The modern
Pope Leo XIII, in an encyclical letter dated June 20, 1894, repeated the
claim:
"We hold upon this earth the place of God Almighty."--_"The
Great Encyclical Letters of Leo XIII" (New York, Benziger
Brothers), p. 304._
Thus does the Papacy "speak great words against the Most High."
"And Shall Wear Out the Saints of the Most High"
All through the Dark Ages we catch glimpses of the ruthless hand of Rome
laid upon simple believers in God's Holy Word; but plans for wholesale
wearing out of the saints of God were devised as the Waldenses and
others rose to a widespread work of witnessing, heralds of the dawn of
the coming Reformation,--
"These who gave earliest notice,
As the lark
Springs from the ground the morn to gratulate;
Who, rather, rose the day to antedate,
By striking out a solitary spark,
When all the world with midnight gloom was dark--
The harbingers of good whom bitter hate
In vain endeavored to exterminate."
--_Wordsworth._
Pope Innocent III gave orders concerning them as follows:
"Therefore by this present apostolical writing, we give you a
strict command that, by whatever means you can, you destroy all
these heresies and expel from your diocese all who are polluted
with them.
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