Continued from Popery: Its Character And Its Crimes – Introduction

PART I. POPERY A SPIRITUAL FAMINE.
CHAPTER I. THE PROHIBITION OF THE SCRIPTURES.

That Christianity constitutes a vast and most efficient means for the spiritual renovation of our fallen race, no believer in revelation will ever deny. “God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself,” says the Apostle—i.e., God was in Christ doing those things which would bring back the obedience and love of every one who believed in His Son. And the means of grace—by which I mean simply certain appointed modes of bringing the great truths of Christianity in contact with the soul—constitute the most powerful instrumentality for the conversion of sinners and the edification of the people of God. If then we can show that the Church of Rome has almost wholly destroyed, or utterly perverted, these means of grace during at least a thousand years, it will be granted that that hierarchy stands convicted as the worst enemy to man that this earth has ever produced. This, then, is the charge which is now, with all seriousness, brought against that apostate church; and the following pages of the first part of this book will be devoted to the task of establishing it on such grounds as none will be able to gainsay.

The principal means employed by the Blessed God in renewing and sanctifying the mind of man are undoubtedly the Word of God, the preaching of the gospel, and Christian prayer. All of these, however, Popery has either to a considerable extent supplanted, or else so thoroughly perverted as to render them nugatory, where it has not changed them into vehicles of moral poison. Let us inquire into the treatment which each of these divinely appointed means of grace has met with from the Romish Church; and first, the Scriptures of truth.

It would scarcely be credited, were there not indubitable evidence of the fact, that a society calling itself the Church of Christ should be guilty of the fearful crime of absolutely prohibiting the Scriptures to the people. The Bible is so evidently addressed to mankind at large, and the blessings of reading and meditating on it are represented as so great, that the conduct of the Romish hierarchy in this particular alone is sufficient to stamp it with the mark of Antichrist. In fact, so palpable is the guilt of withholding the Scriptures from the laity that the Rev. Andrew Scott, a distinguished Popish priest in Glasgow, thus expressed himself in a letter to The Protestant about thirty years since:

“I can publicly declare (without danger of being contradicted by my brethren or censured by my superiors) that it is not at present, that it never was, a principle of the Catholic Church that the Scriptures should be withheld from the laity; and there never was any law enacted by the supreme legislative authority in the Catholic Church by which the reading of the Scriptures was prohibited. If indeed a principle of the Roman Catholic Church was to deprive her members of the use of the Divine word by forbidding them to read and search the Scriptures, she would indeed BE CRUEL AND UNJUST.” (The Protestant, vol. i. p. 235.)

From a work entitled De Cognitione Baptismi, written in the seventh century, it is evident that the Scriptures were then in the hands of all Christians, and were perused by them without fear or molestation. Soon afterwards, the Latin tongue, into which Jerome had translated the Scriptures, became a dead language with which only the learned were acquainted; and the church, in neglecting to furnish the people with translations of the Bible into the vernacular language of each nation, was virtually guilty of prohibiting the Bible to the common people. This state of things continued from the eighth to the thirteenth century. The Bible was not positively forbidden to the people, but it was of no more use than if it had been a scroll of Egyptian hieroglyphics.

The churchmen of the Middle Ages, however, had not yet “filled up the measure of their wrath.” At the commencement of the thirteenth century, at a general council held at Toulouse, the Scriptures were absolutely forbidden to the laity, both in the Latin and in the vulgar tongue; and all books of religion were proscribed except three—the Psalter, the Breviary, and the Hours of the Virgin Mary, and these must be in the Latin tongue.[1] A few years afterwards, at another council (A.D. 1246), it was enacted that the Inquisitors should not suffer the people to possess any religious book whatever, either in the vulgar tongue or in Latin, and that the clergy should not have any translation of the Scriptures in their possession![2] Such were the principles and practices of Popery at a time when it reigned supreme over the whole Western world.

This grievous famine of the Word of God, and of all religious truth, which the churchmen of the thirteenth century had produced, continued for many centuries to desolate all Europe, so that in the language of Isaiah, “their honorable men were famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst; therefore hell enlarged itself and opened her mouth without measure.” (Isa. v. 13, 14.) Every attempt made to provide the people with a translation of the Scriptures was steadily opposed by a corrupt and interested hierarchy. The mere possession of a Bible in the vulgar tongue was considered a sufficient proof of heresy, and many Christians were committed to the flames for no other crime.

Towards the close of the fourteenth century, the celebrated Wycliffe published an English Bible, which called forth the most furious opposition on the part of Rome. Pope Gregory issued a bull (A.D. 1378) addressed to the University of Oxford, where Wycliffe was Professor of Divinity, in which he was described as “having run into a kind of detestable wickedness, not only for openly publishing, but also vomiting out of the filthy dungeon of his breast, diverse professions, false and erroneous conclusions, and most wicked and damnable heresies.” The object of Gregory in promulgating this bull was to excite a persecution against Wycliffe for having translated the Bible; and although the goodness of God preserved his life, yet a few years after, his very bones were dug up and burnt, and the ashes thrown into the river.

The same furious opposition was raised against Tyndale’s and Coverdale’s version of the New Testament. A proclamation was made by the King (A.D. 1546) “for abolishing all English books published under pretense of expounding and declaring the truth of God’s Scripture,” and it was ordered that henceforth “no man, woman, or person of what estate, condition, or degree soever he be, or they be, shall after the last day of August, next ensuing, receive or have, take or keep, in his possession, the text of the New Testament of Tyndale’s or Coverdale’s translation into English.”

When Luther had commenced the glorious work of Reformation on the Continent, and printed the Scriptures in the German language, Pope Leo X. issued a bull against him, couched in the most violent and opprobrious terms, and after having called upon “the Lord to rise up, and the Apostles Peter and Paul to rise up against the foxes which had risen up, seeking to destroy the vineyard, lest these heresies should further increase, and these foxes gather strength against us.” The Pope adds:

“Finally, let the whole universal church of God’s saints and doctors rise up, whose true expounding of Holy Scripture being rejected, certain persons (whose hearts the father of lies hath blinded) wise in their own conceits (as the manner of heretics is) do expound the Scriptures otherwise than the Holy Ghost doth require, following only their own sense of ambition and vainglory; yea, rather do wrest and adulterate the Scriptures. So that, as Jerome saith, now they make it not the gospel of Christ, but of man; or which is worse, of the devil. Let all the holy church, I say, rise up, and with the blessed Apostles together make intercession to Almighty God that the errors of all schismatics being rooted and stocked up, his holy church may be continued in peace and unity.”

This bull further condemned all persons who did not surrender Luther’s books, and it was the forerunner of one of the bloodiest persecutions which ever fell upon the earth. The time would fail me to record the histories of those of whom the world was not worthy, who were slain for the Word of God, and for the testimony which they held; but I wish to produce two examples: In 1514, Richard Hunne of London, who was murdered in his prison, was charged with various religious offenses, one of which was that “he had in his keeping divers English books prohibited and damned by the law, as the Apocalypse in English, &c.”; and he was further charged that “he defendeth the translation of the Bible and Holy Scriptures into the English tongue, which is prohibited by the laws of our holy mother church.” (See Mr. Fox’s account of the proceedings of the Lancastrian School in Glasgow, p. 70.)

Such were the steps taken by The Man of Sin to withhold the Word of God from a dying world; and the success which attended them is too manifest to be denied. The learned and excellent Du Moulin, a French Protestant divine of the seventeenth century, thus writes on the subject:

“That the people might be blinded and deceived without understanding so much, the Pope hath wasted the Scriptures out of their hands, and taken order that they should not be translated into a known tongue. Within these few years the Scriptures were no more known to the people than the Alcoran (Quran) was—there were only some Latin Bibles in monasteries and clergymen’s houses. And even in this very time in Spain, in Italy, Sicily, &c., to see an Italian or Spanish Bible would be deemed to be a prodigy, and thought a matter sufficient to fetch one under the Inquisition.” (Accomplishment of Prophecy, p. 126, London, 1656.)

The same writer, speaking of the opposition of the clergy to the translation of the Scriptures, says:

“I have known some Friars so scrupulous that they would have thought themselves in the estate of damnation if they had read but six lines of the Gospel of John translated into the vulgar tongue.” (Capuchin)

The state of things, even in the present day, is not materially changed. The free use of the Holy Scriptures is still prohibited by the rulers of the church. The decrees of the Council of Trent, the highest authority in the Church of Rome, are still in force. The canon concerning the use of the Scriptures is as follows:

“Since it is manifest by experience that if the Holy Bibles in the vulgar language are permitted to be read everywhere without discrimination, more harm than good arises, let the judgment of the bishop or inquisitor be abided by in that particular. So that after consulting with the parish minister or the confessor, they may grant permission to read translations of the Scriptures made by Catholic authors to those whom they shall have understood to be able to receive no harm, but an increase of faith and piety from such reading, which penmen can let them have in writing. But whosoever shall presume to read these Bibles, or have them in possession without such permission, shall not be capable of receiving absolution of their sins, unless they have first given up their Bibles to the ordinary.” (Regula IV., List of prohibited books.)

In the encyclical letter of Pope Leo XII., May 3, 1824, republished with “Pastoral instructions to all the faithful” by the Archbishops and Bishops of Ireland, occurs the following passage:

“We also, venerable brethren, in conformity with our apostolic duty, exhort you to turn away your flock by all means from THESE POISONOUS PASTURES” (i.e., the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue). “Reprove, beseech, be instant in season and out of season, in all patience and doctrine, that the faithful entrusted to you—adhering strictly to the rules of our congregation” (this just quoted) “be persuaded that if the Sacred Scriptures be everywhere indiscriminately published, more evil than advantage will arise thence on account of the rashness of men.”

The actual result of these and similar blasphemies has been to render the Scriptures almost as scarce even in the nineteenth century. “The Bible is,” says a Protestant Missionary in Rio de Janeiro,

“to an astonishing and almost incredible extent, a new book and a real curiosity in this country. An elderly lady, who in other respects appeared quite intelligent, said she had lived so many years in the world and never heard of it till lately. How many are thus totally ignorant of the Holy Scriptures is unknown. A gentleman, a Catholic and with no great faith in missionary operations, remarked to me that he did not suppose there were four hundred Bibles in the Brazils—among a population of at least five millions. What is this but an awful famine of the Word of God, and what an awful fact that this famine, which carries moral death and ruin wherever it goes, has continued from generation to generation.” (Letter of Rev. J. Spalding, dated September 23, 1837, quoted in Elliott’s Delineation of Roman Catholicism, p. 23.)

The actual estimation in which the Bible is held in Rome itself is plain from the following extract:

“The Bible in Rome is a strange and rare book. The only edition of it authorized to be sold here is in fifteen large volumes, which are filled with Popes’ commentaries; of course none but the rich can purchase a copy of the Sacred Scriptures. Indeed very few of the common people know what we mean by the Bible. The question was proposed the other day by one of my fellow-lodgers to the lady from whom our lodgings are obtained, and who may be considered as a fair representative, in point of intelligence and religious information, of the middle class of society in Rome, ‘if the people generally had a copy of the Bible in their houses?’ The reply was, ‘Oh yes, all the religious people have.’ She also added that she had a very fine copy of the Bible, and immediately went to fetch it. When produced, it proved to be a Mass-book, with here and there a passage of Scripture, accompanied with Romish glosses. When it was more fully explained what we meant by the Bible, she replied, ‘Oh yes, I know what you mean; that book is in several of the libraries in Rome, and some persons who are very religious have also a copy of it.’” (Rev. J. Clark, of the Protestant Episcopal Church of St. Andrew’s, Philadelphia, in a letter to his congregation, dated March 24, 1838, quoted in Elliott’s Delineation, p. 23.)

It is thus abundantly manifest that the crime of withholding the Scriptures from the laity, for at least a thousand years, is chargeable upon the Papal Church—first by neglecting to furnish translations of the Sacred Volume when the Latin had become a dead language, and subsequently by positively prohibiting any translation to be made for the use of the unlearned. And when we consider the object for which the Word of God is given to man, and which stands prominent in every page, it is difficult to say whether our astonishment or indignation is greatest in contemplating the conduct of the Romish Church in this particular.

The true point of view in which the Bible should be regarded in reference to man is as “a light unto our feet, and a lamp unto our path.” On entering this world, man journeys along in “the broad road which leadeth to destruction”; and heedless of his danger, hurries onward until at length he opens his eyes in the world of woe. But the Bible is the light given by the God of Love to dispel the darkness of nature, and discover to him the awful gulf towards which he is hastening, and the strait gate through which the only way of escape lies. And this lamp, this heavenly lamp—the Churchmen of the Middle Ages snatched away, and left him for the future to his fate, just because the same light which showed man his danger revealed at the same time the features of Antichrist in their own countenance. For this conduct, still persisted in to some extent in Great Britain, and more fully in Papal countries, the Church of Rome stands convicted as the worst enemy to the happiness and welfare of man which this earth has produced, and amply justifies the charge which it is the object of this part of the present work to prove, viz.: That Popery is a system of SPIRITUAL FAMINE, which deprives men of that light and life which is essential to their peace here, and their endless happiness in the world to come.

Footnotes

[1] Prohibemus etiam ne libros V. T. aut Novi laici permittantur habere, nisi forte psalterium vel breviarium pro divinis officiis aut horas B. Mariae aliquis ex devotione habere velit. Sed ne praemissos libros habeant in vulgari translatos arctissime inhibemus. (Concil. Tolosanum, ann. 1229, cap. 14.)

[2] Concilium Biterrense.

(To be continued.)