What Love Is This? - Part 4

Augustine is so wholly with me that if I wish to write a confession of my faith I could do so with all fullness and satisfaction to myself out of his writings. I quote many Calvinists in the book who just one after another says well R.C. Sproul says, quote, Augustinianism is presently called Calvinism or Reformed theology. They all acknowledge John Calvin is not the originator of Calvinism but John Calvin got this doctrine from Augustine and Augustine was the first one who came up with these ideas.

Well who was Augustine? Well some of you may know that he's one of the four, well we have some ex- Catholics here I would think you would know, he's one of the original four doctors of the church. They have a feast day, August 28th, the day of his death. In 1986 the Pope celebrated the 1600th anniversary of his conversion.

He quoted one of the things that Augustine said. Augustine said, quote, I should not believe the gospel unless moved to do so by the authority of the church. I've had a Catholic apologist quote that to me to confirm the authority of the Catholic Church.

This is where our authority comes from. Sir Robert Anderson said, quote, the Roman Catholic Church, another one of your own here in Britain, the Roman Catholic Church was molded by Augustine into the form it has ever since maintained. Of all the errors that later centuries developed scarcely one cannot be found in embryo in his writings.

Among them you would have infant baptism for salvation, the necessity of baptism for salvation. Salvation is only in the church and its sacraments. Persecution of all who reject this teaching, the acceptance of the Apocrypha, allegorical interpretation of the Bible.

You don't take the first few chapters of Genesis seriously. This is allegory and we allegorize, they allegorize much else. It comes from Augustine.

He rejected the the Millennium, the literal reign of Christ upon the earth. Actually we're in the Millennium now. You read that in his book The City of God.

Satan is locked up in case you hadn't noticed that. And the church is in the process of taking over. You know this sort of thing is the kingdom, dominion teaching now among many charismatics that we're going to take over.

This all comes from Augustine but it is very Catholic. Historian Philip Schaaf says quote, he calls Augustine quote, the first real Roman Catholic. The principal theological creator of the Latin Catholic system as distinct from evangelical Protestantism.

Pardon me. Let me quote John Piper. I can find it quickly here.

John Piper says, the stand, and now this is shocking, and one of my chapters is titled, I guess I don't call it the shocking, the surprising Roman Catholic connection. Listen to Piper and they all agree on this. The standard text on theology that Calvin and Luther drank from was Sentences by Peter Lombard.

Nine-tenths of this book consists of quotations from Augustine. Luther was an Augustinian monk and Calvin immersed himself in the writings of Augustine as we can see from the increased use of Augustine's writings in each new edition of the Institutes. Paradoxically one of the most esteemed fathers of the Roman Catholic Church gave us the Reformation.

Isn't that amazing? The two best-known fathers of the Protestant Reformation, Calvin and Luther, were heavily under the influence of Augustine, the premier Roman Catholic. That's a little bit shocking isn't it? Now that would explain to you why Reformed churches today still believe in infant baptism for salvation. That would include your own church here, Church of England, doesn't it? Isn't that what they teach? Now we got a problem.

You will find this, this is what the Reformation left all across Europe. I talk to these people all the time. They were never saved.

They got baptized, they got catechized, they got Reformed, I'm sorry, they were confirmed and I've had them say to me, we went through our confirmation because you got a lot of gifts from your relatives, at least that's in Europe and Germany and so forth, and then they get married in the church and they get buried in the church. Other than that they never darken the door of the church and it has turned many many people against Christianity, so-called. And look, if I was baptized as a baby and that saved me, and this goes for Lutherans as well as Presbyterians, then you wouldn't preach the gospel in me.

Paul said the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes it, but why would you want me to get saved when I already was regenerated, all my sins forgiven as an infant when I was baptized? Now we've got a very serious error. And in fact John Calvin said, the one sure way to know you're one of the elect is if you were baptized as a baby, even by a fornicating, godless, unbelieving Roman Catholic priest, and you have faith in your baptism, you know these people were called Anabaptists, remember? Baptized again. These were people who had been Catholics, they got saved by the grace of God through believing the gospel, faith in Christ, and they said that baptism is for believers.

Didn't he say to the Ethiopian eunuch, if you believe with all your heart, and a baby can't believe it doesn't even know anything, we ought to get baptized now as believers. And they were hated, persecuted, and killed, not just by the Catholics, but by the Lutherans and the Calvinists. Is that not true? You still find that animosity today.

I don't know about in England, but I know the continent much better, and someone who gets saved, he gets baptized out of the Lutheran Church or Calvinist Church, they're well, their family won't have anything to do with them in many instances. Not always, but in many instances. You have denied the efficacy of your infant baptism, and that's a very serious, serious problem.

So we have something rather astonishing. The Catholic connection to both Calvin and Luther, and what it has left in the so-called Reformed churches through the Reformation process. Now, Augustine was called the father of Inquisition.

He was a Constantinian. Remember, Constantine, the Roman emperor, he gave freedom to the Christians. I mean, what's the point of persecuting the Christians? I mean, they don't get drunk, they don't carouse, they're honest, they're moral, they're hard workers.

Why are you killing them? Maybe some of this will rub off on the rest of them. They're good citizens. He was not a Christian.

He continued to offer sacrifices to pagan deities. He continued to preside over the pagan feasts as head of the Pontifical College. He didn't stop the sacrifices to the great goddess Vesta, put out the Vestal Virgins.

He had the sun god, not the son of God, on his coins, and so forth. That's Constantine. All he was interested in was uniting his empire, and if you want to study ecumenism, study Constantine.

He's the first ecumenist. He called the great ecumenical council, 325 AD, the Council of Nicaea. He presided over, gave the opening speech, and so forth.

And he thought by giving freedom to these Christians, he could unite his empire. To his shock, he found out these Christians are divided. They don't get along with one another.

And so he called the Council of Nicaea to straighten out certain things, and he imposed...