Union of Paganism and Christianity

The Roman Catholic Church, uniting paganism and Christianity, and, like paganism, misrepresenting the character of God, has resorted to practices no less cruel. Instruments of torture compelled assent to her doctrines. Dignitaries of the church studied to invent means to cause the greatest possible torture and not end the life of those who would not concede to her claims. In many cases the sufferer hailed death as a sweet release.HF 348.2

For Rome's adherents she had the discipline of the scourge, of hunger, of bodily austerities. To secure the favor of Heaven, penitents were taught to sunder the ties which God has formed to bless and gladden man's earthly sojourn. The churchyard contains millions of victims who spent their lives in vain endeavors to repress, as offensive to God, every thought and feeling of sympathy with their fellow creatures.HF 348.3

God lays upon men none of these heavy burdens. Christ gives no example for men and women to shut themselves in monasteries in order to become fitted for heaven. He has never taught that love must be repressed.HF 348.4

The pope claims to be the vicar of Christ. But was Christ ever known to consign men to prison because they did not pay Him homage as the King of heaven? Was His voice heard condemning to death those who did not accept Him?HF 349.1

The Roman Church now presents a fair front to the world, covering with apologies her record of horrible cruelties. She has clothed herself in Christlike garments, but she is unchanged. Every principle of the papacy in past ages exists today. The doctrines devised in the dark ages are still held. The papacy that Protestants now honor is the same that ruled in the days of the Reformation, when men of God stood up at the peril of their lives to expose her iniquity.HF 349.2

The papacy is just what prophecy declared that she would be, the apostasy of the latter times. See 2 Thessalonians 2:3, 4. Beneath the variable appearance of the chameleon she conceals the invariable venom of the serpent. Shall this power, whose record for a thousand years is written in the blood of the saints, be now acknowledged as a part of the church of Christ?HF 349.3