A Grand Deception by J. A. Wylie

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park, Washington, D. C. · Sep 13, 1915

A Grand Deception

By J. A. Wylie

PAGANISM was a system of deceivableness. It was the worship of a false god, under the pretense of being the worship of the true God. But popery is a deceivableness on a scale far beyond that of paganism. The one was a counterfeit of the religion of nature; the other is a counterfeit of the religion of the gospel. Popery has a god of its own — him, even, whom the canon law calls the “Lord our God.” It has a savior of its own — the church, to wit. It has a sacrifice of its own — the mass. It has a mediator of its own — the priesthood. It has a sanctifier of its own — the sacrament. It has a justification of its own — that even of infused righteousness. It has a pardon of its own — the pardon of the confessional; and it has in the heavens an infallible, all-prevailing advocate unknown to the gospel — the “Mother of God.” It thus presents to the world a spiritual and saving apparatus for the salvation of men, and yet it neither sanctifies nor saves any one. It looks like a church, it professes to have all that a church ought to have; and yet it is not a church. It is a grand deception — “the all-deceivableness of unrighteousness.”

There is another point here that merits our attention. It relates to the architecture or order of the spiritual house, the church. Popery from its foundation to its topstone has imitated that order. That “Christ is the Son of God,” is the corner stone of the gospel church. Out of that root the whole gospel springs. It is the “rock” on which Christ, addressing Peter, said that he would build his church.

That the “Pope is the vicar of Christ” is the corner stone of the papal church. Out of that root does the whole of popery spring. On that “rock,” said Boniface III, in the seventh century, and Gregory VII, with yet greater emphasis, in the eleventh, will I build

And let us further mark that both churches rest not on a doctrine, but on a person. The church of God rests on a Person, even Christ. No one is saved by simply believing a system of truth. The truth is the light that shows the sinner his way to the Saviour. He is united to Christ by his faith which takes hold of the Saviour, and by the Spirit who comes to dwell in his heart. Thus is he a member of the spiritual body. The Bible, ministers, and ordinances are the channels through which the life of the Head flows into the members of the body. Thus are they built up as a spiritual house, a holy temple, “and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone.” Eph. 2:20. This is genuine Christianity.

All this is most adroitly counterfeited in the Pope’s church. It is only in the way of the members of that church resting on Peter, or what is the same thing, on the Pope, that they can be saved. Romanists tell us that it is essential to the salvation of every human being that he be subject to the authority of the Pope. Peter — that is, the Pope — is the one reservoir of grace; from him it flows down through the grand conduit of apostolical succession to all the members of the “church,” and thus are they built up a spiritual house — built upon the foundation of traditions, sacraments, priests, bishops, cardinals, the Pope himself being the chief corner stone. — “The Papacy Is the Antichrist” by Rev. J. A. Wylie, LL. D., Edinburgh, George M’Gibbon, pages 88-91.