Papal Idolatry – by Charles Chiniquy
This is the continuation of the previous chapter Mariolatry. It’s the best and most comprehensive article I have ever read that exposes the idolatry of the Roman Catholic Communion service.
First Consideration. Transubstantiation Is Idolatry.
In order that both Protestants and Roman Catholics may understand that we are perfectly correct when we say that the Church of Rome makes a god of a wafer, and is, in consequence, an idolatrous church, I copy here the blasphemous decrees of the Council of Trent.
Council Of Trent, Holy Sacrament Of The Eucharist
Canon I. “If any shall deny that in the Sacrament of the most holy Eucharist, there is contained truly, really, and substantially the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, but shall say that he is only in it in sign or figure, or power, let him be accursed.”
Canon II. “If any man shall say that in the Sacrament of the most holy Eucharist, there remains the substance of bread and wine, together with the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and shall deny that wonderful and remarkable conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the body and the whole substance of the wine into the blood, while only the appearance of bread and wine remains, which conversion the Catholic Church most aptly calls Transubstantiation, let him be accursed.”
Canon VI. “If any man shall say, that in the holy sacrament of the Eucharist, Christ the only begotten Son of God, is not to be adored, and that outwardly with the worship of Latria, and therefore that he ought neither to be venerated by any especial festive celebration, nor carried solemnly about in processions, according to the universal and laudable rite and custom of the Church, or that he ought not publicly to be exhibited to the people that he may be worshipped, and that the worshippers of him are idolaters, let him be accursed.”
Canon VIII. “If anyone shall say that Christ, as exhibited in the Eucharist, is only spiritually eaten, and not also sacramentally and really, let him be accursed.”
The Catechism of the Council of Trent speaks still more clearly and says: —
Both Roman Catholics and Protestants acknowledge that Idolatry is one of the greatest sins that man can commit. But what is “Idolatry?” It is the giving to a created being the respect, adoration, and love which are due to God alone. To make a god with our own hands, or to worship as a god, any of the creatures which are on earth, in the air, in the sea, or even in heaven, is IDOLATRY.
On the Mount Sinai, in the midst of lightnings and thunders, God Almighty wrote on the stone with his own fingers: —
God has never proffered any words more plain, simple, and clear than these. The young schoolboy, as well as the most profound philosopher, understands that by these words God Almighty forever forbade to make a god of a thing which is created, even if that created thing dwells in “heaven above.”
Now what does the Right Rev. Cardinal Gibbons and all the priests of Rome, do every morning? Do they not take a “created thing,” a wafer, in their hands, and do they not change that wafer into God? Do they not adore that wafer, when turned into God? Do they not command their people to adore that water after they have changed it into the Supreme Creator of the Universe and Saviour of the World?
What was the crime of Aaron and the people in the desert when they made the golden calf? Was it not Idolatry? But where is the difference between the crime of Aaron and the iniquity of Cardinal Gibbons, of Baltimore, and all the priests of Rome? The only difference is that the first one made a god of the melted gold bracelets and earrings of the Israelites; while the latter make their gods of a little dough baked between two well- polished heated irons. Aaron said to the people,
Now the Roman Catholic Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore, with all the priests, every day, say to their servants, “I want to make new gods, and new Christs; I have no more in the tabernacle. Bring some flour of wheat, mix it with a little water, and bake the dough between this heated graving tool.” And the servants of the cardinal and the priests bring some wheat flour, mix it with a little water, and bake the dough between that heated graving tool. And a moment after, the bishop and the priests, holding in their hands those wafers baked in that heated graving tool, say, “This is Jesus Christ the Lamb of God. This is God Himself, who, being incarnated, has saved you on the cross… Come and adore him.” And the people say in their heart, and they sing with their lips, “This is our incarnated god, who, on the cross died to save us… Let us adore him.” And prostrating their faces to the dust, they adore their god whom their priest has just made before their eyes with a wafer baked in a heated graving tool!
Is not the idolatry of Cardinal Gibbons and his priests as gross and criminal as the idolatry of Aaron and his people? Is not the wafer god of the Pope as contemptible, ridiculous, impotent, powerless as the gold calf-god of Aaron? Are not the two forms of idolatry as insulting to the great God, who has said: “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; thou shalt not bow down thyself to them nor serve them?”
In order that both the Roman Catholics and the Protestants may better understand the abominable idolatry of Rome, and how the Pope is absolutely and publicly mocking and daring God Almighty in the confection of the wafer-god, I will put the commandment of God and the orders of the Pope face to face.
God Almighty to Moses and to all the world: —
The Pope of Rome to the bishops and to the priests, and to the whole world: —
Was it possible for the devil to mock God, and dare him in a more frightful way by inspiring the Pope of Rome with these rules and commandments of his councils? Is not the Pope of Rome renewing the awful mystery of iniquity performed just after Adam and Eve had been created?
Almighty God said to Adam: —
And the serpent said to the woman: —
When God Almighty says: — “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven images of anything that is in heaven; …thou shalt of bow down and serve them,” the Pope boldly says, “Thou shalt make engraved images of something which is in heaven, and thou shalt bow down thyself and serve them.” And like the guilty mother Eve, who shuts her ears to the voice of God and forgets his solemn command to listen to the voice of Satan, speaking through the serpent, so the guilty Church of Rome forgets the solemn laws, of God, to follow the orders of Satan speaking through the popes. I know that Cardinal Gibbons with his priests will answer me: “Jesus Christ has given us the order and the power to change the wafer into our God when He said, ‘This is my body, …this is my blood… Do this in remembrance of Me.’” But I answer: “Christ has never received the power from His Father to do a thing that the Eternal Father had forever forbidden.” On Mount Sinai that Almighty God had given his command, “Never to make an engraved image of anything… and turn that graven image into God… bow down before it, and adore it.” Has God ever repealed that law? No! He can not! For himself speaking through Christ, has said, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall never pass away.” Has not Christ said, “I come to fulfill the commandments of my Father?” How could he have said these words if he had given to the popes and their priests the power to break the most solemn and sacred of them all? No! Christ would not allow His apostles and His church to take a wafer, make an image upon it, turn it into God, and adore it. We know He said, “This is my body” (Luke 22:19). But this was in a figurative way, to tell them that the bread was to be broken and eaten by them, that they might ever remember “His body nailed to the cross for them.”
A moment before we hear Christ saying, “This is my body,” we hear the Holy Ghost and Jesus Christ Himself saying:
It is true that here Christ says, “This is my body.” But the very moment before, looking on the roasted lamb, he had said, “This is the passover. I want to eat the passover. Prepare the passover. I have desired to eat this passover with you.”
Could Christ really kill, prepare and eat the passover? No. Never. For the “passover” was the passage of the exterminating angel over Egypt, when he killed the first-born of every family, on the door-post of which the blood of the Lamb was not seen. That “passage” or passover of the angel could neither be killed, roasted, nor eaten: for the simple good reason that a passage, a passover, can neither be killed, roasted, nor eaten. But as the Lamb was killed and eaten to make the Israelites remember the “passage” of the angel over Egypt, that Lamb was called the “passage,” the “passover.” Then Christ, with all the Israelites, instead of saying, “We will kill, cook, and eat the Lamb which makes us remember the”passover;” they said, “We will kill, prepare and eat the ‘passover.’”
So Christ, having given the bread to be eaten by his disciples, that they might remember his crucified body, (do this in remembrance of me), had to call that bread “his body.” It was then as it is now; “When a thing is chosen to represent another thing, it is called by the name of the thing it represents.” For instance, when a man shows the portrait of his wife and children to his friends, he does not generally say, “This is the portrait, the remembrance of my dear wife and my beloved children;” he simply says, “This is my wife, these are my children.” When one looks at the large photographs of Cardinal Gibbons he says, “This is Cardinal Gibbons; look at his fine jolly face; see his jovial, or dignified mien.” Nobody, except fools can be tempted to think and say that it is really the amiable Roman Catholic Cardinal of Baltimore, because he has heard “This is Cardinal Gibbons.” He knows very well that it is only some paper, with the shades and colors put by the artist. Nevertheless, he calls that paper and those shades and colors “Cardinal Gibbons,” for the simple reason that it is, then, to make them remember his Lordship.
So Christ said, “Kill the passover,” though the passover could not be killed. He said, “Prepare the passover,” though the passover could not be prepared. He said, “I eat this passover,” though he could not eat the passover. So he said, “This is my body,” though it was not his body. He said, “Eat this, my body,” though they could not eat his body.
But, once more: As the bread was the representation of his body, Christ had to call that bread, “body.” Christ could not eat his own body; but he could eat what was to represent his body. He could not possibly give his body to be eaten and his blood to be drunk, without making his disciples anthropophagi. But he could give what represented his body and his blood to be eaten and drunk without being guilty of that disgusting and criminal cannibalism. It is true that Christ said, “This is my body.” But do you not read in Genesis 69:9, “Judah is a lion’s whelp.” In the verse 14, “Issachar is a strong ass.” Was Judah’s father a lion, and Issachar’s father an ass? No. But these were figures of speech, just as when Jesus said, “This is my body.”
St. Paul, speaking of the sinners, says, “Their throat is a sepulchre.” Does the Cardinal of Baltimore really believe that the throat of sinners is a sepulchre? No. Then he has no more reason to believe that the body of Christ had taken the place of the bread, after he had said, “This is my body.” In both cases the verb is means (represents) and brings to the mind a memorial. David says, Psalm 121:105: — “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet.” Will ever the Pope sufficiently forget all the laws of common sense, to tell us that the word of God is really a lamp? And when Christ says “I am the door” (John 10:9), “I am the true vine” (John 15:1), had he really the intention to make us believe that he was a door, or a vine? Does not Paul, speaking of the “Rock” from which Moses drew the waters in the desert, say, “That Rock was Christ?”
Will the Roman Catholic bishops and priests, some day, try to persuade us that the Rock was really Christ, his body, soul, and divinity, because the Holy Ghost says, “That rock was Christ?” No. They acknowledge that the Rock was not Christ, though Paul says “The Rock was Christ.” It was only a figure, a type, a memorial of Christ, and because it was so it was called “Christ.” So when our Saviour says, “This (bread) is my body… Do this in remembrance of me,” he makes us understand that the bread was called “his body,” because it was presented to us that we might remember “his body.”
Jesus speaking to the Samaritan woman, said, “The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” (John 4:14). Why does not the Church of Rome try to persuade those who believe in Christ that they have such a large well of water within themselves, that it will flow even during all eternity? That well of water which is in every Christian to quench his thirst, is just like the body of Christ, which is eaten by every one of his disciples, that they may never be hungry. Both are most beautiful and simple figures when taken in the sense they were given; but both turn into a ridiculous and disgusting idea when taken as a material reality.
Second Consideration. Transubstantiation Is The Most Degrading Form Of Idolatry.
When the Persians adore the rising sun, they give their homages to the greatest and most glorious being which is presented to our human vision. That magnificent fiery orb, which rises as a giant every morning from behind the horizon, to pass over the world and pour everywhere its floods of heat, light and life, can not be contemplated without feelings of respect, admiration, and awe. Man must raise his eyes up to see that glorious sun; he must take up the eagle’s wings to follow its giant march throughout the myriads of worlds which are suspended over our heads. It is easy to understand that poor fallen and blind humanity may take that great being for a God. Would not this world perish without the sun? What would become of the nations which inhabit the earth without its light and heat? Would not everything perish and die, if the sun would forget to come every day, and make us bathe and swim in its oceans of light and life. Then, when I see the Persian priests of the sun, in their magnificent temple waiting, with their censers in hand, for the appearance of its first rays, to chant their melodious hymns and sing their sublime canticles to its glory, I know their errors, but I can understand it. I was going to say, I can almost excuse it. I feel an immense compassion for those poor Idolaters. But, at the same time, I feel that they are raised above the dust of this earth, and that their minds must be filled with sentiments of gratitude and adoration for that great being. Their intelligence and their souls can not but receive some sparks of light and life from the contemplation of that inexhaustible focus of light and life. But the poor deluded Roman Catholic! Is he not a thousand times mere worthy of our compassion and our tears, when we see him prostrated in the presence of that small “wafer-god,” which the servant girl of the priest has baked a few hours before in her kitchen? Is it possible to see a spectacle more disgraceful and ignominious than a multitude of men and women prostrating their faces to the dust, to adore a god whom the rats and mice have a thousand times, dragged and devoured in their dark little holes? Where are the rays of light and life from that little cake? Instead of being enlarged and elevated, at the approach of that ridiculous modern divinity, is not human intelligence contracted, diminished, paralyzed, chilled, struck with idiotism and death at its feet?
Can we be surprised that the Roman Catholic nations are so fast falling down into the abyss of infidelity and atheism, when they hear their priests telling them that this contemptible wafer is the great God who had created heaven and earth at the beginning, and saved this perishing world by dying on the cross, some eighteen hundred years ago?
Rome, by her grand and terrible apostasy at the feet of the wafer-god, has overwhelmed Christianity under such a heap of infamous and outrageous impostures, that it has almost disappeared from the minds of the nations whom God had the more endowed with intelligence, as the French and Italian people. Go to those countries, and ask the people if they believe that their priests can make a god out of wafer, and they will shrug their. shoulders in disgust and laughter at your silly question.
It is a fact that the wafer-god of the Pope has done more than anything else to destroy the religion of Christ from the minds of the learned and the intelligent. This diabolical doctrine of a god made with a little cake is, today, believed in France, Italy, Canada, Spain, etc., only by some old women and poor ignorant people who cannot write nor read their own names. The rest try to believe it; they make supreme efforts to believe it; but they cannot.
We heard, a few years ago, that the Siamese had been overwhelmed with desolation, when their big white elephant died, after having been the object of their adorations for more than a century. But, fortunately, the numberless priests of the dead god had not lost a single hour; after they had buried their departed divinity with due honors, they had ransacked their deep and dark forests, and had soon come back with a bigger and younger living white elephant. The lucky animal was carried in triumph all over the kingdom, with a gold chain of fabulous value to his neck, gold cloth, sprinkled with the richest pearls and diamonds on his back. In the midst of the sweetest melodies, the hymns of adoration, and the clouds of incense from the golden censers which every priest carried in his hands, the newly found god was installed in his magnificent temple; and there from morning to night, he is adored by the millions of Siamese who recognize him for their god.
All this is very sad, humiliating! Yes!
But there is something more sad and humiliating than taking an elephant for the great God who has created and saved this world; it is to see the Pope of Rome, with his hundred of millions of blind and deluded slaves, prostrated before a contemptible wafer, baked between two heated irons, and adoring it as the great, eternal, almighty God, creator of heaven and earth!
The elephant of Siam is surely a noble God, when compared with the modern divinity of the Pope. That elephant may be taken as the symbol of strength. magnanimity, patience, etc. Let a man go and insult or attack him, he can protect himself; with his mighty trunk he will take his enemy, throw him up very high in the air, and cause him to fall a corpse on the ground. He can crush his foes under his feet; he can protect his friends, and save them in the hour of danger. There is life, motion and strength in that elephant god. He can go by himself from one place to the other. He can move with his feet, see with his eyes, hear with his ears.
But look at the divinity of Rome. Come and see its hands in that wafer; they cannot move! The feet, they cannot walk!
The eyes, they cannot see! The ears, they cannot hear!
There is neither life, nor strength, nor motion in this Roman Catholic divinity. Let a rat or a mouse come and bite the elephant-god of Siam, and you will see how he will instantly punish it. But let a rat or a mouse come and attack the poor defenseless wafer-god of the Pope, as it very often occurs, and you will see how that modern Majesty will be powerless to protect itself, and how it will soon be crushed under the teeth of his weak enemies, and engulfed into their stomachs, to be digested as a crumb of common bread.
Third Consideration. God Himself Turns The Wafer-God Of Rome Into Ridicule.
So speaks our almighty and eternal God, through his Prophet Isaiah, ch. 44:
Who can read those words of the old prophet without finding in them the condemnation of the monstrous imposture and idolatry of the wafer-god.
Let us put face to face the words of God and the facts connected with the confection and the usages of the wafer-god of Rome, to see the perfect similarity between the old idolatry of the days of Isaiah and the modern idolatry of Rome.
Fourth Consideration. Our Saviour Jesus Christ Foretells The Abominable Idolatry Of The Wafer-Christs Of Rome, And Warns His Disciples Against It.
We read this remarkable prophecy about the false Christs of Rome in Mathew, ch. 24; 25:22-26.
The Son of God prophesies, here, four things about the false Christs, against the worship of whom he warns us.
- 1st. There will be many of those false Christs.
2nd. Sometimes they will be here and sometimes there.
3rd. That it will be told of that Christ that he is in the desert.
4th. That the false Christs will dwell in secret chambers.
Those four characters by which our adorable Saviour invites us to recognize, and shun the false Christ of whom he speaks, coincide perfectly with the false wafer-Christ of Rome, and I here publicly challenge not only Cardinal Gibbons, but all the bishops and priests of Rome, to deny or explain away those four characters of their wafer-Christs.
[1] No priests or bishops will deny that there are many, very many, Christs in their midst. For it is a public fact that every church contains from it dozen to one and five hundred and more of those Christs who are shut up in the gold or silver ciboriums. I do not exaggerate when I say that there are more than a million of those Christs worshipped every day in the different churches of Rome.
[2] No priests nor any bishops will dare to deny that their false Christ is “sometimes here and sometimes there.” For every day they have to carry it to the sick and dying under the name of “Holy Viaticum.” When Patrick O’Brien, for instance, is very sick in the morning, does not the priest of Rome carry his Christ to his house, at the northern part of the town, that the poor deluded man may adore and eat him? and do not the deluded Catholics run to the house of the sick man when they hear that their Christ is “there” to adore him “there?” And when, at the end of the same day, that same priest hears that Bridget O’Donohue is sick and dying, at the southern extremity of the town, does he not again promptly carry his Christ, under the name of “Viaticum,” that the poor deluded girl or married woman may adore and eat him? And then, again, do not the blind and so cruelly- deceived Roman Catholics, when hearing that their Christ is “here,” in this southern part of the town, run at the double-quick from every side to come and adore their Christ “here.” This morning they were running to the northern side of the town to worship their Christ “there.” …And this evening they run at their full speed again towards the southern part, to adore him “here.”
The Saviour of the World had said, “If any man say unto you, Lo! here is Christ, or there, believe it not.” But the Pope with his bishops, say to their poor blind slaves, “When your priests will tell you that here is Christ, or there, believe it.” In this matter, as in every other question, the Pope is directly, absolutely, opposed to Jesus Christ. Our Saviour positively says, “When they tell you, Lo! here is Christ, or there, believe it not.” The Pope says, “When they will tell you, Lo! here is Christ, or there, believe it!”
The third character of the false Christ of Rome is as clear and evident as his first and second one, and I challenge the bishops and the priests to deny it.
What is a desert? A place where nobody dwells. A desert is a place where people may pass a few hours for some particular purpose, but they have no idea to live and reside in it. It is not a fit place to dwell in… After a few hours of stay in the desert or passage through it, they get out of it, leaving nothing behind them. And that place, after having seen several people in its bosom for some time, remains a desert, a perfect wilderness. So is the church where for an how or two, the people go to pray or sing and hear a sermon. After the public service, every one goes out of it, and it remains a desert, a solitude. Nobody lives there except the rats and the mice. The fact of their Saviour Jesus Christ remaining alone in a deserted place, in a solitude where nobody attends him, has so painfully struck some devoted Roman Catholics, that they have written beautiful and tender pages on the want of love and respect of the people who left such a glorious Saviour, the Son of God alone, in a solitude, a desert, without anyone to adore and praise Him. More than that, the Jesuits have lately, instituted a new order of devotees, whose duties are never to let their so-called Saviour alone. Each member of that society is bound to select an hour of the day or the night which they will pass in the church in adoring him. In that way, a certain number of churches have ceased from being a desert, a solitude… . For in those churches there are always some worshippers who, one after the other, come to pass their hour before the altar and offer their homages to their wafer-Christ. But these very efforts made by the Jesuits to prevent the accomplishment of the prophecy of Christ, is its most undeniable confirmation.
The Son of God, speaking of the false Christ, he said, “If they shall say unto you, Behold He (Christ) is in the desert, go not forth.” …But the Pope says, “When the priest tells you, Behold He (Christ) is in the desert, go forth and adore Him there in that desert.”
The fourth character by which our adorable Saviour warns us against the deception of the wafer-Christ and god of Rome is that “He will dwell in secret chambers.”
Can any bishop or priest of Rome deny that their modern and false Christ is, day and night, in secret chambers, where they themselves, with their own hand, shut him up, every morning?
If anyone of our readers, particularly among the Protestants, has any doubt about that fact, let them not believe what we say here, but let them go to the Roman Catholic bishop or priest of the nearest city or town, and let them politely invite the Pope’s representative to come with them to his church. And when there, let them walk around the church till they come before the altar, and then, let them stop, and look with attention aat the altar. They will see, above the front table of the altar, “a beautiful door, which is almost invariably the most richly decorated part of the church. With very rare exceptions, the sculptor has put there the most perfect sculpture which his chisels could make; and the gilder has plated or gilded it with his utmost skill and perfection. When the inquirer will have admired the workmanship of that door, let him ask the bishop or priest of Rome,”Is there a secret chamber behind that door?” and the bishop or his priest will have to answer, “Yes; there is a secret and a most sacred chamber behind that door, which we call ‘The Tabernacle.’”
Let the inquirer continue his questions, and ask, “Is there anybody in that secret and most sacred chamber which you call ‘The Tabernacle?’” and the Roman Catholic dignitary will be forced to answer, “Yes; there is somebody in that sacred chamber.” Then, let the inquirer ask, “Who is there? by what name do you call the being who dwells in that secret chamber?” And the Roman Catholic bishop, with his priests, will have to answer, “It is Jesus Christ who is there?” The inquirer, puzzled at that answer, will probably say to the bishop, “You do not mean, sir, that it is the living and glorified Christ, with his body, soul and divinity, who is there in that secret chamber; …you surely mean only that it is a memorial, a simple remembrance of Jesus Christ?”
Assuming, then, an air of solemnity and awe, the Roman Catholic cardinal will answer, “Yes, sir! I mean that it is Jesus Christ Himself, the living Christ, the glorified Christ, in person with his body, soul and divinity, who is in that most holy tabernacle.” I consent to be branded before the world as an impostor, and to be publicly punished as a sacrilegious calumniator, if the bishop and the priest of Rome do not give these answers, or some others which come to the same sense…
But if this public acknowledgment of Christ in secret chambers is made by the Church of Rome herself, through her most accredited authorities, who can deny that the awful prophecy of the Son of God is accomplished in our very midst? Who will not see with his own eyes, and hear with his own ears, that the false Christs, foretold by the Saviour of the world are taking possession of the world; they, are multiplied without measure in every city or town; they are adored everywhere by the blind multitudes whom the Pope keeps abjectly prostrated at the feet of their idols in the secret chambers.
With Paul, when contemplating that grand and terrible mystery of iniquity, must we not say? —
- “The mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he is taken out of the way.
“And then shall that wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the Spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.
“Even him whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders.
“And with all deceivabieness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they receive not the love of the truth that they might be saved.
“And for this cause God shall send them strong delusions, that they should believe a lie.
“That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” — 2 Th. 2.
Fifth Consideration Transubstantiation Makes God Inferior To Man, And Changes Man Into God.
The Creator is above the created thing, but it is evident that, in the impious dogma of Transubstantiation, the priest of Rome is put much above his God.
It will not require long reflections to understand that, by his magical power, in the act of changing the wafer into their god, the popes and the priests of Rome become infinitely stronger, more powerful, and superior to their poor ignominious divinity. For they assure us that the very moment the priest speaks, God obeys, and submits himself to the will of that priest; He can not resist; He can not delay; He must come down from His throne, and lodge his humanity and divinity in that little round and thin cake on which the officiating priest has said, “Hoc est enim corpus meum.”
The marvelous act of Joshua is nothing but a child’s play, when compared with the miracle performed by the priest of Rome, every morning. Joshua had to deal only with two of the inanimate creatures of God, when he stopped the sun and moon in their arch through the skies; but it is with the Creator, the Master of the sun, the moon, and the stars and all the worlds, that the priest has to deal, to whom he commands, and by whom he is obeyed.
The power of the priest over God, in that dogma, is absolute, personal, without appeal. God has no power of resistance; He as no power of appeal, no power of delay. He must come own from His throne, quicker than lightning, into that cake and transform it into His divine, eternal, almighty person of the Son, at the will and bidding of the priest, not only once a day, but as often as it will be the pleasure of the priest to pronounce on a wafer, or any other crumb of wheat bread, the magical words, “Hoc est emim corpus meum.”
Let both the Roman Catholics and the Protestants well consider that the church of Rome, positively, says that her priests can perform that tremendous miracle not only once a day, at mass; but at every moment of the day and night it will please them to pronounce those words, with the required intention, the bread is changed into the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ.
For instance, let the Bishops and priests of Sydney and Melbourne, of Paris and London, of Constantinople and Peking, of Rome and Geneva, of New York and Quebec or Chicago, pass through the streets of those cities today, and, stopping before their bakeries, pronounce on the loaves of bread which are there, under their eyes, the words, “Hoc est enim corpus meum,” there will not remain a single loaf of bread in anyone of those bakeries! every loaf will have been changed into the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ. Every loaf will have become a god, which you must adore under the pain of eternal damnation! More than that, every particle of those loaves if they are crushed into fragments and pulverized, will be changed into the true body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ and eternally cursed must be those who will not adore each one of those millions and millions of fragments and atoms of bread as the great and merciful God who created the worlds with a word from his lips, and saved it when incarnated, by dying on the Cross.
But if these considerations are not sufficient to convince the mind of every intelligent Roman Catholic and Protestant of the diabolical character which the dogma of Transubstantiation bears on its face, let them reflect on the following propositions, which I challenge the Catholic bishops of the whole world to deny.
The Church of Rome not only teaches her blind followers that every good priest has the tremendous power of transforming the wafers, and all the wheat loaves of bread which are on the earth, into gods, at every hour of the day or night, in the churches, in the streets, in the bakers’ carts and bakers’ shops; but every “bad priest,” every drunken priest, every interdicted and excommunicated priest, has the same power over God. And no pope, no bishop, not God Almighty Himself, can take away from those bad, drunken, interdicted, excommunicated priests that super-divine power of changing the millions of loaves of bread which are on this globe into as many bodies, souls, divinities of Jesus Christ.
For instance, do not the bishops, and the priests of Rome tell their people that I, the ex-priest Chiniquy, am one of the most wicked men the world has ever seen? Yes! this is what they have many times proclaimed in their press and in all their pulpits, on the five continents of the globe. Well, it is one of the articles of the religion taught by the infallible Church of Rome, that I, Chiniquy, the infamous, the interdicted, excommunicated priest, Chiniquy, still possess that supreme power over the God of Rome.
Is it possible to find a more cruel and infamous being than Archbishop Purcell, of Cincinnati? That King of modern swindlers, as every one knows, has these last twenty years, made use of his high position in the Church of Rome to induce thousands and thousands of his poor people to lend and trust him their money, to the amount of nearly four millions of dollars. With it he has lived in luxury with his dissoluted nuns and priests; he has built splendid palaces, and a magnificent cathedral, where he has been worshipped as a god during many years. But when the day came for refunding the money into the hands of the poor orphans and widows who had trusted him their last cent he coldly rejected them, declared bankrupt and retired to one of his palaces to continue to live like a prince in the midst of his nuns! Well, day after day, for twenty years, when he was working that great iniquity, he ascended his altar, took the wafers in his hands, and pronounced the magical words, “Hoc est enim corpus meum,” upon them, and turned them into his god! That God, though surely unwilling to come into such criminal hands, though abhorring that cruel heart, though reproving that guilty soul, was forced to come down, in person into those hands, rest in that heart, and unite most intimately and personally with that soul! That infamous Roman Catholic Bishop has still a supreme, direct, personal, irresistible power over his Jesus Christ. The Pope can interdict and excommunicate him, but he can not deprive him of that supreme power which he, once for all, gave him over his God Almighty and his eternal Son. That eternal and Almighty God of Rome is now tied to the will of that public swindler with a more powerful chain than the vilest dog is tied by his chain to the hand of his master! he must follow him wherever he goes, stops where he stops, go right or left, up or down, according as Archbishop Purcell, of Cincinnati, wishes him to go!
Do not the Roman Catholics agree with the Protestants, in confessing that their Pope Alexander VI. was one of the most infamous monsters and debauchees the world has ever seen? Do they not acknowledge that, not satisfied with living in public concubinage with his own sisters, he seduced and dishonored his own daughter, Lucretia? Is there not a perfect unanimity among the historians of both Roman Catholic and Protestant persuasions to say that Pope AleXander VI. must be put at the head of the monsters who have overstepped the limits of human depravity, impiety and infamy? But, notwithstanding all that, the Church of Rome assures us that that incarnated devil not only was infallible, but that he never lost the supreme. personal and direct power which his ordination gave him over the Son of God. She says that every time Alexander VI. pronounced the words, “Hoc est enim corpus meum,” over a wafer, or any piece of wheat bread, Christ was coming quicker’ than lightning into his hands to be manipulated, insulted by him, or given to his concubines, that they might be fed with His true body, blood, soul and divinity! And if an one has any doubt about that, he is cursed and damned by the church of Rome. Nay, he must be burned like Wishart, drowned like Mary Lamb, of Perth, or thrown from the top of the high mountains down on the naked rocks, like thousands and thousands in Piedmont, or tortured and slaughtered as so many millions were all over Europe, by the bloody Inquisition.
After such blasphemies, who can have the least doubt that Roman Catholicism is the most impious and satanic religion the world has ever seen? They acknowledge that every time I pronounce the words, “Hoc est enim corpus meum,” over a wafer or a loaf of bread, with the required intention, that wafer or that loaf of bread is changed into the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ! They say that every one of those wafers and loaves of bread must be adored by the people under pain of eternal damnation! Does not the Church of Rome confess by that that all her priests, and even the excommunicated apostate Chiniquy, as she calls me, are stronger than her poor, weak, miserable God? He can not resist us? … Though He is angry against me, he must come every time I force him to come into that wafer, which I transform into Him; though he is absolutely opposed to my doing so; though He must be horrified to come into such criminal hands, He is powerless in my presence! At my word, He loses His divine and infinite power of resistance! He must quickly obey me, and come in his human and divine person at my bidding, into my hands. He must let me put his human and divine person into my tin boxes, transport Him from Montreal to San Francisco, from San Francisco to New York! … He, the poor God of Rome, can not help it; He must follow me wherever I go, and he must silently allow me to distribute Him into the hundreds of lecturing meetings I have held, or will hold, in the various cities in the United States.
Does not the Church of Rome proclaim by that horrible diabolical doctrine (which is her doctrine) that not only her good priests, but her ad and renegade priests, are more above God in power, dignity, prerogatives, than heaven is above the earth? Does not the Pope prove by that horrible doctrine that he and his priests are the anti-Christ of whom Paul speaks? — “Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped: so that he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is a God.” — 2 Th. 2.
Where can we find that “man of perdition, who exalteth himself above God,” if he is not the Pope and his priests, who boast that, at every hour of day or night, God Almighty is bound to come at their bidding into that little cake, and when there, He is absolutely powerless to resist them! They carry Him in their vest or pants’ pocket; they drive him in their buggies through the country, or force Him to accompany them in sailing or steam ships, and cross the seas and the oceans; shut Him up in their secret chambers, or tabernacles, where, more than once, the rats and mice put an end to His miserable existence.
For let not the Roman Catholics forget that their God, when once under the spell of their priests, becomes absolutely impotent to protect his divine person against anyone of his foes — nor even against anyone of the elements by which men are taught, and apt to protect themselves. He is burned in the fires which attack Him in His secret chambers: He is drowned in the rivers and the seas, where he sometimes fails with the priests who carry Him in their vest or pants’ pockets; and He is crushed into atoms under the wheels of the cars with the priests who have sometimes the misfortune to perish in those terrible railroad accidents. Though, often, man can protect himself against the fire by running away, the poor God of Rome has no way of escape from fire. There He is, absolutely motionless and powerless before the devouring flames. He can neither fly away on His wings, nor run away with His feet.
Man, fallen into the deep waters of the sea or endangered by the rapid rivers, has often saved himself by swimming. But the impotent, inert God of Rome can not swim; He must perish there, and be buried in that watery grave without even being able to make any effort to prolong his miserable and humiliating existence. How many times I have heard, in Canada and the United States the poor deluded Roman Catholics’ lamentations, when the fire had destroyed their churches: “Oh! what a calamity!” they cried; “the good God is burned.” “Le bon Dieu est brute!”
But I consider it my duty to put before the intelligence of the Roman Catholics, who have not yet entirely silenced the voice of their reason, a new consideration which their Church keeps, as much as she can, out of sight. In her sacred book of the mass called “Missale,” she acknowledges that several times, when the priest has eaten the wafer-god and drank the wine-god, he vomits them before they are digested. She laments much over those sad circumstances; she looks really distressed when she sees her great eternal God vomited out of the stomach of her priests, and rejected, there, on the floor, in the midst of the other vomited matter in which he is seen floating… But as the Church of Rome is infallible, and as she is evidently directed by the Holy Ghost in every thing she does and says, she has found, in her divine wisdom, a most marvelous remedy, not to cure the sick stomach of her priests, but to show her great respect for her wafer-god… When the priest has vomited his God from his stomach, and His Divine Majesty is seen drowned in the midst of the putrefied and stinking matters which the stomach has rejected, the infallible, holy, apostolical Church of Rome invites her priests to eat again and swallow what he has vomited, in order that her glorified Saviour may have the honor to pass the next quarter of an hour in the sickly stomach of her priests!
What a grand and sublime spectacle the Church of Rome presents here, to the admiration, nay, the adoration, of man! Who will not confess that she has the true marks, of the holy, pure, undefiled Church of Christ, when she asks you to come and adore her great God and Saviour, there, on the floor, swimming or floating in the midst of the vomited matters rejected by the sick stomach! and that, to show you with what profound respect and adoration you must look upon her Divine Redeemer, she requests her priests to swallow again what he has vomited! Now, I ask — Was it possible for the devil to invent anything more insulting to God and man than that abominable dogma of 54Transubstantiation? Could the Divine person of God and His Christ be more outraged, insulted and degraded, than by that lie which makes man believe that he may make his god with a little cake, eat it, vomit it, and swallow it again? Has the great God of Heaven and earth been ever outraged or insulted by the ancient or modern heathen nations as He is today, when He is said to be personally vomited from the stomach of a miserable man; personally swimming and floating in the putrefied rejects of the Pope’s stomach? Is it not evident that the impious dogma of Transubstantiation is the last, the utmost limit of the lies of Satan? Is not that blasphemous dogma the last limit of the blasphemies by which hell could insult God? Is it not evident that, when that dogma raises the Pope of Rome infinitely above God in power and dignity, it brings down the Divine and eternal person of God into the most degrading, humiliating position into which any being can be degraded? Satan, not being able to kill our great God, has at last succeeded, through the Pope, to drag Him down from His throne and drown Him in the vomited matters rejected by the stomach of the priest! What a triumph for Satan in his war against God and His beloved and eternal Son! What a victory, when he could persuade man that he had the power to create the God of Calvary with a wafer, eat him, vomit him and swallow him again!
Evidently, Transubstantiation is the masterpiece of the devil. And if anyone has any doubt about this, let him come and see what I have seen several times, when a priest; let him come and see what the Church of Rome acknowledges to happen oftener than people suspect. Yes, let those who are not certain that Transubstantiation is the most stupendous blasphemy which has come out from hell, come and see the priest of Rome creating his god with a wafer, vomiting him, and swallowing him again, to vomit him a second time as is generally the case. For it is next to impossible for the stomach to keep a second time putrid matter it has once ejected. When looking with amazement, at that horrible spectacle, he will surely hear a voice from heaven whispering in his ears — “For this cause, God shall send them strong delusion, that they believe a lie; that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure of unrighteousness.”
(To be continued)
just continues to amaze me at what a tremendous lie satan has gone to with this church. what a mighty act as the father of the lie. kinda like hitler once said,’ tell them a lie, make it a big one, and keep telling it, they will eventually believe it’.