same confidence his lordship adds: "Our laying aside a ceremony (the anointing) which has long been useless, &c. can be no loss, while every thing that is truly valuable in St. James's direction is preserved in our office for visiting the sick."* Exactly in this manner our friends, the Quakers, undertake to prove, that, in laying aside the ceremony of washing catechumens with water, they have preserved every thing that is truly valuable" in the sacrament of Baptism! But where shall we find an end of the inconsistencies and impieties of deluded Christians, who refuse to hear that church which Christ has appointed to explain to them the truths of religion? There is not more truth in the prelate's assertion, that there is no mention of anointing with oil, among the primitive Christians, except in miraculous cures, during the first 600 years: for the celebrated Origen, who was born in the age next to that of the apostles, after speaking of an humble confession of sins, as a means of obtaining their pardon, adds to it, the anointing with oil, prescribed by St. James. St. Chrysostom, who lived in the fourth century, speaking of the power of priests in remitting sin, says, they exert it when they are called in to perform the rite mentioned by St. James, &c. The testimony of Pope Innocent I. in the same age, is so express as to the warrant for this sacrament, the matter, the minister, and the subjects of it; that though the bishop alluded to the testimony, he does not choose to grapple with it, or even to quote it. I pass over the irrefragable authorities of St. Cyril of Alexandria, Victor of Antioch, St. Gregory the Great, and our Venerable Bede, in order once more to recur to that short but convincing proof, that the Catholic church has not invented those sacraments and doctrines in latter ages, which Protestants assert were unknown in the primitive ages. The Nestorians then broke off from the communion of the church in 431, and the Eutychians in 451: these rival sects exist, in numerous congregations, throughout the east, at the present day, and they both, as well as the Greeks, Armenians, &c. maintain, in belief and practice, Extreme Uuction as one of the seven sacraments. Nothing can so satisfactorily vindicate our church from the charge of imposition or innovation, in the particulars mentioned, as these facts do. How much more consistently has the impious Friar, Martin Luther, acted in denying at once the authority of St. James's Epistle, and condemning it as "a chaffy composition, and un-. + Barclay's Apology, Prop. 12. § De Sacerd. I. iii. T P. 61. * P. 61. Hom. ii. in Levit. worthy an apostle," than Bp. Porteus, with his confederates do, who attempt to explain away the clear proofs of extreme unction, contained in it? In the mean time, in spite of them all, pious Catholics will continue to reap inestimable consolation and grace, in the time of man's greatest need, for the sake of which this and the other helps of their church, were provided by our Saviour Jesus Christ. REV. SIR, LETTER XLV. I am, &c. J. M. To the Rev. ROBERT CLAYTON, M. A. WHETHER THE POPE BE ANTICHRIST. THERE remains but one more question of doctrine to be discussed between me and your favourite controvertist, bishop Porteus, which is concerning the character and power of the Pope; and this he compresses into a narrow compass, among a variety of miscellaneous matters, in the latter part of his book. However, as it is a doctrine of first-rate importance, against which I make no doubt but several of your Salopian Society have been early and bitterly prejudiced, I propose to treat it, at some length, and in a regular way. To do this, I must begin with the inquiry, whether the Pope be really and truly, the man of sin, and the son of perdition, described by St. Paul, 2 Thess. ii. 1, 10, in short, the Antichrist spoken of by St. John, 1 John ii. 18, and called by him, A beast with seven heads and ten horns, Revel. xiii. 1, whose See or church is the great harlot, the mother of the fornications and abominations of the earth, Ibid. xvii. 5. I shudder to repeat these blasphemies, and I blush to hear them uttered by my fellow Christians and countrymen, who derive their liturgy, their ministry, their Christianity, and civilization, from the Pope and the church of Rome; but they have been too generally taught by the learned, and believed by the ignorant, for me to pass them by in silence on this occasion. One of hishop Porteus's colleagues bishop of Hallifax, speaks of this doctrine concerning the Pope and Rome, as long being "the common symbol of Protestantism." Certain it is, that the author of it, the outrageous Martin Luther, may be said to have established Protestantism upon this principle: he had at first submitted his "Stramminosa." Prefat. in Ep. Jac. Jenæ de Captiv. Babyl. + Sermons by bishop Hallifax, preached at the Lecture founded by the late bishop Warburton, to prove the apostacy of Papal Rome, p. 27. religious controversies to the decision of the Pope, protesting to him thus: "Whether you give life or death, approve or reprove, as you may judge best, I will hearken to your voice, as to that of Christ himself:"* but no sooner did Pope Leo condemn his doctrine, than he published his book “ Against the execrable Bull of Antichrist," as he qualified it. In like manner, Melancthon, Bullinger, and many others of Luther's followers, publicly maintained, that the Pope is Antichrist, as did afterwards Calvin, Beza, and the writers of that party in general. This party considered this doctrine so essential, as to vote it an article of faith, in their synod of Gap, held in 1603. The writers in defence of this impious tenet in our island, are as numerous as those of the whole continent put together, John Fox, Whitaker, Fulke, Willet, sir Isaac Newton, Mede, Lowman, Towson, Bicheno, Kett, &c. with the bishops, Fowler, Warburton, Newton, Hallifax, Hurd, Watson, and others, too numerous to be here mentioned. One of these writers, whose work has but just appeared, has collected a new and quite whimsical system from the Scriptures concerning Antichrist. Hitherto, Protestant expositors have been content to apply the character and attributes of Antichrist to a succession of Roman pontiffs; but the Rev. H. Kett professes to have discovered, that the said Antichrist is, at the same time, every Pope who has filled the See of Rome, since the year 756, to the number of one hundred and sixty, together with the whole of what he calls "the Mahometan power," from a period more remote by a century and a half, and the whole of infidelity, which he traces to a still more ancient origin than even Mahometanism.§ That the first Pope, St. Peter, on whom Christ declared, that he built his church, Mat. xvi. 18, was not Antichrist, I trust I need not prove, nor, indeed, his third successor in the Popedom, St. Clement, since St. Paul testifies of him, that his name there is written in the book of life, Phil. iv. 3. In like manner, is no need of my demonstrating, that the See of Rome was not the harlot of Revelations, when St. Paul certified of its members, that their faith was spoken of throughout the whole world, Rom. i. 8. At what particular period, then, I now ask, as I asked Mr. Brown, in one of my former letters, did the grand * Epist. ad Leon X. A. D. 1518. † Tom. ii. Bossuet's Variat. P. ii. B. 13. § History of the Interpreter of Prophecy, by H. Kett, B. D. This writer's attempt to transform the great supporters of the Pope, St. Jerom, Pope Gregory I, St. Bernard, &c. into witnesses that the Pope is Antichrist, because they condemn certain acts as Antichristian, is truly ridiculous. apostasy take place, by which the head pastor of the church of Christ, became his declared enemy, in short, the Antichrst, and by which the church, whose faith had been divinely authenticated, became the great harlot, full of the names of blasphemy? This revolution, had it really taken place, would have been the greatest and the most remarkable that ever happened since the deluge hence, we might expect, that the witnesses, who profess to bear testimony to its reality, would agree, as to the time of its taking place. Let us now observe how far this is the fact. The Lutheran Braunbom, who writes the most copiously, and the most confidently of this event, tells us, that the Popish Antichrist was borne in the year of Christ 86, that he grew to his full size in 376, that he was at his greatest strength in 636, that he began to decline in 1086, that he would die in 1640, and that the world would end in 1711.* Sebastian Francus affirms, that Antichrist appeared immediately after the apostles, and caused the external church, with its faith and sacraments, to disappear. The Protestant church of Transylvania published that Antichrist first appeared A. D. 200. Napper declared that his coming was about 313, and that Pope Silvester was the man. Melancthon says, that Pope Zozimus, in 420, was the first Antichrist, while Beza transfers this character to the great and good St. Leo, A. D. 440. Fleming fixes on the year 606 as the year of this great event, Bp. Newton on the year 727; but all agree, says the Rev. Henry Kett, "that the Antichristian power was fully established in 757, or 758."** Notwithstanding this conident assertion, Cranmer's brother-inlaw, Bullinger, had, long before, assigned the year 763 as the era of this grand revolution,tt and Junius had put it off to 1073. Musculus could not discover Antichrist in the church till about 1200, Fox not till 1300,‡‡ and Martin Luther, as we have seen, not till his doctrine was condemned by Pope Leo in ì 520. Such are the inconsistencies and contradictions of those learned Protestants, who profess to see so clearly the verification of the prophecies concerning Antichrist in the Roman pontiffs. I say contradictions, because those among them who pronounce Pope Gregory, or Leo the Great, or Pope Silvester, to have been Antichrist, must contradict those others, who admit them to have been respectively Christian pastors and saints. Now what credit do men of sense give to an account of any * Bayle's Dict. Braunbom. De Abolend. Christ. per Antichris. In locis postremo edit. ** Vol. ii. p. 58. tt In Apoc. † De Alvegand. Stat. Eccles. T In Confess General. sort, the vouchers for which contradict each other? Certainly none at all. Nor are the predictions of these egregious interpreters, concerning the death of Antichrist, and the destruction of Popery, more consistent with one another, than their accounts of the birth and progress of them both. We have seen above, that Braunbom prognosticated that the death of the papal Antichrist would take place in the year 1640. John Fox foretold it would happen in 1666. The incomparable Joseph Mede, as bishop Hallifax calls him,* by a particular calculation of his own invention, undertook to demonstrate that the Papacy would be finally destroyed in 1653. The Calvinist minister Jurieau, who had adopted this system, fearing that the event would not verify it, found a pretext to lengthen the term, first to 1690, and afterwards to 1710. But he lived to witness a disappointment at each of these periods. Alix, another Huguenot preacher, predicted that the fatal catastrophe would certainly take place in 1716.§ Whiston, who pretended to find out the longitude, pretended also to discover that the Popedom would terminate in 1714: finding himself mistaken, he guessed a second time, and fixed on the year 1735. At length, Mr. Kett, from the success of his Antichrist of Infidelity against his Antichrist of Popery, about twenty years ago, (for he feels no difficulty in dividing Satan against himself, Mat. xii. 6,) foretold that the long wished for event was at the eve of being accomplished, and Mr. Daubeny having, with several other preachers, witnessed Pope Pius VI. in chains, and Rome possessed by French Atheists, sounds the trumpet of victory, and exclaims, all is accomplished.** Empty triumph of the enemies of the church! They ought to have learned, from her lengthened history, that she never proves the truth of Christ's promises so evidently as when she seems sinking under the waves of persecution; and that the chair of Peter never shines so gloriously, as when it is filled by a dying martyr, like Pius VI, or a captive confessor, like Pius VII; however triumphant for a time, their persecutors may appear! But these dealers in prophecy undertake to demonstrate from the characters of Antichrist, as pointed out by St. Paul and St. John, that this succession of Popes is the very man in question: *.P. 286. + Bayle's Dict. + Ibid. Essay on Revel. The fall of Papal Rome. In like manner G. S. Faber, in his two Sermons before the University of Oxford, in 1799, boasts that "the immense Gothic structure of Popery, built on superstition and buttressed with tortures, has crumbled to dust." |