p. 7 | Apostate Reformers

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 25, 1908

Apostate Reformers

WITH consistent arrogance the representatives of the Roman Catholic Church repeat the hoary claim that the Reformation was the real apostasy, and that the only possible adjustment of religious differences will be on the basis of a return to the Catholic fold. The recent defection from the Episcopal communion is of course viewed with equanimity by the “one true church,” and is interpreted as the beginning of a great movement toward Rome. A recent editorial in the Catholic Mirror (Baltimore) deals with this subject, and contains the following paragraph:—

And behold! the tide keeps turning, and turning towards the Tiber. The present upheaval has been a-brewing for a long time. Nor is it confined to one Protestant sect alone. The reformers are being reformed, and we hope that the return path to the Mother Church will be strewn with roses more numerous than the thorns that have beset the devious paths of the members of a church errant since the days of an arrogant Luther and an amorous Henry.

It requires an astounding degree of assurance to face the history of thirteen centuries with the assertion that the Roman Catholic Church is the original apostolic church, and that all who are not in communion with her are “errant,” the softer word for “heretics.” It is a plain case of the knife both of whose blades had been lost at different times and replaced, and then the handle was broken and renewed; but the claim was still made that it was the original knife. That church is in the apostolic succession which teaches the doctrines of the apostles in the power of the same spirit which attended the work of the apostles.