The promises of Christ to His church amount in substance to an assurance of His own constant presence with it, and of the presence and guidance of the Holy Spirit—the Spirit of truth. Papists allege that these promises imply or secure, not only that the profession of Christianity would soon be widely extended in the world, but also that one widely extended visible society would continue always or uninterruptedly to proclaim the whole truth of God without any mixture of error. They assert that this has been promised, and that it has been fully realized in the Church of Rome, or in the visible church in communion with the Papal See, and in subjection to the Pope. Protestants believe, as a matter of unquestionable historical certainty, that at a very early period error and corruption—i.e. deviations from the scriptural standard in matters of doctrine, government, worship, and discipline—manifested themselves in the visible church gradually, but rapidly. That this corruption deepened and increased, till it issued at length in a grand apostasy—in a widely extended and well digested system of heresy, idolatry, and tyranny, which involved in gross darkness nearly the whole of the visible church for almost a thousand years, until it was to some extent dispelled by the light of the Reformation. They believe that the soundness of this general view of the history of the church can be fully established by undoubted matters of fact, viewed in connection with the plain statements of Scripture [2 Thes. 2; 1 Tim. 4:1-3; 2 Tim. 3:1-5; 2 Tim. 4:3-4; 1 John 2:18; Rev. 9:1-11; Rev. 13]. They see nothing in Christ’s promises to His church that requires them to disbelieve or to doubt this; and, on the contrary, they find statements in Scripture which seem fitted and intended to lead men to expect some such result.… Read More Protestant vs. Roman Catholic Theories on Church History