rosarybeadsletter

Cork Free Presbyterian Church, 10 Briarscourt (Annex) Shanakiel, Cork, Ireland
Pastor: Colin Maxwell. Email: colin.maxwell@fpcmission.org

LETTER SENT: IRISH INDEPENDENT, IRISH TIMES, IRISH EXAMINER AND THE COI GAZETTE
SUBJECT: CLAIM OF THE COI THAT THEIR CREEDS NEVER CALLED THE POPE THE ANTICHRIST
(This is in relation to a protest by Wallace Brown of the Evangelical Protestant Society over the sale of rosary beads in the COI Cathedral in Dublin, hence this page is appropriate for this particular letter - see letter below, dated 3-7-04)
DATE SENT: 24-1-08

Dear Sir,

While it is technically correct of the Church of Ireland to claim that their ancient creeds do not identify the Pope of Rome as the Antichrist, yet their 1615 Irish Articles rightly identify the Pope as that man of sin who will be destroyed by the Lord Jesus at His Second Coming - a reference to 2 Thessalonians chapter 2.

"Article 80: The Bishop of Rome is so far from being the supreme head of the universal Church of Christ, that his works and doctrine do plainly discover him to be that man of sin, foretold in the holy Scriptures whom the Lord shall consume with the Spirit of his mouth, and abolish with the brightness of his coming." This is the same indictment and totally at odds with the fact that the COI has become a retail outlet for the superstitions of the Roman Catholic Church.

Yours faithfully,
Colin Maxwell
(Cork Free Presbyterian Church)

P/s Please print in full or not at all. Please withhold address from publication.

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LETTER SENT TO: CHURCH OF IRELAND GAZETTE
SUBJECT: ROSARY BEADS
DATE SENT: 3-7-04

Dear Sir,

The idea has been twice mooted in your columns that rosary beads are an aid to faith (Letters 2nd July) This may be so, but we are entitled to ask "Faith in what or faith in who?"

The last so called glorious mystery in the rosary (known, incidentally, as Mary's Rosary) crowns the Blessed Virgin "queen of heaven and earth." (Handbook for today's Catholic, Liguori Publications) This is sheer idolatry. The only reference to the Queen of Heaven in the Bible relates to Babylonian paganism, complete with the incense and the sacrificial cakes of worship (Jeremiah 44)

The idea that since it is the paying tourists who request them therefore they must be provided leads me to wonder if I should visit a Roman Catholic cathedral bookshop and request that they stock the expositions of Scripture by Calvin or Luther or some other Protestant Bible commentaries which I find as an aid to my faith. I have been sometimes asked for the various paraphernalia of Rome at our Christian bookstall. My polite explanation why we don't stock any often opens up an opportunity to witness to the truth of the gospel and expose the aberrations of it as expressed in the mass cards, holy water and rosary beads etc., I have never offended any one yet by my principle before profit motives.

Yours faithfully,
Colin Maxwell.

Index of other letters on many subjects sent