The following quote is from a study on the Revelation church at Pergamos by Dr. Stephen Jones.
When love was no longer a valued Christian virtue, the Church of the Majority Opinion came to torture and kill in the name of Jesus Christ those who believed differently. Popes regularly absolved these murderers and even proclaimed them to be saints. And they actually believed that God was pleased with their zeal “for the glory of God.”
H. Gratton Guiness quotes the great Cardinal Bellarmine, a Jesuit theologian and scholar who lived from 1542-1621, saying,
“Experience teaches us that there is no other remedy; for the Church has proceeded by slow steps, and tried all remedies. First, she only excommunicated. Then she added a fine of money, and afterwards exile. Lastly she was compelled to come to the punishment of death. For heretics despise excommunication, and say that those lightnings are cold.” (Romanism and the Reformation, p. 33)
What was it that “compelled” the Roman Church to kill heretics? What “compelled” them to torture them on the rack and burn them horribly at the stake? Did Jesus compel them? Would Jesus have done this? No, the only thing that “compelled” them was the belief that unity was more important than love and that submission to the Roman Pontiff was more important than life itself. This in turn presumes that Church membership and conformity is necessary for salvation itself. And so, in their way of thinking, if persecution and even torture itself could force a person to submit to the organization, then that person has been saved from even greater torture in the lake of fire at the hands of God.
Such perversion speaks for itself. Love does not rape its object. Jesus has no desire to marry a bride forcibly against her will.
"for the Church has proceeded by slow steps, and tried all remedies. First, she only excommunicated. Then she added a fine of money, and afterwards exile. Lastly she was compelled to come to the punishment of death."
Does that sound familiar? Excommunication, monetary punishment,exile, death?
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