Creating the Creator

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 21, 1908

Creating the Creator

THE Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation is not a theory of the Middle Ages, discarded by enlightened Catholics of the present time, but is still held and taught as one of the leading doctrines of that church. The present interpretation of this tenet of Catholicism is given in the following extract from an address delivered at the recent New York Centenary by Hon. Bourke Cockran, a member of the present House of Representatives:—

Every Catholic church, whether it be a stately cathedral or a humble chapel by the wayside, is erected to enclose a sanctuary; that sanctuary surrounds a tabernacle; that tabernacle contains a Sacred Host, and that Host is Jesus Christ; not a representation or a symbol of him, but Jesus Christ himself, Creator of you and of me, of the ground under our feet and the skies over our heads, of the land and the sea, of the fields and the rivers that fertilize the soil as they pass, of the surging tides beating upon the shore, and the mountains, cloud-capped and solemn, of this earth and all the planets in her solar system, of the sun and all the constellations that sweep their silent course through the heavens. The Maker and Lord of all these dwells in that tabernacle, but not permanently. It is but his resting-place on the journey from heaven to his ultimate destination, and that destination is the breast of a human being.

It should not escape notice that this present-day explanation of Roman Catholic belief places the alleged Creator and “his resting-place” under the complete control of the priest, and makes it possible for him to prevent his reaching his destination! The teaching of the Scriptures concerning the sanctuary and its services is the divine antidote for this perversion of the truth.