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The witnesses, then, shall at last be slain. The testimony, which, for 1260 years, has been Uninterruptedly maintained, Shall be completely put down. Throughout the length and breadth of the great city, there shall not be left one public witness for the truth as it is in Jesus. This will be an event which will be celebrated With rapture and delight over the whole bounds apostate Christendom; verse 10, "They that dwell on the earth, shall rejoice and make merry, and send gifts one to another," in token of their exuberant gladness. To apply this, as Mr. Elliott does, to any banquet, however splendid, given by Leo X. to the cardinals at Rome, at the conclusion of the Lateran council already referred to, is altogether out of the question. The language looks far beyond any such commonplace event as that. It is not a pope making merry with a few cardinals, but the people of the Roman world in general, that are here brought before us, as so extravagantly rejoicing. "They that dwell over the earth," men of all ranks, and conditions, and classes, are equally filled with joy at the great event. The civil rulers rejoice, because those that impeded their selfish and unhallowed schemes, by brining every measure to the test of the law and the testimony, instead of a low and shifting expediency, are conclusively removed out of the way.
The Church of Rome rejoices; because there are none now to brand her as the grand "mystery," and to oppose her claims to undivided and universal supremacy. Now at last has the golden era arrived, for which popes and prelates had for ages striven and sighed in vain, when, with complacency, she might say, "Behold I sit a queen, and shall see no sorrow." The ungodly people rejoice, because those who spoke of judgment to come, who disturbed them in a life of worldliness and sin, are finally put down. It is the very carnival of an apostate world, when priests, and magistrates, and people alike, may live as they list, and sin as they may; when God, being banished from his own world, and all testimony, for God suppressed, conscience may sleep in unbroken repose, and men may run riot each in his favorite iniquity. It is nothing less than this that seems implied in the strong language of the passage before us. But where, in the history of the past, has there been any such universal rejoicing since antichrist was revealed? The annals of Europe will be sought in vain for any such thing. There have been partial rejoicings, once arid again, when the truth in a particular place has seemed to be suppressed. The Bartholomew massacre, for instance, was celebrated at Rome by a solemn procession of the pope and cardinals, and by public thanksgivings on that auspicious occasion. Even the unfounded rumor of the death of a distinguished witness of Christ has called forth similar demonstrations of joy.
When Calvin was reported to have died, the bishop of Noyon signalized the event by religious rejoicings in the cathedral of the city that had given birth to the Reformer. The premature reports of the deaths of Luther and John Knox were celebrated in the same way. These instances show sufficiently the truth of the statement, that the witnesses "torment" the enemies of God; and they show also, what delight they would feel at their universal suppression. But no delight that has ever yet been expressed, can come up to the requirements of the prophetic language, "They that dwell on the earth shall rejoice over them;" no rejoicings have ever been so widely diffused, as it is plain they shall be, when the witnesses are actually slain, and their testimony everywhere completely suppressed.
When the witnesses are slain, it is further said, that "their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the Great city." Have we any data by means of which we may arrive at the locality here indicated? The author of the "Seventh Vial" makes it, to be Rome--the literal city of Rome. "The street, literally the broad place," says he, "has reference, plainly, to the forum of ancient cities. This was the place where public assemblies were held, where laws were proclaimed, justice administered, and merchandize set forth. To guide ourselves to the street in which the sad spectacle of the dead bodies of the witnesses should be seen, we have only to inquire, in what city of Europe was it where the papal gatherings took place, where the papal laws were proclaimed, where papal causes were adjudged, and sentence pronounced, and where the papal merchandize was set forth. The answer is, Rome. This was the broad place, or forum of the great city."
Now, supposing that the word rendered "street," signifies "the broad place" or "forum," and that the "forum" or "broad place" is intended to symbolize the city of Rome, let us see how the prophetic language in regard to the dead bodies of the witnesses will agree with such a supposition. According to this view, when it is said that "their dead bodies shall lie in the broad place of the great city," the meaning must be, that "their dead bodies shall be exposed in the streets of Rome." But the question arises, "How come these dead bodies to be there" The witnesses, whose dead bodies are in question, be it remembered, according to the "Seventh Vial," were slain in Bohemia. Now, attach whatever meaning you please, literal or symbolical,1 to the "dead bodies," it will be impossible to reconcile the statement about the slaughter of the witnesses with 'that about the exposure of their "bodies." Why, what was one of the strongest evidences adduced to prove that the witnesses in Bohemia were actually slain before the Reformation? It was, that when summoned to appear at Rome, and plead before the Lateran- council, not so much as one of them answered the summons. How then come their dead bodies to lie in the streets of Rome was the miracle of the Santa Casa of our Lady of Loretto, wrought over again in regard to them? Were they, after being slain in Bohemia, miraculously transported by angels to Rome, to afford a spectacle to the pope and his cardinals? The theory will not hang together. In regard to the past, it is plain that Rome could not be the "street" in which the dead bodies were to lie exposed.
Neither is there any reason to think, that in the future, when the actual catastrophe arrives, the dead bodies of the witnesses will be exposed in the literal city of Rome. The true meaning of the word in question is not the "broad-place" or forum, but "the broad street" of the city. The forum, the place of public assemblies, where laws were proclaimed, justice administered, and merchandise set forth, is plainly referred to again and again in the New Testament. (Mat:20:3, Mark 12:38, Acts 16:19, and many other places,) According to ancient custom, broad streets were by no means common in oriental cities. The far greater number were made very narrow, from three to six feet wide, on purpose to exclude the rays of the sun, and so to promote the coolness of the houses. Wide streets are accounted no luxury in warm climates; and Tacitus states in regard to Nero, that lie "spoiled Rome by the broad streets which he made." Now the great city is represented as having only one "broad street." What, then, are we to understand by the "broad street of the great city?" According to the analogy of the figure, it would seem to mean the most important, the most influential of the ten kingdoms of the papal empire. A t ,the distance of fourteen years from the event, it may ire impossible, with certainty, to fix on the precise kingdom here intended. But yet there are not wanting considerations that may go far to enable us to form a very probable conjecture. I incline to think, as others have done before, that Great Britain may here be intended. It is one of the original ten streets of which the great city was composed. It is now rapidly becoming more and more united with the papacy. In a political point of view, it is beyond all comparison the most powerful of the nations of Europe; as a promoter of the spiritual dominion of Rome, it is the very right arm of Antichrist. No other nation of Europe is doing half so much, or so zealously, in extending the empire of the Man of Sin throughout the world. Wherever we have a colony, popish bishops and popish priests are being sent out day after day at the expense of this country. Six years ago, Cardinal Pacca, in an oration delivered before the Propaganda at Rome, could comfort himself and his brethren for the untoward events then taking place in Spain, by referring to the prospects of Romanism in Great Britain. "England," said he, "consoles me for the troubles of the church." This was before Maynooth was incorporated with the British constitution, before the bill was passed for renewing diplomatic relations with Rome.
How much more reason would lie have to use the same language now! There is another consideration too, which would seem to identify "the broad street" in question with Great Britain. The place where the last of the witnesses fall must be that part of the Roman empire where liberty and religion linger the longest. Now Britain, fallen though it is, with all its vices, and all its apostacy, is still, above all other lands, the sanctuary of the gospel, the abode of freedom, the asylum of the persecuted; and, so long as any measure of religious freedom is to be found on the earth, in all likelihood it will still be here that it will be found. When the servants of God shall be hunted out of all the nations of the continent, by the combined hosts of popery and atheism, the probability is, that, as so many have done before, they will take refuge on our shores, and after maintaining their testimony to the last, here be put down. But, once more, the place where the witnesses fall, where their dead bodies are exposed, seems plainly the swine with the place where they rise again, with the tenth part of the city, which, after undergoing some grand convulsion, repents of its sins, gives glory to the God of heaven, and thus becomes the first of the "kingdoms of this world which become the kingdom of our Lord and his Christ." Now, whatever kingdom that be, it must obviously be the one for which is destined the high honour of taking the lead in spreading the reign of righteousness in the world, of helping on the restoration of the Jews, and of paving the way for the glory of Christ's universal millennial kingdom. But we know from Isaiah, that the nation which is to act such a conspicuous part, is one of the leading maritime powers of the world. Surely the "isles shall wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish first, to bring thy sons from far, their silver and their gold with them, unto the name of the Lord thy God, and to the Holy One of Israel, because he hath glorified thee." Isa. Ix. 9. How remarkably this seems to point at Great Britain; the mistress of the seas, the reader needs not to be told All things, then, considered, would seem to go far to show; that here will the last great onslaught be made upon the witnesses of Christ. When the truth has been put down every where else, here will the beast from the abyss, under the instigation of Rome, concentrate its forces, "make war against the witnesses, and overcome them, and kill them." Here their dead bodies will lie unburied three years and a half, exposed to the insults and contumelious treatment of their persecutors.
Some have striven to fix an allegorical meaning on "the dead bodies" of the witnesses, and their exposure in the broad street of the great city. Various have been the attempts of this kind, all unsatisfactory. The "Seventh Vial" has an explanation of its own, which at first sight has an air of ingenuity. "Life and organization," it says, "are connected." The moment life departs the organization is lost, and the body is reduced to its component elements. [Ought not the ingenious author to have added, and goes to corruption?] The witnesses were organized societies, and the slaying or silencing of them lay in their suppression as churches. After that, though a few of the individual members which had composed these churches, existed, they had lost their organization the principle of social life. They were the mere elements of what had been the living witnesses. They were their corpses. Here I do not need to show that the witnesses are not any particular churches, or any organized societies of Christians as such; that they are so, is a mere imagination of the author's own, and has been already disproved in its own place. But what, let me ask, is it that constitutes ail organized or living church of Christ? Is it necessary to its life and organization, that it consist of a multitude of congregations, under sessions, presbyteries, synods, and general assemblies? No. Whereever two or three are gathered together in Christ's name; wherever the smallest number of believers shall, in obedience to the command of their Lord, meet with an ambassador of Christ, to receive from him the: bread of life, and engage in the Worship of God; there is a church, with all that is essential to its organization. There is Christ the living head. There is the living Spirit of all grace, to unite, to purify, to comfort its members. Weak and despicable in the eyes of the world it may be; but dead it is not. That there ever has been a time, since the gospel was preached, and Christianity planted, when the church has been reduced so low as this, the "Seventh Vial" has not proved, and no man can prove. And even when all public testimony for Christ shall be put down, the organization of Christ's church shall never be extinguished. During the three years and a half, when public worship shall be prohibited throughout Christendom, to the faithful followers of the Lamb, the visibility of the church shall be affected, but its existence shall not. Even in the darkest hour, though in secret, though at the dead of night, we have reason to believe, the social worship of God will be observed. The saints of God, few though they be, in their church capacity will still edify one another.
"Then they that fear the Lord will often speak together." Were not this the case, how could the word of Christ be fulfilled, "On this rock I build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." If the life of Christ's church, as a church, were for a moment interrupted, where were the faithfulness of him that promised? If, then, the church of Christ be an "indestructible society," if it never has been, and never can be destroyed, "the dead bodies" of the witnesses could not be the church of Christ reduced to "its elements." Besides, to symbolize living saints, however few, by the figure of "corpses" or "dead bodies," is certainly a very extraordinary use of language. But, after all, what need is there to find a symbolical meaning for the "dead bodies" of the witnesses? Is not this to run into the excess of those who make every thing in a parable parabolical? The witnesses, considered as two, are symbolical; but as far as themselves are concerned, there the symbol ends. They are made of flesh and blood like other men; and every thing stated in regarcl to them, is plainly not symbolical. The "fire" that cometh out of their mouths is symbolical; but "their mouths" themselves are no symbols. The beast that makes war upon them is a symbolical beast; but the war, as "the Seventh Vial" itself admits, is no figurative war. Why then should their "dead bodies" be supposed to be other than literal "dead bodies." The suppression of the witnesses cannot be effected, as we have seen, without the sacrifice of innumerable lives, without multitudes sealing their testimony with their blood. When, therefore, matters come to this point, it is intimated to us, in the passage under consideration, that the fury of their persecutors will pursue them after death; will be displayed in the treatment even of their corpses. When the proto-martyr Stephen was slain, the enmity of the Jews was satisfied with his death. We read of no insult offered to his lifeless clay. "Devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him." But Rome allows no such respect to be shown to the remains of heretics. "Let them not be buried," "We deny them earth to bury them," is the formal language of the apostate Church, in regard to those who suffer at her hands for heresy.2 To this there is a plain and unequivocal allusion in the words before us. The language of the prophecy cannot be twisted to mean, as the "Seventh Vial" supposes, that the persecutors will hunt out individual saints from their "concealment," who are strangely enough supposed to be "the corpses of the witnesses," in order that "they may be kept before the sight of men." It is not said that "they that dwell on the earth" will not suffer the dead bodies to be "put in the ground" "to be buried out of sight;" but that they will not allow them "to be put in tombs," that is, to receive the customary marks of honour and respect due to the dead.
Now, if the views I have been unfolding are -well-founded, how solemnizing are the thoughts they are-fitted to inspire! To many it seems utterly incredible that persecution should ever come to such a height, or the cause of truth be reduced so low, iii this couiary. That the truth might be put down on the continent of Europe, they could admit as within the bounds of possibility; but that it should ever be extinguished here, is what they will not allow themselves for a moment to believe. The time was, when there might have been some kind of excuse for this incredulity; but such is the case no longer. To my mind, it seems more difficult to understand, how the crisis should be averted for fourteen years, than to believe that at the time which the prophecy indicates, all testimony for Christ should be suppressed withiu these realms. Let any one only take a sober, an enlightened, and scriptural view of the present aspect of the Church, and the nation, and surely he will see abundant reason for the deepest alarm.
The rapid, the wide-spread progress of Puseyism in the Church of England, is evidently paving the way for some great catastrophe. The conspiracy formed in 1831, by a few young students in Oxford, for "unprotestantizing" that Church, has given rise to a movement altogether unprecedented in the history of the Christian Church. Ten years had hardly passed away from the time their plans were formed, and their operations commenced, when the whole face of the Church of England began to be changed. "The contagion," says the Rev. Richard Mars, the excellent author of the "Retrospect," and vicar of Great Missenden, writing in 1842; "the contagion has spread through the 1ength and breadth of the land, and by far the greater part of the clergy of the Established Church are more or less contaminated with the plague, many of them beyond all reasonable hope of a recovery, and many others to a degree that at best admits of only a trembling hope. Already do many of our churches, in populous districts, exhibit such a mass of tawdry, foolish, popish mummery, that a stranger, entering into them, would immediately conclude he was in a popish place of worship . . ." All these wandering stars do not, indeed, run into the same excess of folly and error; but the leaven has extended so far and so widely, that its blighting, darkening, corrupting effects, have quite extinguished the pure light of the Gospel in many of our parish church pulpit ministrations, and so obscured the light, the truth, and the way, in hundreds and thousands of others, that those who go to learn what they might do to be saved, are in the utmost danger of being led most fatally astray. Such things have we already lived to see; and should this downward movement go on but a few wars longer, as it has progressed through the last seven, then Ichabod will be written on our church doors; for she will not only fail to answer her intended purpose of enlightening and evangelizing the nation; but she will bring popish abominations over it, and a darkness, a spiritual darkness, that may be felt. Oh, England! England! already may it be said with truth, "They which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths." Now, this is not the testimony of an enemy, but of a devoted friend of the Church of England, of one sensitively alive to its Honour; and such was his view of the state of matters in 1842. Has there been any change for the better, any improvement since? No! the Puseyites have been unwearied, labouring night and day in sowing their tares, by novels, by tales by sermons, by pamphlets, in every conceivable way; all else have been asleep. Of late years, there has not been so much excitement, so much public discussion in the newspapers, on the subject of Puseyism. But why?
Just because the poison has been taking the more effect; because the English mind has become more familiarised with the baneful system; and because the existence and progress of Tractarianism leave come to be looked upon as matters of course, as necessary evils. Those would fatally deceive themselves who should suppose, that the recent absence of excitement on the subject, is a sign that the pesthence has received a check. There leas been no serious, no earnest attempt made by any party whatever, whether bishops, or evangelical clergy, or the people themselves, to check it.
The bishops have done nothing to check it. Not a few of them have done what in them lay directly to foster and promote it. Many have looked on with the most complete indifference. A few have expressed their fears and alarm at the prospects of Protestantism. But in no case has any effective step been taken to stay the pestilence. Low churchmen and high churchmen, Evangelicals and Puseyites on the Episcopalbench,have alike allowed theRomanizers to pursue their own course. So extraordinary indeed has been the supineness manifested by those entrusted with the government of the church, that even the London Record, the organ of Episcopacy, felt constrained a few years ago thus to refer to the subject: "Whether these dignitaries meet at Lambeth, or whether they remain dissociated, nothing is done to root out, whatever may be openly or silently done to cherish, a system of doctrine, whose true character and issues are scarcely attempted to be concealed, which a child may read and understand, and which the Protestantism of Europe,with one mind appreciates, and with one voice condemns. Strange, deplorable, we had almost said despicable, that when, in such circumstances, we naturally look to the heads of the Church for the exposition and denunciation of, the damnable evil which Europe sees suspended over our church, we look in vain; that for the most part, they remain silent as the grave; or, if they speak either by words or actions, it is in a language which no human being can satisfactorily understand." Since this was penned, Puseyism has become more plainly and unequivocally popish; but the heads of the church have pursued the very same course. There have not been wanting Episcopal charges in which the Tracts have come under review, and some of the most glaring of their Popish sentiments have been deprecated. But the faint censure in these charges, has generally been so mingled with high praise, that every new condemnation of the Tracts has only inspired new courage into the tractators. For a time the conspirators had some fear of the bishops, but latterly, all such fear leas been cast aside as heedless. Purgatory, prayers for the dead, transubstantiation itself, and everything wbicli Prostantisin most abhors, has been openly inculcated by ministers of the Church of England, and that with the most perfect impunity. Had the poison of popery been diffused in so subtle and secret away, that it had been difficult to bring home the guilt to the offending parties, the conduct of the bishops might not have been so bad. But as the matter stands, they have no such excuse. In cases without number, they have had the most ample proofs that ministers in the Church of England were bona fide Roman Catholic priests, and yet they have cast their shield over them. In 1843, the curate of the Rev. F. Oakley, published a work entitled, "A Short and Easy Catechism for the use of young persons of the Church of England, compiled from authentic sources." This catechism inculcated the rankest Popery, the distinction between "deadly and venial sin," the propriety of worshipping saints and angels, the doctrine of "a propitiatory sacrifice" in the Lord's Supper, and the "sacramental" efficacy of "confirmation, holy orders and matrimony."3
All this was bad enoubh in one who ministered in a professedly Protestant church. But what remains to be told, makes the case much worse. The "authentic sources" from which this manual of instruction for the youth of the Church of England was compiled, were found to be none other than avowedly Romish catechisms, published in English and Italian, with the stamp and authority of the Church of Rome. The questions and answers were in many places taken word for word from these catechisms. The case was brought before the bishop of London, in whose diocese the offender taught. How did his Lordship deal with it? Did he expel the traitor from the church which he had entered, obviously only with the view to undermine its faith? No. He caused the catechism to be suppressed; that is, he removed from public view the evidences of the curate's anti-protestant designs, and with an admonition to him to observe more caution in time to come, he sent him back to his charge, of course to disseminate from the pulpit of St Margaret's chapel by his living voice, the very same Romish poison that had been embodied in his catechism. Both Mr Oakley and his curate have now gone to their own place, have openly joined themselves to the communion of Rome; but that, be it observed,, was altogether of their own free choice. For years after, they remained in the ministry of the Church of England, doing what they could to lead the unsuspecting flock under their charge into the pale of the Roman apostacy.
The extraordinary conduct of the late bishop of Oxford, now bishop of Chichester, in regard to Tract 90, manifests the very same disposition to retain Polish priests in the bosom of the Church of England. That tract, which, as is well-known, had for its object to show how priests of Rome could subscribe the articles of the English church, excited deep indignation in the public mind. Yielding to the feeling of the time, the Bishop of Oxford had pronounced a public censure on it. But did the public censure of the bishop imply that he was really opposed to the doctrine of the Tract? A letter of Dr Pusey's, addressed to the Irish Ecclesiastcal Journal, in defence of the Tractators, for still continuing to publish that Tract in spite of the bishop's censure, testifies but too plainly to the contrary. Dr Pusey states in that letter, that, although the bishop publicly condemned the Tract, he told its author in private, that "he did not wish it to be withdrawn." Could any thing in the school of Loyola surpass this?
The same positive encouragement to men with full formed Popish beliefs, to minister in the Church of England, has, there is reason to believe, been secretly given by some of the bishops up to the present tine. It was only the other day, that the Rev. Robert Skonce, B.A of Brazenose College, Oxford, x0ho was ordained in 1845, went over to the Church of Rome. In giving his reasons to the public for so doing, he took care to show that it was not in consequence of any change in his doctrinal opinions. In his published statement, he affirms that "he had been permitted by his diocesan to hold and to teach the identical doctrines which he now holds in communion with Rome; and that the only doubt existing in his mind, for a considerable period, was, whether his own diocesan bishop or the bishop of Rome had the greater claim on his obedience!"
The bishop who can thus give a "dispensation" to his clergy to hold and to teach Popery in a Protestant church, must himself be a papist at heart. How many may adopt this jesuitical line of policy, of course we cannot tell. But practically it makes little difference, whether there be many or few, so long as the most pernicious dogmas of Rome are permitted to be openly taught by their clergy. To allow men to continue in the ministry of the Church of England, who make no secret of their abhorrence of that Protestantism which they are sworn to maintain, gives all the encouragement to Puseyism that it needs, and must infallibly end in the complete Romanizing of the English Establishment. Does the reader wish any further proof of the boldness with which the Tractarians pursue their course under the connivance of the bishops? Let him peruse the following astounding verses, in which Popery lifts up its head without either mask or veil:
"Oh the good old thues of England,
Ere in her evil day,
From their holy faith, and their ancient rites,
Her people fell away
When her gentlemen had hands to give,
And her yeomen hearts to feel,
And they raised full many a bead house,
But never a bastile
But times and things are altered now,
And Englishmen begin
To class the beggar with the knave,
And poverty with sin.
No gentle nun with her comfort sweet,
No friar standeth nigh,
With ghostly strength and holy love,
To close the poor, man's eye.
It We mourn not for our abbey lands,
Even pass they as they may,
But we mourn because the tyrant found
Of A richer spoil than they.
He cast away as a thin defiled,
The remembrance of the Just;
And the relics of our martyers
He scattered to the dust.
Yet two, at least, in their holy shrines,
Escaped the spoiler's hand,
And St Cuthbert and St Edward might
Alone redeem a land.
And many an earnest prayer ascends,
From many a hidden spot,
And England's Church is Catholic,
Though England's self be not !
England of saints! the hour is nigh,
Far nigher may it be
Than yet I deem, allbei that day
I may not live to see,
When all thy Commerce, all thy arts,
And wealth, and poiwer, and fame,
Shall melt away at tby most need,
Like wax before the flame.
Then shalt thou find thy truest strength
Thy martyrs prayers above;
Then shalt thou find thy truest wealth
Their holy deeds of love.
And thy church awaking from her sleep,
Come glorious forth at length,
And in sight of angels and of men,
Display her hidden strength.
Again shall long processions sweep,
Through Lincoln's minster pile,
Again shall banner, cross and cope,
Gleam through the incensed aisle;
And the faithful dead shall claim their part,
In the church's thoughtful prayer,
And the (laity scacrifee to God,
Be duly offered there.
And tierce, and nones, and matins,
Shall have each their holy lay;
And the Angelus at Compline
Shall sweetly close the day.
England of saints! the peace will dawn,
But not without the fight;
So, come the contest when it may,
And God defend the right!"
Such is the language in which the Rev. J. M. Neale, a minister of the Protestant Church of England, and a popular Puseyite writer, boldly, unblushingly, and in the face of day, proclaims his detestation of the Reformation, and exults in the prospect of the speedy restoration of that reign of monkery and priestcraft, from which so many noble martyrs shed their blood to deliver us. And still the discipline of the Church of England slumbers; still the traitor is allowed to remain within the citadel of the Establishiment. With disicipline so utterly in abeyance, with Homanism so publicly avowed b the English cler what is there to prevent any number of Jesuits whatever from entering the fold whose doors are thus manifestly left open to invite their entrance 7 After what we have seen, is it any wonder to be, told, that the popish Duke of Norfolk has of late years been purchasing presentations to the Church of England? Or can there he the least doubt of the object which these presentations are designed to serve?
Once or twice there has indeed been something like an attempt at discipline, though not by the bishops; but even what bas been done in this way, has only strengthened the hands of the Romanizers, and showed them how safely they might proceed in their evil path. Dr. Pusey was suspended by the Vice-chancellor of Oxford for two years, for preaching popery on the subject of the eucharist.
After his suspension, great influence was used with him to induce him not to publish the sermon for which he was suspended, on the ground, that if it were published, it would greatly embarrass the heads of the church. Dr Pusey, however, knew full well the strength of his position, and gave all such suggestions to the winds. He cared nothing for the embarrassment of the bishops, provided the cause he had at heart might be advanced; and in due time the sermon was published. The doctrine of that sermon was as thoroughly popish as Rome itself could desire. Dr Pusey laid it down in plain terms, that, "elements of this, world," that is, the bread and wine in the Lord's Supper, after "consecration," "become the body and blood" of Christ in so "literal a sense," that they are "the very flesh and blood which were given and shed for the life of the world." So thoroughly Romish was the doctrine inculcated in the whole sermon, that the Rev. J. Moore, Roman Catholic priest of Birmingham, soon after its appearance, read it on Sabbath to his congregation, commented on it, and describes it as "a pure exposition of catholic doctrine." Now, what did the "heads of the church" do? Nothing. As soon as the two years of suspension were came to an end, without the least retractation, without the slightest change of opinion, Dr Pusey was restored to his functions; and, from that day to this, he has gone on unchallenged, ill his work of instilling the undiluted poison of Rome into the minds of the students under his charge, and of all who come under the influence of his preaching or his writings.
If it had been only the high, church bishops that had thus connived at the spread of Popery within their dioceses, the case of the English Establishment would not have been so hope less. The zeal of sounder men on the episcopal bench plight have done something to stay the plague; but, alas! the case is far otherwise. Those who might have been expected to show the most determined opposition to Puseyism, have been altogether sleeping at their posts. "Under present circuuistances," says the London Watchman, referring to the case of Dr Pusey, "it will be a great mercy indeed if the candlestick be not removed from a church in which there is so much, apostacy from the principles of reformed truth, and so little self-sacrificing effort in defence of Protestaritisin, even on the part of those whom it is the fashion to regard as its especial advocates and champions."
The bishops most distinguished for evangelism, seem in regard to this matter to have been smitten with a sort of judicial infatuation. The Bishop of Winchester denounces the doctrine of the Tracts, and then rewards the Rev. Mr. Manning, one of his clergy, for his maintenance of tractarian doctrine, by raising him to the dignity of archdeacon. The Bishop of Calcutta, in his charge, expresses the greatest alarm at the progress of Puseyism in his own diocese; and then, to the great joy of the Puseyites, imposes silence upon all his clergy who were disposed to write or preach against it. 1f there was one man on the whole bench, who might have been expected to do something to "cleanse the foul bosom" of the church of "that perilous stuff" that infects and pollutes it to the core, it was Dr. Summer, late Bishop of Chester, now Archbishop of Canterbury.
But how little may be looked for from him also, his answer to the address of the laity of Plymouth, the other day, amply testifies. "He regretted," exceedingly regretted, the indiscretions of the "younger clergy," and "could have wished" that they had not outraged the feelings of their parishioners by reviving obsolete practices, that in their esteem savoured of Popery; but inasmuch as these clergy had ancient rubrics and canons on their side, he felt "bound to respect conscientious scruples, even though he could not participate in them." Well then, say the earnest men of Plymouth, please your Grace, bring in a bill for the abolition of these canons and rubrics, under cover of which so much false doctrine is being introduced into the Church of England. No, says the Archbishop: "The time is not yet come. A season of excitement is not a season fur reasonable deliberation" ! ! What can be more wretched, what more infatuated policy than this! While evangelical bishops are waiting for a "convenient season," the plague is spreading, and the whole religious character of England is being gradually but surely undermined.
But perhaps there may still be a lingering feeling in the mind of the reader, that though the bishops have utterly failed in their duty, the case of the Church of England is not so bad after all, inasmuch as the recent voluntary secessions of tractarians to the Church of Rome, have pratically remedied the evil, and removed much of the danger that might have been apprehended from Puseyism. Now, I have very little doubt that one main end of these secessions was just to inspire this very feeling of security, which too many are disposed to cherish; that while the Christian public was saying, "peace, peace," the traitors within the Establishment might the more securely prosecute their unholy designs. But let the number of those who have seceded be distinctly stated, and this delusion will at once be dissipated. From the way in which the secessions took place, two or three only going over to Rome at a tune, and these secessions being spread over a considerable space, the impression on a careless observer might have been, that a very large portion, indeed, of the English clergy had abandoned the Establishment.
But subjected to the test of arithmetic, how insignificant has been the Puseyite secession! Not above a hundred in all, of the tractarian clergy have gone over from the Church of England to Rome. Now, when it is remembered, that the English clergy amount to thirteen or fourteen thousand, and that of these, on the testimony of Mr Marks, whose statement is amply borne out by other authorities, "the greater part" even in 1842 were more or less infected with Puseyism, how slight is the consolation that any enlightened Christian can derive from the fact of the recent secessions! No; it is in no such way that a church can be delivered from the consequences of its own unfaithfulness. The church, as represented by its rulers, has acted the part of Eli: "When her sons made themselves vile, she restrained them not." When they have taught the grossest superstitions of Rome, she has allowed them, as long as seemed good to themselves, to retain their status and their livings. Therefore, without doubt, she shall be made to eat of the fruit of her own ways, and to be filled with her own devices.
There have been hopes, from time to time, that a movement in right earnest would be commenced by the evangelical clergy, and that through their means the Church of England, as a Protestant church, might still be saved. But all such hopes have been doomed to disappointment. No movement of such a kind has ever been attempted; and in an episcopal church, where reverence for the bishop is so high, no movement in opposition to the will of the bishops can ever have the least chance of success among the clergy. The truth is, however, that too many even of the evangelical clergy themselves have insensibly imbibed not a little of the tractarian poison and hence their apathy. Dr Pusey boasts of the fact, and Mr Marks acknowledges with deep regret that he has too much reason to do so.
"The more," says Mr M., "the signs of the times are contemplated, the more astonishing and distressing must they appear to every man who is not himself within the engulfing vortex. Dr Pusey enlarges with much apparent delight, not only on the direct influence of 'the movement' in bringing many forward publicly to join their ranks, but he expatiates largely on the still wider influence which is indirectly telling on great numbers who as yet do not profess to join them. Alas! this is but too true; and to this indirect influence silently stealing on many good men's minds, we may attribute that death-like silence they maintain, and all their apparent apathy and unconcern as to the present state of things. Here and there only can we hear the sound of alarm in all God's holy mountain. The watchmen seem wholly off their guard; insensible to any danger; or, what is still more distressing, partly won over to the very cause and people which they ought to watch and pray,and fight against, with every weapon of spiritual warfare which the armoury of God's word supplies." What a striking comment on this is supplied by the fact, that when, at a meeting of the Christian Knowledge Society, a meeting where two hundred of the evangelical clergy were present, after the regular buainess was despatched, a vote of sympathy was proposed for Dr Kalley, at the time lying in the jail of Funchal for his disinterested exertions in "promoting Christian knowledge," the motion fell to the ground for want of a seconder. Dr Kalley, as an independent minister, was destitute of the apostolic succession, and therefore his labours and sacrifices for that very cause 'which lead brought them together, called forth no response from their hearts. Amongst the evangelical ministers, there are here and there inen who have a real concern for the cause of truth; but they are isolated; tlicy are dispirited; and they have no heart to attempt any thing. "Nothing can be more hopeless," says one of themselves, in a letter to the Record, "than to look to the clergy to stay the flood of pharisaical formality and folly which is now breaking in upon the church."
They have only lift their voices and be silenced. One by one they can be, and are, put down without hope of resistance. The bishops, who have so much tolerance for undisguised Popery, have no tolerance at all for those who show themselves valiant for the truth, and act as men set for the defence of the gospel, ought to do. For years past the silencing system has been going on widely and effectively. Low church as well as high church bishops have given their hearty cooperation in extinguishing the witnesses of Christ. The "peace of the church" must not be disturbed; and therefore Puseyism must be allowed to have its own unresisted way. The latitudinarian Bishop of Durham has played as effectually into the hands of Dr Pusey as the Bishop of Exeter himself. Under the influence of this system, Mr Rees of Sunderland, Mr Miles of Bishopwearmouth, Mr Babb of Exeter, Mr Jukes of Hull, Mr Edelman of Wimbledon, and many others throughout England, have been compelled by episcopal tyranny to leave their charges for their fidelity in preaching the gospel: even Mr Marks himself; by the pamphlet from which I have quoted, brought down upon his head an episcopal admonition from the Bishop of Lincoln; and, but for the weight of his character, and the danger of exciting a revulsion by a harsh step, he ran the greatest risk of being expelled. From the clergy there is no hope!
Where then shall we turn? To the people, say some. The people will certainly be aroused at last by the corruptions and abuses of the Establishment, take the matter into their own hands, and demand reform with a voice that it shall be impossible to withstand.
The prospect of any effectual remedy from this quarter, seems just as hopeless as from any other. There may yet be some fitful movements on the part of the laity, but the experience of the past lends no countenance to the opinion that it will be of such a nature as is absolutely required to grapple with the magnitude of the evil. Every lay movement that has hitherto been attempted, has been of the most abortive kind and has demonstrated that the people were not really alive to the vital importance of the interests at stake. There has been some appearance of zeal for a time, but how easily has that zeal been sopited! Who does not remember the lay memorial to the Duke of Welling ton, as Chancellor of the University of Oxford, petitioning his Grace to take some effectual steps for preventing the spread of Popery in that ancient seat of learning, of which he was the head. That memorial was got up by Lord Ashley, received 10,000 signatures, and led many to anticipate as the consequence a death-blow to puseyism.
It was presented to his Grace, it was courteously received: but what was the result? His Grace found that the university possessed an ample "safeguard against the prevalence of erroreous opinions among its members," in the signature of the thirty-nine articles. That ought to satisfy every rational Protestant; and any farther step to banish erroneous and strange doctrine from in the university was in opinion altogether needless. The tutors, who, after signing these articles; bad for years been engaged irx inculcating on the students committed to their care doctrines utterly subversive of them, were allowed to go on exactly as before; and the 10,000 memorialists abandoned their movement for arresting the progress of Puseysm, as contentedly as if every point had been gained, and Protestantism were now triumphant. Such was the feeble conduct of the aristocratic opponents of Tractarianism. The opposition it has met with from more plebeian quarters has not been of a more encouraging nature. At Ware, at Ilford, and divers other places, there leave been great heats and strong demonstrations against the clergy, who have rashly introduced a vestment or a ceremony to which their parishioners have been unaccustomed. But in many of these instances, most manifest it has been, that there has been more of Protestant prejudgice, than of Protestant principle.
In not a few of the cases, which made the most noise, the people had listened without complaint to the Puseyism which Sabbath after Sabbath had been preached from the pulpit. It was only when the sermon began to be preached in the surplice, that heresy became suspected. When that surplice was laid aside, and the gown to which they had been accustomed was restored, all fear of Popery vanished, and they returned again with all reverence and respect to the ininistrations of the very men they had denounced as Romanizers. While such is the state of matters, both among the higher and lower orders of, the membership of the Church of England, what hope can there be of any deliverance effected by the laity? The truth is, that Puseyism is at this moment more popular with the people of England, than any other form of worship or belief. Here and there it may revolt the feelings of serious men, and drive them into the ranks of dissent; but throughout the nation at large, it has spread, and is spreading every day. The bounds of evangelical dissent are daily beconmig narrower, while the Romanized establishment is lengthening its cords and strengthening its stakes. What can be more significant of the popularity of Puseyisim, than the facts stated at the last meeting of the Wesleyan Conference's While 1000 churches have within the last few years been added to the Establishment, the Wesleyans have had it in serious contemplation to discontinue some of their oldest stations. In former years, large accessions used to be made to their numbers; now the tide has begun decidedly to turn. In 1847, the increase of members over the whole body was 600; in 1848, instead of an increase, there was a decrease of no less than 4500 members.
Now this, we are assured, on good authority, is only a type of what is taking place through out England, with other bodies of evangelical dissenters. Let this process go on, and in the course of a few years, how serious will be the result! And that it will go on, there is too much reason to apprehend. The tractarians have seized upon the education of England. There is no party in England at this moment, that is so vigorously plying the office of the schoolmaster as they. For centuries, the heads of the Church of England have dreaded, have deprecated, leave opposed, the education of the people. Now, under the influence of Puseyisim, they have thrown themselves into the educational movement with a zeal that has distanced all competitors. Is this because they have a sincere desire for the spread of knowledge, and for the elevation of the sunken masses of the community? No. The men who have well nigh banished science from Oxford, who have all but shut up Dr Buckland's class-room, and who are constantly decrying the right of private judgment, can have no real love for the spread of intelligence among the people. They are wise in their generation. They know that the diffusion of intellectual light would pale the fires of the tapers which they set up to burn at mid-day on their altars. If by then do they show so much zeal in the planting of schools, and the training of teachers? Because they know full well that education there will be, whether they choose it or not, and that the only chance of their making it further their own ends, is for themselves to take the direction of the movement. They have taken a leaf out of the book of the Jesuits.
It is stated by Rank'e, in his lives of the Popes, that though the gospel had spread far and wide ovor Europe, and seemed to threaten the immediate subversion of the papacy, before Loyola came into the field, such was teh effect of the Jesuit schools, opened by his disciples throughout Germany, with the express design of producing a counter reform, that in fifty years after Luther had appeared, the evangelical movement was stayed, and the Reformation was struggling for existence from the Alps to the shores of the Baltic.
The Jesuits in the English Church are profiting by the experience of thier predecessors. That at their educational zeal has the same end in view, as that of the ancient school of Loyola, is manifest from their own avowal. "It," (the doctrine of the holy Catholic Church,) says Dr Pusey, quoting with high approbation a saying of Dr Sikes of Gilsboro, "ought especially of all others, to be matter of catechetical teaching and training the doctrine of the church catholic, and the privileges of church membership, cannot be explained from pulpits." If "thrust on minds unprepared, and on an uncatechized church . . . . there will be one great outcry of Popery from one end of the country to the other." Dr Pusey himself, as we have seen, has not hesitated, from the pulpit, and the press, when occasion served, to teach the most undiluted Popery; but in general, both he and the knowing ones who take the lead in the tractarian movement, have deprecated the rashness of their disciples, who have incautiously proclaimed their designs from the pulpit, and awakened unnecessary opposition by their plainness of speech. Hence the zeal for the establishment of schools. Hence the felt necessity of "cateclietical teaching and training," that the minds of the young might become leavened with the "doctrine of the church catholic," by means of catechisms "compiled from authentic sources," and that quietly and easily England might be prepared for an early return into the bosom of Rome. From this source arises the most formidable danger to the Protestaritism of England.
For years past, the most important of the Normal Institutions in London, on the testimony of the Record, leave been in the hands of the tractarians. From these, teachers are sent to the schools of the National Society throughout all parts of the country; and while education is nominally promotes, the fetters of Popery and spiritual despotism are in reality being wreathed about the necks of the young. With such means in operation, in the church, in the university, and above all in the school, well may the tractarians boast, as they did years ago, that though "they may not succeed with the present generation, the next is their own."
Now if Popery, under the flimsy veil of Puseyism, gains the ascendant, what have true Protestants to expect Plainly persecution. Wherever the venom of the Tracts has spread, an intolerant and fanatical spirit has been manifested. "Of course," says the Rev. F. W. Faber, "it belongs to the state to silence heretics whom the church has condemned"! How comes it, that in the middle of the nineteenth century the Bishop of Exeter is taking out authority to cast Mr Shore into prison because he has presumed, after leaving the Church of Ennland, to preach as a dissenting minister? Just because he is carrying out the principles of the Tracts to their legitimate conclusions.
There are few as yet who have the hardihood to act out their principles like Dr Philpots; and it is not very easy to believe, that the time has yet arrived, when the outrage he is meditating will he tolerated by the British public. But is it not in itself a portentous thing, that there should be found one man in all England, seventeen years after the Reform Bi11, to venture on such high handed tyranny; and that, when the Liberal ministry, the quondam denouncers of intolerance, the advocates of universal freedom, are appealed to in behalf of Mr Shore to deliver him from the fangs of the persecutor, they find it necessary to make the subject of an open question? When matters have arrived at this pass already, what may we expect, when the youth, under Puseyite training, come to act a public part on the stage of the world? In every manifestation Puseyisim is essentially persecuting. Witness the clause in the leases of the property held under the dean and chapter of Westminster. On that property, there are brothels and dens of infamy without number. These can be tolerated; but evangelical dissenters cannot. The property may be used for the basest purposes, and the tenant is scatheless. But let it be "used for dissenting worship," and ipso facto "the lease is made void"! Let men with such principles, and such a spirit, only increase in numbers, to countenance one another in their intolerance, and the example set by the Bishop of Exeter may find many an imitator.
Well may Dr Croly, speaking of the prospects of Protestantisim, draw the following dark and gloomy picture: "The preacher is bound to tell you," says he, "that a trial of fearful bloom is hasting over the whole Protestant world. It may be the Divine will to avert the hour; but to all human appearance it is inevitable; and this is no passing struggle -- no casual dimness of the day, but the steady, sweeping, resistless coming of night. We feel it already in the chill that has reached some hearts. We hear it in the growing stir of those voices which hail it as the coming of thier hour, the spoiler's hour. We may see it in the sports of those strange meteors, which ape springing from the darkness and fog of the human morass, already gleam with such lurid rays. Well may we ask ourselves, if they can thus glare, creeping along the edge of the horizon, what will they be, when the hour and power of darkness is all their own, when they shall shoot above our heads, and unfolding all their trains, lord it in fire through the storm."
Now, while corruption has thus been proceeding in the church, what has the state been doing? It has been actively engaged, in almost every possible way, in aggravating the evil. It has been fighting against the cause of Christ, and casting the weight of its influence into the scale of every manifold form of error and superstition. It has disestablished the evangelical church of Scotland, because it would not consent to obey human law in opposition to the law of God. It has spoiled Trinitarian dissenters of property that legally belonged to them, to bestow it on Socinians, who, by the civil tribuinals themselves, were declared to have not the least shadow of right to it. Above all, it has shown the most determinate purpose, at home and abroad, to foster, and patronise, and exalt the emissaries of the Man of Sin.4 The favourite scheme of all men of all parties, is now as fast as possible to raise a state-paid Popish hierarchy in Ireland.
The increased endowineiit to Maynooth was only a step in the progress of national apostacy in this direction. And what is the use to which the L.30,000, annually paid by this Protestant country for the support of that college, is devoted? To teach fanatical students, that "heretics" may justly be "taken and put to death"! It was given in evidence on oath, before a parliamentary committee, that books inculcating this atrocious doctrine are the regular text-books of Maynooth. And yet, as a reward for such instruction, the grant must be raised from L.0000 to L.30,000 a year. And, at the same time, with such a charge hanging over it, while we increase the grant, with unparalleled infatuation we voluntarily cut ourselves off from all opportunity of inquiring into the nature of the instruction there communicated. Formerly there were Protestant inspectors who might visit the college, and make such inquiries as they saw fit.
Now, there are none but Roman Catholics; and even these are bound up from inquiring either into doctrine or discipline. Thus is Protestant money given to enable the sworn servants of Antichrist with all security to dig the mine, which, when it explodes, will involve Protestants and Protestantism in one common ruin. Unless the rulers of this great nation had been smitten with judicial blindness, it would have been impossible that they could ever have consented to such a measure. What would leave been thought of the sanity of the senators of James I. if; after being informed of the plot of Percy and Guy Fawks, to blow up the two houses of parliament they had resolved, first, to vote a large grant to be placed at the entire disposal of the conspirators, and then, that no one should be permitted to disturb them in their operations in the vaults beneath? But this is exactly what has been done by the Maynooth endowment bill of 1545. And then, after the priests are thus trained, after they are filled to the very brim with rancour against the truth, and all who love and defend it, the church in which they minister is to be raised to the honour of a national establishment. There is no Intelligent person who doubts that this is the prospect which we have immediately before us. It may perhaps still he deferred fur a short time longer, but that the consummation of our national apostacy is not far distant cannot be doubted.
With Popery spreading faster -and farther every day in the Protestant Church of England, and an avowedly Roman Catholic Establishment raised side by side with it, while large masses of the population are daily sinking into heathenism, who can hesitate to admit the probability, that here as well as elsewhere, the truth of God will be suppressed at no very distant period? The sure word of prophecy seems distinctly to point to Great Britain as the "broad street of the great city," where the dead bodies of Christ's witnesses shall he exposed to insult for three years and a half; and the signs of the times, both in church and state, give but too ample confermation to the same opinion.
1The "Seventh Vial," as we shall see by and by, makes the "dead bodies" to signify individual believers, destitute of any church organization.
2 See Elliott, "Vindicae," P. 247
3See Christian's Monthly Magazine No. IV 1844
4Lord Eliot, late Irish Secretary, in advocating the Charitable Bequests bill for Irehind, stated, as a recommendation of it, that by its provisions, "the Roman Catholics were placed on a better footing than any other class of her majesty's subjects" !! This is the decided tendency of all legislation at present, as might easily be shown.