The Church of Rome Ignores the Challenge to Disprove She is the Great Whore of Revelation Chapter 17

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This is the continuation of the series, Antichrist And His Ten Kingdoms – By Albert Close and previous post, A Description of the Great Whore of Revelation Chapter 17 – By Albert Close.

BISHOP WORDSWORTH’S CHALLENGE IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY IN 1851.

As was previously mentioned, Christopher Wordsworth, D.D., late Bishop of Lincoln, one of the most learned and spiritually-minded men the Christian Church has ever produced, on Feb. 16th, 1851, in Westminster Abbey, challenged the whole of the clergy of the Church of Rome, to disprove his historical evidence, that “Babylon, the Scarlet Woman,” of Rev. 17 is the Church of Rome. In 1868 he repeated the challenge, when he published his unanswerable work, Union with Rome. This work has gone through sixteen editions, and has circulated all over the globe. Not one has replied, not even Manning or Newman, or last of all Roman English champions, Mr. James Britten, Secretary of the English Roman Catholic “Truth” Society. Mr. Britten, in the Tablet, Aug. 31st, 1912, wrote: “We are, as we always have been, ready to deal with any attack or misrepresentation to which our attention is directed.” Mr. Britten certainly has fought shy of Wordsworth’s challenge, as also the author’s. To attempt a reply would only expose Rome to her own disciples, hence her silence.

When the author published the second edition of his larger book—Babylon the Scarlet Woman, or the Divine Foreview of the Church of Rome, a copy was sent to each of the following arch-defenders of Romanism in Britain, in order that they might be given an opportunity of disproving his conclusions. In fact, the closing chapter of the book definitely challenged them to do so.

A copy was sent to Mr. James Britten, Secretary of the English Roman Catholic “Truth” Society; to the Rev. John Gerarl, S.J., editor of the English Jesuit organ, The Month; to the editor of The Catholic Times; and to the editor of The Tablet.

What was the result? By the first two the old game of silence was played for months. Then a member of the Roman Catholic “Truth” Society, being one day reproached because of this silence, took the matter up, and gave Mr. Britten and others to understand that something must be done, and some sort of a reply made.

The first came in a few days from the Jesuit organ, The Month, July, 1911.

The excuse the editor gave for not reviewing before, was that the work was errant nonsense and beneath his contempt. He asserted that the long delay was not because he was afraid to review “so damaging a work,” but because it was quite superfluous to do so. The fallacy of these excuses will be apparent, when it is mentioned that he craftily altered the title of the book, and concealed both the Publisher’s and the Author’s names, so that no Roman Catholics would know where to procure the book and read it for themselves. This from an editor who advertises that his organ devotes itself to Catholic apologetics!

Next came Mr. James Britten’s review in Catholic Book Notes for July 1911. Mr. Britten, who, by the way, poses as a critic of “literary capabilities,” and judges these qualifications by the correct crossing of “t’s” and dotting of “i’s,” started off by altering Rev. 17 to another and incorrect chapter. Again, nearly every extract he made from the book was incorrect. He even misquoted St. Peter. These cannot have been typographical errors, as Mr. Britten is a critic who specially judges literary capabilities by these defects. As he would not be foolish enough to fall into these very errors in his own literary work, we must naturally infer that the alterations were intentional.

Next came The Catholic Times for July 21st, 1911. This paper fought shy of the subject altogether, and cut off the part of the title which mentions “The Church of Rome.”

Last of all, The Tablet apparently fights shy of both the book and the subject. So far as the author is aware, the copy sent for review has never even been acknowledged in its columns.

In November, 1911, the English Roman Catholic “Truth” Society published a little pamphlet entitled The Beasts and the Little Horn, by the Rev. Dr.G.S. Hitchcock, Doctor of Sacred Scripture, Rome. The subtle “Dr.” is apparently able to doctor both Scripture and history, in characteristic Roman Catholic style. Shutting his eyes to the fact that St. John saw the ten-horned starlet-coloured Beast, in vision, long after the Grecian Empire had passed away, he attempts, after the manner of the Rationalists, to shift the ten kingdoms or horns of the fourth beast of Dan. 7 back on to the Grecian Empire! His pamphlet certainly demonstrates the kind of “truth” the Roman Catholic “Truth” Society stands for!

Now the Roman Catholic Church professes to be fighting Rationalism tooth and nail, yet here is Dr. Hitchcock, a priest, sending forth through the Roman Catholic “Truth” Society, the Rationalist interpretation of Dan. 7. He also in his blindness, as a new convert to Rome, is unconscious of the fact that he goes against the teaching of the Roman Catholic Bible, which states that the Four Beasts of Dan. 7 prefigured the Chaldean, Persian, Grecian and Roman Empires! He is on the horns of a dilemma. Rome always tries to have it both ways, so that she can argue to suit her own purposes under different circumstances.

The author at once sent Dr. Hitchcock’s list of what he calls “Alexander’s Successors” to the Professors and Lecturers in Ancient History at Oxford, Cambridge, London, Edinburgh, and Glasgow Universities, with the simple request that they pass an opinion upon its authenticity. With one exception they at once repudiated it. The professor who was the exception, merely stated that nearly every one of the dates given by Dr. Hitchcock is disputable. Three, simply put the pen through the list and returned it. Others paused to remark that Alexander the Great had no actual successors. His empire, as every well-informed schoolboy knows, was divided amongst his four generals at his death. This also agrees with Daniel’s prophecy. See Dan. 8:20—23. Dr. Hitchcock must have known that he was twisting both history and prophecy when he made use of that list, as he gives no dates for the last three. Why? Because they never reigned! Fancy adding the names of three men who never reigned, to a list of kings, so as to make the number up to ten! This is a trick of the Rationalists, who attempt to do away with the supernatural character of the Book of Daniel, and shift the date of its origin ahead from B.C. 606 to B.C.164. So far, he seems to have succeeded in convincing the Pope, his Cardinal, and the officials of the “Truth” Society, that he is an authority on Scripture and history! He also refers in a haphazard manner to the Scarlet Woman of Rev. 17., but carefully avoids the author’s challenge.

But after all the real facts were that this pamphlet was never intended as an honest exposition of Scripture. It was intended as a blind to Roman Catholics, as are nearly all the publications of the various Roman Catholic “Truth” Societies. Antichrist’s priests were to be men who would believe a lie to be truth, and the truth a lie. 2 Thess. 2:9—12.

When five of Rome’s literary champions behave in this manner, it will readily be seen that they all sensed danger, and mean to fight shy of the subject, or deal with it just sufficiently to throw dust in the eyes of their co-religionists.

On Feb. 24th, 1912, Dr. Hitchcock wrote to The Tablet and to The Catholic Times disputing the author’s statement that five University professors had repudiated his list of “ten kings.” He professed to be anxious to have their names, so that he might question them.

The author replied, in a letter to the Catholic Times, March 8th, 1912, offering to supply the names to a committee chosen from both sides, if Dr. Hitchcock would agree to let this committee send his list of kings again to these professors, and publish their replies in three Protestant and three Roman Catholic papers.

Instead of publishing the letter, the Catholic Times suppressed it, and actually published an article which evidently was either written or inspired by Dr. Hitchcock, in which Roman Catholics were informed that Mr Close had refused to give Dr. Hitchcock the details about the professors and their replies!

The R.C. “Truth” Society also published an equally misleading article in the May number of Catholic Book Notes. It is significant that when Dr. Hitchcock’s pamphlet was published, Catholic Book Notes announced that it would be “dealt with in a future number.” Seven years have gone by, and it has never been reviewed yet! It is, however, still in circulation amongst unsuspecting Roman Catholics as “Catholic ‘Truth’”! Dr. Hitchcock has however in the meantime left the Church of Rome!

These are the men who left the Church of England because they discovered “the Truth” in the Church of Rome! They have discovered the kind of “truth” St. Paul speaks of in 2 Thess. 2:9—11!

GREAT MEN WHO HAVE PROCLAIMED THAT “BABYLON” IS THE CHURCH OF ROME.

Amongst the great and learned leaders in the Christian Church who have proclaimed with no uncertain sound that the Books of Daniel and the Revelation are a DIVINE PROGRAMME of the Church and world’s History and that “Babylon, the Scarlet Woman,” of Rev. xvii, is the Church of Rome, and the Pope the great Antichrist of Scripture, are the names of Huss, Savonarola, Luther, Melancthon, Knox, Zwingle, Tyndale, Latimer, Ridley, Hooper, Cranmer, Coverdale, Foxe, Bradford, Bullinger, Rogers, Calvin, Sir Isaac Newton, and others of the Reformation times, and nearly all the great Christian leaders since. They recognized that it was their duty to view the Church of Rome as God views her.

In Nov., 1911, when the author first published this little work, he issued the following challenge to the Church of Rome:—

A CHALLENGE TODAY.

To demonstrate afresh that Rome greatly fears this prophecy, and has no alternative interpretation today which will fit this prophecy in all details, the writer hereby invites Pope Pius X.; the Roman Catholic Cardinal-Archbishop of Westminster; the Secretary oi the English Roman Catholic “Truth” Society; Cardinal Gibbons U.S.A.; Archbishop Sbaretti, Canada; Cardinal Logue, Ireland; and the Acting Cardinal-Archbishop of Australia; or any other responsible Roman Catholic prelate, to produce and publish such evidence. If they can, doubtless they will; if none attempt it, it may be presumed that they have no evidence, and if they have none they must admit that Babylon, the Scarlet Woman of Rev. 17 is the Church of Rome, and if sincere and honest men, obey the Divine command, “COME OUT OF HER MY PEOPLE” (Rev. 18:4).

Copies of these evidences, and of this challenge, were published in the Protestant Observer in November, 1911, and were sent by post to Pope Pius X. and to all of the above-named prelates. Up to the time of going to press with the third edition of this pamphlet, November, 1918, no reply has been made by Rome.

P.S.—The Great War (World War I) has just come to a close as this book passes through the Press. All the world now sees that the Pope, the Jesuits, the Cardinals and the Roman priests in Italy, Germany, Austria, America, England and Ireland, have been in league with Germany, and against the Allies. Truly she is a brazen harlot and not a Christian Church. Even godless statesmen are now convinced of this.

Before the Great War, great religious journals like the Christian World, Church Times, British Weekly, etc., and secular papers like the Daily News, Daily Chronicle, Scotsman, Glasgow Herald, etc,, ridiculed the idea of Rome being an enemy of Britain. Now they know better, but they still go on dispensing wisdom as if they had made no terrible mistake. They have never made any admission of their tragic errors of judgment. So long as they regard Rome as a Christian Church, just so long will they keep on making these great mistakes. Rome is Satanic and not Divine.

ROME IS SPEECHLESS, GUILTY BEFORE GOD!

(Continued in The Great Harlot’s Daughters.)