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tered to the sick man, when in the article of death. The Catechism promises healing, with this proviso, 'siquidem profutur sit,' 'if it should be profitable.' But alas! no healing follows. The individual dies, with the impression upon his mind, that this Sacrament is in some sort a viaticum or passport into the eternal world.

The sixth and seventh heads of the Papacy, that is, the sixth and seventh mountains on which the woman "Mystery "Mystery" sitteth, are the Mysteries or Sacraments of Orders and Matrimony. These institutions are ordinances appointed by God. The Church of Rome, however, in making Sacraments of them, teaches that they confer grace, and yet, in the plentitude of her wisdom, pronounces them imcompatible with each other. The Church of Rome flatly contradicts St. Peter and St. Paul. The Pope talks much about the supremacy of Peter, and boasts that he is the successor of that Apostle. But we learn from Matt. viii. 14, that St. Peter was married. St. Paul and the Pope are also at variance. St. Paul says, "A bishop must be blameless, the husband of one wife." "The wives of deacons must be grave, not slanderers, sober, faithful in all things. Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well." (1 Tim. iii. 2, 11, 12.) In the following chapter the Apostle foretells the Romish Apostacy. "Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, (i. e. doctrines concerning dæmons

or departed spirits) through the hypocrisy of liars, having their conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats." (Chap. iv. 1, 2, 3.)

The blasphemy which is common to all the heads of the Beast, i. e. to all the Mountains on which the woman "Mystery" sitteth is this, that all are said to confer grace; and this by their own efficacy, 'vi sua,' as it is expressed in the Catechism of the Council of Trent, or ex opere operato' as the Council has it.

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We will close this chapter by quoting the eighth canon of the council respecting the Sacraments. quis dixerit per ipsa novæ legis sacramenta ex opere operato non conferri gratiam, sed solam fidem divinæ promissionis ad gratiam consequendam sufficere; anathema sit.' If any one shall say, that by the sacraments of the new law grace is not conferred ex opere operato,' but that faith in the divine promise is alone sufficient to obtain grace; let him be anathema.'

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CHAPTER VI.

THE PAPACY A TYRANNICAL IDOLATROUS EMPIRE.

THE

BEAST WHICH I SAW WAS LIKE UNTO A
LEOPARD."-Verse 2.

A BEAST denotes, in Scripture, a tyrannical idolatrous Empire. And such an Empire we have in the Papacy.

The Empire which was set up by the Gregories and the Innocents had not its parallel upon earth. It was an universal Monarchy of which the Pope was Head, the Cardinals being Counsellors; the Legates in the different kingdoms of Europe, Viceroys; the Archbishops and Bishops, Governors and LieutenantGovernors; the Priests, Ministers of the police and of the finances; the Religious Orders, the standing Militia. And how great was its tyranny! It allowed no equal. It endured no rival. It condemned contradiction as treason, and opposition as rebellion. It admitted no judge but its own decision; no rule but its own will ; no reason but its own decree; no object but its own advancement. No book might be read which it had not sanctioned; no doctrine

believed, which it had not decreed; no ceremony practised, which it had not approved. And then, under peril of eternal damnation, its own books, doctrines, and ceremonies were to be read, believed and approved, however blasphemous, unscriptural and unmeaning! The Papacy considers toleration a sin, persecution a duty. Let us hear Bossuet on this point. The Church of Rome is, and ever will be, opposed to religious indifference, because she is the most intolerant of all Christian societies. She will stand alone. She cannot suffer her doctrines to be questioned. It is this which renders her so severe, so unsociable, and so odious, to all sects which are separated from her. They desire only to be tolerated by her, or not to be exposed to the fulminations of her anathemas. But her holy severity and her holy delicacy forbid such indulgences, or rather such weakness. There is no illusion more dangerous than to make toleration a characteristic of the true church.

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This is the confession of a Roman Catholic as to the tyranny of his own church. To this we will subjoin the testimony of a Dissenter, which may not be without its weight in the present day. It has been commonly said,' observes Matthew Henry, that Popery and Tyranny go together and mutually befriend each other. I remember it was said by a great man at the time of the Popish Plot in King Charles the Second's time, that he apprehended the project to be thus laid, that in England Popery was to bring in Tyranny, and in Scotland Tyranny was to bring in Popery.' And the opinion which this emi

nent commentator himself entertained of Popery, he expressed in the same sermon in these words:'Popery impiously invades the rights and liberties of the subjects of Christ's kingdom. It enslaves them, oppresses them, and tyrannizes over them. It says to their souls, Bow down and worship THE Bow down that we may go

IMAGE OF THE BEAST.

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over. As one of the Popes made the Emperor bow down and then set his foot upon his neck, impiously applying that promise to himself, Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder:' thus have the Romish Priests gloried in their triumphs over the souls of man. One of them said, 'If Luther had not appeared when he did, they would have brought the people to eat grass like oxen." In the same sermon we find these remarks: Being delivered out of the snare of Popish Tyranny, let us stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, and dread the thoughts of being again entangled in the snare: However it may change its disguises, Popery is the same evil thing that ever it was: and its factors and patrons as restless as ever to re-establish it in our land. I wish too there may not be those among ourselves, who make light of our deliverance. We have no reason to be secure, but to take heed lest by our sins we provoke God to suffer those oppressors of conscience again to have dominion over us. O let us be earnest with God in prayer, to keep Popery out of our nation, and to fortify our bulwarks against it, that, if that enemy should come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord may again lift up a standard against him.'.

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