We Thank The LORD GOD ALMIGHTY for the Glorious Protestant Reformation, that brought the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Word of God back to the Church.... For more than a thousand years, from the Huguenots and Anabaptists to the Waldenses, from the Albigenses to the Hussites, from the churches of England, Scotland and Ireland to the churches of America, from John Wycliffe to Martin Luther, from William Tyndale to Jonathan Edwards, from John Wesley to Charles Spurgeon, every faithful believer of the gospel identified the papal power of the church of Rome as the antichrist of scripture. In fact, every Reformer, without exception, identified the Roman Catholic church as the antichrist foretold in the scriptures. In The Testimony of The Reformers, published in 1836, the Rev. Edward Bickersteth concurred, stating: “The pope (not indeed in his individual, but in his official character, and in the succession of popes) is THE MAN OF SIN, and the son of perdition, foretold by St. Paul in his epistle to the Thessalonians, as the apostacy to precede the coming of Christ. He opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, so that he as God, sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. Apostacy specially refers to idolatry, and the worship paid to the virgin Mary and the saints, as is evident by their missals, is idolatry ; as are the making of images of Christ and the saints, and worshipping them. There is no scriptural reason to think that the man of sin is to be one individual, as in scripture a single person often represents a large body in their collective character. In the scriptures civil rulers or magistrates are frequently called gods. Deut. x. 17; Exod. xxii. 28 ; Psalm Ixxxii. 1,6; John x. 34 ; and nothing can be more clear from all past history than the popes opposing and exalting himself above all such. The pope began his Bull against Henry the VIII. The pope being Gods vicar on earth, and according to Jeremiahs prophecy, set over nations and kingdoms to root out and destroy, and having the supreme power over all the kings of the whole world. The title, His holiness the pope, and the supreme pontiff, his setting aside the commands of God, his conferring absolution, his omission of the second commandment in commonly circulated catechisms, and his assuming to preside in and over the visible church, remarkably accomplish the prediction of St. Paul.”(pp.20,21). “It was this view of popery which led our reformers to a decided separation from the church of Rome. As God commanded the Jews to come out of Babylon of old, (Isa. xlviii. 20; Jer. 1.8; li. 6 ; Zech. ii. 7) so he explicitly commands those in modern Babylon by a voice from heaven to separate from her. And I heard another voice from heaven saying, Come out of her my people that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. The same God who has forbidden all unnecessary divisions, and who marks heresy and schism with special displeasure, bids his people, under the most awful threatenings, to depart from Rome.”
Posted on: Tue, 27 May 2014 05:13:38 +0000
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