STATE OF CHRISTENDOM

“Look abroad on European Christendom. Contemplate the nations that have so long and so desperately rebelled against the Lord and against his Christ, —disowning his blessed gospel, and doing homage, whether in doting superstition or in the hypocrisy of Atheism, to his arch-enemy, the Anti-christ, the Man of Sin. Is it not the universal observation concerning the occurrences of the last few years and months, that they bear a most judgment-like aspect and character? They have got utterly beyond all the ordinary conditions of political calculation. They baffle and defy the profoundest sagacity of political wisdom, alike to anticipate them beforehand, and to account for them or estimate and measure them when they come. Nor is there any feature in the case that more signally and unequivocally marks their judicial import, than the haste and hurry with which crisis after crisis, and stroke after stroke, breathlessly follow one another. The vicissitudes of a century seem to be crowded now into the compass of a decade, nay, almost of a single year. The marvels of all history, ancient and modern, are enacted again before our eyes, with even enhanced elements of surprise, and all in such brief space as may be counted by weeks, and even by days. Is it not the impression of all thoughtful minds that there is an ominous acceleration of the rate of movement in the revolutionary ongoings of Papal Europe? It is as if the impulse of railway locomotion, and the electric transmission of intelligence from shore to shore, were communicated to the excited minds of men, or exemplified in the angry providence of God. Surely it is a short work that the Lord is making on the earth. At this moment, what a spectacle does this continent present! And what fear of change is perplexing all hearts! Peace the princes boast of, and order re-established and restored. Peace and order! Excellent blessings, truly; —Heaven’s best gifts to weary mortals! But to be blessings, they must be Heaven’s gifts: flowing from the liberty with which Christ makes his people free, founded on just laws and equal rights, and hallowed by the recognition of the true God, and the utter overthrow of every idol; not bought by a sordid compromise with Rome, and upheld by the suppression of all free opinion, and the sanguinary arm of military power. As it is, who doubts that a new crash is near at hand? The unholy alliance of Despotism and Popery cannot be long tolerated, either by earth or by heaven. It is filling up the iniquity of the Papacy, and of the powers and principalities that are giving their influence to the Beast. It is putting the last drop into the cup of bitterness, even now ready to overflow. It is preparing the way for the terrible reaction when the exasperated nations, stung to frenzy by the double oppression of the Pope and Caesar, shall hate the scarlet mother of abominations, and make her desolate and naked, and eat her flesh, and burn her with fire—Revelation 16: 16. Above all, it is calling aloud for God to come swiftly to the reckoning, and to make short work of his final dealings with the Antichristian powers that have so long made the earth to groan and bleed. We may well be looking out for a rapid development of this new and unheard-of combination against the liberties and hopes of mankind. Already the isolated remnants of the free, —in the Swiss mountains, the valleys of Piedmont, and the plains of Sardinia, —are trembling for their very being. The lowering storm of priestly and despotic vengeance may burst on them at any moment. And the patience of God being exhausted suddenly, the fury of his wrath may come ere we think it possible. ‘He will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness, —a short work will he make upon the earth.’”

“In opposition,” says the editor of the Journal of Prophecy, “to the unhealthy and unscriptural sentimentalism of those who will hear of nothing but peace, who look upon warlike preparations as wholly unchristian, and upon the military profession as unbecoming a saint, * we have the following noble appeal:”—

“At the same time, in the third place, stand prepared and on the watch for these things coming to pass, and ‘when they begin to come to pass, then look up, lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh’—Luke 21: 28. Meanwhile, yield not to imaginary visions, and premature dreams of security and repose, as if the world were grown too old and wise for the barbarism of war, and the sword were now everywhere to be sheathed amid the acclamations and congratulations of universal brotherhood. The horrors of war—the benefits of peace—it is impossible to exaggerate. But let us have a care lest we so deal with that great theme as to enervate and paralyse the hearts and hands of the free, while the military despots that are ready to scourge the earth exult in the spurious sentiment, or false economy, that would disarm the defenders of truth and liberty, left now well-nigh a mere remnant in the Thermopylae of our Western world. What! When all Europe, under the sway of rampant tyranny and intolerant priestcraft, is bristling with the implements and resounding with the smothered din of battle, is it for the forlorn hope, on which the good cause must mainly depend, to become enamoured of repose, and grasp too soon the millennial blessedness of peace? It has been the Lord’s will formerly, —and if the Revelation be a true prophecy, it may be the Lord’s will again, —to accomplish his great ends of judgment and mercy, through the instrumentality of wars and tumults, and these no child’s play. From all unjust and unnecessary recourse to arms—from all unholy violence of speech or action—from all that wrath of man which worketh not the righteousness of God—may the nation and its people be preserved! But for the needful testimony, and the needful conflict, —whether on the field of physical power, or on the ground of faithful witness-bearing, even to persecution and bloody martyrdom, let the champions of independence and the soldiers of the Cross stand prepared. Let them watch in full armour and with unslumbering eye, lest that day of the Lord’s short work on the earth should overtake them suddenly as a thief in the night.”—Dr. Candlish’s Sermon, “The Lord’s short work upon the earth,” quoted in the Quarterly Journal of Prophecy.

* Soldiership in the armies of the Gentiles is exceedingly “unbecoming a saint.” The saints are the Lord’s, and not Caesar’s soldiery; and if they will only have patience, they will have military glory enough in vanquishing Caesar’s armies when their great Captain shall appear to set up the kingdom, which shall “grind to powder and bring to an end all these kingdoms” of the world. Let the potsherds of the earth contend with their fellows. Let the saints abide the time, viewing the strife, and rejoicing in the end. —