Chapter 3 - Historicist.com The Protestant Interpretation of Biblical Prophecy. The Historical Alternative

CHAPTER III.

EPOCH OF ANTICHRISTS TRIUMPH THE EPOCH OF CHRISTS INTERVENTION.

" AND I saw a mighty Angel descending from heaven, clothed with a cloud; and the rainbow was upon his head; and his face was as the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire; and he had in his hand a little book opened. And he set his right foot on the sea, and his left on the land; and cried with a loud voice, as a lion roareth?"

Let me, in introduction to what follows, remind the reader of that principle of allusive reference, in visions figuring CHRIST’s revelations of himself to his true Church, to something opposed to it and Him, which we have seen exemplified very strikingly already twice in this Commentary: vii. first, in the sealing vision of Apoc. vii, secondly, in the incense offering vision of Apoc. viii Such then having been the case previously, it is natural for the question to arise in the inquirers mind, whether perchance there may not be here also, on occasion of this third representation of Christ on the Apocalyptic scene, some such allusive reference and contrast: the rather because there appears in the action of the Angel, whether as regards his planting of his feet on earth and sea, or his roaring as a lion, a singular abruptness and decision; in no way so simply explicable, it ought seem, as by the supposition of indignant reference to some signal usurpation of his rights at the time figured, and the triumph of some enemy and rival. Thus we are led to inquire whether, at the epoch just before the Reformation, there was any such signal triumph of antichristian usurpation and usurper in Christendom? Whether ANTICHRIST, the ANTICHRIST Of Daniel, St. Paul, and St. John, had really risen in the Church visible; (for he it is of whom we must needs think when such usurpation is hinted;) and not only advanced pretensions to the place of the Lord Jesus in it, but succeeded in establishing them? Also whether, just at the said epoch, his triumph was so signalized as to furnish any remarkable, parallelism of particulars, in contrast with those that accompanied Christs emblematic appearance and descent in the vision now before us; parallelisms such as we verified in the cases of the sealing and incense offering visions, from comparison of their details with certain prominent characteristics of the apostasy at the times prefigured.

The which suggestion and inquiry direct us at once to ROME. For with Rome and its seven hills prophecy, we saw, in our early glances of it, prospectively connected Antichrist. There, moreover, and in the person of its bishops, we noticed certain suspicious symptoms of the development of Antichrist, that occurred souse nine centuries before the times now under review. There, in the historical sketch prefixed to the vision of the Turkish Woe, we expressed a presumptive behef of his being enthroned and ruling, at the bisecting chronological point of those nine centuries. And though in the sketch of the Middle Ages, given in the chapter last but one preceding this, we did not directly advert to the point, yet it was evident, from the moral and religious corruptions of Western Christendom, as subordinated to Rome, and the support and fostering of those corruptions by the Romish bishops, that everything there noted tended to corroborate the impression, not to negative it. Thither then let us pass in imagination; and observe what may be enacting at Rome, and by the Pope, at the epoch and crisis that we have supposed alluded to in the vision of the text: i. e. at the crisis that immediately preceded the Reformation.

And behold, the historic records of the times referred to represent to us, just at this epoch, a scene in that seven hilled city of high triumph and festival. There had been in it very recently a new election to the Popedom. The announcement was made at the time from the window of the conclave of Cardinals: "I tell you tidings of great joy: a new Pope is elected, Leo the X" and the festivities began, on his coronation at St. Peters, immediately after. But the grander ceremonial of his going to take possession of the church of his bishopric, St. John Lateran, that church by the bishopric of which, as the mother and mistress of all churches, he was to be constituted not only bishop of Rome; but, by consequence, of the Church Universal, was delayed for a month, to allow of the proper pomp attending it. And now the day is come for its celebration. The city is thronged with visitors on the occasion. Besides the hierarchy of Rome, there appear many of the independent princes of Italy; ambassadors also from most of the states of Western Christendom; and moreover the episcopal and ecclesiastical deputies that have assembled to represent the Church Universal in the General Council now holden at the Lateran; a Council convoked a year since by Pope Julius, (in opposition to the French kings Conciliabulum, or Private Council, held at the time at Pisa,) and which has already been advanced through five Sessions. The concourse from early morn has been to the great square before St. Peters. There the procession forms on horseback, and thence puts itself in motion: its course being across the bridge of St. Angelo, through the heart of the city, to the Lateran church at its opposite extremity. First in order is a troop of cavalry; then a long line of the gentry and nobility; then, after sundry lesser officials in gayest livery, and with badges of office, a file of Florentine citizens and other, provincials, the Popes bodyguard, and a second file of provincial barons and gentry; then the envoys from Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, and other parts of Christendom; then abbots, bishops, archbishops, and patriarchs, about 250 ; then the cardinals: the ecclesiastical dignitaries wearing their jewelled mitres and their copes; the rest drest in richest costumes, and with banners streaming, as on a day of Jubilee: then, at length, thus preceded, and duly followed, and closed in by a troop of military, Himself the Hero (might we not rather say the God) of the day, Himself the POPE! The horses of the bishops and cardinals, preceding him, are covered from head to foot with white trappings. He comes forth Himself too on a white horse; a cope of richest broidery mantling him: the ring of espousal with the Universal Church glittering on his right hand ring finger; and on his head the regno, or imperial tiara of three crowns. A canopy is borne over him by the chief Roman authorities. The streets are strewed with tapestry and flowers for him to pass over. The welkin rings with acclamations of welcome. The multitudes fall on their knees, as he approaches, to receive his benediction. "It seemed to me," says the narrator of the pageant, " that it was the Redeemer of mankind on the Palm Sunday going to Jerusalem: there being substituted only for the cry of Hosanna to the Son of David, the acclamation, Viva Papa Leone ! Life to the Pope, the Lion !

Strange similitude; although that indeed which his very guise, and pomp, and popular reception, might well have suggested! But is it really the case, that the people regard him as filling the place of Christ to them; and to be looked to as their Redeemer and Saviour? The answer is ready in every ones mouth. hey dwell on the exalted station of the Pope, even yet more than on the personal character of Leo: its authority, power, sacredness: a station high above that of the kings of this world; as being divine rather than human, indeed that of the very VICAR of CHRIST AND GOD. At the same time that Leos personal virtues also are not forgotten : his prudence, firmness, decorum of manners, conversancy with worldly affairs, love of splendour, and taste for classic literature and the arts: all fitting him for applying the matchless authority of his office as CHRIST'S VICE GERENT, to the glory of Rome, the amelioration of the evils which from without and from within have long afflicted Christendom, and the introduction of a brighter age.

But the devices and paintings that everywhere, on triumphal arches, columns, and other decorated erections for the occasion, meet the eye, as it passes onward with the procession, will be the most faithful as well as most graphic expositors of the general state of thought and feeling respecting him. Are they not splendid, those decorations? And do they not speak, with indubious evidence, the revival of the arts in Italy? Alas! that they should speak also as clearly of its fondly cherished heathenism! For mark the strange mixture in thein of things sacred and profane, of Christian saints and heathen demigods; Peter and Paul, Moses and Aaron, Saints Cosmo and Damian, intermingling with Apollos, Mercurys, Minervas! Does it not well illustrate what has been said of the homogeneity and natural fellowship of Rome modern and Papal, with those of old Pagan Rome? Does it not exhibit to the very eye what has been called the invincible Paganism of Italy; but which was rather the invincible Paganism of apostate Christendom?

But to the point in hand; the expression of the mind anti spirit of the age respecting its newly elected POPE LEO. And doubtless there are some of the pictures, and devices, that depict him with reference simply to his personal character. Such is that where Justice is introduced with her balance, and Virtue as assaulted by various serpent formed vices, but delivered by a Lion: such that too where the Arts and Literature are represented as rejoicing in their Patron being made Lord of the world. Again there is another painting that depicts him as exercising patriarchal functions: I mean that which represents the lately convened General Council in the Lateran Church ; the Cardinals and Bishops appearing seated in it, and the Pope high throned among them; with the legend, "Thou shalt put an end to the Council, and be called the Reformer of the Church." But generally the allusion is to his acting as Christs representative: insomuch that there is the application to him alike of the history, titles, and offices of Christ our Saviour; just as if he were indeed, as they say, his very impersonator on earth. So, as regards Christs history, in that picture of the three Kings of Christendom, like the magi of old, fixing their eyes intently on a star in the East; the morning star evidently, not of Christ, but Leo; and with the legend, "The true light ahineth in darkness:" so in that of Pope Leo sitting, and many Kings kneeling, and presenting gold and silver to him as their offering so lit another where he sits youthful in age, and in his cardinals dress, disputing with aged doctors and conquering: so in yet another, where Christ is represented receiving baptism; and in which the notification of John Baptist as the Patron Saint of Florence, the presence of Saints Cosmo and Damian, saints of the Medici family, and that of two lions holding the scroll, plainly indicate that in the Christ there depicted Pope Leo is signified, his supposed impersonator: and in which picture even Christs Godhead is ascribed to Leo; the titular legend inscribed being, "A God wonderful among his saints!" Then again as to Christs offices; see where Leo is portrayed at an altar, sacrificing, surrounded by his cardinals and bishops; and with a scroll above reading thus, " Tanquam Aaron: "also in another opposite, where he appears at an altar, kneeling; with troops armed behind him, and the words written above," Tanquam Moses."He is in these represented as, in Christs place, alike the High Priest, and the Governor and Captain of the Church. And the legends beneath tell the expected happy results: the one, "Thin, eye is on the ceremonial of divine worship, and now Religion shall have its due observance; " the other, "Thou art the intimate of the Deity, and the enemies of the Christian name shall yield to thee." We may further notice that in which he is represented in the guise of a shepherd fishing: and, having lighted a great fire, as casting into it the bad fish he has drawn in his net, and returning the good into the river: the legend, " Non desinam usque ad unum," declaring that he will do that which the Son of Man has asserted it his prerogative to do; viz. to separate between the good and bad, and of the latter to leave not an individual undetected or unadjudged to the fire. As to the general hopes of prosperity and happiness they are elsewhere thus symbolized. From a ball, the heraldic ensign of Leo, two branches appear to spring; and from the one an ear of wheat, from the other a grape cluster, of size extraordinary: such as poets describe to have been produced in the fabled Saturnian age; and such perhaps as, according to the traditionary report of Paplaq, might answer to St. Johns prediction of the fruitfulness of the earth in the millennium : the legend beneath indicating this new Vicegerent of Christ as its introducer, and that now at length its golden age was come.

There are yet three other paintings of him in this character, which, on account of their singularly illustrative bearing on the prophecy before us, demand a separate and particular attention. First, that in the Genoese are between the castle of St. Angelo and the Vatican. Here behold the azure heaven represented. On its verge, refulgent with glory like as of the new risen sun, stands portrayed the Pope: a rainbow in the air reflects its cheering radiance on a landscape of land and water, men and women, just emerged apparently out of night and tempest below and the sentence appears written underneath, " The world hath been unveiled to light; the King of glory has come forth!" Next comes that painting in the arc of the Florentines. The Pope is here represented with one foot on the land, the other on the sea ; having a key moreover in his right hand with which he opens heaven, and in the other another key; (the key of hell, or rather of purgatory;) and beneath, the legend, as the voice of Florence, In thy hand I behold the empire of earth, and sea, and heaven." Have we not in these two pictures cf the pageant the very counterpart to the opening emblems of the vision before us? Yet again the lion there, as here, appears prominently and repeatedly as a symbol in the devices. For instance, in the triumphal. arc near the bridge of St. Angelo, there appear two lions, each with one foot on the Papal insignia, to designate that it is the Pope they symbolize, the other on the mundane globe; and with the legends, as the cry uttered by them, " The prey is worthy of my glory: "and, To me the charge belongs."

With which last we may associate that in the Via Pontificum, where a Pope sits enthroned, and two kings, having cast their crowns before him, kneel and worship. These a lion is represented as blandly licking and fondling. But on other two, which appear armed and hosthe in the distance, another lion seems as about to spring; and the motto, "Prostratis placidus, Rebellibus ferox," proclaims, as with lions roar, that submission, implicit submission, is the law of the pontifical empire.

Such is the triplet of counterpart paintings, in this Leonine pageant, in contrast with the Apocalyptic triplet of symbols in the vision before us. And from their mere specification the Reader will see that it was not without reason that I spoke of them as demanding a full and separate consideration. Before entering on this, however, let us just trace the processional to its termination. And let us mark, in doing so, the almost ostentatious exhibition in it of Christs degradation and nothingness, as contrasted with the Popes exaltation: him whom having now viewed not only as head of the apostasy, but as the blasphemous usurper also of Christs place in the church, we need no longer hesitate to call the Papal Antichrist. I say,.let us mark the contrast exhibited between them. For Christ too is present, they tell us, to swell the triumph of the day. His place they point out under yon canopy, upon the white palfrey, just before the line of bishops; some five and twenty attendants being disposed round him, each with kindled wax light, and the sacristan as his guard behind. It is that box, they say, which the gold brocade covers, that holds him. There is the holy eucharist, the consecrated wafer. That is CHRIST. Oh foul dishonour to their Lord! He appears but as a state prisoner, the creation lit will of the Pope and his priests, to add to the brilliancy of the pageant : a puppet in the hands of the priesthood!

Meanwhile in all the pomp of the processional, and with each of the magnificent decorations that adorn it symbolizing his glory, with every eye fixed upon him, and every knee bent before him, the POPE advances on his triumph. And so, at length, the Lateran is arrived at; that Church with which the Papal episcopate is connected, and in the portico of which, as justificatory of its asserted universal jurisdiction, an old marble records its dignity is the mother and head of all churches. And as, on the setting out, his studied mimicry of Christ was observable, and the paintings too, and the legends, reminded the passer by that "the heaven sent One, "the King of Glory," was gone forth, so at this close of the procession, the studied mimicry continues. Dismounting at the church vestibule, the Pope takes sitting for a moment, as if in great humility, on a lowly seat placed for the occasion: then, amidst the clinnting of, " He raiseth the poor from the dust, to make hint inherit the throne of glory," he is raised from it by some of the officials of the church; led up the nave; and seated on the Papal throne within. They call it his assumption, or taking up: as if like that of One before him, to the elevation, not of a mere earthly. throne, but a heavenly; and with all power given to him in heaven and on earth.

And now I revert to the three remarkable symbolizations of the Papal Antichrist above noted. And, considering how exactly they answer to the triple symbolization of Christ, in the Apocalyptic vision before us, his face too rising depicted as the sun, his investing crown a rainbow, his feet as planted on land and sea, has voice as a lions roaring, considering further the chronological coincidence of the one emblematic figuration and the other, the one in the prophecy, the other in history, and yet again the fact, already twice exemplified, of allusive contrast to that which might at any particular epoch be specially opposed to and usurpatory of his prerogative, being a feature observable in the chief Apocalyptic prefigurations of Christs intervention, considering all this, I might perhaps at once make my appeal to the Reader, and ask, without fear of contradiction, Is it credible that the parallel and the contrast were in this case either unforeseen, or unintended, by the Eternal Spirit? But the full signification of the three devices needs yet to be unfolded. Also it needs to be shown that what they signified, as to the Papal prerogative, was not the mere exaggeration of popular fancy or feeling at Rome, on a festival day of excitement, but realities, such as the Apocalyptic vision, when allusive, can alone allude to. To this therefore I shall now address myself: although to do it, and to furnish in each case the illustrative historical facts requisite, will necessarily occupy some considerable time. But the time will not be mis- spent. Indeed I feel that I should scarce do justice to my subject, without thus more fully developing these anti Apocalyptic devices. For it is impossible that anything could exhibit to us more strikingly than these do the extent of the Papal usurpation of Christs glory and prerogatives, jest before his glorious intervention in the Reformation ; and the crisis too of Papal triumph, in regard alike of things temporal and things spiritual, of this world and the next.

I. First then as to the meaning, and the acting out, of that emblematic painting which represented the Pope as the new risen sun, the King of glory, beaming from heaven on this earth, and with the rainbow, the covenant rainbow, as his accompaniment.

Now we are not to suppose that there was merely meant by this a symbolization of the Popes supreme dignity, and of the happy promise of his reign; so as the symbol of a rising sun and rainbow might have been apphed, in the hyperbole of painting or poetry, to designate the hopes entertained from the reign of any other mighty sovereign on his accession. No doubt this was included, and the general expectation of happiness from Leos reign signified by the emblem; on the scale however of the golden age, whether as fabled or predicted, for its measure and its character.

But let it be well observed, as inferable both from the accompanying emblem of the rainbow, and from the title of "The King of glory," given to the Pope in the picture, that it was as Christ’s representative chiefly that the symbol was apphed to him; and thus that, as Christ is the sun in the Christian system, so the symbol was meant to designate Pope Leo. Now of Christ the symbol indicated both the inherent divine luster, as Him in whom was light, the light of life, truth, and holiness, and in whom no darkness at all: also how out of this light, treasured in infinite fulness in Himself, it pleased Him to impart to the children of men: as He said, " I am the light of the world; he that followeth me shall have the light of life." In this character his glory was recognised, while on earth, as the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth ; and was sung of long previously, in Hebrew pmphecy, as that of the Sun of Righteousness. In these same senses, then, we might expect that the symbol was intended to apply to Leo. And, in point of fact, in the writings of the time we find them all expressly noted. We shall presently see how the Portuguese orator addressed him as dispersing the mists of his mind by the sun beams of his divine countenance. In similar tone in the Lateran, in presence of the general Council of Christendom, his countenance is spoken of by the chosen orator Puccius, as "beaming from it the insupportable lustre of divine majesty." By one of the poets of the day a splendour, dazzling as the suns, is described as flashing from his triple crown; with reference to the divine glom attached to it, of an empire over earth, hell, and heaven! By the same poet he is else where depicted as the suns dwelling place, because of the light of wisdom that dwelt with him! The Maronite Patriarch, and another of the Oriental ecclesiastics, address him in their letters as like the sun or the moon, full of truth; and again as the sun refulgent in holiness. Further he is represented as, like the sun, imparting out of this his treasure house of light to the children of men; not only otherwise as their enlightener, but chiefly as their illuminator in matters of faith : revealing and opening to men the wall to heaven; and also shedding a healing influence with his beams on the darkness and woes of humanity. In the influence last ascribed to the light of the Papal countenance we see the exact counterpart to that which is ascribed to Christ’s in Malachis beautiful prophecy, just before alluded to: I mean that in which he speaks of Him as the Sun of Righteousness, rising on them that fear Him with healing in his wings.

Thus it appears that, besides the inherent glory of majesty, wisdom, and holiness supposed to reside in the Pope, the sun of Roman Christendom, there were also two principal points of view in which, like Christ, he was believed to shed forth from himself this light and glory on mankind: viz. as the dispenser to them of the light of truth, i. e. the true faith; and the dispenser too of the light of grace and salvation. And, to show the Popes actual exercise in real life of the prerogatives thus falsely assigned him, it needs only that I remind the render, with reference to the first, that in all disputed matters of religious faith and doctrine the ultimate reference was to him, leis decision considered final, and even the Bible statements supposed to derive their authority from him, not his from the Bible: also, in regard to the second, that it was from him, as the recognised fountain of divine grace and mercy, that those indulgences proceeded of which I have more than once already spoken and whereby not the temporal punishments only due to sin were remitted, but the eternal; its guilt blotted out, innocence restored to the sinner, and salvation ensured. Of the exercise of either of these two supposed Papal prerogatives it is obviously quite impossible to over estimate the tremendous efficacy, in support of the system of superstition and error then established. As to that of the latter, more especially, it seems from the accompaniment of the covenant rainbow to have been so expressly intended by the painter, and is in itself so extraordinary, so characteristic of the Papal usurpation of Christs most glorious spiritual prerogative, and so illustrative, by force of contrast, of the emblematic outburst of the true Sun of Righteousness in the prefigurative vision before its, and of its glorious fulfilment in the Reformation, that I cannot but pause to give the reader a detailed view in real life of the whole process.

For so it was, that just after Leo’s assumption to the Papal throne, there arose an occasion very notable for the exercise of this divine prerogative of mercy. The design of building St. Peter’s on a scale of magnificence suited to the cathedral of Christendom, had devolved to him from his predecessors in the Papacy, and met in his mind with a ready welcome. From the revival of the arts in Italy, and with Michael Angelo, Raphael, and a host of other artists of eminence round him, he found ready at hand all that could be needed of skill and genius for its execution. Money alone was wanting. And whence procurable? He had not, says Michelet, the mines of Mexico. But he had one as productive. His mine was the old superstition, and old superstitious credulity, of the people. To it, therefore, he determined to recur, and thence to draw the treasures needed. Accordingly, (for such was the occasion, and such the object,) he issued bulls of grace and plenary indulgence into all the several countries of Western Christendom; containing grants the most lavish of forgiveness of sin and salvation to each receiver. One condition only was attached; that was, that they must purchase them. The grace was not to be conferred without money.

It was in Germany, more especially, that the great excitement was arising. It seemed as if a vast fair had been opened in its tranquil towns, one after another; the merchandise offered for sale being the salvation of souls. The Papal commissary here appointed was Tetzel. He was a Dominican, a functionary of the Holy Inquisition, already long practised in the traffic. In the fulfilment of his present commission, his habit was to travel front town to town, in pomp, and with a retinue, as one of the nobles of the land. Into ench town, as he approached it, the message was sent, "The grace of God is at your gates." Forth with the town council and the clergy, the monks and nuns from the convents, the schools and trades, hastened to form into procession; and with standards and wax lights in hand, and ringing of the church bells, advanced to meet it; there being as much show of honour paid to it, it is said, as if it had been God himself. On returning, the course of the procession was to the principal church in the town. The Papal Bull was borne on a rich velvet cushion, or cloth of gold; a red cross elevated near it by the commissary; and the chaunting of prayers and hymns, and fuming of incense, kept up as its accompaniment. Arrived at the church, it was received with the sound of the organ. Then, the red cross and Papal arias having been placed before the
great altar, the commissary mounted the pulpit. And this is related as the style of his addresses to the assembled people. " Now is the heaven opened. Now is grace and salvation offered. Christ, acting no more himself as God, has resigned all his power to the Pope. Hence the present dispensation of mercy. Happy are your eyes that see the things that ye see. By virtue of the letters bearing the Papal seal that I offer you, not only is the guilt of past sins remitted, but that of sins that you may wish to commit in future. None is so great, but that pardon is ensured to the purchaser. And not the sins of the living only, but of the dead in purgatory. As soon as the money sounds in the receiving box, the soul of the purchasers relative flies from purgatory to heaven. Now is the accepted time, now the day of salvation. Who so insensate, who so hard hearted, as not to profit by it? Soon I shall remove the cross, shut the gate of heaven, extinguish the bright sunbeams of grace that shine before you. How shall they escape that neglect so great salvation?" Then the confessionals are set, each with the Papal arms attached. The confessors dilate on the virtue of the indulgences. The penitents crowd to the purchase. For the mass are sunk in superstition and ignorance; the willing slaves of delusion. And others there are too with whom, amidst all their superstition, the voice of conscience is awake; and whom the fear of death, and distress at Gods hitting Himself, impel to seek as they may for pardon anti reconciliation. Was not Myconiuss case the case of many like him? To such it seemed indeed strange that the grace of God should be purchased for money. And some, revolted by it, turned away. But with others the doubt was silenced by the thought of the indulgence corning from Gods Vicar, the Pope; even yet more than by the influence of long established custom. Could the Vicar of Christ deceive, or err? So they crowd to the purchase. The price is from 25 ducats to a half florin, according to the rank and opulence of the purchaser. The money box of the Dominican is filled. Having deducted his own percentage for agency, and paid his reckoning at the inn with indulgences for the deliverance of four or more souls out of purgatory, according to its greater or less amount, he transmits the surplus to the Prince Archbishop of Mlayence and Magdeburgh, whose agent he is, and whose rules he has been following in the business; then proceeds on the same blasphemous mission to another town. And, as between the Archbishop and the Pope there has been an agreement for the bipartition of the receipts from this part of Germany, the moiety of the money flows to Rome; the price of the merchandise of souls. Thus the cheat has been consummated. The rays of this mock Sun of Right eousness, (may I not well say, this Antichrist? for the Popes pretensions on this head were but the very realization of what both ancient Patristic, and even later Papal Doctors, had anticipated as a characteristic of the real Antichrist,) leave gone forth only to fructify in his own coffers. Meanwhile the poor deluded people, cherishing the indulgences they have purchased as a guarantee of forgiveness and salvation, live, and perhaps die, with, a lie in their right hand. And as regards Jesus, robbed as he has been by the Usurper of his own most glorious attribute of mercy, oh, who shall tell the magnitude of the insults pelt upon Him?

2. Next, would we learn the meaning, and its realization in actual life, of that most. striking representation of the Pope in the Florentine triumphal arc, as fixing one foot on the land and another on the sea, how call we better satisfy ourselves than by marking what passed at Rome in the second year of Leo's pontificate, on occasion of an emassy arriving from the king of Portugal? The ambassador was a General celebrated for his part in the late contests of the Portuguese in the far Indies. In testimony of there he brought, among other most magnificent presents to Pope Leo, various wild animals from the Fast, the leopard, panther, elephant; animals unknown to the citizens of Rome since the tinge and shows of its imperial grandeur. And great was the popular admiration as these presents were led in procession through the streets of Rome; more especially when, on arrival before the pontifical presence, the elephant, as if with more than instinct, stopt, and knelt, and thrice bowed himself as in act of adoration to the giound. But listen to the orator of the embassy. For a moment he hesitates, as overcome by a sense of the majesty of him he is addressing. “Fear and trembling, “ he exclaims, “have come over me, and a horrible darkness overwhelmed me”. Then reassured by the Pope’s serene aspect toward him “that divine countenance, which shining,” he says, “as the sun, had dispersed the mists of his mind,” he proceedes to the objects of his mission: narrates the eastern conquests of the Portuguese arms; addresses the POPE as the Supreme Lord of all; and speaks of the conquests as the incipient fulfillment of God’s sure promises, “Thou shall rule from sea to sea, and from the Tyber River to the world’s end;” “the kings of Arabia and Saba shall bring gifts to thee; yea, all princes shall worship thee, all nations shall serve thee,” and under thy auspices, “there shall be one fold and one shepherd.” That is, he explains the promised universal latter-day subjection of the world to Christ, as meant of its subjection to the Pope; and the Portuguese discoveries and victories over the heathen, as signs the consummation was at hand.

Thus does he well illustrate to us what was intended by the Florentine device under consideration. And he concludes in the same spirit, by a solemn act of adoration to the Pope, as his King’s Lord and Master: “Thee, as the true Vicar of Christ and God, the Ruler of the whole Chrisitan Republic, we recognize, confess, profess obedience to, and adore: in thy name adoring Christ, whose representative thou art.” As to the acting out by the Pope of this perogative of universal earthly supremacy, thus by both painter and orator assigned him, we might be sure, even prior to examination, that such must have been the case, when it was so obsequiously confessed to, and* with such expressions of personal fealty, not by an immediately subject people only, but by a powerful and distant monarch, like him of Portugal. And it needs indeed only to look into European history to find the proof.

Already, four centuries before, Gregory the 7th had put forward pretensions to authority, as Christs Vicar, over the kings and kingdoms of the world. Nor, in the course of those four centuries, had examples very remarkable been wanting of the application of this Papal prerogative, within, and even beyond, the limits of the old Roman earth, European Christendom. So, for instance, in that fateful Bull of Pope Adrian IV, A. D. 1155, whereby on the English King Henrys petition, permission was granted him, agreeably with what was recognised as the Popes undoubted right and prerogative over all professedly Christian lands, to subjugate Ireland; on condition only of an annual quit rent to the Roman See, of one penny for each house inhabited within it. And so again, about the middle of the 14th century, in the grant of the Canary Islands, not long before discovered, though beyond the pale of European Christendom, to Prince Lewis of Spain by the Pontiff Clement VI. But the Portuguese discoveries along the African coast towards the Cape of Good Hope, anti so towards India, begun about the middle of the 15th century, and yet more that memorable one by the Spaniards, some fifty years afterwards, of a new world beyond the Western Ocean, gave scope and occasion for its exercise in far distant seas, on a scale immensely larger. For were not the heathen promised to Christ (i. e. to Christs Vicar) for an inheritance, and the utmost parts of earth and sea for a possession? The application carne first from Prince Henry of Portugal to the then reigning Pope. Premising that, as Christ's Vicar, all kingdoms of the earth were subject to him, he prayed him, in virtue of that. authority, to confer on the Portuguese crown a right to all countries inhabited by infidels that they, the Portuguese, might discover: promise being added that he would spread the Christian religion in them, establish the Papal authority, and so increase the flock of the universal pastor. So was the opportunity given, and it was instantly seized on by the Pope, thus magnificently to exercise his supposed prerogative. A Bull was issued granting to the Portuguese all they might discover, from Cape Non to India? In 1493, after Columbus discovery of America, a similar application was made by Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain to Pope Alexander the 6th; the same pleas and promises accompanying it of extending the Popes empire. And again the grant was made, anti in terms still more presumptuous and striking the Bull enacting order that it might not interfere with the grant previously made to the King of Portugal, that an imaginary line from Pole to Pole, drawn so as to pass 100 leagues westward of the Azores, should be the limit between the two nations, and all westward belong to the Spaniards, all eastward to the Portuguese And what is very observable is, that in the judgment. of the Princes of Western Christendom, these pontifical grants constituted to either nation a title unimpeachable, and a guarantee against interference or attack. When some English merchants were about to open a trade with the coast of Guinea, the Portuguese King having laid before King Edward the 4th the Popes Bull, as entitling hint to it, Edward, satisfied on the point, prohibited his subjects from making the voyage. This was before the discovery of America, and that of the passage by the Cape of Good Hope! And after them, and in evidence that the same title still guaranteed to Spain and Portugal those their later conquests, it would seem that this was the cause of the first effbrts of English colonization being directed to the North American coasts, and avoiding those of South America, as belonging rightfully to Spain. Thus it was not without reason that King Emanuel did fealty to the Pope on the occasion we are considering and acknowledged his supremacy by whose grant he held his conquests. Not is it wonderful, substantially superseded as the Lord Jesus had long been, for the most part, by Rome and its Papal Antichrist, even in the world of thought and imagination, throughout Western Europe, that in this extension of the Papal dominion over so many newly discovered countries, men should have fancied an incipient fulfilment of the Scripture prophecies referred to It was quite natural. We see exemplified in it the settled anti christian spirit of the age. Thus, reverting to the Florentine painting exhibited on the clay of Pope Leo's enthronization, we have seen enough to convince us that, instead of its being an absurd or exaggerated device, it was only a graphic symbolization of a prerogative already exercised, as well as asserted, by the Popes. And, in evidence of the strict chronological propriety both of it, and of its Apocalyptic counterpart, we may note the fact that Pope Leo himself also now acted out what the painting symbolized. Pleased with the devotedness of the Portuguese king, he made a donation to him, in terms more ample than those of the original grant to Prince Henry, of all countries, provinces, anti islands, which he might recover from the infidels, not only from Capes Bojador and Non to the Indies, but in the parts yet undiscovered and unknown even to the Pontiff himself. So did he plant one foot on the land, the other on the sea and the countries in it, even where the mists of distance, and imperfect geographical knowledge, alight. as yet hide them from view ; distributing them, as their undoubted and supreme lord, to whom he would. And both in doing so, and in accepting the appropriation to the Papacy of the latter day prophecies,indeed himself in leis own medals appropriating them, he stood forth before Christendom, in all that concerned this worlds dominion, as a daring and gigantic usurper of the rights of Christ.

3. Once more I have to exhibit, in the actual realities of life, that voice of the Pope in guise and character as a Lion, asserting the world as his prey, claiming to himself its government, and threatening destruction against opponents or rebels , to the figuration of which I invited attention in the third place, from among the devices in the Leonine pageant, as another of the almost counterpart paintings there exhibited, in honour of the usurping Antichrist, to that in the Apocalyptic vision of the true Christ, now under consideration. In order to this let us again direct the eye to Rome. The solemn Council General of Christendom, as already hinted, is there at this very time holding its sessions. Where so likely a place in which to hear the voice of the Papal Lion? The session is in the Lateran Church, the same that the Pope was enthroned in. There then let us enter, look, and listen. It is another of Papal Romes chambers of imagery.

And truly the scene is not a little imposing. Has it fallen to the Readers lot to visit the church they were assembled in? If so, as the spacious nave has opened to his view, and its lofty arches of polished marble stretched before him in long perspective, with the double Corinthian pilasters richly gilt, and sculptured or painted forms of prophets and apostles, in triple elevation, supporting and dividing them, as his eye has ranged down them to the canopied high altar at the transept, then glanced above and below at the decorated compartments of the roof, and the pavement of marble and mosaic, then to the arches, columns, chapelries, and statuary of the double side aisles, grouping variedly in light and shadow, a feeling of the grandeur and beauty of art in the structure may have stolen over him, detached him in thought from the tumult of living things, and prepared him for the deeper sympathies to ale awakened by the soft or solemn music, of organ and of chant, soon swelling on the ear. All these seductions, we must remember, met the pilgrim visitant to the Lateran Church at the time we refer to: seductions whereby the Roman apostasy has ever sought to act upon the senses; and to awaken in the soul that religious sentimentalism, which it is too often ready to accept, and satisfy itself with, in place of religion. Nor was there wanting to the local scene the solenm undefined charm of association with antiquity. A part the most ancient of the Church, as well as the Baptistery adjoining, recalled the name of the great Constantine, as its founder. And so that high antiquity was suggested, which, on them that. were willing to forget Jerusalem, might be palmed as a sufficient reason for giving to it, at least in Western Europe, the proud title of Mother, as well as Mistress, of all churches.

But on the occasion I am to speak of, was not the mere architectural grandeur of the scene, and the remembrances of other far distant times associated with it, that made it so imposing. Behold gathered within its walls, and sitting in ordered shiny, some 200 or 300 archbishops, bishops, abbots, &c. arrived as representatives from England, from Spain, from Portugal, from the Germanic empire, from Savoy, and from the lesser states of Italy ; together with Ambassadors, Generals of the religious orders, the Patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch, and not a few other ecclesiastics from beyond the seas : the whole, under Pope Leos presidency, constituting the Council General, as they say, or representative body of the Church Universal.

Considered in this light, where was ever assembly of pretensions more august? The Bishops appear arrayed in their rich vestments of office, and with their jewelled mitres on the head. The Pope too, who sits alone upon a throne high arid lifted up, as becomes his dignity, appears in the scarlet and gold of his pontificals; and bears on his head that pontifical mitre, whence he claims, as its appanage, universal empire: And, let me ask, as he sits there, and receives the adoration of the assembly, and ascription to him, as we shall see presently, of the divine titles, offices, and functions, does it not seem the very fulfilment of that ancient prophecy which declared of Antichrist, that sitting in the temple of God he would show himself as God ? For should the words " temple of God " he literally taken, so as by sortie of the fathers, the Latertin Church, according to the ideas then received, was, as the mother, the representative, if I may so say, of all Christian Clinrches or Temples. And, if taken figuratively, which doubtless is a sense included, viz. as symbolizing the constituency of the professing Christian Church, it was before an assembly which represented that whole professing Church that he now thus showed himself.

The Council has been convened by the Papal Bull for the extirpation of the schisms and heresies that have divided the Church; its union, reformation, and exaltation. And this is the arrangement for its proceedings; that before it transact official business, and the Papal Lion , who is using it as his instrument, speak his and its enactments, the mass be first celebrate, the litanies, gospel, and hymn. “Veni Creator Spiritus,” chanted, and a sermon or oration, bearing on the business, pronounced by a selected member of the Council. Nor will it be well to pass to its enactments, in other words to the voice of Leo, which concluded its Sessions, without observing in the first instance the spirit and sediments of this Council of the Christian Church, as exhibited in the orations of these appointed preachers.

It will be seen how they ascribe to the Pope the dignity, titles, and relations to the Church of the Lord Jesus, just like the parties of whom I have before spoken; similarly make appeals to him (founded on this his character of Vice Christ,) as the hope and Saviour of the Church; and similarly express their expectation of the fulfillment in his person and reign, of the the latter day prophecies respection the final blessedness, universality, and oneness of Chris's kingdom. So, for example, in that of the 4th Session of the Venitian prelate Marcellus, Apostolic Prothonotary. After notice of the corruptions, divisions, and dangers of ther Christian Church, he describes her as seeking refuge with the Roman Pontiff, and prostrate at his most holy feet, thus addressing him

For thou art our Shepherd, our Physician, in short a second God on the earth." In similar strain, in the 6th Session, the Bishop of Modrusium, figuring the Holy Rotnan Church as the heavenly/ Jerusalem, and the bride of Christ, each a favourite emblem with the orators, and after confessing the almost total extinction, at the time then being, of faith and piety in it, thus proceeds to express himself. " Is this Jerusalem, that city of perfect beauty, the slaughter of Zion, the spouse of Christ? But weep not, daugther of Zion; for God hath raised up a Saviour for thee. The Lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, Hath come, and shall save thee from all thy enemies. On thee, 0 most blessed Leo, we have fixed our hopes as the promised Saviour." And then follows the supplication and appeal to him, in which other orators also unite that follow. " Vindicate the tent of thy spouse, that has been violated by the wicked! Purify what is polluted in the Church! Amend what is wrong! Against the infidels, (i. e. against the Turks,) gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O then most mighty! Is not all power given to thee in heaven and on earth?" Then by the fire and burning of the pastors office, extinguish schism and heresy ! That so, the great and ultimate reform and renovation having been accomplished in the Church, and the world brought into the true faith, religion, justice, and piety may flourish, the golden age revive, thine inheritance be restored to thee, the Church escape from the great tribulation, the completed sabbatism begin, all which, from the computation of times, scents close at hand: and those prophecies, so perpetually of late the theme of conversations be fulfilled; Thou shalt rule from sea to sea, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd ; I saw the New Jerusalem come down out of heaven prepared as a bride for her husband ; and again, It shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the Lords house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and all nations flow to it;there being meant by that mountain of the Lords house the plenitude of the power of his anointed one, his Christ, iu the Apostolic See."

Such, we see, is the appeal in these oratious to the Leo, the Papal Lion of Rome; such the titles and offices, prophecies and hopes, attached to him and his Pontificate. And now hearken to the lions voice, of which we were inquiring, as in answer. Accepting the deification, and the ascription to him of every title and office of Christ, as that which was indeed but his due," his first and preliminary act, in assertion of that sovereignty over the world, and fulfilment of that office of its administration, which thus in the Council, as in the painting, had been assigned him,is the citation of the adherents of the Pisan Council and Pragmatic Sanction, as schismatics and rebels. And, be hold, at the very threatening of his voice, both the schismatic cardinals, and the French king, hasten in public humiliation to renounce alike the one and the other, and to ask for absolution. On which, (according to the legend, " Prostratis placidus," " Supplices generose' exaudio,") the absolution is granted; and, in the confessed subjection of all the kingdoms of Western Christendom to the Papal supremacy, the schism healed. Next against the Bohemian heretics, the only ones apparently recognised as remaining, a citation is issued; with similar promise of consideration and clemency, in case of submission. And when, as was avowed in triumphal tone by the preacher in the Session following, no schismatic, heretic, or maintainer of his own private opinion against the Popes, seemed for the present any more forthcoming, but all hushed in submission, (" Jam nemo reclamat, nullus obsistit,") then, and with a view to prevent any fresh rising of heresy or schism, and so to ensure the continued unity of his bride the Church, without spot or wrinkle, in continued subjection to himself, the Papal Lion thus again from the height of his apostolic office, as from the top of Mount Zion, issues his voice of command : 1st, that forasmuch as printing, that wonderful recently invented art, might be used to disseminate heretical notions, no books be printed without the previous censorship of the Popes inquisitor in the district :ll 2ndly, that no preaching be allowed, or explanation of the Scriptures, except in conformity with that of the recognised fathers and doctors of the church; and no mention moreover made by them of Antichrist, or speculations mooted as to the time (since it was altogether bidden from man) of the final predicted judgment: 3rdly, that the inquisitors fail not to exercise vigilance, and proceed with all zeal against heretics, wherever afresh arising, in order to their utter elimination from the congregation of the faithful. So much for the preservation of the unity of the Church. As to its. reformation, that for which so many cries had arisen for centuries, so many efforts been made, and hopes even now expressed of there being at length the grand and final one, he undertakes it As that which, like the rest, belonged to his province as suprcrne administrator: (" milli curse est :") and accordingly issues enactments limiting pluralities, and forbidding a few other external abuses; but passes over, as needing no reform, and so adopts, and coversmith the broad arrow of the Papal sanction, the whole doctrinal system of the apostasy, its damonolatry, sorceries, and religious thefts and murders. Finally, in order to the effecting of the last and chief object of the Council, the exaltation of the Church, i. e. of the Church of Rome, he solemnly repeats and confirms the famous Bull " Unam sanctam," of Pope Boniface the VIIIth; in which Bull the unity of the Church is defined as that of one body under one head, the Roman Pontiff, Christs representative; and of which this is the conclusion, " We declare, define, and pronounce, that it is essential to the salvation of every human being that he be subject to the Roman Pontiff: "prefixing thereto the declaration, " Whosoever obeys not, as the Scripture declares, let him die the death ! "

Such is the voice of the Pope, the " Leo Papa," like as of a lion roaring ; (itself the fulfilment of another patristic anticipation respecting Antichrist:) 5 and the whole Christian Church, by its representatives in Council, assents and consents to it. On which, each object of its assembling having, as they view it, been accomplished, the Roman Church by the Councils reforming canons been renovated as the heavenly Jerusalem, by the extinction of heresies and schisms mad I one, and by the universal subjection of secular princes a evated as Mount Zion on the top of the mountains, a Te Deum of thanksgiving is chanted, and the Council concludes: and, in order to the increase of the joy of its members at this its auspicious ending, a plenary remission of sins and indulgence is granted to each one of them by the Pope, once in life, and in the article of death.

Thus have I shown the realization, or acting out in real life, by the Roman Bishop Leo X, of those prerogatives and functions of Christ, which were attributed to him in the three remarkable paintings to which I called attention, as exhibited before Christendom in the pageant of his enthronization. And now at length we are prepared to revert with abundant advantage to the Apocalyptic vision of the Covenant Angels descent, and the glorious events that it presignified.

For so it was, that just when the Roman ANTICHRIST seemed to have completed his triumph, and when, not only without opposition in Christendom, but with Christendom consenting, applauding, admiring, and in the Papal exaltation and reign anticipating the fulfilment of Christ's promised reign with his saints, this Usurper acted out the character of Christ, and exercised, or professed to exercise, in regard to both worlds, Christ's own god like functions and prerogatives;

Just when, especially, as if himself the heaven sent one, mighty to save, he made pretence of opening heaven to all behevers in the Papal magic charms, however laden they might be with guilt and sin, and exhibited himself to them as the dispenser of the mercies of the covenant, the Fountain of grace, the Saviour, the Justifier, the Snn of Righteousness; Just when, as if the appointed heir of the world, and who was to have all things put under his feet, he claimed as his own the kingdoms of the earth, (not those of the Roman earth only, but those too in the mighty seas beyond it,) and, receiving homage for each grant that he made from the princes of the world, assigned them as sovereign lord to whom he would; Just when, after, assuming Christs title of lion, agreeably with the old patristic anticipations respecting Antichrist, even as if the lion of the tribe of Judah, he had in acts and mandates, framed with a view to secure the church and world in subjection to him, begun to roar as it were over his prey, and threaten every opposer.

Just when, on the day of his enthronization, as on s day of high festival, there were exhibited painting, amidst the applause of congregated Christendom, on which art seemed to have lavished all its ingenuity of decoration; and which, as the devices that might best symbolize these his threefold prerogatives and functions as Christs vicar and impersonator, represented this same usurping Antichrist, in one part as beaming like the new risen sun from heaven upon earth, together with a rainbow to reflect his brightness, in another as planting one foot on the land and the other on the sea, in a third as looking and roaring, with the world in his clutch, even as when a lion roaretle on his prey :
Just at this very time it was that there occurred the fulfilment of another symbolic figuration, devised. by higher than human art, and evidently in purposed contrast to the former, though pictured above 1400 years before it:it figuration winch, in the visions of Patmos, exlitited CHRIST to St. John as now at length intervening, after long forbearance, in vindication of his own rights, truth, and people ; revealing Himself as the true CovenantAngel from heaven, with his face shining as the sun, and a rainbow about laic head, planting moreover his right foot on the sea, his left on the land, and crying with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth. " Like as a lion roaring on his prey, when a multitude of shepherds is called forth against him, he will not be afraid of their voice, nor abase himself for the noise of them," so was the Lord represented as now coming down to fight for Mount Zion," against Antichrist and Antichrists assembled Council.

And whereas the Papal lions voice, in vindication of his usurping claims on the church and world, and to counteract all opposition, enacted decrees, as we have seen, preventive of the printing of all books on religion except as approved by him, and especially of Gods book the Bible, preventive also of all preaching, except in accordance with the established Roman interpretations of Scripture, anti further enjoining that there should be no mention by them of the coming of Antichrist, or of the time of the great final judgment;

So in the Apocalyptic vision there was prefigured, as what would take place at the same precise epoch, Christs own opening to the world of that forbidden book of God, his revival of that forbidden gospel preaching, his exposure of Antichrist, as even then alive in the Popes, and revelation too (so far as man might know it) of the time of the fated judgment, as involving the Popedoms destruction, and placed at but one Apocalyptic trumpets interval from the chronological epoch of the intervention here symbolized. All these things, I say, were foreshadowed in the vision before us; and in the Protestant Reformation all these things, as we shall see, were done.

Finally, as the Papal lion spoke enactments in its roaring with a view to eliminate, and cast out of the company of the faithful, all heretics, or those that dissented from the Roman apostasy and Roman Antichrist, so there was prefi red in the Apocalyptic vision a solemn casting out from Christ's true church, and the communion of the faithful, of Papal Rome, with its Bishop, ministers, and church, as apostate and antichristian. And this too had its fulfilment in the same great event: and, together with a certain political revolution accompanying, viz. the fall of a tenth part of the mystic Babylon, as if. prelusively of its final entire fall, it appeared, both in the prophecy and in the history, as what may be called the completing act of the Reformation.

To show this, we must now pass on to that memorable history. With the Apocalyptic vision before us as our guide, we shall find ourselves called to notice, just in this very order, the commencement, progress, and each grand epoch of the great and glorious Reformation of the xvith century.

Index

Chapter 4