XI. The Protestant Idea of Antichrist

 [ British Critic, Oct. 1840]

 THE Discourses which Dr. Todd has recently given to the world, are, perhaps, the first attempt for a long course of years in this part of Christendom to fix a dispassionate attention and a scientific interpretation upon the momentous "Prophecies relating to Antichrist in the writings of Daniel and St. Paul." When men set out by resolving that a certain ecclesiastical power, or foreign enemy, or political principle, or historical personage, must and shall be the scope of the inspired announcement, which is too often done, they are not, of course, sure to be wrong in their conclusion, but they are pretty sure to be unfair in their proofs. Candour, judgment, critical acumen, exactness in reasoning, adherence to principles, whether of interpretation or of theology, these and similar qualities are not to be expected of such expositors; they start with a prejudice, they argue as advocates, and they end in a foregone conclusion. Faults such as these cannot be imputed to Dr. Todd; he is methodical, careful, and accurate in his investigations, and clear and unaffected in his manner of presenting them before his readers.

 Far from imposing a meaning upon Scripture, in order to make it tally with events in the history of the day, if he has a fault, it rather lies in his proving too little from it; that is, in his being rather bent on disproving what others advance than in establishing, according to the sense of the Catholic Church, anything positive and substantial instead. An adversary would impute to his discussions some deficiency of poetry, by which we mean a deficiency of that subtlety of thought and sensitiveness of feeling which is the best preparative for entering into those superhuman announcements and descriptions upon which he has written. We have pleasure in believing that in matters of doctrine we entirely agree with Dr. Todd; and, judging from what Dr. Arnold has published, we are sorrowfully conscious that we do not agree with Dr. Arnold; still, as regards the principles of prophetical interpretation, we think that there is a deeper philosophy in Dr. Arnold's two Sermons lately published than in the Discourses before us. This, however, we avow merely because by our profession we are critics, and, in giving an opinion on the subject, are performing a task which may even be expected of us. Having given it, we may with a safe conscience proceed to the consideration of the main position on which Dr. Todd has employed himself, which we cannot but consider to be most true and most important, and to entitle him to the gratitude of all churchmen.

 That position is this, that the prophecies concerning Antichrist are as yet unfulfilled, and that the predicted enemy of the Church is yet to come. No one can deny the importance of such a view of the subject, if it be true. If dreadful scenes still await the Church, if they have been foretold, and foretold that Christians may be prepared for them, no calamity can be greater than a belief that they have already been fulfilled, and that there is nothing to look out for or to fear; no device of Satan can be more crafty than to make us think that they are not to come, that they have come to pass already, nay, that they have been fulfilled in a branch of the Church herself, that Church which was ordained by her Divine Author ever to be one, all over the earth, and to live in internal peace, not in mutual revilings and accusations, in strife and hatred.

 But there is another reason why Dr. Todd's work is seasonable and important. We consider that it is impossible to hold certain branches of the Church to be the communion of Antichrist, as it has long been the fashion with Protestants to maintain, without involving our own branch in the charge; if any part of the Church be anti-Christian, it will be found that all the Church is so, our own branch inclusive. We are much disposed to question whether any tests can be given to prove that the Roman communion is the Synagogue of Satan, which will not, in the judgment of the many, implicate the Church of England. This is a most serious consideration, in proportion as we believe it to hold good. In such case it will not be from any special leaning towards Romanism that we shall be eager to prove that Rome is not the seat of the Enemy of God; it will arise simply from prudential motives, if we have no other. As to Rome, we owe her of late years nothing at all, except indeed, according to the Scripture rule, love for hatred. Nothing that we can say will soften one whit that obdurate temper, or touch that secular political spirit, which at present is dominant among her children. Therefore we take up Dr. Todd's position, if we must give our reason, from nothing more or less than the mere instinct of self-preservation. It is very well for Sandemanian, Ranter, or Quaker to call Rome the seat of Antichrist. We cannot afford to do so; nostra res agitur : we come next. Members of our Church are entreated to consider this carefully. In thus assaulting Rome, they are using an argument which is with equal certainty, if not with equal fulness, available against their own religious position; an argument which, if they use it consistently, must drive them forward into some still more simple system of religion, nay, on and on they know not whither, till " tota jacet Babylon." [n. 1] If, indeed, it be a truth that the Bishop of Rome is Antichrist, let us of course boldly follow it out; but surely, considering the uncertain arguments on which prophetical interpretations must rest, and that clear evidence on which the Articles of the Creed and the principles of Christian ethics are received, it is necessarily no slight argument against a certain interpretation, that it is found legitimately to lead to the denial whether of Christian doctrine or of Christian duty. If we cannot consistently hold that the Pope is Antichrist, without holding that the principle of establishments, the Christian ministry, and the most sacred Catholic doctrines, are fruits of Antichrist, surely the lengths we must run are a reductio ad absurdum of the position with which we start. If we must deny either that Christian Rome is Babylon, or affirm that Socinus was right, it is not difficult to see which proposition must give way.

 And another serious question is this, whether we ought not to be very sure before we assert that a branch of Christ's Church, not merely has evil extensively prevailing within it, but is actually the kingdom of evil, the kingdom of God's enemy; considering that, if it be not the kingdom of darkness, it is the Church, the dwelling-place of the Most High. The question really lies, be it observed, between those two alternatives, either the Church of Rome is the house of God or the house of Satan; there is no middle ground between them. Now, surely our Lord's strong language about the consequences of speaking against the Gracious Presence which inhabits the Church, or of ascribing the works of the Spirit to Beelzebub, is enough to make us very cautious of forming a judgment against particular branches of the Church, unless we are very certain what we are saying. If we are not "treading upon the adder," we are "kicking against the pricks."

 These are some principal reasons which lead us to feel thankful to Dr. Todd for the careful and learned work which he has presented to the Christian public; and with the hope of strengthening the Scripture argument to which he has for the most part confined himself, we shall here employ ourselves on some collateral thoughts upon the subject, chiefly of an antecedent nature, whether in answer to like antecedent objections, or the expansion of considerations which we have already suggested.

 1.

 That Scripture contains intimations of the coming of a special enemy of Christ and His Church, of great power, craft, and wickedness, is undeniable. He is described by St. Paul and Daniel, in the prophecies which Mr. Todd undertakes to elucidate, as "the man of sin," "the lawless one," "the son of perdition," "a king of fierce countenance, and of look more stout than his fellows;" as "having eyes," and "a mouth speaking very great things," and "understanding dark sentences;" as a liar and hypocrite, and of a seared conscience; as "doing according to his will;" as "opposing, exalting, and magnifying himself above every god," and "all that is called God, or that is worshipped;" as "speaking marvellous things against the God of gods;" as "sitting as God in the temple of God," and "showing himself that he is God;" "with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness;" as coming "when the transgressors are come to the full," with or after an "apostasy," and that "from the faith," in a mystery of iniquity which even in the Apostles' day "did already work;" as "prospering till the indignation be accomplished," till "the Lord consume him with the spirit of His mouth, and destroy with the brightness of His coming." Such is the prophecy, as Dr. Todd delineates it; the question is, whether, as he maintains, its fulfilment is yet to come, or whether it has taken place in the person of the Bishop of Rome, as Protestants have very commonly supposed.

 Now, one of the first questions which it is natural to ask on entering upon the subject is, whereas the Pope is said to be Antichrist, sometimes from the fourth, sometimes from the seventh century, when was he first detected and denounced, and by whom? In other words, what is the history of that interpretation of prophecy on which Protestants rely? On this point Dr. Todd supplies us with much information, from which it appears that the belief that the Pope was Antichrist was the conclusion gradually formed and matured out of the belief that the Church of Rome was Babylon, by three heretical bodies, between the eleventh and sixteenth centuries, in consequence of their being submitted to persecution for their opinions:

 "In the middle of the eleventh century, numerous emigrants from Thrace and the East had established themselves in the north of Italy, and especially in the neighbourhood of Milan; and some, despising a fixed habitation, or unable to obtain one, itinerated throughout various parts of France and Germany. The doctrines of these sects exhibit various shades of extravagance and error, and appear to have had a close affinity with the Oriental Manichees or Paulicians, from whom they are historically descended. They are accused of holding that the material world was the work of an evil being, and not of the Supreme Deity; that the Incarnation and Crucifixion of the Lord were therefore visions, or at least so far unreal events as to be disconnected with matter; that abstinence from flesh and wine was necessary to salvation; that marriage was a carnal state, and inconsistent with Christian perfection. They are said also to have rejected the authority of the Old Testament, as the work of the evil principle; and to have condemned the temporal possessions and rank of the clergy, on the ground that the true Church of Christ should imitate to the letter the poverty of the first Apostles; they despised all external religion, ridiculed the office and powers of the priesthood, the efficacy of the Sacraments, and especially the use of baptism." Pp. 28-30.

 These were the Albigenses, the first of the three independent families of heresy above mentioned.

 The second protesting sect which those times produced was, according to Dr. Todd, of a much purer and more respectable character. It originated at the end of the twelfth century, in the celebrated Peter Waldo; was free from the Manichæan errors of the Albigenses and the Paulicians; and, though its members held, at least ultimately, the unlawfulness of oaths, the necessity of poverty, and the inefficacy of the sacraments, yet the innocency of their lives, and their seasonable vehemence against the superstitions of the day, procured them acceptance in almost every part of Europe. Pursuing the line of research which the learned Mr. Maitland has opened, Dr. Todd has brought together a mass of information on this subject, and the notes which stand at the end of his Lectures, form one of the most interesting parts of his work. It would appear from these that the Albigenses founded their opposition to the Church on a Manichæan principle, viz., that, as there was an evil deity, and he the author of the visible world, so was he author also of the visible Church, which in consequence was "the devil's basilica and synagogue of Satan," and, in the language of the Apocalypse, "the mother of fornications." This they maintained; though, as denying our Lord's Incarnation, condemning holy matrimony, and prohibiting meats, they themselves came nearest of all religious parties, then existing, to that prophetic description, which they are at this day supposed by their protest to have fastened upon Rome. The Waldenses, on the other hand, far from participating in these grave errors, seem at first to have differed in no article of faith from the received orthodoxy of the thirteenth century; nay, they were in the habit of disputing against the Albigenses, and that "acutissimè," even after their own separation from the Church. Moreover, far from wishing to separate, they in the first instance attempted to take a place in the Church, such as the Mendicant Friars soon afterwards occupied under the leading of St. Francis and St. Dominic, and applied to the Pope with a view of obtaining his sanction to their rules, and of being permitted to found a religious order. Failing in this, they seceded, and proceeded to denounce the Church of Rome, not on the Manichæan principle, nor exactly on the Protestant, though on one which Protestants have often taken, viz., that the Church or its clergy lost their spiritual powers from the period of their consenting to receive temporal endowments. But, as to any opposition to the Church simply founded on the prophecies in the Apocalypse, of this, Dr. Todd contends, and with great force of argument, there is no trace among them, till after the rise of the last of the three families of heresy aforesaid, to which that opposition really belonged, and of which an account shall now be given in our author's words:

 "The third class of heretics, amongst whom a similar doctrine prevailed, arose in the bosom of the Church of Rome itself. The great popularity of the sects, to whose history I have alluded, afforded a lesson which was not lost upon the court of Rome; and accordingly, in the beginning of the thirteenth century, the papal sanction was given to the proposal of certain zealous individuals for the establishment of the mendicant orders, upon principles which embraced everything that was attractive to the multitude in the discipline of the heretics, while pains were taken to retain their votaries in strict obedience to the papal authority. These orders acknowledged the great principle, so vehemently contended for by the Vaudois and other reputed heretics, that voluntary poverty was the primary virtue of the Christian religion, the necessary condition of Christian perfection, and the true mode of imitating our Lord and His disciples; and thus a door was opened by which the diseased and dissatisfied spirits, who would otherwise perhaps have joined the ranks of the heretical revolutionists, were afforded a field for the exercise of their zeal and devotion, and at the same time retained in the communion of the Roman Church.

 "But although the stream of heresy was thus apparently turned into a less dangerous channel, and made subservient to the ambitious projects of the see of Rome, yet the evil broke out afresh in a new and unexpected form. The Franciscan order, especially, soon split into factions which reproduced all the most fatal errors of the heretics, and set the papal power at defiance. The rule of poverty admitted of laxer or of severer interpretation, and furnished the first great subject of internal division among the brethren of St. Francis. The fanatical opinion also, that the life of St. Francis was an exact imitation of the life of our Lord, and that in him were fulfilled many prophecies, especially in the Apocalypse, soon led to serious evils. The spiritual Franciscans, as they were called, who maintained the absolute illegality of all possessions, under any pretence or fiction whatsoever, were also distinguished for an affectation of prophetical powers, and for peculiar interpretations of the book of Revelation. They insisted that St. Francis was the Angel whom the Apostle had seen in vision flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting Gospel to preach to them that dwell on the earth; and that the mendicant friars of his order were destined, like the Apostles of our Lord, to introduce a new dispensation which should regenerate the Church and the world.

 "The court of Rome, as was naturally to have been expected, opposed these extreme opinions, and supported the modified interpretation of the Franciscan rule; and hence, notwithstanding many efforts to appease the storm, the spiritual Franciscans soon attacked the papal chair itself. At the close of the thirteenth century, indeed, an effort was made to re-unite them to the Roman Church, by erecting them into a separate order, under the name of Celestine-Eremites, but the evil was too deeply rooted to admit of so easy a cure, and soon ended in their total separation from the order, and from the Church. The Fratricelli, which was one of the names assumed by the new separatists, denied the right of the Sovereign Pontiff himself to interpret or to dispense with the letter of their rule; they maintained that they themselves were the true Church of Christ, that the bishops and priests of the Roman communion were no longer true bishops or priests; that the Church of Rome was the synagogue of Satan, the beast or harlot of the Apocalypse. They asserted that the Gospel preached by Christ and His Apostles was an imperfect and temporary dispensation, like that of Moses; that St. Francis was the inspired founder of a new and more glorious Gospel, which was to be preached in all the world by the mendicant friars of his order, and which was destined to endure for ever." Pp. 31-34.

 In maintaining these views concerning the Roman communion, the spiritual Franciscans were much indebted to the writings of the Abbot Joachim, the celebrated founder of the Florensian order at the close of the twelfth century, the warm supporter of the Popedom, and the friend of Popes Lucian, Urban, and Clement, and eventually a canonized saint. This is not the place to enter into the discussion of a system of prophetical interpretation, to which much attention has been lately drawn. Its effect upon the Franciscan party will be seen by enumerating some out of the twenty heretical tenets charged upon Olivi, or Peter John, the most remarkable of their writers, according to Dr. Todd, who flourished towards the end of the thirteenth century. Olivi taught, according to Eymericus, that "the rule of the Minor Friars, put forth by St. Francis, is truly and properly that Evangelical rule which Christ observed in His own person, enjoined on the Apostles, and caused to be written in His Gospels; that, as the Synagogue was propagated from twelve Patriarchs, and the Church of the Gentiles from twelve Apostles, so the last Church of the remnant of Jews and Gentiles is to be propagated by means of twelve Evangelical men; whence St. Francis had twelve sons and associates, through whom and in whom was founded and begun the Evangelical order; that the angel Francis will perceive himself to prosper not so much in the carnal Church of the Latins, as in the Greeks, Saracens, Tartars, and, at length, the Jews; that that Church, which we call the universal Church Catholic militant, is a carnal Church, Babylon, the great harlot corrupting herself and all the nations subjected to her with foul carnalities and Simoniacal lusts, and earthly glory of this world; that the Roman Church is that woman, the great harlot, spoken of in the Apocalypse, which once was in the state of paganism, and afterwards in the faith of Christ, which now in many ways has committed fornication with this world."

 This is a specimen of the doctrine of the spiritual Franciscans, and, considering how much more it is to the purpose of our ultra-Protestant brethren than that of either Albigenses or Waldenses, we do wonder that Bishop Newton does not include them among the witnesses, "Protestants before even the name came into use," who he conceives have been raised up against the Church of Rome. "Our Saviour," he says, "sent forth His disciples two and two, and it has been observed, that the principal reformers have usually appeared in pairs, as the Waldenses and Albigenses, John Huss and Jerome of Prague, Luther and Calvin, Cranmer and Ridley." Why should not Peter John Olivi pair with the Abbot Joachim? Yet, ungrateful towards those who were the first inventors and propagators of the view adopted by himself, he presently puts forward these Waldenses and Albigenses again, sects which controverted with each other, one orthodox, the other heretical, the one akin to the Begging Friars, the other of the stock of the Manichees, as "the true witnesses, and, as I may say, the Protestants of that age."

 Surely it is not without reason that Dr. Todd asks, "Are these the expositors from whom the Church of Christ is to receive the true interpretation of the Prophecies?" and "whose bare assertion that their enemies are the Antichrist is to be received as itself the fulfilment of prophecy, and a proof that 'the time of the end' is arrived?" P. 34. "These sects," he observes elsewhere, "were for the most part corrupt in doctrine, or ignorant and superstitious in their practice; and ... their denunciations of the Roman Church as the Babylon of Prophecy were the offspring of a spirit very different indeed from that in which we should seek for the true interpretation of a book, of which it is written, 'Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things that are written therein .'" P. 497.

 2.

 "Our Protestant forefathers," then, as these unhappy misbelievers have, we believe, with a boldness which we hardly know whether to applaud or to reprobate, sometimes been called, do not themselves shed much lustre upon the doctrine which they originated. However, it is obvious that the more modern witnesses to it are of a much more respectable cast; and its maintainers will not be slow probably in urging this circumstance upon our attention, as a set-off against the disreputable nature of its origin. The Protestant world, it may be said, contains in it multitudes of that high character and intellectual calibre, so learned, so acute, so profound, and so honest, that nothing can stand against the testimony which they bear to the truth of the views of Prophecy which the Albigenses or the Franciscans began. This, then, is the next point to which our attention is naturally called; and here, though we are far of course from presuming to speak disrespectfully of the qualities of mind which Protestant expositors have possessed (to do which would be the extreme of arrogance and ignorance), yet so far is quite clear, that this is a case which has put their learning, acuteness, and other endowments, sorely to task; for a very little examination of the matter will show that they have made some most considerable slips in their treatment of it.

 This is a most important circumstance in an inquiry in which so much blind reliance must inevitably be placed by students upon their teacher. There is no department of theology in which ordinary men are more at the mercy of an author than that of prophetical interpretation. Creeds are restraints upon divines, and safeguards to readers, in point of doctrine; moral sense in questions of duty; the text of Scripture itself in direct exposition and comment; the existing form and establishment of religion in matters of discipline and polity; but who shall warrant, and who shall verify, discussions which embrace on the one hand the wide range of history, and necessarily plunge on the other into the subtleties of allegory and poetry, which profess to connect and adjust a field so fertile in facts with a page so recondite in character, and that upon no principles, perhaps, but such as approve themselves to the judgment of the individual interpreter? What a temptation is there under such circumstances for unconscious practising upon the inspired text, or unconscious management of the historical materials? The relative importance of events, their aspect and meaning, the probability of their having occurred, the value of the particular testimony produced, the force of words, the arrangement of dates, these are but a few out of the many matters, in which, from the nature of the case, the personal judgment of the reader is almost excluded, and the dictum of the teacher must be received as law. When then we actually meet with grave and obvious instances of misrepresentation in the statements of certain writers upon Prophecy, and these same repeated from writer to writer, strong suspicion is thrown at once over all such interpretations, which, for what we know, are not better founded than those of which we happen to be able so plainly to discern the unfairness and fallaciousness. These writers are discovered to have taken points for granted, which they had better have examined for themselves, and which turn out to be mistakes, and that in matters of a very sacred character, and involving conclusions most awful towards a great part of the Christian world. Now Mr. Maitland, who is one of the few persons who have undertaken to sift the facts on which the ultra-Protestant interpreters of the Prophecies rely, has at once brought to light so many strange mistakes in their statements as to make a candid reader very suspicious, or, rather, utterly incredulous, of all allegations made on the mere authority of these writers.

 What can be thought of the zealous Mr. McNeile, for instance, who has been taught by Bishop Hurd to select for a motto to a sermon, which he publishes under the name of "Antichrist," a passage from St. Bernard, as if in reprobation of the Papacy, to the effect that "that beast of the Apocalypse, to whom is given a mouth speaking blasphemies, occupies the chair of Peter, as a lion ready for the prey"? whereas it turns out that St. Bernard is not speaking of the Pope, but of the Antipope; is defending the Pope against the Antipope Peter Leo, on whose name he is playing when he compares him to a lion, and whose conduct he denotes by the word occupat, which does not mean " occupies," but " seizes," or " usurps ."

 A second instance occurs in the colour put upon the words of Abbot Joachim by Bishops Hurd and Newton, Mr. McNeile and Mr. Irving, to which Dr. Todd refers in his notes, and Mr. Burgh also in his excellent sermon on Antichrist. These four writers either distinctly state or imply that the Abbot Joachim interpreted of the Pope the passage in 2 Thess. ii., and even the text about the beast in the Apocalypse, whereas he does but say that "Antichrist is born in Rome, and will be elevated to the Apostolic See;" and that, as his system of prophecy proves him to mean, by a usurpation, to the overthrow of the Pope, whose dignity he specifies, because it was the highest which any one could aim at.

 Another misstatement which might be mentioned, not so violent, but quite as real, is the common assertion that Pope Gregory the Great asserted that whoever claimed to be Universal Bishop was Antichrist; a statement which, even when corrected so as to be true in the letter, conveys a very incorrect opinion of his meaning to an unlearned reader. St. Gregory says, that "whosoever adopts or desires the title of Universal Priest is the forerunner of Antichrist;" by which he does not mean to assert that Antichrist will be a Universal Bishop, that is, the Pope, as Protestants suppose, but that the affectation of supremacy is the presage of some vast evils near to come, even of the reign of the expected Antichrist. The ancients, ever looking out as they were for the end of all things, and knowing that the coming of Antichrist was to be its immediate sign, as the Apostle had determined, were led to discern in every serious evil which happened to the Church tokens of the coming woe, and called them "forerunners of Antichrist;" as we might speak of "crimes which call down judgment," or "are evidence of divine wrath." Instead of speaking of " crying sins," they spoke of "forerunners of Antichrist." Thus Tertullian, St. Dionysius, and St. Cyprian, consider the heathen persecution as the token of Antichrist. St. Cyril of Jerusalem, and St. Athanasius, call the Arian disturbances "the forerunner of Antichrist;" as do also St. Gregory Nazianzen and St. Hilary. St. Leo in one place calls Nestorius and Eutyches "forerunners of Antichrist;" in another, persons who resist what the Church has once settled, or who oppose the see of St. Peter. Anastasius speaks of the "ten horns" of the Monophysite heresy as such. And at a later period, Theodorus Studites, writing against the Iconoclasts, considers their proceedings "the apostasy which must first come, the invasion of Antichrist." Pope Gregory then meant doubtless, in the words in question, to denounce a great evil; but is in no respect a witness for the Protestant doctrine concerning Antichrist, unless indeed we are willing to say that by St. Athanasius Arius was considered to be Antichrist, or by St. Leo Eutyches.

 Again, to take another instance: Bishop Newton states that the Pope " is styled and pleased to be styled our Lord God the Pope."  Dissert . 22. Now the state of the case, as Mr. Maitland has elicited it, seems at greatest disadvantage to be this: that the words occurred in a gloss of a canonist named Zenzelius, in one, or more than one, edition of the Decretals, and occurred in the course of an argument, the object of which was to prove that the Pope's words were to be obeyed, because, as all law, civil inclusive, they were the decision of God ; that in other editions they did not occur; and that there is reason to believe that they were erased from that in which they did occur; while it is certain that from ancient times the title Deus has been applied to all bishops, after the pattern of the text quoted by our Lord, "I said ye are Gods." Now we repeat what we have said before, our object is not to defend the Roman Catholics, who must look about them for themselves, but to inquire how facts lie. After such a result of the inquiry in this particular case, what are we to think of a writer like Mr. Edgar, who (in his Varieties of Popery, p. 131, ed. 2), says

 "A fourth variety, on this subject, makes the Pope superior to God. Equality with the Almighty, it might have been expected, would have satiated the ambition of the pontiff, and satisfied the sycophancy of his minions. But this was not the giddiest step in the scale of blasphemy. The superiority of the Pope over the Creator has been boldly and unblushingly maintained by pontiffs, theologians, canonists, and councils."

 3.

 Now it may readily be granted that some of these writers are not possessed of that seriousness and earnestness of mind which entitles them to our respect; but when we consider the character of others, of Mr. McNeile for instance, or Mr. Irving, or others who might be named, it is quite plain that evidences of no common, or rather very uncommon, candour, impartiality, and calmness may fairly be required, before we venture to resign ourselves to an interpreter of prophecy, who, from his particular creed or other cause, is under any special temptation (unconsciously) to distort facts, and to wrest or explain away the Scripture text. If men so eminent, so religious, as some of those who might be named, have not come out of this temptation unscathed, who can hope to overcome it? none surely but those rare specimens of evangelical sanctity which are scattered through the heavens, like stars, each in his turn; none but saints and doctors and confessors, men of sound judgment and well-digested learning, whose sufferings in the cause of truth prove their sincerity, and whose mortified lives are the warrant for their illumination. All of us indeed may edify each other, as in doctrine and precept, so in interpretation of prophecy; viz., by transmitting what we have received from the Church, or by illustrating what is on the surface of Scripture, or by refuting extravagances. But we are speaking of new or further interpretations, whether of the sacred text or of the world's history: and, not at all denying that there is room for these, not at all denying that the new may surpass the old, not denying their desirableness, yet we repeat that no ordinary man can undertake to enunciate them, no man can command our assent, unless he has some portions of that spirit which inspired the prophecy itself. And if this be true generally, what an uncommon man must he be, who is to be our guide in unchurching the greater part of Christendom?

 No one can be at a loss to detect a number of feelings and principles which may be present to prejudice sensible and amiable men, or even men of deep intellects, to whom no one would impute that carnal political spirit, or that bitter fanaticism, or that scoffing tone of mind, each of which has in its turn been the fruitful source of interpretations of the Apocalypse. To go no further, even a dutiful temper will lead a writer to say what others of his own party, school, or sect have said before him. He takes for granted their statements, which he has heard from his youth, and repeats them. He has not thrown his mind upon this subject; he has not examined it for himself; hence it does not occur to him to doubt what he has been taught. Endowments, too, have been provided for the inculcation of a particular view of Prophecy; and a writer may be exercising his thoughts under them, and thereby be led to say out what he had hitherto but passively held, and would never otherwise have put into words, though he might profess to hold it. The Warburton Lectures, it is well known, were founded as the words run, "to prove the truth of Revealed Religion in general, and of the Christian in particular, from the completion of the prophecies in the Old and New Testament, which relate to the Christian Church, especially to the apostasy of Papal Rome ." It is only surprising that such a foundation has not done more in behalf of its object. In matter of fact, after three lecturers had passed in succession, a fourth could not be found, and for some time there was a suspension of the lecture. Mr. Davison has but one discourse on the subject, and an able and respected writer, whose Lectures have just appeared, does not bestow upon us even one [n. 2].

 Again, venerated writers have been stirred up to speak of the bishops of Rome as Antichrist, from the fierce persecuting spirit which these bishops have so often evidenced. Men, who are smarting under injuries inflicted, will naturally view their tormentor in the least favourable light. It was persecution which led the Waldenses to call Rome the Apocalyptic Babylon; and it has been persecution, or the fear of it, which has led much better and more learned men of modern times to call the Pope Antichrist. Moreover, it should be carefully borne in mind, that Protestants will ever feel a strong temptation to this view, by the ease with which it disposes of the plausible and apparently cogent proofs with which Rome fights her battles. No one can deny that the Roman theory is in the abstract most exceedingly specious and persuasive; nor can it be refuted without considerable labour and learning, and an appeal to principles which are not felt to be axioms by ordinary minds, and are deficient in practical persuasiveness. The problem then which lies before the Protestant controversialist is, to find some popular answer to popular and intelligible pretensions, and the position that Papal Rome is Babylon is the "wherefore" to the "why," a brief, clear, strong, and simple refutation of them. If once we assume that the Pope is Antichrist, then all the apparent evidences in favour of Rome only become the more convincing evidences of the truth of the assumption with which we start. Antichrist doubtless is to deceive many; he is to bring with him a plausible doctrine; he is to be very like the truth. In consequence, universality, antiquity, claim to miraculous power, sanctity, all the Notes of the Church, become but symptomatic of its being the Synagogue of Satan. Is it far spreading? The reign of Antichrist was to be over the earth. Is it ancient? The mystery doth already work, from the Apostles' time downwards. Does it profess the power of doing miracles? Antichrist is to come with "lying wonders." Is it in appearance holy? Antichrist is to be Satan transformed into an Angel of light. Has it all these and much more of cumulative evidence in favour of its divine origin? It is a mystery of iniquity. Excellently speaks Mr. McNeile, as quoted by Mr. Burgh:

 "It is extremely difficult, without giving rise to misapprehension or misconstruction, to contend against the chamelion shifting of its hypocritical professions. It professes truth, while it circulates falsehood. It professes faith, while it cultivates sight. It professes spiritual worship, while it practises gross idolatry. It professes charity, while it is based on intolerance. It professes purity, while it encourages sin. With an oily tongue it professes Christ, while in the depth of an unsanctified heart it is Antichrist."  Antichr ., p. 340.

 Again, the Protestant polemic is harassed with questions about the duty of "hearing the Church," about preserving unity, about the patriarchal authority, episcopal grace, long and unbroken tradition, and the weight of synodal decisions. We do not say the claims of Rome on these various grounds may not be separately and satisfactorily met, but that such answers in detail must be abstruse, circuitous, and ineffective; on the contrary, when the simple principle is once mastered that the Pope is Antichrist, nothing more is necessary in the controversy. It answers to the dogma of the Pope's infallibility in the Roman system. A bold, forcible, decisive argument is taken, intelligible to the meanest capacity; it is a tactic which puts an end to skirmishing, manSuvring and desultory warfare. A Church can have no rights which has ceased to be a Church. Thus surely it was that Luther made progress, not by appeals to the Fathers, not by reasonings on the nature of the case, not by elaborate deductions from Scripture, but by positions venturous, striking, stamped with originality, and suited even to the ignorant, that we are justified by the sole instrumentality of faith, that our best works are sins, that assurance is possession, and, among these, that the Pope is Antichrist. The advantage of this mode of warfare is pointed out with much naïveté, and not less truth, by a controversialist, whose words we quote from a periodical, in which we find them.

 "There are two modes of viewing Popery," he observes, "1st. As a gigantic system of evil foretold in Scripture, essentially satanic in its origin, distinguished by a variety of errors, and called the 'Apostasy of the latter times;' 2ndly. As a Church infected by various errors, but not the apostasy foretold, its errors being, however, demonstrable from Scripture. On these two modes of viewing Popery, there are grounded two different methods of attacking it. In the first case it is attacked bodily, if I may so speak. It is identified as a system, from its corporate characteristics, with the apostasy, or Babylon of the Scriptures, and all its errors and corruptions are brought forward as illustrations of this truth, and as strong confirmatory reasons, on account of which we should obey the mandate issued by God Himself, namely, 'Come out of her, my people.' In the second case, instead of attacking the system of Popery, or rather, I should say perhaps, the Popish Church, the assailant exposes the errors which it holds, and the contest becomes one simply about doctrines, maintained too, as I have shown elsewhere, by the Protestant advocate, under circumstances very disadvantageous to the cause of truth ."

 This writer certainly puts the advantage of calling Christian Rome Babylon in a clear point of view.

 4.

 But more may be said on this subject; we just now hinted that mere honesty, and impartiality, and talent, are not enough for an interpreter of these awful prophecies, but qualities are needed for him more akin to those possessed by the inspired writers themselves. Daniel, St. Paul, and St. John, the three prophets of the last days, are also saints. We do not see what good could come to theology from the expositions of the Manichees or the Fratricelli of the middle ages; no, nor in later times from attendants on Walpole or Pelham, or frequenters of the back-stairs at St. James's. Mere decency of life is not a candle bright enough to read withal holy Apostles or the "man greatly beloved;" and much more when the matter taken in hand is no less than that of unchurching the greater part of Christendom. A man must be almost an Angel, to stand forth to teach us that the great multitude of Christian bishops are children of the devil. And if he is not an Angel, then he has to show that he himself is not of the family of him who is emphatically, we are told, the "accuser of the brethren." Who, indeed, but the like of ascetic Daniel, much-suffering Paul, and contemplative John, will suffice to establish the paradox that Carlo Borromeo sucked the breast of Babylon, and that Pascal died in her arms? Now, let a candid Protestant decide: is he prepared to match Warburton, Newton, or Hurd, against, we will not say these saints of Scripture, but even against the saints of degenerate Rome? Is he prepared to sit in judgment on such men as have been named, with nothing better than Newton for our saint, doctor, bishop, and confessor? What is there to command respect in Newton's life and character, what to command confidence in his intellectual or moral illumination?

 Now we are going to commit what may seem an invidious act, to appeal to the private life of a respectable and amiable man. His Dissertations on the Prophecies, however, are the main source, we suppose, of that anti-Roman opinion on the subject of Antichrist, now afloat among us, as far as men have an opinion; and if we venture to speak hardly against him, it is only to prevent his being believed, when he speaks hardly of his betters. His work, on its first appearance, went through six large editions in the course of thirty years, and was translated into German and Danish. Its influence has undoubtedly been great: let us then see what its author was worth; and this we are enabled to do from the circumstance of his having also bequeathed to the world an Autobiography, never to be forgotten. It was written with a winning gentleness and calmness; but some extracts will soon decide for us whether he had much of insight into the spiritual world. Surely an author who charged the greater part of Christendom with satanical error, has no right to complain of being convicted out of his own mouth of a secular spirit.

 "In the first year of the king's reign," he says, "there was a remarkable mortality among the great bishops: Hoadly, of Winchester, who died April 17; Sherlock, of London, who died July 18; and Gilbert, of York, who died August 9, all in the year 1761. Dr. Newton" [this is the writer himself] "had the honour of being in some measure known to the Earl of Bute, having baptized one or two of his children, and having sometimes met him at Leicester House, when as chaplain he had been in attendance upon the Princess of Wales. He had also presented to him the three volumes of his Dissertations on the Prophecies, having obtained the favour of his lordship to present them to the Prince of Wales . Upon the death of Bishop Sherlock, Lord Bute told a noble lord, a particular friend of Dr. Newton's, that he would certainly be the new bishop, and would be obliged to no minister for his promotion: it was entirely the doing of the king himself and the Princess of Wales ... He" [the Duke of Newcastle] "had been so long used to shuffle and cut the cards, that he well knew how to pack them in such a manner as to have the honours " [for instance, the see of London] "dealt to his particular friends; and on the day when they were all appointed to kiss the king's hand, Drummond for York, Hayter for London, Thomas for Salisbury, Yonge for Norwich, and Green for Lincoln, Newton, who was to succeed Yonge in the bishopric of Bristol and residentiariship of St. Paul's, had no notice sent him from the office as the rest had; so much less regard was paid to the king's nomination than to the minister's. He was in some doubt whether he ought to go to court; but being persuaded to go, he met the Duke of Newcastle upon the great stairs, and asked him whether he was in the right, whether he was come for any good purpose. Aye, aye, said the duke, you are right, go on and prosper ; and the same was confirmed to him above stairs by Mr. Jenkinson, who was then Lord Bute's secretary and The Bishop of Bristol" [himself] " was no great gainer by preferment ; for he was obliged to give up the prebend of Westminster, the precentorship of York, the lectureship of St. George's Hanover Square, and the genteel office of sub-almoner; but, however, he was rather better pleased with his little bishopric and the residentiariship of St. Paul's, than he would have been with the large and extensive and laborious diocese of Lincoln, for which his friend was in all respects much better qualified. St. Paul's had always been the object of his wish, and he used to say that if he could get into Amen Corner, he should arrive at the end of his prayers . 'Hoc erat in votis,' but 'Dii melius fecere.'"  Life, pp. 112-115.

 Or take another anecdote of an earlier date:

 "When he waited upon the archbishop" [Gilbert, of York,] "at Kew, his grace further informed him that among other things the king had said, that, though he had no reason to find fault with the length of Dr. Newton's sermons, yet, as he would now preach oftener before him, he must desire that he would be particularly short, especially on the great festivals, for he was an old man, and if the sermon was long he was in danger of falling asleep and catching cold, and it would fatigue him too much, especially on those days when he was afterwards to come down into the chapel to receive the Sacrament. The doctor" [himself] "had before taken care in his sermons at court to come within the compass of twenty minutes, but after this, especially on the great festivals, he never exceeded fifteen, so that the king sometimes said to the clerk of the closet, a short good sermon . But Archbishop Gilbert's favours did not stop here. The Archbishop of York is not a very good patron, but he gave him one of the most valuable pieces of preferment in the church of York, the precentorship which he held till he was promoted to a bishopric, etc., etc." Pp. 104, 105.

 In a like spirit, he tells us of the mastership of the Charter House, that Bishop Benson and Dr. Jortin used to say that there was a certain time of their lives, when of all preferments they wished for it the most . P. 32. Speaking of his own residence in Lord Carpenter's family, he says that, "Here he" (that is himself) " stuck some time without any promotion ... he waited often upon the bishop," of Durham, "and sat with him an hour or two in the evening, and often dined with him on a Sunday;" and he adds that, though the bishop continued in his see about twenty years, " yet in all that time he bestowed no preferment upon this young man, of whose company he seemed so desirous," p. 41; he says that "Mrs. Devenish, like a true friend, took every opportunity of commending him to" the Prince and Princess of Wales, "and leaving a good impression of his character, which long after was of great service to him, and may be said to be the groundwork of his best preferment," and that she also "first introduced him to the acquaintance of Lord Bath," two introductions which "he ever esteemed as two of the most fortunate circumstances, the most happy incidents in all his life ." P. 45. He tells us, moreover, that the rectory of St. Mary-le-Bow, to which he was afterwards preferred through the interest of Lord Bath, though he was forty years old before he obtained any living, "was likewise esteemed a fortunate living, the two former rectors, Dr. Lisle and Dr. Blandford, having been made bishops," pp. 72, 73; that "the bishopric, which of all others " Dr. Pearce " most desired was Peterborough, but Providence saw fit to dispose of matters otherwise, and sent him further to a better bishopric, to Bangor." P. 79.

 Moreover, as if to give us some further insight into his character, he informs us that "as long as Dr. Trebeck lived, Dr. Newton continued to board with his family, from his old principle of avoiding as much as possible the trouble of housekeeping; but the breaking up of the family naturally engaged him to think seriously again of matrimony ; for he found the study of sacred and classic authors ill agreed with accounts of butchers' and bakers' bills, and by daily experience he was convinced more and more that it was not good for man to live alone without an help meet for him." "And especially," he continues, " when he had some prospect of a bishopric, fresh difficulties and troubles opened to his view; there would be a better table and public days to be kept; and he plainly foresaw that he must either fall a prey to servants or must look out for some clever sensible woman to be his wife, who had some knowledge and experience of the world, who was a prudent manager, who could do the honours of his table in a becoming manner, who had no more taste and love of pleasure than a reasonable woman should have, who would be happier in staying with her husband at home than in perpetually gadding abroad, would be careful and tender of his health, and in short be a friend and companion of all hours." Pp. 110, 111. He was at this time fifty-seven, and "it was happy for him," he adds, "that such a woman was in his eye," one whom "he had known from a little child in a white frock, and had observed her through all the parts of her life."

 Assuredly there is nothing high in all this; of Newton's kindness of heart and amiableness we have no doubt at all; but a man so idolatrous of comfort, so liquorish of preferment, whose most fervent aspiration apparently was that he might ride in a carriage and sleep on down, whose keenest sorrow that he could not get a second appointment without relinquishing the first, who cast a regretful look back upon his dinner while he was at supper, and anticipated his morning chocolate in his evening muffins, who will say that this is the man, not merely to unchurch, but to smite, to ban, to wither the whole of Christendom for many centuries, and the greater part of it even in his own day, if not, as we shall presently show to be the case, indirectly his own branch also. Nay, he does not spare even the Church of the Nicene era, for while he maintains that the monks " revived and promoted the worship of demons," and either out of credulity or for worse reasons recommended it to the people with all the pomp and power of their eloquence in their homilies and orations, he refers to " some of the most celebrated fathers," St. Basil, St. Ephrem, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Gregory Nyssen, and St. Chrysostom, as being "full of this sort of superstition;" and, he adds, "all these were monks, and most of them bishops too; the monks, these were the principal promoters of the worship of the dead in former times; and who are the great patrons and advocates of the same worship now? Are not their legitimate successors and descendants, the monks, and priests, and bishops of the Church of Rome?"  Dissert . 23. Now, if this be so, if Chrysostom, Basil, and the rest, were but monks and bishops, one is tempted to ask what was Thomas Newton? Not a monk certainly, but a bishop, and such a bishop as felt thankful that his diocese did not give him much trouble, and thereby resigned himself to the loss of more eminent dignities. Is this the man to sit in judgment on Chrysostom? is he the man to be trusted rather than Chrysostom? To which of the two do the souls of men owe the more? which was the more zealous preacher? which resisted luxury and mammon more boldly? which was more like St. John the Baptist in a royal court? Let us know then where we are to find ourselves if we are to interpret prophecy on this rule; will it be pleasant to have exchanged St Chrysostom for Newton, or St Basil for Warburton? Is this good company to live and die in? Who would not rather be found even with Whitfield and Wesley, than with ecclesiastics whose life is literary ease at the best, whose highest flights attain but to Downing Street or the levee?

 5.

 We are engaged in a very invidious task; but still, since we have begun it, we wish to go through with it by submitting to the reader some notice of certain persons whom Newton's theory cuts off from the hope of salvation. And first let us consider the life and character of that limb of Antichrist, as Newton must think him, Carlo Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan, Cardinal of the Roman Church, and nephew to Pope Pius IV. For this purpose we make use of the valuable work of Mr. Palmer. It seems that, when he came to reside at Milan, he voluntarily resigned benefices and estates to the value of 80,000 crowns per annum, reserving only an income of 20,000 crowns. The principality of Oria, which had become his property by the death of his brother, he sold for 40,000 crowns, which he commanded his almoners to distribute among the poor and the hospitals. When the list which the almoners showed him for the distribution amounted, by mistake, to 2,000 crowns more, Carlo said the mistake was too much to the advantage of the poor to be corrected, and the whole was accordingly distributed. When his brother died, he also caused all the rich furniture and jewels of the family to be sold, and gave the price, which amounted to 30,000 crowns, to the poor. Several other cases of charity, on an equally large scale, might be added. His chief almoner was ordered to distribute among the poor of Milan, of whom he kept an exact list, 200 crowns every month; Carlo would never permit any beggar to be dismissed without some alms, whatever he was. He was exceedingly hospitable and liberal in entertaining princes, prelates, and strangers of all ranks, but always without luxury; and he endeavoured as much as possible to conceal his own abstemiousness. His religious foundations, his repairs of churches, of the dwellings of the clergy, and of the seminaries of learning, not only at Milan but at Bologna, Rome, and many other places, were on the most magnificent scale of liberality.

 He found his diocese in extreme disorder. The great truths of salvation were little known or understood; and religious practices were profaned by the grossest abuses, and disfigured by superstitions. The sacraments were neglected; the clergy seem scarcely to have known how to administer them, and were slothful, ignorant, and depraved. The monasteries too were in a scandalous condition. Carlo instituted seminaries for the instruction of the clergy; appointed a number of vicars, or rural deans, who exercised a vigilant superintendence over every part of his diocese; and held many provincial and diocesan synods, in which the most excellent and judicious regulations were made and enforced with inflexible firmness. In the course of his proceedings he frequently encountered the most violent opposition from those who were unwilling to be corrected. The order of monks called Humiliati were particularly irritated by his labours for their reform, and excited against him one of their members, who actually fired a musket at the archbishop, as he was one evening at prayers. Carlo calmly finished his prayers, though the ball had struck his vestment, and then, with truly Christian charity, forgave the assassin, and even solicited his pardon. But justice took its course, and the order was suppressed by the Pope.

 Carlo divided the revenue of his see into three parts; one of which was appropriated to his household, another to the poor, and a third to the repairs of churches: and it was his custom to lay before the Provincial Councils the accounts of his revenues to the last farthing, saying that he was no more than an administrator or steward. He employed no clergy of his own kin in the government of his diocese; nor did he make over to them any of the benefices which had been conferred on him.

 "It was one of his greatest pleasures," continues Mr. Palmer, "to converse with and catechise the poor; and he would often visit them in the wildest and most mountainous parts of his diocese. On one occasion while he was engaged in his visitation, the Bishop of Ferrara, coming to meet him, found him lying under a fit of ague on a coarse bed, and in a very poor cottage. Borromeo, observing his surprise, remarked, 'that he was treated very well, and much better than he deserved.' During the dreadful ravages of a pestilence, this excellent man encouraged his clergy to administer the consolations of religion to the sick and dying, and he was himself assiduous in the performance of this dangerous duty." On this occasion he sold all his furniture to procure medicine and nourishment for the unhappy sufferers. He was careful not to lose a moment of his time; even at table he listened to some pious book, or dictated letters or instructions. He was remarkable for sincerity; it appeared in all his words and actions; and his promises were inviolable. He delighted in prayer, to which he gave a large part of his time; and he never said any prayer or performed any religious office with precipitation, whatever business of importance might be on his hands, or however he might be pressed for time. In giving audience and in the greatest hurry of business his countenance, his modesty, and all his words, showed that he was full of the recollection of God. "His spirit of prayer and the love of God which filled his heart gave to him remarkably the power of exciting and encouraging others to religion. A short address, even a single word or action, sometimes produced the most powerful effects in animating his clergy to repentance and to virtue.

 "This great and good man died in 1584, in the forty-seventh year of his age; with the same piety and sanctity which adorned his short but admirable life."  Church History, pp. 226-229.

 Or what would Bishop Newton say to that other great saint whose life Mr. Palmer sketches, St. Francis de Sales?

 "He was much respected by Beza and the rest of the Reformed in Switzerland; and the excellence of his own character, and the piety and meekness which he always evinced, probably did more for his cause than any other arguments by which it was sustained. The plague at one time raged violently in the place where he resided, but this did not deter him from assisting the sick in their last moments by day and night; and he was wonderfully preserved in the pestilence, which carried off several of the clergy who aided him. In 1599 he became coadjutor of the Bishop of Annecy, with the right of succession to that see; and soon after he was obliged to go to France, where he was received by all ranks and classes with the utmost distinction. He preached before the king, who endeavoured to detain him in France by promises of a large pension and of the first vacant bishopric: but Francis de Sales declined all these offers, and, returning to the poor bishopric of Annecy, was soon after, on the death of his predecessor, consecrated its pastor in 1602. He now laid down a plan of life, to which he ever after rigorously adhered. He resolved to wear no expensive clothing; to have no paintings except of a devotional character in his house; to possess no splendid furniture; to use no coach or carriage, but make his visitations on foot. His family was to consist of two priests, one to act as his chaplain, the other to superintend his servants and temporalities; his table to be plain and frugal. He resolved to be present at all religious and devotional meetings and festivals in the churches; to distribute abundant alms; to visit the sick and poor in prison; to rise every day at four, meditate for an hour, read private service, then prayers with his family, then to read the Scriptures, celebrate the holy eucharist, and afterwards apply to business till dinner. He then gave an hour to conversation, and the remainder of the afternoon to business and prayer. After supper he read a pious book to his family for an hour, then prayed with them, and retired to his private devotions and to rest. Such was the general mode of life of this excellent man.

 "Immediately after he became bishop he applied himself to preaching and to all the other duties of his station. He was very cautious in conferring holy orders, ordaining but few clergy, and only after a most rigid examination of their qualifications. He was also exceedingly diligent in promoting the instruction of the ignorant by catechising on Sundays and holy days; and his personal labours in this respect had a very great influence in persuading the clergy of his diocese to follow so good an example. He still continued to delight in preaching in small villages and to the poorest people, whom he regarded as the special objects of his care."  Ibid ., p. 230.

 The disinterested spirit which he had early manifested always continued. When he was solicited by Henry IV., king of France, to accept an abbey of large income, he refused it, saying, "that he dreaded riches as much as others desired them; and that the less he had of them the less he should have to answer for." The same prince offered to name him for the dignity of cardinal at the next promotion; but he replied that, though he did not despise the proffered dignity he was persuaded that great titles did not suit him, and might raise new obstacles to his salvation. His conscientious firmness was also remarkable. On one occasion the parliament of Chambery, in Savoy, seized his temporalities for refusing, at its desire, to publish an ecclesiastical censure which he thought uncalled-for by the circumstances of the case. When he heard of the seizure of his possessions, he said that he thanked God for teaching him by it, "that a bishop is altogether spiritual." He did not desist from preaching, or apply to the sovereign for redress; but behaved in so kind and friendly a manner to those who had insulted him most grossly, that at length the parliament became ashamed of its proceedings, and restored his temporalities. In 1619, while he was in Paris, he preached a course of Lent Sermons, which, aided by his conferences, the example of his holy life, and the sweetness of his discourse, most powerfully moved, not only the devout, but even libertines and atheists. He was entreated, for the sake of his health, not to preach twice in the day. He replied, with a smile, "that it cost him much less to preach a sermon than to find an excuse for himself when invited to perform that office. God had appointed him to be a pastor and a preacher, and ought not every one to follow his profession?" "On one occasion," says Mr. Palmer, "seeing a vicious and scandalous priest thrown into prison, he fell at his feet, and with tears conjured him to have compassion on him his pastor, on religion which he scandalized, and on his own soul. The man was so deeply impressed with his conduct, that he was entirely converted, and became a virtuous man from that moment."

 6.

 Here the reader may be tempted to exclaim, "All this is unfair and a fallacy. It is a fallacy to contrast Newton with Chrysostom or Borromeo; it is to take a bad specimen of a good system and a good specimen of a bad one. How does it prove that the Protestant system is bad or the Roman good, because holy men have been not of, but in, the latter, and sycophants or worldlings in, though not of, the former?" Now such an objection is founded on a misapprehension of the state of the case; and to show this will carry us on to a further remark to which we wish to direct attention. The truth is, that when people so freely call Rome Babylon and the Pope Antichrist, they know not what they are saying and whither they are going. They think to make exceptions; they think to confine their imputation of corruption and apostasy within bounds; they think, on the one hand, to except Bernard or Fenelon, and to keep clear of their own Church on the other. On the latter point something more presently; here we do but observe in answer to that wish to make exceptions, which the objection, as we have stated it, involves, that it is directly in opposition to the plain letter of Scripture. If the bishop of Rome be "the man of sin, the son of perdition, the lawless one," what are those who receive and submit to him? Hear the Apostle's description of them: "They received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved; and for this cause God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned who believed not in the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." But it may be said that if Papists have the love of the truth, they are not involved in the ruin of Antichrist; rather surely we ought to say, since Papists may have the love of the truth, therefore the Pope is not Antichrist. Followers of Antichrist are in the above text described as utterly lost; which Papists, it seems, need not be. However, let us suppose this text of doubtful cogency; what will be said of the following? "He opened his mouth to blaspheme His name and His tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven; and power was given him over all kindreds and tongues and nations, and all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life ." Now who could be said to worship the Pope, if Borromeo and Fenelon did not; Fenelon who implicitly resigned his private judgment to him; Borromeo, a Pope's nephew, who was especially employed by him in the composition of the Catechism of Trent? However, it may be said, captiously as we think, that, though all whose names are not written do worship him, still (if so be) some whose names are written may worship him also. Must then the screw be driven tighter still? then listen. "If any man worship the beast, and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand," (and we are told shortly before that "he caused all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand or in their foreheads,") the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb, and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever, and they have no rest day nor night who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name."

 We entreat indulgence of serious minds for quoting such very awful words in a composition of this kind; but it is most necessary to bring before all thinking men the real state of the case, and respectfully and anxiously to warn them what they are doing, when they so confidently and solemnly pronounce Christian Rome to be Babylon. Do they know what they say? do they really resign themselves in faith, as they profess to do, to the sovereign word of God as they interpret it? Do they in faith make over the millions upon millions now and in former times who have been in subjection to the Roman See to utter and hopeless perdition? Do they in very truth look upon them as the direct and open enemies of God, and children of Satan? Then surely they ought to show this much more in acts, in the fruits of such faith, than even the most zealous of them have adopted; then is mere exclusion of Romanists from political power a very poor and miserable way of separating themselves from the kingdom of Satan. If even heresy stops the channels of sacramental grace, if there are degrees of moral corruption which bid fair to destroy the being of a Church and annul even the most canonical Succession, if we are to shun and abhor those in whom the prince of this world works, what ought to be our acts and our feelings towards the embodied idea of rebellion and pride, towards him who is pure evil, who is to be revealed as the son of perdition, and who is destined from the beginning for divine wasting and destruction? How any thoughtful person can hold, though we know there are very thoughtful persons who do, that any one can be in communion with Antichrist without partaking of his plagues, or that to receive Orders from him is not an act of communion with him in those who receive those Orders, or that they who transmitted to us our Orders from Rome could give the Orders without the plagues; or again, how men can conceive that the English Church can recognize the Orders of a Roman priest on his coming over to it, and yet hold that he gained them from Babylon, or how men, thinking that the Pope is the Beast of the Apocalypse, can endure the sight of any of his servants, can join in distributing the Bible with them, or can sit with them in the same Council or Parliament, or can do business with them, buy and sell, trade and traffic, or can gaze upon and admire the architecture of churches built by Antichrist, or make much of his pictures, or how they can read any book of his servants, Pascal's "Thoughts" or Kempis's "Imitation of Christ," or works of theology, as those of the Benedictines, Tillemont, or Fleury, or even school books, Delphin classics, or Gradus ad Parnassum, or how they can go abroad into Roman Catholic countries without necessity, prying into their churches and gazing on their processions; all this is to us inexplicable. "What fellowship," as the Apostle asks, "hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? and what concord hath Christ with Belial, or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? and what agreement hath the Temple of God with idols?" Or in the words of another Apostle, to which Dr. Todd refers, p. 321, "doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? Can the fig-tree bear olive-berries? either a vine figs?" What then is there in Antichrist that we can admire or take interest in?

 This surely is a principle which comes home to us, and approves itself both to our feelings and judgments. If Englishmen, as is certain, do not start with abhorrence from the members of the Church of Rome, surely this is a clear proof that they do not really account Rome to be Babylon, though they may seem to affirm it. We are surely fighting with a shadow; there is no difficulty here; those who denounce Rome and its bishops do not mean what they say. They do not mean to say that this Pope and that Pope are utterly and hopelessly lost beyond the power of repentance: they do not mean that to hold communion with him is to be involved in his plagues. They may say so in their closets; they do not say so, in proportion as they come into contact with those whom they denounce. They keep their ground, as far as their insular position has hold upon them; but they do give way, just so far as they cease to be islanders. This then, after all, is what thoughtful persons mean when they call Rome the seat of Antichrist, nothing more than that it has the spirit of Antichrist in it; not that it is bodily God's enemy, but that it has in it Satanical principles . And then perhaps in process of time they go on to the further doctrine, that these same bad principles are also, though not of course in the same degree, in Protestant countries and Protestant systems of doctrine. But all this is to give up the point in dispute, for either the Popes come up to the full stature of Antichrist, or we must look for Antichrist elsewhere. This is what Dr. Todd has remarked in his Discourses:

 "The advocates of the opinion," he says, "that the corruptions of popery have been foretold in these prophecies, are reduced to this dilemma; they must either evade and soften down the obvious declarations of Scripture by misrepresenting the real characters of the prediction; or else they must deny the possibility of salvation in the Church of Rome, they must be prepared to assert that every one who has lived and died in that communion is utterly and irretrievably perished for ever." P. 323.

 Note

 1. The distich, framed at the time of the Reformation by one of the extreme Protestant party, was this:

 "Tota jacet Babylon, destruxit tecta Lutherus,  Calvinus muros, et fundamenta Socinus,"

 2. [Archdeacon Lyall.]  

 7.

 So much on the calumny itself; but it may be objected that the mere fact that the Continental Churches should be called, and called so extensively, by such fearful or such shocking names, is a proof that they in some degree merit it. Even a heathen said, "Cæsar's wife must not be suspected;" and, in like manner, there is at first sight surely a slur cast on the sanctity of a communion which has, in matter of fact, been designated by titles which are almost too odious to mention. Honour is almost part of chastity; and shall the immaculate Bride of the Lamb be called sorceress, harlot, mother of abominations, habitation of devils, and her chief ruler be considered the man of sin, the enemy of God, and the son of perdition? The Church of Rome is thus circumstanced, therefore she is not the true Church.

 We consider this to be an argument eminently successful with the imagination, and yet a few sentences of Scripture and facts of history will serve, if we mistake not, to destroy its force. For, first of all, our Saviour was called a deceiver, a man gluttonous and a wine-bibber, a blasphemer, a Samaritan, a demoniac. He was crucified, and that between thieves; has "the offence of the cross" ceased? are we better than He?

 But further, it is a very impressive and touching fact, that He Himself has told us that His Church should have to bear the same reproach with Him: "If they have called the Master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of the household?"

 Antichrist, then, is almost foretold to be the title which His representatives and servants should bear. The imputation of it may almost be called one of the Notes of the Church. We say deliberately, that "Antichrist," "Babylon," "Mother of Harlots," "Beast," these titles given to the Church by the world, are as much a note of her being Christ's Church as her real inward sanctity is. Rome must not monopolize these titles; Rome has them not alone; we share them with Rome; it is our privilege to share them; Anglo-Catholics inherit them from the Roman family, from their common Lord and Saviour. Rome must not appropriate them; the early Church had them. We take it as a clear mark that we are the Church, and Rome the Church, and both the same Church, because in these titles we are joint-heirs of the Church of St Cornelius and St. Augustine. Heretics have generally taken high ground, considered themselves saints, called the Church by foul and frightful names; it is their very wont to speak, not against the Son of Man, for He is away, but against those who represent Him during His absence. The Montanists called Catholics "the natural men," the Novatians called them "the Apostates," the Donatists called them "traitors" and "sinners," called St. Peter's chair the seat of pestilence, washed the very pavement which Catholics had trodden, and maintained that the whole Church had perished except the fragment in connexion with themselves; the Luciferians called the Church "the devil's harlot," and "the synagogue of Satan." This is a sample of the language which has ever been applied to the fold of Christ by those who are cast out of it. Dr. Todd has shown us that the Albigenses, gross Manichees as they were, disbelievers in the Incarnation, deriders of Baptism, and enemies of all external religion, still conceived themselves in a position to call the Roman Church "the mother of fornications, and the basilica of the devil, and the synagogue of Satan, and the den of thieves, and the Apocalyptic harlot;" while the Waldenses called it "the Church of the malignants," and "Babylon." There is then nothing to surprise us in the language which Protestants have used, whether against us or against the Roman Catholics; they do but know and take their own place, and act conformably to their function in the history of Christianity.

 We are tempted to add one remarkable illustration in point, in addition to the above furnished to us by Dr. Todd, from a treatise now in course of publication, which from circumstances has attracted some attention. A work indeed of such talent and such range as "Ancient Christianity" of course deserves attention on its own ground from persons interested in its subject, that is, will deserve it when it is completed. At present it is only in an inchoate state, and if we attempted at this moment to master the author's argument, we might find on his finishing it in subsequent numbers, that it as little resembled our conceptions of it, as any complete copy of a work resembles its first rough draught. We have in consequence felt it right to be patient, and to wait and see where he ends, a resolution in which we are confirmed by finding it adopted by others beside ourselves, and persons too not agreeing with us in theological views. The particular point for which we now refer to him, is his avowal, as Dr. Todd quotes him, that the state of the Church of the fourth century is the fulfilment of the prophecy in 1 Tim. iv., concerning "the apostasy of some from the faith," in "forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats." Dr. Todd's remarks on this passage, which form the subject of his sixth lecture, are very valuable. He observes, (after Mede so far,) that the prophecy is a continuation of the train of thought begun at the conclusion of the foregoing chapter. The Apostle had said, "great is the mystery of godliness," and, after describing it, he adds, " but the Spirit speaketh expressly that some shall apostatize from the faith," this faith once for all delivered, "the great mystery of godliness." If this be so, it will follow that the falling away or apostasy to come is a denial of the Incarnation ; a conclusion which is singularly confirmed by St. John's words, "Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God, and this is that spirit of Antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it shall come, and even now already is it in the world;" or, as St. Paul speaks, "the mystery of iniquity doth already work;" a pointed contrast being intended by the Apostle between the mystery of truth and the mystery of error. St. Peter confirms this view by prophesying, as the great evil which lies before the Church, "false teachers" who shall "privily bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them ." Then as to the two specified points which mark the Apostasy, of forbidding marriage and meats, every one who can read his Greek Testament must know quite well, that the word rendered "meats" has as little to do with flesh specially, (which is what the Roman Church or the Nicene Church has in view when it enjoins fasting,) as the word sweetmeat in English has. "It denotes food," says Dr. Todd, whether animal or vegetable; in short, whatsoever is employed for the aliment and sustenance of man." P. 309. But, independently of this, it is very wonderful how any one can see in this passage a condemnation of fasting, who professes to hold, with the English Church, its religious use, or can make it a peculiar badge either of the Roman or of the Primitive. Well may Mr. Maitland say, as Dr. Todd quotes him,

 "I feel quite at a loss how to express my astonishment, that any expositor should have been hardy enough to carry on the interpretation, by applying this part of the prophecy to the fasts of the Church of Rome. Strange indeed it will be, if the predicted mark of apostasy should turn out to be a practice commanded in the word of God, recognized as a religious duty by every Christian communion, and placed first and foremost in her list of 'good works' by the purest Protestant Church in the world. (See the Homily 'Of Good Works, and first of Fasting.') To say that this, which the Church of England enjoins on her members as a 'good work,' whose commendation is both in the law and in the Gospel," changes its character so far as to become a badge of apostasy, when excessively or superstitiously performed, is a shift which it would not be worth while to answer, if the reply were not so close at hand. Has the Church of Rome ever commanded such excessive abstinence as had been practised by voluntary superstition long before that Church was distinguished as the apostasy, or, in fact, distinguished at all from the rest of the Catholic Church? And has the Greek Church never been excessive or superstitious on this point?" P. 341.

 On the other hand, it is a very observable fact that such an unnatural or rather murderous abstinence, as is spoken of in this text of the Apostle, did exist among the Albigenses. Our author says,

 "The most remarkable instance, perhaps, of voluntary suicide recommended, under the name of religion, by a sect pretending to Christianity was the endura or fasting to death, practised among the Albigenses of Thoulouse, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. It seems that these heretics recommended the endura to such persons as were received into the communion of their sect during their last illness, or what was supposed to be so; and that these unhappy dupes of a miserable superstition were taught to believe, that by submitting to be thus starved to death, their everlasting happiness was secured. Abundant proofs of the existence of this cruel and monstrous practice among these heretics, will be found in the Book of Sentences of the Inquisition and The well-known superstitions of the natives of India exhibit numerous instances of self-immolation performed from a religious motive, and widely spread, nay popular, for centuries, among an intelligent, and not in other respects an uncivilised, people." Pp. 309, 310.

 In like manner, the Manichees and Gnostics commanded abstinence from certain kinds of food, not for a moral end, but on the ground of their being unlawful or unfit for use, or, contrariwise to St. Paul, as if not "every creature of God was good." Dr. Todd also quotes St. Augustine, who says of the Tatianists, that "they condemn marriage, and hold it all one with fornication and other impurity; and do not receive into their number man or woman living in a married state. Nor do they eat flesh, but abominate it altogether." P. 31. As to this other characteristic of the Apostasy, that it shall forbid marriage, Dr. Todd observes, in behalf of the Church of Rome, what will apply still more strongly to the Nicene Church, that the words in the inspired text

 "imply, in their natural and obvious signification, an absolute prohibition of marriage, on some such principles as those which led to the prohibition of it in the ancient Gnostic and Manichæan sects; or else, perhaps, on the licentious principles which are not without their advocates in our own times and Without attempting, therefore, in the least to defend or to excuse this part of the discipline and doctrine of the Roman Church, for I believe it indefensible, I trust I may be permitted to express my doubts, whether the injunction or recommendation to celibacy to certain classes of persons in that communion, can in fairness and candour be represented as equivalent to a general prohibition of the holy ordinance of matrimony, or a denial of its divine institution. I am persuaded that the prophecy before us is intended to predict a much more fatal error than that of Romanism; an error more destructive to morality and to society; an error, which, if we are to seek for its antitype in modern times, would seem to be represented rather by what we have seen was always the result of infidel domination, both in our own country, during the temporary overthrow of our religion and monarchy, and in still later times, in France, where the marriage contract was capable of being legally dissolved at any time by the mutual consent of the parties; and that infidel opinions of a similar tendency are not without their victims in our own nation, at the present day, none need be told who are acquainted with what is now commonly maintained on this subject by the enemies of our faith and institutions. We have not indeed, as yet, seen men go to the length of prohibiting the ordinance of the Church, or the public recognition of the civil contract; but we have seen in our own times a legal sanction given to a mode of entering upon this contract, wherein neither the blessing of the Almighty is besought, nor the Church admitted as a witness. How far this may be considered as a step to a more anti-Christian state of things, it would ill become me to predict; at present it can only be appealed to as one amongst many still more unequivocal indications of the tendency of a certain class of opinions, now widely spread amongst us, and an earnest of what may fairly be expected from a national recognition of infidelity, and an overthrow of the Christian Church.

 "But the subject is one upon which it would be manifestly impossible to enter here; and I shall therefore only say that I believe the prophecy to have foretold an infidel prohibition of the ordinance of marriage, rather than a superstitious preference for a life of celibacy, and that a state of things is hereafter to be revealed, far, far exceeding in impiety and immorality any example of superstition, hypocrisy, or mistaken devotion that has ever been tolerated in the darkest period or region of the Church." Pp. 333-339.

 But now to return to the imputation upon Ancient Christianity cast by the author to whom we have referred in connexion with this text, an imputation which, in the case of writers of his cast of opinions, we do really consider, as we have said, to be one of the Notes of the Church in every age. Dr. Todd thus records and comments on it:

 "This writer abandons as untenable the interpretation which supposes this prophecy to have been fulfilled in the Roman Church, on the ground that, in the sense in which the Apostle's words have been applied to that communion, they are equally applicable to the Church Catholic, Eastern and Western, of the Nicene age. He says, "but here again we are met by that Protestant habit of thinking, which has, in so many instances, impelled the anxious opponents of the Papacy to attribute specifically to the Romish Church what in truth belongs to it only in common with the Eastern and with the Nicene Church ... Protestant commentators, in referring to this prediction, have been wont to call it a striking prediction of Popery. But why Popery? as well say of Spanish Catholicism, or of Irish Catholicism ... In our eagerness and to attach this brand to Papacy we have too much forgotten that Rome only inherited and shared the more ancient Apostasy ." and The author of Ancient Christianity ... not only admits, but broadly asserts, ... that the Nicene Church was apostate ... 'Popery will live and triumph so long as those corruptions continue to be called Popish, which, in fact, were much more ancient. In the present instance, I appeal to serious and candid minds, competently informed in Church history, and ask, whether the brand of Apostasy be not herein fixed by the Apostolic hand upon ... the Nicene Church ?'"  Todd, pp. 516-518.

 8.

 Here then we have ancient and modern dissentients from the Primitive Church, Donatists, Luciferians, and the author of "Ancient Christianity," not satisfied with dissenting, but accusing her of apostasy. One should not wish the English Church to be other than a partner in a cross which Athanasius and Augustine have borne in their day and down to these times. And now let us see whether, for well-nigh three centuries, the Reformed Anglo-Catholic communion has not also in fact borne it. The writings of Puritan and other authors will afford us abundant materials on this subject, of which the following may serve as a specimen, which are extracted from the works which first come to hand.

 For instance, these dissentients from us are in the habit of calling our Church Babylon, and Antichrist, especially on the ground of our Church's union with the State ; a more outrageous reason cannot well be conceived, of course; but we must beg our readers to bear with what is monstrous for the sake of the various lessons, which the survey brings with it. "The kingdom of Christ," says the celebrated Robert Browne, founder of the Brownists, as quoted by Mr. Hanbury, in his late elaborate collection of "Historical Memorials relating to the Independents," "The kingdom of Christ is His office of government, whereby He useth the obedience of His people to keep His laws and commandments to their salvation and welfare. The kingdom of Antichrist  is his government confirmed by the civil magistrate, whereby he abuseth the obedience of his people to keep his evil laws and customs to their own damnation." P. 21. Barrowe, taking "a little view of the ecclesiastical government and ordinances of" the Church of England, says, "Great hath been their craft and manifold their devices to cover their anti-Christian practices, and to uphold this their ruinous and tyrannous kingdom. I had need express my meaning to be of their false ecclesiastical regiment, the Kingdom of the Beast ; lest they be my interpreters, and draw me with danger and treason." P. 45. Again, to take a recent instance "What I denounce as anti-Christian," says the late Mr. Walker, of Dublin, "is not this or that corruption in the Establishment, nor is it the religious establishment of England and Ireland, etc., etc. It is the generic thing of a religious establishment, under the name of Christian, under whatever modifications and specific differences, the thing per se cannot but be anti-Christian; and when such a thing is put forward as Christianity, Christians are called to discern in it the man of sin usurping the prerogative of God."  Works, vol. 1., p. 341. Again, he says that "One of the distinguishing characters of the Christian religion is, that it cannot possibly be made a political establishment cannot be made a national institution." "When the Church of Christ," he continues, "espoused as a pure virgin unto Him, becomes a common harlot, committing fornication with the kings of the earth, she ceases to be the Church of Christ."  Ibid ., p. 339. Again, "Multitudes in anti-Christian Europe burn with zeal for the false Christ, whom they have set up in their union of Church and State, while they scorn and detest the only true Christ, the Christ of God, and manifest this by their contemptuous rejection of the word that testifies of Him." vol. ii., p. 93. And to the same purport is the following avowal of Wesley's, as it occurs in a pamphlet from which we shall further quote below: "From the time that Church and State, the kingdom of Christ and of the world, were so strangely and unnaturally blended together, Christianity and heathenism were so thoroughly incorporated with each other that they will hardly ever be divided till Christ comes to reign on the earth. So that instead of fancying that the glory of the New Jesusalem covered the earth at that period, we have the terrible proof that it was then, and has ever since been, covered with the smoke of the bottomless pit ."

 Another ground taken against us is the circumstance of our considering the Church as an hierarchy, a religious, spiritual, or divine, and not a human society. For instance, Bishop Hall, in his answer to Robinson, tells us that the latter had cast "upon her honourable name blasphemous imputations of apostasy, anti-Christianism, whoredom, and rebellion ;" and Robinson thus defends himself: "The mystery of iniquity did advance itself by degrees, and, as the rise was, so must the fall be. That man of sin and lawless man must languish and die away of a consumption ... You have renounced many false doctrines in Popery, and in their places embraced the truth. But what if this truth be taught under the same hateful prelacy, in the same devised office of the ministry, and confused communion of the profane multitude? If Antichrist held not many truths, wherewith should he countenance so many forgeries? Or how mould his work to a ' mystery of iniquity ' which in Rome is more gross and palpable, but in England is spun with a finer thread, and so more hardly to be discovered ? I desire to know of you whether the office of archbishops, bishops, and the rest of that rank, were not parts of that accursed hierarchy in Queen Mary's days, and members of 'the man of sin'? All the Reformed Churches in the world renounce the prelacy of England as part of that pseudo-clergy and anti-Christian hierarchy derived from Rome." Pp. 186-193. And Burton speaks in like manner of the bishops of his day: "Beware of all those factors for Antichrist, whose practice is to divide kings from their subjects and subjects from their kings, that so, between both, they may fairly erect Antichrist's throne again ... Herein have we cause to comfort ourselves and to bless the name of our God, who hath raised up faithful ministers of His word, who chose rather to lose all they had than to submit to the commands of usurping anti-Christian mushrooms ." P. 555. And no less a man than Milton says, "Mark, readers, the crafty scope of these prelates; they endeavour to impress deeply into weak and superstitious fancies the awful notion of a 'Mother;' that thereby they might cheat them into a blind and implicit obedience to whatsoever they shall decree or think fit. And if we come to ask a reason of aught from our 'Dear Mother,' she is invisible, under the lock and key of the Prelates, her spiritual adulterers . They only are the internuncios, or the go-betweens of this time-devised mummery. Whatsoever they say, she says must be a deadly sin of disobedience not to believe. So that we, who by God's special grace have shaken off the servitude of a great male tyrant, our pretended father, the Pope, should now, if we be not betimes aware of these wily teachers, sink under the slavery of a female notion; the cloudy conception of a demi-island 'Mother;' and, while we think to be obedient sons, shall make ourselves rather the bastards, or the centaurs, of their spiritual fornications ."  Hanb ., p. 187. How precisely the fanatic spirit of the Donatist Circumcellionists!

 The Apostolical succession and priesthood is another ground on which these modern heretics call us Antichrist. "Our prelates," says Burton, "have no other claim for their hierarchy than the Popes have and do make; which all our divines, since the Reformation, till but yesterday, have disclaimed, and our prelates cannot otherwise but by making themselves the very limbs of the Pope, and so our Church a member of that synagogue of Rome." P. 553. In like manner, Mr. Walker: "It is now many years since I have renounced with abhorrence the title of 'Reverend,' and the whole clerical character connected with it. That character, under whatever name or modification, is one of the ungodly fictions of the man of sin, and one of the main pillars of Antichrist's kingdom ." Vol. ii., p. 354. Again: "Stare not, when I assert that the distinction between clergy and laity is essentially anti-Christian, and indeed one of the main pillars supporting the edifice of the man of sin ... The blasphemous titles assumed by the Pope of Rome go little beyond the profane arrogance of our English bishops in styling themselves 'Successors of the Apostles in the government of the Church ... From the prime ministers of Antichrist all the inferior orders of clergy received their ordination, their appointment, and their sacred function ... 'This do in remembrance of Me,' saith the Lord. 'No, no!' say the clergy, 'presume not to do it, unless ye have among you one of the clerical caste, to consecrate the elements, and administer them to you.'" Vol. ii., p. 520.

 Another ground taken by these writers is that of our rites and liturgical services . "Your temples," says Robinson, "especially your Cathedrals and Mother Churches, stand still in their proud majesty, possessed by archbishops and lord bishops, like the Flamens and Arch-flamens amongst the Gentiles, from whom they were derived, and furnished with all manner of pompous and superstitious monuments, as carved and painted images, massing copes and surplices, chanting and organ music, and many other glorious ornaments of the Romish harlot, by which her majesty is commended to and admired by the vulgar; so far are you in these respects from being gone, or fled, yea or crept either, out of Babylon ." P. 197. "If a man," says the same writer, "should set the Church of England before his eyes, as it differeth but from the Reformed Churches, it would be no very beautiful bird; yea, what could it in that colour afford but Egyptian bondage, Babylonish confusion, carnal pomp, and a company of Jewish,Heathenish and Popish ceremonies?" P. 205. "Shall we think that the services of Antichrist," says Bastwick, "only taken out of the language of the Beast and put into English, and in French, or any other tongue, is acceptable unto God? And, that our services, the whole Prayer-book, is taken out of the Mass-book and other Popish pamphlets, I myself, being in Italy, compared them together. And for our Litany, if I do not forget myself, it is translated, word for word, out of the Litany to our Lady, as they call it: Lady being turned into Lord, as in the Lady's Psalter, Lord and God are turned into Lady." P. 575. " These blasphemous wretches," says Barrowe, "not to darken only, but to reproach the truth yet further, proceed and give out 'that the heavenly order and ordinances which Christ hath appointed in His Testament,' the government of His Church, which they call discipline, 'are but accidental, and no essential work of the Established Church.' ... Thus is Antichrist extolled, and openeth his mouth against God and all His ordinances." P. 45. And in like manner, Mr. Walker, in answer to Archbishop Whately's Tract on the Sabbath, "The Church,' he (the Archbishop) tells us, 'has full power to sanctify any day that may be thought most fitting.' Power to sanctify! the assumption of the man of sin can scarcely be carried higher than this. Here he appears indeed as God sitting in the Temple of God ."  Works, vol. ii., p. 144.

 Again, the mixture of good and bad men in our Church, and her injunctions to unity, are made a fresh proof of her kindred with Antichrist. "For your graces," says Robinson, "we despise them not, nor any good thing amongst you; no more than you do such graces and good things as are to be found in the Church of Rome, from which you separate notwithstanding. We have, by God's mercy, the pure and right use of the good gifts and graces of God in Christ's ordinance, which you want. Neither the Lord's people nor the holy vessels could make Babylon Sion; though both one and the other were captive for a time." P. 201. Robinson, in a passage above cited, observes, that we have still the prelacy, the ministry, and the " confused communion of the profane mu1titude," which are badges of Antichrist. And Mr. Walker observes to a friend, "You quote Eph. iv. 3 as warranting your tender apprehensions, lest you should disturb the tranquillity of that ungodly confederacy in which you are engaged, by the introduction of Scriptural truth. The 'unity of the Spirit' indeed! let me freely tell you, that I view the unity of the Spirit which you are endeavouring thus to keep, as no other than the unity of the Spirit of Antichrist ." P. 374.

 Much might be said in addition on the subject of faith and works, baptism, and other doctrines, by way of showing how fully our Church is practically involved in the charge of Antichristianism by those who adopt Luther's view of the "articulus stantis vel cadentis ecclesiæ." "Dissenters," says a clever pamphlet from one of themselves, "whether justly or not, believe that baptismal regeneration, the exclusive validity of the Orders conferred by bishops, the consequent exclusive right of the clergy 'to be quite sure that they have the body of Christ, to give to the people,' the conversion of the Christian ministry into a priesthood, with the inevitable association of some mysterious nature connected with their services ... they believe that that from which they naturally spring, really is contained and taught in the offices and canons of the Church ; and if not, they know that the things themselves are extensively assumed and circulated as if they were there; and that, even when denied in the pulpit, the belief of them is fostered by the fact, that the uniform phraseology of the Book of Common Prayer is, apparently at least, founded upon them. They consider that pernicious and perilous errors lurk in the language and are supported by the use of the Confirmation Service and the form of Absolution, both public and private; and they think that very much that is awfully deceptive is engendered or aggravated by the manner in which the Lord's Supper is dispensed to the dying, and the Burial Service read over the dead." [n. 1]

 9.

 Our object in making the foregoing selections has been mainly this, to show that the charge on the part of its enemies of being Antichrist, or verging on Antichrist, is one of those notes or characteristics which go to ascertain the true Church; next, that in consequence, much as there is to condemn in the Roman communion, yet, if that communion is not proved on other grounds to be the Babylon of prophecy, the mere fact that it is so called, however startling at first sight, affords no presumption that it is so; and lastly, and what most concerns members of our own body, that we should be cautious of calling Rome by the name of Babylon, inasmuch as we are certain of being so called ourselves if ours is the true Church [n. 2], and that, in matter of fact, we have ever been so called, more so, since we became separate from Rome, than before, and that down to this day. If any of us think to gain for ourselves some relief from the odious imputation, by casting it boldly upon Rome, he quite mistakes both our position and the feelings of our opponents. They will take what we give, and use it against ourselves. Let us be quite sure of the truth of the sacred and heathen proverbs in this case, one of which says, that stones cast into the air fall back upon the caster's head; and the other, that curses, like young chickens, always come home to roost. Newton tells us in one place, that "The seeds of popery, sown even in the Apostles' day, were idolatry, strife, and division, adulterating God's word, making 'a gain of godliness, and teaching for filthy lucre's sake,'" (Oh, Dr. Newton!) "a vain observance of festivals, a vain distinction of meats, a neglecting of the body, and traditions and commandments of men." How ill would the "plurima pietas," which suggested such an enumeration to this mild logician, have fared in the rude unmannerly hands of Henry Ainsworth, who, in his "Arrow against Idolatry," reckons among its relics existing among us, our "Diocesan, Provincial, and National Churches," our "Liturgies" and "organs," our holy days with their eves, our hierarchy, our "Churches, baptized bells, hallowed fonts, and holy churchyards," or, as he appropriately calls them, "high places," our "lands, livings, tithes, offerings, garments, signs, gestures, ceremonies, courts, canons, customs, and many more abominations wherewith have been enriched the merchants of the whore and all that sail with ships in her sea." These and others, (he proceeds to say,) are "very Gilluhim, the loathsome idols and excrements of the Queen of Sodom and the filthiness of her fornication" with which "she defileth the consciences of men." [n. 3] We desiderate in Newton's Treatise an answer to these railings; and we think no English divine does us a service who so vaguely delineates Antichrist that at a little distance his picture looks not very unlike ourselves. He should be precise enough not to include England while he includes Rome; and this task, whatever be the grievous errors of Rome, we hold to be impossible. All the great and broad principles on which she may be considered Babylon, may be retorted on us. Does the essence of Antichrist lie in interposing media between the soul and its God? we interpose baptism; In imposing a creed? we have articles for the clergy and creeds for all men; In paying reverence to things of time and place? we honour the consecrated elements, take off our hats in churches, and observe days and seasons; In forms and ceremonies? we have a service book; In ministers of religion? we have bishops, priests, and deacons; In claiming an imperium in imperio ? such was the convocation, such are elective chapters; In the high state of prelacy? our bishops have palaces, and sit among princes; In supporting religion by temporal sanctions? we are established; In the mixture of good and bad? we are national; In discipline of the body? we fast. England does not differ then from Rome in principles, but in questions of fact, of degree, of practice ; and whereas Antichrist differs from Christ, as darkness from light, if one of the two Churches is Antichrist, the other must be also.

 Nay, let not even the Kirk be too sure that she has succeeded in ridding herself of the same frightful imputation. So far as she still retains upon her the shadow of a Church, so far does she, in the eyes of those who have cast off all churchmanship, bear tokens of the enemy of truth. A Church, as such, as Mr. Walker confesses in his own case, is what Protestants really mean by Antichrist. We have a strange paper before us, which has been widely circulated, and is written by a late Fellow of a College in the University of Oxford, which, after deciding that the first Beast is the Papacy, the seven horns the seven sacraments, war with the beast the Protestant league, the mouth speaking great things, the Council of Trent, goes on to say, that the second Beast is the Queen's supremacy, the two horns like a lamb, are the two Universities, Oxford and Cambridge, the image to the first Beast, the book of Common Prayer, the name of the second Beast the supreme head of the Church, and ends by warning the Kirk that the Queen's High Commissioner in the General Assembly "sits there, as in the Temple of God, showing himself that he is God," (that is, supreme head of the Church in its ecclesiastical capacity,) and by asking "If the Church of England be an idolatrous Church, as was universally held by all Presbyterians in the reign of the Stewarts, identifying as they did, Prelacy with Popery throughout, upon what principle does the Evangelical portion in particular of the Church of Scotland now seek a closer union with the Church of England, when the latter Church has notoriously become more superstitious than ever, with her crosses, and candlesticks, and altars, and faldstools, and though last, not least, with her priestly robes and royal dalmatics?" Let it be observed that this writer, as well as Ainsworth and the rest, accuses us of idolatry, the one point in which we might seem at first sight specifically to differ from Rome; but it is a remarkable circumstance that, real as this difference is, as we should contend, Idolatry is not mentioned in Scripture as a mark of Antichrist ; just the reverse. "Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers," says the prophecy, "nor regard any god, for he shall magnify himself above all ; but in his estate he shall honour the god of forces." "Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called god or that is worshipped ." "He opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme His name, and His tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven ."

 10.

 Enough has been said to show the deficiency of theological principle, on which the attack upon Rome has commonly been conducted among us. Writers of our Church who call her Babylon, ought to have laid down definitely what they considered the essence of Antichrist, and have shown that our own was clear of it. They ought, before attacking the foundations of Rome, to have shown that we ourselves had not built upon them. Instead of this, in their eagerness to strike a blow at Rome, they have done no little to overturn all visible, all established religion in the world, and to involve the Primitive Church, our own, the Kirk nay, all sects and denominations whatever, in one common ruin. And now we will make a suggestion towards remedying their deficiency, that is, towards analysing the principle on which alone Rome can logically be called the seat of Antichrist: whether such principle, when stated, will be satisfactory to ourselves, and available in our warfare with our Roman Catholic brethren, is another matter.

 Now, whatever has been said above to make it probable that the calumny of being Antichrist is in fact one of the Notes of the true Church, yet nothing has been suggested to account for the phenomenon that the Church, or what is like the Church, should be exposed to so strange an imputation. It is satisfactory indeed to be told that, if we are called Beelzebub, we are but fulfilling our Master's pattern; but still the question remains how men come to call us so? We conceive upon the following principle.

 We observe then that the essence of the doctrine that there is "One only Catholic and Apostolic Church" lies in this; that there is on earth a representative of our absent Lord, or a something divinely interposed between the soul and God, or a visible body with invisible privileges. All its subordinate characteristics flow from this description. Does it impose a creed, or impose rites and ceremonies, or change ordinances, or remit and retain sins, or rebuke and punish, or accept offerings, or send out ministers, or invest its ministers with authority, or accept of reverence or devotion in their persons? all this is because it is Christ's visible presence. It stands for Christ. Can it convey the power of the Spirit? does grace attend its acts? can it touch, or bathe, or seal, or lay on hands? can it use material things for spiritual purposes? are its temples holy? all this comes of its being (so far) what Christ was on earth. Is it a ruler, prophet, priest, intercessor, teacher? it has titles such as these in its measure, as being the representative and instrument of the Almighty Lord who is unseen. Does it claim a palace and a throne, an altar and a doctor's chair, the gold, frankincense and myrrh of the rich and wise, an universal empire and a never-ending succession? all this is so, because it is what Christ is. All the offices, names, honours, powers which it claims depend upon the determination of the simple question Has Christ, or has He not, left a representative behind Him?

 Now if He has, then all is easy and intelligible; this is what churchmen maintain; they welcome the news; and they recognize in the Church's acts but the fulfilment of the high trust committed to her. But let us suppose for a moment the other side of the alternative to be true; supposing Christ has left no representative behind Him. Well, then, here is an Association which professes to take His place without warrant. It comes forward instead of Christ and for Him; it speaks for Him, it developes His words; it suspends His appointments, it grants dispensations in matters of positive duty; it professes to minister grace, it absolves from sin; and all this of its own authority. Is it not forthwith, according to the very force of the word, "Antichrist"? He who speaks for Christ must either be His true ambassador or Antichrist; and nothing but Antichrist can he be, if appointed ambassador there is none. Let his acts be the same in both cases, according as he has authority or not, so is he most holy or most guilty. It is not the acts that make the difference, it is the authority for those acts. The very same acts are Christ's acts or Antichrist's, according to the doer: they are Christ's, if Christ does them; they are Antichrist's, if Christ does them not. There is no medium between a Vice-Christ and Antichrist.

 It is no accident then or strange occurrence that the Church should have been called Antichrist. She must be called so in consistency by those who separate from her. Such an imputation is the necessary result of disbelief in her commission. Her acts are known in all the world; there is no mistaking them. Difference of opinion about them will be shown not in disputing against what is mere matter of history and public notoriety, but in viewing them in a different light, and referring it to a distinct origin. Convince the Presbyterian or Wesleyan that the Church has spiritual powers, and he will find no great difficulty in her general conduct: she does not act up to her commission. If the Church be from Christ, even her least acceptable words or deeds ex cathedrâ may be taken on faith: if she be not, even her best are presumptuous, and call for a protest. She is an honoured servant in one case; an usurper and tyrant in another. There is on the whole then but one issue in the controversy about the Church, and that a very plain and simple one. Its children and its enemies both understand that the Church professes to act for God, but the one party says rightfully, the other wrongfully . This then is the point on which the controversy turns, and before which all other questions sink in importance. All may easily be arranged when this one question is settled. Neglect it, and we shall be arguing without understanding where we are; master this one principle, and you may change your whole position in a day: the Church will be henceforth faithful for arrogant, diligent for officious, charitable for political, firm for violent, holy for blasphemous, Christ for Antichrist. If we believe she has a commission, we shall be Catholics, and call her holy: if we make our inward light, or our reason, or our feelings, our guide, and set up Antichrist within us, then, with Gnostics, Montanists, Novatians, Manichees, Donatists, Paulicians, Albigenses, Calvinists, and Brownists, we shall, in mere self-defence and mere consistency, call her Babylon, Sodom, sorceress, harlot, Jezebel, Beelzebub, and Antichrist. A sacerdotal order is historically the essence of the Church; if not divinely appointed, it is doctrinally the essence of Antichrist.

 And thus we answer a gibe, we believe of Baxter's, which at first sight is not without its force. He said that "If the Pope was not Antichrist, he had bad luck to be so like him." Not "bad luck;" but sheer necessity. Since Antichrist simulates Christ, and bishops are images of Christ, Antichrist is like a bishop, and a bishop is like Antichrist. And what is the Pope but a bishop? his peculiarity lying, not in his assuming to be omnibus numeris a bishop, but in his disfranchising all bishops but himself; not in his titles nor in his professed gifts, which are episcopal, but in his denying these to other bishops, and absorbing the episcopate into himself.

 The only question then is this, "Has Christ, or has He not, appointed a body representative of Him on earth during His absence?" If He has, the Pope is not Antichrist; if He has not, every bishop in England, Bishop Newton, Bishop Warburton, Bishop Hurd, is Antichrist; every priest is Antichrist, Mr. McNeile, Dr. Jortin, and Dr. Faussett inclusive. We hold most firmly that He has, or of course we could not belong to the Church of England; this, however, is not the place to prove it in extenso . We have done all that falls within the scope of Dr. Todd's lectures, if we have shown that members of the English Church are not quite the persons to venture to speak of "that woman Jezebel," meaning thereby the Holy Church Catholic, sojourning in Rome; however, before concluding, we may be allowed to make one or two suggestions in behalf of our side of the main principle itself, which is in dispute, viz., that Christ has left behind Him a representative society.

 11.

 Now, that He has condescended so to do, is so clearly declared in the sacred volume, especially when its announcements are viewed in the light of historical facts, that we could almost say that the argument did but require to be fairly brought out, in order to the conviction of any serious and unbiassed mind. Not even the proof of our Lord's divinity is plainer than that of the Church's commission. Not even the promises to David or to Solomon more evidently belong to Christ, than those to Israel, or Jerusalem, or Sion, belong to the Church. Not even Daniel's prophecies are more exact to the letter, than those which invest the Church with powers which Protestants consider Babylonish. Nay, holy Daniel himself is in no small measure employed on this very subject. He it is who announces a fifth kingdom, like "a stone cut out without hands," which "broke in pieces and consumed" all former kingdoms, but was itself to "stand for ever," and to become "a great mountain," and to "fill the whole earth." He it is also who prophesies, that "the Saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom and possess the kingdom for ever." He "saw in the night visions, and behold one like to the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of Days, and there was given Him dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages should serve Him." Such too is Isaiah's prophecy, "Out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the law from Jerusalem, and He shall judge among the nations and rebuke many people." Now Christ Himself was to depart from the earth: He could not then in His own person be intended in these great prophecies; if He acted, it must be by delegacy. Let us then for a moment suppose that the Church has been really His vicar and representative. Supposing her so to be, He has as truly and literally judged among the nations, and rebuked many people, reigned in righteousness, promoted peace, taught the nations, repressed the wicked, as the sovereign of England keeps the peace, administers justice, punishes offences, and performs other regal offices by his courts of law, magistrates, army, police, and other functionaries. All works indeed in which man has part are marked with imperfection; divine promises and counsels are but fulfilled on the whole and in due measure in this sinful world. It is easy to point out ten thousand instances in which the functionaries of the Church have failed of their duty to their Lord and Master, when, according to His own announcement, the "wicked servant" has said "in his heart, my Lord delayeth His coming," and has begun "to beat the man-servants and the maidens, and to eat and drink, and be drunken;" still it is impossible surely to read the history of the Church, up to the last four or five hundred years, with an unprejudiced mind, without perceiving that whatever were the faults of her servants, and the corruptions of her children, she has on the whole been the one element of civilization, light, moral improvement, peace, and purity in the world. In the darkest times, with exceptions too brief or local to bear insisting on, she has been far the superior, in those respects in which she was designed to be superior, of those earthly powers among whom she has moved. In the darkest times, and when the conduct of her organs was least defensible, and her professed aims and principles most extreme, she will be found, when contrasted with other powers, to be fighting the cause of truth and right against sin, to be a witness for God, or defending the poor, or purifying or reforming her own servants and ministers, or promoting peace, and maintaining the holy faith committed to her. This she was till she quarrelled with herself, and divided into parts; what she has been since, what she is now, a future age must decide; we can only trust in faith that she is what she ever has been, and was promised ever to be, one amid her divisions, and holy amid her corruptions.

 But returning to the thought of former and happier times, what, we ask, are her acts as then displayed, so lordly and high, so maternal, so loving yet so firm, so calm yet so keen, so gentle yet so vigorous, so full of the serpent's wisdom yet of the dove's innocence; what is all this but a literal accomplishment of the sure word of prophecy concerning the reign of Christ upon earth? The writings of the Fathers, as they have come down to us, form an historical comment upon the inspired pages of Isaiah, supplying numberless instances of the execution of that high mission, whereby the spiritual Israel was set forth in the world, as the elect of God, created as an instrument of righteousness to set forth his Maker's glory, to teach truth and righteousness, "to relieve the oppressed, to judge the fatherless, to plead for the widow," to feed the hungry, to shield the imperilled, to raise the fallen, to repress the tyrannical, to reconcile enemies, and largely to dispense benefits to and fro. Even what is visibly exhibited in the page of history is an abundant and a most wonderful accomplishment of the prophetic word. We find, for instance, St. Ambrose journeying across the Alps in the winter to protect Justina from the usurper Maximus; we read of the bishops throughout France interceding with the latter for members of their flock or for others, who had taken part against him; while Flavian, Bishop of Antioch, on that city having grievously insulted the emperor, betakes himself in his old age to Constantinople, presents himself before his offended sovereign, and gains his pardon. St. Basil founds an hospital for lepers in his diocese in Cappadocia, and his example is followed throughout the neighbouring country. He writes to Valerian to offer his mediation between Valerian and certain Cæsareans; to Elias, the imperial collector, to gain longer time for his people's contribution; to Callisthenes, to persuade him to deal mildly with certain slaves; to the Count of the private purse, for a diminution of the tribute of iron exacted of the people of Taurus, and of mares exacted of another place; to two parties going to law, offering himself as arbitrator, in order to save them expense; to a civil officer, to save the country people from the oaths usual on paying taxes; to Duke Andronicus, to soften his feelings towards Domitian; to a commissioner of taxes, to relieve the hospitals from imposts; and to Modestus, to relieve Helladius from a civil employment.

 "Certain Circumcellianists and Donatist clergy," says St. Austin to Apringius, "have confessed horrible enormities of theirs against my brethren and priests, that they waylaid and murdered one, carried off from his home another, pulled out his eye, cut off his finger, and mutilated him. Finding that they would fall under your axe, I write in haste to your nobility, by way of deprecating, for the mercy of Christ, any strict retaliation. Though the law's punishment cannot lie in the very same acts in which the offenders showed their fury, yet I fear lest they, at least the murderers, should meet with sentence at your hands. That they may not, a Christian petitions the judge, a bishop admonishes the Christian. You bear not the sword in vain; but it is one thing when a province is the party injured, another when the Church. Fear with us the rigorous judgment of God our Father, and be a pattern of the clemency of your mother. For when you act, the Church acts, for whom you act, whose son you are in acting. They with the sword of guilt drew blood of Christians; you from their blood hold back even the sword of justice for Christ's sake. They robbed the Church's minister of his time for living; do you prolong to her enemies their time for repenting."

 Or, to take another department of their high duties, St. Ambrose suspends the Emperor Theodosius from communion for a passionate massacre of the inhabitants of Thessalonica; St. Athanasius excommunicated a military chief of Libya, for immoral conduct, forbidding him throughout Christendom fire, water, and shelter at the hands of the faithful; St. Basil interdicts a certain refractory person from the Church services; and Synesius abandons to the divine anger Andronicus, president of Libya, a cruel tyrant, who had invented instruments of torture to extort money from the people.

 Or, let us view a third aspect of the episcopal character.

 "I lived," said Theodoret when accused of heresy, "in a monastery up to the time of my episcopate, and received that charge against my will. Five-and-twenty years have I lived bishop, nor have ever been appealed against by any, nor any have I accused. Not an obol, not a cloke have I received from any. Not one loaf or one egg has domestic of mine ever received. Except the rags that cover me, nought have I endured to take. Public porticos have I erected out of my ecclesiastical revenue. Two bridges have I built of largest size; I have taken the charge of public baths . Finding the city wanting in supply from the river that runs near it, I made the aqueduct, and have filled with water this deficient city. To change the subject, eight villages of Marcionites and their neighbourhoods I have led with their good will into the truth; another full of Eunomians, another of Arians, I have brought to the light of divine knowledge. By God's grace not one tare of heresy remains among us. And all this not without peril; often have I shed my blood, often have I been stoned by them, and brought even to the very gates of hell. But I am become a fool in glorying, yet I speak of necessity, not of will. This the thrice-blessed Paul was forced to do once, to stop the mouth of accusers."

 These are but specimens of a varied and widely extended phenomenon which rose up, like a plant out of the ground, from the very beginnings of the Gospel, wherever and whenever, and just so far as the iron hand of persecution relaxed its hold upon the infant religion. Shall we say it is a usurpation of His power from whom all authority comes? or a delegated exercise of it? Is there a kingdom of Christ upon earth or not? This is the simple question, on which all turns. And that there is, would be probable enough, merely considering it is said in Scripture that Christ shall reign, though He is gone away; that there shall be a kingdom, while the Church has in fact fulfilled the objects proposed by it. But the case is far stronger than this; a power short of Christ is expressly addressed in the Prophets, and dominion promised it; a viceroy and vicar is named by them as ruling for Him. "Arise, shine, for thy light is come," says the inspired oracle, "and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. And the Gentiles shall come to thy light and kings to the brightness of thy rising. The mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and all nations shall flow into it." "A king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment, and a man shall be as a hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest, as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. The liberal deviseth liberal things, and by liberal things shall he stand." "Though the Lord give you the bread of adversity, and the water of affliction, yet shall not thy teachers be removed into a corner any more, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers." "The spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, henceforth and for ever." "Ye shall be named the priests of the Lord; men shall call you the ministers of our God. Ye shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and in their glory shall you boast yourselves. I will make thy officers peace, and thine exactors righteousness . Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders; for thou shalt call thy walls Salvation and thy gates Praise." "Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands: thy walls are continually before me." "No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper, and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn."

 12.

 One more remark shall we make, and that shall be the last. What is the real place of the Church of the middle ages in the divine scheme need not be discussed here. If we have been defending it, this has been from no love, let our readers be assured, of the Roman party among us at this day. That party, as exhibited by its acts, is a low-minded, double-dealing, worldly-minded set, and the less we have to do with it the better. Nothing but a clear command from above could make a member of our Church recognise it in any way. We are not speaking against the Church of Rome: it is a sister Church; we are not speaking against individual members of it; far from it: it is our delight to think that God has many saints among them, it ought to be our prayer that among us may be as great saints as have been among them. But what we protest against and shrink from is, that secular and political spirit which in this day has developed itself among them into a party, and at least in this country is that party's motive-principle and characteristic manifestation. We have no sympathy at all with men who are afraid to own the doctrines of their religion, who try to hoodwink the incautious and ignorant, who ungenerously cast off their and our ancestors, the Church's great champions in former times, who take part in political intrigue, who play the sycophant to great men, who flatter the base passions of the multitude, who join with those who are further from them to attack those who are nearer to them, who imitate the low ways of the popular religion, who have music parties in their chapels, and festivals aboard steamers, and harangue at public meetings. Such was not Borromeo, such was not Pascal; such was not Beckett, Innocent, Anselm, Bernard, Hildebrand, or the first Gregory; such were not the men of holy and humble heart, whom Rome commemorates in her services. With such we wish to be "better strangers," the longer we live; and not a word of what we have said, or are about to say, against the notion of Rome being apostate, is spoken for the sake of the like of them. Dismissing them then with this protest, we proceed to our proposed remark.

 We take it then for granted, as being beyond doubt, that one main reason why Protestants are suspicious both of the Fathers of the early Church, and of the more orthodox of our writers, is the dread that the doctrine and system which these divines teach is denounced in prophecy as the element of Antichrist, and savours of the predicted apostasy. When pressed with arguments from Scripture or reason, they cannot perhaps answer them, but they see, as they consider, the end to which the Catholic system tends. They judge that the teaching recommended to them is of Antichrist, because it has before now resulted in Popery; and, under the impression that Popery is Antichrist, they say to themselves that somewhere or other there must be a fallacy in the reasoning, for that the fruit is the proof of the tree. Their dread of what is really Apostolical doctrine mainly, nay often solely, rests upon a religious apprehension that the prophecies have denounced it. To persons in this state of mind we propose the following question: If we must go by prophecy, which set of prophecies is more exactly fulfilled in the Church of the middle ages, those of Isaiah which speak of the evangelical kingdom, or those of St. Paul and St. John which speak of the anti-Christian corruption? If the history of Christian Rome corresponds to the denouncements of the Apocalypse, does it not more closely and literally correspond to the promises of Isaiah? If there is a chance of our taking part with Antichrist, taking into account the Apocalypse, is there not a greater chance of our "speaking against the Holy Ghost," considering the book of Isaiah?

 To take a broad view of the subject, two traits of Antichrist, we suppose, will be particularly fixed upon as attaching to the see of Rome, pride and luxury, the one seen in its extravagant temporal power, the other in its splendour. For instance, St. Paul speaks of Antichrist as "exalting himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped," sitting "as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God." Again, the beast is said to have seven heads and ten crowned horns ; and the dragon gives him power . And Babylon is called "that great city," and she has power over other cities, and over kings, because she is said to have "made all nations drink of the wine of" her "wrath," and "the kings of the earth had committed fornication with her." And the Beast "opened his mouth in blasphemy," and the woman was on a scarlet-coloured beast "full of names of blasphemy." All this, it is urged, is fulfilled in the Medieval Church's proclaiming herself (as the early Church did before her) to be Christ's vicar, in her assumption of power over kings, and her claim to define and maintain the faith, and to confer spiritual gifts. Now, as to the mode in which her functionaries did this, their motives, their characters, their individual knowledge of the faith, with all this we are not here concerned; but as to the ultimate facts in which the action of the whole system resulted, surely they far more literally correspond to the inspired prophecy of Isaiah than to that of St. John. "The sons of the strangers shall build up thy walls, and their kings shall minister to thee . The nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted. The sons of them that afflicted thee shall come bending unto thee; and all they that despised thee shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet ." "Kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers; they shall bow down to thee with their face towards the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet ." "Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel. Behold I will make thee a new thrashing instrument having teeth ; and thou shalt thrash the mountains, and beat them small, and make the hills as chaff. Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them." Surely if the correspondence, whatever it is, of the prophecies of Antichrist with the history of the Medieval Church should frighten us from that Church, much more should that of the prophecies concerning Christ's kingdom with her history draw us to her.

 The other point commonly insisted on is the Medieval Church's wealth and splendour, the rich embellishment of her temples, the jewelled dress of her ministers, the offerings, shrines, pageants, and processions, which were part of her religious service. All these are supposed to be denoted by "the purple and scarlet colour, and gold, and precious stones, and pearls," with which the sorceress in the Apocalypse is arrayed; where mention is also made of the merchandize of gold and silver, precious stones, and of pearls and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner of vessels of ivory, and precious wood, and brass, and iron, and marble, and cinnamon, and odours, and ointment, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men, and the voice of harpers and musicians, and of pipers and trumpeters." All such magnificence would of course, in itself, as little prove that the Church is Antichrist, as that any king's court is Antichrist, where it is also found. But, whatever cogency be assigned to the correspondence, still let a candid mind decide whether it can be made to tell more strongly against the Church, than the following account of the evangelical kingdom tells in her behalf. "I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and thy foundations with sapphires, and I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of precious stones ." "The multitude of camels shall cover thee, the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah: all they from Sheba shall come; they shall bring gold and incense, and they shall show forth the praises of the Lord. The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir-tree, the pine-tree, and the box together, to beautify the place of My sanctuary . For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver, and for wood, brass, and for stones, iron." Passages such as these, at least show that precious stones are no peculiar mark of Antichrist; which is sufficiently clear even from a later chapter of the Apocalypse, in which jasper, sapphires, and other jewels are mentioned among the treasures of the New Jerusalem.

 On this ground then we would rest the matter with all serious students of Scripture. If they listen to the deep mysteries of St. John, they are inconsistent surely in being deaf to the uplifted voice of Isaiah; and in saying this, we must not be supposed to be conceding that the words of St. John in the Apocalypse, or of St. Paul in his Epistles, have met yet with their due solution in the Church's history. How wide they fall short of it, has been shown in one instance from St. Paul, in the course of our remarks; and in Dr. Todd's volume the reader will find similar instances, in the case of the other passages, whether in that Apostle or in Daniel, which relate to Antichrist, but which cannot by any sober mind be applied to the ecclesiastical events or persons of the past ages of Christianity.

 October, 1840.

 Notes

 1. What? And who says it? P. 64.  

 2. [It is undeniable that the Anglican Church has retained large portions of the Catholic doctrine and ritual; so far forth as it has done so, of course it will be called anti-Christian by those who call Rome pure Antichrist.]  

 3. Hanbury's Memorials, p. 238.