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The Great Controversy 1888
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 by Christ is
that of his professed vicar.
The Romish Church now presents a fair front to the world, covering
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with apologies her record of horrible cruelties. She has clothed herself
in Christ-like garments; but she is unchanged. Every principle of
popery that existed in past ages exists today. The doctrines devised
in the darkest ages are still held. Let none deceive themselves. The
popery 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.
Popery is just what prophecy declared that she would be, the apos-
tasy 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. “We are not bound to keep faith and
promises to heretics,” She declares. Shall this power, whose record
for a thousand years is written in the blood of the saints, be now
acknowledged as a part of the church of Christ?