Extract from a Sermon by the late Rev. JOSEPH IRONS.
THE following extract is from a sermon, preached by the Rev. Joseph Irons, in The Grove, Camberwell, London, on 5th November, 1847, and it is as refreshingly and forcefully applicable to-day as when it was preached nearly a century ago. It was found among papers belonging to the late Rev. Malcolm Gillies, Stornoway:—
“Our rulers—are they not in perplexity? Do they know what to do with Ireland at the present moment? No, they will make matters worse. I will tell them how to make peace immediately; only withdraw all the money from the abominable popish priests of Baal, and there will be peace at once; only withdraw all the money from them, and it will be well with Ireland immediately. They are the curse and the bane of Ireland, and of the whole earth. I would not touch a hair of their heads—I would not hurt their persons—I would not injure them in any sense whatever; but I would cut off their supplies. I would not drain, and rob, and plunder Protestants, in order to fatten the popish priests. As long as this goes on, Ireland will be more and more discontented.
“It is a very remarkable thing, that although idolatry was forbidden in the most solemn manner to the tribes of the Israel of God, there was no sin to which they were so prone; and it was idolatry that brought on all their calamities; it was idolatry that paved the way to their captivity—that defeated their armies when they went to war, that spoiled their cities, sent them famines, and led to their final dispersion. What shall I say of Britain? Do you mean to say England is idolatrous? That I do, and I mean to say that Popery is the rankest idolatry, except Puseyism, and that is the worst of the two, because it is more guarded, cloaked, and concealed. What! is it not idolatry to set up poor Mary as an object of worship? I call her ‘poor,’ because she was poor in this world. A good woman, no doubt, and it is written, ‘all nations shall call her blessed,’ a Christian, no doubt, who went to heaven by the blood and righteousness of the Son of God; and I think, if she were allowed to come down, and treat the idolaters as they deserve, that she would spurn them to Hell with a frown. And yet she is to be idolized and called ‘our only hope.’ And even those rulers who have sworn that they believe Popery to be idolatrous, are using all their power and their influence to set it up, and many of them absolutely worship the Virgin Mary at the same time. Is not this enough to bring down the vengeance of God upon a nation?
But if you pass from the Papists themselves to the double-dyed Papists, the Puseyites—oh! what shall we say of their idolatry? That it is quite as bad in principle, and infinitely worse, because disguised. Why should they be so shameless as still to retain the name of Protestants when they are, in truth, Anglo-Romanists? Why should they be so dishonest as still to take the Protestant support, the Protestant salaries, and feed and fatten upon Protestant bounty, when they are Papists at heart, and every foolery pertaining to Popery is held and practised by them? My hearers, I am surprised that people should call this a Protestant nation, for it is no such thing! It is a mixture of nominal Protestantism, Infidelity, and Popery—and the first ingredient in the mixture is of a very low grade, and almost of a mock description.
“The question does not seem to arise ‘How shall Jesus be exalted? How shall the Father of Mercies be glorified? How shall the Holy Spirit’s work go on, and we most fervently invoke His mighty and invincible operation in His Church?’ But, no, it is ‘How shall man be complimented? pleased, and gratified? How shall religious amusements go on?’ My hearers, think me not severe; nay, I ask no favour; think me as severe as you please—when I say that a large proportion of what passes for Christian worship is nothing but theatrical amusement, in a religious garb.
“I do not wonder at the panic in commerce, nor at the destruction in vegetation, the distress of the poor, the signs of perplexity abroad in the world, God’s hand is stretched out, on account of the idolatry of the nation. My hearers, I am constrained to lift up the warning voice—that if I may never lift it up again I must have a clear conscience in the Day of Judgment. We need not go out of our own neighbourhood—we need not go many stone-casts from our door to witness Idolatry in its grossest forms. Consequently, shall I not visit for these things? saith the Lord; and shall not My soul be avenged on such a nation as this?”
The foregoing extract of a century-old sermon by a faithful godly minister of the Gospel is quite up-to-date, and a solemn rebuke to those present-day Protestants and Presbyterians who say we have nothing to fear from Romanism because it is dying. Such Protestants and Presbyterians are verily living in “a Fool’s Paradise,” for while Popery is a system of iniquity whose inevitable doom is infallibly decreed and foretold in the Word of God, never before in history did it exercise such a powerful, subtle, and widespread INFLUENCE in wire-pulling behind the scenes in the forming and framing of international policies, politics, and diplomacy, with a view to getting world domination to dictate its totalitarian satanic perversion of Christianity to every nation under Heaven. In a recently published book entitled “The Great Deception,” by the Editor of “The Evangelical Christian,” Toronto, the author declares that never before in the history of Canada was the Papal System so powerful, and that the same applied to the United States of America.
The fact that Jesuitised Popery has manipulated a Socialist Government in Britain so cunningly as to get it to agree to the settlement of 100,000 Polish soldiers from Italy, with their wives and families, in addition to the 60,000 already here, proves beyond dispute that the Vatican can do almost what it likes with whatever political party is in power in this nation. Let it be remembered that these Poles are of the most reactionary type of Romanist, the more liberal type having agreed to go back to their native land. However many thousands of our Protestant fellow-countrymen may wander idly our streets in search of work, the Jesuits will see to it that the Romanist Poles will find employment, while they will prove a terrible thorn, like Eire and Quebec, in Britain’s side in the event of an international crisis. Jesuit influence, also, manipulates the world food situation, so that Britain is threatened with bread-rationing, SIMULTANEOUSLY diverting our much-needed wheat supplies to so-called starving Europe, while the United States of America, and her neighbouring southern Romanist Latin States continue to enjoy their pre-war standard of living. The Jesuitic appeal to Britain by radio, Press, and platform, to tighten still further her belt in the name of equality of sacrifice, is wickedly anomalous in the extreme. When will the British nation see the hand of our inveterate national and Imperial enemy—the Pope and the Jesuit—in these tribulations? Let all the God-fearing praying men and women, who read our magazine, plead fervently, importunately, and ceaselessly, for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and the consequent inevitable downfall of cursed devilish Popery and Jesuistry, and so let the poor duped and deluded Romanists go free in their millions.