Posted on 11/23/2011 11:11:08 AM PST by marshmallow
Luther resisted the Anabaptist forebears of the Baptists and other Evangelical sects.
1. Proddys are used to the shucking and jiving, slipping and sliding rationalizations of the RC’s hereon. It seems to be a RELIGIOUS DUTY OF OBLIGATION and certainly well trained to the point of reflex in the RCC system.
2. It doesn’t really matter what the heading was . . . the sentence is quite sufficiently incrimminating all on it’s own.
3. It’s one thing to be charitable toward all mankind. It’s another to rationalize demonic religions into religious brothers to ANY significant degree as that sentence does.
4. In terms of integrity in posting . . . that almost ANY RC hereon would fuss about that is the height (& depths) of hypocrisy.
Lutheran theologian Martin Chemnitz who roughly was a contemporary of Calvin’s writes in a manner that Catholics likely could agree with (Lutherans unlike Calvinists and Evangelicals weren’t egalitarians):
THE POWER OF THE KEYS AND THE PUBLIC MINISTRY OF THE GOSPEL
...Christ says (Matt. 5:23-24) that whoever is not first reconciled to his brother cannot offer his gift at the altar, and Christ earnestly proclaims to the offended party, Matt. 6:15: “If you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” God promises that He will regard this fraternal reconciliation as valid in heaven (Matt. 18:18). On this passage Theophylact says: “If when you have been sinned against you hold him who sinned against you, after a threefold admonition, as a publican, he will be such also in heaven; if, however, you loose him, that is, forgive him when he confesses and asks for it, he will be acquitted also in heaven. For it is not only the sins the priest looses which are loosed, but also those will be bound or loosed whom we, when we have been wronged, either bind or loose. Under this confession there is included also this, when a brother is moved and led by fraternal reproof to acknowledge and confess some sin, even if it was not committed against us. For so, says Christ, you have gained your brother. And James says that this confession is useful on account of the prayer for one another: Pray for one another, that you may be saved!” (Examination of the Council of Trent, Part II, p. 595)
For although the keys were given to the church itself, as the ancients correctly teach, we nevertheless by no means hold that any and every Christian without distinction should or can take to himself or exercise the ministry of the Word and sacraments without a legitimate call. As however the ancients say that in case of necessity any Christian lay person can administer the sacrament of Baptism, so Luther says the same thing about absolution in case of necessity, where no priest is present. He says nothing different from what Lombard, Bk. 4, dist. 17, and Gratian, De poenitentia, dist. 5, say on the basis of the opinion of the ancients. Earlier we have also noted the opinion of Theophylact, that whatever is either loosed or bound in fraternal reproof and reconciliation is loosed and bound in heaven itself. Moreover, there is no doubt that when the Word of the Gospel is proclaimed, God works efficaciously, no matter by whom it is proclaimed. (Examination of the Council of Trent, Part II, p. 621)
What is the nature of the ministry of the church? It is not civil government, by which political affairs, or the matters of this world, are administered. Lk 22:25-26; 2 Ti 2:4. Nor is it spiritual power lording it arbitrarily and, as it were, by naked power over the church of God in matters of faith. 2 Co 1:24; 1 Ptr 5:3. Nor is it a business or a tricky way for indulging greed. 1 Ti 3:2-3,8; 6:5; 1 Ptr 5:2. But it is a spiritual, or ecclesiastic, office, instituted and ordained by God Himself for discharging and performing necessary functions of the church, so that pastors, or preachers, are and ought to be ministers of God and of the church in the kingdom of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. 1 Co 4:1; Cl 1:25; 2 Co 4:5. What, then, is the office of ministers of the church? This office, or ministry, has been committed and entrusted to them by God Himself through a legitimate call: I. To feed the church of God with the true, pure, and salutary doctrine of the divine Word. Acts 20:28; Eph 4:11; 1 Ptr 5:2. II. To administer and dispense the sacraments of Christ according to His institution. Mt 28:19; 1 Co 11:23. III. To administer rightly the use of the keys of the church, or of the kingdom of heaven, by either remitting or retaining sins (Mt 16:19; Jn 20:23), and to fulfill all these things and the whole ministry (as Paul says, 2 Ti 4:5) on the basis of the prescribed command, which the chief Shepherd Himself has given His ministers in His Word for instruction. Mt 28:20. Is it right to ordain and admit to the ministry of the church those who have been called, without prior appropriate and solemn examination, as is generally done among papal suffragans? By no means. For in His Word God has prescribed a certain form regarding the call, doctrine, and conduct, or life, of those to whom the functions of the church are to be entrusted. One should therefore first carefully test and examine them as to whether they are legitimately called, whether they rightly hold the fundamentals of salutary doctrine and reject fanatic opinions, whether they are endowed with the gifts necessary to teach others sound doctrine, and whether they can prove their lives to be honorable, so that they can be examples to the flock; for this concern we have the very solemn precept of Paul. 1 Ti 5:22; 2 Ti 2:2. The older councils therefore decreed many things regarding examination of those who are to be ordained; these things are found in Gratian, Distinct. 23, 24, and 81. And canon 4 of the 4th Council of Carthage, at which Augustine was present, decreed thus: Let one who is to be ordained be ordained when he has, in an examination, been found to be rightly instructed. And the canon of Nicaea, Distinct. 81, 2 says: If any are promoted [to be] presbyters without examination, church order does not recognize them, because they are ordained contrary to the rule. ... May one seek or undertake the ministry of the church who has neither learned the fundamental Christian doctrine, nor understands [it], nor has the gift to teach others? By no means. For Paul commands Timothy and Titus to entrust the ministry to faithful and able men. 2 Ti 2:2; 3:2; Tts 1:9. Should, then, one who is somewhat endowed with those gifts, on his own initiative and personal judgment, without a special and legitimate call, undertake and claim for himself the office of teaching in the church? By no means. Ro 10:15; Jer 23:21; Heb 5:4. Are they to be heard, or can they be profitably heard by the church, who have no proof of a legitimate call? No. Ro 10:14-15; Jer 27:14-15. And for this reason the prophets and apostles so earnestly emphasize the prerogatives of their call at the beginning of their writings. And experience shows that they who thrust themselves into ecclesiastical functions without a legitimate and regular call experience little blessing of God and contribute little to the upbuilding of the church. But Paul says, 1 Ti 3:1: “He that desires the office of bishop desires a good work.” Is it therefore necessary for one to wait until he is called? To desire the office of bishop is not to thrust oneself into ecclesiastical functions without a legitimate call; but if one has learned and understands the fundamentals of Christian doctrine and is somewhat endowed with the gift of teaching – when he offers his service to God and the church, he thereby seeks nothing else than that God would declare through a legitimate, or regular, call whether He wants to use his service in His church. And he ought to be so minded, that, if a call does not follow his request, he does not cunningly work his way in. 2 Sm 15:26. But all believers are called priests, Rv 1:6; 5:10; 1 Ptr 2:9. Have all, therefore, a general call to the ministry? All we who believe are indeed spiritual priests, but we are not all teachers. 1 Co 12:29-30; Eph 4:11-12. And Peter explains himself: All Christians are priests – not that all should function without difference in the ministry of the Word and of the Sacraments, without a special call, but that they should offer spiritual sacrifices. Ro 12:1; Heb 13:15-16. Yet all Christians have a general call to proclaim the virtues of God, 1 Ptr 2:9, and especially family heads, to instruct their households, Dt 6:7; 1 Co 14:35. It is true that all Christians have a general call to proclaim the Gospel of God, Ro 10:9, to speak the Word of God among themselves, Eph 5:19; to admonish each other from the Word of God, Cl 3:16; to reprove, Eph 5:11 [and] Mt 19:15; [and] to comfort, 1 Th 4:18. And family heads are enjoined [to do] this with the special command that they give their households the instruction of the Lord. Eph 6:4. But the public ministry of the Word and of the Sacraments in the church is not entrusted to all Christians in general, as we have already shown, 1 Co 12:28; Eph 4:12. For a special or particular call is required for this, Ro 10:15. (Ministry, Word, and Sacraments, pp. 26-29)
Of course the religion that incorporates pagan practices in their worship wouldn’t recognize that the god of the Muslims is not the One True God of the universe. No amount of universalism can replace the truth.
Very good; that's the way I took it.
God knows that I would hope that you would answer them in the honorable way and honestly that’s what I would expect out of you.
I have already answered them. The record is there.
Pure idolatry.
==============
ACTUALLY--
OUTRAGEOUSLY BLASPHEMOUS
idolatry.
This phrase here:
"command thy Son"
shows the blasphemous demonic mentality behind the whole farce.
And they don't bat an eye at such OUTRAGEOUS BLASPHEMY--INDEED, THEY GET EVEN MORE ARROGANT and fierce in defense of the indefensible! Incredible.
The authentic Mary of Scripture MUST be beyond extreme dismay and disgust at such hidiousness.
Before FR, I'd have never thought such possible by folks calling themselves "Christian." The RC's hereon have given me a HUGE education in blasphemous idolatries; RELIGIOUS HAUGHTINESS AND ARROGANCE and generally fierce brazen nastiness. What a group!
The Popess of irony strikes again.
But not this time anyway. Again:
A portion of the Catechism, starting with monotheists and working down, a portion specifically about those outside the Church, those who have not received the Gospels, those not even protestant but specifically named as non-Christian, is used to support the proposition that Muslims and Catholics 'serve the same God.'
Beyond fallible and over into dishonest.
If a poster has be dishonest in order to support his argument, it clearly reveals their own knowledge of the weakness of their argument.
The more they do so, the more they emphasize the amount of willful dishonest required to support their point.
Yes, I would agree, overall the conservative Lutherans and High Anglicans have kept Christianity closer than the others of the Reformation.
Dr. William Marshner has an excellent commentary on the Protestant “reformers” approach to justification.
This second contrast reappears in Romans 10:3, “(The Jews) not knowing the justice of God and seeking to establish their own justice, did not submit to God’s justice.”
We learn the result of this Jewish conduct in Romans 9:30-32, “What shall we say then? The gentiles, who were not pursuing justice, laid hold of justice, but the justice which is from faith. Israel, however, pursuing the law of justice, did not attain the law” (i.e. did not accomplish or fulfill it). The exact interpretation of this text has been debated,(7) but for our purposes it suffices to see that Paul was speaking of a justice pursued by way of works and that such justice was the great ambition of the Jews in connection with the Law of Moses.
The point that Mosaic legal justice was a matter of works reappears in Romans 10:5 (”Moses wrote of the justice which is from the law that the man who keeps it shall live by it,” quoting from Leviticus 18:5) in contrast with the justice from faith. The same is said in Galatians 3:12 (”But the law is not from faith; rather the one who does those things will live in them”) and in Romans 2:13 (”It is not the hearers of the Law who have been justified before God but the doers of the Law will be justified,” i.e. will be declared just at the last judgment), and this is expounded at length in Romans 2: 23-27: “You who glory in the Law, you dishonor God by transgression of the Law....To be sure, circumcision is profitable if you observe the Law; but if you transgress the Law, you are returned to a state of uncircumcision. So, if the uncircumcised man keeps the just precepts of the Law, shouldn’t he be regarded as circumcised? In fact, the man who remains in his natural state of uncircumcision and who has accomplished the Law will judge you, who with letter and circumcision have broken the Law.”
So, over against the justice of God, which is the justice of faith, there is a self-justice which is of the Law and which is a justice of works. This latter would give men a basis for boasting (Romans 4:2, Ephesians 2:8-9), since works give one a strict right to be considered just: “To the man who has works, his salary is not counted as a favor but as something due,” (Romans 4:4).
Now, as a matter of practical fact, does anyone really have this self-justice of Law and works? Over and over again Paul answers in the negative: “for from the works of the Law no flesh is justified before Him” (Romans 3:20); “Israel, pursuing a law of justice, did not attain to the Law; why? because Israel did not seek to attain it through faith but through works” (Romans 9:31-32); “For all who proceed by the works of the Law are under the curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed be anyone who does not persevere in practicing all that is written in the Book of the Law’”(Galatians 3:10, quoting Deuteronomy 27: 26 and the context indicates that the curse has indeed gone into effect).
http://www.ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/JUSBYFAI.htm
You know, I get the feeling that that is exactly what their posts are crying out for.
BWAHAHAHA!!!!!!!! Show me where I said that.
You deny you posted that?
Interesting.
But I decided to see if the whole bit about Martin Luther restoring primitive Christianity was true or not from an empirical sense. Mind you that I was quite anti-Catholic because of my anti-Catholic family background complete with my ex-Catholic father. So what I hear on FR from the Protestants are cliches.
When substance is missing, all you've got are slogans.
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