With the recent installation of the new pope Francis, it should not be hard to see why the puritans dissented. Pope Francis seemed to delight in praying from the papal balcony to Mary: "Hail Mary, full of grace. Our Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen". This "prayer" is the famous hail Mary addressing her adoringly, making petitions to her, contrary to all sound wisdom, biblical teaching and the history of Judeo-Christian traditions.
Let us hear the words of the Bible which so evidently dismiss such possibilities of blasphemously praying to Mary or any other saints.
Jesus said before his crucifixion, resurrection and ascension: "Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son".
Listen to the preaching of Peter in Jerusalem: "This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
Listen to Paul instructing Timothy who was in the idolatrous city of Ephesus, to guard Christians from attempting to approach God though any other means than Jesus Christ: "For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time".
Now I have not even begun to mention the errors of Roman Catholic teaching, such as the office of priests, the assumed supremacy of the office of pope over all Christendom (something that Orthodox churches have never accepted neither Protestants), Catholic mass substituting the Lord's Supper, the use of vestments, incense, statues, and the lack of plain preaching to teach the way of salvation. Imagine if these beliefs and practices were forcibly applied to your church. This is what happened during the times of the puritans. The stakes were high.
The puritans, on straightforward biblical grounds dissented against Roman Catholic teaching, worship and practices (or any Anglo-Catholic practices which were half-reformed). The puritan vision continues because it is a biblical vision and we must give no ground to the Roman Catholic Church which does not bear the marks of a true church. These marks are the preaching of pure doctrine, the right administration of the sacraments, and church order and discipline.
2 comments:
I am afraid you have bought into the thousands of lies which the Reformation spawned. If you do not honour God's mother, then you do not honour God himself. Christians (even those such as Calvin) understood this for 2000 years.
None of your bible quotes proves that even 1% of the Catholic Church's doctrines are false. And neither could they, because believe it or not, the Bible was canonised by a Catholic council!!
To say that the Roman Catholic Church bears no marks of a real church is totally false, because it is the only true Church which can trace itself back to St. Peter and Christ himself. All other supposed "churches" are man-made fakes launched several hundred years after Christ.
It was a Catholic Church Council who gave consent to the inclusion of the NT books of the Bible which we have today (the OT canon was already a settled matter). However, note two things. First it was not a "Roman" Catholic Church Council because Roman Catholicism did not exist, nor would RCC claims be permitted at that time. Second, the Apochrypha was never included in the Canon which is now freely included by the RCC which is a serious departure from this early Catholic Church Council.
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