MEDITATION XXXV.
MEDITATION XXXV.
IN ROME.
1758.
Genuine Christianity is rooted out this city, where a pretended successor of Peter is the fulfillment of that prediction, which mentions the coming of the 'man of sin', and which to me confirms the truth of the scriptures. They have turned the purity of religion into the pomp of superstition; the simplicity of the gospel—into mumbling and muttering of prayers in Latin, an unknown tongue. They have turned the spiritual rule over the flock of God—into a temporal dominion over the kingdoms. They have let go the kernel and substance of religion—for the shell and show. Hence, such adorning of churches, and such abundance of altars and images.
There the man of sin sways his midnight scepter, for filthy lucre, forgiving sins which God will never acquit, because in a way God never appointed—nor will approve of! This trampling on the divine commandment prostitutes sacred things; hence baptizing of bells, consecrating places, holy water, etc. It were irksome to repeat their deceits, and spiritual whoredoms, with which the nations are drunk. But, what a pity it is to see them, in the matters of religion, go hood-winked to hell! And men so cultured, learned, and expert in other respects—so easily deceived—in the concerns of their salvation! When shall the brightness of the coming of the Son of man, in the purity of the gospel, which is the sword that proceeds out of his mouth, make the kings, who now support, hate the whore, eat her flesh, and burn her with fire?
How great is the happiness, then, of a reformed land, where the glorious truths of Christianity are not concealed from any, where the poor have the gospel preached to them, and the scriptures loosed from their dark originals, in their mother tongue; and where the people are allowed, according to the biblical institution, to commemorate the death and sufferings of our dearest Lord! Woe to those who dwell among a people that are terrified for Papal bulls; that put light for darkness, and darkness for light; good works in the place of justifying righteousness; and the Pope in the place of God; who, not having attained to the spiritual knowledge of the Redeemer, inflame their affections, and kindle their devotions, by gazing on visible representations of a suffering Savior, who can only be beheld savingly by the eye of faith.
Though with our bodily eyes we could see Jesus expiring on the cross in deepest agony and pain, which were better than a thousand crucifixes, and lively pictures, it could only move pity in us to him as a tortured man—but could not beget in us the faith of his divinity. Hence so many unconverted spectators of the awful scene; and hence still the lifeless devotions of the blinded Papists.
O! then, that the days of the Son of man would beam on the Christian Churches, such as Rome enjoyed when first obedient to the faith; that they might cast off the yoke of the imperious whore that sits on many a hill, and deliver their souls that dwell in spiritual Babylon! O! then, that the Son of Righteousness would arise with healings in his wings, and with his glorious beams dispel the darkness from the nations, and the gross darkness from the people, that Rome, with Asia-Minor, may return to their former purity, to their first love, and over the revived universe there may be but one Lord, and his name one.
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