United States or Jamaica ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
In the year A.D. 270 Anthony, an Egyptian, the father of monasticism, fixed his abode in the deserts of Egypt and formed monks into organized bodies. Dowling, describing the extravagance of monkery and the false standard of piety and holiness it created, declares that monkery "actually affected the church universal." See History of Romanism, pp. 88, 89. Very few marks of genuine piety remained.
Not on extraordinary occasions only, but as a matter of course, whenever the news of a conversion to Romanism, or to Irvingism, or to the Plymouth Sect, or to Unitarianism, is brought to us, we say, one and all of us: "No wonder, such a one has lived so long abroad"; or, "he is of such a very imaginative turn"; or, "he is so excitable and odd"; or, "what could he do? all his family turned"; or, "it was a reaction in consequence of an injudicious education"; or, "trade makes men cold," or "a little learning makes them shallow in their religion."
He became a determined opponent of Romanism, and wrote several treatises against it. About this time there seems to have been an appeal to the nobility and gentry of the county for help towards restoring the cathedral. Bishop Croft was buried in the cathedral, and joined to his gravestone is that of his intimate friend George Benson, the Dean.
They ask us why they are to deny the excellence of tales and pictures which make men more pure and humble, more earnest and noble. They tell us truly that all beauty is God's stamp, and that all beauty ought to be consecrated to his service. And then they ask us: "If Protestantism denies that she can consecrate the beautiful, how can you wonder if we love the Romanism which can?
She must be content to remain in the barbarism of the middle ages, covered with that moral malaria which has smitten all things in that doomed land, and under the influence of which, the cities, the earth itself, and man, for whom it was made, are all sinking into one common ruin. We have yet other illustrations of the pestiferous influence of Romanism on the temporal happiness of its subjects.
Romanism and despotic government in the larger part of Christendom, and the prevalence of Epicurean principles in the remainder; these do indeed lie heavy on my heart. Ib. p. 135.
PERRONE has given a similar testimony, and we cannot doubt that the more thoughtful adherents of Romanism must be sensible of the danger which is involved in any attempt to combine Rational Skepticism with Dogmatic Authority.
"Happily, for some years, the public conscience has been awakening and the people are beginning to know that a priest, even the best of them, is worthless. "Freed from an official religion, the Brazilian people have really made progress in spite of the hopelessness of Romanism that perverts all things and resorts to ail sorts of schemes to preserve its former easy position. "We, pirates?
As may be understood, the workers in these crafts stand up for Romanism, and are willing to cry themselves hoarse for Mary, just as the people of old cried for Diana of the Ephesians. It is often told of the Protestant worker that he keeps behind his door an image of the Blessed Virgin, and, when entering or leaving the house, he spits in her face.
What though the Pope reigns over a wasted land and a nation of beggars? he does reign; he counts for a European sovereign; and his system continues to exist as a power. As men in shipwreck throw overboard food, jewels, all, to save life, so Romanism has thrown all overboard to save itself.
Word Of The Day