lic example of her, and to have destroyed her house; and this was no less his duty, supposing her to have been an idol, and her house a temple. This he certainly would have done, in the state of mind in which he wrote the book of Proverbs, and before his melancholy fall into idolatry, or after his recovery from it, if he was recovered. But that he is speaking of a spiritual seduction, over which he had no authoritative control, is farther evident from the instructions which he gives for avoiding the snare, "Say unto wisdom, Thou art my sister; and call understanding thy kinswoman, that they may keep thee from the strange woman, from the stranger that flattereth with her words." Chap. vii. 4, 5. Wisdom here, I think, is not Christ personally, but the saving knowledge of him; the spiritual understanding of his doctrine, which is the only sure preventative against error and all immorality; and not merely from one species of it, as most readers understand the passage. But supposing Christ himself to be meant, the exhortation would be substantially the same: " Acquaint thyself with Him, and thereby good shall come unto thee."

CHAPTER CCVII.

ALLUSION TO DANIEL'S PROPHECY. WEARING OUT THE SAINTS BY PERSECUTION. LETTER FROM FATHER LA CHAISE, GIVING AN ACCOUNT OF A SCENE BETWEEN HIMSELF AND LOUIS XIV. OF FRANCE.

SATURDAY, June 29th, 1822.

In my last number I endeavoured to illustrate some of the prophecies of the Old Testament, which, I think, have reference to the grand apostacy from the worship of the true God; in which the apostate church is described under the figure of wickedness imbodied and organized, and as the great harlot seducing and ruining the souls of men. In the prophecies of Daniel we have the same system of wickedness predicted under the figure of a horn, which is an emblem of power and dominion. The four successive monarchies are represented as so many wild beasts, the fourth of which exceeded in fierceness all the rest. "It was

dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth; it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it and it was diverse from all the beasts which were before it, and it had ten horns." "The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces." Dan. vii. 7, 23. This, I believe, is allowed on all hands to be the Roman empire; and the ten horns signify as many kingdoms. Be sides these ten there was another little horn to spring up, which was to be distinguished from all the rest: "I considered the horns, and behold there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things." Verse 8. This little horn was to rise up after the others, or behind them, unobserved till he should overtop them; "And he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue hree kings (or kingdoms;) and he shall speak great words against the VOL. II.-83

Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws; and they shall be given into his hand, until a time, times, and the dividing of a time. But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume it, and destroy it unto the end." Verses 24-26. "This is no other than the popedom, or antichrist, who hath raised himself to great power by seizing three principalities, or kingdoms, which Sir Isaac Newton reckons up to be the exarchate of Ravenna, the kingdom of the Lombards, and the seate and dukedom of Rome. And it is hence that the pope wears a triple crown." Signs of the Times, by Bicheno, p. 17.

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What is here represented as a horn of the fourth beast is the same tyranny which is shown to John (Rev. xiii. 1-10.) as a beast. In this all our best commentators are agreed. Nor let it seem strange that what is here prefigured by a horn of the fourth beast, should be represented in another vision, as a beast with seven heads and ten horns. For nothing is more usual than to describe the same person or thing under different images, upon different occasions; and, besides, in this vision, the spiritual tyranny of the Roman empire is not meant to be described at large. Here notice is only given of it in the general representation of the Roman dominion; when the time of the appearance of this tyranny draws near, then a more enlarged description is given. And what is here represented under one image is there represented under two, a dragon and a beast, each having seven heads and ten horns. The slightest attention is sufficient to convince us that the horn here and the first beast in Rev. xiii. are the same tyranny; if we compare the two descriptions, their language, their enormities, their duration, and end, are the same." Ibid.

It is not my intention to write a dissertation on the prophecies. There are plenty of books on these, written by men who understand them much better than I can pretend to do. What I intend is to show

in few words, that the Holy Spirit warned the church in ancient times, that a monster should arise in the latter days, whose character corresponds in every particular with that of the church of Rome. He is one who speaks great words against the Most High. The greatest words which a creature can speak against the Most High, are those which claim equality with him, or which claim to hold his place, and to exercise his authority. This has been done by the church of Rome for twelve hundred years. I do not speak merely of the high titles assumed by the pope, such as, "his holiness," which is his acknowledged title as much as "his majesty" is that of our sovereign; nor of "our Lord God, the Pope," as he is styled by his flattering courtiers; nor of "the Prince of the Kings of the earth," as he affects to be, and agreeably to which he has disposed of kings and kingdoms. It is enough that this church sets us up her authority as at least equal to that of God, if not superior to it, by lording it over the consciences of men, presuming to dictate what they shall believe, and actually setting aside the authority of the word of God, which she does every day by her traditions. The head of this church pretends to be God's vicar on earth; that is, to hold God's place, and to be instead of God to human creatures; and, considering what his personal character has generally been, no greater words against God can be spoken, than that this is his representative.

"He shall think to change times and laws;" and not only think, or imagine the thing, but actually do it. The church of Rome has changed half of the year, in which men ought to follow their lawful business, into holy time, in which they must not do any work; and she allows the Lord's day, the only holy time recognised in the New Testament, to be prostituted by her children to the purpose of amusement. And as for laws, she has used such freedom with the law of God as to strike one of the ten commandments out of the decalogue, because it forbids the worship of images; and she has taken all the matter of the other commandments under her control, insomuch that disobedience and obedience are just what she is pleased to declare. She makes a thing unlawful to-day; and then, by a dispensation, for a stipulated price, she makes it lawful to-morrow. There was never such trafficking among the heathen as there is in the church of Rome in relation to the divine law. This is so changed by popery, that a man may live in the habitual flagrant violation of all its precepts; and though it says peremptorily, "The soul that sinneth it shall die," a popish priest professes to have the power of absolving the greatest transgressor, at the hour of death, and of giving him a sure passport to heaven. In short, the law of God, which is holy, just, and good, is so changed in the church of Rome as to be quite subverted; and to have a system of priestcraft and immorality put in its place. They shall be given into his hand until a time, times, and the dividing of a time; that is, three years and a half, or one thousand two hundred and sixty days, according to the Jewish mode of reckoning, which was three hundred and sixty days to a year; which, according to prophetic language, means one thousand two hundred and sixty years. During this long period, it was predicted by Daniel that this system of iniquity should be suffered to have power on the earth, to blaspheme the God of heaven, by speaking great words against him-to change or subvert his laws, and practise all manner of iniquity.

But the vision presents another feature of the character of the monster, which applies most decidedly to the church of Rome:-" He shall wear out the saints of the Most High." There was never in the world, under any name, a power of whom this can be so truly said as of popery. From the time that the beast was established on his throne, no man within the sphere of his influence was permitted to believe and publish the genuine gospel of the grace of God, and to serve God as his saints in the time of the apostles did. The Christian doctrine hav ing been corrupted, and divine institutions superseded by human inventions, if any man dared to profess the unadulterated gospel, and to worship God with New Testament simplicity, it was at the hazard of his life. Genuine Christianity was proscribed as heresy; and every potentate, and every private individual, whom the church could move by her promises or threats, was called to labour to the utmost of his power in the pious-the meritorious work of extirpating heresy; that is, to use words of Pope Innocent in his bull to that effect, "to root out, and cause to perish the venomous adders" who presumed to believe and worship according as they were instructed by the word of God. By persevering in this course for ages, the church of Rome succeeded in "wearing out" the saints; not absolutely, for God still had witnesses for the truth on the earth; but so worn out, and extermi

nated, that they were comparatively few for a long period. What a wasting and wearing out of the saints does this represent, during the long period of one thousand two hundred and sixty years! It has been said, that persecution tends to the increase of a persecuted sect, which may be true of moderate persecution, if there be such a thing; but not of such persevering, relentless, and savage persecution as that of the church of Rome, especially where the Inquisition was established; for it is a fact, that in many places, particularly in Spain, this horrid engine of popish tyranny prevailed to the entire extirpation of what they called heresy. The saints of the Most High were quite worn out in these parts. No man could even think in his heart what was taught in the word of God; for his confessor would have brought it out of him, and have sent him to the rack and the fire if he did not recant.

In the crusade against the Waldenses, hundreds of thousands were murdered in cold blood, or died of cold and hunger upon the mountains; yet the light of the true religion was never altogether extinguished there, as it was in Spain by the Inquisition. The inhabitants of the mountains and valleys of Piedmont were exposed to the most cruel persecution, centuries before the reformation, and it was continued, with little interruption, down to the middle of the seventeenth century. It was on the occasion of a dreadful massacre of them in 1655, that Milton wrote the following sonnet, which Mr. Jones has given as a motto in the title page of his history of the Waldenses, a book which I recommended in an early part of my work, and which I again recommend to all who wish to know what Christians have suffered from the church of Rome.

Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughter'd saints, whose bones

Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold;
Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old

When all our fathers worshipp'd stocks and stones,
Forget not; in thy book record their groans

Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold
Slain by the bloody Piemontise that roll'd
Mother and infant down the rocks: their moans
The vales redoubled to the hills, and they
To heaven. Their martyr'd blood and ashes sow
O'er all the Italian fields where still doth sway
The triple tyrant; that from these may grow

A hundred fold, who having learned thy way,
Early may fly the Babylonian wo.

The following curious document shows in what a cold-blooded manner a Papist can plan and even execute the extirpation of heretics. It is a letter from Father La Chaise, confessor to Louis XIV., to Father Peters, confessor to James II. of England, in 1688. It is furnished to The Antidote," by Sir Harcourt Lees, who, for its authenticity, refers to the seventh volume, 4to. of the collection of manuscript papers selected from the library of Edward Harley, Earl of Oxford.

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Father La Chaise's Project for the Extirpation of Heretics, in a letter from him to Father P―rs, 1688.

WORTHY FRIEND-I received yours of the 20th of June last, and am glad to hear of your good success, and that our party gains ground so fast in England; but, concerning the question you have put to me, that is, "What is the best course to be taken to root out all heretics?"

to this I answer, there are divers ways to do that, but we must consider which is the best to make use of in England. I am sure you are not ignorant how many thousand heretics we have in France, by the power of our dragoons, converted in the space of one year: and by the doctrine of those booted apostles, turned more in one month, than Christ and his apostles could in ten years. This is a most excellent method, and far excels those of the great preachers and teachers that have lived since Christ's time. But I have spoken with divers fathers of our society, who do think that your king is not strong enough to accomplish his design by such kind of force; so that we cannot expect to have our work done in that manner, for the heretics are too strong in the three kingdoms; and therefore we must seek to convert them by fair means, before we fall upon them with fire, sword, halters, gaols, and other such like punishments; and therefore I can give you no better advice, than to begin with soft, easy means. Wheedle them by promises of profit and places of honour, till you have made them dip themselves in treasonable actions against the laws established, and then they are bound to serve for fear. When they have done thus, turn them out, and serve others so, by putting them in their places; and by this way gain as many as you can. And for the heretics that are in places of profit and honour, turn them out, or suspend them on pretence of misbehaviour; by which their places are forfeited, and they subject to what judgment you please to give upon them. Then you must form a camp, that must consist of none but Catholics; this will make the heretics heartless, and conclude all means of relief and recovery is gone. And lastly, take the short and the best way, which is, to surprise the heretics on a sudden; and to encourage the zealous Catholics, let them sacrifice all, and wash their hands in their blood, which will be an acceptable offering to God. And this was the method I took in France, which hath well, you see, succeeded; but it cost me many threats and promises, before I could bring it thus far; our king being a long time very unwilling. But at last I got him on the hip; for he had lain with his daughter-inlaw, for which I would by no means give him absolution, till he had given me an instrument under his own hand and seal, to sacrifice all the heretics in one day. Now, as soon as I had my desired commission, I appointed the day when this should be done; and, in the mean time, made ready some thousands of letters, to be sent into all parts of France in one post night. I was never better pleased than at that time; but the king was affected with some compassion for the Hugonots, because they had been a means to bring him to his crown and throne; and the longer he was under it, the more sorrowful he was; often complaining, and desiring me to give him his commission again; but that I would by no persuasion do; advising him to repent of that heinous sin, and also telling him, that the trouble and horror of his spirit did not proceed from any thing of evil in those things that were to be done, but from that wickedness that he had done; and that he must resolve to undergo the severe burden of a troubled mind for one of them or the other; and if he would remain satisfied as it was, his sin being forgiven, there would, in a few days, be a perfect atonement made for it, and he perfectly reconciled to God again. But all this would not pacify him; for the longer the more restless; and I therefore ordered him to retire to his closet, and spend his time constantly in prayer, without