| CHAPTER IV.
TAKING ISSUE WITH THE OLD REFORMERS. Having, as before stated, read Cobbett’s History of the “Protestant Reformation,” I could not bring myself to believe that God would inspire Henry VIII to build up His church; for not only does Cobbett, but some authentic histories of England, prove him to have been a cruel murderer of both Catholics and Protestants, a polygamist and a brutal prince. I could not believe Martin Luther to be a member of God’s chosen priesthood, because history shows that he was an Augustine monk, and that when the pope’s minister found out that the order of which Luther was a member was secreting the money they had obtained from selling indulgences, in place of send ing it to the pope (Leo X,) who was at that time building the church of Saint Peter’s at Rome, he (the pope’s minister) transferred this lucrative employment from Luther’s order to that of the Dominicans, another order of monks. Luther resented this transfer of the sale of indulgences from one order to another, and being naturally of a fiery tem per, and provoked by opposition, he inveighed against the authority of the pope himself. He also consented to the debasing doctrine of polygamy. See Goldsmith’s History of England, page 44; also Father Nothen’s Church History, page 415. [41] I could not believe that the great God of justice, mercy, and love, had appointed John Calvin to priesthood authority; for he taught that withering and infamous doctrine that our heavenly Father had foreordained a few to be saved, in order to manifest his mercy in them, and that all the rest of the teeming millions of Adam’s posterity were unchangeably designed to burn in the fires of a never ending hell, all for the glory ‘of God. The infant of a day, if called away, and it did not happen to be one of the “elect infants,” would go to the seething flames, there to welter ‘neath the frown of an angry God, not because the baby did wrong, but only because God wanted a little more glory’ By the decree of God for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life and men thus predestinated and foreordained are particularly and unchangeably designed; and their number is so certain and definite that it can not be either increased or diminished. Those of mankind that are predestinated unto life, God before the foundation of the world was laid, according to his immutable purpose and the secret counsel and good pleasure of his will, hath chosen in Christ unto everlasting glory, out of his mere free grace and love without any foresight of faith or good works or perseverance in either of them or any other thing in the creature as conditions or causes moving him thereunto, and all to the praise of his glorious grace.—Confession of Faith, chap. 3, pars. 3 to 5. “Elect infants dying in infancy are regenerated and saved.” Yes, but what about the “others not elected ?“ They “can not be saved,” and “to assert and maintain that they may, is very pernicious and to be detested.” (Confession of Faith, pp. 45, 4G.) [42] photo of “father” [43] This doctrine of baby damnation made Calvin smack his lips. Hear him: “Reprobate infants are vipers of vengeance, which God holds over the flames of hell until they turn and spit venom in God’s face.”—Calvin’s Institutes, vol. 1. I quote from Calvin because he was the source of Presbyterian inspiration. “Their doctrines are Calvinistic.”— Buck’s Theological Dictionary, p. 366. This man Calvin by some is said to have persecuted with the most persistent and inveterate hatred all who did not agree with his views in every particular. He threw Bolsec, the physician, Ameaur, the senator, and several others into prison, or had them exiled. James Gruet he had several times put to the torture, and finally beheaded. The unfortunate Doctor Servetus he burned to death at the stake; and all this wicked cruelty because these persons held views different from his own. Further, I had tried in my weakness to compare the teaching and organization of the churches with the doctrine and organization of the Church of Christ, as found in the Bible, and found them wanting. Now I do not wish the reader to think that I believed then or now that there was no good accomplished by the reformers. I did then and do now believe that God used the wrath of men to praise him, and that the men referred to above weakened the chain of Catholicism by the opposition they brought against her. I thank God for some of the work performed by the reformers, and believe they [44] to some degree prepared the way for the restoration of the gospel in its purity. There were then and there are now good men in the different churches, but that does not prove that they have priesthood authority given them of God, and if God conferred no priesthood upon them, it is apparent that they had no authority to minister in any of the gospel ordinances, nor to preach any part of the gospel; for the inspired Paul informs us that “no man taketh this honor [priesthood or the right to minister in gospel ordinances] unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron.” —Hebrews 5: 4. And he says in Romans 10: 15: “And how shall they preach except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!” The reader will see that by this time I was convinced that the Bible was true, that Roman Catholicism had lost all the authority that God had conferred upon the ancient church, that she had become the lewd woman spoken of in the Scriptures, and that all the reformers who had come out from her were destitute of authority; for if the Romish church had authority, the reformers did wrong in leaving her. On the other hand, if she had lost her authority and become corrupt, then they who came out of her had no authority. The Savior said, “A corrupt tree [which surely the Roman church was] can not bring forth good fruit.” All the priesthood authority the reformers claimed to have they obtained from the pope of Rome, who [45] they claimed was and is the “man of sin.” Wycliffe, Cranmer, Latimer, Knox, Calvin, Luther, Ridley, Hooper, and others of the Protestant reformers were all priests of the Roman Church, and administered under their Roman ordination till the hour of their death. |
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