was heterodox. What the Pope decrees, though it be opposed to Scripture, is to be received. Is he not styled by Papists the centre of spiritual life? Do they not reverence images? God says, "Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath." Popery says, "Make images of Christ, of the Virgin Mary, of departed saints." God says, "Thou shalt not bow down to them." Popery says, "Thou shalt bow down to them." How it is possible for men instructed in early life in God's truths to gulp down such a declaration as converts to Popery have to make is astonishing.* Some of these are men of honest intentions, and yet, by a vicious teaching are led into false views, and positively accept a standard for truth opposed to God's truth.

The latter part of the 13th chapter of Revelation delineates a practice that has, and still obtains that of marking the right hand or the forehead of the adherents to Popery. Every member observes a devout practice to mark themselves, but in addition the rich and the poor receive a mark on their forehead. On AshWednesday they are signed on the forehead with ashes in the sign of a cross. All who do not bear, either in their right hand or on the forehead, the mark of the beast, are not permitted to buy or sell the spiritual merchandise of Mother Church. Without the mark they are not in communion (Rev. xiii. 17). Only these in communion buy or sell indulgences or masses for the dead.

In past ages, to deny the Papacy, was to be devoted to destruction. Those who would not fall down and worship the image of the beast, that is, the second or lamb-horned beast, the image of

* I most firmly assert that the images of Christ, of the Mother of God, and also of other saints, ought to be had and retained, and that due honour and veneration ought to be given them."-Converts' Declaration.

+ "The ceremony of applying ashes, in the form of a cross, to the heads of the faithful on this day, Ash-Wednesday, is a relick of the ancient discipline of the Church."-The Roman Missal.

the beast from the sea, were killed. Not to do so in the present day subjects the offender to incarceration, where Popery dares exercise such a power. In this how well fulfilled has been the fifteenth verse of the chapter under consideration.

If it had been the intention of our Lord to build His Church, as alleged by Papists, upon Peter, how comes it that the Apostles did not act upon the intention? We do not find that Peter had a pre-eminence over them. Paul says, "he withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed (Gal. ii. 11). If it had been the intention of our Lord to have established a theocracy, would He not have made Peter in the Apostles' time a chief among them? He is called by Papists chief of the Apostles, but in no way was he recognised as chief by the Apostles. Peter, we are told, was the Apostle of the circumcision. He was taught in a dream that the Gentiles were to be received, and that he was to call nothing unclean, but he was not the Apostle to the Gentiles. Paul was the Apostle of the Gentiles, Peter the Apostle to the Jews (Gal. ii. 8). How comes it, then, that a Gentile Church claims Peter for their head?

Where is the evidence that Peter presided over the infant Church of Rome. In Galatians i. 18, Paul writes, "After three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days." We know from these words that Peter did reside at Jerusalem. If it had been determined by our Lord to have built His Church after the manner set up by the Papists, should we not have had some direct testimony to so all-important a point as Peter's alleged Roman bishopric ? And would there not, also, have been a further testimony to his universal superintendance? How comes it that this claim to universal rule, supposing it to have been possessed, lay dormant in the bishopric of Rome until 606, when claim was made to it by the then Bishop of Rome, and at that time disputed by the Bishop of Constantinople? How comes it that this claimed power was not established until the eighth century?

Every part of the Divine Word is opposed to the system Popery has established; and the right meaning to be assigned to the promise to Peter is, probably, that which I have assigned. The promise, or promises, were not alone to Peter, but to the Church.*

The whole scheme of Popery is based upon false pretensions. It is a clergy Church, a sacramental Church, a mediating Church, the few interposing for the many; whereas the Church of Christ is spiritually united to Christ, all having access to Him as members of His body, and all as such kings and priests unto God. In the Church of Christ is universal priesthood (Rev. i. 5).†

THE ANTICHRIST is the Papacy. The Antichrist is, however, not confined to the Papacy; but all having relation to the principles of the Papacy form parts of the body called THE ANTICHRIST. It is essentially a system which presents a false body to represent a true body. Any national Church claiming to be a branch of the Church, and claiming exclusive privileges for some of its members based upon such a claim, is THE ANTICHRIST. The false body is, especially, what has been termed, and very expressively and very properly termed, the clergy Church. The clergy Church propounds a system based avowedly upon righteous laws, and which shall give to a class power and pre-eminence. Christianity is entirely at variance with any such system. And this it is my intention to go on to show. And the conclusion to which we shall be brought, without any lingering doubt being left about it, is that the clergy Church is THE ANTICHRIST, or Whore of Scripture-the False One sitting in the seat of the True. And, moreover, we shall be brought to a further conclusion, that it is high time that she should be cast from her assumed lofty position, and give place before the world's eye to the beloved and faithful one, the Zion of our Lord.

The prophecies point most decisively to this result; and the day

is not distant when the false state of things will be overthrown, Not only the Revelation declares it, Daniel, and Micah; indeed, I know

and give place to the true. but Ezekiel, and Isaiah, and not a prophet who does not proclaim it. The "house of Jacob called by the name of Israel," and who call themselves of the holy city, and stay themselves upon the God of Israel," and who proclaim themselves to be the espoused of God, and who think as such they shall be "a lady for ever," shall shortly "be silent and get into darkness, for she shall no more be called, "the lady of kingdoms" (Isa. xlvii. and xlviii.). In the words of Ezekiel, the shepherds who have fed themselves, and fed not the flock, shall cease from feeding, "Therefore, O ye shepherds, hear the word of the Lord; thus saith the Lord God; behold I am against the shepherds; and I will require my flock at their hands, and cause them to cease from feeding the flock; neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any more; for I will deliver my flock from their mouth, that they may not be meat for them" (Ezek. xxxiv).

Under the figure of the "Virgin, daughter of Babylon," Isaiah prophecies the destruction of the False One, the polluted, the harlot of Scripture. She is styled the " Virgin daughter." She claims to be married, but God says in the figurative language of Scripture, "I will not meet thee as a man;" she is not married, and is, therefore, styled a virgin daughter." The ancient Babylon furnishes imagery for much that was to come after. The term is used throughout the prophecies, and thus the mother of harlots is termed in the Revelation "Babylon the Great." As the term "Maid of Jerusalem" denotes the second or Christian dispensation and true Church,* so the term "Daughter of Babylon" denotes the second Babylon, or the antagonist of the Christian Church, as the first Babylon was the antagonist of the first or Hebrew Church.

Now the present antagonist, as is clearly shown by the Revelation, is Papal Rome. But Papal Rome is not the whole

*See "True Church."

embodiment; every off-shoot from Rome, or every Church based upon the principle that a temporal, national, or denominational Church is a branch of the Church, partakes of the character of the False One. In the nature of things it is impossible for a carnal, worldly, sensual, fleshly body to represent a spiritual body, and they do wickedly who claim on behalf of any such body such a position. Antichrist is not a body foreign to God's Word and denying its power, but it is a body instructed, and whose "wisdom and knowledge hath perverted" her, and she says in her "heart, I am, and none else beside me" (Isa. xlvii. 10).

Antichrist is again a body that traffics in spiritual things. She has her merchants who deal in spiritual things, and buy and sell spiritual wares (Isa. xlvii. 15.), (Rev. xiii. 17). She is not, therefore, a body foreign to Christianity, but one allied thereto. Her people bear God's name and are called His people, and God thus addresses some of them, "Come out of her my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues."

The Scriptures everywhere recognise a body in spiritual union with Christ, and called "His Church," and "the Church." This is Christ's body-His Church. Antichrist is that system based upon the falsehood, that a fleshly body represents this spiritual body. Let every Churchman who has hitherto upheld the false state of things, reflect deeply upon the Scripture statements, and let him pause before he again utters the faithless lie. Churches do not as a whole make up the Church. Neither does one represent the Church; nor is any one a branch of, or part of the Church. Churches are but as instruments and means, whereby God is pleased to assist in building up the Church. Not a single Church is in spiritual union with Christ; each gives out members to the Church, but not one can claim to be as a whole without evil, and God's purity is not allied to evil. Churches are none of them in intimate union as members of His body, and it bespeaks a wicked and perverted mind, and ignorance of spiritual things