LETTER TO ALESSANDRO GAVAZZI.

Modern Protestantism an interest, not a principle—Adverse Politicals advocate it, and flatter its enemies, for the sake of their votes—Lying the order of the day—The oldest Church of Christ in Rome, Jewish and not Italian—“Catholic” a name of faction—No “Catholics” in Peter’s day—The Church of Christ in Rome not the “Church of Rome”—The Catholic faction Paganised into the Catholic Church of Rome under Constantine—This Emperor Pagan, Pontiff, and Catholic Hierophant—Christianity defined—not intended for a political constitution—The Nations and their Governments the enemies of God—Popery cannot be annihilated till Christ comes—Signor Gavazzi and the mark of the Beast—The good news of the Gospel indicated—The Israelitish kingdom and empire of the future—Christ and his brethren to subdue the nations and enlighten the world.

                Dear Sir—Though neither papist, protestant, nor “Roman Catholic of Peter’s time,” I have not been altogether an unconcerned observer of your endeavours in this great Babel of the West. I sympathise with the efforts of all, of whatever race or nation, who seek to emancipate the human mind from the bondage and tyranny of sin, superstition, and unbelief. For this reason I sympathise with you, and wish you God speed, and great success.

            In reading a brief report of your speeches, I perceived that some things had fallen from your lips which evinced that you were considerably in advance of the current Protestantism of this cloudy and dark day. This discovery afforded me real gratification. The Protestantism of this country is but a fashionable Demas, competing with popery for the votes of the Democracy, which at heart they both cordially despise. Soul-saving is the pretext; the loaves and fishes of the state, daily sumptuousness, and power, the real end of the enlargement of their phylacteries before the people. The Protestantism of Luther, Calvin and Wesley, has doctrinally accomplished all it is capable of against Romanism in its papal manifestation. “The Reformers” all erred in supposing that popery could be reformed; and in admitting that the Roman Catholic church was ever a true church. You admit this in part. In so far then we are agreed. No independent mind enlightened by Moses and the prophets, Christ and the apostles, thinks of paying any regard to an Episcopalian, Presbyterian, or Methodist protest against popery; for if the papal church be the “Mother of harlots” as they say, they are unquestionably “the daughters”—the “women” of Revelation 14: 4. As you truly remark, therefore, “to protest against popery is very little:” hence the position you have assumed is great and impregnable, to protest against all sects, and to “preach Christianity as it was in the early church.” This is what few can do. I have heard of no man in this city competent to the task. There are many pretenders; but “a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth,” is yet a desideratum for this corrupt, blind, and demoralised community. The gospel preached by the apostles is unknown, and supplanted by “philosophy and vain deceit” for the entertainment of the “itching ears” which have heaped up to themselves pulpit orators after their own lusts. Antique spiritual bazaars, luxuriously embellished, whose pews are auctioned off to the highest bidder, are the places of resort they call “churches”—places of spiritual merchandise, where papist and protestant priests make long prayers, and wrest the scriptures to please the taste of the sinners who hire them to cure their souls. This is the “religion” of the world here—a religion of fashion, lust, and intense selfishness, which leaves the people to “perish for lack of knowledge.” It circulates the Bible indeed; but at the same time pronounces Moses and the prophets unintelligible, and represses with bitterness all truth not represented in their miserable sectarian creeds, and confessions of faith. From such a system, gospel-liberty and enlightenment are not to be expected. Fostered by such Protestantism as this, popery is a deadly viper warming into virulence destructive of every good. Italy and Hungary have nothing to hope for from its sympathies, unless indeed, gold and diamonds may be extracted from their soil in more than Californian or Australian superfluity. In that event, Protestantism would evince all due alacrity in filibustering against Austria for the annexation of those countries to the land of liberty and the model Republic of the world.

            Your case, Signor Caro, would have been a dead failure, if in the opening of your brief you had proclaimed yourself the champion of Protestantism. If you had assumed this position you would have been vulnerable at all sides, and could only have defended yourself, as protestants do, by proving that of two blacks popery is the blacker most intensely. So long as you advocate that Christianity found in the Bible without regard to popery and Protestantism, Archbishop Hughes, the representative of the Beast’s Image in this city will take special care how he troubles himself with so inconvenient an antagonist. If I mistake not the man, he has assailed Protestantism in newspaper controversy with a Presbyterian champion named Breckenridge, whom he gained a decided advantage over on the question of baby-rhantism, or sprinkling. This you know, Signor, is not taught in the Bible, but is a dogma of the Apostasy established by papal authority. Hughes maintained this, and urged truly that the protestant “baptism” was a popish institution; and that if popery were proved to be a lie, baby-sprinkling was a part of that lie; and as protestant creeds made it essential to salvation, as proved by John 3: 5, no protestant could enter the kingdom of God; in which conclusion more truth than fiction is contained. Hughes has the soul of a Jesuit, and consequently all the serpent-cunning of that creature, but with none of the harmlessness of the dove, where he can bite without being bitten. He fears you doubtless as you now stand. Beware, however, of the protestant Jesuitism of the political press. If dagger “John” of New York, Cardinal expectant, make any move against you, it will probably be by setting his underlings to work upon the fears of the editors, who, instead of being the enlightened leaders of the people in the way of truth and righteousness, are the mere breath of political factions, whose “principles” are summarily expressed in the proverb “to the victor belong the spoils.” The popish vote in this city is very great, and can be controlled here as in other parts of Papaldom, by a corrupt and vicious priesthood. In view of this influence the party editors are cap in hand to the priests especially, whose motto is that also of the clergy of all sects, “disturb not that which is quiet.” Hence they are very sensitive on the subject of religious controversy. They readily endorse that maxim of a rotten cause so ardently cherished by all who live by it, that “controversy is dangerous to religion.” The political editors know how repugnant it is to the priests or clergy of the Old Mother and her Daughters to have their creeds and confessions unceremoniously scrutinised and tested by scripture; they therefore repress all such investigation with the understanding that they will direct their pious influence in the true channel of political orthodoxy. Do you think that a Whig editor’s sympathy for human liberty and detestation of Austrian and papal cruelty is so hearty and disinterested that he would do and say in New York what he would in London? By no means. He might be very eloquent upon the platform at Exeter Hall in behalf of liberty and the Bible; and even threaten the tyrant with America’s frowns and indignant sympathy with the oppressed; but come you, Signor Gavazzi, to this Babel of the West, and deliver the same sentiments, and speak for God as well as for man, and denounce that Roman Mountebank, the ninth of his official name—expose the demoniac hypocrisy and impiety of him, his system and his priests—show up the imposture naked before the public, and demonstrate “the mystery of iniquity” they incarnate—and that same hypocritical politician will denounce you for a sower of discord among brethren: for if he were to stand by his transatlantic eloquence, he would offend the priests, and they might alienate the votes of papists from Whiggery to its rivals. I speak this not alone of Whig editors, but of Democratic and other faction writers, also—ex uno disce omnes.

            This is the philosophy of that denunciation you recently experienced from these same editorial partisans for stripping off the veil from the hideous idol to which they burn incense for the votes of its besotted worshippers, but whose idolatry they neither love nor venerate. You say truly that “popery is essentially against all freedom, and therefore against all republics.” I endeavoured to convince the citizens of Louisville, Ky., of this truth while incognito editor of a daily paper in that city in 1843, at the time of the popish excitement in Philadelphia. The paper was denounced by Whigs and Democrats, and the Jesuits for a piratical craft. The Whig Presidential electioneering procession halted opposite the office, and yelled forth groans and hisses against the Louisville Tribune, a paper advocating the election of their candidate, Henry Clay; and some proposed the demolishing of the press and types, because this same paper, in showing the essential and historical hostility of popery to liberty, and the well-being of society, it was apprehended would alienate some Romish votes from their political idol. About the same time the elections for the State Legislature were coming on. The Louisville Tribune created quite a panic in this direction also. One of the candidates visited the office under great excitement, demanding what they were all doing there, and exclaiming that he had lost two hundred votes by the articles on popery in the Tribune. He was given to understand that they were “publishing the truth as nearly as could be ascertained.” “Yes,” said he, “but the truth must not be told.” He was, however, informed, that so long as the Tribune was published there, there was no help for it; it must and would be told. He asked permission to publish a card. It was granted. It was a laudation of the Romish priesthood, telling what fine fellows they were, and how intimate he had been with several of them for years, &c.; but apprehending he might be taken for a papist, and so lose more protestant votes than he would gain, recover, or retain by flattering the priests, he abruptly concluded his “card” by saying, “I am a protestant.” This anecdote, now first reduced to writing, may illustrate to you the relations of politics in this country to its multifarious and multitudinous sectarianism. Mormonism, a mushroom imposture of the baldest character, is flattered and fawned upon by editors who despise it, for the sake of its votes. This was notorious in the election of Governor Ford, of Illinois, under whose administration they were afterwards expelled from Nauvoo by force of arms. God’s unadulterated truth, then, need expect no quarters from protestant political editors and partisans; therefore, Signor, give none. Tell the truth as fully, and as fast as you learn it, and put them all to shame. Annihilate popery if you can. There is no harm in trying; though you are certain not to succeed: for in the providence of God both popery and Protestantism have a mission to perform. Their natural antagonism in the old world is bringing on a crisis which will be the ruin of them both. But their destruction is neither in your power nor mine, nor in that of all the disaffected throughout antichrist’s dominion. If you have the ear of the Italians, show them what the truth is as preached by the Apostles, and leave the death and damnation of the apostasy unto God.

            You are reported to have said, that you are “not a protestant in any sectarian sense, and wish to be called rather by the name of Roman Catholic.” But why by this?  “Because,” say you, “the Roman Catholic church is the most ancient church in Europe, and you wish to be considered a Roman Catholic of Peter’s time, before the church had become vitiated and corrupt.” But, Signor Gavazzi, why not be satisfied with a scripture designation? Where in all the Bible you advocate, do you find any mention of Roman Catholics, or a Roman Catholic Church? We find there a letter from Paul to all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called saints, “whose faith was celebrated among the faithful throughout the whole empire of that city.” Now for several years after the ascension of Jesus, even until Peter visited the house of Cornelius in Caesarea the only Christians in Rome were converted Israelites, and not Italians. The gospel of the kingdom was introduced to Rome by neither Peter nor Paul, but by “Roman strangers, being Jews and proselytes”—Acts 2: 10—who heard the Apostles and obeyed the things they taught on Pentecost. When these, on their return from the celebration of Pentecost, carried the doctrine of Christ to Rome, that city was Pagan, and so continued, in fact and name, until Constantine revolutionised it. The Christian Jews in Rome were collectively the church of Christ in Rome; but so far from being “Catholic”—universal, or general, they were a small minority, compared with the population of unbelieving Jews and pagan citizens of Rome. The saints never were catholic, and for years were not even Roman, or Italian, but Jews. These Christian Jews were the “One Body” in Rome, not of Rome, nor the Roman Body; but the one Body of the “One Lord,” having the “One Faith,” and washed with the “One Baptism,” and animated by the “One Spirit,” and called with the “One Hope,” by the commandment of the “One God and Father.” I repeat it—this was not the Roman Catholic Church. This church does not appear in history until many years after, and was an apostasy—“a falling away” from the One Body of the Lord.

            When the mystery of the Fellow-heirship of the Gentiles with Christ was revealed, they were admitted to the fellow-heirship of believing Jews in Rome and elsewhere; and became partakers of God’s promise in Christ by the gospel believed and obeyed. See Ephesians 3: 6, and Romans 16: 25-26; Acts 10. The church in Rome, then, assumed a mixed character. It was composed of Jews and Gentiles, who thus became brethren and “one in Christ Jesus.” In process of time, “blindness in part happened to Israel,” and the church ceased to be recruited from among the Jews. The church in Rome, then, came to consist only of believing Gentiles who had been immersed into Christ, and so united to his name, and therefore called Christian. The blindness of Israel was infectious. It extended itself to the Gentiles, who were becoming “wise in their own conceit;” and however sound in doctrinal theory, they did not continue in “the love of the truth that they might be saved: and for this cause God sent upon them a strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: that all might be condemned who believed NOT THE truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” The Gentile professors went on from bad to worse, until their bloody quarrels excited the reprobation of the idolaters.

            In 251, a schism occurred in the church at Rome by means of Novatian, one of its elders. Many drew off with him, and formed a community entirely distinct from that which fellowshipped the bishop. Their adversaries confess they were sound in the faith, though excessively rigid and severe. The seceders (and you call yourself a “Seceder,” Signor) were called “Cathari,” or pure, because they contended for virtue, innocency, and purity in the lives of all who belonged to the christian church; the contrary of which obtained in the generality to a lamentable degree. It was now that the distinction arose which has continued to this day. The majority who courted popular applause, and sided with the chief bishop, or elder of the church, were called Catholic, and those who seceded, no matter on what account, were styled Heretic.

            In consequence of this division, instead of there being a church of Rome, there were TWO RIVAL CHURCHES IN ROME. This was in A.D. 251, nearly two hundred and twenty years after the introduction of the gospel to that city by the Jews, who had heard Peter on Pentecost. There was no Catholic Church heard of until this date. The chief overseer, who afterwards grew into a full-blown Pope by favour of Justinian, Phocas, and Charlemagne, was the Head of the Catholic Party. Now you reject that head, how then can you claim to be a Catholic? If you contend for fellowship with the most ancient church in Europe, you must renounce the Roman Catholic, and identify yourself with the older body existing there before any Gentiles or Italians were admitted to its fellowship. This was the church in Rome in Peter’s time; a church that knew nothing of Popes, Cardinals, Archbishops, Monks, Friars, Nuns, or priests’ harlots, or any other hypocrisy and abominations. The Saints in Rome were all God’s clergy or lot; his sons and daughters, without distinction of clergy and laity, “kings and priests” elected for the kingdom soon to be established on the ruins of the kingdoms, empires, and republics of the world.

            It is unnecessary for me to trace minutely the history of the Novatian Church and the Catholic Church in Rome. In their beginning they were neither of them “the Church of Rome,” because the Italians of that city were catholically, or generally, pagans, the christians indeed and in name being only the exception to the rule. If you were settled in New York as pastor of a congregation of two or three hundred Italians, would you be justified in calling your little flock “the church of New York,” by which it would be understood that all its citizens belonged to your church, or that you claimed jurisdiction over them as the pastor or “Archbishop,” or Pope of New York? Would not all your contemporaries here hold your pretensions in perfect and well-merited contempt? It would have been so with the Novatian and Catholic Churches in Rome had they either of them in their beginning assumed the title of the Church of Rome. There was no Church of Rome claiming ecclesiastical jurisdiction over its citizens in A.D. 251. If the title “Church of Rome” be admissible at all, it is only in a pagan sense of the term. The Emperor being ex officio “supreme pontiff,” was the head of that church which, at that time, was the true church in the estimation of all Italians, save the comparatively few, identified with the proscribed faith.

            But the Church of Rome did not always continue strictly pagan. Its constitution was modified by the revolution which changed the form of the Roman Government in A.D. 312. Till this date all its pontiffs, from Julius Caesar to Maxentius, were priests of Jupiter and his companion gods, to whom they sacrificed hogs, fit emblems of the worshippers. The God of Israel, and his King, the crucified Nazarene, found no favour in their eyes; but were the objects of persecution and hatred in the persons of the saints. But in the beginning of the fourth century an Emperor appeared, whose admiration for Apollo and Christ, the Gods and the Martyrs, was pretty nearly balanced, but leaning rather more towards Christ and the Martyrs than towards the others. This man, styled Constantine the Great, was reputed a christian by the Catholic party for fourteen years, although he was not immersed until three days before his death. As a proof of his double-mindedness, I would remind you that he enjoined the solemn observance of the Lord’s Day, which he called the day of the sun, Die Solis, after his favourite god; and in the same year, A.D. 321, directed the regular consultation of Auruspices; and during all this time he was permitted to enjoy most of the privileges of the Catholic Church, praying with the members, preaching on theology, celebrating with “sacred rites” the vigil of Easter, and publicly announced himself not only a partaker, but, in some measure, a priest and hierophant of the “christian mysteries.”

            Thus, the Roman World now saw for the first time a “Pontifex Maximus” who officiated for Israel’s God, and the sun, &c.! Subsequently to his imperfect proselytism to Catholicity, he caused his son Crispus, of whom he was jealous, to be put to death. Here, then, we have a semi-pagan and a murderer placed by a successful revolution at the head of the pagan church of Rome. He was the type of his body the church, as Christ is of his. The revolutionised church of Rome was a den of thieves and murderers, robbers, and slayers of heretics, as before the revolution it was of all who professed Christianity of any kind.

            Now, Signor Gavazzi, which of the two schisms in Rome expanded into the church of Rome, the Novatian or the Catholic? You will, doubtless, answer—the Catholic. You are right. The Novatians separated from the Catholics before they assumed that name, because of their having abandoned “the love of the truth,” and the practice of it. So that catholic is but another term for apostasy. It has always been associated with sin in all its manifestations of superstition, bigotry, hypocrisy, cruelty and crime. The best men having seceded from the church in Rome, the vicious majority that remained had free scope for the next sixty years to mature their ambitious projects; which was, by the strengthening of the catholic influence, through the proselyting of multitudes, and the favour of infidel politicians, with whom paganism and catholicity, as popery and Protestantism are now, were but tools that knaves do work with, to make such a revolution as would give the Catholic Clergy the loaves and fishes of the State, then monopolised by their rivals and persecutors, the priests of Jupiter and his court. From A.D. 270, to the end of the century, “ecclesiastical discipline,” says the historian, “which had been too strict, was now relaxed exceedingly: bishops and people were in a state of malice; endless quarrels were fomented among contending parties; and ambition and covetousness, had, in general, gained the ascendancy in the Christian Church. Notwithstanding this decline both of zeal and principle; notwithstanding this scarcity of evangelical graces and fruits, still Christian worship was constantly attended, and the number of nominal converts was increasing; but the faith of Christ itself appeared now an ordinary business.” Eusebius the historian, himself a catholic of that period, says, “We heaped sin upon sin, judging, like careless Epicureans, that God cared not for our sins, nor would ever visit us on account of them. And our pretended shepherds, laying aside the rule of godliness, practised among themselves contention and division.” A perfect type of things existing now.

            Such was the Catholic church in Rome, and indeed the Catholic faction or schism throughout Italy and Gaul, when the ambitious Constantine conceived the project of becoming sole emperor of the Roman world. Himself a fugitive in Britain from imperial designs upon his life, he naturally entertained a fellow feeling for others similarly circumstanced. He became therefore a banner for the disaffected unfurled for a revolution the most remarkable in the history of the empire. His armies were crowded with Catholics, whose champion he had become, and it soon became manifest, that the real struggle was between that corrupt party and the partisans of the pagan church for ascendancy in the State. The catholic woman and her man-child triumphed; and being therefore enthroned, they seized upon the temples of the gods, and ejected their priests. They superseded the gods by the ghosts of the martyrs, to which they dedicated the temples, and appointed the catholic clergy to officiate at their altars in the character of priests. Thus, instead of Christianising paganism, Catholicism was paganised, and expanded into the church of Rome; which in the fulness of its development, and loaded with the fruit peculiar to it, stands before the nations as “the Mother of Harlots, and of all the abominations of the earth.”

            From what has been said, then, it has been made to appear clearly, that you are mistaken in the supposition, that the Roman Catholic church is the most ancient church in Europe; and that there were any Roman Catholics in Peter’s time. Such a church, and such Catholics, were altogether unheard of and unknown. Their church is a schism, and themselves Schismatics. I trust, therefore, you will renounce “Roman Catholic” as a name, as well as papist. Bible names for Bible things; no human nomenclature can better designate the things of the Spirit than the Spirit’s own words and phrases.

            New Testament Christianity was not promulgated as a civil and ecclesiastical constitution for peoples and nations. It appears to me, from the reports of your speeches, that you think it was. Hence, you talk about “Italians being Roman Catholics because they are Italians,” by which you intimate that they are Christians of the early church, because they are Italians. But, as I have shown, Christianity is not a specialty of Italians, though Roman Catholicism is. This is the mother schism, and peculiar to Rome. Lutheranism is German popery Lutheranised; Presbyterianism, Scotch popery Calvinised, and so forth. These modifications of Romanism are all political systems, and constitutionally suited to English, German, and Scotch peoples, as civil and ecclesiastical constitutions. But it is not so with Christianity, which is utterly at variance with them all in doctrine, aim, and practice. CHRISTIANITY is “the Gospel of the kingdom” for the obedience of faith, with the “all things” enjoined upon the baptised by the apostles. This is the best definition I can give in Bible terms to a word which does not occur in the Scriptures. The Gospel of the kingdom is an invitation to Jews and Gentiles to become heirs of God’s kingdom and glory, on condition of believing “the things of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ,” and being immersed into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit— Acts 8: 12. They are invited to separate themselves from the institutions of the nations, which are of no spiritual account in the affair of salvation. In believing and obeying the truth, this separation is effected; and though the believers live under the schismatic constitutions of the Gentiles, as Jewish Christians in Palestine lived under the Mosaic constitution, they have no use for them as spiritual institutions. You may see from Acts 15: 7-19, that God sent the Gospel invitation to the Gentiles “to take out of them A PEOPLE for his name.” If there be a hundred bushels of grain, and I “take out of them” ten quarts, that is surely very different to taking the whole bulk. God sent the Gospel to Rome, not to take all Italians for his people; but to take out from among them some who by obedience should become his people. The Italians are constitutionally the Pope’s people, as the Turks are Mohammed’s, and the Greeks are the Russian Autocrat’s. If Italians would become people of God, they must separate themselves from every form of Roman Catholicism by believing the gospel of the kingdom and obeying it. Let me press this point upon you, Signor. “If judgment begin at the house of God,” says Peter, “what shall the end be of them who obey not the gospel?” Hear what Paul says in answer to this question. “The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with the angels of his power in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.” A man may protest against popery, or he may annihilate it; he may by his eloquence create a sympathy for the down-trodden of all nations, and kill his ten thousands of the Philistines in battling for liberty and the rights of man—but what of all that? Is he therefore justified from all his past sins, and has he thereby acquired a right to the kingdom and eternal life? By no means. These are only to be obtained by believing the gospel and obeying it, and thenceforth living a sober, righteous, and godly life in this present evil world.

            I would enquire, how can one of Peter’s church, or rather Christ’s in Peter’s time, scripturally become the advocate either of peoples or of their oppressors? The peoples of the world are sinners by nature and practice, living in their sins, and therefore enemies of God. These sinful peoples constitute the world; and the Scripture saith, “the friendship of the world is enmity with God. Whosoever, therefore, will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.” Again, “If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” “Whosoever is born of God overcometh the world; and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.” And again, “If I yet pleased men (the world), I should not be the servant of Christ.” This separation from sinners is a great principle of Christianity, and quite incompatible with the christian’s advocacy of the people’s cause against their oppressors. A christian can only lawfully plead the cause of God and the Gospel, against which both oppressors and the oppressed are united in the strictest fellowship and alliance. They may hate one another cordially, but they do not therefore love God the more; for, saith he, “if ye love me, do what I command you;” for “love is the fulfilling of the law.”

            I am glad to see, Signor Gavazzi, that though mistaken on some important points, you are in advance of protestants generally upon others. You believe in the personal appearing of Jesus Christ to establish in Palestine a kingdom of universal dominion and justice; also in the restoration of the scattered tribe of Israel to their fatherland; and that the time is fast coming when all denominations will disappear. These points believed, and added to your desire to “preach Christianity as it was in the early church,” “to preach the religion of Christ among the American people,” with your recent quotation of the condition of salvation, that “he who believes the gospel and is baptised shall be saved”—give me great hopes of you, that you are capable of receiving the way of the Lord more perfectly; and may be turned from the bootless effort of annihilating popery, and pleading the hopeless cause of sinners with sinners against their oppressors, to the more exalted mission of beseeching your hearers to be reconciled to God upon the stipulations presented in the Gospel of the kingdom.

            But to qualify one’s self for this mission, we must understand and obey the truth ourselves. Pardon me when I say that I am apprehensive that you are deficient in this particular. If by a “Roman Catholic,” I am to understand one, who has no other “baptism” than what babies in Italy receive at the hands of Italian priests, I am certain that you have not obeyed the truth. Christians of Peter’s time were justified by their own faith; not by the credulity of ignorant godfathers and godmothers. Hear what Paul says, “Ye are all the children of God by faith which is in Christ Jesus.” Suppose we ask Paul, “What evidence is there that we are his children by faith?” Now, just attend to what he says in the next verse in answer to the question. —“Because,” says he, “as many of you (believers) as have been baptised (immersed) into Christ have put on Christ.” Thus, you perceive, that being intelligently immersed into Christ is the evidence of our being God’s children by faith, and if his children, then heirs of the promises made to Abraham and his seed.

            On the supposition that you are a Roman Catholic, and therefore a schismatic from the church in Peter’s time, allow me to say, that your Italian “baptism” and “ordination,” are nothing more than “the Beast’s mark” and license to sell in what you truly call “the pope’s shop.” For as the scripture foretold, that pontifical power “causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand or on their foreheads; and that no man might buy and sell save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.” Now, Signor, you were once a popish priest, and sold spiritual merchandise in the bazaars of guardian saints to them who were privileged to buy. Confession, baby-rhantism, burials, marriages, masses, and so forth, were some of those wares you exchanged with purchasers for gold, and silver, and tithes, and divers other contributions. Could you have sold those things to the Italians, if you had not been signed with the mark, character, or sign of the cross on your forehead, and not been cruciated with the same mark in your right hand at your ordination as a seller of wares in the Pope’s shop? And could an Italian have purchased of you a burial in “holy ground,” if the deceased had not been signed with the sign of the cross in baby-rhantism? The affirmative to these questions being granted, I would just refer you to the sentence pronounced upon all such as do not take proper steps for the obliteration of so ignominious a mark as that of the “accursed tree.” Here it is. “If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive a mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of God’s wrath, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented in fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb. * * * And they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.” Here is the secret of Italy’s woes made patent to every reader. The Italians have sold themselves in past ages to imperial popery, and they are now reaping the bitter fruits. But the cup of suffering is not full yet. The mark of the Beast is upon them all, and what the malignity of Austria, Naples, and the pope has left unfinished, the just vengeance of the Lamb upon them for the murder of his saints and their hatred of the Bible, will be fully accomplished. But after judgment, then comes the blessing of Abraham upon all nations.

            Will you, Signor, continue to wear the livery of the beast’s image, and his mark, and to labour to excite sympathy for them whom God hath doomed? America can do nothing for Italy. The only hope for Italians is to leave Italy to France, Austria, and the Pope; and in believing the gospel and obeying it, to wash out the beast’s mark in the blood of the lamb. Being desirous to assist them in this work, I have addressed myself to you, in hope of putting you right, that being rectified yourself, you may be able to promote the good work in relation to them in England and the United States. To make this more practicable, I have sent you herewith a copy of Elpis Israel, published by me in London and New York; with the first and second volumes of the Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come, a periodical I issue every month in this city. What you will find in Elpis Israel, and the Herald, will, I doubt not, give you a view of what the Bible teaches in relation to salvation by the gospel of the kingdom, and to the future of Italy, Hungary, Turkey, France, Austria, Russia, Britain and the Jews, that will not be thrown away upon a man of your independence of thought, word and deed. You will find also some copies of a letter addressed to Louis Kossuth when in this city, and which has been republished in some of the English papers, and is about being issued in Edinburgh in pamphlet form.

            In view of all that has been said, it is certainly an important question, “What is the gospel?” It is the good news that God purposes to send Jesus Christ to Palestine to re-establish the kingdom and throne of David there, and in accomplishing this to restore the twelve tribes of Israel; break in pieces the Gentile governments; cut up and disperse all their armies; annex the dominion of the whole world to the kingdom of Israel; enlighten the nations, and establish the authority of God on the final ruin of Greek and Latin popery, Mohammedanism, paganism, and Protestantism of every name and denomination. So that then shall come to pass the prophecy of Jeremiah saying, “In the day of affliction the Gentiles shall come unto thee, O Lord, from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanities, and things wherein there is no profit.” And “at that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the Lord unto Jerusalem; neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of their evil heart. In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north to the land that I have given for an inheritance unto your fathers.” When these promises become accomplished facts, AN ISRAELITISH KINGDOM AND EMPIRE will exist upon the earth, transcending in the greatness of its power, the extent of its dominion, the splendour of its majesty, and the justice and beneficence of its rule, any sovereignty existent since nations occupied the earth. This is that dominion of which the gospel of the kingdom treats.

            But, it might be asked, What good news is that to us who may die before it is established? It is good news in this respect—that Christ and the Apostles say to us, that if we will believe the things testified in Moses and the prophets concerning it; recognise the claims of Jesus to the throne of the kingdom as son of David and of God, admit the doctrine of his death and resurrection as a propitiation for the sins of believers, and be immersed into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—if we will believe and do these things, and lead a holy and righteous life in hope of the kingdom and its eternal attributes, although we may die before the kingdom and dominion are established, Christ will raise us from the dead, associate us with himself in the work before him, and give us a share in all he shall possess. Hence an Apostle says, “God hath chosen the poor in this world, rich in faith, to be the heirs of that kingdom which he has promised to them that love him;” and when the kingdom is ready, Jesus will say to his saints, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”

            In conclusion, Signor, I would suggest that you are too belligerent for a christian of Peter’s time. You glory in having borne arms against the Austrians, and are here preaching a crusade against him, and execration against French interference. Christ says, “love your enemies,” though I admit not his; “bless and curse not.” A spirit of cursing and hatred is not a right spirit. In the absence of Jesus, we are to do good to those who despitefully use us; and are forbidden to avenge ourselves. “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” The time is not come till he returns, for the saints to draw the sword. Till then, the weapons of their warfare are not bayonets and artillery; but reason and testimony. These are mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. “Though we walk in the flesh,” says Paul, “we do not war after the flesh; casting down reasonings, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” When he comes the saints will have fighting to their heart’s content; as it is written, “the little Horn (imperial popery) made war upon the saints, and prevailed against them until the Ancient of Days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the Most High, and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom.” Referring to this time, David says, “Let the saints be joyful in glory: let them sing aloud upon their beds. Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their hands, to execute vengeance upon the nations, punishments upon the people; to bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron; to execute upon them the judgment written: this honour have all his saints.” Thus, you will perceive, that the honour of liberating mankind from the tyrants that now heel them in the dust, is reserved of God to a superior order of beings to those who are now the champions of liberty and the rights of men—it is an honour reserved for those who have acquired the mastery over themselves in “bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.” That you and I may share in this honour, is the earnest desire of, dear Sir,

            Yours faithfully, —JOHN THOMAS.

            Mott Haven, Westchester, N. Y.

            April 9, 1853.

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