by Rev John Willison, Dundee
(Continued from Page 251)
“But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you, than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed,” Gal. 1: 8.
As the errors and deviations of Popery from the scriptures are numerous, so our arguments are manifold to prove it another gospel. Wherefore I proceed to add, in the next place,
A Twelfth Argument. That religion which derogates from the efficacy of Christ’s blood to cleanse from all sin, or denies the sufficiency and fulness of Christ’s satisfaction and sufferings to atone for and purge away sin, and therefore teaches the necessity of our personal satisfactions and sufferings for that end, both here and in purgatory hereafter; that religion is another gospel: but Popery is such a religion; and therefore, &c.
All Protestants, according to the scriptures, maintain, that there is an infinite sufficiency and fulness in the vicarious obedience and sufferings of Christ, to satisfy divine justice for the sins of an elect world; so that by “one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified,” Heb. 10: 4. And that the blood of Jesus Christ alone cleanseth believers from all sin, and that there is no further condemnation to them that believe in him; for God fully forgives their iniquities, and he remembers their sins no more; see 1 John 1: 7, Rom. 8: 1; Jer. 31: 34.
But Papists maintain, that, besides the sufferings of Christ, there is need for the satisfactions and sufferings of believers by penance here, and hereafter in purgatory, if they have not fulfilled due penance, in order to purge away their sins, and prepare them for heaven, where no unclean thing can enter. They say, purgatory is a place of torment in the other world near hell, to which the souls go of those who die in a state of grace, but are not sufficiently purged from their sins here; and there they continue under a tormenting fire, till they have made full satisfaction for their sins, which perhaps may be many hundreds or thousands of years to some. But, they say, the time of punishment may be shortened by the prayers and merits of others, by soul-masses, and by indulgences, which can be
obtained by money. These indulgences come originally from the Pope, who hath power of remitting punishments in purgatory: and this power of indulgence is founded upon works of supererogation, that is, the overplus of the satisfactions and merits of Christ and the saints, laid up in a treasure of which the Pope keeps the key, and dispenses portions thereof to particular persons as he pleases. But all this story of purgatory, and of the Pope’s power, is without any foundation in scripture, yea, it is contrary to it. It is horrid presumption and blasphemy, to go to join the merits of men with the merits of Christ, and to hold that a man on earth hath power to dispose of these merits, and to remit punishments inflicted by divine justice in another world, and to do all this for money.
As for the Popish purgatory, it is nothing but a fiction contrived for secular and sordid purposes; for the scriptures know no such place, nor any purgatory for sin but the blood of Christ, 1 John 1: 7. Likewise, we learn from the scriptures, that the souls of all men, when they leave the body at death, are presently fixed in an unalterable state either of happiness or misery; that there is no intermediate place between them, nor any passage from the one to the other; see Luke 16: 22, 23, 26. Again, it is contrary to scripture, to say that any who die in a state of grace, enter into purgatory or a place of torment: for the Bible declares them “blessed who die in the Lord,” or die in a gracious state, because they enter into rest, and into peace, where they are with Christ, and enjoy his blessed presence. All this is clear from Rev 14: 13; Isa. 57: 2; Phil. 1: 23, and from the instance of the thief that repented on the cross; he was with Christ in paradise that very day he died, though he had been a great sinner, and needed purging as much as any. And if the blood of Christ purged him from sin, and fitted him for heaven all at once, why should Papists seek another purgatory to themselves, when the Bible knows no other? They can never imagine that paradise, or the blessed rest which believers enter into at death, is any thing like their purgatory, which, they say, hath in it a tormenting fire little inferior to that of hell, only it is temporary. No, no; the believer’s blessed rest after death is a place of happiness, void of all trouble or torment. We see, then, that the Papists’ purgatory is contrary to the Bible, and highly injurious to the infinite virtue of Christ’s blood, and the perfection of his satisfaction, and is a plain denying of the fulness and sufficiency of it; which is another gospel than Christ and his apostles teach us. Again, how scandalously partial and uncharitable is the Pope’s way of dispensing his treasure of merits? The wealthier sort may share of it, and redeem their own souls, and the souls of their friends, out of this fiery prison, by their money; while the poor must fry in the flame
without hope of pardon or relief till the last judgment. Now, if it be in the Pope’s power to deliver miserable souls out of this tormenting fire at his pleasure, what a cruel inhumane man must he be, that lets multitudes of the poor lie howling and broiling in it, and will not bestow heaps of his vast treasure upon them, to ransom them from this scorching oven!
Let me here remark, that it is the Popish doctrine of purgatory that is the foundation of their prayers for the dead. The Papists judge themselves bound to pray for the souls of their friends, that they may be delivered from the dreadful pains of purgatory. Though there be no ground for such prayers in scripture, or in the practice of the first ages, yet it is to be regretted that not a few called Protestants begin to debate for them. But if there be no purgatory, as I have showed there is not, then there is no place for prayers for the dead. It appears from the forecited verses, Luke 16: 22, 23, 26 that the souls of all men, after their departure from the body, are immediately fixed in a state unalterable. The godly go presently to Abraham’s bosom, a place of glorious rest and perfection, Heb. 12: 23, where they need no prayers; the wicked go to a prison, out of which there is no redemption, where no prayer can help them, the sentence against them being irrevocable. Where the tree falleth, there it must lie. So that praying for the dead is a practice unscriptural and unwarrantable.
Thirteenth Argument. That religion which is attended with a spirit of persecution, a spirit which breathes cruelty against fellow-christians or fellow-men, is another gospel, surely not the gospel of Christ, but of antichrist: but Popery is such a religion; therefore, &c.
The Christian religion, or gospel of Christ, teaches us goodness and mercy, meekness, patience, and tender-dealing, that so we may resemble our God and Saviour, Luke 6: 36, “Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father in heaven also is merciful.” Eph. 4: 32, “Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” 2 Tim. 2: 24, 25, “Be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves.” Luke 9: 56, “For the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.” From these and other texts we see what is the spirit and temper of true Christianity.
But the spirit of Popery breathes out persecution and violence, oppression and cruelty. They avowedly plead for propagating religion by force of arms, by blood and slaughter; and so would cut men’s throats to save their souls. They lay it down for a principle, that heretics are to be burnt; and such they judge all Protestants to be: and their practice is
most agreeable to their principle. Many instances might be brought of the cruel antichristian spirit of Popery, yea, so many as would fill several volumes. I will mention a few.
Long and cruel was the persecution raised by the Pope against the Waldenses and Albigenses, which began anno 1160, and continued for several centuries. The Pope instigated many kings and princes to destroy them; and a great many thousands of them were most cruelly butchered at many different times, but more especially in the year 1545. Bellarmin confesseth in his writings, that one hundred thousand of them were cut off in one expedition that year.
The Pope excited the emperors, kings, princes, dukes &c to take up arms against the Bohemians, for protesting against the church of Rome; intreating by the wounds of Christ, and their own salvation, to extirpate that cursed generation; promising pardon of all their sins to the most wicked persons that killed any of them. Many thousands of them were destroyed by various tortures and cruel deaths, as Clark narrates in his Martyrology.
Dreadful was the cruelty of the duke de Alva, while he was governor of the Netherlands, under the king of Spain: he boasted that he had in a short time put eighteen thousand in the hand of the hangman for heresy, besides many thousands massacred by his bloody soldiers.
Terrible was the massacre in Paris, anno 1572, contrived by the Pope and court of Rome; above ten thousand Protestants were murdered in Paris in cold blood in one night’s time: and, after that, many thousands through France were butchered in the same manner, the news whereof were recieved at Rome with the greatest expressions of joy.
During the five years of queen Mary’s reign in England, notwithstanding of her solemn promise to the men of Suffolk in favour of the Protestant religion, great cruelties were exercised against Protestants by these furious bloody bishops Gardiner and Bonner; and many godly and learned bishops, ministers, and others, in England, were condemned to the flames, and burnt alive.
Likewise, the gun-powder plot of the Papists, discovered November 5, 1604, was a fearful instance of their hellish wickedness and cruelty, when they designed to have blown up the king, the prince, and both houses of Parliament all at once, and all to re-establish Popery in these lands.
There were many terrible massacres of Protestants in several towns of Germany, anno 1630, and following years, by the emperor’s general, count Tilly and his soldiers, who killed vast numbers of them in cold blood, using the most unheard-of barbarities against all sexes, ages and conditions. So
that many have observed, that so great hath the malice and rage of Papists been against the professors of the gospel, that neither Turks nor heathens ever exceeded or equalled them: no instances among them can be given like to the inhuman barbarities, or rather devilish cruelties of the Spanish inquisition, which no man of bowels is able to read without horror!
I have neither time nor room to give so much as hints of the bloody persecutions and Popish butcheries of Protestants in Scotland, England, Low Countries, France, Spain, Italy, Piedmont, Germany, Hungary, Bohemia, Lithuania, Poland, and other places, whereby many hundred thousands have been murdered, tortured, and destroyed in the most barbarous manner; for which see Clark’s Martyrology, Fox, Thuanus and several Popish historians, as well as Protestants.
Yet I cannot altogether pass that terrible massacre in Ireland, when the Papists rose on the 23rd day of October, 1641 and murdered in cold blood, about one hundred thousand Protestants; the memory whereof is still solemnised on that day every year, in all the churches of Ireland, by act of parliament; and it was reckoned they massacred at least another hundred thousand after the foresaid day, before their cruelty stopt. The priests were the chief instigators in this massacre; for they gave the sacrament to divers Irish, upon condition that they would spare neither man, woman, nor child of the Protestants; assuring them, that it was as lawful to kill a Protestant, as to kill a dog; yea, that it was meritorious to wash their hands in their blood; that the killing of Protestants was a rare preservative against the pains of purgatory, and that the murderers would go straight to heaven when they died. They, among other of their cruelties, caused women to kill their own husbands and children, by putting swords in their hands, and thrusting them forward; and thus they caused children to kill their parents. They also taught their own children to kill the children of Protestants, and to use barbarities upon dead bodies, &c.
These few instances are sufficient to prove Popery to be plainly antichristianism, and another gospel than that of the meek and merciful Jesus; and that the character of the whore of Babylon is justly applied by Protestants to the church of Rome, which we have in Rev. 17: 6, “And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.” A horrid spectacle! to see a woman take so much delight in cruelty, as to drink blood! and the blood of Christ’s saints! Therefore the apostle John adds there, “And when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration!” Why? As if he had said, I had not wondered so much to see Mahometans, or see Roman Pagans shedding the blood of Christ’s saints; but to see the church of Rome, that pretends to be the
spouse of Christ, shedding the blood of so many thousands and millions of Christ’s most sincere friends and subjects, for no crime or cause whatsoever, but merely for owning the authority of the Lord Jesus, and professing his truths as he hath left them in his word; this sight was most affecting, and matter of amazement to the blessed apostle! And it may also be most amazing to us, that the patience of the righteous Judge of heaven and earth should bear so long with the bloody whore! But he hath a set time for judgment.
Indeed, Protestants in Britain, when observing the smooth and civil behaviour of sundry Papists living among them, may be apt to entertain charitable thoughts of them, that they are not inclined to such cruelty against Protestants: but some Popish writers are so ingenuous as to tell us, that it is want of power, and not of goodwill, that makes them spare us. And though some of that communion seem to abhor cruelty, yet their religion binds them to break through every engagement of friendship, gratitude, promises, or oaths, to destroy us, when it is in their power; as appears by the decrees of sundry councils and Popes which are cited before. And these decrees Popish princes and states, and all others, are required to obey upon pain of their salvation. And these who obey are assured by the Pope of all these indulgences and privileges which were granted to the adventurers for the recovery of the Holy Land, namely, to have a full pardon of all their sins here, and a greater measure of glory hereafter. So that Papists, who believe their own principles, must needs be cruel to Protestants.