ROME AND HER CHURCH. 



133 



Christendom how their faultless and unerring mother had heen reviled 

 and slandered by the heretical pen of a Scottish preacher ! 



" But no splendour of dignity, no elevation of rank, no power of 

 authority, could suffice effectually to controvert facts, nor wash out the 

 foul stain of human blood which crimsons every page in the history of 

 that all tolerant and all-merciful church — the Romish. 



" We know what the Catholics have been when in power; we have 

 no ' guarantee' from them of what they will be ; — the doctrines of 

 their religion inculcate feelings and sentiments which must ever keep 

 them morallv and politically at variance with us, and until we can with 

 safetv trust the wolf into the sheepfold, we may in vain hope to admit 

 Catholics to a participation in our Protestant legislature." 



The " text" chosen by our learned and reverend author is at once 

 striking and prophetic ; here it is : — 



" By thy sorceries were all nations deceived, and in her was found the 

 blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain vpon the 

 earth." — Revelations, xviii. 23, 24. 



He then proceeds with his discourse, in a manner every way calcu- 

 lated to impress the reader with the vast importance of his subject, and 

 the magnitude of the responsibility which those who undertake to preach 

 " the word as it is in Christ" take upon them, &c. But let us hear the 

 learned divine himself : — 



" These striking words exhibit the two principal features of a very 

 extraordinarv picture, which we find in this book of Revelation, repre- 

 senting a delusive and persecuting power that was to make its appear- 

 ance in some after-period. By this destructive power, the best inter- 

 preters of Scripture have always understood the church of Rome, long 

 ago established under the pretence of an authority purely divine, but 

 still applied to purposes the most different imaginable : and, indeed, 

 whoever shall compare the picture itself with the state of the world for 

 manv ages past, respecting religion, will, I doubt i.ot, be obliged to ov> a 

 that it is as complete and characteristic a representation of Popery, in 

 her most flourishing times, as could have heen given, had that ' mo- 

 ther of abominations' actually existed when she was shadowed out to 

 the prophetic mind of our apostle. 



" The chapter from which we have taken our text contains a lively 

 prediction of the ruins awaiting the church of Rome in some future 

 time, as published by three angelic voices : — the first declares the cer- 

 tainty of that ruin ; the second points to its extremity ; and the third 

 pronounces it to be irrecoverable, assigning the reasons of a retribution 

 so awful, viz. — her spiritual witchcraft and her shocking cruelty, both 

 verv strongly expressed in the words before us : ' For by thy sorceries 

 were all nations deceived ; and in her was found the blood of pro- 

 phets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.' 



" The last expressions require no paraphrase ; they are dreadfully in- 

 telligible. The first are explained by the apostle Paul, where, painting 

 the man of sin, who was to be revealed in colours which correspond 

 wonderfully with those contained in the apostle John, he tells us that 

 this son of perdition was to come with all deceivableness of unrighteous- 

 ness in tlicm that perish ; an emphatical Hebrewism, which seems to 

 intimate not only that the grand apostate in view should erect and 

 maintain his kingdom by the most impious frauds, but that he should 



