Compiled with added comments
FROM THE BOOK "OUR AUTHORIZED BIBLE VINDICATED" by
Benjamin Wilkinson, PhD.
Written 1930.
All CAPITAL letters are mine, for emphasis (Keith Hunt)
QUOTE
ERASMUS RESTORES THE RECEIVED TEXT
The revival of Learning produced the giant intellect and
scholar, Erasmus. It is a common proverb that "Erasmus laid the
egg and Luther hatched it."......
Erasmus, during his mature years.....was ever at work,
visiting libraries, searching in every nook and corner for the
profitable. He was ever collecting, comparing, writing and
publishing. Europe was ROCKED from end to end by his books which
EXPOSED the IGNORANCE of the MONKS, the SUPERSTITIONS of the
priesthood, the BIGOTRY, and the CHILDISH and COARSE religion of
the day. He classified the Greek MSS and read the Fathers......
Yet while he lived Europe was at his feet. Several times the
King of England offered him any position in the kingdom, at his
own price; the Emperor of Germany did the same. The POPE offered
to make him CARDINAL. This he steadfastly REFUSED, as he would
NOT compromise his conscience. In fact, had he been so minded, he
PERHAPS could have made himself POPE......(These last two
sentences prove without question, but some indeed do question
Wilkinson on the matter, that Wilkinson KNEW Erasmus was a ROMAN
CATHOLIC. You do not write about someone who could have been a
"cardinal" and maybe indeed very Pope, without knowing full well
that that person is a Roman Catholic by religion - Keith Hunt).
Book after book came from his hand....but his CROWNING work
was the NT in GREEK......the effect was MARVELLOUS....Translation
after translation has been taken from it, such as the German, and
the English, and others. Critics have tried to BELITTLE the Greek
MSS he used, but the enemies of Erasmus, or rather the enemies of
the Received Text, have found insuperable difficulties
withstanding their attacks. Writing to Peter Baberius, August 13,
1521, Erasmus says:
"I did my best with the NT, but it PROVOKED endless
quarrels. Edward Lee pretended to have discovered 300 errors.
They appointed a commission, which professed to have found
bushels of them. Every dinner-table rang with the blunders of
Erasmus. I required particulars, AND COULD NOT HAVE THEM"
(Froude, Erasmus, p. 267)......
There were HUNDREDS OF MSS.....but he used only a FEW. What
matter? The VAST BULK of MSS in GREEK are practically all the
Received Text. If the few that Erasmus used were TYPICAL.....did
he not, with all the problems before him, ARRIVE at PRACTICALLY
the same result which only could be arrived at today by a fair
and comprehensive investigation? Moreover, the text he chose had
such an outstanding history in the Greek, the Syrian, and the
Waldensian Churches, that it constituted an IRRESISTIBLE ARGUMENT
of God's providence.......In other words, the Greek NT of
Erasmus, known as the Received Text, is none other than the Greek
NT which successfully met the RAGE if its PAGAN and PAPAL
enemies.
We are told the TESTIMONY from the RANKS of our ENEMIES
constitutes the highest kind of EVIDENCE. The following statement
which I now submit, is taken from the DEFENSE of their doings by
TWO members of that body so HOSTILE to the Greek NT of Erasmus -
the Revisers of 1870-1881. This quotation shows that the MSS of
Erasmus coincide with the GREAT BULK of MSS.
"The MSS which Erasmus used, DIFFER, for the MOST part, ONLY
in small and insignificant details from the BULK of the cursive
MSS - that is to say, the MSS which are written in RUNNING hand
and not in CAPITAL or (as they are technically called UNCIAL
letters). The general character of their text is the SAME. By
this observation the PEDIGREE of the Received Text is carried up
to a GREAT BODY of MSS of which the earliest are assigned to the
ninth century."
Then after quoting Doctor HORT, they drew this conclusion on
his statement:
"This remarkable statement completes the PEDIGREE of the
Received Text. The pedigree STRETCHES BACK to a REMOTE antiquity.
The first ancestor of the Received Text was, as Dr. Hort is
CAREFUL to remind us, at LEAST contemporary with the oldest
of our extant MSS, IF NOT OLDER than any one of them" (Two
Members of the NT Company on the Received Text and the Greek
Text, pp. 11, 12).
TYNDALE'S TOWING GENIUS IS USED TO TRANSLATE
ERASMUS INTO ENGLISH
God who foresaw the coming GREATNESS of the English speaking
world, prepared in advance the agent who early would give
direction to the course of its thinking. One man stands out
silhouetted against the horizon above all others, as having
stamped his genius upon English thought and upon the English
language. That man was WILLIAM TYNDALE.
The Received Text in Greek, having through Erasmus reassumed
its ascendancy in the West of Europe as it had always maintained
it in the East, bequeathed its indispensable heritage to the
English......
The Spirit of God presided over Tyndale's calling and
training. He early passed through Oxford to Cambridge to learn
Greek under Erasmus, who was teaching there from 1510 to 1514.
Even after Erasmus returned to the Continent, Tyndale kept
informed on the revolutionizing productions which fell from the
master's pen......
Herman Buschius, a friend of Erasmus and one of the leaders
in the revival of letters, spoke of Tyndale as "so skilled in
SEVEN languages, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, English,
French, that whichever he spake you would suppose it his native
tongue" (Demaus, Life of Tyndale, p. 130)......
When he left Cambridge, he accepted a position as tutor in
the home of an influential landowner. Here his attack upon the
SUPERSTITIONS of Popery threw him into SHARP discussions with a
STAGNANT clergy, and brought down upon his head the WRATH of the
reactionaries. It was then that in disputing with a learned man
who put the Pope's laws ABOVE God's laws, that he made his FAMOUS
VOW, "If God spare my life, ere many years, I will cause a BOY
that driveth a plough shall KNOW MORE of the Scriptures that
though doest."
From that moment UNTIL he was BURNT AT THE STAKE, his life
was one of continual sacrifice and persecution......
As Luther took the Greek NT of Erasmus and made the German
language, so Tyndale took the same immortal gift of God and made
the English language. Across the sea, he translated the NT and a
large part of the Old. Two-thirds of the Bible was translated
into the English by Tyndale, and what he did not translate was
finished by those who worked with him and were under the spell of
his genius. The Authorized Bible of the English language is
Tyndale's, after his work passed through two or three revisions.
So instant and so powerful was the influence of Tyndale's
gift upon England, that Catholicism, through those newly formed
papal invincible, called the JESUITS, sprang to its feet, and
brought forth, in the form of a Jesuit NT, the most effective
instrument of learning the Papacy, up to that time, had produced
in the English language. This newly invented rival version
advanced to the attack, and we are now called to consider how a
crisis in the world's history was met when the Jesuit Bible
became a CHALLENGE to Tyndale's translation.
THE JESUITS AND THE JESUIT BIBLE OF 1582
I have before my eyes on a shelf in my library, a book
entitled "The Black Pope," There are two Popes, the White Pope
and the Black Pope. The world little realizes how much that fact
means. The White Pope is the one we generally know and speak of
as the Pope, but the REAL POWER is in the hands of that body
directed by the Black Pope. The Black Pope, which name does NOT
refer to color, is the head of the JESUITS - an organization
which, outside of God's people, is the MIGHTIEST that history as
ever known. On the other hand it is the most SUBTLE and
INTOLERANT. It was FORMED AFTER the Reformation began and for the
CHIEF PURPOSE of DESTROYING the Reformation.
(My New Canadian Dictionary says under "Jesuit" - "a member of
the society of Jesus, a Roman Catholic order founded by St.
Ignatius Loyola and others in 1534 - French Jesuite or modern
latin Jesuits from Jesus: see Jesus." When living in the Toronto
area in the 80s an ex-Jesuit priest would frequently come and
lecture on the ins and outs of the Jesuit Order....it was truly
an eye opener as to what he had to say about this Catholic order
that most even today know nothing about. A book called "The
Secret Life of the Jesuits" by Edmond Paris is still available
through Chick Publications, see them on the Internet. Chick
publications also has many other books on the Roman Catholic
Church. This religious organization is still determined to
conquer the world for Jesus, and they are marching on with over a
BILLION members in just about every country on earth.
The old Protestant Bible Commentaries, most of them (four of the
most well-known ones I have in my Library, all understood the
"woman" that rides the "beast" - the "woman drunk with the blood
of the saints" - "the woman who has deceived all nations with the
wine of her fornications" to be the Papacy, with its Pope,
priests, and many Catholic "orders" that are out to conquer the
world - Keith Hunt).
The Catholic Church has 69 organizations of men (remember
Wilkinson was writing in 1930, they may have more or less today -
Keith Hunt), some of which have been in existence for over one
thousand years. Of these we might name the "Augustinians" - the
"Benedictines" - the "Capuchins" - the "Dominicans" and so on.
The Benedictines were founded about 540 A.D. Each order has many
members, often reaching into the thousands, and tens of
thousands. The Augustinians, for example (to which Martin Luther
belonged), numbered 35,000 in his day.....
They overrun all countries and constitute the army militant
of the Papacy.....
Let us see why the Jesuits stand predominantly ABOVE ALL
these, so that the general has a GREAT AUTHORITY WITHIN the VAST
ranks of the Catholic clergy, regular and secular.
Within 35 years after Luther had nailed his thesis upon the
door of the Cathedral of Wittenberg, and launched his attacks
upon the errors and corrupt practices of Rome, the Protestant
reformation was thoroughly established. The great contributing
factor of this spiritual upheaval was the translation by Luther
of the Greek NT of Erasmus into German.
The MEDIEVAL Papacy AWAKENED from its SUPERSTITIOUS LETHARGY
to see that in a THIRD of a century, the Reformation had carried
away TWO-THIRDS of Europe. Germany, England, the Scandinavian
countries, Holland, Switzerland had become PROTESTANT. France,
Poland, Bavaria, Austria and Belgium, were swinging that way.
In CONSTERNATION, the Papacy looked around in every
direction for HELP. If the JESUITS had not come forward and
offered to save the situation, today, there might not be a
Catholic church. What was the offer, and what were these weapons,
the like of which man never before had forged?
The founder of the Jesuit was a Spaniard, Ignatius Loyola,
whom the Catholic Church has canonized and made Saint
Ignatius......
How well the Jesuits have SUCCEEDED, let the following pages
tell. Soon the BRAINS of the Catholic Church were to be found in
that order. ABOUT 1582, when the Jesuit Bible was launched to
DESTROY Tyndale's English Version, the Jesuits DOMINATED 287
Colleges and Universities in Europe.
Their complete system of education and of drilling was
likened, in the CONSTITUTION of the order itself, to the reducing
of all its members to the placidity of a CORPSE, whereby the
WHOLE could be TURNED and RETURNED at the WILL of the superior.
We quote from their CONSTITUTION:
"As for holy OBEDIENCE, this virtue must be PERFECT in every
point - in execution, in will, in intellect - doing what is
enjoined with all celerity, spiritual joy, and perseverance;
persuading ourselves that EVERYTHING is JUST; suppressing every
repugnant thought and judgment of one's own, in a certain
obedience.....and let every one persuade himself that he who
lived under OBEDIENCE should be amoved AND DIRECTED under Divine
Providence, by his SUPERIOR, just as if he were a corpse
(perinde ac si cadaver esset), which allows itself to be MOVED
and LED in ANY direction" (R. W. Thompson, Ex-Secretary of Navy,
U.S.A., The Footprints of the Jesuits, p. 51)......
Of the results achieved by means of this policy and methods,
Macaulay says:
"It was in the ears of the Jesuit that the powerful, the
noble, and the beautiful, breathed the secret history of their
lives. It was at the feet of the Jesuit that the youth of
the higher and middle classes were brought up from childhood to
manhood, from the first rudiments to the courses of rhetoric and
philosophy. Literature and science, lately associated with
infidelity or with heresy, now became the allies of orthodoxy.
Dominant in the south of France, the great order soon went
forth conquering and to conquer. In spite of oceans and deserts,
of hunger and pestilence, of spies and penal laws, of dungeons
and racks, or gibbets and quartering-blocks, Jesuits were to be
found UNDER EVERY DISGUISE, and in every country; scholars,
physicians, merchants, serving men; in the hostile court of
Sweden, in the old manor-house of Cheshire, among hovels of
Connaught; arguing, instructing, consoling, stealing away the
hearts of the young, animating the courage of the timid, holding
up the crucifix before the eyes of the dying. Nor was it less
their office to plot against the thrones and lives of the
apostate kings, to spread evil rumors, to raise tumults, to
inflame evil wars, to arm the hand of the assassin. Inflexible in
nothing but in their fidelity to the Church, they were equally
ready to appeal in her case to the spirit of loyalty and to the
spirit of freedom. Extreme doctrines of obedience and extreme
doctrines of liberty, the right of rulers to misgovern the
people, the right of every one of the people to plunge his knife
in the heart of a bad ruler, were inculcated by the same man,
according as he addressed himself to the subject of Philip
or to the subject of Elizabeth" (Macaulay, Essays, pp. 480, 481).
And again:
"If Protestantism, or the semblance of Protestantism, showed
itself in any quarter, it was instantly met, not by petty,
teasing persecution, but by persecution of that sort which bows
down and crushes all but a very few select spirits. Whoever was
suspected of heresy, whatever his rank, his learning, his
reputation, knew that he must purge himself to the satisfaction
of a severe and vigilant tribunal, or die by fire. Heretical
books were sought out and destroyed with similar rigor" (Idem,
pp. 482, 483).
(If you think all this is far-fetched and make-believe, that it
is just made up or even lies from the lips of those who dislike
or have animosity against the Roman Catholic Church, for whatever
reason, then you need to purchase and read some of the books
written by Avro Manhattan on the Roman Catholic Church of the
20th century, perhaps the greatest expert writer on Roman
Catholicism. Or the eye opening and block-buster book of its day
called "The Final Conclave." There is the ex-Jesuit Alberto
Rivera, the man I personally saw a number of times, lecturing in
Toronto in the 80s. Most of the writings of Manhattan and Rivera
are probably obtainable through the Website: www.chick.com -
Keith Hunt).
THE CATHOLIC COUNCIL OF TRENT (1545-1563) CALLED
TO DEFEAT THE REFORMATION.....
"The Society came to exercise a marked influence to which
their presence in the Council of Trent, as the Pope's
THEOLOGIANS, gave signal testimony. It was a WISE stroke of
POLICY for the Pope to ENTRUST its cause in the Council so
largely to the Jesuits" (Hulme, Renaissance and Reformation, p.
428).
The Council of Trent was DOMINATED by the Jesuits (my New
Canadian Dictionary says this on the Council of Trent: "...an
ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church, held in three
sessions between 1545 and 1563 in Trent, northern Italy.
Prompted by the opposition of the Reformation, the council
clarified and redefined the Church's position on certain issues,
abolished many of the abuses that had been prevalent, and
strengthened the authority of the papacy. The overall effect was
to provide the Church with a solid foundation for the
Counter-Reformation" - Keith Hunt).
It is the leading characteristic of that assembly.
"The great Convention dreaded by every Pope" was called by
Paul 3 when he saw that such a council was imperative if the
Reformation was to be checked. And when it did
assemble, he so contrived the manipulation of the program and the
attendance of the delegates, that the Jesuitical conception of a
theocratic Papacy should be incorporated into the canons of the
church.
So prominent had been the Reformer's denunciation of the
abuses of the church, against her exactions, and against her
shocking immoralities (and we recently have heard in the first
years of this 21st century, many more shocking revelations of
sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church, the cover-ups and
deceptions - Keith Hunt), that we would naturally expect that
this Council, which marks so great a turning point in church
history, would have promptly met the charges. But this it did not
do. The very FIST propositions to be discussed at length and with
intense interest, was those relating to the Scriptures. This show
how fundamental to all reform, as well as to the great
Reformation, is the determining power over Christian order and
faith, of the DISPUTED readings and the DISPUTED BOOKS of the
Bible. Moreover, propositions denounced by the Council, which
we give below, the Council did not draw up itself. They were
taken from the writings of Luther. We thus see how fundamental to
the faith of Protestants is their acceptance; while their
REJECTION constitutes the KEYSTONE to the SUPERSTITIONS and to
the TYRANNICAL theology of the Papacy. These FOUR propositions
which first engaged the attention of the Council, and which the
Council CONDEMNED, are:
They CONDEMNED: 1 - "That Holy Scriptures contained ALL
things necessary for salvation, and that it was impious to place
apostolic TRADITION on a LEVEL with Scripture."
They CONDEMNED: 2 - "That certain books accepted as
CANONICAL in the Vulgate were APOCRYPHAL and NOT canonical."
They CONDEMNED: 3 - "That Scripture MUST be studied in the
ORIGINAL languages, and that there were ERRORS in the Vulgate."
They CONDEMNED: 4 - "That the MEANING of Scripture is PLAIN,
and that it can be understood WITHOUT commentary with the help of
Christ's Spirit" (Froude, The Council of Trent, pp. 174, 175).
For 18 long years the Council deliberated. The Papal
scholars DETERMINED what was the Catholic FAITH. During these 18
years, the Papacy gathered up to itself what survived of Catholic
territory. The church of Rome consolidated her remaining forces
and took her stand SOLIDLY on the grounds that TRADITION was of
EQUAL value with the Scriptures; that the SEVEN apocryphal books
of the Vulgate were as much Scripture as the other books; that
those readings of the Vulgate in the accepted books, which
DIFFERED from the Greek, were NOT errors, as Luther and the
Reformers had said, but were AUTHENTIC; and finally, that LAY
MEMBERS of the church had NO RIGHT to interpret the Scriptures
APART from the clergy.
END QUOTE
(Well of course anyone can look in the Catholic Encyclopedia,
Church History books etc. and see for themselves what was decided
by the Council of Trent during those years of 1545 to 1563 -
Keith Hunt).
..............................
Compiled 2003
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