FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:
ROME’S HATRED IS NOT AGAINST SIN BUT AGAINST THE SABBATH AND SABBATH-KEEPERS, AS THE WALDENSES WERE
“We have seen that the ancient apostolic church, scattered by persecution, and often in hiding, went under various names. Being peaceful, virtuous, industrious citizens, they were TOLERATED and even SHIELDED, by princes who understood their value to the country, while the Catholic Church HUNTED them down like wild beasts. After the Waldenses and Albigenses had lived quietly in France for many years, POPE INNOCENT III wrote the following instructions to his bishops:
‘Therefore by this present apostolical writing [?] we give you a STRICT COMMAND that, by WHATEVER means you can, you DESTROY all these heresies and EXPEL from your diocese all who are polluted with them. You shall exercise the RIGOR OE ECCLESIASTICAL POWER against them and all those who have made themselves suspected by ASSOCIATING with them. They may NOT appeal to your judgment, and if necessary, you may cause the princes [civil powers] and the people to SUPPRESS THEM WITH THE SWORD.’ – ‘A Source Book for Medieval History,’ Oliver J. Thatcher and E. H. McNeal, p. 210. NY Charles’ Scribner’s Sons: 1905.
“Philippus van Lindorch, Professor of Divinity of Amsterdam, speaking of the way the LIBERTY of the people was suppressed after 1050, says:
‘In the following ages the affairs of the church [of Rome] under the government of the Popes [the papacy] and all persons so strictly curbed by the SEVERITY of the laws, that they durst [dared] not even so much as WHISPER against the received opinions of the church. Besides this, so deep was the IGNORANCE that had spread itself over the WORLD, that men, without the least regard to KNOWLEDGE AND LEARNING, received with a BLIND obedience everything that the ecclesiastics ordered them, HOWEVER STUPID OR SUPERSTITIOUS, WITHOUT ANY EXAMINATION; and anyone dared to the least to contradict them, he was sure immediately to be punished, whereby the most ABSURD opinions came to be established by the VIOLENCE OF THE POPES.’ – ‘History of the Inquisition.’p.79. London 1816.” – ‘Facts of Faith,’ Christian Edwardson, pp. 126, 127.
“There is nothing new under the sun. What has been that shall be.” Learn from history and be prepared for the future. Bless all, NMF