Then the way was prepared for the introduction of still another invention of paganism , which Rome named purgatory , and employed to terrify the credulous and superstitious multitudes . By this heresy is affirmed the existence of a place of torment , in which the souls of such as have not merited eternal damnation are to suffer punishment for their sins , and from which , when freed from impurity , they are admitted to heaven . Still another fabrication was needed to enable Rome to profit by the fears and the vices of her adherents . This was supplied by the doctrine of indulgences . Full remission of sins , past , present , and future , and release from all the pains and penalties incurred , were promised to all who would enlist in the pontiff ' s wars to extend his temporal dominion , to punish his enemies , or to exterminate those who dared deny his spiritual supremacy . The people were also taught that by the payment of money to the church they might free themselves from sin , and also release the souls of their deceased friends who were confined in the tormenting flames . By such means did Rome fill her coffers and sustain the magnificence , luxury , and vice of the pretended representatives of Him who had not where to lay His head .
The Scriptural ordinance of the Lord ' s Supper had been supplanted by the idolatrous sacrifice of the mass . Papal priests pretended , by their senseless mummery , to convert the simple bread and wine into the actual " body and blood of Christ ." --Cardinal Wiseman , The Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Blessed Eucharist , Proved From Scripture , lecture 8 , sec . 3 , par . 26 . With blasphemous presumption , they openly claimed the power of creating God , the Creator of all things . Christians were required , on pain of death , to avow their faith in this horrible , Heaven-insulting heresy . Multitudes who refused were given to the flames . In the thirteenth century was established that most terrible of all the engines of the papacy--the Inquisition . The prince of darkness wrought with the leaders of the papal hierarchy . In their secret councils Satan and his angels controlled the minds of evil men , while unseen in the midst stood an angel of God , taking the fearful record of their iniquitous decrees and writing the history of deeds too horrible to appear to human eyes . " Babylon the great " was " drunken with the blood of the saints ." The mangled forms of millions of martyrs cried to God for vengeance upon that apostate power .
Popery had become the world ' s despot . Kings and emperors bowed to the decrees of the Roman pontiff . The destinies of men , both for time and for eternity , seemed under his control . For hundreds of years the doctrines of Rome had been extensively and implicitly received , its rites reverently performed , its festivals generally observed . Its clergy were honoured and liberally sustained . Never since has the Roman Church attained to greater dignity , magnificence , or power . But " the noon of the papacy was the midnight of the world ." --J . A . Wylie , The History of Protestantism , b . 1 , ch . 4 . The Holy Scriptures were almost unknown , not only to the people , but to the priests . Like the Pharisees of old , the papal leaders hated the light which would reveal their sins . God ' s law , the standard of righteousness , having been removed , they exercised power without limit , and practiced vice without restraint . Fraud , avarice , and profligacy prevailed . Men shrank from no crime by which they could gain wealth or position .
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