CHAPTER 7 ANTICHRIST AN INNOVATOR

THE introduction of changes in divine institutions and laws, is another prophetic feature in Antichrist. Thus Daniel predicts of him; “and he shall think to change times and laws” — tdw ˆynmz hynçwhl rbsyw. The Seventy render the passage into Greek thus — kai uJponohsei tou alloiwsai kairouv kai nomouv. The Vulgate translates it into the following Latin: “Et putabit mutare tempera et legem.” The following is the English of the Doway Bible — “And he shall think himself able to change times and laws.” Daniel 7:25.

The character of these times and laws is not only to be inferred from the context, but is distinctly taught us by the Apostle Paul.

“He, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.” 2 Thessalonians 2:4.

The meaning of this passage is, that Antichrist, arrogating to himself divine authority and honors, hesitates not to make those changes and alterations in the institutions of heaven, which God alone has the exclusive right either to establish or annul. Some of these changes are definitely expressed by the same Apostle —

“forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.” 1 Timothy 4:3.

These passages refer to Antichrist; and the latter teaches most clearly, who that Antichrist is. Who is it that forbids to marry? Who is it that commands a great variety of fasts and abstinences? It is the Church of Rome. While God has left both marrying and fasting as voluntary things to his people, and while the New Testament teaches that many of the Apostles, the brethren of the Lord, and even Peter (1 Corinthians 9:4,) had wives, the Papacy dares to step in between God and the consciences of men, and to interpose its authority as absolute and imperative! The following are some among the many changes which the Papacy has introduced in divine ordinances and laws. We have already noticed its denial of the Scriptures as the sole rule of faith, its perversion of the doctrine of justification by faith, its virtual subversion of the sole mediatorship of Christ, and its utter destruction of the Christian liberties of God’s people; we now proceed to increase the catalogue of alterations in the divine economy and law, which this wicked power has made, during the lapse of past centuries.

The Papacy has virtually abolished the obligation of the moral law. Not only is the second commandment made a part of the first, in the more systematic arrangement of doctrines in the Romish Church, and the tenth divided into two, to complete the number; but in their catechisms for the young, the second is entirely omitted!1 Their system too, of saint and image-worship, even where the literal law is retained, completely subverts its authority. The fourth commandment has shared a similar fate. True, it is retained verbally, but then its force and obligation are entirely destroyed. The multiplication of other holy days by this church, has caused the Sabbath as a divine institution, proportionably to sink in the estimation of all Catholic communities. Dens, in his treatise on theology, on the fourth commandment asks this question — “What is taught by this third (4th) precept in the new law?” The answer given is, “Principally these three things —

1. That certain specified days are to be kept holy. 2. That they are to be kept holy by external divine worship, by hearing masses. 3. That the same are to be kept holy by abstaining from servile labors.” He next asks, “Which days are those appointed to be kept holy?” The answer is, “In the first place, are the Lord’s days; next, festival days!” Here, saints’ days and other set days appointed by the Church of Rome, are actually placed in the Decalogue as of Divine appointment! More than one hundred of these human Sabbaths are imposed upon the dupes of Rome, under the authority of Him who spake from Sinai, and who said, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” Hence the ever occurring interruptions to weekly labor in Catholic countries, hence the declension in national prosperity of all those countries. God’s economy has been abolished, and man’s substituted. But this evil also operates against the sanctity of the weekly Sabbath. This day is put on a footing with the other holy days; it is devoted to plays and sports, by those who should be taught, “not to think their own thoughts, or to speak their own words on God’s holy day.” “As to hunting, says Dens, and fishing, unless accompanied with great noise or fatigue, they are lawful recreations on the Lord’s day! Many suppose that it is not unlawful to fish with a reed, hook, or small nets, for the purpose of recreation; and they think the same of hunting on a small scale.” — He also introduces two other authorities as advocating the selling of clothes, shoes, and. other things, to servants and laborers, on the Sabbath, and represents it as doubtful whether painting is not lawful on that day! If such be the teachings of sound Roman Catholic divines on the sanctity of the Sabbath, what shall be said of the practices of the people generally? Hence in all Catholic countries, after morning mass, and certain external forms of worship, the Sabbath is spent as a day of recreation and sport.2

The fifth commandment has been set aside by the Papacy in all those numerous cases in which children have been compelled by the church to inform against heretical parents, and in which parents have been constrained to turn the accusers of their own offspring. The following is tile testimony of one who was born a Roman Catholic, and long continued such.3 “Every year there is publicly read (in Spain) at church, a proclamation or bull from the Pope, commanding parents to accuse their children, children their parents, husbands their wives, and wives their husbands, of any words or actions against the Roman Catholic religion. They are told that whoever disobeys this command not only incurs damnation for his own soul, but is the cause of the same to those whom he wishes to spare. So that many have had for their accusers, their fathers and mothers, without knowing to whom they owed their sufferings under the Inquisitors; for the name of the informer is kept a most profound secret, and the accused is tried without ever seeing the witnesses against him.”4

Here, then, according to papistical policy, the obligations of the fifth commandment are subverted by the tyrannical and interposed authority of the priesthood.

It need scarcely be affirmed, here, what effects the imposition of celibacy upon the clergy is likely to produce in reference to the seventh commandment. When such celibacy is voluntary, there is but little danger; where, however, it is forced, there is always danger to the party upon whom it is thus laid. Even Christ said on this subject, “he that is able to receive it, let him receive it.” Matthew 19:12. The Apostle Paul also gives the following advice: — “to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife.” 1 Corinthians 7:2. A single life, according to Scripture, should be voluntary, wherever adopted. Every man, in this particular, is to judge, for himself. But the Church of Rome forces celibacy upon her priesthood. Can any one believe, that this arbitrary law can extinguish the propensities of nature? or, that all who have professedly submitted to it, have really led chaste and virtuous lives? Impossible! And if the seventh commandment be violated by the priesthood, is it likely that it can have its proper influence among all the multitudes who constitute the entire Catholic community? At any rate, any one can see, that the tendency of this rule is to subvert the pure morality of the church.

The sixth and eighth commandments have both been trampled under foot by the Holy Inquisition. The great object of this court seems to be to enrich the church by murdering its enemies, or suspected friends. In Spain, this Holy Court directed its energies at first, principally against the Jews. “In one year,” says McCrie, “five thousand Jews fell a sacrifice to popular fury.”5 These Jews were immensely rich, and their property became the possession of their malignant persecutors. In the very year in which Luther made his appearance (1517), in Spain alone, there were 13,000 persons burnt alive, 8700 burnt in effigy, and 169,723 condemned to various penances.6 Is it possible to imagine that a body of men, who can, on slight pretexts, accuse, condemn, and burn worthy and industrious citizens, and then take possession of their property, can have any regard for either the sixth or the eighth commandment?

But this whole law is virtually abolished by the Tax-book of the Roman Chancery. Here crimes are reduced to a regular scale of pecuniary valuation. Of course, the idea that a transgressor has of the character of his sin, is the amount of money he has to pay for its pardon. The following are a few items from this Tax-Book: “Robbing a church, $2.50. Perjury, forgery, and lying, $2. Robbery, $3. Burning a house, $2.75. Eating meat in Lent, $2.75. Killing a layman, $1.75. Striking a priest, $2.75. Procuring abortion, $1.50. Priest to keep a concubine, $2.25. Ravishing a virgin, $2.

Murder of father, mother, brother, sister or wife, $2.50. Marrying on a forbidden day, $10. All incest, rapes, adultery, and fornication, committed by a priest, with the joint pardon of the other parties concerned, $10. Absolution of all crimes together, $12.”7 According to this scale of the Roman Chancery, not only are human laws made equal, and even superior to the divine, but crimes the most atrocious are represented as venial; a few dollars and cents cancel the account, and turn the transgressor forth to commit new depredations upon the law of God, and upon human society! Thus does the Papacy virtually abolish and set aside the moral law itself.

2. We notice next the interference of the Papacy with marriage; an institution appointed directly by God, older than any other, and one which lies at the basis of society, and which is essential to the purity of any community whatever. Every reader of church history will perceive an early tendency in the church to discountenance marriage in her clergy. This tendency was farther increased by the monastic life. It was afterwards converted into an ecclesiastical law, and marriage in a priest was considered a more heinous crime, than adultery in a layman.

That such an unnatural statute has no countenance in Scripture, is certain. God himself has said, “It is not good for man to be alone.” Genesis 2:18. Even the high-priest among the Jews was expected to marry, “and he shall take a wife in her virginity.” Leviticus 21:13. The Apostle Paul also says, “a bishop must be the husband of one wife.” 1 Timothy 3:2. It is also manifest that Peter and several of the Apostles were married men. 1 Corinthians 9:4. True, Christ and Paul intimate, that under given circumstances it would be better for ministers not to marry. Neither, however, makes any law on the subject; but leaves it to the choice of ministers themselves; the Papacy, however, “forbids to marry.”

Pope Gregory VII. assembled an ecclesiastical council at Rome, in the year 1074. In this council “it was decreed,” says Mosheim, “that the sacerdotal orders should abstain from marriage; and that such of them as had already wives or concubines, should immediately dismiss them, or quit the priestly office. These decrees were accompanied with circular letters, written by the pontiff to all European bishops, enjoining the strictest obedience to this solemn council, under the severest penalties.” — “No sooner was the law concerning the celibacy of the clergy published,” remarks the same historian, “than the priests in the several provinces of Europe, who lived in the bonds of marriage with lawful wives, complained loudly of the severity of this council, and excited the most dreadful tumults in the greatest part of the European provinces. Many of these ecclesiastics chose rather to abandon their spiritual dignities, and to quit their benefices, that they might cleave to their wives.” He also remarks:

“The proceedings of Gregory appeared to the wiser part, even of those who approved of the celibacy of the clergy, unjust and criminal in two respects: first, in that his severity fell indiscriminately and with equal fury upon the virtuous husband and the licentious rake. Secondly, that instead of chastising the married priests with wisdom and moderation, he gave them over to the civil magistrate, to be punished as disobedient and unworthy subjects, with the loss of their substance, and with the most shocking marks of undeserved infamy and disgrace!”8 How powerless must have fallen upon the ear of such a Pope, the words of Christ —

“Whom God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” Matthew 19:6.

Here then we see the Papacy, true to the prophecy concerning it, but in direct violation of the laws of God and of society, among a large class of persons, annulling an institution, of which it is said, “marriage is honorable in all.” The object of such a law is evident enough — it is to create the tools of papal power. By destroying all conjugal ties in her priesthood, by withering in the heart all domestic loves and affections, Rome seeks to ally to the chair of St. Peter, a vast number of willing minions, who will go at her bidding, and who shall seek in despite of all opposition, to establish her dominion over the nations of the earth. While, however, she thus seeks to increase her authority, she but exhibits her real character, and demonstrates to the world, that she is the Antichrist, predicted in the Holy Scriptures.

It has already been shown, in speaking of the apostasy of Rome, how the gospel, as a system of grace and salvation, has been corrupted by the Papacy. Rome has also perverted and changed every institution and ordinance connected with the gospel.

3. She has changed and corrupted the sacraments of the new dispensation. Any reader of the New Testament will readily perceive, that Christ appointed but two such sacraments, Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper. Rome, however, has ordained seven — Baptism, Confirmation, the Eucharist, Penance, Extreme Unction, Orders, and Matrimony. The authority in such sacraments is thus expressed by Dens: “The primary reason of this, is the Will of Christ, as made known by divine tradition! This number of seven is also insinuated in various passages of Scripture. Thus, Proverbs 9:1, it is said, ‘Wisdom, which is Christ, has built a house for herself, that is the church, and she hath hewn out seven pillars,’ doubtless the seven sacraments, which, like so many pillars sustain the church! So in like manner, (Exodus 25,) by the seven lamps, which were on one candlestick, this is implied, for there are seven sacraments, just so many as there are lamps, which illumine the church.”9 Such is the miserable foundation on which Rome rests her doctrine of seven sacraments!

But she has changed the design and character of a sacrament. The sacraments of the New Testament are but the external signs and seals of internal and spiritual grace. Rome, however, makes them the material causes of grace. The council of Florence uses the following language: “These our sacraments both contain and confer grace, upon such as worthily receive them.” The council of Trent speaks in a similar manner — “If any one shall say, that grace is not conferred by the sacraments of the new law themselves by their own power — (per ipsa novae legis Sacramenta ex opere operato non conferri gratiam) — but that mere belief of the divine promise is sufficient to obtain grace; let him be accursed.”10 Dens explains the mode in which grace is conferred by these sacraments. “Sacraments act in the manner of natural agents, whose effect is more or less, according to the greater or less capacity or disposition of the subject which disposition still has no efficiency; as it is plain in fire, which burns dry wood more effectually than green, although the dryness is merely the remover of a hindrance, or an indispensable requisite, and not the efficient cause of combustion.”11 Here, it is distinctly stated, that upon the same principle that fire burns wood, sacraments confer grace! Grace is inherent in the sacrament; consequently, the application of the sacrament to the subject, as naturally sanctifies, as the application of fire to wood burns! Hence the same author says. “The power of regeneration is attributed not less to the water, than to the Holy Ghost!12

From the view thus taken by Rome, of the design of a sacrament, it is not wonderful that she considers the administration of her sacraments as essential to salvation. When his Jewish brethren placed the same false view upon circumcision, the Apostle to the gentiles exclaimed. “Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God.” 1 Corinthians 7:19.

And when this view began to be taken also by Christians, of baptism, the same Apostle said:

“I thank God, that I baptized none of you, but Crispus and Gaius.” 1 Corinthians 1:14.

The plain and constant teaching of the New Testament is, that men are saved “by grace,” and that the gift of this grace is not dependent upon human work or merit in any sense whatever. “The wind bloweth where it listeth,” says Christ; and believers are said to be born, “not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” John chapter three and chapter one. Rome, however, places the gift of grace in the hands of her priesthood, and not in the hands of a sovereign God. Nor is this all; the administration of her sacraments must be accompanied with the intention of the priest, otherwise the sacrament itself becomes inefficacious. “The intention in the minister,” says Dens, “consists in an act of his will, by which he wills the external performance of the sacraments, with the intention of doing what the church does.” And Trent has decreed — “If any one shall say that the intention is not required in ministers, when they perform and confer sacraments, at least of doing what the church does, let him be accursed.”13 This of course places salvation in the intention of a priest. Who can ascertain that intention? Who, but God, can read the heart of a Catholic priest? How then can a communicant have any evidence of pardon, but the word of the priest? And yet this sort of sacrament is essential to salvation! “The effect of this sacrament,” (baptism,) says the Council of Florence, “is the remission of all original and actual guilt; also, of all punishment which is due for that guilt.” Trent decrees, that, “Whosoever shall say that baptism is optional, that is, not necessary to salvation, let him be accursed.”14 Hence the practice of this church, to allow midwives and others to baptize children in cases of emergency. Hence the directions given about baptizing children in the womb, and of opening mothers, who die in child-birth, in order to baptize the living offspring! Hence, too, that heathenish practice of excluding from consecrated burying places, not only heretics and others, but the children of Roman Catholic parents, provided, they die before baptism can be administered!15

The same necessity is held as to the other sacraments. “Whether confirmation,” says Dens, “is necessary to salvation, is a disputed point; but the more probable opinion is the affirmative.”16 It is rather wonderful that an infallible church should be held in doubt as to a matter of this kind. As to the necessity of the eucharist, however, there is no doubt. “While the other sacraments,” say the Decrees of Trent, “then first possess the power of sanctifying, when they are used by any one, the very Author of sanctity is in the eucharist before it is used.”17This sacrament, thus changed into Christ himself, “is not,” says the Roman Catholic catechism, “like bread and wine, changed into our substance, but in some measure changes us into its own nature.” The same catechism affirms, that “it is an antidote against the contagion of sin;” and that “invigorated by the strengthening influence of this heavenly food, the recipient at death wings his way to the mansions of everlasting glory and never-ending bliss.”18 “The sin of its omission,” says Dens, “is mortal.”19

The same necessity is placed upon penance and extreme unction. “Whosoever shall deny,” says the Council of Florence, “that sacramental confession is necessary to salvation, let him be accursed.”20 “Whosoever,” says the same Council, “shall say that the sacred anointing of the sick does not confer grace, nor remit sins, nor raise up the sick, but that it has now ceased, let him be accursed.”21 Thus, these Romish sacraments are considered, all of them, and in every’ case, essential to salvation; a position contrary to Scripture, and which has no authority but the word of Rome.

The corruption which Rome has introduced into the simple, but significant ceremony of the Lord’s Supper, deserves particular attention. Any plain and honest reader of the New Testament, must perceive at once, that the object of the Lord’s Supper was to erect in the Church a memorial of that greatest of all events, the death of Christ upon the cross. That, as the feast of the passover was a memorial of the deliverance of the Israelites from the bondage of Egypt, when the first-born were slain, so this institution was designed to be a perpetual memento, or commemorative ordinance, pointing to Calvary and Christ. This simple view of the subject however, has not suited the genius of Rome. To magnify her priesthood, (for this is the object,) she has converted it into something very different, and given to her priests a power in this ordinance, which is actually higher, so far as we know, than that possessed by God himself; certainly, a power so absurd that he never employed it. This power is, the conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the literal body of Christ, and of the whole substance of the wine into the literal blood of Christ; the accidents, that is, the shape, color, taste, etc., of the bread and wine remaining; not however inhering in their own substance, but in the substance of the body and blood of Christ! — ”Whosoever shall deny,” is the doctrine of Trent, “that in the most holy sacrament of the eucharist, there are truly, really, and substantially contained the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, together with his soul and divinity, and consequently Christ entire; but shall affirm that he is present therein only in a sign or figure, or by his power, let him be accursed.” — “Whoever shall deny that Christ entire, (totum Christum,) is contained in the venerable sacrament, under each species (sub unaquaque specie,) and under every part of each species, (et sub singulis cujusque speciei partibus,) when they are separated, (separatione facta,) let him be accursed.”22 This is plain; it was designed to be plain. The whole Christ, the Son of God, the Savior of men, of whom it is said, “let all the angels of God worship him;” this glorious personage is actually converted by the words of a Roman priest, into the form and appearance of bread and wine! “Credat Judaeus Apella, non ego.” Nor does the priest himself really believe it; for if poison be introduced into the wine, he will refuse to drink it.23

The first effect of this monstrous dogma, is what is called the adoration of the host, that is, the worship of the consecrated and transubstantiated bread and wine: “Whosoever shall affirm, that Christ the only begotten Son of God is not to be adored in the holy Eucharist with the external signs of that worship which is due to God, (cultu latrine) and, therefore, that the Eucharist is not to be honored with extraordinary festive celebration, nor solemnly carried about in processions, nor publicly presented to the people for their adoration, (populo proponendum ut adorerut,) and that those who worship the same are idolaters; let him be accursed.”24 Here, a God is not only made out of bread and wine, but actually received and worshipped as such!

Nor is this all — the wheaten and vinous Christ is next converted into a sacrifice, and offered by the blaspheming priest, as an atonement for the sins of the living and the dead! “Whoever shall affirm, that a true and proper sacrifice (rerum et proprium sacrificium) is not offered to God in the mass; or, that the offering is nothing else than giving Christ to us to eat; let him be accursed,” — “Whosoever shall affirm, that the sacrifice of the mass is only a service of praise and thanksgiving, or a bare commemoration of the sacrifice made on the cross, and not a propitiatory offering; (non autem propitiatorium) or, that it only benefits him who receives it, and ought not to be offered for the living and the dead, (pro vivis et defunctis,) for sins, punishments, satisfactions, and other necessities, (pro peccatis, poenis, satisfactionibus, et aliis necessitatibus,) let him be accursed.”25 On the same subject, Dens teaches that, “The sacrifice on the cross is altogether the same as to substance with the sacrifice of the mass; because the priest in both instances is the same! and the victim, Christ the Lord is the same!” Again he says, “Next to Christ, every priest legitimately ordained, is the true and proper minister of the sacrifice, because they only can perform this sacrifice, who have received supernatural power for this purpose.” Again he says: “The value of the mass is infinite” and again, “The mass is infallibly efficacious.” “It is proper,” he says, “to receive pay for the celebration of the mass.”

“Baptized heretics, he continues, are entirely excluded from all the direct benefits of the sacrifice of the mass.” Still, however, “It is certain that the sacrifice of the mass, is infallibly of advantage to souls in purgatory, for the remission of the punishments remaining from guilt, at least as to a part.”

Thus is the simple and sublime ordinance of the Holy Supper, converted from a purely commemorative ordinance, from being the means of cherishing the believer’s faith in Christ, into a ceremony of superstition, absurdity and idolatry. Well might Christ say of such, “Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat and swallow a camel.” Matthew 23:24.

4. Upon all the changes which Rome has introduced into the church and kingdom of God, it is not necessary to dwell. Suffice it to say, that every doctrine, every ordinance, every institution, every mode of worship, every thing, has undergone, in one form or another, some change in passing through the hands of omnipotent Rome. The church has become a temporal kingdom, the ministry not only a priesthood, but a set of earthly princes; the Bible, not a revelation from God to man, but a revelation from the priest to man; baptism, not an obligation to Christ, but an obligation to the church; confession to man, has taken the place of confession to God; obedience is no longer the evidence of faith, but the meritorious cause of salvation. Purgatory has been invented to terrify the credulous; and contributions and fasts, instead of being left voluntary to individual believers, are matters of ecclesiastical law, and of positive requirement. A system of tyranny has been erected on the ruins of freedom; and error and superstition have risen up in the place of truth and simplicity. If Peter or Paul were sent back from the world of glory, to contemplate the church of Rome; and if they were told, that the Roman church was held as the model of the system, which they originally advocated, these holy men would scarcely recognize a principle or a thing in all Romanism, identical with the church and the Christianity which they left in the world. Yea, Paul would see his “man of sin,” in all the perfection of maturity, in the awful spectacle presented before him, and misnamed The Church. Thus has Rome, lifting her hand. higher than that of the Almighty, and speaking with a voice more terrific than that of the Holy One, dared to pull down what God has erected, and to erect what God has forbidden. In all this, however, she demonstrates her true character, proves herself to be Antichrist, and awakens in the bosom of the true believer the hope, that her destruction is advancing, and that “according as she hath glorified herself, so much torment and sorrow” will an avenging God give her.

1 See Appendix, Note D.
2 See Appendix, Note E.
3 Rev. Joseph Blanco White,
4 Preservative against Popery, p. 5.
5 Reformation in Spain, 71.
6 Text-Book of Popery, p. 263.
7 Idem. p. 83.
8 Century xi. Part 2. Section 2.
9 Dens’s Theol. chapter 34,
10 De Sacramentis in genere.
11 Theol. chapter 34,
12 Ibidem.
13 Dens’ Theol. chapter 34.
14 Dens’ Theol. ibidem.
15 Dens, ibidem.
16 Dens, chapter 36.
17 Text Book, 163.
18 Idem.
19 Chapter 38.
20 Dens, chapter 39.
21 Dens, chapter 41.
22 De sacro-sancto eucharistiae Sacramento.
23 Dens’ Theol. 39.
24 Decrees of Trent, ibidem,
25 De sacrificio missae.

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