"In verse 4 the Church of St. Peter is in prison between four quaternions of soldiers—the Holy Alliance of 1815. Rev. vii. i. Elizabeth, the Angel of the Lord Jesus appears to the Jewish and Christian body with the vision of prophecy to the Rev. Geo. Clayton and his clerical brethren, April 8th, 1839. Rhoda was the name of her maid at Putney Terrace who used to open the door to her Peter, the Rev. Robert Ashton,[[198]] the Pastor of 'the little flock' 'of 120 names together, assembled in an upper (school) room' at Putney Chapel, to which little flock she gave the revelation (Acts. i. 13, 15) of Jesus the same King of the Jews yesterday at the prayer meeting, Dec. 31, 1841, and to-day,
Jan. 1, 1842, and for ever. See book of Life, page 24. Matt. xviii. 19, xxi. 13-16. In verse 6 the Italian body of St. Peter is sleeping 'in the second death' between the two Imperial soldiers of France and Austria. The Emperor of France from Jan. 1, to July 11, 1859, causes the Italian chains of St. Peter to fall off from his Imperial hands.
"I say unto thee, Robert Ashton, thou art Peter, a stone, and upon this rock, of truth, will I Elizabeth, the angel of Jesus, build my Cottle Church, and the gates of hell, the doors of St. Peter, at Rome, shall not prevail against it—Matt. xvi. 18. Rev. iii. 7-12."
This will be enough for the purpose. When any one who pleases can circulate new revelations of this kind, uninterrupted and unattended to, new revelations will cease to be a good investment of excentricity. I take it for granted that the gentlemen whose names are mentioned have nothing to do with the circulars or their doctrines. Any lady who may happen to be intrusted with a revelation may nominate her own pastor, or any other clergyman, one of her apostles; and it is difficult to say to what court the nominees can appeal to get the commission abrogated.
March 16, 1865. During the last two years the circulars have continued. It is hinted that funds are low: and two gentlemen who are represented as gone "to Bethlehem asylum in despair" say that Mrs. Cottle "will spend all that she hath, while Her Majesty's Ministers are flourishing on the wages of sin." The following is perhaps one of the most remarkable passages in the whole:
"Extol and magnify Him (Jehovah, the Everlasting God, see the Magnificat and Luke i. 45, 46—68—73—79), that rideth (by rail and steam over land and sea, from his holy habitation at Kirkstall Lodge, Psa. lxxvii. 19, 20), upon the (Cottle) heavens, as it were (Sept. 9, 1864, see pages 21, 170), upon an (exercising, Psa. cxxxi. 1), horse-(chair, bought of Mr. John Ward, Leicester-square)."
I have pretty good evidence that there is a clergyman who thinks Mrs. Cottle a very sensible woman.
[The Cottle Church. Had I chanced to light upon it at the time of writing, I should certainly have given the following. A printed letter to the Western Times, by Mr. Robert Cottle, was accompanied by a manuscript letter from Mrs. Cottle, apparently a circular. The date was Novr. 1853, and the subject was the procedure against Mr. Maurice[[199]] at King's College for doubting that God would punish human sins by an existence of torture lasting through years numbered by millions of millions of millions of millions (repeat the word millions without end,) etc. The memory of Mr. Cottle has, I think, a right to the quotation: he seems to have been no participator in the notions of his wife:
"The clergy of the Established Church, taken at the round number of 20,000, may, in their first estate, be likened to 20,000 gold blanks, destined to become sovereigns, in succession,—they are placed between the matrix of the Mint, when, by the pressure of the screw, they receive the impress that fits them to become part of the current coin of the realm. In a way somewhat analogous this great body of the clergy have each passed through the crucibles of Oxford and Cambridge,—have been assayed by the Bishop's chaplain, touching the health of their souls, and the validity of their call by the Divine Spirit, and then the gentle pressure of a prelate's hand upon their heads; and the words—'Receive the Holy Ghost,' have, in a brief space of time, wrought a