Popery Another Gospel by Rev. John Willison, Dundee

“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.

Fourteenth Argument.

That religion which is not instituted and authorized by Jesus Christ, the sole Head of the church, but devised and appointed by antichrist, his great enemy, must be another gospel, and liable to the anathema of the text: but Popery is such a religion; therefore, &c.

I have showed before, that Christ hath left us his religion or gospel in his word, and that we are to look to his word as our only rule of faith, worship, and practice in religious matters, and to reject all human inventions inconsistent therewith.

I have also mentioned the Popish doctrines and practices which Protestants reject as contrary to the rule. And these have been gradually devised and brought in by the church and bishops of Rome, as is evident from the histories and writings of sundry Popish, as well as Protestant authors, who mention the particular times and years when these doctrines and practices were broached and introduced. Now, these being expressly contrary to the revealed will of Christ, and to his honour and glory, cannot be reckoned Christianity, but the reverse of it, or antichristianism, devised by antichrist, Christ’s grand enemy. It is well known, that the body of sound Protestants hold the Pope and church of Rome to be antichrist, mentioned by the apostle John; 1 John 2: 18; and the man of sin and son of perdition, mentioned by the apostle Paul; 2 Thes. 2: 3, 4; and the seducing spirits spoken of, 2 Tim 4: 1. The doctrines and practices confuted in preceding arguments being so plainly antichristian, we may well conclude the broachers and propagators of them to be antichrist, namely, the Pope and his hierarchy. Likewise other scripture-marks of antichrist well agree to them.

In the first place, let us take a view of the seat of antichrist, or the city where he is to reside and govern. 1. The city is called mystical Babylon; Rev. 17: 5. Now, Rome may well get that name, because of her resembling old Babylon in her idolatry, and oppressing the true church of God. Sundry Papists hold, that Rome is meant by Babylon in 1 Pet. 5: 13, and why not also in other texts?

1. The city is situated upon seven hills; Rev. 18: 9. Now, Rome is the only city we read of that is famed for such a situation; the names of the hills being, Palatinus, Aventinus, Quirinalis, Celius, Viminalis, Esquilinus, Capitolinus.

2. It is a city that had seven kings, that is, seven forms of government, before antichrist called the beast, reigned in it, who is therefore called the eighth. Five of these were fallen before John’s time, the sixth was then in being, and the seventh was to come; according to Rev. 17: 10, 11. All this agrees exactly to Rome with her seven forms of government; 1. Kings. 2. Consuls. 3 Tribunes. 4. Decemviri. 5. Dictators. 6. Emperors Pagan, then in being. 7. Emperors Christian, which were to come. And the beast, or antichristian monarch, is the eighth, ver. 11; and there he is said to be of the seventh, because of his having a mixed power, made up partly of the civil power of the seventh head, and partly of an ecclesiastical power super-added to it. And observe, it is said of the seventh, ver. 10, that he was to continue a short space. Why? The Pope soon wrested Rome and Italy from the Christian emperor, and usurped his power.

3. This city, or great whore, where antichrist reigns, is said to “sit upon many waters, and to reign over the kings of the earth,” Rev. 17: 1, 18, and these waters are expounded, ver. 15, to be “multitudes of people, nations, and tongues;” which agrees well to Rome, that hath many nations of different languages depending on her authority; and to the Pope, who hath had a mighty influence upon the kings of Europe, to make war against their neighbours, and to persecute their subjects at his pleasure; and sometimes hath caused them to do penance, resign their crowns, and receive them again as a gift from him, &c.

4. This city is called the “great whore, the mother of harlots, with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication,” and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication; see Rev. 17: 1, 2, 5. These characters are most applicable to the church of Rome, because of her apostacy and gross idolatry, by which she hath gone a-whoring from God, and hath wofully ensnared the kings and nations of the world into it with her. I showed before why idolatry is called fornication and whoredom, and is compared to wine.

5. This is called the “beast that hath ten horns,” by which are meant ten “kings, which were to receive their power with the beast, and give their power and strength to her;” see Rev. 17: 12, 13. This suits well with Rome! for, in Pope Leo X’s time there were just ten kings submitting, namely, in Germany, France, England, Scotland, Denmark, Poland, Spain, Navarre, Hungary, Naples. And though these kingdoms have since undergone many alterations, yet still the bounds of the Roman empire keep pretty much about the number of ten kingdoms or sovereign states.

These characters being so plainly applicable to Rome, many Papists grant that Rome is to be the seat of antichrist; but, to save the Pope, refuse it to be Rome papal that is meant, but Rome Pagan, or Rome when she falls off from the Pope to Paganism. And they will have it that anti-christ is yet to come, and will continue only three years and a half; and that the two witnesses, Enoch and Elias, will come from heaven to destroy him.

But by what is said, and by the marks following, joined therewith, it is most evident that he is come already, and that the Pope who sits at Rome is the very antichrist described in the word of God.

Consider these things further. 1. The bible tells us, that antichrist was to rise by a great apostacy or falling away from Christianity, which was to come gradually to a great height, 2 Thes. 2. This apostacy is called the mystery of iniquity, 2: 7, that began to work in the apostles’ days, namely, by the antichristian ambition, like that of Diotrephes, then working under ground, and which at length made way for antichrist’s open appearance.

1. The great let, which withheld antichrist’s coming in the apostles’ time, is now taken out of the way, 2 Thes. 2: 6, 7. That let was the heathen empire or Roman emperor, and so the primitive Christians understood it; which made sundry of the ancients wish for the continuance of the Roman empire, because of the terror they were under of that great adversary’s appearing upon the destruction thereof.

2. That the Pope is antichrist, appears from 2 Thes. 2: 4, where he is said to “sit as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.” Now, as God resided in the temple of Jerusalem, and was worshipped there, so the Pope sits in the Church at Rome, usurping God’s prerogatives, titles, and honours, as I showed before; and the Papists ascribe divine power to him, to forgive sin, dispense with God’s laws, make duty to be sin, and sin to be duty; to open and shut heaven and hell at his pleasure.

3. He is said, 2 Thes. 2: 4, to “exalt himself above all that is called God, or is worshipped.” This the Pope doth sundry ways: 1. He exalts himself above the God of heaven, by annulling his commands, hallowing the very stews, and many gross acts of impiety, and demanding stricter obedience to his own laws than to God’s laws: and by pretending to do things which Omnipotence cannot do, such as things sinful, or things which imply contradiction. He can make God of a piece of bread, a whole Christ of a thin wafer, a body without quantity, extension, weight, or colour; the same small body to be in millions of places, in heaven and earth, at the same moment of time. 2. The Pope exalts himself above magistrates who are called gods, by treading on the necks of emperors, kicking off the crowns of kings, deposing them, loosing their subjects from their allegiance, disposing of their dominions and lives, exempting his ecclesiastics from their jurisdiction, even in temporal causes, contrary to God’s command, Rom. 13: 1. And he hath his Janissaries, the Jesuits, still going through the world, promoting plots and conspiracies against Protestant kings and kingdoms. By which ungodly practices, he hath filled the world with blood and confusion, with long and cruel wars, and with the secret murder of princes and others.

4. There is another prophecy that agrees with that before-mentioned, of a great apostacy under the gospel, which is most applicable to the Pope and his church, 1 Tim. 4: 1-3, when men shall receive the doctrine of demons, that is, doctrines which teach the worship of saints and angels, in imitation of the demon worship of the heathens, that is, a middle sort of deities between the supreme God and mortal men, whose office it is to be agents or mediators between the gods above, and men below. Speaking lies in hypocrisy, that is, promoting their errors by lies and forgeries, fabulous legends, and lying miracles; professing honour to Christ, while they undermine his priesthood, disparage his sacrifice, and corrupt his ordinances. They forbid marriage to some, and encourage nuns’ vows; which leads to manifold mischiefs, lewdness, and villany; and all this contrary to the mind of the Spirit of God; Heb. 13: 4; 1 Cor. 9: 5; 7: 2; 1 Tim. 3: 7. They command abstinence from certain meats, as from flesh on certain days, without any warrant from God, who on the contrary has freed Christians from such yokes under the gospel.

5. The whore is said to be arrayed in scarlet, Rev. 17: 4, which is literally true of the Pope and his cardinals, who wear hats, robes, stockings, and shoes of scarlet colour, and will not change their livery, though they know how we apply this text.

6. Their merchandise is gold, silver, slaves, and souls of men, Rev. 18: 12, 13. So the Pope and his clergy trade by enslaving men, redeeming souls out of purgatory for money, opening heaven by pardons for gold and silver; so that none go to hell but the poor who want money, or those who are not willing to part with it.

7. The whore is said to “make the nations drunk with her wine,” Rev. 17: 2. So the Pope and his clergy so intoxicate people’s minds with their superstitious doctrines and worship, that let them be guilty of never so many errors and blasphemies, or impose on them what they will, they believe they cannot err; and they are ready to kill and murder all who say the contrary.

8. The whore is said to be drunk with the blood of Christ’s martyrs, Rev. 17: 6. This is true of the Pope and his church with a witness, as I showed before, &c.

What I have advanced amounts to a plain demonstration that Popery is another gospel, and the religion of antichrist, and therefore to be abhorred.

I shall touch at a common objection of Papists against the religion of Protestants, from its novelty. “Where was your religion,” say they, “before Luther arose,” anno 1517?

Ans. Our religion and doctrines were there, where theirs never was, namely, in the bible. And they were also with the universal Christian church for five or six hundred years after Christ’s ascension, during all which time the Popish doctrine were not heard of. And, even in the most dark and corrupt ages, Christ had his faithful witnesses, long before Luther, to maintain these very truths we profess; such as the Waldenses, Albigenses and Wicklifites, Hussites, and many others. But let us, in our turn, ask the Papists, “where was your religion for the first six hundred years after Christ?” Let them show, if they can, where all that time was the doctrine of transubstantiation: where was the Pope’s supremacy or infallibility? Where image-worship, praying in an unknown tongue, communion in one kind? Where was purgatory? Works of supererogation, giving dispensations or pardons, selling indulgences? and many such things. They were not then conceived, nor come forth of antichrist’s womb. Christ’s church in those more early ages knew them not. No; these things are all Romish corruptions and Popish innovations, brought into the church since these times. So that the character of novelty properly belongs to their religion, not to ours. We have true antiquity on our side, the ancient records of the scriptures, and the ancient practice of the apostolic and primitive church, which they have no claim to.