In illustration of the character of the man, the study of whose
life engages us, the prayer with which he concludes the book on the
‘Restoration of Christianity’--for here the work does end in fact, all
that follows being but by way of appendix--ought not to be overlooked.
It is in immediate sequence to a renewed phillipic against the
baptizers of infants, and to the following effect:--
‘Almighty Father! Father of all mercy, free us miserable men from
this darkness of death, for the sake of thy Son Jesus Christ Our
Lord. O Jesus Christ, thou Son of God, who died for us, help us, lest
we perish! We, thy suppliants, pray to thee as thou hast taught us,
saying, Hallowed be thy Name; thy kingdom come; and do thou, Lord,
come! thy bride the Church, praying in the Apocalypse, says, Come! The
spirits of thy children, praying here, say, Come! Let all who hear this
pray and cry aloud, and with John exclaim, Come! Thou Who hast said, I
come quickly (Apocalypse xxii.) wilt surely come, and with thy coming
put an end to Antichrist. So be it. Amen!’
* * * * *
The first of the additions to the system of ‘Restored Christianity’ are
the thirty letters to Calvin, which we have already analysed, in what
seemed the appropriate place.
The book or chapter on the ‘Sixty signs of the reign of Antichrist, and
of his presence among us,’ which follows, need not detain us. The signs
are for the most part arbitrarily assumed by the writer, on the ground
that his own views are the truth, those of the Papists and Reformers
mistaken, false, or short of the truth. Having shown to his own
satisfaction that every evil-doer, in the shape of an exalted personage
who has ever appeared in the world, even from Satan, Nimrod, and
Nebuchadnezzar, prefigured the Pope, and that the Pope is Antichrist,
he then very logically concludes that all the dogmas and doctrines
sanctioned by the Papacy are of the Devil. Under this category he
places the doctrine of the Trinity in the foremost rank, then the
Baptism of Infants, the Mass, Transubstantiation, all but everything,
in short, characteristic of Roman Catholic Christianity. As in so many
other places, he is here also ready with a prayer, which we quote as
ever-recurring testimony to the sincerely, but misunderstood, pious
nature of the man:--
‘O Christ Jesus, Son of God, most merciful Liberator, who hast so often
freed thy people from their straits, free us too from this Babylonian
Captivity of Antichrist, from his hypocrisy, his tyranny, his idolatry!
Amen.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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