"It shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it." True Christianity shall therefore be universally known, firmly established, and cordially embraced by all the Gentile Lands, by all the nations of the earth. This has never yet been the case-there still remains very much land to be possessed; and there are even now at this remote period immense territories which are not yet enlightened with the feeblest ray of the Sun of Righteousness.

But the work though incomplete is begun; it is we trust at present rapidly advancing; and there is most encouraging ground of hope that the promise though long delayed, shall shortly receive an entire accomplishment.

The Protestant churches have only recently indeed awakened in any tolerable degree to the importance of labouring for the promotion of this holy cause. The members of the Romish Communion in this respect justly lay claim to the pre-eminence. They have long been distinguished by their missionary exertions, and although those missions were far more of a temporal than of a spiritual character, they afforded for many years an instructive example to other professing Christians. Until the formation of the Church Missionary Society the Church of England scarcely attempted any thing for the conversion of the JANUARY, 1839.

heathen. The Society for promoting Christian Knowledge patronized a few Danish missionaries in the East, and the Society for the propagation of the Gospel assisted in supporting a few clergymen and school masters in our North American and West Indian Colonies; but prior to the commencement of the present century, there was scarcely a single clergyman of the Church of England employed as a missionary to the heathen; and in fact at the present moment that Society is the only institution in connexion with the Church of England whose labourers and whose funds are mainly devoted to the evangelizing of the heathen. The Propagation Society is principally an Institution for colonial benefit, and the Society for the promoting of Christian Knowledge is chiefly engaged in the home department.

There is however another ground on which the Romanists claim distinction and superiority over other communions. In the language of the celebrated Bossuet, they maintain that the Church is invisible,that it always exists, that the truth of the Gospel is there always professed by the whole society, and that it is not permitted to depart from its doctrine; or in other terms that it is infallible-he then states that these four particulars are only applicable to the Church of Rome, and that consequently the Romish Church is the Church of Christ.

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It is to meet and refute this specious reasoning and this arro

gant assumption, that Mr. Faber's present work has been compiled. In order to this Mr. F. considers the meaning of the two passages of Scripture on which Bossuet's positions appear to rest; namely, the declaration of our Lord with reference to Peter's confession,"Thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it; "-and the last injunction of the Saviour, "Go ye therefore and teach all nations: baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you alway even unto the end of the world. Amen."

These passages Mr. F. contends predict, a visible ecclesiastical perpetuity-that to the end of time. Christ will always have a visible Church upon earth holding and teaching the complex doctrine of his human Messiahship, and his proper divinity; and that this Church should always preserve ecclesiastical purity and soundness, for that Christ would so be present with the apostles and their successors, that some visible church or churches would always faithfully adhere to the essential doctrines of Christianity rejecting their tenets and practices which stand opposed to the Gospel; and he then proceeds to shew that the ancient Vallenses and Albigenses possessed these characteristics.

Like all Mr. Faber's other publications, the present work is learned, pious, and interesting ;but by no means perfectly conclusive.

We are not sure that the interpretation given either by Mr. Faber or Bp. Bossuet of the two passages of Scripture on which they reason is absolutely correct. The gates of Hell may not prevail against the Church, though there may be a temporary falling away; though those who occupy the highest seats in the

temple may be overcome by heretical pravity; the sun may for a time be eclipsed, but its permanance is not consequently affected -the tares may so grow up as almost to overpower and obscure the wheat-the servants of God may for an appointed time prophecy in sackcloth,-there may be some seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal, even while a distressed prophet may be mourning over his apparent solitary state; while yet the gates of hell shall not prevail.

And so also Christ may be with his servants while preaching his gospel even to the end of the world; but there may be in various instances a removal of the candlestick; an observation of essential truth; an arising of grievous wolves to vex the flock; but after such painful scenes a Wickliffe, a Luther, a Cranmer may arise holding forth the word of life-the Saviour may in many reveal himself to them and shew his presence by rendering his word effectual; by bringing down the wisdom of this world, and pouring contempt on the princes of the earth, and causing his gospel to revive and flourish in spite of all opposition.

But if Mr. Faber's exposition of these passages be adopted, we apprehend most persons will feel that the Vallenses and Albigenses can scarcely sustain the weight of his argument. The visible church of Christ must indeed have been very small and scanty, if limited to them alone. It may be hoped that even in the darkest ages there were under the idolatrous Roman tyranny and the corrupt Grecian superstition, far more individual Christians acknowledging Christ the Son of God and the Son of Man, as the sole foundation of their hopes, than the whole number of the Waldenses and the Albigenses in their most prosperous days.

Mr. Faber is indeed alive to

this difficulty, and displays considerable adroitness and ingenuity in its solution. He also feels the difficulty resulting from the Vallenses having in some degree receded from Episcopal ordination; though he gives a somewhat rude shock to those who are very sensitive on the subject of the apostolical succession, by pointing out a defective link in the case of Pelagius, who was consecrated at Rome by two Bishops and a Presbyter, instead of three Bishops. We commend this difficulty to the consideration of those who are very zealous for the Patristic theology; but as the New Testament nowhere tells us how many Bishops are necessary to consecration, this possible defect does not appear to us of much consequence.

Our consolation is, that the gates of hell have not prevailed against that rock, on which Christ, according to his promise, has built his church. That church is not, we trust never has, since the first century, been limited to a few thousands of obscure and persecuted Christians. While the Waldenses and the Albigenses were confessing Christ, there were also among the ancient Britons-in the fastnesses and island of North Britain, and the forests of Ireland, men whose hearts the Lord had touched.

It is but fair, however, that Mr. F. should speak for himself, and we therefore insert the following quotation, in which our readers will perceive the mode in which Mr. F. disposes of some preceding observations. tracts are taken from the and third chapters of the fourth book:

of our Our exsecond

At an early stage of the present inquiry, it was stated: that Christ has made two distinct promises to his Church.

The one promise respects its perpetuity: under the aspect of a Church, immoveably built upon the rock of Peter's doctrinal confession.

The other promise similarly respects its perpetuity; but under the additional aspect of a Church, always (so far as res

pects the grand essentials) pure both in doctrine and independent practice, and always thus exemplifying the spiritual presence of the Lord even unto the end of the world.

Hence it was inferred: that the entireness of the complex promise could only receive its accomplishment in some particular Branch or Branches of the visible Church Catholic; inasmuch as facts have shewn, by the common consent of all men, that the whole original Church Catholic, in every Branch, has not corresponded with the full terms of the complex promise in question.

Furthermore, in corroboration of this inference, it was remarked; that the concurrent voice of Prophecy completely and definitely establishes its propriety; inasmuch as Prophecy describes a state of things, in which the sincere Church should be reduced within narrow limits, while the great Body of the Visible Church, lapsing into an apostasy of a very marked character, should be brought under the dominion of a person or a succession of persons emphatically denominated The Man of Sin and The Son of Perdition.

I. At the point where we have now arrived, the last remark, which at the beginning of the present discussion, was thrown out as a mere illustrative hint, assumes a high degree of applicatory importance and interest.

1. By the prophet of the Apocalypse, our Lord's promise of a spiritual as well as of a doctrinal perpetuity to his Sincere Church is explained after a manner which bears so peculiarly upon the subject of our late inquiries that the coincidence cannot be overlooked.

During a long and dark period of 1260 prophetic days or 1260 natural years; a period, to be reckoned, as we are concurrently taught by Daniel and St. John, from a delivering of the saints, into the hand of a most remarkable Ecclesiastical Power, by the concurrence of ten Kingdoms, among which the Western Roman Empire was doomed to be partitioned; during this long and dark period, the visible Church General is described as being a Harlot under the government of a False Prophet; and the nature of her harlotry is exhibited under the perfectly intelligible imagery of a relapse into the superstition of the Gentiles, characterized by a worship of demons or canonised dead men, and by an insane veneration of idols of gold and silver and brass and stone and wood which can neither see nor hear nor walk.

While this dreary period evolves, where is Christ's promise of his perpetual spiritual presence to his sincere Church built immoveably upon the rock of Peter's doctrinal confession?

Truly, the promise is neither forgotten nor unaccomplished.

The new race of Gentiles, indeed, tread the holy city under foot during the cognate term of forty and two prophetic months; but the temple and the altar and they that worship at it are carefully measured; while the outer court, like the wide extent of the city itself, remains unmeasured.

Who, then, are the worshippers within the measured precincts, that stand so broadly distinguished from the idolatrous Gentiles of the unmeasured outer court and holy city?

Clearly, they are the persons, in whom alone we can deem Christ's promises to have been accomplished.

But these promises respect, not mere insulated individuals, but a visible Branch or visible Branches of the entire visible Church Catholic.

Assuredly they do; and accordingly, the inspired seer intimates; that, during the evolution of the 1260 years, the Lord would give power to his two witnesses, who should courageously, though in sackcloth, prophesy, or propound, in harmony with the predictions of the ancient prophets, the great essential truths of the Gospel.

Who or what, then, are these two witnesses, thus remarkably characterized?

The oracle tells us, that they are two Candlesticks standing before the God of the earth; and, at the same time, leaves us in no doubt as to the intended meaning of the symbol, by distinctly teaching us, that a Candlestick represents a Church. Such being the case, the two Witnesses who are defined to be two Candlesticks, are thence, of plain necessity, defined also to be two Churches.

Consequently, the Revelation of Jesus Christ, or the Revelation communicated by Jesus Christ to his servant John, distinctly and unequivocally explains to us, how the promises of the Lord to his Church were destined to receive their accomplishment.

The perpetuity of his sincere Church as alike sound in the great fundamental doctrine of Peter's confession, and as privileged with the unceasing spiritual presence of the Divine Head, is described as being effected in the channel of two visible Churches; which, abhorring the apostasy of the gentilising tenants of the outer court, and the degraded holy city, firmly and faithfully proclaim the true Gospel in chronological concurrence with a state of things widely marked by the worship of dead men and their images.

This is the explanation of Christ's own promises, as afforded in Christ's own Revelation.

2. Now many centuries have elapsed,

since ten gothic nations erected ten several kingdoms on the platform of the divided Western Empire; and certainly, from that time, it is a mere naked historical fact, that the doctrines and practices of the visible Church General, whether in the Western or in the Eastern Patriarchate, have but too faithfully reflected the announcements of descriptive prophecy.

But was the whole Church General, in all its Branches, thus apostatic, thus grievously degenerate ?

If it were so, the promises of Christ would have failed of their accomplishment. But not one word nor one tittle of his declarations can come to nought. While both the East and the West were playing the harlot after a new race of tutelary Baalim or Demon-Gods, exactly two Churches were found to protest, even unto the death of the protesting individuals, against the antichristian abominations with which they were surrounded.

One of them, itself a Church built upon the very principle of reformation, and by an extraordinary providence of God collecting many of its members from among those who had once professed a paganising heresy of the worst description, sprang up in the East during the course of the seventh century: but, expelled by incessant persecution brought on by its firm testimony against the rapidly-increasing corruption of the times, it migrated into Europe; and there also, in the midst both of unfounded calumny and of suffering carried at length to the verge of extermination, it shewed itself a faithful witness for the truth in opposition to the still more gross demonsolatry of the Western Patriarchate.

The other of them, justly claiming and honestly glorying in the title of an unreformed Church, was always a denizen of Europe; and, while the two conjointly, during all the middle ages, acted the part of resolute witnesses on behalf of the Gospel; this Occidental Society, under the precise aspect of a Church Unreformed, because it never required reformation, forms the chain, which, in an unbroken series, connects the Reformed Churches of the sixteenth century with the Apostolic Primitive Church, and thus exemplifies the accurate accomplishment of our Lord's two-fold or complex promise.

3. With these facts under our eyes while the roll of prophecy lies unfolded before us, it is, I think, well nigh impossible not to conclude; that the two Churches of the Albigenses and the Vallenses are the two symbolical Candlesticks or the two Witnessing Churches of that Apocalypse, which at once predicts the future fortunes of the entire Church Catholic and authoritatively explains the

Their pretended fulfilment, in a Church so notoriously corrupt and apostatic and secularised and blood-stained and unscriptural as the Roman, is, both to the Bible and to common sense, too monstrous an insult to be for a moment tolerated: and almost as little can we endure the supposition of their accomplishment in the Greek Church or in any one of its dependent Asiatic or African Churches.

But prophecy teaches us; that the promised perpetuity and purity were to be carried on and transmitted through the instrumentality of two Churches; charac terised, in a manner which instantaneously excludes the gorgeous and temporally prosperous Roman Church, by a long-continued prophecying in sackcloth, or, in unfigured language, by a long-continued predication of the true Gospel in a depressed and afflicted and despised condition.

And history responsively teaches us; that exactly two Churches, precisely so characterised both circumstantially and locally and chronologically, have actually appeared upon earth: and have actually subsisted through all the middle ages.

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The conclusion from such premises is obvious and, as I perceive not how it can be avoided, so likewise I perceive not how it can be rejected without a consequential admission, at least on the part of the Reformed Churches, that the promises of Christ have failed in their accomplishment. For, if they were not accomplished through the medium of the Vallensic and Albigensic Churches : let any Protestant, if he be able in consistency with his own principles, point out, how they were accomplished, during the period which elapsed, between the days of the uncorrupted Primitive Church, and the times of the sixteenth century.

II. But, in the prophetic account of the two Witnessing Churches, there is a very remarkable circumstance announced, which will throw yet further light upon the present subject.

They are exhibited under the two-fold aspect of two not precisely identical conditions ; for they are exhibited under the aspect, of prophecying in sackcloth, or of preaching the Gospel in a depressed and afflicted condition, and they are also

exhibited under the aspect, of bearing their martyria, or of attesting the truth even to martyrdom itself.

Mr. F. then enlarges on the persecution of the Waldenses, and their banishment for the space of three years and a half, and their subsequent restoration to their own land. He then adverts to some difficulties relating to their ecclesiastical polity in the following

terms:

As I thus pronounce the two Communions of the Vallenses and the Albigenses to be the two Witnessing Churches of the Apocalypse; and as I further contend, against Bossuet, that the Vallenses, in a more especial manner, constitute that Visible Church which connects the Churches of the Reformation with the Primitive Church; it may be expected, that I should say something, as to their right to be considered Churches at all, in regard to their possessing or their not possessing the apostolical succession.

I readily confess, that I am not able to demonstrate the circumstance of their possessing an apostolical succession, either as regularly transmitted by episcopal ordination, or as less regularly handed down by the simple imposition of the hands of the Presbytery.

It may perhaps endanger the whole system of Apostolical Succession, if we too rigidly insist upon the absolute necessity of a transmission through the medium of bishops exclusively.

In the year 558, Pelagius was actually consecrated Bishop of Rome herself, not by three Bishops, but by two Bishops and a Presbyter.

On this case, which according to the amount of our requirement, may or may not vitiate the entire Apostolical Succession of at least the Western Patriarchate, it is obvious to remark, that the Presbyter Andrew either did or did not possess the power of transmission.

If he did then the point in litigation is forthwith conceded. If he did not-then his concurrence and co-operation with the two Bishops was an idle an inexplicable mockery; though a mockery, which, under such an aspect, might justly be pronounced to nullify the whole transaction.

Nor can it, with any decent show of argument, be alleged-that the Presbyter acted merely by the warrant of the two Bishops, that he possessed no inherent power of his own, and that he really himself did nothing whatsoever toward the transmitting of the episcopate.

For, should this ground be taken, the answer is plain.

If Andrew possessed not the right of continuing the Apostolical Succession; and if, for that continuance, the joint agency of three Bishops was essentially necessary: then the consecration of Pelagius by only two Bishops and a Presbyter was, to all intents and purposes, invalid; and, consequently, nothing could have been more strangely absurd, than for the two Bishops to call in, as their officially equal coadjutor, one, whom all the while they themselves knew to possess no legitimate authority of transmission.