Under the second head, namely, the explanation which the author considers the sixth vial gives of the revival of Romish principles, we have the following statements.

“When we have a message from God clearly pertaining to our times and to our own peculiar dangers, it is important to study its general spirit as well as its details. Thus in this vial there are general features which need to be apprehended, that we may see more exactly the causes, limits, and issues, of that revival of Popery which is now troubling all faithful Christians.

"The sixth vial is, as we have seen, a time chiefly marked by long-suffering. Its judgments fall on the East, and especially on Turkey; but towards Christendom, in respect of visible judgments, it contrasts with the five which go before it, and with the seventh which follows it. God now waits to be gracious. It is a time of silence and pause in heaven.

"The same accepted time and day of salvation is also a season for growth in grace, and in the knowledge of Christ, and a preparation for future trials and the last conflict with the powers of darkness, for all true Christians, The opposing unclean spirits exercise all the graces of the children of God, require their deeper investigations of Divine truth, give them fuller insight into all the doctrines of the Gospel, keep them from vain-glory, and preserve them from error on the right hand and on the left."

"We might infer, even from the prophecy itself, that under this sixth vial there would be an extensive relapse; and that the superstitions which had been visited with such fearful judgments by the pouring out of the first five vials, would revive, as we have ourselves beheld. Rome is not ashamed to restore its order of Jesuits, its open idolatry of the Virgin and the saints, to bring its fictitious relics from Algiers and elsewhere, and to press with increasing zeal all its foul corruptions of Christianity through Christendom.

"And it may be further noticed, that where the truth has been long presented and is not received in the love of it, God himself, in righteous wrath and judgment, gives a special opening and commission for the detection of evil in men's hearts, and this because it is the only way to a deeper work of conversion and repentance.

"Never can we be thankful enough that God so honoured our country, that it was especially from Britain the revival of Evangelical missions to the

heathen had its great impulse in our day. There went from us that glorious flight of the Gospel so clearly predicted

to take place before the hour of judgment I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting Gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people.'

"But there has been, I fear, a decline, and many have a name to live and are dead. True principles are recognised and admitted: but multitudes have rather an hereditary than a personal and living faith, and so become an easy prey to novelties in doctrine, and the fleshpleasing attractions of Rome. Truths have been received in the intellect, but they have not become the daily food and nourishment of the soul in living and heartfelt experience. The sight of them is indistinct and confused, the hold upon them is feeble; it is more man's teaching than God's teaching; the world and the Church have come nearer together. Hence a decay of earnest zeal and of plain and bold faithfulness, testifying the truth in the face of all opposition. Hence a general liberalism of sentiment, falsely called candour, or even charity, though it be the very opposite to all real charity, has been too prevalent both in ministers and people where the truth is really held. As we see in the case of Eli's sons and David's, God is very jealous on the subject of a consistently religious

education."

"In our own commercial and wealthy country, the idolatry of wealth has been long the great snare and the besetting sin of a large class. The Religious Societies of every kind, which are the glory and bulwarks of Britain, are almost entirely supported by a small number, who give to all. Multitudes of our nobility, our great landed proprietors, our prosperous merchants, and our tradesmen, with annual incomes of thousands, though some are not wanting in bounty to some local or merely temporal object of charity, give nothing, or the veriest trifle, to these Societies. Superstition does far more among the Romanists, than the mere name of a purer faith, or even the sense of shame does amongst them. So the fearful curse of God righteously comes upon their blessing.

"All these causes are in operation in our own beloved country at this moment, and encompass England with peculiar dangers. These dangers are from opposite and contrasted false doctrines; yet all equally contrary to the holy truths of God's Word. Hence a system so vile as Socialism, or barefaced Infi

delity, licentiousness, and blasphemy, seduces its thousands, has its missionaries, and periodicals, and tracts, raises its halls of pretended science in the face of society, and after all its failures and disappointment of its followers, still maintains itself. Hence, a delusion so transparent as Mormonism entraps its hundreds and thousands, and bears them off in triumph to a foreign land, in numbers far exceeding all the missionaries of the Gospel of Christ who have gone forth from us to evangelize the heathen, probably, since we were a Christian land. Hence, officers in our service have been required to give honour to Papal and Pagan idolatries; and when faithful men would not thus deny Christ, they have been obliged to resign their situations, and our country has been indifferent to it. Hence, as there seems

painful evidence to believe, one lately in chief authority in India, went so far as personally to make an offering to an idol in an idol temple, and insult the whole Christianity of his country by an open act of apostacy, rather than commit which faithful Christians have ever suffered even to death. Hence the extensive disregard of God's law, of supreme love to God, and real love to

man.

"Hence, also, the rapid spread of Papal principles through our country, once above all others distinguished by a righteous abhorrence of the Apostacy. We must not conceal from ourselves the

fact that even zealous Protestant ministers have become priests of the Apostacy; that our Government supports in its colonies the priesthood of the Mother of abominations; that our system of national education in Ireland is based on an union of effort with the Popish priest; that Jesuits, priests, and missionaries, Popish churches, chapels, colleges, seminaries, and nunneries, magazines, journals, newspapers, and tracts, are multiplying, and that the college of Maynooth, with all its proved evil system of instruction, receives its yearly thousands from Government.

"Nor is this, alas! all. There is a corresponding movement even within our own Protestant Church-a movement, in all points, in the dangerous direction of Romanism."

"It is asserted that the Gospel message is but indirectly and covertly revealed in Scripture, and tradition is regarded as the Church's divinely-inspired sense of the Bible, requisite to make the Bible really a revelation to

118.

We are told that there is an absolute necessity of a succession of bishops, consecrated by the Apostles, to the ex

istence of the Church, and the administration of the Sacraments. In this system, in perfect contrast to the lawlessness of the day, Popish, unscriptural, and delusive claims of spiritural power in the ministry, are advanced; the Church usurps the place of the Saviour, and is made an idol. The covenant privileges of the Church, also, are made to supersede the living faith and love which are peculiar to those finally saved. Regeneration, in a vague, unscriptural, and Pelagian sense, as a grace dependent on man's will, neither meaning a state of covenant privileges, nor of real spiritual life, is pressed as invariably accompanying baptism."

Next, Mr. Bickersteth points out "The troubles which God has

66

foretold us will ensue." Throughout his discussion it will have been perceived that he does not speak conjecturally, but in the language of unequivocal assertion. This vial is the exhaustion of the Turkish empire." "The fifth vial was the time of retributive justice on France." The passages quoted refer "to those evils which we now see going forth." "The last and seventh vial is hastening to us." "These things are at hand: we see all the commencing preparations for the last conflict.' We cannot think that our Reverend friend, or other man-or finite beingany is entitled thus to assert. He may favour us with his opinions, facts, inferences, and belief; and we will weigh them with the careful attention they deserve, for the importance of the matter, the inspired claims of prophecy upon the serious study of the Christian, and, as between man and man, for the respect we bear to a brother whose praise is in the churches; but categorical declarations upon such subjects, we humbly submit, ought not to be risked. Each propounder of a prophetical interpretation allows this in the case of a brother who differs from him; and impartial posterity will probably be of the same mind in his case also.

Without then asserting with Mr.

Bickersteth that the troubles which he points out in reference to our own age are the Divinely intended application of the passages referred to, we will quote a portion of his remarks for general instruction and warning.

"What, then, are the immediate prospects which God has given us of what is now before us?

"THE EXTENSIVE PREVALENCE OF

FALSE RELIGION. These three unclean spirits go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world.... .....We see infidelity, lawlessness, and popery, now spreading east and west, north and south, through the world, and nothing withstands or withholds.

"THE PECULIAR SUBTILTY OF THE DELUSION MAKES IT MORE ENSNARING. They are the spirits of devils, or demons, working miracles or signs. The long infidelity which has prevailed as to the reality of any spiritual influence, lays men peculiarly open to Satanic influences and false miracles."

to

"Our present temptations and delusions, from all these spiritual enemies, should warn us of THE POSSIBLE PREVALENCE OF THE ROMISH CHURCH FOR A SHORT TIME. This might have been thought a thing incredible before the latter stage of this vial began. But the unclean spirits have done their work effectually, and their pollutions have spread with startling rapidity; words of use the another, (Dr. Pusey), At home, abroad, within, without, in palace or cottage, from continent to continent, we see it spread daily; everywhere opposed, yet finding the more entrance.' Hence it is by no means incredible, that the Romish Church should again, through the ten European kingdoms, have a short-lived supremacy."

"The seventh and LAST VIAL, is hastening to us. It has yet to be poured out. It is, with its unequalled "earthquake, a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time.' Then we read, 'the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell, and great Babylon came up in remembrance before God to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.' The three parts of this great city seem to be the followers of infidelity, and of superstition, and of true Christianity. They are now so mingled together, that we cannot clearly and fully distinguish the followers of each of these parts of

the great city. The whole of professing Christendom will thus resolve itself into these three, the Infidels, the superstitious, and the true Christians. The Infidel powers will, as we see in the burning of the harlot, and in the last war of the nineteenth chapter, have the mastery over the superstitious. These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings, and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful.'

"These things are at hand; we see all the commencing preparations for the last conflict. Surely, then, we, the Lord's watchmen, should lift up our voice as a trumpet. We must not, we dare not, be silent."

Copious as have been our extracts, we must add a few sentences from the last head, "The final deliverance of God's people," and their special duties.

THE

"THE EXTREMITY OF THE danger OF GOD'S PEOPLE WILL BE VERY GREAT. We have seen that it is emphatically the great tribulation: 'a great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elects' sake those days shall be shortened.'" "BUT THE SUDDENNESS OF DELIVERANCE To ALL. We may see this in part also in the last siege of Jerusalem; after its capture, as we have seen; in that extremity, Then shall the Lord go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle, and his feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives which is before Jerusalem.' The deliverances of God's children have often been thus surprisingly sudden and remarkable.”

WILL BE SURPRISING

"I will take the application from those very remarkable words of our Redeemer, which immediately follow the text, as an improvement of the trying days here predicted, given by our Lord himself, Behold, I come as a thief; blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame.' From hence I direct your attention to these duties; Watchfulness against the spiritual dangers of these times; Looking for the speedy appearance of Christ; and, a bold confession now of your Saviour before men."

MR. Young is right; the alternative is Protestantism or Popery; the Tractarian middle way is a razor edge which affords no sure footing; we said so from the beginning, when we were accounted rash and uncharitable for passing such a judgment; but most men, the Tractators themselves excepted, are now of the same opinion. same opinion. Rome asserts that they ought in consistency to become Romanists; all true Protestants affirm the same; the recent converts to Popery, especially Mr. Sibthorp, maintain it; and though Tract 90 and the "British Critic" faintly deny it, they in effect concede it by bringing Rome to England.

Mr. Young has collected a great number of exceptionable passages from Tractarian publications, and remarked exceedingly well upon them. We must not, however, weary our readers with going over the whole subject again; but we will quote some passages w hih deserve to be well considered by statesmen as well as divines. Tractarianism is not only fanaticism; but like most other kinds of fanaticism, it is hostile to civil as well to religious liberty; it would prostrate the prince at the footstool of his confessor, and subjugate men's persons as well as their consciences to the

yoke of a tyrannical priesthood. If it come to prevail in the Church of England, that Church must soon cease to be nationally established; for the laity would not submit to its usurpations. Even if it triumphed for a time, as in the days of Laud, its victory could be but short-lived, and Church and State would again fall together; or more probably, from the aspect of modern times, the State would be

strong enough to quell the Church and to maintain its own right against an insolent band of Dunstans, Beckets, Hildebrands, Dominics, Loyolas, and Escobars.

We will quote what Mr. Young says on these points; for though we have often remarked to the same effect, the matter is too serious to be lightly passed over.

"I now address myself to my object:— it is, to shew that, whatever be the personal excellencies, personal feelings, or personal consciousness of those who constitute the movement-with all which I have nothing whatsoever to do-the written documents and overt acts which characterize the body, are all, more or less, departures from the doctrines, principles, and practices of the Church of England; that the allegiance of the body is to a something higher up than the Church of England, and that, not the simple word of God, where the Church of England finds her credentials, but a something shadowy, dark, and questionable, of which she does not hold, and against which, as at all authoritative, she has significantly protested; and that the doctrines, princi

ples, and practices of the Tractarian party, so far as they are peculiar, are not only neither those of Scripture nor of the Church of England, but that they all savour of, lean upon, bear towards, that systematic and deadly perversion of God's truth, which-natural to the

fallen heart of man at all times-consti

the apostolic days, and gradually matuting the mystery of iniquity' in turing through each succeeding age, is best known, in its complete symmetry

and dimensions, at Rome.

position of our national Church, I am "Commencing with the external under no necessity of defending the connexion between Church and State. I

write for members of the Church of

England who know their privileges. I lawful, sound, and good. I assume that a State, as such, should do homage to the King of kings. I assume that, for this purpose, there should be a national Church, which, without violating in particular quarters the responsibilities of conscience, should embody in

assume that the above connexion is

we,

its services the religion of the nation. I assume that, whilst supporting the authority of such a church, the state has a correlative right to assign limits to that authority;-that it has a right to defend itself against abuses of the ecclesiastical power;-that it has a right to take care that ministers of religion should not be lords over God's heritage-to prevent our hearing again in England of false decretals,' assigning soul and body to the successors of St. Peter; to give no future Baronius occasion to inscribe on our annals that 'there can be no doubt but that the civil principality is subject to the sacerdotal;' and no Hildebrand, for the dignity and defence of God's holy church, in the name of Almighty God' to 'depose from imperial and regal administration, and absolve from allegiance all Christian subjects;-and no Innocent, in general council to declare that though unworthy, do hold the place of Jesus Christ on earth' I say I assume this reciprocal right and duty on the part of the State. I will not argue the principle it is fixed and settled by God's good providence in England. Our national Church is established on this two-fold basis, which makes Church and State to be virtually one. The Church is not an imperium in imperio; but nothing more nor less than the embodied religion of the State; and its functionaries, in consequence, ministers at once of Church and State. This is the broad principle; it is of such moment, that I will give one or two of the proofs. First, one of our Church Articles declares that 'general councils may not be gathered together without the commandment and will of princes;' so that the Church cannot act collectively but by permission of the State. Next, another Article declares that the king's majesty hath the chief power in this realm of England, and other his dominions; unto whom the chief government of all estates of the realm, whether they be ecclesiastical or civil, in all causes doth appertain :' and the limits of this government are in the same Article defined; we give not to our princes the ministering either of God's word or of the sacraments.' Here is a simple, but very intelligible, and an impassable distinction between the kingly and priestly office. Short of this distinction, the king of England, being head of the State, is head of the Churchnot as representing Christ, the alone spiritual Head, but as representing those powers by which the visible machinery and outward polity of the Church are maintained. But the kingly power is

by God's providence, limited in these realms ; the supreme power being practically shared between the king and his parliament. Hence articles of religion, to be professed by the state, are ratified and made law by act of Parliament. All this makes the Church of England what it professes to be, a national Church.

"Now all this is in the last degree distasteful to the movement party. We find the Master writing to the following effect: That there are real difficulties to a Catholic Christian in the ecclesiastical position of our Church at this day no one can deny. It is a very serious truth, that persons and bodies who put themselves into a disadvantangeous state, cannot at their pleasure extricate themselves from it....Let the Church, our mother, sit still; let us be content to be in bondage,' &c. Such is the guarded language of a tract (No. 90) prepared expressly as an anodyne. The feelings of the movement may be learnt from another source, but furnished, be it observed, by the very same writer, though in another capacity. Mr. Froude tells us that the present Church system is an incubus on the country ;-would that the water would throw up some Acheloides, where some new bishop might erect a see beyond the blighting influence of our upas tree !-I admire M.'s hit about our being united to the State as Israel was to Egypt.'

Mr.

"The drift of all this requires no explanation. To make Church functionaries the lords, not the ministers, of the State, has been ever the easily besetting lust of ecclesiastical bodies. But the degree to which these modern aspirants for priestly power would carry it, may be learnt from the following expressions. Speaking of that most dire weapon of the church, excommunication; Faber (not G. S. Faber) adds, 'Surely it is a duty of Christian states to deprive such excommunicated person of every social right and privilege; or even, if they so judge, to sweep him from the earth.' (Sights and Thoughts in Foreign Churches.') This is startling language from an Englishman, and in the ninteenth century. We shall not be surprised, after this, to find from the same high-toned authority, that, so far from the Church being established by the State, it is for ecclesiastical discretion to determine if the State shall be established by the Church. We are told (Ibid.) that Europe will once more see a people fall back from the throne of an excommunicated king.'

"Arms emulous of such powers must indeed be in bondage and work in chains. But, it may be said, these