In this matter I would use "great plainness of
speech," and say with studied definiteness that we can have no
fellowship with Rome and her unfruitful works of darkness. She is an
apostate Church, idolatrous, worldly, deceitful, and utterly
unscriptural both in her constitution and her practices.
Her history is one of shameless departure from the truth of God. Her
doctrine is, to a great extent, not that of the Word. She professes to
adhere to Scripture, as interpreted by herself, but her claim to make
tradition supplementary to, and complementary to, Scripture opens the
door wide to the introduction of whatever doctrines suit her purpose.
The most recently promulgated dogmas - the Immaculate Conception of Mary
(1854), the Infallibility of the popes (1870), the bodily Assumption of
Mary into Heaven (1950) - brand her as a Church which has grievously
departed from the faith once delivered to the saints. Her belief in the
idolatry of transubstantiation, her refusal of the cup to the rank and
file of the church, her invention of purgatory ("purgatory
pickpurse" as our forefathers termed it), her system of
confessions, her ancient jesuitical policy of "no faith with
heretics," her sheer worldliness and her tawdry pageantry - these
and much else delineate her unmistakably as a Church completely unfitted
to bear the honoured name of Christian. Through the ages she has been a
persecuting Church.
"When I am weaker than you," she says to
the tolerant Englishman, "I ask for liberty, because that is YOUR
principle. When I am stronger I take it from you because it is not MY
principle."
The Stand of Protestants
One further word! Individual Roman Catholics with whom we may rub
shoulders in the everyday affairs of life may sometimes appear to bear
the marks of grace - we judge no man - but it is for us to grapple with
the claims of the Roman Catholic Church herself, and to weigh them in
the scales of Holy Writ. Compromise is in the air. Theologians strive to
find a form of words acceptable to all who call themselves Christians.
Clearly there never was a time when it was more needful for the true
Protestant to stand up and be counted. Let us each one say: On
God's Word I take my stand; I can do no other; so help me God.
Reprinted by Kind permission
