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prerogatives the Pope and served himself heir, was thus the High-priest of Satan, so, when the Pope entered into a league and alliance with that system of Devil-worship, and consented to occupy the very position of that Pontifex, and to bring all its abominations into the Church, as he has done, he necessarily became the Prime Minister of the Devil, and, of course, come as thoroughly under his power as ever the previous Pontiff had been. How exact the fulfilment of the Divine statement that the coming of the Man of Sin was to be "after the working or energy of Satan." Here, then, is the grand conclusion to which we are compelled, both on historical and Scriptural grounds, to come: As the mystery of godliness is God manifest in the flesh, so the mystery of iniquity is--so far as such a thing is possible--the Devil incarnate.

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CONCLUSION.

I HAVE now finished the task I proposed to myself. Even yet the evidence is not nearly exhausted; but, upon the evidence which has been adduced, I appeal to the reader if I have not proved every point which I engaged to demonstrate. Is there one, who has candidly considered the proof that has been led, that now doubts that Rome is the Apocalyptic Babylon? Is there one who will venture to deny that, from the foundation to the topmost stone, it is essentially a system of Paganism? What, then, is to be the practical conclusion from all this?

1. Let every Christian henceforth and for ever treat it as an outcast from the pale of Christianity. Instead of speaking of it as a Christian Church, let it be recognised and regarded as the Mystery of Iniquity, yea, as the very Synagogue of Satan. With such overwhelming evidence of its real character, it would be folly--it would be worse--it would be treachery to the cause of Christ--to stand merely on the defensive, to parley with its priests about the lawfulness of Protestant orders, the validity of Protestant sacraments, or the possibility of salvation apart from its communion. If Rome is now to be admitted to form a portion of the Church of Christ, where is the system of Paganism that has ever existed, or that now exists, that could not put in an equal claim? On what grounds could the worshipers of the original Madonna and child in the days of old be excluded "from the commonwealth of Israel," or shown to be "strangers to the covenants of promise"? On what grounds could the worshippers of Vishnu at this day be put beyond the bounds of such wide catholicity? The ancient Babylonians held, the modern Hindoos still hold, clear and distinct traditions of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Atonement. Yet, who will venture to say that such nominal recognition of the cardinal articles of Divine revelation could relieve the character of either the one system or the other from the brand of the most deadly and God-dishonouring heathenism? And also in regard to Rome. True, it nominally admits Christian terms and Christian names; but all that is apparently Christian in its system is more than neutralised by the malignant Paganism that it embodies. Grand that the bread the Papacy presents to its votaries can be proved to have been originally made of the finest of the wheat; but what then, if every particle of that bread is combined with prussic acid or strychnine? Can the excellence of the bread overcome the virus of the poison? Can there be anything but death, spiritual and eternal death, to those who continue to feed upon the poisoned food that it offers? Yes, here is the question, and let it be

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fairly faced. Can there be salvation in a communion in which it is declared to be a fundamental principle, that the Madonna is "our greatest hope; yea, the SOLE GROUND OF OUR HOPE"? The time is come when charity to the perishing souls of men, hoodwinked by a Pagan priesthood, abusing the name of Christ, requires that the truth in this matter should be clearly, loudly, unflinchingly proclaimed. The beast and the image of the beast alike stand revealed in the face of all Christendom; and now the tremendous threatening of the Divine Word in regard to their worship fully applies (Rev. xiv. 9, 10): "And the third angel followed them, saying, 'If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, poured without mixture into the cup of His indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb.'" These words are words of awful import; and woe to the man who has already been admitted by Elliott, contain a "chronological prophecy," a prophecy not referring to the Dark Ages, but to a period not far distant from the consummation, when the Gospel should be widely diffused, and when bright light should be cast on the character and doom of the apostate Church of Rome (ver. 6-8). They come, in the Divine chronology of events, immediately after an angel has proclaimed, "BABYLON IS FALLEN, IS FALLEN." We have, as it were, with our own ears heard this predicted "Fall of Babylon" announced from the high places of Rome itself, when the seven hills of the "Eternal City" reverberated with the guns that proclaimed, not merely to the citizens of the Roman republic, but to the wide world, that "PAPACY HAD FALLEN, de facto and de jure, from the temporal throne of the Roman State." Now, it is in the order of the prophecy, after this fall of Babylon, that this fearful threatening comes. Can there, then, be a doubt that this threatening specially and peculiarly applies to this very time? Never till now was the real nature of the Papacy fully revealed; never till now was the Image of the beast set up. Till the Image of the beast was erected, till the blasphemous decree of the Immaculate Conception was promulged, no such apostacy had taken place, even in Rome, no such guilt had been contracted, as now lies at the door of the great Babylon. This, then, is a subject of infinite importance of the great Babylon. This, then, is a subject of infinite importance to every one within the pale of the Church of Rome-to every one also who is looking, as so many at present are doing, towards the City of the Seven Hills. If any one can prove that the Pope does not assume all the prerogatives and bear substantially all the blasphemous titles of that Babylonian beast that "had the wound by a sword, and did live," and if it can be shown that the Madonna,

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that has so recently with one consent been set up, is not in every essential respect the same as the Chaldean "Image" of the beast, they may indeed afford to despise the threatening contained in these words. But if neither the one nor the other can be proved (and I challenge the strictest scrutiny in regard to both), then every one within the pale of the Papacy may well tremble at such a threatening. Now, then, as never before, may the voice Divine, and that a voice of the tenderest love, he heard sounding from the Eternal throne to every adherent of the Mystic Babylon, "Come out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues."

2. But if the guilt and danger of those who adhere to the Roman Church, believing it to be the only Church where salvation can be found, be so great, what must be the guilt of those who, with a Protestant profession, nevertheless uphold the doomed Babylon? The constitution of this land requires our Queen to swear, before the crown can be put up her head, before she can take her seat on the throne, that "she believes" that the essential doctrines of Rome are "idolatrous." All the Churches of Britain, endowed and unendowed, alike with one voice declare the very same They all proclaim that the system of Rome is a system of blasphemous idolatry....And yet the members of these Churches can endow and uphold, with Protestant money, the schools, the colleges, the chaplains of that idolatrous system. If the guilt of Romanists, then, be great, the guilt of Protestants who uphold such a system must be tenfold greater. That guilt has been greatly accumulating during the last three or four years. While the King of Italy, in the very States of the Church--what but lately were the Pope's own dominions--has been suppressing the monasteries (and in the space of two years no less than fifty-four were suppressed, and their property confiscated), the British Government has been acting on a policy the very reverse, has not only been conniving at the erection of monasteries, which are prohibited by the law of the land, but has actually been bestowing endowment on these illegal institutions under the name of Reformatories. It was only a short while ago, that it was stated, on authority of the Catholic Directory, that in the space of three years, fifty-two new convents were added to the monastic system of Great Britain, almost the very number that the Italians had confiscated, yet Christian men and Christian Churches look on with indifference. Now, if ever there was an excuse for thinking lightly of the guilt contracted by our national support of idolatry, that excuse will no longer avail. The God of Providence, in India, has been demonstrating that He is the God of Revelation. He has been proving, to an awe-struck world, by events that made every ear to tingle, that every word of wrath, written three thousand years ago against idolatry, is in as full force at this day as when He desolated the covenanted people of Israel for their idols and sold them into the hands of their enemies. If men begin to see that it

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is a dangerous thing for professing Christians to uphold the Pagan idolatry of India, they must be blind indeed if they do not equally see that it must be as dangerous to uphold the Pagan idolatry of Rome. Wherein does the Paganism of Rome differ from that of Hindooism? Only in this, that the Roman Paganism is the more complete, more finished, more dangerous, more insidious Paganism of the two.

I am afraid, that after all that has been said, not a few will revolt from the above comparative estimate of Popery and undisguised Paganism. Let me, therefore, fortify my opinion by the testimonies of two distinguished writers, well qualified to pronounce on this subject. They will, at least, show that I am not singular in the estimate which I have formed. The writers to whom I refer, are Sir George Sinclair of Ulbster, and Dr. Bonar of Kelso. Few men have studied the system of Rome more thoroughly than Sir George, and in his Letters to the Protestants of Scotland he has brought all the fertility of his genius, the curiosa felicitas of his style, and the stores of his highly cultivated mind, to bear upon the elucidation of his theme. Now, the testimony of Sir George is this: "Romanism is a refined system of Christianised heathenism, and chiefly differs from its prototype in being more treacherous, more cruel, more dangerous, more intolerant." The mature opinion of Dr. Bonar is the very same, and that, too, expressed with the Cawnpore massacre particularly in view: "We are doing for Popery at home," says he, "what we have done for idolaters abroad, and in the end the results will be the same; nay, worse; for Popish cruelty, and thirst for the blood of the innocent, have been the most savage and merciless that the earth has seen. Cawnpore, Delhi, and Bareilly, are but dust in comparison with the demoniacal brutalities perpetrated by the Inquisition, and by the armies of Popish fanaticism." These are the words of truth and soberness, that no man acquainted with the history of modern Europe can dispute. There is great danger of their being overlooked at this moment. It will be a fatal error if they be. Let not the pregnant face be overlooked, that, while the Apocalyptic history runs down to the consummation of all things, in that Divine foreshadowing all the other Paganisms of the world are in a manner cast into the shade by the Paganism of Papal Rome. It is against Babylon that sits on the seven hills that the saints are forewarned; it is for worshipping the beast and his image pre-eminently, that "the vials of the wrath of God, that liveth and abideth for ever," are destined to be outpoured upon the nations. Now, if the voice of God has been heard in the late Indian calamities, the Protestantism of Britain will rouse itself to sweep away at once and for ever all national support, alike from the idolatry of Hindostan and the still more malignant idolatry of Rome. Then, indeed, there would be a lengthening of our tranquillity, then there would be hope that Britain would be exalted, and that its power would

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rest on a firm and stable foundation. But if we will not "here the voice, if we receive not correction, if we refuse to return," if we persist in maintaining, at the national charge, "that image of jealousy provoking to jealousy," then, after the repeated and ever-INCREASING strokes that the justice of God has laid on us, we have very reason to fear that the calamities that have fallen so heavily upon our countrymen in India, may fall still more heavily upon ourselves, within our own borders at home; for it was when "the image of jealousy" was set up in Jerusalem by the elders of Judah, that the Lord said, "Therefore will I also deal in fury; mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity; and though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them." He who let loose the Sepoys, to whose idolatrous feelings and antisocial propensities we have pandered so much, to punish us for the guilty homage we had paid to their idolatry, can just as easily let loose the Papal Powers of Europe, to take vengeance upon us for our criminal fawning upon the Papacy.

3. But, further, if the views established in this work be correct, it is time that the Church of God were aroused. Are the witnesses still to be slain, and has the Image of the Beast only within the last year or two been set up, at whose instigation the bloody work is to be done? Is this, then, the time for indifference, for sloth, for lukewarmness in religion? Yet, alas! how few are they who are lifting up their voice like a trumpet, who are sounding the alarm in God's holy mountain--who are bestirring themselves according to the greatness of the emergency--to gather the embattled hosts of the Lord to the coming conflict? The emissaries of Rome for years have been labouring unceasingly night and day, in season and out of season, in every conceivable way, to advance their Master's cause, and largely have they succeeded. But "the children of light" have allowed themselves to be lulled into a fatal security; they have folded their hands; they have got to sleep as soundly as if Rome had actually disappeared from the face of the earth--as if Satan himself had been bound and cast into the bottomless pit, and the pit had shut its mouth upon him, to keep him fast for a thousand years. How long shall this state of things continue? Oh, Church of God, awake, awake! Open your eyes, and see if there be not dark and lowering clouds on the horizon that indicate an approaching tempest. Search the Scriptures for yourselves; compare them with the facts of history, and say, if there be not reason after all to suspect that there are sterner prospects before the saints than most seem to wot of. If it may turn out that the views opened up in these pages are Scriptural and well-founded, they are at least worthy of being made the subjects of earnest and prayerful inquiry. It never can tend to good to indulge an uninquiring and delusive feeling of safety, when, if they be true, the only safety is to be found in a of safety, when, if they be true, the only safety is to be found in a timely knowledge of the danger and due preparation, by all activity, all zeal, all spirituality of mind, to meet it. On the supposition that peculiar dangers are at hand, and that God in Hid prophetic

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Word has revealed them, His goodness is manifest. He has made known the danger, that, being forewarned, we may be forearmed; that, knowing our own weakness, we may cast ourselves on His Almighty grace; that we may feel the necessity of a fresh baptism of the Holy Ghost; that the joy of the Lord being our strength, we may be through and decided for the Lord, and for the Lord alone, that we may work, every one in his own sphere, with increased energy and diligence, in the Lord's vineyard, and save all the souls we can, while yet opportunity lasts, and the dark predicted night has not come, wherein no man can work. Though there be dark prospects before us, there is no room for despondency; no ground for any one to say that, with such prospects, effort is vain. The Lord can bless and prosper to His own glory, the efforts of those who truly gird themselves to fight His battles in the most hopeless circumstances; and, at the very time when the enemy cometh in like a flood, He can, by His Spirit, lift up a standard against him. Nay, not only is this a possible thing, there is reason, from the prophetic word, to believe that so it shall actually be; that the last triumph of the Man of Sin shall not be achieved without a glorious struggle first, on the part of those who are leal-hearted to Zion's King. But if we would really wish to do anything effectual in this warfare, it is indispensable that we know, and continually keep before our eyes, the stupendous character of that Mystery of Iniquity embodied in the Papacy that we have to grapple with. Popery boasts of being the "old religion;" and truly, from what we have seen, it appears that it is ancient indeed. It can trace its lineage far beyond the era of Christianity, back over 4000 years, to near the period of the Flood and the building of the Tower of Babel. During all that period its essential elements have been nearly the same, and these elements have a peculiar adaptation to the corruption of human nature. Most seem to thing that Popery is a system merely to be scouted and laughed at; but the Spirit of God everywhere characterises it in quite a different way. Every statement in the Scripture shows that it was truly described when it was characterised as "Satan's Masterpiece"--the perfection of his policy for deluding and ensnaring the world. It is not the state-craft of politicians, the wisdom of philosophers, or the resources of human science, that can cope with the wiles and subtleties of the Papacy. Satan, who inspires it, has triumphed over all these again and again. Why, the very nations where the worship of the Queen of Heaven, with all its attendant abominations, has flourished most in all ages, have been precisely the most civilised, the most polished, the most distinguished for arts and sciences. Babylon, where it took its rise, was the cradle of astronomy. Egypt, that nursed it in its bosom, was the mother of all the arts; the Greek cities of Asia Minor, where it found a refuge when expelled from Chaldea, were famed for their poets and philosophers, among the former Homer himself being numbered; and the nations of the European Continent, where literature has long been cultivated, are now

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