Why We Resist The Doctrines Of The Church of Rome
Part 8 in a series of articles by A.G. Ashdown, from The Protestant Alliance
Reproduced by Manchester Orange Order under kind permission from The Protestant Alliance.
THE WORSHIP OF THE VIRGIN MARY
This has become the great feature of the modern Roman Church. Pope John Paul II was deeply committed to it and dedicated the whole world to the Virgin. In his native Poland he was very devoted to the Black Virgin of Jasna Gora and her shrine. It is a Biblical principle that all worship belongs to God. This is clearly seen in
Revelation 19:10 and 22:9. However the Roman Church has elevated the Virgin Mary into a position of deity, as the mother of God. This title was first applied to her at the Council of Ephesus in 413 A.D. Originally it was so worded to indicate that the Lord Jesus, although born of a woman, was truly Divine. She was the one who bore a Divine Son, but was only the mother of His humanity. The Roman Church uses this title to indicate that Mary is the mother of God. This is totally unscriptural. The Bible never refers to her after the birth of Jesus as the Virgin Mary, but as Mary the mother of Jesus. Scripture teaches that the mother of our Saviour lived a normal married life with Joseph and was the mother of his four other sons as well as of an unspecified number of daughters (
Mark 6:3 and Matthew 13:55).
A LYING IMAGE
The Pieta in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome illustrates clearly the departure of the Roman Church from the Biblical view of the mother of our Saviour. In that remarkable piece of sculpture by Michael Angelo, Mary is depicted as a beautiful young woman of not more than 20 years of age at the most. She is holding the body of her thirty-three year old Son in her arms. She would have been by the time of our Lord’s death in later middle life. If she had married early, before her sixteenth birthday, not uncommon in the society in which she lived, her age would have been about forty-nine years. Having lived the life of a humble peasant woman, the wife of the carpenter, and having a large family she would have been a matronly figure.
THE PAGAN ORIGINS
In the New Testament there is no mention of Mary after her recorded presence with the disciples in the upper room in
Acts 1:14. In spite of the fact that the Saviour, from the cross, committed His mother into the keeping of the disciple John there is no mention of her in his Epistles, Peter and Paul are likewise silent and even Jude, who is regarded as one of the brothers of our Lord, makes no reference to her. It is clear from the writings of the early church fathers that in the earliest period of church history she was not venerated in the Roman Catholic way. When the worship of saints began it was confined to those who had suffered martyrdom. Mary died a natural death. The superstition began as the church corrupted after the conversion of Constantine the Great and the adoption of the Christian religion by the Roman Empire as a state religion. As a result of this, large numbers of Pagan Priests professed conversion and brought into the church their pagan superstitions. One of the most universal of these was the worship of the “Queen of Heaven”. She was the goddess worshipped in the groves in ancient Israel, often coupled with the worship of Baal. The word translated “grove” from the Hebrew of the Old Testament is generally “Ashera”. It is identical with Ashtaroth, Astarte of the Greeks and Venus of the Romans. She was generally depicted with a child in her arms. Cakes were offered to her and worship of her was forbidden and condemned by Jeremiah
(Jeremiah 7:18. 44:17-19,25).
A LIVING VIRGIN, A DEAD CHRIST
Wherever one comes in contact with Romanism there is this elevation of Mary at the expense of Christ. The Christ of Romanism is a dead Christ on the crucifix. The Madonna is beautiful young woman, in modern Roman art depicted with twelve stars in a circle round her head. The stars are the symbol of the European Community which is under the Treaty of Rome.
St. Alfonso Liguori, a Roman Catholic doctor of theology, wrote a book that was much approved by the curia entitled The Glories of Mary. It was very popular and contained some of the most extravagant stories of the virtues of Mary and how prayers to her were answered more speedily and completely than those offered in any other way. The most awful claims were made that “Mary is the peacemaker of sinners”. This is an insult to the mediatorial work of our Saviour. Mary is held up to be more able to secure the salvation of sinners than our beloved Lord. Such statements are totally contrary to the teaching of Scripture and insult our Lord, belittling Him.
They destroyed the real teaching of the Gospel that Christ alone can save (Acts 4:12). Salvation is only in the Saviour. The announcements of His birth to both Joseph and Mary, “thou shalt call His name JESUS; for he shall save his people from their sins”
(Matthew 1:21 and Luke 1:31) make this clear. Rome however at times gives to Mary the title of “Co-redemptrix”. In some Roman circles she appears on a crucifix.
THE ROMAN DOCTRINE OF WORSHIP
This unscriptural doctrine ascribes the highest form of worship, called “Latria” in the Latin, to God, but teaches a lower form of worship called “Hyperdulia” to the Virgin Mary and then a lower form still, “Dulia”, as the worship of the saints. This is clearly contrary to the Scriptural teaching, “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.”
(Matthew 4.10). This worship of Mary has become a world wide cult. Within a century and a half it has greatly increased. Shrines in honour of the Roman Madonna have multiplied at Lourdes, Fatima, Knock, Jasna Gora and Walsingham beside many in lesser known places. The pretended message to the peasant children, to whom she is said to have appeared at Lourdes, was to confirm the then recently declared doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary (1854). This declares her sinlessness. It caused a great discussion in Roman circles which was only brought to an end by the decree of Papal Infallibility in 1870. It was under pressure from the Jesuits that the Pope, Pius XII, decreed the Assumption of the body of the Virgin Mary into heaven (1950). At the second Vatican Council there was but one doctrinal matter decreed. It was that the Virgin Mary was the mother of the Church. Now this is totally contrary to the Scripture that teaches that the Church is the Bride of Christ. Who ever heard of a wedding where the bride and groom had the same mother? The entire purpose of Romanism is to promote the worship of the Virgin Mary world wide, not the humble peasant mother of Jesus but the ancient pagan goddess, Ashtaroth.
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND THE WORSHIP OF MARY
As the Church of England draws nearer to Rome so in endless parish churches images of the Madonna appear, quite often with a stand for devotional candles to be burnt before it. Bishop Latimer once said, “When it is down with the light of God’s Word then it is up with the light of candles, and forsooth at noonday,” The Anglican Shrine of the Madonna at Walsingham is more idolatrous and decorated than the nearby Roman Shrine at the Slipper Chapel, or the Greek Church, that was once the railway station.
It was at Walsingham in September 1555 that William Allen was burnt at the stake for not going in procession and worshipping the cross. How far this nation has gone in its national idolatry and departure from God!