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?"
The problem is for that first 300 years, there was no Bible. There was a Church. There was no Bible.
Now, there WAS the Hebrew scriptures. There were also various writings related to Jesus Christ - some of these were ultimately accepted as canonical. Some were not.
So a believer in 200 AD could not have possibly had recourse to "recall from Scripture".
That's a real problem for the sola scriptura believer. I have seen it danced around, but never answered.
The Lindisfarne Gospels
The British Library which now possess this beautiful manuscript states:
“The Lindisfarne Gospels is one of the most important inheritances from early Northumbria. Written and illuminated about 698 in honour of St Cuthbert, the famous Bishop of Lindisfarne, who died in 687, it is a masterpiece of book production and a historic and artistic document of the first rank.
The Lindisfarne Gospels were written and illustrated probably by Eadfrith, bishop of Lindisfarne (698-721). In the mid-tenth century a priest called Aldred added a translation in Old English above the Latin words, making this the earliest surviving translation of the Gospels into English.
“… Almost everything that it is known concerning the origin of the manuscript is derived from a note in Anglo-Saxon inserted, probably between 950 and 970, by a priest named Aldred … who also inserted an Anglo-Saxon gloss, or word-for-word translation, in the spaces between the lines of the Latin text. This note, in modern English translation, reads:
'Eadfrith, Bishop of the church of Lindisfarne, originally wrote this book in honour of God and St. Cuthbert and the whole company of saints whose relics are on the island. And AEthelwald, Bishop of the Lindisfarne islanders, bound it on the outside and covered it, as he knew well how to do.~ And Billfrith, the anchorite, wrought the ornaments on the outside and adorned it with gold and with gems and gilded silver, unalloyed metal. And Aldred, unworthy and most miserable priest, glossed it in English with the help of God and St Cuthbert...'
St Cuthbert, Bishop of Lindisfarne, died in 687; Eadfrith was Bishop of Lindisfarne from 698 to 721; AEthelwald from 724 to 740. Except for some minor details, the manuscript is thought to have been written and illuminated by Eadfrith and bound by AEthelwald about 698. Subsequently, possibly during AEthelwald's episcopate, Billfrith added gems and metalwork to the binding.
“The Gospels remained at Lindisfarne until 875, when it accompanied the monks on their flight before the Danes. … The manuscript probably lost its original binding at the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century. Early in the 17th century it was acquired by Sir Robert Cotton from Robert Bowyer, Clerk of the Parliaments.”
The New Testament was published in English by the (Catholic) English College at Douay in 1582, and the Old Testament in 1609. The King James Version was published in 1611; therefore, the Catholic Church was the first to publish the Bible in English.
the astounding lack of historical knowledge or outright denial/revisionism, of church history, by our separated brethern, is downright saddening.
Dear ShadowAce. There has always been only one church,so, yes, those just men in the ot are saved
There is this really cool invention called the internet that allows you to actually do research before psoting errors such as the above.
Luthers was not the first, nor the second, what is was was one of the worst.
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+Bible+before+Martin+Luther.-a0277600839
By digging into history, these grandiloquent "experts" would be surprised to learn that the first printed Bible was produced by Johann Gutenberg, a Catholic,--with Church approval--in 1455. Luther was born in 1483! To go further on the number of printings, there were 18 German editions of the Bible before Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenberg in 1517.
For a full view of translation history it is important to acknowledge that no books of the Bible were originally written in Latin. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew with some parts in Aramaic. The New Testament was written in Greek. The Septuagint is a Jewish translation of the Old Testament into Greek for the Jews in Alexandria who spoke mainly Greek at that time. This made it possible for the whole Bible to be available in Greek by about 100 A.D.
Other early translations of the Bibles appeared in the Syriac dialect of Aramaic, in the Ge'ez language in Ethiopia and in Latin in Western Europe.
The earliest Latin translations were used as the Vetus Latina until the 5th century. St. Jerome re-translated the Hebrew and Greek texts into the vernacular, the Latin of his day, known as the Vulgate (Biblia vulgata), meaning "common version" or "popular version." So by the end of late antiquity, the Bible was available in all major written languages then spoken by Christians.
In the early medieval period anyone who could read at all could most likely read Latin, even in (Anglo-Saxon) England, where writing in the vernacular (Old English) was most common. After the Greek and Latin translations, the Bible or some passages thereof were translated into vernacular European languages. The Gothic Bible was translated from Greek by Ulfilas, an Arian. The Gospel of John was translated into Old English by Saint Bede the Venerable before his death in 735. The Gospel of Matthew was translated into Old High German in 748. Alfred the Great circulated a number of passages of the Bible in the vernacular around the turn of 900. The four Gospels were translated into Old English in the West Saxon dialect (the Wessex Gospels) in 990. There was a Gospel translation into the Old Slavonic language in the late 9th century by Saints Cyril and Methodius.
After the 8th century German translation of the Bible into the language of the common people, other European nations followed suit; these were France and Hungary in the 12th century and Italy, Spain, Holland, Poland and Bohemia in the 13th century. The Spanish Inquisition gave full approval to publish the Bible translation in 1478. The first printed Flemish translation came out in 1477. Two Italian versions were printed in 1516, a year before Luther posted his Theses. The earliest English edition was printed in 1525.
It is worth noticing that there were 198 editions of the Bible in the vernacular, the language of the laity; 626 editions altogether, all before the Protestant version, with the full approval of the Catholic Church.
Agree
Luther could have solved his problems by going to his superiors. rather than being a rebel.
Were the Pharisees members of the Church?
They are still scared to death of Luther. Comical!
It is a just a curious fact of modernity.
There were several vernacular translations made BEFORE the KJV. In fact, the KJV was much LESS vernacular (common) in its approach to translating than Tyndale (1526?), which is why Tyndale’s translation sounds very close to a modern translation.
Wycliffe’s translation was available in the late 1300s...early 1400s being a more realistic date. Thus the ban on English vernacular translations in 1408.
And the DR was such a pee-poor translation that it was almost unused until revised in the mid-1700s...by borrowing much of the text of the KJV!
No longer happens.
And John Wycliffe translated the NT portion of the Latin Vulgate into the English vernacular in 1384. William Tyndalte translated the original Greek into english in 1526.
No doubt, but which one. Feigned ingnorance of 'Noob' and 'zot'. Faked politeness. Sadly it won't be Leoni or the renamed Verdugo. Nothing faked with them.
If those of a different religion come to my door, I have a supply of flyers ready to hand them. If we have questions to ask each other, it’s all good. We might just not agree on various points.
Do you read your Bible?
Did they even recognize Jesus?
Did they even hear Jesus’ warnings?
A couple of them did — Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea. Beyond that, who knows?
Right....letting the masses have access to the word of God from the source in their own language giving them first hand knowledge of God’s word is just so evil. While people letting their masters in the Church keep the Word from them and telling them what to believe and that being the only source of what God says is just so not evil.
The Inquisition....such Biblical times. Oh, wait...maybe I can buy a relic of a saint from the next vendor...yep that just might save me because that is so Biblical...and my personal favorite praying to saints and Mary because it speaks of that in the “Bible”....Oh, so many more things to chose from.....
Sorry, do not follow man nor do I want to.
You are wrong. There were vernacular translation into some languages early on, when few could read them. By around 1200-1300 AD, the Catholic Church began its policy of banning vernacular translations.
In German, Luther was the first vernacular translation worth a darn, which is why it sold copies by the tens of thousands - unlike any of the High German translation made before it.
There were a few partial translations into English prior to Wycliffe, but they were both few in number and very partial. The translation of the four gospels was popular enough, but there is a huge distinction between translating the Gospels alone, and the entire NT or entire Bible.
When vernacular translations such as Wycliffe’s, Luther’s and Tyndale’s hit the streets, the opposition became formal:
“With the appearance, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, of the Albigenses and Waldenses, who appealed to the Bible in all their disputes with the Church, the hierarchy was furnished with a reason for shutting up the Word of God. The Synod of Toulouse in 1229 forbade the laity to have in their possession any copy of the books of the Old and the New Testament except the Psalter and such other portions as are contained in the Breviary or the Hours of the Blessed Mary. “We most strictly forbid these works in the vulgar tongue” (Harduin, Concilia, xii, 178; Mansi, Concilia, xxiii, 194).
The Synod of Tarragona (1234) ordered all vernacular versions to be brought to the bishop to be burned. James I renewed thin decision of the Tarragona synod in 1276. The synod held there in 1317 under Archbishop Ximenes prohibited to Beghards, Beguines, and tertiaries of the Franciscans the possession of theological books in the vernacular (Mansi, Concilia, xxv, 627). The order of James I was renewed by later kings and confirmed by Paul II (1464-71). Ferdinand and Isabella (1474-1516) prohibited the translation of the Bible into the vernacular or the possession of such translations (F. H. Reusch, Index der verbotenen i, Bonn, 1883, 44).
In England Wyclif’s Bible-translation caused the resolution passed by the third Synod of Oxford (1408): “No one shall henceforth of his own authority translate any text of Scripture into English; and no part of any such book or treatise composed in the time of John Wycliffe or later shall be read in public or private, under pain of excommunication” (Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, vi, 984). But Sir Thomas More states that he had himself seen old Bibles which were examined by the bishop and left in the hands of good Catholic laymen (Blunt, Reformation of the Church of England, 4th ed., London, 1878, i, 505).”
http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/encyc/encyc02/htm/iv.v.lxi.htm
However, the ONLY copies of English translations of the Bible ever found were Wycliffe’s. The copies More saw were copies of Wycliffe’s translation, authorized on a one by one basis by individual priests for individual people.
There is no record of the Bible translated into English by anyone other than Wycliffe prior to Tyndale. Individual passages, or a book (or the four gospels)? Yes. The New Testament as a whole? No.
At least you respond on your own thread.
That puts you a step above the standard, run-of-the-mill troublemaking N00B.
Did you read the post I was responding to?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.