Posted on 04/11/2013 6:40:37 AM PDT by Vermont Crank
THE PROTESTANT PRETENDED REFORMATION IS NOT THE WORK OF GOD
CHAPTER I.
Q. Can any one reasonably believe that the change in religion brought about by Luther is the work of God?
A. No one can believe it, unless he be utterly ignorant of the true nature of religion, and very unlearned in the matters of history.
Q. Why do you make this answer?
A. Because, in the first place, the author of the Reformation is not a man of God; secondly, because his work is not the work of God; thirdly, because the means which he used in effecting his purpose are not of God.
Q. Why do you say Luther is not a man of God?
A. Because he has left us in his works abundant proof, that if God saw a need for any reformation in his Church, such a man as Luther would not be selected to carry God's will into effect.
Q. What have you to blame in Luther's works?
A. They are full of indecencies very offensive to modesty, crammed with a low buffoonery well calculated to bring religion into contempt, and interlarded with very many gross insults offered in a spirit very far from Christian charity and humility, to individuals of dignity and worth.
Q. Passing over his indecencies in silence, give us a specimen of his buffooneries and insults. What does he say to the King of England, replying to a book which the King had written against him? (Tom. ii, p. 145.) [pg. 30]
A. He calls the king "an ass," "an idiot," "a fool," "whom very infants ought to mock."
Q. How does he treat Cardinal Albert, Archbishop and Elector of Mayence, in the work which he wrote against the Bishop of Magdeburg? (Tom. vii, p. 353.)
A. He calls him "an unfortunate little priest, crammed with an infinite number of devils." .
Q. What does he say of Henry, Duke of Brunswick? (Tom. vii, p. 118.)
A. That he had "swallowed so may devils in eating and drinking, that he could not even spit any thing but a devil." He calls Duke George of Saxony, "a man of straw, who, with his immense belly, seemed to bid defiance to heaven, and to have swallowed up Jesus Christ himself."
(Tom. ii, p. 90.) CHAPTER II.
Q. Was Luther's language more respectful, when he addressed the Emperor and the Pope?
A. No; he treated them both with equal indignities; he said that the Grand Turk had ten times the virtue and good sense of the Emperor,—that the Pope was "a wild beast," "a ravenous wolf, against whom all Europe should rise in arms."
Q. What do you conclude from Luther's insolent, outrageous, and libertine manner of speaking? A. That he was not the man to be chosen by God to reform his church; for his language is the strongest proof that he was actuated, not by the spirit of God, but by the spirit of the devil.
Q. May not his party say, that they care little about the manner of the man, if his doctrine be true,—that it is not upon him, but upon the word of God, they build their faith?
A. If the Protestant doctrine be true, then God used Luther as a chosen instrument to reestablish his true faith; but no reasonable man can possibly believe the latter; therefore, neither can any reasonable man believe that the Protestant is the true faith.
Q. May it not be objected that there were individual pastors in the Catholic Church as worthless as Luther?
A. Yes; but all the pastors of the Catholic Church were not so at one and the same time, whilst Luther, at the time we speak of, was the first and only teacher of Protestantism. Besides, Christ himself give an unanswerable reply to the objection, (Matth. xxiii:) "The Scribes and Pharisees have sitten in the chair of Moses; all things therefore whatsoever they shall say to you, observe and do, but according to their works do ye not." Again, some Catholic pastors may have been bad men, but still they were the lawful ministers of God, having succeeded to lawfully commissioned predecessors; but Luther stood alone, he succeeded to none having lawful authority from whom he could derive a mission. In fine, whatever may have been the lives of some vicious Catholic pastors, they taught nothing new, their teaching was the same as that of the best and holiest ministers of the Church. Hence, there was no innovation in matters of faith, or principles of morality. But Luther was the first to teach a new doctrine, unknown in the world before his time.
CHAPTER III.
Q. We are now satisfied that the author of Protestantism was not a man of God; show us that his undertaking was not from God;—what did he undertake?
A. He undertook to show that the Church had fallen into error, separated himself from her, and formed his followers into a party against her.
Q. Could such an undertaking be from God?
A. No; for God has commanded us not to sit in judgment upon the Church, but to hear and obey her with respect; "and if he will not hear the church, let him be to thee as the heathen and publican." (Matth. chap. xviii.)
Q. Was it the particular "territorial" Church of the Roman States, or the Universal Catholic Church, that Luther charged with having erred?
A. It was the Universal Church he dared to calumniate in this manner.
Q. How do you prove this? A. Before the time of Luther, there was no Christian society in the whole world which believed the doctrines afterwards taught by Luther; consequently, he assailed not any particular sect or church, but the faith of the whole Christian world.
Q. Are you quite sure, that it is incontestably true, that no Christian body every believed, before Luther's time, the new doctrines be began then to propagate?
A. So sure, that we have Luther's own authority for it. His words are, (Tom. ii, p. 9, b.:) "How often has not my conscience been alarmed? How often have I not said to myself:—Dost thou ALONE of all men pretend to be wise? Dost thou pretend that ALL CHRISTIANS have been in error, during such a long period of years?"
Q. What was it that gave Luther most pain, during the time he meditated the introduction of his new religion?
A. A hidden respect for the authority of the Church, which he found it impossible to stifle.
Q. How does he express himself on this matter? (Tom. ii, p. 5.)
A. "After having subdued all other considerations, it was with the utmost difficulty I could eradicate from my heart the feeling that I should obey the Church." "I am not so presumptuous," said he, "as to believe, that it is in God's name I have commenced and carried on this affair; I should not wish to go to judgment, resting on the fact that God is my guide in these matters." (Tom. p. 364, b.)
CHAPTER IV.
Q. What think you of the schism caused by Luther? Can one prudently believe that it is the work of God?
A. No; because God himself has forbidden schism as a dreadful crime: St. Paul (1st Corinth. chap. i. ver. 10) says: "Now I beseech you, brethren by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no SCHISMS among you; but that you be perfect in the same mind and same judgment."
Q. What idea did Luther himself entertain about schism before he blinded himself by his infuriated antipathy to the Pope?
A. He declared, that it was not lawful for any Christian whatever to separate himself from the Church of Rome.
Q. Repeat the very words of Luther touching this important matter.
(Tom. i, p. 116, b.) A."There is no question, no matter how important, which will justify a separation from the Church." Yet, notwithstanding, he himself burst the moorings which bound him to the Church, and, with his small band of ignorant and reckless followers, opposed her by every means in his power.
Q. What do you remark on historical examples of conduct similar to this ever since the birth of Christianity?
A. That in every age, when a small body detached itself from the Church, on account of doctrinal points, it has been universally the case, that the small body plunged by degrees deeper and deeper into error and heresy, and in the end, brought by its own increasing corruption into a state of decomposition, disappeared and perished. Of this we have hundreds of examples; nor can Lutherans or Calvinists reasonably hope, that their heresy and schism can have any other end. They are walking in the footsteps of those who have strayed from the fold of truth,—from the unity of faith; and they can have no other prospect, than the end of so many heresies that have gone before them..
CHAPTER V.
Q. Why have you said, that the means adopted by Luther, to establish his new religion, were not of God? What were those means?
A. That he might secure followers, he employed such means as were calculated to flatter the passions of men; he strewed the path to heaven—not like Christ with thorns, but like the devil—with flowers; he took off the cross which Christ had laid on the shoulders of men, he made wide the easy way, which Christ had left narrow and difficult.
Q. Repeat some of Luther's improvements upon the religion of Christ
. A. He permitted all who had made solemn vows of chastity, to violate their vows and marry; he permitted temporal sovereigns to plunder the property of the Church; he abolished confession, abstinence, fasting, and every work of penance and mortification.
Q. How did he attempt to tranquillize the consciences he had disturbed by these scandalously libertine doctrines?
A. He invented a thing, which he called justifying faith, to be a sufficient substitute for all the above painful religious works, and invention which took off every responsibility from our shoulders, and laid all on the shoulders of Jesus Christ; in a word, he told men to believe in the merits of Christ as certainly applied to them, and live as they pleased, to indulge every criminal passion, without even the restraints of modesty.
Q. How did he strive to gain over to his party a sufficient number of presumptuous, unprincipled, and dissolute men of talent, to preach and propagate his novelties?
A. He pandered to their passions and flattered their pride, by granting them the sovereign honor of being their own judges in every religious question; he presented them with the Bible, declaring that each one of them, ignorant and learned, was perfectly qualified to decide upon every point of controversy.
Q. What did he condescend to do for Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, in order to secure his support and protection?
A. He permitted him to keep two wives at one and the same time. The name of the second was Margaret de Saal, who had been maid of honor to his lawful wife, Christina de Saxe. Nor was Luther the only Protestant Doctor who granted this monstrous dispensation from the law of God; eight of the most celebrated Protestant leaders signed, with their own hand, the filthy and adulterous document.
Q. Does the whole history of Christianity furnish us with even one such scandalous dispensation derived from ecclesiastical authority?
A. No; nor could such brutal profligacy be countenanced even for a moment, seeing that the Scripture is so explicit on the subject. Gen. ii, Matth. xix, Mark x, speak of two in one flesh, but never of three. But Luther and his brethren were guided, not by the letter of the Scripture, but by the corrupt passions, wishes, and inclinations of men. To induce their followers to swallow the new creed, they gave them, in return, liberty to gratify every appetite.
CHAPTER VI.
Q. If neither the author of Protestantism, nor his work itself, nor the means he adopted to effect his purpose, are from God, what are his followers obliged to?
A. They are obliged, under pain of eternal damnation, to seek earnestly and re-enter the true Church, which seduced by Luther, they abandoned: If they be sincere, God will aid them in their inquiry.
Q. What is the situation of the man who does not at once acquit himself of this obligation?
A. He is the victim of mortal heresy and schism; the thing he calls a church has no pastors lawfully sent or ordained; hence, he can receive none of the Sacraments declared in Scripture to be so necessary to salvation.
Q. What think you of those (they are many) who are at heart convinced that the Catholic Church is the only true one, and are still such cowards as to dread making a public profession of their faith?
A. "He," says our Saviour—Luke, ix chap., 26 ver., "who shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him the Son of Man shall be ashamed, when he shall come in his majesty." .
Q. What think you of those who are inclined to Catholicism, but out of family considerations neglect to embrace it?
A. Our Saviour, in the 10th chap. of St. Matth., tells such, that he who loves father or mother more than God, is unworthy of God.
Q. What say you to those who become Protestants, or remain Protestants from motives of worldly gain or honor?
A. I say with our Saviour, in the 8th chap. of St. Mark, "What will it avail a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?"
Dear narses. I have received several private emails to which I have tried to respond but I get a message telling me I am too new a member to use that feature
I don’t recall in Scripture where He established the Catholic Church 300 years after He was crucified. He established a Church comprised of believers while He was still walking among us.
Dear muawiyah. Yes, the “glorious revolution” and which “triumph” which continues today to spin out of control so wildly that we in America will now have the faux sacrament of Homosexual Marriage
The Church preserved and protected the Bible, Keeping it free from men who would change the Word of God. Guy's like Luther, who wanted to remove the Epistle of James because it contradicted his personal view on salvation.
The Church would often chain the Bible - Primarily because they were so valuable. Think about it - would you keep your wallet and your wife's jewelry box on your front steps? No, you protect your mere possessions. Think how the Church strove to protect the Word of God!
We would not have the Bible without the catholic Church, who kept it from error through the ages, who assembled and copied the Bible, and who defended Christianity, Europe and civilization from the Muslim invasions.
Heresies were dealt with from the beginning of the Church, and the Church has dealt with those introducing false teachings through the ages.
Paul warned us this would happen, "For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths." (2 Tim. 4:3–4).
Martin Luther was one of these men Paul warned us about. He so wanted to believe in his view of salvation by faith alone that he tried to remove James from the Bible. "You see that a man is justified by works, and not by faith alone." James 2:24. You have to go through mental and verbal gymnastics to say the clear language of the Bible does not really say what it really says. This is one reason the Catholic Church protected the Bible in the early days. A hand written copy would be guarded as a treasure because of its rare nature, but more importantly to prevent false copies from circulating and supporting heresy.
Fortunately, we have Christ’s promise that heresies will never prevail against the Church. They will arise, endure sometimes for centuries, like Protestantism, but we can be confident in Christ’s promise that the Church will always teach the Truth.
Well, the millions of Protestants that have been saved and have gone to be with their Savior, Jesus Christ, would probably disagree with you.
And frankly, Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ would disagree with this treatise as well.
What did you hope to accomplish by posting this screed?
Simon Peter answered and said: Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God. [17] And Jesus answering, said to him: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven. [18] And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. [19] And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven.
Where is that in the Bible?
The Catholic Church strongly opposed vernacular translations. They banned them for hundreds of years. Not did Luther try to remove James from the Bible. He translated it and make it possible for commoners to read it.
http://www.bible-researcher.com/wyclif5.html
“For hundreds of years no eminent teacher had emphasized the right of the laity to the Word of God. It was regarded as a book for the clergy, and the interpretation of its meaning was assumed to rest largely with the decretists and the pope. The Council of Toulouse, 1229, had forbidden the use of the Bible to laymen. The condemned sects of the 12th and 13th centuries, especially the Waldenses, had adopted another rule, but their assailants, such as Alanus ab Insulis, had shown how dangerous their principle was. Wyclif stood forth as the champion of an open Bible. It was a book to be studied by all Christians, for “it is the whole truth.” Because it was given to the Church, its teachings are free to every one, even as is Christ himself.60
To withhold the Scriptures from the laity is a fundamental sin. To make them known in the mother-tongue is the first duty of the priest. For this reason priests ought always to be familiar with the language of the people. Wyclif held up the friars for declaring it heresy to translate God’s law into English and make it known to laymen. He argued against their position by referring to the gift of tongues at Pentecost and to Jerome’s translation, to the practice of Christ and the Apostles who taught peoples in their native languages and to the existence in his own day of a French translation made in spite of all hindrances. Why, he exclaims, “should not Englishmen do the same, for as the lords of England have the Bible in French, it would not be against reason if they had the same material in English.” Through an English Bible Englishmen would be enabled best “to follow Christ and come to heaven.”...
http://www.bible-researcher.com/wyclif1.html
1 Cor. l2:l3,”by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body.”
Hopefully something you will experience soon.
The word translated “church” in the English Bible is ekklesia. This word is the Greek words kaleo (to call), with the prefix ek (out). Thus, the word means “the called out ones.” However, the English word “church” does not come from ekklesia but from the word kuriakon, which means “dedicated to the Lord.” This word was commonly used to refer to a holy place or temple. By the time of Jerome’s translation of the New Testament from Greek to Latin, it was customary to use a derivative of kuriakon to translate ekklesia. Therefore, the word church is a poor translation of the word ekklesia since it implies a sacred building, or temple. A more accurate translation would be “assembly” because the term ekklesia was used to refer to a group of people who had been called out to a meeting. It was also used as a synonym for the word synagogue, which also means to “come together,” i.e. a gathering. “Body of Christ” Since believers have been united with Christ through spiritual baptism, they are sometimes corporately referred to as the body of Christ. (Rom. l2:4-5; 1 Cor. l2:11,13,l8,27; Col. l:l8; Eph. 5:30) The idea seems to be that the group of Christians in the world constitute the physical representation of Christ on earth. It is also a metaphor which demonstrates the interdependence of members in the church, while at the same time demonstrating their diversity from one another. (Rom. 12:4; 1 Cor. 12:14-17)
One did not learn their time tables on the first try and this subject is rather more important than the time tables and it must be learned for outside of the Catholic Church there is no Salvation, and so, in the interest of the Salvation of those I have never met and will likely never meet, this is actually an act of love whereas those opposing me are insisting I follow the hatred of the Catholic Condemned act of Indifferentism.
That is, nothing could be more hateful than to be Indifferent and to be unconcerned about the Salvation of others for the Salvation of all is willed by Our Triune God
I know someone else who was also rude to highly exalted church leaders...He called them “whited sepulchers full of dead men’s bones.”
How rude!
Ed
Bride of Christ or Christ’s Betrothed
(Eph. 5:25-32; 2 Cor. 11:2). These titles refer to the love and loyalty existing between Christ and believers.
So---David is not Saved? Joshua? The thief on the cross?
Note last paragraph.
Derived probably from the Greek kuriakon (i.e., the Lord’s” “house”), which was used by ancient authors for the place of” worship. “In the New Testament it is the translation of the Greek word “ecclesia, which is synonymous with the Hebrew kahal of the Old” “Testament, both words meaning simply an assembly, the character” of which can only be known from the connection in which the word is found. There is no clear instance of its being used for a “place of meeting or of worship, although in post-apostolic times” it early received this meaning. Nor is this word ever used to denote the inhabitants of a country united in the same “profession, as when we say the “Church of England,” the “Church” “of Scotland,” etc.” “We find the word ecclesia used in the following senses in the “New Testament: (1.) It is translated “assembly” in the ordinary” “classical sense (Acts 19:32, 39, 41).” “(2.) It denotes the whole body of the redeemed, all those whom “the Father has given to Christ, the invisible catholic church” “(Eph. 5:23, 25, 27, 29; Heb. 12:23).” “(3.) A few Christians associated together in observing the ordinances of the gospel are an ecclesia (Rom. 16:5; Col. 4:15). “(4.) All the Christians in a particular city, whether they assembled together in one place or in several places for “religious worship, were an ecclesia. Thus all the disciples in” “Antioch, forming several congregations, were one church (Acts” “13:1); so also we read of the “church of God at Corinth” (1 Cor.” “1:2), “the church at Jerusalem” (Acts 8:1), “the church of” “Ephesus” (Rev. 2:1), etc.” “(5.) The whole body of professing Christians throughout the world (1 Cor. 15:9; Gal. 1:13; Matt. 16:18) are the church of Christ. “The church visible “consists of all those throughout the world “that profess the true religion, together with their children.” “It is called “visible” because its members are known and its” “assemblies are public. Here there is a mixture of “wheat and” “chaff,” of saints and sinners. “God has commanded his people to” organize themselves into distinct visible ecclesiastical “communities, with constitutions, laws, and officers, badges,” “ordinances, and discipline, for the great purpose of giving” “visibility to his kingdom, of making known the gospel of that” “kingdom, and of gathering in all its elect subjects. Each one of” these distinct organized communities which is faithful to the “great King is an integral part of the visible church, and all” “together constitute the catholic or universal visible church.” A” credible profession of the true religion constitutes a person a “member of this church. This is “the kingdom of heaven,” whose” character and progress are set forth in the parables recorded in Matt. 13. “The children of all who thus profess the true religion are members of the visible church along with their parents. Children are included in every covenant God ever made with man. They go along with their parents (Gen. 9:9-17; 12:1-3; 17:7; Ex. 20:5; “Deut. 29:10-13). Peter, on the day of Pentecost, at the” “beginning of the New Testament dispensation, announces the same” “great principle. “The promise [just as to Abraham and his seed” “the promises were made] is unto you, and to your children” (Acts” “2:38, 39). The children of believing parents are “holy”, i.e.,” “are “saints”, a title which designates the members of the” Christian church (1 Cor. 7:14). (See [116]BAPTISM.) “The church invisible “consists of the whole number of the elect “that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one under Christ,” “the head thereof.” This is a pure society, the church in which” Christ dwells. It is the body of Christ. it is called invisible because the greater part of those who constitute it “are already in heaven or are yet unborn, and also because its” members still on earth cannot certainly be distinguished. The qualifications of membership in it are internal and are hidden. “It is unseen except by Him who “searches the heart.” “The Lord” “knoweth them that are his” (2 Tim. 2:19).” “The church to which the attributes, prerogatives, and promises “appertaining to Christ’s kingdom belong, is a spiritual body” “consisting of all true believers, i.e., the church invisible.” “(1.) Its unity. God has ever had only one church on earth. We sometimes speak of the Old Testament Church and of the New “Testament church, but they are one and the same. The Old” Testament church was not to be changed but enlarged (Isa. “49:13-23; 60:1-14). When the Jews are at length restored, they” “will not enter a new church, but will be grafted again into” their own olive tree (Rom. 11:18-24; comp. Eph. 2:11-22).
The apostles did not set up a new organization. Under their ministry “disciples were “added” to the “church” already existing (Acts” 2:47). “(2.) Its universality. It is the “catholic” church; not confined “to any particular country or outward organization, but” comprehending all believers throughout the whole world. “(3.) Its perpetuity. It will continue through all ages to the end of the world. It can never be destroyed. It is an everlasting kingdom.
"Zot? What does that mean?"
Sounds like pretended ignorance....and overdone, at that. I would think new members would have lurked long enough to know what these very basic terms mean.
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