The Papacy Defined
Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it.” — Eph. 5: 265. “The beast that was, and is not, and yet is.’ — Rey. 17: 8.
THE first text brings before us the true Catholic. or Universal Church, whose members are all those for whom Jesus died, and who have become, through faith, partakers of the Divine nature. No visible line marks its boundary. Jesus Christ is its Head, to whose will all the members yield obedience. Let them bear the name of Protestant or Roman Catholic, they belong to this true Catholic Church, if they are united to Christ, the Head, by living faith. And without such faith they do not belong to it, bear what name they may.
There is such a thing as a local church defined in the New Testament, composed of converted members, with its officers and ordinances. Our business, however, to-day is not with the local church, but with the Church universal.
The Papacy claims that it is the only Catholic or universal church, and that all out of its communion do not belong to the Church at all.
Let us try this claim by its own definition of a church.
The authorized Catechism says: “The church has four marks by which it may be known: It is one; it is holy; it is catholic; it is Apostolic.”
Now, is the Roman Church one in faith? Has it always been one? For, bear in mind, it is claimed that this unity covers all time and space, Does history support the claim that its creeds, ag announced by councils and Popes, have always been the same? On the contrary, creed has contradicted creed. Popes, now declared infallible, as we have seen, have denounced the teachings of other Popes, whom good Romanists are also called upon to believe infallible. The Roman Catholic world are to-day divided in their belief as to the dogma of Infallibility.
In the Vatican Council of 1870 were men, many and strong, who did not believe in the infallibility of the Pope. LEighty-eight voted flatly against it, and thousands to-day in Roman Catholic ranks agree with them.
Pope Honorius I. was condemned by the Council of Constantinople as a heretic, “ude with the help of the Old Serpent doth scatter deadly error.’
Pope John XXIII. was convicted by the Council of Constance of denying the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the body.
Pope Leo X. denied almost every Christian doctrine, and called Christianity a “lucrative fiction.”
Who does not know of the fierce conflict between the Franciscans and the Dominicans — between the Scotists and the Thomists, while both sides were claimed as true sons of Mother Church?
For fifty years there were two Popes — one at Avignon, the other at Rome. And, after these, there were for a while three claimants to the Papal throne.
In the seventeenth century it was solemnly affirmed by a Pope that “the proposition that ‘the earth moves’ is absurd — philosophically false, and, theologically considered, at least, erroneous in faith.” Galileo declared the earth did move; but they insisted on uniformity of faith by making him again declare against his convictions.
The so-called unity of Romanism is merely a forced uniformity.
There is a unity of spirit among all those who truly love the Lord Jesus Christ, and such unity prevails, whatever be the relation of such persons to different organizations,
Second: As to holiness. It cannot be proved that the Romam Catholic Church whether you mean by that the Pope, the Councils, or the people are more holy than thousands who have never bowed to the Papal yoke. We are glad to pay tribute to the piety of many Roman Catholics, but they are not a whit holier than many Protestants.
The claim that the Roman Church, represented by Popes and Councils, have always been holy, is so ridiculously false that no man who prizes a reputation for sound mind ought to advance it.
Pope John XII. was guilty of perjury and murder. Of Alexander VI. it was said that “his debauchery, perfidy, ambition, inhumanity and irreligion made him the execration of all Europe.” His successor, Julius II., was declared to be a scandal to the whole Church. ‘ Popes Paul II. and Julius III. were such licentious characters,”’ says a historian, ‘that no modest man can read their lives without blushing.” Guicciardini, a Roman Catholic writer, says of the sixteenth century: “He was esteemed a good Pope in those days who did not exceed in wickedness the worst of mankind.” The Council of Constantinople was declared by Nianzen to have been “a cabal of wretchedness fit for the House of Correction.” An extract from the farewell address of Cardinal Hugo to Pope Innocent, at the Council of Lyons, I shrink from quoting, and, yet it is needful to show how utterly absurd is the claim of Roman Catholics to being the only church, on the ground of holiness always and everywhere. “Friends,” said he, “we have effected a work of great utility and charity in this city. When we came to Lyons, we found three or four brothels in the city, and we have left, at our departure, only one, but this extends, without interruption, from the eastern to the western gate of the city.”
Baronius, a Roman Catholic historian, exclaimed: “What is the face of the Holy Mother Church! How exceedingly foul it is!”
Roman Catholic countries, like Spain, Italy, Mexico and France are not noted for their morality. It is not slander to say what every traveller, from Luther’s time to the present, knows full well, that the city of Rome itself is one of the wickedest places in Christendom. I regret beyond measure the necessity of referring to these things, but when an organization consigns everybody to hell but themselves, and bases its claim of so doing upon their exceeding holiness, as exhibited in all time, it is fair and just to show the falsity and absurdity of such a claim.
Third: As to Catholicity. The Roman Catholic Church has, of all others, the least right to this claim. “It is Catholic,” we are told, “because it has existed in all ages, teaches all nations, and maintains all truth.” ’
The Papacy has not existed in all ages, for it did not come into existence until after the time of Constantine. It no more “teaches all nations” than do Protestants, for in these United States alone at least 45,000,000 of people do not listen to its voice.
It does not maintain all truth, for its very Popes and Councils have been convicted of heresy by other Popes and Councils, and it allows traditions of men to displace the Word of God. Strange Catholicity that, which consigns to hell men like Moody, Spurgeon and John Hall, who devoutly love Jesus Christ, and live daily to his glory — simply because they refuse to acknowledge that Leo XIII. is the vicegerent of God on earth!
- A recent writer in the Catholic World admits that a heathen, who has never heard of the Roman Catholic Church, may be saved, but there is no hope at all for the poor Protestant heretic, who has had an opportunity of joining the church, but will not do it!
When narrowness becomes Catholicity, then the Papacy will be ’ Catholic. We believe there are many Roman Catholics, who, in spite of their creed, trust Jesus Christ alone for salvation, and we expect to meet them in heaven. To all such we extend the hand of Christian fellowship, but the Papacy that rules them will not allow them to fellowship any one who does not move in its own prescribed circle.
If Paul should return to earth, and preach salvation by grace, as he once did in Rome, he would be pronounced a heretic, and consigned to hell, unless he recanted. The Apostle Peter, preaching to-day as he preached and wrote while in the flesh, would be anathematized by the Papacy. It is a noted fact that Catholic priests are not deposed for immorality, but let them preach salvation by grace through faith, or in any way refuse to show the spirit of the serf in their relation to the Papacy, and off go their heads — ecciesiastical heads, I mean, for the power of cutting off the literal head has, thank God, passed away.
Fourth: As to the claim that the Papacy is Apostolic in religion, faith and practice.
The Roman Catholic Church has in it converted men and women, who, by reason of their personal relation to Christ, are members of the true Church Catholic. But, tried by its own definition, the Papacy is not a church of Christ, for it has neither unity, holiness above the others, nor Catholicity. What then is it? In a word, it is Pagan Rome perpetuated. The new Rome of the Popes is the old Rome of the Cesars, with a few additions, but with little change. Papal Rome is Pagan Rome baptized, without being converted.
The “beast”’ referred to in the 2d text, “which was, and is not, and yet is,” is, beyond doubt, the Roman Empire. ‘The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth” (verse 9).
The text teaches that this Roman empire was to undergo such a change as that it may be said not to exist as an empire, and yet to be substantially preserved in another form. It ‘‘ was, and is not, and yet is.”” The facts of the case compel us to admit that the Papacy of to-day is the continuation of the old Roman empire in a slightly different form, but with the same thirst for dominion. The holy Roman church has been aptly termed “the holy Roman Empire.” It is more of an empire than a Church. It is more Roman than Christian, as will appear from a statement of the following facts:
Its language is the language of Pagan Rome. Peter, so far as we are informed, did not know the Latin tongue. Why was it that Greek, the language our Lord and his apostles spoke, and in which the New Testament was written, was not adopted as the uniform language of the church, if, indeed, it must have a common language for its services? Or, the Hebrew, made sacred by the tenderest and most stirring religious associations? The answer is easy. The Church, when she married the State, was compelled to take the name and language of her proud husband. The priests of Pagan Rome repeated their incantations in the Latin tongue, and you have only to enter a cathedral in America to hear the language of the ancient Roman temple breaking the
B stillness. And all this, too, in opposition to Paul’s plain admonition against praying, speaking or singing in “unknown tongues.”
The supreme Pontiff of the Roman church is to-day, in name and claim, the successor of the Pontifex Maximus of Pagan Rome. The old Pontifex Maximus claimed that in him was vested all religious, civil and political authority, the identical claim made by his successor, the Pope. Czsar, in order to centre all authority in himself, was elected to the position of Pontifex Maximus, and the Roman Emperor retained the title it conferred to the time of Gratian, A.D. 382, and thus, for more than 300 years, there was in Pagan Rome just what Gregory VII. brought about in Papal Rome, supreme authority of church and state vested in one person; with this difference, however, that, in Pagan Rome the State absorbed the church, while, in Papal Rome, the church absorbed the State. In Pagan Rome Cesar became Pontifex Maximus; in Papal Rome the Pontifex Maximus, or Supreme Pontiff, became Cesar,
The claim that the lordly Pope, with his costly attire, fine palace and millions of money, is the successor of Peter, the poor, humble fisherman of Galilee, is the climax of absurdity; but to say that he is the successor of the rich Roman Pontiff, who was head of both church and State, accords with the fitness of things. And- Papal Rome has borrowed her orders from Pagan Rome. Under the Pontifex Maximus were the Pontifices, his councillors and helpers, and under them were the Flamines, with other orders of priests. Now, under the Roman Pontiff to-day, are the Cardinals, who answer to the Pontifices; the archbishops and bishops, who answer to the Flamines, with numerous priests under them; the whole system modeled after the system of Pagan Rome.
The order of celibates is no where enjoined or recommended in the Bible. The Old Testament priests were married. The Apostle Peter, so earnestly claimed as the first Pope, was a married man; for Jesus healed his wife’s mother (Matt. 8:14). “Marriage,” says the writer to the Hebrews, “is honorable in all” (Heb. 18: 4). “I will, therefore,” says.Paul, “that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house” (1 Tim.5: 14). Paul declared that, on account of the present distress, it was good not to marry, lest they might be too much encumbered; yet, if they chose to marry even then, they did not sin, though they might expect trouble. We have nothing but words of praise for the men and women who, to be without carefulness, sacrifice the pleasures of domestic life, that they may give themselves to the work of the Lord. That is one thing. But, separating from association with others, with a peculiar garb, and special claim of sanctity, is quite another thing, the spirit of which is neither recognized nor commended in Scripture. Peter holds forth Sarah, a married woman, as a model for women. The Papacy of to-day forbids its ecclesiastics to marry, though Paul said the bishop should be the husband of one wife. The Romish Church tries to impress young women with the thought that their mothers are not as holy as the white-bonneted celibates we see on our streets. The Bible, on the other hand, honors marriage and motherhood; there is nothing in the New Testament resembling the celibate sisterhoods of to-day. But in Pagan Rome we find their prototype in the college of Vestal Virgins. Every Roman town had its altar to Vesta. In the Roman Forum stood a temple, honored above all others, in which the six Vestal Virgins kept the altar fires continually burning. Consuls bowed humbly before them in the streets; and, if one of them should meet a convict, he was released at her command.
Now, worldly wisdom could see great power in such an institution devoted to the interests of the church, and the Roman mind was ready to accept and honor their own sacred institution, though under a Christian name, There were persons, of course, during the first three centuries, before the Papacy had an existence, who, misinterpreting Paul’s words, and considering the single state more holy than the married state, refused to marry, and separated themselves from society; but Clement, of Alexandria, in the 2d century cried out against the evils of such an error, and denounced it as one of the signs of the great apostasy, predicted by Paul, “forbidding to marry” (1 Tim. 4:2). What I insist upon is that the orders of Nuns of to-day are more nearly successors of the Vestal Virgins of Rome, than of anything in the Scriptures, or Apostolic times.
The Virgin Mary of the Papacy is a continuation of the idea of a Pagan Goddess.
The Pagans would not have a religion without a goddess. To induce them to surrender their Minerva, their Ceres, Juno and
Venus, it was natural that a compromise should be made in favor of the mother of Jesus.
Nowhere in the New Testament is Mary adored. She is simply the honored mother of our Lord, rejoicing in him as her Saviour. But among the Pagan Romans great honor was paid to female divinities. Worshippers bowed before their images; and Mary is called to-day, in Roman Catholic Ritual, the “Queen of Heaven,” the very name given by Jeremiah to the false goddess whom the Israelites worshipped in the days of their backslidings. (Jer. 44; 17.)
The canonization of saints and their invocation find no warrant in the inspired word of God. And yet the Pope assumes the authority to exalt a saint fifty years after his death, to such a position in heaven, that he may be invoked and adored. “It seems,” says Lyman Abbott, “to be somewhat analogous to the ancient ceremony called Apotheosis, and was perhaps derived from it, by which the kings converted the heroes and other distinguished men into gods.” Romulus, after his death, was worshipped as a god by the Roman people; so was Julius Cesar, Alexander, before his death, ordered his own deification. The Pagan mind, thus imbued with the idea of hero-worship, took readily to the worship of saints. Every Roman family had its Penates, or household gods who looked after its interests, and answered its prayers; and our Roman Catholic friends have their patron saints, whose images they keep in their houses, and bow before them. These patron saints are the successors of the Penates of Rome.
It is interesting to see how Cardinal Gibbons, in his book, tries to pump into the Scriptures some reference to the invocation of saints. To do so, he must quote passages which refer to angels, and the prayers of saints on earth. If the Cardinal had simply shut his Bible, and opened a book of Roman history, he would not have been so perplexed to find a reference to prayers to the spirits of the dead. The Roman soldier, in the heat of battle, and the Roman matron, in the quiet of her home, invoked - the prayers of their departed dead, and that, Reverend Sir, is the mother of saint invocation, as it exists to-day.
It is the simple truth to say that many of the ceremonies of the Roman Catholic Church are Pagan, rather than Christian, in
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their origin. Look the Bible through, and you find no reference to holy water; and yet, when you enter a Catholic cathedral, the first thing you see is a vessel containing holy water, into which the faithful dip their fingers, and cross themselves. ‘The Amula,” says Montfaucon, an eminent Roman Catholic writer, “was a vase of holy water, placed by the heathens at the door of their temple, with which to sprinkle themselves.”’ In some churches of Rome, the very vases, now containing the holy water, were once used for the same purpose in the heathen temple. The holy water of the Roman Pagan and the Roman Catholic has the same composition — simple salt and water. The heathen’s object in sprinkling it upon himself and his horses was to guard against the power of evil spirits, and such is the avowed object of the Romanist in the use of his holy water to-day. There is a passage in Virgil which refers to the use of holy water in Pagan worship, and La Cerda a Jesuit writer, in his notes on the passage, says: “Hence was derived the custom of the Holy Church to provide purifying or holy water at the entrance to their churches.”” The ancient Romans were accustomed to sprinkle their horses with it at the Circensian games, as a safe-guard against evi! spirits, and every year, on the 17th of January, in the city of Rome, you may see this ceremony of sprinkling horses and mules performed in the name of St. Anthony and the Holy Catholic Church. Over the vessel of holy water in the church of St. Carlo Borromeo, at Rome, is a list of its uses:
1, ‘‘ It drives away devils from places and persons.”
2. “It affords great assistance against fears and diabolical illusions.”
3. “It cancels venial sins.”
4, “It obtains the favor and presence of the Holy Ghost,”
Here is claimed for salt and water, borrowed from heathendom, what God’s Word tells us can be obtained only through the blood of Christ.
Papal Rome seems anxious to go beyond Pagan Rome in the absurdity of its assumptions,
The use of incense in the churches is a transportation from Pagan worship. The Apostles and early Christians certainly did not use incense in their worship. Under the Pagan emperors, so much opposed was Christianity to the heathen ctstom of burning incense that it was made a test in the trials of Christians. If they would throw the least particle of incense into the censer, they were considered good enough Pagans, and released. If they refused to throw on the incense, they were deemed to be Christians, and many a martyr forfeited his life by such refusal. And under the Christian emperors, at first, burning incense was regarded as so distinctly Pagan that, by a law of Theodosius, every place and house, where it was proved to have been burned, was confiscated to the government. The fumes which salute your nostrils as you enter a cathedral during some solemn service, is another proof of the Pagan origin of the Papacy, and carries us back to the time when Virgil wrote:
“Fer hundred altars then, with garlands crowned,
And richest incense, smoking, breathe around
Sweet odors.” — AEn, I.:; 429.
On the old Pagan bas-reliefs are represented Pagan priests performing their sacrifices. You see the censer, and the boy in white attending him. You have but to peep into a cathedral on any great day to see the bas-reliefs, priest, boy and censer, taken from the marble and paraded before you in living forms.
The candles which burn before altars and shrines are also borrowed directly from the Pagans. Nothing like it in the New Testament; and the early Christians condemned in strong terms the Pagan customs around them. “They light up candles to God,” said Lactantius, in the third century, “as if he lived in the dark; and do they not deserve to pass for madmen who offer lamps to the giver and author of light?”
The Pagan Romans had a custom of bringing votive offerings to the shrines of their special divinities, in recognition of some prayer answered, or benefit conferred. The altars of their temples were surrounded by gifts of silver and gold. The temple of /Esculapius was rich in offerings from those who were healed by hissmiraculous power. This custom passed over from Pagan to Papal Rome. The House of Loretto in Italy and the Shrine of Bambino in Rome are just as rich to-day in such offerings. The Pagan priests encouraged it because it paid; and the Papal priests were not slow to see its value. The Romanist, Montfaucon, ac-
— — — knowledges that this custom was borrowed from Rome, and emphaticaliy condemns it.
Purgatory, that mine of gold to the Papacy, is an importation from Paganism. “Unknown to the Christian Church,” says Mr. Van Dyke, “it was well known to the heathen world, even so early as Homer’s time. It is the oid fire purification of souls, and the ceremonies, now employed for the relief of those suffering the tormenting flames, are remarkably similar to those anciently em- ‘ployed by Pagan priests. In fact, the doctrine was so purely
‘heathen, that not even Popish ingenuity could invent an argument in its favor. It is said that Cottonus, failing to find a passage in Scripture that would infallibly confirm it, invoked the devil to assist him; but, for once, even Satan himself was unable to wrest Scripture to his purpose. But, notwithstanding the exceedingly unimportant consideration that no proof except visions and dreams and assertion was found, the Popes were able, in the end, to establish infallibly everything connected with purgatorial fires, and located them at the earth’s centre — 18,3003 miles below the surface!’
The statue of St. Peter, whose big toe has been worn off by the kisses of pilgrims, was a statue of Jupiter, taken by Papal from Pagan Rome, and dedicated to this new purpose.
It is interesting to know that the tyrant Caligula, the Roman Emperor, was the first to require those who approached him to kiss his embroidered slipper, so that the Papal custom descends from this Roman Emperor. The Pantheon, “Temple of all Gods,” has simply been dedicated to the “Virgin, and all the saints;” so that the modern Roman goes there to invoke any saint he likes, just as the ancient Roman went there to invoke any hero-god in whom he delighted.
Penance is not New Testament repentance, which leads a man, in godly sorrow, to turn from sin to Christ, the sin-bearer, but is a child of the scourgings and starvings of Paganism, by which they hoped to atone for their sins and gain heaven; and you have but to read a description of the Pagan processions, with candles, images and shrines, to see an exact picture of the Roman Catholic processions in Italy and Spain. The images and shrines along the roads of Europe are the children of the old Roman Viales and Sennitales — Gods which preside over the roads and streets,
Max Miller, the distinguished philologist, declares that the people of Rome, Greece and India are descended from the same stock, speaking cognate Janguages, and having substantially the same religion. An examination into Buddhism, the religion of India, shows a remarkable similarity to Roman Catholicism. Buddhism has its relics and images, venerated and worshipped; its canonized saints; its wax candles, burning night and day; its penances and self-inflicted tortures; its priests, with shaven heads and. vows of chastity, purity and obedience; its endless traditions; its rosary; its confessional, and even Pope at Dhassa, whom all the faithful declare to be infallible, when he speaks ex cathedra. Romanism, in its rites and ceremonies, is more like Buddhism than it is like Apostolic Christianity, and for the plain reason that it descends with Buddhism from the same ancient stock through the Roman Empire.
In saying that modern Rome is ancient Rome perpetuated, I
am but repeating what has been acknowledged by some Roman Catholic writers. Aringhus defends it in the following words: “The Popes found it necessary, in the conversion of the Gentiles, to dissemble and wink at many things, and yield to the times, and not to use force against customs which the people are so obstinately fond of, nor to think of extirpating everything that had the appearance of profane.”’
From all this we must conclude that, so far from being the only Church, the Papacy is no church of Christ at all, and does not deserve to be classed among the Christian denominations, There are Christians in her communion, but the Bible urges all such to come out of her, that they may not be partakers of her sins and receive not her plagues (Rev. 18: 4).