As regards essentiality of blessing, there is likeness amongst all the members of the family of faith. "We believe in the communion of saints" because we believe in the consecrating, hallowing, efficacy of the One finished sacrifice. The great High Priest has said, "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also that shall believe on me through their word; that they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thon' hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me." When the mystical body of Christ shall rise from their graves, bright in the brightness of heavenly glory, to meet their Lord in the air, the world will at last recognise who the true giants (5) of Earth are, and recognise that Jesus was sent by the Father.

John, therefore, although he was the Jeremiah of the New Testament, and drank, as the Prophets did, the cup of suffering (see his words in Patmos, Rev. i. 9), never cursed, as Jeremiah did, the day of his birth (see Jer. xx. 14-18), but had communion with glories above the Heavens, in which he was called ever to rejoice. John saw in vision the Heavenly City, New Jerusalem, in all the brightness of its unearthly glory, and he saw also

in living contrast therewith, Babylon, the Harlot City-the City of Hell and whilst beholding these things, he was taught also to know that himself and all his brethren, because washed in the blood of the Lamb, belong to the City of God, and not to the City of the Devil. Shall we deny this contrast? Shall we bury it out of sight? Shall we mingle the principles of the two Cities, and seek to form an alliance between Heaven and Hell? Is not this the great practical question of the present hour? Has not Christendom laboured, is it not still labouring, to amalgamate the principles of the two Cities; and does it not thereby nullify in the Earth the principles of the City of God, by the principles of the City of the Evil One? Have not efforts unto this end (often perhaps the efforts of a paralyzed unconsciousness, but by what has the paralysis been induced?) stamped, not only on the world, but more especially on Christendom-a brand never to be effaced ?

And now I leave these things with my brethren in the faith of the Lord Jesus. I do not forget the words, “I have reserved to myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal." I doubt not, that amongst the Nonconformists, and the Wesleyans, and the Evangelical Bodies generally, there are many such. The " "down grade" Controversy is one proof of this. But there must be not only relinquishment of error; there must also be a new formation on the ground of Truth, if

556 A RETROSPECTIVE AND PROSPECTIVE OUTLINE. we would please and serve God. The principles of the Heavenly City (and to that City the family of faith belong) are as unchangeably contrasted with all the harlotries of Earth (especially with the last great concentration of those harlotries in Babylon) as Christ is contrasted with Satan. How can any who do not recognise this, be practically freed from more or less of entanglement with those harlotries? From those entanglements God is now mercifully calling us by the revived voice of Prophecy. Shall we refuse, or, obey the call? What question can be more momentously important? If the facts and principles detailed in the preceding pages of this volume be true, we should humbly bow our faces to the dust, for we have opposed, not maintained them. Will God pity us? Will He graciously lead us to repentance? Will He take from us our defiled priestly garments? Will He gather us from the standard of the enemy, and place us under the One Standard of Christ? Truth is that which alone girds for the battle-field. Christ and the Apostles and Prophets have declared what Truth is. Without it we cannot fight.

Postscript.

I.

AN important Article under the title of "Socialism and the Papacy," will be found in the December number of the National Review, 1889. Its general tenour may be judged of by the following extract :

"This, then, is the result of our inquiry: that whilst the whole course and tendency in the social policy of Romanism leaves no doubt as to its sincerity in sympathising with the more moderate demands of Social Democracy, yet that, by its own confession, it is equally certain that the great aim of this policy is the weakening of the Bourgeoisie and the ultimate destruction, if possible, of the Liberal régime. Open war is declared against Individualism, and so far Romanism moves on parallel lines with Socialism. For this reason the demand for State-Socialism is most pronounced in Austria, where it affords the best means for fighting the Bourgeoisie. . . . That ecclesiastical ascendency, pro majore gloria Dei, is kept in view in all these moves of social policy is natural enough. It is not so much as denied by those concerned, though made too much of, and sometimes unfairly misrepresented by adversaries; as when one of them, speaking of the double-mindedness of Romanism, asserts that the Pope condemns every form of extra-Catholic Socialism, whilst at the same time cultivating most assiduously that which may be considered as infra-Catholic, trying to turn Socialistic influence in the bulk of the population to his own account.

[Nothing can be more certain than this.] Other Churches might learn a lesson of savoir faire from the Church of Rome, either as a Church of Opportunism, or a Church in Opposition, not to leave a nerve unstrained to make their spiritual power felt among the masses, and to take care not to alienate, to lead rather than vainly try to resist, the onward march of Democracy. Claiming, as the Church of Rome does, to be not only the sole depository of Divine truth, but also the 'Guardian of all social truth,' what more natural than that she should endeavour to emphasize by all means in her power that social doctrine which she believes to be the only true doctrine? A strong belief in their own sacred mission is an essential factor of success in ecclesiastical organizations, for those who have the good of the people at heart, though they take not their stand on the axiomatic assertion, 'extra ecclesiam nulla salus,' in matters social or religious. It is quite open to other religious bodies to reject such claims on the part of one branch of the Church Catholic, and the present writer has no desire or avocation to make himself the champion of such unwarrantable assumptions. He merely states the case, without defending or controverting the position taken up by those whose policy he describes. At the same time, viewing the matter from his own standpoint, studying the social question and the subject of Socialism in their relation to one of the greatest religious forces of the present day, as one among many modes of thought, and tracing thus the connection between Socialism and Romanism, not as a religious controversialist, he cannot help making considerable allowance for earnest men not of his own Communion, and giving them full credit for their good intentions. He cannot withhold his respectful sympathy from a Romanist writer who, in his tractate on 'the Social-political importance