Protestantism in Sweden and Denmark - James Aitken Wylie

perfect, and. enjoyed clearer institutions, than at
her first planting by the apostles; and it also
followed that her early doctrine was incomplete,
and had been perfected by the greater teachers
whom modern times had produced; that Christ and
his apostles had, in that case, spoken foolishly [5]
when they foretold the coming of false prophets
and of Antichrist in the latter times. He could not
understand how decrees and constitutions in which
there reigned so much confusion and contradiction
should have emanated from the Holy Ghost. It
rather seemed to him as if they had arrived at the
times foretold by the apostle in his farewell words
to the elders of Ephesus, "After my departure there
shall enter in grievous wolves not sparing the
flock."
The discussion turned next on whether the Pope
and bishops have power to excommunicate whom
they please?[6] The only ground on which Doctor
Gallus rested his affirmative was the eighteenth
chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel, which speaks of
the gift of the power of binding and loosing given
to St. Peter, and which the doctor had already
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