The Reformation
View of Roman Catholicism
The Works of John Owen (1616-1683)
 On
supposition that the church of Rome is a church of
Christ, it will appear to be the most schismatical
church in the world. I say on supposition that it
is a church, and that there is such a thing as a schismatical
church (as perhaps a church may from its intestine
differences be not unfitly so denominated), that is
the state and condition thereof…Christ hath
ordained no church that inwraps such interests as
on the account whereof the members of it may murder
one another. (13:114)
But what need I insist upon this
supposition, when I am not more certain that there
is any instituted church in the world, owned by Christ
as such, than I am that the church of Rome is none,
properly so called? Nor shall I be thought singular
in this persuasion, if it be duly considered what
this amounts unto. Some…men…grant that
the Church of Rome doth not err in fundamentals, or
maintained no errors remedilessly pernicious and destructive
of salvation. How far they entangled themselves by
this concession I argue not. The foundation
of it lies in this clear truth, that no church whatever,
universal or particular, can possibly err in fundamentals;
for by so doing it would cease to be a church. My
denying, then the synagogue of Rome to be a church,
according to their principles, amounts to no more
that this,--the Papists maintain, in their public
confessions, fundamental errors; in which assertion
it is known I am not alone. (13:115)
The truth is, the whole of it is
but an imitation and exemplar of the old imperial
government. One is set up in chief, and made in spirituals,
as the emperors were in several things; from him all
power flows to others…So that the present Roman
church is nothing else but an image or similitude
of the Roman empire, set up, in its declining, among
and over the same persons in succession, by the craft
of Satan, through principles of deceit, subtlety,
and spiritual wickedness, as the other was by force
and violence, for the same ends of power, dominion,
flesliness, and persecution with the former. (13:116)
But we have forsaken the Church of
Rome. But, gentlemen, show first how we were ever
of it. No man hath lost that which he never had, nor
hath left the place or station wherein he never was.
Tell me when or how we were members of your church?
(13:117)
We deny their church, as it is styled,
to be the catholic church, or as such any part of
it, as particular churches are called or esteemed;
so that, of all men in the world, they are least concerned
in this assertion. Nay, I shall go farther. Suppose
all the members of the Roman church to be sound in
faith as to all necessary truths, and no way to prejudice
the advantages and privileges which accrue to them
by the profession thereof, whereby the several individuals
of it would be true members of the catholic church,
yet I should not only deny it to be the catholic church,
but also---abiding in its present order and constitution,
being that which by themselves it is supposed to be,--to
be any particular church of Christ at all, as wanting
many things necessary to constitute them so, and having
many things destructive utterly to the very essence
and being of that order that Christ hath appointed
in his churches. The best plea that I know for their
church-state is, that Antichrist sits in the temple
of God. Now, although we might justly omit the examination
of this pretense until those who are concerned in
it will professedly own it as their plea, yet…it
imports no more but that the man of sin shall set
up his power against God in the midst of them who,
by their outward visible profession, have right to
be called his temple, which entitles him and his copartners
in apostasy to the name of the church as much as changing
of money and selling of cattle were ordinances of
God under the old temple, when, by some men’s
practicing of them in it, it was made a den of thieves.
(13:154)
But do we not receive the Scripture
itself upon the authority of the church? I say, if
we did so, yet this concerns not Rome, which we account
no church at all. That we have received the Scriptures
from the church of Rome at first,--that is, so much
as the book itself,--is an intolerable figment. (13:155)
It is most ridiculous that they are
this catholic church, or that their communion is comprehensive
of it in its latitude. He must be blind, uncharitable,
a judge of what he cannot see or know, who can once
entertain a thought of any such thing. (13:161)
That their plea is so far from the
truth, that they are, and they only, the catholic
church, that indeed they belong not to it, because
they keep not the unity of the faith, which is required
to constitute any person whatever a member of that
church, but fail in all the conditions of it; for,--
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To proceed, by way of instance,
they do not profess nor believe a justification
distinct from sanctification, and acceptance thereof;
the doctrine whereof is of absolute and indispensable
necessity to the preservation of the unity of
the faith; and so fail in the first condition
of professing all necessary truths.
-
They discover principles corrupt
and depraved, utterly inconsistent with those
truths and the receiving of them which in general,
by owning the Scriptures, they do profess.
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That in their doctrine of the
pope’s supremacy, of merits, satisfaction,
the mass, the worshipping of images, they add
such things to their profession as enervate the
efficacy of all the saving truths they do profess
and so fail in the third condition. (13:168)
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