The Present Condition of the Papacy.
WITHIN the past two weeks three nations of Europe (Switzerland, France, and Germany) have broken off diplomatic relations with Rome, or more properly, in two cases at least, with the pope. In the first case the rupture grew out of the excommunication of some priests on account of their denial of the dogma of the infallibility of the pope. In the second, which will probably be of brief duration, it arose from the personal sympathy of the French Minister for the pope, whom he considered insulted, because some French naval officers, at the beginning of the holidays, called upon the King of Italy and the pope on the same day. But the third case is of a more serious character than either of the former. At a Consistory held in Rome, Dec. 23, the pope delivered an allocution, in the course of which he “repeated his censures of those who encroached on the rights of the church, and denounced Germany, where the pitfalls of open violence and calumny were employed to destroy the church by men who, ignorant of religion, sought to define its dogmas.” These words were characterized by the German papers as “an unpardonable insult to the Emperor of Germany.” The journals were threatened with immediate confiscation if they published these insulting references, and those who did not heed the warning have had proceedings instituted against them. The German Charge d’Affaires has informed Cardinal Antonelli that he has been instructed from Berlin to take unlimited leave of absence. He has since closed the Legation and quit Rome. When we take into consideration the fact that there are about fourteen millions of papists in Germany, and that, on the other hand, the government and army are Protestant, we may understand the magnitude of the interests involved in this quarrel. The pope, by his obstinacy, which, perhaps, grows out of his reliance upon the millions of Catholics of Europe, has been inviting just the state of feeling that exists. He seems to forget that the dark ages are past, and that an era of education has brought his system to the verge of ruin. But all this was prophesied. The Babylonish woman was to say, on the verge of destruction, “I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.” See Rev. 18. Daniel also was informed that just before going to the burning flame, this power should utter “great words” of pride and blasphemy. See Dan. 7. The powerful governments of Europe, once under the domination of papacy, will not now brook the insults of the old man who is desperate in his death struggle. The papacy has been wasted by France, Italy, Germany, and other nations, until but a skeleton of his former self remains. Not only has the last vestige of temporal power gone, but the law is about to go into force which suppresses religious orders and confiscates the ecclesiastical property of the church in Rome. What is the meaning of this? For three hundred years (until within the last five or ten), Protestant writers have declared that when the present position of papacy was reached, either the millennium would commence or Jesus Christ would come. To believe that the world is about to yield en masse to the claims of the gospel is stupendous folly. We are living in the midst of a carnival of crime unparalleled since the days of Sodom. So, then, we are to look for the advent. And this is in accordance with Scripture. That the papal succession, or line of the popes, is Paul’s “man of sin,” we have no doubt; and the apostle declares that he “shall be consumed by the spirit of His mouth, and destroyed by the brightness of his (Christ’s) coming.” If a criminal, who was to be executed according to law, was in the last stages of consumption, we should say that he must be hanged or he would not die in the prescribed way. Even so with the papacy. The consumption is almost complete, the last symptoms appear; but it shall not die a natural death! God’s word is out against it. How, then, can we escape the conclusion, were there no other reasons, that we are in close connection with the end of the dispensation? The state of every prophetic department cries aloud to us for faith in the speedy consummation of ages. The Master, as it were, has his hand upon the latch, and is about to open the door and come in upon a guilty world and sleeping multitudes of his professed followers. We have entered upon a year which, to our mind, will be fraught with great and interesting events, and there is evidence to warrant the hope that it will bring deliverance. Our duty is to work, wait, watch, and strive to understand more fully the truth as it is in Jesus.—Herald of Life.