Papal Blasphemy by G. W. Amadon

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 7, 1871

Papal Blasphemy.

By G. W. Amadon

The prophet Daniel, while viewing with prophetic eye the stirring scenes of the last days, and particularly the blasphemous course of the Man of Sin, says: “I beheld then because of the voice of the GREAT WORDS which the horn spake.” Dan. 7:11. While this text, without doubt, refers to the “great words,” of the Roman Pontiff which have sounded forth to the world since “the Ancient of Days did sit” in the heavenly sanctuary, in the investigative judgment, at the end of the 2300 years, in 1844, and points out those assumptions of the papacy, Dec. 8, 1854, in declaring the Virgin Mary immaculate, and that of July 18, 1870, in making the pope, like the great God, infallible, it may be interesting to the student of the word to see in print a few of the arrogations of the scarlet beast in the past. The following paragraphs, from Alexander Campbell’s work on “Roman Catholicism,” we think are to the point. They are copied from a volume lent to the writer in 1853, by Dr. L. D. Fleming, of Rochester, N. Y., an active Adventist of 1844.

G. W. AMADON.

TITLES OF THE POPES.

“Universal Father,” “Holy Father,” “His Holiness,” “Sovereign Pontiff,” “Supreme Head of the Church on Earth,” “Pater Familias,” (i. e. Father of the family of God,) “Successor of Peter,” “The Infallible One,” “Prince of the Apostles,” “Vicar of Christ,” “Father of Fathers,” “Lieutenant of Christ,” “Father and Doctor of all Christians,” “Lord of lords,” “A God on Earth,” “Lord God the Pope,” “Prince of the World,” “Monarch of the Earth,” “King of kings.”

Cardinal Bellarmine on the Authority of the Councils, Book ii, chap. xvii, says, “All the names which are given in the Scriptures to Christ, even these same names are given to the pope; whence it appears he is superior to the Church.” In Gratian’s Decretals, page 1, dis. 96, Pope Nicholas to Michael, seventh chapter, the pope says, “He is God, and therefore men cannot judge him.” The Council of Florence, the fifth Lateran, and that of Trent, make the pope superior to general councils; and call him an “unlimited monarch.” Johannes Devotus, vol. i, b. i, tit. 3, sec. 1, says, “The power of the pope is episcopal, metropolitan, patriarchal, and temporal: his decisions from the chair are infallible.” Gregory II., says, The whole Western Nations reckon Peter a “terrestrial God.” Labbé, viii, 666, Marcellus in a Lateran Council, called Julius the Pope “a God on earth.” Pope Pius VII., as late as 1809, in excommunicating Napoleon, says, “Unworthy as we are, we represent the God of Peace.” The Bishop of Grenada calls him “a God on earth not subject to a council.” Bellarmine De Pontif., lib. 4, chap. 3, says, “The pope cannot possibly err in decrees as to faith”—“no council is valid unless called and approved by him.”