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the Popes did not blush to lay claim to the alleged verity of this transparent imposture. For ages it was "the arsenal of Rome," and the Vatican resorted to it for barriers of defense and weapons of attack. It was authoritatively proclaimed as the strength of the whole Roman cause, and the basis on which the pontifical system of later days was built. Yet the fabulous character of these false and pompous decrees has been demonstrated, and is even admitted by enlightened Catholics.

The Council of Constance was called to put an end to the schism caused by the several claimants of the Papacy, and which had lasted for thirty years. The pretended heresies of Wiclif and Huss were condemned, and, notwithstanding the assurances of safety given him by the Emperor, Huss was burnt. A point warmly debated was, whether the authority of an Ecumenical Council was greater than that of the Pope. A few years subsequent, the Council of Basle declared that "a General Council is superior to a Pope." This Council and the Pope were for years in conflict; the one persisting in its sessions at the place of convocation, and the other plotting for the dissolution of the Council. At length the Council declared the Pope contumacious, and suspended him from the exercise of all jurisdiction, temporal and spiritual. He, however, continued to be generally recognized as the lawful Pope, during the subsequent four years, till he died. A writer in the Edinburgh Review, for October, 1869, has shown that the present Council at Rome is not any Ecumenical Council at all, but is only a "fantastic," Papal and "revolutionary" assembly. In its convocation the Pope has not adhered to the traditions and precedents necessary to constitute a General Council. It has been summoned by a priest, without advice or concert with any sovereign-convoked, not in any free town or neutral territory, but in the actual palace of the very Pontiff whose authority it is intended to exalt;" and it contains "not one of those representatives of Christian States, whose presence in all former Councils was an essential feature of such assemblies." It is in no sense, therefore, entitled to the appellation of "Ecumenical," but is simply a prelatical assembly of some of the dignitaries of the Papal Church.

While we would speak with all kindness and charity of the deluded men who conscientiously adhere to the communion of

Rome, yet we arraign that Church before the bar of history as antiapostolic and antiehristian. No warrant from Christ, the Apostles, or Scripture, can be found to sanction her heresies, excuse her persecutions, or apologize for her great defection from Christianity in withdrawing the Bible from her people, and erecting in its place the follies, mummeries, and dogmas of human invention. True Christianity, civilization, and the progress of enlightment must wage continual war with her. "Such a Church, though it wear the awe of vast ages; though the cloud of one thousand years veil its mysterious dome; though saintly faces look on you from painted window and pictured ceiling, and stories of heroic and martry piety are lettered and figured all over the marble column and frescoed wall; though music, like rift of angelic anthem, breathes through its longdrawn aisles and fretted vaults-nothing can save." As cer

tainly as the sun dispels the darkness of night and the mists. of morning, so will truth triumph, and the last vestige of error disappear before the pure light of the word of God. The press is giving new wings to that word, and before its power, whatever opposes it in the ecclesiasticism of Rome must give way. It is the perpetual well-spring of religious life to the soul, and the only text-book of true Christianity in all the world.

Who are they that have loved this book, and have believed its sublime truths? They are Prophets and Apostles, the Fathers and martyrs of the Church; the holy and the good of every age. They are that glorious, unnumbered company, discerned in apocalyptic vision by the banished Apostle from that isle in the Ægean. They are that Church of believers which is the bride of Christ. They are that line of faithful followers of their Master which is traced from the days of Paul, through the catacombs of Rome, where their memorials still survive; through the dens and caves of the earth, where their bodies await the morning of the first resurrection; through the recesses of the Alps; over the plains of Smithfield, and along the gray moors of Scotland, whence their triumphant spirits ascended in chariots of fire. They are those who have declared plainly that they desired "a better country, that is, a heavenly;" who have feared the Lord, and spoken often, one to another, of the universal theme of the Cross, and the key-note of whose sweetest hymns still rings with the love of

the Redeemer. "They shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels." We will glance along the history of the Councils in vain to find nobler names, or spirits brighter with the luster of personal piety.

ART. VI. THE TWENTY-SECOND PSALM,

AS ILLUSTRATING THE SUBJECTIVE METHOD OF PROPHETIC CHRISTOLOGICAL REVELATION.

IN developing the thought proposed as the theme of this article, we will first notice the Messianic import of the agonistic portion of the Twenty-second Psalm, and then call attention to the connection of its historic groundwork with its prophetic application, as an instance of the highest ideal Christophany of the Old Testament.

In graphic delineation of Messiah's sufferings, this wonderful psalm stands side by side with the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. The descriptions of the Saviour's agony are so varied and minutely circumstantial, and so repeatedly quoted in the New Testament, as to leave no doubt of their being predictions in the fullest sense, resulting from a direct prescience of the events. We are overwhelmed with the contemplation of the minute accuracy of the correspondence between the prophetic foreshadowing and its fulfilled reality-the type with its historic archetype.

As to the artificial arrangement of the subject-matter of the psalm, it must be classed with the bipartites; the first division, ver. 1-21, relating to the humiliation and suffering of the Messiah; and the second, embracing the remainder of the psalm, to his triumph, and the glorious results which should follow. The first strophe should be again divided into two parts; the former, ver. 1-11, preferring the Psalmist's complaint to God in great discouragement, with a general description of the nature and severity of his afflictions; and the latter, ver. 12-21, entering more into detail, setting forth, under varied and strong metaphors, the imminent perils and unparalleled sufferings to which he is reduced. The transition from the

twenty-first to the following verses is abrupt, without example except among the most impassioned productions of the Davidic inuse. Bishop Jebb says, that "from that awful complaint, prophetical of our Lord's sufferings, to the song of triumph, beginning with ver. 22, the most glorious contrast is presented which the whole book of Psalms affords." In presenting the several particulars of this psalm which relate to our present purpose, we shall follow the order of verses, somewhat in the style of commentary, this being the simplest method of attaining our object.

Ver. 1. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?] This first utterance strikes the key-note of our Saviour's agony upon the cross. Our Lord reiterated the words toward the close of his sufferings, quoting literally from the Hebrew, though conforming his pronunciation somewhat to the Syriac, or the Syro-chaldaic, as being more conformable to the dialect of the common Palestinian Jews. Matt. xxvii, 46 ; Mark XV, 34. Thus the Chaldeep, shebaktanec, instead of the Hebrew , ahzabhthanee, words of the same import.

The point of the complaint is not an infliction, but an absence, a withdrawal, from ry, ahzabh, to loosen, leave, forsake, as Psalm lxxi, 11; Isaiah xlix, 14; liv, 7. Still it is not a mere negation, but a withdrawal which seems to leave the sufferer a victim to his enemies, subject to all the consequences of their fierce malice and relentless power. This complaint, in the mouth of Jesus, describes the climax of his vicarious sufferings, the awful mystery of atonement. This forsaking stands opposed to the salvation (y) in the next hemistich, by the law of parallelism, and doctrinally, as applied to Christ, is of profound significance. It was not merely that he was abandoned to the death of the cross; the words have a far deeper meaning-a spiritual withdrawal of the light and consolation of the Father's presence. It was at this point that the Son of God emphatically went down to the depths of the ruin of a lost soul, so far as an innocent being could, entering into our state, bearing our sin, "SUFFERING FOR US, the just for the unjust." In the language of Dr. Pye Smith: "The tremendous manifestations of God's displeasure against sin he endured, though in him was no sin; and he endured them in a manner of which even those unhappy spirits who shall drink the fierceness of

the wrath of Almighty God will never be able to form an adequate idea." It was this central point of his agony which seemed to have baffled the human comprehensions of Jesus, and to have excited in him, while yet in prospect, the conflict of most distressing emotions, such as are described in Matt. xxvi, 37, 38; Mark xiii, 33, 34; Luke xxii, 44; John xii, 27; and Heb. v, 7. The mystery of this unfathomable depth of suffering is indicated in the interrogative sense of the Hebrew

, lamah, literally followed by the ivari, hinati, of the Septuagint, and by the Evangelist, Matt. xxvii, 46, why, wherefore, for what cause, this dreadful abandonment?

Why art thou so far from helping me] Literally, far off from my salvation. In this parallel member the word rendered far off corresponds to the previous word forsaken. The complaint of abandonment is repeated, with enlargements.

Words of my roaring] Words of my groaning, or of my outcry. The idea is, that God had withdrawn so far as not only not to deliver, but even not to hear his bitterest and loudest call for help.

Ver. 2. O my God, I cry in the day time, but thou hearest not, and in the night, etc.] The abandonment is long continued, nature must soon give out without help. Hence the suffering is greater, and the mystery of delay thickens into deeper darkness.

And am not silent] There is no silence to me; I have no quiet. I give myself no rest. Hope stimulates prayer, while restless importunity causes the divine absence to appear more strange and insupportable.

Ver. 3. But thou art holy] Faith rallies. Faith reasons. Faith rests herself here. God is holy, and hence he must come to my rescue, for my cause is his cause. I appeal it to his holiness. This oneness of the soul with God, of the soul's cause with his cause, was the firm rock which supported the Saviour. "Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee." John xvii, 1.

Ver. 6. But I am a worm, and no man] An object not only of pitiable weakness, but of loathsomeness and contempt, like a worm generated in putrid substances, as the word often denotes. Exod. xvi, 20; Isa. xiv, 11. "A weak worm and not strong; an animalcule generated from rottenness." Bythner.

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