Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

For the gospel is preached by wicked spirits, for God will send strong delusions and evil angels into false professors. This is the hour of darkness and the Devil's power.

Ritualists are Papists, and therefore come under the "Title" of the Beast and false prophets seen in Vision by St. John; and their DOOM is also recorded.

Our Lord said, "I am the Door, and he that cometh any other way is a thief and a robber." The Ritualists scramble down the wall, and, like robbers with pick-locks on earth, open the door of heaven under false promises. This is not the Key and Root of David. It is the Root of the Devil, the key which opens hell. It is under the delinquency of the Bishops-who ought to be the defenders and great champions of the English Church-who, if they did their duty, would suspend every Ritualist-violator of the Church doctrine and discipline which has been used in our Church for the last three hundred years.

"Superstition waits on Man and clouds his way,
But true Religion leads him into open day."

CHAPTER II.

ORIGINAL OF POPERY.

AUTHORS are divided in opinion as to the origin of the Papal power and the Pope. According to one historian, it is recorded that the Devil being out of play for restoring idolatory, and finding himself at a loss how to proceed with mankind, in the time of Jovian, the Emperor of Rome, who was a good Christian, he threw a bone of contention among the clergy for Supremacy, which fully answered his purpose, and declaring for the Roman Pontiff in the following reign of the Emperor Mauritus, Boniface, who had long contended for the title of Supreme, fell into a treaty with POCHAS, captain of the Emperor's guards, that he should murder his master-the Emperor, and his sons, when Boniface, countenancing the treason, should declare him Emperor; and Phocas, in return for the kindness done him, should acknowledge the primacy of the Church of Rome, by declaring Boniface universal Bishop.

By this notable, devilish policy, Satan got at the head of affairs in the Christian world, as well spiritual as temporal, ecclesiastical as civil, who never gained a more important point since his conquest over Eve in Paradise till that time.

It is allowed the devil prospered tolerably well in his affairs for some time before this matter was accomplished. His interest among the clergy had got ground for some ages, but was all a secret management, carried on with difficulty, such as sowing discord and faction among the people, perplexing the councils of their princes, and wheedling privately in with the dignified clergy.

HE (the devil) had raised numbers of little church rebellions, by setting up heretics of several kinds and raising them favourers among the clergy, such as Ebion, Cerinthius, Pelagius, and others.

He had drawn in the Bishop of Rome to set up the pageantry

of the KEY, and while he, the devil, set open the gates of Hell to them all, set them upon locking up the gates of Heaven, and giving the Bishops of Rome the Key, so gilded over with delusion; and so blindly the age received it, that, like Gideon's Ephod, all the Catholic world went a whoring after the idol.

THE story of this Key being given to the Bishop of Rome by St. Peter (who, by the way, never had it himself), and of its being lost by somebody or other (but the devil never told who), is this: It being found again by a Lombard soldier in the army of King Antharis, who, attempting to cut it with his knife, was miraculously forced to direct the knife to cut his own throat, which King Antharis and his nobles seeing, were thereby converted to Christianity.

And that the King sent this Key with another made like it to Pelagius, then Bishop of Rome, who thereupon assumed the power of opening and shutting Heaven's gates, as he afterwards set a price, or toll, upon the entrance thereof, as we do for passing a turnpike in England.

These fine things were successfully managed for some years (before the compact with Boniface and Phocas had taken effect), and the devil gained a deal of ground; but when he had made an universal bishop, or Pope, he triumphed openly, by setting up a murderer upon the temporal throne, and a Church Emperor upon the ecclesiastical throne, and so began his restoration.

Idolatry, at this time, went on swimmingly, and the Romish clergy brought so many gewgaws into their worship, and such devilish principles were mixed with that which we call the Christian faith, i.e., the religion taught by Christ and his apostles, that from this time the Bishop of Rome, (now distinguished by the name of Pope) commenced whore of Babylon.

Tyranny of the worst sort crept into the Pontificate, errors of all sorts into the profession, and they proceeded from one thing to another, until the Popes professed openly to confederate with the devil, and to carry on a personal correspondence with him, and at the same time they took upon themselves the title of Christ's vicar, and the infallible guide of the consciences of Christians.

The false doctrine of the heathen world has been revived and established by the Pope in the Romish Church, the heathens looked upon their gods as mediators and intercessors between

God and men, and are not the Virgin Mary saints and angels regarded in the same light by every professor of Popery. The very same temples, the very same altars, the very same images, which once were consecrated to Jupiter and the other gods, are now reconsecrated to the Virgin Mary and the other saints. The very same titles and inscriptions are ascribed to both. The very same prodigies and miracles, the burning of incense, the sprinkling of holy water, or a mixture of salt and common water, at going into or coming out of places of public worship, the lighting up of wax candles in broad day light, before the altars and statues of their deities. the hanging up of votive offerings and rich presents as attestations of so many miraculous cures, or deliverances from diseases and dangers, the canonization or deification of deceased worthies; the assigning of distinct provinces or prefectures to departed heroes and saints, the worshipping the dead in their sepulchres, shrines and relics, the consecrating and bowing down to images, the attributing miraculous powers and virtues to idols, the setting up of little oratories, statues, and altars in the streets or highways, the carrying of relics and images in pompous processions, with numerous lights, music and singing, flagelations at solemn seasons under the notion of penance, the inaking a sanctuary of temples and churches, a great variety of religious orders and fraternities of priests, the shaving of priests or the tonsure, as it is called, on the crown of their heads, the imposing of celibacy and vows of chastity on the religious of both men and women-all these and many more rites and ceremonies are equally parts of Pagan and Popish superstitions. In short, the whole almost of Paganism is converted and applied to Popery; the one is manifestly formed upon the same plan and principles as the other, so that there is not only a conformity, but even an uniformity, in the worship of ancient and modern, of Heathen and Christian Rome. The Popish worship is more the worship of devils, than GOD or CHRIST.

We have sundry instances in the lives of many merry Popes, who, if fame lies not, were sorcerers and magicians, and had immediate conversation with the devil visibly and invisibly, by which means they became what we call devils incarnate.

The impostures and wickedness transacted in Church government by the Romish clergy to this day, in those countries where

the Popish authority prevails, are dismal instances of the corruptions of original Christianity, as they are shocking to all Protestants, who see, by the lamp of history in their hands, the SEA of blood Rome has drawn from martyred millions, with what a vengeance the Romish clergy shew their authority whenever they get the upper hand. So far from following the mild and pure doctrine of Christ and his Apostles, in bearing and forbearance, there is nothing so wicked or inhuman but they will put in practice to establish their church tyranny over all men, even Princes themselves, who presume to dispute or doubt its infalli ability. The Reformation brought liberty and happiness to Great Britain, for which so many suffered flames and martyrdom in effecting it. Therefore, it is the duty of all professors of Protestantism, of whatever denomination in Great Britain, to write and RESIST this Romish Church tyranny and its idolatrous worship. But it is to be feared that the dissensions among Protestants are from INTEREST OR PARTY more the prevailing principle than a zeal for Christ's doctrines, even from the smugglers of the reformed Christian religion down to the hawkers and pedlars of salvation.

Reformation on reformation, and dissension on dissension will be constant events, while such a jargon of religious principles are propagated in this nineteenth century, by Ritualists and other heretica

[ocr errors]
« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »