A History of Popery Author:Samuel Miller Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: HISTORY OF POPERY. SECTION I. THE ORIGIN OF POPERY. The term Popery is derived from Papa, which signifies a Father. In its ecclesiastical use, it denote... more »s the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome, as the earthly head or father of the church universal, including all the professed followers of Christ on earth. It is true that the term pope has been applied, by some writers, to the bishops of Rome from the earliest times. But this is calculated to mislead the mind of the reader. For the truth is, the bishops of Rome were never designated by this title until after supremacy was achieved. And by modern writers only has this title been carried back and applied to bishops in the early days of Christianity. To call Peter or Clement I. a pope, is paying a modern compliment, which either of these men, or their immediate successors, would have little relished. It was not the mind of Christ that any among his disciples should be called Rabbi, or Father, by way of distinction. But he would have them esteem each other brethren, and the servants or ministers of Christ and the church. And Peter was content to follow this advice of his Lord and Master; for he styles himself, in one of his epistles, "Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ." Paul was of the same mind, when he says—" who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers (servants) by whom ye believed even as the Lord gave to every man." Again, " Let a man so account of us as of the ministers (servants) of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God." Peter and Paul therefore never aspired to any higher title of dignity than that of servant. The same is true of the primitive ministers of the church. And when we read of the popes of Rome in histories which relate to the early ages of the Christian church, we are exp...« less