from historians, particularly Cassiodorus, who was chief minister of state to two of those kings. Whence it doth plainly appear that this kingdom of the Ostro-Goths was the seventh head that was to continue a short time; and that, therefore, it follows:-1. That the change wrought by Constantine the Great, both as to the seat and religion of the empire, could not be looked upon as a new head, seeing the old government in all other respects was continued. And 2. Neither can any person justly suppose that the form of the government was altered when the empire was divided into the East and West, seeing in all other respects also the imperial authority and rule was preserved. Therefore, 3. It follows also that the papal government was not regnant until the destruction of this Gothish kingdom in Italy, for there could not be two supreme heads of Rome at the same time. Therefore, ii. We may conclude that the last head of the beast, which is the papal, did arise either immediately upon the extirpation of the Gothish kingdom, or some time after; but it could not rise to its power immediately after, seeing Justinian did, by the conquest of Italy, revive the imperial government again there, which by that means was healed after the deadly wound which the Heruli and the Goths had given it. Though, I confess, Justinian's conquests of Italy laid a foundation for the Pope's rise, and paved the way for his advancement, both by the penal and sanguinary laws which he made against all those who dissented from the Romish church, and by the confusions that followed upon Narsus, his bringing in the Lombards. For, during the struggles of them and the Exarchat, the Pope played his game so, that the Emperor Phocas found it his interest to engage him to his party, by giving him the title of supreme and universal bishop. Therefore we may justly reckon that the papal head took its first rise from that remarkable year 606, when Phocas did, in a manner, devolve the government of the West upon him, by giving him the title of universal bishop. From which period, if we date the 1260 years, they lead us down, as I already said, to the year 1866, which is 1848 according to prophetical calculation. Or, if a bare title of this sort be not thought sufficient to constitute the Pope head of the Beast, we may reckon this two years later, viz. from the year 608, when Boniface the Fourth did publicly authorise idolatry, by dedicating the Pantheon to the worship of the Virgin Mary and all the Saints. Now it is very remarkable that in the year 666, Pope Vitalian did first ordain that all public worship should be in Latin; and therefore, however the notion of Irenæus has been of late ridiculed, who observed that the characteristical number of the beast, viz. 666, answered to the number of a man's name, from whence he concluded that he was to be a Roman, I cannot but think there is something remarkable in this; not so much because of the antiquity of the notion, as upon the account of the reason he suggests to us for this, when he says that though he grants that other names may be so rendered, yet he fixed upon this because the Latin monarchy was the last of all, and therefore the beast must relate to this or none. Wherein I suppose he alludes to Daniel's account of the four monarchies, (chap. ii. 7.) And, indeed, the little horn that arose out of the head of the fourth beast, (chapter vii. 8) seems not unfitly to represent, not only Antiochus Epiphanes, but the Papal Antichrist, whose type he may therefore be supposed to be. For, as he supplanted three kings, in allusion to which that little horn is said to have plucked up three horns before it by the roots : so did the papal government rise also upon the ruins of the Exarchat, the Lombards, and the authority of the St. Paul. Now, if we make this the emperors in Italy. era of the Papal kingdom, the 1260 I believe this account of Anti-years will not run out before the year christ's rise will not be very accept-2018, according to the computation able to some, whose zeal for the Pope's downfall has made them entertain hope of living to see that remarkable time, which has made them invent plausible schemes to prove that this great enemy was seated in his regal dignity long before the year 606. But if a man will trace truth impartially, he will have reason to think that the rise of this adversary could not be before that time. Nay, I must tell you, that I do not reckon the full rise of the Pope to the headship of the empire till a later date still. For though the Pope took the title of universal bishop at that time, yet he was afterwards, for a long time, subject, in temporal concerns, to the emperors. And, therefore, I cannot reckon him to have been, in a proper and full sense, head of Rome, until he was so in a secular, as well as ecclesiastical sense. And this was not until the days of Pepin, by whose consent he was made a secular prince, and a great part of Italy given to him as Peter's patrimony. So that as Boniface the third (and his successors), by assuming the title of universal bishop, was the forerunner of Antichrist, as Gregory the Great prophesied he would be, who should be known in the world by that proud title ; so likewise we may conclude that Antichrist was indeed come, when Pope Paul the first became a temporal prince also. Phocas, therefore, did only proclaim the Pope to be the last head of Rome in the apocalyptical sense; but it was Pepin who gave him the solemn investiture, and seated him on his throne, which Charlemagne did afterwards confirm to him. Now, as near as I can trace the time of this donation of Pepin, it was in or about the year 758, about the time that Pope Paul the first began to build the church of St. Peter and of Julian years; but, reducing these I cannot forbear to take notice of U is not an innate principle of their faith-that it was only a deed of the dark ages, and will never be revived again in these enlightened times. This manœuvre has imposed on many per one thing here, that the year 758 was the year 666 from the persecution of Domitian, when John was in Patmos, and wrote this book (as Tertullian, Irenæus, Origen, Eusebius, Jerome, and all the ancients excepting Epiph-sons who have too great a faith in the anius, tell us) which, though some say was A.C. 95, was most probably in or about the year 92, the persecution of Domitian having begun two years before. So that here we have another characteristic mark of the number of the beast. goodness of human nature. It is, therefore, our intention to show that Romanism is ever the same—that in the present and past ages, while its forms have been varied to suit the times, it has ever, as now, endeavoured to accomplish, by any means, the temporal and spiritual subjugation of man. In investigating the claims of Roman Catholicism, we shall compare them with the testimony of the Scriptures, the decretals of the General Councils, the writings of the Fathers, and two other indispensable witnesses -Reason and Common-sense. While showing the effects of Roman Catho And now, I hope I have said enough of the future part of time, as to the general idea which, I think, the Revelation gives of it. But I must proceed one step further with you, and consider under what revolution of time we are at present, that we may thence see what we are to expect, and how we are to act. So that here I find myself insensibly taken off from any further direct prosecution of the ques-licism, we shall let History herself give tion proposed by way of answer thereunto. (To be continued.) LECTURES ON ROMAN INTRODUCTION. It is our intention, in a series of lectures, to pourtray the principles of Romanism-to investigate the nature and propriety of its claims-and exhibit its effects on the government, morals, and literature of the countries, which are, or have been, under its influence. In pourtraying the principles of Romanism, we shall endeavour to preserve the most rigid accuracy-we shall exhibit those principles as avowed by Catholic writers themselves, inasmuch as every one will allow that they are the best authorities for their own tenets; and we shall use them for another and more powerful reason, to wit:-It is a common practice of Catholics, in the present age, to disavow some of their worst principles for instance, many of these Catholics now declare that persecution evidence, as the Catholic Church has already had a complete organic existence of 1242 years, it has had ample time to carry its principles into action; and show its influence over every species of government, whether despotic, republican, or monarchical. It has been co-existent with three great literary epochs, and antagonistic to each. If it can be proved that these three epochs were the result of increased intellectual and moral power, then Roman Catholicism must be injurious to the political and moral progress of mankind. That it has been thus injurious we shall endeavour to prove. We shall investigate its influence over morals. We shall show that for the sake of either money or political power it has palliated the vilest crimes, and pandered to, and attempted to justify, the basest passions of human nature; and that every nation under its influence passes through three mental and moral changes, the first change being Fanaticism, the second Indifference, and the third Atheism. With regard to its influence over genius, we shall show, that with the exception of artistic genius, which Roman Catholicism indirectly uses as a most valuable servant, it has been the most bitter persecutor of distinguished minds; and that no nation, under Roman Catholic influence, has a literature of its own. and suffered--one who has exhausted all the pleasures which life can give, and retired from the world to the cloister from weariness of spirit. It is men of this class who, more frequently than any other, have the capacity and inclination to form vast designs-designs which hold in the balance the welfare or the ruin of mighty nations. These are the means by which they the attendant excitement forget, for a time, the burden which memory lays upon their souls. And there is another powerful motive for the extension of Roman Catholicism. This accursed system has produced its full fruit in Italy. The people are now idle and ignorantthe nobles dissolute and depraved, and they already manifest symptoms of a desire to wrest the sceptre of temporal power from the hands of the Pope, so that he will have no disinclination to change his subjects for others who combine a profession of Roman Catholicism with a larger share of morality. We shall now explain our motives for undertaking this task. The pre-deprive life of its weariness, and in sent age will witness a formidable development of Roman Catholicism, inasmuch as the reigning Pope has excited great sympathy by taking a prominent part in the present European movement. We confess that we cannot indulge in this sympathy. Time has more than once disclosed the phenomenon of a Pope heading a great continental movement; and though those movements would, in their ultimate results, have proved detrimental to the supremacy of the Roman church, they only brought the Pope increased temporal power. Nor was this at all surprising, for, while the other powers never had any precise and determinate plan, nor perceived the ultimate tendency of their own exertions, the Pope had his own plan exactly marked out, and consequently led the ruling powers in that direction. Thus, it will be seen, we have good reasons for our distrust; and moreover if the Pope had no ulterior designs, he is not so ill versed in state policy as to be unaware of the fact, that in a revolutionary epoch, he, as a temporal ruler over part of Italy, must either head that movement or be crushed by it. So that even in this last case his present career is only a struggle for self-preservation. The present Pope belongs to that exceedingly rare species, an honest Italian; therefore, if he be deposed, he will have the appearance of being a sufferer "for righteousness sake." But never let it be forgotten that the experience of one thousand years has shown that an honest statesman cannot be an honest Pope. How can a man serve Christ and Anti-Christ? Our motive, then, for exhibiting the nature, the claims, and the effects of Roman Catholicism, is to show, that the virtues of the man cannot modify the evils of the system he represents; and to warn the disciples of The present Pope is, in our judg- Christ that they must not relax in ment, every way equal to Hildebrand their opposition and their distaste to or Sextus the Fifth. Educated in the such an injurious and fatal system, college, the court, the camp, and the nor in any measure be deceived by cloister, he has ascended the Papal a momentary appearance of benevothrone in possession of a vast and va-tence and liberality. ried experience. He is not a dreamy enthusiast, but a man of action and contemplation-one who has thought. June, 1848. J. G. L. J. F. ON PROPHECY CONSIDERED. tion with the context, it is clear that it has a reference only to the Jews in Jerusalem and Judea, and received its accomplishment when the Roman armies demolished Jerusalem, and swept the inhabitants off the land. DEAR BROTHER-I am glad you have opened the pages of the "Harbinger" to the admission of articles on Prophecy. To the biblical student 2. I think it is equally clear that it presents a wide field for investiga- the quotation from Zeph. iii. 8 does tion, in which he may range at large, not support the theory of "the general and explore the great purposes of the destruction of the wicked, &c. at the Divine mind. And what subject is coming of the Lord;" but is to be there to which the student can bend understood as referring to the same the energies of his mind more calcu- event as that predicted by Ezekiel, lated to please, interest, and instruct, chap. xxxviii-ix. and Ezek. chap. xiv. than by endeavouring to unravel the viz. the signal deliverance of the mysteries of Providence, and to un-restored of Israel, and the destruction derstand the great purposes of Jehovah of the armies of Gog. in the moral government of the world, as they stand developed in the prophetic writings. But perhaps there is no subject, the investigation of which requires greater care and a nicer discrimination, in order to insure anything like accuracy, than the subject of Prophecy. On this subject, perhaps, beyond that of any other, it will not do to jump to hasty conclusions, nor to make dogmatic assertions. Much harm has been done by a course of reckless interpretation, and probably many have been deterred from entering upon the field of investigation by the failures of such. Now, I apprehend that your correspondent, J. F. has followed too closely in the path of the generality of the Millenarian interpreters, to steer clear of the shoals and quicksands upon which they have so often foundered. My principal object in writing at present is to make a few remarks upon J. F.'s article in the June number, and to throw a few obstacles in the way of his theory-not that I wish, contrary to his inclination, to draw him into controversy, but simply to afford him an opportunity to fortify his position if he can, or otherwise to be more careful in quoting. 1. The quotation from the prophet, Zeph. i. 17-18, is evidently a misapplication; for, when read in connec 3. Isa. xxiv. 1 to 6 is a most manifest misapplication. Hardly any thing can be clearer than that it has a reference only to the desolations of the land of Israel, and is now in course of fulfilment. The only difficulty appears to arise from the term "earth," which ought to be rendered land, as, indeed, it is in various parts of the chapter. 4. Isa. xxxiv. 1 to 4. Let this quotation be read in connection with the remaining part of the chapter, and what can be clearer then, that it is a prediction concerning Edom and the Edomites? So signal were the judgments of the Lord to be upon this people and land, that the nations were invited to hear and hearken thereto; and there, verse 16, they are called upon to examine and see that none of those things have failed. 5. If J. F. can discover in Isa. li. 6 the proof of his proposition, that "there will be a time previous to the new heavens and the new earth, while the old ones are being destroyed, that there will be neither men, beasts, nor birds to be seen," he must be possessed of much keener optics than I am blessed with. Read the passage in its connection from verse 1, and see if it has not a reference to God's purpose to bless Israel, and to punish those nations who oppressed them. (See verse 21 to end.) And is it not |