Ambrose Lisle Phillipps

“ No, if the Catholic Church were exterminated from the face of the earth to-morrow, I think the last people, who would mourn over her destruction, would be the kings and the merchants. Neither of these two classes of men have ever been very famous for obeying her laws, or following her maxims : I should be more inclined to expect that they would rejoice over it, and say, as we read in the eleventh chapter, "let us rejoice, for her prophets tormented us, who dwell upon the earth." ”

“ Go Daniel, because the words are shut up, and sealed until the time appointed. Many shall be chosen, and made white, and shall be tried as fire : and the wicked shall deal wickedly, and none of the wicked shall understand, but the learned shall understand :" that is, they who are enlightened by true learning, by the light of the Holy Ghost, and the teaching of the Catholic Church. ”

“ Now horrible as it may seem, no one can read the eighteenth chapter of the Apocalypse, and not perceive that some such catastrophe is foretold, if at least he believe in the Divine inspiration of that book: and, on the other hand, if he looks around and accurately scans the various elements that are at work in modern society, he will not regard such an issue, awful though it be, as in any degree impossible : on the contrary, unless the destructive influences that are at work are removed, it is clearly inevitable. ”

“ I ought here to say, that the tenth part of the city may also refer not to any one of the ten kingdoms in particular, but to a tenth part of the whole city, taken as a whole, that is, to a tithing of civilized men, wherever they are settled under a secular government, and, if so, I should apply it to the governing powers everywhere ”

“ It seems probable, from many passages in Scripture, that the Jews will have been brought back to Palestine by Anti- christ previous to his destruction, and previous to their own conversion, and this also appears to be handed down by the tradition of the Church. Now, as we believe that we have demonstrated Antichrist to be Mahomet, and the Mahometan empire to be the kingdom of Antichrist, we should naturally expect that the restoration of the Jews to Palestine in their unconverted state will be the work of some Turkish Sultan. ”

“ It has produced a countless host of discordant sects, issuing in complete rationalism and infidelity, the result of which has been not only to paralyse faith, but even to destroy all healthy action in the body politic. ”

“ Now let the reader dwell upon these words, and he will at once see the absurdity of applying them to the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church has never yet brought all nations within her pale : and as for the kings of the earth, very few of them have ever yet admitted her authority, or embraced her doctrine. At the moment that I am now writing, there are in Europe alone a majority of nations and kings who do not profess the Catholic faith. ”

“ I say, when we look back upon all that has taken place during the last eighty or hundred years, and when we recollect that during that same period the sovereign pon- tiff has been thrice driven from Rome, and the Roman people in a great degree perverted from the simplicity and fervour of former times, we must surely apprehend that all this will issue in some most fearful persecution of the Catholic Church. ”

“ We believe that when the Jews shall have been restored to their own land, and converted to the faith of Him whom they crucified, they will turn to the vicar of Christ Jesus to receive them into that Church, and to reign over them. All kings and nations will then do homage to the Apostolic See, and the pope, father of the Gentile nations, as well as of the converted Jews, will rule over the earth, and gather the peoples of the earth into one happy sheepfold. Then will the nations beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning- hooks ”

“ Now, whether this period is to continue for a thousand literal years, or not, we cannot tell. But there is every reason to believe that it will be a very long period ; and some persons have thought that it might last even for three hun- dred and sixty thousand years. But this is a question into which we abstain from entering ; we content ourselves with the belief that its duration will be worthy of the goodness of God, and a fitting compensation to the Catholic Church, even here upon earth, for all her pre- vious trials, sorrows, and persecutions. ”

“ The Grecian; and " one" said the angel, " now is ; " and this was the Roman empire that ruled mankind when St. John wrote the Apocalypse ; and then the angel added, " and the other," viz., the seventh mountain or head, "is not yet come" And this seventh was to be the king- dom of Antichrist, viz., that of Mahomet, which was to arise, as we have already shown, when the Roman empire was removed. Of this kingdom, said the angel, "when he is come he must remain a short time," that is, a short time in comparison with eternity, or with the whole duration of the seven empires of the mystic Babylon. ”

“ It is a remarkable fact, that while I am writing, the rumour has gone forth that a great Jewish capitalist has offered a loan, for any amount required, to the Sultan, on con- dition of a mortgage on Palestine, and it is also currently reported that the Jews are col- lecting vast sums for the work of rebuilding the Temple of Jerusalem. Be all this as it may, the declaration of Daniel is unmistake- able, that the Archangel Michael will stand up for the conversion of the Jewish people at the very time when the Turkish empire shall fall before the victorious arms of the King of the North. ”

“ Now I believe the Babylon of the Apoca- lypse, and Nabuchodonozor's metallic statue in Daniel, represent the same thing. And what is that ? They represent, as I think, the whole secular organization of mankind from the very beginning of nations, until the period when the Catholic Church is to assume her grandest development, and to take possession of that universal dominion which is promised to her. ”

“ Apostle, " the beast that ascendeth out of the abyss, shall make war upon them, and shall overcome them, and kill them." Now this prophecy, we believe, is not yet ful- filled, although we believe that its fulfilment is near at hand. That a tremendous persecution of the Catholic Church is coming may well be rat hered from all that has happened in the world since the middle of the last century. ”

“ The result of this was more and more to sever men's minds from the influence of Catholicism and the Gospel, and so to make them an easier prey to the arguments of rationalism and infidelity, while it tended immensely to the development of immorality and impurity in its worst forms. ”

“ This fermentation came to its utmost height in the time of Luther, and issued in the severance of the northern nations from the Catholic Church, as it had previously severed the east from her dominion by the heresies that ensued upon Constantino's conversion, crowned as they were by the great apostasy of the Man of Sin, Mahomet. ”

“ For my own part, whilst I have no doubt that Elias will come again, and restore all things, as our Lord Himself asserted ; and while I think there is a very general tradition in the Church affirming the same of Enoch ; and while I believe that St. John in this place alludes to Elias and Enoch, and probably in- cludes them, I also am convinced that he means
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much more. I believe with Abbot Joachim that he intends by the two witnesses "the priests and monks of the Catholic Church," or, in other words, " the clergy regular and the clergy secular." ”

“ If there be one feature more than another that distinguishes it from all its predecessors, it surely is that most wonderful increase of communication be- tween the most distant parts of the earth, and the most distant nations. The application of steam to locomotion has, as it were, annihilated distance, and the whole human race seems bent on passing from one country to another ”

“ The Bride of the Lamb is undoubt- edly the Church of Christ, and the adornment of this Bride signifies the glory and prosperity of the Catholic Church that is to ensue on the breaking up of the present secular organiza- tion of the earth, that is, on the destruction of Babylon. And as the metallic statue of Da- niel figured the great empires that were suc- cessively to preside over the secular organiza- tion of the earth, so did Babylon (Apocalypse xvii. 9 12) , seated on seven mountains, repre- sent the same secular organization of mankind enthroned on its seven principal seats. ”

“ The Church cast it at once into the corrupted mass of humanity : and as our Lord speaks in His parable of three " measures of meal/' so I conceive there were to be three great fermentations of mankind before it should be perfectly leavened with the Divine doctrine. The first of these fermen- tations was the great strife between the Gospel and paganism during the three first centuries, working that dreadful persecution that crowiu-d all the primitive martyrs, issuing in the con- version of Constantino, and the subjugation of the pagan element ”

“ Sophronius, the great mass of the orthodox Catholic Christians of Jerusalem left the city, and betook themselves to the mountains of Lebanon, where they have dwelt ever since even to the present day. These Christians are to this hour Catholic and orthodox, and their patriarch is the true Catholic patriarch of Jeru- salem. They are known commonly by the name of Maronites, and they are conspicuous for their piety, their simplicity, their virtue, and their faith. They have always remained firmly united to the see of St. ”

“ Cities and villages, palaces and cot- tages, parks and gardens, would all perish in the general conflagration. Anarchy would sweep away every vestige of order, and instead of the boasted civilization of the nineteenth century, all things would be reduced to primi- tive chaos. ”

“ And assuredly when we look at the present state of mankind, and reflect how very far it is from what the glowing predictions of Holy Writ would lead us to anticipate of its con- dition in the blessed period, we may well fear that the further period would be more probable than one less distant. But be this as it may, it would seem as if the destruction of the Mahometan empire, as distinguished from the rc/if/ious system upheld by it, would not be drhiyed beyond the year of our Lord 1865. ”

“ A little further on he tells us that another commen- tator, Alcazar, understood by these witnesses " the great wisdom and the great sanctity of the Primitive Church," and that the Apostle alluded to Enoch and Elias, concerning whom it is an ancient and venerable tradition that they will appear on earth and suffer martyrdom in the final persecution of the anti-Christian power. He also informs us that some have
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taken them " to mean Christ and St. John the Baptist ; " and " St. Antoninus thought they were the Pope Sylverius and Mennas of Con- stantinople ”

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Our readers are well aware that Protestant commentators are accustomed to interpret this Apocalyptic Babylon to signify Rome, and the Catholic Church ruled over by the pope of Rome. But to any one who reads atten- tively St. John's words, the absurdity of such an interpretation must be manifest. In the eighteenth chapter of the Apocalypse, the angel speaking of Babylon, whose utter destruction he is proclaiming, uses this remarkable expres- sion : " because all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication : and the kin. ”

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the greater part of them. Nor is it visionary to apprehend such a catastrophe. Look at the principles of socialism, that are at work in France, and in other countries; look at Mor- monism, that is every day becoming more for- midable in America, and even in Europe ; look at the general spread of atheism and infidelity ; look at the horrible war that has broken out, one-half of Christendom aiming at the destruc- tion of the othrr half for the express purpose of upholding tin* Mahometan empire, which is, in fact, Mahometanism. ”

“ But if this be so, what else can we conclude but that we are close upon the wonderful period announced by the Prophet, and that, if our days are spared a little longer, we may very probably witness the tremendous conflict of all the secular powers, so often predicted by the
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prophets, as well as the commencement of the blessed period that is to ensue afterwards ? In the sixth verse (Dan. xii. 6) , Daniel himself n-ks the question, " How long shall it be to the end of these wonders ?" ”

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lating influence a duration of 1290 days. In other words, we anticipate, from this prophecy, that thirty years are to elapse, subsequent to the breaking up of the Turkish empire, before the religion of Mahomet will be completely extinguished : and this brings us back to St. ”

“ The first effect of this rationalistic fermentation manifested itself in the sixteenth century, when learned men, abandoning the Divine philosophy of the Catholic Church, such as the angelical Doctor St. ”