an-endtime-only-antichrist-is-a-false-jesuit-lie-theory

The Antichrist: His Portrait and History – Chapter VIII. Absurdity of Modern Theories

This is the continuation of The Antichrist: His Portrait and History – Chapter VII. Antichrist Revealed by Chain of Evidences.

THE learned Rev. C. H. H. Wright, D.D., in his “Daniel and his Prophecies” (Willams & Norgate, 1906, p. xiv.) says: “The Futuristic School of prophetical interpretation has been, to no small degree, responsible for the success which has attended the modern onslaught on the credibility of the prophecies of the Old and New Testament Scriptures. The interpreters of that narrow school of thought, however, imagine themselves to br the only real defenders of Holy Scripture. The origin of that school, in its modern phase, may be traced back to Ribera, a distinguished Jesuit expositor (1585), and to the other remarkable Jesuit interpreters of the seventeenth century. Futurist views of prophecy, as was natural, were soon accepted by the theologians of the High Church School, and were also caught up by many popular preachers of the Evangelical party in the National Church. The interest, however, in prophetical studies, did not long continue to be a general characteristic of the High Church party, but their prophetical views spread among writers of the so called ‘Plymouth Brethren.’ Most of their leaders wrote on prophecy, and all more or less in support of Futuristic views. A craving after sensationalism is a marked characteristic of many of the writers of the Futurist School. The Book of Daniel itself ought to have acted as a warning against their fantastic views of the imaginary Antichrist of the latter days. These novel Futurists expound the prophecies as teaching that the disconnected ten kingdoms will all be joined together again (contrary to the statement of Daniel ii. 43,44), and Satan visibly seated on the throne of a united world, when the Son of Man shall appear. All these are idle dreams of men imperfectly acquainted with the prophecies.

“‘The Antichrist’ and ‘the deceiver’ has been working in the Church since St. John’s days (2 John vii.). The outward and visible Church very soon began to wrap earth-woven robes around her, and to dream of ‘infallibility,’ all the while that she abounded with false doctrines, and had departed widely from the ‘faith once for all delivered to the Saints.’ Outside the Church there is no Antichrist, in the Biblical sense of the term; inside the Church that evil power has sat for nearly 2,000 years as ‘God in the temple of God.’

“The attempt to interpret Old and New Testament prophecies literally, as these writers term it, led the Futurists into conclusions which, as Professor Birks, of Cambridge, long ago stated, tended to undermine the foundations of all Christian evidences. That learned writer noted that their reasonings and principles were more incredulous than those of the infidel, and asserted that, when such opinions gained general currency and approval in the Church, the reign of open infidelity would be at hand. This statement was made about 1841, in his book on the ‘First Elements of Sacred Prophecy.’

“Similar warnings to that effect were uttered by other writers. The warnings have passed by unheeded. What was foreseen has long since come to pass.”

Again, in a footnote to p. 238, Dr. Wright said, in criticism of these modern Futurists: “The English Futurist expositors of our day, highly dogmatic in their tone (Mr. Pember and Sir R. Anderson) . . . are intensely dogmatic on points on which the evidence adduced is most uncertain. Sir R. Anderson’s ‘Daniel in the Critic’s Den’ . . . breaks down completely when it comes to interpretation. Mr. Pember’s book is thoroughly unscientific, even from an ‘orthodox’ point of view. It is strangely fanciful and wild in its ideas respecting a reign of Satan, and lays undue stress upon the scandalous aberrations of the Paris ‘Luciferians’ . . . to propound the theory that Satan in person will be actually worshiped by the world at large, and that Society will sink into utter chaos before the Second Advent, is opposed to all Scripture. These ultra-literalists are doing as much damage to God’s Word as the critics whom they regard as the precursors of Antichrist.”

On p. 239 he says: “The mistakes . . . may be traced up to the false schools of exegesis, in which they were trained, and have been mainly due to their desire to predict a future quite outside the horizon of the prophecy. There is not a line in the prophecy (Daniel ix.) concerning ‘the Antichrist,’ of whom the Fathers wrote so fantastically.”

It must be remembered that Dr. Wright was a great scholar, learned in Hebrew and Greek, and therefore competent to pass judgment on such incautious and wild writers as those he criticizes, and who are as ignorant of Hebrew as they are of Oriental figures of speech or turns of thought.

Another eminent and scholarly author, the Rev. E. B. Elliott, to his learned Commentary on the Apocalypse—than which no more able an examination of sacred prophecy has ever appeared, has added a “Critical Examination and Refutation of the Three Chief Counter-Schemes of Apocalyptic Interpretation” —the German Preterist, the Futurist, and the “Church-Scheme.” Of the second he says (“Hore Apocalyptiae,” Vol. IV., p. 506): “The Futurists” is the Second grand Anti-Protestant Apocalyptic scheme. I might perhaps have though it sufficient to refer the reader to Mr. Birks’ masterly work in refutation of it, but for the consideration that my own would be incomplete without some such examination of this Futurist scheme. . . The Futurist scheme was first, or nearly first, propounded about 1590 by the Jesuit Ribera, as the fittest one whereby to turn aside the Protestant application of the Apocalyptic prophecy from the Church of Rome. In England and Ireland, of late years, it has been brought into vogue chiefly by Mr. Maitland and Mr. Burgh; followed by Mr. Newman, in some of the Oxford Tracts on Antichrist. Its general characteristic is to view the whole Apocalypse . . . as a representation of the events of the consummation and Second Advent all still future; literal Israel; literal days; and the Antichrist . . . a personal infidel to reign for just three and a half years.” . . . “A great advantage that they have over the Preterits” is “that instead of being in any measure chained down by the facts of history, they can draw on the unlimited powers of fancy, wherewith to devise in the dreaming future whatever may seem to them to fit the sacred prophecy.”

Mr. Elliott triumphantly shows “the insuperable difficulties attending the Futurist scheme,” how it “sets language, grammar and context at defiance”; how “inconsistency” marks it from beginning to end; how erroneous is their conception of Antichrist; how self-contradictory and illogical; how opposed to History, Scripture and the Ancient Fathers is the Futurist view of the religion of Antichrist; and “that it is not merely unaccordant with the Apocalyptic and the other cognate prophecies of Antichrist, but that it is, even intellectually speaking, a mere rude and commonplace conception of Satan’s predicted masterpiece of opposition to Christ, compared with what has been actually realized and established in the Papacy” (p. 539). “The Papal system is beyond anything that the Futurists have imagined, or ever can imagine, the very perfection of Anti-Christianism,” because “an open, desperate enemy, sworn against your life, family, friends, property,” is infinitely less dangerous and offensive than “one that, while professing the utmost friendship, by some strange impersonation of you, in your absence, insinuates himself into your place in the family, seduces your wife to be as his wife, your children to look to him as their father; then makes use of his opportunities to train them into unfaithfulness and rebellion to all your most solemn and cherished wishes and commands; falsifying your letters, and forging your handwriting, in order the more effectually to carry out his plan; and even at length framing an image, and breathing voice into it, and by magic art and strong delusion making men believe that it was yourself speaking, in expression of perfect approval of this proceedings, as those of your chief friend, plenipotentiary and chosen substitute.”

“Such is somewhat the view of Antichrist sketched in Scripture prophecy; such what has been realized in the Popes and Popedom. And, horrid as was the Atheism of the French Revolutionists, yet must I beg leave to doubt whether, in God’s view, it was as horrid an abomination, even at its worst, as the blasphemous hypocrisies and betrayal of Christ in the polished Court and Church Councils of His Usurping Vicar and impersonator. Sharp as were the thorns and nails and spear of the Pagan soldiery, they were surely less painful to the Savior than the kiss of Judas.” (Psa. lv. 12-14)

Professor T. R. Birks (“First Elements of Sacred Prophecy”), after enumerating the “maxims in the interpretation of the sacred prophecies generally received by the Protestant Churches, ever since the time of the Reformation,” adds “all of these maxims, however, without distinction, have been rejected by several late writers . . . Burgh, Maitland, Todd, Dodsworth, Tyso, MacCausland, Govett. . . . They agree in few points, except in rejecting the conclusions of all previous expositors; and maintain that nearly the whole of Daniel’s prophecies and of the Apocalypse are unfulfilled. Now, if the theories of these writers are entirely groundless, the responsibility which they have incurred is very great, and the effects of their error may prove extremely fatal to the Church. The strongest bulwark against the revived zeal of the Romish Church will have been taken away when it is most needed; and the danger of a renewed apostasy will have been fearfully increased. . . A spirit of feverish and skeptical doubt . . . will have been injected, without warrant, into the minds of thousands; the light which the Word of God has thrown on half the whole period of the Church’s history, will have been quenched in darkness; and her hopes for the future, by a perplexed and fallacious application of irrelevant prophecies, be involved in a chaos of fanciful conjectures and inextricable confusion.”

Mr. Birks, by a careful analysis of the statements of the above-mentioned Futurists, demonstrates incontrovertibly their “rashness,” “emptiness,” their “groundless,” “untrue” attacks upon Protestant expositors of note; their “gross absurdity,” which “directly contradict the early writers”; their “irrelevance,” “inconsistence,” “self-contradictions,” “illogicality”; their “bold inversion of facts,” “willful perversions of Scripture”; and, finally, “the view of the Futurists brings down the servants of God in every age to the level of the unbelievers . . . and, by a wretched alchemy, turns all their most patient and prayerful researches into one pile of laborious blunders. This reason alone, with every thoughtful Christian, should be enough to convict their [Futurist] system, as a system, of utter falsehood.”

These words were published in 1843, before the Higher Critics, and Rationalists and Futurists had succeeded in so emasculating all testimony against Antichrist as to produce complete confusion and Babylonianism in “the Church.” Since then, owing to the rapid growth of error, which is ever swifter than Truth, these allies have succeeded in breaking down the Witness of Protestantism against Popery, whether in the Established Churches, or in un-Established Churches; and the only gainer has been, and still is, the Antichrist of prophecy.

The late Dr. H. Grattan Guinness, in his “Approaching End of the Age” (pp. 95 et seq.) said: “The Futurist view is that which teaches that the prophetic visions of Revelation, from chapters iv. to xix., prefigure events still wholly future, and not to take place till just at the close of this dispensation. It supposes ‘an instant plunge of the Apocalyptic prophecy into the distant future of the consummation.’ This view gives the literal Israel a large place in the Apocalypse, and expects a solitary infidel Antichrist, who shall bitterly oppress the saints for three and a half years, near the date of the Second Advent, thus interpreting time as well as much else in the Apocalypse, literally. In its present form it may be said to have originated at the end of the sixteenth century with the Jesuit Ribera, who, moved like Alcazar to relieve the Papacy from the terrible stigma cast upon it by the Protestant interpretation, tried to do so by referring these prophecies to the distant future, instead of, like Alcazar, to the distant past. It is held under a great variety of modifications, no two writers agreeing as to what the symbols do prefigure. . . The Futurist view denies progressive revelation. . .”

Dr. Guinness replies, in an Appendix, to various Futurist attacks upon his work. One is by a “Plymouth Brother,” of whom Dr. Guinness remarks: “The critic who undertakes to reply to a work of this character should at least be accurate in his statements of the views he opposes. The anonymous author is very much the reverse, and spends most of his strength in commenting on confusions which he has himself created. A peculiar tone of dogmatism which pervades his remarks is not calculated to produce conviction in thoughtful minds. The ‘reply’ is, in fact, superficial and inaccurate. . . Futurist critics are an enigma. . . They cannot deny or be blind to certain grand historical facts . . . yet they deny that the symbols foretell the facts. . . . though Futurists admit how exactly the symbols of prophecy answer to these facts . . . and they assert—what, of course, can neither be proved nor disproved—that they foretell other future events!

“Not only by this writer, but by all writers of the Futurist School, are these supposed future acts of the supposed future Antichrist largely discussed and gravely insisted on. Few would surmise how frail the foundation on which this cardinal doctrine that Antichrist is to make a covenant with the Jews—rests. Few would suppose that the notion has really no solid ground at all in Scripture, but is derived from an erroneous interpretation of one single clause of one single text . . . Daniel ix, 27 . . . one of the gravest evils of Futurism is the terrible way in which it tampers with this great fundamental prophecy, applying to . . . Antichrist its Divine description of . . . Christ.”

Referring to another Futurist critic, Sir Robert Anderson, and his “The Coming Prince, the Last Great Monarch of Christendom,” Dr. Guinness remarked: “The title is a combination of error and assumption, . . . ‘The Coming Prince’—intended as it is for a quotation from Daniel ix. 26, is an erroneous citation, for there is no definite article in the Hebrew. The book . . . is marred by error and assumption, as well as by rash statements and wild speculations. It is also marred by a disrespectful, supercilious manner . . . which is neither gentlemanly nor Christian . .” ” So close and accurate is the correspondence of history with prophecy (in the division of the Roman earth into ten kingdoms) that . . . this writer himself perceives it, while he denies it . . . for he admits that the existing state of things in Europe is ‘undoubtedly a feature of the prophecy.’

“The monstrous ‘gap’ theory of the Futurist School is maintained in the most dogmatic way by Dr. Anderson, who makes the strangely false assertion that ‘all Christian interpreters are agreed in it’ . . . ‘ the entire Historic School of Protestant interpreters . . . would utterly and unhesitatingly reject such an interpretation as offensive to common sense, and doing violence to the oracles of God.’” “The Futurist theory, which confines the evil career . . . of Antichrist to a period subsequent to the destruction of Babylon by the ten horns must be erroneous . . . “Futurists are obliged to admit that the Babylon of Rev. xvii. is the Apostate Church of Rome. They cannot, moreover, question that the Church of Rome has endured for twelve or thirteen centuries. The great Anti-Christian persecution takes place during the reign of Babylon, not after her destruction. That destruction is followed, not by that great Anti-Christian persecution, but by the Marriage of the Lamb (Rev. xix.).” “If the ten kingdoms have existed for the last thirteen or fourteen centuries, so has the Antichrist, for he is their contemporary; and Futurism falls to the ground.

“To conclude: The Futurist conception of Antichrist as an openly-avowed Atheist, an infidel King, who will oppose all religion and morality, and set himself in direct and daring opposition to Christ, is, to say the best of it, an unutterably poor and low conception, even intellectually, compared to the great and terrible reality.”

The last authority to be cited is the late Dr. M. O’Sullivan, whose “Of the Apostasy predicted by St. Paul,” published in 1842, is by far the most cautious, careful, and erudite analysis of Scripture known to me. It possesses also the merit of critically examining the Futurist theories of Dr. Todd and other writers of that school. Its extensive knowledge of Greek, of Scripture, and of prophecy, establishes it as a monument of learning, and fidelity to the text. Now what is the view of this elaborate commentary? It simply annihilates, though most courteously, the Futurist perversions of Scripture, which do duty for interpretations of prophecy. With great patience, and infinite care, it shows how “conjecture as to the interpretation of a prophecy” is miscalled “consideration of the true meaning” of such terms as “Apostasy”; how mere “opinions” are twisted into “authority to determine the meaning of terms.” Take, for instance, the phrase, “Temple of God,” which Dr. Todd and other Futurists—in spite of admissions that “a modern Christian might very well understand the Church of Christ”—persist in regarding literally of some still future earthly building, in which a solitary Antichrist is to sit. Dr. O’Sullivan patiently investigates past solutions and Futurist assumptions, pointing out objections, difficulties, inconsistencies, fallacies, and contradictions—confusion between “literal” and “material,” between apostolic usage of terms and Futurist misuse of them. He cites McKnight on the Epistles: “It is an observation of Bochart, that after the death of Christ, the Apostles never called the temple of Jerusalem the temple of God, but as often as they used that phrase they meant the Christian Church (1 Tim. iii. 15; 1 Cor. iii. 16; vi. 19; 2 Cor. vi. 16; Ephes. ii. 19, 24). Besides, in the Revelation of St. John, which was written some years after the destruction of Jerusalem, there is mention made of men’s ‘ becoming pillars in the Temple of God’ (Rev. iii. 12).” “Hence, it is evident that the ‘sitting of the man of sin in the Temple of God’ by no means implies that he was to show himself in Judea.’’

Dr. O’Sullivan then contrasts the language the Apostles used when they spoke of the Temple at Jerusalem. “St. Paul, for example, speaks of that edifice five times (Acts xxii. 17; xxiv. 12-18; xxv. 8; xxvi. 21). In every instance he styles it ‘the temple,’ not once ‘the temple of God.’” “In the words, ‘Know ye not that ye are the Temple of God?’ (1 Cor. iii. 16), there is an interrogatory . . . that those whom the Apostle addressed were prepared to understand the name ‘temple of God’ in the sense in which the writer used it,” and not as Dr. Todd and Futurists misuse it, viz., a material sense (pp. 31-32). Dr. Todd actually admits that he cannot “see any Scriptural authority” “that Antichrist should rebuild the temple,” or “how a temple built by Antichrist for his own purposes can be properly called the Temple of God.” (p. 36).

In regard to the term, “the man of sin,” which the Douay Bible (Stereotyped Edition, A.D. 1825) says must mean “some particular man” “from the frequent repetition of the article the man of sin, the son of perdition, the adversary or opposer. It agrees to the wicked and great Antichrist, who will come before the end of the world,” we see at once the origin of the Futurist theory. It is derived from Romish sources. Yet Dr. Todd adopted this idea and line of argument (Todd’s “Discourses,” p. 233). Dr. O’Sullivan exposes the hollowness of this notion, as well as Dr. Todd’s mendacious assertion that this idea “has been so understood by all the ancient commentators.” He cites, as an instance to the contrary, Matthies’ “Copious Greek Grammar,” translated by Blomfield. “The article serves to signify that the noun with which it stands indicates either a determinate object among several which are comprehended under the same idea, or the whole species” (Vol. I., p. 457); and adds: “thus it appears, on sound principles of grammar, that with equal propriety the article may constitute the noun, to which it is prefixed, the name of an individual or of a class. Its effect in each particular expression must be determined by usage and by the context.” (p. 91).

Further, on pp. 92-93, he shows how false the Futurist idea is, by reference to such Scriptures as Luke iv. 4; Mark ii, 27; 2 Tim. iii. 17; Matt.xii. 35; 1 John ii. 18; Matt. v. 25; John x. 10, 12; 2 Thess. ii. 3; and to the English usage of the indefinite article to individualize an expression, while the definite article enlarges the application of a name to a class or order. “Thus a King or Queen of England is one; the King or Queen represents or comprehends many.” “A King has the life of an individual; the King never dies,” “The man of God” (2 Tim. iv. 17) is the name of a class. In Hebrews ix. 7 “the high-priest” means the succession of high-priests. There is therefore no necessity—as falsely asserted by Futurists like Dr. Todd—that Ho anthropos—the man of sin, should designate one solitary person, but rather the contrary.

Dr. Todd falls into the inconsistency of using the definite article in the very sense he opposed; for he spoke of “the usurped authority of the Bishop of Rome,” when he meant the entire succession of Bishops of Rome (p. 95); just as Bishop Bossuet, the Romish opponent of Protestants, fell into the same blunder in the heat of controversy—speaking of the Papacy as a line of Bishops. His words were: “All the Roman bishops are to be regarded as the one person of St. Peter, in whom the faith of Peter never should fail.” (“Defensio,” etc., Vol. II., p. 191; O’Sullivan, p. 95).

Dr. O’Sullivan adduces other instances of the absurdity of this particular Futuristic idea about one solitary Antichrist; for instance, the Abbé Baniére in his “Histoire Générale de Céremonie,” etc., Vol. 1, 288, describes “The adoration of the Pope, on the grand altar of St. Peter.” meaning Popes in general; and on p. 287 the same French author says: “The Pope thus robed is carried in his chair before the altar of the chapel where he was elected; and there the Cardinal Doyen, and afterwards the other Cardinals, adore his Holiness on their knees.” Upon which Dr. O’Sullivan justly observes: “The article does not pronounce the ‘man of sin’ a single individual. On the contrary, it may, with equal propriety, be regarded as constituting the expression . . . the title of an order or succession.”

On pp. 370-371 Dr. O’Sullivan shows that the word “person” has two different meanings, as explained in Blackstone’s Commentary, Book 1, Ch. i. “Persons are divided by law into either natural persons or artificial.” Natural persons are individuals; artificial persons are corporations or bodies politic. There is the single person who ends at death. There is the perpetual person in whom a community subsists, and also lives by a perpetual succession. Each of these is equally real. “The parson of a parish” is no less intelligible as the appellation of an individual, than of the persons who in succession have charge. “The Pope”, or “the Bishop of Rome” is susceptible of the same twofold application. Lainez, the Jesuit, at the Council of Trent, used this very figure: “These things, that is, to be a key-keeper and a pastor, being perpetual offices, must be conferred upon a perpetual person, that is, not upon the first only, but upon all his succession. So the Bishop of Rome, from St. Peter to the end of the world, is true and absolute monarch . . .” (“History of Council of Trent,” Lib. VII p. 571, Brentitraus). So Le Maistre, the Ultramontane, in his work, “Du Pape” (Tome II., p. 344), declares “that a whole sovereignty should be considered as one individual . . . and that the succession of the Popes is incomparably superior to all others.”

In fact all Papal orators or authors speak of “the Pope” and “the Bishop of Rome,” when they mean a perpetual person, not an individual. Thus Cardinal Wiseman in his Lectures; Fénélon, etc. Hence, Futurists are absolutely wrong in interpreting ho anthropos as one solitary person.

Dr. O’Sullivan helps the cause of truth also by his Excursus on the “Adoration” of the Church of Rome, addressed to Popes, and to Images (pp. 388 et seq.). He says: “The evasions which many of her advocates practice in escaping from the real ground of complaint against her, are plainly devices to which no man, who felt his cause good, would condescend to have recourse.” “According to the representations of these advocates, Romanism does not adore creatures, whether images or saints.” According to Milner. (“End of Controversy,” 1828, Dublin, p. 258, note), “Catholics abstain from applying it [the word ‘worship’] to persons or things inferior to God, making use of the word honor or veneration in their regard . . .”; “the end for which . . . images are made and retained . . . is to put us in mind of the person they represent. They are not primarily intended for the purpose of being venerated; nevertheless they become entitled to a relative or secondary veneration . . .”

Butler’s “Lives of the Saints” says that by the Council of Nice’s decree, “images are to be honored, but not with the worship called Latria . . . he who reveres the image, reveres the person it represents.” This is not true. Butler deliberately substituted the word “honored” for “Adored,” which is the word used by that Council (“Labbe et Cossart,” Vol. XIII., p. 730).

As Dr. Sullivan shows (pp. 390 et seq.), “the affection or the reverence which Romanism demands of her votaries for images and saints is adoration.” In the “Pontificale Romanum,” Rome, 1818 (Ordo ad recipiendum processionaliter Imperatorem) it is directed that “the Cross of the legate (i.e., an image), because Latria is due to it, shall be on the right.” She gives to the worship which she commands the name of the worship which God forbids and reprobates. The name by which Romanism will have this species of worship known is not inappropriate. It is “douleia,” or, as the word should be presented in an English form, “slavery” or “bondage.” Thus, indeed, the word is translated in Rome’s Scriptures (Douay Bible, Rom. viii. 15; Gal. iv. 24; v. 1). Both the Romish and the more recently published Versions use the word “bondage” in Gal. iv. 24. The “adoration of bondage” is that which Romanism offers to her saints and images. In Romish Versions, the Second Commandment is rendered, “Thou shalt not ‘adore’ them.” Rome says, “Thou shalt ‘adore’ them.”

The distinction between Latria and Douleia, i.e., the worship offered to God, and the worship offered to images, is not admitted by all Romish writers. Thus the Abbé Bergier says: “To express more clearness in their language, theologians call Latria the worship rendered to God, and Douleia that rendered to saints; but originally these two terms, derived from the Greek, signified equally service without distinction” (“Dictionnaire Théologique,” Art., Culte).

We admit that originally and grammatically the terms Douleia and Latria are synonymous.” (Idid., Art., Dulie).

To get out of the difficulty Bergier declares that “the words Latria, Douleia, Cultus, service, etc., change their meaning according to the different objects to which they are applied” (Ibid., Art., Latria); thus pretending that “worship may have two names, and arbitrarily assigning to words the meaning most convenient to Popery—not to Truth, not according to the reality of things.

For, of course, there is a distinction between the words Douleia and Latria. Popery admits it, by rendering the one “bondage,” and the other “service”: (Rom. xii. 1. Rheimish Version, 1825, Stereotype Edition.) the one is slavery, the other freedom. The one, Douleia, is the condition from which the Gospel delivers the redeemed (Rom. viii, 15, 21; Gal. iv. 24, v. 1; Heb. ii. 15); the other, the reverential acknowledgment made to God—as Deliverer—by the ransomed.

Popery, therefore, has aptly chosen for its image worship the very name which testifies that while God gives liberty, Rome wishes to bring bondage. Thus is Rome’s opposition to God once more made manifest. She is ho antikeimenos, the Adversary that sets up a Law opposed to the Will of God.

Continued in Appendix A. “The Image of The Beast”