The Miracles of the Bible and the "Miracles" of the Papacy

“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 recewed not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.” — 2 Thess. 2: 9-10.

It is plain, as will appear farther on (page 123), that this entire passage describes the Papacy, which is the great apostasy with its ‘“‘man of sin sitting in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God,” its “mystery of iniquity” and “son of perdition, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth and destroy with the brightness of his coming.” The text to-day is another dark shade in the picture. Satan is declared to be intimately associated with this great apostasy. The power of Satan is not to be despised. He has been permitted, as in the case of Job, to control the elements and afflict the body. He tempts Christians, leads captive the wicked, hinders the gospel; but his greatest work is in the realm of deception. He “deceiveth the whole world” (Rev. 12: 9). Though he goes about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour, he seems to prefer to clothe himself as an angel of light. He can do most harm by imitating the good. “There shall be false Christs,” said Jesus, “and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they might deceive even the very elect” (Matt. 24: 24). God performed through Moses real miracles, but the magicians, up to a certain point, “did so with their enchantments.” The great false Christ of the ages, claiming indeed that he is

Christ on earth, is beyond doubt the Pope of Rome, and the false prophets who come so near deceiving the very elect are those who stand about him and defend his assumptions. There is no lack of charity in this assertion. True charity ‘“rejoiceth in the truth.” There is no charity in refusing to speak the truth of God’s word, because its lightning may strike some tall Roman trees in our midst. Our Roman Catholic people are not the deceivers, but the deceived. Some strange illusion has led them to commit their conscience to those whose interest it is to keep them from investigating for themselves. A young priest told a friend of mine last week that every priest in this city was praying that this pulpit might be silenced by the pastor’s removal to some other place. Why don’t they pray that their people may search the Scriptures, to see whether these things are so? Simply because they know that a conscientious reading of this Book of God is death to all their claims. The work of Satan, the text tells us, is carried on with “all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because’” — hear it, ye who have so much to say against the Bible — ‘ they received not the truth, that they might be saved.” Men are saved by receiving the truth as it is in Jesus. And now here is the explanation of the fact that men, who seem to be so intelligent about other things, can be so terribly deceived in the most important thing that concerns them in this life. “For this cause (that is because they will not receive the love of the truth) 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 (2 Thess. 2: 11). Terrible words, because they describe a terrible condition. They are God’s sentence of doom upon all who are willingly deceived, who love not the word of God, refusing to read it for themselves. My appeal is from the Papacy to the Roman Catholic people. All I ask is that you read the Bible without confessing it asa sin to the priest, asking the Holy Spirit who moved men to write it, and who has promised to guide us into all truth, to open to you its precious treasures.

I believe in miracles. Every miracle recorded in the Bible I accept as genuine. The supernatural is not the unreasonable. Given an Almighty God, and it is reasonable to believe he can do what he pleases, whether according to natural law or above it.

The rationalism which rejects the miracles of the Bible, with all the proofs in favor of them, is irrationalism, pure and simple. And we do not deny that God, if he chooses, can work miracles to-day. He has not made this world, wound it up like a clock, and left it to run down withoui any further notice from him. In every true conversion there is an element of the supernatural. The man who will not accept a miracle, simply because he cannot understand how it is done, is unreasonable, because he must accept hundreds of facts in nature, the how of which he cannot comprehend. The miraculous does not contradict the natural; it simply rises above it. The same God works in the natural, supernatural and spiritual world.

Now good coin always invites counterfeiting. But for the real there would be no imitation, and the imitation, if undetected, is valuable in proportion to the value of the real. It is to be expected, therefore, that any false system should use the same means to establish itself by which the true system succeeded; so that we are not surprised to find miracles innumerable used as arguments to support the claims of saints, sacred shrines, and sacred errors of the Papacy. But we have only to compare these counterfeit coins with the genuine, in order to detect their spuriousness.

We will consider to-day four points of contrast:

I. ALL THE MIRACLES OF THE BIBLE WERE PERFORMED SOLELY FOR THE GLORY OF GOD AND THE GOOD OF THE PEOPLE; the miracles of the Papacy have been performed for money, or with the view of making money. “This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory’”’ (John 2: 11). Such was the uniform motive of the apostles. There is no record: that they ever received a cent for performing a miracle, or in consequence of one’s having been performed. After Peter had healed the impotent man, he said to the gazing crowd: ‘‘ Why look ye upon us, as if by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk? The God of Abraham hath glorified his Son Jesus” (Acts 3:12). And, though working miracles constantly, this same Peter had to say, “Silver and gold have I none.” One Simon Magus offered money for this gift, that he might make more money out of it. “‘Thy money perish with thee,’ was the indignant reply. The gift was not for sale, neither did they charge for its exercise.

On the other hand, this miracle-working power in the Papacy has been one of its sources of great revenue. Around its sacred wells or sacred shrines, made sacred by the exercise of some miracle of the past or present, the clinking of the money changers may be heard. For so many dollars the priest will have a special service, in which he will perform the miracle of changing the wafer into the ‘body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ,” for the repose of some soul. Churches have their miracle-working saints and relics, by which their running expenses, with a surplus for the Pope, are handsomely paid. In the church of Ara Celi of Rome is a doll, made of olive wood, and decked with costly jewels, called the Bambino. This doll, which represents the infant Jesus, has power to heal all kinds of disease, and the revenue which comes through this power supports a large number of priests. Its history is, of course, filled with the miraculous. After a Franciscan monk had carved it from an olive tree in Jerusalem, he had no paint with which to adorn it. He sought paint by prayer and fasting. One day, while he slept, St. Luke painted it for him, so that, when he awoke, there it was, looking just like flesh. On its way to Rome the doll was lost in a wreck at sea, but it suddenly and miraculously appeared in a few days at Leghorn. On one occasion a devout lady took this wonderful doll to her house, but it did not seem to like its new surroundings, for it miraculously returned to its chapel, ringing the church bells and startling the priests as it went. The people gathered in the chapel, to find the Bambino seated miraculously on the altar. When doctors fail, this doll is sent for, and the priests charge an enormous price for its services.

In the church of Santa Chiara in Naples are kept two vials of the coagulated blood of St. Januarius. On special occasions this blood liquefies and boils, Now St. Januarius, after many miracles, was martyred in the beginning of the fourth century, and his bones were not discovered and exhumed till three hundred years afterwards. The presence of his head in the church at Naples is the power that liquefies his blood. The blood was, of course, miraculously obtained and preserved, as is the case with most of their sacred relics. A missionary in Rome gave me the process by which this liquefaction takes place. The church is crowded almost to suffocation; the space around the altar is well heated by gas lights; the priest goes through his movements before the skull

eh ee of the saint, with his warm hands clasped on the vials, held all the time close enough to his mouth to get the benefit of his warm breath, till the substance in the sacred vials begins to melt and effervesce. Then the people crowd around him, to receive its holy touch. While Napoleon’s troops occupied Naples, the priests gave out that St. Januarius was angry at the presencejof the intruders, and would not allow his blood to liquefy. Whereupon the French general wheeled some cannon in front of the church, and informed the priests that, unless the blood liquefied in a’short time, he would blow their building to pieces. The saint at once came to terms, and the blood liquefied in a few minutes!

Cases like these might be multiplied, but time and inclination fail me. Relics, images, saints, wells, shrines and priests, that work miracles, bring large revenues into the coffers of the church. So that the descendants of Peter need no longer say “Silver and gold have I none,” though they have really lost the power to say, “Arise and walk.”’ It is a little surprising to a heretic to learn that many miracles have been wrought in favor of a certain doctrine, and as many in opposition to it. The Franciscans worked numerous miracles in support of the ‘‘ Immaculate Conception,” while the Dominicans worked as many or more in opposition to it. After we have read the text, however, we need not be surprised to learn that the powers of Rome, in order to retain the good will of these contending parties, confirmed both sets of miracles as equally genuine. Until Rome shall cease to use her miracles as a means to enrich herself, they can claim no kinship with the miracles of the Bible.

II. THE MIRACLES OF THE BIBLE WERE NECESSARY AND USE-FUL; the miracles of the Papacy, many of them, were unnecessary and silly. Jesus and his Apostles did not perform miracles, just to make a crowd gape. When natural means could accomplish a thing, they did not resort to the miraculous; there was no waste of power. But thousands of theso-called miracles of the Papacy served simply to excite wonder and did no good, except in hell ping “‘ mother church” to pay her bills. We must try to be serious while we look at some of the relics of Rome, most of them miraculously found, miraculously preserved, and performing miracles themselves. Helena, the mother of Constantine, in the fourth century was miraculously directed to the place where the crosses of Christ and the two thieves were buried. The cross of Christ was known, because, when it touched a sick person, he-was healed, while the other two crosses had no such power. It is a modest estimate to say that there are enough pieces of this true cross in the world to-day, if they were put together, to build two vessels as large as the Great Eastern. The Board with the Greek, Latin and Hebrew inscription on it, was also found, and you can see it for a few cents in the church of Santa Croce, Rome. In this church they will also show you one of the nails used in the crucifixion, two thorns from the crown of thorns, the finger of St. Thomas, with which he touched the holy rib of the risen Lord, a piece of the money Judas received for betraying his Master, a piece of the coat of Christ, a piece of the vail and hair of the Virgin Mary, pieces of the arms of Peter and Paul, a vial full of the blood of Christ, a vial full of the milk of Mary, some of the manna which fell in the wilderness, a piece of Aaron’s rod that budded, a part of the head of John the Baptist, and a tooth of Peter.

In the church of St. Praxede is the whole seamless robe of Christ, a piece of which we have just seen in Santa Croce! In the Mamertine prison you are shown a curious stone with a deep hollow in it, and you are seriously told that this hollow was made by the head of the Apostle Peter, which fell upon it, when Peter was knocked down by a Roman soldier. You are not expected to believe that the vacillating Peter had a head as hard as that, but that it was a miracle. In another church you look upon the chain which was broken by the angel the night Peter was delivered from prison, filings from which have been presented to princes, and a few filings from which any traveler can obtain for a trifle. In St. Peter’s of Rome is the head of St. Denis, which he is said to have taken up and carried two miles, after it was cut off. In France are four heads of John the Baptist. A facetious priest explained this by saying that each one was the head of John at different ages. Spain, France and Flanders can boast eight arms of St. Matthew and three of St. Luke. In the Lateran church, Rome, are the entire heads of Peter and Paul, but that does not hinder the monks of St. Augustine from having a large part of Peter’s head to exhibit for a trifle, while their brother Franciscans enjoy the possession of a large part of Paul’s skull. At Aix la Chapelle they show you some oil from the bones of St, Elizabeth, In Rome, so rich in relics, you can find the very ark made for Moses and the rod by which he worked his miracles. At Glastonbury are the identical stones, sacredly held, which our Lord did not turn to bread!

In the Spanish church of the Escurial are 11,000 relics, among which is a piece of the very handkerchief with which Mary wiped her eyes, while she stood by the cross.

Among these relics, so miraculously found and preserved, are some I shrink from mentioning, but I must do it in order to faithfully illustrate my subject. In one place is St. Anthony’s millstone, on which he crossed the sea; St. Joseph’s breeches, St. Mark’s boots, a piece of the Virgin’s green petticoat, “St. Anthony’s toe-nails and some parings from St. Edmund’s toes.” In a certain convent is kept a vial of St. Joseph’s breath, which was caught as he was exercising with his axe, and a little roll of butter made from the milk of the Virgin. ‘‘In another place you are shown,” says Mr. Van Dyke, “the nose of an angel, a rib of the Word made flesh, a bit of the finger of the Holy Ghost, a quantity of the identical rays of the star which led the wise men of the East, a wing of the angel Gabriel, a feather from which you can buy for the reasonable sum of twenty-five cents; the beard of Noah, a vial of the Virgin’s tears,some of the water which flowed from the side of Christ, and one of the steps of the ladder on which Jacob saw the angels ascending and descending.” In order to carry all these sacred relics, as some one has suggested, there are in the city of Rome five legs of the ass on which Jesus rode into Jerusalem. We defy the world to find more superstition, nonsense and fraud than is connected with the miracle-working relics of the Papacy. When you look an intelligent priest, bishop or cardinal in the face and ask him if he believes that these relics which their people adore are real, they coolly inform you that it makes not a whit of difference whether they are real or not, provided only the worshipper thinks they are real. If the finger of St. Thomas happens to be the finger of Judas Iscariot, no matter, provided the worshipper thinks it is the finger of St. Thomas. And thus the moral tone of the people is lowered by being taught that there is no difference between a genuine thing and a fraud; and the flood-gates of fraud are opened and defended.

The silly wonders of miracle-working saints are in striking contrast with the serious miracles of the Bible. Liguori tells us, for example, that by the assistance of Mary, an ape became the devil, and, at the command of a priest, went through a hole in the wall, which no skill has been able to fill up. And through that hole comes many a dollar into thetreasury. St. Francis Xavier loses his crucifix at sea; when he reaches the land, behold, a crab appears with the crucifix, and hands it to the delighted saint. St. Patrick, for some unaccountable reason, wants to take a loathsome leper with him from Rome, but the owner of the vessel will not consent, whereupon the leper gets on a huge stone and sails after the vessel, reaching port on the same day with it. This sameSt. Patrick, while a boy, brought some iceinto the house. His nurse scolded him, and told him that he ought to have brought dry wood for the fire. The boy prays over the ice, and in a moment it is blazing like tinder. A fair mind has only to read the miracles of the Bible, and these wonders of the Papacy on the same day, to be convinced that the former, in their simple, unadorned statements, bear the marks of genuineness, while the latter, with their sudden surprises and their romantic coloring, have the proufs of spuriousness on their face.

III. SoME MIRACLES OF THE PAPACY FLATLY CONTRADICT THE BIBLE. Luke tells us that, after Pentecost, the Apostles tarried in Jerusalem. A Romish legend, intimately connected with a great miracle, informs us that they worshipped in a little house in Nazureth — the house in which Mary was born. In the year 1291, this house was carried by the angels through the air to Dalmatia; and, after a few more removals, each time through the air, it was Jocated at Loretto, a village near the coast of Italy. In this “Holy House of Loretto” is an image of the Virgin, carved, we are seriously told, by the Evangelist Luke. At least 50,000 pilgrims visit this house every year, and leave their offerings. fA little mouse happened to crawl out of his hiding-place within its sacred walls, and was killed in the act. Its remains, artistically preserved, now have the power to ward off diseases of all kinds. But do sensible people in this nineteenth century believe these medieval myths? Why, an Archbishop in America has written a book, entitled ‘The Holy House of Loretto,” in which these very legends are given with the air of an historian as sober facts. And I am sure that all people, who do not surrender to others the right to think, will agree with another who declares that a man who can write such a book in such an age and country as this ‘‘ deserves to wear a pallium made of the wool of sacred sheep or the down of a goose.” The only reason I can think of in explanation of such folly is that it widely advertises the sacred shrine which brings more money, perhaps, than any other into the coffers of the church, and of course thus does good.

We read in 2 Kings, 18: 4, that the Israelites, responding to the very sentiment that leads Romanists to adore relics, began to burn incense to the brazen serpent which Moses lifted in the camp, and which they had preserved. Hezekiah, we are plainly told, called it ‘‘Nehushtan,” “a piece of brass,” and broke it in pieces. And yet in the city of Milan we are shown to-day what they declare is that identical brazen serpent, without the mark of Hezekiah’s hammer upon it.

IV. THE MIRACLES OF THE, BIBLE WERE PERFORMED BY THE POWER OF GOD THROUGH FAITH; the miracles of the Papacy have been performed by the power of saints, images and relics. There is one account in the Bible of a man’s being raised from the dead by the touch of the dead prophet’s bones, but these bones were not preserved for the purpose of working more miracles at so much a piece. The people knew that God worked the miracle for a special purpose, doubtless to encourage them in one of the darkest periods of their history. The sick were, on one occasion, brought and laid in the streets, so that the shadow of Peter might fall upon them, though we are not told that any of them were cured. It is a wonder that Rome has not thought to bottle up some of that shadow, and let it continue to work. ‘God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul, so that from his body were brought to the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them” (Acts 19: 11-12). Mark the expression: ‘“‘God wrought special miracles.”” God was working in answer to the faith of Paul, and, the crowd being so great that the people could not get their sick friends to him, that he might lay his hands on them, God healed those who were touched by handkerchiefs and aprons taken from Paul to them. There is a world of difference between these miracles and the miracles of the Papacy performed by men. 1. God getsall the glory, whereas, in most Papal miracles, some saint does the work by his own merit, and usually gets all the glory himself. 2. We hear no more of these handkerchiefs and aprons in the Bible. If Luke had been a Roman Catholic writer, he would have been careful to tell us just where they were kept, and how many miracles they continued to perform after Paul had gone to heaven. 3. There is no romantic coloring in this Bible picture, while the recital of Papal miracles reminds one of the Arabian Nights Entertainment.

It is difficult for me to speak coolly. These things ought to be spoken with the deliberation of a historian, and yet I confess, when I think of the seven millions of Catholics in this country, not all of whom, but many of whom, are led from faith in Christ to put faith in baptism, faith in penance,.in purgatory, in holy shrines and wells, in relics and in saints, my soul is stirred within me.

I plead for the honor of the Holy Spirit, who is fearfully dishonored by all this pretended wonder-working power in bones and hairs, and pieces of garments. Jesus said: “Greater things than these shall ye do, because I go to my Father.” The spiritual works are to be greater. Ye shall do these greater things because I go, and the Spirit will come, but you know that in all these ‘‘ miracles” the Spirit is ignored. Scenes like that at Pentecost, when 3000 were saved in one day, sudden conversions like the woman at the well and the jailer at midnight are denounced as fanatical by the believers in these sacred relics and shrines.

Let us, in closing turn from our subject to something better.

A prince who worshipped the sun decided that he would build a temple of glass to his god, that his light might fill every corner of the temple. He buiJt it, and his god filled it with his light; but, by and by, he thought he would hang up some mottoes suggestive of his religion, until at last the glass temple was so covered with these things that his god was entirely shut out. And so Jesus, the light of the world, is shut out of the temple he would fill.

A blind man stood on London Bridge and read the Bible to the people as they passed. He came to the verse, “there is none other name.”’ His fingers lost the place, and he kept repeating, “there is none other name.” A man passing by heard him, and ke felt curious to hear the conclusion of the sentence. He stopped and waited till the blind man found the place, and heard him repeat: ‘There is none other name under heaven given, among men, whereby we must be saved.” It was a revelation to him. He came to the Bible reader and said, “Repeat that again about ‘none other name.’”’ The blind man repeated it, until he accepted salvation by the one name of Christ. On the wayside in India stood another man teaching a crowd, and there came along a man with spikes upon his knees, going to some sacred shrine. The missionary read: “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” ‘God loves,” said the man on the spikes, “I thought he hated, I thought he delighted to punish!” Before the sun went down he had thrown away the spikes, stood erect and walked, a free man in Christ Jesus our Lord! An Italian lady lay on her death-bed; she said her hands, her feet were touching purgatory; the fires were scorching her. The priests came with their Latin, but they could give her no comfort, She said: “I am dying, and falling, and I burn as I fall.”” The Pope pardoned her sins, but when they brought the pardon, she said, “I burn still.” A friend who knew the Lord Jesus Christ went; into her room in spite of priestly remonstrance, and read to her: “‘ The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin.” “Read it again,” she said; “is that God’s book? Let me look at it.’ And she repeated it, with the guttural sound of death in her throat, ‘‘ The blood*of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses from all sin.” ‘‘Oh,’’ she said, “that’s it, the fires are out now, andI am saved by Christ.”’

Turn, I beg you, from all other names; cast away the spikes of penance. God loves you. Believe it, and be saved forever through Jesus Christ our Lord.