This is the continuation of The Last Prophecy: An Abridgment of Elliott’s Horae Apocalypticae.

Reformation Of The Ministry And Of The Church.

IN THIS PASSAGE we have prefigured to us the two next great steps of advance in the Reformation: — first, the re-commissioning by Christ of faithful spiritually-prepared ministers to preach his Gospel in various countries and languages; next, the authorized constitution of evangelical and reformed Churches, to the exclusion of the apostate Church of Rome.

[I] The first is contained in the charge to St. John, in his representative character, “to take and eat the little book” which the Angel delivered to him, and so to go forth as the Lord’s ambassador and preacher to all people. The word “prophesy,” too frequently understood only in its restricted meaning of predicting future events, has properly a far more extended signification. Both in Hebrew and in Greek the term implies to tell forth, announce, speak as an ambassador. Thus it includes the making known God’s mind and will, the explanation of his mysteries, the pleading his cause, and, in this, the exhorting, instructing, reproving, warning, and expostulating with a rebellious people. In the New Testament the same meaning is attached to it; and it is specially applied by St. Paul to the expounding the written Scriptures and exhorting from them. (1 Cor. 14:3) That this general signification of preaching the Gospel is that which is here intended is clear from the symbolic act connected with it, — the taking up and digesting the little book as the subject-matter of that preaching: just as in the parallel instruction given by the Lord to the prophet Ezekiel; (Ezek. 2:3-8) as also in the case of Jeremiah. (Jer. 15:16) The “little book” in the present instance was the doctrine committed by Jesus to his disciples, — the New Testament, which they were to “preach to every creature;”and which injunction, both as to reading and expounding amongst heathen and Christian congregations, continued to be observed for three centuries as the constant part of Christian Sunday-worship, until, in progress of time, the professed Church could no longer “endure sound doctrine,” and, as they departed from the faith, discontinued the practice.

At the end of some four hundred years, Christianity, as we know, became nominally the religion of Christendom. Two centuries later the Goths, who had invaded as heathen or Arians, settled down into orthodox Christianity. Thus the world was in outward profession identified with the Church. And what then followed? By degrees the Scripture lessons were abridged; legends of saints were introduced in the place of the Bible; the Psalms, the chief Scripture lessons remaining, were chanted by the priests, instead of being read to the people; and, as language changed, owing to the inter-mixture of the Goths with the Romans, the services, being in Latin, were no longer understood. Preaching too became rare. For though to certain of the deacons and presbyters in the cities permission to that effect was given, yet was it considered that the obligation appertained only to the bishop; consequently the great mass of the rural population was left in ignorance. Homilies from the early Fathers, translated by the bishop or other more learned person, were for a while enjoined to be used instead of sermons; but even these were after a while neglected. Besides which, a restriction was imposed on the free preaching of the Gospel, no presbyter being allowed to preach unless expressly authorized by the bishop; and further, even bishops being required by the canons to avoid breaching any Opinion diverse from what was received as orthodox or from “the divine tradition of the Fathers.” In the ministration of sacraments and ordinances the essential duties of the priesthood were considered to terminate. The invention of transubstantiation but increased the evil, and confirmed the clergy more than ever in their neglect of the work of the evangelist. What need to preach the Gospel of salvation when at any time the priest could offer up Christ anew as a real and sufficient atonement for sin?

And so darker and darker these Middle Ages grew on. Here and there we read of some attempts to revive preaching — as in England by King Alfred, and by Archbishops Egbert, Elfric, and Peckham. About one hundred years after the latter came Wickliffe. Regarding this neglect as the “foulest treason” to Christ, he not only himself set the example of preaching, but he translated the Bible into English, and sent forth poor priests for missionary work. As Wickliffe in England, so Huss in Bohemia. But both Hussite and Wickliffite preachers were soon excommunicated as heretics, and nearly suppressed by the terrors of the sword. And so this most important part of the Christian minister’s duty — the addressing the hearts and consciences of the people from the Word of life, the setting forth God’s grace and love through a dying, risen, and interceding Saviour, — was again neglected, and all but unknown, until the close of the fifteenth century, and until Luther began the Reformation. At this very period the word went forth, as from the Angel to St. John, “Thou must prophesy again,” etc.

It is true that at Luther’s ordination as deacon an old and primitive custom had been followed. The book of the Gospels being placed in his hand by the bishop, he was charged thus: “Take authority to read the Gospel in the Church of God;” and words were added respecting his not only “assisting the priests in ministrations at the altar,” but also of “declaring the Gospel and other Scriptures of the New Testament, and of preaching the Word of God.” Although afterwards, when ordained a priest, the paten and the chalice were given to him, and he was empowered to sacrifice (i.e., in private masses and the sacramental rite) for the living and the dead — a higher function too generally thought to supersede the previous charge — yet did he deeply feel his Scriptural obligation to preach. What to him that the common practice was for the deacon to read a few words in an unknown tongue? Had his priestly office annulled his deacon’s vows? He felt not as others felt. Taught by the Spirit of God, he looked through the appointment by man to Him in whose name he was ordained; and from his earliest call, and with but partial enlightenment from above, he recognized the duty, and gave himself to do the work, of an Evangelist, as one appointed even by the Lord Jesus himself. The Vicar-general’s order encouraged and confirmed him in his plan; and so the Church of Wittenberg, as before observed, heard the strange sound of a revived Gospel preaching.

Luther not only preached, but be circulated evangelic writings and taught by personal communications. As the Vicar-general’s substitute he held a visitation of the Augustinian convents in electoral Saxony, and in this way was unconsciously preparing others of the monks and clergy to become preachers in the Church soon to be established. No sooner did he discover the Antichristian tendency of the restrictions relative to preaching, which we have noticed, than he set them aside. In his final letter to the Pope he declares, “There must be no fettering of Scripture by rules of interpretation. The Word of God must be left free.” And both he and his brother Reformers acted on the feeling.

When Luther had proclaimed the Papal oracle to be the voice of Antichrist, and persisted at Worms before the Emperor in rejecting it, the severest condemnatory decrees were issued against him and his fellow-laborers. By these they were excommunicated from the Church and degraded from their ministry in it; and, on pain of confiscation of their goods, imprisonment, and even death, they were interdicted from preaching the Gospel. Luther was outlawed; and his friend, the Elector of Saxony, to save his life hid him in a lonesome castle in the forest of Wartburg.

In this remote solitude, called by himself his “Patmos,” he had time to reflect, and to devise what could be done for the cause and Church of Christ. Would he now bow to the storm and abandon the work? Let us but follow out the Apocalyptic figure. “The voice said, Go, take the little book out of the Angel’s hand.” Luther’s chief occupation in his year of exile was the translation of the New Testament into German. He felt this was what was wanting in order to diffuse the light of truth among ministers and people, and for the overthrow of Papal superstition.

It was a work in which he delighted, and he expressed annoyance whenever controversial writing obliged a temporary interruption. He might be said to taste its sweetness, however bitter to him personally might be the immediate consequence of preaching it. It was now with him as with St. John, when having “ate the little book,” he found it “in his mouth sweet as honey.”

“Thou must prophesy again.” Full well did Luther feel that the Gospel was still instrumentally the power of God unto salvation; that to its long neglect was owing the establishment of the great apostasy; that by the renewed preaching of it (“prophesy again”) that apostate power was to be broken; and that on them who had been spiritually enlightened with divine truth devolved the obligation of accomplishing a Reformation. Could the Pope annul his ministerial orders or alter the obligation consequent upon them? Could Antichrist cancel what Christ had communicated? Tracing upwards, Luther felt it was from Christ his commission had come, and that its revocation by the Pope was impossible. Nor could his deference to “the powers that were” move him on this point, so that the Emperor’s interdict was ineffectual. Confined in his Patmos, regardless of royal and papal orders against preaching, he wrote urging Melanchthon and his coadjutors to go forward, and to continue to exercise their powers in evangelic preaching. It was the repetition of the angel’s command, “Thou must prophesy again.”

No sooner was the translation of the New Testament finished, than he himself felt he could no longer remain silent. A crisis had arrived which seemed to call for his assistance. Persecution had begun against his fellowlaborers in Germany; besides which, a sect called Anabaptists had arisen, styling themselves Christians, but in truth bringing discredit on the name they professed. Melanchthon urged his return, with a view to heading the little body of Reformers in the fulfillment of their ministerial, it might be said their apostolic, commission. At the risk of his proscribed life, as if impelled by a ‘voice’ from above, he returned to Wittenberg. In excuse he wrote to his patron, the Elector, “The Divine will is plain, and leaves me no choice: the Gospel is oppressed and begins to labor.” Again, “It is not from men I have received my commission, but from the Lord Jesus Christ. Henceforth I wish to reckon myself his servant and to take the title of Evangelist.”

In pursuing the history, we find how successful was the aid which Luther gave on his return, and how God opened the door for the spread of the Gospel, whether by means of the translated Word or by his preaching. It was in A.D. 1522 that Luther arrived in Wittenberg; and within the two or three next years the message of salvation was heard by princes and people, not in Germany only, but in Sweden, Denmark, Pomerania, Livonia; in France, Belgium, Spain, and Italy also, though with less general acceptance, and, last mentioned but not least, in England. Preachers were raised up on every side, and translations of the Scriptures were multiplied. The prediction was in course of fulfillment. “Thou must prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and languages, and kings.”

And here occurred an important point for decision, on which the continuance of this renewed evangelic preaching materially depended. Cut off from the ecclesiastical hierarchy, from whose hands were the ministers of the Reformation to receive ordination? Was the work so happily begun to cease for want of pastors? Surely not. Luther felt that where Scripture had not shut up the apostolic ministry of the early Church by an express prohibition of other non-episcopal ordinations, the very necessity of the circumstances justified a departure from the usual practice. He renounced the title of priest and doctor given him by Papal authorities, and styled himself simply preacher. This was in A.D. 1523. A year or two after, the function of ordination was formally taken into their own power by the Reformed Churches. In the German Churches it was vested in superintendent presbyters; in the Swiss Churches simply in the presbytery. On the other hand, in England, through God’s providence several of the bishops having united themselves with the Reformed Church, the regular medium of ordination was continued; all, however, in Christian fellowship with their reformed sister Churches on the Continent. Of course the want of direct episcopal ordination in some cases, and the previous excommunication of the ordaining bishops in others, raised a cry amongst opposers as if the Reformed Church had no regular ordination for its clergy.3 Regarding, however, this interpretation of the passage before us to be the right one, we have in the fact of St. John’s being made the representative of the faithful ministers of the Reformation a direct intimation of their being all in the line of apostolic succession; and in the angel’s words, “Thou must prophesy again,” of their being commissioned by HIM who commissioned the Apostles — the COVENANT ANGEL, the LORD JESUS.

One remarkable change in the ritual of ordination was now introduced by the Reformers. Instead of the words, “Receive thou authority to sacrifice for the living and the dead,” as was the Romish form, a solemn charge was given to “preach the Gospel.” Preaching had been so long neglected that they must begin again the preaching of Christ.

There was a change of symbol, too, as well as of words, the presentation of a chalice and paten being abolished, and instead thereof in many Churches being substituted the delivery of the New Testament, or perhaps of the whole Bible, now through the art of printing made “a little book.” Our English ritual especially — in the authority presented to deacons and priests “to read” or “to preach the Word,” and the injunction to bishops to “take heed to the doctrine” and to “think on the things contained in this book” — may be said to perpetuate the Apocalyptic commission. Surely the fact is remarkable. Nor would it be uninteresting for such as are ordained to remember this pre-enactment of their ordination in the visions of Patmos. They might not only thus derive strength and comfort in the consciousness of a direct divine commission, but, moreover, be wholesomely impressed with the duty of making the GOSPEL the grand subject both of their personal study and of their public preaching, and of maintaining a constant and faithful testimony against all superstition, sin, and error, — specially against those of the apostate Church of ROME.

[II] The latter part of the Covenant Angel’s charge is contained in that which appears with our Bibles as the first verse of chap. xi, but which is evidently only a continuation of the same scene as that with which the tenth chapter closes; the same Angel continuing to speak to St. John, and giving him a further direction. The temple, which we have already shown to represent the Christian Church, is again introduced with a new feature superadded, viz., its outer court, or court of the Gentiles. The altar-court is still used as the symbol of that part of the Church visible which faithfully adhered to the true worship indicated by the altar; while the outer court (which under the former dispensation was given to such heathen as professed Judaism, but too often apostatized) is now applied to represent those who, while they professed Christianity, had virtually adopted an idolatrous worship.

It would almost seem impossible for the Apostle not to view, in these outer-court worshippers, that line of apostasy described in earlier visions, which in one scene, under the name of Christ’s Israel, had been satisfied with another life-giving, another sealing than that of the Angel of life; which in another is described as forsaking the great altar of sacrifice, and, again, as rejecting Christ’s reconciliation and adopting other mediators; and yet once more — when the third part of men had been slain, as continuing in demon-worship and heathenish idolatry, — that line against whose head the cry of the Angel had gone forth in majestic wrath, and from whose seven-hilled metropolis had issued forth, in defiance of it, the seven Antichristian thunders.

This premised, the meaning of the clause will readily approve itself. St. John, representing at this epoch the Reformed Church, was desired to “Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein. But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles.”

These four several points would seem to be signified, viz., first, that Luther and his brother laborers were directed, as from heaven, to a reconstitution of the Reformed Church, for the measuring implies the edification and constitution, as well as definition, of what is measured. Secondly, that they should define as the proper members of the Church such only as in public profession recognized the doctrine of justification through the alone efficacy of the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ, and through Christ’s alone mediatorship. Thirdly, that the Romish Church must thence be excluded or excommunicated as apostate and heathen. Fourthly, that for this purpose a certain ecclesiastical authority would be officially given to them, it being said, “There was given me a reed like unto a rod.” The more frequent use of this word rod in the New Testament is as the ensign of official authority. On two occasions when the Jewish temple-worship had become corrupt and needed reform, viz., under the reigns of Hezekiah and Josiah, it was the royal mandate that empowered the priesthood to carry out the purification. The original call was, of course, from God; but it was the regal authority which immediately enforced the act. Agreeably with these precedents, in a reed like unto a rod, which was given to St. John, was shadowed forth the support which Luther and his fellow-reformers would meet with from the royal and other ruling powers of those times.

And now for the historical fulfillment of this part of the vision. At the time of his leaving the castle of Wartburg, in March 1522, to resume. his ministerial labors, despite the interdicts of Pope and Emperor, the established religion in Saxony was still the Roman Catholic. Nor did Luther at that time wish for much more than the liberty of preaching the Gospel, expecting that this in itself would be sufficient for the overthrow of error, and that consequently the Papacy would fall to ruins. The measuring rod had not yet been officially given to the Reformers to authorize their reconstitution of the Church.

But it soon became evident that some plan of ecclesiastical discipline must be observed for the proper ordering of the Reformed services, the prevention of possible divisions, and the general support of religion. Luther’s personal influence was, as yet, the only visible cement of union. He had appropriated to the maintenance of ministers, hospitals, and schools the revenues of certain old canonries of Wittenberg lately become vacant. Still authority was wanted. At length, after another year, the Elector Frederick, convinced that the Reformation was accordant with God’s will, determined to give the required sanction; but before it was done he died. His brother and successor, the Elector John, assuming that supremacy in ecclesiastical matters was the right of every lawful sovereign, as maintained by the Reformers alike in Germany, Switzerland, and England, proceeded at once to exercise that right by forming new ecclesiastical constitutions. New forms of worship were introduced, drawn up by Luther and Melanchthon on Scriptural principles. Romish images and superstitions were removed; the ecclesiastical revenues of the electorate were appropriated to the support of the Reformed religion; and a fresh supply of ministers received their ordination, altogether independently of the Romish hierarchy. This was in A.D. 1525. Soon after a general visitation of the electorate by Luther and other of the Reforming fathers was made on the Prince’s order, to see to the execution of the new system, and to complete the establishment of a separate evangelical Church.

The example was followed by the ruling powers in the Reforming states of Germany, in Denmark, Sweden, and soon in England. And here let us notice that the principle acted upon in them all was precisely that which was laid down by the Angel in vision for the measurement of the Apocalyptic temple, viz., to make salvation through Christ’s meritorious death and mediatorship (that which the Jewish altar symbolized), the prominent characteristic of Reformed worship; and to exclude those who, forsaking that alter, had made to themselves another method of salvation, and given themselves to heathen superstitions and idolatries; in other words, the votaries of the false Church of Rome. Charged by the Romanists as schismatical, the principle was solemnly avowed and justified. At the first Diet of Augsburg, held A.D. 1525, a Defense, or Apology, written by Melanchthon, was presented by the Elector, in which the following points were insisted on: — First, that every minister of God’s Word is bound by Christ’s express precept to preach the leading doctrine of the Gospel, justification by faith in Christ crucified, and not by the merit of human performances; whereas men had, by the Romish doctrines, been drawn from the cross of Christ to trust in their own works and in superstitious vanities. Secondly, that it became the princes (to whom authority rightly belonged) to consider whether the new doctrines were or were not true, and if true, to protect and promote them. Thirdly, that the Pope, cardinals, and clergy did not constitute the Church of Christ, albeit there were some apparently amongst them who opposed the prevailing errors, and really belonged to the true Church — the latter consisting of the faithful, and none else, who had the Word of God, and by it were sanctified and cleansed; while, on the other hand, what St. Paul had predicted of Antichrist’s coming and sitting in the temple of God had its fulfillment in the Papacy. Which being so, and God having forbidden, under the heaviest penalty, every species of idolatry and false worship, of which class were the sacrifice of the mass, masses for the dead, invocations of saints, and such like, — things notoriously taught in the Church of Rome, — the Reformers were not guilty of schism in having convicted Antichrist of his errors, or in making alterations in their church worship and regulations, whereby Romish superstitions were cast out.4 Such was the manifesto of the Reformers to the first Diet of Augsburg. In the second Diet, A.D. 1530, the celebrated articles and confessions of faith were presented to the same effect. These and other confessions which were elsewhere “adopted differed, as might be expected, in some nonessential matters; but they agreed in all main points, viz., the preaching of the Gospel being charged on their ministers, — justification by faith in Christ being held forth as the only true method of salvation, — and a separation from the Romish Church being indispensable.

Bearing in mind that all this wonderful and blessed consummation was being effected just at the period of that memorable scene, the Papal triumph at Rome, described in a former lecture, let us observe how every point of triumph displayed by the USURPER was met and counteracted by HIM whose place he had so usurped.

The Bible, condemned to be shut up, was ’now translated, printed, and circulated. The Gospel, forbidden to be preached, was now, freed from all the glosses of the Fathers, proclaimed by hundreds. The Pope himself was openly declared to be Antichrist, which name he had forbidden to be named; and the day of judgment was held forth as a day fixed and coming, when his reign and power would terminate. As he too had excommunicated the Reformers, the true followers of Christ, so was he now, and his whole religious system and retainers, cast out of the real Church.

The wretched Leo lived not to see the separation accomplished, as we have described. But he lived to hear his bull against Luther met with stem defiance by this champion of truth. “As they curse and excommunicate me for the holy verity of God, so do I curse and excommunicate them: let Christ judge between us, whose excommunication, his or mine, shall stand approved before him.” He lived to see the failure of every means set in order to stop the progress of the Reformation. It remained for his successors to see this great revolution ecclesiastically and politically accomplished, a pledge of what yet awaits the Popedom, when “He that shall come will come,” and by “the brightness of his coming” at once totally and for ever destroy the man of sin and his whole kingdom.

Continued in Revelation 11:2-6. Retrospective View Of The Two Witnesses – Part I

All chapters of The Last Prophecy: An Abridgment of Elliott’s Horae Apocalypticae

This is the continuation of The Last Prophecy: An Abridgment of Elliott’s Horae Apocalypticae.

Chronological Notice Of The Reformation.

[5] And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven,
[6] And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer:
[7] But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets. (Rev 10:5-7)

ANOTHER GRACIOUS ANNOUNCEMENT, revealed at the same juncture, proceeding from the same Divine Messenger of the Covenant, and bearing the attestation of his own solemn oath! And to what end? Is it not that they “might have a strong consolation” who have fled to Jesus, the hope anew set before them? At a time when truth was struggling to emerge from long-continued darkness — when the conflicting principles and forces of Christ and Antichrist were gathering for the battle, and fresh trials and tribulations were preparing for the faithful witnesses for Jesus — how consolatory to these to be assured by God’s own Word that the desired consummation was drawing nigh, and that yet a little while, and the great mystery of God in providence and in prophecy shall be accomplished! How solemn and quickening too the thought! For time, it was said, would be extended no further (such seems the meaning of the clause) to the Antichristian tyranny whose thunders had just before echoed on the scene; but that in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, at what time soerer he might be destined to sound, all would be consummated according to the glad tidings declared to the prophets.

Truly it must have cheered the heart of St. John in this prolonged vision of good overborne by evil, and of the flock of Christ harassed and persecuted by the world of ungodliness, to have been enabled to mark, as it were, on the chronometer of heaven the advance of the hour of deliverance, and to have the assurance of his Lord himself that the longed-for day was approaching. But here, as in other places, the Apostle must be considered in his representative character; and the inference follows, that there ought to have been at this period, both with Luther and amongst the other fathers of the Reformation, a strong and prevailing expectation of the approaching end. We have seen in former visions how impressions were widely and deeply experienced in the Church that corresponded with the solemn chronological notices ’on the Apocalyptic scene. According to the intimation under the fifth seal given to the souls under the altar, the Church at the epoch corresponding did expect, we saw, that a new and distinct period of martyrdom would intervene before the end. Again, agreeably with the cry of “Woe to the earth by reason of the three trumpets yet to sound,” occurring just before the blast of the fifth angel, there was at the corresponding date a very general portending of the world’s end, and of fearful trials accompanying it. In like manner, correspondently with the intimation here made to St. John, we learn that a strong persuasion existed just at the time of the Reformation, not only that the era was remarkable, but that a new dispensation was near at hand. The burst of intellect and of literature consequent on the invention of printing, the discovery and so-called Christianization of a new world, excited expectations among all, and Papists said the glory of the Pope’s kingdom was about to be extended over the world.

Very different truly, and grounded chiefly on very different considerations, was the expectation of the true Church, though in it too high anticipations were raised. Once that Antichrist had been discovered to exist, and that in strength and power, they looked for his downfall; and now that the Bible was drawn forth from its concealment, they expected that Papal superstition should fall by means of the “breath of the Lord,” as well as by the “brightness of his coming,” according to the Scriptural predictions referred to in the angel’s oath. (Dan. 7:26; 2 Thess. 2:8) Specially then did Luther and the German Reformers look forward with hope to the fulfillment of these promises; while the Reformers of England and Switzerland seized on this very passage of the Apocalypse, and, calculating that the chronological place then reached in the prophetic history of the Church was that of the sixth trumpet, waited in expectation of the sounding of the seventh, and the consummation consequent on it.

In answer to the Pope’s bull of condemnation Luther writes, “Sure that our Lord Jesus reigneth, I fear not thousands of popes. Oh, that God may at length visit us, and cause to shine forth the glory of Christ’s coming, wherewith to destroy that man of sin!” Writing to Staupitz the next year he says, “The abominations of the Pope, With his whole kingdom, must be destroyed; and the Lord does this without hand, by his word alone.” Again, “The kingdom of Antichrist, according to the prophet Daniel, must be broken without hand; that is, the Scriptures will be understood by and by, and every one will preach and speak against Papal tyranny from the Word of God, until (and here he quotes St. Paul) this ‘man of sin’ is deserted by all his adherents, and dies of himself.” Again, to the Duke of Savoy, on hearing that he favored the Reformation; — “Let those who sincerely preach the Gospel be protected; this is the way in which Christ will destroy Antichrist by ‘the breath of his mouth;’ and thus, as it is in Daniel, ‘he shall be broken without hand,’ whose coming is with lying wonders.” Nor did the adoption and misuse of the same idea by fanatics alter his views. It only seemed to him quite in accordance with the usual device of Satan to attempt to overthrow truth by counterfeit. As be advanced in life, he only gathered that some things yet remained to be accomplished before the end, — some wasting away of the Papal power through the Gospel word, some temporary apostasy possibly of the Protestant body, and consequent brief revival of Papal ascendancy; perhaps, too, some confederation of Pope and Turk against Christ’s faithful protesting ones. To the last (though baffled in attempting to fix a date in accordance with Scripture), the idea did not forsake him, and this thought cheered him in his dying hour, that soon the coming of Christ should appear. Melanchthon’s views were very similar. Like Luther he explained the apostate king of Daniel 11, in respect of his “abomination making desolate,” his pride, tyranny, and fated end (as well as the little horn of Daniel 8), to mean the popes and popedom. He also used the chronological argument, long noted before his time by Christians, of the seven days of the creation being a type of the duration of the world. “Six thousand years shall this world stand, and after that be destroyed, 2000 years without the law, 2000 years under the law of Moses, and 2000 years under the Messiah; and if any of these years he not fulfilled, they will be shortened on account of our sins, as intimated by Christ.” He felt persuaded that the protest against Antichrist, and the consequent Reformation, was that very consumption of the enemy predicted by Daniel and St. Paul to occur just before his end and final destruction at Christ’s coming.

The Swiss Reformers contemporary with Luther and Melanchthon wrote in the same strain. One of these, Leo Juda, in A.D. 1552, in a commentary on the Apocalypse, applying the charges of murder, idolatry, sorceries, fornications, etc., in the ninth chapter to the then Church of Rome, and the tenth chapter generally to the Reformation, writes of the passage before us, “Christ taketh an oath, and sweareth by God his heavenly Father, even with great fervency, that the time of his coming to judge the quick and the dead is now nigh at hand, and that when the victory that was prophesied to be fulfilled of Antichrist (which victory the seventh angel must blow forth according to his office) were once past, then should altogether be fulfilled what all prophets did ever prophesy of the kingdom of Messiah the Saviour, which is the highest mystery.” Bullinger, in A.D. 1555, speaks in similar terms and with a like application; — “Christ swears that there is but one trumpet remaining; therefore let us lift up our heads, because our redemption draweth nigh.”

In Britain, that isle of the sea, on which the Angel planted his right foot, we find Bishop Latimer expressing the same hope; — “St. Paul saith the Lord will not come till the swerving from the faith cometh, which thing is already done and past. Antichrist is known throughout the world. Wherefore the day is not far off.” He also takes the chronological view of the world’s endurance to be 6000 years, and says, “So there is now left but 448 years, and even these days shall be shortened for the elect’s sake.” Moreover, in an Advent sermon he says, in allusion to the shortening of the days, “So that peradventure it (the second Advent) may come in my days, old as I am, or in my children’s days.”

Another example is furnished by Bale, afterwards Bishop of Ossory. In a commentary on the Apocalypse he applies the passage before us to his own time, A.D. 1545, as being then in the sixth age of the Church, and the seventh trumpet only as being yet to come. Again, on Rev. 20:3, after recounting a list of Christian confessors, including Luther, Melanchthon, etc., by whom Antichrist’s tyranny had been disclosed, he says, “I doubt not but within few days the breath of Christ’s mouth, which is his living Gospel, shall utterly destroy him.”

We need not adduce more to establish the fact that, from the time of Luther’s and Zwingle’s discovery of the Antichrist of prophecy being none other than the Roman Popes, the conviction was strongly impressed on their minds, as by divine communication, that the time of Antichrist’s destruction, though not yet come, was not far remote, and therewith an expectation of the coming of Christ’s kingdom and the ending of the mystery of God.

Nor did this prophetic chronological discovery die away through the whole of this and the subsequent century. Indeed from it, as from a point of light, Protestant interpreters have made their way to the solution of other parts of the Apocalyptic prophecy, even to the present day.

Not the Reformers only, but numbers of the Lord’s faithful and tried servants ever since that time have found in the Angel’s information, thus conveyed, a source of comfort and encouragement most influential and practical, suited above all things to animate them for the great work they have had before them, — the doing and suffering, in all their subsequent conflicts, as the Lord’s witnesses, with Antichrist, the world, and Satan. Must we not see and admire the goodness and wisdom of God in this revelation?

Continued in Revelation 10:8-11 And 11:1-2. The Covenant Angel’s Commission

All chapters of The Last Prophecy: An Abridgment of Elliott’s Horae Apocalypticae

U.S. Army Brigadier General Thomas M. Harris was a member of the 12-man military commission that tried eight of the conspirators in the Lincoln assassination. (Four of the conspirators were executed!) Harris later wrote a book entitled “Rome’s Responsibility for the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln”, which was first published in 1897. (His book exposes Papal Rome’s – and her Jesuit Order’s – involvement in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln in 1865.) Brigadier General Harris gave a warning to the American people at the beginning of his book, and I believe that it is as applicable today as it was when written at the end of the 19^th century. Here are some excerpts from his warning:

“…A foreign political power [Ed.: i.e., Papal Rome]…has gotten a lodgment [Ed.: a military term for a foothold that has been gained or seized in the enemy’s territory] in this land of Liberty [Ed.: i.e., the American Constitutional Republic], and…is evidently bent on the destruction of our free institutions, and substituting for them Papal despotism: a despotism that lords it over the minds, the consciences, and the actions of its subjects – and thus renders them incapable of loyalty to any other government.

…It is evident that a crisis is even now upon us – a crisis in which the world-old contest between freedom and despotism is to be definitely and finally settled. This is an old fight. The cause of liberty seemed to have achieved the victory when our forefathers achieved their independence through a successful revolution and founded our government on the principles for the first time formally announced in our Declaration of Independence – securing to our people the natural rights of man: freedom of the mind and conscience, freedom of worship, freedom of speech and of action, and protection in the exercise of these rights. [Ed.: Various popes and high-level Roman Catholic prelates throughout history have anathematized, condemned, and denounced the very freedoms that we Americans cherish.]

…The cause of human liberty is in danger… Is this all imaginary, or is there a real danger hanging over us like a cloud? Is the Roman Catholic Church the friend, or the foe of liberty? Is it a branch of the Church of [Jesus] Christ, in common with the various Protestant denominations, laboring in common with them, for the establishment of Christ’s kingdom on earth? If we answer this question in the light of history, in the light of present experience, in the light of the monstrous claims of the Pope, and in the light of the spirit by which it is everywhere and always animated, and in the light of its present efforts in our country, and in all lands, we must say that it does not, in any degree, bear the marks of a church of [Jesus] Christ. It [Ed.: i.e., the Roman Catholic Church] is, in fact, only a compact, well-organized, and powerful political machine, wielded in the interest of the greatest despotism that has ever cursed the earth. …It has never manifested the spirit of Christ in all of its past history, and so is not a Christian church at all; and as [Ed.: i.e., since] it has always been grasping after temporal power, and civil domination, and is now, as it has always been, laboring for civil supremacy all over the world, we are surely warranted in calling it a huge and dangerous political machine… But are our institutions in danger from this foe? Have we any cause for alarm? …Yes, my fellow countrymen, there is cause for alarm… Every citizen, and every sojourner in this country, who is loyal to the Roman Catholic Church, is an enemy to our government, of necessity, for he yields his highest allegiance to the Pope of Rome, a foreign potentate, who has time and again anathematized every fundamental principle of our government. He has denounced liberty of conscience, freedom of speech and of press, freedom of worship and of teaching, as pestilent and damnable heresies – destructive to order, and to the peace and welfare of society. [Ed.: For an excellent example of papal hatred of civil and religious liberty, please read Pope Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors.] The highest dignitaries of this so-called church have declared their purpose to make this [Ed.: the American Constitutional Republic] a Roman Catholic country…”

This is the continuation of The Last Prophecy: An Abridgment of Elliott’s Horae Apocalypticae.

Discovery Of Christ The Saviour. Discovery Of Antichrist The Usurper, A.D. 1513 — 1521.

[1] ¶ And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire:
[2] And he had in his hand a little book open: and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth,
[3] And cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth: and when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices.
[4] And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about to write: and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not. (Rev 10:1-4)

[II] IT HAS BEEN well remarked that “the Reformation passed from the mind of Luther into the mind of Western Europe,” and that its “different phases succeeded each other in the soul of Luther, its instrumental originator, before its accomplishment in the world.” Hence the importance of tracing its development in the history of the Reformer himself, the master-spirit, under God, of that great revolution.

Of these phases, the two which gave rise to all the rest were, the discovery of Christ in the fullness of his grace and truth, and the discovery of the predicted Antichrist in the Papal apostasy. These two appear to have a distinct and direct prefigurement in that portion of the vision which we have already in part considered, and which is repeated as the heading of this Lecture.

[1] Luther, the son of a poor miner of Mansfield, was born A.D. 1483. In his early boyhood, when at school both at Magdeburg and at Eisnach, he had often to beg his daily food, with the pitiful cry, “Bread for the love of God;”and was indebted to a burgher’s wife for the means of pursuing his studies — almost for his preservation. Grown to manhood, he passed four years at the University of Erfurt, where his intellectual powers and learning excited general admiration. But just as the honors and emoluments of the world seemed about to be opened to his attainment, he suddenly, to the dismay of his friends, renounced the world and its brilliant prospects, and betook himself to the solitude of an Augustine monastery. Thoughts deeper and mightier than affected others around him were then pressing on his soul and induced this strange step.

Luther had found a Bible hid in the shelves of the University library. Till then he had known no more of the Scriptures than what were given in the Breviary or by the preachers. He was at once riveted by what he read. It increased, even to intenseness, the desire of his heart to know God. At the same time he found therein descriptions of man’s sinfulness and of God’s holiness which awed and alarmed him. Providential occurrences following soon after confirmed and deepened the work on his conscience. An illness which had nearly proved fatal brought death to his view. He saw a beloved friend cut off with scarce a moment’s warning. He was overtaken in a journey by a terrific lightning storm; and he associated it with the judgment of an angry God, whom he felt unprepared to meet. How shall I stand justified before God? What will it profit me if I gain the whole world and lose my own soul? These were now the absorbing thoughts of his mind. Thenceforth the world was to him as nothing. But while he longed to know God, neither his own understanding nor the philosophy and learning of the University yielded him the light he needed. He longed to propitiate him, but his conscience told him how inadequate for the purpose were his best performances. It had long been a notion that the convent was the place where, by penances and prayers, the favor of God was most surely to be attained. He gathered his friends around him, ate his farewell meal with them, then sought the monastery. Its gate opened and closed on him. He was an Augustinian monk.

But was his object gained? Did he find the holiness or the peace with God that he longed for? Far from it. In vain he practiced all the strictest rules of the monkish life; in vain he multiplied prayers, and penances, and self-mortifications. He found that in changing his dress he had not changed his heart. The consciousness of sin remained, its indwelling power, its guilt, its danger. “O my sin! my sin!” he was often heard to exclaim. Pale and emaciated, behold him at one time fallen down in his cell, apparently dead, from the exhaustion of the mental anguish, yet more than of sleeplessness and fasting.

There was a copy of the Bible chained in the monastery. With eagerness he renewed his intense study of it, but still found no consolation. Even the Gospel seemed but to increase his terrors, inasmuch as he found the wrath of God therein revealed against the ungodly.

It was at this time he met with Staupitz, Vicargeneral of the Augustins, who at once distinguished from the rest the young monk of Mansfield, with his eyes sunk in their sockets, his countenance stamped with melancholy, his body emaciated by study, watchings, and fastings, so that they might have counted his bones. Staupitz could almost divine the cause of such suffering, having himself in secret gone through somewhat of the same conflicts, until in the Gospel, rightly understood, he had found a Saviour. He sought and gained the confidence of Luther. He entered with him on the subjects of his anxiety. The Bible lay open before them; Staupitz unfolded to him from it the love and mercy of God to man as exhibited in Christ crucified. He spoke of his death as the expiation for penitent sinners; his righteousness and perfect justice of life as their plea and trust — that perfect and inherent righteousness being accepted by God vicariously, and so called “God’s righteousness,” in place of the imperfect and defiled performance of penitent sinners; just as his death was also vicarious and expiatory of the guilt of their sins.

When Luther still objected his sinfulness, it was answered by Staupitz, Would you have merely the semblance of a sinner and the semblance of a Saviour? And when he objected again that it was to pendent sinners only that Christ’s salvation belonged, and that how to obtain this he had, with all his self-mortifications, sought in vain, Staupitz replied, “It is from the love of God alone that true repentance has its origin. Seek it not in those macerations and mortifications of the body! Seek it in contemplating God’s love in Christ Jesus! Love him who has thus first loved you!”

Luther heard the words, and received them, not as the voice of the Vicargeneral, but as the Divine Spirit speaking by him. It opened the Gospel to him and showed him the two things he sought — the principle of justification before God and the principle of godly penitence and sanctification within. The light of the glory of God in Christ began now to shine upon him. With the eye of faith he beheld the Sun of righteousness shining on a lost world; and the dark clouds of mental conflict which he had passed through served but to reflect, as it were, the rainbow of covenant mercy. In the sunshine of this forgiving love he found sweet sensations. “O happy sin, which has found such a Saviour!” The subject of repentance was now a delight to him. He sought out in a Bible, given him by Staupitz, all that related to it; and these passages, he said, seemed as if they danced round his emancipated soul. He was no longer inactive; the love of Christ constrained him. From the view of Jesus he drew strength as well as forgiveness. Inward and outward variations and some severe illnesses confirmed his faith. On one occasion indeed, being sent on a mission to Rome, he had yielded to the influence of early associations, and for a while returned to superstitious observances. He made the round of the churches, celebrating masses in them, as that which might yield a blessing. He even climbed on his knees the Pilate staircase, near the Lateran, brought, it was said, from Jerusalem, to which penance was attached an indulgence and remission of sin. But while in the act a voice as from heaven seemed to him to sound in his ears, “The justified by faith shall live; they, and they only.” He started up, and from that time the superstitions of his old education had never power to obscure his view of the Sun of righteousness. Thus was Luther inwardly prepared to enter upon the work designed for him, as God’s chosen minister, of showing to others what he had himself experienced. And the way was soon opened. He was nominated, by Staupitz to a professorship in the university at Wittenberg, recently founded by the Elector of Saxony. There, in A.D. 1512, being appointed doctor of divinity ad Biblia, and having to vow on his appointment to defend the Bible doctrines, he received his vocation as a Reformer. Forthwith, in his lectures to the students and in his sermons to the people, he began to preach the Gospel that had been opened to him, and to set forth the glory of JESUS, mighty to save. His letters and conversations were imbued with the same subject. “Learn,” he would say, “to sing the new song, Thou, Jesus, art my righteousness: I am thy sin; thou hast taken on thyself, what was mine; thou hast given me what was thine!” Against the doctrine of man’s ability and strength to attain to righteousness he published theses, and offered to sustain them. Thus, as has been well said, he attacked rationalism before he attacked superstition, and proclaimed the righteousness of God before he retrenched the additions of man.

Multitudes crowded to hear a doctrine so new, and maintained with eloquence so convincing. “It seemed,” said Melanchthon, “as if a new day had risen after a long and dark night.”

Hitherto all had gone on without disturbance, the revelation of Jesus being confined to the few at Wittenberg; but now the conflict between Christ and Antichrist was about to commence. Tetzel came with his sale of indulgences near to VVittenberg, and the spirit of the Reformer was kindled. He published his celebrated ninety-five theses against indulgences, affixing them, as was customary, on the door of the principal church, and offering to maintain them against all opposers. The truths put forward most prominently were — the Pope’s insufficiency to forgive sin or to confer salvation; Christ’s all-sufficiency, and the true penitent’s participation by God’s free gift, not merely in the blessing of forgiveness, but in all the riches of Christ, irrespective of Papal absolution or indulgence. To these he added other declarations also, as to the Gospel of the grace of God, and not the merits of saints, being the true treasure of the Church, and against the avarice of the priestly traffickers in indulgences; and, moreover, an exhortation to real Christians to follow Christ as their chief, even through crosses and tribulation to the heavenly kingdom.

The evening of their publication — the 31st of October, All Hallow Eve — has been remembered ever since as the epoch of the Reformation. With a rapidity, power, and effect unparalleled, unexpected, unintended — even as the voice of one mightier than Luther, and so felt by him — the report echoed throughout Christendom. It was felt by friends and fees to be a mortal shock to that whole fabric of error and imposition which had been built up during ten centuries of apostasy, and a mortal blow too, though unperceived by him who struck it, to the Papal supremacy. The minds of men were prepared to recognize Christ’s headship and rights in the Church; and it was soon seen that the overthrow of Papal dominion, and the erection of the Gospel standard (already by the contemporary teaching of Zwingle and other Reformers accomplished in some of the Swiss cantons) would be accomplished in England and some of the Continental kingdoms. Thus was the Angel’s placing one foot on land and the other on the sea, and uttering his voice as when a lion roareth, fulfilled. From that time the light increased to the full exhibition of Christian truth, and more especially by the thousands in our own favored land, to the full discovery of Christ the Saviour.

[2] We have now to consider that which formed the second great movement of the Reformation — the discovery by the Church of Antichrist in the Papal usurper; and this we find prefigured also in the vision before us. “And when he had cried, the seven thunders uttered their own voices. And when the seven thunders had uttered their own voices I was about to write. And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Seal up the things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not.”

What mean these seven thunders? The difficulty in the way of most commentators is the command that they should be sealed, as if it were the intention that no mortal should know their import. But had this been so, why were they named at all? It is clear that some intimation was by the revelation to be conveyed to the Church, of which John, who heard the sounds, was the representative. Certain points are here very observable: —

First, these thunders are said to utter voices and to speak, evidently in a manner intelligible to the Apostle. This peculiarity distinguishes them from those which are elsewhere mentioned as proceeding from before the throne, and appearing to be the echoes of judgments passing on earth.

Secondly, they uttered (lit) their own voices — not the voice of God, nor of the Angel of the covenant, whose word had just preceded them, but in dissonance with, and opposed to the voice of Christ. Does not this suggest the voice of Antichrist?

Thirdly, the prohibition “Write them not.” Three times was the Apostle desired to write the words spoken on other occasions. But in every such instance the reason is annexed. The words to be written are “true and faithful;”they are “the sayings of the Spirit” — “the true sayings of God.” (Rev. 14:13; 19:9; 21:5) The inference, therefore, to be drawn in this place from ” Write not,” is that the voices of these thunders are not true; they utter their own voices; they are not from heaven, but rather self-called thunders. Doubtless St. John was but too familiar with the imperial decrees or fulmina (thunders), for he was then suffering banishment in Patmos by reason of one of them. May it not be from the same quarter that these will proceed? he might naturally conclude. May they not be Roman thunders pretending to inspiration, terrific in their threatening and effects? Again, why seven thunders? Like the two-topped lightning of the Grecian poets, because issuing from the two summits of Parnassus, do not these also point to the locality whence they proceed? And are not the seven famed hills of Rome directly alluded to in the seventeenth chapter of this Revelation? The very expression, “A septenary of voices,” has been used by Roman poets when speaking of a voice from that city. -Clearly, then, we are to regard these seven thunders as fulminated from the mock heaven of the Papal Antichrist’s supremacy — ” The seven thrones of the Supreme Pontificate.”

And, lastly, the use of the definite article, the seven thunders, denotes their notoriety and pro-eminence. The Papal anathemas were emphatically the thunders, and the Pope the thunderer. Invested with which terrors by the prevailing superstition throughout the long Middle Ages, where was the prince or the kingdom that had not trembled before them?

Thus, then, is the signification evident. No sooner had the voice of Christ been heard declaring the great truths of the Gospel, and speaking by the lion-like mouth of the great reformer, than the Vatican uttered its bulls condemning the bold movement; which, said John, “I was about to write.”

And here, in tracing the historical fulfillment, we must bear in mind that the Evangelist witnessed these Apocalyptic visions in a symbolic character; not as an individual man. What was seen and heard by him appeared to be that which would be seen and heard by the faithful who should be in existence at the very time of the evolving of each successive scene of the advancing drama. Hence the inference follows that each particular seen or done by the Evangelist in vision must be taken to symbolize something correspondent in the views and actions of those Reformers, re-awakened at the crisis before us, by the apostolical spirit outpoured again upon the Church. Luther was now the leader of the Reformation. We will give his own account of what he felt at this time. “When I began the affair of the indulgences, I was a monk and a most mad Papist. I would have been ready to murder anyone who should have said a word against the duty of obedience to the Pope… The popes, cardinals, bishops, monks, and priests were the objects of my confidence… If I had then braved the Pope, as I now do, I should have expected the earth to swallow me up alive like Korah and Abiram.” It was in this state of mind, A.D. 1518, that he thus wrote to the Pope: “Most blessed father! prostrate at the feet of thy Blessedness, I offer myself to thee with all I am and all I have. Kill me or make me live, call or recall, approve or reprove, as shall please thee. I will acknowledge thy voice as the voice of Christ presiding and speaking in thee.” Thus when the seven thunders uttered their own voices, “I was about to write,” i.e., recognize, publish, submit to them, even as if they had been what they pretended to be, an oracle from heaven.

But at this critical point, a real message from heaven was conveyed to his mind and preserved him. Summoned to appear before the Papal Legate, when the Pope’s judgment was pronounced in favor of indulgences and of the efficacy of the sacraments irrespective of faith in the recipient, he saw its opposition to the word and spirit of the Gospel, and resisted it. It was the Spirit’s whisper, “Write not!” Yet more; when, in preparing for a public disputation, he had been under the necessity of examining into the origin and character of the Papal supremacy, the true character of the whole system began to open to his view. Thus he wrote to a friend about the close of 1518, — “My pen is ready to give birth to something greater. I know not whence these thoughts come to me. I will send you what I write, that you may see if I have well conjectured in believing that the Antichrist, of whom St. Paul speaks, now reigns in the court of Rome.” The thought was fearful, and some time after he wrote again, “To separate myself from the Apostolic See of Rome has not entered my mind.” But still the scruples returned. The Elector of Saxony who befriended him was startled with hearing, “I have been turning over the decretals of the Popes, and would whisper it into thine ears that I begin to entertain doubt (so foully is Christ dishonored in them) whether the Pope be not the very Antichrist of Scripture.” Further study of Scripture, and further teaching of the Holy Spirit helped forward the suspicion; and when, in A.D. 1520, the Papal thunders of excommunication were issued against him, accordantly with that monitory voice which had bade St. John “seal them up” (the very phrase of the times for rejecting Papal bulls), Luther electrified Europe. Having summoned a vast concourse of all ranks, he kindled a fire outside the walls of Wittenberg; and by the hands of the hangman, the hull, with the Papal decretals and canons accompanying, was committed to the flames. In his public answer to the bull he poured contempt on the Papal thunders, calling them the infernal voices of Antichrist.

Once convinced, no earthly power could induce Luther to a recantation. When summoned before the Emperor, the Legate, the Germanic princes and nobles at the Diet of Worms, he strengthened the cause by a bold confession. A goodly company had now joined him; — Melanchthon, Carlstadt, Bugenhagen, Justus Jonas, and many others, fathers of the Reformation. In the German towns and universities, by priests, monks, students, and people, the new doctrines were enthusiastically received. The work was fast progressing in Switzerland. The effect was confessed by the astonished Legate, when, in traveling through Germany to Worms, instead of the wonted honors and reverence of his high office, he found himself disregarded and shunned as an agent of ANTICHRIST. A mighty revolution had begun, and who could foresee its issue?

Continued in Revelation 10:5-7. The Angel’s Oath

All chapters of The Last Prophecy: An Abridgment of Elliott’s Horae Apocalypticae

This is the continuation of The Last Prophecy: An Abridgment of Elliott’s Horae Apocalypticae.

The Epoch Of Antichrist’s Triumph, A.D. 1513.

[1] ¶ And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire:
[2] And he had in his hand a little book open: and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth,
[3] And cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth: and when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices. (Rev 10:1-3)

GLORIOUS APPEARANCE! What a vision to rejoice the heart of the Evangelist! Who this bright and cloud-robed Being was he must have known full well, and what his mission he could easily anticipate. Is it not evidently the Lord Jesus, the Covenant Angel that now appears, come to vindicate his own cause, to assert his power, and by a renewed revelation of his grace and gospel to begin the consumption of Antichrist’s usurped dominion? The rainbow must have betokened to St. John an interposition in support of the covenant of mercy, radiating from the Sun of Righteousness himself: in the roaring of the Lion of Judah was heard the voice of authority rebuking the enemies of God; and in the open volume he beheld the great means of effecting the divine purpose, the Bible. From all he must have gathered that at this juncture, when the power of darkness and corruption should be at its height, some sudden, striking, and direct intervention of Providence would take place, such as we cannot hesitate to recognize in the REFORMATION, with which the sixteenth century opened.

And here we observe another remarkable instance of that allusive contrast of which we have before spoken; the circumstantials of this vision of Christ’s revelation to his Church having at the same time a pointed reference to several particulars attending the display of Antichrist’s pretensions to Christendom at this very period.

[1] To those latter we shall first refer, and inquire what is taking place at Rome, that central metropolis of the world, as well as of the visible Church of Christ. History has fully preserved the record of the high festival. It is the month of March, A.D. 1513. From the window of the conclave of cardinals an announcement is made: “I tell you tidings of great joy: a new Pope is elected, Leo X.;” and loud and joyous are the acclamations. Immediately the coronation begins at St. Peter’s; but the grander ceremonial of his going to take possession of St. John Lateran — the church by the bishopric of which, as “mother and mistress” of all others, he is to be constituted universal pontiff — was delayed for a month that pompous preparation might be made. And now the day is come. Visitors from all parts fill the city. Besides the hierarchy of Rome, there appear many of the independent princes of Italy, ambassadors also from the states of Western Christendom, and the various deputies who represent the Church universal in the General Council now holden at the Lateran. The concourse from early morn has been to the great square of St. Peter’s. Thence formed on horseback, the procession, crossing the bridge of St. Angelo, traverses the city to the Lateran church. First in order a troop of cavalry, then a long line of nobles and gentry, succeeded by the senators of Rome, Florentine citizens and other provincials; next the Pope’s bodyguard, with another file of barons and gentry. Envoys from Germany, Spain, Portugal, and other kingdoms follow; then abbots, bishops, archbishops, and patriarchs, above 250; then the cardinals wearing jeweled miters in rich costumes, with streaming banners as on a day of jubilee. At length, closed in by a troop of military, the Hero (is it not rather the God?) of the day — the POPE comes. He rides on a white horse; a cope of richest broidery mantles him; the ring of his espousal with the universal Church glitters on his finger, and on his head the regno or imperial tiara of three crowns. A canopy is borne over him by the chiefest Romans. Beneath him the streets are strewed with tapestry and flowers; and, as he approaches, the multitude fall on their knees to receive his benediction.

“It seemed to me,” said the Romanist narrator of the pageant, “that it was the Redeemer of mankind going to Jerusalem, there being substituted only for ‘Hosanna to the Son of David,’ the cry ‘Life to the Pope, the Lion!’” But is it really the case that the people regard him as filling the place of Christ to them? that they look to him as their Redeemer and Saviour? Even so.

Every mouth dwells on the high station of the Pope as divine rather than human. Every tongue tells of Leo’s personal virtues, his fitness for the office of CHRIST’S VICEREGENT; and as with Christ, so now with the advent of Leo, they anticipate a new era of happiness to man.

On every side the splendid devices and paintings, and other decorations for the occasion which meet the eye, while they prove the revival of the arts in Italy, may be taken as the most faithful exposition of the general state of thought and feeling regarding him. In these the history, titles, and offices of Christ Jesus are applied to Leo, and with a singular adaptation to the prophecy before us. In one, in the Genoese arc, the azure heaven is represented. Refulgent with glory as the new-risen sun, the Pope is portrayed on the horizon: a rainbow reflects its radiance on an animated landscape, seen as if just emerging out of night and tempest; below which is the sentence, “The world hath been unveiled to light ,the king of glory has come forth!” Another painting in the are of the Florentines represents the Pope with one foot on the land, the other on the sea, having a key in his right hand with which he opens heaven, and in the other another key (of hell, or perhaps of purgatory); with the legend beneath, “In thy hand I behold the empire of earth, and sea, and heaven.” Yet again the lion appears as a symbol in these devices. For instance, in the are near the bridge of St. Angelo there appear two lions, each with one foot on the Papal insignia, to designate that it is the Pope they symbolize, the other on the mundane globe, with the inscriptions, “The prey is worthy of my glory!” and, “To me the charge belongs!” Various other devices might be instanced; such as Leo receiving the homage and offerings of the Magi; sitting a youth in a cardinal’s dress disputing with the doctors; impersonating Christ at his baptism; one while surrounded by his cardinals sacrificing, with the scroll, “Tanquam Aaron;”then opposite, a leader among his armed men, “Tanquam Moses;”or, lastly, as a fisherman exercising Christ’s prerogative, separating the good fish from the bad, returning the good into the river and casting the bad into a burning fire.

Such is the exaltation of the great usurper of Christ’s place, the Papal Antichrist. While, shut up in a small box covered with gold brocade, guarded by some five-and-twenty attendants, the consecrated wafer is carried to swell the procession. That, they tell you, is CHRIST! Oh, foul dishonor to their Lord! A state-prisoner to add to the brilliancy of the pageant, a puppet in the hands of the priesthood!

Meanwhile, with every eye fixed upon him and every’ knee bent before him, the Pope reaches the Lateran. Here the studied mimicry of Christ is continued. Dismounting at the vestibule, Leo takes a lowly seat for a moment in assumed humility; then, amidst the chanting “He raiseth up the poor from the dust to make him inherit the throne of glory,” he is raised by the officials, carried up the nave, and seated on the throne within. They call it his assumption or taking up, as if, like Christ, his elevation was to a heavenly glory, with all power given to him in heaven and earth.

These were not merely the exaggerations of popular excitement. The devices signified realities acted out in the history of Papal pretensions. As the sun in its effulgence, he claimed to be the dispenser of light to the world — the light of truth and of salvation. In all disputed matters of faith the appeal was not to the Bible but to the Pope, the very statements of the Bible being supposed to derive their authority from him, not he from them. One of the decretals burnt by Luther was, “The Pope has power to interpret Scripture and to teach as he pleases, and no one may interpret differently.” And the rainbow emblematized his prerogative of mercy to dispense indulgences, whereby all punishments of sin, temporal and eternal, were remitted, its guilt blotted out, and innocence restored to the sinner. It is impossible to over-estimate the tremendous efficacy of these claims in support of such a system of superstition and error.

And so it was that immediately after Leo’s assumption an opportunity arose for the exercise of this prerogative of mercy. The design had been proposed by his predecessors of building the Church of St. Peter’s, and the execution of it devolved on him. Artists were ready. Everything needful was procured save money. But whence was money to be provided? He must draw upon the credulity of the people. He resolved upon an issue of indulgences, the proceeds of which were to be given to the church.

In Germany more especially the sale went forward. Tetzel, a Dominican, was the vendor employed. As he traveled with pomp from town to town, a herald announced his approach, “The grace of God is at your gates.” Forthwith magistrates, clergy, monks, and nuns were formed into procession, and with wax-lights, standards, and the ringing of bells went out to meet him. The Papal bull was carried on a velvet cushion, a red cross elevated by the commissary near it, and amid the chanting of hymns and fuming of incense it was borne to the principal church and received with sound of organ. The red cross and Papal arms having been placed by the altar, the commissary mounted the pulpit and thus addressed the crowd: “Now is the heaven opened, now is grace and salvation offered. Christ, acting no more himself as God, has resigned all power to the Pope. Hence this dispensation of mercy. By virtue of the letters bearing the Papal seal that I offer you, not only is the guilt of past sins remitted, but that of sins that you may wish to commit in future. None is so great but that pardon is ensured to the purchaser, and not sins of the living only, but of the dead in purgatory. As soon as the money sounds in the receiving box, the soul of the purchaser’s relative flies from purgatory to heaven. Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation. Who so insensate, who so hard-hearted as not to profit by it? Soon shall I shut the gate of heaven and extinguish the bright sunbeams of grace that shine before you. How shall they escape that neglect so great salvation?” Then the confessionals are set, each with the Pope’s arms attached. The confessors dilate on the virtue of indulgences. Crowds come to the purchase. Some of the more thoughtful question, “Can the grace of God be bought?” and turn away. With others the doubt is silenced by the reflection that it comes from the Pope. Can the Vicar of Christ err? So they, too, come to the purchase. The price is from twenty-five ducats to a half-florin (i.e., from £5 to ls.), according to the rank and opulence of the purchaser. The monk’s money-box full, he deducts his wages, pays his reckoning at the inn with an indulgence, and transmits the surplus to the Prince-Archbishop of Mayence, whose agent he is, and at whose commands he acts, and passes on to the next town to perform the same blasphemous part again. An agreement had been made between the Archbishop and Pope for the division of the receipts, and so the moiety flows to Rome — the price of the merchandise of souls. Thus the cheat is consummated. Meanwhile the deluded purchasers live, and perhaps die, with a lie in their right hand. And as regards the Saviour, robbed by the usurping Antichrist of his own attribute of mercy, who can tell the magnitude of the insult offered to him, the true Sun of Righteousness? So was the first picture acted out in the history of Leo. ’

Moreover the representation of the Pope in the Florentine arc, fixing one foot on the sea and another on the land, had its direct fulfillment. In the second year of Leo’s reign an embassy arrived from the king of Portugal. Now observe what passed. The ambassador was a general celebrated for his part in the late conquests of the Portuguese in the far Indies. In testimony of them he brought, amongst other presents to the Pope, certain animals hitherto unknown. Great was the admiration as these were led through the streets of Rome, and more especially when, on reaching the pontifical presence, the elephant stopped, and, as if with more than instinct, knelt and three times boWed down before him. Then the orator speaks. “Fear and trembling,” he says, “are come upon me, and a horrible darkness has overwhelmed me.” Then, reassured by the Pope’s serene aspect towards him, — “That divine countenance, which, shining as the sun, has dispersed the mists of my mind,” — he proceeds to narrate the Eastern conquests of the Portuguese arms, addresses the Pope as the supreme lord of all, and speaks of these conquests as the incipient fulfillment of God’s promise, “Thou shalt rule from sea to sea, and from the Tiber river to the world’s end. The kings of Arabia and Saba shall bring gifts to thee; yea, all princes shall worship thee, all nations serve thee,” and under thy auspices “there shall be one fold and one shepherd.” He concludes in the same style, “Thee as the true Vicar of Christ and God, the ruler of the whole Christian republic, we recognize, confess, profess obedience to, and adore, in thy name adoring Christ, whose representative thou art.”

We must bear in mind that this acknowledgment of the Pope’s supremacy was no new thing. Four centuries before Gregory VII. had claimed authority over the kingdoms of the world. Again, A.D. 1155, Pope Adrian IV., in the exercise of the same pretensions, gave Henry II. permission to subjugate Ireland, on condition that one penny per house should be paid as an annual quit-rent into the Roman coffers. In the fourteenth century Clement VI. gave Lewis of Spain the grant of the Canary Isles. Subsequently the Portuguese having made large discoveries on the coast of Africa towards India, Prince Henry of Portugal applied to the reigning Pope, requesting that, as Christ’s Vicar on earth, he would give the grant of these lands to him, and promising to convert the natives. A bull was issued accordingly, granting to the Portuguese all they might discover. In 1493 Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain obtained a similar grant relative to the discovery of America by Columbus, care being taken not to interfere with the previous grant to the king of Portugal. All promised to have the Pope acknowledged as universal bishop over their dominions, the judgment of the princes of Christendom consenting in each case to these pontifical grants being an unimpeachable title. In this manner did Leo place one foot on the sea, the other on the land, usurper of the rights of Christ, to whom had been promised “the heathen for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession!”

Once more let us see Leo acting out the emblem of the Lion. We must again visit St. John Lateran, and hear what is passing in a grand council there assembled. There are sitting in ordered array above 300 bishops and archbishops, arrived from England, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Savoy, and the lesser states of Italy, together with ambassadors, generals of religious orders, the patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch, and not a few other ecclesiastics from beyond the seas, the whole, under Pope Leo’s presidency, constituting the representative body of the Universal Church! The bishops are in splendid dresses and miters, and the Pope sits on a throne high and lifted up, robed in scarlet and gold, and wearing on his head the badge of universal empire. Truly he was “as God sitting in the temple of God.” (2 Thess. 2:4) This council has been summoned for the extirpation of heresy and the union and exaltation of the Church. Before the business of each day mass is celebrated, the hymn “Veni Creator Spiritus” chanted, and a sermon preached. One preacher paints on this occasion the Church as in desolation, seeking refuge with the Roman Pontiff, and prostrate at his feet addressing him, “Unhappy, degraded by wicked hands and defiled, I come to thee, my true lord and husband, to be renewed in beauty. Thou art our shepherd, our physician — in short, a second God upon earth.”5 Another figures the Church as the Heavenly Jerusalem in present desolation, and says, “But weep not, daughter of Zion! God hath raised up a Saviour, the Lion of the tribe of Judah hath come, and shall save thee from all thy enemies. On thee, 0 most blessed Leo, we fix our hopes as the promised Saviour.” And then other orators unite, “Vindicate the tent of thy spouse, purify what is polluted in thy Church. By the fire and the burning of the pastor’s office extinguish schism and heresy, that so, the renovation of the Church accomplished, the golden age may revive, and, in fine, that prophecy be fulfilled, ‘Thou shalt rule from sea to sea, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd.’” And now hearken to the lion’s voice. Accepting all this praise, this deification as his due, his first act in assertion of that sovereignty over the world which had been assigned him was to denounce as schismatics the Pisan Reform Council, mentioned in the previous lecture as being held at this time under the authority of the king of France; and straightway, behold, the two schismatic cardinals and the French king hasten to make public humiliation and ask absolution. The absolution is granted, and on the submission of the whole of Western Christendom to the Papal supremacy the schism is healed. His next lion’s roar is against the Bohemian heretics, the only ones apparently remaining. These are cited to appear, but with promise of pardon in case of submission. And when, as was triumphantly avowed by the preacher in the next session, no heretic or opposer of the Pope’s opinion was forthcoming, but all hushed in submission, then the Papal lion issues his voice of command: — First, that forasmuch as printing, that wonderful art just invented, might be used to disseminate heresy, no books be printed without consent of the Pope’s inquisitor in the district. Second, that no preaching be allowed, or explanation of the Scriptures, except in conformity with that of the recognized fathers and doctors of the Church; no mention to be made of Antichrist, or inquiries as to the time of the final judgment. Third, that the Inquisition fail not in searching for and rooting heresy out of the Church. As to reforming the Church, a few externals were to be corrected; and for its exaltation, the solemn bull was repeated and confirmed in which the Church is defined as one body under one head, the Roman Pontifi’, Christ’s representative, and of which this is the conclusion, “We declare, define, and pronounce that it is essential to the salvation of every human being that he be subject to the Roman Pontiff;”with the prefix thereto, “Whosoever obeys not, as the Scripture declares, let him die the death!” So roars the Papal lion, and the assembled Church assents. After a Te Deum of thanksgiving the members separated, each having received from the Pope a plenary remission of sins and indulgence, once in life, and in the article of death.

Such was the character of the Papal assumption of the functions of Christ at the time represented in the Apocalyptic vision. And now we are prepared to turn to the text with advantage. For so it was, that just when this Antichristian usurper was acting out the character of Christ before admiring and applauding Christendom, and was professing to exercise in regard to both worlds his prerogatives and functions, opening heaven to all believers in his magic charms, however laden with guilt, and exhibiting himself as the dispenser of covenant mercies, the fountain of grace, the saviour, the justifier, the sun of righteousness; —

Just when, as lord of the universe, he received the homage of its princes, and granted the kingdoms of the earth to whom he would; —

Just when, at his enthronization, there were exhibited paintings on which art seemed to have lavished all its ingenuity in order to depict him in these his threefold assumed offices as Christ’s vicar and impersonator, — in one as the sun with a rainbow reflecting its brightness, in another as planting one foot on the land and the other on the sea, in a third with the world in his grasp, even as when a lion roareth over his prey; —

Just when, after assuming Christ’s title of Lion, he had begun to rage against and threaten every opposer, uttering forth his own voice to the shutting up and denouncing the Book, the Word of God, —

Just then was fulfilled another symbolic figuration — devised by higher than human art, and evidently in purposed contrast to the former — which 1400 years before had foreshown in the visions of Patmos Christ himself as now at length intervening, revealing himself as the true Covenant Angel of light and mercy, putting the world under his feet, and making his mighty voice to be heard, and opening again that long-forgotten and .now forbidden Book of God. All this had been foreshadowed, and was now to be done. It is ” when the enemy shall come in like a flood that the Spirit of the Lord ” will ever “lift up a standard” for his people. “If the Lord himself had not been on our side, they had swallowed us up quick when their wrath was kindled against us. Then the waters had overwhelmed us, the stream had gone over our soul. Blessed be the Lord, who hath not given us as a prey to their teeth. (Psalm 124:1-6)

Continued in Revelation 10:1-4. The Epoch Of The Reformation

All chapters of The Last Prophecy: An Abridgment of Elliott’s Horae Apocalypticae

This is the continuation of The Last Prophecy: An Abridgment of Elliott’s Horae Apocalypticae.

A.D. 1057-1500.1

[20] And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk:
[21] Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts. (Rev 9:20-21)

THE REMARKABLE EVENTS which we have noticed in these last lectures, consummated by the destruction of the eastern third of Roman Christendom, were well calculated, we should have imagined, to arrest the other portions of the professing Church in their course of error and ungodliness and to have induced repentance and reformation. But the subsequent history of the West affords evidence to the accuracy of that prophetic announcement which had been given to the Evangelist, how that the long-prevailing doctrinal perversions and moral iniquities of men would continue wholly unaffected by these warning judgments of their Lord.

It was an awful, but a true picture — “The rest of the men repented not.” Compared with the history and fate of her sister in the East, the case of the Western Church resembled that of treacherous Judah, whose guilt was even more unpardonable than that of backsliding Israel.

The announcement made in the vision is twofold; 1st, as implying the grievous corruptions which had existed in Western Christendom during the progress of these woes; and secondly, as declaring the continuance of the same after the fall of the Greek Empire.

[1] The period embraced by the advance and decline of the Turkish woe, — “the hour, day, month, and year,” — from A.D. 1057 to 1453, is well worthy of observation in the general history of Christendom. The kingdoms of Western Europe had been slowly assuming those territorial forms and limits which, in the main, they have ever since retained. The Christian remnant in Spain, after having for a length of time confined the Moors within the kingdom of Grenada, had in the year 1452, under Ferdinand and Isabella, completely conquered and expelled them. The central Frank or French kingdom had subordinated to itself by degrees the several principalities which had been broken off. England, which, previous to the Norman conquest, had been subdivided into small states, had become united in government, and had attached Ireland and Wales to its dominion. Both France and England, thus aggrandized, had begun that rivalry of centuries which, while it gave occasion to prolonged wars, served at the same time to develop their national resources. The elective Germanic Empire, after a partial diminution of strength and glory through its wars with Rome and Switzerland (the latter having become independent), now under the house of Austria extended on the one side over Hungary and Bohemia, and on the other to the Baltic Sea. Italy, after witnessing for two or more centuries the short but brilliant course of the Lombard republics, had been subdivided into several small states. The temporal sovereignty of the Bishops of Rome had become firmly established through Central Italy, and was now fully recognized in European polity as the ecclesiastical state, or, as it was in part singularly called, the patrimony of St. Peter.

Moreover, with the political progression of these great European confederations there had been a steady advance from barbarism to comparative civilization. Chivalry had exercised a beneficial influence on outward manners. Internal trade, and still more maritime commerce, had led the way to civil liberty; so that many free towns had been established, and feudal servitude had gradually disappeared. Intellectual energy had also awakened from a long slumber. Universities had risen up. Oxford and Cambridge, Paris and Montpellier, Bologna and Padua, Salamanca and Prague, were crowded with students. A yet more extended range was opened for learning when in A.D. 1440 the art of printing was invented. The scholars of Greece, fleeing before the Turkish woe, had brought their Stores of classic lore before the Western literati, who now eagerly engaged in the study, and everywhere knowledge and science was pursued.

Again religions zeal was a feature of the times, if such term may be applied to the Crusaders, and to those who exercised their powers in building those magnificent ecclesiastical structures, cathedrals, etc., which still remain and excite the admiration of all beholders in England, France, Germany, and Italy. Certainly with those who raised them such zeal could not be called lukewarm.

Thus much for the progress in power, freedom, refinement, intellectual energy, and religious zeal of the western division of Europe. Would we next inquire what the character of religion had been during the same period? The Scripture in the few lines before us tells the tale. The first clause says, “Men repented not of worshiping demons.” The term demons was used in St. John’s time, both in Roman literature and Scripture language, to express the heathen gods, and also those malignant evil spirits which entered into or possessed demoniacs. Such being its double meaning, the Apostle might infer, from the words of the vision, that there would be established in the nominally Christian Church a system of demonolatry, the counterpart of that of Greece or Rome — a fact, as before observed, for which he was prepared by the gradual apostasy from the faith of Christ’s mediation and atonement; that imaginary beings would be worshipped, and the spirits of dead men deified; also that moral virtues would be attributed to them, in about the same proportion of good and bad, as to ’the heathen gods; that, like them, they would be supposed to act as guardian spirits and mediators; and that this false system would be, in fact, an emanation from hell, as was its precursor, malignant, hellish spirits being the suggestors, actors, and deceivers in it. All this the Scriptural meaning of the word demon might well imply.

Of the fulfillment of the prophetic declaration no well-informed Protestant is ignorant. The decrees of the seventh General Council, which established image worship, remained in force during this period, more and more superseding the spiritual worship of the one great God and Christ in his mediatorial character. The evil was not confined to more mental worship, inasmuch as visible images of different value were made, so as to suit all grades, from the palace to the hovel; and before these all men, high and low, rich and poor, laics (pertaining to a layman or the laity) and ecclesiastics, did, in contempt of the positive command of God, bow down and worship, just as did their Pagan forefathers. Added to this, as might be gathered from the vision, the grossest dissoluteness prevailed alike among priests and people. Indulgence for crimes not even to be named might be purchased for a few pence. This system of indulgences, the journeyings of both sexes to the same places to perform the same penances, generally at the shrine of some saint, the compulsory celibacy of the clergy, the increase of nunneries, and the practice of auricular confession — these are named by various writers as some of the means and incentives which tended too surely to include licentiousness amongst the effects of superstition.

When we feel wonder at such practices being admitted amongst professed Christians, we must call to mind that the Bible was at that time almost unknown, and that the priests supported the religion they taught by magical deceits and sorceries, whereby they worked upon the imaginations of their credulous followers. Who that has ever read the history of these times knows not of the impostures through which miracles were said to be wrought; — relics of saints made to perform wonderful cures; — images that could neither see, nor hear, nor walk, made to appear as though possessed of human senses, and as restoring sight to the blind, strength to the lame, and hearing to the deaf? Who knows not the stories invented of purgatory, and the happy effects of masses and prayers purchased on earth upon the souls suffering therein? This was the work, not of ignorance, but of deliberate deceit. These were the sorceries specified among the unrepented sins of Papal Rome. Amongst these were also included thefts. But wherefore all these impositions? Doubtless, while ambition, pride, and blind superstition combined, each in large measure, the love of money was yet the root of the evil. By payment to the priest, full license was obtained for sin, and impunity guaranteed, both then and thenceforward. In order to appease God, it was only necessary to make pilgrimages, and to lay offerings on the shrines of the saints; all then was well. In A.D. 1300, Pope Boniface established a pilgrimage to Rome, instead of to Jerusalem, by virtue of performing which every sin was to be canceled, and the pilgrim’s salvation ensured. The sale of Church dignities and of episcopal licenses for the grossest immoralities swelled the funds of the Church. But enough upon this subject!

To these is added the charge of murders. The blood of their fellow-men — of Petrobrussians, Catharists, Waldenses, Albigenses, Wickliflites, Lollards, Hussites, Bohemians, — not dissentient heretics only, but the genuine disciples of Christ, was shed abundantly during the latter half of these four hundred years. It was guilt enough to incur death in that they were opposed in anywise to the pretensions of the Church of Rome.

In the twelfth century a few persons began to read and explain the Bible. The cry of heresy was forthwith raised, and the extermination of the whole people urged as a meritorious act. The innocence of these Waldenses was admitted; but the Book itself was condemned by Pope and priesthood, and partially suppressed.

In the fourth Lateran Council, A.D. 1215, a Crusade was proclaimed against them, and plenary absolution of all sin from birth to death was promised to such as should perish in the holy war. “Never,” said Sismondi, “had the cross been taken up with more unanimous consent.” Never, we may add, was the merciless spirit of murder exhibited more awfully in all its horrors. It was followed by the Inquisition, having Gregory IX. for its apparent author, — the spirit of hell its unseen one. That horrid tribunal, from which no man could feel safe, was supported by the princes of the West. The same murderous spirit was manifested from A.D. 1360 to 1380 against Wickliffe in England, and against Jerome and Huss in Bohemia, who, forty years after, endeavored to revive the spirit of true religion, and were martyred. But more of these hereafter.

Such is a sketch of the so-called religion of this period in Western Europe; so characteristic was the description, “idolatry, sorceries, fornications, thefts, murders,” as identified with its state during “the hour, day, month, and year,” up to the fall of the Greek Empire.

There are some who would paint those times as ages of faith, and others as periods of illumination in the Church; but the religion of the majority of such persons is obviously that of the imaginative and external, and not what the Bible recognizes of heart-cleansing, practical godliness. There are who extract passages from mystic writers of the day adorned with some beauty, and more or less of truth, and hold them up as specimens of the spirit of the age. But the appeal must be made to history for the truth; and history accords in every iota with the wonderful prophetic description in the text as expressing the real state of faith and conduct existing at that time.

[2] “Men repented not.” We have seen what history records as to the state of morals and religion up to the fall of Constantinople; and as the prophetic voice indicates that after that woe men continued unrepentant as before, so, turning to history, we shall find it. Not a word is there about reformation or repentance, but we do find every sin continued. Demonolatry increased. In A.D. 1460 came the renewed use of the rosary (see footnote), a mechanical method of devotion specially used with reference to the Virgin, which soon became the rage in Christendom, and was embraced alike by clergy and laity, being consecrated by Papal sanction. In A.D. 1476 Pope Sixtus gave sanction to an annual festival in honor of the Virgin’s immaculate conception. The canonization of saints continued. In A.D. 1460 the enthusiast Catherine of Sienna was sainted. In 1482 Bonaventura, a blasphemer, who dared to parody the psalter by turning the aspirations there addressed to God into prayers to and praises of the Virgin Mary, was added to the list. In 1494 Archbishop Anselm was canonized by Pope Alexander VI., who on that occasion declared it to be the Pope’s duty thus to choose out and hold up the illustrious dead for adoration and worship.

Sorceries and thefts increased. Rosaries were for sale. Each canonization brought devotees and offerings to a new miracle-working shrine. Nor did Rome accord canonization without itself first receiving payment. ” With us,” says a Roman poet of the age, “everything sacred is for sale: priests, temples, altars, frankincense, the mass for the living, prayers for the dead, yea, heaven and God himself.”4 The pilgrimage to Rome was decreed by Paul II. to take place every twenty-five years, thus accelerating the return of that lucrative ceremony. Relics were sold to those who were not able to travel, and indulgences retailed by numerous hawkers; with which latter practice the name of Tetzel was, at the opening of the sixteenth century, infamously associated, presenting the crowning example of thefts and sorceries.

Impurity, chiefly among the priesthood, glaringly advanced. The Popes led the way. Alexander VI. was a monster in vice. “All the convents of the capital were houses of ill-fame;”5 and one German bishop, according to Erasmus, declared “that 11,000 priests had paid him the tax due by them to the bishop for each instance of fornication.” We may not enter further on this subject.

Finally, murders ceased not. Anti-heretical crusades were proclaimed on a large scale. The Bohemians and Waldenses were the chief victims. Paul II., who had been elected Pope in order to check the Turks, turned his energies against the Bohemians, and offered to the Hungarian king the crown of Bohemia as a reward if he should succeed in exterminating the Hussites. This was only attained at last by dividing the poor persecuted people amongst themselves; and after seven years of unsuccessful war this civil strife proved their most severe suffering.

In the years 1477 and 1488 Innocent VIII. commanded all archbishops, bishops, and vicars to obey his inquisitor, and engage the people to take up arms with a view to effect the extermination of the Waldenses; promising indulgence to all engaged in such war, and a right to apply to their own use all property they might seize.

Then 18,000 troops burst upon the valleys; and had not the sovereign, Philip of Savoy, felt compunction and interfered, the work of extinction would have been completed, even as it was at Val Louise in High Dauphiny. “There the Christians,” says the historian, “having retired into the caverns of the highest mountains, the French king’s lieutenant commanded a great quantity of wood to be laid at the entrances to smoke them out. Some threw themselves headlong on the rocks below; some were smothered. There were afterwards found 400 infants stifled in the arms of their dead mothers. It is believed that 3000 persons perished in all on this occasion in the valley.” Is Rome changed?

In 1478 the reform, as it was called, of the Inquisition took place, the Pope and the king of Spain agreeing in the arrangement, whereby it became a still more murderous instrument for persecution than before. In the first year alone 2000 victims were burnt! It is computed that from its reorganization up to 1517 there were 13,000 persons burnt by it for heresy, 8700 burnt in effigy, and 169,000 condemned to penances. It was in 1498 that Savonarola, a Dominican, was burnt at Florence for preaching against the vices at Rome, and this too by order of Papal emissaries. We might say, Look at Florence now; but we shall have more to speak on this subject hereafter.

Thus does history, upon the clearest authorities, abundantly bear out the truth of the statement that after the fall of the Greek Empire “men repented not of their idolatry, sorceries, fornications, thefts, and murders.” Relative to idolatry, there is a singular proclamation by Mohammed II., issued in A.D. 1469, which will show how the Christian worship of that day was regarded by Mohammedans. “I, Mohammed,” he says, “son of Amurath, emperor of emperors, prince of princes, from the rising to the setting sun, promise to the only God, Creator of all things, by my vow and by my oath, that I will not give sleep to mine eyes, etc., till I overthrow and trample under the feet of my horses the gods of the nations, those gods of wood, of brass, of silver, of gold, or of painting which the disciples of Christ have made with their hands.”

So closed the fifteenth century. Hopelessly wretched seemed the then state of the Church, the more so because remedies for bettering its condition had been tried and failed. At the commencement of these four and a half centuries Charlemagne tried, by augmenting the temporal power of the priesthood, to soften and civilize the minds of the people under its control; but pride, ambition, covetousness, and immorality, rife among the leaders, were not likely to lead to reform amongst their followers. The attempted remedy only increased the evil during the twelfth century. In the thirteenth century the Dominican and Franciscan orders rose up, proclaiming that riches had caused the corruption of the clergy; and binding themselves by a vow of poverty, they set forward to preach the Gospel of Christ. For nearly two centuries the tide of popularity set in in favor of the friars. They, it was said, exhibited simplicity and self-denial in practice; they alone were the true ministers of Christ. At length this delusion also vanished; the lying fables palmed on the credulous were unmasked. But it was found more difficult to get rid of these orders than to establish them. The Pope gave them encouragement, and, who could resist the Pope? So matters were not improved.

Councils were called, and it was hoped that this would be a sovereign remedy. The Council of Constance in A.D. 1414, showed that it was ready to assist the Papal tyranny by its decree against Huss and Jerome. Again, in the middle of this century, in the Councils at Florence and Ferrara, the Pope was decreed to be superior to any council; and at the close of the century it was almost universally received that, as God on earth, he could not err and might not be controlled. So little was success attendant on this effort at reform.

Literature was next tried. But what could it do?

Without the Bible it might make men infidels but not Christians, and at that time the Bible was unknown. The superstitions believed by the people were fostered on the priest’s part for interest-sake, though known by these to be false; and the penalties against heresy forbade any public objection on the part of the laity.

The character given of the last Pope of the fifteenth century was in a measure applicable to the cardinals and hierarchy of Rome gathered round him. It was an atheist priesthood; and its hypocrisy was deliberate, systematic, avowed, and unblushing before the face of God and man.

Thus the various efforts for reform acknowledged to be needed had apparently failed. As the sixteenth century opened, there were some who still looked for change even from councils. In fact, supported by the French king, but opposed by the Pope and cardinals, one reform council was gathered at Pisa; but it was too weak to oppose the current of evil. Apostasy from their God and Saviour constituted the essence of the disease; and for remedy nothing but the republication of his own gospel of grace, and the power of his Spirit accompanying it, could effect the cure.

Dark and dreary was this time to the true but secret Church of the “hundred and forty-four thousand.” Amidst these days of desolation one and another had lifted up the voice of witness (as we shall treat of in a subsequent lecture on “the witnesses”), and many prayed and wailed, in hopes that He, whom to know is life and light, would reveal himself and interfere for his Church. But time went on; the first watch of the night, the second,and the third watch passed, and their strength was spent. Their hopes waxed fainter. Persecuted, wasted, scattered, it seemed as if “God had forgotten to be gracious,” and that the promise that the gates of hell should not prevail against his Church had become a dead letter. But was it really so? Did St. John so see the end of the Church and the triumph of the foe? No! He says, “I looked, and saw another mighty angel descend.” That intervention of the Lord for his people so long waited and prayed for was come, and the next scene in this wonderful drama is that of the REFORMATION.

To the foregoing we may add a word or two as to the state of the English Church during these last centuries. The tale is soon told. It partook of the general corruption. One or two instances will suffice relative to a part of the charges made against Rome. Thomas a Becket’s shrine was one of the places of pilgrim-resort. A jubilee was celebrated to his honor, and plenary indulgence given to such as visited his tomb, of whom 100,000 have been registered at a time. In the Cathedral at Canterbury were three shrines, one to Christ, one to the Virgin Mary, and one to the saint. The offerings on each, in A.D. 1115, were computed as follows: —

So much for Demonology! Wickliffe was then raised up, who protested against the errors, and exposed so ably the fraud of the friars as to cause them to be detested throughout the land, where they had gained immense influence. In A.D. 1305, Edward I. wrote to the Pope to have the Bishop of Hereford canonized because “a number of miracles had been wrought by his influence.”

Footnote:

The rosary is a string of beads used by Roman Catholics in devotion, often as an act of penance. Each large bead being counted, the Pater Noster or Lord’s Prayer is repeated; and, after each small one, an address to the Virgin. A Romish catechism, approved by the Popes, has this question and answer: “Why repeat the Ave after the Lord’s Prayer? Answer. — That, by the intercession of the Virgin Mary, I may more easily obtain from God what I want.” There are ten Aves to each Pater Nestor (Latin for our Father).↩

Continued in Revelation 10:1-3. Intervention Of The Covenant Angel

All chapters of The Last Prophecy: An Abridgment of Elliott’s Horae Apocalypticae

QUESTION: What were the Vatican Ratlines?

ANSWER: The “Vatican Ratlines” was a nickname given by U.S. Army Intelligence to the underground escape route set up and run by Papal Rome (i.e., the Vatican) to help Nazi and Fascist war criminals avoid capture at the end of World War II. These Nazi and Fascist war criminals, including no small number of Roman Catholic clergy, were hidden in monasteries and convents – even in Rome itself – until they could safely travel under disguise with counterfeit identity papers to such locations as the USA, Argentina, and other Latin American countries.

Some of the Nazi and Fascist war criminals that the Vatican helped to escape Europe at the end of World War II included such “human monsters” as Adolf Eichmann (head of the Nazi SS Department for Jewish Affairs), Klaus Barbie (Nazi Gestapo chief in Lyons, France), Franz Stangl (commandant of the Nazi extermination camp at Treblinka in northeast Poland), and Ante Pavelic (Fascist Croatian fuehrer who was responsible for the mass murder of up to one million innocent Serb Orthodox Christians, Jews, and Gypsies).

Let us never forget that pro-Nazi, anti-Jewish Pope Pius XII – a man whom some in the Roman Catholic Church want to “canonize” (i.e., to make – to declare – a “saint” of the Roman Catholic Church) – was the “boss” of the men who supervised and operated the Vatican Ratlines!

Dave Hunt, on pages 310-315 of his book, “A Woman Rides the Beast” (1994), tells us: “Having failed to do anything on a significant scale to rescue the Jews, the pope [Ed.: i.e., Pope Pius XII] would exert great effort to save their murderers. …The pope let it be known in the [Ed.: European] refugee camps [Ed.: near and at the end of World War II] that the Vatican would shelter [Ed.: Nazi and] Fascist fugitives.

…A steady stream of Nazi [Ed.: and Fascist] war criminals began to flow through an underground escape route which was quickly set up by the Vatican. The network would be known as the [Ed.: Vatican] Ratlines. Investigative reporters Mark Aarons and John Loftus…write in their remarkable book ‘Unholy Trinity’: ‘Under the direction of Pope Pius XII, Vatican officials such as Monsignor Giovanni Montini (later Pope Paul VI) supervised one of the greatest obstructions of justice in modern history…facilitating the escape of tens of thousands of Nazi [Ed.: and Fascist war criminals] to the West…’

Most [Ed.: Roman] Catholics would have been shocked to know what the Vatican was secretly doing – and most of all to know that the escaping [Ed.: Nazi and Fascist] war criminals included a large number of [Ed.: Roman Catholic] clergy, from priests to archbishops. Nor was the Vatican ignorant of their [Ed.: i.e., the fleeing Nazi and Fascist war criminals’] crimes but had actually given them its blessing with full knowledge of the awful facts…

…This underground network [Ed.: i.e., the Vatican Ratlines] of [Ed.: Roman] Catholic offices, seminaries, monasteries, convents, and residences provided not only shelter on the escape route but false identities and passage to South America and other safe havens. The most infamous mass murderer of them all, Adolf Eichmann…head of the SS Department for Jewish Affairs and in charge directly under Hitler of the entire Holocaust, was among the tens of thousands who were carefully smuggled by [Ed.: Roman] Catholic officials with Vatican blessing down the Ratlines.

The [Ed.: Vatican] Ratlines began with diplomatic pressure applied by [Ed.: Pope] Pius XII to allow his personal representatives to visit prisoner-of-war camps to minister religiously to [Ed.: Roman] Catholics. The real purpose was to identify and smuggle out Nazi [Ed.: and Fascist] war criminals. It can hardly be a coincidence that the man Pius XII chose to head this outrageous obstruction of international justice was his close adviser, [Ed.: Roman Catholic] Bishop [Ed.: Luigi “Alois”] Hudal, whom almost all of Rome knew was a fanatical anti-Semite and pro-Nazi…

[Ed.: Roman Catholic Bishop Luigi “Alois” Hudal] faithfully carried out a secret mission [Ed.: i.e., overseeing the Vatican Ratlines] in service of the pope and his beloved [Ed.: Roman Catholic] Church. After he was replaced, that work continued under Vatican sponsorship. The new men in charge were even more overtly evil than [Ed.: Bishop] Hudal. Like him, they were [Ed.: Roman Catholic] clergy who believed they were serving God and knew they had the pope’s blessing.

…To help finance the Vatican’s escape network [Ed.: for Nazi and Fascist war criminals], [Ed.: Walter] Rauff [Ed.: a Nazi war criminal and mass murderer of Jews] enlisted a former SS colleague, Frederico Schwendt, one of the most talented counterfeiters of all time. His genius supplemented Vatican funds during the early days of the [Ed.: Vatican] Ratlines. Later operations were supported in large measure from the sale of some of the Nazis’ ill-gotten treasures, including hundreds of pounds of gold smuggled out to the West and laundered by [Ed.: Roman] Catholic prelates.”

Eric Jon Phelps, on page 1285 of his book, “Vatican Assassins” (Third Edition, 2007), tells us: “Jesuit-trained Pope Pius XII, advised by Bavarian German Jesuit Robert Leiber, ruled the Order’s Vatican Ratlines. He appointed his close personal friend, Austrian [Ed.: Roman Catholic] Bishop Luigi ‘Alois’ Hudal (1885-1963), a former consultant for the Holy Office of the Inquisition…to control the Vatican’s escape routes over the Brenner Pass into Italy. [Ed.: Bishop] Hudal, intimate with [Ed.: German] Knight of Malta Franz von Papen and Nazi officials, used Jesuits guiding [Ed.: Nazi] SS Lt. Col. Walter Rauff to help other top Nazis out of Europe including Heinrich Mueller, Adolf Eichmann, Franz Stangl (commandant of Treblinka), Martin Bormann and Joseph Mengele. Once out of Europe the Nazi Jesuit Coadjutors were then protected by [Ed.: Pope] Pius XII’s Sovereign Military Order of Malta through employment within its international business consortiums – under the guise of the Cold War!

…Monsignor Montini [Ed.: who was Pope Pius XII’s Under Secretary of State] was the master of Bishop Hudal, responsible for the Pope’s international affairs. This included his direct supervision of the [Ed.: Vatican] Ratline’s Caritas Internationalis, which issued passports to fleeing Nazis. The director of Caritas in Vienna, and later in Rome, was one of the Pope’s monsignors – Jesuit Karl Bayer! The Company [Ed.: i.e., the Jesuit Order] shuttled over 50,000 Nazis to foreign ports…”

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE VATICAN Ratlines:

Read the 544-page paperback book, “A Woman Rides the Beast”, by Dave Hunt. To order this book via credit card, please call The Berean Call at 1-800-937-6638 (orders only; 8 A.M. – 5 P.M. Pacific time).

Read the 236-page paperback book, “The Vatican’s Holocaust”, by Avro Manhattan. To order this book, please make check or money order payable in the amount of $12 (includes S&H to U.S. locations) to “Ozark Books”, and mail it to: Ozark Books // P.O. Box 3703 // Springfield, MO 65808.

This is the continuation of The Last Prophecy: An Abridgment of Elliott’s Horae Apocalypticae.

The Turco-Muslims, A.D. 1063

WE HAVE SEEN in the last lecture that in the year 934 the Caliphate at Bagdad was stripped of its temporal dominion in the east, and that in the west, though not until towards the end of the tenth century, the Moslem power was reduced to act wholly on the defensive. The date A.D. 985 might be fixed as about the period when the woe had totally passed away.

About this time a strong persuasion was abroad that the final consummation of all things was at hand. It was preached of and listened to by breathless crowds. Under the impression that Christ would descend to judgment at Palestine, numbers made over their properties to monasteries, and traveled away to the Holy Land. Others devoted themselves as servants to the churches and priests, so as to have milder sentence, as being the dependents of Christ’s servants. Buildings were let go to ruin, it being supposed they would be thenceforth useless; and, on occasion of eclipses, etc., the affrighted multitudes fled to the rocks and caverns for refuge. But the time of the end was not yet. In the decrees of Heaven it stood written, “One woe hath passed; behold there come yet two more woes after them.” The dreaded 1000th year came and went without any great attending calamity, and gradually expectation died away.

But the Sixth Trumpet was about to sound. Would its woe fall on western Christendom, which had long been settling down into the idolatrous worship of departed saints and its accompaniments — priestly fraud, avarice, superstition, and gross immorality, insomuch that afterwards this period was denominated the Iron Age? Or was it to fall on Rome itself, where these impieties were still more rife, particularly amongst its popes, cardinals, and bishops, so as to be compared by certain writers to Sodom? Not so. Antichrist was not yet fully matured, its time was not yet come., The approaching woe was again designed to fall on the eastern division.

Basil II. was then on the throne of Constantinople. Had it been at the time foretold to him that woe was at hand, he might not unreasonably have discredited the prediction; for looking around over the known world, no enemy appeared formidable, nor did approaching storm threaten from any quarter — least of all, perhaps, from the Euphrates and Bagdad. That power once so fearful was fallen. Could it be again raised up and become terrible?

So might the royal Basil have spoken. Devoted to Greek superstition, all the evils before named were unchecked in his empire, and he reckoned not that they would surely bring down vengeance from God. Fearful was the word which was now fulfilled, “They shall be given to strong delusion to believe a lie.” How differently would real Christians have looked upon the state of things; — such as were represented on the Apocalyptic scene as God’s sealed ones. These would in the features of the time foresee the coming woe; and that, while men were saying “Peace, peace,” judgment was even at the door.

From the quarter least expected the danger impended. The agencies were prepared; the trumpet-note again sounded; and the four angels, newly commissioned to destroy, loosed from the Euphrates.

Observe whence issued the “voice” mentioned in the vision — from the four horns of the altar of incense. Had it come from the throne in the inner temple, it had been from God; or if from an angel specially sent, the same idea would attach to it. But when a voice proceeded from any other place invoking judgment, it would rather seem to indicate guilt connected with that locality. In Gen. 4:10, when Cain had struck Abel to the ground, we read, “Thy brother’s blood crieth unto Me from the ground;” in James 5:4, “The hire of the laborers who have reaped your fields crieth;” in Isaiah 66:6, “A voice of noise from the city! a voice from the temple! a voice from the Lord that rendereth recompense.” The ground, fields, city, temple, whence in each case the cry, were in each case also the scene of guilt. Just so as to the cry from the four horns of the golden altar. It seemed to indicate sins in Roman Christendom, involving the profanation of that mystic altar and its golden horns. Now the projecting horns of the altar, as noted in Lev. 4:7, were appointed for sacrificial blood-sprinklings expiatory of the sins of priests and sins of people. On this rite’s due performance, in Hezekiah’s time, both priests and people, after previous apostasy of God, were reconciled. (2 Chron. 29:20) A voice then went forth from the altar, not of judgment but of mercy — of mercy through Him, thus typified, whose blood was to be shed as “a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world.” Sennacherib’s army, which was then approaching, was bidden back, and the city for that season was spared: — a contrast to the voice which, in the vision before us, went forth calling for judgment. What then, when St. John heard its sound, would be the interpretation he would put on it? Would it not be that both priests and people of Roman Christendom, in spite of former judgments, persisted unrepentant in their old sins: — still abandoning Christ in His character of the one divinely appointed propitiation for sin; still adopting other means of atonement, and other mediators? So, it would seem to him, their sins were registered, as it were, on the horns of the symbolic altar; and that the High Priest himself was forced to pronounce from thence the decree of judgment, “Loose the four angels to slay the third part of men.” The opportunity for repentance had past altogether unheeded by Greek Christendom. The guilt of inveterate Antichristian apostasy was stamped at the time spoken of on their ritual worship. Indeed, the mariolatrous impress of the national coinage still testifies of it to the eye of the numismatist.

But who were these four angels? Surely the same that had formerly let loose the winds and tempests; and who might seem to have been stayed in their commission, when the Saracen woe inflicted by them ceased, and where it ceased (like as in the case of the angel-inflicted pestilence, 2 Sam. 24:16); even at Bagdad, by the Euphrates. To prove how this was, I must take up the history of the Turkmans.

We mentioned Basil as being the emperor at Constantinople. He died A.D. 1025; as did, three years after, Mahmoud, the Caliph at Bagdad, whose empire then began to fall to pieces. Many Turkman tribes had been established during his lifetime at Khorasan, near the Caspian Sea. It was these that were now to become a woe to Christendom. Proceeding to assert independence, they killed Mahmoud’s son; chose Togrul Beg as their commander; and stood forth as the chief power in Central Asia.

Originally idolaters, they had lately become Mohammedans, and were called into Bagdad, A.D. 1055, to assist the Caliph on occasion of domestic danger. After subduing the factions and overthrowing the weak dynasty of the Bowides, who had ruled in Persia since A.D. 933, Togrul Beg became lieutenant to the Caliph; thus being constituted, in effect, temporal lieutenant of the Prophet’s Vicar, and head of the secular power of Islam.

Animated by the same spirit from hell as their Arab precursors, a holy war against Greek Christendom was now resolved on. Togrul dying, he was succeeded by his nephew Alp Arslan, who passed the Euphrates, A.D. 1063, at the head of the Turkish cavalry, and the loss of the kingdom and frontier of Armenia was, Gibbon says, “the news of a day.” The Greek emperor, Romanus, having invoked the Virgin Mary’s aid, the chief object of his worship, hastened to oppose him. But in vain. At Malazgerd he was defeated, taken prisoner, and the fate of the Asiatic provinces sealed irretrievably. Alp Arslan was succeeded by Malek Shah, who continued the victorious career of the Turks. In A.D. 1074 Asia Minor came into their hands, and then Nice became the capital. This, remarks the historian, was the severest loss the empire had sustained since the first conquests of the Caliphs. Asia Minor, called also Roum, became an independent kingdom after its conquest by Malek’s general, Suleiman, who had gained the name of Holy Champion for his zeal against the infidels (i.e., Christians). Throughout the whole extent of the new empire Mohammedanism now preveiled; mosques were built even from the Euphrates to Constantinople. Alexius the emperor trembled on his throne, and begged assistance from Western Europe; representing that, unless some succor were sent, his division of Roman Christendom must fall. “The third part of men would be destroyed.” Succor was sent: — the Crusades began. Yet through two centuries the Turkish Sultany of Roum was preserved in its vitality. In the first crusade, A.D. 1097, the Turkmans were defeated; but in 1147 the leaders of the second crusade had to tell that their power was unbroken; and how the bones of Christian hosts lay bleaching among the Pamphylian mountains. In the third crusade, the Emperor Frederick I. lost immense numbers before he stormed Iconium, and made the Sultan sue for peace. It was not till the next century that the Moguls subdued the Seljukian dynasty, and partially interrupted the Turkish sway. But Othman soon furnished a new head to the Turkman host; the Moguls declined, while the Ottoman Empire rose and progressed. As to the rest, the history of the Sultans Othman and Orchan, Amurath and Bajazet, is well known. Their victorious armies crossed the Hellespont; and scarcely aught but the city of Constantinople remained for the eastern Roman emperor. Even this they surrounded on all sides.

Let us observe some of the characteristic national features of these Turks.

[I] AS TO THEIR NUMBERS.

In the vision it is said, “The number of the army of the horsemen was myriads of myriads.” This implies a large but indefinite number. The peculiarity in the description is their being horsemen. In European armies at that time foot soldiers were numerous and cavalry few; but just the reverse prevailed with the Turks, with whom literally the number numberless was cavalry. There may be a reference also in the expression to the method in use amongst them of counting by myriads.

It is added, “I heard the number of them.” St. John heard it in his representative character. Just at that period went forth the cry that alarmed Europe and led to the Crusades. From the Patriarch of Europe came letters to all princes and churches: “Jerusalem has been besieged, ransacked, and taken. What may the rest of Christendom promise to itself? The strength of the Turks is daily increased. We call on you for help, as Christians. Ere the tempest thunder, ere the lightning fall on you, avert from yourselves and children the storm hanging over your heads. Deliver us, and God shall requite you.” So the report ran throughout Europe; the ferment rose, and the Crusades ensued.

[II] THEIR APPEARANCE.

“I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire (i.e., of fire color), and jacinth, and sulphur.” This, it is said, is exactly the ornament of apparel which these people assumed. ” From their first appearance the Ottomans affected to wear warlike apparel of scarlet, blue, and yellow.” It needs but to see the Turkish cavalry to be struck with their rich and varied colorings. The word hyacinthine or jacinth fixes the meaning of the other two words, fire-like, sulphur-like, necessarily to color; these words, fire and sulphur, having no indistinct bearing on other characteristics of the Turkish armies, as we shall presently see.

[III] THE HEADS OF THE HORSES.

“The heads of the horses,” the Evangelist observes, “were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths goeth forth fire, and smoke, and sulphur. By these were the third of men slain, — by the fire, and by the smoke, and the sulphur which proceedeth out of their mouths. For their power is in their mouths.” The heads of the horses, being unnatural, are clearly symbolical; the symbol being constantly used to designate the leaders of the people, and that of lions we take to signify the lion-like haughtiness of their characters and bearing. But it is of the new destroying agents, “fire, smoke, and brimstone,” we are now to speak. It was entirely by the use and force of artillery that Constantinople was destroyed, and with it fell the Greek Empire. Eleven hundred years it had stood and repelled Goths, Huns, Avars, Persians, Bulgarians, and Saracens, one after another, its walls remaining impregnable. Hence the anxiety of the Sultan Mohammed to find a force still stronger. “Canst thou,” he said to one, “find a cannon of sufficient size to batter down the walls of Constantinople?” Gibbon gives, in his “History of the Fall of the Greek Empire,” the account of the new invention of gunpowder, — “that mixture of saltpetre, sulphur, and charcoal.” He describes how, in the siege, the arrows were accompanied by the smoke of fire of the musketry and cannon: — how, “as from the lines, the galleys, and the bridge, the Ottoman artillery thundered on all sides; the camp and city, the Greeks and Turks, were involved in a cloud of smoke which could’ only be dispelled by the final deliverance or destruction of the Greek Empire:” — how the walls were rendered by the cannon a heap of ashes; and so “Constantinople was irretrievably subdued, her empire subverted, and her religion trampled in the dust by her Moslem conquerors.”

[IV] Next as to the horses’ tails. These were seen in the vision as having heads, and so associated with that which the head symbolized — rulers or governing authorities. But when did a horse-tail ever denote a ruler? One historical fact must answer in part the question. It seems that in the time of their early career the standard having been once lost in the course of the battle, the commander, cutting off his horse’s tail, lifted it as a rallying ensign, and won the day. Hence this ensign became among the Turks, and them alone, a badge of authority. The number of one, two, or three horsetails still marks the Turkish pasha’s dignity, from the grand vizier down to the lower governors of provinces.

“And with these they do injustice.” Where is the historian of Turkish conquests or the traveler through Turkish scenes who has not to tell of cruel tyrannies and heartless oppressions? The writer of the Horae Apocalypticae describes his feelings on seeing, as he traveled in that country, the terror of the inhabitants when one of these horse-tailed pashas was near. After noticing the procession of horsemen and retainers, shining in red, blue, and yellow, and how the ensign of two horse-tails was carried before the pasha to mark his dignity, he tells how he entered a village which a few days before had been deserted; and how a straggler, coming from his hiding-place, informed him that men, women, and children had fled to escape the oppressive visit of a neighboring pasha.

One point more remains to be explained, viz., the time within which the commission to destroy was to be accomplished. “The four angels were loosed, which were prepared for, or rather after, an hour, and day, and month, and year, to slay the third part of men.” That is, that the slaying, the national slaying, should occur or be completed at the end of these portions of time added together.

Now, counting up these several parts of time, we have, according to the prophetic principle of a day for a year —

It was on the 18th day of January, A.D. 1057, that the Turco-Moslem power was loosed from the Euphrates; in other words, when Togrul Beg, the acknowledged head of Islamism, with his Turkmans, quitted Bagdad to enter on a long career of war and conquest. It was on the 29th of May, A.D. 1453, that Constantinople fell and the siege ended. The interval coincides with the prophecy exactly in years, being 396; and very nearly in days, being 130. In effect the prophetic period expired nearly about the middle of the siege, — as nearly as possible at the very critical turning-point of defeat or victory.

Four hundred years had passed; generation after generation had lived and died; one power after another had been held back from overthrowing the Greek Empire; space had been given for repentance; but at length the predicted period arrived. When the Sultan Mohammed pressed the siege, no intervention occurred to delay the catastrophe, either from the east or the west — from the Crusaders of Christendom or from the savage warriors of Tartary. On the dial-plate in heaven the pointing of the shadow-line told that the fatal term had expired, — the “hour, and day, and month, and year.” Then could no longer the fate of the unhappy Greeks be averted. The artillery of the Ottomans thundered, the breach Was stormed, and amidst the shouts of the conquering Turkmans from the Euphrates and the dying groans of the last Constantine, Constantinople fell! The third of the men were slain!- The Greek Empire was no more!

Continued in Revelation 9:20-21. The Unrepentant State of Western Christendom

All chapters of The Last Prophecy: An Abridgment of Elliott’s Horae Apocalypticae

This is the continuation of The Last Prophecy: An Abridgment of Elliott’s Horae Apocalypticae.

Mohammed And The Saracens, A.D. 612-755.

WE HAVE ALREADY, in the preceding lecture, remarked the geographical propriety of the selection of the various symbols of Scripture prophecy, serving, as it does, in a great measure to designate the particular country to which the vision points us. Sometimes the imagery is of that general character which belongs alike to every part of the world, but at other times a slight attention to the emblem will convince us that the same Divine mind that has given to different lands their characteristic objects, has expressly designed the introduction of those objects into the figurative descriptions of the prophecy in order to confine the application to its true locality. It is on these grounds that we are able at once to infer, from the passage before us, the identical country whence this woe was to have its rise, the agents and their commission to destroy, and the particular individual also who was to constitute their prophet and leader.

I. The Country and People.

First as to the peculiar country and people whence it was to originate. The locust, the groundwork of the symbol, is wholly Arabic. It was the “east wind which brought the locusts” on Egypt (Ex. 10:13) — a statement distinctly pointing to Arabia as to the land upon the east of Egypt. The Syrians, we are told by Volney, “have remarked that locusts come constantly from the deserts of Arabia.” The terms Arab and locust are in Hebrew almost the same. The symbol is elsewhere in Scripture used with like appropriateness; “They (the Midianite Arabs) came as grasshoppers,” meaning locusts. (Judges 6:5)

Great peculiarity attached to these monsters in the vision before us; they were half beast, half man. Their coming, locust-like, in destructive swarms is in accordance with the figure, but their shape was like horses. The horse was peculiarly Arabian, and seems to indicate hordes of cavalry; they were, it is said, “prepared for battle.” They had teeth like lions, — savage destroyers of life; and they resembled scorpions in their poison stings, implying that they would be the tormentors of those whose lives they spared.2 The scorpion is of the same native locality: witness the words of Moses when reminding the Israelites of God’s goodness to them throughout their forty years’ wanderings, “Who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness wherein were fiery serpents and scorpions.” (Deut. 8:15) Thus the zoology is all Arabian.

Next, as to the human appearance of these locusts — their faces like men, their hair as the hair of women. What people could be thus pictured? Neither to the Greeks and Romans, nor yet to their Gothic invaders, will the whole of the test apply, the former having had repugnance in John’s time to the feminine appearance of long hair in men, (1 Cor. 11:14) while the latter were remarkable, as is noticed by Jerome, for the unmanlike shaven smoothness of their faces. There was, however, a nation to which the whole of the descriptive symbol was literally applicable. Pliny, St. John’s contemporary, speaks of the Arabs as wearing the turban, having the hair long and uncut, and with the mustache too on their upper lip — that “venerable sign of manhood,” as Gibbon calls it. In the Arabian poem “Antar,” written about Mohammed’s time, we find the beard and the moustache, the long flowing hair and turban, all specified as characterizing the appearance of the Arab. And the turban of the Arab was often noted as a crown. So Ezekiel spoke of “Sabeans (Arabs) from the desert with beautiful crowns upon their heads.” (Ezek. 23:42) One of their national proverbs also tells that turbans were given by God to them instead of diadems.

The breastplates of iron worn by these creatures are also noted in the vision. The Saracen policy was the wearing defensive armor, their coats of mail being repeatedly mentioned by historians.

Thus, on the whole, these concurrent symbols point to Arabia as the country whence the woe was to originate. And if we turn from prophecy to history we find, at the opening of the seventh century, a fact notoriously verifying the prediction. A mighty Saracen or Arab invasion is the chief event which it records.

II. The Abyss.

But what of the abyss out of which these locusts are said to have issued? The word is often used in Scripture with reference to hell, or the place of the departed wicked. And in the New Testament it is likewise introduced as “the deep,” into which the devils entreated of our Lord that they might not be sent; and in the Revelation as “the bottomless pit,” where “that old serpent, the devil,” is bound. Moreover, as the natural light of the sun is a fit emblem of the spiritual illumination that comes down from the God and Father of lights, so may we infer that whatever is described as darkening the atmosphere, even as smoke from a pit, must be meant in the opposite sense of a moral or spiritual pollution. This smoke, then, in the Apocalyptic vision, we consider to be an emanation from Satan issuing from the pit of hell, i.e., some system of false religion which should obscure truth or dim the light of heaven.

And was it even so? Did it so happen, at this particular juncture, that such a system of pestilent error rose up? And if so, did it take its rise from Arabia?

To these inquiries we reply, Who has not heard of Mohammed, that false prophet, and of the spread of his too popular creed? This deadly evil came out from Arabia at the very time we speak of, a creed the invention of fanaticism and fraud. In its system the blessed God is described as cruel and unholy; and in its morals pride, ferocity, superstition, and sensuality are held up for admiration, and show palpably whence it had its origin. It was just after embracing Mohammedan principles that the Saracens, as “locusts from the abyss,” issued forth on Christendom. It was the adoption of this creed, the creed of Mohammed, that made them what they were; that united these hordes as one; that gave them the impulse to fly, locust-like, to propagate their faith over the world, and that imparted to them, as to raging lions of the desert, their destructive fury of fanaticism. Their scorpion venom was thereby prepared to torment such of the Christians as they should bring under their yoke, while the hope of gross licentiousness to be indulged in both here and hereafter added sensualism to their ferocity. Well does the Saracen history accord with the prophetic emblem concerning them!

III. “Hurt not the grass or trees…”

We have to observe the peculiar nature of the commission, “Hurt not the grass or trees, but only the men who have not God’s seal on their foreheads.” Mohammed expressly declared that his mission was against “idolaters;” and such he considered Christians. But in urging forward his followers against them, the Caliph Aboubeker did but fulfill the precept of the prophet when he gave the command, “Destroy no palm-trees, nor any fields of corn: cut down no fruit-trees, nor do any mischief to cattle.” It was the dictate of policy, not of mercy; for by following this plan the Saracens had, soon after their conquest, formed flourishing countries round them. It was a marked peculiarity, for in other invasions, as the Gothic, fire, sword, and devastation tracked the invader’s progress, and was accordingly prefigured in the Apocalyptic imagery; but with the Saracens it was the very reverse, and this reverse still more connects it with the prediction now before us.

IV. “A Star”.

We have so far identified this passage with the Arabian heresy and irruption that the inference we clearly deduce is, that Mohammed was the star, or ruler, referred to. But why is this impostor mentioned as a star? and why, still more, since success followed his course for such a length of time, is he said to be a fallen star?

To answer this question we must trace Mohammed’s history back to his birth. His origin was princely, being descended from one of the noblest families in ‘Arabia’. Gibbon says, “The grandfather of Mohammed and his lineal ancestors appeared in foreign and domestic transactions as the princes of their country.” They were, in the view of the Syrian Greeks, as among the stars on the political horizon. But just after the prophet’s birth his father died, and soon after his grandfather. Then the governorship of Mecca and keys of the Caaba (or holy place of religion amongst the Arabians) attached to the office passed into another branch of the family. Thus Mohammed became a star fallen from power. He says of himself that at the opening of the seventh century “he was a desolate orphan.” He was indeed fallen, when, as a poor widow’s servant, he used to traffic in the markets of Damascus.

Mohammed, however, was imbued with a spirit calculated to struggle against and triumph over misfortune. That was already stirring in his mind which was to raise him far above a mere prince of Mecca, the scheme of reascending to the station he had lost by introducing a new system of superstition. About three miles from Mecca was a cave called Hera; it was a secret and a desolate spot. There he withdrew every year to consult, as he said, a spirit who was wont to visit him in his solitary hours and hold converse with him. Gibbon well calls it “the spirit of fraud and enthusiasm, whose abode was not in heaven, but in the mind of the prophet.” This cave has aptly suggested to interpreters the idea of the pit of the abyss, whence the pestilential fumes and darkness were seen to issue.

When, privately at first, and then more publicly, he began to announce his creed, for awhile his uncle and the elders of the city affected to despise the orphan’s presumption. They chased him from Mecca, and his flight marks in history the era of the Hegira, A.D. 622. Seven years afterwards was seen in Mecca’s streets one to whom all bowed down in honor, whose words the multitudes revered, to whose command armies were obedient, who swayed the minds of men that they yielded implicit faith to his wild or crafty imaginations. The “fallen star” had come forth again. The key of office was restored to him. “The fugitive missionary was enthroned as the prince and the prophet of his native country.”3 The key of God, asserted in the Koran to have been given to Mohammed to open the gate of heaven to believers, continued to be borne by his followers both as a religious and a national emblem, and may still be seen sculptured on the proud gate of justice in the Alhambra or palace of the Moors. Even so in allusive contrast it is written in Revelation, “The key of the abyss” was given to him, and truly the smoke that arose upon his opening, was as the pestilential fumes and darkness of hell.

Having thus endeavored to illustrate the suitableness of these emblems in the vision to the rise of Mohammedanism, and of the Moslem Arabs in the seventh century, let us follow on and try whether their subsequent history will verify the other intimations respecting them.

“There came out locusts on the earth.” It was in A.D. 629 that the Saracens first issued from the desert and proclaimed war against Christendom. The year 639 saw Syria subdued, and the Muezzin, calling to prayer, soon after sounded from a mosque built on the site of Solomon’s temple. There is he still heard to this very day, when the appointed hour comes round for remembering the prophet. The subjugation of Egypt followed quickly on that of Syria; then, some few years after, that of the African provinces; then, at the commencement of the eighth century, that of Spain. All this was within the limits of Roman Christendom, and consequently within the sphere of the Apocalyptic vision. But beyond this their conquests extended far and wide with terrible rapidity. Two short statements from history will give some idea of the progress of the Saracens, and of the desolations caused by them, of whom it might be said, as was said of the desolating force mentioned in Joel, “The land was as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness.” The one, — that in ten years, i.e., from A.D. 634 to 644, they had reduced three thousand six hundred castles to ruins, destroyed four thousand churches, (see footnote) and had built fourteen hundred mosques for the exercise of the religion of Mohammed. The other, that at the end of the first century of the Hegira, the Arabian empire had been extended from the confines of India and Tartary to the shores of the Atlantic.

Bitterly did the Christians feel the scorpion sting. They were deprived of the use of their arms, and, like slaves of old, made to pay annually a life-redemption tax. They were required to stand up always in presence of their tyrants, and were called by the names of opprobrium, as “infidel dog, Christian dog,” etc. In further token of contempt of their religion, to which the Christians still clung with fond attachment, no new churches were permitted to be built, no church bells to be rung, while the scoffing Moslem had free access, even during divine worship, to all those which were allowed to exist. Insults of the grossest kind were continually offered to Christian females, and undefinable acts of oppression practiced on all. Every inducement was offered to apostasy, and the punishment of death was inflicted on any who, after apostasy, again professed the Christian faith.

These locusts, it is said, had a king over them, whose name was “Abaddon,” or the “Destroyer.” Mohammed professed that the spirit of the cave had dictated to him the Koran; this was accordingly the law that governed the Saracens. The Caliphs, or chief governors, held rule only as vicars of the false prophet. What the doctrine of the book was, as acted out by them, appeared on the field of battle. There when we see not only the loss of bodily life resulting, but also the ruin of souls from the poisonous precepts of Mohammedanism, we cannot find more fitting title to express the perpetuation of the prophet’s character in each successive Caliph than that of the “Abaddon,” the “Destroyer” of Christians!

There was, however, a term and limit prescribed to these locusts, both as to effect and as to duration. For observe, they were not to kill, i.e., to annihilate the men of Roman Christendom as a political body, but “only to torment them.” And this woe was to last 150 days, i.e., in prophetic language, 150 years.

Vain, accordingly, were the Saracenic efforts to destroy the State. Twice did they attack Constantinople, the capital of the eastern division of the Roman empire; they were defeated with ignominy and obliged to retire; the last of which repulses was in A.D. 718. Again, in the West, when they sought to destroy Pelayo and his band of Goths in the mountains of Asturias, they were twice driven back with disgrace, A.D. 711. Still more remarkably, when they attempted to subjugate France in 732, they suffered signal discomfiture from Charles Martel; though he did not succeed in driving them from Provence and Lyons till fifteen or twenty years after. Still, though hindered from driving further conquests, the locust-swarm remained to torment, and was united under one head. About the middle of the eighth century, however, a division took place among themselves. The Caliphate was divided; one Caliph being set up in the west, and an opposing Caliph in the east.

The eastern Caliph, resolving to build a new capital, laid the foundation of it at Bagdad, and thither the head of the locust tribe and the swarm took their flight. Once settled at Bagdad, the Saracens began to decline from the warlike spirit which had animated them. Gibbon says, “The luxury of the Caliphs relaxed the nerves and terminated the progress of the Arabian Empire.” In the west, the son of Charles Martel drove back the Saracens beyond the Pyrenees, A.D. 755. Again, in the year 761, the Christian remnant in Spain turned back the tide of war on their oppressors.

The termination of the Saracen woe, at least in intensity, may date at this period, i.e., A.D. 762.

Observe now what had been the length of time occupied in these transactions. We date from the period when Mohammed publicly announced his mission to propagate his religion by violence and with the sword — a mission which made his followers a woe to all countries, but specially to Christendom. The destroying commission might be said to commence at that period when Mohammed, addressing his assembled followers, inquired, “Who will be my lieutenant?” Ali, called by him “the Lion of God,” replied, “O prophet, I will be thy lieutenant. Whoever rises against thee, I will dash out his teeth, tear out his eyes, break his legs, rip him open. I am the man. I will be thy vizier.” Mr. Hallam justly observes, “These words of Mohammed’s illustrious disciple are, as it were, a text upon which the commentary extends into the whole Saracenic history.”

Thus then, reckoning from A.D. 612 to A.D. 762, when the Caliphate was removed to Bagdad, we find the intervening period to be precisely 150 years.

To two remarkable coincidences which occurred during this period we should give attention. It has been observed that the apostasy of the Church was the assigned and predicted cause of this judgment. Now Mohammed’s asserted commission was specially directed against idolaters; and it was in that character, as an idolatrous people, that Christendom appeared when the Saracen woe fell upon it. Up to the close of the seventh century, the reproach of image-worship might seem deservedly to give cause for the scourge which they suffered under the Moslem sword; but about the year 717, the Isaurian family ascended the throne of Constantinople. For sixty years its princes, supported by many real Christians, though opposed by the Popes and the masses of the people, resisted image-worship, and endeavored to overthrow it. Mark, then, it was during this period of resistance to the error that the Saracen horde received its first defeat at Constantinople.

Again in A.D. 754 Constantine Copronymus called a council in order to condemn the idolatrous image-worship. It passed a solemn judgment against it; and, behold, it was the very next year that the Caliphate was divided, and the intensity of the Saracenic woe was brought to an end.

But, alas! the efforts of these emperors availed but little. In the year 781, the Queen Irene succeeded to the throne, having murdered her image-destroying husband. She convened what is called the seventh general council; and by a solemn act of the Catholic Church the worship of images was declared lawful. Just then the Saracenic woe seemed for a time to revive. The Arab forces swept through Asia Minor into Greece, again and again bearing down all before them. Was there in all this no warning from God? The Eastern Church, however, persisted. In A.D. 842 the struggle ended under the reign of the Empress Theodora, and image-worship became indisputably established; Through the ninth and tenth centuries it so continued; yet such was the long-suffering of God, no judgment seemed to follow. But the time of retribution came at last.

Here we close as far as regards this vision. But a fact or two relative to the downfall of the Saracenic power may be added. Luxury, we have said, weakened its strength. In A.D. 841 the Caliph, distrusting his guards, was forced to hire a protective force of 50,000 Turks. These, like the Praetorian guards at Rome, in their turn became tyrants, and accelerated the sinking of the Saracens. At Fez and Tunis, in Egypt and Syria, in Khorasan and Persia to the east, new and independent powers were formed. A third Caliphate arose at Cairo. The Persians, in A.D. 934, stripped the Caliph of Bagdad of all temporal power, and left him only the title of Pontiff of Islamism. In the west a century after the Saracens were driven out, and though they continued as marauders, and even gained victories in Crete and Sicily, the woe might be said to have passed from Christendom.

Footnote

The number of churches destroyed may at first sight appear incredibly large; it may be well, therefore, to form an idea of the extent and power to which the nominally Christian Church in these parts had extended in the early centuries. In Palestine alone were 74 bishoprics, and 50 in Phoenicia and Arabia. The ruins of churches and cathedrals shew how great their grandeur had been. Antioch itself had 360 churches. Between this city and the sea is a hill called Ben-ki-liseh, or the thousand churches, from that number being erected on it. The see of Antioch exercised power over 203 bishops, besides 12 archbishops, etc. Exclusive of this, attached to Tyre were 13 bishoprics; to Ahamea, 7; Hierapolis, 8; Seleucia, 24; Damascus, IO; Caesarea, 19, etc. Many other similar lists are given in Roland’s History of the Episcopal List of the Three Palestines, alluded to in Dr. Keith’s Land of Israel p. 187, from which the foregoing is extracted. Edifices of Saracenic structure, scattered over Syria, show that these invaders sought to perpetuate their conquest, and made it their work to build as well as to destroy.

The ecclesiastical tyranny, which continued for centuries after, had at this period reached to great power; church architecture and church offerings forming a large part of church religion.↩

Continued in Revelation 9:12-19. The Sixth Trumpet

All chapters of The Last Prophecy: An Abridgment of Elliott’s Horae Apocalypticae

Today, June 4th marks the first full year since my wife Tess and I moved from Guam to the Philippines, now the third country I lived in outside the USA for more than one year. There are so many unusual sights here I’ve never seen anywhere else in the world that I thought the regular visitors of this website might like to see them too.

One of the most inconvenient things about life in the Philippines is frequent power outages. I don’t know about Manila or other large cities, but where I live in the province of Northern Samar, power outages are frequent. They can occur anytime, and when they do, we also have no WIFI to connect to the Internet. I keep my laptop charged so I can still do some work on articles even without an Internet connection.

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See more photos of my area in the Philippines on Scenes of the Philippines

Emperor Constantine who made Christianity the state religion.

My good friend Reinhard from the Netherlands wrote this and shared it with me.

Many Protestants believe that the Romanization of the Early Church occurred in phases and steps over the centuries; say, in the 4th to the 6th century. And, in a way, it did! But there was certainly a turning point in church history when a switch was definitively turned. It is not clear to many that a fatal decision was taken at a council convened by Emperor Constantine (306-337), who was present there as president. What should a government servant do at a church meeting? He had put an end to the persecution of Christians, but the Church was fettered and a gross error was introduced (Ephesians 4:14). Even most Protestant church history books don’t mention what comes next!

But the book “The Two Babylons” by Alexander Hislop (late 19th century) gives a clear account of this. By the two Babylons is meant, firstly, the idolatry of ancient Babylon and secondly, the Roman Institute, which has taken over a great deal from it under “Christian” or otherwise names.

It is about the Council of Nicaea in the year 325. There a heretic, Arius, who denied the eternal divinity of Christ, was justly condemned, but at the same time the Orthodox Church was hijacked by Roman Catholicism, although that appellation did not then exist, but was of Gnostic origin. The Egyptian participants, called the Melchites of Alexandria, brought up the concept of “Theotokos.” (Alexandria was a hotbed of gnostic schools.) Theotokos was concerned with the designation of Mary as being the one who gives birth to God, i.e. “the God-bearer”.

Here the “Mother and Child Worship” was introduced and soon also the image service. So the heretic Arius was cast out through the front door, but Babylonian idolatry was brought in through the back door. The truth is that Mary is not the mother of God, but Jesus took on her flesh and blood. And again, that Mary was impregnated by the Holy Ghost so that our Lord was the Man-God. True God and true Man. That is why we do not speak of Mary as the mother of God (God Triune was eternally earlier than Mary!) but as the mother of the Lord. The “Mother and Child Worship” of ancient Babylon had been adopted, and with it the Early Church ended up in the waters polluted by false teachings. When, at the end of the 4th century, the bishop of Rome took the title “Pontifex Maximus” (until then the title of the Roman emperor), the first pope, named Siricius from 384-399, was appointed. This made the Roman Institute a ‘fait accompli‘ (an accomplished fact)! These facts mark the transition from the Early Church to the papacy. Another 11 centuries would pass before the Reformation would break through and the Light of God’s Word would be put back on the candlestick. A huge breach was made in the fortress of the antichrist. God’s people were delivered and brought out of their Babylonian captivity! The Roman Institute is not a Christian church, and Roman Catholics are not Christians.
 
Note: “Gnosis”, is the Greek word for ‘Knowledge’. A religion for initiates, whose pseudo-Christian movement gave a different interpretation to the truth of the Gospel and denied that Jesus Christ came in the flesh. I John 4:1-6 and II John 7.

They adhered to a doctrine of higher and lower gods (Roman Catholic saints) produced by the great goddess, whom they called the “Virgin Mother.” This is the ancient idolatry of Babel. They taught another trinity: the Father, the Madonna, and the Son. The Blessed Virgin (Mary) is then the incarnation of the Spirit of God. This is the basis of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin. This has actually been adopted by Roman Catholicism. Until 325 A.D., this doctrine was alien to the Early Church and has no basis in the Bible.
 
R. Sheep.

This is the continuation of The Last Prophecy: An Abridgment of Elliott’s Horae Apocalypticae.

A.D. 565-612.

THIS VISION, coming between those of the fourth trumpet and the fifth, corresponds with that period of time in history between the extinction of the old government at Rome and the rise of Mohammed — from the Emperor Justinian’s death, when the Lombards settled in Italy, to the beginning of the seventh century, the usually admitted period of transition from ancient to modern history.

From the angel flying through mid-heaven we may infer that his message of warning was one that might be recognized by all who observed the signs of the times, and in the Church of Christendom doubtless there were those who at this crisis were not insensible to the forebodings of evil. From the time of St. Paul through the different centuries following, we find in the writings of the Greek and Latin fathers that the expectation of the Church was, that with the fall of the Roman Empire the coming of Antichrist in power might be looked for. Jerome, about the time when Alaric took Rome, wrote again and again, “The Roman world rushes to destruction and we bend not our neck in humiliation, the hindrance in Antichrist’s way is removing and we heed it not.” Many were the writers, in different centuries who had sent forth from their retirement, some from their monasteries, their note of warning. Well might they regard that as being Rome’s downfall, when the name of Roman emperor had been extinguished in the west by Odoacer, and then (in A.D. 550) that of consul and of senate by Justinian’s generals. From Rome prostrate the solemn voice seemed to rise and echo through the world, “Woe to the inhabitants of the earth, by reason of the judgments now pending.”

There was in the chronology of this particular time also that which favored the idea that the consummation of all things approached, it having been universally believed, both amongst the Jews and the Christian fathers, that the present world was designed to last but 6000 years, at the end of which the expected Millennium was to commence. But according to the Septuagint, the reckoning of which was generally received by the Romans, these 6000 years were at this period nearly completed.

There was also something in the outward aspect of affairs that omened ill. All the empire seemed affected. The newly founded Gothic kingdoms were still in commotion in the West. Another barbarous horde, the Lombards, had seized on many parts of Italy. The Avar Tartars had settled themselves in Hungary. War from Persia likewise threatened the Eastern third. Nor were they the terrors of man’s wrath only that tended to alarm. Pestilence during fifty-two years infected the greater part of the empire, by which many cities were depopulated and made desert. At Constantinople 5000, and at length 10,000, died daily. At Rome, in a solemn procession for imploring the mercy of Heaven, no less than eighty persons in a single hour dropped dead from the infection of the pestilence.

The greatest man of that age, the then Pope of Rome, Gregory the Great, gave out a warning cry of what he too thought to be portended by the state of the times. His forebodings are on record. “We know from the Word of Almighty God that the end of the world is at hand, and the reign of the saints which shall have no end. In the approach of which consummation, all nature must be expected to be disordered, seasons deranged, wars raging, and famines, earthquakes, and pestilences. If not in our days,” he concludes, “we must expect it in those following.” Was it not like the angel flying in mid-heaven, and crying, “Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabitants of the earth, by reason of the judgments about to come”?

Nor was it only concerning the coming of the Lord as being near that Gregory raised his cry: he spoke of Antichrist’s being at hand also. In consequence of the Patriarch of Constantinople having taken the title of “Universal Bishop,” Gregory wrote, at intervals from A.D. 580 to nearly the end of the century, letters to emperors, bishops, etc., declaring before Christendom that whosoever claimed this title was the likeness, the precursor of, and the preparer for Antichrist; that he bore the same characteristic of boundless pride and self-exaltation; that the tendency of his assumption, if consented to, was to withdraw all members of the Church from its only true head, Jesus Christ, and to connect them with himself. His letters state or imply that he considers such title as the name of blasphemy connected with the ten-horned beast of the Apocalypse; the self-exaltation above his fellow-men, as that predicted by St. Paul of the man of sin; (2 Thess. 2:4) and the consenting to it, as that departure from the faith and the apostasy named by the same apostle. (1 Tim. 4:1) What would this wise observer have said had he but foreseen that, before fifteen years after, this title should be adopted by the Bishop of Rome, his successor, and extended even to that of universal episcopal supremacy over the whole professing Church on earth — an assumption never to be abandoned? Surely the fact was well calculated to excite the misgivings of thinking men, and to awaken the inquiry, whether, in truth, the very Antichrist of prophecy was not even then in existence.

We have, in a former lecture, observed the gradual progress in the Church visible of these anti-christian tendencies; and we have seen the grievous judgments commissioned by God against the portion of the Roman world in which these errors had become more flagrant. What then, we may ask, had been the moral effect of these warnings and judgments which the Gothic wars had so distinctly pronounced? Had they led to the rooting out the growing evils? Alas! no. Those evils had gone on advancing; old superstitions continued, and new were added. The Baptismal sacrament was still regarded as having the mysterious efficacy of a charm for man’s salvation; and the Lord’s Supper was held up in nearly the same light. The saints and their merits were still invoked, and in the best authorized liturgies set forth as the most powerful mediators and the best pleaders with God, and their relics and pictures more than ever venerated. One Christian bishop, Serenus of Marseilles, having cast out the saints’ images from his churches, on account of the idolatrous worship paid to them by the people, Gregory the Great took part with the people, and had them retained. This same Pope Gregory just then gave his authority to the doctrine of purgatory. This arose from the custom of thanksgivings for the dead. Originally it alone applied to martyrs; but in time more doubtful characters were solemnly remembered; and church prayers were offered for the remission of punishment, and for the purification of those souls which had departed in sin. Then came with this error, and as a part of it, curious questions relative to the purifying of the soul by fire; and now Pope Gregory, at the close of the sixth century, fixed authoritatively the awful and false doctrine of a purgatorial fire immediately after death. This was done on the presumed evidence of recent visions and revelations. The Bishop of Capua asserted that he had himself seen the soul of Paschasius the deacon boiling in the hot baths of St. Angelo!

We noticed the power put into the hands of the priesthood by the sacramental error, and that of saint and relic worship. About the middle of the fifth century private and particular confession to priests instead of public general confession was substituted; after this came indulgence for sins, granted by the priest, as well as remission from their guilt, and from penance. Now the doctrine of purgatory increased the priestly power — a power fearful to contemplate. They (the priests) were forbidden to marry, and thus detached from the ties of the world. Ecclesiastical power was their sole ambition; and this, when their morals, like their knowledge, were debased and low. The use made of this priestly power was to come between Christ and the. Church, and to shut Christ more and more out of the ecclesiastical system. When, after all this exaltation of the priesthood, one among them not only assumed the title of “Universal Bishop of the whole Church,” but a still higher title ascribed to him by the Italian bishops and priesthood in council, viz., “Christ’s Vicar,” or “God’s Vicar on earth,” must it not again have struck the thinking mind of every real Christian that herein was the very likeness of that “man of sin” referred to in God’s Word?

Except in the religious murders, there was not a single sin in the catalogue mentioned in the ninth chapter of Revelation, verses 20, 21, as the cause of these woes, which was not to be found at this time in the Roman Church. There was the worship of demons, or saints canonized, and of images of gold, silver, brass, stone and wood, which neither could see, nor hear, not walk; there were the sorceries, or lying miracles: and there was licentiousness, and priestly religious-thefts. Must not all these have seemed to an enlightened Christian to cry to heaven for vengeance against apostate Christendom? Might he not well have anticipated the angels cry, “Woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth,” by reason of the other judgments yet to come upon it? By the world, however, the interval of warning was neglected, and soon passed away; and the trumpet sounding again gave sign to the Apostle that judgment was once more aroused, and the threatened woes about to begin. Previously to our entering upon the consideration of the coming vision, let us endeavor to mark the limits of its infliction.

We find no express intimation as to the particular division of the Roman earth that was now to be visited. But it may be inferred that the eastern or Asiatic third, as the one nearest to the Euphrates, was to be the scene of suffering under the fifth as well as under the following trumpet. To this portion, comprehending Asia-Minor, Syria, and Egypt, the former troubles reached not. Its religion had been sinking deeper and deeper into superstition. In its controversies, the characteristic of the Greek ecclesiastical history of the times, we look in vain for the Christian spirit. Now its hour was come. But what the scourge, and whence? The answer is conveyed in Scripture by means of locally figurative and characteristic symbols, which will require an attentive consideration before we enter on the explanation of the fifth trumpet.

It must strike an observant reader how often in Scripture symbols are taken from either the plants, the animals, or the people of the country prophesied of, so as to identify it in respect of its geography, natural history, or national habits. Thus, is Judah symbolized? We find the olive, the fig tree, and the vine-trees peculiar to that country. “The Lord called thy name a green olive.” (Jer. 11:16) “He hath barked my fig-tree.” (Joel 1:7) “Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt.” (Ps. 80:80) If Egypt be characterized, Isaiah describes Rabshakeh as saying, “Thou trustest in the staff of this broken reed, on Egypt;” (Is. 36:6) and again Ezekiel complains, “They have been a staff of reed to Israel,” (Ezek. 29:6) the reed being characteristic of the banks of the Nile. So David indicates his own land. “The righteous shall flourish like the palm-tree; he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.” (Ps. 92:12)

With the same local appropriateness animals are used as symbols. Judah is again and again depicted as a lion; — “Judah is couched as a lion.” (Gen. 49:9) “Ephraim also is like a silly dove,” (Hosea 7:11) the dove being constantly used in the Jewish sacrifices. Judah in sorrow is “like a pelican in the wilderness.” All animals well known in these countries.

The personal appearance, the dress and armor in general use, is sometimes taken to indicate the nation intended. Take that beautiful personification of Judah as a female child brought up to womanhood, affianced to God, and then faithless. (Ezek. 16.) Here the long hair, the anointing with oil, the broidered dress, the jewels and other ornaments, are all appurtenances of the Jewish female of olden times.

Many other examples will readily occur to each Bible reader, but these will suffice to enable us intelligently to enter upon the coming subject.

We may take this opportunity of noticing an objection which has been taken to the admixture of literal and figurative language, so apparent in the foregoing explanation of the first four trumpet visions, as also in those we have yet to consider. But are there not in truth numerous instances of the like throughout the Scriptures? Take the prophetic description of our Lord’s sufferings: “They pierced My hands and My feet,” in immediate connection with ” strong bulls of Bashan have beset Me round:” (Ps. 22:12, 16) — this figurative, that literal. See also Ezek. 27:2 5; and Ps. 80:8.

Continued in Revelation 9:1-11. The Fifth Trumpet

All chapters of The Last Prophecy: An Abridgment of Elliott’s Horae Apocalypticae

This is the continuation of The Last Prophecy: An Abridgment of Elliott’s Horae Apocalypticae.

Irruption Of The Goths, Etc., A.D. 395-565

THE TRUMPET was of God’s own appointment to Israel, to be used in the tabernacle or temple by the priests that “stood before God.” (Num. 10:1-10) Its purpose was twofold. 1st, As regarded the Israelites, its use was to proclaim the advance of time — the Sabbaths and other festivals, to summon the congregations for prayer and praise, and to direct the movements of the camp in their pilgrimage. 2nd, As regarded their enemies, to proclaim war, as from God himself, in token that the Lord was about to fight for Israel.

Similar to these would seem to be the objects indicated by these symbolic trumpet-soundings in the Revelation. As one after another uttered its solemn and far-echoing clang, his own Israel, the true Church, might look upon the sign as one would note the strikings of the dial, to mark each epoch of progress toward the consummation. So, also, to the opponents of the truth, each successive blast was a denunciation of war and troubles about to come upon them. An interesting analogy might still further be observed between the mode of these Apocalyptic soundings and the trumpetblasts at the fall of Jericho, commemorated up to the Apostles’ time in the annual feast of tabernacles, when a palm-bearing procession, with trumpets blowing and chanting hosannas, were wont to visit the temple. Thus might the saints of God, even amid those forebodings of woe to the earth, direct their hearts in bright anticipation to their final victory over every enemy, when the glorious antitypical feast shall be celebrated in the kingdom of Christ.

The first four trumpet-visions, like those of the first four seals, are connected together by certain features of resemblance. They depict a series of tempests about to affect in succession the third part of the Roman earth, of the sea, of the rivers, and of the heavenly luminaries; each having sufficiently distinctive characteristics to fix the application of the symbol to the precise epoch of historical events.

For the explanation of the peculiar tripartite division of the Roman world here intended we are necessarily confined to that which will suit its application, not to one, but to all these four visions, in which the same, or corresponding third part is evidently designated.

And thus we are directed to that trisection of the empire which occurred just before the establishment of Christianity, when the entire provinces were apportioned between the three emperors, Constantine, Licinius, and Maximin. To Constantine there attached Gaul, Spain, Britain, Italy, and Africa; to Licinius, the vast Illyrian preefecture, which embraced the rest of Roman Europe; to Maximin, the Asiatic provinces and Egypt. This division continued geographically and historically recognized even after the well-known bi-partition of the empire into Eastern and Western, the intermediate third province of Illyricum being subject to frequent alterations, sometimes belonging to the Eastern and again to the Western Empire, until, after the death of Theodosius, it became so detached, by Gothic occupation, from the rule of both Eastern and Western Empire as to require that it be henceforth treated of in distinct and separate history.

It will tend much to our comparison of the prophecy with the history if we endeavor to place ourselves in the situation of the Evangelist, and trace, as we may believe he was enabled to do, these successive visions as locally affecting each its assigned portion of the Roman world. The living, though miniature, landscape was stretched before him, with its triple divisions and boundaries, each portion including its third of the Mediterranean or Roman Sea, as well as its third of the land, and each one also its own characteristic stream of the three great frontier rivers, the Rhine, Danube, and Euphrates. It is the Western third to which the first four trumpet-visions alike refer.

Observe the vision. The Angel-priest has come forth from offering the incense of the faithful. He goes again to the great altar and refills his censer with the burning embers, not now to bless, but to destroy. He casts them upon the professing but apostate world below, devoting the land to a curse. Heaven and earth, animate and inanimate creation, feel the shock. From the cloud of glory issue thunderings and lightnings. The four angels have loosed their hold of the winds, and the tempests burst forth. The Roman earth quakes through its vast extent, and everywhere, from suffering or fear, men’s faces gather blackness. And now the angel sounds

The FIRST TRUMPET. Lo, coming from the bitter north, from the countries beyond the Danube, a tremendous tempest, charged with lightning and hail, appears driving westward. Its course is over the continental provinces of the Western Roman Empire. It touches the Rhaetian hill country, and sweeps over the Italian frontier. Other terrific thunder-clouds from the north-west intermingle with it; and once and again passing the Alps and the Apennines, spread in devastating fury over Italy. Dividing, a part bursts over the imperial city, and passes to the southernmost coast of Bruttium. Another part, driven backward, takes a westerly course over the Rhine into Gaul, causing devastation far and wide; then, crossing the Pyrenees, pours its fury on the Spanish provinces, nor spends itself till it has reached the far shores of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. Throughout the whole the lightning-fire runs along the ground, as of old-in the plagues of Egypt, burning up country and town, trees and pasture. Moreover, “blood mingles with the hail;” life is destroyed. The third part of the land is desolated. A short pause ensues; then presently

The SECOND TRUMPET sounds; another trumpet blast of judgment. Now is the visitation of the western third of the Mediterranean Sea, including its islands and the marine province beyond. A giant mountain-rock, blazing like Etna with volcanic fires, is upheaved from the southernmost point of Spain and cast into the sea. The waters are agitated by it. The burning ashes are scattered, for hundreds of miles round, on sea and mainland, coasts and islands; first on the shores of Africa, then opposite from Gibraltar Straits along to the head of the Adriatic. Ships are on fire in harbOur and at sea, and blood, as before, marks the loss of life. Over the whole maritime scene of its ravages all that is habitable is destroyed. “The third part of the sea becomes blood,” etc.

THIRD TRUMPET. The volcano is not yet fully spent when another angel sounds. Just where the Theiss, pouring itself into the Danube, marks the center of the Illyrian boundary, a portentous meteor, like a blazing torch trailing its red line of light ’behind it in the northern skies, descends, and taints the rivers in its downward course. Tracking the line of the Upper Danube and the Rhine, it poisons the waters even to the Belgic lowlands. Thence it shoots westwards; but, repelled by some counter-force, it turns south, and falls on the fountains of the European waters, even on the Alpine glaciers. Rivers and streams are “made bitter,” and the dying and dead lie along their banks. “The name of that star is Wormwood,” etc. So having done its part, it shoots back toward the Danube, there blazes for a moment, and is extinct.

FOURTH TRUMPET. Hitherto, while land, sea, rivers, and fountains had been in vision desolated, yet had the sun continued to shine on the Western Empire. Now this too is affected. One third of its orb is eclipsed, and the darkness of night supervenes; then the moon and the stars of the symbolic firmament, all that are in that third of the Roman sky, are darkened also.

Such, we may imagine, was the manner in which these successive visions passed before the Evangelist. Nor need we doubt the natural interpretation he would attach to them. Surely he would consider them as prefiguring the ravages of some terrible invaders from Northern Germany, which should desolate the Western Empire successively in its continental and maritime provinces, followed speedily by a fresh scourge on the Illyrian prefecture, thence ravaging the countries of the Rhine and of its Alpine source, and, finally, symbolizing the extinction of the imperial dynasty of the West, and even of its inferior governments. In such manner, we believe, must St. John have interpreted these prophetical pictures. It remains for us to see the historical fulfillment of them.

And here, while expositors have with somewhat general consent designated the great Gothic destroyers of the empire, Alaric and Rhadayaisus, as well as Genseric, Attila, and Odoacer, as having in a remarkable degree answered to the prefigurations in these trumpet-visions, it is worth while tracing farther back the agreement with the prophecy of the events preceding their irruptions.

We have already remarked on the “silence in heaven,” the stillness which supervened on the death of Theodosius, A.D. 395. It was but of short duration. “Before the winter had ended,” says Gibbon, “the Gothic nation was in arms.” In 396 the fearful tempest bursts upon Thessaly and the Grecian provinces. The march of ALARIC and his hosts was traced in blood. The land seemed to tremble. Nay, strange convulsions of nature gave literal portents of evil to come, uniting their voices with the voices of men2 in sounding a solemn alarm.

Then was a pause, while “the angels prepared to sound.” Then was Alaric preparing himself for his task. Through the infatuation of the Emperor Arcadius he had been made master-general of Eastern Illyricum, and thus was furnished by the Romans themselves with arms for their own destruction. There, seated in authority, between the two empires, be for four years meditated, like an eagle of prey, on which half of the devoted carcass he should fall, until his preparation was complete in his formal exaltation as king of the Visigoths.

This era of the first trumpet extended from about A.D. 400 to A.D. 410, or somewhat longer. Alaric was arrested suddenly by death while meditating further conquests, reserved however for another hand and another trumpet.

To the Vandal, GENSERIC, it appertained to follow up the scourge by smiting the maritime provinces of Africa and the islands which Alaric had left untouched. Scarcely had Italy begun to recover in part from its ravages, and while Gaul and Spain continued to be rent by the quarrels of the conquerors, Africa was made to feel that its time was come. In the year 429 the Second Trumpet had sounded. Genseric had transported his force across the Afric sea, and, like the noted volcano of that very age, entered on his rapid work of destruction. Hippo fell before him and was burnt; then Carthage. Resistance was at an end. The fire did indeed “mingle with blood,” till all that province was Vandalised. Then did Genseric cast his eyes on the sea. He created a naval power and claimed the empire of the Mediterranean. Sicily and Sardinia, all that was in the third part of the sea, sweeping from Gibraltar to the Adriatic, with their adjoining coasts, were mercilessly ravaged. When asked by his pilot what course to steer, “Leave the determination to the winds,” was his reply; “they will transport us to the guilty coast whose inhabitants have provoked the divine justice.” Twice, on memorable occasions, the Roman navies were gathered to oppose the Vandal’s progress, but in vain. Fire-ships were driven among them, and the prediction was fulfilled, “the third part of the ships was destroyed.”

This second-trumpet era reached till A.D. 477, when this sea-tyrant died. Ere that period, however, another plague had been commissioned against the devoted empire in ATTILA THE HUN, — “the scourge of God.” Alone of conquerors, ancient or modern, he united under his sway the two mighty kingdoms of Germany and Scythia. The superstition of the times regarded him as more than mortal, and their chroniclers tell how a blazing meteor in the heavens, with other fiery northern lights, boded ruin and war when Attila entered upon his conquests. Having made himself lord of the Lower Danube about A.D. 450, he crossed the Rhine and traced this great frontier river of the west down to Belgium, massacring its inhabitants and wasting its valleys; until, having burnt its principal cities, and left behind him a scene of desolation and woe, he was arrested in his course and repulsed in the tremendous battle of Chalons. Thence turning upon a new scene of predicted ravage, he fell upon “the European fountains of waters” — the Alpine heights and Alpine valleys. “From the Alps to the Apennines all was flight, depopulation, slaughter, slavery, and despair.”3 Men fled into the sea for refuge, and then it was that Venice was built out of the deep — a standing memorial of Attila the Hun. And now that all Italy lay exposed before him, we might well ask what hindered that he should not have advanced in his career of slaughter? But his prescribed work was ended. The third of the rivers and fountains of waters had been made bitter by his means. An embassy from the Emperor Valentinian and the Roman bishop Leo sufficed to deprecate his wrath. He suddenly withdrew from Italy, recrossed the Danube, and the very next year, A.D. 453, was cut off by apoplexy. The meteor was extinct. The power of the Huns was broken; the woe of the Third Trumpet had passed away.

Little now pertained to Rome’s empire but an empty title. Its glory had long departed; its provinces had been rent away; its power by sea annihilated; its country had become desert. The time was now come when Rome’s imperial title was itself to come to an end. ODOACER, chief of the Heruli, a barbarian host left by Attila on the frontiers of Italy, gave command that the name and office of Roman Emperor of the West should be abolished. The command was obeyed. Romulus Augustulus abdicated. The insignia of authority were sent by the senate to Constantinople, with a profession that one emperor was sufficient for the whole of the empire. Thus the western third of the imperial sun was darkened — to shine no more. Still a shadow of authority remained at Rome. The senate assembled and consuls were appointed yearly, Odoacer himself being named governor. Thus the inferior lights, the moon and stars, for a while appeared not wholly extinguished. Before fifty years more had elapsed, these also were to pass away. Theodoric, the Ostrogoth, destroying the kingdom of the Heruli, ruled in his own name till A.D. 526; then, on the reconquest of Italy by Belisarius, the Roman senate was dissolved and the consulship abrogated. In the prophetic words of Jerome about a century before, “The world’s glorious sun has been extinguished,” or, as our modern poet has, in like Apocalyptic imagery, expressed it —

till not one star remained to glimmer on the vacant and dark night.

So the Fourth Trumpet sound died away.

Meanwhile, amidst all these troubles, the elect and sealed of God were preserved. Searching and trying indeed must those times have been to them, and not from the secular afflictions alone of the world around them, but yet more, be sure, from the advancing apostasy in the professing Church. By many even of the most eminent of the teachers and rulers of the Church superstitious practices were encouraged, and their influence and talents zealously and most lamentably exercised for the upholding of grievous errors. Sulpicius, Paulinus, Jerome, Martin of Tours, contributed each his aid in so helping forward the apostasy at the end of the fourth century, and others still succeeded in the fifth. But the influence also of Augustine continued. He had himself died in peace the very year Hippo was burnt, and then been numbered with the Church above. But his doctrine, his holy doctrine, died not.

Continued in Revelation 8:13. Forewarnings Of Coming Woe

All chapters of The Last Prophecy: An Abridgment of Elliott’s Horae Apocalypticae

This is the continuation of The Last Prophecy: An Abridgment of Elliott’s Horae Apocalypticae.

The Incense Vision. Saint-Worship Begun, A.D. 324-395.

IN THE LECTURE upon the sealing vision we had to notice the intimation given to St. John of apostasy and unfaithfulness, begun and carried forward to a large extent in the professing Christian Church from the time that Christianity became the national religion of the Roman Empire.

But could such falling away occur and judgment from God not follow? And whence did such judgment arise, as we might justly anticipate?

There stood the four tempest-angels, prepared to execute the order and let loose the blasts. In other words, there stood waiting on the frontiers the barbarian hordes, ready to execute the work of desolation on the Roman Empire. There was silence in heaven. No trumpet-blast had sounded. All was serene, tranquil, and silent. It was the stillness before the storm; and while such stillness lasted what vision came before the eyes of the Evangelist? “Another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer.”

There are three points here to be specially noted in the passage: — First, the angel-priest ministering. Whom can we suppose to be here intended but the Lord Jesus? For he is “the great High Priest over the house of God passed into the heavens.” In that character he appeared in the opening of the first chapter. None but the high priest in the Jewish temple used a golden censer; the common priests used one of silver. This angel, who goes into the holy place and afterwards scatters altar-fire over the apostatizing land of Roman Christendom, must be the same as the sealing-angel whom we saw to be Christ Jesus, but now in his priestly and mediatorial character about to present as an offering the prayers of his people.

Secondly, we must note the position of the Angel. He stood at the altar, and much incense was given him. The Jewish law was, that the high priest should stand, receive the incense from the worshippers, and then, taking coals from the altar on his censer, should carry the coals and incense together into the sanctuary; and, after laying the latter on the golden altar before the veil, burn it with the sacred fire. Any other than this was called strange fire; for using which Nadab and Abihu, though sons of Aaron, were instantly struck dead by God. And why such particularity? It was that a deep mystery was shadowed forth in this Mosaic ordinance, viz., that the prayers and praises of God’s people, unless purified by and associated with the meritorious atoning-sacrifice of the Lamb of God, could never rise up acceptably before the mercy-seat of Jehovah. In the symbolic vision before us, the Angel’s standing by the altar and receiving and offering up the incense shows that such association here too was necessary. Association with Christ in his twofold character, both as sacrifice and as priest, is figured out, even as the true Christian’s privilege is stated: “We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous (i.e., an intercessory priest), and he is the propitiatory (or sacrifice) for our sins.” (1 John 2:1,2)

Thirdly, who were, and who were not, the offerers that gave him incense? The offerers were “the saints,” i.e., the 144,000 — the sealed ones. The prayers of “all these,” we read — and mark well, of these alone — rose up. Here comes in the force of allusive contrast. No other offerers came, no other prayers rose up. So it is expressly noted, for we read of wrath soon after being poured out on the earth, i.e., on the inhabitants of it, showing that they were not present at this service in the altar-court.

Had then the members of the professing Church indeed forsaken the altar-court? had they indeed renounced the privilege of Christ’s propitiatory sacrifice and his mediatorship? Such seemed truly the meaning of the symbol. It appeared as if some renunciation of this privilege would about this period of time become apparent, not only in private but in public worship, and that the saints would be distinguished from the professing Church by their adherence to Christ’s mediation and propitiatory atoning sacrifice for acceptance with God. This first step in apostasy was about this time taken by the visible Church.

If we consult history, we shall see how the invocation of saints and martyrs and new means of propitiating God had just then come into fashion among the inhabitants of the Roman world, and that while professing to be Christians, they were rapidly falling back into Christ-renouncing idolatry. This was, in fact, the second step into Antichristian apostasy, and the more to be marked as here the invisible world was called in to strengthen the delusion. A recent writer of Church history describes well the then state of things. Speaking of the horror with which the early Christians viewed idolatry, he says: “So definite and broad was the space which in this point separated between Christianity and Paganism, that it seemed impossible that a compromise should be effected between principles so hostile. Yet the contrary result took place. A reconciliation, which in the beginning of the fourth century could not easily have been imagined, was virtually accomplished before its termination. Those who had sealed a Christian’s faith by a martyr’s death were exalted above men and enthroned among celestial beings. Superstition gave birth to credulity. Those who sat among the powers of heaven might (it was thought) sustain by miraculous assistance their votaries on earth… Hence the stupid veneration for bones and relics. People were taught that prayer was never so surely efficacious as when offered at the tomb of some saint.” Gibbon gives a sketch of the state of public worship then prevailing. “If in the beginning of the fifth century some of the primitive fathers had been suddenly raised from the dead to assist at the festival of some popular saint or martyr, they would have gazed with astonishment and indignation on the profane spectacle which had succeeded to the pure and spiritual worship of a Christian. congregation. As soon as the doors of the Church were thrown open, they must have been offended by the smoke of incense, the perfume of flowers, and the glare of lamps and tapers, which diffused at noonday a gaudy, superfluous, and, in their opinion, a sacrilegious light. If they approached the balustrade of the altar, they made their way through the prostrate crowd… (whose) devout kisses were imprinted on the walls and pavement of the sacred edifice; and their fervent prayers were directed (whatever might be the language of their Church) to the bones, the blood, or the ashes of the saints, which were usually concealed by a linen or silken veil from the eyes of the vulgar. They frequented the tombs of the martyrs in hope of obtaining from their powerful intercession every sort of spiritual, but more especially of temporal blessings. (Were their wishes fulfilled,) they again hastened to the martyrs’ tombs to celebrate with grateful thanksgivings their obligations to the memory and relics of those heavenly patrons. The walls were hung round with symbols of the favors which they had received, — eyes and hands and feet of gold and silver, and edifying pictures which could not long escape the abuse of indiscreet or idolatrous devotion, represented the image, the attributes, and the miracles of the tutelar saint.” Such is Gibbon’s account of the state of public worship at this epoch, A.D. 395: this being the very time we are now arrived at in symbolic history, when the angels were about to let go the wind, and the time also in Roman history of the commencement of the Gothic irruptions after the death of the Emperor Theodosius.

Let it not be supposed that it was only the young, the weak, and the ignorant who thus ran into folly and superstition. The highest of their bishops and doctors led the way, and the multitude followed. Pagans, of whom a few were left, as well as heretics, ridiculed the heathenish character of the new worship. In the year 396, Eunapius, the Pagan, exclaims, “These are the gods the earth nowadays brings forth; these the intercessors with the gods, — men called martyrs, before whose bones and skulls, pickled and salted, the monks kneel and lay prostrate, covered with filth and dust.” The Manichaean heretic, Faustus, A.D. 400, says, “You have but exchanged the old idols for martyrs, and offer to the latter the same prayers as once to the former.” The monk St. Jerome did truly step forth to repel such charges. He disclaimed idolatry, but he admitted and maintained that the dead saints were omnipresent, had influence with God, could hear and answer prayer, and even work miracles in behalf of the suppliant, as also punish neglecters and torture demons. He spoke of them as intercessors and mediators and ministers between God and man. Thus was Christ set aside; for how could these saints act as successful mediators, except as having a stock of merit of their own sufficient to propitiate God? How is Jesus Christ a prevailing Advocate with the Father, except as being “Christ the righteous,” who hath made atonement for our sins?” (1 John 2:2, 3) But to the merits of departed saints, as we have seen, were added the merits of the living Church; gifts and calms-deeds were offered at the saints’ tombs. So was the true offering of incense at God’s altar forsaken. In the language of the prophet, “They had forsaken God, the fountain of living waters, and hewn to themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that could hold no water,” (Jer. 2:13) committing thus two evils. And the sad apostasy went forward. For whether it be the sacraments, or the Church forms, or tradition, or the dead saints, or the living priests; whatever it be that interposes and hinders the direct personal communion of each sinner’s soul with Christ as its Mediator, atonement, righteousness, and Saviour, it is altogether contrary to the written Word of God, taken in its simple unperverted sense. Had the early Church but kept fast to this written Word for its guide and rule, nothing could have misled it.

How innocent, nay, more, how even amiable, were the first steps that led to martyr-worship! What more natural than that the remains of those who suffered for Christ’s sake should be carefully preserved, and their birthday into eternal glory annually remembered! What more natural than on these days to have a service at their tomb! Are they present? Do they hear us and see us? How natural to speak to them, and ask their prayer! Here began the danger of interfering with the mediatorship of Jesus. Had not the word of prophecy spoken of the worship of demons or deified dead men as being one mark of the apostasy? (Rev. 9:20) As it was, the warning note was neglected. One Council, indeed, forbade the worship of angels, but dead saints were not to be considered as such. In this distinction appeared the deceit of Satan, the bold and crafty deviser of all this mischief. The angels could not be connected with a particular spot or edifice on earth: the dead saints were more readily associated with the priestly functionaries of the church built over the place where their bodies were entombed. Who so effectual a helper to the saints’ favor as the priest that watched the saints’ relics? Hence it arose that the priest also in the eyes of the populace became a mediator, and a dispenser of the favor and wrath of Heaven. He was regarded with superstitious awe as holy and elect, and as having connection with the invisible world: — a regard tending too surely to increase pride and vanity amongst the clergy. Thus saint-worship, like the former error of baptism, became abiding. The great step in Antichristian apostasy was taken. The infidel Gibbon and the Christian writer and bishop, Van Mildert, speak alike “of heathenism as revived in the empire.” To use the words of Coleridge, “The pastors of the Church had gradually changed the life and light of the Gospel into the very superstitions they were commissioned to disperse, and thus paganized Christianity in order to Christen paganism.” Well might the Apocalyptic prophecy speak of these heathenized Christians as of the rest of the world, under the title “the inhabitants of the earth.”

But were there no true worshippers left? None who acknowledged and held close to their High Priest and Intercessor, Jesus Christ? Far from it. “There was given to the angel much incense, that he should offer it, with the prayers of all the saints, upon the golden altar before the throne.” And the names of some of the number remain on record. “Whom shall I look to as my mediator,” said Augustine; “shall I go to angels? Many have tried it, and deserve to be the sport of the illusions they loved. A mediator between God and man must have the nature of both. The true Mediator, whom in thy secret mercy thou hast shown to the humble, the man Jesus Christ, hath appeared Mediator between mortal sinners and the immortal Holy One; that by his divine righteousness he might justify the ungodly. He was shown to ancient saints that they might be saved by faith in his future sufferings, and we by faith in the same sufferings already past. How hast thou loved us, O Father, delivering up thy Son for us, for whom he our Priest and Sacrifice, was subjected to death! Well may my hope be strong in such an Intercessor.” Nor was Augustine singular. We may hope those members of the Laodicean Council, of which we before spoke, were influenced by love to Christ in forbidding angel-worship. Mention is made of Jovinian and Vigilantius, the latter called “the Protestant of his age,” who, even more prominently than Augustine, protested against the prevailing errors. They were cast out as heretics by their fellowmen, but can we doubt their acceptance with their Lord? “Their prayers ascended with the incense smoke out of the angel’s hand unto God.”

And for the earthly ones in Roman Christendom, — what of them? The angel took the censer, and filled it with fire, and cast it (the fire) upon the earth.” The signal was given. “And there were thunderings, and lightnings, and voices, and an earthquake. And the seven angels prepared themselves to sound.”

Continued in Revelation 8:6-12. The First Four Trumpets

All chapters of The Last Prophecy: An Abridgment of Elliott’s Horae Apocalypticae

This is the continuation of The Last Prophecy: An Abridgment of Elliott’s Horae Apocalypticae.

The Final Salvation Of The Elect. The Doctrines Of Augustine. Fourth Century.

WE HAVE ALREADY in a great measure anticipated the main explanation of this vision; but there is one point not touched on, and which requires attention, namely, the position which the true Church held on earth as to the Apostolic character of her ministry, symbolized by that which the Evangelist himself held during the visions which he saw. It may be well to mark very particularly this latter, since it will serve as an explanation to some difficulties: and in confirmation of the view being one recognized in Scripture, we need only refer to Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, for similar examples.

These ancient prophets, we may observe, prophesied not merely by word, but by action. The acts that were required of them were meant to show on a larger scale what God proposed to do. They were, in other words, types; and in this way the prophets became typical or representative persons. Take for instance the passage in Isaiah: “Behold, I and the children that God hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the Lord of hosts.” (Isa. 8:18) Again, the Lord had said to Isaiah, “Go and loose the sackcloth from off thy loins, and put off thy shoe from thy foot. And he did so, walking naked and barefoot. And the Lord said, Like as my servant Isaiah hath walked naked and barefoot three years, for a sign and wonder upon Egypt and Ethiopia, so shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians and Ethiopians captives, young and old, naked and barefoot,” (Isa 20:2-4) etc. When Jeremiah made yokes and wore them by the Lord’s command, he is then desired to send them to the kings and peoples of Moab, Edom, Tyre, and Sidon, to cause them by this action to understand that they were to be brought under the yoke of the king of Babylon. (Jer. 27:3) When Ezekiel, by God’s command, had drawn on a tile a picture of the city of Jerusalem, he is told to build a fort, and set battering-rams against it, etc., (Ezek. 4:2) a sign of the approaching destruction of the city by Nebuchadnezzar’s besieging army. Again, when he publicly prepared. his stuff by day, and digged a hole, and carried it in the twilight, etc., he is told to say to Israel, “I am your sign: like as I have done, so shall it be done unto them: they shall remove and go into captivity.” (Ezek. 12:11)

Isaiah, like St. John, was rapt into vision, wherein we find him receiving a command, “Make the heart of this people fat and their ears heavy,” etc. On which he puts the question, “Lord, how long?” and receives for answer, “Until the cities be wasted without inhabitants,” etc. (Isa. 6:11); showing that the period of the vision extended to a time beyond the prophet’s life. Again, in the vision of the dry bones we may see Ezekiel typifying to Israel the Gospel preachers of the latter day, his successors in the prophetic office. (Ezek. 36.)

In the same way St. John is to be regarded as a representative individual during his visions, a figure of the true Apostolic ministry that was to be continued in the Church on earth, and those views that he received as representing the light to be given to the Church on various points and at different times, to the end of the present dispensation.

The view which was permitted to him in the present vision was that of an elect number, who, being sealed, were to go through tribulation; and being victorious, and having in their hands palm branches as symbols of their victory (a Judaic as well as a Roman symbol), were to arrive, in white garments washed in the blood of Christ, and in countless multitudes, at the throne of God. No change had taken place in the scenery round about. There was the Roman earth; there stood the four tempest-angels holding the winds; and afterwards followed a series of events, all which tend to show that this vision of the palm-bearers was, by anticipation, a prospective glimpse into futurity, vouchsafed at this juncture to the faithful for their encouragement.

Let us examine, then, whether there was at this period any revelation made to the true Church, or to any of its principal ministers, of this doctrine of electing and saving grace. Does it appear that anyone did observe the distinction between the professing and the real Church, and did mark it out so publicly as that it formed an era in Church history, and therefore a fit subject for prefiguration to St. John by the angel?

To Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, in the year A.D. 395, is the Church acknowledged to be so much indebted, that the time of his ministry has ever been considered as furnishing a remarkable epoch in its history. He was born near Hippo, in North Africa, A.D. 354, in the reign of Constantius. He went to Rome, and thence to Milan, A.D. 383, 385. There he heard its bishop, Ambrose, preach; he was converted and baptized. In A.D. 388 he returned to Carthage, was ordained a presbyter, and in A.D. 395 Bishop of Hippo. His life was continued for nearly thirty-five years after, till the time when the Vandal irruption into Africa took place.

His views of divine truth were peculiarly full on two points, — the same that we have considered, as being the two most strongly marked in the visions just before us: 1st, that of Christ’s true Church being composed of spiritual believers alone; and 2nd, that of the origin and increase of this true Church being the work of God’s sovereign grace; — of grace electing, preventing, quickening, illuminating, adopting, saving; — saving alike from sin’s dominion and from all other real evils of this life, and saving too unto the end. Doubtless the manner in which he was himself called into this true Church led him to feel its value, and prepared him zealously to advocate this truth. Born of a Christian mother, and at one time anxious as a youth to be baptized, his wish was not complied with; the danger of sin after baptism, according to the error of the day, constituted an objection in the minds of his parents; so he grew up not even in profession a Christian. In his Confessions he tells us how he was led into vice and error, — error of a nature to lead him still further into vice, as it led him to disbelieve the holiness of God and the responsibility of man. It was in this state of heathenism, sensuality, hardness of heart, and philosophic pride and darkness that he visited Milan, heard the truth, and was converted. Thus previous to his baptism he experienced the truth of God’s free, song. reign, and converting grace; and we find him soon afterwards preaching zealously and writing on this very subject, as well as on the spirituality of the true Church; and yet again on the doctrine of the final perseverance of the saints, which was soon added to his other views of divine truth.

A few years after he opposed the Pelagian error, which had arisen in the Church, asserting man’s free will; and by his direction councils were induced solemnly to condemn the heresy, and at the same time to recognize the doctrine of grace. Further, on occasion of the capture of Rome by Alaric, A.D. 410, Christianity having been reproached by the heathens as the cause of the calamity, and the Christians being in bitterness and disappointment at their hopes of speedily-coming blessedness being frustrated, he wrote his great work called the City of God. It was his plan in it to draw a line between the professedly baptized and the really baptized Church, — the kingdom of this world and the kingdom or city of God. He sought to distinguish the elect, — their character, that of love to God, as distinct from the love of self and the world; their privilege, that of being enlightened, quickened, sanctified, and saved even to the end, by the same divine grace; their state in this world, that of strangers, with tribulation and warfare here appointed them, but with the assurance of future glory. In short, it was the very tracing out historically the past and prophetically the future fortunes of the 144,000 of the Apocalypse, as distinct from those of the unsealed Israel. Indeed, he speaks of the citizens of this heavenly city as “God’s twelve tribes of election out of Israel’s professing tribes.” He notes the number as definite, yet large in the aggregate, as a number numberless. He speaks of their being gathered out of all nations and kindreds and tribes; also of the Church’s tribulation and Antichrist’s persecution as by no means so short as many expected it to be. He writes too of the alone cleansing blood of Jesus as washing them from sin, and of the final victory and triumph of these redeemed in the heavenly Jerusalem.

Such were the views put forth by Augustine on the subject of divine grace; — views obtained, he says, from the Apostolic Scriptures, and under the immediate teaching of the Holy Ghost. As regards the doctrines of the election of grace and the final perseverance of the saints, it is evident that not only the sealing and vision, but also the prospective palm-bearing vision was needed; and both were revealed at corresponding epochs in the history of the Church as a prophecy to the representative of the earthly Church, St. John, and as the fulfillment of such prophecy to Augustine — to the one, previous to the great tempest blasts let loose by the four angels; to the other, previous to the irruption of the barbarian nations over the Roman world.

Augustine’s views relative to baptism are interesting, and were well calculated to serve as an antidote to the errors of his day. He distinguished carefully between baptismal regeneration, and the regeneration or conversion of the heart, to which last change personal faith in Christ was deemed by him essential. He was convinced, from observing those around him, that men did not obtain spiritual life by the washing of water, and he felt from his own experience, as well as from the Scripture account of the Ethiopian eunuch and others, that spiritual life may be begun before baptism. Yet he entertained a high opinion of the benefits often conferred in baptism by the Divine Spirit, i.e., if rightly performed, and followed by faith in the person receiving it. It was thus that his doctrine of electing and preserving grace obtained a general sanction in the Church; Rome itself at one time assenting, and reckoning Augustine amongst its saints. But the contrariety of Augustine’s doctrine to that system of ecclesiastical salvation begun by the priest in baptism, and carried on simply by virtue of Church ceremonies and ordinances, was too decided to remain unfelt; and Rome soon eschewed its former direct approval, and substituted a kind of mongrel system of ecclesiastical semi-Pelagianism in its room.

And so, after the barbarian irruption, a twofold stream of doctrine was perpetuated in the visible Church through the centuries following — the one, the ritualistic ecclesiastical doctrine of religion, maintaining that Church ceremonies are in themselves meritorious; the other, the Augustinian spiritual doctrine of saving grace. Thenceforth also a corresponding twofold view prevailed respecting the Church of Christ — one party regarding it as the earthly visible Church under a vice-Christian priesthood; the other, as being the little flock, simply and alone, who are united by living faith to Christ, the living Head.

The Augustinian light, which then shone, continued to glimmer on through the dark ages down to the Reformation. Indeed we may trace Rome’s opposition to it and God’s blessing on it to the present day in our own English Church. Our 17th Article is an epitome of much that we have gone over in the last two lectures in point of doctrine. Speaking of the elect, it says: “They which be endued with so excellent a benefit of God (predestination to life), be called according to God’s purpose, by his Spirit working in due season; they through grace obey the calling, they be justified freely, they be made sons of God by adoption, they walk religiously in good works, and at length by God’s mercy they attain to everlasting felicity.” In the prayer used in our burial-service there is likewise a reference to these called ones, where we are taught to pray that God would “speedily accomplish the number of his elect, and hasten his kingdom.”

Milner in his Church History gives a testimony to Augustine’s usefulness very similar to that already adduced. He says, “It is evident that real Christianity, notwithstanding its nominal increase under the emperors, must soon have been extinct, if God had not interposed with a second great effusion of his Spirit. This involves the private life of Augustine. The effects of this effusion were solid, though never brilliant. The light from Augustine’s writings never broke out into a vivid flame, but shone with a moderate brightness at first, and afterwards through many ages, even down to the Reformation.”

Why Rome ever tolerated or titled Augustine has excited surprise. It may have been because he was an opposer of the Pelagian doctrine of free-will, an error in its essence Opposed to the Romish system of chaining down man’s mind and conscience. Our Article (10th) On Free-will puts the doctrine in a Scriptural point of view: “We have no power of ourselves to do good works pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ preventing us that we may have a good will, and working with us when we have that good will.”

It has been said by some that there are passages in the writings of Augustine which would seem to favor the errors of the times in which he lived, and since we have mentioned him in a manner so commendatory, it is but right to admit the fact. He seems to have been in some respects tinctured with the superstitions with which the age was infected. For he credulously believed in miracles being performed by relics of saints, 650. His humility and charity disposed him to be credulous. However, he distinctly disavowed any belief in the omniscience of departed saints, or that they were able to afford any aid, temporal or spiritual; and he as distinctly avowed that whosoever directed men to any other “mediator than Christ must be esteemed an Antichrist.”

Continued in Revelation 8:1-5. The Seventh Seal

All chapters of The Last Prophecy: An Abridgment of Elliott’s Horae Apocalypticae

Abraham Lincoln blamed the cause of the American Civil War on Rome!

The following quotes are from the book, “Fifty Years in the Church of Rome” by Charles Chiniquy, who was a priest in the Roman Catholic Church for 25 years and later left the Roman church and became a Presbyterian pastor. He was a close friend of the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln and had several personal interviews with him. The following are quotes from Abraham Lincoln during one of his talks with Charles Chiniquy. Read http://www.biblebelievers.com/chiniquy/cc50_ch61.html for the entire text. The emphasis in bold and comments in italics are mine.

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