Antebellum: Upon the Seven Hills

The first work quoted below is from a work by the late Rev James Aitken Wylie (1808-90) – the author of the 1848 work, The Seventh Vial, that was the main text of my second posting on this blog on 1 September 2009.

And the second authority (after a brief introduction from another source) is the nineteenth century Anglican Bishop of Lincoln, Christopher Wordsworth, D.D. (1807-85); the nephew of the poet 'Wordsworth', who (in the conclusion of the work sourced) remarks of the coming, “final struggle of Christianity against open Infidelity”.

First from Wylie's work:

'Societies, not less than individuals, reap as they have sowed; and in the convulsions and revolutions of our times, Rome is reaping the fruit of ages of superstition and despotism. The Papacy at this moment is fighting its third great battle. Its first was with the empire; in that it was victorious. Its second was with Christianity, in the persons of its Albigensian and Waldensian confessors; and in that, too, it was victorious. Its third great war is that which it is now waging with an ATHEISTIC COMMUNISM, which has risen contemporaneously, and with extraordinary intensity and power, in all the Catholic countries of Europe. Whence has come this new and destructive principle? It is the natural issue of the bondage in which the human mind has so long been retained,—of the violence done to reason and faith,—for superstition is the parent of atheism. The national mind in France long struggled to find vent through means of Christianity. This was denied it. It next sought liberty in scepticism, which speedily terminated in atheism. With French infidelity came French democracy. We have already said that the democratic element entered the world with Christianity, and revived again in the Reformation of John Calvin. There is this difference, however, that whereas the doctrine of Calvin would have given true liberty,—constitutional government,—to Europe, the doctrine of Voltaire gave it an anarchy which baptized itself in blood. Scepticism, engendered thus from superstition, has overspread Europe, and set free the masses from all divine control, and, by necessary consequence, from all earthly authority. The brood of revolutions which now torments Europe is the progeny of Rome. From her own loins has sprung the hydra that threatens to tear her in pieces. The sorceress of the Seven Hills, like the Hag of Pandemonium, is now

“With terrors and with clamours compass’d round Of mine own brood, that on my bowels feed.”'

(Taken from: The Papacy: its History, Dogmas, Genius, and Prospects, by Rev James A Wylie, LL.D, 1851).

Before moving on to quote from Bishop Wordsworth's work – I'll first give the following brief quote – by means of introduction to it:

'In common with most of the learned Divines of the Church of England since the Reformation and – as we have seen – in accordance with the teaching of her Homilies, we object to Reunion with the Papacy because the Church of Rome is the Babylon of the Revelation. This has been clearly and conclusively proved in that brief, able, unanswered, and unanswerable treatise of the late Bishop Christopher Wordsworth, of Lincoln, entitled :– Union with Rome: Is not the Church of Rome the Babylon of the Apocalypse? I cannot too urgently press upon my readers the great advantage of reading this shilling book. It was not written by an Evangelical Churchman, but by one of the old-fashioned High Church School, one whose great learning is acknowledged by all scholars.'

(Walter Walsh writing in, The Secret History of the Oxford Movement, Third Edition; London: Swan Sonenschein & Co., Ltd., Paternoster Square, E.C., 1898).

To begin – first the title-page to Bishop Wordsworth's above mentioned work:

UNION WITH ROME.

“IS NOT THE CHURCH OF ROME THE

BABYLON OF THE BOOK OF REVELATION?”

An Essay,

BY

CHR. WORDSWORTH, D.D.

LATE BISHOP OF LINCOLN.

TENTH EDITION.

RIVINGTONS,

WATERLOO PLACE, LONDON.

MDCCCXXXVIII.

[Sic MDCCCLXXXVIII (1888)]

And now to the work proper:

'[T]he marvel predicted by the Apocalypse is this and a stupendous mystery it is that some of the Powers of the Earth, which received strength with the Beast, and at one time gave up their might to it, would, under the overruling sway of God's retributive justice, arise against the Woman seated on the Beast, and “tear her flesh,” and burn her with fire. And, what is still more marvellous, they will do this, although, in the first instance, they have been leagued with the Beast and with the False Prophet, or False Teacher, who is the Ally of the Beast, on whom the Woman sits as a Queen, in opposition to Christ: and it is foretold, that they will punish Rome in a mysterious transport of indignation, and in a wild ecstasy of revenge.

'Such is the prophecy of St John. And let us ask the candid reader, Is not this prophecy even now in course of fulfilment, in the eyes of the World?

'Of all the princely houses of Europe that were once devoted to the Roman Papacy, none was a more abject vassal of it, than the house of Savoy. In the seventeenth century, AD 1655, it executed with ruthless obsequiousness the sanguinary mandates of Rome, exhorting it to exterminate the Vaudois – the Protestant communities of the Alps – with fire and sword. Such was its eagerness in the work of destruction, that Oliver Cromwell wrote a letter of expostulation to the Duke of Savoy, and sent an ambassador from England to deprecate this crusade of desolation; and Milton then wrote his famous sonnet, which has proved almost prophetic, “On the late Massacre in Piedmont,”

“Avenge, O Lord, Thy slaughter'd saints, whose bones Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold.”

'And what is now the case, at the present time?

'A Prince of that same house, the house of Savoy, has now been raised up to the Throne of Italy, Victor Emmanuel; and he has “torn the flesh” of Rome, he has despoiled her of the greater part of her temporal dominions; France (which is now virtually mistress of Rome), Spain, and Portugal, have recognized him as King of Italy; he has suppressed her Monasteries, and has thus deprived Rome of her most powerful spiritual Army; and it is not improbable, that either his dynasty, or that of some other secular Potentates formerly devoted to the Papacy, may be employed as an instrument for inflicting more chastisements on Papal Rome.' (pp. 29-30).

And again, later in the same work, from its:

POSTSCRIPT

ON SOME PASSING EVENTS, CONSIDERED WITH REFEEENCE TO PROPHECIES IN THE APOCALYPSE.

' . . . It was there foretold, that the mystical Babylon would be punished for her sins. It was also prophesied there that (as the literal Babylon was punished by the Medes and Persians, who were formerly subject to her, and who rose up against her, and took the city, according to Daniel's interpretation of the handwriting on the wall), so likewise the mystical Babylon would be chastised by God, using the agency of some who had once been her allies and tributaries. It was predicted that some of them would revolt from her, and “hate her, and make her desolate and naked, and tear her flesh;” in other words, that they would despoil her of her Temporal Power, and would ravage her dominions, and take from her that carnal Sovereignty in which she trusted.

'And what is now the fact?

'The House of Savoy, which was once the most devoted vassal of the Papacy, and which exercised its power in obedience to the Papacy in the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries in successive sanguinary persecutions of its own Protestant subjects, the Waldenses, whom it almost exterminated at her bidding, has been raised up by Almighty God against the Papacy in the person of Victor Emmanuel, a Prince of that house, and now King of Italy.

'Not by conquests of his own, but by the inscrutable Providence of God, overruling the events of War for his exaltation and aggrandizement, and for the humiliation and overthrow of the Temporal Power of the Papacy, Victor Emmanuel has now become Sovereign of Rome and of all the Papal States.

'It is also a remarkable coincidence, that the promulgation of the dogma of the personal Infallibility of the Papacy by the present Pope, in the Council which commenced its sessions on the Festival of the Immaculate Conception, was followed on the next day after that promulgation (July 19, 1870) by the declaration of War on the part of France against Prussia; which has led to the sudden humiliation of France, the protectress of Rome, and to the withdrawal of the French troops from Rome, and to the opening of the gates of Rome to the forces of Victor Emmanuel.

'It is also worthy of notice that in the same year, 1870, on the very next day after the Anniversary of the Festival of the Immaculate Conception on which (in 1854) the novel dogma of the Immaculate Conception was promulgated, and on which (in 1869) the Vatican Council met, which has decreed the Pope's Infallibility, a public document and Manifesto was laid before the Italian Parliament, in which the Government of the King of Italy announced a royal decree, accepting the City and provinces of Rome, transferred to the King by a “plebiscito” of the Roman people themselves, and in which it is declared that the Pope's Temporal Power is extinct, and that Rome is no longer to be the Metropolis of the Roman Papacy, but is henceforth to become, in lieu of Florence, the Capital of the Kingdom of Italy.

'These coincidences were undesigned; the principal actors in them thought nothing of the Apocalypse. But they who have that divine book in their hands, and who remember Christ's command to “discern the signs of the times,” and who consider the blessing which is promised to those who read and meditate upon the Apocalypse, will mark these facts, and will observe these coincidences, and will enquire with reverence, whether the prophecies of the Book of Revelation are not now receiving their accomplishment in Italy and at Rome.

'It was foretold, in these prophecies, as has been already noticed, that some who have been tributaries and vassals of the mystical Babylon, will “tear her flesh, and make her desolate and naked, and burn her with fire.” That prophecy has a spiritual meaning. The mystical Babylon is compared to a faithless woman, and her chastisement is likened to that which was inflicted on Hebrew women for harlotry. They who were once her votaries will tear the flesh of her who once enchanted them with her charms. It is added that they will “burn her with fire;” this is also a figurative phrase; and its meaning is that, as, among the Hebrews, unchaste women were burnt, so the mystical Babylon will be punished, and her glory will be consumed for her sins, as with fire.

'I do not venture to express a confident opinion, whether the present occupation of Rome by the arms of Victor Emmanuel, and the destruction of the Temporal Power of the Papacy by the People of Italy, including the Romans themselves, and by the Sovereign of Italy at the invitation of the Romans themselves, is a fulfilment of this prophecy; but it seems to be an approach towards it. Time will show. The capture of the literal Babylon by Cyrus was not the total destruction of Babylon, it was the transfer of its sovereignty from the Babylonians to the Medes and Persians.' (pp. 97-99).

'We are no advocates of aggression, or apologists of spoliation, but we cannot fail to remark, that it is written in the Apocalypse concerning the mystical Babylon, “Her sins have reached unto heaven” (did they not reach to heaven when the Pope proclaimed himself to be Infallible? did they not then come to a head? And is it surprising that the cup of God's wrath should now overflow upon her?), “and God hath remembered her iniquities; reward her, even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double.” And we cannot but observe the evidence which is now displayed to the world, that God is a righteous Judge, that He is the moral Governor of the world, and Arbiter of the destinies of nations, and that, after long forbearance, He punishes Churches and Empires in a manner proportioned to their sins; and that the prophecies of the Apocalypse are true.

'There are other portions of this prophecy which now claim careful attention.

'The Apocalypse predicts that the spiritual dominion of the Papacy will survive the fall of the temporal power of Rome.

'In that Book the mystical Babylon falls, but that spiritual Empire, which is personified as the Beast (a term derived from Daniel's prophecy) on which she sits, is described as remaining after her fall. The fall of the Pope's temporal power will not be the extinction of the Papacy. On the contrary, it is very probable, that the fall of the temporal power of the Papacy will add fresh strength and confidence to its spiritual domination.' (pp. 100-101).

'There is another prophecy in the Book of Revelation which is a fit subject for solemn meditation at the present time.

'It seems to foretell, that after the destruction of its temporal sway, the Papacy will act, if not in alliance with some Infidel powers, yet concurrently with them...

[As detailed in his earlier work: Lectures on the Apocalypse; Critical, Expository, and Practical; delivered before the University of Cambridge; by Chr. Wordsworth D.D. (then) Canon of Westminster; published by Francis & John Rivington, London, 1852]

' . . . [T]hen [after this] the final struggle of Christianity against open Infidelity will ensue; and then, after that great conflict, the Victory of Christ will be complete, and the General Resurrection and Universal Judgment of quick and dead will take place, and His faithful soldiers and servants will be received into the everlasting glory of His heavenly kingdom. Then will be the consummation of all things which is revealed in the last chapters of the Apocalypse. . . . “The Spirit and the Bride say, Come . . . . . Amen, so come, Lord Jesus.”' (pp. 104-105).