The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 572
the spirit manifested 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
516), 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?
It is not without reason that the claim has been put forth in Protestant
countries that Catholicism differs less widely from Protestantism than in
former times. There has been a change; but the change is not in the
papacy. Catholicism indeed resembles much of the Protestantism that
now exists, because Protestantism has so greatly degenerated since the
days of the Reformers.
As the Protestant churches have been seeking the favor of the world,
false charity has blinded their eyes. They do not see but that it is right
to believe good of all evil, and as the inevitable result they will finally
believe evil of all good.
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