disorder that Rome is destined to fall, especially in the last times of the Gentile Church, when, according to the prophecy of St. John, she will have an infinite number of co-operators and accomplices to consummate the Mystery of Iniquity.

Before I quit this subject, let me add again a reflection, which appears decisive against all the interpreters who are determined to see in the Babylon of St. John nothing but Rome Pagan. The Evangelist describes her in punishment for her crimes and her impiety, as scourged with the blows of the Divine justice, overturned from top to bottom, reduced to cinders, and for ever buried in her own ruins. (Rev. xviii., xix.) I ask here, is there any one sufficiently bold to affirm, against the unquestionable memorials of history, that the misfortunes predicted by St. John against Babylon have fallen on Pagan Rome?- or rather, is it not a constant and generally-received truth, that Rome has never yet experienced such a fate, either during the time that she was given up to idolatry or since she has embraced Christianity? Alaric took it, and carried off part of her wealth during the first years of the fifth century; Genseric maltreated her towards the end of the same century. Under Charles the Fifth, that perverse and faithless prince, she experienced similar losses. But ever since she has become Christian (and that for many a year) she has never been overturned or reduced to ashes.

Far from being utterly ruined, from remaining buried in her own dust,-far from showing the astonished passersby any but the black smoke of her burning,-far from being, during the centuries which have slipped away, to all nations a monument of the Divine justice, both evident and terrible (as should be the case, according to St. John's predictions), Rome preserved to Constantine's day the great portion of her enormous powers; and, by humbling herself before the cross of Christ, she acquired, through religion, a notability, an ascendancy, an empire,-in one word, far superior to that which she had previously possessed by the depth of her policy and the terror of her armies.

There is here, then, no middle point. We must outrageously belie the oracle of the Apocalypse in regard to the terrible catastrophe reserved for Rome, or acknowledge, in all good faith, that these threats regard Christian Rome, and that the execution thereof is put off to a future which we are yet to await.

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ART. IV.-POPERY.

THERE are three parties amongst us who deny that the Papacy is Antichrist. There is, first of all, the Romanist party themselves, whether Popish or Tractarian, for the difference between them is merely that of diverse shades of scarlet, both of them being setters-up of another cross, and worshippers of another Christ. There is, secondly, the so-called Liberal party, in all its various shades of latitudinarianism and infidelity. With little reverence for any religion, their sympathies are always with the false, and not with the true; and they deem it uncharitable to brand Popery with the hateful name of Antichrist. There is, thirdly, a large section of our Futurist friends, who, absorbed in one particular view, and fixing their eye upon one set of passages exclusively, are unable to see in Antichrist anything but an open Atheist.

The first of these we may refer to the preceding article, in which the author, though a Romanist, cannot help affixing the brand of Antichrist to his own Church.*

The second we have no present intention of arguing with. Calling themselves Liberals, they have become the warm defenders of the vilest and most monstrous despotism that ever threw its curse over the nations. Special advocates of liberty, they are the apologizers for the most remorseless system of utter slavery that ever blighted and brutalized the race. Recent events have, no doubt, done much to open their eyes to the hatefulness of the system they have been patronising, and praising, and pensioning, so that, though slow to confess that they have been duped and befooled by wilier heads than their own, they are yet not unwilling, if not to retrace their steps, at least to halt in their march, and to refuse any longer to form part of Rome's procession, or act as a constabulary force, to ward off from the Popish priesthood the terrors of the law, and the indignation of honest-hearted Britons.

We confess we

To the third class we have a word to say. do not like the mitigated language which they sometimes use regarding Popery. "It is an evil they say, a sore evil, no doubt; but it is not Antichrist. It may contain some Antichristian elements, but still it is not Antichrist.Ӡ

In order to prove their position, they are forced to palliate

* "Once Rome, now Babylon; hell of the living."-Petrarch.

"I very much doubt," says Mr. Maitland, "whether the Church of Rome, corrupt as it may be, can properly be called Apostate." After telling us that he has learned the doctrines of the Church of Rome, "not from the explanations of Bossuet and Butler, but from her creeds and

the enormities of Popery, and to show that it is not such a system of undiluted evil as our fathers thought it, but that it contains many things excellent and true. All in its past history that can by any amount of straining admit of a good construction is obtruded upon us, and all that is dark and detestable, is either extenuated or overlooked.

On the other hand, they set themselves to paint Antichrist after a model of their own fancy, and not after the Word of God. They conjure up a hellish spectre, according to their own conceptions of what Antichrist should be, and all that falls short of this they deny to be Antichrist at all. They insist that he shall be a scoffer,- an open scoffer, an avowed Infidel,nay, a daring Atheist, a frantic blasphemer. Some will have it that he is to die and be raised again, and after his resurrection go forth to his conquests. Nay, according to others, he is to be a direct incarnation of the evil one, just as truly as Christ was an incarnation of God. By means of such exaggerations they find no difficulty in demonstrating that Popery and Antichrist have nothing in common with each other.

--

Thus, by extenuation on the one hand, and exaggeration on the other, they have done good service for Popery, and whilst condemning Liberalism, they have furnished it with some of its most plausible arguments, and put into its hands some of the most effective weapons with which it has been so cordially fighting, for the last twenty years, the battles of the Papacy.

Now, we do not condemn them for maintaining that Popery is not full-grown Antichrist. We are quite ready to maintain this along with them. We look for a darker and more terrible development of Antichrist than the world has yet seen. The prophetic Word does seem to point to a height of evil which Popery has not yet reached, though it has been maturing its abominations for at least twelve centuries. It is not indeed easy to imagine a system more thoroughly impregnated with evil, yet there are statements in Scripture, which intimate councils," &c., he says, of her formularies, "I have scarcely seen any that did not contain a plain statement of the essential doctrines of Christianity." "She is, I imagine, and always has been, a part of the Catholic Church of Christ." the Bishop of Rome is a true Christian bishop."-Maitland's Second Inquiry. Thus writes Dr. Maitland. In very similar language, the Edinburgh Reviewer, wrote (Nov., 1825), "It is a Christian religion; its main object unquestionably is to make men acquainted with their duties to God and to each other; it was long the only religion of the Christian world (!): it is still by far the most generally diffused. It should also be remembered, that Catholic priests and monks kept Christianity alive during the dark ages, and that it is to them we owe the sacred writings." It was D'Alembert, we believe, who remarked, that "the Pope was no longer Antichrist in the opinion of any one."

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E

something more, and throughout Europe there are indications of a state of things, in which all the evils of Popery, and all the evils of Infidelity may be combined together, and wrought into a system more flagrantly Antichristian than any that has yet been developed upon earth. It would seem as if the experiment were now making in France, as to how this combination of evils might be best effected; as to how the conflicting elements might be so adjusted and arranged as no longer to act as neutralizing forces, but in one combined system of stupendous evil, sufficient to command the world, and able to crush religion throughout all its kingdoms. A riper form of Antichristian evil is evidently in the process of being developed. The amalgamation may take some time to accomplish; hitherto it has failed, or at least but partially succeeded. But past failures are only leading to new and more successful attempts. The problem which Rome is now trying to solve, is how to gain the full command of all the vast energies of Infidelity now unfolding themselves over Europe, without abating one jot of prerogative or principle; and the problem which Infidelity has to solve, is, how to maintain entire friendship with Rome, so as to enlist all her agencies and energies in behalf of its own movements and schemes. Hitherto, these problems have been deemed insoluble. The friendship seemed incongruous, the amalgamation impossible, and the co-operation as absurd as the production of motion in a body by the application of equal and opposing forces. Now, however, the solution has assumed a far more likely aspect. Fact is proving, what theory had so conclusively disproved. Popery and Infidelity; Popery and Atheism; Popery and Socialism are now swearing eternal friendship together! They have cordially fraternized with each other. Rome has no firmer ally than Infidel France'; and the armies of that republic, carrying the escutcheons of liberty, have gone hither and thither at the beck of the darkest despot that ever sought to quench religion and smother freedom. Paris, atheistical, lascivious, is more Popish than Rome. The journal of Eugene Sue was amongst the first to assail England for her treatment of the late Bishop-making Bull, and the shout of true-hearted Protestantism, from this indignant land, seems to be bitterly resented by the Infidelity of France, as if a friend had been affronted and wronged.

But while we may thus far agree with our Futurist friends, we dissent very strongly from some of their conclusions. We dissent from the view which presents the impending form of evil as one of pure Atheism. The most startling and awful feature of the last days as described by the apostle, is, that with all the

conglomeration of sins and abominations which he describes, there is combined "the form of godliness." (2 Tim. iii. 1-5.) The perilous times depicted, are evidently the times of Antichrist, and the evils set forth are such as cannot be surpassed; they are the evils of a world in which Antichrist has done his worst, the evils of a world ripe for the devouring fire; yet over all these evils there is thrown the cloak of religion; there is still a form of godliness among these followers of Antichrist, these children of the evil one. We dissent from the stress which they lay upon an individual Antichrist, and we dislike the terms in which they speak of those who look more at the system, than at the man. We believe in a personal Antichrist; but then he is the head of the Antichristian system. Apart from this he is nothing. It is he who is to guide and wield the energies of the mass, but apart from that mass, where or what is he? And as to the argument employed, that Scripture calls him "the Man of Sin," it proves nothing, else we must believe that Babylon the Great is merely one woman, because she is described as "the harlot;" or that the Bride, spoken of in Psalm xlv., and in the Apocalypse, is merely an individual, because she is addressed as the King's daughter, and the Lamb's wife.

But we dissent most of all from the way in which they underrate the Antichristianity of the present, in order to magnify the Antichristianity of the future.

Engrossed with the dark vision of coming ills, they look away from the ills that are around them. Absorbed in the thought of an individual Man of Sin, they overlook the Mystery of Iniquity which is already working. Alive only to the evils of an impending reign of Atheism, they have almost ceased to realize the enormities of a present reign of superstition.

This position is a most unsafe one. Its tendency is to throw men off their guard by making them think that the danger is not at their gates, that the enemy has not yet begun his march against them. They argue, that as the Church's great enemy is Antichrist, and that as Antichrist has not yet arrived, they need not be so jealous of Popery, or so vigorous in their hostility to it. They had better reserve their strength till the great adversary arises. They can afford to smile at the efforts of Popery; they can afford to sit at ease, and not be aroused either to abhorrence or alarm at its blasphemies and at its success.

According to the view thus taken by some (we do not say all) of our futurist friends, Antichristianity seems a thing confined