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 muawiyah. And, the Spanish celebrated the First Thanksgiving in America (with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, of course) long before the Pilgrims did.
Dear Pan-Yan Is Baptista were only so lucky to achieve purgatory :)
Deuteronomy 17:
When there shall be found among you within any of thy gates, which the Lord thy God shall give thee, man or woman that do evil in the sight of the Lord thy God, and transgress his covenant,
3 So as to go and serve strange gods, and adore them, the sun and the moon, and all the host of heaven, which I have not commanded:
4 And this is told thee, and hearing it thou hast inquired diligently, (Inquisition) and found it to be true, and that the abomination is committed in Israel:
5 Thou shalt bring forth the man or the woman, who have committed that most wicked thing, to the gates of thy city, and they shall be stoned.
We Christian Catholics were just, once again, following the Bible and Tradition. But, different times call for different responses. We are a kinder and gentler Church now :) But, let's not neglect Moses in this discussion. As the First Inquisitor, in two days he killed more people than all the various Catholic Inquisitions combined. Moses ordered FAR MORE killed.
Exodus 32
27 And he said to them: Thus saith the Lord God of Israel: Put every man his sword upon his thigh: go, and return from gate to gate through the midst of the camp, and let every man kill his brother, and friend, and neighbour. 28 And the sons of Levi did according to the words of Moses, and there were slain that day about three and twenty thousand men.
Numbers 25
And Moses said to the judges of Israel: Let every man kill his neighbours, that have been initiated to Beelphegor.
9 And there were slain four and twenty thousand men
Numbers 31
And Moses being angry with the chief officers of the army, the tribunes, and the centurions that were come from the battle, 15 Said: Why have you saved the women? 16 Are not these they, that deceived the children of Israel by the counsel of Balaam, and made you transgress against the Lord by the sin of Phogor, for which also the people was punished?
17 Therefore kill all that are of the male sex, even of the children: and put to death the women, that have carnally known men.
18 But the girls, and all the women that are virgins save for yourselves:
All we were doing in The Inquisitions was following the example of Moses - well, except for the killing of kids and saving the virgin women for our own selves :)
Dear Daniel. You do not seem to understand that there has always been only one religion and that one religion has God as its author and whose Dogmas, Morals and Worship were slowly revealed over time until all of the attributes of the one true religion were perfected when, in the fullness of time, The Word took flesh and established His universal Church
That is to say, religion has always only been one because that Bond with God was founded on the necessary and unchangeable relationship twixt God and man as established by Our Triune God
I know what I write and/or post appears to make you angry but the truth divides; always.
My motivation for writing and posting is that outside of the Catholic Church there is no salvation and I desire that even my objective enemies attain unto Salvation
Luther's trajectory was precisely in the opposite direction; that is, he did not come into the Catholic Church , he left it
Religion means bond with God, so, I would hope you have a religion
I have known you in the past to be a reasonable and honest person. I have been reading the Letters of Luther located at http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2005/10/letters-of-martin-luther.html lately, and it may surprise some people unfamiliar with the history of Martin Luther that he most certainly DID go to his superiors and had no intention of being a "rebel". He tried for YEARS to do so. Sadly, it was the politics of his day added to the stubbornness, duplicity and depravity of many that prevented a resolution to the concerns he brought up. I recommend anyone interested in this period of time and the results that play out even in our time to read Luther's letters. I just may change a few minds.
Perhaps you are not familiar with the term “sowing discord among brethren”. You may want to look it up because, of all the possible things in this world, it is one of only seven things that Scripture says the Lord HATES.
I would hope to see that admonition directed toward the various Protestant apologists on this forum who "sow discord among brethren".
Even earlier, some Moslem Turks at a Spanish POW camp in South Carolina celebrated a similar 'thansgiving' called Ramadan, and Serbo-Croatian POWs celebrated a variety of Eastern Saint's Days, etc. at the same POW camp. They are the people who gave rise to the idea in Europe that you could find Serbo-Croatians all up and down the American coast and they lived with the Indians and would do translation.
Joseph Smith was selected as Governor for Jamestown colony precisely because he'd fought in the wars against the Turks, became a POW, and learned Serbian or Turkish himself.
The pilgrims were latecomers but quite possibly the FIRST legal arrivees at the Protestant Reserve King Philippe carved out of his vast Spanish holdings in North America. See what he was up to by reading all the codicils in the Treaty of London, 1604, which he, not the Brits, cramed down everybody else's throat!
You presume too much.
you are misrepresenting the doctrines regarding an amnesty from oblivion.
I luv you, dude!!!
Sir,
I apologize for my rather rude introduction.
Having read numerous of your posts, I believe you to be honest and sincere in your efforts.
Again, welcome to FR.
Yeshua proved Himself perfectly from the Old Testament, and His disciples likewise. If you cannot, then maybe you are reading it wrong. ; )
My first foreign language was called Old West Gothic ~ or roughly King Canute's first language. I believe he, as an educated man in his time, could read and write latin however.
Luther left the Roman Catholic church over a number of very real issues - including the egregious changing of money into papal writs of absolution.
BTW - Thank you for proving my point regarding the ad hominem attacks on Luther in the article. Saul was converted through actions of God. Saul was a very corrupt and evil man. Paul was a leader of the church.
And yet this article claims that because Luther wasn’t perfect, he could not have been inspired by God.
The Roman Catholic church is not the key to salvation. Trajectory toward or away from it is of no relevance. Christ himself said that “no man comes to the father but through me” - not mentioning the Roman Catholic church, or any church.
The article is an ad hominem hatefest against someone who was willing to stand up to significant corruption in a very powerful organization. I’m sure the author feels they are standing up for God and what is right - but their method of doing so is far from christian. They attack, impugn, and slant history to suit their needs.
I do understand that RCs typically engage in argument by assertion, and your delusion premise that Rome is the perfect church is nothing more than that. Now answer the question i asked at the end of my last post .
My motivation for writing and posting is that outside of the Catholic Church there is no salvation and I desire that even my objective enemies attain unto Salvation
And my motivation for writing is because salvation is found by genuine contrite repentance and faith directly in the Lord Jesus to save by His sinless shed blood, which is not the same thing as what Rome fosters (except for a relative few who see thru the trappings). And i know, as i was manifestly born again as a RC, and remained as a weekly one for 6 years, seeking to serve God. Thus the Lord led me out.
Now you must be aware that RCs have different interpretations of what salvationn only thru the the Catholic Church means (formal member) so do you agree with the RC statements i proved, or the Catechism you posted form? What brand of RC are you (SSPX. Sedevacantist?)
Later
If Elzbet killed some people she was well advised to do so ~ the former KIng of England sent a couple of Armadas after her and her peeps ~ an embroglio that was not resolved until his son took over the country IN 1598 ~ now, tell me, really, why do you imagine all those folks in 1598 on all sides everywhere were celebrating a Thanksgiving if not for the death of Philippe I/II and Elzbet?
BTW, Philippe I/II and his Catholic League foray against the Turkish Navy was praised highly by Protestants, Catholics and Reformers ~ and the followup battles in Europe against the Turks drew men from the ranks of Protestants ~ e.g. Captain John Smith!
During those rough times your religious affiliation was more politics than anything else. Leave it at that.
You could always "mash the abuse button" on yourself, but then you'd also accuse yourself of bias/favoritism for responding too slowly/quickly/harshly/gently.
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