this post can only have been written by someone who joins the Mormons in accusing the Universal Church of apostacy in the second century.
question for you, since you can judge whether someone is saved or not:
can you name three people who lived between 100ad and 1500ad who pass your test of being a Christian and therefore saved?
And the Donatists, and the Novatans, and Tetullian and the Montanists, and the Numidians, etc. There is no Universal Church with its supra-local polity to have dominion over local churches, recorded in the NT, is there? Well, I ask a rhetorical question, knowing that following that line is a debate that will now only cease when Christ comes to affirm His commands and reject presumptuous ones.
question for you, since you can judge whether someone is saved or not:
You mistakenly credit me with God-like qualities. God has reserved condemnation for himself, I only observe and evaluate as to how I ought to respond according to His counsel.
I think you've got it backward. The equation is being saved (through understanding and subscribing to as much of The Faith of Christ as He foreknows that one has determined to persistently commit trust in and forever follow Christ), to publicly and irreversibly avouch; and thus be titled as "Christian" by conduct as His bond-slave as having that vocation.
can you name three people who lived between 100ad and 1500ad who pass your test of being a Christian and therefore saved?
Not my test. The Holy Spirit witnessing with one's own spirit is the test to pass. But a negative test is failing to meet foundational precepts as delivered to the saints who heard His voice and saw His wounds. Not likely to include Clement of Alexandria (an admirer of Pantanaeus the Gnostic, and his successor as head of the Catechical School there), Origen (one of the greatest corrupting influences of the early churches, as well as upon copies of the Bible documents), or Eusebius of Caesarea, Origen's disciple and emulator.
However, if you are trying to say that the only documentation available is that preserved by the Romanists from 100 to 1500 AD, even that testifies to the flaws introduced, and of the persecutions by which the "universalists" attempted to stamp out those securely preserving and conveying the commandments and culture of Christ. But a few names come up as good candidates for heroes of The Faith: Tertullianus, Donatus, Novation, Salvius, Henry of Lausanne, Peter de Bruis, and Arnold of Brescia -- their names will never be forgotten.
However, in the end, each of us will have to answer only for one's self. Was I faithful to Him? Did I follow him all the way? Or did I follow a will o' the wisp that never really brought me securely Home?