CHAPTER VII ROME, THE ANTAGONIST OF THE NATION BY REV. J . M. FOSTER, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS The Roman Catholic Church, both in Scriptures and in Christian history, figures as a politico-ecclesiastical system, the essential and deadly foe of civil and religious liberty, the hoary-headed antagonist of both Church and State. John Milton said: “Popery is a double thing to deal with, and claims a two-fold power, ecclesiastical and political, both usurped, and one supporting the other.” Let us consider a few undeniable facts. I. ROME IS THE NAT ION ’S ANTAGON IST BE CAUSE IT IS A CORRUPT AND CORRUPTING SY S TEM OF FALSEHOOD AND IDOLATRY THAT POL LUTES OUR LAND. Cardinal Manning said: “The Catholic Church is either the masterpiece of Satan or the kingdom of the Son of God” (“Lectures on the Four-fold Sovereignty of God,” London, 1871, page 171). Unquestionably, it is not the latter. Car dinal Newman declared: “Either the Church of Rome is the house of God or the house of Satan; there is no middle ground) between them” (Essays 11, page 116). We sol emnly affirm that she is not the former. The Church of Rome is Satan’s counterfeit of the true Church of Christ.- The heathen sacrificed to devils, not to God. As Israel took their idols from the nations about them, Rome Papal took her idolatry from Rome Pagan. When the “barbarian hordes” from the North over-ran the Roman Empire and dismem bered it, the Bishop of Rome sent missionaries among them, proposing a union of Christianity and paganism. The pagan 113
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