The Religion of Rome — "No Peace With Rome”— See original article online: http://archive.spurgeon.org/s_and_t/relrome.php — C. H. Spurgeon From the January 1873 Sword and Trowel

I was so refreshed to find and read this article by Spurgeon. Unfortunately, many today in our churches and Messianic assemblies know next to nothing about this great man of God. He has fallen by the wayside along with other great men of God: Moody, Hudson Taylor, John Patton, Jonathan Edwards, George Muller. We’re losing a whole generation to a weakened form of the heritage that is ours. I for one, refuse to let their memories die.

One has to ask themselves: Why aren’t these men mentioned any longer? How have we come so far from what they believed and stood for? Take for example Moody. He was greatly disturbed because he saw folks from his church on the Sabbath (as he called it, though it was Sunday) riding on their horses and in their buggies. What would he think today?

Perhaps, these guy’s, and what they lived and stood for, are too convicting to this generation?

Before starting the article from Spurgeon, let me draw (by way of example) something to your attention concerning a popular Christian youth organization called Young Life.

You can read the following at: http://ylcatholic.blogspot.com/2017/06/young-life-meeting-with-pope.html

“That They May Be One Thursday, June 8, 2017 Young Life Staffer and Ecumenical Group Meets with the Pope

In 1969, one year after Rayburn’s powerful visit to Rome, a young man named Marty Caldwell met Jesus Christ through a group of Young Life leaders in Phoenix and it changed his life forever. Nearly 50 years later Marty is now the Executive Vice President of Young Life International Ministries, overseeing the explosive growth of YL ministries in over 100 countries around the world.

Marty has always embraced the ecumenical vision of Young Life and has built abiding friendships with Protestants and Catholics across the country, and in his current role, around the globe. For years Marty has been working with a group of ministry leaders from Phoenix who pray the John 17 prayer of unity for the sake of the city.

Today Marty and this group of John 17 leaders, both Protestant and Catholic, will retrace the steps of Jim Rayburn in Rome but will take it a step further. They will be received by Pope Francis himself. This is truly a day to celebrate as it exemplifies the prayer of Jesus, that we may be one, that we may reach across the dividing lines and walk hand in hand into the world of kids and share with them the abounding love of God in Jesus Christ .…”

You can read the following at: https://resourcesandsupplies.younglife.org/v/vspfiles/Product_PDFs/CatholicBrochure.pdf

“In January of 1968, Young Life’s founder, Jim Rayburn, visited Rome where he met five Catholic seminarians studying for the priesthood. Rayburn called the meeting “the highlight of the European tour” and committed to staying in touch. What started in Rome continues today –Young Life’s passion to reach across the dividing lines between Protestants and Catholics to celebrate together the heart of Christianity – a loving relationship with Jesus Christ.”

“Young Life is a world-class organization for adolescents, reaching nearly 1.7 million teens every year. Our staff and volunteers enter the world of kids, focusing on what matters to them – fun, adventure, friendship, and a sense of significance. In doing so, we earn the privilege of talking to them about something we believe matters most of all – the truth about God and His love for them. Young Life is committed to working with the Catholic Church by: • Training our staff and volunteers to minister to Catholic teens in ways that respect and reanimate their Catholic faith in Jesus. • Welcoming Catholics to serve as Young Life staff, volunteers leaders, and committee members. • Working with Catholic dioceses, parishes, and schools to reinvigorate the faith of young Catholics.

Catholic Church Young Life and the Working Together to Reach Kids for Christ

877-438-9572 • younglife.org Young Life © November 2014 • YL-2375 Printed in USA • May 2016

Young Life is the reason I’m the faithful Catholic I am today. Robby Kiley, graduate student, University of Notre Dame —————————————

As you read the following abridgment of the article, challenge yourself as to what you think Spurgeon would have to say. Based on his writings, I believe he would get up in his pulpit and condemn all of this to Hell! “NO PEACE WITH ROME”

Now Spurgeon’s article begins.

WE WELCOME the publication of a volume entitled "The Religion of Rome." It consists of letters published in a Roman Journal, which have been translated from the Italian, by Mr. William Howitt. In these times, when liberality is the only popular virtue, and zeal for truth the cardinal sin, it is worth much to let the public know assuredly that Popery is not the angel of light it professes to be. "Distance lends enchantment to the view;" but, to the rightminded, to see Romanism is to abhor it. It is a system which is as dangerous to human society, as it is hostile to true religion.

We would by no means abridge the civil rights of a Catholic, or a Mormonite, but whether in any community the confessional or polygamy ought to be endured is not a question with us. The system of confession to priests is the sum of all villanies. Murphy (1) was martyred for speaking the truth about the confessional, and in his person the liberty of public speech received a serious blow. The day will come in which that man's name and fate will be looked upon in a different light, and many will regret that he was given over as a victim to Romish bigotry, when they feel that bigotry burdening themselves. We have seen with our own eyes (2) that which would make the blood of any decent man boil within him.

In the confessional boxes in Germany and Italy, anybody may see for himself, exhibited in the compartment allotted to the priest, a list of the sins concerning which the confessor is to enquire; these include crimes which we will not pollute our paper by mentioning; he must be a hardened profligate who would dare allude to them in the presence of a young girl. Not in the pages of a folio reserved for studious eyes did we read the degrading memoranda of which we speak, but in the confessional itself, where every passer-by may see them if he will. True, the document is in Latin; but, unfortunately, such words as abortio, sodomia, and the like, need no translation. But we dare not trust our hand to write more,—the superstition of Rome is the worst of all the evils which have befallen our race; may the Lord arise, and sweep it down to the hell from whence it arose.

Very terrible is the chapter upon Excommunications and the Holy Office of the Inquisition: it is indeed sickening. The story of Rome's bloody persecutions of all who differed from her, when told in the mildest manner, is yet a thing to chill the blood and make the flesh creep. Blessed be God she has such horrors no longer in her power; but if she had her fangs untrimmed as of old, it would not be long before her victims would be aware of it. We will give but a brief extract, referring to times of comparatively modern date.

"The times changed, and being no longer able to burn the heretics and the excommunicated publicly, the holy office found means of putting them to death without the shedding of blood and for the glory of God, by means of walling-up and ovens.

"The walling-up was of two kinds, the propria, and impropria, or complete and incomplete. By the first they punished dogmatists, by the second, the professors of witchcraft and sorcery. To punish the former they made a niche in a wall, where standing upright on his feet, they placed the condemned, binding him well to the wall with cords and chains, so that he could not move in the least. They then began to build from the feet to the knees, and every day they raised the wall a course, at the same time giving the prisoner to eat and to drink. When he died, and God knows with what agonies, the wall was built up. But dead or alive, it was closed in such a manner that no one could see where the niche had been and that a body remained there.

"The incomplete walling-up, or enclosure, was made by sitting the condemned in a pit bound hand and foot, so that his head only was above ground. The pit was then filled up with quicklime, and moisture from the body soon acting on it, converted it into fire, and the miserable wretch was burnt alive with the most frightful torture.

"As knowledge and civilization increased, and the people began to see through the impostures of the priests, they feared lest, spite of their secrecy, such atrocities might creep abroad amongst the corrupt sons of the age, and in order to retain the knowledge of these holy proceedings amongst a few, they dismissed the building-up, and adopted a plan more anticipative of the pains of hell, and this was by burning the condemned without flame, and without shedding of blood. They invented ovens, or furnaces, which being made red-hot, they lowered the condemned into them, bound hand and foot, and immediately closed over them the mouth of the furnace. This barbarous punishment was substituted for the burning pile, and in 1849, these furnaces at Rome were laid open to public view in the dungeons of the holy Roman Inquisition, near the great church of the Vatican, still containing the calcined bones."

Essence of lies, and quintessence of blasphemy, as the religion of Rome is, it nevertheless fascinates a certain order of Protestants, of whom we fear it may be truly said that "they have received a strong delusion to believe a lie, that they may be damned."

Seeing that it is so, it becomes all who would preserve their fellow-immortals from destruction to be plain and earnest in their warnings. Not in a party-spirit, but for truth's sake, our Protestantism must protest perpetually. Dignitaries of the papal confederacy are just now very prominent in benevolent movements, and we may be sure that they have ends to serve other than those which strike the public eye.

A priest lives only for his church; he may profess to have other objects, but this is a mere blind. Our ancient enemies have small belief in our common sense if they imagine that we shall ever be able to trust them, after having so often beheld the depths of Jesuitical cunning and duplicity. The sooner we let certain Archbishops and Cardinals know that we are aware of their designs, and will in nothing co-operate with them, the better for us and our country. Of course, we shall be howled at as bigots, but we can afford to smile at that cry, when it comes from the church which invented the Inquisition.

"No peace with Rome" is the motto of reason as well as of religion. C. H. Spurgeon

NOTES 1. William Murphy, an anti-Catholic apologist and lecturer of the Victorian era, who was beaten into a coma by a pro-Catholic mob while giving a lecture in Cumberland in April 1871. Murphy died 13 months later, without ever regaining consciousness. 2. See Chapter 74 of the Autobiography for a more complete description of the confessional booth to which Spurgeon refers here.