IV.THE PHILADELPHIAN CHURGH - (1500-1900 A.D.):

By examining this church in (Rev. 3:7-13) we see it is the only one of seven that God has nothing negative to say about. This church is commended for keeping the Word (vs. 8). This is the church of the Reformation and it is the one that produced the AV 1611.

I. Opposition to the Bible:

For years Rome had tried to suppress Bible reading and preaching by "exterminating" the heretics. With the flow of Greek literature, etc., westward as a result of the crusades there was a revival of interest in the Bible even within the Catholic Church. Consequently other, more subtle, measures has to be taken.

[1]. In 1199, Innocent III declared that Scripture should not be touched by uneducated men.
[2]. In 1229, the article of the Synod of Toulouse strictly forbid the Old and New Testaments to the laity either in the original language or in a translation that was not modified by papal or synodal action.
[3]. In Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella represented the strict Roman view and prohibited the translation of the Scriptures and the possession of copies.
[4]. Arundel, the English Archbishop, forbid the reading of Wycliffe's English version at the beginning of the 15th century.
[5]. Archbishop Bertholdt, followed this action in Mainz, by forbidding the circulation of the German Bible in 1486.
[6]. The Council of Constance (1415), which burnt John Huss and Jerome of Prague, condemned also the writings and the bones of Wycliffe, the first translator of the whole Bible into Enqlish.
[7]. In 1564, Pope Pius IV, would not allow layman to read the Bible (any one), except by special permission of the bishop or an inquisitor. This was repeated by Clement VIII (1598), Gregory XV (1622), Clement XI (1713), Bendedict XIV (1757). The Papal Syllabus of Pius IX (1864), classes "Societates Biblicoe" with socialism, communism and secret societies, calls them "pest frequently rebuked in the severest terms," and refers for proof to several Encyclicals from November 9, 1846, and August 10, 1863.
[8]. In 1543, the reading of the Scriptures was forbidden in England except to persons of "quality."
[9]. At the Synod of St. Andrews in 1529, the importation of Bibles into Scotland was forbidden.
[10]. In 1533, Geneva forbid its citizens to read Bibles in German or French and ordered all translations burnt.

 

II. Personalities Involved:

[1]. John Wycliffe (1320-1384) - Has been called "the Morning Star of the Reformation." Wycliffe's translation of the Bible into English was 200 years before the birth of Luther. It was taken from Jerome's Vulgate and like its model, contained many errors. Therefore the Reformation lingered. Wycliffe, himself, nominally a Catholic to the last, had hoped that the needed reform would come within the Catholic Church. In 1375 he published protests against papal supremacy and appealed to the authority of the Bible against that of church law and traditions. His followers were called Lollards.
[2]. John Huss (1369-1415) - Huss was a Bohemian reformer influenced by Wycliffe. He also made several attempts of reform within the Roman church. He was summoned to a general council in 1414 to answer charges of heresy, was "tried" condemned, and burnt at the stake in 1415. His death was not in vain as he had a great influence on Erasmus.
[3]. Erasmus (1469-1536) - Dr. David Otis Fuller has written:

"The Revival of Learning produced that giant intellect and scholar, Erasmus. It is a common proverb that "Erasmus laid the egg and Luther hatched it." The streams of Grecian learning were again flowing into the European plains, and a man of caliber was needed to draw from their best and bestow it upon the needy nations of the West. Endowed by nature with a mind that could do ten hours' work in one, Erasmus during his mature years in the earlier part of the sixteenth century, was the intellectual giant of Europe. He was ever at work, visiting libraries, searching every nook and corner for the profitable. He was ever collecting, comparing, writing and publishing. Europe was rocked from end to end by his books which exposed the ignorance of the monks, the superstitions of the priesthood, the bigotry, and the childish and coarse religion of the day. He classified the Greek manuscripts and read the Fathers.

While he lived, Europe was at his feet. Several times the King of England offered him any position in the kingdom, at his own price; the Emperor of Germany did the same. The Pope offered to make him a cardinal. This he steadfastly refused, as he would not compromise his conscience. In fact, had he been so minded, he perhaps could have made himself Pope. France and Spain sought him to become a dweller in their realm; while Holland prepared to claim him as her most distinguished citizen.

Book after book came from his hand. Faster and faster came the demands for his publications. But his crowning work was the New Testament in Greek. At last after one thousand years, the New Testament was printed (1516 A.D.) in the original tongue. Astonished and confounded, the world, deluged by superstitions, coarse traditions, and monkeries, read the pure story of the Gospels. The effect was marvelous. At once, all recognized the great value of this work which for over four hundred years (1516 to 1930) was to hold the dominant place in an era of Bibles. Translation after translation has been taken from it, such as the German, and English, and others.

Moreover, the text he chose had such an out-standing history in the Greek, the Syrian, and the Waldensian Churches, that it constituted and irresistible argument for and proof of God's providence. God did not write a hundred Bibles; there is only one Bible, the others at best are only approximations. In other words the Greek New Testament of Erasmus, known as the Received Text, is none other than the Greek New Testament which successfully met the rage of its pagan and papal enemies.

[4]. William Tyndale (1495-1536) - God, who foresaw the coming greatness of the English speaking world, prepared the man in advance to start the ball rolling. Tyndale went from Oxford to Cambridge to learn Greek under Erasmus. It was said of Tyndale that he was so skilled in seven languages, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, English and French, that whichever he spoke, you would suppose that it was his native tongue. Tyndale took the Greek text of Erasmus and translated it into English in 1525. According to Foxes Book Of Martyrs, when he was brought out for execution, and was being tied to the stake, he cried with a loud and earnest voice, Lord, open the king of England's eyes! He was then strangled, and his remains burnt to ashes. "
[5]. Martin Luther (1483-1546) - Luther did not start the reformation but gave it the push it needed. He was a Augustinian monk and Roman Catholic priest. Being well educated, Luther taught theology at Wittenberg. He was first aroused at the sale of indulgences and his "ninety five thesis" concentrated on them (1517.) Luther had no thought of breaking away from the Roman Catholic church initially, but eventually was forced to. He translated a German Bible from the Textus Receptus.
[6]. Ignatius Loyola - The Roman Catholic Church has 69 organizations of men, some of which have been in existence for over one thousand years. Of these we might name, the Augustinians, the Benedictines, the Capuchins, and the Dominicans. Each order has many members, often reaching into the thousands and tens of thousands. The Augustinians, for example (to which Luther belonged), numbered 35,000 in his day.

The men of these orders never marry but live in communities or large fraternity houses known as monastaries, which are for men and the convents are for women. Each organization exists for a distinct line of endeavor, and each, in turn, is directly under the order of the Pope. They overrun all countries and constitute the army militant of the Papacy. The monks are called the regular clergy, while the priests, bishops, and others who conduct churches are called the secular clergy. Let us see why the Jesuits stand predominantly above all these, so that the general of the Jesuits has great authority within all the vast ranks of the Roman Catholic clergy, regular and secular.

Within 35 years after Luther had nailed his thesis upon the door of the Cathedral of Wittenberg, and launched his attacks upon the errors and corrupt practices of Rome, the Protestant Reformation was thoroughly established. The great contributing factor to this spiritual upheaval was the translation by Luther of the Greek New Testament into German. The medieval Papacy awakened from its superstitious lethargy to see that in one third of a century, the Reformation had carried away two thirds of Europe.

In consternation, the Papacy looked around in every direction for help. If the Jesuits had not come forward and offered to save the situation, today there might not be a Roman Catholic Church. The founder of the Jesuits was a Spaniard, Ignatius Loyola, whom the Roman Catholic Church has canonized and made Saint Ignatius. He was a soldier in the war which King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain were waging to drive the Mohammedans out of Spain, about the time that Columbus discovered America.

Wounded at the siege of Pampeluna (1521 AD.), so that his military career was over, Ignatius turned his thoughts to spiritual conquests and spiritual glory. Soon afterwards, he wrote the book called Spiritual Exercises, which did more than any other document to erect a new papal theocracy and to bring about the establishment of the doctrine of the infallibility of the Pope. In other words, Catholicism since the Reformation is a new Catholicism. It is more fanatical and more intolerant.

Ignatius Loyola declared to the Pope that the Jesuits would capture the colleges and universities for the Papacy. The idea was was to gain control of instruction in law, medicine, science, education, and so weed out from all books of instruction, anything injurious to Roman Catholicism. He said, "We will mold the thoughts and ideas of the youth. We will enroll ourselves as Protestant preachers and college professors in the different Protestant faiths. Sooner or later, we will undermine the authority of the Greek New Testament (Received Text) and also the Old Testament Hebrew, which have dared to raise their heads against tradition. And thus we will undermine the Protestant Reformation."

About 1582, when the Jesuit Bible (Rheims-Douay) was launched in the "Counter-Reformation", the Jesuits dominated 287 colleges and universities in Europe. This corrupt Bible, based on the Vaticanus Text out of North Africa, and the King James Bible were published less than thirty years apart. The Rheims-Douay has been repeatedly changed in an attempt to approximate the King James.