constitute the strength and glory of Protestant Europe. The pontifical family of the Medici were rendered not more noted by their services to the cause of Romish bigotry and persecution, than illustrious by their zeal for the restoration of learning: by the munificent patronage which he extended to letters and the fine arts, Leo X. himself, fostered with one hand, while he opposed with the other, the rise and progress of the glorious Reformation.

3

But, without at all losing sight of these providential compensations, when we recall to mind, on the other hand, the whole mystery of iniquity brought to the birth and nurtured by the church. and court of Rome,- when we reflect, that a character of Popery, more fearful and revolting than any ever framed by the prejudices of its opponents, may be drawn from the testimony of its own advocates and adherents 3, — it would imply, assuredly, a surrender of the truth, such as Christian charity never could require, to remain blind to the awful correspondence of papal Rome, to the Babylon of the Apocalypse, or to its identity with the antichrist prefigured, in his second Epistle to the Thessalonians, by Saint Paul. It is in this aspect of Popery, that the comparison with Mahometanism holds properly and painfully true: great as the superiority of this Catholic apostasy is, in every better feature,

it may, in its antichristian characteristics, be unequivocally pronounced, the prophetic counterpart of that" abomination of desolation."

In exposing the further proofs of the correspondence between these rival superstitions, the writer must distinctly and cordially disclaim every merely controversial purpose: his simple aim is truth; and it shall be his single endeavour, to elicit the truth, by following faithfully the reciprocal lights of history and Scripture prophecy.

The analogy, as yet but generally intimated, will lose nothing by a nearer and more exact inspection. Grasping in their hands the keys of the kingdoms of earth and heaven, and issuing their irresistible mandates from Rome, the alleged metropolis of the Christian world, the Popes set up their claim, to be, at once, the sole and supreme arbiters in all matters of religion, throughout Christendom, and the divinely-constituted creators, deposers, and restorers of kings*: the

* The progress of the papal antichrist has often been delineated; but seldom so forcibly as by the author of "Lux Renata, A Protestant's Epistle:" a master-piece of moral satire, in which the spirit of the poet is at once tempered and sustained, by the profound acquirements of the theologian. The readers of Pope and Dryden will recognize their favourite school of English versification, in the following nervous lines: Long were the task, through each degree to trace God's servant's servant to his pride of place:

To note how, borne above his lowly birth,

He rear'd his crosier o'er the lords of earth;

To robes of empire chang'd his priestly gown,
And swell'd the mitre to the triple crown.

Much

most ancient and powerful sovereigns of Europe were content to hold their sceptres from the pretended successor of Saint Peter; and to them, also, each new dynasty looked for a secure title to those domains, which had been, or which were to be, acquired by their swords: seated on the chair of the Vatican, an eminence more lofty than the loftiest thrones, the Roman pontiffs, the princes of the kings of the earth, kindled and directed those Holy Wars, in which the German emperors, and French and English kings, appeared on the theatre of Asia, but as their lieutenants and vassals.

Let the scene only be changed from Rome, to Bagdad or Damascus;-to the successors of Mahomet, from the self-entitled successors of Saint Peter, and the extent of the parallel cannot fail to impress every observer. Wielding that earthly sword, which Mahomet himself had pronounced to be "the key of heaven," and issuing their commands from the metropolis of the Mahome

Much power by fraud, by terror more was gain'd,
This guilt accorded, falsehood that obtain'd.
With lavish hand both saint and sinner gave,
One stung by conscience, one to zeal a slave.
Till the proud harlot, from her seven-fold hill,
Saw prostrate nations cower beneath her will;
And his broad arms the peaceful fisher threw,
More wide, AUGUSTUS, than thine eagles flew.

Lux Renata. London, 1827.

tan world, the Arabian caliphs long asserted and sustained their claim to supreme authority, temporal and spiritual, over the subject nations of the East in the height of their power, they impelled and ruled the tide of war, which bore the triumphant crescent of Mahomet to the shores of the Bosphorus, or to the pinnacles of the Pyrennees; in their diminished fortunes, they bestowed the kingdoms of the earth, at will, upon successive dynasties of Mahometan princes; and even their haughty and 'ferocious vassals, the barbarous Turks, accounted it their policy and pride, to hold their conquests and their crowns, by right of the investiture received from "the head of the true believers."*

Nor were the pretensions of the popes and caliphs to supreme power, confined within the bounds of western Christendom on the one hand, or of the existing Mahometan world on the other the claim set up by both, was a claim to

* Thus we find Mahmud of Gazna, in the plenitude of imperial power, deriving increased authority and lustre from his nominal vassalage to the caliphs: "The fame of Mahmud's continued conquests in Hindostan, and triumphs over idolatry, having reached Bagdad, the caliph then reigning made a great festival on the joyful occasion; conferred on him titles of the highest honour; and ordered an account of his victories to be publicly read to the enraptured populace. Mahmud, in A.D. 1021, to manifest a proper sense of gratitude for these favours, dispatched an army, headed by a skilful general, to open the roads to Mecca; which had long been obstructed by the wild Arabs, who were accustomed to murder the pilgrims, and plunder the caravans." Maurice's History of Hindostan, vol. i. p. 286.

universal sovereignty over the faith and fortunes of mankind.

While, at home, the Roman pontiffs undertook to partition Europe at their pleasure, they acknowledged no narrower limits to their rightful sway, in foreign parts, than the boundaries of the known world: with the enlargement of these boundaries, accordingly, the measure of papal ambition was seen proportionately to enlarge; and, in the fifteenth century, no sooner had the age of discovery arisen, to lay open a new world, and to trace out new paths through the old, than the same arbiters of nations, by two summary deeds of conveyance, bestowed America on the Spaniards, and India on the Portuguese.

In perfect sameness of spirit with the dispenser of these gifts, the Caliph of Bagdad had, four hundred years before, bestowed India on Mahmud, the Turkish Sultan of Gazna, the first Mahometan invader and conqueror of Hindostan: the caliphate thus maintaining, in its latest period of decay, that parallel claim to universal sovereignty, which prompted the hostile expeditions of the primitive Saracens against Christian Europe; and which aimed, in one and the same vast enterprise, to plant the standard of the Prophet on the altar of the Vatican, and on the dome of Saint Sophia.1