The Great Apostasy, Considered in the Light of Scriptural and Secular History

by James E. Talmage

CHAPTER X.

**Results of the Apostasy.—Its Sequel**.

1. The thoroughly apostate and utterly corrupt condition of the Church of Rome as proclaimed by its history down to the end of the fifteenth century,—(See Note 1, end of chapter.) was necessarily accompanied by absence of all spiritual sanctity and power, whatever may have been the arrogant assumptions of the Church as to authority in spiritual affairs. Revolts against the Church, both as rebellion against her tyranny and in protest against her heresies, were not lacking. The most significant of these anti-church agitations arose in connection with the awakening of intellectual activity which began in the latter part of the fourteenth century. The period from the tenth century onward to the time of the awakening has come to be known as the dark ages—characterized by stagnation in the progress of the useful arts and sciences as well as of fine arts and letters, and by a general condition of illiteracy and ignorance among the masses.

2. Ignorance is a fertile soil for evil growths, and the despotic government and doctrinal fallacies of the Church during this period of darkness were nourished by the ignorance of the times. With the change known in history as "the revival of learning" came the struggle for freedom from churchly tyranny.

3. One of the early revolts against the temporal and spiritual despotism of the papal church was that of the Albigenses in France during the thirteenth century. This uprising had been crushed by the papal autocracy with much cruelty and bloodshed. The next notable revolt was that of John Wickliffe in the fourteenth century. Wickliffe was a professor in Oxford university, England. He boldly assailed the evergrowing and greatly abused power of the monks, and denounced the corruption of the Church and the prevalence of doctrinal errors. He was particularly emphatic in his opposition to the papal restrictions as to the popular study of the scriptures, and gave to the world an English version of the Holy Bible translated from the Vulgate. In spite of persecution and sentence, he died a natural death; but years afterward the Church insisted on revenge, and in consequence, his bones were exhumed and burned, and the ashes scattered to the winds.

4. On the continent of Europe the agitation against the Church was carried on by John Huss and by Jerome of Prague, both of whom reaped martyrdom as the harvest of their righteous zeal. These instances are cited to show that though the Church had long been apostate to the core, there were men ready to sacrifice their lives in what they deemed to be the cause of truth.

5. Conditions existing at the opening of the sixteenth century have been concisely summarized by a modern historian as follows: "Previous to the opening of the sixteenth century there had been comparatively few—though there had been some, like the Albigenses in the south of France, the Wickliffites, in England, and the Hussites, in Bohemia—who denied the supreme and infallible authority of the bishop of Rome in all matters touching religion. Speaking in very general manner it would be correct to say that at the close of the fifteenth century all the nations of Western Europe professed the faith of the Latin or Roman Catholic Church and yielded obedience to the Papal See."—(Myers, "Gen. Hist.," p. 520.)

**The Reformation**.

6. The next notable revolt against the papal Church occurred in the sixteenth century, and assumed such proportions as to be designated the Reformation. The movement began in Germany about 1517, when Martin Luther, a monk of the Augustinian order and an instructor in the University of Wittenberg, publicly opposed and strongly denounced Tetzel, the shameless agent of papal indulgences. Luther was conscientious in his conviction that the whole system of church penances and indulgences was contrary to scripture, reason, and right. In line with the academic custom of the day—to challenge discussion and debate on disputed questions—Luther wrote his famous ninety-five theses against the practice of granting indulgences, and a copy of these he nailed to the door of Wittenberg church, inviting criticism thereon from all scholars. The news spread, and the theses were discussed in all the scholastic centers of Europe. Luther then attacked other practices and doctrines of the Roman Church, and the pope, Leo X, issued a "Bull" or papal decree against him, demanding an unconditional recantation on pain of excommunication from the Church. Luther publicly burned the pope's document, and thus declared his open revolt. The sentence of excommunication was pronounced.

7. We cannot follow here in detail the doings of this bold reformer. Suffice it to say, he was not long left to fight singlehanded. Among his able supporters was Philip Melancthon, a professor in Wittenberg. Luther was summoned before a council or "Diet" at Worms in 1521. There he openly declared for individual freedom of conscience. There is inspiration in his words: "I cannot submit my faith either to the pope or to the council, because it is as clear as the day that they have frequently erred and contradicted each other. Unless, therefore, I am convinced by the testimony of scripture, or by the clearest reasoning—unless I am persuaded by means of the passages I have quoted,—and unless they thus render my conscience bound by the word of God, I cannot and will not retract, for it is unsafe for a Christian to speak against his conscience. Here I stand, I can do no other, may God help me! Amen!"

8. The religious controversy spread throughout Europe. At the Second Diet of Spires (1529) an edict was issued against the reformers; to this the representatives of seven German principalities and other delegates entered a formal protest, in consequence of which action the reformers were henceforth known as Protestants. John, Elector of Saxony, supported Luther in his opposition to papal authority, and undertook the establishment of an independent church, the constitution and plan of which were prepared at his instance by Luther and Melancthon. Luther died in 1546, but the work of revolution, if not in truth reformation, continued to grow. The Protestants, however, soon became divided among themselves, and broke up into many contending sects.

9. In Switzerland, Ulrich Zwingle led in the movement toward reform. He was accused of heresy, and when placed on trial, he defended himself on the authority of the Bible as against papal edict, and was for the time successful. The contest was bitter, and in 1531 the Catholics and Protestants of the region engaged in actual battle, in which Zwingle was slain, and his body brutally mutilated.

10. John Calvin next appeared as the leader of the Swiss reformers, though he was an opponent of many of Zwingle's doctrines. He exerted great influence as a teacher, and is known as an extremist in doctrine. He advocated and vehemently defended the tenet of absolute predestination, thus denying the free agency of man. In France, Sweden, Denmark, and Holland, leaders arose and the Protestants became strong in their opposition to the Roman Church, though the several divisions were antagonistic to one another on many points of doctrine.

11. One effect of this Protestant uprising was the partial awakening of the Roman Church to the need of internal reform, and an authoritative re-statement of Catholic principles was attempted. This movement was largely accomplished through the famous Council of Trent—(1545-1563), which body disavowed for the Church the extreme claims made for "indulgences" and denied responsibility for many of the abuses with which the Church had been charged. But in connection with the attempted reform came a demand for more implicit obedience to the requirements of the Church.

12. Near the end of the fifteenth century, in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, the court of the Inquisition, then known as the Holy Office, had been established in Spain. The prime purpose of this secret tribunal was the detection and punishment of heresy. Of this infamous institution as operative in Spain, Myers says: "The Holy Office, as the tribunal was styled, thus became the instrument of the most incredible cruelty. Thousands were burned at the stake, and tens of thousands more condemned to endure penalties scarcely less terrible. Queen Isabella, in giving her consent to the establishment of the tribunal in her dominions, was doubtless actuated by the purest religious zeal, and sincerely believed that in suppressing heresy she was discharging a simple duty, and rendering God good service. 'In the love of Christ and His Maid-Mother,' she says, 'I have caused great misery. I have depopulated towns and districts, provinces and kingdoms.'"—(Myers, "Gen. Hist." p. 500.)

13. Now, in the sixteenth century, in connection with the attempted reform in the doctrines of Catholicism, the terrible Inquisition "assumed new vigor and activity, and heresy was sternly dealt with." Consider the following as throwing light on the condition of that time: "At this point, in connection with the persecutions of the Inquisition, we should not fail to recall that in the sixteenth century a refusal to conform to the established worship was regarded by all, by Protestants as well as Catholics, as a species of treason against society and was dealt with accordingly. Thus we find Calvin at Geneva consenting to the burning of Servetus (1553) because he published views that the Calvinists thought heretical; and in England we see the Anglican Protestants waging the most cruel, bitter, and persistent persecutions, not only against the Catholics but also against all Protestants that refused to conform to the Established Church."—(Myers, "Gen. Hist.," p. 527.)

14. What shall be said of a Church that seeks to propagate its faith by such methods? Are fire and sword the weapons with which truth fights her battles? Are torture and death the arguments of the gospel? However terrible the persecutions to which the early Church was subjected at the hands of heathen enemies, the persecutions waged by the apostate church are far more terrible. Can such a church by any possibility be the Church of Christ? Heaven forbid!

15. In the revolts we have noted against the Church of Rome, notably in the Reformation, the zeal of the reformers led to many fallacies in the doctrines they advocated. Luther, himself, proclaimed the doctrine of absolute predestination and of justification by faith alone, thus nullifying belief in the God-given rights of free agency, and impairing the importance of individual effort.—(See the Author's "Articles of Faith," Lecture 5.) Calvin and others were no less extreme. Nevertheless their ministry contributed to the awakening of individual conscience, and assisted in bringing about a measure of religious freedom of which the world had long been deprived.—(See note 2, end of chapter.)

**Rise of the Church of England**.

16. At the time of Martin Luther's revolt against the Church of Rome, Henry VIII reigned in England. In common with all other countries of western Europe, Britain was profoundly stirred by the reformation movement. The king openly defended the Catholic Church and published a book in opposition to Luther's claims. This so pleased the pope, Leo X, that he conferred upon King Henry the distinguishing title, "Defender of the Faith." This took place about 1522, and from that time to the present, British sovereigns have proudly borne the title.

17. Within a few years after his accession to this title of distinction, we find King Henry among the bitterest enemies of the Roman Church, and the change came about in this wise. Henry desired a divorce from his wife, Queen Catherine, to give him freedom to marry Anne Boleyn. The pope hesitated in the matter of granting the divorce, and Henry, becoming impatient, disregarded the pope's authority and secretly married Anne Boleyn. The pope thereupon excommunicated the king from the Church. The English parliament, following the king's directions, passed the celebrated Act of Supremacy in 1534. This statute declared an absolute termination of all allegiance to papal authority, and proclaimed the king as supreme head of the Church of Britain. Thus originated the Church of England, without regard for or claim of divine authority, and without even a semblance of priestly succession.

18. At first there was little innovation in doctrine or ritual in the newly formed church. It originated in revolt. Later a form of creed and a plan of organization were adopted, giving the Church of England some distinctive features. During the reigns of Edward VI, Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth, persecutions between Catholics and Protestants were extensive and violent. Several non-conformist sects arose, among them the Puritans and the Separatists. These were so persecuted that many of them fled to Holland as exiles. From among these came the notable colony of the Pilgrim Fathers, who crossed in the Mayflower to the shores of the then recently-discovered continent, and established themselves in America.

19. The thoughtful student cannot fail to see in the progress of the great apostasy and its results the existence of an overruling power, operating toward eventual good, however mysterious its methods. The heart-rending persecutions to which the saints were subjected in the early centuries of our era, the anguish, the torture, the bloodshed, incurred in defense of the testimony of Christ, the rise of an apostate church, blighting the intellect and leading captive the souls of men—all these dread scenes were foreknown to the Lord. While we cannot say or believe that such exhibitions of human depravity and blasphemy of heart were in accordance with the divine will, certainly God willed to permit full scope to the free agency of man, in the exercise of which agency some won the martyr's crown, and others filled the measure of their iniquity to overflowing.

20. Not less marked is the divine permission in the revolts and rebellions, in the revolutions and reformations, that developed in opposition to the darkening influence of the apostate church. Wycliffe and Huss, Luther and Melancthon, Zwingle and Calvin, Henry VIII in his arrogant assumption of priestly authority, John Knox in Scotland, Roger Williams in America—these and a host of others builded better than they knew, in that their efforts laid in part the foundation of the structure of religious freedom and liberty of conscience,—and this in preparation for the restoration of the gospel as had been divinely predicted.

21. From the sixteenth century down to the present time, sects professedly founded on the tenets of Christianity have multiplied apace. They are now to be numbered by hundreds. On every side the claim has been heard, "Lo, here is Christ," or "Lo, there." There are churches named after their place of origin—as the Church of England; other sects are designated in honor of their famous promoters—as Lutherans, Calvinists, Wesleyans; others are known from some peculiarity of creed or doctrine—as Methodists, Presbyterians, and Baptists; but down to the beginning of the nineteenth century there was no church even claiming name or title as the Church of Christ. The only Church existing at that time venturing to assert authority by succession was the Catholic Church, which as shown was wholly without priesthood or divine commission.

22. If the "Mother Church" be without divine authority or spiritual power, how can her children derive from her the right to officiate in the things of God? Who dares affirm the absurdity that man can originate for himself a priesthood which God shall honor and respect. Granted that men may, can and do, create among themselves societies, associations, sects, and churches if they choose so to designate their religious organizations; granted that they may formulate laws, prescribe rules, and construct elaborate plans of organization and government, and that all such laws, rules and schemes of administration are binding upon those who voluntarily assume membership,—granted all these powers and rights—whence can such human creations derive the authority of the holy Priesthood, without which there can be no Church of Christ? If the power and authority be, by any possibility, of human origin, there never has been a Church of Christ on earth, and the alleged saving ordinances of the gospel have never been other than empty forms.

23. Our review of the Great Apostasy as presented in this treatise, does not call for any detailed or critical study of the Roman Catholic Church as it exists in modern times, nor of any of the numerous Protestant denominations that have come into existence as dissenting children of the so-called "Mother Church." The apostasy was complete, as far as actual loss of priesthood and cessation of spiritual power in the Church are concerned, long prior to the sixteenth century revolt, known in history as the Reformation. It is instructive to observe, however, that the weakness of the Protestant sects as to any claim to divine appointment and authority, is recognized by those churches themselves. The Church of England, which, as shown, originated in revolt against the Roman Catholic Church and its pope, is without foundation of claim to divine authority in its priestly orders, unless, indeed, it dare assert the absurdity that kings and parliaments can create and take unto themselves heavenly authority by enactment of earthly statutes.

24. The Roman Catholic Church is at least consistent in its claim that a line of succession in the priesthood has been maintained from the apostolic age to the present, though the claim is utterly untenable in the light of a rational interpretation of history. But the fact remains that the Catholic Church is the only organization venturing to assert the present possession of the holy priesthood by unbroken descent from the apostles of our Lord. The Church of England, chief among the Protestant sects, and all other dissenting churches, are by their own admission and by the circumstances of their origin, man-made institutions, without a semblance of claim to the powers and authority of the holy priesthood.

25. As late as 1896 the question of the validity of the priestly orders in the Church of England was officially and openly discussed and considered, both in England and at Rome. Lord Halifax, chairman of the English Church Union, conferred with the Vatican authorities to ascertain the possibility of bringing about closer union between the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England. This involved the question of the recognition of the priestly orders of the Anglican Church by the pope and Church of Rome. The movement was favored in the interests of unity and peace by the English premier, Mr. Gladstone. The pope, Leo XIII, finally issued a decree refusing to recognize in any degree the authority of the Anglican orders, and expressly declaring all claims to priestly authority by the Church of England as absolutely invalid.

26. Assuredly the Church of Rome could take no other action than this and maintain the consistency of its own claim to exclusive possession of the priesthood by descent. Assuredly the Church of England would have sought no official recognition of its priestly status by the Church of Rome had it any independent claim to the power and authority of the priesthood. The Roman Catholic Church declares that all Protestant denominations are either apostate organizations, or institutions of human creation that have never had even a remote connection with the church that claims succession in the priesthood. In short, the apostate "Mother Church" aggressively proclaims the perfidy of her offspring.

**The Apostasy Admitted**.

27. The fact of the great apostasy is admitted. Many theologians who profess a belief in Christianity have declared the fact. Thus we read: "We must not expect to see the Church of Christ existing in its perfection on the earth. It is not to be found thus perfect, either in the collected fragments of Christendom or still less in any one of those fragments."—(Smith's "Dictionary of the Bible.")

28. John Wesley, who lived from 1703 to 1791 A. D., and who ranks as chief among the founders of Methodism, comments as follows on the apostasy of the Christian Church as evidenced by the early decline of spiritual power and the cessation of the gifts and graces of the Spirit of God within the Church: "It does not appear that these extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit—(See I Cor., ch. 12.) were common in the Church for more than two or three centuries. We seldom hear of them after that fatal period when the Emperor Constantine called himself a Christian, and from a vain imagination of promoting the Christian cause thereby heaped riches and power and honor upon Christians in general, but in particular upon the Christian clergy. From this time they almost totally ceased, very few instances of the kind being found. The cause of this was not, as has been supposed, because there was no more occasion for them, because all the world was become Christians. This is a miserable mistake; not a twentieth part of it was then nominally Christians. The real cause of it was that the love of many, almost all Christians, so-called, was waxed cold. The Christians had no more of the spirit of Christ than the other heathens. The Son of Man, when He came to examine His Church, could hardly find faith upon earth. This was the real cause why the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost were no longer to be found in the Christian church—because the Christians were turned heathens again, and only had a dead form left."—(John Wesley's Works. Vol. VII, 89:26-27. See Note 3, end of chapter.)

29. The Church of England makes official declaration of degeneracy and loss of divine authority in these words: "Laity and clergy, learned and unlearned, all ages, sects, and degrees, have been drowned in abominable idolatry most detested by God and damnable to man for eight hundred years and more."—(Church of England 'Homily on Perils of Idolatry,' p. 3.) The "Book of Homilies," in which occurs this declaration by the Church of England, dates from about the middle of the sixteenth century. According to this official statement, therefore, the religious world had been utterly apostate for eight centuries prior to the establishment of the Church of England. The fact of a universal apostasy was widely proclaimed, for the homilies from which the foregoing citation is taken were "appointed to be read in churches" in lieu of sermons under specified condition.

30. The great apostasy was divinely predicted; its accomplishment is attested by both sacred and secular writ.

31. To the faithful Latter-day Saint, a concluding proof of the universal apostasy and of the absolute need of a restoration of Priesthood from the heavens will be found in the divine reply to the inquiry of the boy prophet, Joseph Smith, as to which of all the contending sects was right: "I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in His sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that 'they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.'"—(Pearl of Great Price, p. 85, par. 19.)

**The Sequel**.

32. The sequel of the Great Apostasy is the Restoration of the Gospel, marking the inauguration of the Dispensation of the Fulness of Times. This epoch-making event occurred in the early part of the nineteenth century, when the Father and the Son manifested themselves to man, and when the Holy Priesthood with all its powers and authority was again brought to earth.

33. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints proclaims to the world this glorious restoration,—at once the consummation of the work of God throughout the ages past, and the final preparation for the second advent of Jesus, the Christ. The Church affirms that after the long night of spiritual darkness, the light of heaven has again come; and that the Church of Christ is authoritatively established. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints stands alone in the declaration that the Holy Priesthood is operative upon earth, not as an inheritance through earthly continuation from the apostolic age, but as the endowment of a new dispensation, brought to earth by heavenly ministration. In this restoration, divinely predicted and divinely achieved, has been witnessed a realization of the Revelator's vision:

"And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters."—(Rev. 14:6, 7. For treatment of the Restoration of the Gospel see the Author's "Articles of Faith," Lecture 11. See Notes 4 and 5, end of chapter.)