Page:Anastasis A Treatise on the Judgment of the Dead.pdf/45

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46
THE JUDGMENT OF THE DEAD.

ending together. "The time of the Dead," therefore, is at hand; and happy will they be who are found prepared.

To this sketch of Papal constitution, it may be added that the Austrian Power by "concordat" with the Roman Pontifical, or Spiritual Power, is the imperio-civil, secular and military element of Daniel's Little Horn (ch. viii.); and symbolised by John, in Rev. xiii. 2, by a beast with two horns like a lamb, and speaking as a dragon. In this chapter, as a whole, symbolical of a European Constitution in Church and State, the Eyes and Mouth, or Spiritual Element of the power, are represented by "an image." The Spiritual Power would not have been able to sustain itself by its own force in such a world as this. It would have perished long ago amid the clash of arms. In order, therefore, to perpetuate its existence "until the words of Deity be fulfilled," Deity caused the Roman Pontifical to be allied by Concordat with the Austrian power; "for there is no power but of God; and the powers that be are ordained of Him" (Rom. xiii. 1). This political concordat, or agreement, constituted Austria in Italy the legitimate protector of the Roman Pontificate. So long as the Austrian power remained intact in Venetia, where it joined "the States of the Church," the Roman Pontiff was comparatively safe, although the protection of France might be withdrawn. The evacuation of his States by the French would not have left him at the mercy of Garibaldi and Victor Emmanuel; for his ally and friend, "His Apostolic Majesty" of Austria, was at hand to protect him with his troops. But this Austro-Papal, or Little Horn dominion, of Middle Europe, was sentenced- to dissolution by the Eternal Spirit, who decreed that the Roman Pontifical power should not be perpetuated with ability to tread His saints under foot (thousands of whom are sleeping in the dust of Rome and Italy), beyond the end of 1,260 years from the time the Dragon-Power gave them, as heretics, into its hand. To secure this result, it was necessary that the Austrian military support of the Pontificate should be broken; and that it should be abandoned to its own resource. This is the providential reason of the Austrian power being recently rolled back from the Quadrilateral and Venetia; and of being so crippled that the Concordat has become a nullity, and its ability any longer to strengthen and protect the Roman Blasphemer of the Deity and His saints, destroyed. France, being relieved from Austrian rivalry in Rome and Italy, has no longer any inducement to prolong an expensive military occupation of the Papal territory, which brings neither profit nor glory to its arms. Its troops are therefore being removed, in execution of the Franco-Italian Convention of 1864. Thus is the Deity, who rules the world through the blind instrumentality