The Sacred Scriptures - 29th Special Edition (Part 4/4). Johannes Biermanski

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СКАЧАТЬ out the saints of the Most High," Barnes, in his Notes on Dan.7:25, says: "Can any one doubt that this is true of the papacy? The Inquisition, the persecutions of the Waldenses, the ravages of the Duke of Alva, the fires of Smithfield, the tortures of Goa, - indeed, the whole history of the papacy, may be appealed to in proof that this is applicable to that power. If anything could have worn out the saints of the Most High, - could have cut them off from the earth so that evangelical religion would have become extinct, - it would have been the persecutions of the papal power. In year 1208 a crusade was proclaimed by Pope Innocent III against the Waldenses and Albigenses, in which a million men perished. From the beginning of the order of Jesuits in the year 1540 to 1580, nine hundred thousand were destroyed. One hundred and fifty thousand perished by the Inquisition in thirty years. In the Low Countries fifty thousand persons were hanged, beheaded, burned, or buried alive, for the crime of heresy, within the space of thirty-eight years from the edict of Charles V against the Protestants to the peace of Chateau Cambresis in 1559.

      Eighteen thousand suffered by the hand of the executioner in the space of five years and a half, during the administration of the Duke of Alva. Indeed, the slightest acquaintance with the history of the papacy will convince any one that what is here said of 'making war with the saints' (verse 21), and 'wearing out the saints of the Most High' (verse 25), is strictly applicable to that power, and will accurately describe its history." (See Buck's Theological Dictionary, art., Persecutions: Oswald's Kingdom, etc., pp.107-133; Dowling's History of Romanism; Fox's Book of Martyrs: Charlotte Elizabeth's Martyrology; The Wars of the Huguenots; The Great Red Dragon, by Anthony Gavin, formerly one of the Roman Catholic priests of Saragossa, Spain; Histories of the Reformation, etc.)

      To parry the force of this damaging testimony from all history, papists deny that the church has ever persecuted any one; it has been the secular power; the church has only passed decision upon the question of heresy, and then turned the offenders over to the civil power, to be dealt with according to the pleasure of the secular court. The impious hypocrisy of this claim is transparent enough to make it an absolute insult to common sense. In those days of persecution, what was the secular power? - Simply a tool in the hand of the church, and under its control, to do its bloody bidding. And when the church delivered its prisoners to the executioners to be destroyed, with fiendish mockery it made use of the following formula: "And we do leave thee to the secular arm, and to the power of the secular court; but at the same time do most earnestly beseech that court so to moderate its sentence as not to touch thy blood, nor to put thy life in any sort of danger." And then, as intended, the unfortunate victims of popish hate were immediately executed.

      (Geddes's Tracts on Popery; View of the Court of Inquisition in Portugal, p.446; Limborch, Vol.II, p.289.)

      But the false claims of papists in this respect have been flatly denied and disproved by one of their own standard writers, Cardinal Bellarmine, who was born in Tuscany in 1542, and who, after his death in 1621, came very near being placed in the calendar of saints on account of his great services in behalf of popery. This man, on one occasion, under the spur of controversy, betrayed himself into an admission of the real facts in the case. Luther having said that the church (meaning the true church) never burned heretics, Bellarmine, understanding it of the Romish Church, made answer: "This argument proves not the sentiment, but the ignorance or impudence of Luther; for as almost an infinite number were either burned or otherwise put to death, Luther either did not know it, and was therefore ignorant; or if he knew it, he was convicted of impudence and falsehood; for that heretics were often burned by the church, may be proved by adducing a few from many examples."

      To show the relation of the secular power to the church, as held by Romanists, we quote the answer of the same writer to the argument that the only weapon committed to the church is "the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." To this he replied: "As the church has ecclesiastical and secular princes, who are her two arms, so she has two swords, the spiritual and material; and therefore when her right hand is unable to convert a heretic with the sword of the Spirit, she invokes the aid of the left hand, and coerces heretics with the material sword." In answer to the argument that the apostles never invoked the secular arm against heretics, he says, "The apostles did it not, because there was no Christian prince whom they could call on for aid [Editor: The true Spirit of Satan answered!]. But afterward, in Constantine's time, . . . the church called in the aid of the secular arm." - Dowling's History of Romanism, pp.547, 548.

      In corroboration of these facts, fifty million martyrs - this is the lowest computation made by any historian - will rise up in the judgment as witnesses against that church's bloody work.

      Pagan Rome persecuted relentlessly the Christian church, and it is estimated that three million Christians perished in the first three centuries, yet it is said that the primitive Christians prayed for the continuance of imperial Rome; for they knew that when this form of government should cease, another far worse persecuting power would arise, which would literally, as this prophecy declares, "wear out the saints of the Most High." Pagan Rome could slay the infants, but spare the mothers; but papal Rome slew both mothers and infants together. No age, no sex, no condition in life, was exempt from her relentless rage. "When Herod died," says a forcible writer, "he went down to the grave with infamy; and earth had one murderer, one persecutor, less, and hell one victim more. O Rome! what will not be thy hell, and that of thy votaries, when thy judgment shall have come!"

      3. And shall "think to change times and laws." What laws and whose? Not the laws of other earthly governments; for it was nothing marvelous or strange for one power to change the laws of another, whenever it could bring such power under its dominion. Not human laws of any kind; for the little horn had power to change these so far as its jurisdiction extended; but the times and laws in question were such as this power should only think to change, but not be able to change. They are the laws of the same Being to whom the saints belong who are worn out by this power; namely, the laws of the Most High. And has the papacy attempted this? - Yes, even this. It has, in its catechisms, expunged the second commandment of the decalogue to make way for its adoration of images. It has divided the tenth commandment to make up the number ten. And, more audacious than all! it has taken hold of the fourth commandment, torn from its place the sabbath of Jehovah, the only memorial of the great God ever given to man, and erected in its place a rival institution to serve another purpose. [* 1 See Catholic catechims and the work entitled, "Who Changed the Sabbath?" and works on the Sabbath and Law published by the publishers by Review and Herald, Battle Creek, Michigan].

      4. "And they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time." The pronoun they embraces the saints, the times, and the laws just mentioned. How long a time were they to be given into the hands of this power? A time, as we have seen from the chapter 4:23, is one year; two times, the least that could be denoted by the plural, two years, and the dividing of time, or half a time (Sept., ,) half a year. Gesenius also gives "...., (Chald.), a half. Dan. 7:25," We thus have three years and a half for the continuance of this power. the Hebrew, or rather the Chaldaic, word for time in the text before us, is , iddân, which Gesenius defines thus: "Time. Specially in prophetic language for a year. Dan. 7:25 for a year, also two years and half a year; i.e., for three years and a half; comp. Jos.B.J.1.1.1." We must now consider that we are in the midst of symbolic prophecy; hence in this measurement the time is not literal, but symbolic also. The inquiry then arises, How long a period is denoted by the three years and a half of prophetic time? The rule given us in the Bible is, that when a day is used as a symbol, it stands for a year. Eze.4:6; Num.14:34. Under the Hebrew word for day, (yom), Gesenius has this remark: "3. Sometimes [Yamim] marks a definite space of time; viz., a year; as also Syr. and Chald. [iddân] denotes both time and year; and as in English several words signifying time, weight, measure, are likewise used to denote certain specified times, weights, and measures."

      The ordinary Jewish year, which must be used as the basis of reckoning, contained three hundred and sixty days. Three years and a half contained twelve hundred and sixty days. As each day stands for a year, we have twelve hundred and sixty years for the continuation of the supremacy of this horn. Did the papacy possess dominion that length of time/ The answer again is, Yes. The edict of СКАЧАТЬ