Popery condemned by scripture and the fathers - End Time Deception

SCRIPTURE AND THE FATHERS. 139
quieting replies; as many a sturdy polemic, before
the R.'s days, has experienced.
framers of the Thirty-nine Articles said,
When the
" There
" is a holv Church which will remain for ever,"
did they add, that this was to be understood of
the Church of Rome Where, then, is the
foundation of the R.'s queries To show him
for what kind of holiness that Church is
famous,
I will produce him the sentiments of a few Popish
wTiters.
" They prefer,'' says St. Bernard, " little
*'
school-boys and young children to Church-
" dignities, on account of the nobility of their
*'
birth ; so that you may see those, who have
*'
just escaped from the birch, go to command
" priests. They seem more fit to run from a
" rod, than to be employed in government ; for
" they are far more sensible of the pleasure of
*'
freedom from their masters, than of becoming
*'
masters themselves. These are their first
" thoughts ;
but afterwards growing more bold,
" they very soon learn the act of appropriating
" the altars to themselves, and of emptying the
'*
purses of those who are under them, without
" going to any other school than their ambition
'*
and covetousness *."
" How few," says Nicholas de Clemangis,
" can be found at present among those that are
" raised to the episcopal grandeur, who have
F 4
*'
either
* r.p. 42.