21 Their Credibility Hinges on Augustine

Their Credibility Hinges on Augustine

We must keep in mind that just as the credibility of the Christian religion is rooted in the identity, and person, and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, the credibility of the Roman Catholic Church, and the various Protestant denominations that sprang from her, is just as dependent on the identity, and person, and work of this Saint Augustine of Hippo. This is the reason so much ink has been spilled in defending him, and making a saint of him. He was their founder, and their entire structure stands or falls with him. There had been a Judaizing, paganizing element plaguing the church since the time of the apostles. And all of that time they had resisted the saints and the truth of the gospel. The Academy had performed an enormous service in preparing the way. The Council of Nice had provided the organization. But it was left to Augustine, with his powerful intellect, his enormous ego, and his political abilities to organize the Catholic party into the powerful fighting force it became.

It was left to him to draw the battle lines. He was the man who chose infant baptism as a substitute for believer’s baptism. He was the one who chose to do battle with the saints at the very point God required our first step of gospel obedience. The Catholic/Protestant community has no choice but to defend him, and make a saint of him. Their entire structure stands or falls with him.

Paul tells us, “For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works,”2 Corinthians 11:13-15. Does that passage describe Augustine? I will not presume to say. I have several volumes of his works in my library, and I must acknowledge that I have often been moved by reading his experience, as he tells of his struggles with his own carnality. The unregenerate do not war against their depravity. They appreciate it and cultivate it. They gain satisfaction from their own corruption. But then I read of his using his enormous influence to bring about the death of so many innocent people, whose only offense was in worshiping their Maker in ways he did not approve, and I cannot conceive of how any heaven born soul could engage in what was nothing more than calculated, cold-blooded murder-and that on a grand scale. It was judicial murder, but it was murder, nonetheless.

It is far too much that he drove them from their families, from their homes, and from their churches, but for him to have them killed is simply unexplainable. And, keep in mind that, more than any other person, Augustine was the instigator and enforcer of what he calls these penal laws.

Somebody tells us that Augustine was simply the product of his times; that it was the practice in that day to torture and kill those who refused to be converted. But that does not explain anything. More than anybody else, he was the man who started the practice. Had Augustine later expressed remorse over the people who died because of his campaigns, we might reach other conclusions. Even a secular court of law takes remorse into consideration. But the fact that Augustine seems never to have regretted the many innocent people whose death he brought about, and the fact that, from all we can learn of him, he died, totally unrepentant over their deaths, we must forever withhold judgment. Our Calvinist historians have been faithful to relate the huge numbers of their own people who were killed during the Roman Catholic Inquisition. But they have been as silent as the tomb about literally thousands of innocent, God-fearing preachers who were torn from their homes, from their families, from their churches, and finally banished from the land-by this first and most illustrious Calvinist preacher- this founder of Calvinism. For over 400 years the Protestants have been grinding out their books, rewriting their history. They have kept us well informed about the suffering they experienced at the hands of the Roman Catholic authorities during what has come to be known as the Inquisition. What they have been very careful not to tell is that when the Calvinists were in authority, they were just as bloodthirsty as the Roman Catholic Inquisitors ever were.