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VALUABLE TESTIMONY

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 1, 1877

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 49, No. 5.

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VALUABLE TESTIMONY.

By C. S.

Perhaps the most prominent object in all the field of prophecy is the papacy. The references to it are more numerous, and the testimony concerning it more explicit, than those which pertain to many if not to any other of the prophetic themes; and the 1260 years of its continuance is the grand trunk with which many other lines of prophecy connect, both at its beginning and termination.
One of the clearest declarations of the Scriptures concerning it is that so long as paganism continued the religion of the Roman empire, it hindered the development of the papacy; but that paganism should give way before it, and give it its seat. “The dragon [paganism],” says John, “gave to the beast [the papacy] his seat [the city of Rome], and power and great authority.” Rev. 13 : 2. And Paul, predicting the rise of the papacy, presented the same fact when he said, “Only he who now letteth [hindereth, that is, paganism] will let [or hinder] till he be taken out of the way. And then shall that wicked [the papacy] be revealed,” &c. 2 Thess. 2 : 7.
It is a fact worthy of notice that papists themselves acknowledge this connection of the papacy with the preceding empire; that is, that the old Roman empire gave up its place and power to the papacy.
Damian, the monk, thus addressed Hildebrand (Gregory VII., who was pope from A. D. 1073 to 1085):— “I have committed to your hands the keys of the universal church. The king of the Roman empire being taken away, I have given to you the rights of his throne that is vacant.”—Dr. Cumming’s Apocalyptic Sketches, p. 461.
An orator of the 10th session of the 5th Lateran Council, A. D. 1512, thus addressed the pope:— “Constantine, inspired by divine grace, fully surrendered the sceptre of the empire of the world and of the city [i. e., Rome] to the true Creator, God and man, in his Roman seat, to Sylvester the Pope, in the ancient right of Christ, the eternal priest.”—Id.
Machiavel’s History of Florence says:— “When the emperor of Rome left Rome to dwell at Constantinople, the Roman empire began to decline, but the church of Rome augmented as fast. Nevertheless, after the coming in of the Lombards, all Italy lay under the dominion of emperors or kings. Bishops assumed no more power than was due to their doctrines or morals. But Theodoric the Goth fixing his seat at Ravenna, and no other prince being left at Rome, the Romans were forced to pay greater allegiance to the pope. The Lombards having invaded and reduced Italy into cantons, the pope took the opportunity and began to hold up his head.”
Gibbon, in his Decline and Fall of the Roman empire, testifies on this point as follows:— “Rome had reached, about the close of the sixth century, the lowest period of her depression. Like Thebes, Babylon, or Carthage, the name of Rome might have been erased, if the clergy had not been animated by a vital principle which again restored her to honor and dominion. The temporal power of the popes gradually arose from the calamities of the times.”
Dr. Cumming of England says: “On the removal of the imperial seat from Rome to Constantinople, the restraint on the ambition of the man of sin was removed, and the Roman bishop shot up into a great temporal prince.” The early Christians understood beforehand that the great apostasy and the development of that power, the coming of which the apostle had foretold under the title of the man of sin and son of perdition, was to succeed the Roman empire, and hence, it is recorded of them, “they prayed continually that God would preserve the Roman empire, and thus delay the development of the man of sin.”—Apoc. Sketches, p. 461.
From the same work, pp. 463, 464, we take the following:— “In order to show you that the pope does take the place of Christ [that is, that he is Anti-christ, which means, in the place of Christ], let me give some such simple instances as these: Is Christ the head of his redeemed church? The pope calls himself ‘the head of the body;’ he assumes this as one of his titles. Is Christ the great High Priest? Peter of Arragon, quoted by Ranké in the Lives of the Popes, calls the pope ‘the great crowned priest.’ Has Christ the keys that open and no man shuts? The pope claims to have the keys of Heaven and of hell. Is Christ the good Shepherd? One of the most celebrated [papal] bulls begins, ‘Ego pastor bonus’ [i. e., I the good shepherd]. Is Christ the husband of the church? The pope assumes to be the same. The common name by which he is distinguished in the canon law is the ‘husband of the church;’ and when the pope is consecrated, a ring is placed on his finger, signifying that he is then wedded to the church. Does the Lamb of God take away the sins of the world? The pope assumes the prerogative of taking away or absolving men’s sins. So far I have given evidence that the apostatizing one here mentioned, the Anti-christ, is the pope of Rome.”
The pope is also called the “man of sin;” and what more appropriate title could be given to him who among other things encourages sin by granting indulgences. On the subject of indulgences, Mr. Whiteside, the celebrated barrister, who has lately visited Rome, as quoted by Dr. Cumming, says that you can scarcely enter a church in Rome, where you will not get absolution for the past and license for the future. For instance, in the church of S. Pietro in Carcere, there is this inscription: “St. Sylvester granted every day to those who visit it 1200 years of indulgence, and every day besides, the remission of the third part of sins.” Again in the church of St. Casmo and Damien: “Gregory I. granted to each visiting this church 1000 years of indulgence.” On a marble slab near the door of the church of St. Saviour di Thermis: “Indulgences conceded in perpetuity by high pontiffs in this church. Every day of the year there are 1230 years of indulgence.” On the inner wall of St. Sebastian, on marble: “Whosoever shall have entered it shall obtain plenary remission of all his sins, through the merits of 174,000 holy martyrs and 46 high pontiffs, likewise martyrs interred here.”
In the eighth century Pope Gregory II. said, “All the kings of the earth reverence the pope as God.” Charlemagne received his title and his empire as a donative from the pope. Western emperors swore to be submissive to the pope and his successors.
Adrian IV., in the year 1155, on King Henry’s petition, permitted him to subjugate Ireland on condition of his giving to the Roman see a quit rent of a penny for each house in it.
On the discovery of America, prince Henry of Portugal applied to the pope to grant to the Portuguese every country they might discover. A bull was accordingly issued, granting the petition on the ground that the heathen had been given to Christ, and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession. Pope Nicholas I. required kings to hold the bridle of his horses, and Louis II. of France, and the emperor Barbarossa (Frederic I. of Germany) performed this and other acts of humiliation. Up to the sixteenth century kings kissed the pope’s feet.
The emperor, Henry IV. of Germany, having offended Pope Gregory VII. (Hildebrand), he waited three days and three nights in the depth of winter, barefooted, and clothed only with a single garment, blue with cold and howling with pain, in one of the outer courts of the pope’s palace, till the pope, at the solicitation of his mistress, more merciful than he, relented and forgave him.
Pope Celestine III. (A. D. 1191) kicked the crown off the head of the emperor Henry VI.; and Baronius states that this was to be a sign that the pope had the power of deposing, as he alone had the prerogative of making kings. Pius IV. excommunicated Queen Elizabeth, and assigned as a reason, that God had “set him up as a prince over all nations, to root up, to pull down, and to destroy.”
In the light of such testimony, who can fail to see how strikingly the prophecies are fulfilled in this great Antichristian power which stands as such a conspicuous monument in the history of the church?
C. S.