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Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Rome–3: Pope=Antichrist because...; Dresden's fall

      This continues from Part 2 (Table of Contents in Part 1), a translation of Franz Pieper's essay on the failure of the evangelical churches of Germany to fight against the Papacy in his day.
      No one in the world since Franz Pieper attacked the Roman papacy more forcefully than he did.  Even during his lifetime, Pieper was the foremost head of the Lutheran Church in the world, leading the spiritual war against ... the Antichrist.  Today, when a well-known pastor of the LC-MS (Richard John Neuhaus) "converts" to be a Roman Catholic priest, he is given honor... in today's LC-MS.  So what are these "Lutherans" who honor Roman Catholics but imposters? ... Lutheran in name only.
     Every true Lutheran should have this pronouncement of the Council of Trent framed and hanging on the wall to remind him of the real reason why the Pope IS the Antichrist:
If any one saith, that men are justified, either by the sole imputation of the justice (righteousness) of Christ, or by the sole remission of sins, to the exclusion of the grace and the charity which is poured forth in their hearts by the Holy Ghost, and is inherent in them; or even that the grace, whereby we are justified, is only the favour of God; let him be anathema. 
          — Council of Trent, Sessio VI, Canon XI
I believe the Pope is the Antichrist because he curses all of Christianity that relies solely on God's grace.  Romans 11:6 - "If by grace, then is it no more of works..."

Translation by BTL – Underlining from original  – Highlighting is mine – Hyperlinks added for reference.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
The False Stance of Present-Day Evangelical Christianity Against Rome.
by Franz Pieper
Doctrine and Defense, (Lehre und Wehre), 1896, vol 42, pgs 289-297
--------   cont'd from Part 2  ---------
[pg 293]
It can be clearly seen that a man alone by God's grace for the sake of Christ's substitutionary life, suffering and death, that is, through faith in the Gospel, obtains forgiveness of sins and salvation.  The saving truth has disappeared from Christian doctrine, as soon as one sets up grace and salvation on human works and worthiness.  Now what does the Prince of Saxony, who is in the full service of the Papacy, make of it according to his own preaching?  The whole great machinery of the papacy works, as mentioned above, directly and indirectly in the interest of a basic cataclysm, the heretical destruction of the Christian faith, that a man is justified and saved not by grace alone, for Christ's sake, but also by human works.  Everything you see in the Papacy is in the service of a repeal of the doctrine of grace.  Through the Papacy the souls are therefore not care for, but through the Papacy, so far as it is in him, continually leads the souls only to eternal damnation, because the Scripture says those who deal with works of the Law are under a curse (Gal. 3:10).  The papacy is the greatest fraud company in the world.  It calls the individual and all the people to itself by claiming to be the "alone saving church", claiming to be the "one and only truth", as the Prince of Saxony has duped those coming to him, who instead of offering the saving Gospel, offers to lead one to damnation by a doctrine of works.  If there are nevertheless still souls, – and there are such – that under the papacy trust solely on the merit of Christ and become saved, so this is done against the will and the intention of the papacy.  The papacy itself holds these souls with the curse where it says in the Council of Trent: "If any one saith, that men are justified, either by the sole imputation of the righteousness of Christ, or by the sole remission of sins. .., Let him be anathema." 1)  St. Paul, in Gal. 1:8-9, cursed all false teachers which distort the Gospel of God's free grace in Christ; the papacy in Trent cursed all who teach and believe this Gospel. Yes, this is the Papacy as it has been around for centuries and still is today, and how it does its uncanny work among the Nations!  A "priest" will help the papacy, and thereby assumes the obligation upon himself, to run the business of the papacy in the world, and has about the most unfortunate employment that a young man can choose under God's approval.  And now the Popish Mass is first celebrated so "officially" in the Dresden royal chapel!  The Mass stands so surely in the service of the  anti-christian abomination, the denial of Christ and his
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        1) Sessio VI, Canon XI. [see also Formula of Concord]
[pg 294]
Gospel.  Through the pretense that in the Mass through the hand of the priests, Christ continually becomes sacrificed for the living and the dead, those present and those absent, as the atonement of sin, so will Christ’s all-sufficient, once offered sacrifice become constantly blasphemed, and the poor, deluded souls are thereby kept away continually from finding faith in the forgiveness of sins in the Gospel and being established in the service of the Gospel by the Sacraments.  Luther says of himself: "These are my greatest sins, because I was so holy a monk, and with so many Masses over fifteen years so horribly angered, tortured and tormented my dear Lord." 1)  The Popish Mass is, as Luther so often points out, not serving God, but the devil. 2)  What the Papists sacrifice in the Mass, they sacrifice to the devils.  And the matter is thereby not changed because Max of Saxony serves as "sacrificial priest" and is watched by the Saxon court and many "high invited guests".  And how are Evangelical Christians to judge the sermon of a popish priest?  They know that in the Christian church only God's Word must be preached, but all doctrines of men are forbidden.  For all the doctrines in the Church stand on the rule of St. Peter: "If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God," 1 Peter 4:11  In the church of God, obedience may be claimed only for God’s Word.  But the papal preacher calls for obedience to the Pope's words before all things.  This Prince Max von Saxony has just done.  He has in his homily urged all non-papists to submit to the Pope.  He immediately introduced himself as a loyal helper of the Antichrist, who "will not permit Christians to be saved without his power, which, nevertheless, is nothing, and is neither ordained nor commanded by God". 3)
This and other things should have been explained in Germany, and particularly in Saxony, when one must take notice of the priest's ordination, Mass reading and sermon of the prince of Saxony.  Thereby the evangelical Christians would have been promoted in the confession of the Gospel and would have been given a salutary warning of the papacy.  Perhaps also one or another one entangled in the papacy would have had their eyes opened.  In any event, one would have satisfied the Christian’s confessional duty.  But we have not seen growth by this God-given opportunity.  
One has not in general revealed the abomination of the papacy and in particular the Mass.  One has not confessed, but has denied.  The poor people had sand scattered in their eyes when the papal church is spoken of as a "sister church" and it was left open the possibility that due to the
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1) St. L. ed. vol. 20, 1103, paragr. 541; Am. Ed. vol. 37, pg 371; “Confession Concerning Christ's Supper (1528)”
2) Compare Luther's strong, but quite proper expressions in St. L. vol. 19, col. 1233 f. ; Am. Ed. vol. 38, pg 160 f.: “The Private Mass and the Consecration of the Priests (1533)”
[pg 295]
real popish preaching of the Prince of Saxony, the salvation of the souls of the congregation was being promoted.
= = = = = = = =  Cont'd in Part 4  = = = = = = = =
Germany!
How low you are held in the eyes of the world today!  Your past defeats in 2 World Wars, the bombing of Dresden and particularly the stain of the memory of your leader Adolf Hitler... these are what the world would have us think of you now, at least from the last century.  But there was something far worse for you that preceded all these... it was your fall from the Lutheran doctrine and your subsequent failure to fight against the Antichrist.  It was a Roman Catholic priest preaching in your Dresden royal chapel to your Saxon King in 1896!  Now the world attempts to see signs of life in you, from your Hermann Sasse to even Dietrich Bonhoeffer, but these offered little to almost nothing for the defense of the true doctrine...  they at times even scorned the old (German) Missouri Synod's faithfulness to true Christian doctrine and its pure fight against Rome.  Germany!... you were duped! ... duped away from your Reformation heritage!
America!
Although you do not currently have the outer stains like Germany does, yet are you not just as weak like Germany was 100+ years ago... in your softness against the Papacy?  Your theologians, let alone your media, gush at news items relating to the Papacy...
LC-MS, Lutheran Church-"Missouri Synod"
Whatever you are, you are not the old (German) Missouri Synod, for it was the Lutheran Church from above that stood by the Gospel, that pointed to Martin Luther who restored the pure Gospel again to the world... Martin Luther who showed the world who the Antichrist was –> the Pope who still curses all of Christianity.

The next Part 4 concludes this series where Pieper turns up the heat against the lies of the Pope.

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