it." Mr. Brownson's remarks do not affect only some particular form of government, such as absolute monarchy, but they extend to all temporal powers of every description and shape. Speaking of the present action of his own Republican government, he writes thus: "Democracy with us takes the place of royalism in the old world, and the people usurp the functions of the Church: the people make the laws. Any religion may be professed which does not deny their supremacy, but none, which by its own constitution and laws is beyond their control. They will permit no Church that is incapable of becoming a national Church, or that receives its constitution and laws from another or a higher than an American source. Hence their peculiar hostility to the Catholic Church. The madmen leading on the war against her do not know how to state their own objections. They oppose her as anti-American, and as incompatible with the Republican form of government, which is ridiculous and absurd. They pretend that we Catholics cannot be loyal citizens. As if our obedience to the Pope was incompatible with our allegiance to the state. Poor fools! they only echo the worn-out allegations of royalism, under cover of which it trampled on all rights, human and divine, natural and acquired, and established pure centralized despotism. The real ground of their opposition to us is, that our Church, being Papal, and therefore essentially one and Catholic, cannot be a particular national Church, independent of all extra-national ecclesiastical authority. Such is the character of our religion, that it is and must be independent of every national authority, and inflexible before public opinion. It is not that our religion is anti-American, or hostile to

the political institutions of the country, but that it is not, and cannot, without losing its identity, be made the slave of the popular will, and alterable at its caprices. It is above the popular power, and does not derive from popular sovereignty. It asserts boldly, in the face of the sovereign people, of statesmen, politicians, and demagogues, that God is God, and that to worship the king or the people as God, is foul idolatry. This is what gives offence and excites the Know-nothing, or so called American movement against us."

And how far shall this lamentable state of things go? How long shall the kings and princes of the earth continue to afflict the fair bride of Christ? How long shall they turn a deaf ear to her voice, disregard her high privileges, and make light of her rights? Let all true believers dispel all anxious fears, and rest with perfect confidence in God. The Almighty, who "has set bounds around the sea, and made it bars and doors, and said, Hitherto shalt thou come, and shalt go no farther, and there shalt thou break thy swelling waves," 1 has also set bounds to the kingdoms of this world until they all become the kingdoms of our Lord and His Christ. It is not for us to know the times and the moments which the Father has put in His own power; yet we know that "the day of the Lord of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and high-minded, and upon every one that is arrogant, and he shall be humbled."2 "God at thy right hand," says holy David, "hath broken kings at the day of His wrath. He shall judge amongst nations, He shall fill ruins: He shall crush the heads in the land of many.' "3 A time

1 Job xxxviii. 10, 11.

2 Is. xi.

3 Psalm cix. 5, 6.

will come when the stone which was cut out of the mountain without hands will strike at the feet of human greatness, and break into pieces all worldly power; a time will come when "judgment shall sit, that the power of the wicked one may be taken away, and be broken into pieces, and perish even to the end. And that the kingdom and power, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven may be given to the people of the saints of the Most High: whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all kings shall serve Him, and shall obey Him."1

St. Paul says of Antichrist, that "the Lord Jesus shall kill him with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy him with the brightness of His coming." The power, therefore, which the Lord Jesus shall overthow at His coming is especially that of Antichrist, and of all those who tread in his footsteps.

Although Christ at His coming will break down all worldly powers which exalt themselves against the Lord and His Church, yet it is a duty of His followers to bow down to such powers and obey them in lawful things, in accordance to the teaching of the apostles, and after the example of the first Christians, who humbly submitted to the pagan emperors, and their ministers, and readily obeyed their lawful commands: for to Christ alone, the King of kings, and the Lord of lords, it belongs to humble the haughtiness of men and to revenge His Church, for the wrongs she receives from her enemies-"Vengeance belongs to Me, and I will repay." 3 But Christians must ever learn" to be subject to every human creature for

1 Dan. vii. 26, 27.

3 Heb. x. 30.

2 Thess. ii. 8.

God's sake, whether it be to the king as excelling, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of the good." 1

ARTICLE IX.

Some passages of the New Testament, which seem favourable to the kingdom of Christ upon earth.

What we have stated in the preceding articles respecting the kingdom of Christ upon earth, may be confirmed by some passages of the New Testament.

1st. In the Lord's Prayer, which is contained in the sixth chapter of St. Matthew, we are instructed to ask God for the coming of His kingdom, "Thy kingdom come." 2

3

The celebrated Maldonatus thus comments upon this passage:-"The meaning of this petition seems to me to be that which Theophilact and Rupert have indicated; viz., that the kingdom of God here signified is that in which God, having made all His enemies His footstool, shall reign everywhere, and (as St. Paul says) shall be all in all. For although he reigns everywhere even now, yet, as He does not reign in peace, nor without enemies and war, and as many withstand Him as rebels, He is not said to reign. But then, His enemies being subdued, His friends delivered, and all those who resist Him condemned, He will be said to reign. That this is the true meaning we gather not obscurely from the words of St. Paul, already quoted, and from this passage itself. For it is manifest that we here pray not for our own,

1 1 Pet. ii. 13, 14.

31 Cor. xv. 28.

2 Matt. vi. 10.

but for God's kingdom, for, as we have said, the three first petitions refer to God, and the others belong to ourselves. The sense, therefore, is not that God may reign in our hearts, or that we may reign with the blessed, but that God may reign absolutely and without adversaries; for we say, Thy kingdom come. As children, we pray that the King our Father may have a peaceful reign, and gain a complete victory over His enemies; we don't pray that we, but that He may reign." i

The kingdom of God, which is the object of this petition, is especially the blessed and eternal kingdom of heaven; yet the Millenarians think that it means also an especial manifestation of the kingdom of Christ upon earth at his second coming, when His enemies being subdued, He will reign peacefully and sovereignly over all peoples, and nations, and tongues.

Then, they say, will be fulfilled the promise of Christ to His apostles, when He said to them: "Amen, I say to you, that you who have followed me, in the regeneration, when the Son of Man shall sit on the seat of His majesty, you shall sit also on twelve seats, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." No doubt that the apostles will sit with Christ to judge all mankind, here signified by the twelve tribes of Israel, at the universal judgment. the Millenarians think that even before then, at the regeneration, namely, at the resurrection of the just, the apostles will have a share with Christ in ruling and judging the peoples and nations of the earth.

But

2ndly. The apostle St. Paul thus writes to Timothy: "I charge thee before God, and Jesus Christ, who shall judge the living and the dead, 1 Comment. in Matt. cap. vi. 10. 2 Matt. xix. 27, 28.