272 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1870- 



there is in the Old Testament prophecies very much that 

 is neither matter of mere words nor matter of poetical 

 diction, which even Mr. Newman cannot suppose fulfilled 

 in the Christian Church. 



Let us for the moment concede to our author the 

 right to choose for comparison with the prophecies the 

 Medieval Church at the time when it was most fully 

 persuaded that it was its function to realise the theocracy 

 of the prophets, and when accordingly its rulers con 

 sciously gave it, as far as possible, the shape of a visible 

 empire over the kings of the earth. Did the Church 

 even in that day appear as in literal agreement with the 

 images of prophecy in anything beyond the most vague 

 generalities ? Can we suppose that any prophet would 

 have realised in that Church the literal reproduction of 

 his image of the theocracy ? 



True, there were certain points of agreement. He 

 looked for a visible sovereignty of God s people, and 

 here was an asserted sovereignty of the Church over the 

 kings of the earth. He looked perhaps for the continu 

 ance of the priestly office and functions, here we have 

 priests offering the Sacrifice of the Mass. He looked for 

 a sovereignty of God s law in the theocracy ; the Church 

 professes to rule by the new law of the gospel which is 

 the continuation of the old. Let us concede farther that 

 the prophet would so far fall in. with the spirit of the 

 Catholic Church as not to pierce through the hollowness 

 of these pretensions, and declare that all this was but the 

 parody of a theocracy ; he yet could not see in the then 

 state of the Church a literal glorification of the theocracy. 

 The Kingdom of the Church if on the whole it had the 

 upper hand over the kingdoms of the earth, yet found 

 in them no willing subjects. There was no permanent 

 visible security of the unending dominion of God s people. 

 And at the time when the subjection of the powers 

 of earth to the Western Church was most complete the 

 Church itself was a divided Kingdom. Once more, the 



