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cated great talent and promise, and the Prince wished to hear him. The young man's father was also a preacher at the Court, and he was commanded by the Prince to push his son at a moment's warning into the pulpit, that he might give a fair specimen of his powers; also the text was given to him from Acts viii. 26-40. You remember the passage-the story of the courtier, and his meeting with Philip. The young preacher was confounded, but there was no time to hesitate. After a suitable introduction, he told his noble and crowded audience that his subject contained four wonders, four marvels (quatre merveilles), which he should make the four heads of his sermon, and if he should say anything to which their ears had not been accustomed in that place, he hoped that his unprepared state of mind from his sudden call would plead his apology, and that they would consider the things he might speak as according to our Lord's promise, given to him in that hour.'

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"Marvel the first: A courtier reads. Here he deplored the sad neglect in the education of great men in modern times, and the little attention paid by them to books.

"Marvel the second: a courtier reads the Bible. Here he deplored the melancholy condition of religious sentiments and feelings in the great, and the impoverished state of a mind so destitute.

"Marvel the third: A courtier owns himself ignorant of his subject. Here he exposed the conceit and presumption of petulant ignorance in high places.

"Marvel the fourth: A courtier applies to a minister of Christ for information, and follows his counsel.

The Prince was famous for sleeping during the service, but he did not sleep during that sermon.

But our young friend was never asked to preach in the palace again. The prince and the preacher took their revenge upon each other.

INDIA.

THE Cyclone which recently swept over Lower Bengal, carrying death and devastation in its track, laid

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prostrate many mission chapels and houses. Thus the Rev. J. Wenger, of the Baptist Society, writes from Calcutta:- "All the mission property here has suffered; the chapel in Lal Bazaar most severely of all. The mission-house suffered severely on the north side. At Serampore, the college suffered most; after it the collegehouse. Most of our native Christians here are homeless. The South villages suffered more, in comparison, than Calcutta. The native Christians have, with very few exceptions, lost all their houses, and more than half their cattle. The rice crop will not yield more than one-fourth, if so much. At Khari every building is level with the ground. Only the bare walls of the chapel are partially standing. In that village fifteen lives were lost among our native Christians. At Lukhyantipore and Dhankata the people fared a trifle better; but Brindabun, one of the pastors, lost two children through the fall of his house." The Rev. R. Robinson writes more particularly of the effects of the storm on the Christian villages to the south of Calcutta:"You will be prepared to hear that the devastation among the south villages has been complete. With the exception of the brick-built chapel at Lukhyantipore, one of whose walls has split clean down from top to bottom, and is gaping wide, I have not a chapel standing throughout the district. The bungalows and huts occupied by our people have, with rare exceptions, shared the same fate; the golahs, in which their grain was stored, have been blown down, and the grain either blown away or utterly ruined by the rain. At this moment there are hundreds of families in those southern villages that are without shelter, without food, without clothing, without a stick of property of any kind, and without hope. The crops still in the ground have been severely injured, and will not yield more than one-third of what was expected; because, though there was no wave of salt water this time to inundate them, the gale was severer, and it just laid them low, and beat them into the ground. In respect of loss of life,

Khari has suffered more severely than any other station. This is owing, partly, to the large Christian population here, and partly to its neighbourhood to the Mutlah, up which a storm-wave five feet high did come This wave has also swamped Tambulda. In Khari, not one house has escaped, the largest and strongest having come down as helplessly as the smallest and frailest. The brick

chapel at Narsigdarchoke has been levelled with the ground, and my house at Bishtopore has had one of the rooms fallen in."-Freeman.

BAPTISM OF A METHODIST MINISTER.

The

LINEHOLME.-On Sunday, December 29th, an event which created very great excitement and interest in this locality took place. The Rev. S. Pilling, lately one of the United Methodist Free Church ministers in the circuit, and who has just recently adopted the sentiments of the Baptists, preached two excellent sermons, morning and evening, in the above place of worship, in which he stated his reasons for leaving the former denomination of Christians and embracing the doctrines of the Baptists. congregations were large, especially in the evening, when the place was densely packed, many having to go away unable to obtain admission, and many more taking a place in the school-room, where the preacher in the chapel may be heard somewhat faintly. In the evening the rev. gentleman took as his text the first portion of St. Mark's Gospel xvi. 16: "He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved." After which the Rev. S. Pilling was baptised by the Rev. J. Wolfenden, minister at Lineholme.Todmorden Advertiser.

MARRIAGE. WOODHEAD-DEAN.-January 16th, at the Baptist Chapel, Sunnyside, near Rawtenstall, by the Rev. Abraham Nichols, Mr. Charles Woodhead, clerk at the East Lancashire Railway Station, Burnley, to Elizabeth, daughter of Mr. John Dean, Primrose Terrace, High-street, Crawshawbooth, Lancashire.

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THE

PRIMITIVE CHURCH

(OR BAPTIST)

MAGAZINE.

No. CCXCI.-MARCH 2, 1868.

Essays, Expositions, &c.

POPERY; ITS RISE AND RUIN.

Ir any spot on earth is more worthy of veneration than another, it is Jerusalem. No other locality has associations so sacred. With no other city is the history of the Saviour so closely connected. His footsteps may still be traced in its streets. His miracles have rendered memorable its places of public resort. Its very atmosphere still vibrates with the wonderful words which fell from His lips. We may visit the scene of His agony, and with penitential, adoring gratitude, we may gaze on "the place which is called Calvary." We may see "the place where the Lord lay" in the embrace of death, and from which He arose the first fruits of them that sleep. In imagination we may accompany Him and his disciples to Bethany, and, having listened to his last words, behold him ascend to the right hand of God. Surely, if any locality has a claim to be considered the metropolis of the Christian world it is Jerusalem, the Holy City. But by a series of remarkable events, the attention of Christendom has been directed to Rome, and the Holy City has had a far less share of our regard than that which has been proudly called "Eternal."

This fact is by no means difficult to account for. Rome is the residence of an apostate minister of Christ, who has dared to usurp the prerogatives of his Master. He says he is Christ's vicar, the living representative of the Lord Jesus; that his power is as great, his authority as sacred, and his wisdom as infallible as that of the Saviour himself. He tells us that he is above kings, and that there is not one of them but ought to receive the crown from his sacred hands. He assures us that he has supreme authority over all Christian ministers and all Christian men, and that if we commit ourselves to his guidance we cannot be wrong, and that if we reject it we cannot be right. He declares that it depends upon his will whether we enter the gates of heaven, or are thrust down to hell. Strange to say there are 130,000,000 of earth's inhabitants who believe in these monstrous pretentions, and have the settled conviction that their happiness, present and future, is in the hands of the Pope and his ministers. Can we wonder, then, that their hopes and fears are fixed on Rome? From Jerusalem, the sacred presence has long since departed; but they affirm that in the Eternal City, from age to age, it visibly abides in the person of the Holy Father.

VOL. XXV.NO. CCXCI.

F

Whence comes this strange power? Is it from heaven, or of men? Of course the Pope, the priests, and the people who believe in them, endeavour to make out for it a Divine original. They affirm that Peter, by the direct authority of Jesus Christ, was Prince of the apostles; that he was founder and first bishop of the Church at Rome; that the Pope is his successor, and by the will of the Saviour inherits his powers. Upon these assertions rest the extraordinary claims of the papacy. Let us look at them.

It is affirmed that Peter was endowed with supreme authority over his fellow apostles. The text upon which this doctrine is based is as follows:-"Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" (Matt. xvi. 18-19). It will be observed that there are three things here:-he is to be in some sense the foundation of the church; he is to have the power of binding and loosing; and he is to have the keys of the kingdom of heaven. In two of these things it is clear that Peter had no pre-eminence. Paul accords the same honour to all the apostles. We learn from him that the church is "built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone" (Eph. ii. 20). And if we turn to Matt. xviii. 18, we find the Saviour conferring the power of binding and loosing on each of them without distinction,—“ Verily I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." In neither of these particulars, whatever they may involve, was Peter exalted above his fellows. There remains only the power of the keys. We admit, at once, that this was peculiar to him, but in a sense very different from that in which Romanists regard it. For a simple and beautiful illustration of the words "I give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven," we have only to turn to the earliest records of the preaching of the gospel. On the day of Pentecost, Peter opened the kingdom of heaven to the Jews when he said "Repent, and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." And in like manner he opened the door of faith to the Gentiles. Rising above the prejudice common to the rest of the apostles, he was the first to preach to them in the house of the Roman Centurion the unsearchable riches of Christ. In this sense, and it is the only possible one, Peter could have no successor.

It is hardly necessary to remark that, with the above exception, Christ placed all the apostles on a level (Matt. xx. 25-27); that Peter received commissions from his brethren, rather than they from him (Acts viii. 14); that they call him to account for preaching to the Gentiles (Acts xi. 1-3); that Paul withstood him to the face (Gal. ii. 11); and expressly affirms his own equality with "the very chiefest apostles," (2 Cor. ii. 8); every one of which particulars, shews that Peter was not endowed with supreme authority over the church of Christ.

But it is said that, at least, Peter was the founder and first pastor of the church at Rome. We dispute the statement. The evidence of the New Testament is opposed to the supposition that he was for any length of time a resident at Rome. If he was pastor of the church there, what necessity was there for Paul to write an epistle, giving instruction and advice? If Peter was there, they had already one in their midst whose wisdom and authority was equal to his own. And then we find in the same epistle a long list of salutations:-"Greet Priscilla and Aquilla," "Salute Andronicus and Junia," &c.,but there is no salutation for Peter, an omission which could not possibly have been made had he been there. A few years later Paul was a prisoner at Rome, and during his captivity he wrote several epistles, but there is no mention of his fellow-apostle being in the same city. He was at length set at liberty, and becomes a second time "an ambassador in bonds." He then writes his second epistle to Timothy, and speaks of Demetrius and Crescens, of Titus and Luke, as having been, or still remaining at Rome, but makes not the slightest

reference to the so called "Prince of the apostles," a circumstance utterly incredible on the supposition that Peter, with or without the dignity ascribed to him, had his abode in the Imperial City.

After what has been said, we need not devote more than a sentence or two in reply to the assertion that Christ intended Peter's supremacy to be inherited by the Bishops of Rome. Supposing Peter to have been endowed with all the powers claimed for him, it seems likely that about the transfer of prerogatives, so unutterably important to the universal church, something would have been found in the New Testament, yet, we are not aware that there is a single sentence which, by any fair interpretation, can be made to say that the authority of the apostle Peter was to be exercised through all time by the Bishops of Rome. This papal inheritance of apostolic powers is an entirely groundless assumption. Peter had no superiority over his brethren; he was not first Bishop of the Church of Rome, and there is no evidence that Christ intended even the powers he did possess to descend to any successor whatever.

It would be very easy to shew, did space permit, that the papal power instead of being a divine institution, is a noxious growth. We discover its first manifestations side by side with the early blossom of the tree of life, the full development of which it has done so much to hinder. We can hardly read with attention the epistles of Paul without perceiving the operation of principles, which in later times have been known as popery. Idolatry was stealing into the church (1 Cor. x. 14); there was "voluntary humility and worshipping of angels" (Col. ii. 18); a vain observation of festivals (Gal. iv. 10); a distinction of meats, (1 Cor. viii. 8); a neglecting of the body (Col. ii. 23); undue regard to the commandments and traditions of men, (Col. ii. 8, 22); and Diotrephes loved to have the pre-eminence. To trace the development of these early errors to their culmination in "the mystery of iniquity" would be too long a story for these pages. Let it suffice to say that it was not until the lapse of many centuries that the Pope was recognised as the Head of the Church, and that it took a still longer period to raise him to a temporal sovereignty, the first honour being conferred upon him in 606, and the second in 756. Yet the adherents of

the papacy have the effrontery to talk of the rights of the fisherman of Galilee ; the divine authority of the Prince of the apostles; the patrimony of Peter! The truth is, that for a thousand years and more, they have succeeded in maintaining one of the most gigantic impostures the world ever saw.

It is very natural to enquire what prospect there is of the termination of a system so utterly alien to Christianity? The mere fact that its foundations are laid in falsehood is a sufficient guarantee that sooner or later it must perish. But we have, in addition, the assurance of the word of God that the papacy is destined to ultimate ruin. It is our belief that this is foretold by Paul when he says, "Whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming": by Daniel when he tells us that "he shall speak great words against the 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 and times, and the dividing of time; but the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and destroy it unto the end" (Dan. vii. 25-26); and by John, when he declares that the period during which the Holy City shall be trodden under foot is limited to forty and two months, or 1,260 days (Rev. xi. 2-3). There can hardly be a doubt that the period mentioned in this various phraseology, is that during which the church is to suffer from the usurpation of popery, and that the time indicated is 1,260 years. If we knew when to date the beginning of the reign of "the man of sin," we might come to some conclusion about the period of its termination. The title of "Universal Bishop" was given to the Pope in the year 606, and, reckoning from that date, it would bring us to 1866 as the period at which anti-Christ would cease to reign. But if we reckon from the year 756, when the Pope became a temporal prince, the termination of his reign is postponed to a much later period. It ill becomes us, however, to dogmatise about dates.

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