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The Apocalypse Of St. John Or, Prophecy Of The Rise, Progress And Fall Of The Church Of Rome
The Apocalypse Of St John Or Prophecy Of The Rise Progress And Fall Of The Church Of Rome Author:George Croly General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1838 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: THE VISION THE TRUMPETS. This series contains the History of the Reformed Church. The Seals had given the general and rapid view of Providence; from the imperial acknowledgment of Christianity, to the second coming of the Redeemer. After the pause which marked their termination, the prophet is again summoned, to contemplate in its detail, that most important portion of Church History which belongs to the fourth Seal, the era of religious and intellectual restoration; in which it is notorious that the chief struggle with the papacy has been sustained ; and in which the Church may be said to have first re- assumed a visible existence, since the original domination of the popedom. Even in the darkest ages, the night had not wholly closed over the Church. There had always existed a people of the faith. The congregations of the Milanese, of Piemont, and the Alpine valleys, had held theScriptures as the sole standard, repelled the worship of relics, and protested alike against the domination and the errors of Rome. But they gradually sank from the eye of Europe. Chiefly composed of peasantry, buried in the sterile and difficult bosom of the Alps, wholly removed from the ambitious and showy scenes, of Italian life, and almost unknown, except through its occasional suffering at the hands of the papal agents ; the Church had nearly become invisible. That a Church may retain its existence, even when undiscoverable by human observation, we know, from the same authority, which rebuked the despair of Elijah, by declaring, that though unseen by the perspicuous eye of the prophet himself, there were still " seve...« less