WASHINGTON IN THE LAP OF ROME CHAPTER IV
HOW WASHINGTON CAME TO BE WASHINGTON.
This few seem to know ; the many reckon, it happened so. Such are oblivious to the fact, that before even Washington was even a dream in the minds of men, Rome had plotted to hold the continent. By Rome, we mean the power that makes Rome what she is, and what she is to be, ” the prince of the power of the air,” who has incarnated himself in Jesuitism, as Christ is incarnated in Christianity ; the power that works in darkness, and plans the suppression of the the truth and the overthrow of the rule of Christ. ” For we wrestle not,” says Paul, “against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, and against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”(Eph. 6:12) John said: “He that committeth sin is of the devil, for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose was the Son of God manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. “(1 John 3:8) In this manifestation of Christ through the proclamation of the truth, lies the hope of the world. If then we charge Romanism with being cunning, subtle, and sly, the reason for the charge is supplied in the words quoted, which inform us of the cunning craftiness whereby Rome lies in wait to deceive.
THE POWER IS UNSEEN.
It is shadowy. It inhabits the air and infects it. Romanism is the malaria of the spiritual world. It stupefies the brain, deadens the heart, and sears the conscience as with a hot iron. It stands across the track of the world s life, with gifts in its hands, offering rule, supremacy, power and wealth to all who will fall down and worship her.*
They who yield have peace and praise. They who refuse must fight a desperate foe. The many do not believe this. They are blinded by ambition and fear, and they see it not. Deaf are they and they hear not the truth, and yet the truth remains. The what is, is the outgrowth of the what has been. Don t forget it. A wise, astute, cunning, comprehensive intellect has helped Romanism in the past, and is helping it now.
Washington is in the lap of Rome, because of influences which stirred the hearts of people and made them to act worse than they knew.
A few facts will make all this plain. Columbus was actuated by a desire to promote the interests of Romanism, when he traversed an unknown sea and discovered this Western World. Cortez and Pizarro went to Mexico and Peru, and captured them for the same purpose. Their lives were full of cruelty, but that did not hurt them with Rome. Lord Baltimore came to Maryland to find a refuge for persecuted” (2 Thess. 2:8,9) Romanists and named the place of retreat Mary’s land.
To escape the fangs of Romanism and priestly intolerance, the Puritans forsook their homes beyond the sea, came to New England, and on Plymouth Rock built an altar to liberty, sought on bleak New England shores freedom to worship God. They have been called narrow in their thought, and it is claimed they meant by liberty, liberty for themselves, and the right to banish all who thought differently.
Roger Williams, in the furnace fire of affliction and persecution, had the fetters of slavery to creed burned away, and came forth, through the wilderness and the sleet and snows of winter, to ” What Cheer Rock,” where he became the champion of liberty for all.
Archbishop Hughes once said : “Far be it from me to diminish, by one iota, the merit that is claimed for Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and perhaps other states, on the score of having proclaimed religious freedom, but the Catholics of Maryland, by priority of time, had borne away the prize.” This is untrue, both as regards time and character of what purported to be religious freedom. The Roman Catholic colony sailed up the Potomac in 1634. In Maryland the boasted law was passed in 1649, two years after the doctrine of religious freedom was proclaimed in Rhode Island. Bancroft, in speaking of what was done in Maryland, says : “The controversy between the king and the parliament advanced, the overthrow of the monarchy seemed about to confer unlimited power in England upon the embittered enemies of the Romish Church ; and, as if with a foresight of impending danger, and an earnest desire to stay its approach, the Roman Catholics of Maryland, with the covert countenance of their governor and of the proprietary, determined to place upon their statute-book an act of guaranty of religious freedom, which had ever been sacred upon their soil. This is the language of the Act : And whereas the enforcing of the conscience in matters of religion had frequently fallen out to be of dangerous consequences in those commonwealths where it has been practiced, and for the more quiet and peaceable government of this province, and the better to preserve mutual love and amity among the inhabitants, no person within this province professing to believe in Jesus Christ, shall in any ways be troubled, molested, or discountenanced for his or her religion, or the free exercise thereof.” This, then, is their law poor as it is. In Rhode Island , their code of laws passed in 1647, closes with the following noble avowal of religious liberty to all: ” Otherwise than this what is herein forbidden, all men may walk as their consciences persuade them, every one in the name of God. And let the lambs of the Most High walk in this colony without molestation, in the name of Jehovah their God, for ever and ever.”
