The Theology of the Church of Rome

Narrator: Chris Genthree
Duration: 2min
 •  2 min. read  •  grade level: 9
Listen from:
• BibleTruthPublishers.com
We are now crossing the threshold of the thirteenth century. The great actors and the stirring times of the twelfth have passed away. The reflection is a solemn one. Beyond the line that separates the two states of being, it is well that we cannot pass. And were it not that the agitation of the twelfth century is really though remotely connected with the great Reformation of the sixteenth, it would possess but little interest to us in the nineteenth. But in these men and their times, we see the great currents of human thought and feeling which had their rise in the monastery, and their results in the civil and religious liberty which we now enjoy under the good providence of God.
A new generation, another class of men, now occupy the ground. The popes, the primates, the emperors, the monks, the philosophers, the demagogues, with whom we had become familiar, have made room for others. But whither are they gone? Where are they now? We only ask the question that we may be led to improve our own day and our own precious opportunities—that we may not have to lament with the prophet of old, "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." (Jer. 8:2020The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved. (Jeremiah 8:20).)
The right time has come, we believe, when the witnesses for God and His truth should have a special place in our history. They come prominently before us from the close of the twelfth century. But first of all it may be well to place before our readers certain theological definitions and usages of the Roman church at this time, for we shall find that by these the witnesses were judged, and the papacy gained its power over the lives and liberties of the saints of God.