Popery condemned by scripture and the fathers - End Time Deception

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POPERY CONDEMNED BY
which have not retained the same form from the
day of Pentecost, are manifestly no parts nor
portions of the one Church of
»
Christ.
II.
Perpetual Visibility.
What has been already observed,
will shov/
the reader, that the establishment of this doctrine
proves at least as much for
Protestants, as
for the Romish Church. We do not pretend
to have commenced our ecclesiastical existence
in the days of Luther ; we trace it to the exhibition
of the first promise of mercy. If the R.
can then show the perpetual visibility of the
Romish Church, he proves our existence before
the reformation. And since that period, proofs
are unnecessary.
These paroxisms of rage, into
which he is thrown by the very names of our
reforming ancestors, shew, that he thinks us still
existing in real earnest.
Though I have no intention at present to controvert
his doctrine of perpetual visibility, I cannot
help observing, that his view of it is entirely
unscriptural. By raking together a few passages
of scripture which describe .the Church in
her periods of splendour, he figures to liimself
a visibility, which has no existence but in his
own imagination. Of this, the follov/ing passage
may serve as an illustration; ''And it
" shall come to pass in the last days^ that the moun-
" tain