sent forth from that Council, with the letter and messengers of the Apostles and brethren, allayed a wide-spread disputation, established many in the faith, and the Church had daily accessions of believers. It was not a bull or encyclical of Peter as pope; but a letter of all the Apostles and Elders who composed the Council, written after this manner: "The Apostles and Elders and brethren send greeting unto the brethren which are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia." Acts xv, 23. It had been revealed to Paul that his mission was to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles, and, according to this revelation, he had journeyed to Jerusalem to attend the apostolic Council, and there, in the public assembly, as well as in private conferences with eminent men, he proclaimed how God had blessed his ministry among the heathen. "They saw," says he," that the Gospel of the uncircumcision was committed unto me, as the Gospel of the circumcision was to Peter." Gal. ii, 7. He was sent to preach it to the Gentiles and Peter to the Jews. The latter went to Antioch, where Paul "withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed." He could not, therefore, have been thought to be chief among the Apostles, nor endowed with the faculty of infallibility.

The claim of the Councils to represent the Christian world is absurd. After the fourth century only Bishops were admitted; the lower clergy and the laity being excluded. It has been justly observed that, in the strict and proper sense of the term, no Ecumenical Council has ever been held. But there were seven councils admitted to be œcumenical both by the Greek and Latin Churches. Rome adds twelve more, making nineteen in all. The beginning of the system is traced to the Council at Jerusalem, composed of the Apostles and Elders; but that differed from all others in that it was under the special inspiration of the Holy Spirit. From that time until the middle of the second century, no such assembly was convened. After the middle of the second century there were synods or councils, composed of representatives from particular districts, but none comprising delegates from all parts of Christendom. On the theory of Romanists, the Pope can convene a general council; and, when convened, it represents the Church universal, because they exclude from the pale of the Church those who are not Roman Catholics. But such a supposed council

is now, even according to a confession of a Roman Catholic, "a chimera." "The ablest advocate of the Papal theory whom the Roman Church has ever produced-Joseph de Maistre-declared, 'Que dans les temps modernes un Concile Ecuménique est devenu une chimère."" Gregory of Nazianzus, who presided for a time over the second Ecumenical Council, said: "I am inclined to avoid conventions of bishops; I never knew one that did not come to a bad end, and create more disorders than it attempted to rectify." How can men with unregenerate natures, with deceitful and deceivable hearts, represent the Christian Church? Natural sinfulness and alienation from the love of God are not qualities that fit men as representatives of Christianity. "God resides among his own." Those alone who have received the word of doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness, and who have been conformed to the image of Christ through the blessed influences of the Spirit, belong to that holy communion called the Church, and are alone fit to represent it. Yet secular princes and rulers have found place in the councils, and because they saw their thrones tottering, have offered their adherence to the Church in return for her support. They looked for the continuance or advancement of political dominion in return for their alliance with the Church. Many who were ignorant of the principles of Christianity have thus "prostrated themselves at the feet of the chief priest of Rome." While any thing was to be gained by such secular alliance, the Roman Church was quick to seize the apparent advantage; but, in the ninth century, when disunion had every-where weakened the civil authority, when the crown of Charles was broken, "and its fragments scattered over his former empire," then the forged decretals of Isidorus appeared. The impostor who had fabricated these pretended decrees used the barbarous Latin of the ninth century, and in them he makes the ancient bishops of the classic times of Tacitus and Quintillian speak the corrupted language of his own day. He blindly attributed to the Romans, under the Emperors, the obsolete customs of the Franks. His Popes quote the Bible from the Latin translation of St. Jerome, who lived several hundred years after them; and he makes Victor, Bishop of Rome in 192, write to Theophilus, who was Archbishop of Alexandria in 385! It is unimpeached history, that

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 certainly 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 Egean. 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