By Darryl Eberhart
Editor’s Note: Darryl is a good friend of mine I haven’t seen him for years. He was a guest on my old radio show many, many times. He gave me permission to publish this in only the way Darryl could. He was an incessant researcher with a style all his own, sticking only to the facts, nothing but the facts. I print this as he sent it to me.
“QUOTATIONS ABOUT [or By] THE ANTICHRIST”
A 14-page email-article prepared by Darryl Eberhart (Former Editor of ETI & TTT Newsletters)
DATE: August 26, 2016 // UPDATED: February 16, 2021 // All emphasis is mine unless otherwise stated.
Permission is given to Greg to copy and distribute. (Please make copies for others!)
INTRODUCTION:
There are many “little” antichrists, i.e., individuals who oppose Christ (i.e., Jesus Christ). More often than not, most of these individuals have been – and continue to be – persons who do NOT possess great power and/or influence. (One could say, “The local butcher is AN antichrist, because he opposes Jesus Christ, and hates all Bible-believing Christians.”) However, there is someone – or some “office” – that is THE Antichrist. Many Bible-believing scholars throughout the centuries have identified THE Antichrist as being the long line of Roman Catholic POPES, in other words, the “office” of the Papacy!
Noah Webster’s outstanding 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language – which can be ordered via credit card from Call To Decision Ministries by calling toll-free 800-777-4403 – defines the words “anti” and “Antichrist” as follow:
· ANTI [:] “A preposition signifying against, opposite, contrary, or in place of [Ed.: emphasis is mine]; used in many English words.” [Ed.: Many modern dictionaries omit the meaning “in place of”!]
· ANTI-CHRIST [Ed.: sic; more often spelled today as Antichrist] [:] “A great adversary of Christ; the man of sin; described [Ed.: in] 1 John [Ed.: chapter] ii [Ed.: verse] 18; 2 Thess. [Ed.: chapter] ii; [Ed.: and] Rev. [Ed.: chapter] ix. Protestants generally suppose this adversary to be the Papal power [Ed.: emphasis is mine]; and some divines [Ed.: i.e., clergymen] believe that, in a more general sense, the word extends to any persons who deny Christ or oppose the fundamental doctrines of Christianity.”
IMPORTANT NOTE: As you read this email-article, please never forget that the Roman Catholic Church is BOTH a “church” (i.e., a religious organization) AND a STATE (i.e., the Vatican)! Thus she can be seen in prophecy BOTH as a “harlot” (i.e., a religious whore) AND as a “kingdom” (i.e., as a “beast”).
QUOTATIONS ABOUT [or by] THE ANTICHRIST (and several quotations by popes and about popes; quotations are listed alphabetically by either the LAST name of the individual being quoted or by the TITLE of the denominational Confession of Faith that is being quoted):
“The Inquisition is peculiarly the weapon and peculiarly the work of the popes. It stands out from all those things in which they cooperated, followed or assented as the distinctive feature of Papal Rome. It was set up, renewed, and perfected by a long series of acts emanating from the supreme authority of the [Ed.: Roman Catholic] Church. No other institution, no doctrine, no teaching, no ceremony is so distinctly the individual creation of the papacy, except the dispensing power. [Ed.: The “dispensing power” was the civil power that for centuries carried out the Inquisition’s penalties, such as execution, FOR the Roman Catholic Church]. It is the principal thing with which the papacy is identified, and by which it must be judged. The principle of the Inquisition is the pope’s sovereign power over life and death. Whoever disobeys him [Ed.: i.e., the pope] should be tried, and tortured, and burnt. If that cannot be done, [Ed.: then] formalities may be dispensed with, and the culprit may be killed like an outlaw. That is to say, the principle of the Inquisition is murderous, and a man’s opinion of the papacy is regulated and determined by his opinion of religious assassination.” – John Acton (1843-1902; Roman Catholic English historian)
[Ed. Comment to the preceding quotation: The office of the “holy” Inquisition exists to this very day. It is now called the “Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith”.]
“It is beyond question that he [Ed.: i.e., the pope] can err even in matters touching the faith. He does this when he teaches heresy by his own judgment or decretal. In truth, many Roman pontiffs [Ed.: i.e., popes] were heretics.” – Pope Adrian VI (1459-1523; pope: 1522-23) (Statement made in 1523.)
“…In the eleventh century, the Man of Sin [Ed.: and son of perdition – see 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4] appeared to have attained the summit of arrogance and blasphemy in the person of [Ed.: Pope] Gregory VII. …He [Ed.: i.e., Pope Gregory VII] assumed not only the appellation of ‘Universal Bishop’, but also those of ‘Sovereign Pontiff’, ‘Christ’s Vicar’, ‘Prince of the Apostles’, ‘God on earth’, ‘Lord God the Pope’, ‘His Holiness’, ‘King of kings and Lord of lords’, ‘Prince over all nations and kingdoms’, ‘The Most Holy and Most Blessed’, ‘Master of the Universal World’, ‘Father of Kings’, ‘Light of the World’, ‘Most High and Sovereign Bishop’, etc., etc.” – David Benedict (“General History of the Baptist Denomination”)
“It is sad that many Bible believers of our own day will say that they know who the Christ is, but they do not know who the Antichrist is. It [Ed.: i.e., the identity of the Antichrist] is proclaimed in Second Thessalonians [Ed.: Chapter] 2 as both a system and a person: the ‘man of sin’ and the one who would sit in the ‘temple [Ed.: Greek: “naos”]of God’ calling himself God. And the only one in the pages of history who has done this is the POPE. [Ed.: Every time the Apostle Paul used the Greek word “naos” for “temple” in his epistles – his letters – found in the New Testament, he always applied that term to the body of believers in Christ – and not to a physical temple or building!] To this day the POPE calls himself ‘the holy father’, which is a title of God [Ed.: the Father]; and he calls himself the ‘Vicar of Christ’, which is a title of the Holy Spirit [Ed.: of God]. So he [Ed.: i.e., the POPE] sits in the ‘temple of God’, calling himself God. [Ed.: This is blasphemy of the worst kind!]
Now the Bible believers [Ed.: of old, e.g., the Albigenses and the Waldenses] saw these things, and they saw that it was historically true [Ed.: that the Papacy had fulfilled the Bible prophecies concerning the Antichrist and the whore of Revelation] – unlike many Bible believers of our own day, who say they do not know who the Antichrist is – and they are looking for something to come in the future times whereby they will get implanted with a computer chip or something in their brain or some other of these wild ideas that go around. Whereby in the pages of Scripture we see these things prophesied [Ed.: about the Antichrist and the whore of Revelation], and we see them fulfilled [Ed.: in the Papacy].
…In those days [Ed.: of previous centuries] the [Ed.: Roman Catholic] cardinals wore scarlet and [Ed.: the] bishops [Ed.: wore]purple. And to this day the Roman [Ed.: Catholic] Church still boasts these two colors [Ed.: i.e., scarlet and purple for her higher-level prelates].
… [Ed.: These are] the real colors of [Ed.: Papal] Rome, and this is what was prophesied of her. And that’s only one of the [Ed.: prophesied] details. She [Ed.: i.e., Papal Rome] holds the golden cup [Ed.: in her hands]. She is the only system that has drunk the blood of the saints over such a long period of time. [Ed.: The monstrous “holy” Inquisition was carried out for over six centuries!] This is fact! It is not something that is surmised. This can be verified on the pages of history.” – Richard Bennett (Former Roman Catholic priest of 22 years; from the DVD, “The Inquisition: 605 Years of Papal Torture and Death”; 2007) [Ed.: Please check out the many excellent articles on the Papacy and about various popes on Internet website: www.bereanbeacon.org. You can view the DVD, “The Inquisition”, for free on the Internet.]
“Some persons think us too severe and censorious when we call the Roman pontiff ‘Antichrist’.
…I shall briefly show that ([Ed.: the Apostle] Paul’s words in II Thessalonians [Ed.: Chapter] 2) are not capable of any other interpretation than that which applies them to the Papacy.” – John Calvin (1509-1564; French Protestant reformer; he was a Roman Catholic into his early twenties.)
“The arrogance of antichrist of which [Ed.: the Apostle] Paul speaks, is that he [Ed.: i.e., the Antichrist] as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. For where is the incomparable majesty of God after mortal man has been exalted to such a height that his [Ed.: i.e., the Antichrist’s – the pope’s] laws take precedence of God’s eternal decrees? I deny him to be the vicar of Christ who, in furiously persecuting the gospel, demonstrates by his conduct that he [Ed.: i.e., the pope] is Antichrist; I deny him to be the successor of [Ed.: the Apostle] Peter, who [Ed.: i.e., the pope] is doing his utmost to demolish every edifice that Peter ever built.
The pope who claims that he alone is the Holy Father on earth, and that he alone is Christ on earth, stands indicted at the Bar of God.” – John Calvin (1509-1564; French Protestant reformer; he was a Roman Catholic into his early twenties; statement was made in a letter written to Emperor Charles II.)
“They [Ed.: i.e., the popes of Rome] have assumed infallibility, which belongs only to God. They profess to forgive sin, which belongs only to God.” – Clarks Commentary (Commenting on Daniel 7:25)
“When one looks at the lives of the popes of Rome he sees a ghastly array of egregious evils, heinous crimes, and glaring sins which cannot be matched by any other group of men in the annals of history. Other men and other organizations have committed great atrocities and evils, but never on such a wide scale, or for such a long time, as the Popes of Rome.
The evils of the Popes are compounded by the fact that while committing all the evils, atrocities, massacres, inquisitions, immoralities, and teaching all the false doctrines of Rome, ALL THESE DEMONIC MONSTERS CLAIMED AT THE SAME TIME TO BE THE VICAR OF CHRIST ON EARTH [Ed.: emphasis by capitalization in the original]. Roman Catholic scholars, such as Malachi Martin, one of the leading Roman Catholic scholars of the 20th century, describe in great detail the evils of the Roman Catholic papacy. So if people today do not know of such evils, it is not because they never happened or have not been publicized, it is because people are willfully IGNORANT of them [Ed.: emphasis by capitalization in the original].” – Dr. Ronald N. Cooke (From his booklet “The Death of the Pope of Rome”; 2005; Page 5)
“The Holy Scriptures declare that Christ is the only Mediator between God and men. The Mary of [Ed.: Papal] Rome, and all other man-made mediators, popes, and priests used by the Roman Catholic System, mark it out in a unique sense as Antichrist. For, the Scriptures teach, who is Antichrist but he that denies that Christ is come in the flesh. Only the God-Man can be the true Advocate between man and God, because only He is the propitiation for sin. It is the Man Christ Jesus, the God come in the flesh, who is the only Mediator between God and men. Antichrist denies this, setting up many other false mediators in place of Christ; thus denying that Christ only has come in the flesh to be the one true Mediator. The Bible, in essence, says that all other man-acclaimed Mediators are demonic; dredged up from Hell itself by the evil system of Antichrist.” – Dr. Ronald N. Cooke (“Antichrist Exposed: The Reformed and Puritan View of the Antichrist” – Volume Two; 2006; Truth International Ministries, Max Meadows, VA 24360; Page 598) [Ed.: All emphasis in the above quotation was originally via “italics”, which I changed to “underlining”. Dr. Cooke’s 2-volume book set, “Antichrist Exposed”, can be ordered by calling 276-637-3727.]
“Wherefore it followeth Rome to be the seat of antichrist, and the pope to be very antichrist himself. I could prove the same by many other Scriptures, old writers, and strong reasons.” – Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556; martyred English churchman [burnt at the stake]; 1st Protestant archbishop of Canterbury)
“[Ed.: Martin] Luther…proved, by the revelations of [Ed.: the prophet] Daniel and St. John, by the epistles of St. Paul, St. Peter, and St. Jude, that the reign of Antichrist, predicted and described in the Bible, was the Papacy.” – J.H. Merle D’Aubigné (“History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century”)
“The procession of popes and the history of the papacy are an embarrassment to all that is called biblical Christianity. It is a blight on Christ’s name, an injustice to [Ed.: the Apostle] Peter, and a corruption of the gospel.” – Philip De Courcy (“Standing Room Only: A Contemporary Exposé of the Roman Catholic and Evangelical Agreement”; Publisher: Ambassador-Emerald International; 1999; Page 286)
“What history shows is that, for more than six centuries without a break, the papacy was the sworn enemy of elementary justice. Of eighty popes in a line from the thirteenth century on, not one of them disapproved of the theology and apparatus of Inquisition. On the contrary, one after another added his own cruel touches to the workings of this deadly machine.” – Peter De Rosa (Roman Catholic historian; “Vicars of Christ: The Dark Side of the Papacy”; Crown Publishers, Inc., New York; 1988; Pages 175, 176)
“[Ed.: John] Wycliffe, [Ed.: William] Tyndale, [Ed.: Martin] Luther, [Ed.: John] Calvin, [Ed.: Thomas] Cranmer; in the seventeenth century, [Ed.: John] Bunyan, the translators of the King James Bible and the men who published the Westminster and Baptist confessions of Faith; Sir Isaac Newton, [Ed.: John] Wesley, [Ed.: George] Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards; and more recently [Ed.: Charles Haddon] Spurgeon, Bishop J.C. Ryle and Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones; these men, among countless others, all saw the office of the Papacy as the antichrist.” – Michael de Semlyen (“All Roads Lead to Rome?: The Ecumenical Movement”; Publisher: Dorchester House Publications; 1993; Pages 197, 198)
“There are two great truths that stand out in the preaching that brought about the Protestant Reformation – the ‘just shall live by faith’ (not by the works of Romanism or any other religion) and ‘the Papacy is the Antichrist revealed in Scripture.’ It was a message for Christ and against Antichrist. The entire [Ed.: Protestant] Reformation rested on this twofold testimony…
Iain Murray, in his book ‘The Puritan Hope’, described the Reformers as ‘unanimous in their belief’ that the Papal system is both the ‘man of sin’ and the Babylonian whore of which Scripture forewarns. [Ed.: Papal] Rome was the great Antichrist, and so firmly did this belief become established that it was not until the nineteenth century that evangelicals seriously questioned it.” – Michael de Semlyen (“The Foundations Under Attack: The Roots of Apostasy”; Dorchester House Publications; 2006; Page 3)
“From the birth of Popery [Ed.: i.e., the religion of the church of Rome, including doctrines and practices] in 600, to the present time [Ed.: i.e., 1845], it has been estimated by careful and credible historians that more than FIFTY MILLIONS [Ed.: emphasis in original] of the human family have been slaughtered for ‘the crime’ of ‘heresy’ by popish [Ed.: i.e., Roman Catholic] persecutors – an average of more than forty thousand religious murders for every year of the existence of Popery.” – John Dowling (“The History of Romanism: From the Earliest Corruptions of Christianity to the Present Time”; 1845)
[Ed. Note: I am not going to “italicize” the following excerpt taken from a recent letter of mine.]:
The Protestant Reformers did not agree on everything; however, there was one thing they ALL agreed about, i.e., that the office of the Papacy – the long line of popes – was the Antichrist. Webster’s 1828 Dictionary defines the word “anti” as being (1) “against” or (2) “in place of”. The Protestant Reformers – and Albigensian and Waldensian Bible-believing Christians who lived centuries before the Reformers – saw the Roman popes fulfilling both meanings of the English word “anti” in the word “Anti-Christ”, that is, being “in the place” of Christ [i.e., the Vicar of Christ] while at the very same time working “against” Christ and His kingdom. With great risk to their lives, these Bible-believing Christians identified the Papal system as the Antichrist! And that is why Papal Rome century after century destroyed Bibles and Bible-believing Christians, burning many of the Bible-believers to death! (Please order the DVD, “A Lamp in the Dark”; order information is found on page 12 of this email-article.)
Please carefully read Chapter 17 of the book of Revelation, a book which describes a harlot church, and then consider the following information concerning Papal Rome:
The Papacy has Protestant denominations as her “daughters” [Rev. 17:5], and she claims to be the “Mother” [Rev. 17:5] Church. The Papacy sits in Rome on “seven mountains/hills” [Rev. 17:9]. The Papacy uses both “purple” and “scarlet” [Rev. 17:4] as colors for her high-ranking clergymen (i.e., for bishops and cardinals, respectively). The Papacy’s possessions of “gold” [Rev. 17:4], precious gems, art treasures, stockholdings, and other forms of wealth are immense, staggering, and legendary! The Papacy has tortured, butchered, and murdered at least 50 million Bible-believing Christians just during the Dark Ages, using “holy” wars, “holy” crusades, and “holy” Inquisition to exterminate the populations of entire provinces and regions for their failure to bow to papal supremacy! (For example, Papal Rome exterminated the Albigensian Christians in southern France in the 13th century! Also, more Christians were butchered in one single day on the orders of one Papal Roman Caesar, i.e., Pope Innocent III, than on the orders of any one single pagan Imperial Roman Caesar in his entire lifetime!) Rome is indeed a “great city” [Rev. 17:18] that has for many centuries – through both Pagan Imperial Rome AND Papal Rome – ruled over many monarchs (i.e., emperors, kings, queens, princes, etc.) [Rev. 17:18] in Europe. The doctrines of Roman Catholicism (her “wine”) [Rev. 17:2] have been spread all around the globe, often by the sword. True Christians still reside “inside” this Church. (Rev. 18:4: Come out of her, my people!)
What other institution, organization, nation or religion in the world fits the combined descriptions of this “religious-geopolitical-financial juggernaut” given in Daniel Chapter 7 and in Revelation Chapters 13, 14, 17 and 18 as does the Romish Papacy? No other institution, organization, nation or religion in history comes even close to fulfilling all the descriptions given in the Holy Bible for this “beast” – this “little horn” – this religious “harlot” – that has slaughtered millions of Bible-believing Christians – and even many thousands of Roman Catholics (e.g., during the “holy” Inquisition)! Indeed, she [i.e., Papal Rome] is “drunk with the blood of the saints” [Rev. 17:6]!
If any person – whether Roman Catholic or non-Roman Catholic – carefully examines the book of Revelation, the book of Daniel (especially chapter 7), the comments of the Apostle Paul concerning the “man of sin” and the “son of perdition”, the comments of the Apostle John concerning the “antichrist”, and the true history of Papal Rome, then how can he or she come to any other conclusion than that Papal Rome is that murderous religious “harlot” and antichrist system described on the pages of Holy Scripture? – Darryl Eberhart (Former Editor of ETI & TTT Newsletters; taken from a cover letter written on July 27th and July 28th of 2016)
“How so very sad it is that most American Christians, including most Protestant, Baptist, and independent fundamentalist pastors, know little to nothing about the Protestant Reformation and the Jesuit-led Counter Reformation – or about the historic position of all the leading Reformers – and of many early Albigensian and Waldensian Bible-believing Christians – concerning the identity of THE Antichrist. (All the leading Protestant Reformers and nearly all the leaders of the Albigenses and Waldenses identified the long line of popes, i.e., the office of the Papacy, as THE Antichrist!)
In response to the Protestant Reformation (which was a ‘protest’ against the unscriptural doctrines and practices of the Roman Catholic Church, including the ‘office of the Papacy’), the Society of Jesus (i.e., the Jesuit Order) in the 16th century launched the Counter Reformation. While two of the ‘strategic’ goals of the Jesuits were (1) to destroy the Protestant Reformation, and (2) to restore the pope’s absolute power over all nations, the Jesuits also had some ‘tactical’ goals. One of the most important of these ‘tactical’ goals was to REMOVE the identification of the papacy as THE Antichrist. Several Jesuits attempted to shine the spotlight identifying THE Antichrist on a past entity (e.g., the Pagan Imperial Roman Empire) or on an end-time Antichrist yet far in the future. (Jesuit Luis de Alcasar got folks looking for THE Antichrist in the distant past; Jesuit Francisco Ribera got folks looking for THE Antichrist in the far distant future, during the ‘end times’. Both were successful beyond their greatest expectations in deflecting the spotlight away from THE REAL ANTICHRIST, the Papacy!)
Protestant, Baptist, and independent fundamentalist pastors, when they fail to properly and scripturally identify the office of the Papacy – the long line of popes – as THE Antichrist, are actually aiding and abetting THE Antichrist by helping to conceal his true identity!” – Darryl Eberhart (Former Editor of ETI & TTT Newsletters; August 19, 2016)
“Disregarding the maxims and the spirit of the Gospel, the papal Church, arming herself with the power of the sword, vexed the [Ed.: true, Bible-believing] Church of God and wasted it for centuries, a period most appropriately termed in history, the ‘dark ages’. The kings of the earth gave their power to the Beast.” – John Foxe (Elizabethan English historian; 1516-1587; “Foxe’s Book of Martyrs”)
“The unrestrained freedom of thinking and of openly making known one’s thoughts is not inherent in the rights of citizens and is by no means worthy of favor and support.” – Pope Gregory XVI (born-died: 1765-1846; pope: 1831-1846)
“Is this the ‘position’ [Ed.: i.e., the assumption that all the Reformers were wrong in identifying Roman Catholicism as “Mystery Babylon the Great” and the Papacy as the antichrist] you [Ed.: a Protestant, a Baptist, or evangelical Christian] adopt? Is ‘this’ the conclusion you defend? …You, a Protestant [Ed.: or a Baptist, or evangelical Christian], and this after all that has been written upon the subject [Ed.: by Bible-believing Christian men such as John Wycliffe, William Tyndale, Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Bunyan, John Wesley, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, etc.], and all the blaze of light which history and experience have poured upon it? If it is, look to it that you be not found fighting against the truth, warring against the Word of God, resisting the testimony of the prophetic Spirit; hindering the work of the Reformation, promoting the progress of the apostasy, opposing Christ, and helping [Ed.: i.e., aiding and abetting the] antichrist.
Even the Romanists [Ed.: i.e., Roman Catholics] themselves shame you [Ed.: a Protestant, a Baptist, or evangelical Christian] in their clear-sighted comprehension of the issues of this question. Cardinal Manning says, ‘The Catholic Church is either the masterpiece of Satan or the kingdom of the Son of God.’ [Ed.: John Henry] Cardinal Newman says, ‘A sacerdotal order [Ed.: i.e., a system of priests allegedly ruling the laity by divine authority]is historically the essence of the Church of Rome; if not divinely appointed, it is doctrinally the essence of antichrist.’ In both these statements, the issue is clear, and it is the same. [Ed.: Papal] Rome herself admits, openly admits, that if she is not the very kingdom of Christ, she is that of antichrist. [Ed.: Papal] Rome declares she is one or the other. She herself propounds and urges this solemn alternative. You [Ed.: a Protestant, a Baptist, or evangelical Christian] shrink from it, do you? I accept it. Conscience constrains me. History compels me. The past, the awful past rises before me. I see THE GREAT APOSTASY [Ed.: emphasis in the original], I see the desolation of Christendom, I see the smoking ruins, I see the reign of monsters [Ed.: i.e., the popes of Rome who ruled over many of the kings of the earth]; I see those vice-gods [Ed.: i.e., the popes], that Gregory VII, that Innocent III [Ed.: who ordered the extermination of the Albigensian Christians in southern France in the early 13th century], that Boniface VIII, that Alexander VI [Ed.: who ordered the execution of the godly Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola in 1498], that Gregory XIII, that Pius IX [Ed.: who supported the Confederacy during the American Civil War, and who condemned in his Syllabus of Errors of 1864 many of the freedoms that we Americans cherish]; I see their long succession [Ed.: of popes], I hear their [Ed.: i.e., the popes’] insufferable blasphemies [Ed.: e.g., calling themselves the Vicars of Christ, allowing themselves to be called Holy Father, etc.], I see their [Ed.: i.e., the popes’] abominable lives [Ed.: as, for example, is revealed in Peter De Rosa’s book, “VICARS OF CHRIST: The Dark Side of the Papacy”]; I see them [Ed.: i.e., the popes] worshipped by blinded generations, bestowing hollow benedictions, bartering lying indulgences, creating a paganized Christianity; I see their [Ed.: i.e., the popes’] liveried slaves [Ed.: i.e., servants or slaves wearing the same type of uniform – possibly referring to Roman Catholic nuns and members of various religious orders], their shaven [Ed.: i.e., probably meaning “tonsured”] priests, their celibate confessors; I see the infamous confessional, the mined women [Ed.: i.e., women slowly ruined (by going to the confessional)], the murdered innocents; I hear the lying absolutions [Ed.: by the priests in the confessional when they allegedly forgive sins], the dying groans; I hear the cries of the victims [Ed.: of the Inquisition, the crusades, and “holy” wars]; I hear the anathemas, the curses, the thunders of the interdicts [Ed.: i.e., of the popes]; I see the racks, the dungeons, the stakes; I see that inhuman Inquisition, those fires of Smithfield [Ed: a 6-acre area in London, England where many Protestants were burned alive from 1555 to 1558 on the orders of Roman Catholic Queen Mary I of England, a.k.a. “Bloody Mary”; a total of 288 persons were burned alive during the reign of “Bloody Mary”], those butcheries of St. Bartholomew [Ed.: i.e., the massacre of thousands of Protestants in France in 1572], that Spanish Armada [Ed.: that was sent (with the blessings of Pope Sixtus V) in 1588 by Roman Catholic King Philip II of Spain against England in order to bring England back under the authority of the pope of Rome], those unspeakable dragonnades [Ed.: various persecutions directed by Roman Catholic King Louis XIV of France against French Protestants], that endless train of wars, that dreadful multitude of massacres. I see it all, and in the name of the ruin it has wrought in the Church and in the world, in the name of the truth it has denied, the temple it has defiled, the God it has blasphemed, the souls it has destroyed; in the name of the millions it has deluded, the millions it has slaughtered, the millions it has damned…I denounce it as the masterpiece of Satan, as the body and soul and essence of antichrist.” – H. Grattan Guinness (“Romanism and the Reformation”; originally published in 1887 and 1891; Pages 115 and 116 of the 2008 edition by Hartland Publications of Rapidan, Virginia)
“None but God could have delineated [Ed.: on the pages of Holy Scripture] beforehand the Papal power. Its very unnaturalness forbids the possibility of its being the fruit of human imagination. That a power claiming to act for God, to be ‘as God’, and enthroned in the temple of God or of the Christian Church, should yet be His [Ed.: i.e., Jesus Christ’s] most determined enemy, the opposer of His truth, the destroyer of His saints, the great agent of Satan in the earth; that it should, by fraud and corruption and false pretenses, rule the world for ages from the very same seven-hilled central city [Ed.: i.e., Rome, Italy] whence it had already been ruled for other ages by military force; and that Roman rule should, in its Christian stage, shed more saintly blood than in its pagan stage – all this could never have been anticipated by man, but only foretold by God.” – H. Grattan Guinness (“Romanism and the Reformation”; originally published in 1887 and 1891; Page 167 of 2008 edition by Hartland Publications of Rapidan, VA)
“Her [Ed.: i.e., the papal system’s] judgment is now evidently hastening on; and just as it approaches, the Providence of God, conspiring with the Word of God, by light pouring in from all quarters, makes it more and more evident that [Ed.: Papal] Rome is in very deed the Babylon of the Apocalypse; that the essential character of her system, the grand objects of her worship, her festivals, her doctrine and discipline, her rites and ceremonies, her priesthood and their orders, have all been derived from ancient Babylon; and, finally, that the Pope himself is truly and properly the lineal representative of [Ed.: Babylonian king] Belshazzar.” – Alexander Hislop (“The Two Babylons”; Chick Publications’ Edition; Page 3)
“But at its [Ed.: i.e., the Babylonian system of iniquity] first introduction into the Church, it came in secretly and by stealth… It wrought [Ed.: i.e., worked] ‘mysteriously’ under fair [Ed.: i.e., attractive; pleasing]but false pretenses, leading men away from the simplicity of the truth as it is in Jesus [Ed.: Christ].
…Therefore it was brought in [Ed.: to the Church] secretly, and by little and little, one corruption being introduced after another, as apostasy proceeded, and the backsliding Church became prepared to tolerate it, till it has reached the gigantic height we now see, when in almost every particular the system of the Papacy is the very antipodes [Ed.: i.e., the direct opposite] of the system of the primitive [Ed.: Christian] Church.” – Alexander Hislop (“The Two Babylons”; Chick Publications’ Edition; Page 8)
“Every cleric must obey the Pope, even if he commands what is evil; for no one may judge the Pope.” – Pope Innocent III (pope: 1198-1216) [Ed.: The Nazi SS also required unquestioned obedience!]
“[Ed.: The Pope is] the very antichrist, and ‘son of perdition’, of whom [Ed.: the Apostle] Paul speaks.” – John Knox (1505-1572; Scottish Protestant clergyman and religious reformer)
“We here are of the conviction that the papacy is the seat of the true and real Antichrist.” – Martin Luther (1483-1546; former Augustinian monk, friar, and Roman Catholic priest; German theologian and religious reformer)
“Since the time the Roman bishop turned pope…he has actually done nothing but shed blood, and not only, as they boast, the blood of ‘heretics’ but also the blood of all the countries and people in Christendom. They [Ed.: i.e., the popes] have incited kings and princes, countries and people against one another…in order to gain and to confirm the blasphemous, false, forged name for the pope, who wants to be the supreme head on earth in both spiritual and worldly affairs.” – Martin Luther (1483-1546; former Augustinian monk, friar, and Roman Catholic priest; German theologian and religious reformer; statement made in 1533)
“It is a horrible thing to behold the man [Ed.: i.e., the Pope of Rome] who styles himself Christ’s vicegerent, displaying a magnificence that no emperor can equal. Is this being like the poor Jesus or the humble [Ed.: fisherman, the Apostle Simon] Peter? He [Ed.: i.e., the Pope] is, say they, the lord of the world! But Christ, whose vicar he boasts of being, said, ‘My kingdom is not of this world.’ Can the dominions of a vicar extend beyond those of his superior?” – Martin Luther (1483-1546; former Augustinian monk, friar, and Roman Catholic priest; German theologian and religious reformer)
“For Marozia [Ed.: who was a famous papal prostitute], the reading of Pope John XII’s [Ed.: pope: 955-964] sins must have provided a paroxysm [Ed.: i.e., a sudden convulsion or outburst] of personal suffering. Every word is accurate. ‘Your grandson, Pope John XII, perjured himself… He stole the treasury of the popes… He was deposed by a Holy Synod and replaced by Pope Leo VIII… Then the apostate returned to Rome; evicted Pope Leo VIII; cut off the nose, tongue, and two fingers of the Cardinal Deacon; flayed the skin of Bishop Otger; cut off the hands of Notary Azzo; and beheaded sixty-three of Rome’s clergy and nobility… During the night of May 14, 964, while having illicit and filthy relations with a Roman matron, he was surprised in the act of sin by the matron’s angry husband who, in just wrath, smashed his skull with a hammer, and thus liberated his evil soul into the grasp of Satan.’” – Malachi Martin (Roman Catholic scholar; confidant of popes; “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Church”; 1981; pp. 101, 102)
“The oracles of God foretold the rising of an Antichrist in the Christian Church: and in the Pope of Rome all the characteristics of that Antichrist are so marvelously answered that if any who read the Scriptures do not see it, there is a marvelous blindness upon them.” – Cotton Mather (1663-1728; American clergyman and writer)
[Ed.: The following is from a book written in 1984.]: “In most public schools, children are encouraged to think for themselves; they are given empirical knowledge and taught the meaning and value of the U.S. Constitution. In [Ed.: Roman] Catholic schools, children are taught that they owe ‘complete submission and obedience of will to the [Ed.: Roman Catholic] Church and to the Roman Pontiff, as to God Himself.’ They learn that the pope ‘should rule America in moral, educational, and religious matters’, without having it made clear that all matters can be interpreted as moral matters. They are impressed with the [Ed.: Roman] Catholic Church as a sovereign power. Indeed, ‘it has the three requisites of a sovereign power: legislative, executive, and judicial, including the power of coercion. The ruler of the [Ed.: Roman Catholic] Church, the pope, claims sovereignty by divine right.’ It is a power that extends ‘everywhere where there are [Ed.: Roman] Catholics. It claims that it is a supernatural institution with complete territorial jurisdiction.’ If there is a dispute between the [Ed.: Roman] Catholic Church and the state over the right to rule any specific area, the [Ed.: Roman Catholic] Church and the [Ed.: Roman Catholic] Church alone has the right to decide who wins. …In effect, it is claimed that it is the supreme ruler of the United States…” – Dr. Stephen D. Mumford (“American Democracy & The Vatican: Population Growth & National Security”; 1984; Humanist Press, Amherst, New York; ISBN 0-931779-00-6; Pages 90, 91)
“I [Ed.: i.e., Ian R. K. Paisley] am penning this Foreword from the European Parliament building in Strasbourg, where I had the privilege of standing up for our Lord Jesus Christ, and crying out to the Pope [Ed.: i.e., Pope John Paul II], face to face, ‘I reject you as Christ’s enemy and the Antichrist.’
…Alas, the majority of Christians today are unaware of the view taken of [Ed.: Papal] Rome and her popes by the martyrs, Reformers, confessors, defenders and contenders of the faith, who sealed their testimony with their own blood. They are also ignorant of what the historic creeds and confessions of the Protestant Churches have to say on this subject.
…Bible-[Ed.: believing] Christians have [Ed.: long] proclaimed the harlotry of the Roman Catholic System, the Antichristianity of her teaching, and the identification of her Pontiffs as the Antichrist. They did this in a day when to do so was death, and if not death then imprisonment, torture, or banishment, or being stripped of all possessions, or all of these together.
…How strange it is that many preachers can speak of a future Antichrist, who according to them, the Christian Church will never see and never contend against, and yet are totally blind to the mystery of iniquity which works all around their church’s doorstep. The Antichrist and the antichrists who are present [Ed.: emphasis in the original] are conveniently ignored.
Surely Satan must be delighted in the success of that great delusion, ‘Mystery Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the earth’, and he who poses as the true Christ at her head, the Antichrist himself, the ‘Man of Sin and Son of Perdition’. No wonder a duped Church, intoxicated with the poison of Ecumenism, is impotent to stand against this satanic monstrosity. Today, almost all the so-called churches of Christ wonder after the Beast of [Ed.: Papal] Rome. Christendom is damned by [Ed.: Papal] Rome’s idolatries.” – Ian R. K. Paisley (MP, MEP [Ed.: Member of Parliament and Member of the European Parliament]; from pages 9 and 10 of the Foreword to the book, “Antichrist Exposed: The Reformed and Puritan View of the Antichrist” by Dr. Ronald N. Cooke)
“Who can fail to see the need and importance of thus gradually coming to the establishment of a world authority capable of taking effective action on the juridical and political planes? …Delegates to international organizations, public officials, gentlemen of the press, teachers and educators – all of you must realize that you have your part to play in the construction of a new world order.” – Pope Paul VI(Populorum Progressio, 1967) [Ed.: Papal Rome wants one-world government and one-world religion!]
“The absurd and erroneous doctrines or ravings in defense of liberty of conscience, are a most pestilential error – a pest, of all others, most to be dreaded in a State.” – Pope Pius IX(born-died: 1792-1878;pope:1846-1878; a supporter of the Confederacy; from his Encyclical Letter of August 15, 1854)
“These false and perverse opinions [Ed.: of democratic principles and individual freedom] are so much the more detestable, by as much as they…hinder and banish that salutary influence which the [Ed.: Roman] Catholic Church, by the institution and command of her Divine Author, ought freely to exercise, even to the consummation of the world, not only over individual men, but nations, peoples, and sovereigns.” – Pope Pius IX(born-died: 1792-1878;pope:1846-1878; from Quanta Cura of Dec. 8, 1864)
“The State has not the right to leave every man free to embrace whatever religion he should deem true. …The [Ed.: Roman Catholic] Church has the ‘right’ to require that the [Ed.: Roman] Catholic religion shall be the religion of the State, to the exclusion of all others. …Cursed be those who assert liberty of conscience and of worship and such that maintain that the [Ed.: Roman Catholic] Church may not employ force.” – Pope Pius IX(pope:1846-1878; from his Syllabus Errorum of December 1864)
“You know that I am the Holy Father, the representative of God on earth, the Vicar of Christ – which means that I am God on the earth.” – Pope Pius XI (pope: 1922-1939; statement made in 1922)
“It is the bounden [Ed.: obligatory; required]duty of every [Ed.: Bible-believing] Christian to pray against Anti-Christ, and as to what Anti-Christ is no sane man ought to raise a question. If it be not the Popery in the church of Rome there is nothing in the world that can be called by that name…because it wounds Christ, because it robs Christ of His glory, because it puts sacramental efficacy in the place of His atonement, and lifts a piece of bread [Ed.: i.e., the consecrated host or wafer used in the Mass of the Roman Catholic Church]in the place of the Savior, and a few drops of water in place of the Holy Ghost, and puts a fallible man [Ed.: i.e., the pope] like ourselves up as the Vicar of Christ on earth…” – Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892; famous Victorian English Baptist preacher)
“Long pampered by the State, she [Ed.: i.e., the Roman Catholic Church] came to be its lord and tyrant, using fire and sword, prison and rack, to work her accursed will. The Inquisition was the masterpiece of infernal craft and malice, and its deeds were far more worthy of fiends than men. If the church of Rome could at this moment change its Ethiopian skin forever, lay aside its leopard’s spots, and become a pure community, ten thousand years of immaculate holiness and self-denying philanthropy could not avail to blot out the remembrance of the enormous crimes with which the Inquisition has loaded it. There is a deep and indelible sentence of damnation written upon the apostate church by avenging justice for its more than infernal cruelties, and the curse is registered in heaven; nor can any pretenses to present liberality reverse the condemnation which outraged humanity has pronounced against it; its infamy is engraven in the rock forever. Centuries of the most liberal policy would not convince mankind that Popery had become tolerant at heart; she wallowed so greedily in oppression, torture, and murder in her palmy [Ed.: i.e., flourishing] days, that the foam of human gore hangs around her wolfish fangs, and men will not believe her to be a gentle lamb, let her ‘bleat’ as she may.” – Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892; famous Victorian English Baptist preacher; 1868, “The Inquisition”)
“Accordingly, towards the close of the century of the Reformation, two of her [Rome’s] most learned [Ed.: Jesuit] doctors set themselves to the task, each endeavoring by different means to accomplish the same end, namely, that of diverting men’s minds from perceiving the fulfillment of the prophecies of the Antichrist in the Papal system. The Jesuit [Ed.: Luis de] Alcasar devoted himself to bring into prominence the Preterist method of interpretation to show the prophecies of Antichrist were fulfilled before the Popes ever ruled at Rome, and therefore could not apply to the Papacy. On the other hand the Jesuit [Ed.: Francisco] Ribera tried to set aside the application of the prophecies to Papal Power by bringing out the Futurist system, which asserts that these prophecies refer properly not to the career of the Papacy, but to that of some future supernatural individual, who is yet to appear, and to continue in power for three and a half years.” – Joseph Tanner (Clergyman; Author of “Daniel and Revelation”)
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