the Barbarians in the West, and by the armies of Mahomet in the East. Its subjection to the Bishop of Rome, and final establishment as the sole, dominant, and unquestioned religion of the nations of Europe for a thousand years, from the age of Charlemagne to the French Revolution. Its altered relation to the civil power after that convulsion. Its loss of temporal power and political influence in the present age, due mainly to its endless divisions, to the reaction of the human mind against its previous tyranny, and to the progress of free thought, combined with much lukewarmness, doubt, and unbelief, among all classes of society. How has it fared with the city of Rome? In the age of St. John and for several centuries afterwards we saw her the mistress of the world and the most formidable enemy of the Christian Church. In consequence of the removal of the seat of empire to Constantinople, and the devastations of the Barbarians, she became for three centuries an insignificant town and almost forsaken. Then, through the influence of her Bishop, she became again, for a thousand years, the head and centre of all religious and political life in Europe. During that time her Bishop was a temporal sovereign, and the unquestioned head of Roman Christendom. He survived the Reformation and the French Revolution; but subsequent convulsions have stripped him of his temporal sovereignty, and made Rome the capital of a second-rate European kingdom. What are the present prospects of the Papacy? The French Revolution has proved a more formidable blow than the Reformation. Church and State were close'y united for a thousand years; but they have rarely been on very friendly terms. Even the Emperor, the Pope's own creature, has often been his bitterest enemy. Dr. Bryce thus speaks of these two ill-mated lovers. The Papacy, whose spiritual power was itself the offspring of Rome's temporal dominion, evoked the phantom of her parent; used it, obeyed it, rebelled, and overthrew it, in its old age once more embraced it (i.e. in the person of Napoleon III.), till in its downfall she has heard the knell of her own approaching doom.' 'Of the ecclesiastical power the Empire was alternately the champion and the enemy. . . . The strife was keenest at the time when the whole world believed fervently in both powers; the alliance came when faith had forsaken the one, and grown cold towards the other; from the Reformation onwards, Empire and Popedom fought no longer for supremacy but for existence. One is fallen already, the other shakes with every blast.' 2 And of the fall of the Empire he writes thus:-'Its fall in the midst of the great convulsion that changed the face of Europe marks an era in history: an era whose character the events of every year are further unfolding; an era of the destruction of old forms and systems, and the building up of new.'3 On the present state and future prospects of the Roman Church Renan says: "The strange excesses to which during the last fifty years it has lent itself, this unparalleled Pontificate of Pius IX., the most astonishing in history, cannot come to a commonplace end. There will be thunders and lightnings, such as always accompany the great day of God's judgments. And this old mother, who cannot die yet, will have much to do in order to remain still possible, still acceptable to those who have loved her. It may be that, to stay the progress of modern thought, which is her conqueror, she will have recourse to the arts of the sorceress. . . . The Catholic Church is a woman: let us distrust the magic words of her agony.' He then contemplates the possibility of Rome's making terms even with the agnostic and the infidel, by practically representing all religions as a dream, and opening her arms to receive all, and to provide for all alike 3 Ibid. p. 392. Bryce, p. 372. 2 Ibid. p. 389, 390. the satisfaction of their spiritual yearnings. He admits that it is unlikely that she will do so, but evidently considers that she has not yet exhausted all her resources, or prepared herself to resign her hold upon the imaginations and upon the hearts of men. Such are the phenomena upon which we look back from the latter part of the nineteenth century; and such is the forecast of the thoughtful in these days as regards the future of that spiritual power which ruled the nations of Roman Christendom for more than a thousand years. It is impossible that any human being could have foreseen and predicted all this. But it would be very easy in these days to do what Dr. Kuenen and his school imagine Ezekiel to have done at the time of the Restoration from Babylon, or Daniel in the age of Antiochus; that is, to compose an allegory which should give a figurative but intelligible picture of this marvellous panorama of the past. And the Hebrew prophets would supply us with an abundance of symbols and images suitable to our purpose. In a little book called "The Divine Forecast of the Corruption of Christianity,' I have imagined an impostor making this attempt, acting as Kuenen and his school suppose Ezekiel and Daniel to have done; an impostor, as clever and as piously fraudulent as Kuenen supposes Ezekiel and Daniel to have been, attempting to compose an afterapocalypse of Roman Christendom. He represents himself as one of Christ's Apostles living in the age of Nero or Domitian, inspired to predict the future of the City of Rome, of the Roman Empire, and of the Christian Church. It will be seen from the scheme of interpretation suggested in this volume, that the Apocalypse is, in all its parts, exactly such an allegory as an impostor might compose in these days, pretending to predict by means of symbolic pictures that panorama of history upon which he was in reality looking back. Not one important feature is omitted. The origin of the Christian Church; its struggles, its perils, its conquests, its sins, its punishments, its long connection with the State, and final rejection by it, are all given under figures which cannot well bear any other meaning. The safety of God's faithful people, their trials, their dangers, their sufferings, their final glory, are fully and plainly represented. We cannot fail to see the picture of the Roman city and its KingBishop; the Empire first united, then divided into two parts, then divided between a number of independent kings all acknowledging the Pope and the Emperor, the one as their spiritual, the other as their temporal head. The fall of ancient Rome and its resurrection; the 'human deluge' of the Barbarians, as Kingsley calls it; the devastations of Mahomet; the darkness of the Middle Ages; the cruel persecutions of Papal Rome; her long reign and subsequent fall from power:-all these events are portrayed by suitable images. The more prominent of these will be noticed in the following scheme of interpretation, and the rest will all be explained where they occur in the course of the Commentary. The first three chapters of the Apocalypse form a sort of preface to the book, and, under the intelligible symbol of the Seven Lamps of the Temple, explained to represent seven selected typical Churches of Asia, are evidently intended to impress upon us this consoling truth, that Christ is ever present with His people, and that it is He who really overrules all their affairs, holding in His hand the seven stars, explained to signify the Rulers of the Seven Churches. The number seven is all through the prophecy selected as the type of completeness. The Seven Epistles typify the Church in all countries and in all ages, whatever primary message they may have to the Asiatic Churches mentioned by name. While warning us of the sins to which Churches are liable, they teach us that the moral and spiritual condition of the Church to which we ourselves belong cannot affect our own individual salvation if we are faithful. God emphatically declares that He has His chosen servants even in the most spiritually dead of all communions. Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white: for they are worthy.'1 Having given this general view of the moral and spiritual condition of the different Churches, the prophetic spirit commences an allegorical drama in the fourth chapter. But first he describes the scenery surrounding the arena upon which his dramatis persona are to appear and to perform their parts. This is explained in the Commentary on the fourth and fifth chapters. It will help us to realise the truthfulness to nature of the prophet's pictures if we imagine ourselves sitting down in this nineteenth century and attempting to construct from the materials given to us in the Old Testament a succession of acts and scenes representing the phenomena of that great historical drama of Roman Christendom upon which we have been looking back through the ages of the past. And first we want a Hero for our tale. The Messiah of course must be our Hero: how shall we describe Him? We will go to the Psalmist and to Zechariah. He shall be a mounted warrior riding forth to victory: In thy majesty ride prosperously because of truth and meekness and righteousness; and thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things. Thine arrows are sharp in the heart of the king's enemies; whereby the people fall under thee.' Zechariah suggests to us the war-horse as the symbol of His Church. He hath visited his flock the house of Judah, and made them as his goodly horse in the battle.' He hath bent Judah, and filled the bow with Ephraim.'4 And thus the Hero comes upon our imaginary stage. The First Seal is . . . Rev. iii. 4. 3 Zech. x. 3. 2 2 Ps. xlv. 4. 4 Zech. ix. 13. |