Protestant Tribute to the Papacy
By L. A. S.
A FORTNIGHT ago it was newspaper comment that all the world was watching at the bedside of a dying pope. To-day, all the world is pronouncing eulogies upon the departed pontiff. And in this respect, it is hardly possible to distinguish between Catholics and Protestants. Have Protestants of this day forgotten why they are Protestants? If they have not, why do they give utterance to eulogies the benefit of which is derived not by the dead pope, but by the papacy, of which he was the head? For in such a matter it is impossible to separate Leo the man from Leo the Roman pontiff. It is impossible to separate the head of the papacy from the body of the papacy. If Leo was, as Protestants now vie with one another in saying, a saintly man, inspired with a broad love for humanity, then, as certainly as ever two things were related to each other, it follows that the papacy is a saintly system, devised for the welfare of humanity, instead of that which Protestants have heretofore declared it to be. It is impossible to imagine a saint rising to pre-eminence through a system of iniquity, and finally standing at the head of and administering such a system throughout the world. If the papacy is a Christian system, Protestants have no right to call themselves such; for why should there be any protest against Christianity? If the Catholic Church is Christian, why were there ever any Protestant churches? They could have originated only through the terrible blunder of their founders; for that which separates from Christianity thereby makes itself unchristian. To eulogize the papacy is to proclaim one's self without excuse for having separated from the papacy. Many Protestants are proclaiming to-day that they have no excuse for a church relationship separate from Rome. But there was a cause for that separation, and no blunder was made in bringing that separation about. “Come out from among them, and be ye separate,” is the admonition of God to his people. God's followers are to be separate from the world. When worldliness gets into the church, it can sometimes be driven out by the reconversion or disciplining of those affected by it. A5leaking ship can sometimes be pumped out so as to be in a serviceable condition. But when the leak gets beyond control, the ship is doomed, and the only thing to be done by those on board is to get away from the ship.' A totally different course of action becomes necessary then from that called for while the prospect of saving the ship remained. Luther and his co-laborers at first thought to reform the church. They would save the church by getting the worldliness out of it. But they soon found that worldliness occupied the seat of authority and power, that it governed and directed the affairs of the church, and that instead of being in a position to be cast out, it was in a position to cast them out. They found that there was no hope of reforming and saving the church, and that it only remained for those who desired to worship God in spirit and in truth to separate themselves from the church, and become an independent religious body. Thus a new Christian church arose, taking its name from the protest made by its members against papal errors and delusions. But in time the spirit of the papacy, which is only the spirit of every carnal heart, crept into the new church, and under its influence the human became more and more substituted for the divine, until the traditions of men rather than the living Word of God was made the foundation of belief and practice. Then another separation from the papacy became necessary, and a new church arose, distinguished from the others by its allegiance to the Word of God as constituting the sole foundation of Christian faith. It was in this way that Seventh-day Adventists have been called out from the popular churches with which they were formerly identified. The controversy between them and the churches they have left is over the question of the supremacy of the Word of God. That Word teaches the binding obligation of the seventh-day Sabbath, the nearness of Christ's second advent, and the unconsciousness of the dead, which important doctrines, with others that might be named, have been made void in the churches through human traditions. Thus there is in these churches a modified form of the papacy, differing from the Roman papacy only in name and in the extent of development of the papal principle of the substitution of the human in the place of the divine. The term “papacy” is from the word “papa,” from which also comes the word “pope,” signifying a system of church government characterized by the supremacy of one man over the rest, he being to them as a father to his children. Christians are expressly enjoined to call no man their father or their master in spiritual things, since they have but one Father, who is in heaven, and one Master, who is Christ. By the word of these alone are they to be guided in the way of life. With this evil principle which puts man into the place of God there can be no compromise. Of the system which is built upon it nothing good can be said. There is no good in it, but evil only. Always, everywhere, and in every way it is opposed to the highest and most sacred interests of humanity. Its purpose is to thwart God's work for human salvation, by leading men to look to and trust in that from which no salvation can come. The papacy is the great world enemy of liberty, civil and religious. It is a monster, crimsoned with the blood of millions of righteous men. Popes and prelates die, but the papacy survives. It is not a man, nor a company of men, but a system. What we say of the papacy we say of no man, but of the system which is the enemy of all men, Catholics and Protestants alike. It is sad indeed that men of distinguished ability, as was Leo XIII, will devote their lives to the extension of such a system in the earth. The death of one so misguided is a mournful tragedy, not because of the good of his life work, but because that work was evil. To-day “all the world wonders after the beast”—all save the few who realize that there is no salvation in human traditions, wisdom, and authority, but only in the Word of God and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. And God's message to the world to-day, in view of this, is: “If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb.” “Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen; . . . come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.”