Popery condemned by scripture and the fathers - End Time Deception

362 POPERY CONDEMN^ED BY
business at present is
not to prove the Pope Antichrist,
but to ascertain what is Christian doctrine,
the R. can have no objections to approach
nearer apostolic times than Mede, and take the
Fathers as early as we find them. There, perhaps,
the R. may find something to kindle his
zeal, and arouse his indignation against the degeneracy
of Protestant heretics.
Whei\ Poly carp, the disciple of the apostle
John, was martyred, the proconsul, at the instigation
of the Jews, would not permit the Church
of Smyrna to receive his body ; lest, as the Jews
suggested, they should pay it divine honours, as
Christians in general did to the Saviour. To
this aspersion, the Church of Smyrna, in their
Epistle, replied, " These men know, that we
" can neither forsake Christ, who suffered for
" the salvadon of ail who are saved, the inno-
" cent for the guilty ; nor can w'e worship any