תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

the immediate forerunners of the coming of Christ, and caused a complete abandonment of the cities. Private and public buildings, palaces and churches, were suffered to go to decay as no longer useful. Multitudes were desirous of hastening to Jerusalem, and witnessing the descent of Christ, and it was thought the duty of all Christians to unite in chastising and expelling those barbarous infidels from the holy City, and relieving the persecuted and oppressed, and thus preparing the city for her King.

[ocr errors]

The first effort to rouse Christendom to the subject, was made by Pope Sylvester II. who, in the tenth century, addressed an epistle to the church universal, as from the oppressed church in Jerusalem, calling for immediate relief. But little however, was effected, until the close of the eleventh century. About that time, Peter, a hermit, who had been in military. life, and had seen the miseries of the Christians in the East, wrapt in a coarse garment, his head bare, his feet naked, rode through Europe on an ass, bearing a weighty crucifix and a letter which he affirmed was written in heaven, and preaching to immense crowds in streets and churches, and roused all the nations to an holy war. The popes used every artifice to increase the excitement made by the Hermit, and increase the number of spiritual soldiers. A plenary indulgence, a full absolution of their sins, was granted to all who should enlist. Amazing were the results. An immense multitude, computed at not less than 800,000, from the various nations of Europe, under illustrious commanders, set forth in the year 1096, to recover Jerusalem from the hands of the infidels. It was a motley assemblage of nobles, soldiers, monks, nuns, artists, labourers, boys and girls, pressing forward; some, from pious motives, some, from the hope of gaining heaven, (for all who fell in battle, were assured of a high seat in the regions of bliss,) and many from the prospect of spoil, of making their fortunes in the rich fields of Asia. Never was such enthusiasm felt on any subject. But a miserable fatality awaited the greater part of these adventurers; for acting more like an undisciplined band of robbers, than Christians, they incensed against them the nations through which they marched, and were amazingly wasted away by famine, sword and pestilence, before they reached the Saracen dominions. Such of the rabble as passed into Asia under Peter the hermit, were cut to pieces by Solyman. The disciplined soldiers however, were more successful, and, in the year 1099, became masters of the holy City, under Godfrey of Bouillon, who immediately laid the foundations of a new kingdom. Such was the termination of the first crusade or croisade as it was

called, in the French language, because its object was to extend the triumphs of the cross, and every soldier wore a consecrated cross of various colours upon his right shoulder.

No sooner, however, had the vast multitude returned to Europe than the Saracens fell upon the new kingdom at Jerusalem, threatening it with an utter extermination. A new crusade was demanded to support the tottering empire; and, in the year 1147, another torrent was seen pouring into the plains of Asia. This was headed by the two powerful monarchs, Conrad III. emperor of Germany, and Lewis VII. king of France; but it was wholly unsuccessful. By sword, by famine, by shipwreck and the perfidy of the Greeks, they were wasted away, and the next year a miserable handful were seen retreating into Europe. The Saracens took courage, and, in the year 1187, recaptured Jerusalem, with horrible carnage and desolation.

The fanatical spirit, however, was not destroyed. It raged throughout two centuries. A third, a fourth, a fifth, and a sixth crusade, were undertaken by the champions of the cross; and, as the final result, the Christians lost all footing in Judea, above two millions of lives and an incalculable treasure. Never were such wild and extravagant enterprizes undertaken by any of the children of Adam. They were fit to proceed out from the age of deepest superstition and midnight darkness.

Some good and much evil resulted from them. No doubt their civil effects were extremely advantageous. They awoke the nations from the slumber of ages. They set mankind, bound down under a most terrible despotism, in motion. They made tribes and people, wholly unacquainted, known to each other, and gave the unpolished nations of the north and west a knowledge of the refinement and arts of the east. They did much therefore indirectly to the production of a revolution in the religious world. They were among the carliest causes of the rise of civil and religious freedom. But their immediate effects upon the religious and moral state of the world were deplorable in the extreme. They augmented amazingly the power and authority of the Roman pontiffs. These became, at once, the military commanders of the European world. Emperors and kings were but subordinate officers in these tremendous armies. They enriched beyond all calculation the Roman See, churches and monasteries; for to them the pious crusaders bequeathed their lands, houses and money; and, as few of them ever returned, they became their lawful possessors. Their demoralizing influence was such as no tongue can tell. The professedly pious world turned into a lawless banditti, and under pretence of extending the triumphs of the cross, abandon

ed themselves to the most flagitious and abominable crimes without any shame or remorse. If they went from home, a crowd of pretended saints, they came back desperate villains.

Such an opportunity the cunning pontiffs and monks did not lose to strengthen the superstition of the age. An army of dead mens' bones, of the relics of all the saints from the martyr Stephen down to the latest age, was brought by the returning crusades from the tombs of Asia, and most carefully deposited in all the temples and monasteries of Europe. The Greeks and the Syrians knew how to impose upon the ignorance and superstition of the French, the English and the Germans, and sold them these pretended relics at the highest prices. They were considered as the noblest spoils, compensating for all the toil, expense and bloodshed of these wild enterprizes.

The Crusades, too, gave rise to three military orders in the Church of Christ. These were called the knights of St. John, of Jerusalem, the Knights Templars, and the Teutonic Order. Their general business was to support and extend Christianity, to protect the pious pilgrims of Jerusalem against the Mahometans and all foes, and to assist and relieve all wounded and needy soldiers. These orders indeed sustained for a while their great and good fathers, the Roman pontiffs, but they so increased in wealth, in vice and savage barbarity, that the nations could not endure them. Some were suppressed by the arm of power, others were abandoned at the light of reformation.

Thus have we taken a view, not of the true Church of Christ, but of the "MAN OF SIN," of the terrible beast which opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, and to whom it was given to make war with the saints, and to overcome them, and to have power over all kindreds and tongues and nations. We have seen its rise, the extent of its power, and the artful means by which it strengthened itself in its terrible dominion. For near ten centuries it held all Europe, and has for a much longer period, many of its countries, in the most horrid bondage.

For a long time the bishops of Rome were chosen by the suffrages of the whole Roman people; but in consequence of the rage and violence of contending factions, the choice was taken out of their hands and committed to a small number of men called Cardinals, and even the approbation of the emperor, once requisite, was soon rejected and despised. Some distinguished monk was commonly raised to the papacy. Sometimes opposing factions elected two popes, when bitter contentions ensued. In 855, it is said, a woman disguised as a man, had the art to gain an election to the papal chair, and governed the Church for two years. She is known by the title of Pope Joan.

Many of the popes reigned but a few months, and most of them but a few years. The number of bishops and popes who have filled the See of Rome, is 250. John XII. first introduced the practice in 956, followed by all his successors of changing their name when chosen to the papacy.

The papists flattered themselves that their dominion would be forever. But the trump of prophecy, ages ago, proclaimed its end. Daniel says, it shall continue "a time and times, and the dividing of time." John gives its duration" forty and two months," and "a thousand two hundred and threescore days." All these are the same period, 1260 years. For a time signifies a year. A time and times and the dividing of time, are three years and an half; which, according to the ancient Jewish year of 12 months of 30 days each, is equal to 42 months or 1260 days. If then, the establishment of popery was at the grant of Phocas, in Á. D. 666, it will come to its end before the close of the nineteenth century. But if it was at the rise of image worship and the little horn, it will not cease until 2000 years from the birth of Christ.

Thanks be to God, the power is already broken. Thanks be to God, the Bible was preserved through the long night of darkness, and has been brought forth pure and uncorrupt to bless mankind. Every step in the history of the reformation will call for the warmest expressions of gratitude and praise.

CHAPTER X.

Two witnesses, predicted by John. Their Character. Why said to be two. Their History obscure. Traced out in an age of darkness. Leo and Constantine. Council of Constantinople and Frankfort. Alcuin. Council of Paris. Rabanus and Scotus. Claudius of Turin. Goteschalcus. Council at Trosly, Athelstan, Afric, Arnulphus. Witnesses in France and England. Waldenses. Peter Waldo. John Wickliff and his followers. William Sautre. John Badby. Lord Cobham. John Huss and Jerome of Prague. Their adherents and followers. The Hussite War. Brethren and

Sisters of the Free Spirit.

In the revelations to John, in which the Papal power was so clearly predicted, we are presented with two Witnesses, who are to prophecy in sackloth, during the continuance of the

grand corruption. By these, it is supposed, are designated the true followers of Christ; who should, from age to age, bear witness to the truth. They are said to be two; a small, but competent number; the number required as suitable testimony by the law and the gospel. "In the mouth of two witnesses shall every word be established." Their history therefore, is that of the true church, while the history of popery is that of a monstrous corruption. But it is a history almost entirely hidden from us, in some periods; because the number of real Christians was exceedingly small, and because they were persecuted and trodden down and without the means of giving their own history to a future age.

Amid the ravages of Mahometanism, Christianity early expired in Africa and the East. Constantinople remained a Christian city until the fifteenth century; but, as early as the tenth, we find scarce any vestiges of piety among the Greeks. The witnesses to the truth, the men of piety, who abhorred the man of sin, and who formed the connecting link between the early Christians and the reformers, were chiefly to be found in the western or latin Church. The emperors Leo Isauricus and Constantine Copronymus, and the council of Constantinople, however, are not to be forgotten for the bold stand they took in the eighth century, against the worship of images, and the intercession of saints-the first great defection of the R man church. With them may be connected Charlemagne and the council of Frankfort, who, in 794, condemned in the West, the same abominations. Alcuin, an Englishman and Paulinus an Italian bishop, in the same age, raised their voice against the rising errors. The Paulicians, though they held to some errors, bore witness against the errors of the seventh and eighth centuries.

In the ninth century, several princes warmly remonstrated against the increasing power of the pope and the worship of images. Lewis, the pious, held a council at Paris, A. D. 824, which forbad that worship. Agobard, archbishop of Lyons; wrote against it. Rabanus and Johannes Scotus, the two most learned men of the age, vigorously opposed the new doctrine of transubstantiation. But no man so powerfully stemmed the torrent of superstition as Claudius, Bishop of Turin. He op posed the supremacy of the pope, the doctrine of merit and transubstantiation, and the worship of images; preached the pure. doctrines of the Gospel, and laid the foundations of those churches, which, long after, flourished in the vallies of PiedHe was a bright light, in an age of great darkness. In Germany, Goteschalcus, bore witness to the doctrines of pre

mont.

« הקודםהמשך »