The Purple and Scarlet Robes of the Bishops of the Church of Rome
This is the continuation of the series, Antichrist And His Ten Kingdoms – By Albert Close and the previous post in the series, The Revelation an Acted Prophecy – Western Europe and Asia the Stage.
Revelation 17:4 And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:
Purple and scarlet are the official colours of the bishops and cardinals of the Church of Rome. The author visited St. Peter’s Church, Rome, in order to see for himself. True to this prediction, the officiating prelates were robed in purple, scarlet, and cloth of gold. This can also be seen at any important Roman Catholic service.
The Church of Rome decks her bishops and cardinals and principal images with gold and jewels. The Bambino or image of the infant Christ in Rome, for example, is loaded with jewels.
ROME’S TWO REMARKABLE MEDALS.
Pope Innocent XI. in 1680 struck a medal representing the Church of Rome as a woman, standing at Rome, extending to the nations of the earth in her right hand a cup containing her sacrament, the Host.
In 1825 Pope Leo XII. struck another representing the Church of Rome as a woman seated on the water covered globe extending the same cup of abominations to the nations. These medals may both be seen in the British Museum and in the Vatican, Rome.
The Spirit of God foresaw that this Church would employ these symbols, and revealed it to St. John over 1800 years ago. “Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee.”
The irradiating rays of light shooting from the cup symbolize the central doctrine of the Church of Rome—the pretended “real presence of Christ” in the sacrament of that church. The Spirit of God in this verse emphatically pronounces the contents of the cup Rome offers, “an abomination,” and not a sacrament. Here, therefore, we have what God thinks of the doctrine of transubstantiation – it is an abomination!
THE ST. BARTHOLOMEW MASSACRE, 1572.
The Church of Rome undoubtedly is the Mother or chief idolatrous system of this dispensation. This prophecy implies that she has daughter churches also, made drunk, or in other words, robbed of their sober senses, and made incapable of distinguishing between truth and error. This explains why otherwise well balanced and scholarly men are ensnared at times by this “Church;” as the Scriptures affirm, she makes them drunk. This is no mere empty figure of speech. What other condition of heart or mind could lead intelligent and even scholarly men to believe and propagate so vehemently the doctrine of the pretended Real Presence of Christ in the bread and wine after so called consecration? The secret of it all is, that there is a mighty deceiving satanic spirit behind this doctrine which drowns the reason. This explains why men are so mightily gripped by this strange idolatrous doctrine.
The St. Bartholomew Medal, struck by Pope Gregory XIII. in 1572 to commemorate the massacre of the French Huguenots. Note, the blood-drunken slayer holds the crucifix in one hand and the drawn sword in the other.
(The End)