Is Romanism Antichrist? by G. B. THOMPSON

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 25, 1912

Is Romanism Antichrist?

By G. B. THOMPSON

G. B. THOMPSON

TOUCHING the question, Is Romanism Antichrist? H. Grattan Guinness says:—

“Even the Romanists themselves shame you in their clear-sighted comprehension of the issues of this question. Cardinal Manning says: ‘The Catholic Church is either the masterpiece of Satan or the kingdom of the Son of God.’

“Dr. Newman says: ‘A sacerdotal order is historically the essence of the Church of Rome; if not divinely appointed, it is doctrinally the essence of Antichrist.’

“In both these statements the issue is clear, and it is the same. Rome herself admits, openly admits, that if she is not the very kingdom of Christ, she is that of Antichrist. Rome declares she is one or the other. She herself propounds and urges this solemn alternative.

“You shrink from it, do you? I accept it. Conscience constrains me; history compels me. The past, the awful past, rises before me. I see the great apostasy; I see the desolation of Christendom; I see the smoking ruins; I see the reign of monsters; I see those vice-gods, that Gregory VII, that Innocent III, that Boniface VIII, that Alexander VI, that Gregory XIII, that Pius IX; I see their long successions; I hear their insufferable blasphemies; I see their long, abominable lives; I see them worshiped by blinded generations, bestowing hollow benedictions, bartering lying indulgences, creating a paganized Christianity; I see their liveried slaves, their shaven priests, their celibate confessors; I see the infamous confessional, the ruined women, the murdered innocents; I hear the lying absolutions, the dying groans; I hear the cries of the victims; I hear the anathemas, the curses, the thunders of the interdicts; I see the racks, the dungeons, the stakes; I see that inhuman Inquisition, those fires of Smithfield, those butcheries of St. Bartholomew, that Spanish Armada, those unspeakable dragonades, that endless train of wars, that dreadful multitude of massacres. I see it all: and in the name of the ruin it has wrought in the church and in the world, in the name of the truth it has denied, the temple it has defiled, the God it has blasphemed, the souls it has destroyed; in the name of the millions it has deluded; with holy confessors, with noble reformers, with innumerable martyrs, with the saints of ages, I denounce it as the masterpiece of Satan, as the body and soul and essence of Antichrist.”—“Romanism and the Reformation,” pages 158, 159.

It is against this institution that the warning of the third angel of Revelation 14 is directed. When all the world is wondering after the beast, and worshiping this terrible system clothed in the livery of heaven, the message of the third angel is to be heard saying, “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.” To utter this warning successfully we must study the beast and understand its history and be able to point out its workings at the present time. If we are unable to do this, how can we preach the message?

And further: Those who successfully make war upon this great Gibraltar of error must be clothed with the power of God, through the Holy Spirit. How vain will be human effort and power. Nothing short of apostolic power will do. Now, as in apostolic days, the church must have a heavenly anointing. As we view the tremendous work which confronts us, a sense of our own weakness overwhelms us, and we sense our great need of power to enable us to cope with the forces entrenched in centuries of superstition, and aided by the kingdom of darkness. A power from above must take hold of God’s people. For this we must earnestly seek.