Continued from Chapter VI. Identification of Antichrist.

It will be observed from the foregoing, that out of their own mouths Popes, Cardinals, Bishops, Priests and Jesuits have convicted the Pope of Rome of being “The Antichrist” of Holy Writ, and Ho Antichristos of prophecy, the “little Horn” of Daniel, and “Willful King” of the Romans, who “doeth according to his own will,” who is seated in a false “Apostolic See,” whose “mouth speaketh great things and blasphemies,” whose official title is “Roman Pontiff,” or Pontifex Maximus, i.e., heathen, who, by deeds and words, by assumptions and claims, poses as God within Christ’s Church, and who “exalts himself above all that (on earth) is called God,” whether they be monarchs or princes, magistrates or bishops.

But these are not the only points of identity between the Scripture portrait and the reality. We have other striking evidences:—

(a) SEAT OR THRONE OF ANTICHRIST.

For instance, take the “seat” of the False “Apostolic See,” which is thrice mentioned in prophecy, viz., Daniel xi. 38; 2 Thess. ii. 4; and Rev. xiii. 2. There it is referred to as a “seat” (the see of a “seer,” as Daniel vii. 8 describes it), in which the “God of Forces” —i.e. Hercules—is honored; as a “Cathedra” usurped in the mystical “Shrine of God” or professing Church; and as a “throne” of earthly power derived from the inspirer of Paganism. As already shown, it was described by the Romish Bishop of Waterford as a “Papal Throne,” on which sits “one who exercises the authority of the Great God Almighty Himself.”

This “throne” is thus described in “Christmas Holidays, etc.” (p. 47): “The magnificent throne of the Pope, raised quite as high as the altar, which it fronted, and decked out most splendidly with its cloth of crimson and gold, and the gilded mitre suspended above.” . . . “His throne was far more gorgeous than the altar; where they kneeled down before the latter once, they kneeled down before the former five times; and the amount of incense offered before each was about in the same proportion. Had I known nothing of Christianity, I should have supposed the Pope to be the object of their worship. He was evidently the central point of attraction.”

This “throne” is only used on the occasion of the Pope celebrating Mass on certain “Festivals.” Other “thrones” are used by him on other occasions; as, for instance, the “Sedia Gestatoria,” or portable seat, in which he is borne aloft above the heads of all present—”above all that is called God”—whether kings, princes, magistrates, bishops or priests. Here is what “The Universe ” (June 27th, 1846) and the official document, “Notitia Congre, et Tribunal Curie Romane, Littenburg, 1683,” both said about the Coronation of a Pope: “After the Election and Proclamation, the Pope, attired in the Pontifical habit, is borne in the Pontifical Chair to the Church of St. Peter, and is placed on the High Altar, where he is saluted (Picart uses the word ‘adored’) for the third time by the Cardinals, by kissing his feet, hands, and mouth.” In this portable throne or seat the Pope is carried backwards and forwards between his palace of the Vatican and St. Peter’s.

Picart, the Romish historian of Papal Ceremonies, gives a full account of the Election and Coronation of a Pope, as described in the official Roman “Ceremonial.” It involves five “Adorations” of the Pope. In the second he is seated “upon the altar of Sextus’s chapel”; in the third upon “the great altar”; in the fourth on a “throne” under a canopy in the portico of St. Peter’s, and thence carried to a “throne” in the Gregorian Chapel, where, seated, he receives the “homage” of Cardinals, ambassadors, princes, prelates, etc., the Cardinals kissing his hands, the rest his knees. This is the Fourth “Adoration.”

On the arches raised in honor of Pope Borgia were the words “Rome was great under Caesar; now she is greater: Alexander VI. reigns. The former was a man: this is a god.” Lord Acton (“Letters on Modern History,” p. 79) said: “The scandals in the family of Borgia did not prevent Bishops calling him a god.” Julius II., in the 4th Session of the 5th Lateran Council, A.D. 1512, was thus addressed: “For thou art the shepherd, thou art the physician; thou art the governor; finally, thou art another God on earth,” E. C. Gardiner’s “St. Catherine of Siena” describes Urban VI. as “Christ upon earth.”

Picart unconsciously describes the fulfillment of 2 Thess. ii. 4, for he adds: “The Holy Father is undressed, in order to put on other robes, the color whereof is a type or symbol of his purity or innocence. The Cardinal-deacon clothes His Holiness in a white garment, who, in the language of Scripture, is to preside in the temple of the Lord.”

After this the Pope is carried to the “High Altar,” and descends, and ascends his own “throne” —upon which he receives the fifth Adoration.

After this he is carried to the “Benediction-Pew” in his sedia gestatoria, under a canopy, supported by Roman conservators and caparions, two grooms in scarlet, carrying fans of peacocks’ feathers, on either side of the chair. The pope ascends a “throne” in the pew, and is invested with the Papal Triple Crown, with the words, “Receive this tiara embellished with three crowns, and never forget, when you have it on, that you are the Father of Princes and Kings, and the Supreme Judge of the Universe (or ‘Ruler of the World,’ as another authority says); and, on earth, the Vicar of Jesus Christ, our Saviour.” Whereupon, the Pope “blesses” the people thrice; a “Plenary Indulgence” is proclaimed; cannons roar out a triple peal; bonfires blaze; rockets are fired; houses are illuminated; horse and foot soldiers present arms.

Some days later the Pope proceeded in state (this was before 1870) to St. John de Lateran—the Cathedral of the Bishop of Rome—under triumphal arches, and with most gorgeous pageantry of scarlet, gold, silver, silks, purple velvets, satins laced with gold, precious stones, and almost everything enumerated in Revelation xviii. 12, 13—filling a whole folio in small print—there to be again “enthroned” and “adored,” with honors no emperor or king has ever received.

But there is yet another “seat” or “throne” for the Pope. It is in St. Peter’s, at the extreme end of the building, and commands the entire interior. It is over an “altar,” with a colossal reredos (a screen, or decoration placed behind the altar in a church) of bronze, in the center of which is the throne—within which, hidden from view, is the so-called “Chair of St. Peter.” This “throne” is supported by images pretending to be Augustine and Ambrose—Latin ** Fathers,’’ Chrysostom and Athanasius—Greek “Fathers.” Above it is a Dove, surrounded by angels, boys and nymphs, in the midst of rays of light. Angels are gazing down at the Pope’s bronze throne, with the seat inside. Directly under the bronze case is the “altar.” Thus the place of Romish “authority” and “teaching” is above the Sacrifice of the Mass or the Immolated Victim on the altar, i.e., is “above God.”

Directly over the chair, exactly where the occupant’s head rests, is a crown upheld by angelic hands. Above these angels is the emblem of God the Holy Spirit, from which rays of light pour down upon this “throne” or “seat.” It is from this chair that the Head of the Latins, or Lateinos, claims the Headship of the Universal Church of Christ, and from it claims to be “Vicar of Christ,” i.e., in Greek, Antichristos. It is the False Apostolic Chair, whence are derived the “Petrine claims” of the Latin Papas. Below it is an “altar,” on which this Latin man first makes his God, and then sits in order to be “adored” by those whom the Council of Trent “called gods,” i.e., bishops and priests.

(b) ROMISH TESTIMONY TO IDENTITY.

Cardinal Wiseman (“Recollections of the Pope,” pp. 229, 230) said: “The Papal throne is lofty, and is erected opposite the altar, in the sanctuary.

“The Altar is the object of all reverence, (2 Thess. ii. 3, 4) towards it, all kneel and worship the consecrated elements there.” (A terrible admission of idolatry.)

Archbishop Ullathorne said (“Letters from Rome,” p. 216): “The multitudes kneel when the Pontiff lifts up the God of Heaven and earth in his mortal hands.”

Cardinal Manning (“Sermon on the Pope’s Jubilee”) declared that “The priest’s hand is the instrument of bringing the Lord of Heaven on the Altar.”

Said Mr. Eustace, a Popish priest, who witnessed this “Adoration” of the Pope: “I object not to the word ‘adoration’ . . . but why should the altar be made his footstool? The altar—the beauty of holiness, the throne of the Victim-Lamb, the mercy-seat of the temple of Christianity; why should the altar be converted into the footstool of a mortal?” (“Classical Tour,” Vol, IV., Appendix, p. 396, Leghorn Edition).

Well might Mr. Gladstone, in his “Rome: Newest Fashions in Religion” (p. 172), ask the Pope to explain the meaning of a photograph sold in Rome by Cleofe Ferrari, representing “a double scene, one in the heavens above, one on the earth below.” “Above . . . is one of those figures of the Eternal Father which we in England view with repugnance. On the right hand of that figure stands . . . the Blessed Virgin Mary, with the moon under her feet (Rev. xii. 1); on the left hand . . . is St. Peter, kneeling on one knee—kneeling to the Virgin, not to God. In the scene below . . . on the pedestal is Pope Pius IX., in a sitting posture, with his hands clasped, his crown, the Tri-regno, on his head, and a stream of light falling upon him from a dove, forming part of the upper combination, and representing the Holy Spirit. The Pope’s head is not turned towards the figure of the Almighty. Round the. pedestal are four kneeling figures apparently representing the four great quarters of the globe, whose corporal adoration is visibly directed towards the Pontiff. . . We commend this most profane piece of adulation to the notice of the Cardinal Vicar.”

That the Antichrist of prophecy is the Latin Papacy is proved by the Roman Missal, the Decrees, Canons, and Catechism of the Council of Trent—when compared with I Tim iii.: 2:Thess. ii.: Rev. xiii., xvii., as well as the following Early Testimonies of the “Fathers”:

Irenaeus: “The number of Antichrist’s name shall be expressed by this word, LATINUS”;

Sybilla: “The greatest terror and fury of his Empire, and the greatest woe that he shall work, shall be by the banks of Tiber”;

Jerome: “Antichrist shall sit in the temple of God, either at Jerusalem, as some think, or else in the Church itself, as we more correctly consider”; “Antichrist shall cause all religion to be subject to his power”;

Gregory I.- “I speak it boldly, whosoever calleth himself Catholic Priest, or desireth so to be called, in the pride of his heart, is the forerunner of Antichrist”; “By this pride of his (John, bishop of Constantinople), what thing else is signified, but that the time of Antichrist is even at hand”; “The King of Pride is coming to us, and an army of priests is prepared …”;

Bernard: “The Beast that is spoken of in the Book of Revelation … is now gotten into Peter’s chair,” and though these words were spoken against Petrus Luna, who usurped the see of Rome in the time of Pope Innocent VII., they prove that in (Romish “Saint”) Bernard’s judgment the Antichrist can sit in Peter’s chair: “Bestia nolens os Ioquens blasphemias occupat Cathedram Petri”; (From Google translation of the Latin: Beasts unwillingly speaking blasphemies occupy the Chair of Peter.)

Joachim Abbas: “Antichrist is already born in Rome, and shall advance himself higher in the Apostolic See”;

Arnulphius, in the Council of Rheims: “What think you, reverend Fathers, of this man sitting on high in his throne, glittering in purple, and cloth of gold? Verily if be be void of charity . . . then he is Antichrist sitting in the temple of God, and showing out himself as if he were God”;

The Bishops in the Council of Reinspurg: “Pope Hildebrand under a color of holiness hath laid the foundation for Antichrist”;

Dante calls Rome the “Whore of Babylon”;

Petrarch: “Rome is the Whore of Babylon, the Mother of Idolatry and Fornication, the Sanctuary of Heresy, and the School of Error.”

(c) HEATHENISM DISGUISED.

The “Chair of St. Peter” is heathenish. The “altar” below it is heathenish. The “Adoration” of the Pope is heathenish. The “kneeling” to the image of the Virgin ts heathenish. The peacocks’ feathers, or Filabelli, are heathenish (Egyptian). The processions and pageantry are heathenish. Everything about the Latin man and his religion is heathenish—Romish Cardinals and Archbishops being witnesses. Thus the “Archbishop of Birmingham,” in his Mid-Lent Pastoral, in 1917, said: “During Passiontide the Church, by her public offices and liturgy, and by the draping of altars and statues, intimates . . . the Sacred Passion. Yet on Maundy Thursday she puts off her garments of sorrow and resumes her festal attire . . . that we may . . . rejoice in the institution of the adorable sacrifice” of the Mass! This is imitated from the old Pagan worship, in which the clothing of the gods occupied an important place (see Homer’s Iliad, vi. 269-311).

The bronze statue of St. Peter at Rome was formerly a statue of Jupiter—as Torrigio (8th century) admits (II Vaticano Illustrato, and Brock’s Rome: Pagan and Papal, p. 121). On various annual solemnities, it is the custom to clothe this image in full Pontifical dress, “and so to present it for the worship of the faithful, rich with gold and gems” (Ibid. pp, 123.and 431)… Picart (Vol. I., p. 13) thus refers to the modern Romish custom of kissing images: “With us the priest kisses the altar, the cross, the relics, the thurible, the paten and the chalice.” The bronze image of St. Peter is brightly polished by the kissings and rubbings of worshipers, including the Pope. Cardinal Baronius (d. 1607) was the first to introduce its worship . . . which laudable custom others followed, to the wearing away of the brass of the statue” (Ciacconius: 4 vols. fol. Rome: 1677). 600 years B.C., apostate Israelites kissed the calves (Hosea xiii. 2), and a century earlier, they adored Baal and kissed the bloodstained idol of Phoenicia (2 Kings xix. 18), just as the heathen used to kiss the image of Hercules at Agrigentium.

Rome boasts that it has “Christianized” Paganism by adopting its worship, and changing the names of the images! In reality it has paganized Christianity!

The following extract from the Christian World supplies the answer:—”Newman, in a passage of his ‘Essay on Development,’ speaking of the early Catholicism in its contact with the heathen world, says:— ‘Temples, incense, lamps, and candles, votive offerings, holy water, asylums, holy days, and seasons, processions, blessings on the fields, sacerdotal vestments, the tonsure, the ring in marriage, turning to the east, images, and the Kyrie Eleison are ALL OF PAGAN ORIGIN, and sanctified by their adoption into the Church.’ Pope Gregory the Great, in his letter to the English missionaries, gives the rationale of the process. ‘Let them,’ he says, ‘hang garlands round their temples, turned into churches, and let them celebrate such festivals with modest repasts. Instead of immolating animals to demons, let them kill such animals and eat them . . . so that, by allowing them such material pleasures, they may the more easily be brought to share in spiritual joys. For it is impossible to expect savage minds to give up all their customs at once.’”

The passage from Cardinal Newman will be found in his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, London, 1846, p. 359.

(d) FULFILLMENTS OF PROPHETIC FEATURES.

This leads us to the fulfillment of Revelation xiii. 11-17 and xix. 20, or the identification of the “False Prophet” or Pagan False Priesthood, for that that is the meaning of “two horns like a lamb” is clear from the facts: (1) that our Lord used a parallel simile to denote false Christian ministers (Matthew vii. 15); and (2) the word “Lamb” is everywhere in the Apocalypse the symbol of Christ, and therefore the figure necessarily denotes a False Christian ministry; which, being a “Wild Beast,” is of heathen origin.

Now the “Canon Law” of Rome is a compilation of documents, some of them emanating from Popes, but the majority from Papal Councils and so-called “theologians” and Romish priests. It is principally in this enormous “Corpus Juris Canonici” that are found all the false claims of the Popes, their false teaching, their false history, their usurpations. It is in the “Canon Law” that the Pope is called God, (Decretum Gregorii, XII.) and “Lord God.” (Decretals, Gregory IX.) It is in the “Canon Law” that the Pope is described as “God, because he is God’s Vicar.” (Decretals of Innocent.) In fact, Romish writers style the “Canon Law” and “Decretals” the “Pope’s Oracle,” as representing the Pope’s mind. Romish casuists say of the Pope: “As Christ was God, he, too, was to be looked on as God.” The “Sacrum Ceremoniale” speaks of “The Apostolic Chair” as “The Seat of God.” By permission of priestly superiors, works are published by Romish ecclesiastics, styling the Pope “Vice-God.”

Papal excommunications and anathemas are styled “Fire from Heaven” by Papists. Thus Gregory VII. spoke of Henry IV. as “struck with thunder“—afflatum fulmino; and at the first Council of Lyons, the excommunication of the Emperor Frederick by Pope Innocent is described thus: “These words, uttered in the midst of the Council, struck the hearers with terror, as might the flashing thunderbolts, when, with candles lighted and flung down, the Lord Pope and his assistant prelates flashed their lightning fire against the Emperor.

In the Roman “Pontifical,” compiled by ecclesiastics, the following is put into the mouths of Popish Bishops when threatening the “greater excommunication” (or, as it is called in Ireland, “Putting fire to your heels and toes”): “We adjudge you to be anathematized and condemned with the devil and his angels, and all the reprobate in eternal fire . . “; “We separate (Rev. xiii. 15, 17) you from the fellowship of all Christians and exclude you from the threshold of the Holy Mother Church in Heaven and earth, and decree you to be excommunicated.”

By a General Papal Council of Ecclesiastics was the Bull “Unam Sanctam” enacted, which subjected everyone to the Pope. Gregory, Bishop of Rome, himself realized the force of the prophecy when he declared, “The King of Pride is at hand; and an army of priests is prepared,” “because the clergy war and strive for mastery and advancement, who were appointed to go before others in humility”; “under the aspect of sheep we nourish the fangs of the wolf.” History tells us that from the time of Gregory, the ecclesiastics of Rome were one body, under one papal head, bishops lording it over secular priests, abbots and generals of monastic orders over the “Regulars”;—”Seculars” and “Regulars” forming the “two horns” of the pretended Lamb-like pagan hierarchy, all alike employed in deceiving the laity, and enforcing the claims of the Pope, “before him” (Compare 2 Tim. iv. 1, 2) i.e., with his sanction, approval and support.

It must never be forgotten that as “Bishop of the Apostolic See,” the Pope claims the headship of the Universal Church, and lordship over all ecclesiastics—Regular and Secular; whilst, in his capacity as successor of the Caesars, and occupier of their “throne,” he claims the lordship over all temporal powers in the Roman earth. Beyond and above these two claims, he, as “Vicar of Christ,” or “Vice-God,” poses as “King of Kings, and Lord of Lords,” with power over Heaven, and Earth, and Purgatory—a claim embodied in the Triple Crown he wears.

Hence the Bull “Unam Sanctam” declares it essential to salvation to be subject to the Pope. Accordant with which claim, all ecclesiastics take the vow of “obedience,” and receive the Sign of the Cross (“Pontificale Romanum,” p. 49) as a sign of obedience to the Pope; and these, in turn, administer to emperors and kings, and to all within the confines of the Latin Church, the oath of submission to the Pope, and fealty—along with the “Sign of the Cross,” which is impressed upon the foreheads, or hands, with the right hand of the operator—even as a great army of soldiers under the papal banner—from birth right onwards to death.

When the Crusaders captured Jerusalem, they established “the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem,” they all being Papists. And when the Easterns separated from the Westerns, they denominated the latter, because of their subjection to Rome, “the Latins,” a name which has ever since the sixth century described the religion emanating from Rome, as well as the nations connected with that city. “Latin” has been the peculiar distinctive title of the Popedom, of its religion, of its hierarchy, and of its “Image” or Representative Oracle – Papal Councils. Historians, with one accord, describe “the Latin world,” “the Latin Kingdoms,” “the Latin Church,” etc. The only Bible ever adopted by Rome is the Latin Vulgate. Papal Bulls, Papal Councils, the Mass, all speak in Latin. Hence Irenaeus’s elucidation of the “Name of the Beast” as the name of the man. Lateinos, was marvel- lously “wise.”

(e) THE NAME OF A MAN.

Now, who was Lateinos (or Latinus, in Latin)? He was the head and originator of the Latin race—a prince, supposed to be the son of Faunus and the nymph Marcia. He ruled the country bordering on the Tiber. His daughter, Lavinia, married AEneas, the Trojan, and from them were descended the founders of Rome, viz., the people of Latium, or Latins. Julius Caesar claimed lineal descent from AEneas and Latinus—the first Latin man. “The” Beast bears his name. The “name of the Beast,” therefore, is Latin. “The Beast” itself must be a “Head” within the confines of the fourth Wild Beast of Prophecy—or Latin Power of Rome— as all admit. It must be arrogant and self-exalting; its voice must be imperious and loud; in its “seat” or “throne” must it honor Hercules, the pagan god; its coadjutor and myrmidon must professedly be a Christian “prophet” or priestly class—with “two Lamb-like horns”—claiming miraculous powers, displaying intolerance, and insisting on a pagan symbol as a mark of faith, on pain of excommunication, or as expressed in Revelation xiii, 15-17, “that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark or name of the Beast, or the number of his name”—which, translated from symbol to fact, means boycotting, or exclusive dealing against all who were not signed with the mark of the Beast, i.e., the Cross, or were not Latins, i.e., Papists.

(f) REVELATION XIII. 17.

All this, and much besides, has been realized by the Papal Ecclesiastics—Regular and Secular—for the past twelve hundred years. A canon of the Lateran Council, under Pope Alexander III., decreed that no one should entertain or cherish heretics in his house or land, or exercise traffic with them.

The Synod of Tours forbade Papists from buying from, or selling to, “heretics”; so, too, the Council of Constance. In short, no “heretic” may be traded with, or associated with, by any “good Catholic,” according to Canon Law and Romish teaching. Hence the “boycotting” in Ireland, and the priestly condemnation of “Protestants,” the “No- Rent” manifesto, and all the bigotry and intolerance displayed by Jesuits, monks, nuns, and priests of Rome, who claim superhuman power—even that of changing bread into God, of compelling Christ to descend every day from Heaven, to consign to Hell-fire, to immolate Christ, to “put fire to heels and toes,” to forbid commercial transactions and to command persecution. “The History of Freedom and Other Essays,” by John E. E. Dalburg Acton. Edited by J. N. Figgis, Lit.D., and R. V. Lawrence, M.A., pp. 138- 141. (Macmillan, 1909.) “It is part of the punishment of heretics that faith shall not be kept with them. It is even a mercy to kill them, that they may sin no more.”

(g) THE LAWLESS ONE (HO ANOMOS). 2 THESS. II. 8.

Nor is there any difficulty in identifying HO ANOMOS, the Lawless One, or person exempt from law. For, not only by Papal Bulls, Edicts, Encyclicals, and Decrees have commands been issued deliberately contrary to God’s Laws, Christ’s injunctions, and to Scripture—such as clerical celibacy, monastic fasting and false piety, persecution of heretics, crusades, marriage within prohibited degrees. (for instance, the Duke of Aosta was allowed by Pope Leo XIII., for the sum of £4,000, to contract an incestuous marriage with his own sister’s daughter, Princess Letitia), indulgences, canonization of the dead, deposing power, temporal power, and so on; but also claims have been, and are, put forth absolutely opposed to Truth, to fact, and to earthly laws made by nations and rulers for the betterment of their states; claims to be above all law. “Papa solutus est omni lege humana. The Pope is exempt from all human law.”

Cardinal Manning, speaking for the Pope, said: “I am liberated from all civil subjection . . . I acknowledge no civil superior. I am the subject of no prince . . . The subject of no one on earth . . .”

In the Decretals of Pope Gregory IX. we read that the Pope “is said to have a heavenly power; and hence he changes even the nature of things, applying the substantials of one thing to another, and can make something out of nothing; and a judgment which is null he makes to be real; since in the things which he wills his will is taken for reason; nor is there anyone to say to him: ‘Why dost thou this?’ for he can dispense with the Law; he can also turn injustice into justice by correcting and changing the Law, and he has the fullness of power.”

By the Vatican Decree of July, 1870, it was declared that “such definitions of the Roman Pontiff . . . are irreformable.”

Indeed, the very words of Daniel vii, 25 were embodied by the Pope in one blasphemous Decree: “Wherefore, no marvel if it be in my power to change times and laws, to alter and abrogate laws, to dispense with all things, yea, with the precepts of Christ.” This was Pope Nicholas.

The Romish “Canonist,” Reiffensteul, as well as other authorities and Popes, deliberately have taught that the Pope has power to “absolve” from oaths, to “dispense from” oaths, to “annul” oaths, and, generally, to play fast and loose with oaths. In the “Decretum,” Part II., Canon XV., Quaest. VII., we read that the Pope’s authority “altogether annuls unlawful oaths,” “absolves from oath of allegiance”; and that “those subject to an oath of allegiance to an excommunicated person, are not bound.” In the “Decretals of Gregory,” Book II., tit. xxiv., ch. xxvii., says: “An oath taken against the Church’s interest does not bind.”

That this teaching is acted upon we have evidence. Thus Pope Pius IX., in his “Encyclical” of February 5th, 1875, declared certain Prussian Laws “null and void,” and excommunicated the framers of them (“Tablet,” February 27th, 1875).

In 1855 he declared to be absolutely null and void the Laws of the Piedmontese Government; and of the Kingdoms of Sardinia and of Spain; in 1856 those of Mexico; in 1862 those of Austria; in 1863 those of New Granada; on the ground of the inherent right of the Pope to disannul all Laws relating to the Roman religion (see “Constitutio Apostolicae Sedis” also, which was in 1869 substituted for the Bull, In Caena Domini).

Lord Acton tells us that Pope Gregory XIII.’s reply to the French King’s announcement of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew was “that he desired for the glory of God, and the good of France, that the Huguenots should be extirpated utterly” (“North British Review,” October, 1869).

Pius V. declared that he would release a culprit guilty of a hundred murders rather than one obstinate heretic. He wished to destroy Faenza because of its “heresy.” He adjured the French King to make no terms with Huguenots, and not to observe the terms he had made. He ordered them to be pursued to death. The same ideas pervaded the “sacred College” under Pope Gregory (Ibid.).

Lord Acton (“Essays on Liberty,” pp. 140, 141) said that the many plots and massacres that brought disgrace upon the Church of Rome were based on the theory that: “Treaties made with heretics, and promises given to them, must not be kept, because sinful promises do not bind, and no agreement is lawful which may injure religion or ecclesiastical authority.

“No civil power may enter into engagements which impede the free scope of the Church’s law. It is part of the punishment of heretics that faith must not be kept with them. It is even mercy to kill them that they may sin no more.”

The Jesuit organ, “The Month” (Vol. XVIII. for 1879, p. 320), said: “It is false to say that the Pope can, in no instance . . . absolve from an oath.”

As further examples of Papal lawlessness, let the following be considered. Pope Innocent III. said: “We can dispense from law, according to our plenitude of power over law” (“Decret. Greg. IX.,” 8, iv.). Pius IX., writing to Count Duval de Beaulieu (“Allegemeine Zeitung,” November 13th, 1864), said that “the Church” has power over the Government of Civil Society, and direct jurisdiction and right of interference in temporal matters. (It is on this evil principle that the Popish Bishops in Ireland have lately urged opposition to Conscription—a matter wholly outside “the Church”), The Jesuit organ in Rome, “Civilta Cattolica” (1885, Vol. I., p. 55), actually described the Inquisition as “a sublime spectacle of social perfection”; and the Jesuit, Schrader, supporting Pope Pius IX.’s “Syl- labus,” said that the Popes have never exceeded the bounds of their power, or usurped the rights of princes. Pope Clement IV., in 1265, sold millions of South Italians to Charles of Anjou, for a yearly tribute of 800 ounces of gold, and threatened excommunication if the first installment was late; whilst, if the second tarried, the entire nation would incur interdict (Raynaldus, p. 162).

One far-reaching claim is that every baptized person is, ipso facto, a subject of the Pope, willy-nilly, even though outside the Latin Church, and so subject to Papal Law (Dollinger, “The Pope and the Council,” p. 163). This claim was made by Pius IX. when writing to the Emperor of Germany, shortly after the downfall of Papal temporal power in 1870.

The Canonist, Kirchenrecht (7 Vols. Regensburg, 1855- 72, translated by G. Phillips), lays down the rule that “the Church has dominion over those without, as well as those within. The latter, by baptism, are sworn vassals. Anyone who rejects any doctrine is a ‘formal heretic.’ He need not belong to any sect. The Church is entitled to proceed to compulsion by virtue of the jurisdiction over baptized persons which belongs to her. She cannot tolerate heresy.”

Pope Leo XIII. urged that the scholastic philosophy of Thomas Aquinas be taught in all seminaries and schools. Aquinas taught that “Christ is fully and completely with every Pope in sacrament and authority.” The Pope can establish new confessions of faith; whoever rejects his authority is a “heretic” (Summa ii., 2, Q. 1, Art. 10; Q. xi., Art. 2, 3). Aquinas, using spurious writings of Cyril, taught that there is no difference between Christ and the Pope, and represented the Early Fathers as saying that the rulers of the world obey the Pope, as Christ (Opus xxxiv., xx. 540:580, Ed. Paris).

Bishop Cornelio Musso, of Bitonto, preaching in Rome, said: “What the Pope says we must receive as though spoken by God Himself. In Divine things we hold him to be God.” (Consciones in Ep. ad Rom, p. 606).

Pope Benedict XIV. said: “No one who is not Bishop of Rome can be styled successor of St. Peter” (De Synod Dioeces., II., i.).

Some of the Papal claims have been founded on, and are supported by, forgeries (see Dollinger’s “The Pope and the Council,” and Littledale’s “The Petrine Claims”). Yet the Canon Law containing those forgeries is still in use by Popes and Papists. Thus Cyprian’s alleged evidence in favor of Papal claims, admittedly a forgery, has actually been replaced in the text by F. Hurter, S.J., in his “Sanctorum Patrum Opuscula Selecta,” and is cited as genuine by Mr. Allnutt, in his “Cathedra Petri,” both of which works received Papal approval. Thus literary falsification is one of the characteristics or lawless features of the Papal system. It is a feature characteristic of ultramontanism, so much so that one may stigmatize Popery as systematized lies, to pseudos, and utterly opposed to the Truth as it is in Jesus; hence, the system is emphatically anomos, lawless.

Hence, when one reads such Papal Canonists as Ferraris, and finds them saying: “Ubi Papa, ibi Roma,” or styling the Bishop of Rome, “Pope of the Eternal City, the Apostolic Diocese’ (Baronius, An., 445, IX., X.), or “Pope of Old Rome, the Patriarchal See” (Synod of Constance, A.D. 859), one is prepared for almost any untruth whose object is the enhancement of the Pope’s claims to be what he is not, and never was. Even so, however, one can hardly conceive the possibility of lawless disregard for Truth, fact, and history, to soar to such heights as the subjoined extract from the Vatican Council of 1869-70’s “Decretum de Ecclesia.”

“The Holy Apostolic See and the Roman Pontiff hold the primacy over the whole world, and the Roman Pontiff himself is the successor of blessed Peter, Princes of the Apostles and the true Vicar of Christ, and Head of the whole Church, and Father and teacher of all Christians, and that full power was given to him in blessed Peter, by the Lord Jesus Christ, of feeding, ruling, and governing the Church Universal.”

For this claim, thus phrased, is precisely a paraphrase of the Holy Spirit’s delineation of the Antichrist, the the Sham Christ. Accompanied, as it was, by the blasphemous Decree of Papal Infallibility, it may be taken as God’s exposure of the “Lie,” the evidence forced by the Almighty from the “great voice” on seven hills, that he is “of his father the Devil,” for Satan was a liar from the beginning, and the Father of Lies; and Antichrist is Satan’s consummated mystery of iniquity (2 Thess. ii. 9; Rev. xi. 7; xvii. 8; John ix. 44; viii.44); his earthly spokesman; his Vicar.

(h) BURIAL OF HERETICS AND BOYCOTTING. REV. XI. 9.

It was predicted in Revelation xi. 9 that the burial of witnesses for Christ should be proscribed by Antichrist’s followers; and in Revelation xiii. 17 that trading should be forbidden to “heretics.”

It is distinctly laid down in the Decrees of the Third Lateran Council (Decret. Greg., Lib. V. tit. vii., cap. 8, as cited by Priest Bailly, tome iii, p. 139) that “heretics and those who defend and receive them shall be placed under anathema, and we prohibit under anathema that any shall presume to have them, or to entertain them in their house or in their territory, or to carry on any negotiation with them.* But if any die in this iniquity, neither under pretense of any privileges of ours granted to any such, nor under any other pretext whatsoever, let any offering be made for them, nor let them receive burial among Christians.”

* Liguori: Moral. Theol., Lib. VII., §188, etc., defines “greater excommunication,” “os, orare, vale, communio, mensa, negatur,” thus: “os,” all conversation, and intercourse, are forbidden; “orare,” all communion in spiritual things is forbidden; “vale,” all salutations are forbidden; “communio,” marriage, dwelling together, working at the same trade, walking together, are forbidden; “mensa,” all intercourse in food, society, or commerce. This ‘greater excommunication” was hurled by Pope Pius IX. in 1855, against Sardinia, for passing acts of toleration and reform.

Burial of Heretics is forbidden in Butler’s Catechism, Lesson XXI.: “What punishment has the Church decreed against those who neglect to receive the blessed Eucharist at Easter?” Ans.: “They are to be excluded from the House of God while living, and deprived of Christian burial when they die.” See also Dr. Douglas’ Catechism, Lesson XXI. They both quote the Council of Lateran, 21st Canon.

This is more clearly enforced in the Canon, Quicunque Haereticos, which declares: “Whosoever shall have presumed to give knowingly Christian burial to heretics—those who believe, receive, defend or favor them, let them know that they are placed under sentence of excommunication till they shall have made suitable satisfaction.

“Nor let them deserve the benefit of absolution till, with their own hands, they shall publicly drag from the tomb and cast out the bodies of damned persons of this sort, and let that spot be destitute of sepulcher for ever.” (Sext. Decret. Lib. V., tit. ii., cap. 2, Alexander IV., A.D. 1258. Corpus Jeris Canonici, tome ii. Magdeburgh, 1747).

Here we have a most conspicuous fulfillment of Revelation xi. 9 in medieval days. But modern fulfillments are at hand also. Thus the Belfast “News Letters” of December 15th, 1891, reported a case where the Protestant Rector of Christ Church, Bessbrook, found a coffin close to his house. It contained the corpse of a Protestant, named Patrick Kinney, who had been buried a week previously in the Romish Cemetery at Mullaglass. Because he had formerly been a Papist, but married a Protestant, and declined a Popish priest’s services when dying, the Papists, “with their own bands, dragged from the tomb and cast out the body” of this “heretic,” exactly as directed in the Corpus Juris!

In Canada, serious riots took place in 1875 over the burial of a man named Guibord, a member of the “Institut Canadien,” which had been denounced by the Popish Bishop of Montreal. Eight years previously, viz., in 1867, Guibord died, but the Popish authorities refused him burial in their cemetery. On appeal to the Law Courts and Privy Council, a mandamus was issued for burial in the Popish cemetery. It took eight years of costly litigation to obtain this; but the Papal authorities engineered a mob riot, which stoned the hearse, filled up the empty grave, and then the Popish Bishop of Montreal declared that if the body was buried by force, he would curse and interdict the ground it lay in! (“New York Times” and “New York Herald,” September 11th, 1875; “Times,” November 17th, 1875.) The object of this Bishop and the Papists was to assert the supremacy of Canon Law over British Law.

In 1877 a case occurred in Vineland, New Jersey, where Joseph Maggioli, a Romanist, had been buried in the Popish cemetery. The priest wrote to the widow, ordering her to remove the body, under pain of having it forcibly removed, and of prosecution for trespass. His name was P. Vivet. Owing to the indignation aroused the priest said that “he would have a line drawn round Maggioli’s grave, so that it should be left in unconsecrated ground” (“Boston Congregationalist,” 1877). In 1878 the “Montreal Witness,” of June 13th, reported “A Guibord case” in Cleveland. A Romanist, named Joseph Oberle, was a prominent Forester. The Popish priest refused to bury him in consecrated ground, although Oberle had paid for a plot of ground.

Owing to the high-handed action of the Popish Archbishop Vaughan, of New South Wales, in 1882, the “Times” (January 31st, 1882) used these words: “No quarter is given to any backsliding Romanist who presumes to have an independent opinion. He is put out of communion with his Church; and while denounced during his life, the rites of sepulture (burial) are withheld from his remains after death.”

In France, up to 1881, the Popish Law closed the cemetery gates against dead Protestants, Dissenters, unbaptised babes and suicides. During a debate in the Chamber, the Popish Bishop, Frappel, said: “One Protestant corpse in a Catholic cemetery would profane and desecrate the whole place.” One M.P. declared that Protestants had been forced to bury their dead in fields and gardens, owing to the priests. The Chamber was so disgusted with the conduct of the Papal party that it declared, by 348 votes to 120, that cemeteries in France should thenceforward be thrown open to dead Protestants (“Morning Advertiser,” 1881).

In Prussia the priests tried the same system, but under Bismarck’s regime got the worst of it. The Romish paper, “The Universe,” of February 11th, 1882, waxed furious in describing two cases, where priests were indicted and punished for not allowing burials in “consecrated ground.” In one case, that of a poor little baby, who had not been baptized, this Popish paper described it, like the adult, as an “infidel.”

This heartless and relentless cruelty is quite accordant with the teaching of the Catechism of the Council of Trent, which declares that: “All, unless regenerated through the grace of baptism, are born to eternal misery and everlasting destruction,” and that “infants, unbaptized, cannot enter Heaven.” (Donovan’s Translation, pp. 171, 172, 173, Dublin, 1820).

“The Times” of January 23rd, 1834, reported a shocking case at Carrickbeg, Co. Tipperary, where a crowd of fanatical Papists tried to prevent the burial of a corpse, “amid the most fearful imprecations on the deceased, and threats that they would dig up the body.”

The “Irish Times” of September 9th, 1921, described the taking over, by Benedictine nuns, of a former Protestant church at Kylemore. The Popish Archbishop of Tuam said that originally “the church was not built for proselytizing purposes. It was built as a place of Divine worship for Mr. Mitchell Henry’s own family, for all whose members the priests and people of the district had the greatest esteem.” The priests and people manifested this esteem by casting out Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell Henry’s ashes from the little church he had built, and where they had reposed in peace for years. It was only after the expulsion of their poor remains that the church could be dedicated by the Popish Archbishop to its new use-—as a Popish fane (church) (“The Catholic,” October, 1921; p. 109).

(i) REMOVAL OF THE “LET.” 2 THESS. II. 6, 7.

In 2 Thess. ii. 6 “what withholdeth” is neuter; in verse 7. “he who letteth” is masculine. Ere the man of the Apostasy could be “revealed,” the obstruction had to be removed “out of the way,” this obstruction being swayed by some Perpetual Person.

What was the restraint which, in Paul’s day, hindered the manifestation of the Man of the Apostasy? Tertullian, in the second century, said: “What is this restraining Power? What but the Roman State.” Similarly, Iraeneus affirmed that on the dismemberment of the Empire then in existence, the catastrophe would occur. So Cyril, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Augustine, Jerome in the fifth century— this lest adding, “Let us therefore say what all ecclesiastical writers have delivered to us, that when the Roman Empire is to be destroyed, ten Kings will divide the Roman world among themselves, and then will be revealed the Man of Sin”; “he who hindereth is taken out of the way, and we consider not that Antichrist is at hand.” So again, Justin Martyr and Hippolytus, the latter saying: “This [Rome] is the Fourth Beast, whose Head was wounded, and healed again; and Antichrist will heal and restore it.” Cyprian, likewise, spoke of the imminent proximity of Antichrist in his day.

It was this early Christian tradition that caused Christians to pray for the continuance of the heathen Roman Empire. Thus Lactantius: “Beseech the God of Heaven that the Roman State might be preserved, lest, more speedily than we supposed, that hateful tyrant should come.” So Chrysostom: “As Rome succeeded Greece, so Antichrist is to succeed Rome.”

This heathen imperial power was swayed by, and centered in a series of single persons, the Caesars—following one another in succession. History exactly corresponds to prophecy. When Constantine, the Roman Emperor, removed the seat of power from the seven-hilled city of Rome to Constantinople, then the restraint began to be removed which had prevented the Bishops of Rome from exercising temporal power or promulgating Anti-Christian claims. And when the last Western Caesar was forced to abdicate in A.D. 475, Rome ceased to be the “seat” of imperial secular power, and the Bishops of Rome began to put forward claims which exactly correspond with the predictions of Daniel, Paul, and the Apocalypse; for the restraint was ek mesou—”out of the way”—of the claimant to the seven- hilled city. As Cardinal Baronius (Annals, An., 324-30) admits, even during Constantine’s reign, the Bishops of Rome had amassed wealth, and before the end of the fourth century their wealth and splendor excited envy and wonder. Andreas (Bibl. P. Max., V., 623) asserts that “most of the ancient interpreters in the Church affirm that the Apocalyptic prophecies concerning Babylon regard Rome,” and that the Man of Sin, when he appears, “will be as Sovereign of Rome, and, in the opinion of some, in the Temple, or Church of God”—just as the earliest extant Commentary by Bishop Victorinus, in the third century, says: “The city of Babylon, that is, Rome; the City on seven hills, that is, Rome.”

Cardinals Bellarmine and Baronius admit that in the Apocalypse John “calls Rome Babylon,” and Bishop Bossuet likewise admits it. In the locality where prophecy places Antichrist, there history, with one accord, places the bishops of Rome—viz., in the city of Rome on the seven hills, in the capacity of successors of Caesar, not of Peter the Apostle.

(j) History’s AGREEMENT WITH PROPHECY.

And precisely at the period pointed to by prophecy, viz., on the removal of the Imperial power from the city of Rome, does history describe the rise into Anti-Christian power of the Bishops of Rome.

Dean Milman (“History of Latin Christianity,” Bk. iii., ch. iii.) said: “The foundation of Constantinople marks one of the great periods of change in the annals of the world. The removal of the seat of empire from Rome, . . . the absence of a secular competition, allowed the Papal authority to grow up, and develop its secret strength. By the side of the imperial power . . . constantly repressed in its slow but steady advancement to supremacy . . . The Pope . . . in any other city would in vain have asserted his descent from St. Peter.”

Gibbon (“Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” ch. xlix.): “The same character was assumed, the same policy was adopted by the Italian, the Greek, or the Syrian, who ascended the Chair of St. Peter; and, after the loss of her (Rome’s) legions and provinces, the genius and fortune of the Popes again restored the supremacy of Rome.”

Bishop Doyle, the Popish Controversialist (“Essay on the Catholic Claims,” sect. 5): “The seeds of decay were growing in the Roman Empire when the seat of government was removed to Constantinople . . . and Rome . . . now stripped of nearly all her wealth and glory, looked upon her Prelate as the last stay of her power. . . .”

Abbé H. Lacordaire (“Lettre sur le Saint Siege, p. 29): “If you would trace the temporal sovereignty of the Holy See to its source, you shall find that it has been derived from four concurrent circumstances . . . first, the decline of the Eastern Empire, which could no longer defend Rome against the barbarians; secondly, the ambition of the Lombard Kings, who desired to subject it [Rome] to their crown; thirdly, the protection of two great men in succession, Pepin and Charlemagne; finally, the love (!) which all the inhabitants of Rome felt towards the Sovereign Pontiff.”

Abbe Mably (Feller, in Art., Constantine): “It was determined by eternal (infernal?) interests, that Rome should henceforth have no other splendor than was derived from the Chair of her Pontiff.”

Count Le Maistre (“Du Pape,” Vol. I., p. 245): “While Rome was yet pagan, the Roman Pontiff bored the Caesars. The Emperors, who bore, amidst his titles, that of Sovereign Pontiff, could less endure a Pope than a competitor for his Empire. A hand unseen removed him from the Eternal City, to bestow it on the chief of the eternal (infernal?) Church. The same enclosure could not contain the Emperor and the Pontiff.

Mons. Masse (“Torts du Protestantisme envers les peuples”): “The choice of Byzantium by the first Christian Emperor permitted the Pontifical hierarchy to place above physical force a moral (!) power, distinct and separate, which displayed to all eyes its origin.”

Abbé du Pradt (“Concordat de l’Amérique avec Rome,” p. 70): “The removal of the Emperors to Constantinople gave rise to the greatness of the Popes.”

Gibbon (“Decline and Fall,” cxxi.) says that “the wealth and luxury of the Popes of the fourth century . . . represent the intermediate degree between the humble poverty of the Apostolic Fisherman and the Royal State of a Temporal Prince.”

In the year A.D. 595 Bishop Gregory I. of Rome denounced the title “universal Bishop”—claimed by his rival, of Constantinople—as Antichristian. Somewhere between A.D. 606 and 610 Bishop Boniface III. of Rome assumed that very title, accepting it from the Eastern Emperor Phocas, who was a usurper, a murderer, and had degraded Cyriacus, Petrarch of Constantinople, for a virtuous deed. The effect of this title upon the minds of ecclesiastics was soon apparent. As Jerome says: “When that which is temporal claims eternity, this is a Name of blasphemy.” Within forty years Theodore I., Bishop of Rome, assumed a fresh title, that of “Sovereign Pontiff.” He was the last Bishop of Rome whom bishops dared to call “brother.” A great and Antichristian change had manifestly been effected.* The “man of the Apostasy” had “revealed” himself, in his self-exaltation and pride.

* It is remarkable that 1,260 solar years, from A.D. 606-610, reach to the downfall (1870) of Papal territorial power; and 1,260 lunar years, from A.D. 646, reach to the Vatican Council of 1869, which proclaimed Papal Infallibility.

The exalted position now reached was inconsistent with dependence upon any earthly sovereign, so steps were taken to remove the custom that made the Bishop of Rome’s “consecration” dependent on the Roman Emperor’s prior approval of his “election” as Bishop. In A.D. 683 this restraint was removed by an Edict of the Emperor Constantine Pogonatus (Baronius, Epit. An. 684, i.).* The Pope was now independent, ecclesiastically as well as temporally.

*1,260 calendar years from A.D. 683 terminated in A.D. 1925; and in Solar years end in 1943. In Lunar years they ended in 1906.

Devastated by barbarians, who, ever since the fourth century, had ravaged the Roman Empire; deserted by its Sovereigns, Italy turned to the Popes, who, by force of circumstances, and by their own vaulting ambition, had become substituted for the Emperors—and so established the last form of headship over the Latin world, foretold of old.

Examine now Cardinal Newman’s words! He says, “While Apostles were on earth, there was the display of neither Bishop nor Pope” (p. 149, “Development, The Papacy.”)

Compare verse 3 of the prophecy in 2 Thess. ii.: The Man of Sin was not revealed when Paul the Apostle wrote.

The Man was to be “revealed in his own due time” (verse 6).

And Cardinal Newman says: “In course of time the power of the Pope displayed itself’ (p. 149, same Vol.).

There was something “withholding, or keeping back, the Man from appearing” in the first century (see verse 6).

And the Cardinal says: “The Imperial power, or Roman Empire, availed for keeping lack the power of the Papacy” (p, 151)

But was it generally admitted that the Empire’s power was that which hindered, or delayed, the Man of Sin?

Cardinal Newman says: “The withholding power, mentioned in Thess. ii. 6, was the Roman Empire. I grant this, for all the ancient writers so speak of it” (p. 49, “Discussions”),

Compare verse 5: “I told you these things, and now ye know what it is that withholdeth.”

“Only let the withholding party be taken away, or removed, then shall that wicked be revealed” (verse 7).

And Cardinal Newman says: “When the Imperial power had been removed to Constantinople (800 miles away!) then the Roman See came into a position of sovereignty” (p. 271, “Historic Essays,” Vol. ii.).

And again he says: “The Papacy began to form as soon as the Empire relaxed, . . . and further developments took place when that Empire fell’ (p. 152, “Development”).

Cardinal Newman says: “Pope Stephen VI. dragged the body of another Pontiff from the grave, cut off its head and three fingers, and threw it into the River Tiber. He himself was afterwards strangled in prison. Then the power of electing Popes fell into the hands of the licentious woman, Theodora, and her unprincipled daughters. One of these women advanced a lover, and another a son to the Popedom. The grandson, Octavian, ELEVATED himself to the Chair at eighteen, titled John XII.”

This is what Cardinal Newman tells us on p. 259 of his “Historic Essays”; and next page he says:—

“Pope John XII. was carried off by a blow received during his intrigues. Boniface VII. after his elevation, plundered the Church of St. Peter, and fled to Constantinople; Benedict IX. was Pope at twelve, and became notorious for adulteries and murders.

Such are a few of the most prominent features of Church History; when the world lay in wickedness, Simon the Sorcerer lording it over the Church, whose bishops and priests were given to fornication” (p. 260).

Cardinal Manning, “The Temporal Power,” p. 126; “The temporal power of the Supreme Pontiff was only in its beginning; but about the seventh century it was firmly established.” Page 16: “For 1,200 years the Bishops of Rome have reigned as temporal princes.” Page 127: “For these 1,200 years the peace . . . of Europe has been owing solely in its principle to this” (!). Page 182: “From that hour, which I might say was 1,500 years ago, or, to speak within limit, I will say was 1,200, the Supreme Pontiff has been a true and proper Sovereign.”

(Daniel vii. 25: “They shall be given into his hand, until a time, and times and half a time” i.e., three and a half times, or 1,260 years.)

(k) GRADUAL RISE INTO POWER.

When first proclaimed in words only, the Papal system was repudiated by Gregory I.—as already stated. On that theory, the Pope has the plenitude of Power, all other bishops are only his servants and auxiliaries, from him all power is derived, and he i s concurrent Ordinary in every diocese. So Gregory understood the title, “Ecumenical Patriarch,” and would not endure that so “wicked and blasphemous a title” should be given to himself or anyone else (Janus, “The Pope and the Council,” p. 84). But from the assumption of that “blasphemous title,” by Boniface III., right onwards to the promulgation of Papal Infallibility in 1870, the career of the Papacy has been one long, incessant, and ever-augmenting assumption of Antichristian “names of blasphemy,” and the putting forth of claims based on those names.

As there is no “let” or “hindrance” in existence, these claims continue to the present hour. They endanger the peace of the world, because they involve the disruption of kingdoms, the overthrow of states, and the re-establishment —by force—of that Papal territorial power, (emphasis mine) which in 1870 was rightly taken away from the Papacy by popular vote. These claims establish beyond the region of controversy, that the Papacy is the Antichrist, for they are as opposed to the Spirit of Christ as are the falsehoods, the forgeries and the pride on which they are based.

(l) FALSE BASIS AND SUPERSTRUCTURE.

That the Papacy is the outcome of belief in a falsehood is shown by the prediction in 2 Thess. ii. 11: “for this cause (i.e., because they received not the love of the truth) God sendeth them a working of error, that they should believe The Lie—to pseudos.”

What the Papacy is to-day is best described by an ex- Jesuit, Graf Paul Von Hoensbroech, for fourteen years a Jesuit priest, who, in his preface to “The Papacy in its influence upon Society and civilization,” says: “The Papacy . . . is the greatest, the most fatal and, at the same time, the most successful system of error to be found in the world’s history. The Papacy—that huge error system . . . ultramontanism is a perfectly organized system, high, dry, and broad, close-jointed, highly finished in every respect.”

In “Ultramontanism, its Bane and its Antidote,” he said: “Ultramontanism is a Secular Political System which, with and under the cloak of religion, arrogates to itself worldwide political and temporal power.”

In the former work he also says: “The Papacy, in its pretensions to be a Divine institution, deriving its existence from Christ . . . is surrounded with thousands of lies emanating from its defenders.”

Mr. J. M. Capes, in his “Reasons for Returning to the Church of England” (pp. 110-111), says: “A system which depends for success upon falsification of history is, ipso facto, a system which produces a disbelief in the value of clear and unflinching honesty of statement in the affairs of life. Accordingly, whenever the Roman ideas of Church government establish themselves, they bring with them the spirit of intrigue, and a distaste for honest, unflinching truth-telling.

The Rev. E. S. Foulkes, once a Romish priest, says in his “Difficulties of the Day,” pp. 145-153: “Gradually the conviction dawned upon me that this wondrous system . . . as it exists in our day, was a colossal Lie; a gigantic fraud; a superhuman imposture; the most artistically contrived take-in for general credence, for specious appearances, ever palmed upon mankind.” ‘Where Satan works most, it is precisely there that he is most anxious to keep farthest out of sight. I say, then, of the Roman system, that it is an agglomeration of lies, reposing on a basis of truth.”

In 1891 Leo XIII. delivered an Allocution to the Cardinals in Secret Consistory (“Tablet,” December 19th, 1891), in which he pretended that all sorts of “enemies” were “on every hand visible,” seeking to “assign boundaries to the spiritual power of the Pope, who holds it direct from God”* – where observe to pseudos—The Lie. Upon this the “Standard” of December 17th, 1891, very properly commented by pointing out its falsity: “When Leo XIII. bewails the limitations on his spiritual kingdom, he either says the thing that is not, . . . or, he is really betaking himself to lamentation because he cannot extend his spiritual kingdom, and wield . . . the temporal arm in vindication of it. If this claim means anything at all, it implies a demand to be empowered to suppress heresy, and therefore to resort to persecution.”

* In his Encyclical “De Unitate,” Leo XIII, said: “What Jesus Christ had said of Himself, we may truly repeat of ourselves.”

“At the bottom of these recurring Papal jeremiads (a speech or literary work expressing a bitter lament) is the unwillingness of the Papacy to resign itself to the loss of temporal sovereignty, and the settled resolve to go on agitating for its recovery by all the means and all the expedients at its disposal.”

Here the “Standard” most correctly exposes the Papal falsehood, which represents the Italians as its “enemies,” because they oppose its evil demands and claims to use force. As this paper pointed out: “in other words, the Pope’s Allocution, which is ostensibly a spiritual utterance, is a political manifesto.’ That is, it is a Lie.

The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, in his “Rome: Newest Fashions in Religion,” showed incontestably from Papal Documents, from the “Syllabus” and “Encyclical” of 1864, and from the “Speeches” of Pius IX., that the claims of the Pope are a series of violent tirades and political harangues disguised as religious utterances, all having for their object the restoration of Papal territorial power, in order to possess the means of enforcing the Papal Will, and of suppressing all opposition by force. The mendacity accompanying these utterances is fully set forth by Mr. Gladstone, himself an expert in the art of “camouflage.” No more conspicuous an example of the prevailing falsehood of Papal remarks can be conceived than Pius IX.’s description of the atrocious Kingdom of Bomba (this seems to be referring to Sicily. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_II_of_the_Two_Sicilies), as a Kingdom of “repose and tranquility,” for which he “prays,” a “Kingdom of peace and prosperity.” As Mr. Gladstone indignantly observed: “This is the language in which the Pope is not ashamed to speak of a Government founded upon the most gross and abominable perjury, cruel and base in all its details to the last degree.”*

*Archbishop Bagshawe did not hesitate to say: “There is no Christianity outside of the Catholic Church”; so also states Pius X.’s Catechism, thus placing Christianity inside a colossal lie.

(m) FALSEHOODS.

The language of falsehood is inseparable from the Popedom. This falsehood is manifested in every sort of way; in the description of the Pope as “the Lamb of the Vatican,” for example: “The Living Christ,” “The Vicar of Christ,” “The Most Holy Lord,” “His Holiness,” “Our Father,” et cetera; as well as in the forgeries so ably exposed by the learned Dr. Dollinger, in his “The Pope and the Council,” viz., the Isidorian Decretals of the ninth century; that “huge fabrication”; the Hildebrandine Forgeries of the eleventh century, which used the Isidorian forgeries to further Papal Absolutism; the “earlier Roman forgeries” towards the end of the fifth and beginning of sixth centuries, when “the compilation of spurious acts of Roman martyrs” began, and was “continued for some centuries.” These forgeries included “the fabulous story of the conversion and baptism of Constantine, invented to glorify the Church of Rome, and make Pope Sylvester appear a worker of miracles.” “Then the inviolability of the Pope had to be established, and the principle that he cannot be judged by any human tribunal.” Towards the end of the sixth century a fabrication was undertaken in Rome, the full effect of which did not appear till long afterwards, viz., the interpolation of a falsehood in Cyprian’s book on the unity of the Church, which represented Cyprian as teaching that “the Church is built on the Chair of St. Peter.” An old catalog of Roman bishops was interpolated for an ulterior object, afterwards carried out in the “Liber Pontificalis.” “It is the first edition of 530, which is chiefly to be reckoned as a deliberate forgery, and an important link in the chain of Roman inventions and interpolations.”*

*Hallam’s “View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages,” 1869, p. 348, says: “Upon these spurious decretals was built the great fabric of Papal supremacy over the different national Churches . . . the imposture is too palpable.”

About the middle of the eighth century, the famous “Donation of Constantine” was concocted at Rome, based on the earlier fifth century legend, whereby the Pope is described as lord and Master of all Bishops, and having authority over the four “thrones” of Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople, Jerusalem; and as having received Italy and the Western Provinces from the Emperor. It is upon this forgery that the Pope’s claim to territorial power rests. The earliest reference to this pretended gift of Constantine occurs in Pope Adrian’s letter to Charlemagne in A.D. 777; though Popes had, since A.D. 752, spoken of “restitution” of Italian towns and provinces to St. Peter or to the Roman Republic. As Dollinger remarks: “Such language first became intelligible when the [forged] ‘Donation of Constantine’ was brought forward to show that the Pope was the rightful possessor, as heir of the Roman Caesars in Italy…. .”

“Twenty years later, the need was felt at Rome of a more extensive invention. So a document was laid before Charlemagne in Rome, professing to be his father Pepin’s “gift” or promise of territory to the Pope. This forgery assigned all Corsica, Venetia, Istria, Luni, Moselica, Parma, Reggio, Mantua, and the Duchies of Spoleto and Benevento, and the Exarchate of Ravenna (“Liber Pontificalis,” ii., 193, Edition Vignol).

There have unquestionably been some falsifications in privileges granted to Popes by Emperors later than Charlemagne —such as the “pact” of Louis the Pious, in A.D. 817 —an interpolation of the eleventh century. So, again, with the privileges of the Emperors, Otho I., in 962, and Henry II. in 1020. All kinds of other forgeries are traceable to Rome. As “Acts of Martyrs” had been fabricated there earlier, so from the tenth century, false documents were fabricated wholesale at Rome (“Le Grotte Vaticane, Roma, 1639,” pp. 505-510; Jaffé, “Regesta,” p. 936).

The most potent instrument of Papal machination was Gratian’s “Decretum,” issued in the twelfth century, from Bologna. In this the Isidorian forgeries were combined with other Gregorian writers’ fabrications, as well as with Gratian’s own. This work displaced all older collections of Canon Law, and became the fount of knowledge for all “scholastic theologians”! Forgery was herein added to forgery—all alike enhancing the claims of the Papacy.

About A.D. 1570 this compilation of falsehoods was “corrected,” at the desire of the Pope; yet to-day it forms the Codex for all canonical authority! For instance, the false principles that the Pope is superior to Law, and that all Church property is his, that clerics are exempt from civil law by Divine ordinance.

(n) FALSIFICATION OF SCRIPTURE.

Not only so, but texts of Scripture have been deliberately falsified in furtherance of Papal aims. Thus Innocent III. (1198-1216) altered Deuteronomy xvii. 12 in the Vulgate, as to mean whoever does not submit to the decision of the High Priest (whose place the Pope claims to hold) is to be killed (“Decret. per Venerabilem,” “Qui filii sint legitimi,” 4,17). Pope Leo X. quoted the text as corrupted, in a Bull, giving a false reference to the Book of Kings instead of Deuteronomy, to prove that whoever disobeyed the Pope must be put to death (Pastor Aeternus, Hardouin, Concil., IX. 1826).

In the thirteenth century, a new fabrication appeared, affecting dogmatic theology and education. It is known as the “Dominican Forgeries,” because composed by a Dominican monk, who concocted a catena of spurious passages from Greek Councils and Fathers. They professed to be eight hundred years old, and were at once used by Pope Urban IV. to prove that the “Apostolic Throne” is the sole authority in doctrinal matters (Raynaldus, Annal. Ann., 1263, 61). Urban sent the document to Aquinas, who knew no Greek, and from the Latin translation made by Buonaccursia, the Dominican, invented the doctrine of Papal Infallibility. One of his phrases was: “Christ is fully and completely with every Pope in sacrament and authority.” Thus on the basis of fabrication by a Dominican monk, Aquinas built up his Popedom, which ever since has put forth its blasphemous claims of Infallibility and Absolutism.

Lord Acton, Regius Professor of History at Cambridge, a Roman Catholic, said: “The passage from the Catholicism of the Fathers to that of the modern Popes was accomplished by willful falsehood; and the whole structure of traditions, laws, and doctrines that support the theory of infallibility and the practical despotism of the Popes, stands on a basis of fraud” (“North British Review,” October, 1869, p. 130).*

*In a letter to Mr. Gladstone quoted at p. lv. of Mr. H. Paul’s Introductory Memoir to Letters of Lord Acton to Mary Gladstone he said: It not-only promotes, it inculcates distinct mendacity and deceitfulness. In certain cases it is made a duty to lie.”

John Henry Shorthouse (author of John Inglesant) said: “The Papal Curia is founded upon falsehood, and falsehood enters, consciously or unconsciously, willingly or unwillingly, into the soul of every creature that comes under its influence.” (Preface to Rev. A. Galton’s “Message & Position of the Church of England,” 1899, pp. 13-14.)

Leo XIII., by a special “Encyclical on Scholastic Philosophy,” urged that Aquinas’s teaching should be used in all schools and seminaries; so that Falsifications of history permeate the entire curriculum of scholastic education in the Popedom. The entire system is based on a Lie, the lie that the Apostle Peter was “Prince of the Apostles” and “Bishop of Rome,” and that his successors are “Vicars of Christ.” It is permeated through and through with lies, which are known to be such, but are deliberately utilized to bolster up false claims. No more evident identification can be afforded than this, that the very names the Popes assumed are false from beginning to end.

(o) THE TITLES OF THE POPES ALL FALSE.

To the end of the fourth century they called themselves “Vicars of Peter,” but since the fifth, “Vicars of Christ” — the former title being as false as the latter, though not so blasphemous. The name “Pope,” or Father, was in A.D. 500 “appropriated to the Roman Pontiff (Gibbon, vii., 37), it having formerly been the title of all bishops alike. Tertullian, in one if his Treatises, speaks of the Roman bishop in his own time calling himself by the heathen title, “Pontifex Maxinus,” as well as “Episcopus Episcoporum.” Cyprian and Augustine both rejected the false claim of the Bishop of Rome in regard to Christ’s statement: “Thou art Peter, and on thee I will build My Church”; but the Bishop of Rome undeviatingly claimed the Primacy because Rome was “the See of the Prince of the Apostles,” a wholly mendacious claim based on falsehood. To maintain this, the Acts of Nicene Council were falsified (Hardouin, i., 469-485), and other Forgeries of Councils were made in support.

But it is decisively and distinctively the false title, “Vicar of Christ,” that emphatically establishes the Papacy as the “Antichrist.” This title was given by a Roman Council to Gelasius, Bishop of Rome, 5th century: “We behold in thee Christ’s Vicar” (Hardouin, ii., 946, 947).*

* Cardinal Bellarmine, in his Treatise on the Roman Pontiff (De Rom. Pont. Lib. ii. Cap. XXXI., Ingoldstadt, 1839), said: “Pope: Father of Fathers; the Pontiff of Christians, High Priest, the Vicar of Christ, the Head of the Body, that is of the Church, the foundation of the building of the Church; the Father and Doctor of the faithful; the Ruler of the House of God; the Keeper of God’s Vineyard; the Bridegroom of the Church; the Ruler of the Apostolic See; the Universal Bishop.”

And in his “De Conciliorum Auctoritate Lib. ii, Cap, XVII.” “All the names which are given in the Scriptures to Christ (where it appears that He is superior to the Church)—all these names are given to the Pope.”

(p) “WAR WITH THE SAINTS.”

The general principle by which Popery is governed is thus laid down by some of its authorized organs: “We are the children of a Church which has ever avowed the deepest hostility to the principles of ‘religious liberty.’ If it would benefit Catholicism, he (the Papist) would tolerate you; if expedient, he would imprison you, banish you, fine you; possibly, even, he might hang you . . .” (“Rambler,” September, 1851).

“Catholicism is the most intolerant of creeds. It is intolerance itself ” (Ibid).

Cardinal Manning (“Sermons on Ecclesiastical Subjects”) stated: “The Holy See is ultramontane, the whole Episcopate is ultramontane, the whole priesthood, the whole body of the Faithful throughout all nations . . . all are ultramontanes. Ulltra- montanism is Popery, and Popery is Catholicism.”

Count Montalembert (Letter, dated Paris, February 28th, 1870) cited the Archbishop of Paris as saying: “The new ultramontane school leads to a double idolatry—the idolatry of the temporal power, and of the spiritual power. The new ultramontanes . . . have abounded in hostile arguments against all liberties”; and Dr. Dollinger (“The Pope and the Council”) declared that “Ultramontanism, then, is essentially Papalism,” or, as Montalembert expressed it, “Absolutism of Rome.”

Now this shows not only the general principle that governs Popery in its relationship to Protestantism or Religious Liberty, but also the fact that, given an opportunity, it would enforce, as of yore, that principle, by the same means it adopted “in the good old days.”

It is therefore important to know precisely what those means were, and how it used them in the plenitude of its power. As shown elsewhere, the Notes on Matthew xiii. 29 (which have been incorporated in a class-book for use at Maynooth, entitled “Menochis”) teach that “heretics” may lawfully and properly be put to death, as common malefactors (see also Douai Bible, Coyne, Dublin, 1816); and “by public authority, either spiritual of temporal, may and ought to be chastised or executed.” The Romish Archbishops, who authorized these Notes, were well aware of the meaning of their teaching, and were well acquainted with the history of the past, i.e. of the Persecutions and Crusades, the Massacres and the Dragonnades, whereby millions of Christians were slaughtered and put to death, by every form of cruelty, from the twelfth to the eighteenth century. They were not speaking at random, or inculcating empty formula. Ranke’s “History of the Popes” tells us that these “Crusaders” boasted: “We have spared neither age nor sex; we have smitten everyone with the edge of the sword” (I., 32).

The “War with the Saints” predicted in Daniel vii. 25; Rev. xi. 7, xiii. 7, as made by “the Beast,” commenced in a general way, under Pope Alexander III.’s Council at Tours, A.D. 1163, which denounced the Bible-reading Albigenses as “heretics,” prohibited buying from or selling to them, and proscribed them. This was followed by the Decree of the Third Lateran Council, A.D. 1179, under the same Pope, against all so-called “heretics,” refusing them Christian burial, and forbidding any to harbor them. In A.D. 1183 Pope Lucius III. issued a Bull against “heretics” of every sort, and ordering the “Inquisition” to suppress them. In 1198 Innocent III. wrote Epistles to various Prelates, charging them to extirpate “heresy,” and to employ the arms of princes and people. He then sent “Legates” as Inquisitors to Toulouse, and not long afterwards proclaimed a “Crusade” against the “heretics.”

The third Canon of the fourth Council of Lateran, in a.d. 1215, urged more zeal in the extirpation of heresy, the secular powers being expressly enjoined to carry out the behests of the ecclesiastic, vassals being absolved from allegiance to any prince who refused, and crusaders being rewarded like Crusaders in the Holy Land. In A.D. 1227 the Council of Narbonne followed on the same lines, and then that of Toulouse, in which children were compelled to denounce parents as heretics, and the Scriptures were forbidden to the laity. Council after Council on the same lines followed, up to Gregory IX.’s ferocious Bull in a.d. 1236. The fact of the commencement of this Papal War against Christians is strongly marked in History, even as the Jesuit Gretzer, in his “Prolegomena, induciae Tudensis succedaneos,” admits. It was a Papal war of extermination of all witnesses for Jesus, and leveled against Holy Scriptures.

The same spirit and procedure were manifested in England from 1360 to 1380 against Wyclif and his followers, and in Bohemia —some forty years later—against Huss and Jerome; furious “war” being waged against individuals, such as Savonarola, in Italy, from 1464 to 1498, as well as elsewhere against Bohemians, Waldenses, Taborites and United Brethren. Popes and Councils, priests and people all joined in this “war,” and racks and gibbets, fire and sword were deemed fit weapons against Christians. The story of the murder of the Waldenses under Pope Innocent VIII., and of the Christians of Val Louise in High Dauphiny, is a recital of atrocities calculated to make one’s blood curdle. In 1478 the Inquisition was “reformed,” so as to become more efficacious as an instrument of persecution and murder. Llorente, the historian of this “reformed” Inquisition, computes that between 1478 and 1517, 13,000 persons were burnt alive, and 169,000 tortured. At the beginning of the sixteenth century the Papal War with the saints had succeeded in reducing them to silence by means of fire, sword, torture and persecution.

During the sixteenth century the Reformation took place, and, in order to stamp it out, the Papacy summoned the Council of Trent, which continued its labors from 1545 to 1563, ending with a unanimous shout of “Anathema to Heretics,” having decreed all sorts of decrees and canons, all containing curses upon anyone who refused to accept their unscriptural teaching. Session XXV. decreed that every clause and word enacted by that Council, under Popes Paul III., Julius III. and Pius IV. established “the authority of the Apostolic See always inviolate.” In other words, all that was ever enacted as Papal Law or claimed as the authority of the Pope is ever enduring and unchangeable. Every barbarous enactment against “Heretics,” every power and privilege to break oaths, and to dispense from law, or to absolve subjects from loyalty, everything in Rome’s Canon Law still remains in force today.

In A.D. 1572 took place St. Bartholomew’s massacre, and in A.D. 1588 the Spanish Armada, both of them phases of the “war against the saints,” followed by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 1685, and the Dragonnades, which caused such misery to the French Huguenots. In Ireland there took place the fiendish atrocities, in 1640-42, of the Irish massacre of Protestants; whilst in Scotland the Protestant Covenanters suffered every kind of persecution and martyrdom. During Mary’s short reign of five years, no less than some three hundred British martyrs were burnt at the stake; the Gunpowder Plot, and other seditious movements, leading up to the English Rebellion and overthrow of the Stuart dynasty, all being but phases of this incessant “war” on the part of Rome—against liberty, Bible truth, and the “saints” or witnesses for Christ, i.e., Protestants.

The Revelations of the Italian Revolution in Rome in 1848, when the Inquisition buildings were broken open, show incontestably the late date on which this murderous institution—an institution established wholly by the Church of Rome under Papal sanction—was at -work, in this terrible “war”; a war waged all over the world to the present hour, as Missionary Societies’ reports unceasingly testify.

Such is a mere sketch of a long-enduring and remorseless “war,” as recorded in history. It is the due fulfillment of Prophecy. If we enter into particulars, the case becomes still more conclusive against Rome, as it shows that no system that has ever existed has such a record of murder and inquisitorial cruelty towards Christians. Neither Pagan Rome nor Mohammedanism can compare with the record of Papal Rome. It is “facile princeps,” (Latin meaning easily the first or best) and unique in that respect, as its “war” has been ever waged against Christians because of their faith in Christ, and belief in Holy Writ.

The following list, by no means exhaustive, affords an insight into this War with the Saints, i.e., with Christians whom Rome “hates.”

The third Canon of fourth Council of Lateran, A.D., 1215, under Pope Innocent III., decreed the Extermination of Heretics (Corpus Juris Canonici, Decret., Greg. IX. V., and tit. vii., cap. 13, de Hereticis). This, we are duly informed By the “English Catholics” (who in 1882 published their “Records,” “Edited by the Fathers of the Congregation of the London Oratory, with an Historical Introduction by Thomas F. Knox, D.D., priest of the same Congregation,” Vol. II., p. xxvii.), was “the common law of medieval Christendom”; and, “by its insertion in the Corpus Juris, became part of the ordinary Statute Law of the Church.” It was acted on by Pope Pius V., “when he issued his Bull, deposing Queen Elizabeth,” and is today in force in Ireland.

The “Constitution” of Pope Clement V., in the Council of Vienna, A.D. 1316, orders all Bishops and Inquisitors to arrest, or seize, in iron fetters or handcuffs, all suspected heretics, and to consign them to prison to undergo inquisition.

Lord Acton, Regius Professor of History, said (“Times,” November 9th, 1874): “A Pope who lived in Catholic times, and who is famous in history as the author of the last Crusade, decided that it is no murder to kill excommunicated persons. This rule was incorporated in the Canon Law. During the revision of the Code, which took place in the sixteenth century, the passage was allowed to stand. It has been for seven hundred years, and continues to be, part of the Ecclesiastical Law.”’

In 1892 the English Jesuits published a book called “Aquinas Ethicus,” with Notes by Joseph Rickaby, S.J., in which we read (Vol. I., p. 333): “On their [heretics’] side is the sin whereby they have deserved, not only to be separated from the Church by excommunication, but also to be banished from the world by death. Hence, if coiners or other malefactors are at once handed over by secular princes to a just death, much more may heretics, immediately they are convicted of heresy, be not only excommunicated, but also justly done to die.”

This medieval doctrine, republished thus by modern Jesuits, was specially commended by Pope Leo XIII. in his “Encyclical on Scholastic Philosophy“—and is therefore regarded as de Fide (held as an obligatory article of faith) by Papists. It is taught in all seminaries.

This same Pope, in his Letter on “The Rosary” (“Tablet,” October 1st, 1887), styled the Massacres of the Albigenses and other “heretics,” “great triumphs,” “glories,” “marvels,” “magnificent examples of piety” to be emulated by modern Papists. Further, he gave his special “blessing” to two volumes on “Public Ecclesiastical Law,” published . at Rome in 1900-1, by Marianus de Luca, S.J., Professor of Canon Law, in which work it is taught that “heresy must be rooted out with fire and sword” (Vol. I., p. 147); that “the Church can inflict on heretics the penalty of death” (p. 145), and that when once “the Church has pronounced sentence the civil rulers are bound to carry out the sentence” (p. 146).*

*The New Zealand “Sentinel,” October,- 1923, P. 8, contained a “Felonious Record of Knights of Columbus” in the United States since 1913. It included two murderous assaults on ex-priest Crowley in 1913, and on 14 other ministers and Protestants.

A more recent work by Alexius M. Lepicier, Professor of Theology in the College de Propaganda Fide, published in 1910, and entitled “De Stabilitate et Progressu Dogmatii,” teaches that “heretics” are to be put an end to, and explains that men who oppose “the Church,” and are killed, are not “martyrs,” but criminals (pp. 271-6).

F. Hugh O’Donnell, ex-M.P. for Dungarvan, in his “The Ruin of Irish Education,” describes how scholars in Romish schools are taught to hate “heretics.” They are told that “instead of being educated, heretics ought to be slaughtered, and that the slaughtering of them is a mark of the perfection of the Catholic Church” (p. 173). He shows that “civil society is bound to kill heretics when ordered by the Catholic Church” (p. 175).

In order to remove any doubt as to what is meant—in all these murderous and intolerant edicts and works—by the word “heretics,” Pope Pius X. most considerately published. in 1906, at the Vatican Press in Rome, a “Compendium of Christian Doctrine,” which conveys the following information: “Heretics are the baptized, who pertinaciously refuse to believe some truth revealed by God and taught as of faith by the Catholic Church, for example . . . the various sects of Protestants” (p. 131); and in p. 398: “Protestantism or the Reformed religion. . . . is the sum of all heresies, which existed before it, which have since arisen, and which can still arise to destroy souls,” “the most monstrous congeries of private and individual errors, embraces all heresies, and represents all the forms of rebellion against the holy Catholic Church.”

Now, there is no such sin, in the eyes of “the Church,” as ‘rebellion’ against itself; and on p. 399 the Catechism explains that “the Protestant spirit” is “subversive of Faith, of morals, and of all authority Divine and human.”

Woe, therefore, betide the “Protestant” who, in the day of Rome’s power, falls into its blood-stained hands! As the Romish organ, “The Rambler,” in September, 1851, honestly confessed: “Believe us not, Protestants of England and Ireland, when you hear us pouring forth our liberalisms —they mean nothing. Such a person is not talking Catholicism. . . If he were lord in the land, and you in the minority, if not in numbers, yet in power, what would he do to you? If expedient he would imprison you, banish you, fine you, possibly he might hang you . . . but he would never tolerate you.” Nor must the confiding and unsuspecting Protestant hug to his bosom the delusion that friendship, or relationship, or business connection, or any other social inter-communion with Papists, would exempt the Protestant from persecution or slaughter in the day of Rome’s power.

At the risk of prolixity and tediousness, it is necessary to insist on the extreme danger that awaits Protestants today, if they permit Rome to become once more supreme in Great Britain or in Ireland; for Rome is engaged in “war with the saints” It is a war, à l’outrance (to excess). So long as “heresy” exists, so long will Rome’s murderous doctrines be enforced. Hence, it is not a waste of time to reiterate certain facts.

(1) It is the duty of every Popish priest to “unsparingly denounce” “heresy”; and Popish bishops are the Chief Inquisitors in their diocese; and, if they took the Episcopal oath out of Great Britain, were, at their “consecration,” obliged to swear: “The rights, honors, privileges and authority of the holy Roman Church, of our Lord the Pope, and his successors, I shall give all diligence to preserve, defend, advance, and promote . . . Heretics, schismatics, and rebels against the same our Lord, and his successors, I will persecute and fight against, to the utmost of my power” (Pontificale Romanum, “De Consecratione Electi in Episcopum,”” p. 79, Forma Juramenti). Irish bishops probably take it.

(2) “If they took the oath out of Great Britain,” for, in consequence of the outcry in 1850 against this exterminating oath, the clause commencing “Heretics,” and ending “power,” has been omitted in this country. But there is nothing whatever to prevent a Popish bishop being “consecrated” elsewhere, and so evade the understanding that in Great Britain that part of the oath shall not be taken. If consecrated at Rome, for instance, the entire oath is enforced. The Latin of this part of the oath is: “Hereticos, Schismaticos, et Rebelles eidem Domina nostro . . . pro posse persequar et impugnabo.” It is important to note that desperate efforts are made in this country to deny that “Persequar” means “persecute.” This will not deceive anyone acquainted with Romish duplicity. For that very Latin word is systematically used in Roman versions of the Bible to denote persecution; for instance, it appears in the Vulgate of Sixtus V. and Clement VIII., in Psalm cix. 16, Acts ix. 4, and xxii. 4; 1 Thess. ii. 15, etc., along with its cognates.

(3) Once every four years Popish bishops from England and Ireland are obliged to appear personally at Rome to render an account of their stewardship to the Pope. No one but an ignoramus would believe that the Pope would omit then to ask if that particular part of the oath (whether taken in Rome or ostentatiously omitted in England for politic purposes, and with “mental restriction”) has been kept, for the rooting out of “heresy” is the chief business of all Popish bishops, who, by their oaths, are constituted Inquisitors-general of their dioceses, and are bound “in all things to render faith, subjection, and obedience” to the Pope. Session XXIV. of the Council of Trent expressly constitutes Popish bishops Inquisitors, with power to “punish,” to “visit,” and to “correct” “in accordance with the enactments of the Canon.”; and Session XXV. ordered all bishops to “publicly express their detestation of and to anathematize all the heresies that have been condemned by the sacred Canons and General Councils.”

(4) But not “heresies” alone are to be anathematized; on the contrary, Session XXV. expressly orders bishops to excommunicate “heretics,” to fine them, to distrain upon property, to “smite them with the sword of anathema,” to order a boycott by the “faithful,” and to “proceed against them as suspected of heresy.” (“Decree of Reformation,” ch. III.). And, in order to show what Rome’s attitude to all “heretics” is, the entire Council of Trent, at its close, shouted aloud, “Anathema to all Heretics.”

(5) Has that attitude in any way changed? On the contrary; as already shown, there have recently appeared important Popish works issued by Papal authority, which expressly denounce “heresy” as the greatest of all crimes, and teach the “right,” as well as the “duty,” of “the Church,” to extirpate all heretics by death—even by fire if necessary. And, in order to make mistakes impossible, the late Pope authoritatively issued a Catechism, which explains that all Protestants are “heretics.”

Here are a few more evidences:—

(a) “Le Christianisme au some siécle,” of May 17th, 1917, reported a sermon preached in Notre Dame, Paris, during Lent, to a congregation of some 4,000 persons, in which the preacher said: “The Church may punish heretics. . . . They are culprits . . . they are in revolt against the infallible authority . . . they disseminate their perversity and corrupt other souls. The Church has, therefore, the right to subdue their diabolical depravity, not only by anathema, but by the sword, that is to say, by obtaining from Catholic States the suppression of heretics by penalties which may extend to death.”

(b) Archbishop Ryan, who died in 1911, said in his periodical, “The Shepherd of the Valley,” “The Church tolerates heretics when she is obliged to do so, but she hates them with a deadly hatred, and uses all her power to annihilate them. If ever the Catholics in this land should become a considerable majority, then will religious freedom come to an end.”

(c) The “Catholic Encyclopedia” declares that “the non-Catholic Christians of our day are, strictly speaking, her subjects.”

(d) Archbishop Troy’s Edition of the Latin Vulgate, published in Dublin by R. Coyne, says, in a Note to Matt. xiii. 25: “The good must tolerate the evil when it is so strong that it cannot be redressed without danger otherwise when ill men (be they heretics or other malefactors) may be punished or suppressed without disturbance and hazard of the good, they may and ought, by public authority, either spiritual or temporal, to be chastised or executed.” To 2 John v. 10, a Note is appended, declaring that if persons be “by name excommunicated, or declared to be heretics, yet even in worldly conversation and secular acts of life we must avoid them . . .”; i.e., we must boycott them!

To Rev. xvii. 6 the Note says: “When Rome puts heretics to death, and allows their punishments in other countries, their blood is not called the blood of saints, no more than the blood of thieves, man-killers and other malefactors. . .”

(e) Pope Pius IX., writing to the German Emperor on August 7th, 1873, said: “Everyone who has been baptized belongs . . .to the Pope.”

Rev. T. Slater, in “A Manual of Moral Theology for English-speaking Countries,” with the Imprimatur of Cardinal Farley, dated 1907 {Vol. i., p. 93) says: “Men become subject to the Church by Christian baptism . . . Heretics and schismatics, who are validly baptized, are, per se, subject to the Church’s laws.”

Edmund J. O’Reilly, S.J., Professor of Theology at Maynooth, in “The Relations of the Church to Society,” says that the principle of religious toleration “is one which is not, and never has been and never will be, approved by the Church,” whilst a war to re-establish Papal temporal power would be just—so far as the cause is concerned.”

The Rev. T. Gilmartin, Professor at Maynooth, in his “Manual of Church History ” (Vol. II., p. 228, Dublin, 1892), said: “The Church can punish heresy as an evil in itself, and as an offense against the Church, and the Church can require the assistance of the State in suppressing heresy.”

In 1887 Pope Leo XIII. published a Brief, proffering “Indulgences” “for the extirpation of heresies,” and that same year a Romish paper, in Mexico—the “Defensa Catolica”—said of a “heretic”: “True charity consists . . . in taking his life, always supposing it is done for love of God. In the Lord’s service, and for love of Him, we must . . . kill them”; whilst, in that same year, another Romish paper, the “Freeman’s Journal,” of New York, said: “If the killing of a few [Protestant] missionaries—we should almost . . . be inclined to say—‘on with the dance; let joy be unconfined.’”

Whence the inference is obvious—that the penalty of death would be joyfully inflicted on Protestants, if the opportunity were afforded either by the subservience of the State, or by the increase of Popery.

(q) THE “CONSUMPTION ” OF ANTICHRIST.

Some of the worst vagaries of Futurists would be avoided if they would but remember that prophetic periods of time are sure to be proportionate to the thing predicted, and commensurate with the importance attached by the Word of God to the subject of the prophecy. Moreover, they should remember that the progress of time, and the history of certain evils, are certain to be regulated by certain “Laws,” resembling what are euphemistically styled “Nature’s Laws ”; for they are neither fortuitous nor without control by the arbiter of destiny. On the contrary, being, as they undoubtedly are, the result of Divine prescience, wisdom. and over-ruling Providence, they are assuredly under the control of the God of Nature—who works by Laws, not by chance.

That being so, students of the “more sure word of prophecy” must have regard to the “Laws of Nature” in regard to the evolution of history, and of prophetic periods connected with great events. It is wise to assume that there is analogy between the course of certain conspicuous evils in history, and the course of objects governed by certain well- known “Laws of Nature.”

One such well-known Law is that a projectile does not reach its highest point in flight at the end of its trajectory through the atmosphere, but at a point somewhere about two-thirds of its trajectory, because it is constantly acted upon by the resistance of the air, the force of gravity, and decrease in muzzle velocity, all these being forces controlled by the “Laws of Nature.”

Now, the Inspired Page plainly describes the History of Apostasy as corresponding to the flight of a projectile ejected out of “the abyss” (Rev. xi. 7; xvii. 8; 2 Thess. ii. 8, 9) by Satan, and rising to its culmination when Christ’s faithful witnesses have reached the summit of their testimony. (Rev. xi. 7; xii. 17; xiii. 7) Its culminating point is not to be sought at the end of its course, but rather some two-thirds of its distance from its “start.” And, necessarily, like a projectile, its descent would be more rapid than its ascent to power. It is a grave mistake, therefore, on the part of Futurists to represent Antichrist as emerging from obscurity at the end of History, in order at once to culminate, its greatest power being at the end of its career, a brief career of three and a half literal years, a period of time wholly out of proportion to the circumstances of the case, and quite incommensurate with the evil foreshadowed.

The Word of God makes it sufficiently obvious that the period in the history of “The Apostasy,” which corresponds to the gradual rise of a projectile, occupies the greater part of the history of Christendom; whilst the period corresponding to the more rapid descent of a projectile, occupies the briefer portion of the history of Christendom; its last third, in fact.

Hence, if the history of Christendom began at the era of our Lord’s First Advent in the first century; and if 2,520, or seven “times,” be the length of the “times of the Gentiles,” measured from Nebuchadnezzar’s days—B.C. 606-563, or some 630 years previously; then the history of Christendom falls within a period approximately 1,890 years in length, measured from AD. 25-68, and the history of “The Apostasy” occupies the whole of that period, the last one- third being a period of decadence for Antichrist, whilst the first two-thirds comprise the story of his rise into power, and the growth of “The Apostasy.”

Singularly enough, two-thirds of 1,890 years are 1,260 years, i.e., the period assigned in prophecy to Antichrist’s career, measured from his “revelation” or parousia. 1,260 years from A.D. 25-68 extend to A.D. 1285-1328.

Antichrist’s career, therefore, may be regarded as consisting of two portions: firstly, the story of its rise into power between the first century and the fourteenth century; and, secondly, the story of its decline from power during the 630 years between the fourteenth century (A.D. 1285-1328) and the close of Christendom’s story—in the twentieth century.

Or, in other words, we are to look in history for the acme of Papal power in the interval between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries; and we must expect to observe its subsequent decline from power ever since.

Do these deductions agree with the facts of history? Nothing can be more certain than the fact that the meridian of Papal autocratic power was the period between A.D. 1215 and 1294—during the Pontificates of Innocent III., Honorius III., Gregory IX., Celestin IV., Innocent IV., Alexander IV., Urban IV., Clement IV., Gregory X., Innocent V., Adrian V., John XX., Nicholas III., Martin IV., Honorius IV., Nicholas IV., Celestin V., Boniface VIII., during which period superstition was at its height; the Crusades were in progress; the Inquisition was in full play; “heretics” were relentlessly persecuted; the Jews were brutally ill-treated; and imperious temporal, as well as spiritual, claims over princes and people were enforced by Popes. Historians, such as the Jesuit Bower, Ranke, Gibbon, Hallam, Arnold, Milman, with one consent point to this period as the noontide of Papal dominion. Italian authors fix on Gregory VII. to Innocent III.

But what does history say in regard to the subsequent period, since the fifteenth century? Has it proved to be a period of decline more rapid than the previous rise of Popery into power? Prophecy foretold that “the mystery of iniquity” was already at work in Paul’s days-A.D. 54; that it was to produce “The Apostasy” (2 Thess. ii. 3) before “the Son of Perdition” could be “revealed”; that his career was to last 1,260 years after his revelation; and that the whole period of Christendom’s history was to be 1,890 years from some point in the first century. This leaves rather less than 600 years for Antichrist’s decadence; his predicted “consumption ” (2 Thess. ii. 8) by the Spirit of the Lord’s mouth—a “consumption” apparently twofold in character—for Daniel ascribes loss of “dominion” (Dan. vii. 26) to it, whilst Paul seemingly refers to religious enfeeblement, and Zechariah (Zech, xi. 17) apparently predicts territorial loss as well as spiritual darkness. The Apocalypse (Rev. xvi. 10; xvii. 16) seems to hint at the same judgments, towards the end of Antichrist’s career.

Hence, it is sufficiently clear that the last six hundred years of the Papacy and Church of Rome were to be marked by rapidly augmenting spiritual darkness and territorial decay. Does history correspond to this statement? Nothing can be more certain than the fact that from the fifteenth century onwards to the present time the Papacy has experienced tremendous losses, both of territory and of subjects—for whereas in the fifteenth century the voice of Christendom was hushed, and Popery alone was regnant, the Reformation of the sixteenth century burst the shackles and fetters of Popery, threw the Light of Holy Writ upon its errors, and produced the most enlightened and progressive nations—the Protestant races of the world. Humiliation upon humiliation has fallen upon the Papacy—the climax being the total loss of territorial power in 1870, following immediately upon the evidence of the grossest spiritual darkness, as manifested by the blasphemous Decrees of the Immaculate Conception and Papal Infallibility. And whereas in the fifteenth century there was hardly a single “Protestant” congregation in the world, today there are fully 200 millions of people who reject the claims of the Papacy. Moreover, the loss of revenue, of property, and of power, has proceeded, pari passu (at an equal rate), with the “consumption” of territory and the growth of spiritual darkness in the Popedom. “The great voice.” has not ceased to blaspheme; its accredited organs and mouthpieces have not desisted from promulgating unscriptural and God- dishonoring teaching. The Word of God has not ceased to be proscribed, or witnesses to be persecuted. But the erstwhile “Ruler of the World” is now “the Prisoner in the Vatican”; his “dominion” has ceased to exist; his position is precarious, and may, at any moment, be “destroyed” by forces beyond his control. His conduct in regard to the great War has stamped indelibly upon his brow the name of Infamy, and every day his conduct is showing in a clearer light that he is indeed the successor—not of humble Peter, the Galilean fisherman, but of Judas of Kerioth, the Judaean False Apostle and betrayer of the Lord Jesus Christ and His people.

The parallel between the flight of a projectile and the history of the rise, progress and decadence of Papal power, is equally, if not more, striking if one deals with the 1,260 years only of prophecy. For two-thirds of 1,260 years are 840 years; and one-third is 420 years. The Papacy was “revealed” as such in the seventh century, as all historians admit. It gradually rose to the plenitude of power in the fifteenth century, since when its record is that of decadence in material power, coupled with an ever-increasing and unrepenting spiritual darkness. In prophetic phraseology, “the sword is upon his arm, and his right eye is utterly darkened.” The more rapid its fall from temporal power, the more blasphemous its utterances. Twice has the Papacy been hunted out of Rome; once by Napoleon, once by Revolution. Its third exit will be final and complete, for it is to be “destroyed by the brightness of His coming,” whose names, offices, titles and place, it has for 1,260 years usurped.

(r) THE TESTIMONY OF HISTORY OR THE VERDICT OF HISTORIANS AND LEARNED.

Let anyone glance over the office of electing and crowning a Pope, and he will there see, in small compass, how truly, precisely, and fully the Roman Pontiffs realize and fulfill, in their self-assumed titles and pretensions, all the characteristics included in the above catalog, and therefore in the Divinely-revealed designative official title, “The Antichrist.”

It is no valid objection to say that the Pope does not expressly call himself God. To this it is enough to say that in Scripture there is no such prediction concerning the Antichrist. As a fact, anyone who, in the name of God, pretends to be able to invent a “Sacrament” for Christ’s Church, does in reality usurp the place of God, for it is literally taking the place of the Author of Grace, as none but He can institute a “Sacrament,” or make visible matter—or any human ceremony or rite—a channel of His grace or gifts. It is written of the Antichrist that he “taketh his seat (or Cathedra) in the naos of God—or professing Church—showing himself as God,” i.e., not calling himself God, but so acting as if he were God. It is thus that Chrysostom explains the word “showing”; and he also says (on 2 Thess. ii.): “he will be a sort of instead-God (anti theos) or vice-God, and will order himself to be worshipped—anti tou Theou—in God’s stead,” i.e., as God’s representative and Vice-regent. Hippolytus, another Greek Father, says: “he will in everything put himself on an equality with the Savior.” Nor does John, in 1 John ii. 22, and 2 John vii., say anything as to the nature or manner of the denial of the Father and the Son, whether express and direct, or only in effect and virtual. The latter fully meets all the terms of the prophecy, as has already been demonstrated by citations from the Apostles’ writings and use of the word “deny.”

Neither is there any substance in the objection that no one who professes the doctrine of the Trinity or other Christian truth can be the Antichrist, for it is solely in virtue of professing the Nicene Creed that Antichrist can be said with truth to sit in the naos of God.

It is by the claim to be the Visible Head of the Universal Church of Christ, added to other impious and blasphemous titles, that expressly, as well as virtually, in effect, and to all real intents and purposes, the Antichrist usurps the place both of God and of Christ, and so excludes or “denies” both the Father and the Son from the Government of the Church of God on earth, i.e., the so-called “Catholic Church.” The title, “Vicar of Christ,” can only be turned into Greek by Antichristos, and is a self-given title of infamy, which identifies the bearer as “The Man of the Apostasy,” i.e., the Vice Christ or substitute for Christ. Nay; it is exceedingly doubtful whether such self-given title be not “the sin that hath never forgiveness,” (1 John. v. 16; Matt. xii. 31) i.e., blasphemy, against the only True Substitute (ohn xiv. 16, 26; xvi. 7) for Christ on earth, the Holy Ghost; for which reason the bearer of such title is, by the Holy Ghost’s inspiration, denounced as “son of per- dition.” (2 Thess. ii. 3; Rev. xvii. 8, 11)

The sin of Antichrist is neither physical nor moral. It is wholly spiritual, though, of course, spiritual darkness (2 Cor. iv.; 1 Peter v. 8; 1 John i. 6; Rev. xvi. 10) or “strong delusion” (2 Thess. ii) usually is accompanied by its own “fruits,” whether physical or moral, just as in the case of the Apostle Judas, who was a thief, (John xii. 6) as well as a charlatan and traitor. We do not read, however, of Judas being in other respects evil, or living a scandalous life. It is therefore a mistake to expect the anti-type to be, necessarily, a flagitious character, or conspicuously malevolent. No such characteristics are predicted of the “little horn,” “the son of perdition,” “the Beast,” or “the Antichrist.” Its sin is spiritual. It is “blasphemy,” (Isaiah xxxvii. 23) in the sense that term is invariably used in Holy Writ, viz., bringing discredit on God’s Name, or usurping God’s attribute and functions, or opposing and counterfeiting the Holy Ghost.

The view historians have taken of the system ruled by the Popes as a “Kingdom ” may be gathered, to some extent, from the following extracts:—

Dr. Arnold, in his “Life and Correspondence” (Vol. 2), said: “That the Church system, or rather the Priest system, is not to be found in Scripture, is as certain as that the worship of Jupiter is not the doctrine of the Gospel. It is to my mind more than anything else the exact fulfillment of the apostolic language concerning Antichrist. The Priest is either Christ or Antichrist; he is either our Mediator or he is the man of sin in God’s Temple.” “It is a system of blasphemous falsehood such as St. Paul foretold was to come, such as St. John saw to be already in the world” (Letters 258, 273, 274).

Lecky (“History of European Morals”): “In the first two centuries of the Christian Church the moral elevation was extremely high . . . In the century before Constantine (A.D. 312), a marked depression was already manifest. . . The two centuries after Constantine are uniformly represented by the Fathers as a period of general and scandalous vice. The Dark Ages, as the period of Catholic ascendancy is justly called … should probably be placed in all intellectual virtues lower than in any other period in the history of man- kind.”

Gibbon (“Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”): “In the seventh century the Church had relapsed into the semblance of paganism. In the long period of 1,200 years which elapsed between the reign of Constantine and the Reformation of Luther, the worship of saints and relics corrupted the pure and perfect simplicity of the Christian model.”

Lord Macaulay (“Essays”): “It is impossible to deny that the polity of the Church of Rome is the very masterpiece of human wisdom. . . . The experience of 1,200 eventful years, the ingenuity and patient care of forty generations of statesmen, have improved that polity to such perfection, that, among the contrivances which have been devised for deceiving and controlling mankind, it occupies the highest place” (on Ranke’s “History of the Popes, 1852,” p. 548).

Lecky (“History of European Morals”): “It is indeed difficult to conceive any clearer proof than was furnished by the history of the 1,200 years after the conversion of Constantine, that it is by no means for the advantage of mankind that in the form which the Greek and Catholic Churches present, it should become a controlling arbiter of civilization.”

La Guidara (“An Echo from the Vatican.” p. 190): “Observe that Popery bears something of the semblance of Christianity in order to deceive, just as the counterfeit coin resembles that which is genuine. When Satan found that Christianity was advancing, and that wicked men would not be satisfied without a new religion, he invented Popery, by which he has been more successful in destroying souls than by any of his previous contrivances.”

Dr. H. Ward Beecher “The Papal Conspiracy Ex- posed,” pp. 176, 177): “The system, as a system, is false and pernicious, and though not framed at once as a whole by any man or body of men as a fraud, was framed by that one far-seeing, comprehensive mind of whom the Apostle speaks—once in Heaven and familiar with the whole character, laws and administration of God, deeply versed in all questions of theology, skilled in organization and government, perfectly acquainted with all the phases of the human mind, and of society, and a master of all the arts of sophistry and delusion to a degree beyond the conception of a human mind, and before whom all men and nations not illuminated and defended by God, are, by reason of their dislike of the truth, mere simpletons—objects of his craft and delusive power—entangled in his snares, led captive at his will.

“He, living, whilst generations die, is able to lay a plan requiring centuries for its execution.

“Availing himself of all these, he has, by a delusive process, holding up great and good ends, such as preserving doctrine and unity in the Church, produced a system adapted, on the whole, to do as much evil and as little good as in existing circumstances was possible.

“Now, when I call the system of the Romish hierarchy a stupendous fraud, I mean that it is a system devised by Satan for this very end, . . . The delusion has been strong and complete to an amazing degree.”’

Blunt (“History of the Reformation in England,” p. 130): “If the Pope was St. Peter’s successor, wherein, it was asked, did the succession consist? What one thing had St. Peter like the Pope, or the Pope like St. Peter? Did St. Peter call himself the Head of the Church, Bishop of Bishops, and usurp dominion over all God’s creatures? Did he exempt himself from the power of civil government; maintain wars; set princes at variance; or sit in a chair with a purple gown and royal scepter and diadem of gold and precious stones, and set his feet on kings’ necks?” (John Ruskin: “The most debasing and degrading of all creeds.” Sir W. Scott: “A mean and depraving superstition.”)

Isaac Barrow, on the Pope’s supremacy (p. 85): “It seemeth, therefore, a sacrilegious arrogance (derogating from our Lord’s honor) for any man to assume or admit those titles of ‘Sovereign of the Church, Head of the Church, our Lord, Arch-Pastor, Highest Priest, Chief Doctor, Master, Father, Judge of Christians’; upon what pretense, or under what distinction soever, these ‘pompatic, foolish, proud, perverse, wicked, profane words: these names of singularity, elation, vanity, blasphemy’ (to borrow the epithets with which Pope Gregory I. doth brand the titles of ‘Universal Bishop’ and ‘Ecumenical Patriarch,’ no less modest in sound, and far more innocent in meaning, than those now ascribed to the Pope) are therefore to be regretted . . . because they do encroach upon our only Lord, to Whom they do only belong. . . .”

John Henry Newman, in 1834, before leaving the Church of England, said: “The spirit of Old Rome has risen again in its former place, and has evidenced its identity by its works.. In the corrupt Papal system we have the very cruelty, the craft, and the ambition of the Republic; its cruelty in its unsparing sacrifice of the happiness and virtue of individuals to a phantom of public expediency, in its forced celibacy within, and its persecutions without; its craft in its falsehoods, its deceitful deeds and lying wonders; and its grasping ambition in the very structure of its polity, in its assumptions of universal dominion; old Rome is still alive; nowhere have its eagles lighted, but it still claims the sovereignty under another pretense” (“Essay on Development of Christian Doctrine,” Advertisement, p. vii.).

After he became a Papist, Newman thus described the history of the Papacy (Ibid., pp. 450 et seg.): “First of all were the bitter persecutions of the Pagan Empire in the early centuries; them its sudden conversion, the liberty of Christian worship, the development of the cultus sanctorum (the worship of the saints), and the reception of monachism (monasticism) into the ecclesiastical system. Then came the irruption of the barbarians; and then occupation of the orbis terrarum (the world), first from the North, then by the Saracens from the South. Then came the time of thick darkness; and afterwards two great struggles, one with the material power, the other with the intellect of the world, terminating in the ecclesiastical monastery, and in the theology of the schools.”

Charles Dickens (“Life,” by Forster, Vol. II., p. 274) described Popery as “the most horrible means of political and social degradation left m the world.”

Lord Macaulay (“History of England,” Vol. I., p. 47) says that “the loveliest and most fertile provinces of Europe have, under her rule, been sunk in poverty, in political servitude, and in intellectual torpor.”

Professor Huxley (“Daily News,” October 28th, 1871): “There is no engine so carefully calculated for the destruction of all that is highest in the moral mature, in the intellectual freedom, and in the political freedom of mankind, as that engine that is at present wielded by the Ultramontane section of the Catholic Church.”

Mr. Gladstone, describing the Kingdom of Naples under Bomba and the Papacy, when the Church was presided over by a Cardinal Archbishop, and “the Jesuits were the body who, perhaps, stood nearest to the Government.” when “it was an Augean stable of ignorance, pauperism, brigandage and vice” (as J. W. Probym described it in his “Essays on Italy,” p. 77); said he had “seen Perjury, the daughter of Fraud, the mother of Cruelty and Violence, stalk abroad, under the sanction of its government.” A country where, by means of a Philosophical Catechism for the use of primary schools, there were taught, under the veil of religion, “principles at once false, base and demoralizing.” He declared that “no more cunning plot was ever devised. . . . against the freedom, the happiness, the virtue of mankind” (Second Letter to the Earl of Aberdeen, by the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P.).

Gladstone: “The proselytizing agency of the Roman Church in this country I take to be one of the worst of the religious influences of the age.” “A perpetual war against the progress and the movement of the human mind.”

Lord Macaulay (“History of England.” Vol. I., p. 47) declared that “during the last three centuries, to stunt the growth of the human mind has been her chief object. Throughout Christendom whatever advance has been made in knowledge, in freedom, in wealth, and in the arts of life, has been in inverse proportion to her power.”

Burnet (“History of His Own Times,” Vol. IV., p. 400, Edit. 1815) said: “Popery is a mass of impostures, supported by men who manage them with great advantage, and impose them with inexpressible severities on those who dare call anything in question that they dictate to them.”

Gill (“The Papal Drama.” Longmans, 1866, Book XI., p. 408): “The prince has convicted the Pontiff; the hindering, debasing, stifling, grinding, territorial dominion has borne damning witness against the ecclesiastical system. . . . The power with the loftiest pretensions in the world has proved incapable of the pettiest achievement. . . The Vicars of Christ have scandalously misgoverned a petty principality.”

Adam Smith (“Wealth of Nations,” Book V., Ch. i., Part iii., Art.3) : “The Church of Rome is the most formidable combination that ever was formed against the authority and security of civil government, as well as against the liberty, reason, and happiness of mankind.”

Gladstone (“Speeches of Pope Pius IX.” p. 173): “When the Pope speaks of the liberation of the Church, he means merely this, that it is to set its foot on the neck of every other power; and when he speaks of peace in Italy he means the overthrow of the established order, if, by a re-conversion of Italians to his way of thinking, well; but if not, then by the old and favorite Roman expedient, the introduction of foreign arms invading the land, to put down the national sentiment and to re-establish the temporal government of the Clerical order.”

We, fortunately, possess a great deal of information respecting the condition of the Papal States when “the temporal government of the Clerical order” bore sway. Out of a mass of accounts, let the following be pondered:—

Farini (“History of Rome,” Book I, Ch. i.): “There was no care for the cultivation of the people, no anxiety for public prosperity. Rome was a cesspool of corruption, of exemptions, and of privileges; a clergy, made up of fools and knaves, in power; laity slaves; the treasury plundered by gangs of tax-farmers and spies; all the business of government consisted of prying into and punishing the notions, the expectations, and the imprudences of the Liberals.”

Dean Alford (“Letters from Abroad,” pp. 66-67): “Here we have the most absolute monarch im the world, ruling a capital by no means large, with a numerous staff of military and police; and, besides, assisted by 20,000 French troops. And besides this, we have here a people whose state, physical, moral, and intellectual, is the result of accumulated centuries of a government and institutions, according to the advocates of the Papacy, the best im the world, and administered by infallible wisdom, unerring justice, spotless integrity, and unimpeachable truth. How, then, does it stand with Rome, in point of security and good order? Unquestionably, in both these points, it is the worst city in the civilized world.”

In Dean Stanley’s “Life of Dr. Arnold” (Vol. II., p. 411, London, 1844) we read: “This is the last night, I trust, in which I shall sleep in the Pope’s dominions; for it is impossible not to be sickened with a government such as this, which discharges no one function decently. The ignorance of the people is prodigious: how can it be otherwise?”

Garibaldi (“The Rule of the Monk,” Vol. I., p. 29): “In the year 1848, when a Republican Government was established in France, which was the signal for a general revolutionary movement throughout Europe, and the present Pope was forced to escape in the disguise of a menial, while a National Government granted, for the first time in Rome, religious toleration. One of the first orders of the Roman Republic was that the nuns should be liberated, and the convents searched. Giuseppe Garibaldi, in 1849, then recently arrived in Rome, visited in person every convent, and was present during the whole of the investigations. In all, with- out an exception, he found instruments of cruelty; and in all, without an exception, were vaults, plainly dedicated to the reception of the bones of infants. Statistics prove that in no city is there so great a number of children born out of wedlock as in Rome; and it is in Rome also that the greatest number of infanticides takes place.

“This must ever be the case with a wealthy unmarried priesthood and a poor, ignorant population.”

George Augustus Sala (“Rome and Venice.” p. 339): “Many years have elapsed since Lord John Russell denounced the government of the Pope as the very worst in Europe, and, save in a few insignificant particulars, it has not changed since. The government of the States of the Church is worse even than that of Turkey, where there is, at least, religious toleration and commercial freedom.”

Dr. Henry C. Lea, in “An Historical Sketch of Sacerdotal Celibacy in the Christian Church” (2nd Ed., Enlarged, 1884) said: “The Latin Church is the great fact which dominates the history of modern civilization. Nowhere do we see combined effort, nowhere can we detect a pervading impulse, irrespective of locality or circumstance, save in the imposing machinery of the Church Establishment. This meets us at every point, and in every age, and in every sphere of action. This vast fabric of ecclesiastical supremacy presents one of the most curious problems which the world’s history affords. A wide and absolute authority, deriving its force from (im)moral power alone, marshaling no legions of its own in battle array, but permeating everything with its influence . . . such was the papal hierarchy, a marvel and a mystery.”

What Dr. Lea styles “moral power” in reality is founded on the following blasphemous claim of the Papal hierarchy. It is extracted from a large work by Abbé Gaume, entitled “Catechisme de Perséverance” (Vol. IV., p. 288): “What language of man can speak the dignity of the priesthood and the greatness of the Priest? Kings of the earth are great, who command vast armies and make the world tremble at the sound of their name. Ah well! there is one man greater still. He is a man who, every day, when he pleases, opens the gates of Heaven, and, addressing himself to the Son of the Eternal, to the Monarch of the worlds, says to Him: ‘Descend from Your Throne, Come!’ Docile, at the voice of this man, the Word of God, He by Whom all things were made, instantly descends from the seat of His glory, and incarnates Himself in the hands of this man, more powerful than Kings, than the angels, than the august Mary. And this man says to Him: ‘Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee, Thou art my Victim ’—and He lets Himself be immolated by this man, placed where he wills, given to whom he chooses; this man is the Priest.

“Thus the Priest, powerful as God, can, in an instant, snatch the sinner from Hell, render him fit for Paradise, and make a slave of the Devil, a son of Abraham … God Himself is obliged to adhere to the judgment of the Priest.”

The “Western Watchman” of March 25, 1912, said: “The Pope is not only the representative of Jesus Christ, but he is Jesus Christ himself hidden under the veil of flesh. Does the Pope speak? It is Jesus Christ who speaks. So that when the Pope speaks, we have no business to examine. We have only to obey.”

Garibaldi was therefore right when he declared the Papacy to be the “greatest plague” that any country could have inflicted on it—when one considers that every priest claims to be as “powerful as God,” and that the Popedom is simply a Kingdom of Priests, governed by the False Vicar of Christ.

Professor Killen, in his “The Old Catholic Church,” p. 392, says: “It is a most significant fact that the Pope was indebted for his position as am earthly sovereign to his support of the worship of images. Though among the rulers he was only a “little horn,” or a petty monarch, his power was not to be measured by the extent of his territories; for he was ‘diverse’ from other royal personages, as he was supposed to possess attributes of peculiar and tremendous potency; and the acknowledgment of his pretensions gave him an ascendancy over all his fellows. ‘In this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things.’ (Dan. vii. 24) Such a description applies exactly to the Bishop of Rome, for with unceasing vigilance he has ever been looking out for opportunities of aggrandizement.”

“Etudes,” January 20th, 1927- Pere Yves de la Briére, S.J., declares the Pope is supreme religious ruler; he has “full immediate and ordinary jurisdiction over every single Catholic.” When he issues a Law or Precept of any kind, it is not a question of his Infallibility but of his Authority. The Pope may recommend Catholics to follow one line of conduct rather than another, even in civil or political matters. For example. Leo XIII. recommended the German Center Party to vote Bismarck’s military budget in 1887, in order to facilitate a favorable conclusion of the Kultur Kampf, although they had intended to oppose it.

“Letters to His Holiness, Pope Pius X.” by A Modernist (i.e., a learned Romish ecclesiastic), 1910, p. 61 et seq.: “Your Papal See, Sovereign Pontiff, is the most exclusive despotism, the most absolute autocracy, the most humiliating tyranny, that still defies public opinion and outrages the conscience of mankind.” “What liberties can be safely entrusted to a Papacy, in itself so absolute, and surrounded by these lesser absolutisms?” “These miniature Curias, these Popes in little, whether black, brown, or white, of the great orders, exist about the Vatican, very largely for purposes of aggrandizement and intrigue.” “You are the instrument of the worst despotism in the world.”

Continued in The Antichrist: His Portrait and History – Chapter VIII. Absurdity of Modern Theories

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