Do you think the "false Decretals" bearing the name of Isadore Mercator supposedly written in the seventh century but obviously later in the ninth century reflects poorly upon the Roman Monks objectivity of valid versus invalid authentic records?
What about the comment by the infidel historian William E.H. Lecky who said in his History of Morals:
"...no impartial reader can, I think, investigate the innumerable grotesqe and lying legends that, during the whole course of the Middle Ages, were deliberately palmed upon mankind as undoubted facts, can follow the histories of the false decretals, and the discussions that were connected with them, or can observe the complete and absolute incapacity most Catholic historians have displayed, of conceiving any good thing in the ranks of their opponents, or stating with common fairness any consideration that can tell against their cause, without acknowledging how serious and how inveterate has been the evil. There have been, no doubt many nobel exceptions. Yet, it is, I believe difficult to exaggerate the extent to which this moral defect exist in most of the ancient and very much of the modern literature of Catholocism" William E. H. Lecky,
History of European Morals, (New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1887) Vol. 2, p. 212
How about the great historian of the Roman Empire,
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The Catholics....instead of assuming such honorable pride, the orthodox theologions were tempted, by the assurance of impunity to compose fictions, which must be stigmatized with epithets of
of fraud and forgery. They ascribe their own polemical works to the most venerable names of Christian antiquity; the characters of Athanasius and Augustin were awkwardly personated by Vigilius and his disciples.....Even the Scriptures themselves wer profaned by their rash hands....the example of fraud must cite suspicion." - Edward Gibbons,
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (New York: Peter Fenelon Collier) Vol. 3, pp. 555,556.557
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The Paulicians sincerely condemned the memory and opinions of the Manichean sect, and complained of the injustice which impressed that invidious name on the simple votaries of St. Paul and of Christ" - Gibbons,
Ibid. Vol. 5, p. 387
What about Sir William Jones and his investigations into the charges brought against the Waldenses by Rome:
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the names imposed upon them in France by their adversaries, they say, have been intended to vilify and ridicule them, or to represent them as new and different sects. Being stripped of all their property and reduced by persecution to extreme poverty, they have been called 'poor of Lynons.' From their mean and famished appearance in their exalted and destitute state, they have been called, in provincial jargon, "Siccan,' or pickpockets. Because they would not observe Saints days, they were falsely supposed to neglect the Sabbath also, and callled 'Inzabbatati' or 'In Sabbathists.' As they denied transubstantiation or the personal and divine presence of Jesus Christ in the host or wafer exhibited in the mass, they were called 'Arians.'
Their adversaries, premising that all power must be derived from God through his viceergent, the Pope, or from an opposite and evil principle, inferred that the Waldenses were 'Manicheans' because they denied the Popes supremacy over the empeors and kings of the earth." - William Jones,
The History of the Christian Church. (Lousiville: Norwood & Palmer, 1831) vol. 1, p. 300.
I could fill pages with such reports by other historians that have investigated the historical claims of Rome rather than merely accepted them at face value.
I'm hardly wandering. Evolving I will accept. I press on toward the goal as in Philipians. Also note the church has evolved and the essentials as you put it haven't changed but everything else has. I believe your decieved by your own landmarkist view which has no historical support and you can claim Rome all you want. Well renouned secular and protestant writers hold to actual history contrary to Landmark Baptist view. Archeological finds support my view. Historical documents support my view. Etc... I know that if you considered the reality of History God would some how seem more fluid to you which is a shame for I see fluid history immutable God.
