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PART II. Popery essentially hostile to Christianity.

Chapter I. Arrogance. (2 Thess. ii. 4.)

HAVING proved—we trust to the satisfaction of unprejudiced minds—that Romanism is the predicted foe of Christ’s kingdom, the mystery of iniquity that even in the Apostles’ time was beginning to work, the great apostasy, baptized Paganism, it remains for us to show that she is, in spirit, doctrine and practice, hostile to the true Church of Christ; that in her leading characteristics she is necessarily antagonistic to Christianity, nor less so in this enlightened nineteenth century, than in the world’s midnight, Rome’s golden age; that her changes have most of them been for the worse, towards grosser superstition, greater pride, and more absurd dogmas.

In Paul’s glowing description of the rise of Antichrist, occur these remarkable words: “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.” No arrogance that the world has ever witnessed can compare with that of the Papal Church. It claims not only immutability but also inerrancy, not merely the right to bind the conscience and destroy the body, but even to damn the soul. It boastingly proclaims itself able to work miracles, to forgive sins, and to create the world’s Creator. Its proud pontiff calls himself God’s vicegerent on earth, Vicar of Christ. By his subjects he is denominated, “ His Holiyess,” “Our Lord God THE Pope.” The celebrated canonist, Prospero Fagnani, the oracle of the court of Rome, in his commentaries on the Decretals, thus defines the Pope:

“We may make laws and institutions for all the world. He has power over all men, even infidels. The Pope judges all men, and can be only judged of God. Te cannot be judged of councils; nay, were the whole world to pronounce in any particular against the Pope, it would be right to submit to his judgment against the world. Everything he does is done by divine authority. The Pope may, by himself alone, determine the symbols of faith, since it belongs to him only to decide in matters of faith. The Pope is not subject to the desisions of his predecessors—not even to that of the Apostles; for there is no power that can limit the power of the keys. He may dispense with the observance of the divine laws and the Gospel precepts. The Pope may grant every species of dispensation, with the exception of one, to marry one’s father, or one’s mother. He may depose magistrates and princes, and free their subjects from their obligations to loyalty. He is king of kings and ruler of rulers; he is the prince of bishops, the judge of all men. He can create a law where before there was none.” If this is not dethroning the King of heaven, what shall we call it?

Innocent III, in his coronation sermon, said :—“Now you may see who is the servant who is placed over the family of the Lord; truly is he the Vicar of Jesus Christ, the successor of Peter, the Christ of the Lord, the God of Pharaoh; placed in the middle between God and man, on this side of God, but beyond man; less than God, but greater than man; who judges all, but is judged by none.”

Bellarmine wrote :—“If the Pope should err by enjoining vices or prohibiting virtues, the Church, unless she would sin against conscience, would be bound to believe vices to be good and virtues evil.” What can we say to men who profess such doctrines?

Another writer, in defining the limits between Papal and secular power, affirms:—”The Pope is bound by no forms of law; his pleasure is law. The Pope makes right of that which is wrong, and can change the nature of things. He can change square things into round.”

Nor must it be imagined that these doctrines are only the legacy of the dark ages. They are the beliefs of the living present, held more firmly now than ever.

The Freeman’s Journal and Catholic Register of New York, under date of Oct. 1, 1870, holds this language :—“It is as obligatory to hear the voice of Pius IX., when he speaks, avowedly to the universal Church, as it is to listen to the voice of Jesus Christ.”

The Papal Church has the effrontery and the blasphemy to claim, even in this age, that she is, always has been and ever will be, immutable. Le Universe, an Ultramontane journal of France, lately contained the following:—

“The Catholic Church is in the commencement of all things. It has always existed and will always exist. It was before time, it is in time, it will be after time, without spots, or wrinkles, or any change. It does not change; it is developed. It is from God, it is through God, it will be God, for God has constituted it to fill the human race with divinity, that it may become an increase of God.”

This, in face of Rome’s numberless changes, her countless contradictions and variations (see “Edgar’s Variations”), is a faith that may well be denominated sublime. ‘The present Pope is a firm believer in transubstantiation, but Pope Gelasius I. wrote:— “The substance of the bread and wine ceases not to exist.” The doctrine of purgatory is, with all true Catholics of the present day, an essential part of that perfect, unchanged and unchangeable system. But this doctrine, little more than four hundred years old, is condemned by more than twenty of the fathers, including St. Augustine, Justin Martyr, Cyprian, Tertullian, Ambrose, the two Cyrils, Chrysostom, Athenasius, and Jerome. Not always was Rome so unreflecting as publicly to proclaim her damnable avarice, her heartlessness and inhumanity in allowing the souls of her “beloved children” to lie “broiling in the fiercest flames” till a few coppers, wrenched from her poverty stricken victims, drop into her accursed coffers. Pio Nono (Pope Pius IX), and all intelligent Papists, it is fair to presume, agree with the teachers of science, as to the diameter of the earth. But Pope Gregory, and Bellarmine, and Dr. Rosaccio placed purgatory at the earth’s centre, more than 18,000 miles below the surface. They must be correct, for infallibility, it seems, has measured it. The Inquisition of Rome, in 1633, guided by the Vicar of God, infallible Pope Urban, in condemning Galileo, affirmed:— “The proposition that the earth moves is absurd, philosophically false, and theologically considered, at least, erroneous in faith.” As infallibility cannot correct itself, in what a dilemma the Papal world finds itself! They are living on a flat, immovable planet, the centre of the universe. Similar countless contradictions and variations of Popery in no way stagger the faith of true Romanists, however. The children of Holy Mother, evidently believing some things because they are absurd, give us touches of arrogance that are truly sublime. Le Pére Lacordaire, the noted Dominican preacher, in a sermon delivered not long since in Notre Dame, exclaims :—

“Assuredly the desire has not been wanting to lay hold of us, or put us to fault against immutability; for what a weighty privilege to all those who do not possess it: a doctrine immutable when everything upon earth changes! A doctrine which men hold in their hands, which poor old men in a place called the Vatican guard under the key of this cabinet, and which without any other defense resists the course of time, the dreams of sages, the designs of kings, the fall of empires—always one, constant, identical with itself! What a prodigy to deny! What an accusation to silence!”

A little farther on he represents the Pope, after refusing the demand of the present age for change, and scorning a million of men under arms, as indignantly exclaiming, when offered half of Caesar’s sceptre on condition he will change just a little:

“Keep thy purple, O Caesar! tomorrow they will bury thee in it; and we will chant over thee the Alleluia and the De Profundis, which never change.”

Since this eloquent bombast penned, Pio Nono (Pope Pius IX) has yielded his temporal crown to a few shouting Liberals. Yet such is the grandeur of Papal arrogance that, ignoring changes, the Pope’s loyal sons shout: “‘Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity. We stand by now; and wait to see how the Lord will bring safety for our Church out of what, humanly considered, is a desperate case. But let the enemy take note of our confidence! We acknowledge we know not how, but we are sure of a deliverance. We do not know what the Holy Father will do. Perhaps the Holy Father does not know what he will do a month hence.” *

So the boasted immutability has been shivered to pieces by the waywardness of the Pope’s “poor misguided sheep.” And since infallibility is unfortunately not foreknowledge, even “Our Lord God the Pope” does not know what will come of his having so peremptorily refused the half of Caesar’s crown, offered him by the vivid imagination of “the great Dominican.”

The Church of Rome claims the exclusive right to interpret Scriptures. According to Popery, individual believers have no right whatever to form for themselves opinions as to the meaning of the Bible. In religious matters they have no right to think. It is their duty to believe and to obey. It is the exclusive right of the sovereign Pontiff to think and to command.* God has indeed given all men reason and conscience, but they may not use them except according to Papal rule. The Pope gives to the Word of God all the authority it can possess! Without his sanction it has no binding force. He can abrogate the laws of the Creator. He can declare the commands of Christ of no effect. If God should speak in an audible voice from heaven, we would not be required to obey unless the Pope endorsed the command. Nay, the case is even worse. For the spiritual despot in the eternal city has actually forbidden his subjects to read, or even possess, the will of heaven revealed for our salvation. The bull of May 5th, 1844, contains this remarkable prohibition :

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*In the bull of Gregory XVI, dated May 8, 1844, occur these words: “Watch attentively over those appointed to expound the Holy Scriptures, that they dare not, under any pretext whatever, interpret or explain the holy pages contrary to the traditions of the Holy Fathers, or to the service of the Catholic Church.”

“MOREOVER, WE CONFIRM AND RENEW THE DECREES RECITED ABOVE, DELIVERED IN FORMER TIMES BY APOSTOLIC AUTHORITY, AGAINST THE PUBLICATION, DISTRIBUTION, READING AND POSSESSION OF BOOKS OR THE HOLY SCRIPTURE TRANSLATED INTO THE VULGAR TONGUE.”

Thus an erring, creature presumes to tell the King of heaven that he may not make known his will to his own creatures. Has not Romanism “exalted itself above all that is called God?”

In entire consistency this mystery of iniquity has denounced the American Bible Society as “a most crafty device, shaking the foundations of religion,” “a pestilence,” “a defilement of the faith most eminently dangerous to souls.” Again: “It is greatly feared that Bible societies will, by a perverse interpretation, turn Christ’s Gospel into a human Gospel, or, what is worse still, into a Gospel of the devil.” In a letter dated June 26th, 1816, and addressed to the Primate of Poland, Pius VII. said: “It is evident, from experience, that the Holy Scriptures when circulated in the vulgar tongue, have, through the temerity of men, produced more harm than benefit. Warn the people entrusted to your care, that they full not into the snares prepared for their everlasting ruin.” In the nineteenth century language such as this falls from lips claiming superior sanctity and even supernatural guardianship! If our versions are so shockingly dangerous, and that, too, when simple translations without note or comment, one would suppose they would industriously circulate a translation of their own. Instead of doing so, however, this proposition, “It is useful and necessary to study the Scriptures,” one of the Popes branded as “false, shocking, scandalous, seditious, impious, blasphemous.” It would seem that in the judgment of Rome the Bible is the most dangerous book in existence. And yet, strange to say, this immutable, infallible Church has, by solemn degree, granted her priests the privilege of selling licenses to read God’s Word. Among the ten rules enacted by the Council of Trent respecting prohibited books, we find this:

“It is referred to the judgment of the bishops, or inquisitors, who may, by the advice of the priest or confessor, PERMIT THE READING OF THE BIBLE TRANSLATED INTO THE VULGAR TONGUE BY CATHOLIC AUTHORS, TO THOSE PERSONS WHOSE FAITH AND PIETY, THEY APPREHEND, WILL BE AUGMENTED, AND NOT INJURED BY IT; AND THIS PERMISSION THEY MUST HAVE IN WRITING.”

Thus God’s Vicegerent tells him: “We will grant our subjects permission to read your message of life if they will pay us for the privilege.” Standing between the Creator and the creature, the Pope says to the former: “You may not speak to my subjects;” to the latter: “You may not receive the message of your Maker, unless you have the means of purchasing my permission.” And even this presumption is sustained by Roman logic. “The Pope has the chief power of disposing of the temporal affairs of Christians, in order to their spiritual good.” Wealth corrupts men. By every conceivable means, therefore, it should be taken from them. Verily we are prepared to read this claim: “The Pope has power above all powers in heaven and in earth.” “He, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.”

It is a maxim with Popery that ignorance is the mother of devotion. If this be true—and infallibility has affirmed it—the devotion of the mass of Papists must be the deepest, the purest, the noblest, and the most spiritual the erring creatures of God have ever rendered him. And hence arises a reason, all powerful with Romanists, why popular education should be opposed. And accordingly they are, and always have been, opposed to the freedom of the press, to the general diffusion of knowledge, to the progress of the arts and sciences. Pope Gregory, in his bull of 1832, denounces liberty of opinion, of conscience, and of the press, as “absurd and erroneous doctrines; pregnant with the most deplorable evils; and pests of all others most to be dreaded in a state.” And those who proclaim censures such as these irreconcilable with the rights of men, are charged with “falsity, rashness, and infamous effrontery.” Catholicism is, in interest, in principle, and in policy, the uncompromising foe to modern ideas of education. What Protestants denominate the dark ages Romanism calls the golden age. It disdains the civilization, intelligence, and sterling activity of the present, and were the power hers, no doubt the wheels of progress would be turned backwards four or five centuries.

The Church of Rome claims ability to forgive sins. Confession being made and the money demanded handed over, absolution is unconditionally granted. This is their claim. And in accordance therewith is their practice. We are indeed aware of the affirmation of many, that the priests, in granting absolution, merely declare, that to the penitent, sin is remitted by God. We affirm, however, that the Church claims the inherent power of forgiving sin. One of the anathemas of the Council of Trent, certainly no mean authority, is: “If any one shall say that the sacramental absolution of the priest is not a judicial act, but a naked ministry of pronouncing and declaring that sins are remitted to the person confessing, provided only they be believers… . let him be accursed.” Here forgiveness of sin is claimed as a judicial act of the priest. He sits in Christ’s seat, granting pardon. And against each and every apologist, whether Papal or Protestant, who, smoothing down the asperities of Popery, would reconcile it with reason, Rome’s last argument is fulminated, “anathema sit (let him be accursed).”

And their theological works contain arguments to prove that to the Pope has been given the right of granting this pardoning power to every priest. Did not Christ say to Peter, “Whatsoever thou loosest on earth shall be loosed in heaven?” Every priest, therefore, holding his commission from Peter’s successor, has ability to pardon the sinner. And why not? Is there not a storehouse of good works? Has not the Pope the key? May he not disinterestedly sell the merit accumulated from the obedience of the faithful above all that God required? Absolutions are, therefore, only the transfers of merit, of the supererogatory works of Rome’s renowned saints. And surely he who can make virtue vice, and vice virtue, can set some of this treasure to the account of the sinner who proves the genuineness of his desire for it by paying the stipulated price. Nay, “the Mother of Harlots” can do more than forgive sins. She has the right to sell indulgences. And every sin has its price. Did space permit, it would furnish a pitiable exhibition of the innate depravity of man to run over the list prepared by this trafficker in human souls. There is the price of an indulgence to “murder one’s father, mother, brother, sister, wife, or other relative, one dollar and seventy-five cents;” “for theft, sacrilege, rapine, perjury, two dollars;” “for incest with a sister, a mother, or any near relative, two dollars and a quarter.” At the end of one of the chapters in this, the “ Pope’s Chancery Book,” it is said: “Note well: Graces and dispensations of this kind are not conceded to the poor, because they have no means, therefore they cannot be comforted.” Poor creatures! Their poverty is their only sin! That the traffic in these indulgences is now dull, is not because Rome has willingly abandoned the lucrative business, but because the light of the Reformation has ruined the trade. Even yet, however, they are purchasable by prayers, and especially by the repetition of Mary’s rosary. “The Catholic Manual,” a collection of devotional exercises, promises a plenary indulgence on each of the solemn feasts of Christ and of the blessed Virgin Mary, to those who, with these heads, pray devoutly at least once a week. Whoever repeats a Hail Mary in the morning, is promised “an indulgence of a hundred days, each day of the week, and seven years and seven times forty days on each Sunday.” By carefully following the sixteen instructions on indulgences in “The Catholic Manual,” a devout Papist, by laboring with the machinery of devotion about four hours each day for five years, could, we think, very easily purchase a thousand years unbridled license in sin. About one hundred monks, working diligently, could, we believe, lay up merit adequate to pardon the entire world of sinners. They might thus open a new spiritual bank and rival the Pope in making merchandise of souls. Why, therefore, should the subjects of Pio Nono (Pope Pius IX) tremble with apprehensions of the torments of perdition? The infallible Church has granted, and therefore, of course, can again grant, permission to commit any sin, engaging to extinguish the flames of hell. None, to whom he grants a claim to the joys of the redeemed. can be finally lost. None can enter paradise without his passport. Did not Jesus say to Peter, “I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven?” These keys have been handed down from Peter to the present Pope! Therefore, “He openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth.” On what condition will he open heaven to the soul? When the dues to the Church are paid. Did ever assumption equal this?

Claiming sovereignty over his people not only in this world but also in the world to come, the Pope controls even purgatorial fires. How long souls are kept in the purifying flames would seem to depend entirely on the willingness of living friends to pay money for the celebration of masses. Archbishop Hughes, when on earth, was lauded as one of the holiest of men. It required, however, a long time to pray his soul out of purgatory. “How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

Nor does Papal presumption stop even here. In the doctrine of the real presence, according to which in every crumb of bread and in every drop of wine Christ’s entire nature, human and divine, is comprehended, we have arrogance the most blasphemous which it is possible to conceive. Christ, in his undivided humanity, is present in heaven and on the countless Popish altars of all countries and all ages, entire, perfect, complete in every particle of the consecrated elements. And yet, lest human weakness should be horrified with eating flesh and drinking blood, the form, appearance, qualities, and taste of bread and wine remain unchanged. And this self-contradictory miracle, the most stupendous ever imposed upon human credulity, it is affirmed, is daily wrought by priestly power. A learned Cardinal says: “He that created me gave me, if it be lawful to tell, to create himself.” And Pope Urban af firmed: “The hands of the pontiff are raised to an eminence granted to none of the angels, or CREATING GOD THE CREATOR OF ALL THINGS, and of offering him up for the salvation of the whole world.” One shudders as he reads such blasphemy. And to find in the Freeman’s Journal of Sept. 8, 1870, such language as this, “How many prayers have they (the French priests praying for unhappy Napoleon III.) offered even with the Most Holy in their hands,” too plainly proves that Popery is the same unchanged monster of iniquity.

Add to the above list of assumptions, the last and greatest of all, infallibility, so recently exalted into a dogma, and you have all that it would seem possible for man to claim; all that the proudest and most cruel tyrant could desire. The arrogance is complete; the despotism is perfect. The Pope has the right to enslave the body; nay, even to take life, to bind the conscience, and to damn the soul. And in the exercise of these divine prerogatives, to err is impossible. These assumptions the faithful are not only expected to believe with the whole heart, but to yield unresisting obedience to the tyranny thence resulting.

“I’d rather be a dog, and bay the moon,
Than such a Roman.”