_The Fatal Gift of a Christian Emperor:_ Matters in Church government did not mend with time, but grew worse and worse. Pride increased; rivalship between contending prelates grew more imbittered; ambition mounted higher and ever higher in the breasts of the shepherds of the flock of Christ. In His association with His Apostles--to whom He committed the keys of His kingdom--the Master had discouraged ambition and had said that he who would be great among His followers must be their minister; and whosoever would be chief among them, was to be their servant; and the government of His Church was to be distinct in these particulars from the governments of this world.[A] But all in vain were the instructions of Messiah to the worldly; ambitious prelates of an apostate Christianity had gradually supplanted the religion of Jesus Christs; and henceforth we may see in that hierarchy which usurped the place of the Church of Christ from the time of Constantine, all the spirit of pride, envy, jealousy, contention, strife, selfishness, bitterness, and unholy ambition which characterized the princes and rulers of this world; attended, too, with all the evils that wait upon these passions of rulers when once let loose, viz., secret plottings, usurpations of authority, corrupt elections, cruel imprisonments, banishments, secret and public murders, and wars; all undertaken, of course, in the interest of the gentle religion of Christ, and the maintenance of that authority which is based on love, and whose control over men is through the means of persuasion and the teaching of true knowledge. Is it not evident that the kingdom of peace, wherein was to dwell righteousness and truth, had become merely one of the kingdoms of this world? And were not the Fratriceli of the thirteenth century, though denounced as heretics, right when they loudly proclaimed their conviction that "the fatal gift of a Christian emperor had been the doom of the true Christian religion?" [Footnote A: Matt. xx:26, 27.] LESSON XXXIX. (Scripture Reading Exercise.) THE TESTIMONY OF PROPHECY. ANALYSIS. I. Predictions of the New Testament Prophets. II. Paul's Great Prophecy to the Thessalonians. III. The Prophecy of Isaiah on Breaking the "Everlasting Covenant." IV. Concluding Reflections on the Whole Subject of the Dispensations. REFERENCES. Besides the authorities cited in the notes see "Outlines Ecclesiastical History," Section vii. New Witness for God, chapter vi. NOTES