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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 40
I
I.
First, We refer to the profound insight into the Christian system manifested in the mystery of iniquity, and to the remarkable manner in which everything peculiar to Christ has
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been grasped, in order to be so awfully parodied in the papal antichrist.
He is the great preacher, teacher, and minister of the kingdom of God, Christ's vicar, Christ Himself, with whom are all the mysteries of the kingdom, to whom exclusively it belongs authoritatively and infallibly to declare them; the Chief Pastor and Bishop of Souls, from whom all subordinate ministers receive their authority and qualifications for office, and whom all are bound to believe and obey at peril of their salvation. His, too, is every kingly power of forgiving sin, of binding and loosing, and He has the keys of heaven and of hell. He holds Himself forth, moreover, as the Church's Bridegroom, at His installation, in token of His marriage with the Church, having the ring of marriage put on His finger. He is the head of the Church, which is His body, and He is the King of saints.
* 'The history surely of the Church in all past times, ancient as well as mediaeval, is the very embodiment of that tradition of apostolical independence and freedom of speech, which, in the eyes of man, is her great offence now. Nay, that independence, I may say, is one of her notes and credentials, for where shall we find it except in the Roman Catholic Church. "I spoke of Thy testimonies," says the Psalmist, "before kings, and I was not ashamed." This verse, I think, Dr Arnold used to say, rose up in judgment against the Anglican Church in spite of its real excellencies. As to the Oriental churches, every one knows in what bondage they lie, whether they are under the rule of the Czar, or of the Sultan. Such is the actual fact, that whereas it is the very mission of Christianity to bear witness to the Creed and the Ten Commandments in a world that is averse to them, Rome is now the one faithful representative, and thereby is heir and successor of that free-spoken, dauntless, church of old, whose traditions, Mr Gladstone says, the said Rome has repudiated,' etc.—Newman's Letter in reply to Mr Gladstone's Expostulation, p. 20.
kings to carry out his commands by their temporal resources and the force of arms. Yea, with one foot on the sea and another on the land, he lays claim to the earth at large, and, in the exercise of his supreme authority, he deposes kings, gives away kingdoms, disposes of unexplored and unknown regions of the globe, and asserts that his kingdom is 'from sea to sea, and from the river (Tiber) to the ends of the earth.'* 'The civil society of Catholics is distinguished from others by this—that it consists of the same assemblage of men as the Church of Christ, that is the Catholic Church consists of; so that it in no way constitutes a real body diverse and separate from the Church; but both societies together have the character of a two-fold federative association and obligation inhering in the same multitude of men, whereby the civil society, under the government of the civil magistrate, exerts its powers to secure the temporal happiness of man, and under the government of the Church to secure eternal life; and in such wise, that eternal life be acknowledged to be the last and supreme end to which temporal happiness and the whole temporal life is subordinate, because, if any man do not acknowledge this, he neither belongs to the Catholic Church nor may call himself Catholic.'—Manning's reply to Mr Gladstone, p. 69.
with Rome, we have had already a papal and antichristian anticipation, and imitation, of the result of that true restoration of the nations which Christ has it in view to effect; when the nation under one of its aspects shall be a Church, and under its other aspect a nation; when the kingdoms universally shall be the Lord's, and shall bring their honour and glory into His Church; and when His truth and grace shall so prevail, as that what was once Rome's proud boast, 'Jam nemo reclamat, nullus obsistit,' shall have its true accomplishment under Christ, the alone Prince of the kings of the earth—(Zech. xiii. 2,3).