Under the heading of “Our attitude toward Roman Catholics,” the Oscoda and Au Sable (Mich.) Press, April 29, 1899, published a synopsis of a sermon by the pastor of the M. E. church of the latter place, given a few days before. A brother sends us a copy of this sermon, with a request that we state how the positions taken are regarded from our point of view. The pastor starts out by depreciating the alienation and division which have existed for centuries among the professors of religion, contrary to such instruction as is found in Eph. 4:3; Rom. 12:18, etc.
This is right. Division and discord ought not to exist between those who mutually profess the name of Christ, and claim to be governed by His love. And there would not be anything of the kind if those who make such profession were really united to Him; for Christ is not divided; neither can those be divided who are truly united to Him.
The apostle Paul outlined the danger and the cause of it, on this point of division, when he spoke to the elders of the church of Ephesus, and said: “For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them.” Acts 20:29, 30. This tells the whole story.
The Founder of the Christian Church never designed that there should ever be any alienation of spirit or division of feeling among His followers; and He took pains to instruct them in the fullest manner, and in the most explicit terms on this point, anticipating every root of bitterness that might spring up, and withering it beforehand with His divine condemnation, and His people might always be led by the same spirit, and always speak the same thing. 1 Cor. 1:10.
That it has at any time been otherwise has been owing to the fact that the enemy, ever alert to sow tares in the field, has prompted men to speak and act contrary to the Lord’s word. Unholy ambition, indigenous to the hearts of men, is a most responsive soil to be cultivated by the great enemy of righteousness and truth; and he has not been negligent to overlook his opportunity.
Men were thrust in upon the Church, innocently arrayed in sheep’s clothing, at first apparently humble and harmless members of the flock, who proved, when their hypocritical and deceptive covering was dropped, to be grievous wolves, whose work was to bite and devour, and who, to carry out their sinister purposes, would not scruple to go to any length to accomplish their own selfish ends.
“Also,” said the apostle, “of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things.” And why did they speak perverse things, things contrary to the truth and contrary to established and settled views, in which all were united in harmony?—“To draw away disciples after them,” says the apostle. They hankered to become leaders, to be thought “original” and great thinkers, and so launched their innovations upon the Church, to the ruin of the faith of some, and at the expense of the harmony and union of the body.
To some such spirit as this every departure from the simplicity of the gospel may be traced. Christianity is not responsible for the division and confusion in the religious world, but the selfish perversity and insane ambition of the human heart is. This is the fountain head, the exhaustless source of all this evil in the Christian world.379
This is the “mystery of iniquity” (2 Thess. 2:7) that was already working in Paul’s day, that soon ripened into the papacy, that has cut short the lives of millions of martyrs, and has sealed more millions to the condemnation of the great day.
This is the system which has cast its baleful shadow over the Christian world, and into the hands, or dominion, of which the saints, times, and laws were given for “a time and times and the dividing of time,” three times and a half, or twelve hundred and sixty years; or, as John puts it, “a time, and times, and half a time,” or “forty and two months,” or twelve hundred and sixty year-days, referring to the identical power, and the same times mentioned by the prophet Daniel. Rev. 12:14; 13:5.
We are now brought face to face with the question as to what should be our attitude toward this power. Scanning what the prophecies long ago said it would do, and comparing that with what history says it has done, backed up by its own admissions, what must necessarily be our attitude toward it? Remember we speak of no people as individuals. Against individuals we have no antagonism, and no censures to offer. A Roman Catholic is entitled to the same rights of conscience, and the same liberty of opinion, as any one else. He does not get it from his own church, but that, individually, is his own concern, with which no one else has a right to interfere. But we believe in the old Protestant principle, and we may say also, Scriptural principle; that is, the doctrine of the right of private judgment. “Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth.” Rom. 14:4. We deplore the errors in which Roman Catholics have become entangled. But we throw no distrust upon the sincerity of their convictions, nor upon their integrity in acting upon what they believe to be right. But we speak of it as a system, and speaking from that standpoint, we must judge of it by its nature and its fruits; and viewed in that light, a dark and dismal cloud settles upon the whole system. It is not Christian.
The pastor, whose remarks were sent in for consideration in this article, “Rev. W. C. Hicks,” pleading for unity in religious matters, says: “We ought always to remember that the Roman Catholic is a Christian Church.” We cannot, on the other hand, help remembering that, judged by its fruits, it is not a Christian Church. Mr. Hicks is evidently aware of the burden he assumes by calling it Christian; for he hastens to apologize:—
“We have not forgotten the works which seemingly are of darkness—the massacre of St. Bartholomew, the bloody campaign of the Duke of Alva, the intolerance of the Middle Ages, and the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition.” These points are mentioned by way of apology. But what an apology: “Works which seemingly are of darkness.” Seemingly, forsooth! But was it only seemingly a work of darkness, or was it not, rather, intensely and terribly a work of darkness, to make war upon, and “wear out the saints of the Most High,” till fifty millions (the lowest estimate history gives of the victims of its bloody work) poured out their blood into the dust? And does Mr. Hicks think that it balances the whole terrible indictment, simply because he has “not forgotten” it? But more proof of a compensating nature is required; and hence he continues:—
“But we remember also the services the Roman Catholic Church has rendered us. When the ancient empire of Rome fell to pieces, it was the church that brought order out of chaos. When ages of darkness settled upon the earth, and crashing thunders of war shocked the nations, it was the Roman Catholic Church that preserved for us what little Christianity there was. We further remember the works of monks, who went from place to place establishing schools; the work of Roman Catholic missionaries, who braved every danger to preach the gospel to the ancient heathen; the Roman Catholic hospitals, whose doors swing open day and night for the sick and wounded of all faiths and beliefs; and the consecrated lives of its sisters of charity, who find no flight of stairs too high, no garret too vile and stifling, if they can only smooth some aching brow or hold the cross before their closing eyes.”
All works of charity and sacrifices made to confer benefits upon the needy and suffering are worthy of commendation, and should be duly recognized; and there are many earnest, self-sacrificing members of the Catholic Church who give evidence of being willing to bear burdens, and even lay down their lives, for others. We have no desire to disparage the number of those who manifest this spirit, nor to detract from the merit of their action. But let us not be misled from the main issue. These things do not make Christianity. The apostle Paul says that though one gives all his goods to feed the poor, and gives his body to be burned, if he has not charity, all such actions are but sounding brass, and a tinkling cymbal, and profit him nothing. 1 Cor. 12:17. Furthermore, in analyzing these credit marks bestowed upon the Roman Catholic Church, it may be pertinent to inquire, When the ancient empire of Rome fell to pieces, who was it that exerted all its power to make the disruption of society complete, and intensify the chaos?—The Roman Catholic Church. When ages of darkness settled upon the earth, who dipped its brush in the ink-pot of ignorance and superstition, and painted that darkness a deeper shade?—The Roman Catholic Church. When “the crashing thunders of war shocked the nations,” who was the secret instigator to pit nation against nation, and fasten the belligerents upon one another’s throats?—The Roman Catholic Church. And when efforts were made to establish so-called schools, who degraded education to the counting of beads, multiplying “paternosters,” trembling at false miracles, and adoring false and fraudulent shin-bone relics?—The Roman Catholic Church. And who in the face and eyes of nations which have been despoiled of their enterprise, and have been sunk in ignorance, poverty, and degradation, proposes to do for the United States just what has been done for these nations?—The Roman Catholic Church, which, through centuries of unchallenged control over these nations, has reduced them to the condition they are in.
Upon the system, inherently and radically wrong, we lay these charges. It matters not how many good things, in themselves considered, a church may do, its tendency and teaching in regard to character and conduct is the standard by which it is to be judged. The Lord told ancient Israel that if a prophet should appear among them, and make predictions which, as a sign or a wonder, should come to pass, the people even then should not hearken unto that prophet or dreamer of dreams if what he taught was not in accordance with what the Lord had instructed them; if he should say, Let us go and serve other gods, which they knew was contrary to God’s word, then even prophetic utterance, sign, or wonder should not influence their minds against what they had reason to know was the truth of God.
So with the Roman Catholic Church. If what it teaches is contrary to the teaching of Christ, it cannot be recognized by any true believer as a Christian Church. Mr. Hicks, by claiming it as a Christian Church, surrenders the whole issue, and throws away all the noble work of the Reformation of the sixteenth century; for this is to subscribe to the papal charge that the Reformation was only an outburst of fanaticism and enmity against the Catholic Church, wholly unnecessary, and to be repented of and forsaken. Can any Protestant indorse such a view?
What are some of the reasons for calling the Roman Catholic Church un-Christian? Ans.—It is un-Christian because it shuts Christ away from the people. It has endeavored to take the place of God upon the earth. It has taken a seat in the temple of God, “showing himself that he is God;” that is, the “man of sin,” the papacy. 2 Thess. 2:4. He has kept God, as much as possible, out of sight, and revealed himself to the sinner as God. This has been his studied purpose: to divorce Christ as much as possible from the thoughts and hearts of men, and draw all things to himself. The priest is thrust in between the sinner and God. The sinner must go to the priest, the priest to the pope, and the pope to God. The priest must receive the confession from the sinner, and bestow the pardon. Again: the Virgin Mary is set forth as a more available and effective intercessor than Christ. Ten prayers are offered to her by every devout Catholic, where one is offered to Christ. Thus God and Christ are put far away; and the sinner is taught to look for other help; and help of only a human kind, nearer home, but help, alas! of no merit, and no salvation.
Now Christ can be rejected, and His name blasphemed as effectually under the guise of friendship as by open opposition. When Christ is thrust aside, and something else substituted in His place, though it is under the profession of friendship and great zeal for Him, He is effectually rejected. This is Antichrist. “Every spirit,” says John, “that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of Antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.” This union with Christ, Satan is ever seeking to destroy, so that the divine life shall not descend into the soul and be manifested through us. In the Roman Catholic Church the sacrifice of Christ is displaced by the mass. Forms and ceremonies take the place of true devotion. Faith is supplanted by works. The Virgin Mary and dead saints are set forth as ministering to the sinner’s wants. As a system, the prophet calls it “the transgression of desolation,” and “the abomination that maketh desolate” (Dan. 8:13; 12:11); and Paul makes it the outgrowth of the apostasy, describing it as “that wicked,” and designating the head of the hierarchy as “the man of sin,” the “son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped.” That one should laud this as a Christian Church shows how far he has departed from Christianity; for from this system Christ is so fully divorced that not a particle of Christianity can be found in it.
Our attitude toward Roman Catholics, then, in a word, is this: Uncompromising opposition to the errors, the workings, and the tendency of that system of religion, but a recognition of every good quality in individual members, and a desire to do them good, and to persuade them to better things.