364 
Review , whether “ the kingdom of heaven which Jesus intended 
and foresaw ” bears “ even a recognizable resemblance to the 
proud, cruel, crushing, darkening, oppressive despotism which 
has for ages held sway in His name from the chambers 
of the Vatican? or even to the mitigated and modified traves- 
ties which reign, or have reigned, at Lambeth, Geneva, or 
Byzantium ?”* But Mr. Greg has mistaken the scum on the sur- 
face for the stream — deep, rapid, and pure — which runs beneath. 
He has forgotten that the leaven works at first below, and that 
it invariably comes to the top last of all. And we may convict 
him out of his own mouth, if not of error, at least of partiality. 
He is obliged, to make good his charges against Christianity, to 
avail himself of the scandals of the past. To point a taunt at 
the Christian Church he has been obliged to refer to a condition 
of things which she has obviously outgrown. Jesus Christ 
not only “ foresaw ” that His Name would be used to support 
a state of things of which He disapproved, but what Mr. Greg 
would find it less easy to grant, He foretold it. He prophesied 
that many should arise in His Name, and say, “ Lo ! here is 
Christ ; and, lo ! there 33 ;f but He warned His disciples not to 
believe them. He told them how Satan would robe himself as 
an angel of light, and would deceive, if it were possible, even 
the elect themselves. | He knew that the powers of evil would do 
their utmost not only to oppose, but to misrepresent the gospel 
He had come to preach. But though “ the kings of the earth 33 
should “ stand up, and the rulers take counsel together, against 
the Lord and His Anointed,” He knew that “ He that dwelletli 
in the heavens” would “ laugh them to scorn, the Lord” 
would “have them in derision.”§ He knew that at His touch 
one moral disease after another would fly from among mankind ; 
and that, the evil spirit once departed, they should sit at His 
feet clothed and in their right mind. He knew that when the 
earthquake of inward conflict shook the nations as His Church 
“ filled up that which was behind of the afflictions of Christ,” || 
the candid and earnest seeker after truth would be constrained 
to cry with the centurion — “Truly this was the Son of God.”^[ 
For He was in truth the Word of the Father ; the only-begotten 
Son, whose function it was to make Him known to mankind, 
“ Who dwelleth in the Light that no man can approach unto, 
Whom no man hath seen or can see, to Whom be honour and 
* Contemporary Review, November, 187G„ 
f St. Matt. xxiv. 23. J Ft. Matt. xxiv. 24. § Ps. ii. 
|| Col. i. 24. St. Matt, xxvii. 54. 
