No. 14.
MY DEAR CRILDREN, ―I told you in my last letter how much the Roman character had deteriorated, owing to the great influx of riches in consequence of their successful foreign wars. This deterioration became manifest at the conclusion of the Third Punic War and the destruction of Carthage. At this time a zeal for the republic, which formerly marked the career of their great men, gave place to a sordid desire for self-aggrandizement and power. The wealth possessed by some individuals was fabulous. The senate no longer commanded the respect of the people, as it was evident that their laws were made for their own selfish ends, and not for the general welfare. There were not wanting men like the Gracchi, who were aware of this general decay, and who strove to put new life into the nation; but it was too late. As the republic became enlarged by foreign conquests, decay became more manifest within. All was rotten at the center. Partizan leaders, such as Marius and Sylla, possessed themselves of the power of the state; there was a servile war (that is, a breaking out of the slaves), and an internal or civil war, occasioned by the demand of all Italians to have the rights of Roman citizenship. All this exhausted the resources of the state treasury, although private citizens were enriching themselves, and luxury was on the increase. If, then, the empire was to be saved, the government must be changed: and Julius Caesar, who aimed at an imperial crown, foresaw this; it fell upon the head of his successor, Augustus. Let me, however, tell you, that during this moral decay there never was a time when such powerful minds were in existence, and those minds were cultivated. Poets, orators, historians, were abounding; the arts, too, such as music and painting, were flourishing. This is often the case; the moral feelings being gone, the intellect, unbridled, assumes a gigantic proportion. There was another cause of decline, in that her philosophers were affirming the immortality of the soul, and deriding, or at all events depreciating, the gods, whose existence they respected only as a bridle upon the common people. Preparations were thus made for a new faith, and Christianity arose—a faith which was to act upon the moral feelings and affections, and thus renew the entire man; a faith which, presenting God in the gift of His Son for man’s redemption, satisfied his heart by offering him an object worthy of his worship. The reception of such a religion quickly made an end of idols. Satan was attacked in his strongholds; for the very blessing that affected men’s hearts in the knowledge of the true God, revealed the delusions under which they had been living, and withdrew them from their influence. Hence this great enemy of mar arrayed the powers of the world against the religion of Christ. For the first two or three centuries the Christians lived a very uncertain existence, never really tolerated, and often openly persecuted, until, in the year A. D. 313, Constantine publicly owned the God of the Christians, and persecution was no longer allowed. But before this time, the unwieldy empire had in all about forty-six imperial masters, very few of whom died a natural death, and of whom many were monsters of cruelty and vice. Its proportions were found so incapable of being managed by one man, that, thirty-seven years before the reign of Constantine, it had been divided under four heads, to each of which, but embracing a general unity, was assigned a large territory. Under Constantine the whole empire was again united, and a new capital erected at Byzantium (now Constantinople), ―a place more central than Rome for repressing the attacks on the empire from the Parthians on the east, and the Goths on the west. Constantine died A.D. 337, after having reigned thirty-one years in all, and thirteen and a-half after obtaining the whole empire. He was only upon superstitious grounds baptized on his death-bed. Although his mind had imbibed the Christian dogmas for some years, and many of his laws evidence the humane and softening influences of its truths, yet it may be doubted if his heart ever assented to the lowly faith of Jesus. But, in truth, the professing Church had by this time become very corrupt. Although all that was really good within the empire was from Christianity, yet it must be allowed that Christians had lost the peculiar hope of their calling―that is, the second Advent of Christ, and with it their pilgrim walk. The bishops and ecclesiastical corporations possessed very large properties, and had, by their forgetfulness of the purposes of God towards His earthly people the Jews, appropriated to themselves the promises in the latter part of Isaiah. Thus, when the Bishops were received by Constantine, they used, as of him towards the Church, such expressions as, “Kings shall be thy nursing fathers and queens thy nursing mothers” (Isaiah 49:2323And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers: they shall bow down to thee with their face toward the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet; and thou shalt know that I am the Lord: for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me. (Isaiah 49:23)) which is evidently a prophecy of the readiness with which, in the time of Israel’s supremacy the kings of the earth shall minister and be subservient to her. In fact, the clergy, long ere this, had begun “to cat and drink with the drunken,” (Matthew 24:4949And shall begin to smite his fellowservants, and to eat and drink with the drunken; (Matthew 24:49)) and were more intent on the assertion of their rights, and in the exaltation of ordinances, than in preaching and teaching Christ. Brilliant exceptions, indeed, there were, but such men were more engaged in the combat against the Arian heresy―a lowering of the person of our Lord Jesus Christ to the level of a created being who had raised its head in the Churches—than in furthering the progress and growth of Christians in their more positive faith. No doubt this fostering of the Church by the “powers that be,” was a sign of her fall. She no longer retained her independence, and minced her doctrines to suit the taste of the ruling powers. But this amalgamation of Church and State, begun in the reign of Constantine, has continued ever since, and its evil fruits are ripening to this day. May you, my dear children, grow up in allegiance to your Lord and Master Jesus Christ, who has bought you with the price of His own blood, and therefore claims your loyal affections. Along with this goes that due and respectful submission to those whom God has ordained to rule over this world. “The powers that be are ordained of God;” but these powers are never supposed to do anything offensive to the conscience of a Christian. If they ask this, it must be declined in obedience to Christ. Such was the test when the Roman empire was a persecuting power: Christians were commanded to do sacrifice to heathen deities, and this being declined, the martyr’s crown was often the consequence.
On the death of Constantine, there was again a division of the empire among his three sons; but the first and the last having died violent deaths, the empire devolved on Constantius. Eventually, A.D. 364, the empire became permanently settled into East and West, under Valentinian and Valeus, with Rome as the capital of the West. Distinct interests arose, and now was the time for hordes of barbarians to crowd in upon and pass her frontiers. In A.D. 376, nearly a million of Goths were peaceably admitted across the Danube, and settled within the limits of the Roman empire. In A.D. 410, the Goths, under Alaric, took and pillaged Rome. From A.D. 433 to 453, the Huns ravaged the empire; and from A.D. 455 to 476, it fell under the power of the Vandals. In this last year, the Emperor Augustulus, being attacked at Rome by Odoacer, general of the Heruli, nominally a part of his own army, assembled the senate, who made a decree by which they solemnly disclaimed the necessity or even the wish of continuing any longer the imperial succession in Italy. Odoacer assumed the crown of Italy, and Augustulus retired to a villa. Thus ended the Roman imperial power in the West. Ever since that time Europe has been divided; that is, split up into several monarchies, each with its own objects; for as the several barbarian tribes made their inroad into the empire they each took their part of it, and erected separate monarchies. Hence arose the great kingdoms of France, Spain, England, &c. But I must tell you how it came to pass that some sort of consistency and order was made to prevail in those countries. From the fourth century, ever since the Christian religion had been taken into public favor, the Bishop of Rome had become a sort of referee in public affairs, as well as acknowledged primate in the professing Church of the West. When the Roman emperorship was set aside by Odoacer, he adapted himself to the circumstances, and taught the half-enlightened barbarians how to rule. In this way he increased his own authority, and still more so when Rome was deserted by the barbarian kings for Ravenna, which left him a sort of headship in the abandoned city. All this time, you must remember, there was still in the East the title of Roman Emperor in the person of whoever was reigning at Constantinople. The first great kingdom which established itself was that of Gaul―the present France. They were called Franks, and were heard of on the banks of the Lower Rhine and of the Weser as early as A.D. 260. Clovis, the first king, reigned A.D. 481. He had been a Pagan, but had married a Christian of the Orthodox (that is Catholic) faith; for at this time Arianism was generally prevailing, viz., a denial of the propel Godhead of Christ. The Bishop of Rome supported the pretensions of Clovis in the interests of the true faith, and in this way also increased his own power. In short, all the kings who established themselves on the ruins of the Roman empire found it to be their interest to play into the hands of the Bishop of Rome, moved at once by superstitious awe of a kind of Divine power residing in the chair of St. Peter, and by the attractive force of Christianity, which, ever in its fallen state, inculcates morality, virtue justice, and order. It can hardly be questioned that, to the presence of the Roman bishop in the hallowed metropolis of the world, when the barbarian nations crossed the Danube and the Rhine and to the skillful use which he made of his opportunities, we owe the settlement and civilization of modern Europe, burdened though that settlement and civilization be, by the recognition of and allegiance to, an ecclesiastical power quite foreign to the mind of God, as set forth in the New Testament, and productive as it has beer of those scandals and corruptions in Christendom which will inevitably bring down the judgment of God, as you will find in Revelation 17, 18. This division of the Roman earth is mentioned in Daniel 2 and 7, and has a very important bearing on events at the close of the times we are living in, and I hope to call your attention to them in my next letter.
Your affectionate Father,