p. 3 | ENGLAND'S PERIL

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 7, 1892

ENGLAND'S PERIL.

VERY few of our readers know of the constant progress which the Papacy has made in England, and the avowed object which the Roman Church has on that country. The following from William Wileman in an English tract sets before us something of this progress, and presents two quotations as regards the aim of the Papacy:—

“One of the most painful and saddening features of the truly critical times that are passing over the nation is the widely-spread lack of discernment of the signs of the times, and a consequent indifference and apathy as to their issue. 'Peace and safety!' is what most men wish to think, even while the enemies of God and of his truth are laying their plans for the overthrow of all that is likely to prove the continuance of our national peace and safety. Lulled by a vague hope that God will not permit our Protestant liberties and our national privileges to suffer damage at the hands of those who would limit them, we have not only encouraged our enemies but have seriously imperiled our own strength. Gradually and silently, for the most part, but surely and effectually, has one position after another during the past fifty years been approached and scaled and carried before our eyes, as if we had no power even to protest. If our concern for the honor and glory of God is to be measured by any outward manifestation of zeal on our part, it must surely be in a languishing condition; just as if our own carnal ease, and a supposed certainty that even the final triumph of Rome would never reëstablish persecution in England, were more to us than the maintenance of the truth and the glory of its Author.

“Do we, as patriots, as Protestants—above all, as Christians—adequately realize the present peril? Do we, through a false estimate of our own strength, underestimate the strength of the enemy?

“We may rest assured that Rome knows what she seeks, and that every stealthy act is intended as a step to her avowed aim. Let her speak for herself:—

“‘We are contending, as our adversaries know full well, for the extirpation of Protestant opine and practice, not merely in the church itself, but throughout England. We do not care one solitary straw whether a man preaches in surplice, gown, or shirt sleeves, so long as he does not preach any kind of Protestantism.’—Church Times, March 24, 1872.

“‘If ever there was a land in which work is to be done, and perhaps much to suffer, it is here. I shall not say too much if I say that we have to subjugate and subdue, to conquer and to rule, an imperial race; we have to do with a will which reigns throughout the world as the will of old Rome reigned once; we have to bend or break that will which nations and kingdoms have found invincible and inflexible. Were heresy conquered in England, it would be conquered throughout the world. All its lines meet here, and, therefore, in England the church of God must be gathered in its strength.’—Dr. (afterwards Cardinal) Manning, in the Tablet, August 6, 1859.

“This ought to open the eyes of sleeping Protestants.”