Your ShelfYour Projects

Review and Herald, Vol. 43, No. 11.

ADVENTISM IN ENGLAND
Earlier text: Redemption—No. 1

What the Pope Is Thinking.

By John Nevins Andrews

The thoughts which crowd into the mind of Pius IX. would be of peculiar interest to us, could we know them. He belongs to a very ancient line of sovereigns. Though the power of the popes grew up from nothing, the time has been when they were able to humble the mightiest monarchs of Europe. But that day has passed away. Their dominion is taken away. The States of the Church which they held so long as the patrimony of St. Peter has become a part of the kingdom of Italy. Even Rome, their ancient seat, is lost to them, and now constitutes the capital of the new kingdom of Italy. The pope is bishop of Rome and head of the Catholic church, as the Romanists style themselves. But he is shorn of every vestige of civil power, though he is far from acquiescing in the changed condition of affairs.
Does he ever read the seventh chapter of Daniel? It certainly ought to do him good. In the four great beasts he can see the Babylonian, Persian, Grecian, and Roman empires. In the ten horns of the fourth beast he may discern the divided form of the Roman empire. In the little horn he may see the faithful likeness of the long line of sovereigns to which he belongs—the popes of Rome. He well knows how mighty they once were among the ten kings of Papal Europe. He does not know that this was predicted by Daniel. He bitterly regrets the loss of this power, without once thinking that this also is according to the prophet. He knows what power his predecessors once had to deal with heretics, and we fear that he regrets his own lack of it.
He does not lay to heart the prophet's words respecting the wearing out of the saints of the Most High. He does not believe that those who fell by sword, by flame, by captivity, and by spoil many days, were God's mighty and holy people. He regrets not the cruel deaths which they suffered, but that a clean riddance was not made of them from the earth. He takes back no one of the great words which his predecessors have spoken. He even asserts that he is infallible and compels his bishops to establish it as a dogma of the church. He has no thought of undoing what evil the former popes have wrought concerning the law of God. He only wonders that his power is gone, and that he cannot do what his venerable brethren of happier days have done with such eminent success. Like Pharaoh king of Egypt he “is but a noise; he hath passed the time appointed.” Jer. 46:17. The 1260 years of papal dominion are past. His dominion is taken away to be consumed, and destroyed unto the end. This prophecy is fulfilled to the letter. And it is at the very point in the history of the little horn that Daniel has placed the sitting of the Ancient of Days in judgment. Does the pope ever think of this wonderful prophecy? Perhaps not. But it is worthy of our most attentive study. The Boston Daily News, in a recent issue, speaks thus of the pope:—
“Pius IX. is said to cherish the confident hope of restoration to the temporal power. In conversation with a diplomatist the other day, he said, “I eat, drink, and digest my food as well as when I was forty years of age; I walk as well; and do you not think my mind as strong as at forty years of age?” He is said to be much interested just now in the prophecies of one Mary Ann Taigi, who died in 1837, and is now being canonized. Her prophecies seem to have pertained chiefly to Pius IX., and many of them have been fulfilled. She declares that he will live beyond the age of ninety, and will see himself reinstated in the temporal power.”
These are the thoughts which fill the mind of this aged man. How much like those of aged sinners in general. He regrets the loss of his dominions. He hopes for the recovery of his power. He is unwilling to think that he is growing old. But how full of encouragement to the waiting people of God is the present condition of the popedom! The day of deliverance is hastening greatly! Let us see that we have our work done.
J. N. A.

Religious Declension of these Days.

THE FACT ACKNOWLEDGED AND DEPLORED.

We promised last week to give the testimony of some who have borne witness to the fact that the churches of the present day are becoming sadly degenerate in religious things. We file these testimonies in evidence that the message of Rev. 14:8, is fulfilled in our day. We quote them in no spirit of banter. It is a subject to neither side of which a feeling of animosity is befitting. If the statements are not true, they can easily be nullified by an array of opposing facts. If they are true, the matter will rather be aggravated than helped by a refusal to look at the facts, or an attempt to deny or repel the charges. In either case, the statements, coming as they do from religious teachers and religious papers of acknowledged position and influence, demand thoughtful consideration at the hands of every one who has the cause of true religion at heart.
It is well known that when the message announcing the hour of God's Judgment come, had been generally rejected by the churches, this fact was everywhere held forth by those engaged in the message, as an evidence of the fallen condition of those bodies. On this point we present the following testimony from Eld. J. V. Himes, dated McConnellsville, O., Aug. 27, 1844, and published in the Advent Herald shortly after that date:—
“When we commenced the work of giving the ‘midnight cry’ with Bro. Miller in 1840, he had been lecturing nine years. During that time, he stood almost alone. But his labors had been incessant and effectual in awakening professors of religion to the true hope of God’s people, and the necessary preparation for the advent of the Lord; as also the awakening of all classes of the unconverted to a sense of their lost condition, and the duty of immediate repentance and conversion to God, as a preparation to meet the Bridegroom in peace at his coming. These were the great objects of his labor. He made no attempt to convert men to a sect or party in religion. Hence he labored among all parties and sects, without interfering with their organization or discipline: believing that the members of the different communities could retain their standing, and at the same time prepare for the advent of their King, and labor for the salvation of men in these relations until the consummation of their hope.
“When we were persuaded of the truth of the advent at hand, and embraced the doctrine publicly, we entertained the same views and pursued the same course among the different sects, where we were called in the providence of God to labor. We told the ministers and churches that it was no part of our business to break them up, or to divide and distract them. We had one distinct object, and that was to give the ‘cry,’ the warning of the ‘Judgment at the door,’ and to persuade our fellow-men to get ready for the event. Most of the ministers and churches that opened their doors to us, and our brethren who were proclaiming the advent doctrine, co-operated with us till the last year. The ministry and membership, who availed themselves of our labors, but had not sincerely embraced the doctrine, saw that they must either go with the doctrine, and preach and maintain it, or in the crisis which was right upon them, they would have difficulty with the decided and determined believers. They therefore decided against the doctrine, and determined, some by one policy, and some by another, to suppress the subject.
“This placed our brethren and sisters among them in a most trying position. Most of them loved their churches, and could not think of leaving. But when they were ridiculed, oppressed, and in various ways cut off from their former privileges and enjoyments, and when the ‘meat in due season’ was withheld from them, and the siren song of ‘peace and safety’ was resounded in their ears from Sabbath to Sabbath, they were soon weaned from their party predilections, and arose in the majesty of their strength, shook off the yoke, and raised the cry, ‘Come out of her, my people.’”
“This state of things placed us in a trying position. 1. Because we were near the end of our prophetic time, in which we expected the Lord would gather all his people in one. 2. We had always preached a different doctrine, and now that the circumstances had changed, it would be regarded as dishonest in us, if we should unite in the cry of separation and breaking up of churches that had received us and our message. We therefore hesitated, and continued to act on our first position until the church and ministry carried the matter so far that we were obliged, in the fear of God, to take a position in defense of the truth and the down-trodden children of God.”
It is also a well-known fact that the churches about the same time, in 1844, acknowledged in mournful strains the great religious declension that had come over them. The Christian Palladium, of May 15, 1844, spoke on this point as follows:—
“In every direction we hear the dolorous sound, wafting upon every breeze of heaven, chilling as the blasts from the icebergs of the north—settling like an incubus on the breasts of the timid, and drinking up the energies of the weak; that lukewarmness, division, anarchy, and desolation, are distressing the borders of Zion.”
The Religious Telescope, in the same year, made use of the following language:—
“We have never witnessed such a general declension of religion as at the present. Truly the church should awake and search into the cause of this affliction; for an affliction every one that loves Zion must view it. When we call to mind how ‘few and far between’ cases of true conversion are, and the almost unparalleled impenitence and hardness of sinners, we almost involuntarily exclaim, ‘Has God forgotten to be gracious? or is the door of mercy closed?’”
About that time seasons of fasting and prayer were appointed through many of the religious papers, and very generally observed. Even the Philadelphia Sun, of Nov. 11, 1844, contained the following:—
“The undersigned ministers and members of various denominations in Philadelphia and vicinity solemnly believing that the present signs of the times—the spiritual dearth in our churches generally, and the extreme evils in the world around us—seem to call loudly on all Christians for a special season of prayer, do therefore hereby agree by divine permission to unite in a week of special prayer to Almighty God, for the outpouring of his Holy Spirit on our city, our country, and the world.”
Prof. Finney, of Oberlin, O., editor, in 1844, of the Oberlin Evangelist, in February of that year, said:—
“We have had the fact before our minds, that in general, the Protestant churches of our country, as such, were either apathetic or hostile to nearly all the moral reforms of the age. There are partial exceptions, yet not enough to render the fact otherwise than general. We have also another corroborated fact: the almost universal absence of revival influence in the churches. The spiritual apathy is almost all-pervading, and is fearfully deep; so the religious press of the whole land testifies. Very extensively church members are becoming devotees of fashion—joining hands with the ungodly in parties of pleasure, in dancing, in festivities, &c. But we need not expand this painful subject. Suffice it that the evidence thickens and rolls heavily upon us to show that the churches generally are becoming sadly degenerate. They have gone very far from the Lord, and he has withdrawn himself from them.”
It may be said that our views of the moral fall or spiritual declension of the churches are shown to be incorrect by the great revivals that occurred in 1858. Several things are here to be taken into consideration. Wherever and whenever the fruits of a genuine work of grace can be presented, we will rejoice in them. But the Bible speaks of a form of godliness without the power; and so there may perhaps be that which appears from outward indications to be a real revival work, which after all lacks solidity and heart. Time in these cases must test the matter; and the genuineness of the work can be shown only by the nature and permanency of its fruits. In reference to the revivals of 1858, we will let the leading Congregational and Baptist papers of Boston, Mass., speak. The Congregationalist, of Nov. 19, 1858, said:—
“The revival piety of our churches is not such that one can confidently infer, from its mere existence, its legitimate, practical fruits. It ought, for example, to be as certain, after such a shower of grace, that the treasuries of our benevolent societies would be filled, as it is after a plentiful rain, that the streams will swell in their channels. But the managers of our societies are bewailing the feebleness of the sympathy and aid of the churches.
“There is another and sadder illustration of the same general truth. The Watchman and Reflector recently stated that there had never been among the Baptists so lamentable a spread of church dissensions as prevails at present. And the sad fact is mentioned that this sin infects the very churches which shared most largely in the late revival. And the still more melancholy fact is added, that these alienations date back their origin, in most cases, to the very midst of that scene of awakening. Even a glance at the weekly journals of our own denomination will evince that the evil is by no means confined to the Baptists. Our own columns have, perhaps, never borne so humiliating a record of contentions and ecclesiastical litigations as during the last few months.”
A Presbyterian pastor, in Belfast, Ireland, wrote in 1858 respecting the revivals that took place in this country in that year. His language was published in the N. Y. Independent, in December, 1859, as follows:—
“The determination to crush all ministers who say a word against their national sin [slavery], the determination to suffocate and suppress the plain teachings of Scripture, can be persisted in and carried out at the very time these New York Christians are expecting the religious world to hail their revivals. Until the wretchedly-degraded churches of America do the work of God in their own land, they have no spiritual vitality to communicate to others; their revivals are in the religious world what their flaunted cries of liberty intermingled with the groans of the slaves, are in the political.”
The General Assembly of the Presbyterian church of Ireland held its session in Belfast, at the time of the great Irish revival of 1859. The Belfast News-Letter, dated Sept. 30, of that year, spoke of the doings of that Assembly as follows:—
“Here in this venerable body of ministers and elders, we find two ministers openly giving each other the lie, and the whole General Assembly turned into a scene of confusion bordering upon a riot.”
These facts need no comment. A revival that did not fill up the languishing coffers of the church, a revival that allowed, and in some instances created and fostered, widespread church dissensions, contentions, and litigations, a revival that would not allow of prayers for the enslaved, and a revival that was not deep and earnest enough to save a General Assembly of divines from “a scene of confusion bordering upon riot,” certainly was not of a kind which would fit a person to stand in the rude conflict which the Christian has to meet in this life, with the world, the flesh, and the devil, nor such as would abide the test of the coming Judgment.
(To be Continued.)

Predestination.

By Uriah Smith

A CORRESPONDENT requests an explanation of Eph. 1: 4, 5, 11; Rev. 17: 8; 1 Peter 1: 1, 2; Ex. 9: 12–16. These texts speak of predestination and election; and he wishes us to harmonize these declarations with our view that man is a free agent.
If a person believes in the Lord, while he believes in him, he is elected; but he can believe or not as he chooses, and he can cease to believe whenever he is so disposed. He is not elected till he believes, and when he ceases to believe, his election ends. Let us look at the passages and see if this is not so.
Eph. 1: 4, 5, 6, : “According as he hath chosen us in him [Christ] before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love; having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.”
The apostle continues in the same strain, setting forth Christ as the great center of the plan of redemption, through the entire chapter. In verses 11 and 12 he says:—
“In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will; that we should be to the praise of his glory who first trusted in Christ.”
It will be seen that everything is suspended on the condition of our trusting in Christ. “Chosen in him,” “predestinated by Jesus Christ,” “in whom being predestinated,” &c. Such is the predestination brought to view in the Bible. We nowhere read, It is decreed of you, Paul, Peter, Clement, and Apollos, that you shall believe in Christ, and be saved whether you will or not; and it is decreed of you, Alexander the coppersmith, and Demas, and Hymenæus and Philetus, that in spite of yourselves you shall disbelieve and be lost. But it is decreed that whosoever believeth and is baptized, that class, not any specified individuals, shall be saved; and those that believe not, shall be lost.
Rev. 17: 8, speaks of those whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world. Putting upon this passage its most rigid interpretation, it brings to view no decree or election, but simply indicates God’s foreknowledge; but God’s foreknowledge in nowise interferes with man’s free agency. And though a person’s name may once be written in the book of life, that does not make it certain that it will always remain there; for Rev. 3: 5 and 22: 19, bring to view the fact that some may at last have their names blotted from that book, and lose the blessings which a part therein would secure.
1 Peter 1: 1, 2, speaks of strangers scattered throughout Pontus, &c., elect according to the foreknowledge of God. In the Greek Testament the order of the address is quite different from that given in the common version. It reads, Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ to the elect, sojourners by a dispersion through Pontus, Galatia, &c., according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit. The word rendered elect, is defined by Greenfield to mean also, chosen, select, beloved, dear, approved, choice, distinguished, excellent. Peter addresses a class; and we imagine that class might have changed completely as to the individuals of which it was composed, and the address would still have been to the elect, but would then have pertained to different individuals.
Ex. 9: 12–16, speaks of Pharaoh, his heart being hardened, and he raised up for the very purpose that God might show forth in him his power. It does not read that God gave him existence, and compelled him to develop the disposition he finally manifested, that he might deal with him as he did.
The antecedents of Pharaoh, before he was brought to the test of letting Israel go, are not recorded. But he had evidently proved himself a hard-hearted, stiffnecked, and incorrigible person; and this character he had developed in himself by his own free will.
God, foreseeing that such a person was coming to the throne precisely when the time would come for the promise of Israel’s deliverance to be fulfilled, might years before have cut him off, and so brought around events that a generous-hearted, reasonable person, who would have yielded to the claims of right and justice, should occupy the throne at that time. But then their deliverance would not have been so manifestly by the power of God.
Satan, who ever tries to hinder the accomplishment of God’s purposes, undoubtedly was pleased to have just such a person as that Pharaoh then take the throne of Egypt. In no way could the fulfillment of the promise be rendered more improbable than to have the very highest authority in the nation unmovably set against it. And God was willing that it should be so, that there might be an occasion for the display of his power before all the nations. So he raised him up, margin, caused him to stand, or in other words, permitted him, incorrigible though he knew him to be, to come to the throne of Egypt.
Paul, Rom. 9: 22, speaks of God’s enduring with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction. That is, God bears long with those who are in rebellion against him. He gives them space and every opportunity to repent. But when they prove themselves irrevocably committed to rebellion, is it anything out of the way for God to overrule their course of action to his own glory? The psalmist says, “The wrath of man shall praise thee.” It is eminently proper that God should cause it so to do. And this is what he did and all he did in the case of Pharaoh.
U. S.

The “Evangelical Alliance” vs. True Christian Union.

By R. F. Cottrell

RECENTLY I heard a discourse on the Unity of the Church. Text: “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.” John 17: 21. The minister spoke of the importance of union to give power to the testimony of the church, to convince the world; showed how Paul condemned the divisions of the church, where one says, I am of Paul, I of Apollos, I of Cephas, etc.; and then observed how the present divisions of the church were overruled for good; how Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, etc., had modified the views of each other, and by so doing their divisions had resulted in real good to the cause of truth. But the apostle, it would seem, failed to see how the Paulites, Apollosites, and Peterites, would have a modifying influence over each other that would tend to their ultimate unity, but condemned their divisions unqualifiedly. He could not see, as the speaker, how division would work out unity.
The speaker hailed with joy the movement of the Evangelical Alliance for the union of all “evangelical denominations,” and seemed to anticipate the conversion of the world as the result.
There are two sorts of union, either of which might be the object of a union movement. One is a perfect union in the truth, expressed in words like these: “That they may be made perfect in one;” “That they may be one, even as we [the Father and the Son] are one;” “That ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and the same judgment;” the other is a mere confederacy of distinct and differing sects, each still holding their distinguishing doctrines. To effect the first sort of union, the whole mass must be melted, the pure metal separated from the dross, and cast into a single mold; but all that is necessary for the second, is to pour upon the mass some patent cement, and produce a mere conglomeration of the different and discordant materials without a change in the various parts.
There are two great union movements going forward at the present time. The one is based on the promise of God in prophecy (Rev. 14: 9–12), and is intended to test out the true children of God, perfectly uniting them in the commandments of God and the faith of the gospel; the other proposes a confederacy of Protestant sects, merely compromising their differences, not correcting their errors, to unite their power. And what will their union effect? They seem to fancy that it will convert the world. But it is evident that their united powers will be exerted to procure such “religious amendment” of fundamental law as will convert civil government into an engine of persecution. When Christ was to be slain, the Jewish sectaries unitedly cried out, “Crucify him,” and even Pilate and Herod, who before had been at enmity were made friends; so when Satan makes his last effort to slay Christ in the persons of his people, Rev. 12: 17; 13: 15, the scattered segments of fallen Babylon will unitedly clamor for his blood. This will be the result of the proposed alliance.
“Say ye not, A confederacy, to all them to whom this people shall say, A confederacy; neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid.”
The speaker quoted the text which says, “Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession;” but he omitted to tell his hearers what would be done with the nations, when thus delivered up, namely, “Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” Ps. 2: 8, 9. He also referred to the time when the kingdoms of this world should become the kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ; but did not state that it would be under the sounding of the seventh angel, in the beginning of whose sounding the work of the gospel should close, Rev. 10: 7, when the wrath of God shall come upon the angry nations, the dead be judged, reward be given to the saints, and those that destroy the earth be destroyed. Rev. 11: 15. Take these things into the account, and the theory of the temporal millennium is spoiled.
R. F. COTTRELL.

California.

By John Norton Loughborough

My last report was made Jan. 7, at the close of our meeting at Napa. Sabbath and first-day, Jan. 10 and 11, Bro. Van Horn and myself each gave two discourses at St. Helena. Notwithstanding stormy weather and much sickness in the place, we had interesting and encouraging meetings.
The church in St. Helena are passing through some trials relative to a meeting place, their meeting being held in a private house, and the owner of the house forbidding the brother who rented it from having meetings there. We all felt that it was not the Lord’s design to have the truth presented and a company raised up in St. Helena to be crowded down in such a manner as to fail to meet and encourage each other in the work, but that he designed us to learn from this that he was stirring us up to take a more prominent position before the people. It was decided to immediately commence to build a house of worship. The enterprise started better than any of us expected, and I learn is advancing beyond all their expectations. May the Lord still prosper the work there.
At Woodland, the 17th and 18th, we had a very interesting quarterly meeting, which closed the laboring together of Bro. Van Horn and myself. The quarterly missionary meeting, held in connection with this meeting, was the best one we have had in the State. The Vigilant Missionary Society had been in working order here for one quarter, and their report gave interest to the meeting. The outside attendance at this meeting was good, considering that it was a rainy time.
After this meeting, a consultation of our ministers in this State (partly by letter, and partly in person) resulted in Bro. and sister Van Horn going to attend the quarterly meeting in Green Valley, which was to be followed by their giving a course of lectures. Bro. Cornell was to meet opposition discourses at Napa, and follow up the work there with a second course of lectures; while I was to go and join Bro. Canright in his meetings at Watsonville, Santa Cruz Co.
On my way to Watsonville, I spent an evening with a few of the brethren and sisters in San Francisco. I find the fault-finding ones are more fault-finding still, and the earnest workers are of good courage and for pressing on with the body of this people in the State. We would say to them here, It is no time now to be daunted and crippled in our efforts by those who have simply selfish interests to serve, and are disposed to put on brakes at every advance movement. God’s cause is onward, and those who are in earnest will rise with it.
The work is moving steadily on in California, spite of foes without the church, and a very few (so few a child might write them) within. It is an important time for the work here, and we hope each and every brother and sister will find his or her place in the great missionary work, learning how they can be effective workers. Let us “do with our might what our hands find to do.”
We esteem it a great privilege to have in our midst Bro. and sister White, who, during the rainy season, are vigorously prosecuting their writings, and are even now giving us good counsel and aid in the work here; and when the spring opens, and they have the opportunity of speaking to our people in different places, as the providence of God may indicate, they are prepared to greatly help our people. God bless them in their important work is our daily prayer.
I labored with Bro. Canright in Watsonville nearly two weeks. Found him of good courage, and although his meetings had been held in the midst of mud and storm, a number had come out on the truth. The providence of God is opening the way before the work there. A covenant was introduced, which was signed by fifteen before I left the place. There are about twenty Sabbath-keepers in the place now. I was glad of this privilege of being with Bro. Canright a few days, not having seen him in about six years. His health is improving, and he is planning to throw his energies into the work in this State the coming summer.
Feb. 2, I was called home by telegraph to the bedside of my sick wife. She has been troubled with a cough, more or less, for the last twenty months. A sudden cold some two weeks since threw her into a lung fever. She became almost helpless from the first night of the fever. We have used water, and healthful diet, and committed her case to the Lord according to the rule of James. The Lord has greatly blessed. She is free in the Lord, and resigned to his will, come life or death. But we feel, in this case, it may be the will of the Lord to restore to health. I expect the Lord will bring us out of this trial in his own good time and manner better prepared, by affliction, for the Master’s use. Our trust is in God. I am detained at home for the present, but am not idle. I endeavor to devote some time each day to writing. Pray for us.
J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH.
Woodland, Feb. 11, 1874.

Arrogance of Popery.

By John Norton Loughborough

Paul’s statement respecting this power was, “He opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God. Statements from popes, cardinals, and priests, serve to illustrate how they have sought to exalt themselves, and to arrogate powers which God never gave them.
Pope Innocent III., who was pope from A. D. 1198 to A. D. 1216, says, “As kings and princes must submit themselves to the pope’s judgment, therefore all must be judged by the pope, but he can be judged by no man. Though by his negligence or evil actions, he should draw with him innumerable souls to hell, yet no mortal may be so presumptuous as to reprove him, or to say, Why do you thus?”
In the Decretalia—second part of the canon law—and this Decretalia each pope declares to be true, we read of the pope: “The whole world is to be taken for his diocese. He can turn a square into a circle, wrong into right, and can make something out of nothing. He can pronounce sentences and judgments in contradiction to the right of nations, to the law of God and man—sentences, however absolute, yet always just. He can free himself from the commandments of the apostles, he being their superior; even from the rules of the Old-Testament age, their even from the proscriptions contained in the gospel. For the ‘will’ of the pope is the rule laid down for the administration of justice. What he does is considered by God as being well done. He sits in one consistory with God, and shares the same judicial school with Christ. The pope is God’s equal, except in sin; so that in cases where he changes his mind, it should be understood as if God himself had changed his mind. From the pope there exists no appeal to God, because he himself is God upon earth, and therefore judges like God.”
“The pope has power to change times, to abrogate laws, and to dispense with all things, even the precepts of Christ.”—Decretal de Translat. Episcop.
The testimony of these decretals prepares the way for those who receive the pope’s word as infallible to explain all the contradictions that may exist between the doctrines of the Roman Catholic church and the Bible, as well as those discrepancies that may be found on comparing the sayings of different popes, and, in some instances, the yea and nay of the same pope. The explanation is on this wise: First, they claim that they have a right to differ from the Bible, because, as the pope is equal with God, he is above the Bible, and has a right to dispense with its teachings. In the second place, if the pope changes his mind, it is to be understood that it is only because “God” (who “changeth not”) has changed. What blasphemy! A poor mortal changing the doctrines of the Bible, setting aside God’s laws, and trying to hide his iniquity by saying, “God has changed his mind.” It seems to me that this testimony in the decretals is fatal to themselves, and that it marks their church with certainty as an apostate church, and as the blasphemous little horn of Dan. 7: 25.
Isaiah gives us a rule by which to try false spirits: “If they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” Isaiah 8: 20. The decretals, not only admit that the popes in many things differ from the Bible—a matter very apparent to those who compare papal doctrines with the Bible—but decretals claim a right for the popes, not only to differ from the Bible, but to even dispense with the precepts of the Bible, thus speaking contrary to its teachings, and branding themselves as false prophets.
The testimony respecting the little horn is, “He shall think to change times and laws.” Decretals declare that “the pope has power to change times and to abrogate laws.” This they have attempted to do, in changing God’s ten commandments, as appears from their catechisms, especially those published in Catholic countries. In giving the ten commandments, they either leave out the second commandment entirely, or blend it with the first as one commandment, which, in either case, changes the position and number of the commandments that follow, the fourth commandment becoming the third, the fifth, the fourth, and so on; and to make out the complete number of ten commandments, they divide the tenth commandment into two, thus giving us two commandments on covetousness, as follows: Ninth commandment, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife.” Tenth, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods.” The commandments are so found in the following eight catechisms used in Ireland: Three sizes of Butler’s Catechism, Abstract of the General Catechism, edited by the Christian Brothers, Catechism for the Archdiocese of Tuam, The Most Rev. Dr. Riley’s Catechism, Catechism for First Confession, Dr. Cullen’s Catechism, Archbishop of Dublin, and Pope’s Legate, in Ireland.
In the two principal catechisms of England, “Abridgment of Christian Doctrine,” and “Abstract of the Douay Catechism,” the first and second commandments are blended as the first commandment. And so it is found in most of their American Catechisms, as in the Jesuit’s Catechism of F. X. Wexinger, of Cincinnati, Ohio.
The Italian Catechism of the Very Reverend Antonio Rosmini Serbati, D. D., Founder and General of the Institute of Charity, gives the commandments of the first table of the law thus: “1. I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt not have other gods before me. 2. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. 3. Remember thou keep holy the days appointed.”—English Translation of Serbati’s Italian Catechism, p. 33.
Serbati’s Catechism, published where and when the church could say what she pleased, not only obliterates the second commandment, but removes from the fourth commandment all idea of a Sabbath; for, in the eyes of a good papist, “the days appointed” may refer simply to those days appointed by the Romish church, as Good Friday, Holy Thursday, Ash Wednesday, &c.
Papists claim that they do not worship images, but that they have them merely to enliven their devotion for the beings that the images represent. It seems, however, that there was a great controversy over their introduction into the church, both in the fourth and eighth centuries. Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis, at the close of the fourth century, finding a painted image of Christ in a church where he went to pray, tore it, and ordered it wrapped around a poor dead man and buried with him. Thus he showed his indignation against image worship.
A Catholic historian, De Cormenin, says of the Catholic church: “They worshiped images, even in the eighth century. . . . This adoration, which the court of Rome encouraged, constituted a true idolatry, which had been severely proscribed by the founders of Christianity and the fathers of the first ages of the church.”—De Cormenin, vol. 1, p. 206.
If they have no worship for their images, nor consider that there is any virtue in them, how is it that they treat us to the relation of so many miracles accomplished by them? The Holy Bambino at Rome, which is an image of the infant Jesus, magnificently dressed and adorned with costly jewels, is sent for by those who are sick, who can afford to pay for it, and the papists claim that many and marvelous (?) cures are accomplished by it.
Gavazzi, who was once an Italian priest, a chaplain in the Roman army, and who was exiled in 1848 for taking part in the Italian cause, says: “At Rome, in the Franciscan convent of the Aracoeli, is a little baby which on Christmas eve was brought by an angel to St. Francis, of Assisi. . . . It has powers so miraculous that the Franciscans bring it about to sick persons to heal them. . . . It is so ugly, being more like a monkey or a baboon than a baby, that we must say the angels in Heaven are very bad sculptors. . . . The pope himself often sends for ‘the little physician’ as it is called, to help him to recover his health. The devotion, especially of the Roman ladies, to this little wooden image is shown by the presents with which they have loaded it: rich dresses, gold, pearls, rubies, diamonds, and all kinds of gems. It is worshiped more intensely and publicly than the consecrated wafer. When Christ, in the sacrament, passes through the streets, many pay little or no attention; but when the angelic monkey is carried in a rich carriage, they bow and kneel, hat in hand, before it.”—Gavazzi’s New York Lectures, p. 348.
The papists are not satisfied with claiming that they can change God’s times, they assert that they actually have done it. They set up the claim that they have changed the Sabbath of God’s law from the the seventh day, the day on which God appointed it, to the first day of the week, the day anciently consecrated by the pagans to the sun and its worship. They claim that this change in the Sabbath institution was accomplished by the power of their church.
We will simply say here, We have seen already that they have made, or attempted to make, changes in the decalogue. The prediction concerning them was that they should “think to change [God’s] times.” We are sure, however, that their claim stands relative to the Sabbath, and that they have changed in their practice the sacrament of the Lord’s supper from the form in which Christ instituted it, so that, instead of giving to the believer the bread and wine, the priest drinks all the wine, and gives the communicant a wafer, and tells him that is the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ with soul and divinity, and that each consecrated wafer is a complete and whole Christ.
J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH.
Continue reading: PASSING AWAY