blasphemies against God and his name,' spoken by the great mouth of the symbolic Beast of the Apocalypse. Ουρανῳ εστήριξε καρη, και επι χθονι βαινει,

Little did the blind bard of Chios think, that there would ever exist on this world's theatre a succession of living men that would so realize his most daring ideal personification.2-Great was the mystery of godliness,GOD, THE ETERNAL GOD, AS CHRIST, HUMBLING HIMSELF TO BE MAN. Great, in measure only second to this, was the counter-mystery of iniquity, so as it was seen when unfolded in its perfection, MAN, MORTAL

MAN, EXALTING HIMSELF, IN THE ASSUMED CHARACTER OF CHRIST'S VICAR, TO BE AS GOD.

2. But could he succeed and gain submission to these his pretensions? Was it possible that such self-exaltation above man, as well as blasphemy and impiety against God, should be deferred to ?-In regard of the Beast in the prefiguration, the Angel declared that such would be the case, both with kings and people. "These kings have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the Beast:"3 and again: "All the world wondered after the Beast; and they worshipped the Beast, saying,

1 Compare John x. 33; "We stone thee for blasphemy: because thou, being a man, makest thyself equal with God;"-indeed this was the charge on which the High Priest condemned Christ: Matt. xxvi. 64, 65. Compare also another kind of blasphemy against God, noted Matt. ix. 3; "He blasphemeth: for who can forgive sins, but God only?" To either charge of blasphemy the Pope must alike plead, Guilty!

2 I cannot but cite in illustration, the following from the "Speculum Vitæ Humanæ" of Rodericus Sancius, a Romish Bishop and Referendary of Pope Paul II (the book was published at Rome, of course by authority, in 1468, and many times afterwards :) "Obtundit omnem humanum intellectum illius sacratissimi status majestas. Si nihil in hoc sæculo excellentius statu simplicium sacerdotum, quid cogitandum est de summo Pontifice qui vices veri Dei gerit in terris? qui non ad humanum tantùm principatum, sed ad divinum, non ad principandum solùm mortalibus sed angelis, non ad judicandum vivos sed mortuos, non in terrâ solùm sed in cœlo." The passage is cited by Gieseler, iii. 263. 3 Apoc. xvii. 13.

4 The force of the phrase "wondered after the Beast," a phrase used both in xiii. 3, εθαυμασθη εν όλῃ τῇ γῇ οπίσω τε θηριό, and in xvii. 8, θαυμασονται δι κατοικέντες επι της γης βλεποντες το θηριον, is illustrated by Mr. Daubuz from the following line of Euripides, Medea, 1141;

Δεσποινα δ ̓ ἣν νυν αντι σε θαυμαζομεν·

and so shown to imply the deference, awe, and subjection yielded by an inferior to a superior.

Who is like unto the Beast? Who is able to make war with him? And power was given him over all kindreds and nations: and all that dwell on the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the Lamb's book of life."-And, in regard of the Popes prefigured, the fact of universal submission to them is almost the most notorious, as well as most wonderful fact, in the history of Western Christendom.

"1

Thus as respects the submission of kings. Already in the eighth century this was Gregory the Second's boast to the Greek Emperor; "All the kings of the West reverence the Pope as a God on earth." Its truth was manifested when his successor Stephen entered France as a suppliant. For Pepin and his Franks received him, we read, as a Divinity.2 In similar devotedness Pepin, when aspiring to the French crown, applied to the Pope to authorize his usurpation: and, on his sanction, both the nation and western world implicitly acquiesced in the title. Even in Charlemagne's case, though he grasped in his hands, on investiture with the imperial title, a paramount sovereignty, yet was it an act of deference as towards a superior, to receive the title and empire as the Pope's donation. And this was soon the coronation oath,

an oath not enjoined only by Popes, but agreed to by the Western Emperors,-that they would "adhere and be submissive to the Pope and Roman Church."—Even the Pope's making and unmaking of kings and emperors was from time to time submitted to by them. The Emperor Otho, like Rodolphus before him, both received the Imperial crown as a Papal grant, on the Pope's de

3 4

1 Ον ἁι πασαι βασιλειαι της δύσεως ὡς Θεον επίγειον εχεσι. Gib. ix. 137. This was A.D. 727. 2 Sismondi, Fall of Roman Empire, ii. 60. Under the sacerdotal monarchy of St. Peter," says Gibbon generally, “the nation began to resume the practice of seeking on the banks of the Tiber their kings, their laws, and the oracles of their fate." ix. 151.

4 "We have elected him," wrote the Pope in 875, respecting the coronation of Charles the Bald, Emperor, to a Synod at Pavia, "with consent of our Brethren, the Bishops of the Holy Roman Church."-See further my Notes, p. 148.

5 Modern Univ. Hist. xlii. 77. Or something nearly tantamount. So Martene de Rit. ii. 208; "Vis sanctissimo in Christo Patri, Domino Romano Pontifici, et sanctæ Romanæ Ecclesiæ, subjectionem debitam et fidem reverenter exhibere ?" Then the king says, with his two hands on the altar, "Volo," &c.

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position of the former Emperor; and, when the Pope reclaimed the grant, resigned it. The same did other princes also. The Spanish king voluntarily resigned his kingdom to the Pope, that he might receive it back as a fief from Christ's Vicar:2 and John, king of England, in like manner resigned his crown to the Papal Legate, that he might receive it again as a vassal, feudatory to the Roman See.-Even the kingdoms of the new world they asked of, and received as fiefs from him.3 "Power was given him over all kindreds and nations." -And mark the other signs of their subjection to him. They hold the stirrup, and lead the palfrey that he rides on. They prostrate themselves, and kiss the foot he offers. In the Emperor Henry's notable case of disobedience to the Papal will, the terror of an interdict drives him in abject humiliation to entreat for pardon and barefoot, and in sackcloth, he waits three wintry days and nights outside the gates of the city, till the Pope relents and grants it. Nay! princes quit their kingdoms, and go on dangerous, perhaps wicked, crusades at his call. It was on the belief of his being Lord of their salvation; and able to give them forgiveness of sins, and the crown of life.

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If such the submission of kings, what need be said of

1 Waddington, p. 283.

2 Peter of Arragon.-Ranke (i. p. 30) dwells on these extraordinary marks of Papal authority and greatness: and observes, with reference to them, that at the beginning of the xith century Prior Gherrus' prophecy seemed near fulfilment, that the secular monarchies would be broken into tetrarchies, and the church free under the Great Crowned Priest. 3 See my Vol. ii. pp. 71, 73.

Louis II was the first king that held the Pope's bridle; Nicholas I (A.D. 860) the first Pope that exacted it. In the year 1155 the haughty Emperor Frederic Barbarossa submitted to the same. Wadd. 678, 312. Even up to the xvith century the same was done; as Ranke observes i. 37.

5 Justinian II, A.D. 708, offered to the Pope the homage of kissing his feet, and prostration. Encyclop. Metrop. Ch. 53, Art. History. Pepin did the same to Pope Stephen. Then the custom became common.-On a new Pope's coronation the custom is that clothed in Pontificals, and seated on the high altar at St Peter's (as noted by me just before, p. 153 Note 1) the Cardinals kiss his hands and feet; others (including kings) his feet only.-So the Poet Mantuan : Ense potens gemino, cujus vestigia adorant Cæsar, et aurato vestiti murice reges.

What a contrast in the only recorded case of the kissing of Christ's feet, viz. by Mary Magdalene !

6 The same terrors of the Interdict were felt and yielded to by Philip of France and John of England. 7 Waddington, p. 282.

the people? Not in respect of his power in secular things, but things much higher, who knows not of the universal reverence, and faith in his blasphemous pretensions, exhibited through the long middle ages by the multitudes of Christendom? Look at the thronging numbers on pilgrimage to Rome, in assurance of the salvation he promises them! Look at their reception of his dogmas in matters of faith, as very oracles from Heaven! Look at their purchasing of his indulgences, with often hard-earned money, in belief of so delivering the captive souls of departed relatives, as well as their own souls, from the pains of purgatory and of hell! 3 Look at the Sicilian ambasssadors prostrated before him, with the cry, "Lamb of God! that takest away the sins of the world!" It was the famous Gerson's declaration; "The people think of the Pope as the one God that has power over all things in earth and heaven.' And this in a measure even after a Reformation, as well as before it.-Truly it was fulfilled that was written, "All the earth wondered after the Beast:" and again: "All shall worship him but they whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life."-It was the last

1 See my Vol. II. p. 17.

2 I have already observed on the Papal Bulls being called Oracles. Let me add, as a specimen of the popular language and estimation of his Bulls, the inscription on a triumphal arch raised on occasion of the entry of Sixtus IV. (Daub. 581 :)

Oraclo vocis mundi moderaris habenas;

Et merito in terris crederis esse Deus.

3 See the illustration of this in my Vol. II. p. 67.

So Southey, Book of the Church, p. 190; also Brightman, p. 436, from Paulus Emylius, Book vii.

"Estimant Papam esse unum Deum, qui habet potestatem omnem in cœlo et in terrâ." Quoted by Daubuz, p. 581.

6 E. g. Ravaillac's language as late as A. D. 1600, that "God was the Pope, and the Pope God," (Foulis, p. 39,) illustrates the Pope's continued worship by devoted numbers.

7 On the all in these passages, at which some have stumbled, in the application of this Prophecy to the Popedom, it may be well to compare the same expression of universality in such passages as Matt. iii. 5; "All Judea went out to him, and were baptized in Jordan:" Acts ix. 35; All in Lydda turned to the Lord" and more especially Dan. iii. 7; " At that time all the people, nations, and languages, fell down and worshipped the golden image which King Nebuchadnezzar set up." In verse 2 we find that it was only the Princes and Governors of those nations that were present; and who were regarded as representatives of the nations, &c. In precisely the same manner all of Western Christendom worshipped and wondered after the Papal Head, through the Councils that repre

solemn united act, before the Reformation, of the deputies of Christendom assembled in Council, to subscribe to the Bull Unam Sanctam, first issued by Boniface VIII: a Bull which declared, "That as there was but one body of the Church and Christendom, so there was but one Head, viz. CHRIST'S VICAR; and that it was essential to the salvation of every human being to be subject to the Roman Pontiff." Nor did the subsequent Council of Trent ever revoke it.

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3. Finally, what of the little class here excepted? The Apocalyptic prophecy designates them as God's tabernacle and them that dwell in heaven: they being even during their earthly sojourning temples of God; 2 but in heart and spirit dwelling above, as having there their home and citizenship. Of these it says first that "the Beast opened his mouth to blaspheme, or speak evil of them:" next, that "it was given him" (doubtless by the Dragon his evoker) to make war with the saints, and to overcome them."-And how can there be better described, than by these words, the double injuries inflicted by the Popes on Christ's saints, from age to age? Heretics, accursed, the children of the devil, the spawn of Hell,— not a blasphemous epithet was there that the Pope and his agents did not heap upon them. Witness the names of infamy, and the devils painted as his fit associates, on Huss's cap at his martyrdom. The holy prophecies of Scripture, for all purposes of truth and edification set

sented them. Indeed this very Apocalyptic phrase was used, and in the same sense, by the Councils themselves. "All the earth anathematizes Nestorius ;" was the exclamation of that of Ephesus, on its anathematizing him. Wadd, 182. Of course, as all were not Israel that were of Israel, so all were not Papists that were subject to the Papacy. This we must never forget.-Compare Apoc. xviii. 4, "Come out of her my people :" a call which distinctly implies the fact of some of God's people being in the kingdom of the Beast, as Lot in Sodom.

1 In the 5th Lateran Council. See my Vol. ii. p. 85.-In similar tone the Preacher of the 9th Session exclaimed, " Corpus ecclesiæ uni capiti, hoc est tibi, subditum conspicitur ;" and the Emperor too prayed him, as "God's Vicar," and consequently Head of Christendom, to see ne quid respublica Christiana detrimenti capiat." Hard. ix. 1763, 1845.-A notable confirmation, let me observe, of the explanation I have given, in respect of its making the Popes, not the Frank or German Emperors, to have answered to the last Head of the Beast. 3 Phil. iii. 20 ; πολιτευμα εν ουρανω

2

Compare 1 Cor. iii. 16, &c.

4 Wadd. 595.