The American Sentinel 9
November 8, 1894
“Editorial” American Sentinel 9, 44, p. 345.
IN a recent sermon in this city, Rev. Charles H. Eaton said:— AMS November 8, 1894, page 345.1
The Roman Catholic Church has produced some of the finest examples of humanitarians in the history of the world, and it should not be forgotten that the preservation of literature was due to the church, while she had produced her quota of scientists as well. The lives of Newman and Manning and Richard B. Froude are worthy of the highest admiration. AMS November 8, 1894, page 345.2
And this utterance is called by the paper from which it is taken, “A plea for religious toleration”! AMS November 8, 1894, page 345.3
IT is true that “some of the finest examples of humanitarians in the history of the world” have been Roman Catholics; but they were such in spite of the system, not because of it. Heathendom, too, has given the world some noble characters. AMS November 8, 1894, page 345.4
BUT what is meant in such a connection by “religious toleration?” Simply religious equality; and this not in the sense of equality before the law, but equality in the estimation of the people. Rome and her apologists want the history of the Dark Ages obliterated and the past forgotton [sic.]; and refusal to do this is religious intolerance! It is for this reason that Rev. Walter Elliott, a Roman Catholic missionary writings to the Catholic World, brands the Seventh-day Adventist Church as the “most venomous enemy of Catholicity in these parts;” “Puritans of the worst sort,” etc. AMS November 8, 1894, page 345.5
THE “venom” of the Adventists is their uncompromising hostility to the errors of Roman Catholicism, and their persistent insistence that the papacy is the “man is sin,” and the papal system “the mystery of iniquity;” the papal church the harlot mother of the harlot daughters of the Apocalypse. AMS November 8, 1894, page 345.6
FOR centuries Rome dominated the civilized world, and brooked no rival. “Heresy,” and “heretics,” were alike destroyed. Not only was open schism a crime to be punished by death, but secret dissent was likewise sought out and visited with the most severe penalties. AMS November 8, 1894, page 345.7
ACCORDING to her own confession, the Roman Catholic Church forged 1 her own weapons for the extirpation of “heresy” in the 13th century. Prior to that time she had used the secular powers, for they had been willing tools, but civil rulers were becoming indifferent, and the Inquisition was called into being. AMS November 8, 1894, page 345.8
“ROME never changes;” this is her boast to-day. Therefore, what Rome did in the Middle Ages Rome would do now had she the power. And yet Rome regards it as the height of intolerance of her history and to warn the people against the errors of Romish doctrines, and expose the corruption of the Romish Church and priesthood. AMS November 8, 1894, page 345.9
THE Lord says: “Cry aloud; spare not;” but Rome says, “Be tolerant.” Yes, be tolerant, but tolerance does not mean indifference to truth. It does not mean giving the right hand of fellowship to error. It does not mean disloyalty to the word of God. It properly means, equality before the law; perfect freedom to profess and practice any religion or no religion, just as the individual shall elect, limited only by due regard for the equal rights of others. It means the perfect equality before the law of every individual and every sect with every other individual and with every other sect in all things. It means perfect liberty of conscience, guaranteed and defended by the State and restricted only by the equal rights of others. This Rome demands for herself and her votaries in America, and this Rome ought to have, not only here but everywhere; but this Rome denies to others wherever she as the power. Verily, “Rome never changes”! AMS November 8, 1894, page 345.10
“Roman Catholic Saints and Miracles” American Sentinel 9, 44, pp. 345, 346.
THE Roman Catholic Church claims a catalogue of saints numbering hundreds of thousands. Every one of these hundreds of thousands of saints is dead. In fact, the very first qualification of a Roman Catholic saint is that he be dead, and, second, that he be dead at least fifty years. AMS November 8, 1894, page 345.1
Another all-important qualification if that he work miracles after his death. Though his conduct while living be declared saintly, and though he is believed to have performed countless miracles while living, nevertheless, before he can be a full-fledged Roman Catholic saint he must perform miracles while dead. AMS November 8, 1894, page 345.2
Butler’s “Lives of the Saints” contains the names of one thousand five hundred and fourteen saints, but this work is but a vest-pocket edition, as it were, of the lives of the saints. Although the saint-ologists of the church have been compiling the lives of the saints for three hundred years, and although the catalogue now comprises twenty-four large volumes, the end of the undertaking is not yet in sight. One or more of these innumerable dead saints is worshiped by the members of that church on every day of the year, not excepting the 29th day of February. It is believed that these dead men and women saints are in heaven praising the Lord, and that they know all about the ups and downs of humanity, and are thinking how they can help the living who invoke them. AMS November 8, 1894, page 345.3
All this is a terrible mistake. Jesus said, “Whither I go ye cannot come.” 1 Not until he comes the second time and raises the dead can the righteous be with him. Hear him again, “I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am there ye may be also.” 2 “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” 3 Again, “The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence.” 4 “His sons come to honor, and he knoweth it not; and they are brought low, but he perceiveth it not of them.” 5 “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.” 6 AMS November 8, 1894, page 345.4
Therefore the painfully sad and awfully solemn truth is that two hundred millions of Roman Catholics are praying for temporal help and eternal salvation to myriads of dead men and dead women, who instead of being in heaven praising the Lord and interceding for sinners, are down in the silence of the grave; whose forms have moldered back to earth; whose thoughts have perished,—who are dead; and who will stay dead until that “coming” hour “in which all that are in their graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation.” 7 AMS November 8, 1894, page 344.1
Though the question does not involve character, since all are dead, yet it is not unprofitable to digress for a moment and examine the character of a Roman Catholic “saint.” Dominic, the founder of the order of “Dominicans,” is a prominent “saint” whose name appears in the Roman breviary as one who overthrew heretics, and whose miracles “extended even to the raising of the dead.” Now the plain truth is that this man was anything but a saint. According to Roman Catholic historians he was the inventor of that satanic engine of cruelty, the Inquisition. They also declare that he marched in front of the Roman Catholic army and encouraged the soldiers as they laid waste the beautiful Albigensian valleys and tortured and massacred the innocent inhabitants. And when the captives were tried for heresy he sat as inquisitor-general and “by words and miracles,” says the historian, “convicted a hundred and eight Albigenses, who were at one time committed to the flames.” And this is the inhuman monster of cruelty whom we are asked to believe is now a saint in heaven associating with our Lord who said, “The son of man came not to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.” And it is to this murderer of the saints of God that men pray for temporal and spiritual blessings! AMS November 8, 1894, page 344.2
At this point the Roman Catholic arises and asks in anticipated triumph, How about the countless miracles, which have been, and are now, wrought by the saints in all lands? He points to the pyramids on either side of the entrance to the church of St. Anne of Beaupré, Canada, composed of crutches, canes, surgical appliances, and other artificial supports; and to the grotto at Lourdes, France, thatched with similar evidences of the miraculous. He points to the army of pilgrims, six hundred thousand strong, which marches annually to these two shrines alone, and asks, Can this great army of people which is annually increasing, be the victims of imagination and priestcraft? AMS November 8, 1894, page 344.3
But, with this host of pilgrims in view, with churches and grottoes festooned, and thatched with crutches and canes before our eyes, we persistently reply, The “grandmother of Jesus” and Mary the blessed mother of our Lord, and all the other “saints” in the calendar are dead; and “the dead know not anything.” 8 “Put not your trust in princes neither in the son of man in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth, in that very day his thoughts perish.” AMS November 8, 1894, page 344.4
How then do we account for the signs of power, the miraculous wonders wrought through the intercession of the saints? We will not reply with the answer given by many that they are wholly the result of human trickery and priestly artifice. We will deal with them as supernatural, for if there are not some of these strange cures which are beyond the power of human science to fathom, then there soon will be those which are. With a view to discovering the power behind these vaunted miracles, we ask by what power or by what name are the miracles of the Christian religion wrought? Peter said to the cripple at the beautiful gate of the temple, “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.” And when the people who saw or heard of the miracle ran with wonder and amazement to the place where Peter stood, he said, “Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk? The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers hath glorified his son Jesus whom ye delivered up, and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go. But ye denied the Holy One and the Just and desired a murderer to be granted unto you; and killed the Prince of Life whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses. And his name, through faith in his name, hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know: yea, the faith which is by him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.” AMS November 8, 1894, page 344.5
While Peter was thus addressing the people the captains of the temple and the Sadducees came upon, being grieved that he taught the people, and preached through Christ the resurrection of the dead. When they had arrested the apostles and brought them before the council they asked them, “By what power, or by what name have ye done this? Then Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, said unto them, Ye rulers of the people, and elders of Israel, if we this day be examined of the good deed done to the impotent man, by what means he is made whole; be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole. This is the stone which was set at naught of you builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved.” AMS November 8, 1894, page 344.6
It is, therefore, by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, “through faith in his name” that men receive “perfect soundness.” Yea, more, when the rulers demanded of Peter, “by what name have ye done this,” his answer was “by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth;” and then in order to shut out once and forever the mother of Jesus, and “St. Anne, the grandmother of Jesus,” and all the rest of the untold thousands of dead saints from any part in the salvation of both physical and moral cripples, he adds, “Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved.” 9 AMS November 8, 1894, page 344.7
Further examination of this subject must be postponed until next week. AMS November 8, 1894, page 344.8
“The Pennsylvania ‘Sabbath’ Association Against Religious Liberty” American Sentinel 9, 44, pp. 346, 347.
LAMST week, Williamsport, Pa., was the storm center of the Pennsylvania Sabbath Association. A few weeks previous to this time a law and order league was formed through the influence of the secretary of the Pennsylvania Sabbath Association. As a result of the influence of this league the following ordinance was passed:— AMS November 8, 1894, page 346.1
SECTION 1. Be it ordained by the select and common councils of the city of Williamsport, That from and after the passage of this ordinance it shall not be lawful for any person to expose for sale within the limits of said city any wares or merchandise on Sunday; nor shall any grocery, shop, store or other place of business be kept open on that day for the sale of any commodity whatever: nor shall any owner or occupant of such store, shop or other place of business permit persons to congregate therein, under a penalty of $10 for each offense, and for each of the foregoing offenses; Provided, That the provisions of this ordinance shall not apply to drug stores kept open for the sale of medicines only, nor shall it apply to the sale of bread or milk. AMS November 8, 1894, page 346.2
This law, it will be noticed, is more severe both in prohibition and penalty than the Pennsylvania Sunday law of 1794. This new law forbids the sale of all eatables except “bread or milk,” while the law of 1794 declares that its provisions are not to be construed “to prohibit the delivery of milk or of the necessities of life, before nine of the clock in the forenoon, nor after five of the clock in the afternoon of the same day.” The Williamsport ordinance also forbids shop-keepers to allow their friends to congregate in their places of business though nothing is sold. However, the people of Williamsport are permitted to congregate in the churches on Sunday and drop their coin into the collection-box for the payment of the preacher. The penalty attached to the law of 1794 is four dollars, while the penalty of the new Williamsport ordinance is ten dollars. AMS November 8, 1894, page 346.3
Sunday and Monday evenings preceding the opening of the convention of the Pennsylvania Sabbath Association, the writer delivered two addresses in the court house, to what the local papers termed “large” and “good-sized” audiences. The subject of the first address was “The National Reform Association, the American Sabbath Union, the Pennsylvania Sabbath Association and the Constitution of the United States.” It was shown that the first attacks on the religious liberty provisions of the Constitution of the United States came from the “Synod of Pittsburg in Pennsylvania” as early as January 4, 1811, when the Presbyterian element of that section of the State petitioned Congress to prohibit the transportation and distribution of mails on Sunday. The history of the movement to secure congressional recognition was traced from 1811 to the final victory in 1892. AMS November 8, 1894, page 346.4
The subject of the second lecture was “Jesus of Nazareth and the Sabbath Association of Jerusalem.” It was shown that at the first advent of Jesus the Jews had lost sight of the true Sabbath and were attempting to save the “sanctity of their Sabbath” and thereby preserve the nation from the judgment of God by methods exactly similar to the methods of the Sabbath Association and law and order leagues of the present day. It was shown that as Jesus, the true Sabbath-keeper, was persecuted for his faithfulness in Sabbath-keeping, by the Sabbath-breakers of Jerusalem, so the true Sabbath-keepers in our time are being persecuted by the Sabbath-breakers (Sunday-keepers) for their faithfulness in keeping the same Sabbath day which Jesus kept. AMS November 8, 1894, page 346.5
The Seventh-day Adventist Church in Williamsport manifested a commendable zeal in circulating religious liberty literature. On the Monday preceding the Sabbath Association meeting they circulated fifty-two thousand pages of this literature, and later one thousand copies of the SENTINEL. Even the mothers and children engaged heartily in this work. The people of this country will not appreciate the herculean struggle in which Seventh-day Adventists are engaged for the preservation of religious freedom until it is too late. AMS November 8, 1894, page 347.1
At the first session of the Sabbath observance meeting held in the Pine Street Methodist Church, Tuesday morning at 11:30, the subject, “Sunday Mails” was discussed. The burden of the speeches was the laxity of Christians in the matter of sending and receiving mail on Sunday, and the necessity of a combine of the Christian people to force from Congress,—which was likened to the unjust judge,—a law forbidding the transportation and distribution of mail on Sunday. It was urged that this was a Christian nation on the authority of the Supreme Court of the United States, and therefore the Christian people of the country would be heard and heeded in their demands for the enforcement of Christian institutions and usages. One speaker became so enthused with the prospects of the Sabbath which they hoped to secure by the aid of civil law, that he declared that it would make “devils on horseback holiness unto the Lord.” AMS November 8, 1894, page 347.2
The greater part of the afternoon session was devoted to the discussion and adoption of resolutions regarding the maintenance of the Pennsylvania Sunday law of 1794. After much discussion it was decided to demand an increase of the present penalty of four dollars to twenty-five dollars. Some feared that this demand for an increased penalty might furnish the opposition with a weapon they would use to destroy the entire law. But the prevailing sentiment was that the time had come for aggressive work, and if the demand for a $25 penalty invited an attack on the whole law it would be met with the thunders of the combined church. Many advocated, demanding a fine of one hundred dollars, and others imprisonment for the third offense. The atmosphere of this meeting reminded one of historical descriptions of the heresy tribunals of the Dark Ages. AMS November 8, 1894, page 347.3
In the evening a Williamsport attorney delivered an address of welcome to the delegates of the convention. Knowing the sentiments that would be most welcome to the ears of the delegates he devoted his entire time to reading decisions of the supreme court of Pennsylvania sustaining the Sunday law of 1794 and arguing that Seventh-day observers could find no shelter in the constitution of the State which says: “All men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their consciences; and ... that no human authority can in any case whatever control or interfere with the rights of conscience, and that no preference shall ever be given by law to any religious establishments or modes of worship.” AMS November 8, 1894, page 347.4
The president of the Cumberland Valley Sabbath Association responded by narrating how he had intimidated the last legislature and helped to prevent the repeal of the Sunday law of 1794 by appearing before the committee with the names of 30,000 church members which had been gathered in the Cumberland Valley. All were exhorted to rally for the maintenance of the Pennsylvania Sunday law against the “conspiracy,” and “treason,” and “anarchy” which was looking to its repeal this winter. AMS November 8, 1894, page 347.5
The prevailing sentiment of the meeting was that with the fall of the Sunday law would go all civility, morality, and religion, and, in their places, would come anarchy with temporal and eternal ruin. It is evident that these men believe this, and hence their earnestness in its enforcement, even though as one member of the convention said to the writer, “Seventh-day Adventists must be arrested and prosecuted.” AMS November 8, 1894, page 347.6
At the forenoon session of the second day’s convention resolutions were passed condemning Sunday newspapers, Sunday street cars, Sunday mails, and calling for the organization of law and order leagues in every city and town in the State, and the boycotting of every candidate for public office favorable to the repeal of the present Sunday law or opposed to increasing the penalty to $25. One resolution asked professed Christians to be consistent and keep the Sabbath (Sunday) themselves. Many pertinent things were said along this line. It was stated that the violation of the Sunday by professed christions [sic.] lay at the very foundation of the present disregard for the day. It was also stated ministers dared not rebuke this disregard of Sunday for fear of losing their hearers. Hence the safest and easiest way out of the dilemma was the strong arm of the State. AMS November 8, 1894, page 347.7
Preparations were made for a great struggle this winter, not merely for the preservation of the present law, but for an increased penalty. Petitions will be circulated in every part of the State, and a combined effort be made to force form the legislature the desired legislation. AMS November 8, 1894, page 347.8
Throughout the entire convention there was manifest an intense earnestness which bespeaks an honest conviction, but which is ominous of further encroachment on the liberties of the people. AMS November 8, 1894, page 347.9
“Ignorance or Dishonesty—Which?” American Sentinel 9, 44, p. 347.
IN its issue of October 25, the Christian Work has notes on the International S. S. lesson for November 4, the title of which is, “Jesus Lord of the Sabbath.” These notes are by “Rev. Joseph Newton Hallock,” the editor of the paper in which they appear. AMS November 8, 1894, page 347.1
The lesson recounts the circumstances of the plucking of the ears of corn on the Sabbath by the disciples and of the charge of Sabbath-breaking brought against them by the Pharisees; also the healing of the withered hand on the following Sabbath. AMS November 8, 1894, page 347.2
Mr. Hallock comments upon the first even, namely, the plucking of the ears of corn, and then says:— AMS November 8, 1894, page 347.3
Our Lord had silenced his accusers once, but on the following Sunday they were at the synagogue watching him again with malicious hearts, hoping that perchance they might pervert even his works of gracious healing into a just cause of accusation. When they saw the man with the withered hand they were exultant, for they were sure that Christ would heal him, and thus, in their estimation, break the Sabbath. First they had attacked the man who had carried his bed upon the Sabbath, then they had accused the disciples, and now with evil malevolence they were about to pounce upon Christ himself, and accuse the Lord of the Sabbath of breaking it. AMS November 8, 1894, page 347.4
It is concerning this that we inquire, Is it ignorance or dishonesty—which? That the Pharisees did not accuse Christ of breaking the Sabbath on Sunday need not be asserted. Sunday was to the Jews just what Monday is to most people now—namely, the first of the six working days. Moreover, the Pharisees did not resort to the synagogue to watch Christ on Sunday, for he was not at the synagogue on that day. Sunday was not the day when the Jews resorted to the synagogue. The Sabbath, the seventh day of the week, the day just before Sunday, was the day upon which the people resorted to the synagogue and upon which the Pharisees watched Jesus to see whether he would heal “on the Sabbath day.” AMS November 8, 1894, page 347.5
Only the words of Holy Writ can adequately describe this confounding of the holy and the profane, this effort to make Sunday and Sabbath synonymous: “There is a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst thereof, like a roaring lion ravening the prey: they have devoured souls; they have taken the treasure and precious things; the have made her many widows; in the midst thereof. Her priests have violated my law, and have profaned mine holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have they shewed difference between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my Sabbaths, and I am profaned among them.” Ezekiel 22:25, 26. AMS November 8, 1894, page 347.6
“Sunday and the Reformation” 1 American Sentinel 9, 44, pp. 348, 349.
THE following from a standard publication of the Baptist Church, states clearly the position which that church has held from the days of Roger Williams, but which it violated in joining with other churches in petitioning Congress for a law closing the World’s Fair on Sunday:— AMS November 8, 1894, page 348.1
The duty of the civil magistrate in regard to the observance of the Lord’s day. AMS November 8, 1894, page 348.2
Christ said (John 18:36): “My kingdom if not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now is my kingdom not from hence.” Here Christ refuses to employ physical force. His kingdom is not of this world; and civil laws and the force of the magistrate are not the means to promote its advancement. It is a kingdom of truth and love, because each man is a free moral agent under the government of God, he is accountable to God. This personal accountability to God carries with it the right of every man to decide for himself his religious belief and his worship. With these the State has no right to interfere. These rights of conscience are inalienable. For the protection of these, with other inalienable rights, States are organized, civil laws enforced, and magistrates elected. So far as religion is concerned, the sphere of the State is described in one word—PROTECTION.... AMS November 8, 1894, page 348.3
However much we may deprecate the demoralizing tendencies of Sunday theaters and concerts, games and excursions, and the sale of candies and fruits and newspapers on the Lord’s day, still we ask for legal restrain upon such things only in so far as they may directly interfere with public religious worship. As Christians, we ask of the State only protection in the exercise of our rights of conscience; and we will depend along upon the truth of God and the Spirit of God to secure the triumph of Christianity. With an open field and a fair fight, Christianity is more than a match for the world, because “the foolishness of God is wiser than men.” 1 Corinthians 1:25. The almightiness of Eternal God is in the cross. Hence Christ said: “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.”—“The Lord’s Day,” pp. 29-31, by D. Read, LL. D.; American Baptist Publishing Society, 1420 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia. AMS November 8, 1894, page 348.4
Many earnest appeals were made by Baptist ministers against the denomination’s leaving these principles and participating in the Sunday-law crusade. The following from the pen of Rev. G. W. Ballenger, of Chicago, of South Chicago, March 7 and 15, 1892, will furnish a sample of these courageous protests:— AMS November 8, 1894, page 348.5
Since I am left free to remain away from the Fair on Sunday, I do not consider that my rights are invaded, and I shall not invade the rights of others by asking that Congress, State Legislatures, or national commissioners compel them to act in harmony with my view of Sabbath sacredness. AMS November 8, 1894, page 348.6
Personally, I wish that all men were consistent Christians, and that the Sabbath were universally observed; but all are not Christians, and all do not observe the Sabbath. Under these circumstances it is the duty of the Church to use the God-appointed means to accomplish these reforms. When these fail, the responsibility rests with the individual transgressor. Christians have no right to appeal to civil law to compel men to conform to their ideas of worship. AMS November 8, 1894, page 350.1
I am opposed to securing compulsory Sabbath observance, either by laws avowedly in the interest of such observance, or under cover of purely civil enactment. I simply want the Sabbath institution to stand on its own eternal foundation, unaided by laws impelled by political strife, embittered by partisan feeling, as one of the blessed gifts of an all-wise and loving Creator to humanity for humanity’s good. The blessings of the Sabbath will be realized by all who observe it, but when an institution of the loving Creator is made by any man or set of men, a means to coerce or render less happy the lives of others, then the Creator is dishonored, religion is injured, and the individual is farther from the kingdom of God than though he had been left free to be won by the power of the gospel.... When we attempt by the power of the civil law to compel the observance of our ideas by others, an unseen hand will write, “Ichabod” over our portals, and our glory will have departed forever. AMS November 8, 1894, page 350.2
“Back Page” American Sentinel 9, 44, p. 352.
THE American Catholic Quarterly Review, for October, contains an official translation of Leo XIII.’s invitation to “the nations and peoples of the universe” to return to the fold of the so-called “Catholic” Church. AMS November 8, 1894, page 352.1
WITH becoming modesty, Cardinal Gibbons has written a long introduction to the official translation of the pope’s encyclical which may be understood as explaining just what the “holy father” meant. The cardinal says:— AMS November 8, 1894, page 352.2
But what is the great Leo’s principle of union; what his remedy for existing dissensions? What the nature of the invitation addressed to all princes and people? He advises reconciliation and union with the Church of Rome; not such a union that would be brought about “by a certain kind of agreement in the tenets of belief and an intercourse of fraternal love. The true union between Christians in that which Jesus Christ, the Author of the church, instituted and desired, and which consists in a unity of faith and a unity of government.” In his view, which is the only true view, the supremacy of the Roman pontiff, the supreme jurisdiction of St. Peter and his successors, can alone unite us in the fellowship with our Redeemer. That has been the claim of the Catholic Church from the beginning. She has repeated and insisted on the necessity of submission to the center of Christian truth and the bond of external union. The fathers and doctors have invariably taught that “where Peter is, there is the church,” and that on account of its superior power and primacy every particular church must adhere and be united to the Church of Rome where blessed Peter erected his see forever. AMS November 8, 1894, page 352.3
It is thus that we are brought face to face, as it were, with that wonderful seat, or see, from which the pope derives his “infallibility;” and it is to faith in that that [sic.] the pope has invited all “princes and peoples.” “Where Peter is there is the church,” and where Peter is, there is his seat to which attaches infallibility! Profound thought! Christ is out, Peter is in; God is dethroned and “the man of sin” sits “in the temple of God showing himself that he is God.” AMS November 8, 1894, page 352.4
BUT it is only when we realize that Peter is dead that the stupendous folly of the whole thing dawns upon the mind. The papal system is built upon men, and upon dead men at that, as shown in our first page article. Read, and ponder it well. AMS November 8, 1894, page 352.5
AMONG our significant paragraphs are two printed side by side showing the attitude of the Church of Rome toward religious liberty in Europe and in America. In Europe Rome opposes every concession to God-given human rights; but in America the same power poses as the champion of religious freedom! Only recently the hierarchy in Spain protested against the ordination of an Anglican bishop in Madrid; and now, while the Roman Catholic press of this country is waxing loud in its plaudits of religious liberty, “the church” in Hungary is doing its utmost to maintain the Church and State statutes by which it has so long held in cruel bondage the Hungarian people. “Rome never changes.” AMS November 8, 1894, page 352.6