102 The Fundamentals I submit that the teaching of Rome is at least as different from that of the Sacred Writings as that which Paul calls “another gospel;” and that, therefore, his words authorize us to say that Romanism is not Christianity. FIRST, Christianity consists of what Christ has taught, and commanded in Scripture. But Romanism does not even profess to be founded on Scripture only: it claims a right to depart from what is contained in it—a right to' add to Scripture what is handed down by tradition; and both to depart from and add to Scripture by making new decrees. It forbids the cup to the people, for instance, in what it calls “the mass,” and yet admits that it was not forbidden to them at “the beginning of the Christian religion” (Council of Trent, Session 21, chap. 2). I t says that councils and the pope have been empowered by the Holy Spirit to make decrees by which, in reality, the doctrines delivered by Christ are entirely annulled. To show how extensively this has been done, let the reader endeavor to trace the full effect of what Rome teaches as to baptismal regeneration, transubstantiation, justification by means of sacraments and deeds done by us, the invocation of saints—things which are entirely opposed to the teaching of Christ. The canons of the Council of Trent, which sat at in tervals from 1545 to 1563, may be called the Bible of Ro manism. They were translated into English, as late as 1848, by a Roman Catholic priest, under the sanction of Dr. Wiseman. The Council tells us that one end for which it was called was “the extirpation of heresies.” What, then, according to it, is the standard of truth? I t tells us that Rome receives The Sacred Scriptures and “The Unwritten Traditions . . . preserved in continuous succession in the Catholic Church, with equal affection of piety and rever ence” (Session 4) ; also that “no one may dare to interpret the Sacred Scriptures” in a manner contrary to that “Church;
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker