By Rev. JAMES MACLEOD, Greenock.
(Continued from Vol. LI., page 235.)
It is like the story of Pope Joan, which was kept secret for two hundred years after her death; but, when the fable got legs to move about, some thirty Romish authors spread the news about Joan till the era of the Reformation silenced the ready scribes of the Vatican. The story of Peter and Popess Joan are of equal value in the judgment of honest men! It is to be noted that there are no records extant which can shew to the enquirer after truth (not fiction and fables) who was the first Bishop of the city of Rome. From Irenaeus, the writers and historians are so divided that it is virtually impossible to pick the grains of truth from among the chaff of rubbish which lie about who was the first, second or third Bishop of the Roman See. Roman Catholic historians are not agreed, and if not, who can be?
This discordancy among the early fathers of the Church and popish historians about who was the first Bishop of Rome (forgetting about Pope Peter and Popess Joan!) can be safely used to deny totally the other baseless fable called the “Apostolic Succession.” That old hoary-headed fable is from the same fountain from which the story of Pope Peter and Popess Joan originated. The Pope, archbishops and bishops will call this treason! Let them call their own historians traitors. It was Goliath’s own sword that took the head off the Philistine. The Papists have defied the Church of God with their traditions, fables, dreams, falsifying history, and it is equally certain that they will end like Goliath. Few passages from the Word of God will finish their evil career in the world.
The schism of the Papacy.
The schisms among the “Apostolic Successors” are far too numerous to be recounted. Dr. Edgar mentions about thirty of them among the Roman Pontiffs. Sometimes there would be three popes and each one claiming to be the “successor” of Peter, cursing and thundering anathemas at one another, collecting armies, fighting and slaughtering to gain the chair of Pope Peter! Let us bear in mind that the Bishops of Canterbury and York were non-existent at this period of church history! The See of Canterbury and York were the creation of the Roman Pontiff, which in the days of King Henry VIII. separated from the jurisdiction of the See of Rome. Presbyterians should bear that in mind when studying church history. It matters not who will try to defend the government of the church by bishops, must begin at the beginning (if an honest man), and the facts of history shall force him to conclude that popery is the originator of Episcopacy where ever it is to be found before and since Reformation times. Episcopacy may not acknowledge the supremacy of the Roman Pontiff, but that can never alter the fact that popery is the mother of Episcopacy. In the light of history no honest Episcopalian will deny it.
It is the fanciful theory of “Apostolic Succession” that has brought on the Protestant Church of England her present disastrous condition! That church is overwhelmed with Jesuits, priests and bishops, practising all the blasphemous rites of pagan Rome, and the people of God among them have no hope of redress or relief from the Courts of the Church, as the archbishops and bishops are the supreme arbiters, and the voice of conscience is hushed in the debris of ecclesiastical autocracy. It was this same method of church government that brought the first schism into the Christian church in the days of Liberius and Felix. Liberius, who was the lawful Bishop in Rome, was banished about the year 355 for opposing the Arian heresy. Felix, who was an Arian, was elected in the room of Liberius. Liberius, who, as Dr. Edgar says, “weary of exile, signed the Arian creed, and was recalled from banishment and restored to the Popedom of Rome. On his return, sanguinary battles were fought between the two contending parties. The clergy were murdered in the very churches. Felix, however, with his party, was at length overthrown, and forced to yield.” And this is called, by both Anglicans and Romanists, “Apostolic Succession!” “These two Arians,” says Dr. Edgar, “nevertheless are at the present day, Roman saints.”
“The seventh schism,” says Dr. Edgar, “distinguished the spiritual reigns of Silverius and Vigilus. Silverius, in 536, was elected by simony. He bribed Theodatus, who, says Anastasius (De Viti Pontificum, Venice, 1729), threatened to put all who should oppose him to the sword. His election, Godeau admits (another R.C. historian, Paris, 1680), was owing to the power of the Gothic king, rather than to the authority of the Roman clergy. His ordination, in consequence, was the effect of fear and violence. The election and ordination of Silverius, therefore, according to a Bull of Julius and a canon of the Lateran Council, was illegal and invalid. Julius the Second pronounced the nullity of an election effected by simony, and declared the candidate an apostate, a thief, a robber, a heresiarch, a magician, a pagan, and a publican.” And this is called “Apostolic Succession!”
Two Pontiffs, according to the canons, could not at the same time occupy the chair of Peter, yet sometimes there were three popes, and all of them cursing his rival in the most horrid language! All this is not only admitted by Roman Catholic historians, but condemned by them in sober and measured language, while their supreme and spiritual guides were using the most abusive words and the most crooked means against each other, to the shedding of blood.
The thirteenth schism was not less gruesome. Pope Formosus, in 893, gained the chair of “Pope Peter” by bribery. “His infallibility,” says Dr. Edgar, “by the Bulls of Nicholas and Julius, forfeited all claim to the ecclesiastical supremacy. He was Bishop of Porto, and therefore was incapacitated, according to the canons, to become “Bishop of Rome.” It will be of interest to the reader to listen to the chronicler, Dr. Edgar, on the account he gives of the successor of Formosus. This account is taken from Roman Catholic historians, who wrote of the Popes of the period under review. “But an extraordinary scene was exhibited by his successor (Stephen), who succeeded in 896, raged with unexampled fury against the memory and remains of Formosus. Solon, a heathen legislator, enacted a law to forbid the Athenians to speak evil of the dead. But the vicar-general of God (according to his blasphemous claims), outraged, in this respect, the laws of the earth and heaven. Stephen unearthed the mouldering body of Formosus which, robed in Pontifical ornaments, he (Stephen) placed before a Roman Council that he had assembled. He then asked the lifeless Pontiff, why, being a Bishop of Porto, he had, contrary to the canons, usurped the Roman See. . . . The Pontiff then stripped the bloated corpse, and amputated its head and fingers, which he threw into the Tiber. Stephen rescinded his acts and declared the ordination of Formosus irregular and invalid. Such was the atrocity perpetrated by the viceroy of heaven and approved and sanctioned by a holy Roman Council.” It will be seen, in order to follow out what happened to Pope Stephen, according to the accounts of two Roman Catholic historians of repute, Baronius and Bruys.
Here it is as related by Dr. Edgar. “Stephen’s sentence, however, was afterwards repealed by his successor. John X. on his accession, assembled a synod of seventy-four bishops at Ravenna, condemned the acts of Stephen and re-established the ordination of Formosus. But John’s decisions again were destined to proclaim the variations of popery, and display the mutuability of earthly things. Sergius the Third, on his promotion to the Roman Hierarchy, called a council, rescinded the acts of John, and once more annulled the ordination of Formosus. Vengeance soon overtook Stephen, the violator of the sepulchre and the dead. His miscreancy met with condign punishment. The Romans, unable to bear his ruffianism, expelled his holiness from the hierarchy. He was then immured in a dungeon, and loaded with chains, and finally strangled. He entered, says Baronius (R.C. historian), like a thief and died as he deserved—with the rope. This father and teacher of all Christians was, says Bruys (R.C. historian), ignorant as he was wicked. This head of the church and vicar-general of God was unacquainted with the first element of learning.” This was the testimony of Spondanus, Baronius and Bruys, etc., all of them Roman Catholic historians. Spondanus wrote in the year 1618. They knew the facts and wrote them without the least prejudice to the “holy office.” Our historian, Dr. Edgar, says, Benedict was the son of Alberic, Count of Tuscany; and, in 1033, was raised to the pontifical throne in the tenth or, as some affirm, in the twelfth year of his age.
His promotion was the effect of simony, and his life was the scene of pollution. His days were spent in debauchery. “He dealt,” says Benno, “in sorcery and sacrificed to demons.” We are asked in the year 1947 of the Christian era to believe in this “Apostolic Succession!” It was not Luther, Calvin, Knox or more recent historians that wrote the gruesome history of the popes, but Roman Catholic historians and writers. That popery and the popes are an invention of the devil is so positive a fact in the light of the gospel that one wonders to-day that one single individual on the face of this earth could believe the fable. The Roman Catholics are not, of course, allowed to read authentic records which are still extant of the lives of their popes. This is the greatest blasphemy that ever took possession of the minds of men. It is the progeny of the same popes that are now trying to convert Britain and the U.S.A. to the Catholic Church. What an affront to human intelligence!
We will conclude this article by giving the readers what every Protestant must accept and sign before marrying a “Catholic.” “I, the undersigned, not a member of the Catholic Church, wishing to contract marriage with A.B., a member of the Catholic Church, propose to do so with the understanding that the marriage bond thus contracted is indissoluble, except by death. I promise on my word of honour that I will not in any way hinder or obstruct the said A.B. in the exercise of his or her religion and that all children of either sex born of our marriage shall be baptised and educated in the Roman Catholic faith and according to the teaching of the Catholic Church even though the said A.B. should be taken away by death. I further promise that I will marry only according to the marriage rite of the Catholic Church, that I will not, either before or after the Catholic ceremony, present myself with A.B. for marriage before a civil magistrate or minister of the gospel. Signed in the presence of Rev. Father D.M.” What a curse pagan Romanism is!