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The Great Controversy
these heavy burdens. All that He asks is a broken and contrite heart, a
humble, obedient spirit.
Christ gives no example in His life for men and women to shut
themselves in monasteries in order to become fitted for heaven. He
has never taught that love and sympathy must be repressed. The
Saviour’s heart overflowed with love. The nearer man approaches to
moral perfection, the keener are his sensibilities, the more acute is
his perception of sin, and the deeper his sympathy for the afflicted.
The pope claims to be the vicar of Christ; but how does his character
bear comparison with that of our Saviour? Was Christ ever known to
consign men to the prison or the rack because they did not pay Him
homage as the King of heaven? Was His voice heard condemning
to death those who did not accept Him? When He was slighted by
the people of a Samaritan village, the apostle John was filled with
indignation, and inquired: “Lord, wilt Thou that we command fire
to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did?”
Jesus looked with pity upon His disciple, and rebuked his harsh spirit,
saying: “The Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to
save them.”
Luke 9:54, 56
. How different from the spirit manifested
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by Christ is that of His professed vicar.
The Roman Church now presents a fair front to the world, covering
with apologies her record of horrible cruelties. She has clothed herself
in Christlike garments; but she is unchanged. Every principle of the
papacy that existed in past ages exists today. The doctrines devised
in the darkest ages are still held. Let none deceive themselves. The
papacy that Protestants are now so ready to honor is the same that ruled
the world in the days of the Reformation, when men of God stood
up, at the peril of their lives, to expose her iniquity. She possesses
the same pride and arrogant assumption that lorded it over kings and
princes, and claimed the prerogatives of God. Her spirit is no less
cruel and despotic now than when she crushed out human liberty and
slew the saints of the Most High.
The papacy is just what prophecy declared that she would be, the
apostasy of the latter times.
2 Thessalonians 2:3, 4
. It is a part of her
policy to assume the character which will best accomplish her purpose;
but beneath the variable appearance of the chameleon she conceals
the invariable venom of the serpent. “Faith ought not to be kept with
heretics, nor persons suspected of heresy” (Lenfant, volume 1, page