Italy, Spain, Portugal, South America, and every country where Popery is paramount, and see what universal immorality prevails. And how has Popery wrought this? By turning the religion of the heart into the religion of form, setting up her own laws above God's, selling indulgences and absolutions, thus commuting adulteries and murders into money payments, and by extreme unction in the last moments blotting out the crimes of a life. 8. 66 I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them;" (Daniel vii. 21;) “and they shall be given into his hand." Of what power is this true but the Papacy? What other European power has not only systematically made war with the saints, but prevailed against them? The Reformation had at one time penetrated widely into Italy, but was hunted down by the bloodhounds of the Inquisition. The sad history of Francis Spira, who was an Italian, shows that the Protestant doctrines were then widely spread. But, with the exception of the English and American residents, there is probably now not an avowed Protestant in Italy. In Spain, too, the doctrines of the Reformation were making way when the Inquisition stopped their progress by fire and faggot. ""The little horn" was not merely to make war with the saints, but "to prevail against them." The Council of Constance burnt Huss and Jerome of Prague, condemned Wickliffe's books, and ordered his bones to be dug up and burnt. Success has attended Rome in almost all her attacks upon the saints. They are given into her hand. It is God's revealed mind and will that this Antichristian power should overcome the saints, that their faith may be tried, and they endure what their Lord endured before them. This makes us fear that Popery will prevail in this country. Success has hitherto crowned her deep-laid schemes, and will, we fear, still do so, because, for a certain fixed period, the saints are given into her hand. Papists boast of this success as the mark of theirs being the true church. Guided by the light of prophecy, we see rather in it the mark of Antichrist. But as this mark will (Ď. v.) come before us again, we will not further enlarge upon it. By way of recapitulation, we would call the attention of our readers chiefly to two points, which, in our view, fix the meaning of this prophecy beyond all controversy: 1. That the power pointed out in this chapter of Daniel evidently sprang out of the ruins of the ancient Roman Empire. This is fixed by "the fourth beast," which, beyond all doubt, is the ancient Roman Empire, and by the "ten horns," which correspond to the ten toes of Nebuchadnezzar's image, and are clearly the ten kingdoms which were set up by the northern nations when they had broken the Roman Empire to pieces. Now this fixes "the little horn" as rising up about a certain period and in a certain quarter; and the uprooting of the "three horns" or powers determines still more closely its position.16 This we may call fixing the latitude of Rome. 2. Now for her longitude. If we get that, we shall be able to determine her exact place upon the chart of prophecy as distinctly as, at sea, the sailor, when he has ascertained the longitude and latitude of his ship, can point out her precise spot upon the map. The longitude of Rome we then fix by the eight marks just enumerated and commented upon. Where shall we find a power in Europe which corresponds with these eight marks but Rome Papal? Take the whole range of history, from the fall of the Western Roman Empire (A.D. 479) downwards, for we are limited to that by "the fourth beast," and examine every monarchy that has since then existed all through the middle ages to the Reformation. What power but Rome has "spoken great words against the 66 Most High," worn out the saints of the Most High," "changed times and laws," and been in its constitution and government, claims and pretensions, "diverse from all other kingdoms?" What other European power has uninterruptedly and systematically "made war with the saints, and prevailed against them?" If Spain or France has persecuted the saints, it has always been from Papal instigation. Pope Innocent III. hounded on Raymond and his bloodthirsty bands against the Albigenses. Pope Sixtus V. instigated Philip II. of Spain to fit out against England, in the days of Queen Elizabeth, the expedition called, by a terrible blunder, "The Invincible Armada." Other powers may have persecuted from passion; Rome has persecuted from principle. · The extermination of heretics is the avowed law of Rome. Earthly kings, as Francis I. of France, and Henry IV. of England, have burnt the bodies of heretics; Rome alone claims power to damn their souls. Temporal princes pursue them only to the limits of time; Rome denounces and curses them to all eternity. The secular arm lights the pile that consumes the flesh; Rome assumes to hurl the immortal spirit into the lowest depths of hell. Our limits forbid our pursuing this branch of the subject further in our present Number. We have opened, however, but one page of those prophecies which brand Rome as with characters of fire. We therefore hope (D. v.) to resume the subject in our next Number, and to bring forward additional evidence that Papal Rome is there pointed out by the finger of the Blessed Spirit, that the saints of the Most High may read in the inspired page the features of the great enemy of the Lord Jesus, and beware of receiving her mark in their hands and foreheads. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 1 Sir Isaac Newton, in his "Observations on Daniel vii.," makes the following remarks: "In the eighth century, by rooting up and subduing the exarchate of Ravenna, the kingdom of the Lombards, and the senate and dukedom of Rome, the Pope acquired Peter's patrimony out of their dominions; and thereby rose up as a temporal prince or king, or horn of the fourth beast." Again: "It was certainly by the victory of the see of Rome over the Greek emperor, the king of Lombardy, and the senate of Rome, that the Papacy acquired Peter's patrimony, (i. e., her temporal possessions in Italy, generally called "The States of the Church,”) and rose up to her great ness. 2 To those of our readers who are not acquainted with the history of this somewhat intricate period, the following short sketch may be serviceable: The Roman Empire set up by Augustus (Before Christ, 31-14) was, by the transference of the seat of government from Rome to Constantinople by Constantine, (A.D. 328,) divided into two great empires; that of which Constantinople was the metropolis being called the Eastern, or Greek Empire, and that of which the seat was at Rome being called the Western, or Roman Empire. The former continued until A.D. 1453, when the Turks took Constantinople, and put an end to the Eastern Empire. The Western Empire fell to pieces from the attacks of the northern nations, and ended with the deposition of Augustulus, (A.D. 479,) Odoacer, the leader of the victorious army, becoming king of Italy. Odoacer, after fourteen years' reign, was conquered and put to death by Theodoric, general of the Ostrogoths, who set up (A.D. 493) what is called the Ostrogothic Empire. This lasted about sixty years, (A.D. 493 —553,) and was put an end to by Justinian, Emperor of Constantinople, sending an army under his generals, Belisarius and Narses, who conquered Italy, and annexed it to the Eastern Empire. Thence sprang the exarchate of Ravenna, so called because the governor, or, as we should call him, the lordlieutenant, who was sent from Constantinople to administer the province, was called the exarch, and lived at Ravenna, a strongly-fortified town in the north of Italy. In A.D. 568, the Lombards, a northern nation, under Alboin, conquered the greater part of Italy, and set up the kingdom of the Lombards reducing the exarchate of Ravenna to a very small province. At this time, then, and for near two centuries afterwards, there were three independent powers in Italy: 1. The kingdom of the Lombards; 2. The exarchate of Ravenna; 3. The city of Rome, which, though often taken, still managed to preserve a shadowy independence. In A.D. 752, Astolphus, king of the Lombards, attacked and captured Ravenna, and thus put an end to the exarchate. Flushed with his success, he laid siege to Rome; all Italy lay prostrate at his feet, and his victorious army thundered at the gates of what is proudly called the Eternal City. As this was a remarkable epoch in the history of the Papacy, we subjoin fuller details in the language of a celebrated historian. "Rome was summoned to acknowledge the victorious Lombard as her lawful sovereign; the annual tribute of a piece of gold was fixed as the ransom of each citizen, and the sword of destruction was unsheathed to exact the penalty of her disobedience. The Romans hesitated, they entreated, they complained, and the threatening barbarians were checked by arms and negotiations, till the pope had engaged the friendship of an ally and avenger beyond the Alps. "Amidst the tears of the city, Stephen III. embraced the generous resolution of visiting in person the courts of Lombardy and France, to deprecate the injustice of his enemy, or to excite the pity and indignation of his friend. After soothing the public despair by litanies and orations, he undertook this laborious journey with the ambassadors of the French monarch and the Greek Emperor. The King of the Lombards was inexorable; but his threats could not silence the complaints nor retard the speed of the Roman Pontiff, who traversed the Pennine Alps, reposed in the Abbey of St. Maurice, and hastened to grasp the right hand of his protector-a hand which was never lifted in vain, either in war or friendship. Stephen was entertained as the visible successor of the apostle; at the next assembly, the field of March or of May, his injuries were exposed to a devout and warlike nation; and he repassed the Alps, not as a suppliant, but as a conqueror, at the head of a French army, which was led by the king in person. The Lombards, after a weak resistance, obtained an ignominious peace, and swore to restore the possessions, and to respect the sanctity of the Roman Church. But no sooner was Astolphus delivered from the presence of the French arms, than he forgot his promise. and resented his disgrace. Rome was again encompassed by his arms; and Stephen, apprehensive of fatiguing the zeal of his Transalpine allies, enforced his complaint and request by an eloquent letter in the name and person of St. Peter himself. The apostle assures his adoptive sons-the king, the clergy, and the nobles of France-that, dead in the flesh, he is still alive in the spirit; that they now hear, and must obey the voice of the founder and guardian of the Roman Church; that the Virgin, the angels, the saints, and the martyrs, and all the host of heaven unanimously urge the request, and will confess the obligation; that riches, victory, and paradise will crown their pious enterprise, and that eternal damnation will be the penalty of their neglect, if they suffer his tomb, his temple, and his people to fall into the hands of the perfidious Lombards. The second expedition of Pepin was no less rapid and fortunate than the first; Rome was again saved, and Astolphus was taught the lesson of justice and sincerity by the scourge of a foreign master." 3 A day in prophetic language stands for a year. (Ezek. iv. 6.) 4"A time" signifies a year; "times" signify two years; and "the dividing of a time" is half a year; in all, three years and a half; which space, as the Jewish year was divided into twelve months of thirty days each, is just equivalent to 1260 days, and corresponds also precisely to forty-two months. 66 5 In fixing the period whence to date the commencement of the 1260 years, it seems necessary to take into consideration, as a necessary element, the plucking up of the three horns by the roots." Were it not for this, the popedom of Gregory the Great (A.D. 590-604) would bid most fair for the commencement of the prophetic number, for it certainly was under his remarkable pontificate that the city of Rome was raised from a most prostrate condition. The following quotation, from an excellent authority, "The Encyclopedia Metropolitana," will show that, in the opinion of the able writer in that work, the pontificate of Gregory forms a marked era in Papal Rome. "The most remarkable and energetic character among the early Roman pontiffs was the first Gregory; and it may be sufficient in this place to advert to his pontificate in the beginning of the 7th century, as the era of the earliest decided increase of the Papal power. Notwithstanding his professed contempt of learning and his superstition, he deserves to be favourably remembered for his paternal government of Rome. He actively provided for the defence of the city against the Lombards; and his spiritual eloquence, or his gold, diverted a formidable attack of the barbarians. With the sovereigns of the hierarchy of the western kingdoms he maintained a regular correspondence; and in his pretensions, the divine authority and office of the successors of St. Peter were first clearly defined and as strangely acknowledged by the ignorant nations to whom they were addressed." But in the pontificate of Gregory the Great the three horns were so far from being plucked up that, but for the entreaties and bribes of Gregory, Rome would have been taken by the Lombards. "The sword of the enemy," says a celebrated historian, "was suspended over Rome; it was averted by the mild eloquence and seasonable gifts of the pontiff, who commanded the respect of heretics and barbarians." The same authority seems to fix the donation which Pepin made to the Roman see of the spoils of the Lombards as the first date of its temporal power. "The continued bad faith of Astolphus, the Lombard king, his impatience at the disgraceful treaty which Pepin had forced upon him, and his renewed oppression of the Papacy, roused the powerful monarch of the Franks, at the supplication of Stephen, again to cross the Alps for the deliverance of Rome. His second expedition was equally triumphant with the first, and distinguished by a severer chastisement of the Lombard, and a more important aggrandizement of the Papal power. He easily drove the restless but comparatively impotent monarch of the Lombards from his recent conquests, besieged him in his capital of Pavia, and compelled him, as the humiliating atonement for his aggravated attacks upon the Holy See, to relinquish the provinces forming the exarchate of Ravenna, which he had so lately torn from the Greek Empire. These fruits of his expedition, the French king formally bestowed upon the successors of St. Peter; and the memorable donation of Pepin, which, in the nomenclature of modern geography, comprehends the province of Romagna and the march of Ancona, is the authentic foundation of the Papal sovereignty over those states." 6 In the Pope's own book of ceremonies, published at Cologne, A.D. 1571, it is thus ordered: "When the Pope gets upon the stair to mount on horseback, the greatest prince that is present, whether he be king or emperor, shall hold his stirrup, and afterwards lead his horse a little way. But if there be two kings in presence, the more honourable of them shall hold the bridle on the right hand, and the other on the left." This service in the 12th century the kings of France and England performed. With all this, however, "his holiness" is so humble that he always rides upon a mule; so true is it that "Of all the pride that the devil loves best, Is the pride that apes humility." 7 This was done by Pope Celestine III., (A.D. 1191,) and is thus recorded by Baronius, a celebrated Roman Catholic historian in his "Annals:" "Our Lord the Pope (Dominus Papa) sat in his pontifical chair, holding between his feet the golden imperial crown; and the Emperor (Henry VI., of Germany), with bent head, received the crown, and the Empress likewise her crown from the feet of our Lord the Pope. But our Lord the Pope immediately struck with his foot the crown of the Emperor, and knocked it to the ground, signifying that he has the power to depose him from the imperial dignity if he deserved it." What Celestine III. did with his foot to the crown of Henry VI., Pope Pius IX. has done with his late Bull to the crown of Queen Victoria; but the Sovereign of England may smile where the poor German trembled. 8 So called from Molinos, a Spanish priest, who published a work upon secret prayer, in which he contrasted the prayer of the heart with the prayer of the lips. His followers were sometimes called Quietists, and his views were held and advocated in France by Fenelon and Madame Guyon. The Inquisition, however, apprehended Molinos, and he is believed to have died in its dungeons. 9 The Jansenists were so called from Jansen, or Jansenius, Bishop of Ypres, in the Netherlands, who wrote a book called “Augustinus," advocating the principles of free grace and predestination. Two of his propositions condemned by the Pope were, 1. That no man can resist the influence of inward grace; 2. That to say Christ died for all men is semi-Pelagianism. Arnauld, Pascal, Nicole, Quesnel, and other celebrated writers, were Jansenists. 10 But for the persecutions of Louis XIV., the hand that traces these lines would not have been editing the "Gospel Standard," as the maternal ancestors of the writer left all their possessions in the south of France, at the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, (A.D. 1685,) and fled to save their religion and their life. Romaine was the son of a French refugee under similar circumstances; and if we remember right, speaks in his "Letters" of his father as having been a gracious man. O the providence of a wonder-working God! 11 Dr. Young, the Author of the "Night Thoughts," was obliged to bury with his own hands by night, his daughter, Mrs. Temple (the "Narcissa" of his poems) who died at Lyons, on her way to Nice, to which he thus alludes: "Oh! the cursed ungodliness of zeal! Denied the charity of dust to spread O'er dust! a charity their dogs enjoy. With pious sacrilege a grave I stole; More like her murderer than friend, I crept, In midnight darkness, whisper'd my last sigh!” 12 In all Roman Catholic countries the Lord's day is desecrated by public amusements. The theatres and opera present on that day their most attractive pieces, and are crowded with spectators. This is encouraged by the Romish principle, that after attending mass in the morning, the rest of the day may be spent in amusement. 13 George of Cappadocia, the tutelar saint of England, under the name of St. George, was an army contractor in bacon, in which trade, by cheating, he made a large fortune. Flying from justice to Alexandria, he embraced Arianism; and when Athanasius was driven into banishment, was made archbishop in his room. In this office he displayed such avarice and tyranny, that on the accession of Julian to the throne (A.D. 361), he was dragged to prison in chains, and twenty-four days afterwards murdered by the mob, who had forced open the doors of the jail. A cheating Arian bacon-seller England's tutelar saint, and the patron of the noble Order of the Garter! What power but that of Rome could thus "change times and laws?" 14 Nolan, a converted Romish priest, not long since dead, declared in print some years ago that several intended assassinations had been disclosed to him in confession; but that he dared not warn the victims, who were in consequence murdered. Among them was a father poisoned by his own daughter. Within these few weeks, a similar declaration has been publicly made by another priest, who has lately abandoned Popery. The Romish church forbids what is called "breaking the seal of confession" under any circumstances whatever. This the Irish assassin well knows; and therefore, when the murder is planned, comes to confession and gets absolution beforehand. He can then murder, he thinks, without crime, 15 When we were in Ireland, an eminent barrister, who was afterwards a judge, told us that in that country no one in a court of justice for a single moment attached the least credit to the testimony given upon cath by the lower order of Irish. The truth, he said, was only to be elicited by crossexamination. But what a state of things, that perjury should be so universal in a country that it comes to be a matter of course that every witness is guilty of it! In this country truth is the rule, perjury a rare occurrence. In Ireland, truth is as rare and as much wondered at as perjury here. And who is responsible for this but that church which pronounces it as one of her dogmas, that faith is not to be kept with heretics, in other words, sanctifies perjury? 16 Should this part of our subject interest any of our readers who have not access to more voluminous writers, we can recommend to them a little work once favourably reviewed by us, entitled, “Universal History on Scriptural Principles," published by Bagster, Paternoster-row; the last two or three volumes of which manifest a decided improvement in historical research and pleasing style over the preceding ones. |