Augustine of Hippo
Quotes of William Branham
In A.D. 603, when the King of England was baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ by Saint Augustine, setting at a great fireplace one night, while he was talking to him about Christ, a little sparrow flew into the light, fluttered around a little bit, flew out. And Saint Augustine said to the king; he said, "Where did he come from and where did he go to?" He said, "That's the way that every man that comes into this world. He comes in here, walks in a little conscience of senses, not knowing exactly where he come from. And there's only one Book that can tell him where he's going to, and that's the Bible." And by that, the king was converted and gave his life to the Lord. And the next morning, he and all of his household was baptized in the Name of the Lord.[1]
Now, we've come through a great day. The day's gone by, through great teachers, Saint Augustine; come on down to Martin Luther, John Wesley, Calvin, Knox, all of those; down through the age of the—of the Methodist, the age of the Baptist, the age of the Nazarene, the age of the Pilgrim Holiness, the age of Pentecostal, all these ages has passed away. [2]
Pope Leo the Great, reigned and from 440 until 461. Oh, he thought he was exactly doing what was right. Come into the church… Before him was Victor, and he was a rat too. And he come in there, and how he put the Christians to death and everything else. And then who started all this, putting it legalized murder? You know who it was? Saint Augustine of Hippo. That's exactly who did it. Saint Augustine had an opportunity once, so says the history, to become a great man, and be filled with the Holy Ghost. He set in the back of the yard there, in Lyons, France, at that great school where Irenaeus had taught, and them, and Saint Martin. He set in this school yard, and the Holy Ghost come to him. But he refused to accept It. Then what did he become? A twofold more child of hell than he was to begin with. He went right on down to Hippo, Africa. There he set his school. And it was… "Show me." 170 I can take you to the history. He was the one who sanctioned his word to it, that it was all right to put to death any heretic who would disagree with the dogmas of the Roman church: Saint Augustine of Hippo. Is there a Bible scholar here, or somebody that's read history, knows that that's true, raise up your hand? Yeah. See? Sure, they are. Saint Augustine of Hippo, he was the one who passed the verdict that it was all right to kill heretics who disagreed with the Roman church, sanctioning them pagan doctrine, of getting away from the Bible, and establishing a son god worship. You know the reason Christianity is…
But Augustine sanctioned it. If you want to refer to this in Schmucker's, the writing of Schmucker, S-c-h-m-u-c-k-e-r-s, Schmucker's "The Glorious Reformation," here's what it stated, that "From the time that Saint Augustine of Hippo passed this verdict to the Catholic church, it throwed the doors wide open for them to kill anything they wanted to then, that denied that pagan church. And from the time of Saint Augustine, about three hundred years after Christ until 1850, the great massacre of Ireland, there was eighty-six million Protestants killed by the Catholic church. That's on the Roman martyrology: Eighty-six million." Now, fuss with the historian, he's the one that said that. I'm just repeating his word. "Everyone that disagreed with the Catholic dogma…" [3]
28 I was reading in the Nicene Fathers, the post-Nicene Council, that where Saint Augustine of Hippo, setting with Saint Martin one day as he was visiting him at the monastery. Out in the back yard in the garden God gave him the opportunity to receive the Holy Ghost, like Martin did. But he turned it away, so interested in the—the dogmas of Rome till he couldn't receive the Holy Spirit. Many times we get that way, so interested in other things. Sometimes we're so interested in time that we're brought right into the Presence of the Lord Jesus and walk away. [4]
It would be like St. Augustine of Hippo. Instead of going on when he was there at Irenaeus' church, and receiving the Holy Ghost, he took off down to Africa, to Hippo, Africa, again. And he was the one that made the proclamation that it was all right to put Christians to death who didn't believe in the Roman church. And on the martyrology today stands sixty-eight million people who's been put to death by the church. See? Why? He had a opportunity to receive the Holy Ghost. He had an opportunity, but he wasn't convinced that it was the Holy Ghost. And you see where his concern went.[5]
22 Look just a moment, to some of you people, and especially I speak to you Catholic people. Do you realize, have you ever read the actual history, the history of the Roman Catholic church? How that on your martyrology, since Saint Augustine of Hippo, how many million innocent people that the church put to death! I forget, can't call the exact number, but it's up in the millions, since Saint Hippo of… Saint Augustine of Hip-… of Hippo, Africa, made it a declaration that it was absolutely the will of God to put anybody to death that protests the Roman Catholic church. Do you realize that in that, that Saint Patrick was never recognized till after his death, as a Roman Catholic? He protested the pope and all of his doings, and the Catholic church itself killed tens of thousands of his children. Did you know that the Catholic church burnt Joan of Arc, that little sainted woman, to the stake, for be-… said she was a witch. Two hundred years later, dug up the bodies of the priests, when they found out it was wrong, and cast them into the sea, without burying them in the sacred ground, to do penance.[6]
Once the Nicene Council had swung the power of political Rome to the church, it seemed that there were no limits to which this First Christian Church would go. The name, Christian, which originally brought persecution, now became the name of the persecutors. It was in this age that Augustine of Hippo (354-430) set forth the precept that the church ought and MUST use force if necessary to bring her children back into the fold, and that it was in harmony with the Word of God to kill the heretics and apostates. In his controversy with the Donatists he wrote… "It is indeed better that men should be led to worship God by teaching than that they should be driven to it by fear of punishment or pain, but it does not follow that because the former course produces the better men, therefore those who do not yield to it should be neglected. For many have found advantage (as we have proved and are daily proving by actual experience) in being first compelled by fear or pain, so that they might afterwards be influenced by teaching, so that they might follow out in act what they have already learned in word… whilst those are better who are guided aright by love, those are certainly more numerous who are corrected by fear. For who can possibly love us more than Christ, Who laid down His life for the sheep?[7]
Footnotes
- ↑ William Branham, 55-0410M - Proof Of His Resurrection, para. 17
- ↑ William Branham, 55-0410M - Proof Of His Resurrection, para. 159
- ↑ William Branham, 61-1217 - Christianity Versus Idolatry, para. 166-170, 173
- ↑ William Branham, 62-0127 - Meanest Man I Know, para. 28
- ↑ William Branham, 62-0521 - Convinced And Then Concerned, para. 37
- ↑ William Branham, 65-0801E - Events Made Clear By Prophecy, para. 22
- ↑ William Branham, An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages - Chapter Five - The Pergamean Church Age, para. 195-2