Continued from Chapter XXIII. The Sixth Vial—Drying Up Of the Euphrates

This is the best commentary on the three frogs of Revelation chapter 16 that I have ever read! The chapter talks about the Jesuits and their link to secret societies. They are all working together with the Jesuits for a common goal. The emphasis in bold in the text are mine.

THERE was a special end to be served by the drying up of the “Euphrates.” We have already glanced at that end; let us again turn to it for a little. The time has nearly come when “Babylon” must fall. The predestined instruments of her overthrow are on their way to besiege her; but this great river—“the Euphrates”—lies in their path, and arrests their march. The sixth vial falls upon it, and dries it up, and the host go forward.

Who are these kings from the East? How will the drying up of the symbolic Euphrates prepare their way? On what errand will they travel westward? Expositors of the Apocalypse have found themselves much at a loss for a natural and satisfactory answer to these questions. The symbol is taken, as we have said, from what occurred at the siege of the literal Babylon. The Euphrates was diverted from its channel, and the conquerors, who came from the East, entered the dry bed of the river, and the city was taken. Mystic Babylon is now on the eve of being overthrown; and the exhaustion of the Austrian empire —the last remaining military prop of the Papacy—may open a passage to the kings and armies whom it may be the purpose of God to summon to the scene of Babylon’s destruction, partly to aid in overthrowing her, and partly to be themselves overthrown.

An intimation follows almost immediately, that in the battle of that great day of God Almighty, not only will the kings of the Roman earth be present, but likewise the kings of the whole world. It is probable that the representatives of the four great monarchies—the Assyrian, Persian, Greek, and Roman—so far as these are still on the earth, will be assembled on that occasion, and finally destroyed. Thus the monarch beheld in his dream, that the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, was broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer thrashing-floors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them. But of this we shall have occasion afterwards to speak.

The changes which have passed upon the Austrian Empire have opened the way for other and greater changes, all of which will in the end prove adverse to the Papacy. It has unsettled the order of things in both East and West. It has rent the Treaties of 1815, which were so many guarantees for the continuance and supremacy of the Papal Power. It has cast the predominance of political and military power in Germany on the side of Protestantism. It has stirred into life the numerous nationalities and tribes which people the Danube valley, and the regions stretching away to the Asiatic frontier. Fierce, predatory, warlike, these tribes hold themselves ready for any incursion which may promise to reward them with rich booty, or new seats. It has brought the Eastern Question upon the stage with a new significance. All these uncertainties, perils, changes, the day of Sadowa (1866 decisive battle of the Austro-Prussian War) has hung over the world. It was the opening of the gates of the West to the nationalities and powers of the north and northeast of Europe—to their policy first, and to their arms, it may be, next.

In connection with this, it is instructive to mark that in Isaiah we have a series of prophecies extending from the forty-first to the forty-sixth chapters, foretelling a great uprising of nations, and describing their westward march, in hostile array, on some errand of vengeance. Before this terrible army “rivers are to be dried up,” and “the two leaved gates” (Isaiah 45:1) are to be opened. The scene on which this mighty host is to make its appearance is the same of which we are now speaking—the final siege and overthrow of the mystic Babylon. We are thus led to think it probable that the closing scene of the Papacy will be attended by a wider convulsion than a merely European one; that it will embroil both East and West; that peoples of Asiatic and Scythic blood—the remnants of ancient historic nations, and the races of modern origin—will come up to the siege of the mystic Babylon, and be mingled with the nationalities of Europe, on this theater of consummating judgment.

After the pouring out of the sixth vial upon the Euphrates, Europe will become the scene of busy intrigue. The skies of the western world are to clear up for a little space; the lightnings and hail of the seventh trumpet will be deferred, and the quiet interval will be intensely occupied by the agents of the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet, who shall prosecute with incredible zeal and activity their unconscious mission of bringing on the grand catastrophe.

We determine the character of these three frogs, or spirits, by tracing their origin. The first issues from the mouth of the dragon, which is the old serpent, the devil. This can be nothing else than infidelity, the religion of Rome in its dragon form, in conjunction with its usual concomitants, democracy, and rebellion against all authority, Divine and human.

The next issues from the mouth of the beast, i.e., the seven-headed and ten-horned beast. The characteristic principle of this beast, as distinguished from that of the false prophet, is despotism.

The third and last spirit comes from the mouth of the false prophet, and beyond question is Popery. We have no hesitation, then, in concluding that the three principles that are to burst into widespread and vehement action, during the brief interval of quiet in Western Europe, are infidelity, despotism, and Popery. This marks conclusively, we think, our own times as the period to which the prophecy has reference. It is plain that the advocates of these principles were to propagate them, not by the sword, but by loquacious (excessive) talk; for they are symbolized as frogs—stingless frogs; a figure which has been employed since the time of Cicero, who applies it to the prating demagogues of his day, to designate the noisy advocates of demoralizing principles.

Who is so ignorant as need be told how rampant these three principles are at this moment in every country in Europe? No sooner had peace returned to the West, than Popery, with prodigious effort, set about repairing the calamities of the vials. She advanced her former blasphemous pretensions; intrigued in every court of Europe; flattered sovereigns; pandered to the passions of the people; had her men of science for the learned; her miracle-workers for the ignorant; sent missionaries into every land; affected liberality in free states, and erected the Inquisition in certain despotic ones. Thus did she labor to recover her ancient dominion.

The spirit of despotism, too, rallied from the terrible blows which the French Revolution had dealt it. The former dynasties were restored, and, untaught by the bitter experience of the past, began systematically to act on the principle of enlarging the kingly prerogative, and curtailing the popular privilege. France itself was no exception. There this line of policy was pursued, both by the elder Bourbons and the house of Orleans, who have borne sway. since the Revolution of 1830.

And, as regards infidelity, there never was an age since the Flood in which so great a proportion of the human race were disbelievers. Were the great apostles of infidelity, Voltaire and Rousseau, to look up from the dead, how would they be astonished at the success of their labors! For we affirm, without fear of contradiction, that a large proportion of the people of Europe at this moment have a creed which may be summed up in three words: they fear nothing, worship nothing, and believe in nothing. With what restless energy has this spirit been propagating itself these thirty years past! Agencies innumerable has it pressed into its service: the journals and novels of France, the poetry and philosophy of Germany, the university chairs on the Rhine, the academies and printing-presses of the Helvetic towns—all have been the vehicles of conveying infidelity, under its various forms of neology (new Bible interpretations), socialism, communism, pantheism; and the result that has been wrought out, especially on such a groundwork as the Popish mummeries had been the means of creating, is not surprising. Thus have these symbolic frogs covered Europe, penetrating everywhere, loading the air with their croakings, and polluting the earth with their filth.

Ours is pre-eminently the age of great secret societies; and these societies are of three classes, corresponding in character, as they do in number, to the “three frogs” which were seen to go forth on their mission when the sixth vial was poured out. Among these societies that of the Jesuits holds a first place. Instituted about a quarter of a century after the Reformation, with the view of checking (hindering) the progress of the gospel, its numbers have prodigiously increased, and now they swarm in all the countries of Europe. Wider still, there is not a land on earth where they are not busy, intriguing, and conspiring. Their advance is as silent, and their trail as rank and abominable, as that of the frogs of Egypt. They have but one object—the glory of the Popedom; and to accomplish this object their constitutions declare all means to be lawful—deceit, assassination, insurrection, perjury—all are sanctified by the end. Their myriad wills are in complete subjection to one will, that of their general. They are in his hand as the staff is in the hand of a living man. His edicts are of equal authority with the commands of God. He has but to speak, and it is done. Other rulers have to use persuasion, or to employ force, or to hold out bribes: none of these encumbrances embarrass the action of the general of the Society of Jesus. He has but to signify his will, and myriads of agents are ready to execute it, whatever the service—to strike down an individual or to convulse a kingdom; or wherever performed, at home or at the ends of the earth.

The great ambition of the Jesuits is to direct education; but they fill all offices, as they profess all creeds. They have enrolled kings in their company; and they do not disdain shoe-boys. When we take into account their numbers, their organization, their principles, their objects, they are truly the most mysterious and formidable power that ever existed or operated on the earth.

The strength of the main body is much increased by their custom of creating and attaching affiliated societies. These greatly extend the operations of the parent society. The members of these societies are bound by secret oaths, they are employed in special services, and they go under different names in the different countries, such as the Paolotti in Italy, and the Fenians in Great Britain.

Pope Clement XIV. proscribed (banned, abolished) the Jesuits (in 1773) in the bull “Dominus ac Redemptor,” exclaiming as he affixed his signature, “I have subscribed my death-warrant.” Pius VII., after the battle of Waterloo, restored them (in 1814). The deed was done at a moment when the Papal power had to be re-established, and when the temporal and spiritual authority had to reconstruct new machinery for its working. The bark of Peter, as the bull hinted, sorely buffeted by tempests, needed these experienced and skillful rowers. This act of the Pope gave a new Romanism to the world. Henceforward Jesuitism became the executive of the Church of Rome. The Society dominates bishops, councils, and the Pope himself.

Increased extension and activity has of late been given to revolutionary clubs. The journals of France and Germany notify the rise of such societies in almost every town of the Continent. Their object is the overthrow of all existing governments, the establishment of a great European Republic, the abolition of all priestcraft, the inauguration of the religion of Reason—whatever form of faith that may be—and the redistribution of property. The organization of these societies is less perfect, and their secrecy less complete, than that of the Jesuits; still their machinery and ramifications are on a very extensive scale. They are the reaction against a Church which has outraged reason, and against governments which, of late years, by their enormous armaments, and their crushing taxation, have outraged liberty, and are mining trade. Governments which can maintain themselves only by bayonets, and whose only work is to repress, have tempted their subjects to ask on what foundation they rest their moral right to exist? These societies have their organs and missionaries for diffusing their principles among the populations of Europe The Convention which met at Geneva. last summer, made up of delegates from every country, and which preached a crusade against all churches and governments, may be accepted as a token of how the tide is running, and of the growing power and energy of the revolutionary idea.

Nor is the old despotic principle asleep: it couches in attitude ready to spring: it eyes steadfastly the Ultramontanes on the one side, and the Revolutionists on the other; and watches the moment to make its leap. The frequent meetings of crowned heads; the frightful growth of armies; the ceaseless manufacture of warlike materiel, including newly invented machines of destructive power so enormous, and so absolutely terrific, that their use must speedily bring either war to an end, or the world to an end, attest the existence of the old spirit of tyrannic power, and that before it closes its career it will yet furnish some new and awful proof of its ferocity.

Such are the three principles that strive together in Europe. All three are vile and diabolical. They mark our era as that of the “three frogs,” and they bid us be ready for the catastrophe which it is their mission to provoke. When we see contrary currents blowing in the sky, we say it will be tempest: a little while, and the flash of the lightning will be seen, and the roar of the thunder will be heard.

When we lift our eye to the ecclesiastical and political firmament, we can clearly discern three well defined currents contending in it. They blow with steady force; every hour their fury increases; black masses gather on the horizon; the darkness grows deeper; a little longer, and the contending winds and the gathering clouds will issue in the tempest’s crash. With what terrific grandeur will the storm then rage! Through the vault above will career the lightning; from one end of heaven to the other will be heard the thunder’s voice; while great earthquakes will shake the world. In that day the cities of the nations shall fall, and great Babylon will rise up in remembrance before God.

On the very eve of battle a solemn warning is tendered. “Behold, I come as a thief;” (Revelation 16:15a) for this event is to overtake the world with unprecedented and startling suddenness. How plainly do these words indicate a pause in the judgment, and a sudden recommencement!

This warning plainly imports, that immediately before that great day, individuals and Churches will be exposed to peculiar temptation to forsake their principles, here symbolized by their garments. The temptation will not arise from the persecution of force, but from the seduction of these three spirits.

Do recent events throw no light on this prediction? Has not Puseyism (also known as Tractarianism, a system of High Church principles set forth in a series of tracts at Oxford in 1833–41 that tried to bring the Church of England back under the Roman Catholic Church) solicited some to part with the doctrine of Christ’s atonement and intercession? Has not Erastianism (advocating the doctrine of state supremacy in ecclesiastical affairs) solicited others to give up the headship of the Lord Jesus? And has not neology (new method of theological interpretation) tempted others to make shipwreck of the faith altogether? A peculiar blessedness will be his who watcheth and keepeth his garments. When the night of judgment descends upon the world, a sanctuary will be opened, where he may mark in safety the widespread ruin, and come forth with his Lord when it is over.

Continued in Chapter XXV. The Harvest Of The Earth

All chapters of The Seventh Vial – By J.A. Wylie

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