W W W W  World Wide Web Witness Inc.  Home Page   Contents Page for Volume What is New

CHAPTER  FIVE
 

The Singular Name

Philippians 2:9: "Therefore God has highly exalted Him and given Him
a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow..."

THE SWOLLEN QUORUM, THE SWOLLEN HEAD

AND THE SWOLLEN BREAD

I

Negating Mock-Ups

A
 

PETER AND NEO-PETER:
 

THE INVENTION OF THE SWOLLEN HEAD

PETER - NOT THE NEW VERSION
 

Peter is rather delightful, in the very area where the new Peter is not. Thus in I Peter 5, so far from carrying on about how high he is, as has been customary in the case of some Roman Pontiffs, alleged to  relate to Peter in some mystic manner, he does not even call himself here an apostle, but merely an elder. Speaking to elders, he declares that he also is an elder.

He goes further. In exhorting them concerning their responsibilities and duties, he even declares what NOT to do, putting his practice into the format of principle! How are they to shepherd the flock ? "... not as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock," and when this enthusiasm for humility and restraint is finished ? Then, "when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away."

There is no mention of superior greatness by Peter, and in this buoyant presentation to elders, there is no sign or symbol, suggestion or atmosphere of anything but a certain brotherliness on the part of one who had been with the Lord. There is no reference to the power vested in him, no nil obstat, nothing suggestive of superiority, but rather the precise opposite.

When you compare this with, say, the things some popes have said, it is as near as the Equator in Summer, in its zenith, to the balm of Spring in Victoria.

Thus Boniface VIII, so long occupied in conflict with Philip the Fair of France, had some words echoing with divine sovereignty:

How shall we assume to judge kings and princes, and not dare to proceed against a worm! Let them perish forever, that they may understand that the name of the Roman pontiff is known in all the earth and that he alone is most high over princes. (Italics added. Address to the Cardinals against the Colonna: Schaff - History of the Christian Church, Vol.VI, p. 16.)

Let us not however neglect Pope Innocent III, who as Avro Manhattan (Vatican Imperialism In The Twentieth Century, p. 52) points out, made this claim on his own coronation (Christ's crown was rather different) in the accompanying sermon:

Now you may see who is the servant who is placed over the family of the Lord; truly is he the Vicar of Jesus Christ, the successor of Peter, the Christ of the Lord ... greater than man; who judges all, but is judged by none.

You find a difference. It is not just the height of error so to ignore Matthew 23:8-10, and to depart monumentally from the actual Peter; it is the very spirit of the thing. In Peter, there is humility; here there is far more than mere arrogance on the part of the pope: claiming Peter in some evidently mystic sense as spiritual progenitor or maker of the papal realm, he exalts himself in a way which is not only perilously close to that found in the Nebuchadnezzar plot (Daniel 4), with its eminently humiliating consequences, but IS SURE to inherit shame. Does not Christ Himself, about whom all this spurious ado proceeds, on the part of His alleged 'vicar' directly state this (Matthew 23:12): "And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted!"

ALL who are NOT CHRIST JESUS are brethren, and NO ONE but CHRIST is the teacher-master-leader. That is what Christ says, whether or not anyone using or not using His name is interested. It remains so. NONE but God Almighty is to be called FATHER. None has the power of teacher, master, but Christ. When will it sink in!

As noted of the signing off of Peter (II Peter 1:12, is it too much to expect that the words be given attention ? Reverting to SMR pp. 98ff., we find this (slightly revised for our present purpose):

Thus, in the Trinity, where gender is irrelevant, for ''they neither marry nor are given in marriage''- the angels; and God Himself, He is Spirit: there is the eternal companionship, the everlasting sharing, the ever young realities and there are the ever old relationships. It is not sequential but operational. It is this Son, this Word, this Lord (Zechariah 3:8) who is sent, appointed and anointed for the task of being on earth the Messiah, the Christ, the plenipotentiary and prince through whom the Father is seen, so that He who has seen me has seen the Father (John 14:9). This is the character of the Biblical exposé, exposition and expression of the state and stature, the form and function of the Son, of whom it most understandably says: "He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son does no have life" (1 John 5:12).

That is why Peter's illumination by which he was able to see the revelation of Christ's position and office (Matthew 16:13, 16-17) was so crucial that Christ would build His Church upon it (Matthew 16:18). The 'petros' or stone as Peter was there called, would be used as an expressive medium, Peter would be a testifying witness.

This is what must be seen (cf. John 6:40, Matthew 16:17), Christ as He is, providing salvation; for faith to be focussed on the right object, on God via reality, not via obscuration or distortion. This, the Son is the only one (John 3:16) and no other way, of course, is even conceivable (John 14:6, cf. John 10:8, Matthew 24:23, 24, 27, 31, Galatians 1:6-9, Revelation 22:18, noting "these things"); for we are dealing with God as He is; and only as He is, may He be received with any value by man (cf. John 4:23). Even a medicine is not useful in pretence, whatever words and labels may be used. It is the reality which matters, it alone, in the truth. Placebos do not perform what only the power of God can do.

The 'Petra' (a different word), 'living rock', on which Jesus Christ said He would build His church is not 'petros', 'a stone', Peter... who in addition, in that very context and on that very occasion, proceeded to seek to dissuade Christ from dying on the Cross - basic Gospel,.In this, he was at once rebuked, "Get behind me Satan", because of the temptation he was forwarding, the error he at once committed, at the highest level! No, nothing like that was the Petra, the rock on which the church was built. It would have been dead long ago if that were its base. The words applied to Peter, petros stone, and to the foundation of the church, petra, rock, diverge in form and basic meaning: ignoring words and their meaning is no way to interpret them - as contextually dramatised!

Rock, petra, the church's stated foundation (cf.1 Corinthians 3:11) and Peter Petros, the words denote the Biblically immovable Christ, God, and verbally and factually movable Peter. It is what Peter saw and said, which, as Jesus pointed out, itself came by revelation from God, which is the crucial truth. There is available for man's salvation (cf. Introduction vii, supra, and index under 'rock') no other rock and God says so (II Samuel 22:31-33, Psalm 62:1-2, Isaiah 44:9, 26:4 in 1:20, Deuteronomy 32:4, Psalm 18:30, I Corinthians 10:4, 3:11). This is the foundation of the church, and God says so. Woe to the man who puts himself or his church or his will or his views or his ideologies or philosophies into that place ... reserved for the Son, whom to have is eternal life (I John 5:12) whom to know, Him and His Father, is eternal life (John 17:1). As Christ said, "If God were your Father you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself but He sent Me" - John 8:42.

Blessed is the man who knows the Lord: the man who, with John (l John 1:1-4) can savour the reality of knowing the Son and living thereby that eternal life which was with the Father and which was revealed to us. Thus "he who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves Him who begot also loves him who is begotten of Him" (1 John 5:1); and such remain the very children of God (1 John 3:9). As Christ said, He shared the glory with the Father before the world was (John 17:3); but God will share this with no one who is not the eternal and uncreated God (Isaiah 42:8). Seize it then? Those who 'take' it, take but air. Those who take those who take it, take but a snare. Those who take the Son have thus and therefore the Father;... God himself bearing testimony that He is the only rock, over and over, He is the One He expects us to rest on (Father and Son, cf. Isaiah 11:10, Matthew 11:28, Isaiah 44:6,8), He the everlasting Rock, He, the eternal God is our refuge (Deuteronomy 33:27), "the sure foundation laid in Zion" (Isaiah 28:16)... (See Index: 'Rock', 'Peter' and 'Petra'.)

To contest this, to contest His own place and prerogative, it is merely to request the destruction, of an avalanche, which crushes to powder (Matthew 21:44)!

This is the Biblical testimony concerning the Trinity in the facet of function... the salvation of men, and this is how and why it is utterly crucial to deal with that Son who shows the Father and not to add to or subtract, and in following Him, to put confidence in none other (Matthew 23:8-10).

In fact, in terms of Peter's typically direct, but here divinely inspired response to the Lord's question WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM (Matthew 16:15), there is a word-play so intense, that one would have thought the very dead could hear it, if momentarily resuscitated. Peter is noted to have been divinely inspired in his crucial declaration, that of Christ's real identity (16:17). His own relatively diminutive name, is then put out in contrast to the living rock name which is God's own throughout the Bible, HE ONLY the rock, HE the Rock which followed them (I Corinthians 10), He not even KNOWING ANY OTHER Rock (Isaiah 44:8). Peter has done his little stone work and been used. Now the POINT of what Peter replied in terms of the CRUCIAL point behind it all, WHO CHRIST IS, becomes central. On that rock is the church of Jesus Christ to be built, on what Christ had elicited and what Peter had been inspired by God to know and enabled to say, namely CHRIST AS SO IDENTIFIED, so giving the foundation for Christianity (as in I John 5:11-12).

Try to escape THAT Rock, the Rock of the Bible, the ONLY Rock, then you will be subject to it falling on you and crushing you to powder. This is the function of the divine rock: it is not to be rocked, as Peter was, immediately after this contrast, and brilliant focus on Christ-as-now-revealed-to-be, but immovable! (Matthew 21:44). Fall on this rock, on this crucial criterion, and be broken; if it falls on you, your power is gone. All life and truth depends on Him, the direct and decisive, definitional and definite expression of God. Find Him and be built on Him, or be confounded. That is the option that faces man.

WHO is a Rock ? asks David, but the Lord! (II Samuel 22:33). The PRINCIPLE is thus given like a huge deposit of rock for building, that ALL the rest are brethren. ONE is your teacher, ONE is yoru Father (Matthew 23:8-10), so call none else in these spiritual terms, be it yourself or church or Mary or Peter or this idol or that! Is it that the rest of sinners other than Peter ? Scarcely! It is all the rest of the people other than JESUS CHRIST who are set in this as one apart from the ONE who did the works of salvation: THESE are all brethren in the setting that ONLY CHRIST, born of a virgin, eternal before coming to earth (Micah 5:1-3, John 8:58), sinless (Romans 8, I Peter 2) has the qualifications and quality to be the master, and teacher. Who ELSE is this! There is no other bearing these qualities, and to invent any with such qualities is mere idolatry. This, leaves the REST, all who are not Christ who came to this earth, who would take THIS place, all who are not gifted with self-exaltative  schism, far less self-important directive power, dependent en masse on Him, in just one group. It is He only, sent from God as God and for God I John 4:9-14), WHO does have this singularity of power and authority, making mere midgetry of their various serving gifts by comparison.

To be sure, Peter did use the keys of the Kingdom (Matthew 16:19), as one given grace in such instances as the moving forward with the Gospel to the Samaritans (Acts 8), where he and John were SENT down to Philip's work there; and in the case of recognising Paul's writings as scripture (II Peter 3:16), as in demonstrating the divine power moving the Gospel to the Gentiles, in the matter of the visions of Acts 10. This was considered in Jerusalem in due course (Acts 15), so that just as Peter and John were SENT by others, TO Samaria concerning the work Phillip has begun, so the results of this sending were CONSIDERED by the apostles, and James, as leader, gave the result of these things.

These keys, however, were a matter of movement amid the brethren, not formal authority, themselves assessable, and if necessary, Peter could be rebuked for being misleading as in Galatians 2, as he was by Paul, who condemned in one point, his example. The apostles en bloc were given power to forgive and to bind in sin (John 20:20:21-23), and this transcended any tendency WITHOUT AUTHORITY (expressly denied at once - Matthew 16:21-23), but with gift, for any danger of petrine bluster. Such heedless self-exaltation is so notable in the invented Peter of Romanism, just as it is so hard to find in the real one. Surely he could be carried away, but ready to be rebuked, as after the keys episode of Matthew 16:21-23, enough to wake up anyone not asleep to the realities! One does not even speak of the example of Luke 22:54-62).

Yet Peter showed marvellous self-restraint and an excellent humility, so that Christ's way of signalising the point of the FOUNDATION of the Christian Church - and there is NO OTHER FOUNDATION, nor any other Rock (I Corinthians 3:11), through the stone, Petros, could have effect. Indeed,  there is nothing foundational for His Church but its Redeemer within the Trinity: JESUS CHRIST. Accordingly, in Acts 15, when we see the ecclesiastical dynamics with all present, Peter recounts as desired, what had happened, Paul reported, but  when all were silent, it was James who declared: "Men and brethren, listen to me!" himself giving an astonishingly direct leadership. So does God act: not with divisive, even schismatic authority, but with One, His own in whom is His delight (Isaiah 41:28-42:6). From and through Him, at His pleasure He may leading or rebuking through one or another, as He will. Until this is realised, no biblical understanding of the Church is given.
 

NEO-PETER BECOMES BEDEVILLED BASIS

FOR A CREATED PAPACY

Not merely, in this second order infection is Peter re-created by certain theologians, but the papacy itself is absolutely created, out of nothing, the sort of thing the fertile minds of mankind, gifted by God, can do. Instead of making universes, the divine pre-rogative of Almighty God, this they do, making a new christ or Peter or foundation; and when you see what they can create, in this way, it is well that new universes is NOT what they can create!

The concept that the new-made Peter of Rome, neo-Peter, gives what the actual Peter was denied (just as James and John were denied special treatment! when their mother asked for it - Matthew 20:23), to someone else, this becomes mist within mist, delusion upon delusion, leading to an authoritative, hierarchical line, such as dictators sometimes seek to establish. Such contradictory creation merely doubles the emptiness of the concept. Using such a meta-neo-Peter you get a body ready to invent almost anything, even an Inquisition.

It means that a body which

	was derived from the Christian Church, one centred in the centre of Empire (that is in Rome, in its heyday, and continued while it was not at least in its Eastern arm, extinguished in a 'broken' phase as in Daniel 2:42); one which
	having exalted itself and its pastor,
	has become a version of Christianity apt for this world, much feted by it; and even
	has used force, just as it used Peter to create neo-Peter, to further its boundless seeming ambitions, in the subjugation of kingdoms, as it sought in the Investiture Contest*1, and the Inquisition for several centuries (cf. Ancient Words ... Ch. 14):

has given itself lordship on this earth. It alleges, here only is salvation to be found, in the pope of Rome. It is however precisely there that it is not to be found for here there is another name contrary to the spiritual specifications, to the word of God, forbidden to be added to all matters of salvation. If you can read, then read that. It is not Christ's name; it is another. It is not permitted (Acts 4:11-12). God and man differ - infinitely in power, purity and eternity from the first!

Dividing from Christ and His Church equally, Romanism has not failed to avoid entanglement with a world which, with its leader, has nothing in Christ (John 17:9, 14:30). Instead, it actually claimed spiritually vested authority over princes^*2 as well as the church, over the secular as well as the ecclesiastical, and this with a bombast so unlike Peter, and so infinitely far from Christ, that it palls the heart, as did the September 11 assault in New York. It appals and grieves it to see such devastation of doctrine, which nevertheless remains, for this ruin in not imported by the Church which has for centuries denounced Romanism in Luther, Calvin, Knox and thousands and thousands of pastors and peoples who avoided the imperial follies of the pastor of what was once a world-centre of power. Indeed, the 39 articles of the Church of England^*3 condemned Rome's Last Supper innovation, called Mass,  in terms of "blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits". We shall however come later to this aspect.

B

MARY AND NEO-MARY

The Invention of the Swollen Quorum of Queens

MARY - NOT THE NEW VERSION

ROME'S CREATED MARY ( cf. its Created Peter and Created Body of the Lord)

Mary and Christ's brothers once wanted to see Jesus. It was in this context that something most revelatory was stated (Matthew 1`2:48-50): "Who is my mother and who are my brothers ?" Stretching forth His hand over His disciples, He declared: "Here are My mother and My brothers. For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven,  is my mother and sister and mother."

So far from embellishment,  adornment, celestial adulation, relative to His mother, great in grace though she was, it is the commonality in Christ is made special, so that birth details, though important, are by no means mandatory, nor a ground of privilege. He did not drop everything and rush to their side, when told they wished to see Him. It could not be clearer. Instead, He spoke on the nature of such relationships. EVERYONE doing the will of the Father is mother and sister and brother! What a crowd of them! How unsingular!

In view of the Romanist concept of Mary as Queen of heaven, this would mean that daily there would be more queens in heaven, the number massing to the virtually indistinguisable. How far from this  neo-Mary, Rome's creation is the real Mary. The neo-Mary is alas in line with the various prior ideas such as Tammuz and others of that idolatrous line (Jeremiah 44:17, Ezekiel 8:14), inventions to placate or please the multitude.  When you enter into empire in spiritual things, as Rome explicitly did, it enters into you! The tarnishings that went before become as plagues to continue in those foolish enough to seek a deep involvement in this world! (cf. I Corinthians 7:31,  John 14:29-31).

Again, in John 2:5, we see that when an issue arose concerning an embarrassment for a wedding. Mary noted this to Jesus. Christ expressed the point that to attend to such a thing as this was not in line with the need of His mission. Thus Mary was not met in this desire of hers in the dialogue at all, but rather was it to the contrary. However, purposing in Himself, and having dissociated Himself from the position of casual miracle worker, He took action in terms of the juice of the vine, making it best of all, from mere water.

In fact, this did solve the problem; but it did far more.  Given no acceptance in her request, Mary simply told the servants what is appropriate to the Lord of all, namely: Whatever He says to you, do it! Her summary of need was met with distancing by Christ. That is the first and important point. She told them to do what He said, anyway. It was His business, not hers. He would do as He pleased (cf. Psalm 115). It was He who resolved, for His own reasons, to act in a special manner, using the opportunity to implement a thought of His own. It was a miracle that He resolved to produce, one of a deep significance. The need became His opportunity, and distancing it as a normal or routine application, He as Lord turned it into a symbolic venture.

First, in turning water into delicious juice, He UPSET the natural order. Secondly, He put the symbol for blood, as it would be in the Last Supper, by supernatural power into the natural realm, so symbolising the power of God as available by divine action, IN the natural order, for supernatural reasons. Thirdly, it had better quality than anything this earth had to offer. In this way, a simple need, though rejected ion and by itself as fit for His action, was transmuted into a teaching exercise. Mary was emphatically NOT met in here notion. Christ equally met His own wishes in making the matter to His own desire as Lord.

There are not two Lords!  as Mariolatrists seem entirely to forget:

"For to this end Christ died and rose, and lived again,
that He might be Lord of both the dead and the living,"

or as Ephesians 4:4 has it,

       "There is one body and one Spirit,
        just as you were called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith..."

NOTHING that is not God can sway the One who He, but what He promises, and what He purposes within Himself, free of all sway and intrusion, for one as another, this He does, and gloriously, what He says, He does; for He is,  as the Matthew 12 passage shows eloquently, no respecter of persons, and in particular, biological mothers, sisters or brothers, with any preference. Indeed, in case such things should go so far as to intervene in life beyond their place, beautiful as it may be, He declared Luke 14:26)that unless you hated father, mother, wife and children, in coming to Him, yes, and your own life too, then you "cannot be My disciple."

In other words, precisely as in Matthew 12, precedence at the spiritual level cannot be given, and if it comes to the point, you go quite contrary to that, so that the relationship with God as God, might not become a spiritual rump, or slum or residue. If you honour your father and mother, an excellent thing, but then you honour God infinitely more. Let God be God! Jesus set ALL who did the will of God as His mother and sister and brother, in this very CONTEXT! If any have wisdom, let him do the same, and not invent a new mother, neo-Mary, distorting the word of God. To give celestial status as well, this is the acme of error, the superabundance of horror, the shriek of clashing swords, that of the word of God and that of the meddling of man.

Incidentally, it is fascinating to reflect on the fact that in the sacrifice of the Passover, or the Day of Atonement, which Christ replaced, the blood was sprinkled on the door, or later on the altar. In what way could this relate to the case of the transformed water of John 2 ? It is this.

While the blood which atoned was NOT eaten, the blood of remembrance, what signified blood as in the last Supper, so described by Christ in Matthew 26, in that this is the stated point and purpose of the entire ceremony, is not a sacrifice, but a memorial. Adding to the word of God is strictly forbidden, for otherwise you can make "God" seem to say anything (Proverbs 30:6). In this ceremonial service of remembrance, what is remembered is this, that the entire Christ gave His LIFE for sinners, and that nothing is omitted in this, least of all the blood, which expresses the life (Leviticus 17). This we find in John 6:50-54! Eat His flesh and drink His blood! No wonder many were offended (John 6:66). But as we shall DV shortly see, there was great depth in this  meaning, once revealed fully by its context in John 6.

 How great are the promises to those who receive Jesus Christ, the undoctored Messiah, once for all sacrificed, WITH blood and WITH suffering, in an unrepeatable act (Hebrews 9-19:14), preceding His return from heaven (Hebrews 9:12-28), where He is quartered till the restoration of all things, being there welcomed in reception until that time, as Peter declared in Acts 3:19-21. Not given more than one body, as in Hebrews 2, where in all points but sin He has to resemble the brethren (and a second body would make things so very much simpler and superior), that is His location. It is not in masses. It is in heaven. But to this we refer a little later, and to the above, will refer back. He moves now on earth by His Spirit, of whom Paul says, The Lord is that Spirit (II Cor. 3:17-18). This is He sent from the Father (John 15:26) in His name, who does not speak of Himself (John 14:26, 16:13-15).

Heaven is not earth. The regeneration of all things is not now. Christ is in heaven, as the Second Person of the Trinity. He is not here. He is not in masses. He is not in the desert nor in the house. We have all been warned expressly about such confusions and errors (Matthew 24:26-28). He is not saving in masses or in marys,  manipulable in forbidden ways neither through substances nor through what is not God. The power of the Church on earth, when it is that of Jesus Christ to which we refer, has an exclusion zone on any other GOSPEL than that which had been preached by Paul as in Galatians 1, any other NAME, and any other WORD (Revelation 22, Proverbs 30:6).

Its power is to apply what is written, accurately; and if not, then its errors do not bind God, but sin has no sovereignty whatsoever. Indeed, any who abides in Christ and has His words abiding in the heart, may ask what he or she will, and it will be given. Power, like water in pipes, or electricity in wires, flows where the path is prepared; and so as Peter declared, God has given the Holy Spirit to those who obey Him (Acts 5:32).

The case with those, whoever they be, who would misuse the grace of God is VERY different (Acts 8:9-22). Peter's words in 8:20-21 are in no way lacking in clarity.

No Mary is neither transcendentalised as mother, nor elevated, though as in all who have been specially chosen, she is distinguished in grace and gifts. She is no queen but one who obeys. Indeed, there is NO OTHER NAME, as Peter declared (Acts 4:11-12), UNDER HEAVEN, GIVEN AMONG MEN - a highly exacting form and formula, by which they MUST be saved. Salvation has NOTHING to do with popes, or masses, or marys or peters as any kind of base or ground whatsoever. These have other names and were no incarnate, sinless, as Eternal Word of God made flesh! That is not particularly difficult to see.

What we need to see then is what Rome has made of Mary, in re-creating her, the NEO-MARY, parallel Romanist product to neo-Peter and neo-Lord's Supper. Some elements of this follow.

NEO-MARY AS WROUGHT AFRESH

The "only hope of sinners" Mariolatry was  product of Pope Gregory XV1 - cf. Liguori's The Glories of Mary, pp. 160-170. This "only hope" like "redemptrix", is versus the Bible: Acts 4:12, Titus 2:13-15, John 14:6,9, 10:9,25-28, Hebrews 2:12-18, 9:12-10:39, Isaiah 41:8-14, 44:6, 43:5-14, 53:10-12, 54:5, Hosea 13:4,14, Matthew 12:48-50, John 2:5, I Timothy 2:1-6.

Two attestations follow of this concept. Red colour is to assist recognition of the most relevant sections.
 

 TAKEN FROM THE GLORIES OF MARY
by St. Alphonsus Liguori
Redemptorist Fathers, 1931
with Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur
Published on the Web with Permission 

PRAYER TO MARY, REFUGE OF SINNERS 1

According to St. Alphonsus Liguori, St. John Damascene affirmed that Mary is not only the refuge of the innocent, but also the wicked, who implore her protection: "I am a city of refuge of all who fly to me." Alphonsus also attested that St. Bonaventure said of her: "Thou embracest with maternal affection a sinner who is even despised by the whole world, nor dost thou cease thine embrace until thou hast reconciled him with his Judge." Thus, if a sinner has recourse to Mary, the refuge of sinners, not only does she not despise him, but embraces him with affection and does not leave him until her Son Jesus Christ, Who is our Judge, has forgiven him:

Since, then, O my Lady, thou art the Refuge of all sinners, thou art my refuge. Thou, who despisest no one who has recourse to thee, despise me not, who recommends myself to thee:

"Refuge of sinners, pray for us.
O Mary, pray for us, and save us."

 
 PRAYER TO MARY, REFUGE OF SINNERS 2:
TO OBTAIN HOLY PERSEVERANCE

O Queen of Heaven, I, who was once a miserable slave of Lucifer, now dedicate myself to thee, to be thy servant forever. I offer myself to honor thee during my whole life; do thou accept me, and refuse me not, as I should deserve.

O my Mother, in thee have I placed all my hopes, from thee do I expect every grace. I bless and thank God, Who in His mercy has given me this confidence in thee, which I consider a pledge of my salvation. Alas, miserable wretch that I am, I have hitherto fallen, because I have not had recourse to thee.

 Encyclical of Pope Gregory SVI promulgated on 15 August 1832.

That all of this may come to pass prosperously and happily, let Us raise Our eyes and hands to the most holy Virgin Mary, who alone crushes all heresies, and is Our greatest reliance and the whole reason for Our hope.33 May she implore by her patronage a successful outcome for Our plans and actions.

Given in Rome at St. Mary Major, on 15 August, the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin, in the year of Our Lord 1832, the second year of Our Pontificate.

Other Romanist attestations have been made

(cf. http://www.angelfire.com/la2/prophet1/maryolotry01.html).j

Pope Benedict XV, in 1918 - “Mary suffered with Christ and nearly died with Him when He died, thus she may rightly be said to have redeemed the human race with Christ.”

Fr. Frederick William Faber: “Mary, being altogether transformed into God by grace and by the glory which transforms all the saints into Him, asks nothing, wishes nothing, does nothing contrary to the eternal and immutable will of God.”

Pope Pius XI, in 1923 - “The virgin of sorrows shared the work of redemption with Jesus Christ.”

Opus Sanctorum Angelorum - “she became, in effect, a close relative of the Blessed Trinity when she was crowned Queen of the Universe by her Son.”

Pope Leo XIII, in 1891 - “No one can approach Christ except through His mother.”

The Catechism, in the Sunday Missal (Catholic Catechism) says, “My salvation depends on Mary's mediation and union with Christ, because of her exalted position as Mediatrix of all grace.”

Vatican II, said, “Mary's intercession continues to win for us the gift of eternal salvation.”

Pius IX: “On this hope we chiefly rely, that the most Blessed Virgin who raised the height of merits above all the choirs of Angels to the throne of the Deity, and by the foot of Virtue 'bruised the serpent's head,' and who, being constituted between Christ and His Church, and, being wholly sweet and full of graces... will turn our sorrow into joy. For ye know very well, Ven. Brethren, that the whole of our confidence is placed in the most Holy Virgin, since God has placed in Mary the fullness of all good, that accordingly we may know that if there is any hope in us, if any grace, if any salvation, it redounds to us from her, because such is His will Who hath willed that we should have everything through Mary.”

C

THE LORD'S SUPPER - NOT THE NEW VERSION

At once, as we come to the third renovation, and the fourth creation of Romanism in its special  features of ecclesiastical power, both to add to the Bible and to alter persons in it, we need to go to John 6. To this, reference was made during the last consideration, namely that of Mary.

What DID Christ mean by eating His flesh and drinking His blood as NECESSARY for spiritual life, in John 6's account ? Now lambs can be grown in millions and eaten by millions, and such were pass-over lambs; and animals for the Day of Atonement likewise, can grow in great numbers, and indeed were sometimes slaughtered in great numbers as by Josiah and Hezekiah during periods of reform. You could eat a Pass-over lamb. That is what they did in the first place.

Christ however was not a genus, like lambs. You could not grow lots of Him, though many sects have tried to make new christs, new creations to act as if Jesus, from the day of Paul in II Corinthians 11, to the present. That however is mere parody; HE had to die around A.D. 30 (as predicted by Daniel 9, expounded in Christ the Citadel ... Ch. 2); and died ONCE, and is not available, as noted, till the restoration of all things. What then could He mean in terms of eating His flesh and drinking His blood ?

He HImself made this exceptionally clear,  asking a question: "WHAT IF," He asked in this context, "you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before ?" Why then of course, the thought of eating Him while He was in an eternal, a celestial,  a supernatural realm would be coarse and ludicrous. Thus He shocked them into realising that their sense of offence, if they cared to think, was of their own making. OF COURSE, He had no reference to His one and only physical body, to be resurrected and taken with Him, who Himself stole it away from the sealed tomb! It ascended to where it had to stay till His regal return to rule! (Acts 1). Thus the thought should jog even through the more stunned of minds that the 'eating' was different when there are no lambs, but only THE LAMB of God.

In what way is it different ? There is no physical eating. Such a thought as that is exceptionally inappropriate and grossly deformed. WHY then did animals die ? It was in order that the blood, signifying their LIFE, should be presentable to God as a ransom, a cover, an atonement, the correlative of the scape goat, on the head of which Aaron would place both hands as transferring in spirit the guilt of the people who waited on the Lord, to it, in order that it be sent away with it into the wilderness.

THIS was the payment portrayed. But the blood of goats could never really cover,  except pictorially, the sin of man. What then did THE LAMB OF GOD do ? His life was given as a ransom (Matthew 20:28), and He was sent away to the Cross. Indeed His blood dripped down, unutilised, except by God, while as High Priest, He offered Himself, and as victim, He released Himself for this purpose (as noted in Matthew 26:52-54). It was His own body which became the Temple, and with the work done, the death accomplished, the holy veil to the holy of holies was torn open in the Temple (Mark 15:38), now outmoded by Himself.

It was no longer symbol (as in Hebrews 7-10) which was involved. It was substance; it was unique, divinely original and final action in the person of the Incarnate Son of God. It was finished and finalised (Hebrews 9:12-28), with one act of suffering and donation of blood, criterion of life for sacrifice. HENCE there was simply no relevance in thinking outside the MEANING, and making a meaty folly out of it. WHAT IF then, He went back to heaven, body with Him! Could they not SEE His meaning then!

He even made a further prompt, saying this,  "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life." This COULD not be clearer, for it is the principle directly stated. His language about body and blood, grossly COULD not be intended. What then WAS intended ? It was a SPIRITUAL and emphatically, NOT a bodily matter which was involved in the sensational words concerning eating His flesh and drinking His blood. It had spiritual application, far and indeed horrendously removed from foolish misconceptions about His actual physical body, and as far as is heaven is from earth!

SOME, He indicated, did not believe. What was to be believed, however, was that the LIFE of His body and blood, this was to be received by FAITH, since it was certainly not available in substance. It was further a SPIRITUAL matter in sharpest possible contradiction of any physical or bodily conception whatsoever. WHAT you ate was the same as the water which proceeded out of your midst (John 4:14, 7:37), NOT a physical thing. It was a divine thing. The water as John declared, is the SPIRIT of God in the believer proceeding in this way. The body and blood, as Christ insisted, is a MEANING, and not a physical thing at all. He AS Lamb (John 1:29) is giving His body and blood after the manner of substitutionary sacrifice, the just for the unjust, as a ransom, a covering, an atonement, a ground for reconciliation (as in II Corinthians 5:17-21). As such it was be SPIRITUALLY received.

Why then refer to eating and drinking at all ? Firstly, it was the intended PARALLEL to the sacred Passover, and related to some feasts and programs in the ceremonial law. Secondly, it is an intensively inward thing, to eat. The stomach is PART of your physical being. There is nothing peripheral about digestion or vomiting for that matter. It hence refers to such a faith, such an intimate acceptance of the act of the Lord Jesus Christ in substitutionary atonement, that it inheres in one's being, is institutional for one's personality, basic to living, becoming the hidden life of one's life. The blood means that it is no mere example that is being followed or additive to life: someone else's LIFE become what SUSTAINS your own. You live BY it.

Moreover this had always been relevant to sacrificial eating of offerings for sin. It was just that NOW it was not only a PERSONAL thing, eating or receiving another PERSON, even one of the Trinity, into one's life, but doing so on TERMS of His having died to bring you life by this very means. Further, it was to be so UNTIL HE SHOULD COME BACK (as in I Corinthians 11:26, Acts 3:19ff.).

The words of Christ, then, those which He stated, in this matter, are LIFE. The flesh "profits nothing," is not at all to the point, has no function. Indeed, the body is NOT RELEVANT to the meaning of eating and drinking in this presentation by the Lord. When that direction and meaning is voided, so is Christ. He could not be clearer. Physically, the form of God and the form of man are distinct by infinity; and where He is, He is in that same form, glorified, that belongs to where He went. Thought of abuse of this is ludicrous, and made so by Christ Himself.

Again, to find the same defenestration of misconception, removal of error, as one martyr noted in Foxe's Book of Martyrs declared: If the piece of bread in the Last Supper really DID turn into Christ body, then breaking on His own part would have been suicide; and indeed, there is in Romanism the concept that the Mass is the highest spiritual experience. Thus what did NOT cover or reconcile or pay, becomes better than what DID so! (Colossians 1:22, Hebrews 9:12); and a contradiction of Christ becomes  a site for endless vain repetitions, not this time in mere words (though this is included) but of a sacrifice that only blasphemy could attempt to repeat, and in which only nullity could be produced, since both suffering and blood in the normal human mode of death are REQUIRED for effectuality (Hebrews 9). Mass provides neither.

Unlike the head of the neo-Peter, which could be swollen in this imaginary figure of Romanist thought, the bread cannot be swollen; for it is token, broken as it is, and contra-celestial misadventures with it do not change anything, but the flagrance of the mismanagement of the remembrance ceremony. When indeed GOD says it is to be done in remembrance of what constitutes acceptable reconciliation basis in sacrifice (II Cor. 5:17ff.), and man openly contradicts this, making it something else, adding or replacing,  it is as if you were to take the lips of someone in your office, and forcing them into the shapes of words never uttered, send forced air out and make the new ideas come out, and then attribute this horror to your victim. When God speaks; believe it. When He stops, stop right there.

II

MORE ON POSITIVE WONDERS

Thus in all these areas of ecclesiastical malfeasance, whatever the intention, judged on biblical standards, there is abuse of one salient feature. There is NO OTHER NAME GIVEN AMONG MEN UNDER HEAVEN... that is clear. Ask for salvation ? You MUST have it, says the apostle Peter in Acts 4:11-12. Get it in ONE place, Jesus Christ. Other address ? zero. Other title, zero. Another name to call up ? NONE.

Then where do you go ? who has it ? what is the repository ? what is the address ? What do you do about it ? You have (Acts 2;37ff.h), to repent and believe in Christ crucified, and bodily risen, to return to rule in His time, whose Gospel must cover all nations, before this.

The unbaptised crowds had to be baptised with Christ's baptism. It was a new start, a signifying of renewal, of washing (Titus 3:3-7), a grand opening of new life which was in view, focussed on faith, itself focussed on Christ, who He was (God in human form) and what He did (died and rose, the former to bear sin, the latter to attest triumph over death). It was brought into the hearts in meaning and portent by the Holy Spirit poured out, as seen in Peter's Pentecostal speech (Acts 2), complete with the notation that this itself was fulfilment of the Old Testament words of the prophet Joel. It was all one, all as ordained, and now the focus had come.

It is not Mary, not Peter, not a pope, not a mass, which is that name. It is not a Church, and it is ONLY HE WHO DIED for you as the Church DID NOT, it is He who rose for you as the Church DID NOT, who is relevant. HERE is your point of application, here is your address, the LIVING Christ and the living Lord, immutable, untransferable, alone deity, source of life, source of eternal life, who was dead and is alive forever more (Revelation 1:18-19).

The Spirit of God moves into the heart of one's prayer life (Romans 8:26), strengthens with might in the inner man now (Ephesians 3:16), and Christ Himself makes intercession for you (Hebrews 7:25). He does so TO THE UTTERMOST. You do not invent mothers to do it; or even one of them. In Heaven they neither marry nor are given in marriage. That is for earth. We are now speaking of heavenly matters. Sexuality is not to the point in heaven, where the angels neither marry nor are given in marriage. Spirituality IS.

What then of this, that there is no other name under heaven given among men by which they must be saved (Acts 4:11-12).

Is the pope among men ? Is he under heaven ? Then in terms of salvation, he has no place, no name, and is zero, zilch, deprived, and his is an address without resident for the purpose; he a claimant without title, his triple tiara insupportable, set on a ghost, a figure displaced, a pretender, not an authentic figure, a sink for sedition. SO are ALL who seek to interfere with the purchased role of Christ, His presented power and Him as gathering all things in one in Himself (Ephesians 1:10ff.). It is He who is "all and in all," for His people (Colossians 3:11).

The Lord's Supper, here is provision for the historical transport in heart at the Last Supper, so that as they, so also we who receive Him, may taste of the task which was His, relish it and find its horror, rejoice in His overcoming without for one moment leaving the moorings in the depth of the soul, based on Christ, crucified and yes rather risen; for in this Last Supper, though it portended death, it spoke of expended life. It was not a tragedy alone, but a preparation for triumph. If it must never be forgotten what it took, nor must it ever be ignored what took place. It was a payment episode in the glory of triumph over death, and the glory that follows is NOT to be considered for one moment, apart from the price that it took (so Galatians 6:14). Thus likewise, the need to be crucified WITH Christ, that is immune to sidetracking and thoroughly in harness of holiness for the work God appoints to each one of His redeemed people (Galatians 2:20), and free for Him, it is plain in such a ceremony as this!

We do not accomplish what He did, infinite purity bearing vast shame for many; but it is in the same serviceability that we are to walk in Him (Matthew 20:28).

While we may relish the enormous gifts given to many of His people over the blessed millenia of His patience (II Peter 3:9), let us never be moved from CHRIST HIMSELF, in any teaching to exalt any name, whether Romanist or sect-leader (and the sects are legion, the Roman one being an example). Indeed, even some seeking to be orthodox to the Bible can err here, imagining that Luther or Calvin for example can serve as a name for leadership; but the practice is forbidden (I Corinthians 3), and the results have become often abominable or at least appalling, sects and sectarians arising to dispute some point of limited application, ignoring certain biblical passages and anointing others, till confusion threatens where a glorious clarity exists (cf. the seven volume set, On Predestination and Foreknowledge, Liberty and Necessity, Respsonsibility, Duty and Creativity.

Sometimes such divisions begin to resemble those battling with cheers for sluggers at a fight, and so can become virtually abominable or at least appalling, sects and sectarians arising to dispute without ALL the Bible has to say, or moving like bull-dozers on some things only. It is ONLY in ALL of it that the beauty of its wonder is to be seen. It needs neither apology nor extraneous warfare. It makes its points in unison, each complementing the other. If at times one must cast down imaginations, theories without warrant (II Cor. 3:4ff. I Peter 3:15), the point in view is the release of the wonder in the word of God, giving it fully its due, its place, that liberates, that illumines, that reveals, that leads to Christ in whom is all the fulness of the Godhead in bodily form (Colossians 2:9).

Some of the extremist positions have been noted in a volume showing how time and again areas have been used as pushing off points, rather than expository data, and the reality is not in either of the superficial extremes, but where the Bible forces you to go if you take all of it and only it (cf. Bay of Retractable Islands, Mission for the Mainland).

Thus we seek to have fellowship

	wherever ALL of the word of God is taken,
	where His blood (Acts 20:28) accomplishes ALL reconciliation with God (II Cor. 5:17ff., Hebrews 7-10), and
	where His bodily resurrection achieves ALL needed for the dismissal of mortality and the institution of immortality for every believer (I Cor. 15);
	where NOTHING is excised from the Bible (Proverbs 30:6, Deuteronomy 4, 12, Revelation 22:18-19, Matthew 5:17-20), nothing added,
	where NO new Christ is envisaged (II Cor. 11), inferentially or directly,
	where free salvation by free grace (Romans 5, Ephesians 2) is fully operational, both as to formation, formulation and application,
	where one blessed Trinity of Godhead is (Isaiah 48:15ff., Colossians 1:15ff., John 8:58, II Corinthians 3:17, John 15:26), immutable (Psalm 102, Hebrews 13), who would have all come to the knowledge of the truth and be reconciled to Himself, who has foreknown His own apart from works and merit, and predestined them (II Timothy 1:8ff.),
	where the power of God is expressly affirmed in life and creation ( II Timothy 3:5, John 1:1-3, Hebrews 11:1-3, Matthew 19:3-6), according to divine declaration and not according to what cannot be proven from the Bible (Genesis 1-11)*4, a practice which merely plays chicken with the word of God (Proverbs 30:6), awaiting rebuke;
	where there in One in whom eternal life is an assured gift to faith (Ephesians 1, I John 5, John 5:24), based on Christ's work and His promises (John 10:9,27-28).

Some say, You have to have fellowship with people being saved, in order to pray with them and lead them to the Lord; but if they have not yet come, of what do you pray ? is it to urge ? and what fellowship is in that ? Must you pray in order to urge ? You could pray in their presence and hearing, but not WITH THEM until they are free to confess Christ (Romans 16:17). And if they have come, and the prayer is to articulate it, where is there fellowship here, except with a saved soul, a delightful occasion! So is it in the case of the Ethiopian eunuch, Acts 8:31-38. The point has merely been confused. It is God only who saves through faith by grace (John 6:65, Ephesians 2:1-8), and faith is personal, the matter between God and man.

Yes, it is where there is no other name, no other word, no other God; for before God, there was no God formed, nor will there be after Him (Isaiah 43:10-11), and salvation is ONLY of Him, It is not of human resources or recourse, not of the work of the will of sin-fallen man, but foreknown apart from works and merit, by God in His eternal penetration of all things, before man so much as first tread the earth, or sin found him (Ephesians 1:4, Romans 8:29ff., II Timothy 1:8ff.).

It is wrought by grace, found by sin-bearing on the part of another (Galatians 3), even Jesus Christ the Just One (Acts 3:14-15), the Prince of Life, , Lord of glory, only begotten Son of God (Luke 1:35, John 3:15-19), entrant alone in the race not for space, which He made (Colossians 1:15ff., John 1:1-3), but in the grant-giving of grace. It is meritorious grace, HIS merit, adventurous grace, HIS adventure, like an arrow (Isaiah 49:1-3), shot to the Cross, but yet one of flesh, targetting the bull's eye in His blood. And what is that target ? it is remission of sins by substitutionary atonement, to  all who believe, receive Him in faith, the pardon in peace, the reconciliation with just ground (I John 1:7ff.), with God, the grant to become children of God (John 1:12), the opening of the fountain (Zechariah 13:1) covering ALL who come to Him, the One in grace inviting ALL and with heart desiring them (Matthew 22, Colossians 1:19ff., I Timothy 2, Ezekiel 33:11).

If those who do not and will not believe, even when faced by Him as in John 8:24, will THEREFORE die in their sins, as in truth He declared, then  this is the more abundant tribute to truth, found in its foundation, where love and grace, mercy and goodness are and gain their name, where violation does not live, but life is given. Void that and you avoid grace, salvation and security. What would you ? someone builds a city and you wither outside it and curse the builder, who not only allows you in but invites you!

Again, those who prefer their own works to His, their own deeds to His, shut their eyes to His overwhelming truth and reality, ignore this crux of the Ages, this foretold focus for faith, who dismiss this deity, gain but their desire. Since there is THEN, in that case, NO excuse, what would you ? (John 15:21-25). Would you have them dragged vomiting into heaven! God is free, has instituted freedom, and though sin has complicated the application of grace, God in wisdom has overcome not only the provision of ground for grace, but righteousness in its administration, also by grace, that His love prevail, where mercy is, for all who in truth call upon His name. And what a name is that! It is ABOVE EVERY NAME which can be named, in the very heart of the Trinity, which bares and bears the glory, definitive of God Himself (Hebrews 1:1-3).

As Hebrews 2:1-2 declares:

"Therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard,
lest we drift away. For if the word spoken through angels proved steadfast,
and every transgression and disobedience received a just reward,
how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation..."

Drift is for those yet in the currents and cross-currents of this world, drawn away
by every wind of false teaching, from within or without. As Ephesians 4:14 exhorts:

"henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro,
and carried about with every wind of doctrine,
by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive"...

Destiny in Christ is for those who know Him, by faith enter by Him alone as the door (John 14:6, 10:9); for it is God who created man and not man God! and it is God who has procured and appointed salvation and not man in his sins, and God does not sleep (Psalm 121:3). Thus you find in Him utter security (John 10:27-28), for salvation is His business and He never fails (Zephaniah 3:5).

It is time brethren to be back with Christ as the SOLE NAME for salvation (Acts 4:11-12), the ONLY permitted name for aggregation of concepts biblically, and the Bible without adornments of PLUS or MINUS (Matthew 5:17-20, Proverbs 30:6, Galatians 1, II Timothy 3:16, I Cor. 2:9ff., I Peter 1:10ff., II Peter 2:19ff., Revelation 22:19-19). Let God be God and leave invention to  the imagination which defiles.

In God and in His word, there is NO shadow of intellectual or perspective problem, but all is resolved as noted in the volumes of the work, Light Dwells with the Lord's Christ, Who Answers Riddles and Where He is, Darkness Departs.

Here indeed there is light, foundational, functional, resolving, illuminating with brilliance, as if one had lost one's glasses, and then finding, saw readily, or had clouded one's eyes, and saw as if were snow flakes in the air, obscuring, and then it cleared. In Thy light, says the Psalmist, we see light! and so it is (Psalm 36:9).

Small wonder then that through Isaiah in speaking of their various idolatries, which resulted in gross treachery to children, as victims of idols, as now educationally in so much in so many lands, God declares (57:12),"I will declare your righteousness and your works, for they will not profit you," and again, observes of this calamity, "And one shall say,  'Heap it up! Heap it up! Prepare the way. Take the stumbling block out of the way of My people.' " Similarly Paul to Timothy (I Tim. 4:3), speaking of the evil then to come, and  cited for and sited in the "latter times" makes two things at once clear. Firstly, what is the situation to come; and secondly what to do about it!

As to the former, it is this, that in the latter times, now  fully come (Answers to Questions Ch. 5),  "some will depart from the faith,  giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy and having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from food." Romanism is ONE body where fame is placed in its imposition of prohibition on marriage (for priests, by mandate, not personal preference, as with Paul^*5), and of certain foods, at will. What however of his second point ?

Having made this revelation of what has now come to pass, with such diversions from normalcy, imposed, making many all  too vulnerable and others all  too abused, Paul gives advice.

He does not  simply rub his hands together.  No longer is there a theocracy so that law could expose such things. There are however faithful preachers like Timothy,  and what are they instructed to  do  ?

TELL PEOPLE, WARN THEM.

"If you instruct the brethren in these things,
you will be a good minister of Jesus Christ,
nourished in the words of faith and of the good doctrine
which you have carefully followed."

You must warn them of the vulnerability to such vast declines which are to become even a characteristic of the times moving to the end of the Age: warn them of their nature, of their specific kind. In the kingdom of heaven, you are not commended for  slackness but for vigilance; and when you set out on a spiritual army mission, though your weapons are spiritual, they do not lie idle! Thus when some, as now, even in hundreds of thousands find themselves drawn to return to this type of "departure" from the faith, you do not hesitate to remind of the trap, of the deception, of the falsity of doctrine, of the folly. It is like smoking. You CAN do it, and you then are well placed to rue it; but this, it does not damage the tissue of the lungs, but of the heart.

NOTES

*1

Investiture Contest. In Regal Rays of Revelation Ch. 11, we are shown the development in power grab. It is slightly revised for the present purpose.

Even though it was soon to declare UNAM SANCTAM (q.v.), asserting his right to rule all churches AND princes, the papacy was still not self-sufficient, even as a wholly worldly enterprise, LIKE BABYLON, using religion with great freedom, and combining many things profane with those better. It had to DEPEND on an EMPEROR, not of Rome, now, since that was "wounded", and the city had successfully been invaded by Goths, Visigoths and Vandals. It became a so-called Holy Roman Empire ruler, a new type of combination Emperor, in a new assocation of peoples.

The TENSION between pope and this emperor was one of the gravely comic phenomena of the Middle Ages, sometimes called the investiture Contest. YOU do not get crowned without ME, says the Pope. YOU do not get obedience from your people if I tell them you are a heretic, storms the Pope. This uneasy tension ruined the devilish advocacy of ONE WORLD without God, run by men in the NAME of religion. Not merely was there tweedledum, there was also tweedledee. It was a bifurcation, unstable and insecure. It did much evil, but under vairious forms of duress and uncertainty.

It is such a thing as this which is to be "healed", this deadly wound to the very imperial character of empire, aspiring to rule the world (as with Rome EXPLICITLY and CLEARLY and without apology), as is predicted to occur in Revelation 13:3. It took over one and one half millenia for this healing in the wounded beast, as the new EU arises, and there may be some expectation and it is what is coming quickly now (cf. SMR pp. 720ff..) Yet it is ruin nor restoration which adjoins! (Revelation 17:16).

Thus irony for Rome itself is that the healing is also to be a ruin; for depicted in Revelation 17 as the harlot on the back of the beast, vaingloriously adorned in her ceremonies and ‘beauty’ (cf. SMR p. 946ff.), is the fact that the beast with its various kings will grow weary of the harlot, indeed actually ‘hate’ her, and spoil and burn her. Removed from the beast's back, she will suffer for her prior post there! The fire appears in Revelation 18 with the appropriate emotions for such an end to such a being as the harlot had become.

After this, however, the Babylon phenomenon continues, ex-harlot, with ‘pure’ beast (cf. Revelation 17:11). The BEAST HIMSELF is the last integumental, basic exposition. It is no longer that king, this or that neck, head: now the beast does it in person. This of course is wholly agreeable with the ‘man of sin’ in II Thessalonians 2, with the ‘little horn’ of Daniel 7:8 and the antichrist of I John 2:18.
 

In other words, the harlot phenomenon, this ‘lady’ of uncertain morals whose pleasure has been to wallow in the blood, indeed drink it, of the slain saints, she is an additive of some force and long continuance; but she goes before Babylon, Mystery Babylon is quite done. The kings have "one hour" with the beast, before the beast’s own time comes. There is a fling before the finish. The harlot was serviceable for the kings (in that, figuratively, they had "committed fornication" with her, thus combining their various passions for power and rule in different dimensions, the secular with the spiritual). This she is no more. The beast will ‘go it alone’. Its end is not uncertain (Revelation 19:20).

*2

The noted Unam Sanctam of Pope Gregory makes such astounding claims.

From SMR p. 903, we have this.

The relation to Christianity is not so much tenuous, as by contradiction: Matthew 20:25-28. Even Christ the Lord, was wholly other than this... Nevertheless the relevant fact for our purpose is this: for hundreds of years, there continued the central European empire, complete with Emperor, whilst its appalling political-ecclesiastical power combinations lead to such horrors as the military attacks on the humble Waldensian saints, in the mountains of Italy. These were effected by 'religious' armies, sent without visible affection by the Pope, in the interests of his deviant doctrines and political pretensions by which he modestly claimed to rule the world.

Though Jesus Christ turned down the devil in the offer of just powers (Matthew 4:8-10), here in Europe was one who would use them, and that in Christ's name! Thus in the famed 'Bull', Unam Sanctam, Boniface VIII, pope, wholly contradicts Christ, as if by an antithetical and angry, carnal spirit, in bold style. Its vigour and virulence reminds one of the manner and approach of Satan, when tempting Christ in the wilderness (Matthew 4): always against and 'beyond' the word of God, that spirit sought to seduce. It has fared better with some who misuse the name of Christ than with the Master Himself; and false christs have indeed come, merely attesting once more the absolute mastery of Jesus Christ in His person OVER Satan - to whom so many fall, in predicting what was to come in serpentine seductions from the truth which - as He claimed - He was and is (John 14:6, 8:58). But let us taste for edification and awareness, the flavour of the papal literary liquor.

'Truly he who denies that the temporal sword is in the power of Peter, misunderstands...' declared this Pope. Speaking of swords, symbols of power and rule, one for the things temporal, or of this world, and one of things spiritual, he added: 'both are in the power of the church...' As to the temporal sword, that trifle, it is also in the power of the church, 'by kings and captains but at the will and by the permission of the priest' (Bettenson: Documents of the Christian Church, p. 160).

These absurd pretensions are like the words of a 'Peter' who, instructed to put up his sword in defence of Christ, the very Head of the Church, changed the record and not merely refused to do so, but seemed to imply that Christ should join him in a world beating parade of military force, or that he should stir up at the 'will' of Christ the rulers to employ their force at His will and fight those who would not. But Christ simply said. "Put up your sword " (Matthew 26:52), and later to Pilate, announced with His sublime authority:

My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world,
My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here... (John 18:36).

It follows with blessed simplicity that any 'kingdom' that is of this world, that does promote fighting for its will in military matters, is not Christ's.

Whose is it ? Revelation 13 is explicit here in terms of the coming world kingdom, and with Chapters 17:1-6 and 18 reveals what the above principles of Christ already make so clear. To insist, as is done in Unam Sanctam, that salvation requires obedience to the Pope, merely means that this other kingdom denies access to consistent Christians, for they are forbidden to so much as call any man on earth Master (Matthew 23:10); whereas the one able to send them unaided to hell is very much their Master.

Roman Canon Law has more to tell us ... (SMR pp. 951).

Roman canon law, for centuries, has enshrined the thoughts of Gregory VII that the killing of "an apostate, or a heretic, and an excommunicated man... is not murder, nay it is a good, a Christian action" (italics added). That decree, declares the highly honoured ex-priest Chinniquy, for many years a priest of Rome before becoming a Minister in the Presbyterian Church in Canada, "is incorporated in the canon law, which every priest must study, and which every good Catholic must follow."

After all, pope Boniface VIII amplified things a little with his two swords: the Pope's and the State's. Of these swords, he says this:

"the latter to be used for the Church, the former by the Church; the former in the hand of the priest, the latter by the hand of princes and kings, but at the nod and sufferance of the priest... ",

as it has been rendered. Picturesque word, that 'nod'.

*3

Blasphemy as declared by the Church of England in its famed creed, the 39 Articles of 1562, part of the Elizabethan Settlement of 1563  … The designated fables ? The declaration is made in Article XXX1, of these 39 Articles of the Church of England. It is this which  has provided this classical exposé  (cf. SMR p. 954); and whole choirs and literary choruses its justification. Cf. The Shadow of a Mighty Rock, pp. 886-888, 1032-1080, esp. 1033-1038, 1046-1053, 1086-1088H.

The applicable phrases re the Romanist mass,  in the Anglican Article XXXI, as "agreed upon by the archbishops and bishops of both provinces and the whole clergy ... in the year 1562 ... for the establishing of consent touching true religion" :

• "blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits".

*4

See Let God be God!  Ch. 12 as marked, and also re breach. This deals with a relatively recent case of downfall by imagination and doctrine by imagination.

*5

Paul presents the aspects for thought in I Corinthians 7:7-8, and 7:32, but whether some as Peter have wives or not (I Cor. 9:5), who are in the Christian ministry, is a matter left to God, to gifts that are given as He pleases, not at the option of man but of God. Paul notes the power to have a wife in this field, that it belongs to himself, but for his own individual part, this is something for which, unlike numbers of the apostles, he does not opt.