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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 42

Is the Church of Rome a Branch of the Church of Christ; or, is It Old Heathenism Under a Christian Name?

page 13

Is the Church of Rome a Branch of the Church of Christ; or, is It Old Heathenism Under a Christian Name?

The Rev. Mr. Chiniquy said—Dear Christian friends, I have to speak on a very solemn subject to-night. Some time ago the Roman Catholic Archbishop of this city asked the question, "Are the Protestant Churches a branch of the Church of Christ?" and he replied, "No!" I will put the question, "Is the Church of Rome a branch of the Church of Christ, or is it only old Heathenism under a Christian name?" and with the help of God I will prove to you that she is an idolatrous Church; that long ago she threw away the true worship of Christ; that the Pope is nothing else but a man who has gone to Rome and stolen there from the temples of the Pagans their Jupiter Tonans, and written on the forehead of that false God the sacred name of Jesus Christ: and that he has presented that idol to the world, under the name of the Saviour of the world. I do not come here to abuse the Roman Catholics, I would prefer to have my tongue cut out and eaten by the dogs, than to speak against the Roman Catholics. No! I come here to tell them the sacred truth, the saving truth; and not only to give them the truth, but to prove it. In the Church of Rome there are many good things which I admire. In many things the Roman Catholics are your superiors, Protestants! I have travelled a great deal, in England, Scotland, Ireland, France, all over Europe, and the continent of America, and I am sure that everywhere I have been, the Roman Catholics are more in earnest for their faith, though it is a false faith, than you are for the true religion. They consider that their goods, their fortune, their time, their life, are not theirs, but belong to God. Everything they have they will put at the feet of the priest. The only thing they have in their minds, the only desire of their hearts, is that their Church should rule the world. And it is because they are true to their principles, and you are not true to yours, that God permits them to have so much power. It is only by miraculous operation of the Grace of God that the Church of Rome will be conquered. In the United States they are gaining ground rapidly, because they are more in earnest for their Church. In England, and in old Scotland too, they are gaining ground. I do not know how they stand here, but I leave it to you to see if they are your superiors in zeal and devotedness to their principles. I fear at the last day that when the Roman Catholics are compared with you Protestants, it will be found, as a general thing, that they have, been more in earnest, more zealous, and have made more sacrifices for their Church that you have for yours. Now, my friends, the Church of Rome speaks of Christ. His name is always on her lips. Beautiful hymns in His honour are sung in her temples. No doubt some of you when you heard I was going to speak of the Church of Rome as an idolatrous church, thought I was going too far, and that I exaggerated, and was uncharitable. My friends, at my age, when I expect every day that God will call me to give an account of my administration, I do not exaggerate. Every word is solemn under such circumstances. I speak to you in the presence of God the words of truth. And I hope, if there be any Roman Catholics here to-night, that they will, with the grace and mercy of God, understand me. In the Church of Rome they worship a Christ, but it is a false Christ. They pray to a Christ; they kneel down before a Christ; they adore him as the Son of God; but he is a false Christ, an idol. You remember that our Saviour said, "If any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs and false Prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they should deceive the very elect: wherefore, if they shall say unto you. Behold He is in the desert, go not forth: behold He is in the secret chambers, believe it not." Matthew, chap, xxiv., verses 23 to 26. Christ comes to warn us that in these latter days there would be false Christs, who would establish such a beautiful religion, and do such wonderful things, that even the elect would be in danger of being deceived. Now, my friends, where is the church which constantly speaks of miracles and of her marvellous deeds? Is it not the Church of Rome? Tell me where is the church which constantly boasts of her miracles, besides the Church of the Pope. I have seen in that church wonderful things, things which I considered miraculous. I even had the reputation of having performed several miracles. And at the time, I was so completely deceived, that I believed them to be miracles. It is easy to know that grand, marvellous, powerful establishment, which is so wise, so full of able and wise men, that she deceives almost the elect. Our Saviour says these false Christs will have three characters, and the Christ adored by the Church of Rome possesses these three characters. The first character is that, generally speaking, the false Christs will live in a deserted place, in a desert; the second is, that page 14 they will sometimes be here, sometimes be there; and the third character is, that they will dwell in secret chambers. Now, I will show you as clearly as that two and two make four, that these Christs are nothing else but the Christs of the Church of Rome. I will now tell you how the Christ of the Church of Rome is made every day by the priest. When I was a priest, I have made it thousands of times. How many times I have told my servant girl that I had no more good gods in my tabernacle, and requested her to make me some wafers. She used to, first, mix some flour and water into dough, which she would, then, place between two warm irons, and cut into wafers of different sizes. These I would take, perhaps two hundred at a time, and laying them on what is called the altar, I would pronounce over them these five magic words—"Hoc est enim corpus meum." And I had to believe that as soon as the last words were uttered, each wafer was Jesus Christ, the Great God who had created me! My God who, when incarnated, had shed his blood to pay my debts! My God who, between heaven and earth, on Calvary, had died to save the world! And I believed it. I was an honest man in my belief, and the priests of Rome are honest in their frightful blindness. After I had knelt down and adored the God whom I had made, I raised it above my head, and said to the people, "Come and adore your God, made man, for you, who died on Calvary to save you." And the poor blind people fell down on their knees, brought their faces to the ground, and worshipped the god I had made, with the help of my servant girl. I used to put five or six of these little gods into a small silver box, which I carried everywhere when I was leaving the city. These were to be given to the sick and the dying whom I might visit. When Mr. Donohoe fell sick at one end of the village, I had to go and give him one of my Christs, and the next day, when Bridget O'Brien fell sick at the other end of the village, I had to carry her one of these Christs. So this Christ of Rome was here to-day and there to-morrow; to-day he was at one end of the village, and now he was in my pocket. When the poor deluded Roman Catholics were hearing that I was carrying their Christ to the northern part of the town, they were rushing there to adore him; and the next day they rushed to the southern part of the town when they heard that I was carrying him there. So you see the first part of the prophecy was complete. Christ said, "When they tell you Christ is here or there, do not believe it." But the Pope says, Believe it." When the Pope says Christ is at the northern end of Sydney, the poor Roman Catholics run there and adore him; and when he says he is at the southern end, they rush there and give him worship; and they fly to the west and the east to worship their Christ. Now mind, I do not say this to turn the Roman Catholics into ridicule. I say, in the presence of Almighty God, those who have eyes to see let them see, those who have ears to hear let them hear, let them use their intelligence, let them search their Bible and see what it says. The second character of the false Christs of Rome is, that they will remain in a deserted place. Now, there is not a more deserted place in the world than a church. People go there to pray, but nobody remains there, nobody makes their home there. As soon as service is over the church is deserted, and the poor Christ is alone in a deserted place. The third character of the false Christ is, that he will dwell in a secret chamber. Here is the great test by which we know the false character of the Christ of Rome. When I had finished saying my mass and had put a few wafers in my little silver box, I put the rest, sometimes a hundred, into a secret chamber, which is called the tabernacle, and of which I had the key. Perhaps some of you will not believe what I tell you, but I will force you to believe. Let any one of you go to the Bishop of Sydney to-morrow morning, and say to him, "Chiniquy has come to give us a lecture, but we fear he is crazy. He has told us such strange things about your religion, that we cannot believe them. Will you please come into your church and answer us some questions we will put!" As a gentleman he will go with you to his cathedral, and when you arrive before the altar, look up, and you will see a beautiful little door, which is a masterpiece in its way. All that is rich and precious, and beautiful, is put on that door. Ask the Bishop if there is a secret chamber behind that door, and he will answer, yes. Then ask him if there is anybody in that chamber, or what is the name of the personage who is in it. He will tell you that Jesus Christ is there. You will say, "We presume, sir, that you mean that it is something to represent Christ, some memorial of Him. You do not wish us to believe that it is Jesus Christ Himself, who is there in person." The Bishop will answer, "Yes sir, it is Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the living Christ, the Son of God who died on Calvary for you." If the Bishop does not say this, I consent to be hung in your city to-morrow. Thus you will hear, not from the lips of Chiniquy, but from a Romish Bishop, that the awful prophecy of Christ is accomplished. You will hear from the lips of that Bishop, against whom I have not a word, to say, except that he is terribly in the wrong, as I was, that the false Christs foretold by the Saviour of the world are worshipped at your door, that they reign over multitudes, and are dragging them to perdition. Now, my friends, not a page 15 priest will dare to come before me and discuss this matter. I have challenged them everywhere, but not one has dared to show his head. They are mute. They know I have the right end of the stick. My friends, you are laying the foundation of a mighty country here, nearly as large as Europe, and richer than Europe, with a climate more beautiful than that of Europe. Sooner or later the overflow of Europe will come here, the working man as well as the man of culture and wealth. And my mission here is to help you to lay a good foundation for this future great country. And out of regard for you and your country, I will have done that which I have never done before. I have brought here the machine with which the gods of Rome are made. [The rev. gentleman here showed to the audience the apparatus which, in ignorance of the technical term, we will call the heating iron.] He explained again the whole process of the manufacture of the gods of Rome. The apparatus consists of two small slabs of steel, about six inches long, four inches broad, and a half an inch thick. On the inner side of one are engraved two circles, about three inches in diameter, and two about one and a quarter inches in diameter. Each circle surrounds a figure of Christ on a cross. To each of the slabs is affixed an iron hand, ahout thirty inches long, and these cross each other, and are united about four inches from the slabs. In short the whole apparatus has the appearance of a huge ungainly looking pair of pincers, with the nipping part flattened. This heating iron having been warmed in the fire, the dough is placed on it, the handles are compressed, and what went in as a bit of sticky dough, emerges as an orthodox wafer, bearing an impression of Christ on a cross, and only requiring the five magic words of the priest to transform it into the body and blood, bones and divinity of Jesus Christ. The scraps of dough not used in the manufacturing process, the rev. gentleman explained, were generally eaten by his servant girl, who was very fond of them. He also showed some wafers which he had made, and informed the audience that the larger ones were for the priests, and the smaller ones for the people. He then said—What I am doing is more serious than you may think, as by the laws of the Church of Rome I am liable to be burned to death for my action. In Montreal they tried to kill me. Calvin and Knox did not dare to do this, but I think it is a splendid argument to bring against the Church of Rome. I have made these gods publicly, as a priest of Rome. I have received from the Pope the power to change these wafers into the Christ of Rome. When in Montreal, a little more than a year ago, I published in the press that I would publicly make the gods of Rome, and unmake them, and there would be a hand-to-hand battle between Chiniquy and the Christs of Rome, and that I would show to the poor deluded Roman Catholics that their Christ is nothing but a contemptible idol. When this was published, the greater part of the Protestants in Montreal trembled, because the news went round like lightning that the Roman Catholics would kill me; and, of course, many others who would come to defend my life would be killed. And the Press, even the religious Protestant Press, too, said I was going too far, that there would be a riot and bloodshed, and that I would be killed. I said, "Let riots come. Let the blood run to the knees in your streets. Let the City of Montreal be razed to the ground. Let Chiniquy be slaughtered; but let the Gospel be preached" (Cheers.) "My life is nothing," said I, "but three hundred years have passed since the days of the Reformation, and this argument has never been used. Nobody has dared to use it, because there is the penalty of death attached to it; but I do not care about dying." Well, you have never seen such an uproar as there was in the city. More than ten times they attempted to kill me. In the middle of the week I met a tall gentleman in the street, a stranger to me, and evidently a French Canadian. He stopped me and asked, "Are you Chiniquy the priest who has left his religion?" I said, "Yes, sir, I am Chiniquy, but I have not left my religion, I have left the religion of the Pope. My religion is the religion which Christ brought to me." He was enraged, and said, "You have only eight days to live." "Ah!" I said, "my friend, I am very happy to know that. You are not sure you have eight days to live. I thought this morning I might die to-day, but I am glad I have seven more days to live." (Laughter.) He saw the joke, and went away ashamed. Then the Roman Catholic young men of Montreal went to their priest and asked if they had permission to kill me. The priest said, "Yes, we have admonished Chiniquy twice, but as he has refused to come back to the Church of Rome you may kill him." Well, they put at their head a young man, nobly born, who had just finished his studies with immense success. He had won all the gold medals of the college, was a fine singer, and was the pet of the priests. He used to go to confession and to mass, and was a really pious young man according to Rome. These young men got him to go at their head, and they said, "Jean, if that infamous Chiniquy dares to make the wafers and destroy them, we will kill him, and you must go with us." And he went willingly. The next Sabbath, when I went to the church, I found it crammed, and thousands outside who could page 16 not enter. With difficulty I passed through their ranks to the pulpit. Then, taking my Bible, I pointed out the abominable idolatry of the Church of Rome, and that the second commandment had forbidden man to make his God; and I showed them that their Church was the false Church mentioned in the prophecy. I said, "Your priests have told you that if such a wicked man as I dare to show any disrespect to your Christ, the wafer; if I dare to profane it, and if I dare to pronounce the holy words of consecration, there will be great wonders, and thunder and lightning, and God will punish me with instant death." The Bishop was almost sure of that, as he had engaged a hundred men to kill me. I said, "My friends, attention! In the books of the Church of Rome, it says a priest has always the power to change the wafer into your Christ, and that no Pope can take that power from him, even if he should leave the Church. I now use that power, and you will not hear any thunder coming to crush me." Directly I pronounced these words over the wafers, of which I had two or three thousand before me, forty or fifty Roman Catholics cried out, thinking the church would fall on them, and rushed out; when they saw the thunder did not roar and crush me, they came back to hear the rest. I said, "Now, this wafer is your God, is your Christ, but I will show you your Christ is a very feeble personage in the presence of the big Chiniquy; and taking my knife I cut it into a thousand pieces. And I said, "Your church tells you that if the wafer breaks, there are as many Christs as pieces; so you see I have made you about a thousand Christs of Rome." I was not killed, no thunder or lightning came, and during the rest of the service I spoke kindly to the Roman Catholics, without any bitterness. They were silent and respectful. I went through the crowd, and nobody touched me, and I saw tears trickling down many faces. What was the result of the evening's service? The next morning, when the church-bell rang for mass, Jean's father, who was a rich man, called him to accompany him to church; but Jean said, "I will not go any more, father, as I do not believe a man can make Christ with a wafer." "Oh! my God!" said the father, "you have been to hear that impostor Chiniquy, he has destroyed you. Oh, my son, you are lost!" The son said, "Don't trouble yourself, father, Chiniquy is not an impostor. He has shown that we are a lot of fools in the Church of Rome to believe a man can make his God out of a wafer. I am not lost, father; Jesus Christ is my salvation, I will follow him." The father said, "I will go and hear Chiniquy, and take his address word for word: and I will show you he is an impostor, that he is against the Scriptures, and the Holy Fathers." The son pressed the father to come to hear me the next Sabbath, and he promised if his father could show him Chiniquy was wrong, he would go back to the Church of Rome. Next Sabbath, the father, a man of ahout sixty, was there; he was a fine-looking old man, well educated, and a real gentleman. I gave out a very touching hymn, and before it was finished I could see tears in his eyes. He had never heard our beautiful hymns. Already the grace of God was coming upon that honest man. During my prayer, the tears still trickled down his cheeks, and when I spoke, his heart was completely melted. At the conclusion he came to me, and with tears of joy, he said, "Mr. Chiniquy, may God bless you, you have opened my eyes. I see we are miserable idolators." More than a hundred young men were converted by those two addresses. The Protestants who had condemned me, came and said that it was the best argument I could use. The Jesuits went to the judge the next day, and said that, as the law of the land was the French law, I was liable to be hung and burned for having profaned the host; and they wished that law put into effect. The judge said, "Yes, that is the law; but I would advise you not to hang Chiniquy yet; there are too many Orangemen in the city." (Cheers.) And they have not hung me yet. (Laughter and cheers.) Now, friends, I will make a proposition to you. You know I want to build a church for a congregation of converts, in the place of the one which the Roman Catholics burned down. I am no beggar, I have been a rich man; but I do not want a cent, for myself. Now, to everyone who will give me, say half-a-crown for my Church, I will give one of the large wafers, and to everyone who gives a shilling, I will give one of the smaller ones. I do not wish to turn the affair into ridicule; but it is that you may see with your own eyes, and touch with your hands, an idol of Rome, and that you may put an end to the boasting, priestly arrogance, which says that out of the Church of Rome there is no salvation, and put an end to the insulting name of heretic by which they call you. Put one of these wafers in a public place, and your children will learn what the Church of Rome is. Thousands of Roman Catholics have been converted by this argument. It is an argument which is seen. It is not a metaphysical argument, it is a tangible one; it is what is called one of the brutal arguments of facts. Now, my friends, in conclusion: Go to the Roman Catholics, speak to them kindly, and with words of charity. Don't put to them the question which has often been put to me, "How is it that you and so many others of intelligence could believe such foolishness?" It was because I was blind. You know that page 17 Christ opened the eyes of a young man once. 'The priests of Jerusalem asked him how it was done. He said, "I don't know. All that I know is that a man called Jesus passed by me and touched my eyes, and now I see. I know I was blind, and that now my eyes are opened." Well, I was born blind; I was raised in the dark region of death; but one day Jesus passed by me and opened the eyes of my soul, and I saw; and I ask you to bless Him for ever for His kindness to His unprofitable servant.