CHAPTER X. ‘Signs and wonders’ of Christ and of Antichrist.

This was to be a notable characteristic of the Antichrist, “whose coming,” says the apostle (2 Thess. ii. 9). “is with signs and lying wonders.” These words were fitted to turn the eyes of the early Christians back upon the prophecy of Daniel, in which it had been foretold of the Antichrist that he should “practise and prosper.”( * Dan. Viii. 12.) The phrase is suggestive of imposing by delusive arts upon the senses and understandings of men, and so gaining an ascendency over them. Of a like meaning is the phrase which occurs farther on (v. 25) in the same chapter, “he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand.” Still clearer on this point are the prophecies of John, not yet given, it is true, but which were to close the volume of inspiration, and be the guide of Christians in the next age, in their outlook for the Antichrist. The claim to work miracles is here set down as one of his notable marks.

“And he doeth great wonders,” says John, speaking of the second beast or ecclesiastical organisation of the Antichrist, “so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men. And he deceiveth them that dwell in the earth, by the means of those miracles which he hath power to do.”( Rev. xiii. 18, 14.) This is in full agreement with Paul, who had already warned the primitive church that Antichrist would make his appearance as a miracle-worker.

Let us reflect how imperative it was on the Antichrist that he should claim the power of working miracles. Had he come as an open enemy, he would have had no need to pretend to such power; but, coming as the substitute and vicar of Christ, he must necessarily in this as in other points, imitate him whose substitute and vicar he professed to be.

The coming of Christ was signalised by mighty signs and wonders. The glory of miracle illustrated every step of His progress through the towns and villages of Galilee and Judea. The ancient prophets had performed miracles, but in none of them was seen the same affluence of miraculous power as in Christ. As light is in the stars, so was power in the prophets, but as light is in the sun, so was power in Christ. As He passed through the crowds of stricken men virtue flowed out of Him, and to “touch the hem of His garment, ” or hear the accents of His voice, was to be healed. Sight was given to the blind, hearing to the deaf, strength was infused into the withered limb, reason resumed its office in the brain of the maniac, and the pulse in which fever throbbed and burned became calm and cool at His word or at His touch. Even the grave owned His power, and opened its doors in obedience to His summons. And gave back its tenant to the world of the living. Such were the “signs and wonders” that heralded the advent and attested the Messiahship of Jesus of Nazareth.

The Papacy, as the Vice-Christ, has, in like manner, sought to announce its advent, and certify its mission by the performance of “signs and wonders.” Scarce is there a miracle recorded of the Son of God which the Church of Rome does not profess to have wrought. She pretends to have opened blind eyes, to have unstopped deaf ears, to have cured fevers, agues, palsies, madness, to have cast out devils, to have driven away pestilence, stayed the ravages of blight, and done things which it were too tedious to mention. Extending still farther the sphere of her miraculous operation, she has entered the realms of the grave and shown that there too she wields power by pretending to give life to the dead. Certain of her “saints” have possessed the “gift of miracles” in an eminent degree, and their “lives” are one long record of prodigy and wonder. They have dried up rivers, walked upon the waves of the sea, and stilled tempests. Angels have descended to minister to them, and preternatural stars have shone out to lead them in the dark. In short, the Church of Rome claims to have wielded the same unbounded power over both the visible and the invisible world which Christ did, and to have imitated Him in all things, save the meekness of His spirit, the purity of His doctrine, and the holiness of His life.

Popery professes, too, to work spiritual wonders -those divine and saving changes on the heart and soul of man which Christianity accomplishes, and which it is the prerogative of Christianity alone to accomplish. The Church of Rome professes in baptism to regenerate the soul, and change the eternal destinies of the baptised. By anointing with oil, she fills men with the Holy Ghost; by her sacraments she replenishes them with grace; by ordination she bridges over eighteen centuries and joins the priest to Peter. Five words spoken at the altar change the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. Two words uttered in the confessional effect the pardon of the “penitent,” and the viaticum gives assurance to the man, setting out on his last journey, that he shall find the gates of Paradise open to give him entrance among the blessed. These are mighty wonders. It is thus that the false Christ has carried on the war against the true Christ.

But a single term is thrown in which effectually breaks the spell, and dissolves the power of these wonders over all who are not willfully subject to their illusion. The “mystery of iniquity” was to come with “lying wonders;” a most essential difference, which it becomes all to note who have a mind not to be deceived to their eternal loss.

The miracles of Christ were done in the light of day, in the presence of thousands who could sift them and subject them to infallible tests, and, who, having done so were forced to the conclusion that either the miracle was true, or their senses were false. Of those who saw them done not a few were the bitter enemies of the person who wrought them, and would have been glad to find that they were cheats, and not slow to have proclaimed the imposture to the world; and yet these miracles remained uncontradicted. No one in all the nation of the Jews ventured to deny the truth of any one miracle of Jesus. The farthest that malevolence and slander deemed it prudent to go was to insinuate that the miracle had been wrought by Satanic power. The reply to the accusation given on the spot, and at the time, was as conclusive as it was dignified, and it has lost none of its force even yet: “Can Satan cast out Satan?”

But let us mark how different it is with the other class of miracles, and how lacking they are in that indubitable evidence that attested the mission of the Son of God. There is not one of them that could maintain its claim as a veritable fact before a tribunal of unbiased and enlightened judges. Some of these miracles were evidently cheats on those in whose presence they were wrought. Of late many startling discoveries have been made of the machinery by which these “miracles” were done. Many of these wonders were not published to the world till some hundreds of years after they were said to have been wrought. Their workers would seem to have been unambitious of living fame, seeing they hid their light under a bushel. And some of these miracles are so childish that it is an insult to our understandings to ask us to believe that God ever interposed His power to work such deeds. Prophecy gave them the right name before they were done. They are lying wonders.

The Spiritual performances of the Church of Rome are emphatically “lying wonders.” Baptismal regeneration is a lying wonder, sacramental grace is a lying wonder, priestly power is a lying wonder, the absolution of the Confessional is a lying wonder, transubstantiation is the biggest wonder and the greatest lie of all, and extreme unction is a last and fatal lie. There is no reality behind any of these things, and they are the more to be deplored that they have immediate reference to the eternal world, and that millions take their departure to the world fully confiding in these lies for salvation.

Let us mark the parallelism. It is at once a parallel and a contrast. The Gospel came amid the effulgence of real miracles which were wrought by God, and were a Divine attestation to the Messiahship of His Son. Popery came amid the murky and delusive glare of false miracles, which were wrought by Satan, and which were his sign manual, bearing witness to all that the system in behalf of which they were done was the “Mystery of Iniquity.”

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