...on Paisley

Here the co-author is Paisley, his words are not taken from discussion boards but from his own page or some Orangist one.

Is Paisley sane?*

by: hglundahl (36/M/N Spain)
03/14/05 07:29 amMsg: 10780 of 10784

Paisley says about monastic institutions:

The bulk of the statesmen of the present day do not understand Popery and from this, their ignorance, arises their fearlessness, but it requires little sagacity to foretell the consequences of a courage that proceeds from blindness. Did they know it better, they would dread it more. The rise of monasticism is not to be viewed as a light matter; it very materially contributes to the coherence of the Papal system, and to nutriment it-a fact which explains the solicitude of the Popish clergy in England; to promote the reestablishment of these institutions. Composed, as such establishments are, they cannot fail to prove centres of influence wherever they are introduced. A prior, a sub-prior, a procurator, a prefect, and sub-prefect, a sacristan, and other officers, with a strong body of "brethren," form no inconsiderable citadel in a Protestant country.

Five paragraphs earlier he had stated:

But it was not thus that the Son of God lived, nor thus that He commanded his Apostles to spend their days on earth after his departure. His people, He tells them, are the "salt of the earth;" but that salt may operate it must be brought into contact with the object; He tells them, they are the "lights of the world;" but if lights are to be of any use to mankind, they must not be placed in pits, or under bushels, in dens or caves of the earth. They might as well be put out at once for any practical purpose that can flow from them.

Which is it? Are monks putting their light under a bushel or are they a powerful barrack of influence?

Does Paisley know the Bible?

by: hglundahl (36/M/N Spain)
03/14/05 07:48 amMsg: 10781 of 10784

Paisley:

For Presbyterians of all others to discount the perpetual danger from Romanism is thoroughly thoughtless and rash. We believe that the Christianity left by the apostles to the primitive church was essentially what we now call Presbyterian and Protestant. Prelacy and popery speedily began to work in the bosom of that community and steadily wrought its corruption and almost its total extirpation. Why should not the same cause tend to work the same result again? Are we truer or wiser Presbyterians than those trained by the apostles? Have the enemies of truth become less skillful and dangerous by gaining the experience of centuries? The popish system of ritual and doctrine was a gradual growth, which, modifying true Christianity, first perverted and then extinguished it.

Holy Writ says, Gospel acc to St Matthew:

28:16 And the eleven disciples went into Galilee, unto the mountain where Jesus had appointed them. 28:17 And seeing them they adored: but some doubted. 28:18 And Jesus coming, spoke to them, saying: All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. 28:19 Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. 28:20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.

and again:

16:16 Simon Peter answered and said: Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God. 16:17 And Jesus answering, said to him: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven. 16:18 And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 16:19 And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven.

Now, it would be easy to argue from the eleven to episcopacy, since simple presbyters were the 72 disciples, not the 12. Or from Simon Peter to popery. But what is glaring from BOTH accounts is that, if the Apostolic Church was indeed presbyterian, as Paisley claims, it cannot possibly have been overcome with romanism. For that would mean that the presbyters succeeding the Apostles had at one time or other ceased to be Christians, that Christ had at one time or other ceased to be with his apostles, and again, since romanism is supposed to be the work of Hell, that Hell had vanquished, if not eternally, at least for about 1000 years, from times of Pope Gregory the Great at least to that of Zwingli, Bucer, Calvin and Knox, the original presbyterian church that Paisley believes in.

If the original Apostolic Church was indeed presbyterian, Christ has not kept His promises. But if Christ has kept His promises, if He intended to and has been able to, if He was indeed God, then the original Apostolic Church must have been preserved in its original edition, with whatever changes in mere externals. And then Romanism, as Paisley understands the word, or its eastern twin, or the Monophysite he also condemns, or the Nestorians, rather than the Presybterians, be the one original Apostolic Church.
Posted as a reply to: Msg 10780 by hglundahl

Does Paisley know history?

by: hglundahl (36/M/N Spain)
03/14/05 08:10 amMsg: 10782 of 10784

Paisley:

(2) The Reformation was an assertion of liberty of thought. It asserted for all mankind, and secured for the Protestant nations, each man's right to think and decide for himself upon his religious creed and his duty toward his God, in the fear of God and the truth, unhindered by human power, political or ecclesiastical. Here, again, a part of our Protestantism perverted the precious truth until the manna bred worms, and stank.

What about the Penal Laws:

7.012 Ann c.6 (1703):

An Act to prevent the further Growth of Popery

Sec. 6. Every papist shall be disabled to purchase any lands, or any rents or profits of lands, or any lease of lands, other than for a term not exceeding 31 years, whereon a rent not less than two thirds of the improved yearly value, at the time of making such lease, shall be reserved during such term.

And all estates or terms or other interests acquired after the 24th of March, 1703, other than such 31-year leases, by or on behalf of papists, shall be void.

7.022 Ann c.6 (1703): An Act to prevent the further Growth of Popery

Sec. 7. No papist shall inherit or take any other interests in land owned by a Protestant, unless the papist shall conform to the protestant religion within six months of the time at which he would be entitled to said lands. But during the life of such papist the nearest protestant relation shall enjoy such land without being accountable for the profits, subject only to charges for the maintenance of the children of such disabled papist as the chancellor shall see fit to allow until they reach the age of 18.

7.0212 Ann c.6 (1703): An Act to prevent the further Growth of Popery

Sec. 8. Provided that if any papist that would be entitled to the same by virtue of this act, or the disability of another papist, shall afterwards become protestant, and continue as such, he shall be intitled to enjoyment of the land as he would have been if he had been a protestant when the disability fell on such other papist. And the person enjoying the same may lease the land, or any part thereof, for 21 years or less, without fine, reserving the best improved rent that can be got, but if such person commit waste on the said lands, the disabled party may recover damages for the waste.

7.032 Ann c.6 (1703):An Act to prevent the further Growth of Popery

Sec. 9. Provided that the protestant wife of such disabled papist shall have her dower and thirds as at common law.et c

Freedom of Catholic Thought - payed by pauperism.

Posted as a reply to: Msg 10781 by hglundahl

Is Paisley a Communist?

by: hglundahl (36/M/N Spain)
03/14/05 08:26 amMsg: 10783 of 10784

"Intelligent students of church history know that one main agency for converting primitive Christianity first into prelacy and then into popery was unlimited church endowments."

Now, that is a point I have answered in my message Does Paisley know the Bible. An intelligent student of church history that is also a Christian cannot subscribe to the idea of primitive Christianity being converted to prelacy and popery: because there is no primitive Christian Church left without it, and because the Lord promised that the primitive Church would always be there. But let us hear him on the history of Church property:

"As soon as Constantine established Christianity as the religion of the State, ecclesiastical persons and bodies began to assume the virtual (and before long the formal) rights of corporations. They could receive bequests and gifts of property, and hold them by a tenure as firm as that of the fee-simple. These spiritual corporations were deathless. Thus the property they acquired was all held by the tenure of mortmain.4 When a corporation is thus empowered to absorb continually, and never to disgorge, there is no limit to its possible wealth.

"The laws of the Empire in the Middle Ages imposed no limitations upon bequests; thus, most naturally, monasteries, cathedrals, chapters, and archbishoprics became inordinately rich. At the Reformation they had grasped one-third of the property of Europe. But Scripture saith, Where the carcass is, thither the eagles are gathered together. Wealth is power, and ambitious men crave it. Thus this endowed hierarchy came to be filled by the men of the greediest ambition in Europe, instead of by humble, self-denying pastors; and thus it was that this tremendous money power, arming itself first with a spiritual despotism of the popish theology over consciences, and then allying itself with political power, wielded the whole to enforce the absolute domination of that religion which gave them their wealth. No wonder human liberty, free thought, and the Bible were together trampled out of Europe."When the Reformation came, the men who could think saw that this tenure in mortmain had been the fatal thing. Knox, the wisest of them, saw clearly that if a religious reformation was to succeed in Scotland the ecclesiastical corporations must be destroyed. They were destroyed, their whole property alienated to the secular nobles or to the State (the remnant which Knox secured for religious education); and therefore it was that Scotland remained Presbyterian. When our American commonwealths were founded, statesmen and divines understood this great principle of jurisprudence, that no corporate tenure in mortmain, either spiritual or secular, is compatible with the liberty of the people and the continuance of constitutional government."

This tenet of a Church being corrupted by rich prelates - as if they were not outnumbered by far by all the poor priests, including some bishops and abbots, and as if those could not impose a moral standard on richer prelates by virtue of ecclesiatical dignity - which is not based on the riches attached to it - and as if none of the prelates that handled riches were chosen from among men who had chosen poverty - quite a few of them were, this tenet is shared by communists.

Now, depriving the Church of its legal rights does not abolish the riches: it merely places them into other hands, in the Scottish case the Scots Nobility, that "reclaimed" gifts given by their ancestors, in the Communist case by a party "reclaiming" for the people riches built by their labour. Obviously, whatever otherwise may distinguish Paisley from Castro, both sympathise with Church despoilers and murderers as the millionaire regents of James I or Lenin and Trotsky.

Posted as a reply to: Msg 10782 by hglundahl

Are other Protestants sincere?

by: hglundahl (36/M/N Spain)
03/14/05 08:50 amMsg: 10784 of 10784

I have caught Paisley contradicting himself on the matter of monasticism within five pragraphs of a text about monasteries and convents. Monks are on the one hand in theory disobeying Christ's order to be the salt of the earth, on the other one in practise too salty for his taste.

I have caught him giving a Church history that involves coontradiction of Christ's promises in Gospel of St Matthew.

I have caught him telling a history about Protestantism laying down the Principle of Free Thought, when in fact his own Orange heroes punished Papists for their exercise of thought in remaining Papists, no doubt on the principle that people who are regarded as enslaved to something bad (as the Orangists regarded Popery no less than African animism) may as well enjoy external slavery by a "good" state as well - a principle which would deprive every one caught in his vices by officials disapproving of them or him of every legal right.

I have caught him defend the plunder of the Church on lines strikingly similar to Communism.

Whether he and his ilk are each one a sincere fanatic or a hypocrite, I do not care to judge. The question is, are other kinds of Protestants sincere? Are the "Catholics" who claim any Protestant less virulent than him to be influenced by the Holy Ghost sincere?

They dare not say, that Romanism ceased to be Christian, and yet they say their Christian conscience forbids them to accept Romanism. They will not say monasticism is putting the light under the bushel, they will admit it practises the Sermon on the Mount, and yet they will defend a denomination that has forbidden monkish vows, as if possible individual or even widespread abuses - as they claim there were - would have justified such a prohibition. They will not brag about Protestant religion being historically the origin and defence of liberty of thought, though Voltaire quoted Luther, and yet they will be annoyed or even upset if a Catholic does not subscribe either to the excellence or the predominantly Protestant origin of such. They will not say - unlike Communists, and unlike Paisley carping at US tax exemption for churches - they would despoil the Church again, if it became rich, but they will carp at the riches of the Church as if they justified the Reformation.

And the Catholics with which they hold ecumenic dialogue tend to basically admit all this shilly-shally shuffling of words as genuine friendship in Christ and as genuine good will.** And they feel they owe them some compensation, some giving up on Catholic, if not doctrine, at least practise.

Posted as a reply to: Msg 10783 by hglundahl

*Apparently Ian Paisley was sane - he was quoting someone.
**It might be that they simply do not judge and I was judging too much when writing this