temptation, with the peculiar, as well as the common methods of warring against the Lord: in a word, he is bound to perfect himself in the science of turpitude -a course but too congenial to human nature, and which becomes the more sweet, the more its depravity is developed, and the more it has grown up in all things into Apollyon the Destroyer Such is the daily and nightly study of a Popish priest; nor is this study prosecuted abstractedly and in solitude with his own soul for its subject; the hearts around him are laid open to his gaze, and are ever exposed to his experiments. The young and the old, the rich and the poor, the vulgar and the refined, male and female, the virtuous and the profligate-humanity in all its modifications of state, condition, and circumstance, is the subject on which he conducts his fearful experiments. His system of interrogation is an instrument of a thousand screws fixed on all parts of the human heart, by which, in the mass, they are dragged forth into view. Perfected himself in the knowledge of all wickedness, he diffuses that knowledge on every side, and thus multiplies his own moral likeness among his people. His questions descend, as the plunge of a poignard into the soul, and penetrate it in its deepest recesses; by the operation of the Confessional, iniquity in all its ramifications is taught upon system, and a community of knowledge is established in the congregation or the parish. All souls are rendered familiar with all sins, with all occasions of sin, with all accompaniments of sin, with all consequences of sin, with all the modifications of sin! Thus the whole world of iniquity is laid bare, both to the eye of the priest, and to sinners themselves. Under the pretence that as the priest is both judge and physician, he must know all sin in thought, word, or deed, that he may determine the conditions of absolution, and prescribe the method proper for cure. The priest, sitting as God, must know, and demands to know, all that can be known by God In dealing with this subject, we feel ourselves laid under the most enfeebling restraints-restraints utterly incompatible with even an approach to a full and adequate discussion. The moral feelings of British society would be altogether outraged even by such an approach. It would fill the virtuous and devout with intolerable loathing, and, among very many, it would fail to obtain belief. The system has reared, from age to age, an army of men for its own service, such as could not have been supplied even by heathen idolatry in the darkest ages of Paganism. As an Order, they have stood alone, peerless in their impiety, and in their profligacy. Unrestrained by any regard to either God or man, they give the rein to their worst passions, and make havoc of the human race! One feature of this system is so remarkable as to call for special consideration; as if to give full effect to the Satanic principle of the confessional, it was ordained that the priest must be severed from society and all its sympathies, and pass his days in a state of celibacy. This provision alone was wanted to perfect the machinery of moral destruction. The Father Confessor, uninfluenced by the grace of God, is at the mercy of his passions, combined with the temptations which surround him; from the nature of his office, he is placed in circumstances of the strongest temptation, with every inward incentive, and every outward facility, for the perpetration of iniquity. Is it then, to be wondered at, if men so situated fall, where they do not desire to stand? Is it to be wondered at, if such men in every land, and in every succeeding age, have become the despoilers of virtue? Is it to be wondered at, if woman was ruined, and man dishonoured? On this subject, were we to suffer history to step forth and deliver her full testimony, years would be required to recite the dreadful chronicle, which would be written within and without, with lamentation and mourning and woe! Who shall enumerate the millions that have cursed the day they first appeared at the Confessional, and thus came under the influence of the foul spirit that presided in it? Spain, Portugal, Italy, Austria, France, and every other country where the Pope has borne sway, is strewed with the wrecks arising from priestly profligacy! They have been the patrons and promoters of vice the most hateful. and the most destructive. Their mission has been, not to bless, but to curse the people-not to bring health and happiness, but to diffuse pestilence and death! Mankind have groaned in hopeless anguish under the dreadful burden-! It rested, and in spite of the light of’ the Reformation and the mitigated circumstances of modern times, it still continues to rest on them, with the weight of a mountain, repressing their energies whether of body or of mind, converting nations into one vast prison-house of intellectual and moral bondage. All mental freedom is overthrown, and the mind of the people is merely the mind of the priesthood. The thick darkness which broods on those lands hides from the world their true moral condition, which is got at under great difficulties, and at best but imperfectly developed. We cannot take leave of the subject, without solemnly pressing it upon our readers, that the magnitude and the enormity of the evil, which the language we have employed may suggest, comes far short of the true state of the case. Let them not for a moment suppose there must be exaggeration, for to exaggerate in this matter were utterly impossible! The difficulty is, to attain to expression adequate in any measure, to set forth the truth. The question then, we have now to put to every reader, is-Do you wish to see the system of Auricular Confession, restored to its ancient sway in the British Isles 2 By all that is sacred in relation to the purity of woman, the peace of families and the welfare of society, we implore you to ponder the question! It is pregnant with meaning of unutterable moment! It is one of wide range, comprising everything affecting human institutions, and the progress of .the race in wisdom, virtue, liberty and, happiness. Auricular Confession is a huge imposture, laden with every evil; not only is it without foundation in the Word of God, but at utter variance with right reason. The priest is thereby raised into a demon, in his own person uniting the professed pardon of the highest crimes, with the fresh perpetration of them! The Confessional has, to an extent incalculable, -been but another name for seduction, and seduction has oft been but the prelude of murder! What tales might be told by the lime-pits, the subterranean passages, and the spirits of murdered infants But just in proportion as Auricular Confession exalts the priesthood, it degrades the people. The! presence of the priest invariably divests the disciple of his manhood, and turns him into a crawling reptile of the dust! He cannot stand erect in the presence of the person who knows all his weakness, and all his sins in thought, word, and deed! The eye of his tyrant looks him through and through; and its glance falls upon him as the withering blight of heaven! He quakes, as a spaniel, before his ghostly oppressor! His soul is bound in fetters, and none can deliver him. Let every man then, as he values his personal liberty, the moral purity of his country, set his face as a flint against the system, of which Auricular Confession is an integral part, and let him unite with all good men in every wise and well directed scheme, to work its overthrow in these realms. As a plant, which God hath not planted, let all godly and patriotic Englishmen combine to uproot it from the land! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 91: 02.080. THE RULE OF FAITH ======================================================================== The Rule of Faith Popery ancient and modern by John Campbell D.D. compiled by Dr. Paisley Dr. Ian R.K. Paisley In dealing with Popery, we affirm that the Sacred Scriptures are in very deed, the Word of God; an express revelation of the Divine will on every subject which man is concerned to know, and that they are the standard by which all doctrine and all systems. Everything appertaining to religion must be tested. The great point, therefore, is, to ascertain what they state. And thus the question primarily is one of language. It is proper to enquire into the established import of the separate words, and into the meaning of any given combination of words formed into sentences, paragraphs, or books. In determining these questions, it is permitted us to use the entire apparatus of literature, as we would in an endeavour to interpret a Greek orator, poet, or historian. The spiritual teaching by which men are made wise unto salvation is not our present subject; we are only concerned with the entire sufficiency and the supreme authority of the Sacred Volume. To this we are willing to bring Protestant doctrine, morality, office, order, worship, and polity, and at once surrender whatever cannot be defended or supported by it in a fair, obvious, honest sense, without gloss, stain, or perversion; and by the same rule, we claim the right to test whatever appertains to Popery. We shall accept and uphold everything in it that stands approved by the Word of God, but dispute and reject whatever has not its sanction and is directly in contradiction to it. This is our great and fundamental principle, from which we can be induced in no respect and in no degree to depart; and if Papists shall adopt the same rule, there will be a foundation laid for reasonable discussion, and possibly, at last, a means of reaching a satisfactory conclusion. We are met, however, at the very outset, with insurmountable difficulties to anything like a rational hope of adjustment, and are compelled to enter upon a contest relative to first principles. The entire sufficiency of the Sacred Scriptures is boldly denied and vehemently contended against. It is maintained, not only that they are not sufficient, but that they are scarcely at all necessary, and that the affairs of the world’s salvation can be carried on as well-if not considerably better-without them, since, to the bulk of mankind, there is very great danger arising from their general use; and that it is therefore much better that the people should not be troubled with them, but take the sum total of their instructions from the lips of the priests. Again, the right of private judgment in the interpretation of the Scriptures is wholly denied, and declared to be fraught with the most perilous consequences to the true interests of mankind. Papists allow no exercise of private judgment in this matter, but insist that the Sacred Scriptures must be received in the sense that the Church of Rome puts upon them. Here there is another fundamental principle. As Protestants, we earnestly contend for the right of private judgment, and hold that if this is to be surrendered, we may just as well at once give up the Word of God. The Scriptures would then cease to be the test and standard of the Church and of things connected with it; the Church, oil the contrary, would then become the sole and only standard of the Scriptures, and everything contained therein, so that they might by all be at once abandoned. But it is held by Papists that the Sacred Scriptures, even as interpreted by the Church, are wholly insufficient as a guide in matters spiritual, and must be supplemented by what is called tradition, which means things professed to have been held and taught in the days of the Apostles, although there is no mention of them in the Sacred Word. Of these things, the Church is held to be the true and sole depositor. This tenet constitutes the chief field of controversy between Papists and Protestants, and lies at the foundation of their conflict. It is fraught with the greatest possible danger, and lays a ground broad enough for a world of error and, imposture. "It is the tradition of the Church," is the ready answer to every objection ; and they who allow the doctrine of tradition. have no alternative but either to receive it as such, or to dispute the allegation and endeavour to show that it could not be a tradition derived from the Apostles, forasmuch as it can be proved to have come into being at a period long after their day-an inconvenience which is to be best prevented by keeping the people in utter ignorance, which has from time immemorial been the rule of the Romish Church. But even here, a way of retreat is ever left open, through the rule that the Church has a right to decree rites and ceremonies, and that all such enactments are clothed with superior authority over the conscience. In this way, the subjects of the Papal kingdom are wrapped in chains, and fixed in hopeless bondage. They have no other law than the will of the priesthood-a law which is unwritten, and consists wholly of the caprices of each successive generation. Under these circumstances, nothing remains for Protestants but to commence a war with the Church of Rome on the very ground of first, principles. We deny her right to create either rites or ceremonies or to enact anything that shall be binding on the conscience; we reject and resent all her attempts so to do, as an interference with the liberties which Christ has conferred upon his people, and with his own right to govern them. We utterly reject her whole system of tradition, on ground that it was all originated in ages subsequently to that of the Apostles, that it is fraught with folly, mischief, and danger, to the souls of men, and that it is abhorrent alike to reason and to revelation allegations all capable of proof, and which have been proved a thousand times. The entire sufficiency and exclusive authority of the Sacred Scriptures is a vital principle; the whole controversy turns upon this one point-to settle this, is, in effect, to settle everything; to set aside this, is to set aside the authority of God, and put in its place that of men, which is one of our chief accusations against the Papal priesthood, whom’ we charge with usurping the place of the Lord’ Jesus Christ. God alone speaks in Scripture, man, alone speaks in tradition. In Popery, Scripture is made to flee before the face of tradition. Scripture is nothing, tradition is everything. Tradition is not satisfied with being an equal; it is a rival, and, claims to usurp the place of inspiration. Popish tradition and Sacred Scripture can no more be made to harmonize, than light and darkness, truth and falsehood. They are at utter and eternal variance., No fact is better established than that the Pope and his clergy are the enemies of the Sacred Scriptures This has been manifested in various ways; we may instance the following: First -Violent Hostility to Bible Societies-. We instance this at the outset, because it is an event! of more recent times, occurring in our own day, and therefore capable of proof, in a manner admitting, of no denial, even by the priesthood themselves, who boast of their enmity. It has, moreover, a special value attaching to it. It is the deed, not of ancient or middle-age Popery, for which effeminate, Protestants, whose forbearance and charity are greater than their knowledge and discretion, might feel disposed to make allowance, but of the Popery of the present day. Our proofs are at hand. Pius VII, in 1816, describes the Bible Society as ---a most crafty device, by which the very foundations of religion are undermined, "a ---pestilence," a "defilement of the faith, most imminently dangerous to souls." Pope Leo XII, in 1824, uses language still more explicit. He says, " The Bible Society strolls with effrontery through the world, contending the traditions of the Holy Fathers, and contrary to the well-known decree of the Council of Trent, labours with all its might, and by every means, to translate, or rather to pervert, the Holy Bible, in the vulgar language of every nation, from which proceeding, it is greatly to be feared, that what is ascertained to have happened to some passages, may also occur with regard to others-to wit, that by a perverse interpretation, the Gospel of Christ may be turned into a human Gospel, or what is still worse, into the Gospel of the Devil." Such was the Papal opinion of 1821. In 1832, when Gregory XVI. occupied the Chair of Peter, so called, he echoed the testimony of his predecessors ; and Pope Pius IX the present occupant, so late as 1846 thus expressed himself: -This insidious Bible Society, renewing the craft of the ancient heretics, cease not to obtrude upon all kinds of men, even the least instructed, gratuitously, and at immense expense, copies in vast numbers of the books of the Sacred Scriptures, translated (against the holiest rules of the Church) into various vulgar tongues, and very often, with the most perverse and erroneous interpretations, to the end that (Divine tradition, the doctrine of the fathers of the Catholic Church being rejected) every one may interpret the revelation of the Almighty according to his own private judgment, and perverting their sense, fall into the most dangerous error, which society, our predecessor, Gregory XVI., of blessed memory, reproved by his apostolic letters, and we desire equally to condemn." Thus much for a succession of four Popes, all of our own times. Surely after this there can be no, mistake as to the light in which Popery views institutions whose simple object it is to diffuse the Word of God "without note or comment." But perhaps it may be said that this hatred is founded in the fact that such societies originated with Protestants, and have been conducted by Protestants, which has excited prejudices on the part of the; Popedom. Such apology, however, will not avail for before such societies arose, and before Protestantism, as a communion, existed, Popery everywhere pursued a kindred course. Secondly Withholding Scriptures from the People. What is the inference that every man of sense ought to draw from this fact? Is not the presumption very strong, that there was some adequate reason for adopting such a course? It is a fact, established beyond all possibility of rational contradiction, that the Jewish Scriptures were the common property of the Jewish people, whose law provided for the public reading of them, for their domestic use and personal study. It is a fact not less certain that the Apostles wrote their Epistles, not exclusively to the pastors of the day; or rather, in fact, not to them at all, but to the Churches throughout the whole world, and that to the Churches, not to the pastors, all the Church Epistles were, without exception, transmitted. This is a remarkable circumstance; the Apostles had no fear lest the people should not understand them, or lest they should abuse them. It is not less certain that throughout the whole earth the Scriptures were constantly read in Christian assemblies and in private families, and studied without let or hindrance by individuals. On what authority, then, it maybe asked, does the Papal priesthood withhold these Scriptures from the people? Is it possible not to entertain a suspicion that there are reasons for it reasons founded in some radical difference between the character and the constitution of the Apostolic and the Romish Churches ? But this is not all, nor is it the most serious view of the matter. The Papal priesthood, seeing they could not entirely withhold the Divine Word from mankind, have systematically proceeded to falsify it. We say, then, Thirdly Falsifying The Scriptures. This act, alike perilous and impious, they have done for reasons, of course, sufficient to impel them to a deed so full of crime and danger. They have, in this great thing of God, done that which, had it referred to the affairs of men, would have branded them with infamy, and in some ages and in many lands cost them their liberty, their country, or their lives! Is the allegation disputed? We shall prove it. It is probable out readers were not prepared for the facts we shall allege; since the wickedness implied is all but incredible. Nor is if in small matters, but in things most intimately affecting the lives of men,. and the kingdom of God that it is displayed. For instance, the word "Repentance," the first step in, flight, from the wrath to come, is actually translated "Penance." In Job xlii. 6, for example, "Therefore I repent myself, and do penance in dust and ashes;" again, in Ezekiel xviii. 21, "If the wicked do penance for his sins which he hath committed," and so on; and again, in 1 Kings viii. 47, "If they do penance in their heart, in the place of their captivity;" again, in Matthew iv. 17, "Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand and again, in Acts xxvi. 20, where the matter is brought forward with such solemnity by the Apostle, as the first lesson he had to communicate to the, Gentiles, we have, "That they should do penance, and turn to God, doing works worthy of penance."’ Thus, then, that the unscriptural, pernicious. and delusive doctrine of penance may be apparently sustained by Scripture, the Word of God is wholly perverted and a something put in the place of repentance which has no relation whatever to it! This doing of penance is actually put in the place of the righteousness of Christ and hence the gloss of that important Scripture, "Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, whose sins are covered," runs thus: "Blessed are they who, by doing penance, have obtained pardon and remission of their sins and are also covered; that is, newly clothed with the habit of grace, and vested with the stole of charity." But the matter ends not here. The very commandments have been tampered with. For example, Butler’s Catechism, used among the poor Irish, reduces the whole of the commandments to a few words; and the spelling-book, used in the Italian schools, thus presents the Fourth Commandment: "Remember to keep holy the days of Festival." An earlier version of the Scriptures was thus rendered, that it might support the Mass. The words, Acts xiii. 2, "As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted are translated, "As they offered to the Lord the sacrifice of Mass, and fasted." Tradition is thus supported: 1 Corinthians 11:2 is rendered, "The faith which has been once given to the saints by tradition;’’ and to give sanction to the seven sacraments, and especially to make a sacrament of marriage (1 Corinthians 7:10), is translated, "Do not join yourselves in the sacrament of marriage with unbelievers." A similar rendering has been employed to sustain human merit. Hebrews 13:16 is rendered, "We obtain merit towards God by such sacrifices" Even purgatory itself has had a helping hand from the pen of the false translator: 1 Corinthians 3:15 is thus rendered, "He himself shall be saved, yet in all cases as by the fire of purgatory" We might go further, but surely this may suffice to illustrate the liberties which have been taken with the Word of God. The fact, then, is clear beyond reasonable dispute. Will it End, in any man of sense, an apology? If so, we shall supply the apologist with another consideration, by giving him to understand that, Fourthly. -The Popish Priesthood have destroyed the Word of God-. Does the reader shudder at such an allegation? He well may; but it is not the less true. In Great Britain, in Ireland, on the Continent of Europe, and wherever Popery has had a foundation, history most abundantly testifies to the truth of this dreadful fact. The Popish priesthood know and feel that their system is not only not ’based upon the Word of God, but utterly opposed to it. They have most abundantly shown that nothing is wanted but the power to remove that Word entirely from the face of the earth. The spirit of Popery and the spirit of the Bible are as opposite as light and darkness; and thus, it is with the rule of faith. The Spirit of God speaks in the Bible, and the spirit of Popery in tradition, and their distinctive utterances it is impossible to harmonize; the Bible-burners of Popery and the living temples of the Holy Ghost are as diverse the one! from the other as truth and falsehood, angels and devils! Even in Canada, Bible-burning is a special priestly pastime! Unhappy Ireland has everywhere, and for ages been signalised by it. So late as the beginning of 1848 twenty-two, Bibles were burned in the street of a chief town, hundreds of spectators dancing and yelling around the fire, while the priest sat at the window of a house, illumined for the occasion, drinking his wine, and evidently enjoying the horrible scene! Within a few days of the time at which we write, the priests of Italy burned large quantities of the Word of God. We submit to all men of sense that this single point the light in which Popery views, and the treatment which it offers to the Word of God - ought to be decisive of the whole question. They are shut up to one of two conclusions-either Popery is not of God, or the Bible is not of God; and with this fact before them, they are to make their choice. If, however, Popery be not of God, it must be of the Wicked One. This inference there is no resisting; and its importance is all the greater, because it serves to explain a system otherwise inexplicable-a system, every part of which militates against the glory of God, and the best interests, both for time and eternity, of his creatures. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 92: 02.081. PAPAL INFALLIBILITY ======================================================================== Papal Infallibility Popery ancient and modern by John Campbell D.D. compiled by Dr. Paisley Dr. Ian R.K. Paisley Infallibility is a dogma at which the Protestant world has long ceased to look with gravity. Among them it only serves the purposes of humour, mockery, and reproof to self sufficient folly. The claim to infallibility, however, notwithstanding its superlative absurdity, was necessary to the completion of the Papal system, which would otherwise have been wanting in the most material feature of its impiety, while all the other parts would have lacked coherence. Nothing created can be infallible. Infallibility implies self-existence - independence, infinitude, omniscience, omnipotence and eternity. Infallibility belongs only to God. For a human being to lay claim to it, but for the shocking impiety, would be to excite ineffable ridicule; and were it not for the circumstances under which the claim is made, it would be considered as a freak of lunacy. It is especially with very great incongruity that the professed successors of Peter lay claim to such an attribute, since nothing was further from the mind of Peter himself, and, indeed, nothing was farther from his character. With all his worth, he was anything but a perfect man; of all the Apostles, he had the least claim to such a distinction, for prudence propriety, and general consistency. He admits of comparison with none of them; more defective features came out in his single history than in that of all the rest united, with the exception of Judas; and, indeed, but for the close of his career, even he seems to have been one of the discreetest among them. His very vice was productive of cautious propriety. Peter, on the contrary, even subsequently to his restoration after his fall, and the baptism of Pentecost, was still attended by his characteristic infirmity. His inconsistency was such, that, on a very memorable occasion, it became necessary for Paul to withstand him to the face, and to rebuke him in the presence of all the people. But with all his imperfections, there is no hazard in affirming that he was incomparably better than the best of his successors so called at Rome the bulk of whom have been the worst of human kind. This is the unanimous voice of history. No matter; Infallibility was found to be necessary to sustain the claims of the Popedom, and infallibility was arrogated accordingly. The Pope cannot err either in doctrine or in discipline; hence, the world is summoned to implicit submission to all his dogmas, and all his decisions, on pain of damnation! According to that Goliath of Popery, Bellarmine, "If the Pope should command vice, or prohibit virtue, the church is obliged to believe vice to be good and virtue to be evil! All the sanctions of the Apostolic see are so to be understood, as if confirmed by the voice of St. Peter himself; whatsoever the Church, doth determine, whatever it doth appoint, is perpetual and irrevocable, and to be observed by all men." "Christ has bestowed on the Pope, who is Peter’s successor, the same infallible spirit that he had; and, therefore, the Pope’s decretory letters are to be received as if they were the words of St. Peter, and to be accounted as the very Bible itself." It is difficult to say whether the impiety or the absurdity of this language be the greater; but surely to state, is sufficiently to expose it to all men of common sense. The doctrine was suited only for children, or for those adults who are but "children of larger growth," although their brainless heads might be clothed with grey hairs. The race of the Popes, happily for the interests of the truth, have found faithful chroniclers of their deeds, and the record is but one mingled mass of impiety, profligacy, and peerless wickedness, all on a scale beyond the average iniquity, even of the worst portion of mankind. Viewed as a succession, they have but too well sustained the dreadful designation given them by the Holy Spirit the Man of Sin. "In most of them the work of iniquity has been completed;" they have nearly all reached the fullness of the stature of perfect men in enormity; they have, in very deed, been children of the devil, enemies of all good, who have never for a moment ceased "to pervert the right ways of the Lord." Compared with them, the old Emperors of Rome were moralists, and almost saints! There is no crime of which humanity is capable, with which one or other of them has not been chargeable. A portion of them have been monsters rather than men! Pope Marcellinus sacrificed to idols; Pope Felix was perjured; Pope John denied the immortality of the soul; Leo X was enormity personified; Alexander VI., and several others, were atheists! Even one of the greatest of Papal historians has testified that John XXIII. was "the genius of evil in human shape;" by his own confession, lie was guilty of the most revolting sensuality of simony, of poisoning his predecessor, and a multitude of other crimes, at which humanity shudders. These are facts; the question, then, is, in what light ought the world to look upon the pretension of such a line of men to Infallibility? Surely among persons of ordinary reason, that question may soon be determined. But before we advance, we must look a little more closely into the subject; and in so doing it is proper to observe that there is no point in which the boasted unanimity of the Catholic Church is so imperfect and untenable. They all agree that there is infallibility somewhere; but there is a dispute as to its scat, whether it be in the Pope, or in General Councils. Even the Council of Trent on this point, as if conscious of danger, has spoken with caution. The following is its deliverance: "The Church cannot err in delivering Articles of Faith, or Precepts of Morality, inasmuch as it is guided by the Holy Spirit;" and, as a conclusion, they add: "It necessarily follows that all other Churches which falsely claim that name, and being also led by the Spirit of the Devil, are most dangerously out of the way, both in doctrine and practice." This is a compliment to Luther and the Protestants. The Jesuits and a portion of the Romish Divines, however, contend for the Infallibility of the Pope. Another class of them deny this, and insists that the Infallibility rests, not with the Pope, but with the General Council, " viewed as the legitimate organ and representative of the Catholic Church?’ This latter class, however, will be considered as but a slight exception to the rule. The notion of personal infallibility in the Pontiff, is the orthodox view, and has -been- such indeed, to the present time. As is obvious from the Encyclical Utter of the present Pope, Pius IX published in 1846, in which he states that " God has constituted a living authority to teach the true sense of his heavenly revelations, and to judge infallibly in all controversies on matters of faith and morals." There can be no mistake in the language; its import is plain. It claims for Pope Pius IX and his successors entire infallibility. This specimen puts an end to the exercise of popular judgment. How unlike the Apostle Paul, who says to the Corinthians "I speak as unto wise men; judge ye what I say!" Pope Pius IX. will have no "judging" He asks only for doing, and enjoins it under the penalty of perdition! Happily, however, men may reject the dogmas of Pope Plus, and yet be saved; nay, that they may be saved, it must be so! The claim is alike unfounded in reason and in Scripture. All the attempts to prove it from the latter source are insulting perversions of the Word. We may take an example from Matthew 18:20, where the Lord makes a promise of his presence, where two or three" are met together in his name. Will any man for a moment say that these words refer to an Ecclesiastical Council met to decide matters of controversy in doctrine, morals, or discipline? Can anything be more incontrovertibly certain than that they refer exclusively to Social. Prayer? The Papists should consider the consequences of thus tampering with Scripture; and if it proves anything on the subject of Councils, it will prove too much since it will enable a thousand men to constitute 500 general councils. It will farther show that there has been a vast amount of needless expenditure in travelling in past times. If Christ’s being in the midst of them makes them infallible, since it is sure that he will never be worse than his word, it is also certain that if but two or three only shall meet together in his name in London when so met together they will be infallible; and if infallibility may be bad at home, and also at so cheap a rate great fools are they who will put themselves to the trouble and expense of travelling to Rome for it. The words of the Saviour to Peter have also been specially relied on in Luke 22:32, in which he says that he had "prayed for him that his faith may not fail." We offer this as a very striking example of Popish craft and dishonesty. Even a child will see that the Saviour’s prayer referred to Peter personally and exclusively, and that even in his case, it referred not to his whole career, but to the coming hour of Satanic temptation, when the enemy should seek to sift them as wheat." The advocates of Popery apply this language to Peter’s faith in Christian doctrine, and, placing him first in the Papal chair, make him the federal head of the Papal line, and thus give them all the benefit of the prayer which that Saviour had presented for Peter on a special occasion. But we will not further disgust our readers. If Infallibility have an existence on earth. it is very clear that it is not in the Pope. Popes have, by decrees contradicted themselves and each other; history abounds with examples of such contradiction, a portion of the Popes, moreover, have been convicted of undoubted heresy. They went not only in the teeth of the acknowledged doctrines of the Sacred Scriptures, even on points in which Protestants and Papists are agreed. Some Popes have been schismatic, and there have been two and even three at the same time warring and hurling anathemas at each other. Wherever infallibility resides, therefore, it is not in them Is it, then, in General Councils? Perfection is one; could perfect beings thus coexist or did they exist in succession they could never thus have contradicted each other. But councils as well as popes, from the first, have dealt in such contradictions, and that in matters and measures of the most serious character. The Council of Trent, for instance, expunged the decrees of the Councils of Ephesus and of Nice, by greatly multiplying the articles of faith. The Council of Laodicea, in 364 rejected the Apochrypha; the Council of Trent, in 1564, hurled its anathemas against every mail who should not receive and hold every part of that very Apochrypha as inspired and canonical! Other councils acted similarly concerning the use of images, the celibacy of the clergy and other subjects. So much for the infallibility of General Councils! Such, then, is a general view of this most preposterous dogma of Papal infallibility, and we think it not too much to say, that he who can believe it will find no difficulty in believing anything that may be conveyed in words; proof will neither be wanted nor welcomed, and even plausibility will, perhaps, be deemed an impertinence. It was not without substantial ground that the Church of Rome held and still holds that "ignorance is the mother of devotion," such devotion as that of the Popedorn. Darkness is its native element. Lot the true light of heaven shine upon it, and it is undone Hence the truth, propriety, and force of the apostolic prediction, that the whole of the colossal system shall be destroyed by the Son of God "through the breath of his mouth, and the brightness of his coming." The righteous will pray that the wickedness of the wicked may come to an end, in order to the establishment of the just. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 93: 02.082. LUTHER SPEAK ======================================================================== Let Luther speak for himself Extracts from the Great Reformer’s writings as selected by Dr. Ian R.K. Paisley, M.P., M.E.P., M.L.A. Dr. Ian R.K. Paisley "I am born to be a rough controversialist," says Luther. "I clear the ground, pull up the weeds, fill up ditches, and smooth the roads; but to build, to plant, to sow, to water, to adorn the country, belongs to Melanchthon." "My style, rude and skilful, vomits up a deluge, a chaos of words, boisterous and impetuous as a wrestler contending with a thousand successive monsters; and, if I may presume to compare small things with great, methinks there has been vouchsafed me a portion of the four-fold spirit of Elijah, rapid as the wind and devouring as fire, which roots up mountains and dashes rocks to pieces; and to thee, on the contrary, the mild murmur of the light and refreshing breeze. I feel, however, comfort from the consideration that our common Father hath need, in this His immense family, of each servant; of the hard against the hard, the rough against the rough, to be used as a sharp wedge against hard knots. To clear the air and fertilise the soil, the rain which falls and sinks as the dew is not enough - the thunder-storm is still required." (August 20th, 1530.) I am far from believing myself without fault; but I can, at least, glorify myself with St. Paul, that I cannot be accused of hypocrisy, and that I have always spoken the truth, perhaps, it is true, a little too harshly; but I would rather sin in disseminating the truth with hard words, than shamefully retain it captive. If great lords are hurt by them, they can go about their own business, without thinking of mine or of my doctrines. Have I done them wrong or injustice? If I sin, it will be for God to pardon me." Such was Luther, and Knox was worthy of him. No prophet ever shrank from his mission with more distress than Luther; on November 29th, 1521, he wrote thus to the Austin Friars of Wittenberg: "Daily I feel how difficult it is to divest oneself of scruples long entertained. Oh! The pain it has cost me, though with the Scriptures before me, to justify myself to myself, for daring singly to set myself up against the Pope, and hold him as Antichrist! What tribulations have I not suffered! How often have I not addressed to myself in bitterness of the spirit the arguments of the Papists: ’Art thou alone wise? Are all others in error? Can they have been so many years deceived? What if thou deceivest thyself, and draggest along with thee in thy error so many souls to everlasting damnation?’ Thus I used to argue within myself until Jesus Christ with His own, His infallible Word, fortified me, and strengthened my soul against such arguments, as a rock raised above the waves laughs their fury to scorn." (Letters, Vol. 2, p. 107.) When Luther was summoned to retract his doctrines, he nobly replied: "The second part of my books is what I have written against the Papacy and the Papists, and not against them individually or personally, but against their most shameful doctrines and practices, by which they have demoralised the whole Christian world both in body and soul. It can neither be denied nor dissembled, what the experience and the complaints of the whole world acknowledge, that the consciences of faithful men have been grieved, tortured, and harrowed by the Papal dogmas, especially in this renowned empire of Germany, distracted by a tyranny almost incredible, shamefully deforming everything without remorse, and regardless of the means by which it is effected; and yet, when any individuals are themselves convinced that the Papal laws and dogmas are contrary to the Gospel and the opinions of the Fathers, they are instantly condemned as heretics and reprobates. If, therefore, I were to retract this part of my books, I would relinquish everything, and I would give additional impulse to a tyranny already insupportable. I would not only, by this conduct, open windows, but even doors, to impiety, already so horrible, so grievously felt, and so widely extended, as to make it the most licentious, intolerable, and shameful system which the world ever witnessed. By the help of God, humble though I am, I shall not lend my feeble aid to prop such a system of iniquity and oppression." Luther said, on his return to Augsburg, that if he had four hundred heads, he would rather lose them all, than revoke his article on faith. "No man in Germany, says Hutten, "despises death more than Luther." Was it not in character for such a man, in reply to such a proposal, so to express himself? Hear him again: "It was in the year 1517, when the profligate monk Tetzel, a worthy servant of the Pope and the Devil - for I am satisfied that the Pope is the agent of the Devil on earth - came among us selling indulgences, maintaining their efficacy, and impudently practising on the credulity of the people. When I beheld this unholy and detestable traffic taking place in open day, and thereby sanctioning and encouraging the most villainous crimes, I could not, although I was then a young Doctor in Divinity, refrain from protesting against it in the strongest manner, not only as directly contrary to the Scriptures, but as opposed to the canons of the Church." Well might the Reformer, under the circumstances, exclaim: "Farewell, Rome, most accursed abomination! Thou containest so much folly and impiety, that thou are unworthy even to be refuted. Openly hast thou declared, by this infamous procedure, in what spirit thou hast promulgated the detestable bull." Let those who reserve all their viperation for Knox and Luther, and all their sympathy for their enemies, reflect on the deeds of the latter. He says: "The edict condemning my book was drawn up, I have been told, by Aleandro, a man zealous enough in the service of his masters, the Pope and the Devil. In that edict I was termed a demon in the shape of a man, and in the dress of a monk. The people were exhorted to seize me and my friends, to destroy our property, and burn our productions! Those monsters gave it out that whoever murdered me would render a good service to the Church; but I have been spared to fight against their iniquities, and to wage war against their metropolis of blasphemy. I have seen the fruits of my labours, and I give thanks to God for it this day. It is His doing - it is marvellous in my eyes." Such was the city Luther was adjured by his friends not to enter, when he bravely replied: "Were there as many devils in Worms as there are roof-tiles, I would go on." Alone in that assemblage, before all emperors, and principalities, and powers, spoke he forth these final and ever memorable words: "It is neither safe nor prudent to do aught against conscience. Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise. God help me! Amen!" Let us hear the glorious man again, when carried away by the Elector, and hidden from his bloodthirsty enemies in the forest castle of Wartburg: "When I reflect on these horrible times of blasphemy, I wish my eyes to weep rivers of tears for the unhappy desolation of those souls living under the reign of sin and perdition. The monstrous Chair at Rome, placed in the midst of the church, affects to honour God; the pontiffs pretend to render Him homage, while the pretenders to piety outrage His laws; in short, according to them, there is nothing which they would not undertake for His service. Meanwhile, Satan is on the alert; his heart is yearning for the destruction of men, and he opens wide his mouth of torment. He delights in the perdition of men! Here I do nothing all day; I am in idleness; I merely eat and drink. The only consolation is my Bible, which I regularly peruse in both Greek and Hebrew. I intend to write a tract on auricular confession. I am resolved also to continue my annotations on the Book of Psalms, and the books and documents which I have received from Wittenberg will greatly aid me." Who will deny that such language is authorised, nay, demanded, by the occasion? Let us hear the illustrious Advocate, still in his forest castle, again: "Poor brother that I am, living in a desert, and in captivity, see what a conflagration I have again kindled! I have burnt a large hole in the pocket of the Papists: I have attacked the Confessional!" What can I do now, or what shall I hereafter do? Where will they find a sufficient quantity of brimstone, bitumen, iron, and wood, to burn to ashes such a heretic as I am? They will be hardly able to raise even the windows of the church to allow to the vociferations of their saints and priests to escape against Luther at this sermon. Whatsoever things they may inculcate on the poor people, it is not difficult to preach that which they know and which they have prepared. "’Kill! Kill!’ , they cry; ’kill that heresiarch, who wishes to overthrow the whole ecclesiastical state, who endeavours to erase and eradicate Christianity!’ I earnestly hope, if I were worthy, that they would come, and entrust me with the measure of these Fathers; but it is not time yet; my hour is not yet come. Before I die, I must render that generation of vipers more furious. So far as they are concerned, I shall die game." Writing to his venerable father, he says: "What is it to me whether the Pope slays me, or condemns me to hell? He cannot raise the dead, and he may slay me as often as he pleases, for I care little for his censures, and, in short, I never wish them to be removed until Rome, that kingdom of abomination and perdition, is destroyed." Referring to the counsels of the timid, our immortal Reformer says: "There are many who think and complain that I am too fierce and keen against the Papacy. On the contrary, I lament that I am too mild. I wish I could breath thunderclaps against Pope and Popery, and that every word was a thunderbolt! "The Kingdom of Christ is a kingdom of mercy, grace, and goodness. The kingdom of the Pope is a kingdom of lies and damnation!" Is not the language true? If so, is it possible that human vocables cannot be collocated with excessive strength? No phraseology of man can reach the climax of the atrocity which distinguishes the Popish system! Let us again listen to the great Friend of truth, and righteousness, and mankind: "The Devil is like a fowler; he wrings the necks of the birds he catches, and kills them; he preserves very few alive. Those which allure other birds to his snare, and sing the songs he wants them, he puts into a cage, that by their seducings he may catch more. I hope he will not get me into his cage. "When I write against the Pope, I am not melancholy, for then I labour with my whole heart, and I write with such joy, that Doctor Reisenpusch not long ago said to me: ’I marvel that you can be so merry.’ I replied to him: ’Neither the Devil, his lieutenant the Antichrist of Rome, nor his shaven retinue, can make me sad, for I know that they are Christ’s enemies; and therefore I fight against them with all my heart.’" Brave man! "Well done" is due from earth and heaven to such courage and such devotion! We must cite one passage more, the most violent Luther ever uttered: "Whether I am censured or not as being too violent on this occasion, I care not. It shall be my glory and honour in future to be accused of tempesting and raging against the Papists. For more than ten years I have humbled myself before them, and given them fair words. They have grown proud and haughty. Well, then, since they are incorrigible, since there is no further hope of shaking their infernal resolutions by mildness, I break with them for ever! I will pursue them with my imprecations without stop or without rest to my tomb! The Papists shall never more have a good word for me! Would that my thunders and my lightnings roared and blazed over their grave! "I can hardly pray when I think on them without cursing. I cannot say, Hallowed by thy name, without adding, Cursed be the name of the Papists, and of all those who blaspheme God! If I say, Thy kingdom come, I add, Cursed be the Popedom, and all kingdoms that are opposed to Thine! If I say, Thy will be done, I add, Cursed be the designs of the Papists, and of all those - may they perish! - who fight against Thee! In this way I pray daily, and with me all the true faithful in Christ Jesus. Nevertheless, I have a good and loving heart for all the world, and my greatest enemies themselves know this well." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 94: 02.083. TEN COMMANDMENTS ======================================================================== Rome’s Perversion of the Ten Commandments It can plainly be seen that Rome entirely omits the Second Commandment and splits the Tenth into two! Professor Arthur Noble They shall go to confusion together that are makers of idols. (Isaiah 45:16) In the mathematics of the Church of Rome, ten minus one equals ten! This is neither a miracle nor a conjuring-trick, but a blatant and purposeful deception as well as a conscious perversion of the Word of God. It is achieved by deleting the second commandment and making the tenth into two. In order to excuse the gross idolatry on which her system of worship is founded, the Church of Rome must delete the Second Commandment, which forbids the worship of images: "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments." (Exodus 20:4-6) Of course, when challenged, the self-professing ’Holy Mother Church’ vehemently denies that she practises image-worship, but consider the following from §1161 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church which reinforces the doctrine of the Seventh Ecumenical Council of Nicea (A.D. 787) on images: "Following the divinely inspired teaching of our holy Fathers and the tradition of the Catholic Church [Note: there is no mention of following the divinely inspired teaching of the Bible] […] we rightly define with full certainty and correctness that, like the figure of the precious and life-giving figure of the cross, venerable and holy images of our Lord and God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, our inviolate Lady, the holy mother of God, and the venerated angels, all the saints and the just, whether painted or made of mosaic or another suitable material, are to be exhibited in the holy churches of God, on sacred vessels and vestments, walls and panels, on houses and on streets." To designate an image as ’venerable’ and ’holy’ is blasphemy. The word ’venerable’ is derived from the Latin word venerare meaning ’to worship’. Moses was commanded by God: "Ye shall make you no idols nor graven image, neither rear you up a standing image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land, to bow down unto it: for I am the Lord your God." (Leviticus 26:1) God calls idols "abominations" (Deuteronomy 29:17). No one or no thing but God is to be worshipped. Accordingly, Jesus, when tempted by the Devil to worship him, said: "Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." (Matthew 4:10) To bow down to statues and pray, to light candles, to worship a wafer which is a piece of dough, to venerate the relics of ’saints’, to kiss crucifixes and adore ’sacred’ images or icons of a Madonna - all that is contrary to the teaching of the Bible; yet even the Pope bows down to images of Mary. No wonder Rome banned and burned the Bible and those who preached from it, for her whole system of deception is too easily exposed in light of God’s Word. In fact, she even goes so far as to corrupt her own version of the Bible by deleting the Second Commandment from it, and then proceeds to detract attention from her fallacy by telling her adherents that they are too stupid to understand the Bible without a priest to interpret it for them. When a comparison is made between the Ten Commandments as set out in the Bible and as formulated by the Church of Rome, the deception becomes clear: The Bible (KJV) (Exodus 20:1-26)The Church of Rome (RSV*) (Catechism, §2052-2557) First Commandment Thou shalt have no other gods before me. First Commandment You shall not have other gods besides me. Second Commandment Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them. Second Commandment You shall not take the name of the Lord, your God, in vain. Third Commandment Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. Third Commandment Remember to keep holy the sabbath day. Fourth Commandment Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Fourth Commandment Honour your father and your mother. Fifth Commandment Honour thy father and thy mother. Fifth Commandment You shall not kill. Sixth Commandment Thou shalt not kill. Sixth Commandment You shall not commit adultery. Seventh Commandment Thou shalt not commit adultery. Seventh Commandment You shall not steal. Eighth Commandment Thou shalt not steal. Eighth Commandment You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour. Ninth Commandment Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. Ninth Commandment You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife… Tenth Commandment Thou shalt not covet. Tenth Commandment You shall not covet anything that is your neighbour’s. It can plainly be seen that Rome entirely omits the Second Commandment and splits the Tenth into two! In order to avoid any possible accusation of not having addressed the forbidden practice of worshipping grave images - which is even mentioned in her own Bible - she tucks away a reference to it in a sub-section (Catechism, §2112-2114) of her commentary on the Biblical First Commandment, defining idolatry as the ’condemnation of polytheism’ (belief in many gods) and ’false pagan worship’, whilst claiming that ’’the Christian [read: ’Roman Catholic’] veneration of images is not contrary to the first [read: ’second’] commandment, which proscribes idols"; for "whoever venerates an image venerates the person portrayed in it" (§2132). Good try! The Bible, on the other hand, says: "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." (John 4:24) The extent to which the Church of Rome can even officially corrupt the Ten Commandments is evident from the book Growing in Christian Morality by Julia Ahlers et al., which bears the Nihil obstat seal of the Vatican certifying publications to be free of ’doctrinal error’. In this book the ninth and tenth commandments according to Rome show a slight variation from the version used in the Catechism, reading "You shall not covet your neighbour’s house" and "You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife" respectively. The authors of this book even know that the Roman version of the Commandments is deceitful, for they admit: "These are the Ten Commandments, from Exodus 20:1-26, in the traditional way they are enumerated by Catholics." (Emphasis ours.) ======================================================================== CHAPTER 95: 02.084. JESUIT OATH EXPOSED ======================================================================== The Jesuit Oath Exposed "Go ye, then, into all the world and take possession of all lands in the name of the Pope. He who will not accept him as the Vicar of Jesus and his Vice-Regent on earth, let him be accursed and exterminated." Professor Arthur Noble [The following is the text of the Jesuit Extreme Oath of Induction as recorded in the Journals of the 62nd Congress, 3rd Session, of the United States Congressional Record (House Calendar No. 397, Report No. 1523, 15 February, 1913, pp. 3215-3216), from which it was subsequently torn out. The Oath is also quoted by Charles Didier in his book Subterranean Rome (New York, 1843), translated from the French original. Dr. Alberto Rivera, who escaped from the Jesuit Order in 1967, confirms that the induction ceremony and the text of the Jesuit Oath which he took were identical to what we have cited below. - A. N.] When a Jesuit of the minor rank is to be elevated to command, he is conducted into the Chapel of the Convent of the Order, where there are only three others present, the principal or Superior standing in front of the altar. On either side stands a monk, one of whom holds a banner of yellow and white, which are the Papal colours, and the other a black banner with a dagger and red cross above a skull and crossbones, with the word INRI, and below them the words IUSTUM NECAR REGES IMPIUS. The meaning of which is: It is just to exterminate or annihilate impious or heretical Kings, Governments, or Rulers. Upon the floor is a red cross at which the postulant or candidate kneels. The Superior hands him a small black crucifix, which he takes in his left hand and presses to his heart, and the Superior at the same time presents to him a dagger, which he grasps by the blade and holds the point against his heart, the Superior still holding it by the hilt, and thus addresses the postulant: (The Superior speaks:) My son, heretofore you have been taught to act the dissembler: among Roman Catholics to be a Roman Catholic, and to be a spy even among your own brethren; to believe no man, to trust no man. Among the Reformers, to be a Reformer; among the Huguenots, to be a Huguenot; among the Calvinists, to be a Calvinist; among other Protestants, generally to be a Protestant; and obtaining their confidence, to seek even to preach from their pulpits, and to denounce with all the vehemence in your nature our Holy Religion and the Pope; and even to descend so low as to become a Jew among Jews, that you might be enabled to gather together all information for the benefit of your Order as a faithful soldier of the Pope. You have been taught to plant insidiously the seeds of jealousy and hatred between communities, provinces, states that were at peace, and to incite them to deeds of blood, involving them in war with each other, and to create revolutions and civil wars in countries that were independent and prosperous, cultivating the arts and the sciences and enjoying the blessings of peace; to take sides with the combatants and to act secretly with your brother Jesuit, who might be engaged on the other side, but openly opposed to that with which you might be connected, only that the Church might be the gainer in the end, in the conditions fixed in the treaties for peace and that the end justifies the means. You have been taught your duty as a spy, to gather all statistics, facts and information in your power from every source; to ingratiate yourself into the confidence of the family circle of Protestants and heretics of every class and character, as well as that of the merchant, the banker, the lawyer, among the schools and universities, in parliaments and legislatures, and the judiciaries and councils of state, and to be all things to all men, for the Pope’s sake, whose servants we are unto death. You have received all your instructions heretofore as a novice, a neophyte, and have served as co-adjurer, confessor and priest, but you have not yet been invested with all that is necessary to command in the Army of Loyola in the service of the Pope. You must serve the proper time as the instrument and executioner as directed by your superiors; for none can command here who has not consecrated his labours with the blood of the heretic; for "without the shedding of blood no man can be saved". Therefore, to fit yourself for your work and make your own salvation sure, you will, in addition to your former oath of obedience to your order and allegiance to the Pope, repeat after me: (Text of the Oath:) I_______________ , now in the presence of Almighty God, the blessed Virgin Mary, the blessed St. John the Baptist, the Holy Apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul, and all the saints, sacred host of Heaven, and to you, my Ghostly Father, the superior general of the Society of Jesus, founded by St. Ignatius Loyola, in the pontification of Paul the Third, and continued to the present, do by the womb of the Virgin, the matrix of God, and the rod of Jesus Christ, declare and swear that His Holiness, the Pope, is Christ’s Vice-Regent and is the true and only head of the Catholic or Universal Church throughout the earth; and that by the virtue of the keys of binding and loosing given to His Holiness by my Saviour, Jesus Christ, he hath power to depose heretical Kings, Princes, States, Commonwealths, and Governments, and they may be safely destroyed. Therefore to the utmost of my power I will defend this doctrine and His Holiness’s right and custom against all usurpers of the heretical or Protestant authority whatever, especially the Lutheran Church of Germany, Holland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, and the now pretended authority and Churches of England and Scotland, and the branches of same now established in Ireland and on the continent of America and elsewhere and all adherents in regard that they may be usurped and heretical, opposing the sacred Mother Church of Rome. I do now denounce and disown any allegiance as due to any heretical king, prince or State, named Protestant or Liberal, or obedience to any of their laws, magistrates or officers. I do further declare the doctrine of the Churches of England and Scotland of the Calvinists, Huguenots, and others of the name of Protestants or Masons to be damnable, and they themselves to be damned who will not forsake the same. I do further declare that I will help, assist, and advise all or any of His Holiness’s agents, in any place where I should be, in Switzerland, Germany, Holland, Ireland or America, or in any other kingdom or territory I shall come to, and do my utmost to extirpate the heretical Protestant or Masonic doctrines and to destroy all their pretended powers, legal or otherwise. I do further promise and declare that, notwithstanding, I am dispensed with to assume any religion heretical for the propagation of the Mother Church’s interest; to keep secret and private all her agents’ counsels from time to time, as they entrust me, and not to divulge, directly or indirectly, by word, writing or circumstances whatever; but to execute all that should be proposed, given in charge, or discovered unto me by you, my Ghostly Father, or any of this sacred order. I do further promise and declare that I will have no opinion or will of my own or any mental reservation whatever, even as a corpse or cadaver (perinde ac cadaver), but will unhesitatingly obey each and every command that I may receive from my superiors in the militia of the Pope and of Jesus Christ. That I will go to any part of the world whithersoever I may be sent, to the frozen regions north, jungles of India, to the centres of civilisation of Europe, or to the wild haunts of the barbarous savages of America without murmuring or repining, and will be submissive in all things, whatsoever is communicated to me. I do further promise and declare that I will, when opportunity presents, make and wage relentless war, secretly and openly, against all heretics, Protestants and Masons, as I am directed to do, to extirpate them from the face of the whole earth; and that I will spare neither age, sex nor condition, and that will hang, burn, waste, boil, flay, strangle, and bury alive these infamous heretics; rip up the stomachs and wombs of their women, and crush their infants’ heads against the walls in order to annihilate their execrable race. That when the same cannot be done openly I will secretly use the poisonous cup, the strangulation cord, the steel of the poniard, or the leaden bullet, regardless of the honour, rank, dignity or authority of the persons, whatever may be their condition in life, either public or private, as I at any time may be directed so to do by any agents of the Pope or Superior of the Brotherhood of the Holy Father of the Society of Jesus. In confirmation of which I hereby dedicate my life, soul, and all corporal powers, and with the dagger which I now receive I will subscribe my name written in my blood in testimony thereof; and should I prove false, or weaken in my determination, may my brethren and fellow soldiers of the militia of the Pope cut off my hands and feet and my throat from ear to ear, my belly be opened and sulphur burned therein with all the punishment that can be inflicted upon me on earth, and my soul shall be tortured by demons in eternal hell forever. That I will in voting always vote for a Knight of Columbus in preference to a Protestant, especially a Mason, and that I will leave my party so to do; that if two Catholics are on the ticket I will satisfy myself which is the better supporter of Mother Church and vote accordingly. That I will not deal with or employ a Protestant if in my power to deal with or employ a Catholic. That I will place Catholic girls in Protestant families that a weekly report may be made of the inner movements of the heretics. That I will provide myself with arms and ammunition that I may be in readiness when the word is passed, or I am commanded to defend the Church either as an individual or with the militia of the Pope. All of which I,_______________, do swear by the blessed Trinity and blessed sacrament which I am now to receive to perform and on part to keep this my oath. In testimony hereof, I take this most holy and blessed sacrament of the Eucharist and witness the same further with my name written with the point of this dagger dipped in my own blood and seal in the face of this holy sacrament. (He receives the wafer from the Superior and writes his name with the point of his dagger dipped in his own blood taken from over his heart.) (Superior speaks:) You will now rise to your feet and I will instruct you in the Catechism necessary to make yourself known to any member of the Society of Jesus belonging to this rank. In the first place, you, as a Brother Jesuit, will with another mutually make the ordinary sign of the cross as any ordinary Roman Catholic would; then one crosses his wrists, the palms of his hands open, and the other in answer crosses his feet, one above the other; the first points with forefinger of the right hand to the centre of the palm of the left, the other with the forefinger of the left hand points to the centre of the palm of the right; the first then with his right hand makes a circle around his head, touching it; the other then with the forefinger of his left hand touches the left side of his body just below his heart; the first then with his right hand draws it across the throat of the other, and the latter then with a dagger down the stomach and abdomen of the first. The first then says Iustum; and the other answers Necar; the first Reges; the other answers Impious. The first will then present a small piece of paper folded in a peculiar manner, four times, which the other will cut longitudinally and on opening the name Jesu will be found written upon the head and arms of a cross three times. You will then give and receive with him the following questions and answers: From whither do you come? Answer: The Holy faith. Whom do you serve? Answer: The Holy Father at Rome, the Pope, and the Roman Catholic Church Universal throughout the world. Who commands you? Answer: The Successor of St. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus or the Soldiers of Jesus Christ. Who received you? Answer: A venerable man in white hair. How? Answer: With a naked dagger, I kneeling upon the cross beneath the banners of the Pope and of our sacred order. Did you take an oath? Answer: I did, to destroy heretics and their governments and rulers, and to spare neither age, nor sex, nor condition; to be as a corpse without any opinion or will of my own, but to implicitly obey my Superiors in all things without hesitation or murmuring. Will you do that? Answer: I will. How do you travel? Answer: In the bark of Peter the fisherman. Whither do you travel? Answer: To the four quarters of the globe. For what purpose? Answer: To obey the orders of my General and Superiors and execute the will of the Pope and faithfully fulfil the conditions of my oaths. Go ye, then, into all the world and take possession of all lands in the name of the Pope. He who will not accept him as the Vicar of Jesus and his Vice-Regent on earth, let him be accursed and exterminated. [Note: The following books on (or particularly relevant to) the Jesuits are held by the EIPS Library: Anon.: The Female Jesuit. London, 1851 Anon.: The Mystery of Jesuitism. London, 1658 Anon.: The Secret Instructions of the Jesuits. London, 1824 Anon.: The Secret Instructions of the Jesuits. London, 1824 Barrett, E.B.: The Jesuit Enigma. London, 1929 Barthel, M: The Jesuits. New York, 1984 Bert, M.P.: Gury’s Doctrines of the Jesuits. London, 1947 Blakeney, R.P.: Alphonsus Liguori. London, 1852 Brodrick, J., S.J.: The Origin of the Jesuits. New York, 1960 Bungener, L.L.F.: The Jesuits in France or The Priest and the Huguenot. London, 1859 Coape, H.C.: In a Jesuit Net. London, no date Dalton, E.: The Jesuits. London, 1843 De Courson, R.: Concerning Jesuits. London, 1902 Gallahue, J.: The Jesuit. New York, 1973 Goodier, A.: The Jesuits. London, 1929 Griesinger, T.: History of the Jesuits. London, 1903 Groves, H.C.: The Doctrines and Practices of the Jesuits. London, 1889 Hanna, S.: Jesuitism: or Catholic Action. Belfast, 1938 Hastings, M.: Jesuit Child. Newton Abbot, 1972 Hillerbrand, H.: The Reformation. A Narrative History related by Contemporary Observers and Participants. Ann Arbor, 1989 Lathbury, T.: The State of Popery and Jesuitism in England. London, 1838 Lehmann, L.H.: The Secret of Catholic Power. New York, no date Liguori, A.M.: The Council of Trent. Dublin, 1846 MacPherson, H.: The Jesuits in History. London, 1914 Martin, M.: The Jesuits. New York, 1987 Nicolini, G.B.: History of the Jesuits. London, 1854 Paisley, I.R.K.: The Jesuits. Belfast, no date Paris, E.: The Secret History of the Jesuits. London, 1975 Ridley, F.A.: The Jesuits: A Study in Counter-Revolution. London, 1938 Roberts, Archbishop, S.J.: Black Popes. London, 1954 Robertson, A.: The Roman Catholic Church in Italy. London, 1903 Seebohm, F.: The Epoch of the Protestant Reformation. London, 1877 Seymour, M.H.: Mornings among the Jesuits at Rome. London, 1850 Steinmetz, A.: History of the Jesuits. London, 1848 (3 Vols.) Walsh, W.: The Jesuits in Great Britain. New York, 1903 Wild, J.: Canada and the Jesuits. Toronto, 1889 Wylie, J.A.: Jesuitism: Its Rise, Progress and Insidious Workings. London, no date Ybarra, T.R. (translator): The Kaiser’s Memoirs, by Wilhelm II. New York, 1922] ======================================================================== CHAPTER 96: 02.085. IMAGERY - I ======================================================================== The Chamber of Imagery in the Church of Rome [Part I of 2 parts] The outward signs of false religion may be the same as the outward signs of the true. Thomas E. Peck [Thomas E. Peck (1822-1893) was one of the leaders of the Southern Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. He was in the same school as J.H. Thornwell and R.L. Dabney. He became ’the beloved Instructor’ at Union Theological Seminary in Virginia. He was an expositor of truth and an exegete of Scripture and was probably without a rival in his day. His resolute fidelity to Scripture was the secret of his Samson-like strength. His tongue was one of fire, and the men he instructed for the Gospel ministry partook of the sacred flame. His analysis of Popery and his Scriptural exposure of the same were masterly. Would that the fundamental Presbyterians of our day learned the lessons which he most ably taught. Peck’s messages against the Roman Antichrist are as vital and timely now as they were when first delivered. His works have recently been republished in three volumes by the Banner of Truth Trust. (I have Anglicised the American spelling. - A. N.)] One of the most striking features in the aspect of affairs in this country at present is the pervading curiosity of our people in reference to the doctrines of the Church of Rome; and the jealousy, almost universal, in regard to her designs and movements. The sagacious instincts of liberty, coupled with God’s blessing upon the faithful and frequent warnings of some eminent patriots, endowed with a larger share of forecast than the mass of their generation, have detected dangers ahead, and the whole nation has been aroused and put in a posture of vigilance and defence. The social and political tendencies of Romanism; its ferocious opposition to civil and religious freedom, in principle, always and everywhere, in practice, whenever and wherever it has not been restrained by policy or power; its audacious interference with the law of marriage, as ordained of God, and as lying at the very foundation of all earthly and temporal relations; its universal and shameless disregard of personal and public morality; its implacable hostility to the best and highest interests of man, for the life that now is - all these aspects of this proud empire have been, of late years, so amply exposed, that thousands of Americans are now awake and watchful, who, not long ago, wore sleeping in the profoundest security, and crying, in their dreams, "peace! peace!" But these are not the only, or oven the most important, aspects of this "mystery of iniquity". We ought to know it, not only as a tyranny or as an immorality, but also, and mainly, as a heresy - a heresy fundamental and fatal - fundamental in its denial and corruption of the gospel; fatal to the eternal happiness of mankind. All the dreadful names of infamy which may be justly heaped upon Rome are names of honour compared with that of ANTI-CHRIST - ANTI, in both senses of the preposition, against and in the place of; against, because in the place of CHRIST. It is the mystery of iniquity, because it sets itself against, and in the stead of, the mystery of godliness, " God manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory." And unless we take this view of it, and learn to hate it in this view, there is no security against our falling, as a people, under the same dominion which has crushed the life and energy out of nearly all the nations of Christendom, and shut still faster and more hopelessly against them those gates of heaven which its keys were never able to open. ROME - DIVINE PUNISHMENT ON IDOLATERS It is never to be forgotten that popery is a judicial infliction upon mankind on account of their unbelief. The advent of the man of sin is thus described by the pen of inspiration : "Whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all (deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie; that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." So long, therefore, as men refuse "to receive the love of the truth," they are in danger of falling under this blighting curse of a righteous Judge. For when we in our viciousness grow hard, Oh! misery on’t, the wise gods seal our eyes, In our own filth drop our clear judgements, make us Adore our errors, laugh at us, while we strut To our confusion. MAN’S DAMNING IGNORANCE No man is safe who is ignorant of the righteousness of God. The necessity of believing something, which is the fundamental and indestructible condition of intellectual activity, may at any time drive a man who has trifled with the majesty of truth and the principles of evidence into a communion which professes infallibly to decide all religious questions, and to relieve from all doubt in regard to a subject upon which all serious doubt must be agony. We are not at all surprised that men of the very first order of mind, and of the highest attainments in all the walks of merely human thought, should throw themselves into the arms of Rome. When Cicero wrote his Treatise on Pagan Theology, history informed him of but three speculative atheists. Since the light of Christianity has dawned upon the world they may be counted by hundreds. In heathendom, every man has a religion and observes some form of worship. In Christendom, there are tens of thousands who have none. Infidelity and superstition, all forms of unbelief, of disbelief, and of misbelief, grow from the same root, the carnal mind, which is enmity against God; they are the unclean birds of night which haunt the darkened shrine, the fallen columns and ruined walls of the human soul, which was created to be the temple of holiness and truth. "This is the condemnation," said he who knew what was in man, "that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved." The darkness of popery has special charms for that class of unbelievers who, from the force of education or the natural effects of disappointment and misfortune, have been led to reflect upon their moral condition, and to listen to the voice of conscience. They long for a darkness in which the colours of truth and falsehood, of right and wrong, shall alike be lost; in which they may get rid, at once and forever, of the intolerable misery of thought and the harassing sense of responsibility; in which they may float smoothly along upon the current of impulse, appetite, and passion, with a comfortable persuasion that it can convey them to nothing worse than an ocean of purgatorial fire. "That is an affair of the priest," said the Belgic count, stained with a brother’s blood, when urged to prepare for death. He had surrendered his private judgement, and consequently his responsibility. Alas! for the wretchedness of poor human nature, seeking to escape its doom by a voluntary surrender of all that made it the image and glory of God, and degrading itself to the level of the brutes that perish! This is the intellectual death which thousands have found, which thousands more have sought, but have not found, though they have dug for it as for hid treasures. THE GILDED CROSSES UPON ROME’S TEMPLES That which invests popery with this tremendous power to entrap and destroy, to blind and kill men, to buy and sell and make merchandise of their souls, is suggested in the title of this article. It is the chamber of imagery in the very temple of the Lord. It professes to hold the great principles of the gospel, but really denies them and tramples them under foot. Its real doctrines are the images of the true; its worship a counterfeit of the true worship of God. It becomes all things to all men in the largest sense: to the heathen as heathen, to the Christian as Christian, if by any means it may destroy some. The gilded crosses upon their temples reflect the earliest rays of the morning, and the last rays of the setting sun linger upon them; but the meaning of the symbol is, "Christ crucified afresh, and put to open shame", within the gloomy walls below. It professes to represent, by its external unity, the one only true church and body of Christ, out of whose pale there is no salvation; it is really the unity of a vast and complicated machine, in which immortal men are mercilessly ground to powder. It professes to be the pillar and ground of the truth; it is really the strongest prop and bulwark of Satan’s kingdom on earth. It professes to be the church founded upon the rock; it is really the gates of hell. It has been often observed that the majority of men look only at the outward signs of things. "The outward signs of a dull man and a wise man are the same, and so are the outward signs of a frivolous man and a witty man." And, in like manner, the outward signs of false religion may be the same as the outward signs of the true. The image and superscription of the spurious coin are accurately copied from the true. The misery is, that in the matter of religion men will not go to the trouble of weighing the coin in the scales of eternal truth; they are satisfied with the beauty of the stamp, and, as they find very little use for religion in the trade and business of life, the mistake is seldom discovered until they and their fancied wealth are together condemned and rejected in another world. The case is even stronger. than this. As it is by the outward signs they regulate their judgement, the more ostentatiously the signs are paraded by any form of religion, the fairer chance it has of being accepted as the true. Crosses, surplices, gowns, altars and what not, pass for religion, while the modest graces of the Spirit, faith, love, temperance, mercy and the rest, having no pomp and circumstance to recommend them, are overlooked and despised. It ought to make a man blush for his race, that bold, impudent and constant assertion of extraordinary and exclusive pretensions is, to so great an extent, successful in securing a passive acquiescence in such pretensions. We way remember, however, that the Pharisees, with their long robes, long faces and long prayers, boasting that they were the temple, and the only temple, of the Lord, were pronounced by him who read their hearts to be a generation of vipers that could not escape the damnation of hell. And yet they were adored by the multitude, who are ever ready to sell the truth and never ready to buy it. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 97: 02.086. IMAGERY - II ======================================================================== The Chamber of Imagery in the Church of Rome [Part 2 of 2 parts] The duty of the church is plain. It is to set forth the mystery of godliness, and in contrast with it and explanation of it, the mystery of iniquity. Thomas E. Peck ROME: THE CORPSE OF TRUE CHRISTIANITY It is one of the most universal characteristics of mankind to cling tenaciously to the forms and representatives of whatever has been once valued, loved, honoured or revered. How long and with how much jealousy did the ancient Romans cling to the forms and signs of their free republic, after the substance was gone, and they were groaning under a despotism well-nigh absolute! What passionate kisses are imprinted upon the marble features of the lifeless body which once shrined a spirit pure and noble, the object of affection and respect! So is it with religion. When the experience of the power of the truth of God has been lost; when men have ceased to taste and see that the Lord is good; when there is no more pungent and radical conviction of their needs as subject to guilt and misery, and, consequently, no more conviction of the necessity and priceless value of a Saviour’s atoning blood and sanctifying Spirit; when the perception of the true glory of Christian worship, simple, manly and spiritual, consisting in fellowship with God and the divinely-ordained expression of that fellowship, has been destroyed, or, in a great degree, impaired; when, in a word, nothing but the corpse of religion remains, the most is made of that corpse. It is bedecked and beautified, it lies in state, it is visited rind gazed upon with emotions approaching to idolatry. Such a corpse of Christianity is the Church of Rome. Let us look at it in a few particulars: I. It is a cardinal truth of Christianity that Jesus Christ, in his person and grace, is to be proposed and represented to men as the principle object of their faith and love. The Saviour being, as to his divine nature, invisible to us and as to his human nature gone beyond the reach of mortal vision, must be represented to our minds in some way, or he can never be the object of our faith and love. This representation is made in the gospel and in the sacraments, by which he is "before our eyes evidently set forth, crucified amongst us". "We all, with unveiled face, beholding, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." We have four different portraits, so to speak, drawn by those who lived in familiar intercourse with him, who listened every day to the gracious words which issued from his mouth, who witnessed his wonderful works of beneficence and power, and saw the tears which demonstrated that the Man was tenderly alive to all the impressions of human woe. He is presented to us in a great variety of lights and attitudes to render our conception of him as round and full as our limited capacities will allow, and all this under the inspiration of God. At the same time we have no minute description of his bodily form or features, in order, as it might seem, to rebuke beforehand the presumptuous folly or misguided affection which should lead the church to attempt to reproduce them upon canvas, or in marble, wood or metal. The perception of Jesus is a spiritual perception by faith. Faith goes to him in distress, leans upon him for support, communes with him in joy, fights for him against the world, the flesh and the devil, and looks for that blessed hope and his glorious appearing, when its office shall cease amid the splendours of the vision beatific. Now we see, as by a glass, darkly; and even these dim reflections of the beauty of our King cannot be perceived by us till he, by his Spirit, opens and purges our eyes. Nothing is more natural, then, when the conviction exists that Christ ought to be habitually present to the mind, and yet the spiritual illumination, by which alone he can be perceived, is denied, to resort to images and pictures, to fasts and festivals, which commemorate the events and vicissitudes of his mortal life. And this the Church of Rome has done. But the Christ of their temples and domestic shrines is no more the Christ of the Scriptures than Aaron’s golden calf was the God who brought the Israelites out of Egypt, and is no more suited to instruct the besotted people who use the image as to the true nature of his person and his office that the more ancient instrument of idolatry was suited to convey adequate conceptions of that majestic Being who was thundering out of the thick darkness of the mount. In both cases there is an attempt to worship God by a violation of one of the very plainest of his commandments. The ancient idolaters, however, made no attempt, so far as we know, to expunge the obnoxious precept. ROME: A RELIGION OF IMAGES It is, however, less as an object of worship than as an instrument of instruction that we now refer to the use of the image in the Church of Rome. It is their way of setting forth the great truth touching the prominence which is due to the person and grace of Christ in the experience of the believer. The manner in which Paul would begin a missionary work may be seen in Rom. x. 6, 8. The method of popery may be seen in any history of its missions. The results, respectively, of the two methods in exalting national character in knowledge and civilisation are so obvious that the wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err concerning them. The results of the two methods in the improvement of the individual in scriptural knowledge and genuine piety are still more startling, and scarcely need to be referred to. II. Again, "it is a prevalent notion of truth that the worship of God ought to be beautiful and glorious." We cannot reflect upon the majesty of our Maker at all without feeling that the worship which becomes such creatures as we are, and which is acceptable to him, must not be mean or low, except so far as these qualities must belong to the creature in comparison with the Creator. This is the dictate even of the light of nature. When we come to examine the Scriptures we find that this instinct, so far from being disallowed, is sanctioned and confirmed. The worship of the Mosaic institute, the gorgeous furniture of the tabernacle, the splendid temple which succeeded it, the brilliant vestments of the priests, the costly incense which ascended in a fragrant cloud from the golden censer, the inner sanctuary, where was the throne of God, attended by the cherubim, concealed by a veil which the high priest alone was allowed to put aside, and he only once in the whole year, all this was designed to impress the ancient people of God with a sense of his awful majesty, and with a conviction of the glory of his worship. But it was only the alphabet, the primary elements, as Paul calls it, of the truth. The scheme of redemption, in its great features, was so different from anything over conceived by the human understanding, so difficult to be received by it, that a new language was necessary, symbols addressed to the senses and the imagination, and kept continually before them, to give the new ideas and anomalous relations a permanent lodgement in the current of human thought. Under the gospel all the forms are changed; the worship of God is still glorious, nay, far more glorious than before, but the outward signs of the glory have been removed. (Compare 2 Corinthians 3:1-18 with the Epistle to the Hebrews throughout.) Jesus Christ is the spirit of the old letter; the temple, the ark, the mercy-seat, the altar, the priest, the complement of the whole imposing ritual in all its parts and details. There is no more use, no propriety, in such forms and appliances of worship as were tolerated under the law in the infancy and childhood of the church. There is no priest on earth in the literal sense; all are priests, high priests, who have boldness to enter every day and every hour into the holiest of all, through their union with Jesus, the only real priest, de jure or de facto, in the universe. There is no sacrifice, in the literal sense, on earth; all the services and worship of believers are spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ, who offered himself once for all, and by that one offering perfected for ever them that are sanctified. There remaineth no more sacrifice for sin. There is and can be no temple on earth in the literal sense; every believer is the temple of the Holy Ghost, and there are no dead temples now, no consecrated stone, brick, or wood; our houses of worship are "meeting-houses", no more, no less. The true and only temple, in the sense of that which makes God conversable with man and man’s worship acceptable to God, is the human nature of our Lord Jesus Christ. We need not say that in the Church of Rome there is nothing but the old Jewish image of the true glory of divine worship: a temple, a succession of mortal priests, a daily sacrifice, incense and intercession, a ritual imposing to the senses and the imagination, but no access to the mercy-seat of God. "Through him," that is, the Son, "we have access by one Spirit to the Father"; this is the description of true worship, the fellowship enjoyed by all who have been admitted to the glorious liberty of the sons of God. But where are the vestiges of it in the great apostasy? Is God a Father there, or a vindictive Judge, over ready to launch his thunder-bolts against the wretched victims of remorse and terror? Is not the mediation of the Son entirely annihilated? What means the sacrifice of the mass but a denial of the reality and efficacy of the sacrifice of Jesus? the erection of a daily "remembrancer of sin", which can never make the worshipper perfect as pertaining to the conscience, and, therefore, keeps him in the iron bondage of a sense of guilt? And where is the intercession of the Son? Is it not thrust aside by their "doctrines of demons", their teachings concerning angels and the glorified spirits of the saints, accommodated from pagan mythology and rabbinical tradition? And what room is there in this accursed system for the agency of the Spirit? The priesthood, which is the church, has thrust itself between the worshipper and the Holy Ghost, as well as between the worshipper and the Son. It is a mere mechanical process of salvation by sacramental means; the personality of the Spirit is practically denied; the sovereign will of the blasphemous usurper of divine prerogatives called a priest, implied in the "intention", is the only personal element in the business. The miserable wretch who is taught to believe that he is eating his god will have this advantage over the priest who makes the god for him, that his damnation will not be quite so deep. ROME:ANTICHRIST We have no space for more illustration. We advise our younger brethren to study this system more and more as anti-Christ. The most subtle and ingenious perversions of the cardinal doctrines of the gospel, made by the cunning of him who was a liar and a murderer from the beginning, constitute the essence, the organic life, of popery, and give rise to all those appalling manifestations of its nature in the history of individuals, families, and nations. Clearly and strikingly will it be seen, by such an investigation, that no man can hate it as it deserves to be hated, unless he loves the doctrines of grace; that the infamy which covers the system as a grinding despotism in the life that now is, is honour and glory compared with the infamy which belongs to it as a cruel and devilish device to crush all the hopes of fallen and agonised humanity for the life that is to come. It is amazing to observe with what remorseless activity and vigilance it meets the sinner at every turn, offering the image for the reality, the shadow for the substance, stones for bread, and a scorpion for an egg. It is Hobbism in world, a vast Leviathan whose will is law, whose frown is death, but it is also semi-Pelagianism, which is worse, sealing men up in everlasting darkness and despair. THIS IS NOT POLITICS We are not to be deterred from doing our duty by the cry which we shall doubtless hear from foolish men, that in exposing and denouncing popery we are dabbling in politics. If the insatiable ambition of priests and prelates, and their equally insatiable avarice, have alarmed the jealousy of those who love their country, who are to blame for it? While as American citizens we claim the right to think and speak freely on all subjects connected with our national prosperity, we swear by no party. Doubtless there are many who declaim upon the stump and elsewhere against Rome who do not and cannot hate it, because they have not been converted to God. There are not a few who justify the sarcasm of Mr. Wise; who raise their hands with holy horror at the audacious wickedness which shuts the Bible against man, and yet never disturb the repose of their own Bibles covered with cobwebs and dust. But if men hold the truth in unrighteousness, they must answer for themselves. The duty of the church is plain. It is to set forth the mystery of godliness, and in contrast with it and explanation of it, the mystery of iniquity. "If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine, whereunto thou hast attained." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 98: 02.087. ANTICHRIST TO LIGHT ======================================================================== The Development of Rome - Antichrist Comes To Light A careful study of prophecy and world history shows us that Papal Rome grew out of Imperial Rome. Rev. Kyle Paisley A careful study of prophecy and world history shows us that Papal Rome grew out of Imperial Rome. In Daniel chapter seven we have the foretelling of the rise of four great world empires. Each of these great empires is represented by a particular beast. The First Beast There is, firstly, a lion, (Daniel 7:4). It is commonly held that this first beast represents Babylonia. Nebuchadnezzar, who was king of this empire is called ’the lion’ in Jeremiah 4:7. The Second Beast The second beast mentioned is a bear, (Daniel 7:5) The world kingdom which followed the demise of Babylonia was Persia. It is fitting that it is pictured under this symbol, for the Persians were, like the bear, notoriously cruel. One of their tortures was to pull off the skin from men alive, either in pieces or altogether. The Third Beast In Daniel 7:6 the third great world empire is pictured by the symbol of a leopard. The leopard represents Greece. The four wings denote the swiftness with which the Grecian empire came to prominence. It took only twelve years for Alexander, its Emperor, to subdue all Asia, from Macedonia to the Ganges and parts of Europe. The four heads denote the four kingdoms into which the empire was divided at the death of Alexander. The Fourth Beast In Daniel 7:7 the rise of Imperial Rome is depicted. Rome followed Greece as the fourth great world empire. The ’ten horns’ are the ten divisions of the Roman Empire - Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Britain, Sumatria, Parmonia, Asia, Greece and Egype. In Daniel 7:8 another horn rises in the head of the fourth beast. Its characteristics should be noticed: * It is little. * It is powerful, for before it ’three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots’. * It has eyes * It has a mouth, ’speaking great things’. Before Imperial Rome was dead there was the emergence of Papal Rome. At its inception it was ’little’. It was unobtrusive and apparently harmless. (In another sense papal Rome is ’little’. It is little with respect to the fact that the territory of the Papacy is small compared to that of other world powers, being only a province within a country). But it soon grew in might as is symbolized in the plucking up of the three horns. See also verse 24 of Daniel 7:1-28. The Papacy subdued three kingdoms - * Ravenna, the western capital of the Roman Empire, ruled by Emperor Leo who was deposed by Pope Gregory II; * France, ruled by King Childeric, who was deposed by Pope Zachary; * The Lombards, who came under the jurisdiction of Pope Leo III. The ’little horn’ of verse 8 is also said to have ’a mouth, speaking great things’. These ’great things’ are blasphemies. This is confirmed by verse 25. The more the Papacy developed the more offensive to God it became. Emerging as she did from Imperial Rome, she assimilated much of the Paganism of that empire. In Imperial Rome the Emperor was known by the title ’Pontifex Maximus’, a title bequeathed by the last of the original Babylonian priests. From 63 BC up to 375 AD this title continued to be used, until the Emperor Gratian renounced it and the Bishop of Rome took it up. The first Pope to use the title was Pope Damascus I, who reigned from 366-384. The Pontifax Maximus in ancient Babylon was the representative of the god Janus, the Babylonian Messiah. By the titles ascribed to and assumed by various popes down through the history of the Roman Catholic Church, we have the fulfilment of Daniel 7:8; Daniel 7:25. Here are some of the ’great words’ spoken by the Papacy against the Most High: * ’Universal Bishop’ - This title was first assumed by Pope Boniface III in 606 AD. It was the first official claim to supremacy by any pope. It is also a theft from Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 2:25. * ’Our Most Holy Lord’ - Council of Trent, 1545. Christ alone is Lord. Revelation 17:14. * ’Most Holy and Blessed Father, Head of the Church, Ruler of the World, to whom the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven are committed, whom the angels in Heaven revere, and the gates of Hell fear, and all the world adores’ - used of Pope Innocent X at his ’enthronement’, 1644. This is another usurpation - Matthew 23:9; Colossians 1:18; Revelation 1:18; Revelation 4:10. * ’Divine Monarch, Supreme Emperor, King of kings’ - Stolen from Christ. Revelation 17:14. * ’Head of the Church’ - Stolen from Christ. Colossians 1:18. * ’The Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world’ - stolen from Christ, John 1:29. * ’The Chief Shepherd’ - Stolen from Christ, 1 Peter 5:24. * ’Universal Priest’ - Stolen from Christ, Hebrews 2:17. When Pope Pius IX was Archbishop of Venice, he stated: ’The pope is not only the representative of Jesus Christ, but he is Jesus Christ Himself, hidden under the veil of the flesh. Does the pope speak? It is Jesus Christ who speaks. Does the pope accord a favour or pronounce an anathema? It is Jesus Christ who accords the favour or pronounces that anathema. So that when the pope speaks we have no business to examine.’ * ’Vicar of Christ’ - Prior to the twelfth century the popes were styled ’Vicars of Peter’. Since then they have called themselves ’Vicars of Jesus Christ’. It should be noted that the word ’vicar’ means ’substitute’, ie, one who takes the place of another. The Holy Spirit is the only ’vicar’ of Christ. Read John 14:16-17; and John 16:7, John 16:13-14. Contrast the above claims with the following statement made by Pope Gregory the Great at the end of the sixth century. He said: ’I confidently say that whoever calls himself, or desires to be called, the Universal Priest, is the forerunner of Antichrist in his pride, because by exalting himself he places himself above others. Nor is his pride different from that which leads Antichrist to his error, because as that wicked one wishes to be thought a god above all men, so he who desires to be called the sole priest exalts himself above all other priests.’ As well as claims to spiritual supremacy, claims to temporal supremacy have also been made by the Papacy throughout its long history. One of the most significant events in history was the removal of the Emperor’s seat of authority from Rome to Constantinople. When that happened, the Bishop of Rome began to rule Western Europe from the old throne of the Caesars. However, it was not until the year 800 that temporal supremacy was first openly affirmed by the Papacy. That year Emperor Charlemagne accepted the crown as monarch of western Euorpe from the hands of Pope Leo III. In the decree of Pope Boniface VIII, issued in 1303, temporal supremacy was formally asserted in the following words: ’In his power there are two swords, the spiritual and the temporal... Temporal authority must be subject to spiritual power.’ This decree is part of Canon Law in the Roman Church. In England especially the Church of Rome sought to dominate. From 1000-1300 several attempts were made to attain supremacy. The Anglo-Saxon kings always prided themselves in their independence, but King John sacrificed that independence in order to suppress the liberties of his subjects by the Pope’s means. A break with Rome came during the reign of Henry VIII, but it was more for personal reasons than doctrinal reasons. Henry was furious with the Pope’s refusal to grant him a divorce from Catherine of Aragon. In 1553 Papal authority was restored in England during the reign of Mary Tudor. Pope Pius V (1566-1572) also tried to enforce his authority in England. In his famous Bull published against Queen Elizabeth it is stated ’He that reigneth on high made him alone (the pope) prince over all people and all kingdoms, to pluck up, destroy, scatter, consume, plant and build.’ In 1588 Pope Sixtus gave his benediction to the spanish Armada as it sailed for England with its equipment of priests and instruments of torture designed for ’heretics’. During her development the Church of Rome became more confirmed in the arrogancy of her claims. The famous Englishman, Cardinal Manning, said: ’The right of deposing kings is inherent in the supreme sovereignty which the popes, as viceregents of Christ, exercise over all Christian nations.....The royal supremacy has perished, and the supremacy of the vicar of Jesus Christ re-enters England full of life.’ The Encyclical of Pope Pius X, issued in 1864, asserted: * the right to require the State not to leave any man free to profess his own religion; * the right to employ force; * the right to claim dominion in temporal things; * the right to have the entire control of public schools; * the right to hold princes and kings in subjection; * the right to treat all marriages as invalid which are not solemnized according to the forms of the Council of Trent; * the right to prevent the State granting to immigrants the public exercise of their own worship; * the right to require the State not to permit free expression of opinion; At the turn of the nineteenth century Dr.Mananus de Luca, SJ, Professor of Canon Law at the Gregorian University at Rome, said: ’The’ Catholic Church has the right and the duty to kill heretics, because it is by fire and sword that heresy can be extirpated.....The only recourse is to put them to death. Repentance cannot be allowed to save civil criminals.’ The beginnings of the Papacy were small, but it was not long until the ’little horn’ began to assert itself, and it has continued to do so down through the centuries. The Words of Christ As Rome developed her thirst for power became greater. it is important to remember here the words of Christ. He said: ’My kingdom is not of this world....else would my servants fight’. The Roman Church has proved in her history that she is not part of that Kingdom. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 99: 02.088. SAINT WORSHIP ======================================================================== The Worship of Saints The especial characteristic of the Romish Church is image worship, and this charge it virtually acknowledges by excluding the second Commandment. Rev. George Croly, LL.D. [Dr. George Croly was a great English Protestant stalwart of the nineteenth century. He was Rector of the United Parishes of St. Stephen Walbrook and St. Herbert. The following is an extract from his sermon entitled "Papal Rome - The Principles and Practices of Rome alike condemned by the Gospel", preached in 1848. Though specifically highlighting the error of saint-worship, the extract also exposes the intrinsic falsehood of the whole vast Romanist system. I have modernised the punctuation and spelling and added a few explanatory footnotes, but left the original text intact. - A.N.] To whatever being beyond the grave man offers worship, that being is, to the worshipper, a god. For to hear prayer at all times and places, and to answer it, obviously implies universal presence and unlimited power. Rome acknowledges hundreds of saints, which thus to her are gods. Against thus degrading the supremacy of the Eternal she takes refuge in the doctrine of subordinate gods. But there can be no subordinate god. The doctrine itself is a contradiction in terms: there can be no ranks in perfection. Nature in its evidence of One Creator, Scripture in its declaration: "The Lord thy God is one God", and reason in its consciousness of the immeasurable distance between a Self-existent and a created Being, alike confute the most enormous of all errors. If the saints are gods, the tenet involves the extravagant absurdity that the created can be uncreate, the limited infinite, and that the born in time has existed from eternity. The Virgin stands at the head of the Popish calendar, and Rome loads her with laborious titles of government and glory. She is declared the great protectress of the believing world, the giver of salvation and the "Queen of Heaven". A separate worship has been formed for her, litanies have been invented in her honour, filled with rapturous repetitions of her name, and the Roman temples resound with a perpetual ’Ave Maria’, which is an invocation, not a prayer. Yet nothing can be more evident than that Mary was not permitted to exercise the slightest interference in the mission of our Lord; that He refused to work His first miracle at her bidding, in the presence of His disciples; that we have no intimation of His ever having wrought any one of His multitude of miracles at her bidding; that, while the Apostles, and even the seventy, wrought miracles in their mission, Mary wrought none; and that, at His death, instead of bequeathing the Church to her sceptre, He bequeathed herself as a husbandless and helpless woman to the care of His disciple, who thenceforth "took her to his own home". Even in His resurrection He appeared first to another, whom He sent to give the glad tidings to His disciples. After the Pentecost the name of Mary is heard no more. Can it be doubted that He, to whom the future was the present, thus contemplated the "falling away" and thus fortified the Christian against giving to a mortal the worship due only to God? I must now limit myself to a rapid glance at the arguments by which, in our day, the astonishing impiety of laying once more the yoke of Popery on the neck of England has attempted a palliation. It has been asked: Would God have tolerated the spiritual blindness of so many ages and of so many millions of men? The sufficient answer is that He tolerated heathenism through more ages and throughout a world. What God ought to do is beyond the limit of human understanding; what He has done is for its lesson. The savage slays his enemy, but he does not torture his neighbour for refusing to bow down to the same idol as himself. It has been asked: Is not any religion better than none? The answer is that a bad religion is worse than none; that truth will have more power on the mind that is blackened over with prejudice; and that nature is a better teacher than superstition. The savage slays his enemy, but he does not torture his neighbour for refusing to bow down to the same idol as himself. The Arab plunders, but he has no confessor to teach him perfidy: he keeps his oath, and the man who has shared his bread and salt is safe, whether he prays towards Mecca of Jerusalem. Ignorance is obviously better than the fierce fallacy which at once enfeebles the mind, inflames the passions, and plants an inveterate hostility to truth in the heart of man. To teach error is not to teach at all. It has been asked: Must not Popery, by acknowledging the principles of Christianity, be, at least, good in part? The answer is that the acknowledgement of those principles was necessary to their perversion. To delude is impossible but1 under the semblance of sincerity. By the constitution of the human mind, wherever truth and falsehood are thus compounded, the falsehood inevitably overwhelms the truth, because the very attempt to combine them implies the worldliness which leads to error. We might as well yoke the living to the dead in the expectation of giving life to the corpse: the corpse corrupts the living. We must have truth alone or falsehood alone. How can a man believe in God and yet worship an idol? The first half of the Creed of Pius VI, the standard of Popery, is the Nicene Creed; the next half contradicts its whole substance. There is no good in Popery. ...and that all heresies condemned by the Church [of Rome] are to be anathematized; that out of the [Roman] Catholic faith there is no salvation! In the year 1563 the Council of Trent decreed that all persons promoted to Benefices with care of souls should make a public confession of their faith, and in the following year Pius IV issued the formulary which is since called his Creed and which is acknowledged as the standard of Romish doctrine. As the subject is familiar to all readers of Church history, I shall merely glance at the nature of this memorable document, which is generally divided into separate Articles. The first three contain the Nicene Creed; the remainder belong especially2 to Rome. Those Articles pronounce the Church [of Rome] to be the only judge of the sense of the Scripture; appoint seven sacraments; declare that in the mass there is offered a true propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead; that the whole body and blood, soul and divinity of our Lord are offered in the Eucharist, and that the sacrifice is offered in either kind alone; that there is a purgatory and that souls therein are helped by the suffrages of the faithful; that the saints are to be invocated3, that they pray for us to God, and that their relics are to be held in veneration; that the images of Christ, the Virgin and saints are to be retained, and to be held in "due veneration"; that the power of indulgences was given by God to the Church; and that the use of them is most wholesome; that the Church of Rome is the mother and mistress of all churches; that all things declared by the Councils, and especially the Council of Trent, are to be undoubtingly received, and that all heresies condemned by the Church [of Rome] are to be anathematized; that out of4 the [Roman] Catholic faith there is no salvation! In judging the inveterate nature of Popery we are to remember that this Creed was not formed in a barbarous age, but in the most active period of the recovered human mind; that it was not made in the brute arrogance of a despotic time, but with the new power of European opinion compelling it to be cautious at every step; and that the Council of Trent, combining all the learning of Popery and all the experience of Papal peril, sat for nearly eighteen years. If the history of that ominous and evil Council exhibits in its doubts and altercations an irresistible answer to the outrageous claim of infallibility, nothing can be more distinct and decisive than its conclusions. It has, however, given to Protestantism the eminent advantage of knowing the whole plea5 of Popery. We are no longer to be sent back to the perplexities of obsolete tradition, to the helpless conjectures of the Fathers, or to the supersubtle disguises of Romish doctrine by Rome itself. The Council of Trent is the criminal in court; the Creed of Pope Pius is his confession; and we have thenceforth only to judge of6 the guilt of Rome by the recognised laws of the understanding. It has also been asked: Are we not indebted to Popery for preserving, at least, the rudiments of Christianity through the Dark Ages? The answer is that Popery itself constituted the Dark Ages. The theory of this debt has been among the fanciful inventions of a class of writers who, in the pursuit of romantic novelty, have lately laboured to discover the services of7 Rome. But it might be almost conceived that those writers had never read the annals of early Christianity. The whole Roman Empire in Europe was Christian before the coming of Antichrist. Even the chief tribes of the Barbarian invaders were Christian - some even before their invasion. In the fourth century the Gothic nation had adopted the creed of their great missionary Ulphilas, and in the progress of the fifth and sixth centuries Christianity had spread itself among the conquerors in the most widely distant Provinces of the Western Empire - the Burgundians in Gaul, the Suevi in Spain, the Vandals in Africa and the Ostrogoths in Pannonia. The Reformation was scarcely more a blaze of religious light than it was a burst of intellectual triumph. What conceivable right have we to presume that the divine and habitual power of Christianity to enlarge the faculties and purify the morals of mankind would not have wrought their natural effect on those fresh and bold minds from whose energy all the liberties of Europe have eternally sprung? But the true proof of the pressure of Rome is the saliency of the human mind when its pressure began to be removed. The Reformation was scarcely more a blaze of religious light than it was a burst of intellectual triumph. Science was emancipated by the same blow which smote Superstition. The tyranny of mind and the tyranny of conscience died together. It is true that the great Ruler of all, in His mercy, has never suffered unmixed evil to overwhelm mankind; that out of the deepest humiliation of the earth He extracts good; and that He created, as of old, in the pomp and superstition, the encouragement of the arts. Thus, He creates the struggles of war, the sustenance of the bolder qualities of our nature; and thus, even in the sufferings inflicted by His own hand in the famine and the pestilence, He elicits the birth of human resource and the new activity of human preservation. It is true that cities arose, and men reasoned, and that human energy was not suffered to lose wholly its spring, even under the pressure of Rome. But how little had man been profited by the thousand years of its supremacy! How vast a blank was left in the life of the world! How empty were the drudgeries of the school-men8! How wearied, bewildered and exhausted was the genius of Europe in wandering through the Egyptian darkness of the Middle Ages! And how irresistible an evidence of the evil was given in the sudden contrast of good9; in the power with which the European mind sprang on its feet at the moment when its old chains were breaking; in the scarcely less than miraculous ardour and intellectual soaring with which it achieved the magnificent discoveries of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries - those bright mountain-tops, emerging from the flood of death to tell us then, and tell us still, how glorious an intellectual world lies yet to be developed when the waters of darkness shall be finally drained away10! The true view of Popery is not that of the preserver of ancient literature or the parent of modern science, but the perverter of the one and the persecutor of the other11. It could not prevent the light of Heaven descending on man, but it suffered the light to descend only through the bars of a dungeon, which at once restricted the powers of human movement and shut out the excitement, the health and the grandeur of nature. Enquiry into the Scriptures is the foundation of faith in the mind of the Christian; but Popery commands an implicit belief, not in the Scriptures, but in its Church, and even in that Church only as speaking by the Council of Trent. […] The love and fear of God are the motives of the Gospel to obedience; but Popery assigns the love to the Virgin Mary and the saints as the irresistible agents12 of man with God, while it nullifies all fear by its provisions of indulgences, masses and prayers for the dead. Enquiry into the Scriptures is the foundation of faith in the mind of the Christian; but Popery commands an implicit belief, not in the Scriptures, but in its Church, and even in that Church only as speaking13 by the Council of Trent14. […] Of all the thrones of Europe, the Popedom has been the most exposed to casualty. For three hundred years, from the thirteenth century, its existence was a convulsion. Every clash of arms from the extremity of Europe found an echo in the Vatican. Every civil tempest of France, or Germany, sent a surge to dash against the walls of Rome. Yet, except by the Reformation, the influence of Popery was never retrenched in Europe. […] The especial15 characteristic of the Romish Church is image worship, and this charge it virtually acknowledges by excluding the second Commandment. Popery attempts a subterfuge16 under the words "due veneration"; but who is to be the judge of "due veneration", or who ever saw the mass solemnised without asking himself: Could worship go further? The jewelled crowns and tissued robes of the images, the golden shrines and votive tablets, the lifted hands, the adoring eyes, the hymns, the chorus of prayer! What mean they? If the Deity Himself descended on the altar, could man offer him more significant homage? The divine commandment excludes all worship of an image, all "due veneration" - even the presence of an image. "Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image." The ground of the commandment is perfectly intelligible. An image must be a false representation of God; it gives a false familiarity with the divine presence; it makes the Infinite local and gives the Omnipotent to the hands of a man. What work of canvass or stone can possibly realise17 even to the mind the Eternal? And the conception becomes lower still when miracles, tears and smiles of divine benefice, and the melancholy artifices of the Breviary, are attributed to the picture and the statue. It is in this, and not in their own shallow subtleties and cobweb contrivances, that the statesmen of the world should look for the sweeping calamities and fiery cataclysms which, from age to age, have tossed the political soil of Europe like a raging sea. The same sovereign wrath which tore Israel up by the roots and flung it out, trunk and branch, to be shattered by the world - the same avenging justice which brought the hunter of the desert round the Imperial wild beast of Rome and smote him in his lair - still reigns, and judges, and punishes. Shall there be no lesson to us, in the ruthless havoc and wild heartrendings of the fairest countries of Europe during bigoted centuries? We ourselves are now18 beginning to feel the work of this wearied long-suffering; we know now, by bitter experience, the writhings and agonies of rebellion, like a wounded snake, preserving a strange vitality under all its bruises, and dangerous to the last. Yet when was Ireland without an infliction, and when was not all the remedial power of England hopeless to staunch her issue of blood - that disease of centuries19, for which she could have but one Healer, but to Whom she would not come. 1 except 2 specially, exclusively 3 invoked 4 outside 5 doctrinal system 6 in the matter of 7 find something positive to say about 8 teachers, educators 9 i.e., the Reformation 10 cf. the discoveries of the following 150 years, from the Industrial Revolution to the microchip 11 cf. the trial of Galileo 12 mediators between 13 interpreted 14 Creed of Pope Pius IV, Article V: "our Holy Mother the Church […] to which it belongs to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the Scriptures". Thus the Council of Trent fastens the padlock on the Scriptures at the moment when it hangs the chain on the human mind. Enquiry into the Scriptures is thenceforth useless to the whole community of Romanism. 15 special 16 The Papist subterfuge consists in saying that the Ten Commandments are retained in the Romish Bible and the larger Romish Catechism, but the catechisms in Italy (Bellarmine’s, etc.) and Ireland reject it. 17 reveal 18 i.e., in 1848, the year of rebellions throughout Europe, including Ireland 19 Popery ======================================================================== CHAPTER 100: 02.089. SCARLET WOMAN ======================================================================== The Scarlet Woman or The Revival of Romanism Dr. Haldeman was one of the great fundamental prophets of the early 20th century. I.M. Haldeman, D.D. [Editor’s note:- Dr. Haldeman was one of the great fundamental prophets of the early 20th century. This sermon, which we reprint here, was preached in 1910 in the First Baptist Church, New York City, and indicates his vision and understanding of the anti-Christianity of the Church of Rome. His comment on world events of the time makes it unique and gives us an insight into Biblical Christian thinking in the early years of the last decade of the Millennium. We believe that such preaching against Popery needs to be resurrected and a new era of opportunity created to alert those who have been almost overcome by the false opinions of Rome. When these sermons were first published, the preacher said: "I am convinced that the ’signs of the times’ call for a reading and study in this hour as never before. Heaven, and earth, and hell - the professing church, the nations, and, now and then, the clanging of nature’s forces, bid us realise that we are on the threshold where the shifting of events, at any moment, may usher in that vast and solemn process, whose terminus ad quem is the Coming and Kingdom of the Son of God." - If this was so at the beginning of our century, how much more now as it ends!] "So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness. And I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. "And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones, and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: "And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. "And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her I wondered with great admiration. [...] And the woman which thou sawest is that great city which reigneth over the kings of the earth." (Revelation 17:1-6; Revelation 17:18.) A woman in scripture is a symbol of the church. The church, under the figure of a woman, is first espoused, and then presented, as a chaste virgin to Christ. "I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ." (2 Corinthians 11:12.) What is written to the Corinthian church is written to "all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours". (1 Corinthians 1:2.) The announcement of the virginal character of the Corinthian church in its standing before God is an affirmation as to the standing of the church in "every place", necessarily in all time, and, therefore, of the church everywhere, and in our time. It is a symbol of the church universal. The woman is the church. The church is also symbolised by a city. "And there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife. "And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God." (Revelation 21:9-10.) The Lamb is our Lord Jesus Christ. The bride, the Lamb’s wife, when espoused and presented to Him, must have been a chaste virgin. The chaste virgin espoused and presented by Paul to Christ, is the church. As the holy city is the bride of Christ, His wife and, in the nature of the case, must have been espoused and presented to Him as a chaste Virgin, and the chaste virgin when so espoused and presented becomes a bride, a wife, then the holy city, the bride, the Lamb’s wife, the wife of Christ, is a symbol of the church. A chaste virgin, a bride, a wife, is a woman; and as the city is the symbol of a wife, then the city is the symbol of a woman. As the woman is the symbol of the church, and the church is symbolised by a city, then the woman is, also, a symbol of the city. The woman is a symbol of the city, the city is a symbol of the woman, and both the woman and the city are symbols of the church; and thus, whether it be a woman or a city, the one identifies the other. But it is evident that while the woman is exclusively a symbol, and not a real woman, the city is both a symbol and an actual city. The city is a symbol. The city is the symbol of a woman, and as a woman is an organised body, and is the symbol of the church, then the city is the symbol of the church as an organised body, a polity, a system. The city is actual. A city consists of people and the place in which people dwell. The church as an organised body, a polity, a system, consists of people and, as such, must have a place to dwell. When, therefore, the Apostle John in vision sees the holy city as the bride, the Lamb’s wife, he sees that city both as the people and the place in which they dwell; and the name of the city includes them both. Just as New York signifies the people and the city in which they dwell, so the holy city, the New Jerusalem, signifies the church as a polity, a system, a body of people, and the real and actual place, the real and actual city in which, as real and actual people, they shall dwell, and from whence they shall shine forth as the glorified bride of Christ, the triumphant wife of the Lamb. In the scripture quoted at the head of this article we have the picture of a woman, and this woman declared to be a city. What is true of the woman who is the Lamb’s bride, who is also a city, is equally true of this woman who is called a city. The woman is exclusively a symbol, she is not a real woman; the city is both symbolic and actual. By the preceding evidence of symbolry this scarlet-clad woman and the city, where of necessity she must be centralised, where she must dwell, and from which she must be manifested in her power, both represent a church. But this woman and this city stand in terrific contrast to the woman and city which set forth the church of Christ. They contrast and contradict each other. The church is represented by a chaste virgin. This woman is a bedizened harlot, and is called in plain speech, "the whore." The church is espoused to one husband. This woman holds promiscuous commerce with the kings of the earth. The church is the mystery of godliness. This woman is "MYSTERY, BABYLON". The church is called "the pillar and ground of the truth." This woman is called "Babylon", signifies "confusion", and recalls an unfinished tower. The church offers the cup of salvation and stands for holiness. This woman holds in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and filthiness. The church is the mother of the saints. This woman is "THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS". The church is the bride of Christ. This woman, by the law of symbolry, is a professed church of Christ, and therefore a would-be bride of Christ; but, as she is a harlot, she cannot be the true bride of Christ, she cannot be the true church of Christ. If she is not the true church of Christ but a corrupt and corrupting harlot, then she is a false and corrupt church professing the name of Christ. The identity of this false and corrupt church is not far to seek. She is called a city, a city that "reigneth over the "kings of the earth". A city that reigns over the kings of the earth is a universal city. A universal city is a catholic city. As this universal-catholic city is, also, symbolically, a woman, and this woman a professed church, then this woman is a universal, a catholic church. This universal, this catholic church, is represented as exceedingly rich in gold, in precious stones and pearls. The distinctive colour of the woman is scarlet. She has not only committed fornication herself, but has made the inhabitants drunk with the wine of her fornication. Fornication in the book of the Revelation signifies idolatry, and idolatry is - image worship. This woman, therefore, is a church whose official and distinguishing colour is scarlet. Just as our schools, colleges and universities, have their colours, so this church has hers - and her colour is scarlet. This woman is a church which practises, and has taught the people of the earth to practise, idolatry, to engage in the worship of images. This scarlet-clad woman is drunken with the blood of saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. It is the picture of a universal, a catholic, church, in the name of Christ, causing the martyrdom of the followers of Christ, and revelling in their blood till she has become frenzied and drunken by it. This woman not only represents a church, but the city in which it dwells and is capitalised, the centre and manifestation of its glory. Just as much as the New Jerusalem represents not only the church, but the central place where she is to reveal her glory, so this woman represents the actual city of her own abode. The reality and identity of the city are set before us with indelible marks. The Apostle John says it is "that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth". There was but one city in John’s day which reigned over the kings of the earth, and that city was ROME. That the city was Rome is corroborated topographically. We are told that the woman is seated on seven mountains. "The seven heads [that is, of the beast] are seven mountains. And there are [they are] seven kings." (Revelation 17:9-10.) The heads are symbolic, but they set forth two real things - mountains and kings. If the kings are real, equally so are the mountains; the mountains indicate the place where the kings rule. The location of the kings, the location of the woman and, therefore, the location of the city, was on seven mountains. The Rome of Saint John’s day, the Rome of our day, is seated on seven hills, and these hills are definitely called mountains; but the city is known in the pages of every history as "the seven-hilled city". The city, then, which the woman symbolises is Rome; and as the woman is also the symbol of a church, then you have a church in the city of Rome, a church which, like the city, is universal and catholic in its rule. A church in the city of Rome is a Roman church; a catholic church in Rome is, therefore, a Roman Catholic Church. And here you have the riddle read, the symbol told, the identity disclosed. The woman foreseen and described by the Spirit of God in John is - THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. As the name of the woman is Babylon, and the woman is, symbolically, the city, the name of the city must, also, be Babylon; but, as the city is actual Rome and not the real city of Babylon, then the name Babylon is given to it, as to the woman, simply to set forth the moral character of both. In Revelation 11:18, Jerusalem is called Sodom and Egypt, so called to mark its moral and spiritual degeneration. This woman and city likewise go by the name of Babylon to set forth the turpitude, the uncleanness and the abomination, both of the city and the system. The Roman Catholic Church is called Babylon from God’s point of view; from God’s point of view it is the mystery of abomination. Go to that city of the seven hills, where every hill is called a "mount", and you will find that from thence the Roman Catholic Church rules over nations, peoples, kindreds and tongues - a universal rule, counting its subjects by the hundreds of millions, and is thus in deed and in very fact a universal church, an actual kingdom over which one man as Pope is head supreme. Take up history, and you will find that it has reigned over the kings of the earth and made them its willing slaves, holding over them the terrors of excommunication, paralysing the hands that held the sceptre, and forcing the onetime proudest emperor of the world to stand shivering on a winter’s day in his penitential shirt at a papal palace door, while the exalted pontiff within turned indifferently away. Examine, and you will find that this church today is rich in gold, in silver, and in precious stones, its buildings storehouses of the world’s most coveted wealth. Visit the "treasuries", fittingly so called, in her great cathedrals, Notre Dame at Paris, the statue-pointed cathedral at Milan, Saint Peter’s at Rome, and you will find gold, silver, pearls, and all precious things. You will find them in mitres and crosiers, in chasubles and patens, in cups, in crystals and vestments, as gifts from kings, from emperors and queens; offerings from the richest of earth, wealth enough to make even kings envy. Look at this church filled with gold, with silver and precious stones, and you will find that its official colour is scarlet, scarlet in the hat of its cardinals, scarlet in the robes of its pontiff and priests, scarlet everywhere - a scarlet-coloured church. Go into its wonderful buildings, some of them monuments of the mightiest architectural genius of the world; visit them, and you will find them full of images, images of the virgin mother, images of the saints. Stand inside Saint Peter’s on a festal day. The vast building sweeps upward through mighty pillar and colossal arch to the sublime, impending dome. On every side are chapels, in themselves monster buildings, vast churches. There is the exalted altar, the countless lights, the smoking incense, the chanting choirs, the scarlet-robed priests, the voice of intonation, prayer and confession, the echoing ora pro nobis, and everywhere kneeling devotees, bowing down to marble images, doing penance and lifting up petitions before their lifeless faces. There are churches specially devoted to the worship of the virgin; her images are covered with gold and silver tributes. In one church the image is piled about with crutches and almost hidden under the offerings of those who believe themselves to have been healed or blessed by her interposition and intercession. Before that stony figure, men and women and little children kneel in rapt adoration. It is idolatry - pure and simple. Cast your eyes over the past centuries and you will come upon an era when the rule of this church was so supreme; when she so clutched the throat of the nations with her almost omnipotent hand; so stifled all learning and spiritual knowledge, that by common consent that age has been called the dark age, the midnight of the world’s moral, intellectual and spiritual life - so dark and cruel was this time, so full of idolatry, that the Arab, as he swept a victor into Europe, paused at the doors of Catholic churches, then turned and fled as though he were in that very temple of heathen idolatry from which his religion bade him to flee. And it is of this time and this Arab that Mrs. Browning sings when she says that knowledge was at last "thrust into the eye of Europe upon the point of a Paynim’s spear". Read history, not the history written by one author, but by all, and in their pages you will learn how men and women were led into torture chambers or buried in dismal dungeons. You will read how beautiful women were stripped before black masked judges gloating over unprotected shame, and were led away to racks and stretched till their delicate limbs were snapped and their tender flesh torn into shreds. You will read how men and women were broken on the wheel, or flayed alive, their eyes put out, their tongues plucked forth by the roots, their feet placed in boots filled with boiling oil, bags thrust down their throats and then filled with water till they agonised with slow and calculated strangulation, legs placed between boards and the boards driven together by wedges till the bones were crushed little by little to a pulp, nails wrenched from the fingers, bodies sawn asunder as you might saw a log in two, members of the body cut off one at a time, now a hand, then an arm, first one leg, then another, till the victim was a mere quivering, though still living, trunk; men and women taken to the stake and burned alive, the wood dampened, or green wood used, that the fire might burn slowly and the agony and torture of the victim be lengthened. Try and count, if you can, the men and women driven from their homes, their houses burned, their property confiscated, and themselves hunted on the mountains and pursued through the valleys like beasts of prey. Look at the blood flowing like water from the martyred bodies of men and women, whose only crime was that they loved the Lord Jesus Christ, believed in His finished redemption on the Cross, refused to buy their salvation by penance or good works, rejected the intercession of a human priest, or a woman, no matter how good, claimed the Lord Jesus Christ as their sin-bearer and Saviour at the right hand of the Father, owned Him their only high-priest and intercessor and would not, even at the price of their own life, deny Him who died for them and rose again. And remember, while you read, that these martyrs were led to agony and to death by the authority and express command of the Roman Catholic Church; a church that did all this in the name of that most fiendish of all inventions, the "Holy Inquisition"; a church whose Pope at so late a date as the massacre of Saint Bartholomew’s caused a special celebration to be sung in all the churches as a thanksgiving to God that the enemies of Romanism had been thus cruelly and cowardly slain, stabbed in their beds, thrown from the windows of upper stories into stone courts below, or stricken from behind as they walked in the streets; a massacre so horrible, so revolting in all its details, that, even at this hour, when you pass by the gilded gates in front of the Louvre at Paris, it is impossible not to recall the picture of the piled up bodies of the murdered Huguenots flung in the gutter there and weltering in their own blood; it is impossible not to lift the eyes, involuntarily, and look at that Catholic church of Auxerrois just across the way, from whose tower the tocsin, which was to give the signal for the awful night of blood, sounded forth its brazen knell of doom. Bring all this to mind as you read, and you will recognise the perfect accuracy of the Spirit’s description when he says that this scarlet-clad, this universal, this catholic church of Rome was drunken with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. In the vision the woman is seen to be seated upon a seven headed, ten-horned, scarlet-coloured beast. This scarlet-coloured beast is identical with the fourth beast of Daniel’s vision. Daniel says: "After this I saw in the night visions, and, behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth; it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it; and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns." An angel explains the vision to Daniel: "Thus he said, the fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces. And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise." (Daniel 7:23-24.) The first three beasts are identical with the three kinds of metal forming part of the image which Nebuchadnezzar saw in a dream and which Daniel by the wisdom of God interpreted, as recorded in the second chapter of the prophecy that bears his name. In that dream the image had a head of gold, breast and arms of silver, and belly and thighs of brass. The golden head, Daniel tells us, represents the Babylonian kingdom. "Thou art," says Daniel, "this head of gold." As the first beast in the vision which Daniel records in the seventh chapter is, also, the first kingdom, and is a lion, then the golden head and the lion are the equivalent symbols of the first kingdom. The second beast is a bear, and is equivalent to the second kingdom represented by the silver breast and arms of the image. This second kingdom comes in after Babylon and, necessarily, overcomes it, takes it. This kingdom is identified for us in the fifth chapter of Daniel’s prophecy, as it is written: "And Darius the Median took the kingdom" (that is, the kingdom of Babylon). (Daniel 5:31.) The second beast as thus identified is the Medo-Persian kingdom. The third beast is a winged leopard and is equivalent to the third kingdom represented in the image by the belly and thighs of brass. This brazen-leopard kingdom, in the order of succession, is the kingdom which overcomes the second, or Medo-Persian kingdom. Daniel gives us the name of that third kingdom. He has a vision in which he sees a ram standing by a river and then pushing its way westward till a rough he-goat from the west rushes upon him with great fury, overcomes him, and tramples him with his feet. Daniel is perplexed as to the meaning of the vision till an angel appears and gives the interpretation: "And he said, Behold, I will make thee know what shall be in the last end of the indignation: for at the appointed time the end shall be. The ram which thou sawest having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia." And the rough goat is the king of Grecia." (Daniel 8:19-21.) The first three beasts then are identified by the Word of God. They are: Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece. The fourth beast is the fourth kingdom and is represented in the image by the legs of iron. The iron in the image is matched by the iron in the teeth of the beast: it had great iron teeth. Iron then is the symbol and character of the fourth beast kingdom. What great world kingdom is symbolised by iron, is known as the iron kingdom ? All history answers, every student of history knows, the veriest tyro at school knows, every lip is ready to speak the name - it is ROME. It is of Rome and Rome alone that iron is used as the symbol - we speak of the iron legions of Rome. But it is not necessary to go to history to identify the fourth beast, to find the name of the fourth kingdom. The New Testament answers the question and gives the affirmation. The New Testament tells us that Rome was the wide ruling world power in the day when Christ was born. It was, under God, by the edict of a Roman Caesar that the mother of Christ came to Bethlehem, where he was to be born in fulfilment of Holy Scripture. The fourth kingdom then is Rome; and this Rome included all the territory that once comprised Babylon, Medo-Persia and Greece. Rome was the legatee and heir of the three first kingdoms, and thus by right of succession is, as foretold, the fourth kingdom as it is the symbolic fourth beast. This fourth beast is identical with the beast of John’s vision, the scarlet-coloured beast that marries the Babylonian woman. This scarlet-coloured beast is a composite symbol. In it are the elements of a leopard, a bear and a lion. "And the beast which I saw (the beast described in the l7th chapter) was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion." (Revelation 13:2.) The leopard has been seen to be the third beast, and, therefore, the third kingdom; and has been shown by Daniel in the eighth chapter of his prophecy to be one with the he-goat which overcame the ram, in other words the kingdom of Greece. The bear has been identified and named, both by symbol and by Darnel’s actual statement, as the Medo-Persian kingdom. The lion is the first symbolic beast in Daniel’s vision, is equivalent to the golden head of the image, and is Babylon. The fact that the three beasts, the lion, the bear, and the leopard, are seen comprised in one beast, is the symbolic, but clear statement that the beast of John’s vision is a fourth beast, including the three that preceded it. As Daniel’s fourth beast is the symbol of Rome and includes the three preceding kingdoms, Babylon, Medo-Persia and Greece, then John’s beast and the beast of Daniel are identical, and both agree in the one testimony that this is Rome. As the woman who sits upon the beast has been not only symbolically, but topographically identified as Rome, the fact that the very beast upon which she sits is civil and govern mental Rome, becomes the repeated and doubly corroborative demonstration that the city and system of which the woman is a symbol - is Rome. There is further identification of the two beasts in the fact that each, the beast of Daniel and the beast of John, has ten horns. The ten horns in Daniel’s vision are ten kings, so declared by the angel. The ten horns in John’s vision are, likewise by an angel, declared to be ten kings. THIS REVIVAL HAS ALREADY BEGUN. It began in the hour when the Protestant Reformation was at its zenith. Protestantism rose up, smote Catholicism and drove it from Germany headlong to the Mediterranean. It seemed as though it were about to be flung as with a millstone about its neck into the depths of the sea, when, suddenly it halted, stood still, recovered its strength, shook itself free from the hands of its assailants and began steadily to return to the lands from whence it had been so fiercely expelled. Nothing is more impressive than the recovery of Romanism from what seemed to be its death-blow. It reads on the page of history like a veritable resurrection of the dead. And this resurrection has been followed by an immense and ever increasing vitality, by a propaganda that extends to every kingdom, nation and tongue. Austria is Catholic to the core. Germany is filled with devotees of the church, and her supporters may be counted by the millions. The progress in Protestant England is astounding. A year ago all London poured into the streets to see for the first time since the Reformation the triumphant march of a Roman Catholic procession extending for miles, while thousands on either side of the immense column bowed the knee in adoration as the sacred symbols of the church were held aloft. Recently, in this same London, there has been dedicated with imposing ceremonies a stupendous and costly cathedral. Everywhere throughout England the Romish priest is a power, the chapels and churches are filled to overflowing; daily, converts from the Church of England go over to the Church of Rome, and that by easy steps, as though the English church itself had become a half-way house. The non-conformist oath once administered to English kings on the day of coronation has been repealed. The official head of English Protestantism has ceased to protest. Enthusiastic Romanists consider the day not far distant when England will return officially to the faith and be received by Rome as a long wandering, but sincerely repentant and beloved daughter of the church. In this country Romanism is advancing with giant strides. A little over one hundred years ago there were only 33 priests and less than 50,000 Catholics, scarcely a decent church building, one college and no schools. Today there are nearly twenty millions of communicants, one cardinal, 14 archbishops, 77 bishops, 14 church provinces, nearly 20, 000 priests, to say nothing of the thousand on thousands of oath-bound nuns, between 15,040 and 20,000 church buildings, some of them models of architecture and of immense cost of construction. There are 7 great universities, 80 seminaries, or theological institutions, 213 colleges for boys, over 700 academies for girls (to which Protestant mothers send their daughters, and where the daughters become converted to Romanism and furnish the church in turn with Catholic mothers), and nearly 5,000 private schools, each school a protest against the public school system of the Nation. While the population of the United States has increased twenty-five times, the Roman Catholic population, in a little over a century, has increased 320 times, nearly twelve times as fast. The solidarity of the church is amazing; it seems miraculous. Out of the fifteen or twenty millions in this country, there is not a Catholic, in the final analysis, who would be disloyal to the church. Whatever his private opinion, in the end, he submits to her as the supreme authority over his conscience and soul. This solidarity extends around the globe. A Catholic church in one place is a duplicate of a Catholic church in every other. What you see in New York you will find in China and in the isles of the sea. Wherever a Catholic sees a Romish church and the cross upon its spire, he knows, whatever may be his nationality or tongue, in that church he will find the same faith, the same worship, which was taught him in his native land, at his mother’s knee, and in the hour of his first communion. This solidarity finds its significance in contrast to the division, the confusion, and the uncertainty of Protestantism. In this country Romanism has conquered social distinction and an accepted standing. Not many years ago and the Catholic church was a sort of social pariah, looked down upon with disdain, its services rejected, and its priests regarded with aversion. There was a time when for an American to be a Catholic, was sufficient to ostracise him from family and friends as though he were a religious and social leper. To-day, the Catholic finds all doors open, from the hovel to the palace. The most exclusive sets welcome the priest, invite him to marry their sons and daughters and dedicate private chapels in city homes or summer villas. Where Romanism once stood as the symbol of that which was foreign and alien, it is, today, represented by American families, their names recorded on its marriage books, its birth and baptismal registers. In no land has the Roman Catholic Church more loyal, more devoted, or more liberal supporters than those who claim to be Americans and to the manor born. And startling still is the f act that the Roman Catholic Church is steadily taking the place of the most eloquent defender of the Bible. Startling, indeed! The church which has always been afraid of the Bible; the church which has martyred men and women in cold blood for even daring to read it; the church which is careful in this day to give only an expurgated edition for the common laity to read, and legislates the most severe penalties against the indiscriminate use of the book; the church which has been the actual enemy of the Bible, bitter, deadly, inveterate, exercising all its hatred against it as the source of Protestantism, the arsenal of its weapons, and its mightiest stronghold, this ancient antagonist is now taking the place of Holy Scripture’s most uncompromising apologist, rallying to its defence its keenest logicians, its most intellectual writers, its most brilliant orators. And the Roman Catholic Church is coming into this place, not only by its own seeking, but by reason of the undisguised and wide spread infidelity of the Protestant Church. Go into so-called, up-to-date Protestant churches, listen to some of their most advanced thinkers and preachers. You will hear them striking at the very foundation of Protestantism, repudiating the only authority on which it can rest the Word of God - the written Word. You will hear them with oracular utterance and much-claimed scholarship rejecting the Old Testament, ridiculing its statements and demonstrating in modern formula that its personages are fictitious, its history worthless, its prophecies unfulfilled, its cosmogony, astronomy and geology unscientific, and the laughing-stock of the learned. You will hear them deny the infallibility of the New Testament, prove its human and not divine inspiration, and set before you a Christ who was limited in knowledge, who was not always sure of his mission, was sometimes filled with vacillation, who was, nevertheless, a good man, and whose death on the cross was simply the tragedy of one too gentle for the times, a good man torn to pieces at last by "the whirling wheel of the world’s evil". You will hear them preach the all-Fatherhood of God, the sonship of all men, both good and bad, scout the idea that man is a lost sinner, laugh at the fable of hell and the danger of future punishment, and conclude with the self-satisfied postulate that the great saving force in the earth is the law of evolution; that each man is working out in his own way his own problem; that each man is an avatar of God; that salvation is the reformation of society and the final deliverance of the race from the impedimenta of religiousness, superstition and ignorance. Science, they declare, is the true God and civilisation is its handmaid. In short, in a Protestant pulpit and, specially, if that pulpit is occupied by a recent graduate of an advanced theological institution, you are liable to hear utterances as treasonable to the Word of God and the revealed mission of Jesus Christ, as ever fell from the lips of the most pronounced, most blatant, but unconcealed, infidel and enemy of the church of God. You will listen in vain to hear such utterances in a Catholic church, be the preacher never so learned, never so bright or brilliant. On the contrary, and with rare sagacity, considering the state of Protestantism, you will hear the Catholic pulpits now echoing with addresses which exalt the Bible as the Word of God, handed over, it is true, to the custody and authoritative interpretation of the church still, but proclaimed, nevertheless, with increasing emphasis as the inspired thought of the living God. Rome is wise enough to seize the strategic moment and, at the same time, take advantage of the differing opinions, the confusion, and the infidelity among Protestants, to draw attention to the favourite thesis of the church, that the Bible can be read and understood only when under the strict surveillance and inspired interpretation of the church; and that Protestantism with its undivine hands has wrested the Scriptures to its own damnation and the damnation of all who have been led into Protestantism. By this subtle seizure of the opportune moment Romanism places itself in the forefront, not only as the defender of the Bible, but as its only true, sane, and authoritative interpreter. Not only is the Catholic church taking the place of defender of Holy Scripture and seeking to rescue it from profane hands; it is rapidly rising as the bulwark of the family, the champion of the home. The Roman Catholic Church stands four-square against the growing iniquity and excuseless wickedness of divorce. The Protestant Church takes no such stand. There is no unity in the Protestant Church concerning this shame. There are to be found Protestant ministers who will, without hesitation, marry a divorced man, or a divorced woman, or both. In some Protestant churches the representative men and women - men and women who are the most liberal supporters of the church and foremost in its work - are divorced people. Condemned as they are by the Word of God and the legislative utterances of our Lord Jesus Christ, they find in the church which professes his name, the church which has been "espoused to him as one husband " instead of judgement, the place of honour and, often, of exalted fellowship. Not so in the Catholic church. The priest will not marry, baptize or receive into communion those who are living in open defiance of the law and testimony of God. To the Roman Catholic Church marriage is a sacrament, is inviolable, and cannot be annulled by the laws or acts of man. The divorced man or woman may enter a Protestant church and find shelter there. The Roman church shuts its doors and stands like an insurmountable barrier against the inflood of the tide that would shipwreck the home and destroy the sacredness of such holy titles as husband and wife, father and mother. Unified in faith, defending the Bible, standing against divorce, loyally supported by liberal contributions, the poor being taught to give in the same proportion as the rich, counting among its membership some of the most representative families of America, with stately buildings, schools, colleges and universities, numbering its followers by millions, those millions increased by every steamship that lands its load of emigrants on our shores, and guided by a wisdom, a genius that makes her ready to meet each new demand that will strengthen her cause, absolutely cosmopolitan - Italian in Italy, Spanish in Spain, English in England, Irish in Ireland and, pre-eminently, American in America, she is steadily and marvellously moving on. Nor is this advance confined alone to religious lines. Nay, the march is far away beyond that! The Roman Catholic Church in this country is an immense political organisation, holds the balance of voting power, on the eve of a presidential election defeated the candidate whom all the world expected to be successful, and can, if she will, name the next man who shall sit in the Presidential chair. In the year 1902, the mission of the present incumbent of the White House to the Vatican was a political one. He was to all intents and purposes accredited from these United States as Ambassador to the Pope of Rome. He had instructions from the Secretary of State which said: "Any negotiations which you may desire on the part of the officers of the civil court or of military officers to enable you to perform your negotiation with the Vatican will be afforded"; and this high Commissioner from the United States acted and spoke in Rome as the special envoy of the great American Republic to the Catholic Church. He was received and accepted by the ambassadors to the Pope as one of themselves; and in a remarkable ceremony at Saint Peter’s, he was invited as an ambassador to the Roman Catholic Church, and took his place in the diplomatic tribune. Besides all that, an agreement was entered into between the Pope and himself concerning the Catholic Church in the Philippines and, although the contract failed, yet, as a recent writer, himself a Catholic, has said: "This does not destroy the fact that Washington was ready to enter into a regular treaty with the Pope, similar to those existing between the Vatican and the leading Catholic governments of the world." Today, Romanism is politically, as well as religiously, entrenched in the great cities of our land and, from its university centre at Washington, exercises its mysterious and far-reaching power. Romanists confidently expect the time to arrive when the whole land will be under its political control; when the machinery of office and legislation will be in the power of the church and when, with her astounding increase of numbers, she will be the religious and political dictator of the new world. The grasp of Rome is on the sceptre of temporal power. It is true, France has separated her from the State and, for a time, refuses to carry her; it is true, the Vatican and the Quirinal are at odds in Italy, and the Pope still styles himself "prisoner" in Rome; it is true that Spain is in the throes of an issue whether the civil or the religious power shall dominate. But, while the separation has taken place in France, that "eldest daughter of the church", a sentiment has been aroused and a partisanship for Rome emphasized such as has not been seen since the days when Versailles and the Vatican were in intimate touch. Italy is loyal to the king, proud of the day when Garibaldi broke through the walls of the "holy" city and gave her the right of civic liberty; but Italy is Catholic even to frenzy, and no matter how many millions may be spent on the new capitol, or how far Paganism may be glorified in the re-opening of the Appian Way, to the Italian, the dome of Saint Peter’s still overtops the Parthenon and the palace of the king. Spain may advance sufficiently out of the gloom of candle-light into the glare of the electric light; she may allow the breath of Twentieth Century toleration to breathe through her streets, permitting Protestants to write the name of their church on the walls of their buildings; she may, in an issue, exalt the civil authority into its due place, but the born Catholic in Spain looks upon Spain as the kingdom of Jesus Christ and blindly and fanatically, even unto death, believes that in the Roman Church Jesus Christ is alone to be found; and that, in final terms, Spain and the kingdom of the Roman Church are one. Should the issue for one moment depart from the civil and become religious, the government would be overthrown in a night and Alphonse and his English Queen repudiated as foes to the faith. It is true that Germany has protested against the last encyclical, but this very protest is a witness that the Germany of today is not the Germany of Luther, nor the days of the Great Elector; that she does no more than protest is a witness that the political power of Rome has been felt upon the banks of the Spree, and that the Protestant Emperor of the birth land of Protestantism is satisfied to go no further than the limits of diplomacy permit. And it is because of this that Rome with her soft tread and more than mortal wisdom has accepted the protest, explained the encyclical, and given orders that it shall not be read in German churches. It is the answer, not of a trembling suppliant, but of a church that feels itself sufficiently strong in the headquarters of the Reformation to meet diplomacy with diplomacy. Rome may be turned back for a moment, for a season be deflected from her course, but her course is onward. Those who hail the present separation of church and state in Europe as a witness of the waning power of the church as a political factor have only to reflect that separation in this country is more radical, more absolute, than it is, or ever can be, in Europe; and that in this country, in spite of the separation, the church increases in population, adds to her wealth, and is to-day the mightiest force at the polls; it is only necessary to contemplate the results of separation here, to see that separation in Europe is no evidence of the diminution of her strength, but is, really, in the sympathy and partisanship which it is sure to arouse, one of the guarantees of her final ascension to sovereignty and power. While Protestantism is at war with itself - is full of treason to Holy Scripture, and is breaking up into new and more absurd denominational factions every day - Rome, systematically, unrelentingly, and yet smoothly, secretly, and without noise, is marching to her ordained place. Protestantism lifts up the banner of guess, of doubt, of dethroned authority, and stands insistently for organised uncertainty. Rome speaks with certainty, with authority and relentless fixity. Protestantism seeks favour of the unbelieving world, apologises for her creeds, and would establish herself by denying them. Romanism hurls anathema at the unbeliever, magnifies her office, and claims to be wholly divine. Protestantism builds schools, and endows universities, that she may teach the rising generation to reckon doubt as the beginning of wisdom, and unbelief as the sign-patent of knowledge. Romanism spends her wealth in establishing schools and institutions of learning that she may lay hold of the rising youth and teach them that the church is the symbol of God, and that the highest wisdom is to obey her commands. Protestantism, in its reaction from ritualism, has turned the church into a lecture room and destroyed the feeling of reverence. Romanism sanctifies her buildings and creates a feeling of awe within the shadow of her churches. The Protestant enters his church as one might enter a concert room or a hall of debate. The Romanist bows on the threshold of his church as the sanctuary of God. Protestantism has stepped down on to the high road of the natural and the commonplace. Romanism more and more exalts itself into the realm of the supernatural. Protestantism prides itself on the denial of miracles. Romanism claims to work them. Protestantism carries with it the impression of newness and divisibility. Romanism is covered with the dust of centuries, has in it the echo of the distant ages, and is superior to schism. As the present age goes on, multitudes will turn away from the interrogation points of Protestantism, to the unqualified assertion and assurance of Romanism, to her gorgeous ritual, her spectacular worship, the glamour of her two thousand years of unbroken history, and the fact that, on the edge of eternity, she offers to take the whole responsibility of a human being, prepare him for the hour and the article of death, go with him into the shadows, keep with him by her power and influence in the unseen world, nor quit him till she has delivered him from danger, and secured him, as she claims, in the mercy of God. Some years ago, while on an ocean trip, I became acquainted with a versatile Irishman, a graduate of Dublin university, and a world wide traveller. He had eaten rice with the Chinese, tasted salt with the Arabs of the desert, clinked his glass in the offices of the Quai d’Orsay, was able to express his suggestive thoughts in the fluency of some half dozen languages beside his own, and was as much at home in one as in another. He was, when I met him, in the employ of the British Government, and had been a commissioner to this country. He was witty, at times full of pathos, mercurial and, frequently, overflowing with wordy heat. He was a scholar. He was abreast of the times. He claimed to be an agnostic. His speech was spiced with satire against the Christian religion. He said nothing coarse, but his assaults were keen, far-reaching and, often, cut me to the heart. One night as we drew near to the Irish coast, we sat together in the aft of the ship where we could see the phosphorescent glow in the waves. He was in a reflective mood. He spoke of the brevity and the uncertainty of life and, then, of the eternity beyond. Suddenly he turned to me and said, calling me by name: "When I die, I am going to die a good Catholic. I am going to have mass said for my soul. I have made provision for that." Seeing my amazement and that I was, evidently, puzzled to know whether he was seeking to outdo himself in travesty, he said earnestly: "Do not misunderstand me; I am an unbeliever, but I am superstitious. I have been brought up a Catholic. As I look about me in the world, the Church is the only thing which has seemed to stand in the midst of changing mentality and the reversal of human knowledge. To stand unmoved in the swirl of such conditions counts for something. The Church comes with an audacious claim of authority and the power of completeness. She leaves nothing for me to do. She takes all the responsibility for my soul - for the past and the future. You may call it what you please, but I tell you, her position counts in the end, and I am going to give my soul, if I have one, over into her hands. She is the only thing that offers certainty when you are about to leave this world." It was pitiful, but it was, and is, an illustration of how thousands feel, and how that feeling is likely to grow in the increasing infidelity and guess of Protestantism, in its total surrender of all final authority, and in its suicidal determination to wash its hands of the soul’s future. It is this appeal to the latent superstition in man, this splendid and uncompromising assertion, this unfaltering claim of authority, this unity of faith, together with the most perfect organisation on earth, and the unalterable purpose to be supreme in the world, that will give the Catholic Church her underhold in the final religious and political struggle of the age. Everything is making for that hour when Rome, once more seated on the back of human government, will rule the earth. The revival of Romanism is, then, a sign of the times. It is a sign that the world is hastening on to its Roman and Antichristian climax; and, by just so much, it is an increased and solemn warning that at any moment the Lord may descend in his unheralded secrecy, and snatch away from earth to Himself all who are truly His. It is the solemn warning that, at any moment, those who have made a mere profession of His Name; who have no real knowledge of Him in the heart; who, in spite of the profession they make, still walk according to "the course of this world", will be left behind to the judgements of the Great Tribulation, and the righteous wrath of a long suffering God. Well, indeed, may we heed the admonition of the Apostle Peter: "Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure." (2 Peter 1:10.) It is fitting that we should hear the searching words of Paul: "It is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation [that is, the redemption and glorifying of our bodies at the Coming of the Lord] nearer than when we believed. "The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. "Let us walk honestly, as in the day [the day of Christ]; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. "But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof." (Romans 13:11-14.) ======================================================================== CHAPTER 101: 02.090. INDULGENCES - TETZEL ======================================================================== The Resurrection of Indulgences or Is Tetzel really dead? Pope John Paul II has revived the practice of earning indulgences, a decision which has caused concern and embarrassed among British Roman Catholics. Professor Arthur Noble Pope John Paul II has revived the practice of earning indulgences, a decision which has caused concern and embarrassed among British Roman Catholics. On the first Sunday of Advent he issued a Papal Bull for the Millennium, Incarnationis Mysterium (The Mystery of the Incarnation), which describes in detail how Roman Catholics may obtain indulgences both for themselves and for souls in Purgatory. The Romish dogma of indulgences lies at the very heart of the historical conflict between Biblical Christianity and the Vatican. It was the major factor in the gathering storm that instigated Luther’s revolt against the corrupt pecuniary practices of the Roman Church and led to the victory of the Reformation. The fact that the present Pope has just announced the revival of the false doctrine of indulgences proves that the spirit of Tetzel, far from dying out, merely slumbered on, unawakened by the enlightenment of the sixteenth century. Those who had imagined otherwise must be reminded of Rome’s boast that she never changes. With the Millennium on the horizon, the Pope is attempting to re-instate the spiritual darkness of the Middle Ages! Semper eadem! No change except for the change that is soon to tinkle once again in the coffers of the Vatican! What is an indulgence? The 22nd article of the Roman Creed is: "I do affirm that the power of indulgences was left by Christ in the church, and that the use of them is very beneficial to Christian people." Dr. Ludwig Ott, in Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma (p. 441) states: "By an indulgence (indulgentia) is understood the extra-sacramental remission of the temporal punishment of sin remaining after the forgiveness of the guilt of sin." Rome claims that this remission is valid in the sight of God, and that it is granted by the Church out of her treasury of satisfaction. It is the remission in whole or in part of the temporal punishment [225] due for sins which have been forgiven. The gaining of these and other credits is necessary because the Sacrament of Penance [210] does not fully satisfy for punishment due. To gain an indulgence, one must be in a state of grace (free from mortal sin [196]) and perform whatever work is required for the indulgence. The remission is made by applying some of the Treasury of Merit [274] which the Church possesses. The indulgence is a transfer of merit from one person to another and offers a lessening of Purgatory [226]. Plenary indulgences remit all temporal punishment; partial indulgences remit a portion of this punishment. There is also the application of indulgences to departed souls, which is admitted by Roman Catholic writers to be of recent date. The Wanderer of June 10, 1994, summarising paragraphs 1471-1479 of The Catechism of the Catholic Church, gives the following definition: "An indulgence is a remission of the temporal punishment due to sins that have already been forgiven in the Sacrament of Penance. This temporal punishment exists because every sin, even venial, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must be purified either here on earth, or after death in a state called Purgatory. Indulgences are obtained through he Church, which opens to us the treasury of merits of Christ and the saints. The remission can be plenary or partial, depending on whether it removes all or only some of the temporal punishment attached to sin. The indulgence can be applied to the person performing the works of devotion, penance, and charity or to a soul in Purgatory." Fulano, in Romish Indulgences of Today. An Exposure [London, 1902, p. 82f.], provides a memorable definition of indulgences: "[...] Rome, by means of deft definitions, lifts the burden of eternal guilt and punishment of sin off the Roman Catholic sinner - only to re-impose, by means of her definition of poena temporalis [temporal punishment] another burden scarcely less appalling. The pains of Purgatory are substituted for the pains of Hell - and then this ’re-imposed penalty’, as we might call it (practically the only penalty which Romanists yet fear) - this one the Catholic Church graciously takes away in whole or in part by her Indulgences. Rome is an Indulgent Mother!" A little history… The Middle Ages Indulgences were originally introduced in the eleventh century and arose in connection with the so-called sacrament of penance, which was claimed to assure the penitent sinner of the forgiveness of sins while making a distinction between the guilt and the punishment of the sin. According to the Church of Rome, the former was forgiven by God through the priest. The latter, however, had to be met through the performance of certain good works such as fasting, the recitation of certain prayers, pilgrimages, or alms. In the fourteenth century we find the partial substitution of money gifts for works of mercy and charity, a fact which already laid the train for the Reformation: even notable Roman Catholics such as Juan de Valdez, the brother of the secretary of the Emperor Charles V, admitted the corruption of such practices: "I see that we can scarcely get anything from Christ’s ministers but for money, at bishopping money, at marriage money, for confession money - no, not extreme unction without money! They will ring no bells without money, no burial in the church without money; so that it seemeth that Paradise is shut up without money. The rich is buried in the church, the poor in the churchyard. [...] The rich man may readily get large indulgences, but the poor none, because he wanteth money to pay for them." The practice of selling indulgences, with its falsification of Biblical truth as well as scandalous financial exploitation of the populace, thereafter increased significantly until in Luther’s time it led Europe to the brink of revolution and caused the mighty revolt against Rome in the form of the glorious Protestant Reformation. The Reformation period The event that brought the latent crisis into the open was the public sale of indulgences by a notorious Dominican friar, Johann Tetzel, in 1517. He was the Vatican’s "Apostolic Commissary for all Germany and Inquisitor of Heretical Pravity" during the popedom of Leo X (1513-1521). His indulgence-brokering activities, which soon aroused Luther’s righteous indignation, were part of a corrupt and ambitious ecclesiastical scheme by Leo to provide funds for the reconstruction of St. Peter’s in Rome, the most lavishly expensive mass house of Romanism. It cost £12 million, a colossal sum in 16th-century terms and more than all the money expended on it by successive Popes, and took 111 years to build. Leo was advised by Cardinal Pucci to publish a sale of indulgences throughout Europe for the purpose of replenishing the pontifical exchequer and finishing the work on St. Peter’s begun by Julius II (1503-1513). Little did they realise that the project, paid for by their dupes both rich and poor, would cripple the permanent resources of the Papacy and lead to the decline, if not the downfall, of Romanism. Leo was the friend and protector of the artists Raphael and Michelangelo - the splendour-loving Renaissance Pope of the Medici family. He had commissioned Albrecht of Brandenburg, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Mainz, with the task of collecting the money in Germany. Tetzel acted on Leo’s orders and went from town to town, offering varying spiritual benefits to his spiritual dupes in return for the payment of appropriate amounts of money. The people were still ignorant enough to believe in the Pope’s power to grant pardons for sins. Thus there was no doubt that they would buy the ’pardons’, and so gold would flow into the coffers of Rome. Tetzel told them: "You should know that all who confess and in penance put alms into the coffer according to the counsel of the confessor, will obtain complete remission of all their sins." [Translated from a sermon by Tetzel quoted in Martin Luthers Sämmtliche Schriften, Erfurt, 1717, pp. 46ff.] There was one obstacle. Princes were growing jealous of their subjects’ money being taken by the Vatican. Leo X, however, got over this obstacle by giving them a share in the spoil. He offered Henry VIII one quarter of what came from England, but Henry haggled and bargained to get a third! Since kings had made themselves poor by their wars, a share in the Papal spoils on their own subjects was a greater temptation than they could resist. Erasmus, in his Praise of Folly (1509), had described indulgences as "the crime of false pardons". In every letter and book that he wrote since then he bitterly complained that the Pope and the Princes were resorting to them again. "Ecclesiastical hypocrites," he wrote, "rule in the courts of princes. The Court of Rome has lost all sense of shame. [...] I see that the very height of tyranny has been reached. The Pope and Kings count the people not as men, but as cattle in the market!" Luther’s attack followed when, on the eve of the Feast of All Saints, 1517, he nailed his famous Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. The major theme of a large number of these is his assault on the theory and practice of indulgences. To quote but the most famous: "Those who believe that they can be certain of their salvation because they have indulgence letters will be eternally damned, together with their teachers." (32) "It is vain to trust in salvation by indulgence letters, even though the indulgence commissary, or even the Pope, were to offer his soul as security." (52) The post-Reformation period The corrupt and demoralising traffic in indulgences nevertheless continued. Sir Matthew Hale (1609-1676), one of the greatest seventeenth-century scholars on the history of English common law, denounced it in the following words: "They have corrupted, as much as in them lies, the most pure and innocent religion the world ever knew, by distorting it to ends of wealth and power." In the nineteenth-century the administration of Pius IX (1846-1878) declared that indulgences would "continue to be gained in the same manner and form as heretofore". [Letter of Chargé d’Affaires of the Holy See to the Archbishop of Toledo, October 1, 1854] … and the repetition of history Has Rome changed its dogma of indulgences today? While Paul VI (1963-1978) admitted some misuse of indulgences in the past, he still re-affirmed the basic Roman Catholic concept of indulgences as outlined in the definitions above. His encyclical Indulgentarium Doctrina (The Doctrine of Indulgences) of 1967 formulated new laws concerning indulgences, but these merely (1) abolished the value of partial indulgences using days and years, (2) reduced the number of plenary indulgences, and (3) detached them from particular things and places. In other words: a familiar change of face without the slightest change of substance! In his Enchiridion Indulgentiarum (A Handbook of Indulgences) of 1968 he merely reduced the number of works and prayers of indulgence to about 70 and said that the previous practice of attaching a certain number of days or years to a specific task was no longer in effect. In November, 1998, Pope John Paul II issued a document called The Mystery of the Incarnation with an appendix explaining how indulgences can be obtained. The Church, it declares, will offer a plenary (full) indulgence during the coming so-called Holy Year (December 24, 1999, to January 6, 2001). The requirements are much simpler than ever before and have annoyed Romanist writers such as Richard McBrien, who sees in this decree a return to "a calculating, egocentric approach to Christian destiny, where an individual is concerned primarily with the accumulation of spiritual ’credits’." (R. McBrien: Roman Catholicism) The blasphemy of indulgence-peddling Luther, as the servant of Christ, knew from the Scriptures the unconditional pardon offered to those who accept "repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ" (Acts 20:21), the doctrine preached by the Apostles. None of the Apostles ever exercised an authority to declare pardon as an intermediary to any individual on the ground of the merit of either sinner or Saviour, whether for the consideration of a sum of money, or gratis. Tetzel, as the servant of corruption, was a vendor of worthless Papal wares, and as such he inflamed Luther against such a profanation of Christianity. The Reformation restored to the world not only the grand doctrine of justification by faith alone, but also the doctrine of repentance. Milton, denouncing the errors of Romanism, wrote: "When I recall to mind, at last, after so many dark ages, wherein the huge overshadowing train of error had almost swept all the stars out of the firmament of the church - how the bright and blissful Reformation, by divine power, struck through the black and settled night of ignorance and antichristian tyranny; methinks a sovereign and reviving joy must needs rush into the bosom of him that reads or hears, and the sweet odour of the returning gospel embathe his soul with the fragrancy of heaven." Let the Bible speak against indulgences and let us rejoice in the knowledge of the truth: "[...] ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot [...]." (1 Peter 1:18-19) The sale of indulgences. On a pole, in the form of a cross, hangs the Papal authorisation for the sale; on the ground lie scales; two sacks of coins show the profit. Caricature of Tetzel’s sale of indulgences. The last two lines of the German poem recount the famous verse attributed to Tetzel: "As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, / The soul at once into Heaven springs." From the Passional of Christ and Antichrist, a Reformation pamphlet of 1521: "Christ drives the money-changers out of the Temple" (John 2:1-25) (left) and "The Pope sells special favours" (right). ======================================================================== CHAPTER 102: 02.091. CHRIST AND POPE ======================================================================== Christ and the Pope A Contrast compiled by Professor Arthur Noble Professor Arthur Noble Affixed to a column at the corner of the Orsini Palace in Rome at the beginning of the sixteenth century was the following comparison between Christ and the Pope: * Christ said: "My kingdom is not of this world." The Pope conquers cities by force. * Christ had a crown of thorns. The Pope wears a triple diadem. * Christ washed the feet of his disciples. The Pope has his kissed by kings. * Christ paid tribute. The Pope takes it. * Christ fed the sheep. The Pope shears them for his own profit. * Christ was poor. The Pope wishes to be master of the world. * Christ carried on His shoulders the cross. The Pope is carried on the shoulders of his servants in liveries of gold. * Christ despised riches. The Pope has no other passion than for gold. * Christ drove out the merchants from the temple. The Pope welcomes them. * Christ preached peace. The Pope is the torch of war. * Christ was meekness. The Pope is pride personified. * Christ promulgated laws that the Pope tramples underfoot. [Quoted by Jeremiah J. Crowley: Romanism. A Menace to the Nation. Aurora, Missouri, 1912, p. 205.] Christ knew no sin. Scores of the self-styled ’Vicars of Christ’ - the professing ’Holy Fathers’ - were so depraved and base that they left a history of adultery, bribery, debauchery, drunkenness, fornication, incest, murder, perversion, rape, seduction, simony, sodomy, treachery and whoredom. After a visit to Rome, the great Italian poet Dante described the Vatican as a "sewer of corruption". [Quoted in Ralph Woodrow: Babylon. Mystery Religion. Riverside, California, 1966, p. 94f.] Christ told his followers to keep the commandments. The Popes have methodically broken them all. Instead of practising "Thou shall not kill", Innocent III (1198-1216) not only surpassed all his predecessors in killing, but founded the most devilish institution in history - the Inquisition, which for over five hundred years was used by his successors to maintain their power against those who did not agree with the teachings of the Romish Church. It is estimated that that Church, throughout history, has been responsible for the wilful slaughter of over 100 million people. Christ preached: "Blessed are the peacemakers." Pope Julius II (1503-13) had a passion for war bordering on frenzy. His pontificate was a perpetual war, and Europe knew no peace during the period of his life. One may easily imagine the state of the Church under a Vicar of Christ who spent his time in a camp, amidst the clash of arms, and who knew no other glory than that procured in war or the pillage of a town. His successors have faithfully carried on the belligerent tradition, supporting dictators and stirring up strife to achieve their corrupt aims. Non-Roman-Catholic countries are being brainwashed today into believing that the nature and aims of the Roman Pontiff and his Church are not what they used to be; but Rome is ever and everywhere semper eadem, always the same. As she was throughout past centuries, so she remains today, except that she is now playing politics more astutely than she was previously. So it is that Mangasarian, warning of Rome’s thirst for American blood, states the following as "the verdict of history": * Where the priests are free, the people are slaves! * Where the priests are rich, the people are poor! * Where the priests teach, the people are ignorant! * Where the priests prosper, progress is paralysed! * Where the priests lead, they lead into misery, bondage, poverty, superstition, persecution - ruin! [Quoted by Crowley, p. 203.] The nineteenth-century English politician, essayist, poet, and historian Lord Macaulay, best known for his 5-volume History of England, memorably described the Papal system when he wrote: "The experience of twelve hundred eventful years, the ingenuity and patient care of forty generations of statesmen, have improved the polity [of the Church of Rome] to such perfection that, among the contrivances that have been devised for deceiving and oppressing mankind, it occupies the highest place." [Quoted by Crowley, p. 203.] Today, as ever, the same ’Vicar of Christ’, ’Our Lord God the Pope’, ’King of Heaven, Earth and Hell’, while claiming to represent the lowly and humble Nazarene, still wears a triple crown of priceless value and robes resplendent with jewels! As Crowley has well said [p. 205]: "Christ had not whereon to lay His head. The Pope dwells in a Palace of four thousand rooms! What a mockery! What a delusion! What a snare is Popery!" ======================================================================== CHAPTER 103: 02.092. RELICS OF ROME ======================================================================== The Relics of Romanism The gross superstition and idolatry that have accompanied the use of relics reveal the deception and inconsistency with which Romanism has been plagued for centuries. Professor Arthur Noble The gross superstition and idolatry that have accompanied the use of relics reveal the deception and inconsistency with which Romanism has been plagued for centuries. Among the Roman Catholic Church’s most highly venerated relics have been pieces of the "true Cross". So many of these were scattered throughout Europe and other parts of the world that Calvin once said that if all pieces were gathered together, they would form a good ship-load; yet the Cross of Christ was carried by one individual! Are we to believe that these pieces miraculously multiplied as when Jesus blessed the loaves and fishes? Such was apparently the belief of St. Paulinus who spoke of "the reintegration of the Cross", i.e. that it "never grew smaller in size, no matter how many pieces were detached from it"! [The Catholic Encyclopaedia, Vol. 4, p. 524] The great Swiss reformer John Calvin (1509-1564) mentioned the inconsistency of various relics of his day. Several churches claimed to have the Crown of Thorns; others claimed to have the water-pots used by Jesus in the miracle at Cana. Some of the wine was to be found at Orleans. Concerning a piece of broiled fish which Peter offered to Jesus, Calvin said: "It must have been wondrously well salted, if it has kept for such a long series of ages." What was allegedly the crib of Jesus was exhibited for veneration every Christmas Eve at St. Mary Major’s in Rome. Several churches claimed to have the baby clothes of Jesus. The Church of St. James in Rome displayed what was claimed to be the altar on which Jesus was placed when He was presented in the temple. Even the foreskin (from His circumcision) was shown by the monks of Charroux, who, as a proof of its genuineness, declared that it yielded drops of blood. [Calvin’s Tracts, Vol. 1, pp. 296-304] Several churches claimed to possess the "holy prepuce", including a church at Coulombs, France, the Church of St. John in Rome, and the Church of Puy in Velay! [John P. Wilder: The Other Side of Rome, Grand Rapids, 1959, p. 54] Other relics include Joseph’s carpenter tools, bones of the donkey on which Jesus rode into Jerusalem, the cup used at the Last Supper, the empty purse of Judas, Pilate’s basin, the coat of purple thrown over Jesus by the mocking soldiers, the sponge lifted up to Him on the Cross, nails from the Cross, specimens of the hair of the Virgin Mary (some brown, some blond, some red, and some black), her skirts, wedding ring, slippers, veil, and even a bottle of the milk on which Jesus had been suckled. [Wilder, p. 53] According to Romanist belief, Mary’s body was miraculously taken up to Heaven; but several different churches in Europe did claim to have the body of Mary’s mother, even though we know nothing about her and she was not even credited with the name "St. Ann" until a few centuries ago! Even more laughable is the story about Mary’s house. Roman Catholics believe that the house in which Mary lived at Nazareth is now in the little town of Loreto, Italy, having been transported there by angels! The Catholic Encyclopaedia says: "Since the fifteenth century, and possibly even earlier, the ’Holy House’ of Loreto has been numbered among the most famous shrines of Italy [...]. The interior measures only thirty-one feet by thirteen. An altar stands at one end beneath a statue, blackened with age, of the Virgin Mother and her Divine Infant, [...] venerable throughout the world on account of the Divine mysteries accomplished in it. [...] It is here that most holy Mary, Mother of God, was born; here that she was saluted by the Angel; here that the eternal Word was made Flesh. Angels conveyed this House from Palestine to the town Tersato in Illyria in the year of salvation 1291 in the pontificate of Nicholas IV. Three years later, in the beginning of the pontificate of Boniface VIII, it was carried again by the ministry of angels and placed in a wood [...], where, having changed its station thrice in the course of a year, at length, by the will of God, it took up its permanent position on this spot. [...] That the traditions thus boldly proclaimed to the world have been fully sanctioned by the Holy See cannot for a moment remain in doubt. More than forty-seven popes have in various ways rendered honour to the shrine, and an immense number of Bulls and Briefs proclaim without qualification the identity of the Santa Casa di Loreto with the Holy House of Nazareth" ! [The Catholic Encyclopaedia, Vol. 13, p. 454] The veneration of dead bodies of martyrs was ordered by the Council of Trent, the Council which also condemned those who did not believe in relics: "The holy bodies of holy martyrs [...] are to be venerated by the faithful, for through these bodies many benefits are bestowed by God on men, so that they who affirm that veneration and honour are not due to the relics of the saints [...] are wholly to be condemned, as the Church has already long since condemned, and also now condemns them." [The Catholic Encyclopaedia, Vol. 12, p. 737] Of course, because it was believed that "many benefits" could come through the bones of dead men, the sale of bodies and bones became big business for the Church of Rome! In about 750, long lines of wagons constantly came to Rome bringing immense quantities of skulls and skeletons which were sorted, labelled, and sold by the popes. [H.B. Cotterill: Mediaeval Italy, New York, 1915, p. 71] Graves were plundered by night and tombs in churches were watched by armed men! No wonder Gregorovius wrote: "Rome was like a mouldering cemetery in which hyenas howled and fought as they dug greedily after corpses." [Quoted by Ralph Woodrow: Babylon, Mystery Religion, Riverside, California, 1966, p. 62] There is in the Church of St. Prassede a marble slab which states that in 817 Pope Paschal had the bodies of 2,300 martyrs transferred from cemeteries to this church. [Cotterill, p. 391] When Pope Boniface IV converted the Pantheon into a Romanist church in about 609, "twenty-eight cartloads of sacred bones were said to have been removed from the Catacombs and placed in a prophyry basin beneath the high altar". [The Catholic Encyclopaedia, Vol. 2, p. 661] Placing bones beneath a church or other relics was a requirement for "consecrating" the ground and the building. The Castle Church at Wittenberg in Germany, to the door of which Luther nailed his famous Ninety-five Theses, had 19,000 saintly relics! [Will Durant: The Story of Civilisation: Caesar and Christ, New York, 1944-1977, Vol. 6, p. 339] Bishops were forbidden by the second Nicaean Council in 787 to dedicate a building if no relics were present; the penalty for so doing was excommunication! Were these ideas taken from the Bible or from paganism? In the old legends, when Nimrod, the false "saviour" of Babylon, died, his body was torn limb from limb - part being buried one place, and part in another. When he was "resurrected", becoming the sun-god, it was taught that he was now in a different body, the members of the old body being left behind. This is in stark contrast to the death of the true Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, of Whom it was prophesied: "A bone of him shall not be broken" (John 19:36), and Who was resurrected in the true sense of the word. The resurrection of Christ resulted in an empty tomb, no parts of His body being left behind for relics! In the old Babylonian mystery religion from which Romanism is derived, the various places where it was believed a bone of a god was buried were considered sacred - "consecrated" by a bone. "Egypt was covered with sepulchres of its martyred god; and many a leg and arm and skull, all vouched to be genuine, were exhibited in the rival burying places for the adoration of the Egyptian faithful." [Alexander Hislop: The Two Babylons, New York, 1959, p. 179] Needless to say, the use of relics is very ancient and did not originate with Christianity. Even The Catholic Encyclopaedia actually admits that the use "of some object, notably part of the body or clothes, remaining as a memorial of a departed saint" was in existence "before the propagation of Christianity" and "the veneration of relics, in fact, is to some extent a primitive instinct associated with many other religious systems besides that of Christianity". [The Catholic Encyclopaedia, Vol. 12, p. 734] If Christ and the Apostles did not use relics, but the use of such was known prior to Christianity and among other religions, do we not have another example of a pagan idea being ’Christianised’ by the Church of Rome? Relics can have no part in true worship, for "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." (John 4:24) The extremism to which the use of imaginary and faked relics has led in the Church of Rome is certainly not "truth". Some of the bones that were at one time acclaimed as the bones of saints have been exposed as the bones of animals! In Spain, a cathedral once displayed what was said to be part of a wing of the Angel Gabriel when he visited Mary. Upon investigation, however, it was found to be a magnificent ostrich feather! [Lorraine Boettner: Roman Catholicism, Philadelphia, 1962, p. 290] The Catholic Encyclopaedia itself recognises that many relics are "doubtful", but fails to admit that probably all of them are fakes: "Many of the more ancient relics duly exhibited for veneration in the great sanctuaries of Christendom or even at Rome itself must now be pronounced to be either certainly spurious or open to grave suspicion [...]. Difficulties might be urged against the supposed ’column of the flagellation’ venerated at Rome in the Church of Santa Prassede and against many other famous relics." [The Catholic Encyclopaedia, Vol. 12, p. 737] So much for the infallibility of Papal pronouncements! How, then, is this discrepancy explained? The Catholic Encyclopaedia continues: "[...] no dishonour is done to God by the continuance of an error which has been handed down in perfect good faith for many centuries. [...] Hence there is justification for the practice of the Holy See in allowing the cult of certain doubtful ancient relics to continue." In other words, it is acceptable to believe a lie. Even if we did have one of Mary’s hairs, or a bone of the apostle Paul, or the robe of Jesus, would God be pleased with these things being used as objects of worship? According to the example of the brass serpent of Moses, He would not. If there is no real virtue in the actual hair, bone, or robe, how much less merit can there be in relics which are known to be fakes? [Adapted, with acknowledgement, from Ralph Woodrow: Babylon, Mystery Religion.] ======================================================================== CHAPTER 104: 02.093. REFUGE OF LIES ======================================================================== Papal Supremacy - A Refuge Of Lies ’Papal supremacy’ is the outcome of ’Papal infallibility’. It is the corrupt fruit of a corrupt tree. Rev. Kyle Paisley ’Papal supremacy’ is the outcome of ’Papal infallibility’. It is the corrupt fruit of a corrupt tree. Claims to supremacy are very wide. It is asserted with regard to both politics and religion. Temporal and spiritual supremacy is the proud boast of Antichrist. The matter of spiritual supremacy is the more serious. The decree of Pope Boniface VIII states: "Temporal authority must be subject to spiritual power." Pius IX, writing to the Emperor of Germany on 7th August, 1873, said: "Every one who has been baptized belongs in some way to the Pope." Lest any ecumenist should say that Rome’s position has changed, bear in mind the following excerpts from A Catechism of Catholic Doctrine (Revised edition, 1985): "The Pope is the spiritual father of all Christians. […] The Pope is the Shepherd and Teacher of all Christians." What is this, if it is not a claim to supremacy? Claims to supremacy are not only wide but wicked. They gender deception by turning souls away from Christ to trust in a man, all the while with the belief that this will bring salvation. Boniface VIII decreed: "It is necessary for everyone who is to be saved to be subject to the Roman Pontiff"; but Christ said: "I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh unto the Father, but by me." The claims to supremacy are wicked because they are an attempt to rob God of His glory. The blasphemous character of this boasted pre-eminence is seen in the divine name the Pope takes to himself. He is called ’Holy Father’. The Council of Pisa described him thus: "The most holy and blessed one […], the Lord of the Universe." The only true and living God will not smile on such arrogance. Isaiah 42:8 : "I am the Lord: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another […]." Papal aspirations to supremacy are wrong. They are based upon a wresting of the Scriptures. For example, concerning Christ’s words to Peter (who, it is said by Rome, was the first in the line of the Popes) in John 21:15-17 : "Feed my sheep. […] Feed my lambs", a most unnatural explanation is given. Rome construes the command as a commission to Peter to take charge of the whole church, pastors and people, whereas the injunction given to him is also given to all pastors: "[…] feed the church of God." (Acts 20:28; 1 Peter 5:2.) Ideas of Papal absolutism have also been advanced by forgeries - for example, the Donation of Constantine, purported to have been written by him and conferring vast privileges on the Church of Rome. It was published for the first time in the middle of the eighth Century. Attached was the fable that it was granted by Constantine on the occasion of his being baptized by Pope Sylvester as a grateful return for his having been cured of leprosy by the baptismal water. The evidence of history proves that Constantine was never afflicted with leprosy and was not baptized until he was on his deathbed. The idea of supremacy is without foundation in Scripture, and since it needs lies to bolster it up it must be refused. The idea of supremacy is without foundation in Scripture, and since it needs lies to bolster it up it must be refused. How tragic it is that so many should remain faithful to the Papal system and instead of looking for Christ alone for salvation look to Rome. The future for those who remain in such a state is awful: "Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet; and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies […]." (Isaiah 28:17.) ======================================================================== CHAPTER 105: 02.094. PAPAL INFALLIBILITY ======================================================================== A Curious Instance Of Papal Infalliblity Exposed by C.H. Spurgeon for The Sword and Trowel, 1888 C.H. Spurgeon Hardly can we remember so singular an incident as that which Dr. Wright records in the interesting pamphlet which now lies before us. If we had hitherto believed in the infallibility of the Pope of Rome, the fact here recorded would have delivered us from the delusion, and we trust the making of it known may have a like effect upon those who are now the victims of that fiction. It seems that a certain M. Henri Leserre found great benefit for his sore eyes from his faith in the water of Lourdes Grotto, and invocations of the Blessed Virgin. Abundant facts prove that faith in anything has a curative effect. Whether it is a doll dressed in satin, as at Larghetto, or a doctor with a wide reputation, or a quack medicine, or an old woman, or a broomstick; if you have confidence that you will be cured, it goes a long way towards curing you. That, however, is not the point. M. Leserre was grateful for his cure, and, moved by that gratitude, wrote a book, entitled Notre Dame de Lourdes. It was the making of the place. His pen caused Our Lady of Lourdes to be much sought after; for his writing was charmingly attractive, and secured hosts of readers. On a happy day, M. Leserre discovered the Four Gospels, and was greatly impressed by them. He thought that the fourfold story of Jesus was the very book that France wanted; and he thought most wisely. He devoutly set to work to translate the original into the French of the day; making, not exactly a literal translation, but one which would command a reading from the ordinary Frenchman. Not in chapters and verses, but like an ordinary book, the Gospel narrative flowed on in a charming manner. The version was as faithful as Henri Leserre could make it; it would not quite satisfy an evangelical believer, but it was a wonderful performance for the Roman Catholic Church. For a preface, it bore in its forefront a lamentation over the neglect of the Gospels by Catholics. He exclaims: "The Gospel - the most illustrious book in the world - is become an unknown book." Strange that such a book, with such a preface, should be dedicated to "Notre Dame de Lourdes". But there was something stranger. The book appeared with an imprimateur of the Archbishop of Paris, and the approval and benediction of the Pope!! Note this - "The Holy Father has received, in regular course, the French translation of the Gospels, which you have undertaken and accomplished, to the delight and with the approval of the Archiepiscopal authority. His Holiness commissions me to express to you his approval of the object with which you have been inspired in the execution and publication of that work, so full of interest" etc. Miracles will never cease; the Pope had sanctioned a preface extolling the reading of the Scriptures, and had also given his countenance to a popular translation of a portion of the New Testament. The Gospels, thus recommended, obtained a ready sale; edition followed edition, till the twenty-fifth appeared. Probably one hundred thousand copies were sold, at four francs each. Not as cheap tracts, but as valuable books which are sure to be preserved, had the Gospels entered many French families, under the sanction of the Pope. Suddenly "the Sacred Congregation" discovered that an error had been committed, and a decree was issued from the Apostolic Palace of the Vatican, with the approval of "Our Most Holy Lord, Pope Leo III", condemning the translation of Henri Lasserre, to be placed on the index of forbidden books. An infallible benediction was removed to make room for an equally infallible malediction in the space of twelve months and fifteen days. The book has been withdrawn from circulation; but no hand can gather up all the copies, or destroy the good which must have come from their perusal. As for M. Henri Lasserre, he deserves our sympathy, and he should be the object of the prayers of all who rejoice in Gospel light, that on him the fulness of truth and grace may dawn. This very wonderful story is set forth at length, with all the documents, by our friend, Dr. William Wright, of the Bible Society; and those who invest a shilling in the purchase of his pamphlet, which is published by Nisbet, will do well to keep the document. Hereafter, it will be produced full many a time as the clearest possible demonstration that the Pope is not infallible - proof which must tell upon even a Catholic mind. We hear the pamphlet is to be sown broadcast over Italy, and it will be good seed. The stopping of the sale of the Gospels may turn out to be for the furtherance of the truth. Let our readers think of it and rejoice - it is true that a Milan newspaper is daily issuing the Gospels in numbers. It will be a charming novel for the Italians. Hundreds of thousands will read the story of our Lord’s life and death, and the Lord will make it to them as a voice from Heaven. Courage, brethren! God is confounding His enemies, winning wanderers, and visiting His people! - C.H.S. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 106: 02.095. ROME'S IMMORALITY ======================================================================== Rome’s Arrogant (Im)Morality In the light of the sexual misconduct of many of her clergy it is blatantly hypocritical for the Mother of Harlots to say anything about morality. Rev. J.C. Kyle Paisley The arrogance of the Church of Rome knows no bounds. This arrogance is nowhere more manifest than in the field of morals. In a new Vatican handbook published by the Pontifical Council for the Family, the Papacy urges her priests to treat couples using contraception with "mercy, discretion and respect", while at the same time claiming that the Church’s ban on contraception is a "definite and unreformable doctrine". The publication insists that Roman Catholics admitting to their "sin" should have absolution, even if they "sin" repeatedly. One proviso is that upon confession there must be a commitment "not to fall again into sin". In the light of the sexual misconduct of many of her clergy it is blatantly hypocritical for the Mother of Harlots to say anything about morality. It seems that because of increased disillusionment amongst her adherents over the misbehaviour of priests, and because of falling church attendance, Rome is prepared to do anything to claw back lost ground. What is the ordinary individual to think about a system which on the one hand reaffirms a ’principle’ and on the other hand prostitutes this ’principle’ by promising forgiveness to those who continually flout it? The Scarlet Woman stands self-condemned, and all her claims to inerrancy are proved a farce. She has nothing to offer her people but that which will "make empty the soul of the hungry" (Isaiah 32:6). Satisfaction and salvation are in the Lord Jesus alone, "who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and satisfaction and redemption" (1 Corinthians 1:30). Faith in an unfailing Christ, not in a destitute Church, brings peace. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 107: 02.096. INFALLIBILITY ======================================================================== The Doctrine of Infallibility It is clear that Papal pretensions to infallibility are arrogant and blasphemous. Rev. J.C. Kyle Paisley The doctrine of infallibility is to be rejected for the following reasons: 1. Romanists have contradicted each other in their zeal to defend their doctrines against the criticisms of Protestantism. Di Bruno (Catholic Belief)affirms that the Pope, apart from the bishops, is infallible, stating: "Some people wrongly imagine that this dogma is new. […] They might, with as much show or reason, assert that the dogma which teaches the existence of a personal God is a new dogma." On the other hand, Keenan (The Controversial Catechism) declares that to say Catholics believe the Pope to be infallible is "a Protestant invention, and no article of the Catholic faith, […] for no decision of his can oblige, unless it be received and enforced by the bishops of the Church." 2. The idea of Papal infallibility is open to be rejected because of its late addition into Roman dogma. Claims of infallibility were first made in the eleventh century, Pope Gregory being one of the first to assume it. Although the idea was affirmed by the Council of Trent some five centuries later, there was no clear determination on the matter until the Vatican Council of 1870. Prior to this there were four difference opinions. The Jesuits and Italian bishops held that infallibility was vested in the Pope. The French bishops held that it was the Church councils that were infallible. A third party held that the infallibility was in both Pope and councils. A fourth party held that it was vested in the Church as a whole. The development of the concept of ’infallibility’ contradicts its very use, because it suggests uncertainty. The idea that any man or system suddenly realises that it is unerring, after long years of argument, shows how fallacious the claims of infallibility are. 3. Infallibility is to be rejected because the very Council that is said to have determined upon it was not unanimous. One would have expected unanimity in an infallible Church, but this was not the case. At the outset of the Vatican Council of 1870, 410 bishops petitioned in favour of the dogma and 162 against. When the vote was being taken, those opposed to the dogma absented themselves from the Council, and the decree was accordingly passed. 4. Papal infallibility is to be rejected because it is a convenience and not a truth. The successful passing of the dogma at the Vatican Council is credited mainly to the Jesuits. This order was particularly partial to the idea of the personal infallibility of the Pope, but they secured, by a brief dated October, 1836, that the Pope virtually resigned himself and the Church to their control; so, because it was easier for them to manage one than a multitude of individual bishops, it was their purpose to have infallibility lodged in one man, that man being the Pope. 5. This dogma is further to be repudiated because of its inconsistency with the Creed of Pope Pius IV, which is an official summary of the Roman faith. The creed requires the Romanist to receive all things delivered by the general councils of the Church, one of which, the Council of Constance, declared that the Pope is subject to the councils of the Church in matters of faith - a thing which could not be if infallibility is vested in himself. 6. Protestants reject the notion of Papal infallibility because there is no substantiation for it in the words of Christ. Romanists have attempted to base their reasoning on the words of Christ to Peter (whom they claim to be the first Pope) in Matthew 16:18: "I say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." However, there is not one word here with regard to the Pope or infallibility. Rather, there is the anticipation of Roman error, for in the same chapter Peter is proved most fallible indeed. Immediately after the promise he fell into error, rebuking Christ as He spoke of the necessity of His death (Matthew 16:21-23). 7. With infallibility we might have expected an unflinching loyalty to the truth, but this is not to be found in the Papacy. Pope Liberius was an Arian, denying the deity of Christ,, Pope Honorius was a Monothelite, denying the deity of Christ and His real humanity. Pope Boniface denies the doctrine of the Trinity. Popes John XII, Benedict IX,,, John XXIII and Alexander VI were guilty of some of the worst depravities. Cardinal Baronius declared that many Popes were "monsters of iniquity". Yet the Vatican pronounces them all infallible. It is clear that Papal pretensions to infallibility are arrogant and blasphemous. By these the Pope proves himself to be that Antichrist spoken of in the Word of God, that "man of sin" and "son of perdition", who "opposes and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God" (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4). ======================================================================== CHAPTER 108: 02.097. ROME UNCHANGING ======================================================================== Rome - Unchanged and Unchanging The Roman Catholic hierarchy’s public humiliation and disciplining of the Irish Republic’s President Mary McAleese for participating in a Church of Ireland Holy Communion service in Dublin on December 7, 1997, has exposed the unchanged and unchanging character of the Church of Rome since the Dark Ages. Professor Arthur Noble "Passing commitments to Churches," writes ’Monsignor’ Denis Faul in his Belfast Telegraph article of [recent article], "are no more acceptable than passing affairs with women or men. A Catholic person taking communion in another Church is like a married person committing adultery." Regardless of the hypocrisy of a Church hierarchy which moralises about alleged adultery while itself being plagued with paedophilia, the assault on the religious freedom of the Eire President not only unmasks the sham of Rome’s overtures to other Churches, but also reminds us that the false dogma involved in this controversy - that of transubstantiation - is nowhere to be found in the Bible. 1. False Overtures The shameless authoritarian interference by the Roman hierarchy confirms that even in this enlightened 20th century the Church of Rome has never abandoned or even weakened her historical claim to dominion over all other Churches and the political State itself. It is proof that behind the modern fancy dress disguise of ecumenism with its attendant euphemisms of ’reconciliation’, ’dialogue’, ’church unity’ and ’bridge-building’ - all cunningly devised to lure her ’separated brethren’ unsuspectingly into her fold - lurks the familiar old hag, the Great Whore of Revelation, unswervingly and unashamedly true to her motto ’semper eadem’, ’always the same’. In this regard, Faul is still true to the presumptuous arrogance of Pope Leo I, who at the Council of Ephesus in 449 first claimed authority over Church and State as a divine right. The Popes subsequently grew in power, wealth and pride until they claimed universal dominion over Church and State through the world. From that time, Kings and Emperors were crowned, deposed and degraded at the pleasure of these pompous Bishops of Rome. A notable example from English history was the dispute over the appointment of Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury, when King John (1199-1216) was made to kneel before the Pope’s legate, and his crown was ignominiously kicked from his head. One of the meanest of his retainers was made to retrieve it, before he handed it back to the King in token of England’s being a vassalage of the Papacy, with a tribute of 1,000 marks a year as the infamous "Mary’s Dowry". King John was forced by a Papal interdict to submit to the Papacy, and so-called Papal ’authorisation’ was given to Philip of France to invade England. The whole of British history records repeated struggles between the Crown and the Vatican, culminating in the supremacy of the former in 1688 and the subsequent safeguarding of this country against Papal despotism through the provisions of the Bill of Rights and the Coronation Oath. The ’gracious’ invitation to the ’separated brethren’ to return to the fold was prepared for public consumption. Their own history and the outburst of ’Monsignor’ Faul should serve to confirm to all Protestants and Unionists that the Roman Catholic Church today is only wearing a different mask which hides her real character and political aims. Rome has adopted a change of face and tactics, but no change of heart. The ’gracious’ invitation to the ’separated brethren’ to return to the fold was prepared for public consumption. Sadly and tragically, it was also eagerly swallowed by an unsuspecting, apostatising Protestantism which fails to see that a so-called ’good’ Roman Catholic, whether a Head of State or not, is today just as much under the ’thumb’ as in the past. So would this country be if the Roman Church succeeded in destroying our Protestant Constitution; for all Popes are bound by the Syllabus of Pius IX, Article 77 of which states that the Church "has the right to require that the Catholic religion shall be the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all others". 2. False Doctrines Referring to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994), Faul quotes: "Ecclesiastical communities derived from the Reformation and separated from the Catholic Church have not preserved the proper reality of the Eucharistic mystery in its fulness, especially because of the absence of the Sacrament of Holy Orders." Hence he is reiterating unaltered the 13th-century dogma of transubstantiation, i.e. the alleged "conversion of the whole substance of the bread and of the whole substance of the wine into the Blood [of Jesus Christ]". The first teaches that the whole substance of the bread and wine are truly, literally and substantially changed into the substance of "the body, blood, and soul and divinity of Jesus Christ". For the Church of Rome the "sacrifice of the mass" depends on this absurd dogma, for, if the bread and wine are not "transubstantiated", or "changed", there is, according to the Roman Catechism, "no proper sacrifice". Yet the dogma of transubstantiation contradicts the doctrine of the sacrifice of the mass. The first teaches that the whole substance of the bread and wine are truly, literally and substantially changed into the substance of "the body, blood, and soul and divinity of Jesus Christ". Yet the mass is called an "unbloody sacrifice". In one there is the blood the same as that shed by Christ and in the other it is unbloody! The false doctrines of Rome not only deny the full, sufficient and perfect sacrifice made by Christ on the Cross; they ignore the fact that Christ’s command implied no more that symbolism: "Do this in remembrance of me." (Luke 22:19) For Christ can not be offered again as there is "no more offering for sin" (Hebrews 10:18), "no more sacrifice for sins" (Hebrews 10:26). Holy Mother Church, however, curses us to all eternity if we do not believe: 1. that a man can make from a wafer a Being Who made him 2. that what has already existed can begin to exist 3. that a body born of bread is the same as a body born of woman; 4. that a body born 2,000 years ago is the same as a body made today; 5. that a part contains the whole; 6. that a body which is limited and local can be in all places at one and the same time; 7. that the same body can be dead and alive at one and the same time; 8. that a morsel of paste is the same as a fully grown man; 9. that a body which cannot see corruption is the same as that which may corrupt; 10. that a glorified body may be immolated and sacrificed; 11. that Christ may pass Himself on the road - Priest A, having Christ in his pocket, on the way to Dublin, and Priest B, having the same Christ in his pocket, on the way to Belfast! In an old magazine is to be found the following anonymous assessment: "In the annals of history, remote or near, whether found in civilised or barbarous nations, there has never been broached or propounded an absurdity so monstrous as that of Transubstantiation. The man who can believe it is beyond the arena of being reasoned with; if he acted in the same way in temporal things he would be considered mad." Gibbon, in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (vol vi, chapter lix, p. 510), appropriately calls transubstantiation and the Inquisition "the two most signal triumphs over sense and humanity". To tamper with that Oath would be to undo the work of the Reformation, to betray the martyrs slaughtered and burned at the stake, and to return this country to the superstitions and bondage of the Dark Ages. Adam Smith, in his Wealth of Nations (p. 337), well said: "The constitution of the Church of Rome may be considered the most formidable combination that was ever formed against the authority and security of civil governments, as well as against the liberty, reason, and happiness of mankind." In Article XXXI of the Established Church of England this is called one of Rome’s "blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits", and the Westminster Confession of Faith states that Jesus, by His perfect sacrifice "once offered up unto God hath fully satisfied the justice of His Father". The Act of Settlement requires every British Sovereign, on coming to the Throne, to deny on oath that any man can change bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, and to confess on oath that Mary worship, and the Romish mass, are "superstitious and idolatrous". To tamper with that Oath would be to undo the work of the Reformation, to betray the martyrs slaughtered and burned at the stake, and to return this country to the superstitions and bondage of the Dark Ages. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 109: 02.098. TRUE PAPAL CHURCH ======================================================================== Let The True Church Of The Papacy Stand Up! Has Rome changed today or remained "semper eadem"? Professor Arthur Noble "Our absolutist system, supported by the Inquisition, the strictest censorship, the suppression of all literature, the privileged exemption of the clergy, and arbitrary power of bishops, cannot endure any other than absolutist governments." - Dollinger: The Pope and the Council, London 1861, p. 23. "No civil government, be it a monarchy, an aristocracy, a democracy ... can be a wise, just, efficient, or durable government, governing for the good of the community, with the Catholic Church; and without the papacy there is and can be no Catholic Church." - Dr Brownson, 19th-century Roman Catholic journalist, quoted in his Brownson’s Quarterly Review, January, 1873, vol. 1, p. 10. Has Rome changed today or remained "semper eadem"? Stunned by the staggering growth of evangelical ’sects’ in Brazil, leaders of the Roman Catholic Church have threatened to launch a ’holy war’ against Protestants unless they stop leading people from the Catholic fold. At the 31st National Conference of the Bishops of Brazil, Bishop Sinesion called evangelicals a serious threat to the Vatican’s influence in his country. "We will declare a holy war; don’t doubt it. The Catholic Church has a ponderous structure, but when we move, we’ll smash anyone beneath us." - Peter de Rosa: Vicars of Christ: The Dark Side of the Papacy. Crown Publishing Inc., 1988, p. 194. "Jesus is alive on our altars, as offering. We become one with Christ in the Eucharist. ... As Catholics we have Mary, and that Mom of ours, Queen of Paradise, is praying for us till she sees us in glory. As Catholics we have the papacy, a history of popes from Peter to John Paul II. ... We have the rock upon which Christ did build His Church. ... As Catholics - now I love this one - we have purgatory. Thank God! I’m one of those people who would never get to the Beatific Vision without it. It’s the only way to go. ... So as Catholics ... our job is to use this remaining decade evangelizing everyone we can into the Catholic Church, into the body of Christ and into the third millennium of Catholic history." - "Father" Tom Forrest, quoted in "Roman Catholic Doubletalk at Indianapolis ’90", Foundation, July-August 1990. "While the state has some rights, she has them only in virtue and by permission of the superior authority ... [...] of the Church." - The Catholic World, July 1870, vol. xi, p. 439. By her own admission, Rome intends to destroy America... By her own admission, Rome intends to destroy America, where she is entrenching herself with strength. An article in The Union and Echo, official diocesan organ of the Roman Catholic Church in Buffalo, in December 1950, declared: "At the rate of 126,000 converts a year in the United States it would take us too long [to Romanise America]. We must convert [...] Politics, Economics, Sociology, Business, Entertainment, Labour and Management, the Department of State and the Executive Branch of our Government to Christian and hence Catholic principles." This was put in no uncertain terms by "Father" Patrick O’Brien quoted in L’Aurora of the same date: "We control America and we do not propose to stop until America or Americans are genuinely Roman Catholic and remain so." "We, the Hierarchy of the Holy Catholic Church, [...]if necessary, [...] shall change, mend, or blot out the present Constitution so that the President may enforce his, or rather our, humanitarian programme and all phases of human rights [!] as laid down by our saintly Popes and the Holy Mother Church. [...] We are going to have our laws made and enforced according to the Holy See and the Popes and the canon law of the Papal throne. Our entire social structure must be rebuilt on that basis. Our educational laws must be constructed to end the atheism, the Red peril of totalitarianism, Protestantism, Communism, Socialism and all other of like ilk and stamp, be driven from this fair land. [...] We control America and we do not propose to stop until America or Americans are genuinely Roman Catholic and remain so." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 110: 02.099. THE MASS ======================================================================== The Mass: ’This is my body’ Why do you as a Protestant not believe the words of Christ, Who in blessing the elements at the Last Supper said: "This is my body"? Rev. J.C. Kyle Paisley Protestants accept the words of Christ wholeheartedly and repudiate the false construction put upon them by the Church of Rome. We do not believe that the bread and wine are really, truly and substantially changed into the body, blood, soul, Deity, "bones and sinews of Christ" (Council of Trent). We repudiate Rome’s error because of her hypocrisy. She rejects the Bible as the sole rule of faith, but at the same time claims an infallible interpretation of it and makes this interpretation one of the basic tenets of her religion. Jesus Christ also said: "This cup is the New Testament in my blood." (1 Corinthians 11:25) Why does Rome not teach, if she is to be consistent, that the chalice becomes the New Testament? Protestants also reject Roman error because of its absurdity. If we are to literalise Christ’s words here, then what are we to do with similar Scriptures? For example, when Christ said: "I am the door", consistency demands the interpretation that he had four panels, a handle and a keyhole. In John 15:1 Jesus says: "I am the vine." Does this mean that His arms were branches and yielded grapes? The Saviour is called the "Rock" in 1 Corinthians 10:4. Does this mean that he is a solid stone? Isaiah 40:6 says: "All flesh is grass", but a human being would have to be green if this were taken literally. Further, Christ said of the cup: "This cup is the new testament in my blood" (Luke 22:20 and 1 Corinthians 11:25). Why does Rome not teach, if she is to be consistent, that the chalice becomes the New Testament in the mass? (1) Is this God working, or is it a repackaging of Roman ecumenism? Rome’s blasphemy. The teaching of Rome has also to be rejected because of its blasphemy. If the bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Christ, then He makes himself the prey of cannibals. The purpose, as well as the implications, of Romish doctrine, is blasphemous too. It is supposed necessary to re-create Christ in order to re-offer Him. Both are not only impossible, but unnecessary. Christ’s sacrifice is finished, and the Scriptures declare (Romans 6:9): "Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him." ======================================================================== Source: https://sermonindex.net/books/writings-of-ian-r-k-paisley/ ========================================================================