BEFORE
ARMAGEDDON
BY
ALBION F BALLENGER
Author of
“Power for Witneaaing“ and “The Proclamation of Liberty and the Unpardonable Sin.“
Price 30 Cent!. Four Copies, $1.00
No.
PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR RIVERSIDE, CALIFORNIA 1918
3147

Olive Leaf Pre98
7SO SAN PEDRO ST. LOS ANGELES
PREFACE
The writer desires first of all to bear personal testimony to the faithfulness of the Great Revealer of truth.
Some four years of my life and ministry were spent in the British Isles. A part of this time was passed in New-port, Wales, where an extended series of Sunday night ad-dresses were delivered on the prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation. Up to this time the 17th of Revelation was an unsolved enigma. My traditional teaching on this subject, like all others I had read, was utterly unsatisfactory and easily overthrown. Knowing that the addresses would even-tually reach this difficult chapter, and that the hearers, who were permitted to ask questions freely, could easily overthrow any teaching on the subject with which I was familiar, I appealed to the Lord definitely for light on this important prophecy.
Day after day I went to my room and laying the Bible open at the 17th of Revelation, knelt and read the chapter to the Lord and asked earnestly for light. Again and again was the promise pleaded 4‘If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.״ Jas. 1:5.
Not only in secret but at the family altar, the Lord was constantly petitioned to open up the mysteries of the prophecy. The matter became the principal theme of the household, among whom were some who were sharing the public labors.
For three months persistent prayer was offered in private and with the family, sometimes amid tears, that God would open up these things to our understanding.
One evening, with the prayer still unanswered, the writer started to walk for exercise to the historic village of Cacrleon and return, before speaking at night. The subject of the
chapter was still on my mind, and as I walked I said to my-
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self: “Why doesn’t the Lord answer my prayer? He knows the secret that I long to know, and He could tell me if He would, why doesn’t He tell me? I wonder if it is possible that He does not want me to know. If He does not, then I am willing not to know, but the prophecy is something revealed, not hidden, and the things which are revealed belong to us and to our children. I am willing not to know if that is His will, but if it is His will that I should understand this important scripture, how grateful I would be to Him for the needed light.”
I had walked but a few rods after having submitted my will to the great Teacher, when suddenly, like a flash of lightning, the whole matter became clear to me. And right there, raising my eyes and hands to heaven, where the earlier stars were peeping through, and with a heart swelling with gratitude, I said, as to a friend, “Now I see it, Lord, thank You.”
On reaching home I joyfully broke the news to the house-hold, and all saw the clearer light, and wondered why we had not seen it before. Many have seen this present truth since that day fourteen years ago, and have rejoiced with us over the treasure found. But these many witnesses have added nothing to the weight of evidence on which the truth was founded. I was as much assured of its truthfulness there alone with God as I am today with a cloud of witnesses bearing testimony to its truthfulness.
This narrative is told to give God all the glory for the clearer light.
There are many things not yet clear, concerning which prayer is still being offered. But the author wants all the friends to know that he gladly gives the Lord the glory for the clearer light already received.
The foregoing experience cannot, of course, be taken by the reader as evidence that the following pages contain light from the Lord. He must prove all things and hold fast to that which is good. And all that can be asked of the reader is that he search the Scriptures like the noble Bereans to see if these things be so.
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CONTENTS
Chapter	Page
Preface .................................... 3
I.	“13 It Armageddon?”........................ 7
II.	Armageddon	and	the Advent................. 12
III.	The “Beast” Explained...................... 15
IV.	The “Beast” a Federation of Nations........ 19
V.	“Babylon the Great”........................ 22
V VI.	The	Ten Kings............................ 27
VII.	The	First of the Seven Heads............. 31
VIII.	The	Second of the Seven Heads............ 37
IX.	The	Third Mountain-Kingdom............... 41
X.	The	Fourth Mountain-Kingdom.............. 46
XI.	The	Fifth Mountain-Kingdom............... 51
XII.	The	Head That Was “Smitten to Death”.... 53
XIII.	The	Sixth and Seventh Heads.............. 60
XIV.	The Eighth Head Identical With the Healed
Head .................................... 64
XV.	The Image of the Beast................... 70
XVI.	The Rise of the Two-Horned Beast........... 75
XVII.	Pan-Americanism in Prophecy................ 79
XVIII.	“The Mark of the Beast” and ״the Number of
His Name”................................ 83
XIX.	The	Seven-Headed Dragon.................. 89
XX.	“Names of Blasphemy”....................... 96
XXI.	“Babylon the Great” and Her “Fall”........ 105
XXII.	Only One Babylon the Great................ 108
XXIII.	Babylon the Great—Continued.............. 112
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CONTENTS
CONTINUED
Page
The Fall of Babylon the Great............... 115
“The Hour of His Judgment is Come”.......... 119
The Seven Last Plagues and the Eighth and
Last Head................................. 123
The Beast From the Sea and the Beast From
the Abyss................................. 125
The “False Prophet” of Armageddon and the
“False Prophet” of Arabia................. 128
Papal Testimony That Babylon is Rome........ 130
Papal Testimony to Rome's Rule Over the Na-
tions .................................... 133
Papal Testimony That Rome Reigned Over Fed-
erated Kingdoms........................... 136
Papal Testimony That Rome Reigned for
Twelve Centuries.......................... 139
Papal Predictions of the Restoration of the
Rule of Rome.............................. 140
Papal Testimony of the Persecution of
“Heretics” ............................... 143
The Fallacies of the Futurists.............. 147
Papal Denial that Christ Has Come in the
Flesh .................................... 150
Papal Blasphemy............................. 156
Cardinal Manning and the “Man of	Sin”..... 160
Why God's Wrath Upon the Beast and His
Worshipers ............................... 167
Dr. Guinness on the Doctrine of the	Futurist. . 171
Are We Pessimists?.......................... 177
Chapter
XXIV.
XXV.
XXVI.
XXVII.
XXVIII.
XXIX.
XXX.
XXXI.
XXXII.
XXXIII.
XXXIV.
XXXV.
XXXVI.
XXXVII. V XXXVIII. XXXIX.
XL.
XLI.
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Before Armageddon
CHAPTER I “IS IT ARMAGEDDON״
For many years students, statesmen and soldiers have lived in the sombre shadow of a coming world war, which they have referred to as “Armageddon.”
When the great world conflagration burst forth, the metro-politan dailies printed flaming headlines reading “Armaged-don!” “Is It Armageddon?” etc.
In seeking an answer to this all-important question, we must consult the Scriptures, for Armageddon is wholly a Bible theme; and consequently all that can be known con-cerning Armageddon must be derived from the Scriptures.
In order, therefore, to decide whether the great war of the nations is the predicted battle of Armageddon, we must study the description of Armageddon as given in the Bible.
The subject is one of solemn importance, and a failure to discern the signs of the times relating to it, is to make a se-rious mistake with reference to God’s plan of the ages.
If this greatest of wars is Armageddon, as some teach, then the warning messages of Revelation 14 are in the past; the seven last plagues are but history, and the bloody harlot, Babylon the Great, is destroyed; for we will find that all these solemn events are in the past when the Armageddon of Revelation has come.
The term “Armageddon” occurs but once in the New Tes-tament, Rev. 16:16. The text with its context reads as follows :
“And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared. And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of devils working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the
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battle of the great day of God Almighty . . . And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.”
From the above it will be learned that Armageddon is not God’s name of this great battle. Armageddon is the name of the place where the nations are gathered to fight the battle. God’s name of the battle, as stated in verse 14, is, ”the battle of the great day of God Almighty.” Because men name battles after the place where they are fought, they have named this battle, the battle of Armageddon. But God names the battle after the time when it is fought, “the battle of the great day of God Almighty.”
WHEN FOUGHT
The Scriptures do not reveal the date of this battle as regards the day, month, or year, but they do reveal the time as related to other events. They teach that the battle is fought just before the millennium. This we learn from the description of the battle given in the nineteenth, and the first part of the twentieth chapters of Revelation.
Some have supposed that this last-day conflict was fought under the sixth plague because the gathering of the nations to the battle occurs under that plague. This is a mistake. The battle is not fought until the seventh vial is poured out. It is under the seventh plague that Babylon the Great is destroyed, and the beast and its ten horns, or kingdoms, are God’s instruments in destroying the harlot Babylon; there-fore the beast and the ten horns cannot fight in the battle of Armageddon in which they are destroyed, until they have first destroyed the harlot. And since the destruction of the harlot occurs under the seventh plague, it follows that they cannot fight in the battle earlier than the seventh plague.
The proof that the harlot is destroyed under the seventh plague is found in Rev. 16:17-19.
“And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done. . . And great Babylon came in remembrance before God to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath.”
The evidence that the beast and the ten horns are used of God to destroy the harlot, appears in Rev. 17:16, 17 as follows :
”And the ten horns which thou sawest, and the beast, 8
these shall hate the harlot, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and shall burn her utterly with fire. For God did put in their hearts to do his mind and to come to one mind, and to give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God should be accomplished.״ R. V. and the American Standard.
These two scriptures conclusively prove that Babylon the Great is destroyed under the seventh plague, and that the beast and the ten horns are God’s instruments in her destruc-tion. It is therefore plainly evident since God uses the beast and the ten horns to destroy the harlot under the seventh plague, the battle of Armageddon in which the beast and the ten horns are destroyed, cannot be fought prior to the seventh plague.
It will now be shown from the Scriptures that the battle is fought just prior to the millennium. This we learn from a description of the battle given in the nineteenth and twen-tieth chapters of Revelation. That the battle described in these scriptures is the battle of Armageddon, is evident from the fact that the three powers instrumental in gathering the nations to battle under the sixth plague, the dragon, the beast and the false prophet, are all three captured as a result of the battle here pictured.
THE BATTLE DESCRIBED
Nowhere in English literature is there a more sublime picture presented, and no where is descriptive language more thrilling.
“And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.
“His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew but he himself.
“And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood ; and his name is called the Word of God.
“And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.
“And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he sjiould smite the nations; and he shall rule them with a rod of iron ; and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.
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,‘And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name writ· ten, King of kings, and Lord of lords.
״And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God;
״That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of cap-tains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of all them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men both free and bond, both small and great.
״And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army.
״And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.״
Here we have pictured the fate of two of the three powers instrumental in gathering the nations to the battle of Arma-geddon under the sixth plague. But there is one remaining, and the picture of his capture is given as the further result of the battle as given in the first part of the twentieth chap-ter. It must be known to all that chapter divisions are purely human. The chapter divisions of the New Testament are the work of a Cardinal, and in the original manuscript, the story of the battle and its results continue as follows:
״And I saw an angel come down from heaven having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.
״And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years.
״And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed for a little season.״
Here we have the positive proof that the battle of Arma-geddon is fought just before the millennium, since the dragon, one of the three powers involved in the battle, is captured as a result of the battle, and bound for the millennium or thou-sand years.
Some have taught that the battle of Armageddon is fought at the cloee of the thousand years. But this position is un-
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scriptural. There is a battle fought then, but it is not the battle of the great day of God Almighty, or the battle of Armageddon, because the beast and the false prophet fight in the battle of Armageddon as well as the dragon ; and there is no beast or false prophet connected with the battle fought at the close of the thousand years, these both having been cast into the lake of fire in the battle fought at the beginning of the thousand years. As a result of the battle fought at the close of the thousand years, the dragon is cast into the lake of fire where the beast and the false prophet had been cast as a result of the battle of Armageddon fought at the beginning of the thousand years.
NOT AN INTERNATIONAL WAR
Another very important truth taught in this description of Armageddon is that the battle is not a war of nation against nation, but a war of all nations combined against Christ and the armies of heaven. It does not read : “I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to make war against each other/' but it does say ‘4to make war against Him that sat on the horse and against His army.״
It therefore follows that this war of nation against nation is not the battle of Armageddon,—is not the battle of the great day of God Almighty. Even if every nation of earth were involved in this war, it would not be Armageddon.
From the foregoing Bible evidence we are bound to con-elude:
1.	The battle of the great day of God Almighty, which men call the battle of Armageddon, occurs just before the millennium.
2.	The present war is not the battle of Armaged-don, because this is a war of nation against nation, whereas the battle of Armageddon is a battle of all nations and their armies against the King of kings and His army.
3.	The three leading powers of earth engaged in the battle, are the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet.
4.	As a result of the battle, the beast and the false prophet are cast into the lake of fire, and the dragon is cap-tured and bound for a thousand years.
Some teach that the millennium b^gan.-ia,p^74^״■ error of this teaching is clearlyABlèf ’ frorrr tne forégóírig Scriptural evidence. For iLtí^WÁk»m¡um |>eg^foui$74[!(
then the devil was bound just prior to that time, that he should deceive the nations no more until the thousand years are finished.
Again, if the millennium began in 1874, it follows that the 9even last plagues were all poured out on the earth prior to that date.
Again, if the mellennium began in 1874, it follows that Babylon the great does not exist today, having been destroyed prior to 1874.
Still again, if the millennium began in 1874, then the beast and the false prophet were destroyed in the lake of fire prior to that date.
And once more, if the millennium began at that date, then the message announcing the fall, or doom, of Babylon, and the message warning the world against the worship of the beast and his image, are messages long since given and out of date.
These are only a part of the many unscriptural and un-reasonable positions which are the fruit of a misunderstand-ing of the Scriptures regarding the nature and time of the battle of Armageddon.
CHAPTER II.
ARMAGEDDON AND THE ADVENT
The relation between the coming of Christ and the “battle of the great day of God Almighty,״ is presented in Rev. 14:1420־ where we have the battle of Armageddon con-nected with Christ’s coming to reap the harvest of the earth. The first three verses of the scripture read thus:
“And I saw, and behold, a white cloud ; and on the cloud I saw one sitting like unto a Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out from the temple, crying with a great voice to him that sat on the cloud, Send forth thy sickle and reap : for the hour to reap is come; for the harvest of the earth is ripe. And he that sat on the cloud cast in his sickle upon the earth; and the earth was reaped.” R. V.
Here is evidently a picture of Christ’s second coming to gather his own. But there are two reapings connected with
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the harvest of the great day of God. In our Lord’s parable of the wheat and the tares the second reaping is described thus:
“He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; and the field is the world ; and the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom: and the tares are the sons of the evil one; and the enemy that sowed them is the devil : and the harvest is the end of the world ; and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be in the end of the world. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his king-dom all things that cause stumbling, and them that do in-iquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.״ Matt. 13:3743. R. V.
After the first reaping described in the quotation from Rev. 14 there immediately follows another reaping in which “the clusters of the vine of the earth״ are gathered. This gather-ing involves “the great winepress of the wrath of God״ that is pictured in the description of the battle of Armageddon as given in Rev. 19:15. This second reaping in connection with Christ’s coming, as portrayed in Rev. 14:17-20, is as fol-lows:
“And another angel came out from the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle. And another angel came out from the altar, he that hath power over fire; and he called with a great voice to him that hath the sharp sickle, saying, Send forth thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth ; for her grapes are fully ripe. And the angel cast his sickle into the earth and gathered the vin-tage of the earth, and cast it into the winepress, the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden without the city, and there came out blood from the winepress, even unto the bridles of the horses, as far as a thousand and six hundred furlongs.”
This is unmistakably another picture of Armageddon. This “great winepress of the wrath of God” is the same as “the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God” that appears in the description of Armageddon in Rev. 19:15. Another proof that the 14th chapter picture repre-sents the same scene that the 15th chapter pictures, is seen
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in the presence of the symbolic horsemen in both descrip-tions. The armies of heaven mounted on white horses of the 19th chapter are reproduced in the 14th chapter scene in that the crimson flow from the winepress reaches to the “hones’ bridles.” Therefore the battle of Armageddon is fought at the coming of Christ to reap the harvest of the earth at the end of the age.
First He reaps the righteous for Himself, and then “the vintage of the earth״ for the winepress of Armageddon.
It will be remembered that at the first reaping as described by Paul in 1 Thess. 4:17, the saints are “caught up״ “to meet the Lord in the air.״ Since the Armageddon winepress treading immediately follows, may it not be that those who are caught up to meet the Lord in the air join Him in the battle of Armageddon ?
And this view is strengthened by the reference to Arma-geddon in Rev. 17:14, where the saints appear to be asso-ciated with the King of kings in the battle.
“These (the ten kings) shall war against the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them, for he is Lord of lords and King of kings; and they also shall overcome that are with him, called and chosen and faithful.״
Another evidence in favor of this view is the fact that the ruling with the rod of iron, which is a part of the descrip-tion of Armageddon (Rev. 19:15) is evidently shared by the saints as stated in Rev. 2:26, 27.
“And he that overcometh, and he that keepeth my words unto the end, to him will I give authority over the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron, as vessels of the pot-ter are broken to shivers; as I also have received of my Father.״
Thus it seems clear that the battle of Armageddon is fought at the second coming of Christ, and its object is to “destroy them which destroy the earth;״ (Rev. 11:18) and to “gather out of his kingdom all things that offend and them which do iniquity.”
Among those whom they have destroyed, or tried to de-stroy, are the saints, and the battle is fought for the deliver-anee of the saints. “He that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of mine eye,” says the Lord. “Why persecutest thou me,” said Christ to the persecuting Saul. In warring against the children of God, men and organizations are warring
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against God. And Armageddon is a conflict between the powers of heaven and earth over the possession of God’s faithful remnant. As before shown, it is not an international conflict, not nation against nation, but all the powers of earth arrayed against heaven in their “war” with the saints. Rev. 13:7.
CHAPTER III.
THE “BEAST” EXPLAINED
We will now begin a study of what are symbolized by the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet. No speaker could discourse intelligently on the battle of Waterloo, who could not tell his hearers who the Duke of Wellington and Na-poleon Bonaparte were. In like manner no one can present the subject of Armageddon intelligently who cannot identify the powers symbolized by the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet, which fight in the battle. This we will undertake to do.
The symbol of the “beast” is mentioned in the 11 th chap-ter of Rev., also in the 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 19th and 20th, but explained only in the 17th. We must therefore go to the 17th chapter to get God’s interpretation of what the “beast” represents.
Said the angel to John, “Come hither, I will show unto thee, the judgment of the great whore that sitteth on many waters. .	. . So he carried me away in the spirit into
the wilderness, and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. .	. . And the angel said unto me, Where-
fore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns.” Verses 1, 3 and 7.
In explaining the seven heads of the beast, the angel says: “The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sitteth, and they are seven kings.” Verses 9, 10. R. V.
This is the reading of the Revised Version, the American Revised, and many other versions. Other versions render the text absolutely in harmony with the Greek as follows: “The seven heads are seven mountains, . . . and are seven kings.” An effort has been made by a few to deny
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that the seven heads, or mountains, are seven kings or king-doms and to discredit the rendering of the Revised, and other later versions. Omitting the modifying phrase, 1‘on which the woman sitteth,״ the Greek text, translated word for word in the Interlinear Version of the Emphatic Diaglot, reads thus : “The seven heads seven mountains are . .	.
and kings seven are.״ There is no corresponding Greek word for the word “there״ as translated by the common ver-sion. But the word “they,״ which appears in many of the later translations, is plainly understood as the relative pro-noun referring back to mountains. “The seven heads, seven mountains are, and they (the seven mountains) kings seven are.״
If the seven kings are not an interpretation of the seven heads and seven mountains, then the seven kings have been thrust into the explanation of the seven heads, and have no connection with the subject whatever: and all that follows concerning the seven kings, is no part of the explanation which the angel promised to give of the seven heads. Such an idea is most irrational.
We now have a divine explanation of the seven heads. They are seven kings. But as “king״ and “kingdom” are used interchangeably in the Scriptures (see Dan. 7:17 and 23 ), we can correctly state, “the seven heads are seven king-doms.״
Let not the reader forget that we are seeking an explana-tion of the “beast״ connected with the battle of Armageddon, and we will find that it is one of the kingdoms symbolized by the seven heads that fights against the King of kings in the battle.
Next the angel explains that the seven kingdoms on which the woman sits do not all exist at the same time, but appear one at a time, in succession. “Five are fallen, one is [the sixth], and the other is not yet come [the seventh], and when he cometh he must continue a short space.״ V. 10.
Since the beast appears under seven successive phases, or since seven successive kingdoms appear in the same territory and among the same people (for that is what a number of heads on the same body symbolizes), and the symbolical woman sits on each kingdom in its day, and since the angel shows John a vision of the woman sitting on the “beast,״ an
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important question is, Which one of these kingdoms is shown to John in the vision?
A clear-cut answer to this question is given to John by the angel, as follows :
“I will tell thee the mystery of the woman and of the beast which carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns. The beast which thou sawest [pictured in verse 3] was and is not, and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition.״ Verse 8.
The angel has not yet told John the number of the head or kingdom which he showed him, but he does this later. He has, however, stated four important facts concerning the kingdom which he showed him in the vision:
1.	“The beast [or kingdom] which thou sawest [carry-ing the woman] was,
2.	and is not.
3.	and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit. [Place of death. See Rom. 10:7, where the same word is translated ״deep.״]
4.	and goeth into perdition "
In verse 11 the angel tells John the number of the king-dom which he showed him in the vision with the woman seated on it.
״The beast that was, and is not [this is the one he saw, v. 8], even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.״ Now we have found the number of the kingdom which John saw in the vision carrying the harlot. It is number eight, and is the one that fights in the battle of Armageddon, for the beast or kingdom which fights in the battle is cast into the lake of fire, or into perdition. See Rev. 19:20.
We have now learned that the ״beast״ or kingdom which fights in the battle of Armageddon is a kingdom which once existed, or ״was,״ then ceased to exist and ״is not,״ and will exist again, “shall ascend out of the bottomless pit,״ then fight the battle of Armageddon, and be ״cast into the lake of fire,״ or “go into perdition.״
Next, at what time is it said of this kingdom, it ״was and is not, and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit and go into perdition?״ Plainly it is at the time the sixth kingdom is reigning, for at the same time the angel says the eighth head ',was and is not," he also says, “five are fallen and one [the
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sixth] IS.״ Therefore at the time the sixth kingdom is reigning, the one that comes up, and is numbered 8, is in the bottomless pit or place of death. And since this kingdom is numbered 8, it must come up out of the bottomless pit after number seven. And thus it is clear that the eighth kingdom is a revival of one of the first five kingdoms that carried the woman and is in the bottomless pit (Greek, abussos, abyss) at least during the reign of the sixth and seventh kingdoms. The eighth, therefore, is not a revival of either the sixth or the seventh, as some teach, but is the revival of one which reigned prior to the sixth.
Neither is the eighth a revival of all seven, as some have taught. The expression “is of the seven,״ v. 11, is identical in the Greek, with the expression “one of the seven״ spoken of Philip the deacon in Acts 21:8. The Greek in this text is “of the seven,״ as in Rev. 17:9, and no more means that Philip was composed of all seven deacons than the same expression in the previous text declares that the eighth king-dom was made up of all the seven. The expression in Acts, “one of the seven,״ is properly rendered, and the same Greek expression in Revelation could be just as properly rendered “one of the seven,״ and is so rendered by some translations. This rendering is the more evident from the fact that in Rev. 13:3 it is said, speaking of the same head, “I saw one of his heads as though it had been smitten unto death and his deathstroke was healed.” R. V. It is evident that the same one that was smitten to death, is the one that revives as number eight. The reason the expression “of the seven״ is used, is that we might understand that it is not a new kingdom, but a revival of one of the seven fallen ones. And that is the reason why there is an eighth when the beast only has seven heads. One kingdom arises, reigns, carries the harlot, is counted as one of the seven, falls, revives again after the seventh, reigns and carries the harlot again, is counted again, the eighth, fights the battle of Armageddon, and goes into perdition. “The beast that was and is not [“and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit”], even he is the eighth and is of the seven and goeth into perdition.
It is now plain that “the beast״ that fights in the battle of Armageddon is
1.	the symbol of a kingdom.
2.	one of a series of seven
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3.	that carries the harlot woman,
4.	falls and “is not”
5.	at the time the sixth “is” ;
6.	ascends out of the bottomless pit
7.	after the seventh,
8.	carries the harlot again,
9.	is numbered eight,
10.	fights in the battle of Armageddon, and
11.	goes into perdition in the lake of fire.
In future it will be shown that this eighth head is a re-vived federation of European nations that will support the “woman” again ; and is the “beast” which serves as the model for making “the image of the beast,” against which the third angel’s message is a solemn warning; and that this “beast,” or kingdom, will, in all probability, appear in federated Cen-tral Europe as the result of the present great war.
CHAPTER IV.
THE “BEAST” A FEDERATION OF NATIONS
Let the reader keep in mind that we are studying the “beast” which fights in the battle of Armageddon as dc-scribed in Rev. 16:1316־, and 19:1120־.
We have already learned that the “beast” is a kingdom. But it is more. In Rev. 17:1 we find the following: “And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither and I will show unto thee the judgment [destruction] of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters ”
These many waters are clearly explained in the 15th verse thus:
“The waters which thou sawest where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations and tongues ”
The angel, therefore, promised to show John the destruc-tion of the woman which is visited upon her at the time when she is sitting on “many waters,” or, dropping the symbol, sitting on many nations, speaking many tongues or lan-guages. That the angel fulfilled his promise and showed
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John the woman sitting on many nations speaking many languages, is seen in the 15 th verse.
“The waters which thou sawest where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations and tongues!*
Where did John see the woman sitting on many nations which speak many languages?
“So he carried me away in the Spirit into the wilderness; and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet colored beast. . . . haying seven heads and ten horns,“ ver. 3.
And now since the angel promised to show John the woman sitting on many waters or nations, speaking different languages; and since he fulfilled his promise, and John saw the woman sitting on many waters or many nations speaking many languages; and since the only thing the angel showed John on which the woman sat was a beast; it follows that the beast must represent a kingdom composed of many nations speaking different languages.
No, it does not take all the seven heads and ten horns to compose the many waters or many nations. The woman did not sit on the seven heads at one time for the beast never had but one head at a time, and the one on which John saw the woman sitting is plainly declared to be "the eighth."
“I will tell thee the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carrieth her which hath the seven heads and ten horns. The beast, that thou sawest [carrying the woman] was and is not and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit and go into perdition“ (as a result of the battle of Armageddon. Rev. 19:20.) “And the beast that was and is not [the one he saw carrying the woman, the one that went into the bottom-less pit and comes up again] even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition,“ vs. 8 and 10.
Therefore the beast which John saw carrying the woman is the eighth and last kingdom to carry her, and is itself a combination of many nations speaking many languages.
Neither do the ten kings make up the many nations which compose this eighth and last kingdom. This eighth and last kingdom which we have found to be a combination of many nations, existed before the ten kings joined the combination.
“The ten horns are ten kings which have received no king-dom as yet [at the time the sixth kingdom is carrying the woman. “Five are fallen and one (the sixth) is“] but re-ceive power as kings one hour with the beast. These have
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one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast. . . . For God hath put it into their hearts to fulfill his will and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast until the words of God shall be fulfilled,״ vs. 12, 13,17.
Thus it is seen that the “beast” is not a combination of the ten kings, but is a combination of nations which exist before the ten kings give their kingdoms to this beast or com-bination of nations.
And the “words of God” which they fulfill by their fed-eration with this first federation, is found in verse 16. “And the ten horns which thou sawest and [Revised Version] the beast, these shall hate the whore and shall make her desolate and naked and shall eat her flesh and burn her with fire.”
Again, it will be noticed that they give their power to the beast [not to the woman] for the brief prophetic period of “one hour”; and for the purpose of destroying the woman which they accomplish under the seventh plague. (Rev. 16:17-19.) They, with the beast, then fight the battle of Armageddon and are destroyed in that battle.
“These [the ten kings] shall make war with the Lamb and the Lamb shall overcome them for he is Lord of Lords and King of Kings.” ver. 14.
“And I saw the beast and the kings of the earthy and their armies gathered together to make war against him [the King of Kings] that sat upon the horse, and against his army.” Rev. 19:19.
And now that we have found that the “beast” (independ-ent of the ten kings) is a combination of nations speaking different languages, which carries the woman ; and since this final combination of nations is a revival of a combination which existed once before, and carried the woman and fell; we are better prepared to go into history in search of this combination of many nations speaking many languages, the one that carried the woman. And this we will soon under-take to do.
The reader may have become impatient to find the powers which are pointed out in these prophecies, and have won-dered why we have delayed this matter so long. Our reason for the delay is that it is infinitely better to know what we are hunting for before we start our search, than to go in search of something, and find something that is not the thing that is described in the prophecy.
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The man who misunderstands the plans and specifications of the house which he contracts to build for his neighbor, and builds the house wrong, is apt to try to make it appear that the house is in harmony with the plans, because he has his time and money invested in the house.
In like manner when a denomination has misunderstood the prophecy, and has gone into history and found the wrong object and built a system of interpretation on that false premise, and published that false system in scores of thou-sands of books, it is very apt to defend that error because so much time and means is invested in the books.
The one remaining symbol of this 17th chapter, the wo-man, will be the theme of the next chapter. No man can find the beast in history, or recognize it when it comes out of the bottomless pit, if he does not understand what is symbo-lized by the woman which sat on the beast when it existed before, and rides it again when it appears the second and last time.
CHAPTER V.
“BABYLON THE GREAT״
Before the battle of Armageddon is fought, as described in Rev. 19:11-20, God uses the beast and the ten kings to destroy the harlot “Babylon the Great.״
“And the ten horns which thou sawest, and the beast, these shall hate the harlot and make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and shall burn her utterly with fire. For God hath put in their hearts to do his mind, and to come to one mind, and to give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be accomplished.״ Rev. 17:16, 17. Revised Version and American Standard.
But what is Babylon the Great? Unless the student un-derstands what is represented by the harlot, he will never be able to find the seven heads, or seven kingdoms on which the woman sits pictured in the 17th of Revelation. Since the woman sits on each of the seven heads or king-doms as they appear in succession, and then sits on one of these seven which had fallen and appears again as the 8th it follows that all these kingdoms must appear in the world
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during the lifetime of this woman and not centuries before she was born, nor after her destruction. It is evident, there-fore, that the student who reaches a wrong conclusion as to what Babylon the Great represents, is sure to reach a wrong conclusion as to what the seven kingdoms are, upon which the woman sits.
But there is no excuse for mistaking the woman, for if there is any symbol in the 17th chapter that is definitely ex-plained by the Lord, it is the symbol of the woman. And here is the Lord’s explanation:
“And the woman whom thou sawest is the great city, which hath a kingdom over the kings of the earth.״ Rev. 17:18 Revised Version, margin.
The text of the Revised Version reads “reigneth over the kings of the earth״ ; but in the margin it reads, “Greek, hath a kingdom.״ And now since the book was written in Greek, and the Greek reads, “The woman whom thou sawest is the great city which hath a kingdom over the kings of the earth, it is this original statement of what the woman is a symbol of that must be accepted.
The word translated “reigneth״ in the text and “kingdom״ in the margin is a noun and occurs 158 times in the New Testament, and is translated “kingdom157 ״ times. And the only instance where it is translated “reigneth״ is in the text under consideration. The Greek word is basileia and is a noun and not a verb denoting action, and should have been translated “kingdom״ as it is in the margin, and as it is translated in the other 157 times where it appears.
When the Lord wishes to express the idea of “reigneth,״ He uses a different word, basiluo, a Greek verb denoting action which occurs 21 times in the New Testament, as in Rev. 19:6, where it reads “The Lord Omnipotent reigneth."
And since the terms king and kingdom are used inter-changeably in the Scriptures “(These great beasts which are four are four kings”; “the fourth beast is the fourth king-dom/' Dan. 7:17, and 23), it would do no violence to the meaning of the scripture if we should read it thus:
The woman whom thou sawest is the great city, which hath a kingdom over the kingdoms of the earth. Of course the term “city״ must include its citizens and its system of government. No one thinks of London apart from its people
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or apart from the fact that it is the capital of the British Empire.
And now the interpreting angel has fulfilled his promise to show John the “mystery” of the beast and the woman. Here is his promise. After showing John a vision of a seven-headed beast carrying a harlot woman he says: “I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and the ten horns.” Rev. 17:7.
BABYLON IS A REAL GREAT CITY
And since the angel faithfully fulfilled his promise and told John what the woman represented, ought we not to accept the angel's plain statement of what the woman is? First, the angel said, “The woman whom thou sawest is the great city.” Must we not hunt for a real, literal, “great city?” If not, what shall we look for? If the woman is not a real great city, and the term “great city” is a symbol of some-thing else, who will tell us what that something else is? If the angel only changed one mystical term for another, and “the great city” is a symbolical expression, then the angel never explained the symbol, but left it an unexplained mys-tery, a subject for speculation by the unaided feeble mind of man.
But no one will admit that the other explanations of the angel are open to any such charge of failure.
The seven heads are explained in the 9th and 10th verses to be “seven kings” or kingdoms. All admit that the angel has fulfilled his promise and explained what the seven heads are. The seven kings or kingdoms are admitted by all to be seven real literal kingdoms, and men go into history and try to find seven real kingdoms.
Again, the angel’s explanation of the ten horns, that they are “ten kings” with their kingdoms (Rev. 17:12) is ac-cepted by all as a clear and complete definition of the mean-ing of the symbol of the ten horns. And all interpreters look for ten literal kings or kingdoms; and no one is so illogical and unbelieving as to teach that the “ten kings” are ten mystical somethings which every man is at liberty to specu-late on as he pleases.
Again the angel interprets the figurative “many waters” on which the woman sits, to be “peoples, multitudes, nations, and tongues” ; and all are agreed that the angel has translated
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the symbol from the figurative to the literal, and all expect to find real literal nations speaking different tongues or lan-guages.
And now when all are agreed that the angel's explanation
of the “heads," “horns" and “waters," must be taken literal, why in the name of consistency should any one deny that the angel's explanation of the “woman" should be understood in the same way? Why should any one deny that “the great city" is really a great city, especially when there is a great city which perfectly meets the specifications in every particularf
But not only does the woman represent “the great city" but “the great city which hath a kingdom.” There are many great cities in the world which are not the centers of king-doms, so we must pass them all by and hunt for "the great city which hath a kingdom .”
But the angel is more definite still. “The woman which thou sawest is the great city which hath a kingdom over the kings of the earth” There are many cities which have king-doms centered in them, but these kingdoms do not reign over “the kings of the earth." Consequently we must pass all these by and hunt for "the city which hath a kingdom over the kings of the earth ”	i
But the description is still more definite. This kingdom holds dominion over the kingdoms of the earth, not by its superior military and naval powers, but by its deceiving for-certes. “For by thy sorceries were all the nations deceived." Rev. 18:23 “The inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine of her fornication." Rev. 17:2.
It follows, therefore, that we must find “the great city which hath a kingdom over the kings of the earth" which is maintained by deceiving sorceries, by making “the inhabitants drunk with the wine of her fornication."
That this kingdom is an ecclesiastical or church-kingdom is further shown by the fact that this kingdom is charged with unlawful alliance with the kings of the earth. “I will show thee the j udgment of the great whore .... with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication."
It is now evident that we must find “the great city which hath a kingdom over the kings of the earth" which kingdom is ecclesiastical in character, and which holds dominion by an unlawful alliance with the kings of the earth, by making “the
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inhabitants of the earth drunk״ “with the wine of her fornica-tion,״ and by deceiving all nations with her sorceries.
But the detective’s description is not yet complete.
This ecclesiastical kingdom that is centered in the great city is charged with drinking herself drunk with the blood of the saints and the martyrs of Jesus.
“And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.״ Rev.
17:6.	f5!
And with all this minute description of the city there is not an intelligent Protestant in the world but what is able to find that “great city.״ There is only one city, and there never has been but the one city, and there never will be but the one city which fulfills ALL these specifications, and that one city is ROME, the seat of that reigning, deceiving, persecuting ecclesiastical system which has named itself after “the great city,״ “the Roman Catholic Church.״
And now since we have found that the woman represents Rome with its reigning church-kingdom, it follows infallibly that the seven successive kingdoms over which this church reigns must be found in the lifetime of the Roman church, and not centuries before she was born nor after she is· de-stroyed.
It will be noticed that it is the same great city and the same church-kingdom that reigns over each and all of the seven successive kingdoms. The kingdoms which carry her change, but the woman never changes. The kingdoms rise and fall, but the harlot Babylon the Great never falls until she has been seated upon all seven kingdoms in succession, and then on one of these fallen kingdoms revived, the “eighth״ and last. When the harlot takes this final and fatal seat in her pride, saying, “I sit a queen and am no widow and shall see no sorrow,״ then follows her fall. “Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death and mourning and famine, and she shall be utterly burned with fire; for strong is the Lord God who judged her.״ Rev. 18:7, 8.
“And a strong angel took a stone as it were a great mill-stone and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with a mighty fall shall Babylon the great city be cast down, and shall be found no more at all.״ Rev. 18:21 Rev. Ver.
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CHAPTER VI THE TEN KINGS
There can be no correct understanding of the prophecies which describe the battle of Armageddon unless there is a correct understanding of the ten kings which are associated with the “beast״ in the battle.
A single mistake in a problem of mathematics will make in-correct all results of further figuring based on that mistake. In like manner all conclusions founded on an erroneous view of the ten horns or ten kings of Rev. 17, must be false.
A fundamental error that is found in many systems of in-terpretation, is that the ten kings of Rev. 17 are the same as the ten kings of Dan. 7. It is the purpose of this chapter to show that they are not the same.
Of the ten horns on the symbolical beast of Dan. 7 the in-terpreting angel said :
“And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise and another shall arise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first and he shall subdue three kings. Dan. 7:24.
In interpreting the ten horns pictured in Rev. 17, the angel said :
“And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast. These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast. These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful. . . . And the ten horns which thou sawest and the beast, (R.V.) these shall hate the whore and make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire. For God hath put in their hearts to fulfill His will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled.״ Rev. 17:1217־.
We will not take the time here to prove that the “little horn״ of Dan. 7, before whom three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots, and which spake great words against the Most High, and wore out the saints of the Most High,
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and thought to change times and the law ; is a representation of the papacy with its center at Rome. A large majority of our readers will readily assent to this application, and we cannot hold them back here while we discuss the matter with the dissenters.
Again, the same majority of our readers will agree with us that the harlot which rides the beast of Rev. 17, which makes all nations drink of the wine of her fornication, which drank herself drunk with the blood of the saints and the martyrs of Jesus, and which the Lord calls “Babylon the Great the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth,״ is the same papal system centered at Rome.
With these evident facts agreed upon as a foundation, let us see what additional facts inevitably follow as a necessary re-suit.
Inasmuch as it is plainly stated in Dan. 7:24, that the little horn came up after the ten horns had appeared, it follows that the ten horns of Dan. 7 existed before the papacy ever ap-peared in the world.
But while the ten horns of Dan. 7 existed prior to the ap-pearance of the papacy, the ten horns or kings of Rev. 17 have no existence until after the woman, the papacy, has run her course; and then they appear just in time to be used of God in her destruction.
In proof of this important statement we submit the follow-ing: the harlot of Rev. 17 sits on seven successive kingdoms. “The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth, and they are seven kings.״ Rev. 17:9, 10. But the harlot lives longer than these seven successive kingdoms. One of these kingdoms which existed and carried the woman, then ceased to be, comes up out of death and is numbered eight, and carries the harlot a second time ; and then with the ten kings accomplishes her ruin. And it is not until the woman sits upon this eighth and last kingdom, that the ten horns or kingdoms come into power.
At the time the sixth kingdom is reigning and carrying the woman, the angel says of the ten horns, “The ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet ” Then when do they reign as kings? “But receive power as kings one hour with the beast”
That the “beast״ here spoken of is the eighth and last king-iom that carries the papacy, and is the one that at the time of
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the sixth “is not״ and later “ascends out of the bottomless pit,״ is plainly stated in the preceding verse, verse 11.
“And the beast that was and is not [“and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit and go into perdition,” v. 8], even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.”
This is conclusive proof that the beast of verse 11 is the eighth and last kingdom that carries the fallen woman, and is the one that fights in the battle of Armageddon and goes into perdition in the lake of fire, as described in Rev. 19:19,20.
Now in the very next verse of this 17th chapter, verse 12, the angel says of the ten kings of Rev. 17, “they have received no kingdom as yet, but receive power, as kings one hour with the beast,” which the angel had just explained to be the eighth and last kingdom. Therefore, while the ten kings of Dan. 7 existed before the papacy was born, the ten kings of Rev. 17 do not exist until the appearance of the eighth and last head which carries the fallen woman, or just before the destruc-tion of the woman.
We might rest our case here as fully proved, but there is more evidence in support of the position. Another proof that the ten horns of Dan. 7 are not the ten horns of Rev. 17, lies in the fact that the ten horns of Dan. 7 are the result of the breaking up of the Roman Empire, whereas, the ten horns of Rev. 17 are not the result of the dismemberment of the beast or kingdom with which they are associated, but are ten separate and independent kingdoms which voluntarily “Give their kingdom unto the beast.” And in passing, note that they give their kingdom unto the beast and not to the woman that sits upon the beast. And the purpose of God in putting it in their hearts to give their kingdom to the beast is that “the word of God shall be fulfilled” regarding the destruction of the woman.
There are three distinct symbols in the 17th of Revelation, the woman, the beast, and the ten horns. The woman is not the beast, and the beast is not the woman. And the ten horns are not the beast, and the beast is not the ten horns. The beast lives, and fights in the battle of Armageddon, after it, with the ten horns, has utterly destroyed the woman. The beast lives before the ten kings appear, and after they appear they are spoken of as “the beast and the ten horns,” both in Rev. 17:16 (R. V.) and Rev. 19:10.
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Again, the ten horns of Dan. 7 exist before the appear-anee of the papacy, and therefore before its 1260 days of supremacy; while the ten horns of Rev. 17 do not appear until after this period. We have already proved that the beast from the bottomless pit is the eighth and last head of the beast, and is the only kingdom with which the ten horns are associated. And now we will give definite proof that the eighth head or the one from the bottomless pit appears and persecutes the true witnesses after the 1260-day period is past. In the 11th chapter of Revelation we have these words with reference to the two witnesses: “And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and three score days, clothed in sackcloth . .	. and when they shall have finished their
testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and overcome them and kill them.״ Verses 3 and 7. And since the ten horns have no existence except as associates of the eighth head, or the head from the bottomless pit, and the kingdom from the bottom-less pit does not appear until the end of the period of 1260 days of sackcloth witnessing, it is evident that the ten horns of Rev. 17 do not exist until after the 1260 days of papal supremacy are past.
Once more, the seven kings remaining after the three of Daniel’s vision have been plucked up are used by the papacy as instruments with which to destroy the saints; while the ten horns of Rev. 17 are used by the Lord as instruments with which to destroy the papacy.
Summing up our evidence that the ten horns of Dan. 7 are not the same as the ten horns of Rev. 17, we have the fol-lowing:
1.	The ten kings of Daniel’s vision existed before the papacy was born ; while the ten horns of Rev. 17 do not exist until after the papal woman has been seated on seven sue-cessive kingdoms and then upon one of these seven revived, the eighth, and just in time to take part in her destruction.
2.	The ten horns of Dan. 7 are the result of the dismem-berment of the beast or kingdom on which they appear; while the ten horns of Rev. 17 are not the result of the dissolution of the kingdom with which they appear, but are ten kingdoms which voluntarily give their kingdom to the beast, thus aug-menting its greatness and power.
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3.	The ten horns, or kings, of Daniel's beast compose that beast after they appear, while the beast of Rev. 17 exists through its seven successive phases before the ten horns ap-pear, and when they do appear they only have power as kings, “one hour״ with the beast, the revived head, the eighth and last kingdom.
4.	The ten horns of Dan. 7 exist prior to the “time, times, and half a time,״ or 1260-day period, while the ten horns of Revelation do not exist until after that period is past.
5.	The seven kings remaining of Daniel's vision are used by the papacy as instruments to destroy the saints, while the ten horns of Rev. 17 are used by the Lord as instruments with which to destroy the papacy.
From the foregoing we must conclude that before the battle of Armageddon can be fought, the ten kings must ap-pear which join the “beast״ or eighth and last kingdom in destroying the woman, and then in making war on the Lamb, as described in Rev. 17:14-17, and 19:19.
CHAPTER VII
THE FIRST OF THE SEVEN HEADS
Since it is one of the seven kingdoms represented by the seven heads of the symbolic beast of Rev. 13 and 17 that fights against the King of kings in the battle of Armageddon, it follows that we should endeavor to find in history all the kingdoms that are pictured by the seven heads.
Beyond all question, “Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots,״ is the Roman Catholic Church System centered in Rome, and since it is plainly stated that the woman sits on all the seven heads, we are shut up to the conclusion that all the heads or kingdoms must be found after the cross or in the lifetime of the papacy and not centuries before the papal church was born.
Inasmuch as the true church of Christ would never com-mit fornication with the kings of the earth,—never seek to be supported by earthly governments ; we could not expect to find a professedly Christian church sitting on a mountain-king-dom, until the “falling away״ or apostacy had developed a
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fallen church, calling itself Christian, one that is willing to be carried by an earthly kingdom.
And since no pagan government would submit to carry and defend a church professing Christianity, it follows that we will not find the first head or kingdom that carries the woman until there is a kingdom whose rulers and subjects profess the same kind of Christianity as is taught by the harlot church.
The first human government to profess Christianity was the empire of Constantine and his successors. But the church did not ride the empire in the days of Constantine as she did a few centuries later. In his day the church occupied much the same position in the empire as paganism had occupied un-der the pagan emperors. Then the emperor was head of both state and church. In like manner Constantine convened councils and presided over them. But gradually the backslid-ing church grew in influence and power. The capital of the empire was moved from Rome to Constantinople, leaving the bishops of the “eternal city” opportunity for freer and quicker growth to a position where they could ride and guide in both civil and religious matters.
Before we reach the time of Emperor Justinian, “the resist-anee and final triumph of Athanasius proved that the new society [the Roman Church] could put forth a power of opinion such as had never been known before; [and] the abasement of Theodosius the emperor before Ambrose the archbishop admitted the supremacy of the spiritual power/' The Holy Roman Empire by James Bryce, page 12.
In 538 A. D., Justinian issued a decree recognizing the Bishop of Rome supreme over all other bishops, and the church headed up in the pope of Rome soon delivered from her political Arian enemies, took her seat on the first head, first mountain, first of the seven kingdoms.
By this time the empire had lost its western territory to the conquering barbarians, and was confined largely to the territory of what was once the Grecian Empire, symbolized in the prophecy of Dan. 7 by the leopard beast. And that is the reason why, when John sees the birth of the seven-headed beast from the sea as pictured in Rev. 13:1, 2, he describes him as “like unto a leopard!* And since the “Greek Empire״ held control of the territory of old Babylon and Persia, symbolized by the lion and the bear, it followed that, “his feet were as the feet of a bear and his mouth as the mouth of a lion.״ Another
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reason for these Persian and Babylonian birth marks is found in the fact that this eastern empire that first carried the har-lot, adopted the crown and the court splendor and display of the fallen eastern kingdoms,—the “oriental pomp״ which an early Roman Emperor “would have scorned.״
Some have taught that the first of the seven heads or king-doms was old Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar time; but if that be true, when John beholds the birth of the beast under the first head, it ought to have been all lion, as when Daniel be-held the lion coming up out of the sea. All admit that the coming up out of the sea of the lion, the bear, the leopard, the great and terrible beast and the coming up from the earth of the two-homed beast, pictured the birth to power of the several kingdoms represented by the symbols. This being admitted in all other cases, why is it not true of the seven-headed leopard beast of Rev. 13? And now since John sees the beast at its birth, and it then has the body of a leopard with elements of the lion and the bear, the first head of the beast cannot be Babylon ; for in that case the symbol would have been all lion.
Again the running of the heads of the beast back to old Babylon is a violation of a fundamental principle of prophetic interpretation. It is admitted by all that the reason why the four heads appear on the leopard beast, and the four horns on the goat, is that the kingdoms represented by the four heads and the four horns must all be found in the territory repre-sented by the body of the leopard and the goat. Again the two horns on the ram and ten horns on the fourth beast are intended to inform us that the kingdoms symbolized by these horns must be found in the territory represented by the body of these beasts. “And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise.״ Dan. 7:24.
“And the rough goat is the king of Grecia; and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king. Now that being broken, whereas four stood up for it, four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation ” Dan. 8:21, 22.
Thus we see that more than one head or horn on one body indicates that the several kingdoms so represented must be found in the same territory and among the same people repre-sented by the body of the beast on which the heads or horns appear.
This Scriptural principle has been recognized by all those 33
interpreters who have attempted to find in the various forms of government in pagan Rome, kings consuls, decemvirs, etc., the seven governments represented by the seven heads of the beast of Rev. 13 and 17. And those who have attempted to find the seven kingdoms in the independent and separate king-doms of Babylon, Medo-Persia, Grecia, etc., have violated the principle. If the Lord had wanted to picture seven succès-sive and separate nations, each arising outside the territory of its predecessor, each distinct in language and laws, like Baby-Ion, Persia, Greece and Rome, he would have made use of seven distinct and independent symbols, each with a separate body as in the case of the lion, the bear, the leopard and the ten-horned beast ; instead of placing seven heads on one body as he has done in the seven-headed symbol of Rev. 13 and 17.
All admit that the reason the Lord pictured four heads on the leopard is that he wants us to look for the four kingdoms within the territory represented by the body of the leopard. All agree that the reason that ten horns appear on the fourth beast is that the ten kings are to be found in the territory sym-bolized by the body of the fourth beast. Because the little horn appears on the body of the fourth beast all agree in look-ing for the little horn power within the territory represented by the fourth beast.
And without a dissenting voice all unite in finding the pow-ers pictured by the two horns of the ram and the four horns of the goat within the territory represented by the bodies of the ram and the he־goat.
Having recognized and applied the principle in every other case, why should the same interpreters deny it in the case of the seven-headed beast of Rev. 13 and 17?
But while the teachers who attempt to find in the different phases of government appearing in the history of ancient Rome, recognize the true principle of interpretation they vio-late plain Scriptural statements in that attempt. They admit that the harlot woman that sits on all the seven successive heads or kingdoms is the Church-Kingdom, centered in Rome ; then why search for any of the kingdoms on which the woman sits, away back in the history of pagan Rome centuries before the birth of the Roman church?
Nearly all the old Protestant commentators agree that the little horn of Dan. 7 that controls the beast after it is divided into ten kingdoms is identical with the harlot of Rev. 17,
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which rides the seven-headed beast. With this plain Bible truth admitted, why disregard it and go back before Rome fell to pieces, before the birth of the papal little horn, or the papal harlot, to find the seven successive kingdoms over which the papal woman reigned ?
The little horn does not appear on the fourth beast of Dan. 7, until the beast reaches the experience described by the ten horns, or until Rome has fallen into fragments. And in like manner the harlot which is one and the same with the little horn, can have no place in prophetic history until the Roman Empire has fallen into fragments. And it follows of necessity that the first head upon which the woman sits, cannot appear earlier than the breaking up of that empire. Therefore, the seven-headed beast which comes up out of the sea as pictured in Rev. 13 and 17, and on whose seven sue-cessive heads the harlot sits, must represent kingdoms which appear after the breaking up of the Roman Empire. And the first appearing from the sea of the seven-headed beast, must represent the beast under his first head. And since the first fragment of that empire to carry the harlot was that known as the Greek or Eastern Empire, largely occupying the terri-tory symbolized by the leopard of Dan. 7, how fitting that the beast emerging from the sea, under his first head should appear ‘‘like unto a leopard.״
The following quotations from “Story of the Seer of Pat-mos” by S. N. Haskell clearly state the truth that the first kingdom to support the backslidden church was the kingdom founded by Constantine. The quotations do not teach that all the heads are found in the lifetime of the Roman Church, but they do teach that the first time the harlot sat on a head or kingdom, was when she sat on the empire of Justinian, and the first empire willing to carry that church was that same empire. All emphasis in the quotations is mine.
״BABYLON THE GREAT״
“The 17th chapter of Revelation is a divine history of the power represented by the beast which John saw arising from the sea, and which is distinguished from all other beasts by its seven heads and ten horns with crowns. The Prophet Daniel wrote the history of the world from the standpoint of nations. He mentions religion, and especially the people of God, but deals primarily with nations. On the other hand, the his-tory presented to John on the Isle of Patmos, was primarily
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an ecclesiastical history. . .	. On the forehead of the
woman was a name written, ‘mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots, and abominations of the earth.* This is
the mystery of iniquity, which Paul said was at work in the days when he wrote to the Thessalonians.
“The Apostolic Church is represented as a chaste virgin clad in white linen. The history of the seven churches of the second and third chapters of Revelation describes the decline. The first love was lost, that made it easy to commit fornica-tion. . . . The simplicity of early days was changed for worldly habits, teachings and ways of living. ...
“The change was not wrought in a day. For five centuries after Christ sent out his first disciples the transformation was going on. Again and again during that time Christ, like a true husband, sought the return of His church . . . But the church heeded not the call to return. Through the days of Constantine she made greater advances until she took her seat on the beast. This was ‘mystery, Babylon the Great the Mother of Harlots, and abominations of the earth.’ She who had once been a golden cup in the Lord’s hand, filled with the wine of His love, which heaven through her had offered to the world, turned from him, decked herself with worldliness and held to the lips of her admirers a golden cup full of poi-son. She had fallen and those who drank of her wine fell also.
“For 1260 years the whore, from her capital at Rome, the seven-hilled city, controlled the nations of Europe. She offered them her wine. Most men drank freely and partook of her sins without restraint, but when man or nation refused he paid the penalty with his life blood. . . . ‘The woman [was] drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.’ ‘The woman which thou sawest is that great city which reigneth over the kings of the earth.* It was the power which dominated Europe for 42 months of which Daniel, the Prophet, says, ‘He shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws; and they shall be given into His hand until a time and times and the dividing of times.’ This is an inspired picture of the church which started out pure, but soon mingled the true religion with paganism. She first asked aid of the nations, then took the reins of government and ruled both kings and nations.
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God calls this church a whore, *mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots . . .*
“In all pagan nations the religion is UNDER THE GOV· ERNMENT, and the gods are worshipped because the gov-ernment so ordains. This was true in all the heathen king-doms, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome, until after the birth of Christ . . . When at the crucifixion of Christ, Satan was cast from the Council of the representatives of the worlds, knowing that his time was short, he revolutionized his former methods, and made governments subject to religious organization. This revolution was a slow process. It began soon after the death of Christ. . . .
“Then the mystery of iniquity changed the church from a pure woman to a harlot and seated her on the beast. * * *
“Between A. D. 533, when Justinian published his decree, recognizing the head of the Roman Diocese as head of the government of Rome, and A. D. 538 when the last obstacle in the form of a rival power was taken out of the way in Italy, the woman mounted the beast. Henceforth lordly Rome, which, like Babylon of old, had prided itself upon the fact that it was the master of the world, was guided and con-trolled by a prostitute woman.״ “Story of the Seer of Pat-mos״ by S. N. Haskell, pages 289, 292297־.
And now that we are agreed that the first fallen Christian church that ever sat on a kingdom was the Roman Catholic Church, and the first head or kingdom that ever carried the Roman Church was the Eastern or Greek kingdom of Jus-tinian, it follows infallibly that the other heads or kingdoms on which the harlot sat must be found after this first kingdom and within the territory symbolized by the broken body ruled by the little horn of Dan. 7 ; or, which is the same thing, the body of the beast whose seven successive heads or kingdoms carry the Roman Church.
CHAPTER VIII
THE SECOND OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS
But there came a time when this first mountain or king-dom that carried the fallen woman refused longer to carry her. It threw her off, and she found herself in the valley with no great mountain or human government to fight her battles
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and defend her against her enemies. It came about on this wise:
“The Emperor Leo, born among the Isaurian mountains, where a purer faith may yet have lingered, and stung by the Mohammedan taunt of idolatry, determined to abolish the worship of images, which seemed fast obscuring the more spir-itual part of Christianity.״ The Holy Roman Empire, by James Bryce, p. 38.
The Emperor called a council of bishops which condemned the use of all images in religious worship. And this con-demnation was followed by the destruction of all images from the eastern churches. The Pope defended the cause of the images and excommunicated the Emperor for his image-break-ing “heresy.״
The papacy having lost the support of the Eastern Empire, “Ludpraud, King of the Lombards, improved his opportunity ; falling on the exarchate as the champion of images, on Rome as the minister of the Greek Emperor, he overran the one, and all but succeeded in capturing the other. The Pope escaped for the moment, but saw his peril ; placed between a heretic [the Greek Emperor] and a robber [the Lombards], he turned his gaze beyond the Alps, to a Catholic chief [Charles Martel], who had just achieved a signal deliverance for Christendom [from the Mohammedan invaders] on the field of Poitiers. Gregory II had already opened up com-munication with Charles Martel, mayor of the palace, and virtual ruler of the Frankish realm. As the crisis becomes more pressing, Gregory III finds in the same quarter his only hope, and appeals to him, in urgent letters, to hasten to the succor of the holy church. . . . Charles died before he could obey the call ; but his son Pipin [surnamed the Short] made good use of the new friendship with Rome. He was the third of his family who had ruled the Franks with a mon-arch’s full power: it seemed time to abolish the pageant of Merovingian royalty; yet a departure from the ancient line might shock the feeling of the people.
THE POPE DEPOSES THE LAWFUL KING
“A course was taken whose danger no one then foresaw. The Holy See, now for the first time invoked as an interna-tional power, pronounces the deposition of Childeric, and gave to the royal office of his successor, Pipin, a sanctity hitherto unknown; adding to the old Frankish election, which
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consisted in raising the chief on a shield amid the clash of arms, the Roman diadem and the Hebrew rite of anointing. The compact between the chair of Peter and the Teutonic throne was hardly sealed when the latter was summoned to discharge its share of the duties. Twice did Aistulf, the Lorn-bard, assail Rome ; twice did Pipin descend to the rescue ; the second time at the bidding of a letter written in the name of St. Peter himself. Aistulf could make no resistance ; and the Frank bestowed on the Papal chair all that belonged to the exarche in Northern Italy, receiving as the meed of his serv-ices the title of Patrician.״ Holy Roman Empire, pp. 38-40.
“When on Pipin’s death the relentless Lombards again took up arms and menaced the possessions of the church, Pipin’s son Charles, or Charlemagne, swept down like a whirlwind from the Alps at the call of Pope Hadrian, seized the King Desiderius in his capitol, himself assumed the Lorn-bard crown and made northern Italy thence forward an in-tegral part of the Frankish empire.
“Proceeding to Rome at the head of his victorious army, the first of a long line of Teutonic kings who were to find her love more deadly than her hate, he was received by Hadrian with distinguished honors, and welcomed by the people as their leader and deliverer.
“Yet even then, whether out of policy or from that senti-ment of reverence to which his ambitious mind did not refuse to bow, he was moderate in claims of jurisdiction, he yielded to the pontiff the place of honor in processions, and renewed, although in the guise of a lord and conqueror, the gift of the Exarchate and Pentopolis, which Pipin had made to the Roman church twenty years before.״ Id. pp. 41, 42.
THE CROWNING OF CHARLEMAGNE
“On Christmas day A. D. 800 he (Pope Leo III) heard mass in the basilica of St. Peter, on the spot where now the gigantic dome of Bramante and Michael Angelo towers over the buildings of the modern city, the spot which tradition has hallowed as that of the Apostle’s martyrdom, Constantine the Great had erected the oldest and stateliest temple of Christian Rome.”
“Out of the transept a flight of steps led up to the high altar underneath and just beyond the great arch, the arch of triumph as it was called : behind in the semicircular apse sat the clergy, rising tier above tier around its walls ; in the midst,
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high above the rest, and looking down past the altar over the multitude vras placed the bishop’s throne, itself the curule chair of some forgotten magistrate.
“From that chair the Pope now rose, as the reading of the Gospel ended, advanced to where Charles—who had ex-changed his simple Frankish dress for the sandals and chlamys of a Roman patrician—knelt in prayer by the high altar, and as, in the sight of all, he placed upon the brow of the bar-barian chieftain the diadem of the Caesars, then bent in obéis-anee before him, the church rang to the shout of the multi-tude, again free, again the Lord's and center of the world. . . .
“In that shout echoed by the Franks without, was pro-nounced the union, so long in preparation, so mighty in con-sequences, of the Roman and the Teuton, of the memories and the civilization of the South with the fresh energy of the North, and from that moment modern history begins.” Id. pp. 48, 49.
THE SECOND MOUNTAIN
And at that moment the harlot of Revelation is seen sitting on the second mountain of human power, which, by the testi-mony of Jesus, was pictured to the prophet of Patmos, through the angel of the Lord, seven centuries before.
“Among his intimate friends he chose to be called David, exercising all the powers of the Jewish king; presiding over the Kingdom of God upon earth rather as a second Constan-tine or Theodosius than in the spirit and traditions of Julii or the Flavii. Among his measures there are two which in par-ticular recall the first Christian Emperor. As Constantine founds so Charles erects on a firmer basis the connection of church and state, Bishops and abbots are as essential a part of rising feudalism as counts and dukes. . . . Again, it was by him first that the payment of tithes, for which the priest-hood had long been pleading, was made compulsory in the Western Empire, and the support of the ministers of religion entrusted to the laws of the state.” Id. p. 67.
“Ruling the world as the gift of God, and the transmitted rights of the Romans and their Caesar whom God had chosen to conquer it, he renews the original aggressive movement of the empire : the civilized world has subdued her invader and now arms him against savagery and heathendom. Hence the wars, not more of the sword than of the cross, against Saxons,
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Avars, Slavs, Danes, Spanish Arabs, where monasteries are fortresses and baptism the badge of submission.״ Id. p. 68.
And this is the second head, the second mountain, the sec-ond kingdom which rose out of the broken body of the Roman Empire and carried the Roman church, the fallen woman of Rev. 17.
It will surprise some of our readers when they realize that this empire, entirely overlooked by most students of Daniel and the Revelation, was far greater in territory, people and power, than was ever the kingdom of ancient Babylon. This is one of the fragments of the feet and toes of the metalic image of Nebuchadnezzar, of which it is written, “there shall be in it the strength of the iron.״ Dan. 2:41.
CHAPTER IX
THE THIRD MOUNTAIN-KINGDOM
On the death of Charlemagne, his son, Lewis the Pius, became king. On the death of Lewis, his three sons, Lothar, Lewis and Charles “flew to arms, and the first of the dynastic quarrels of modern Europe was fought out on the field of Fontenay. In the partition treaty of Verdun which followed (843), the Teutonic principle of equal division among heirs triumphed over the Roman one of the transmission of an indi-visible empire ; the practical sovereignty of all three brothers was admitted in their respective territories.״ Bryce’s Holy Roman Empire, p. 77.
THE FALL OF THE SECOND KINGDOM
“On the tangled history of the period that follows it is not possible to do more than touch. After passing from one branch of the Carolingian line to another, the imperial seep-ter was at last possessed and disgraced by Charles the Fat, who united all the dominions of his great grandfather. This unworthy heir could not avail himself of recovered territory to strengthen or defend the expiring monarchy. He was driven out of Italy in 887, and his death in 888 has been usually taken as the date of the extinction of the Carolingian Empire of the West.״ Id. p. 78. (Emphasis ours through-out.)
“The nations were not ripe for settled life or extensive 41
schemes of polity ; the differences of race, language, manners, over vast and thinly-peopled lands, baffled every attempt to maintain their connection: when once the spell of the great mind was withdrawn, the mutually repellant forces began to work, and the mass dissolved into that chaos out of which it had been formed.״ Id.p. 71.
And now that the second head or mountain or kingdom that carried the scarlet woman has fallen, the Roman Church is in the second valley of her changing experience. No great kingdom exists whose kings she crowns, and whose mountain of power is pledged to carry her, and defend her and her creed from her enemies.
And this is the reason why the interpreting angel transfers the symbol of the ‘4seven heads״ to “seven mountains״ before translating them to “seven kings״ or kingdoms. Rev. 17:811־. We cannot have a chain of seven mountains without having valleys between them. And since the scarlet woman sits on all the mountains or kingdoms, one after the other, it follows that she must sit in the valley that appears between the fall of each mountain-kingdom and the rise of its successor.
THE SECOND VALLEY DESCRIBED
Of this second valley experience of the Roman Church, Bryce gives this vivid description.
“That time was indeed the nadir [opposite] of order and civilization. From all sides the torrent of barbarism which Charles the Great had stemmed, was rushing down upon the empire. The Saracen wasted the Mediterranean coast, and sacked Rome herself. The Danes and Norsemen swept the Atlantic and North Sea, pierced France and Germany by their rivers, burning, slaying, carrying off into captivity; pouring through the Straits of Gibraltar, they fell upon Province and Italy, by land, while Wends and Czechs and Obotrites threw off the German yoke and threatened the borders; the wild Hungarian bands pressing in from the Steppes of the Caspian, dashed over Germany like the flying spray of a new wave of barbarism, and carried the terror of their battleaxes to the Apennines and the ocean. Under such strokes the already loosened fabric swiftly dissolved. No one thought of com-mon defense, or wise organization; the strong built castles, the weak became their bondsmen, or took shelter under the cowl: the governor—count, abbot, or bishop—tightened his grasp, turned a delegated into an independent, a personal into
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a territorial authority, and hardly owned a distant and feeble suzerain. The grand vision of a universal Christian Empire was utterly lost in the isolation, the antagonism, the increas-ing localization of power : it might seem to have been but the passing gleam from an older and better world.״ pp. 78, 79.
THE RISE OF THE THIRD KINGDOM
“In Germany, the greatness of the evil worked at last its cure. When the male line of the Eastern branch of the Caro-lingians had ended in Lewis [surnamed the child] son of Arnulf, the chieftains chose and the people accepted Conrad the Franconian, and after him, Henry, the Saxon duke; both representing the female line of Charles. Henry laid the foundation of a firm monarchy, driving back the Magyars and Wends, recovering Lotharingia, founding towns to be centers of orderly life and strongholds against Hungarian irruptions. He had meant to claim at Rome his kingdom’s rights, * * * but death overtook him, and the plan was left to be fulfilled by Otto his son.
“The Holy Roman Empire, taking the name in the sense which it commonly bore in later centuries, as denoting the sovereignty of Germany and Italy, vested in a Germanic prince, is the creation of Otto the Great. Substantially, it is true, as well as technically, it was a prolongation of the Em-pire of Charles, and it rested [as will be shown in the sequel] upon ideas essentially the same, as those which brought about the coronation [of Charles the Great] in A. D. 800. But a revival is always more or less a revolution: the one hundred and fifty years that had passed since the death of Charles, had brought with them changes which made Otto’s position in Germany and Europe less commanding, and less autocratic than his predecessor’s. With narrower geographical lines, his empire had a less plausible claim to be the heir of Rome’s universal dominion ; and there was also differences in its inner character and structure, sufficient to justify us in considering Otto [as he is usually considered by his countrymen] not as a mere successor after an interregnum, but rather a second founder of the imperial throne in the West " Pp. 79, 80.
INVITED TO ROME BY THE POPE
“A gleam of romance is shed on the Empire's revival by her [Adelbeid Queen of Italy and widow of King Lothar] beauty and her adventures. Rejecting the odious alliance, [proposed marriage to Adalbert, son of Berengar, new king 43
of Italy] she was seized by Berengar, escaped with difficulty from the loathsome prison where his barbarity had confined her, and appealed to Otto the German king, the model of that knightly virtue which was beginning to show itself after the fierce brutality of the last age. He listened, descended into Lombardy by the Adige valley, espoused the injured queen, and forced Berengar to hold his kingdom as a vassal of the East Frankish Crown. That prince was turbulent and faithless; new complaints reached ere long his liege lord, and envoy$ from the Pope offered Otto the imperial title if he would re-visit and pacify Italy.
“The proposal was well-timed, men still thought, as they thought in the centuries before the Carolingians, that the Empire was suspended, not extinct ; and the desire to see its effective power restored, the belief that without it, the world could never be right, might seem better grounded than it had been before the coronation of Charles. * * * The motive would be bitterly enforced by the calamities of the last fifty years. In a time of disintegration, confusion, strife, all the longing of every wiser and better soul for unity, for peace and law, for some bond to bring Christian men and Christian states together against the common enemy of the faith, were but so many cries for the restoration of the Roman Empire. These were the feelings that on the field of Mersburg, broke forth in the shout of Henry the Emperor. These were the hopes of the Teutonic host when after the great deliverance of the Lechfeld they greeted Otto conqueror of the Magyars, as *Imperator Augustus, Pater Patriae.,
“The anarchy which an Emperor was needed to heal, was at its worst in Italy, desolated by the feuds of a crowd of petty princes. A succession of infamous Popes, raised by means yet more infamous, the lovers and sons of Theodora and Marozia, had disgraced the chair of the apostle. West-ern Christendom was roused to anger and alarm. Men had not yet learned to satisfy their consciences by separating the person from the office.
“The rule of Alberic had been succeeded by the wildest confusion, and demands were raised for the renewal of that imperial authority which all admitted in theory, and which nothing but the resolute opposition of Alberic himself had prevented Otto from claiming in 951.
“From the Byzantine Empire whither Italy was more than 44
once tempted to turn, nothing could be hoped; its dangers from foreign enemies were aggravated by the plots of the court and the seditions of the capital ; it was becoming more and more alienated from the West by the Photian schism, and the question regarding the Procession of the Holy Ghost, which that quarrel had started. Germany which was ex־ tending and consolidating herself, had escaped domestic perils, and might think of reviving ancient claims. No one could be more willing to revive them than Otto the Great. His ardent spirit, after waging a bold and successful struggle against the turbulent magnates of his German realm, had engaged him in wars with surrounding nations, and was now captivated by the vision of a wider sway, and a loftier world embracing dig-nity. Nor was the prospect which the papal offer opened up less welcome to his people. * * * The recovery of Italy was therefore to German eyes, a righteous, as well as a glo-rious design: approved by the Teutonic Church which had lately been negotiating with Rome on the subject of missions to the heathen, embraced by the people, who saw in it an ac-cession of strength to their young kingdom. Everything smiled on Otto’s enterprise, and the connection which was destined to bring so much strife and woe to Germany and to Italy, was welcomed by the wisest of the countries as the beginning of a better era.”
CROWNED BY THE POPE
“Whatever were Otto’s own feelings, whether or not he felt that he was sacrificing the greatness of his German king-dom to the lust of universal dominion, he showed no hesitation in his acts. Descending from the Alps with an overwhelm-ing force, he was acknowledged as king of Italy at Pavia: and, having first taken an oath to protect the Holy See, and respect the liberties of the city, advanced to Rome. There with Adel-heid his queen, he was crowned by John XII, on the day of Purification, the second of February, A. D. 962.״ Pp. 8387־.
And with this striking historic scene, there appeared the third head, the third mountain, the third kingdom that had arisen out of the broken body of the Roman Empire to carry the Roman Church. Again the harlot had emerged from the valley of her widowhood and sought, and secured an alliance with a mighty kingdom and taken her seat on the third sue-ceeding mountain-throne of human power.
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CHAPTER X
THE FOURTH MOUNTAIN-KINGDOM
From the crowning of Otto in 962 to the death of Henry the Third in 1056 there was comparative peace between the two great kingdoms of Christendom, the kingdoms of the pope and the empire. But in 1075 Pope Gregory VII. issued his famous decree forbidding secular rulers the privilege, long practiced, of “investing״ churchmen, bishops, and abbots, with their church offices. It was then that the long fight began between the papacy and the empire. The chapter in Bryce’s Holy Roman Empire describing this bitter war be-tween the two world powers, is entitled, “Struggle of Empire and Papacy.״
When Gregory VII. declared that it was a sin for the ecclesiastic to receive his benefice under conditions from a lay-man [a secular ruler] and so comdemned the whole system of feudal investitures to the clergy, he aimed a deadly blow at all secular authority. Half of the land and wealth of Germany was in the hands of bishops and abbots, who would now be freed from the monarch’s control to pass under that of the Pope. In such a state government would be impossible.” Holy Roman Empire, page 158.
The reader will be interested in a statement of this giant struggle as viewed by the Roman Church. The following is from the Catholic Encyclopedia, article,
“the conflict of investitures״
“The Conflict of Investitures [is] the terminus technicus [technical term] for the great struggle between the popes and the German kings, Henry IV. and Henry V., during the pe-riod 10751122־. The prohibition of investitures was in truth only the occasion of this conflict ; the real issue, at least at the height of the contest, was whether the imperial or the papal power was to be supreme in Christendom. The powerful and ardent pope, Gregory VII. sought in all earnestness to realize the kingdom of God on earth under the guidance of the papacy. As successor of the apostles of Christ, he claimed supreme authority in both spiritual and secular affairs. . . . In this spirit he claimed for the papacy supremacy over em-perors, kings and princes. . . . Henry III., the father of 46
the young king (Henry IV.), had even reduced the papacy to complete submission, a situation which Gregory now strove to reverse by crushing the imperial power and setting in its place the papacy. A long and bitter struggle was therefore unavoidable. . . . Since Otto the Great (93672־) the bishops had been princes of the empire, had secured many priv-ileges and had become feudal lords over great districts of the imperial territory. The control of these great units of eco-nomic and military power was for the king a question of pri-mary importance, effecting as it did the foundations and even the very existence of the imperial authority; in those days man had not yet learned to distinguish between the grant of the episcopal office and the grant of its temporalities. Thus minded, Henry IV. held that it was impossible for him to acknowledge prohibition of investitures.
“We must bear carefully in mind that in the given circum-stances there was a certain justification for both parties; the pope’s object was to save the church from the dangers that arose from the undue influence of the laity, and especially of the king in strictly ecclesiastical affairs ; the king, on the other hand, considered that he was contending for the indispensable means of civil government, apart from which his supreme authority was at that period inconceivable.״
One can easily see that if the emperor lost the right of in-vestiture, that is the right to install these church princes in their office as their superior, if he yielded this to the pope, he would be yielding half of the empire’s territory and income to the pope of Rome, thus making the pope not only spiritual but also temporal ruler over half of the empire. No wonder Henry fought long and hard.
THE PAPAL STORY OF THE STRUGGLE
The reader cannot fail to be interested in the further story of the struggle as it is found in the same article of the Catho-lie Encyclopedia.
“Ignoring the prohibition of Gregory, . . . Henry con-tinued to appoint bishops in Germany and in Italy. Toward the end of December, 1075, Gregory delivered his ultimatum : the king was called upon to observe the papal decree as based on the laws and teachings of the fathers; and otherwise, at the following Lenten Synod, he would be not only ‘excom-municated until he had given proper satisfaction, but also de-prived of his kingdom without hope of recovering it.’ . . .
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If the pope had given way somewhat too freely to his feelings, the king gave still freer vent to his anger. At the Diet of Worms [Jan. 1076] Gregory, amid atrocious calumnies, was deposed by twenty-six bishops [convened by Henry] on the ground that his elevation was irregular, and consequently he had never been pope. Henry therefore addressed a letter to *Hildebrand, no longer pope, but a false monk’ :—
“ *I, Henry, king by the grace of God, with all my bishops, say to thee : “Descend ! Descend thou ever accursed !” * . . .
*‘At the next Lenten Synod in Rome [1076] Gregory sat in judgment on the king, and in a prayer to Peter, the prince of the Apostles, declared, ‘I depose him from the government of the whole kingdom of Germany and Italy, release all Chris-tians from their oath of allegiance, forbid him to be obeyed as king . . . and as thy successor bind him with fetters of anathema.’ It availed little that the king answered ban with ban. His domestic enemies the Saxons and the lay princes of the empire, espoused the cause of the pope, while his bishops were divided in their allegiance and the mass of his people deserted him.
“To the general astonishment, Henry now proposed to present himself as a penitent before the pope, and thereby ob-tain pardon. He crossed Mount Cenis in the depth of winter and was soon at the castle of Canossa, where Gregory had withdrawn on learning of the king’s approach. Henry spent three days at the entrance to the fortress, barefoot and in the garb of a penitent. . . . He was finally admitted to the papal presence, and pledging himself to recognize the media-tion and the decision of the pope in the quarrel with the princes, was freed from excommunication, [Jan. 1077.]
“The German supporters of the pope ignored the recon-ciliation, and proceeded in March, 1077, to elect a new king, Rudolph of Rheinfelden. This was the signal of the civil war during which Gregory sought to act as arbiter between the rival kings and as their overlord to award the crown. .	.	. [Henry] then demanded that the pope should ex-
communicate his rival otherwise he would set up an anti-pope. Gregory answered by excommunicating and deposing Henry for the second time at the Lenten Synod of 1080. . . .
“At the Synod of Brixen (June, 1080) the king’s bishops listened to ridiculous charges and exaggerations, and de-posed the pope, excommunicated him, and elected an anti-
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pope, Guibert, Archbishop of Revenna, otherwise a learned and blameless man. . . . Four times from 1080 to 1084 he [Henry] assaulted Rome, in 1083 captured the Leonine City, and in 1084 . . . gained possession of the entire city.״
Leaving the papal story here, we must for the sake of brevity only sketch the struggle which continued with un-abated bitterness.
Gregory VII. was driven from Rome, and died in exile, and the papacy was not only in the valley of weakness, with-out a mountain to support it, but with the empire, or what was left of it, the pope’s most bitter enemy.
EXCOMMUNICATIONS, ANTI-POPES, AND RIVAL KINGS
Three times did Gregory VII. excommunicate Henry. Three councils called by Henry, deposed the pope or his bishops. Three rival claimants for the crown were put up by the papal party, the last of these, Henry’s son, Henry V. And thus was the empire divided between two sets of bishops, two popes, and two kings. Each published and circulated the most bitter denunciations of the other. The popes that followed Gregory, Urban II. and Pascal II., continued to excommunicate Henry until their repeated blows, together with the rebellion of his son, which the pope had instigated, finally triumphed. Henry, imprisoned by his son, and de-serted by his wife, died in defeat. However, to the surprise of the pope, this rebellious son who was counted on to sup-port the papal side, renewed the war of his father under the title of Henry V. More excommunications, more rebellion of the princes, more civil war, another anti-pope, and the struggle continues to distract the empire until the compro-mise called “The Concordat of Worms” (1122) in which the emperor surrendered his right of investiture, retaining the privilege to be present at elections and to decide in cases of rival candidates.
This period in the empire’s history is spoken of by the historian of The Holy Roman Empire as “the long anarchy of Henry IV.’s reign.” The Encyclopedia Britannica, ar-tide “Empire,” has this comment on the same period :
“If under Henry III. the empire stands in many respects at its zenith ... it sinks, under Henry IV. almost to the nadir (“the lowest point”) of its fortunes, and a pope
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attempts with no little success to fight and defeat an em-peror.”
Out of this valley of anarchy another mighty prince, the scion of a new house, rescues the empire and builds it into another mountain of power. “The reign of Frederick the First, better known under his Italian surname Barbarossa (red-beard) is the most brilliant in the annals of the empire. Its strength had been wider under Henry the Third, but it never appeared in such pervading vivid activity, never shone in such luster of chivalry as under the prince whom his countrymen have taken to be one of their national heroes.״ Holy Roman Empire page 167.
“A new period of splendor dawned for the empire, and the rule of the three Hohenstaufen emperors, Frederick I, Henry VI, and Frederick II, (11521250־), marks a period of its history which attracts most sympathy and admiration.״ Encyclopedia Britannica, article, “Empire.״
The struggle between papacy and empire was renewed in the reign of Frederick, but the papacy won again a signal vie-tory in the contest. “On his first journey to Rome he re-fused to hold the pope’s stirrup, as Lothar had done, till Pope Hadrian the Fourth’s threat that he would withhold the crown, enforced compliance.״
This simple act had a deep meaning. As it was the part of a lackey to hold the stirrup of his master when he mounted his horse, so the holding of the stirrup for the pope to mount proclaimed the mighty emperor the lackey of the more mighty pope.
However, the emperor was loath to give up the struggle for supremacy, and the battle continued ever in favor of the pope until Frederick’s final surrender.
“Three slabs of red marble in the porch of St. Mark’s point out the spot where Frederick knelt in sudden awe, and the pope with tears of joy raised him and gave the kiss of peace.
“A later legend to which poetry and painting have given an undeserved currency, tells how the pontiff set his foot on the neck of the prostrate king, with the words, ‘The young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample underfeet.’ It needed not this exaggeration to enhance the significance of the scene, even more full of meaning for the future than it was solemn and affecting to the Venetian crowd that thronged the
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church and piazza. For it was the renunciation by the mightiest prince of his time of the project to which his life had been devoted: it was the abandonment by the secular power of a contest in which it had been twice vanquished, and which it could not renew under more favorable circum-stances.״ Holy Roman Empire, page 171.
And thus the fallen woman, the Roman Church, emerged from this, her third and wide valley of humiliation, to sit as a queen on the then loftiest mountain of power, her fourth, and reign over the “mightiest prince of his time.״
CHAPTER XI.
THE FIFTH MOUNTAIN-KINGDOM
Three kings of the Hohenstaufen or Swabian house fol-lowed the death of Frederick Barbarossa, and were crowned emperors by the popes. The last of these was Frederick IL, who after a short struggle with the papacy, died in 1250.
״WITH FREDERICK FELL THE EMPIRE."
“With Frederick fell the empire. From the ruin that overwhelmed the greatest of its houses it emerged, living in-deed, and destined to a long life, but so shattered, crippled, and degraded, that it could never more be to Europe and to Germany what it once had been. In the last act of the trag-edy were joined the enemy (the pope) who had blighted its strength, and the rival (France) who was destined to insult its weakness and in 1806 blot out its name.״ Bryce’s Holy Roman Empire, page 210.
“the great interregnum."
The period between the death of Frederick, 1250, and the election of Rudolph in 1272 is known in history as “The Great Interregnum.” In this period there was no head, no great mountain or kingdom on which the Roman Church could sit in power. This was the fourth valley, and it lay between the Hohenstaufen and Hapsburg mountain king-doms. Of this period Bryce in his Holy Roman Empire writes :
“Meanwhile the condition of Germany was frightful.
.	.	. Every floodgate of anarchy was opened ; the robber-
knights infested the highways and the rivers; the misery of
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the weak, the tyranny and the violence of the strong, were such as had not been seen for centuries. Things were even worse than under the Saxon and Franconian emperors; for the petty nobles who had then been in some measure con-trolled by their dukes, were now, after the extinction of the great houses, left without any feudal superior. Only in the cities was shelter or peace to be found. Those of the Rhine had already leagued themselves for mutual defense, and main-tained a struggle in the interests of commerce and order against universal brigandage. At last when Richard (one of two rival and phantom emperors) had been some time dead, it was felt that such things could not go on forever; with no public law, and no courts of justice, an emperor, the em-bodiment of legal government, was the only recourse. The pope himself having now sufficiently improved the weakness of his enemy, found the disorganization of Germany begin-ning to tell upon his revenues, and threatened that if the electors did not appoint an emperor, he would. Thus urged, they chose, in 1273, Rudolph, count of Hapsburg, founder of the house of Austria. At this point begins a new era.״ Page 213.
THE FIFTH MOUNTAIN
The new empire under the rule of the Hapsburg and Luxenburg emperors, continues with little interest until the sixteenth century, when another mighty prince comes to the throne and restores the empire to a prestige and power some-what resembling its influence under Charlemagne the Frank, Otto the Saxon, and Frederick the Hohenstaufen.
“After an election in which Francis the First of France, and Henry the Eighth of England had been his competitors, a prince (Charles the Fifth) had just ascended the imperial throne who united dominions vaster than any in Europe since the days of his namesake (Charlemagne). Spain and Naples, Flanders, and other parts of the Bergundian lands, as well as regions in Eastern Germany, obeyed Charles; he drew inexhaustible revenues from a new empire beyond the At-lantic. .	.	. Charles the Fifth, though from the cold-
ness of his manner and his Flemish speech never a favorite among the Germans, was in point of fact far stronger than Maximilian or any other emperor who had reigned for three centuries.” Holy Roman Empire, pages 321, 322.
“He was born at Ghent, Februarv 24, 1500, and was the 52
eldest son of Philip Archduke of Austria, and Joanna, daugh-ter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. . .	. On the
death of his father in 1506, Charles, at the age of six, inher-ited the Bergundian realm, consisting in the main of the rich and populous provinces of the Netherlands, then at the height of their prosperity. On the death of his grandfather Ferdinand in 1516, he became king of Spain. ... To the Spanish crown belonged Sicily and Sardinia.
On the death of his grandfather Maximilian in 1519, Charles, conjointly with his younger brother, Ferdinand, succeeded to the possession of the hereditary dominions of the house of Hapsburg [House of Austria]. On June 28, 1519, he was raised to the imperial throne of Germany by the choice of the electors. .	.	. Charles ivas now hy far
the most powerful sovereign in Christendom” The New International Encyclopedia, Article, Charles V.
Charles was crowned emperor of the Holy Roman Em-pire at the age of 20 by the pope at Bologna in October, 1620.
And it was upon this fifth mountain of power that the Church of Rome sat when Martin Luther appeared before the emperor, and the princes of church and state at the famous Diet of Worms, April 17, 1521, and struck a mortal blow with the Sword of the Spirit against both church and empire.
CHAPTER XII.
THE HEAD THAT WAS "SMITTEN TO DEATH״
Since the "beast״ which fights the King of kings in the battle of Armageddon (Rev. 19:19) is one of the first five kingdoms that carried the fallen woman,—one which was "smitten to death״ (Rev. 13:3 R. V.) but will come up out of the bottomless pit or place of death (Rev. 17:8 and Rom. 10:7), and carry the woman again; it is important ׳to know which head or kingdom was smitten to death, that we may know which one to expect to see revived.
Since we are not told which one of the'first five kingdoms is the one that was smitten and will revive as the eighth and last, the only way we have of learning which one is re-
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fcrred to, is by studying the description as given in Revela-tion, chapters 13 and 17.
1st. The smitten kingdom is a combination, of many na-tions speaking many languages. Rev. 17:1, 15.
2nd. It is a federation of nations that carried the Roman Church. Rev. 17:1, 3, 15.
3rd. It is a federation of many nations speaking many tongues and supporting the Roman Catholic Church that fell as a result of being “smitten to death” “by a sword. Rev. 13:3, 12, 14, R. V.
Not all the kingdoms that carried the Roman church were federations of nations. The first, the Greek Empire, was not a federation of nations, but a simple solid empire.
The empire of Charlemagne was also a single unit of power. It is true that it reigned over people of different races, but these were not semi-independent nations as we find them in the Empire of later years. The empire represented at the Diet of Worms which Martin Luther faced at four o’clock, April 17, 1521, was just such a combination of self-govern-ing, semi-independent nations.
And this federation of nations was the political support of the Roman church. Charles the fifth, king of Spain, a bigoted Roman Catholic, had been chosen by the seven Roman Catholic electors to occupy the throne of the empire, and had been crowned as emperor by\ the pope.
And this fifth mountain of power was the last kingdom to carry the Roman church in her undisputed reign over the civilized world. And iti was the first head of the Empire to receive a staggering blow from the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, in the hand of Martin Luther. And it was the first ta, receive a mortal wound by the sword of war in the hand of Protestant nations. And since this harlot-carrying kingdom meets all three of the descriptive specifica-tions of the head that was smitten to deaths and will live again, we believe we have found the mountain of power that fell and will arise again to carry the Roman church for a brief period, then become an instrument for her destruction, and then fight in the battle of Armageddon which closes the drama of six thousand years of human history and brings it to the millennium.
It will interest the careful reader to note what the his-torian of the Holy Roman Empire has to say of the influence
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of the Reformation on the empire, and the death strokes it received from the nations as a result of the Reformation. THE REFORMATION AND ITS EFFECTS UPON THE EMPIRE Mr. Bryce sums up the effect of the Reformation on the empire in the terse and Biblical words, “But while they talked [of strengthening the empire] the heavens darkened, and the flood came and destroyed them all ” Holy Roman Empire p. 320.
The reasons why the Reformation struck so serious a blow at the empire is given more in detail as follows: “The Reformation fails to be mentioned here, of course, not as a religious movement, but as the cause of political changes which still further rent the empire, and it struck at the root of the theory by which it had been created and upheld. Luther completed the work of Hildebrand. Hitherto it had seemed not impossible to strengthen the German state into a monarchy compact if not despotic [like that of Charlemagne and Otto] ; the very Diet of Worms, where the monk of Wittenberg proclaimed to an astonished church and em-peror that the day of spiritual tyranny was past, had framed and presented a fresh scheme for the construction of a central council of government. The great religious schism put an end to all such hopes, for it became a source of political dis-union far more serious and permanent than any that had existed before, and it taught the two factions into which Germany was hitherto divided, to regard each other with feelings morel bitter than those of} hostile nations.
The breach came at the most unfortunate time possible (for the empire). After an election more memorable than any preceding, an election in which Francis the First of France and Henry ,the Eighth'of England had been his com-petitors, a prince, (Charles the First of Spain), had just ascended the throne who united dominions vaster than any Europe had seen since the days of his¡ great namesake ( Charle-magne) .	.	. Charles the Fifth (his title as emperor)
.	.	. was in point of fact far stronger than Maximilian
or any other emperor who had reigned for three centuries.״ pp. 321, 322.
THE PRINCIPLE OF INDIVIDUALITY “It (the Reformation) was in essence the assertion of a principle of individuality—that is to say, of true spiritual freedom. Hitherto the personal consciousness had been a
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faint and broken reflection of the universal; obedience had been held the first of religious duties; truth had been con-ceived as a something external and positive, which the priest-hood who were its stewards were to communicate to the pas-sive layman, and whose saving virtue lay not in its being felt and known by him to be truth, but in a purely formal and unreasoning acceptance. The great principles which Medi-eval Christianity still cherished were obscured by the lim-ited, rigid, almost sensuous forms which had been forced on them in times of ignorance and barbarism. .	.	. The
universal consciousness became the Visible Church: the Vis-ible Church hardened into a government and degenerated into a hierarchy. Holiness of heart and life was sought by out-ward works, by penances and pilgrimages, by gifts to the poor and to the clergy, wherein there dwelt often little enough of a charitable mind. The presence of divine truth among men was symbolized under one aspect by the existence on earth of an infallible Vicar of God, the Pope ; under an-other by the sacrifice of the mass ; in a third by the doctrine that priests’ power( to remit sins and administer the sacra-ments depended upon a transmission of miraculous gifts which can hardly be called other than physical. All this system of doctrine . . . was suddenly rent in pieces by the con-vulsion of the Reformation, and flung away by the more relig-ious and the more progressive people of Europe. That which was external and concrete, was in all things to be super-seded by that which was inward and spiritual. .	.	.
Truth was no longer to be truth to the soul until it should be by the soul recognized, and in some measure even created ; but when so recognized and felt, it is able under the form of faith to transcend outward works and to transform dog-mas of the understanding; it becomes the living principle within each man’s breast, infinite in itself, and expressing itself infinitely through his thoughts and acts. He who as a spiritual being was delivered from the priest, and brought into direct relation with the Divinity, needed not, as here-tofore, to be enrolled a member of a visible congregation of his fellows, that he might live a pure and useful life among them.” Id. 328, 329.
“As the empire was founded on the assumption that the limits of Church and State are exactly co-extensive, a change which withdrew half of its subjects from the one body [the
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church] while they remained members of the other, trans-formed it utterly, destroyed the meaning and value of the old arrangement, and forced the emperor into a strange and in-congruous position. To his protestant subjects he was merely the head of the (civil) administration; to the Catholics he was the Defender and Advocate of their church. Thus from being chief of the whole state he became chief of a party within it, the Corpus Catholicorum (body Catholic) as op-posed to the Corpus Evangelicorum (body evangelical) ; he lost what had been hitherto his most holy claim to the* obedi-ence of the subject; . .	. Two mutually repugnant sys-
terns could not exist side by side without striving to destroy one another. The instincts of theological sympathy over-came the duties of political allegiance, and men who were subjects of both the emperor and of their loyal prince, gave all their loyalty to him who espoused their doctrine, and protected their worship. For in North Germany princes as well as people were mostly Lutheran; in the southern and especially the south eastern lands, where the magnates held the old faith, Protestants were scarcely to be found except in the free cities.
THE EMPIRE AS ANTICHRIST’S FOREMOST COMPANION
1‘The same causes which injured the emperor’s position in Germany, swept away the last semblance of his authority through other countries. In the great struggle that fol-lowed, the Protestants of England and France, of Holland and Sweden, thought of him only as an ally of Spain, of the Vatican, of the Jesuits; and he of whom it had been believed a century before that by nothing but by his ex-istence was the coming of Antichrist on earth delayed, was in the eyes of the northern divines either Antichrist himself or Antichrist's foremost champion. The earthquake that opened a chasm in Germany was felt throughout Europe; its states and people marshaled themselves under two hostile banners and with the empire’s expiring power vanished that united Christendom it had been created to lead.” pp. 335, 336.
THE EMPIRE SMITTEN BY THE SWORD OF WAR
Having given Bryce’s description of how the Holy Roman Empire as headed up in thé house of the Hapsburgs, received a staggering blow from the Spiritual sword in the hand of the Reformation, we now present in brief his description
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of the smiting with the sword of war that was accomplished in what is known in history as “The Thirty-Year War.״
(Emperor Ferdinand II.) “Jealous, bigoted, implacable, skillful in forming and concealing his plans, resolute to obstinacy in carrying them out in action, the House of Haps-burg could have no abler and no more unpopular leader in their second attempt to turn the German Empire into an Austrian military monarchy. They seemed for a time as near to the accomplishment of the project as Charles the Fifth had been. Leagued with Spain, backed by the Catho-lies of Germany, served by such a leader as Wallenstein, Ferdinand proposed nothing less than the extension of the empire to its old limits, and the recovery of his crown’s full prerogative over all its vassals. Denmark and Hoi-land were to be attacked by sea and land; Italy was to be reconquered with the aid of Spain: Maximilian of Bavaria and Wallenstein to be rewarded with principalities in Pomer-ania and Mecklenberg. The latter general was all but master of Northern Germany when the successful resistance of Stralsund turned the wavering balance of war. Soon after [A. D. 1630] Gustavius Adolphus [king of Sweden] crossed the Baltic and saved Europe from the impending reign of the Jesuits. ... In four campaigns he de-stroyed the armies and the prestige of the emperor; devasta-ted his lands, emptied his treasury, and left him at last so enfeebled that no subsequent successor could make him again formidable.” pp. 337, 338.
THE PEACE OF WESTPHALIA
This war of a generation came to an end with the treaty of Westphalia by the terms of which “Both Lutherans and Calvinists were declared free from all jurisdiction of the Pope or any Catholic. Thus the last link which bound Germany to Rome was snapped, the last of the principles by virtue of which the empire had existed was abandoned. For the empire now contained and recognized as its mem-bers persons who formed a visible body at open war with the Holy Roman Church; and its constitution admitted schismatics to a full share in all those civil rights which according to the doctrines of the Middle Age, could be en-joyed by no one who was out of communion of the Catholic Church. The Peace of Westphalia was therefore an abroga-tion of the sovereignty of Rome, and of the theory of
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Church and State with which the name of Rome was as-sociated. And in this light it was regarded by Pope Inno-cence the Tenth, who commanded his legate to protest against it, and subsequently declared it void by the bull Zelo domus Die.” pp. 343, 344.
The pope denounced the treaty as follows: “ipso iure nulla, irrita invalida, iniqua, inania virbusque et effectu vacua omnino fuisee, esse, et perpetua fore.״ p. 334, note b. Which being interpreted reads as follows:
“By the law itself it was, and is, and ever will be, of no effect, fruitless, weak, unequal, unjust, condemned, re-buked, vain and empty of force, and efficacy.״
THE EMPIRE AFTER THE PEACE
“The Peace of Westphalia is an era in imperial history not less clearly marked than the coronation of Otto the Great or the death of Frederick the Second. As from the days of Maximilian it had borne a mixed or transitory character, well expressed by the name Romano-Germanic, so henceforth it is in everything but title, purely and solely a German Empire. Properly speaking, indeed, it was no longer an empire at all, but a confederation, and that of the loosest sort. For it had no common treasury, no efficient common tribunals, no means for coercing a refractory mem-ber; its states were of different religions, ministered judi-daily and financially without any regard to each other.
. .	. There were three hundred petty principalities be-
tween the Alps and the Baltic, each with its own laws, its own court [in which the ceremonious pomp of Versailles was faintly reproduced], its little army, its separate coinage, its tolls and customhouses on the frontier, its crowd of med-dlesome and pedantic officials, presided over by a prime minister who was generally the unworthy favorite of his prince, and the pensioner of some foreign court. This vicious system, .	.	. did not become fully established
until the Peace of Westphalia, by emancipating the princes from imperial control had made them despots in their own territories. . . . After 1684 the provincial estates or parliaments became obsolete in most of these principalities, and powerless in the rest.״ pp. 345, 346.
“Properly speaking, it (the Holy Roman Empire) has no history after this; and the history of the particular states of Germany which take its place is one of the dreariest in
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the annals of mankind. It would be hard to find, from the Peace of Westphalia (1648) to the French Revolution, a single grand character, or a single noble enterprise; a single sacrifice made to the great public interest, a single instance in which the welfare of nations was preferred to the selfish passions of their princes.” p. 347.
CONCLUSION
From all this it is plain that it was the revived Holy Roman Empire under the Hapsburgs that received the death stroke and fell into the bottomless pit, or graveyard of empire.
The empire headed by the house of Hapsburgs, was the last to reign in united Roman Catholic Europe. Charles the Fifth, before whom Luther spoke at the Diet of Worms in 1521, was the last Emperor crowned at the hands of the pope. When the sword of the Protestant nations was sheathed at the Peace of Westphalia, the deadly wound was struck and the empire lay bleeding and broken ; degraded by its weakness, deserted by the nations and denounced by the popes. And that which Napoleon overthrew in 1806 was only the corpse of that which long before was wounded by the sword of the Spirit and slain by the sword of war; only its mummy was left wrapped in the clothing and spice of high sounding titles that had belonged to the pre-Reforma-tion age, to the period prior to its receiving its death stroke.
And from all this it is plain that from 1648 we must search elsewhere for the sixth and seventh mountains which carry the fallen church.
And it is also plain that we have found the head that was smitten to death, but which according to the testimony of Jesus will live again as the “beast” of the third angel’s mes-sage, of the seven last plagues, and the battle of Armaged-don. Rev. 13:1, 3, 12, 14; Rev. 14:9, 12; Rev. 16:1, 2, 10, 13; Rev. 17:3, 8-11 and Rev. 19:19, 20.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE SIXTH AND SEVENTH HEADS
From the date of this treaty, 1648, to 1806, the period of its dissolution, the Holy Roman Empire steadily declined in power and influence; while Austria, which furnished its
emperors, grew in power at the expense of the empire. Aus-tria rejected the Reformation, and backed by Spain the home of the inquisition, became the chief support of the papacy in the place of the dying empire. One has only to read the Roman Catholic history of Austria as presented in the Catholic Encyclopedia, to see this fact. And it therefore seems plain that in Austria we have the sixth successive king-dom that carried the Roman Church.
The seventh kingdom was to “continue a short space.״ Here, if we mistake not, reference is made to the brief sup-port given the church by the Napoleons.
As the result of the French Revolution and Napoleon’s defeat of Austria, the papacy was left helpless at the mercy of the conqueror. Napoleon dreamed of the revival of the Holy Roman Empire with himself as emperor, crowned, as of old, by the Roman pontiff. With this end in view he espoused the cause of the Catholic Church, and began nego-dations with Pope Pious VII looking to his crowning at the hand of the pope. The pontiff finally agreed, and made a journey to Paris for that purpose.
The magnificent ceremony was performed in the cathedral of Notre Dame; but to the surprise and chagrin of the pope, when the coronation ceremony reached the crowning, the wily fox waived aside the pope, and with his own hand placed the crown upon his head, and then crowned the Em-press Josephine. This was done on February 2, 1804. And for a period of about eight years, or until the fall of Na-poleon, he posed as the support of the papacy. From 1850 to 1870 Louis Napoleon championed the cause of the pope. The relations between the papacy and the empire were more cordial than under the first Napoleon. But for the soldiers of the French Empire the papacy would have lost Rome and the remnants of the papal states before it did. The pope repeatedly begged the Emperor not to withdraw the French soldiers from the city, for he well knew that this would be the signal for the capture of Rome by the Italian nationalists. Louis Napoleon, through the influence of his Spanish Roman Catholic wife, ardently dévoted to the cause of the pope, respected the pope’s wishes until the fall of the Empire at the battle of Sedan in 1870. Addressing the French Legis-lature on March 1st, 1860, Louis Napoleon said: “For the last eleven years I have sustained alone at Rome the power of
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the Holy Father, without having ceased a single day to revere in him the sacred character of the chief of our religion.” Rome, deserted by the French troops, was immediately occu-pied by the Italian patriots, and made the capital of united Italy. Thus the last vestige of papal temporal power was taken away, and the last and briefest of the seven kingdoms supporting the Roman Church fell, and left her without a mountain-kingdom to sustain her, and left her in the deepest and widest valley of all her humiliating experiences.
For forty-seven years, from 1870 to the present, the church has been in this valley. Not since the Roman church was singled out and seated on the throne of civil power by Em-peror Justinian, has the church been so completely bereft of civil support. And the papal writers recognize and admit this plain truth.
In a Roman Catholic work entitled “Half Hours with the Servants of God,” in giving the history of the inquisition, page 60, we find the widowed condition of the church thus plainly admitted :
“The duties and powers of inquisitors are minutely laid down in the canon law, it being always assumed that the civil power will favor, or can be compelled to favor their pro-ceedings. Thus it is laid down, that they ‘have power to constrain all magistrates, even secular magistrates, to cause the statute against heretics to be observed,’ and to require them to swear to do so ; also that they can ‘compel all magis-trates and judges to execute their sentences, and these must obey on pain of excommunication;’ also that inquisitors in causes of heresy ‘can use the secular arm,’ and that ‘all tern-poral rulers are bound to obey inquisitors in causes of faith.’ No such state of things as that here assumed now exists in any part of Europe; nowhere does the state assist the church in putting down heresy; it is therefore superfluous to describe regulations controlling jurisdiction which has lost the medium in which it could work and live.”
And let all the people thank the Lord that this is so ; that the church is in the valley of widowhood, that nowhere does the state assist the church in putting down heresy.
Cardinal Manning, in his work entitled “The Present Crisis of the Holy See Tested by Prophecy,” thus strikingly pictures, on page 85, the humiliating widowhood condition of his church :
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IN THE LAST VALLEY
“Look at the Catholic Church, still independent, faithful to its divine trust, and yet cast off by the nations of the world ; at the holy father the vicar of our Lord, at this moment mocked, scorned, despised, betrayed, abandoned, robbed of his own, and even those that would defend him, murdered. When, I ask, was the church of God ever in a weaker con-dition, in a feebler state in the eyes of men, and in this natural order, than it is now? And from whence, I ask, is deliver-anee to come? Is there on earth any power to intervene? Is there any king, prince, or potentate that has the power to interpose either his will or his sword for the protection of the church? Not one.”
But from this deepest and widest valley of her widowhood, this harlot church will yet ascend to the mountain peak of political power, there to sit for a brief period in pride, and publish the eternal perpetuity of her power, and then sud-denly perish at the hands of her political paramours. For the prophetic picture given by the Almighty to the prophet of Patmos, describes her destruction as coming upon her while she is sitting on the “many waters,״ the many nations which constitute the beast from the bottomless pit, the revived smitten head, the eighth and last manifestation of papal civil power pictured on the seven-headed beast of Rev. 17.
And as sure as the testimony of Jesus met with so mar-velous a fulfillment in the seven successive sittings of the Romish harlot, so sure will the final act appear; so sure will Central Europe federate once more, so certain will the woman sit again on the “many waters״ and say in her pride and security, “I sit a queen and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.” And just as certain will the decree of the Almighty be fulfilled in which He declares, “Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death and mourning and famine ; and she shall be utterly burned with fire; for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.״ Rev. 18:7, 8.
There may develop some difference of opinion as regards the details in the historical application of the seven heads, but there need be no mistaking the beast when he appears. It will be a revival of an old combination of Central Euro-pean nations which once carried the Roman Church, and which will consent to carry her again. But this is not all, it is further identified by the fact that it is the only federa-
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tion carrying the woman of which an image is ever made. For the image of the beast is an image of the healed, or eighth and last head, which is a revived federation of Central European nations. Therefore in order to be the “beast״ of the third angel’s message, it must have a companion fed-eration of nations made in its image. For the third angel’s message warns against the worship of the beast and his image.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE EIGHTH HEAD IDENTICAL WITH THE HEALED HEAD
In our study we have learned that the beast that fights the battle of Armageddon is,
1.	the symbol of a kingdom composed of many nations.
2.	one of a series of seven kingdoms
3.	that carried the harlot woman;
4.	which kingdom has fallen and “is not”
5.	at the time the sixth “is”;
6.	that ascends out of the bottomless pit
7.	after the seventh kingdom, and
8.	carries the harlot again;
9.	is then numbered eight ;
10.	fights in the battle of Armageddon and
11.	goes “into perdition,” “into the lake of fire.”
This seventeenth chapter symbolical “beast” appears also in the thirteenth chapter. That the two symbols are the same is a fact recognized by the great army of commentators both Protestant and Papal. However, few have recognized that the eighth head of the seventeenth chapter is identical with the healed head of the thirteenth chapter. But it fol-lows infallibly that if the seven heads of the thirteenth chap-ter are the same as the seven heads of the seventeenth chapter, then whatever is written of the seven heads of one symbol, is true of the seven heads of the other symbol. And whatever is written of one particular head of one symbol is true of that particular head of the other symbol.
Therefore it follows that all the above eleven Scriptural facts stated of the eighth and last head of the seventeenth
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chapter beast must apply to the last head of the thirteenth chapter beast.
To illustrate: Since it is stated of the eighth and last head of the seventeenth chapter beast, that he “was” at one time, then ceased to be, “is not,” and later “ascends out of the bottomless pit” and fights in the battle of Armageddon, and goes into perdition, or the lake of fire; it follows that all this must be true of the last head of the thirteenth chapter beast, whether it is anywhere so stated of that head or not. But a careful study will show that all this is stated of the last head of the thirteenth chapter beast.
“And I saw one of his heads as though it had been smitten to death and his death-stroke was healed.” Rev. 13:3, Re-vised Version.
Of this same head it is said in the twelfth verse, “And he [the two-horned beast from the earth] cxerciseth all the au-thority of the first beast in his sight. And he maketh the earth and them that dwell therein to worship the first beast whose death-stroke was healed." R. V.
Again of the same head it is stated in the fourteenth verse, “And he (the two-horned beast) deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by reason of the signs which it was given him to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth that they should make an image to the beast who hath the stroke of the sword and lived ” R. V.
This word “lived” is from the same Greek word used in Rev. 20:4, 5 of those who are raised from the dead at the beginning of the thousand years. “And they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not until the thousand years were finished.”
Thus it is shown that the head that was smitten unto death which lives again, is identical with the eighth head of the seventeenth chapter that passes through the same experience, —“was,” then “is not,” then ascends out of the bottomless pit and goes into perdition.
But there is still more proof of their identity. All are agreed that the 8th and last head of the 17th chapter beast that goes into perdition or destruction, is the same as the one that fights in the battle of Armageddon, with the false prophet as his companion, and goes “into the lake of fire” or “into perdition.” Rev. 17:8, and 19:20.
The companion of the beast that goes into the lake of fire 65
is described thus: “And the beast was taken and with him the false prophet that wrought signs in his sight, wherewith he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast and them that worshipped his image : they two were cast alive into the lake of fire that burneth with brimstone.” Rev. 19:20, R. V.
But the very same things that are here written of the false prophet are written of the two-horned beast, the com-panion of the smitten and resurrected head of the 13th chap-ter, verses 12 and 14. This proves that the revived, smitten head of the 13th chapter beast is, like the 8th head of the 17th chapter, the last head of the beast, and meets his doom in the lake of fire.
But there 1s still another proof that the head that was smitten to death and lives again, is the same as the 8th head of the 17th chapter.
Of the smitten head it is written “I saw one of his heads as though it had been smitten unto death, and its death-stroke was healed, and the whole earth wondered after the beastr Rev. 13:3, R. V.
Of the 8th head of the 17th chapter the same thing is stated after he comes up out of death or the bottomless pit. “And they that dwell on the earth shall wonder *	* *
when they behold the beast, how that he was and is not and shall come.” Rev. 17:8, R. V.
Summing up the evidence we have adduced of the identity of the two heads, we have these facts:
1.	Both lived, then
2.	ceased to live,
3.	then live again.
4.	Both are the wonder of the world
5.	when they live the second time.
6.	Both are the last heads of the beasts on which they appear.
7.	Both fight in the battle of Armageddon and
8.	go into perdition in the lake of fire.
Having now established “by many infallible proofs” that the 8th head or kingdom of the 17th chapter is the same as the 13th chapter head that was smitten to death and lives again ; it follows that what is written of the 8th head applies also to the healed head; and all that is written of the healed head applies also to the 8th head. And now let us apply
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what is written of the 8th head, as presented at the beginning of this chapter, to the healed head and see what we have, All the following eleven facts are affirmed of the 8th head and are also true of the healed head because the 8th head and the healed head are identical. The healed head as well as the 8th head is therefore
1.	the symbol of a kingdom,
2.	one of a series of seven
3.	that carries the fallen woman.
4.	This healed head falls and ‘‘is not״
5.	at the time the 6th “is”;
6.	ascends out of the bottomless pit,
7.	after the 7th kingdom, and
8.	carries the harlot again;
9.	is then numbered 8,
10.	fights in the battle of Armageddon and
11.	goes into perdition in the lake of fire.
And now let us state of the 8th head what is written of the healed head and see what we have. The 8th head being the same as the healed head, the following that is written of the healed head in Chapter 13 must apply also to the 8th head of Chapter 17.
1.	The 8th head lived,
2.	then was smitten unto death,
3.	then his death-stroke is healed,
4.	then the two-horned beast causes an image to be made of this 8th head, whose death-stroke is healed—who lives again.
5.	Then an effort is made to make all men worship this 8th head,
6.	and receive his mark,
7.	and worship his image.
8.	Then a solemn warning is proclaimed, saying
9.	if any man worship the 8th head,
10.	and his image,
11.	and receive the mark of this 8th head in his forehead,
12.	or in his hand,
13.	the same shall drink of the unmingled wrath of God.
And now let us combine what we have found written of
both heads in a single statement.
The beast, that fights in the battle of Armageddon, is
1.	a kingdom,
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2.	one 01 a series of seven,
3.	that carries the fallen woman,
4.	that is smitten to death,
5.	and goes into the bottomless pit,
6.	and ‘‘is not,״
7.	at the time the 6th “is.”
8.	Then his “death-stroke is healed” and
9.	he ascends out of the bottomless pit—he lives again,
10.	after the 7th kingdom,
11.	is then numbered 8, and
12.	carries the fallen woman the second time.
13.	Then an image is made of this 8th head which is a kingdom composed of many nations, which is another feder-ation of nations, and
14.	men are commanded to worship this 8th kingdom
15.	and receive his mark
16.	and worship his image
17.	under the penalty of death.
18.	God sends a message of warning saying,
19.	If any man worship this 8th kingdom
20.	that carries the fallen woman,
21.	and the image of this 8th kingdom,
22.	and receive the mark of this 8th kingdom that carries the fallen woman,
23.	in his forehead
24.	or in his hand,
25.	the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his in-dignation.
26.	Then the King of kings comes to make war on this 8th and last kingdom and
27.	this 8th kingdom with others make war against Him,
28.	but is taken and cast into the lake of fire—into per-dition.
Having established the identity of the healed head with the 8th head beyond all contradiction, let us now note some of the startling results which follow as the fruit of this fact.
1.	Since the fallen woman sits on all the successive seven heads of the 17th chapter beast, and then on the revived one, the 8th, it follows that she sits on all the seven heads of the 13th chapter beast including the 8th or the resurrected smitten head.
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2.	Since the woman sat on all the heads of the 13th chap-ter beast, the woman and the beast cannot be the same;
3.	Therefore no head of the 13th chapter beast can be a symbol of the papacy because the woman who sits on the heads represents the papacy, and the papacy does not sit upon itself.
4.	Since the woman is the papacy, the heads which carry her cannot be the papacy, but as we have learned, are the political kingdoms that carry the papacy.
5.	It was not the 7th head of the 13th chapter beast that was smitten to death, but it was one that had lived and car-ried the woman before the 6th, and lives again after the 7th, and, as number 8, carries the woman the second time.
6.	It is not the 7th that is wounded to death and healed to make the 8th, because at least the 6th and 7th heads inter־ vene and carry the woman between the smiting to death of this one head and his resurrection as number 8, when he car-ries the woman the second time.
7. It was not the harlot, the Papacy, that rode the beast that was smitten to death, but one of the heads of the beast that carried the woman.
8.	The image of the beast is not an image of the womant the papal church, but an image of the beast that carries the church.
9.	The number and mark of the beast are not the number and mark of the woman, but of the beast or kingdom that supports the woman.
10.	The third angel’s message is therefore not a warning against the worship of the woman and her image and the reception of her mark, but is a warning against the worship of the beast that carries the woman and against the worship of his image and the reception of his mark.
Let not the reader forget that in studying these prophecies we are studying the testimony of Jesus. Jesus says of these prophecies in Rev. 22:20, “He which testifieth these things saith surely I come quickly.” Again, “I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify these things in the churches.” Ver. 16.
Now, that we have discovered that the ten errors noted above, which some of us have been taught to believe are the testimony of Jesus, are not the testimony of Jesus, but the testimony of mistaken men; let us study and pray that we may know what is the true testimony of Jesus, both regard-ing the gospel of His cross and these prophecies which pic-
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ture the events which precede His coming; that we may be among that true remnant “which keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus.״
CHAPTER XV.
THE IMAGE OF THE BEAST
No man can know what the “image of the beast” will be until he knows what the “beast” was, when he “was” and what he will be when he shall “come again.” If there is a mistake in the interpretation of the beast, there will be a cor-responding mistake in the interpretation of the image. Nearly all commentators have blundered in their conclusions as to what the beast symbolizes. This mistake has been the result of a failure to see that the explanation of the seven-headed and ten horned beast of Rev. 17 is the explanation of the seven-headed and ten-horned beast of Rev. 13.
There is no explanation of the beast of Rev. 13 in that chapter. And if the explanation of the beast of the 17th chapter is not the explanation of the beast of the 13th chap-ter, then there is no explanation of this beast. To illustrate this important fact, let us address several questions to the 13 th chapter.
What do the seven heads of the beast of the 13th chapter represent? To this question there is no response in that chapter. But the same question addressed to the 17th chap-ter calls forth this plain, definite answer: “The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sitteth, and they are seven kings.” Rev. 17:9. R. V.
To the question, What do the ten horns symbolize? there is no response in the 13th chapter. But the 17th chapter answers clearly, “The ten horns are ten kings.”
Do the seven heads, or kingdoms all exist at the same time, or do they reign one at a time in succèssion? The 13th chap-ter remains silent. But again the 17th chapter responds promptly with the plain reply that they are successive. “Five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come.” Verse 10.
And there is no answer in the 13th chapter to the ques-tion, Are the ten horns successive or do they all reign at the
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same time? Are they distributed among the seven heads, one with the first head, two with the second, and so on, as we see them pictured on some prophetic charts ? These ques-tions are plainly answered in the 17th chapter as follows: “The ten horns are ten kings which have received no king-dom as yet, but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.״ ver. 12. And since the beast of this verse is explained in the previous verse to be the eighth head or kingdom, it follows that the ten horns are contemporaneous and con-nected with the eighth and last head or kingdom only.
There is no reply in the 13th chapter to the question, Are the ten horns the result of the breaking up of the kingdom with which they are associated as in the case of the ten horns of Daniel’s fourth beast, or are they ten additional kings which federate with the eighth kingdom and augment its power? The answer is again found in the 17th chapter, and is clear and definite. “These have one mind and shall give their power and strength to the beast.״ “For God hath put it in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast until the words of God shall be fulfilled.״ verses 13 and 17.
By this time the reader must be convinced that the beast is not explained in the 13th chapter, but is explained in the 17th. From this explanation it would follow that the seven-headed and ten horned beast of the 13th chapter is identical with the seven-headed and ten-horned beast of chapter 17. So important is this truth that we will point out six points of identity between them.
SIX POINTS OF IDENTITY
1.	Both beasts have ten horns. Rev. 13:1 and 17:3.
2.	Both have seven heads. Ib.
3.	Both have names of blasphemy pictured on their heads. Ib.
4.	One head of each lives, ceases to live, and then lives a second time. “And I saw one of his heads as though it had been smitten unto death and its death-stroke was healed ; and the whole world wondered after the beast.״ Rev. 13:3. R. V.
“The beast that thou sawest was and is not ; and is about to come up out of 4he abyss and go into perdition. And they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, .	.	. when
they behold the beast, how that he was, and is not, and shall come.״ Rev. 17:8. R. V.
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5.	The world wonders after each of the smitten heads after he lives the second time. Rev. 13:3 and 17:8.
6.	The revived smitten head is the last head of the beast of the 13th chapter. Under this head he perishes with his companion, the two-horned beast or false prophet, in the lake of fire. Rev. 13:11-14. The head or kingdom of the 17th chapter which comes up out of the bottomless pit and is then number 8, is the last head of that beast for under it the beast goes into perdition. Rev. 17:8 and 11 ; and 19:20.
All commentators, Protestant and papal, are agreed that the beast of the 13th chapter is the same as the beast of the 17th chapter, but few have reaped the harvest of truth that is the fruit of that fact. The following are some of the truths which follow infallibly from that fact.
1.	The two symbols being the same, it follows that what-ever is written of the beast of the 13 th chapter is true of the beast of the 17th, though it be not written of the 17th chap-ter beast in that chapter.
2.	And whatever is written of the 17th chapter beast is true of the 13th chapter symbol, although it is not written of the 13 th chapter beast in the 13 th chapter.
3.	Whatever is written of the ten horns of the 17th chapter is true of the ten horns of the 13th chapter.
4.	Whatever is said of the seven heads of the 17th chap-ter is true of the seven heads of the 13 th chapter.
5.	Of the seven heads of the 17th chapter it is declared that “they are seven kings״ or kingdoms. It therefore fol-lows that the seven heads of the 13th chapter represent seven kings or kingdoms.
6.	It is stated of the seven heads of the 17th chapter that a symbolic, fallen woman called “Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots,״ sits on all these seven heads or king-doms, therefore the same symbolic woman sits on all the seven heads of the 13th chapter beast.
7. And since the woman is explained to be “the great city which hath a kingdom over the kings of the earth״ (Rev. 17:18, R. V. margin), and since this evidently refers to Rome, the headquarters of that great ecclesiastical king-dom, the Roman Church; it follows that the same Roman Church sits on all the seven successive heads or kingdoms of the 13th chapter.
8.	And since the Roman Church sits on all the kingdoms
symbolized by the seven heads of the 13th chapter, it follows that no one of these seven heads of the 13th chapter can represent the Roman Church. For since the Roman Church sat on all the seven heads or kingdoms, that would make the Roman Church sit on the Roman Church, which is unrea-sonable and unscriptural.
WHERE THE COMMENTATORS BLUNDERED
And here is where the commentators have blundered. They have attempted to explain the 13th chapter beast with-out accepting the Lord’s only definition as found in the 17th chapter.
If they had accepted God’s definition of the beast as given in the 17th chapter, they would never have interpreted the beast of the 13th chapter to be the Roman Church, but would have seen that it represented seven kingdoms which carry the Roman Church.
9.	Whatever is spoken of a particular head of the beast of the 17th chapter is true of that same head of the 13th chapter. Of the last head of the 17th chapter it is written that it represents a combination of many nations speaking many tongues.
“Come hither, I will show unto thee the judgment (de-struction) of the great whore that sitteth on many waters.” Rev. 17:1. That the angel showed John the woman sitting on the “many waters” is proven by verse 15. “The waters which thou sawest where the whore sitteth are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.”
But when John was shown the woman sitting on the “many waters,” he was shown the woman sitting on the last head of the beast.
“So he carried me away in the spirit in the wilderness, and I saw a woman sit on a scarlet colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.” ver. 3. Thus it is proven that the beast upon which the harlot sits when her judgment or destruction comes, is a kingdom composed of many nations speaking many lan-guages.
The woman is destroyed while sitting on this last league of nations and it must therefore be the last kingdom of a series of eight. There are eight because one that was smit-ten to death and went into the bottomless pit lives again and carries the woman the second time. Therefore because
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one of the seven kingdoms carries the woman twice, the woman has eight successive sittings, although there are but seven heads.
That the woman is seen sitting on the eighth and last kingdom in the vision is emphatically stated. Compare Rev. 17:8 and 11.
10.	And now since we have found that the eighth or last head or kingdom of the 17th chapter, that carries the woman, is a league of many nations speaking many languages, it follows infallibly that the last head or kingdom of the 13th chapter is a league of many nations carrying the Roman Church.
11.	The image of the beast is an image of this last head that carries the woman. “And he [the two-horned beast] deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast ; saying to them that dwell on the earth that they should make an image to the beast which had the wound by the sword and did liver Rev. 13:14.
12.	And since the beast of which an image is made is a league of nations carrying the Roman Church, it follows beyond denial that the image of the beast is an image of a league of nations carrying the Roman Church, and not an image of the Roman Church that will sit on that league of nations.
Since the beast or kingdom which will constitute the last throne on which the Roman Church will sit, is a league of many nations speaking many languages, and one that car-ried her before, and fell, it follows that the kingdom must have been in Europe where history tells us the Roman Church did sit on just such a league of nations, blasphemously call-ing itself “The Holy Roman Empire.״ And it follows also that the image of the beast must be another league of na-tions outside the territory occupied by the first league.
Since the image of the league of nations is not made until that league reappears, it follows that the image or second league cannot be made until the league of nations that car-ries the church shall reappear in Europe.
The image of the beast is made through the efforts of the two-horned beast. This is an impprtant fact in determining the nations which will form the image of the European league.
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The two-homed beast is described in Rev. 13:1115־. The Lord does not tell us what this symbol represents. He must therefore expect us to learn what it represents by something already revealed. He has in Daniel’s prophecies and again in this book of Revelation, told us that a beast represents a human government. This two-horned beast therefore must represent such a government.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE RISE OF THE TWO-HORNED BEAST
The rise of this two-horned beast or government is con-trasted with the rise of the seven-headed beast or government. The seven-headed beast came up out of the sea, whose waters, according to the angel’s interpretation, represent “peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues.” Since the two-horned beast did not come up among peoples and nations, it must appear outside of Europe which is completely occupied by long standing nations.
And these European nations are in control of almost all the peoples and nations of the Eastern Hemisphere. We must therefore look for the rise of the government repre-sented by the two-horned beast from the earth outside the Eastern Hemisphere, or in the western world. And it is in this Hemisphere that we find one nation that has arisen to the pinnacle of human power without overthrowing any other nation.
It seems incredible that for centuries the greater part of a mighty continent stretching from ocean to ocean, and from the ice and snow of the great lakes to the flowers and fruits of its balmy gulf, with its millions of precious metals, and mountains of the baser, millions of acres of fertile soil, and thousands of miles of navigable rivers—it seems incredible that it should lie empty and silent for nearly six thousand years, save for the startled cry of the wildlings and the war shout of the savage. No government on earth can meet all the specifications of the prophet’s picture save the govern-ment of the United States.
But this being true, the prophecy declares that this govern-ment, when the league of European nations shall appear, will
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call for the making of another league in the image of the first one.
It will be noticed that the two-horned beast says “to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast.” This calls for the government of the United States to speak and call for the making of a league of nations. The way a government speaks is through its laws and through its chosen officials. Citizens of the United States petitioning Congress for an amendment to the constitution recognizing God is not the government speaking, as some have taught, but instead is some people speaking to the government, which is contrary to the plain specifications of the prophecy.
It is this blunder regarding the beast which led to the blun-der regarding the image of the beast which some have believed and taught. Believing that the beast was the Roman Church dominating the governments of Europe, it was easy to fall into the mistake of thinking that the image of the beast was the Protestant churches in control of the United States. But since the beast is not the Roman Church, but a league of na-tions, it follows that the image of the beast must be another league of nations.
HOW CAME THE MISTAKE
In the prophecy recorded in Dan. 7, there is pictured a “little horn” power that utters great words against the Most High, and persecutes His saints “until a time, and times, and the dividing of time,” or which is the same, for forty-two months.
In the prophecy of Rev. 13, there is presented a beast that blasphemes God and makes war on His saints for forty-two months. It was therefore concluded that the powers symbol-ized by the little horn of Daniel and the beast of Revelation are the same. And since we are all agreed that the little horn represents the Roman Church, it was decided that the beast of Revelation 13 also represents the Roman Church. This conclusion appeared reasonable and Scriptural, but it was neither. It was unreasonable to make the beast represent the Roman Church when a woman is pictured sitting on the beast, which we admit represents that church; because that would present the ridiculous situation of the Roman Church riding on the Roman Church. It \β unscriptural because a beast in prophecy always symbolizes a human government, while a woman is used to symbolize a church.
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How can it be, then, that the beast persecutes the saints during the same period as the little horn persecutes them, and yet is not the same power as that symbolized by the little horn?
The answer is that the little horn of Daniel 7 wears out the saints of the Most High through the beast, as his instru-ment, over which he reigns. The beast is the agent of the little horn in the wearing out of the saints, just as the beast of Revelation 13 and 17 is the agent of the woman in the same bloody work.
The beast of Daniel 7, ruled by the little horn, is the same as the beast of Revelation 13 and 17 ruled by the harlot.
The little horn of Daniel 7 is the instigator of the forty-two months’ persecution, and the beast which it rules is the agent through which it persecutes.
The woman of Revelation 17, in like manner, is the instiga־ tor of the forty-two months’ persecution, and the beast of Revelation 13 and 17, over which she reigns, is the agent of that persecution.
The truth which harmonizes the whole situation is that the little horn which dominates the beast of Daniel is the same as the ivoman that dominates the beast of Revelation. And the beast of Daniel that supports the little horn is the same as the beast of Revelation that supports the woman. The little horn of Daniel was the instigator of the persecution pictured there, and the beast is the instrument of that persecution. Both powers are held guilty before God, but only the guilt of the little horn is mentioned there.
The woman of Revelation was the instigator of the perse-cution pictured there, and the beast the instrument of that persecution. Both powers are held guilty before God, and both are charged with the guilt. The woman is said to be drunken with the blood of the saints and the beast is charged with making war with the saints.
In Dan. 7, the papal little horn that rode the beast and instigated the persecution, is singled out and condemned for his crime. In Rev. 13 the beast that carried the little horn of Daniel’s vision is singled out as the instrument of the papal little horn or harlot woman, and is charged with the same crimes. In Rev. 17 the woman, the instigator, is pointed out and declared to be drunken with the blood of the saints, and her doom vividly pictured in the following chapter. In the
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19th chapter the beast is pointed to as warring against God, and its doom is told in the description of Armageddon.
The little horn or kingdom and the harlot woman are two views of the same thing. The papacy or popedom has ap-peared in the world in two phases. It has appeared as a king-dom-church and a church-kingdom.
Daniel, the statesman-prophet, saw it as a persecuting kingdom.
John, the churchman-prophet, saw it as a persecuting church.
Therefore, the beast of Rev. 13 being the civil government —a federation of nations that carries the church, and not the church—the image of the beast must be the image of the feder-ation of nations that carries the church and not an image of the church.
“The beast and his image״ are, therefore, leagues of na-tions, the one located in Europe and the other in America. The first, a federation of central Europe to be formed in the flames of this frightful war; the second, federated America, to be fashioned in the image of the first federation.
That these two federations make war on the remnant seed of the saints of God is clearly stated. “And the dragon was wroth with the woman [the church of Christ] and went to make war with the remnant of her seed which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.״ Rev. 12:17.
Satan has always used human governments as his instru-ments in warring on the saints. And since this testimony of Jesus declares that he makes war on the remnant of the seed of the church, it follows that he will employ his remnant in-struments in his war on the remnant. And these remnant instruments are “the beast and his image" which being inter-preted are the “many waters,״ many nations of federated Central Europe, and its image, the many nations of federated America.
Both of these leagues, inspired by Satan, will attempt to compel obedience in conflict with the commandments of God, which no blood-washed pilgrim can possibly render. And it is this final and solemn situation which calls forth the most fearful warning to be found in the Book of God.
“And the third angel followed them saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and re-
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ceive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out, without mixture into the cup of his indignation. . . . Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the com-mandments of God and the faith of Jesus.״ Rev. 14:912־.
CHAPTER XVII
PAN-AMERICANISM IN PROPHECY
It seems incredible that so much should be predicted in the prophetic Scriptures regarding the nations of the Old World, and nothing concerning the New. It cannot be that the Western Hemisphere with its twenty-one independent Repub-lies, should have no part in the solemn events that mark the close of the age. It cannot be that God has passed by in si-lence its proud, powerful, and progressive peoples.
More than twelve years ago, as a result of a careful and prayerful study of Revelation, especially chapters 13 and 17, the writer came to see that the “beast״ which carries the fallen woman is composed of “many waters,״ many nations, speaking many tongues, and can be none other than the revival of the once powerful league of European nations known as the “Holy Roman Empire.״
It follows that since the “beast” will be federated Central Europe, an image of that league of nations, will be federated America.
PAN-AMERICANISM IN PROPHECY
In 1889 James G. Blaine, then Secretary of State, secured an act of Congress authorizing him to call a conference of the Central and South American Republics to meet at Washing-ton, which act appropriated funds for the expense of the gathering. Its deliberations extended into January of 1890. As a result, there was organized “The International Bureau of American Republics,״ now known as the “Pan-American Union.” Three other congresses have been held as follows: “Mexico City, 1901-02, Rio Janeiro, 1906, and Buenos Aires, 1910.” Another was planned to meet at the Hague in 1914, but was prevented by the breaking out of the war. However, there was held at Washington in January, 1916,
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the Pan-American Scientific Congress which did much to ce-ment the growing friendship of the American Republics.
ITS COMPOSITION, ORGANIZATION AND PURPOSE
“It is strictly international and comprehends all the inde-pendent nations of the Western Hemisphere. The Onion is a voluntary organization of these republics existing by com-mon consent and co-operation, and not as yet covered by treaty. Its administration and duties are determined by reso-lutions adopted at the Pan-American Conferences held at stated periods and attended by delegates of the governments.״ Pan-American Union,״ by John Barrett, page 11.
“The Pan-American Union is the international organization and office maintained by the twenty-one American Republics, as follows: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Gautémala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Salvador, United States, Uruguay and Venezuela. It is devoted to the development and advancement of commerce, friendly intercourse, and good understanding among these countries. It is supported by quotas contributed by each coun-try based upon the population. Its affairs are administered by a Director General, and Assistant Director, elected by, and responsible to, a Governing Board, which is composed of the Secretary of State of the United States and the diplomatic representatives in Washington of the other American govern-ments.״
Not only did the Pan-American Union have its birth in the Cabinet and Congress of the United States, but its growth has been fostered from the beginning, both financially and offi-daily, by this government. A monthly magazine of nearly two hundred pages, superbly printed and illustrated, is issued to popularize the purposes of the Union. This magazine is entitled “The Bulletin of the Pan-American Union.״ It is financed by an annual appropriation by Congress, and is printed on the printing presses of the national government.
The first outside cover page of each issue contains on its margin the names of the 21 American Republics above given. On the back cover page appears a map of the continents of North and South America. On the first inside cover page are printed the names of the 21 diplomatic representatives which constitute the Governing Board of the Union, and which is headed by the name of the Secretary of State of the
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United States, at present Hon. Robert Lansing, chairman ex-officio of the Board. The seal of the Union is composed of the words “Union of American Republics” encircling the flags of the twenty-one nations.
WASHINGTON THE CAPITAL OF PAN AMERICA
Another significant fact showing the prominence of the United States in this movement, is that in Washington is located the magnificent building, recently erected at a cost of over a million dollars, which is the permanent home of the Union. “As the permanent home of the Union, it practically makes Washington the international capital of the twenty־ one nations” “The Pan-American Union,” page 161.
One of its striking and significant features is the vestibule of the flags, where hang the twenty-one silken standards of the twenty-one nations. From this symbolic scene the visitor enters the “Hall of the Americas,” a magnificent audience chamber designed for the receptions and international func-tions of the Union. “There is no other building in Washing-ton, either private residence, embassy, or public government building, which can afford such accommodations for impor-tant functions.”
Probably the most significant feature of all is the council room of the Governing Board. Its furniture is a mahogany table, oval in shape, twenty feet long, and nine feet wide, sur-rounded by twenty-one massive chairs. On the back of each chair in bold relief is the coat of arms of the nation repre-sented by that chair. A cable, symbolic of unity, supported on metalic fixtures, runs around the backs of the twenty-one chairs. This cable is composed of four strands, red, white, blue and yellow. When it is remembered that twenty of these nations are Roman Catholic in religion and that yellow is the color of the papal flag, its presence in the composition of the colors is explained.
At the regular meetings of the Governing Board, Mr. Rob-ert Lansing, representing the United States, enters through an opening in the encircling cable and takes his seat at the head of the table, followed by the other twenty who occupy the chairs of their respective nations. The official report of one of these meetings held at the beginning of the great war, follows :
“The solidarity of the twenty-one nations composing the Pan American Union is becoming an important factor as a
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world influence. Common interests, and the necessity for protecting those interests, are drawing the American nations closer together. Perhaps the most striking evidence of this get-together spirit, . . . was manifested when the Secre-tary of State of the United States and the plenipotentiaries of the twenty other American Republics gathered around one council table in the building of the Pan-American Union— an impressive tableau visualizing Pan Americanism. The word of a single American Republic cannot begin to mean so much as the word of one-and-twenty. When a league of all America speaks—a Hemisphere pledged to peace—the effect should be both practical and powerful.״ “Bulletin of the Pan American Union.״ Feb., 1915, page 221.
NOT AS YET AN ORGANIC UNION
It will be remembered that in one of the quotations pre-sented, it was officially stated that the Union was “a volun-tary organization,״ “and not as yet covered by treaty.״ But while the Union is at present only fraternal and commercial, it is evident that the founders look forward to the time when it will become an organic league governed by a code of inter-national law. A body of eminent jurists has already been chosen to formulate a code.
At the dedication of the building, April 26, 1910, Mr. Taft, then President of the United States, said, “We twenty-one Republics cannot afford to have any two or any three of us quarrel. We must stop. And Mr. Carnegie and I will not be satisfied until all nineteen of us can intervene by proper measures to suppress a quarrel between any other two.״ ‘The Pan American Union,״ page 237.
A LEAGUE OF EUROPE FIRST
The careful student will quickly see that this friendly and commercial union does not meet the specifications of the prophecy. There must first be the revival of that old league of nations in Central Europe, The Holy Roman Empire, that was smitten to death by the sword of war, before we can ex-pect to see its living image in the Western World. The Holy Roman Empire was more than a voluntary association of na-tions for friendly and commercial purposes. It was bound together by definite and binding laws. And this is what it will be when it reappears, and this is what the image will be when it is made. But the Pan American Union can create a public sentiment which will prepare the way for the image
when the beast reappears. A commercial and fraternal league of American nations need not be a menace to the Protestant and American principles of religious liberty, but an organic union, patterned after the revived Holy Roman Empire, would be the persecuting image of the beast.
What will become of the great principles of religious lib-erty, for the exemplification of which, under God, this, the grandest the truest and the freest nation that ever existed on this sin-cursed earth, was created, when it shall enter a league of nations all of whom are Roman Catholic in religion, and most of them the children of the Spanish Inquisition ? With Europ¿ leagued and ridden by the Roman Church, and the United States bound in a bundle with twenty papal nations, it will then be the time to proclaim the warning against the worship of the beast and his image, time to gain the victory over all through divine power alone, and shout the victory “over the beast and his image״ “on the sea of glass before the throne.”
CHAPTER XVIII
“THE MARK OF THE BEAST” AND “THE NUMBER OF HIS NAME”
It has been before proved that the gathering of the nations to “the battle of the great day of God almighty,” which men call the battle of Armageddon, takes place under the sixth of the seven last plagues. Rev. 16:1216־.
It has further been shown that the battle of Armageddon occurs under the pouring out of the seventh vial, because the Lord uses the “beast” and the ten federated kings to destroy the fallen woman (Rev. 17:16-17) ; and her destruction takes place under the seventh plague; therefore the destruction of the beast in the battle of Armageddon must be after the beast and the ten horns have been used to destroy the fallen woman, or under the pouring out of the seventh plague.
But before the first of the seven “vials of the wrath of God” is poured upon a guilty world, “the beast and his image” are in the world attempting to force all men to “wor-ship the beast and his image” and to receive his mark under penalty of death. Rev. 13:15-18. And the first of the seven
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vials is poured ‘4upon the men who had the mark of the beast and upon them that worshipped his image.״ Rev. 16:1, 2.
The Lord never brings judgments upon a people without first warning them. The third angel’s message is God’s warn-ing against the impending wrath of God, stored in the sym-bolic vials containing the seven last plagues to be visited upon those who worship the beast and his image and receive the mark of his name. A part of this warning reads :
“If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation.” Rev. 14:9.
It has been shown in previous chapters that the beast of this warning message is the eighth and last kingdom to carry the woman, the Roman church, and is made up of “many waters” or many nations. Rev. 17:1,15. It was also shown that this beast is a federation of Central European nations that once carried the Roman church, was smitten to death, and will re-appear after this great world war, and for a brief period carry her a second and last time.
It was further shown that since the beast will be a federa-tion of European nations, an image of the beast will be an-other federation of nations located in the Western Hemis-phere.
WHAT IS THE MARK OF THE BEAST?
In order to understand this or any other Bible theme, the student should have before him all the testimony of the Scrip-tures bearing on it before reaching a conclusion. Let us, therefore, bring together the testimony of Scripture on this subject.
“a mark״
The expression a mark,” as applied to the beast, appears twice in the book of Revelation, as translated in the Revised Version and the American Standard, as follows:
And he causeth all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free and the bond, that there be given them a mark on their right hand, or upon their forehead.” Rev. 13:16, R. V.
And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a great voice, if any man worshipped the beast and his image, and receiveth a mark on his forehead, or upon his hand, he
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also shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God.״ Rev. 14:9, 10, R. V.
״THE MARK״
The term “the mark״ as applied to the beast, occurs twice in the book of Revelation as translated by the Revised Ver-sion. “And that no man should be able to buy or sell save he that hath the mark, even the name of the beast or the num-ber of his name.״ Rev. 13:17, R. V.
“And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them ; and I saw the souls of them which had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, and for the word of God, and such as worshipped not the beast, neither his image, and received not the mark upon their forehead and upon their hand; and they lived and reigned writh Christ a thousand years. Rev. 20:4, R .V.
״THE MARK OF THE BEAST״
The above term is found twice as follows:
“And the first went, and poured out his bowl into the earth; and it became a noisome and grievous sore upon the men that had the mark of the beast and that worshipped his image.״ Rev. 16:2, R. V.
“And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought the signs in his sight, wherewith he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast and them that worshipped his image ; they two were cast alive into the lake of fire that burneth with brimstone.״ Rev. 19:20. R. V.
״THE MARK OF HIS NAME״
This important expression occurs but once.
“And the smoke of their torment goeth up forever and ever ; and they have no rest day nor night, they that worship the beast and his image, and whoso receiveth the mark of his name." Rev. 14:11, R. V.
״THE NAME OF THE BEAST״
The above term appears but once.
“That no man should be able to buy or to sell, save he that hath the mark, even the name of the beast or the number of his name.״ Rev. 13:17.
״THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST״
This term occurs but once.
“He that hath understanding let him count the number of the beast." Rev. 13:18.
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״THE NUMBER OF HIS NAME״
This expression is found twice.
“And that no man might be able to buy or to sell, save he that hath . . . the number of his name” Rev. 13:17,
R. V.	.
“And 1 saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire ; and they that came off victorious from the beast, and from his image, and from the number of his name, standing by the sea of glass, having harps of God.״ Rev. 15:2, R. V.
All the quotations in this article are from the American Standard translation which in these passages agrees with the Revised Version. It will be noticed that “the mark” which appears in the Authorized Version is omitted from the above passage in the American Standard and Revised Version. For this reason it was omitted from the passages under that head-ing.
״IT IS THE NUMBER OF A MAN״
Only once does this important statement occur as follows:
“Here is wisdom. He that hath understanding let him count thé number of the beast ; for it is the number of a man and his number is six hundred sixty and six.״ Rev. 13:18.
״HIS NUMBER IS SIX HUNDRED AND SIXTY AND SIX״
This clause occurs but once and appears in the same verse.
״COUNT THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST״
This command found in the same scripture appears but once. The Greek word which the translators have here ren-dered "count” is found but twice in the New Testament. The other instance is in Luke 14:28, where the man intend-ing to build a tower is said to first count the cost.
And now let us put these divine statements together and see what we have.
1.	“The mark of the beast״ is “the mark of his name” “the name of the beast.״ “The mark of the beast״ is there-fore the mark of “the name of the beast.”
2.	“The number of the beast״ is the number of his (the beast’s) name.” Therefore “the number of the beast״ is the number of “the name of the beast.״
3.	“For his (the beast’s) number is the number of a man” And since the number of the beast is the number of the name of the beast and also the number of a man^ it follows that “the number of the beast” is the number of the name of a man of the beast.
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4.	“Let him that hath wisdom count the number of the beast״ which is the number of the name of the beast, which is the number of the name of a man of the beast. Therefore to compute the number of the beast is to compute the number of the name of a man of the beast.
5.	“His (the man’s) number is 666.” Therefore 666 is “the number of the beast,” and is the number of “the name of the beast,” whose number is the number of the name of a man of the ■beast.
And since the beast is a league of nations carrying the Roman church, and not the Roman church, “the mark of the beast” is the mark of the name of a man of that federation, and not the name of the woman which sits on the federation.
Again, “the name of the beast” is the name of a man of the beast, therefore the mark of his name (the beast’s name) is the mark of the name of a man of the beast which carries the woman. It therefore follows that the mark of the beast is the mark of the name of a man at the head of a federation of nations that carries the woman, rather than the mark of the name of the man at the head of the church that sits on the federation.
Therefore, when we count the number of the beast which is the number of his name, which is the number of the name of a man of the beast, we are to count the number of the name of the man at the head of the federation of nations that carries the fallen church, rather than to count the number of the name of the man that is the head of the church that sits on the federation of nations.
The beast whose name, mark and number, we are study־ ing is a federated kingdom, (the eighth in succession, and the last to carry the Roman church), and is not in existence to־ day, ("is not and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit”). We shall be able to learn more of the mark of the beast (which is “the mark of his name” which is the name of a man)y when the federation of nations appears, and the man appears, the mark of whose name is “the mark of the beast,” and the number of whose name is the "number of the beast.”
But does not the pope wear a triple crown on which are found in jeweled letters the Latin words, “Vicarius Filii Dei,” the numerical values of which added together make 666? On some occasions the pope wears a triple crown, but this Latin phrase is not on it. But was it not on the pope’s crown for-
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merly ? Prof. C. T. Everson was sent a missionary to Rome, and while there made a diligent search in the Vatican archives for a crown containing such a title, and reported in the Review and Herald that no such crown could be found.
But is it necessary that it appear on the crown ? No. If it can be shown that Vicarius Filii Dei, is a recognized title as-sumed by the pope, that is sufficient to prove that the pope car-ries a name containing the number 666. But does not the pope claim to be the “Vicar of Christ?” Yes; but this title does not contain letters representing 666. The name must be a name recognized by the pope, and containing the specified number. To apply a name to the pope which the pope does not acknowledge in order to get a name that contains 666, is not consistent. By that method the number could be fastened upon any man or organization.
However, it is not the number of the name of a man of the church, the woman ; but as has been shown, is the number of the name of a man of the federated kingdom, the beast that carries the woman.
When God says “beast” He means BEAST, and when He says woman, He means WOMAN. And when God tells us that the beast is a kingdom composed of many nations, that definition is the only true definition. And when He tells us that the woman, Babylon the Great, is a king-conquering church organization centered in a great city, that explanation is the only explanation that the loyal child of God will accept. What right then, has any one to say that the mark of the name of the beast, is the mark of the name of the woman, when God says it is the mark of the name of the beast ? Could He not have said the mark of the woman instead of the mark of the beast, if He had wanted us to hunt for the mark in the name of a man in the church? Here is a chance to show loy-alty to God and His Word, instead of fallible man and his mistaken creed.
And now we ask our readers, friends and foes, to examine most carefully and critically, the evidence given in this chap-ter, and the conclusions drawn, using as the standard of au-thority the Bible and not the creed. If these conclusions are contradicted by the Word, we would esteem it a favor if that fact is pointed out.
We do not claim that this is the conclusion of the whole matter, for we know it is not. But what we want to know
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is, do our readers agree that as far as we have gone in this study of the mark of the beast, we are supported by a thus saith the Lord ?
We believe that the remnant struggle with the beast and his image is over the commandments of God and the testi-mony of Jesus Christ. “And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testi-mony of Jesus Christ.״
“Here is the patience of the saints ; here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.״ (Rev. 12:17 and 14:12). We believe further that the struggle is over the keeping of the Ten Commandments which are in the ark of God’s testament in the true tabernacle of God which the Lord pitched and not man (Rev. 11:19), and we believe that there is a hint in Rev. 14:6, 7, that the struggle is over the fourth commandment of the ten, because the message calls upon all to “worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea and the fountains of waters,”—language used in the Sabbath commandment. But while this is all true, it will not conflict with any other divine truth pertaining to the same subject. What we want is the whole truth and nothing but the truth upon this all-important subject. An error con-cerning the “beast” or “his image” or “the mark” or “the number of his name” will, if followed, certainly lead to de-ception at last. Let us therefore follow the Protestant princi-pie “The Bible and the Bible only,” and, as free men and women, search the Scriptures daily to see whether these things are so.
CHAPTER XIX
THE SEVEN-HEADED DRAGON
One of the three powers prominent in the battle of Arma-geddon is “the dragon ” Rev. 16:13-16.
A correct understanding of what is symbolized by the dra-gon—his seven heads and ten horns, is essential to a correct understanding of the prophecies that picture the persecuting powers and testing events of the last days.
The writer believes that the common idea that the dragon is S9
a symbol of pagan Rome, is an error ; and that that error has resulted in other errors in the interpretation of the seven-headed and ten-homed beast.
The common idea is that there are two dragons brought to view in the twelfth chapter of Revelation, one “the great red dragon,״ a symbol of pagan Rome, and the other a symbol of Satan.
Before reaching a conclusion on any Bible subject, one should have before him all the Bible testimony bearing on that subject. Following are all the scriptures that speak of the dragan in the book of Revelation.
“And there appeared another wonder in heaven ; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth : and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was bom. And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all na-tions with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne. And the woman fled into the wilder-ness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and three score days. And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevaileth not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old ser־ pent, called the'Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea ! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time. And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child. And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place,
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where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent. And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth. And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.״ Rev. 12:3.17־
״And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion : and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority. And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast ? who is able to make war with him ? And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth ; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon ” Rev. 13:2, 4, 11.
“And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spir-its of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.״ Rev. 16:13, 14.
“And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years. And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled : and after that he must be loosed a little season. And when the thousand years are ex-pired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tor-
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mented day and night for ever and ever.״ Rev. 20:1-3, and 7-1°.
It will be noted that it is the same dragon that sought to
destroy the man child, that fights with Michael, and is “cast down to the earth.״ Rev. 12:9, Revised Version. And the dragon that is here declared to be “cast down to the earth, is explained to be “that old serpent called the Devil and Satan which deceiveth the whole world.״
This is the definition, and the only definition, that the Lord gives of the dragon, and it is the only definition that any ser-vant of the Lord should accept.
And, it is the same dragon that was “cast down to the earth״ in verse 13. And it is the same dragon that is “cast down to the earth״ in this verse that persecutes “the woman that brought forth the man child.״ This persecution con-tinues for “a time, times, and half a time״ (verse 14) or twelve hundred and sixty days, or years (verse 6).
If it was Pagan Rome that waited to destroy the man child, it was Pagan Rome that fought with Michael, and was in consequence “cast down to the earth” in verse 9 ; and if it was Pagan Rome that was “cast down to the earth״ in verse 9, it must be Pagan Rome that was “cast down to the earth״ in verse 13. And if it was Pagan Rome that was cast down in verse 13, then it is Pagan Rome that persecutes the woman, the church, for twelve hundred and sixty years. And if it was Pagan Rome that persecutes the church for twelve hundred and sixty years, then it is Pagan Rome that persecutes the remnant in the last days, as pictured in verse 17.
But we all know that it was not Pagan Rome that perse-cuted the church for twelve hundred and sixty years, but Papal Rome; and we know that it is not Pagan Rome that persecutes the remnant, but Papal Rome.
Again, if Pagan Rome is the dragon that persecutes the remnant, then Pagan Rome is the dragon that joins in gath-ering nations to the battle of Armageddon in Rev. 16:1316־. And if Pagan Rome is the dragon that is connected with the battle of Armageddon, then it is Pagan Rome that is captured at the close of the battle and “bound for a thousand years.״ Rev. 20:1, 2. And if it is Pagan Rome that is bound for the thousand years, then it is Pagan Rome that “when the thou-sand years shall be finished״ is “loosed out oí his prison,״ verse 7. But the dragon that is connected with the battle of
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Armageddon, and later is bound for a thousand years, is not Pagan Rome, but "that old serpent which is the Devil and Satan” verse 2.
But did not Pagan Rome watch to destroy Christ when He should be bom ? No, but the Devil did. The all con-quering Pagan Roman Empire was not interested in the birth of a king among a little insignificant subject race. But the Devil was. And he stirred up Herod, the half-breed Jewish king, to try to destroy the infant Christ.
But did not Pagan Rome give its seat, and power, and great authority to Papal Rome f No, but the Devil did. It was not until the Roman Empire professed Christianity that Con-stantine removed the seat of government from Rome to Constantinople. Pagan Rome fought Christianity until Pa-ganism was completely defeated and had nothing to give. No, it was the old serpent called the Devil, and Satan, that gave the beast, the apostate Christian kingdom, its seat, and power, and great authority.
The reader will notice that the beast is not the dragon’s successor, for the simple reason that he persecutes the saints for the same twelve hundred and sixty years that the beast persecutes them, and then makes war on the remnant after-wards. And later he is seen side by side with the beast, in the gathering of the nations to the battle of Armageddon. In fact, the dragon exists before the beast is born from the sea, and lives a thousand years after the beast is cast into the lake of fire at the beginning of the thousand years.
But we all know that Pagan Rome ceased to be, when Papal Rome succeeded it. Therefore the dragon cannot sym-bolize Pagan Rome, but does symbolize that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, just as the Lord declares.
The old view teaches that it takes the seven-headed and ten-horned dragon, and the seven-headed and ten-homed beast to represent Rome, Pagan and Papal. That is, the dragon represents Rome Pagan, and the beast represents Rome Papal. But immediately that teaching is denied when we are told that six of the dragon’s seven heads represent Pagan Rome, and one represents Papal Rome, because the angel informs John that five of the heads of the beast “are fallen, and one (the sixth) is.״
By making the mistake of locating the time of this state-ment when John is on the isle of Patmos, instead of the time
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when the angel is holding one of the vials filled with one of the seven last plagues, the conclusion is reached that the sixth head is Imperial Pagan Rome of John’s day, and therefore six of the heads must be Pagan, and therefore represented by six of the heads of the dragon. The seventh head of the dra-gon, according to this theory, is left to symbolize Papal Rome. Then when the theory comes to deal with the seven-headed beast, it becomes necessary to declare that six of the heads of the beast represent Pagan Rome, and only one represents Papal Rome. But why, in the name of consistency, were seven heads placed on the dragon if only six belonged there, and one belonged to the beast? And why were seven heads placed on the beast if only one of them belonged there ? Could not the dragon have been represented with six heads and the beast with one, if that is the way we are to understand the symbols ?
But to make sure that it is one of the heads of the beast, and not one of the heads of the dragon, that is smitten to death and lives again and is the beast against which the third angel’s message is a warning, the author of “Thoughts on Revela* tion” says: “Whatever is said of the dragon applies to Rome only in its pagan form, and whatever is said of the leopard beast applies to Rome only in its professedly Christian form.״ Thoughts on Revelation, page 537.
But let us apply this rule strictly, and see where it will land us. It is said of the dragon that he has seven heads, therefore Pagan Rome must have seven heads. It is said of the dragon that he tried to destroy the woman during twelve hundred and sixty days or years. But we know that it was not Pagan Rome but Papal Rome, that made war on the saints for forty-two months, or twelve hundred and sixty years.
e Again, it is said of the beast that he had seven heads ; and since according to this rule, whatever is said of the beast must apply to Rome Papal, then Papal Rome must have seven heads. But the same teaching tells us that six of these heads of the beast belong to the dragon, and therefore to Pagan Rome, and only one to Papal Rome.
And worse than all, since we have found that it is one of the first five^ heads of the beast that was smitten to death, and revives again to make the eighth and last—the' one against which the third angel’s message is a warning (Rev. 13:3, 14
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and chapter 17:8, 11), then it follows that the message is a warning against a Pagan power and not Papal, if all the first six heads are different forms of Pagan Rome.
No doubt the reader is convinced by this time, that the old position is utterly untenable, and is asking what is the correct interpretation.
All is plain and consistent if the simple explanation of the Lord is accepted, that the dragon is “that old serpent called the Devil and Satan (Rev. 12:9), or as stated in Rev. 20:2 “the dragon, that old serpent which is the Devil and Satan ”
It will be noticed that the dragon has just as many heads and horns as the beast, and that the dragon persecuted the same saints that the beast persecuted, and at the same time, and for the same length of time—the dragon for “a time, times and half a time״ (forty-two months), Rev. 12:6, 14, and the beast for forty-two months. Rev. 13:5.
The whole matter becomes perfectly plain when we put the seven-headed, ten-horned devil inside the seven-headed, ten-horned beast, just as we are told to do when we are told that the seven-headed, ten-horned Devil gave the seven-headed and ten-horned beast his devilish seat and power and great authority.
In other words, the seven-headed, ten-horned beast is the earthly instrument through which the seven-headed, ten-horned Devil carries on his devilish work of persecuting the saints.
But since the seven heads of the beast do not begin to appear until the blood-drunken harlot appears to sit on them, with what head did the Devil watch for the birth of the man child ? asks the keen and critical student. The answer is that the symbol does not picture that head, just as the leopard beast of Dan. 7:6 does not picture the head with which Grecia won universal dominion. The leopard beast is pictured with four heads, which, as all know, represent the four divisions into which Alexander’s empire was divided after his death. The head by which universal conquest was accomplished, Alexander, does not appear on the symbol, and the four heads represent a later division of the empire.
In like manner the seven heads of the dragon symbolize Satan’s work in persecuting the children of God, during the Christian dispensation through successive earthly govern-
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ments, ruled by the harlot woman, to the last of which, the eighth, there is added ten more federated kingdoms, all of which are possessed of the Devil, and used by him to accom-plish his devilish designs to destroy the saints of God from off the earth ; then later used of God to help destroy the harlot. And Satan’s final effort will be to revive the old Holy Roman Empire, that federation of many nations speaking many tongues (Rev. 17:1, 15), that was smitten to death as a result of the Reformation, and enter into it and its ten federated kingdoms, and use this mighty European federation and its image, a federation of the nations of the Western Hemisphere, to make his last effort to destroy from the earth God’s faithful witnesses. It is through these great world embracing federations that the devil makes war on the rem-nant. “And the dragon was wroth with the woman and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.” Rev. 12:17.
As a warning and encouragement to the remnant saints the following messages of admonition and victory are given :
“If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation.” Rev. 14:9, 10.
“And I saw as it were a sea of glass ... and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God.” Rev. 15:2.
CHAPTER XX “NAMES OF BLASPHEMY”
So he carried me away in the wilderness ; and I saw a woman seated upon a scarlet-colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.” Rev. 17:3.
That the names of blasphemy are on the heads of the beast and not on the woman, is evident from the description of the same beast as given in Rev. 13:1, as follows:
“And he stood upon the sand of the sea. And I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven
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heads, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads names of blasphemy ” R. V.
Thus it is proven that when the Lord would symbolize the various kingdoms of Europe which would carry and support the Papal Church for more than twelve centuries, He pictures on each head of the symbolical beast, not on the head of the woman, names of blasphemy.”
And since the angel interprets the heads to be kings or kingdoms, the name ‘‘blasphemy״ written on each of these kingdoms would stamp them as blasphemous kingdoms. Rev. 17:9, 10.
The reader may have thought that the name of “bias-phemy” belonged to the harlot woman, the fallen church, and that in applying it to the kingdoms that carry her, we have taken from the papacy a part of the denunciation that the Lord has heaped upon that system.
But when the Lord writes the name “blasphemy״ on the heads of the beast instead of on the head of the woman, that is where the blasphemy belongs, notwithstanding all our teaching to the contrary. However, when God pictures the same woman under the symbol of a “little horn״ in Dan. 7, He there charges the papacy with speaking great words against the Most High.
god's denunciation of the woman
God has pictured on the head of the woman, words suffi-ciently terrible without our adding more here. To charge a church with being a “harlot” is to bring an awful charge against that church. But to charge her with being a "harlot” "mother of harlots” is more terrible.
But even this is only a part of the fearful denunciation which He heaps upon her head. Besides calling her a harlot mother of harlots, He declares her to be the “Mother of .. . the abominations of the earth ” And besides all this He charges her with being a "drunken״ “harlot״ “mother of har-lots and abominations of the earth.״ And yet more; He charges her not only with being the drunken harlot mother of harlots and abominations of the earth, but with the crime of having “made” “the inhabitants of the earth” “drunk with the wine of her fornication ” Not only is she charged with being a drunken harlot mother of harlots and abominations of the earth, and with making the inhabitants of the earth drunken with the wine of her fornication, but God charges
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her with being drunk with “blood” And last of all and most terrible of all, she is charged not only with being the harlot mother of harlots and abominations of the earth, and with making the inhabitants of the earth drunk with the wine of her fornication, but with being drunken with the blood of the SAINTS and with the blood of the MARTYRS of JESUS”
And before leaving this thought let it be noted that she is called "the mother of harlots,״ not a mother of harlots. There have been several rebellions in the history of the United States but only one is called "The Great Rebellion.״ And likewise, while there are several harlot daughters, there is but one church whom God calls "The Mother of Harlots,״ ״Babylon the Great.” Only one church sat on the seven sue-cessive kingdoms ; there is only one ״great city which reigneth over the kings of the earth״ and that one is the city of Rome, the seat of the Roman Church.
From the above God-inspired description of the woman, it is evident that the terms which He uses here are sufficiently terrible to describe her character and crimes so as to leave the term “blasphemy” to be applied to the character of the king-doms which have sháred her shame and shed the blood of the saints at her command.
WHAT IS A BLASPHEMOUS KINGDOM?
And next, what is the meaning of names of blasphemy pic-tured on the heads of the beast? What is a blasphemous kingdom ? Some interpreters have been so stupid as to look for an individual king to arise who would curse and swear at God. They overlook the fact that the devil has professed conversion to Christianity and now poses “as an angel of light and sends out ministers to preach his counterfeit mes-sage. All this Paul tells us in his second letter to the Corin-thian church, chapter 2, verses 13 to 15. And one of his ministers is the seven-headed beast, for it is written that “the dragon (that old serpent called the devil), gave him his power, his seat and great authority.” Rev. 13:2. We would therefore expect to find seven kingdoms professing to be Christian kingdoms while in reality they are the kingdoms of Satan. And this is what constitutes blasphemous kingdoms.
This definition of blasphemy is found in ReVelation 2:9 and reads as follows : I know the blasphemy of them which
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say they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.״ See also John 10:36.
According to this divine definition it is accounted bias-phemy for men to claim that they are the true Israel of God when they are in reality members of the synagogue or assem-bly of Satan. In like manner when a kingdom claims to be the kingdom of God when it is in reality the kingdom of Satan, it blasphemes. It is said of this blasphemous kingdom in Rev. 13:6 that “he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle [Greek, “dwelling place״] and them that dwell in heaven.״
In proclaiming itself to the world as being the kingdom of God, its throne the dwelling place of God, its people the people of God, when that throne was “Satan's seat,״ and its people the children of the wicked one, it was but blasphemy against God, “his name, and his tabernacle and them that dwell in heaven.״
THE PREDICTION FULFILLED
Did there arise seven kingdoms in the territory of Daniel's fourth kingdom which carried and supported that Roman Church and which claimed to be the kingdoms of God, but which by their persecution of the saints of God proved themselves to be the kingdoms of Satan ?
Prior to the days of Constantine, professing Christians believed in the literal, personal coming of Christ, and the establishment of His kingdom on this earth. But when Em-peror Constantine professed Christianity and the empire be-came a so-called Christian empire then the church lost sight of the coming King and kingdom, and came to look upon the professedly Christian kingdom of Constantine as the kingdom of Christ.
It was then that the church exchanged her pilgrim's robe for the purple of the palace, her sword of the Spirit for the sword of the state ; it was then that she proved faithless to her lawful husband, accepted the proposals of earthly kings, ascended to the throne of the Caesars and sat a shameless harlot queen.
And this woman called herself the church of Christ and the kingdom over which she reigned was called the kingdom of God. But it was not the kingdom of God but the kingdom of Satan, and the woman was not the bride of Christ but the
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Chaînai, the antichrist. And the Lord pictured names of *!p^tewsrft011 the crown of the counterfeit kingdom, and *Mother of Harlots” on the brow of the counterfeit church. And the true children of the kingdom continued to pray, “Thy kingdom come.” And for refusing to recognize the blasphem-ous counterfeit kingdom as the kingdom of God, they were driven into the wilderness where they continued to witness and wait and watch for their lawful King.
The following extract from the Encyclopedia Britannica, article, “Millennium,” briefly tells the story of the substitu-tion of the counterfeit kingdom of God, for the true, in the minds of the great mass of the professing church in the days of Constantine and onward:
THE BLASPHEMOUS AND THE TRUE
“In the west millenarianism was still a point of *ortho-doxy’ in the fourth century. This state of matters, however, gradually disappeared after the end of the fourth century. The change was brought about by two causes,—first, Greek theology, which reached the west chiefly through Jerome, Rufinus and Ambrose ; second, the new idea of the church as wrought out by Augustine on the basis of the altered political situation of the church. Augustine was the first to teach that the Catholic Church, in its empirical form was the kingdom of Christ, that the millennial kingdom had commenced with the appearing of Christ and was therefore an accomplished fact. By this doctrine of Augustine’s the old millenarianism, though not completely extirpated, was at least banished from the official theology.
**It still lived on, however, in the lower strata of Christian society; and in certain undercurrents of tradition it was transmitted from century to century. At various periods in the history of the middle ages we encounter sudden outbreaks of millenarianism, sometimes as the tenet of a small sect, sometimes as a far-reaching movement. And since it had been suppressed ... by the political hevrarchy, we find that wherever chilianism [like millenarianism, the doctrine of the personal coming and reign of Christ with the saints for a thousand years] appears in the middle ages, it makes common cause with all the enemies of the secularized church.
‘*It strengthened the hands of church democracy; it formed an alliance with the pure souls which held up to the church the ideal of apostolic poverty. In these men the millenarian-
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ism of the ancient church came to life again ; and in the revo-lutionary movement (Reformation) of the fifteenth and six-teenth centuries—especially in the anabaptist movements—it appears with all its uncompromising energy.״
The celebrated scholar and church historian, Philip Schaff, in his “Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge,” article, “Mil-lenarianism,” presents the same truth thus :
“The fate of the doctrine was decided by Augustine, who declared that the church was the kingdom of God on earth. The new relations of the State to the Church had contributed to the downfall of millenarianism. The protection the church won for itself from the state, deprived the doctrine of its vitality .	.	. The clergy possessed the kingdom of the
thousand years in the glory of a church triumphant over em-per ors and princes”
THE BLASPHEMOUS KINGDOM OF CONSTANTINE Eusebius, the church historian, and bishop of Caesarea, clearly presents the views of the secularized church of his time and onward, with reference to the establishment of the promised kingdom of God in the church’s triumph over the Roman Empire. Here are some of his statements :
“Soldiers with naked swords kept watch around the palace gate. But men of God passed through the midst of them without fear, and entered the heart of the palace. And they sat down, some at the emperor’s table, the rest at tables on either side of him. It looked like the image of the very king-dom of Christ ” V. C. iii., 15.
“Whereas the saints and confessors before our time sang of God’s wonderful intervention in behalf of his people as a thing of the past, behold these wonders we now see acted out before our own eyes ! It was of us the prophet spake when he told how the wilderness and the solitary place should be glad, and the desert rejoice and blossom as the lily. Instead of the church being, as once, widowed and desolate, her children have now to exclaim to her, Make room, enlarge thy borders: the place is too straight for us! Glorious indeed, as we see the prediction realized, appear the things spoken of thee, thou city of God. The promises are fulfilling. In righteousness shalt thou be established ; all thy children shall be taught of God ; and great shall be the peace of thy children.” H. E. X. 4, pp. 304305־.
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Later, when Constantine appointed his sons and nephews to a share in the government, the same bishop declared it was the fulfillment of the prophecy of Daniel 7:18, “But the saints of the most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even forever and ever.״
And this was the view held by the harlot church through all the dark ages. At the famous Lateran Council held in the Lateran palace at Rome from 1512 to 1517, just before the Reformation, when the harlot had fallen to the lowest depths of her moral degradation, she was the loudest in her claims to being the New Jerusalem, the capital of the prom-ised kingdom. Elliott, in his Horae Apocalypticae, Vol. 2, pp. 4423־, sums up the astounding claims of the council as follows :
THE LATERAN COUNCIL AND THE KINGDOM “From the beginning to the end of the proceedings . . . there was perhaps no idea whatsoever so strongly and repeat-edly set forth by all, and that indeed constituted a kind of first principle in judging and acting, as this,—that Roman Papal Christendom, . . was the New and Holy Jerusalem, the subject of Isaiah's, and David's, and more especially of St. John's prophetic figurations. More especially and strikingly by De Vio (Cardinal Caietan), in his sermon of the second session, depicting Rome as the central source and supply of the means for the healing of the nations.״
The distinction between the church and the kingdom, or secular government, is not always clear, but nevertheless there was in the minds of the leaders a clear distinction between them. The official titles of the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire were almost as heaven-daring as those of the popes: “Head of Christendom,” “Defender and Advocate of the Christian Church,״ “Temporal Head of the Faithful,״ are some of the titles quoted on p. 112 of Bryce’s Holy Roman Empire.
And this blasphemous claim of the middle ages is still be-lieved and taught by modern papal writers. In a work enti-tied “The Church and the Empires,” by Henry William Wil-berforce, at one time editor of the Catholic Standard, “Pre-ceded by a Memoir of the Author, by J. H. (Cardinal) New-man, D.D.,” we find these startling statements. After apply-ing the divine denunciations of Rev. 18 to pagan Rome and the predicted destruction of Babylon the Great, to the destruc-102
tion of that heathen city by the northern barbarians, the author continues :
THE MODERN VIEW THE SAME “The crimes as well as the civilization of a thousand years were accumulated at Rome, and both were swept away to-gether by that overwhelming flood of fierce barbarians. Lit-tie were it worthy of Christians to mourn over a civilization into whose very heartstrings such unutterable pollution was intertwined; especially as it was removed, not like Babylon of old, to leave behind it nothing but desolation, but to make room for the Kingdom of God which was to be enthroned upon its ruins ; for such was the purpose of God that the very center of Christendom, the very throne of Christ upon earth, on which he would visibly sit in the person of his vicar, was there to be established, where the throne of the Caesars and the golden house of Nero had been swept away in headlong ruin. 1I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth was gone. And I heard a great voice from the throne saying, Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them. And they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.’ *And he that sat on the throne said, Behold, I make all things new/ The full accomplishment of these words we expect, in faith and hope, when Meath shall be no more, nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow shall be any more; for the former things are passed away’ ; yet surely, whatever more glorious accomplishment is yet to come, it were blindness not to see how far they ARE ALREADY FULFILLED in the substitution of Christen-dom for the civilized pagan world—the setting up the throne of the Vicar of Christ upon the ruins of the palace of the Caesars.״ pp. 45, 6.
In a work entitled, “His Holiness Pope Pius IX and the Temporal Rights of the Holy See,״ by M. J. Rhodes, “With the Approbation of the Lord Bishop of Beverly,״ we find the following on page 29:
“Let us go back ... to the days of old when Daniel the Prophet explained the vision to the king of Babylon ; how the stone cut out of the mountains, without hands, struck the great statue, and how the stone grew, and became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth ; and that stone repre-sented a kingdom which the God of heaven would set up, and
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which would never be destroyed, but would stand forever. THERE is the origin of the PAPACY, for the papacy is the CENTER, the concentrated LIFE, the HEAD and HEART of THAT KINGDOM
Cardinal Manning, in a work entitled “The Independence of the Holy See,״ p. 92, declares that Christendom reigned over by the Roman church is the fulfillment of the last day announcement from heaven, “The Kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ; and he shall reign forever and ever.״ Rev. 11:15. The quotation is as follows:
״THE KINGDOM HAS COME״
“If it [the world] was once a Christian world, and if 1n that fact be fulfilled the prophecy of the Book Apocalypse [Revelation], that The kingdom of this world had become the 'Kingdom of God and of Christ/ I would ask whether that which we see now is not the disintegration and the downfall of that Christian world.״
Quotations of like import from Romanist writers might be multiplied but these are sufficient to prove that the papal king-doms which put to death the saints of God claimed to be the Kingdom of God.
Since God denounces as blasphemy the claim of certain that they were Jews when they were in reality the synagogue of Satan, how very fitting is his charge of “blasphemy״ applied to an empire calling itself “The Holy Roman Empire,” when in reality it was an 1/71holy empire in adulterous alliance with the harlot church, and at her bidding shedding the blood of millions of martyrs.
And thus it is made clear why the name “blasphemy״ ap-pears on the heads of the beast that carried the woman. It is because all these kingdoms which carried the woman, claimed to be Christian kingdoms, defending the Christian church, and the Christian faith, when in reality they were anti-Chris-tian kingdoms, defending an anti-Christian church, and her doctrines, while putting to death the members of the true church and denouncing the true faith as the doctrine of devils.
CHAPTER XXI
“BABYLON THE GREAT” AND HER “FALL”
Before the beast and the kings of the earth fight the battle of Armageddon, they are used of God “to give unto her [Babylon the Great] the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath.” Rev. 16:19 and 17:16, 17. The second scripture as rendered in the Revised Version reads thus: “And the ten horns which thou sawest, and the beast, these shall hate the harlot and shall make her [Babylon the Great] desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and shall burn her utterly with fire. For God did put in their hearts to do His mind, and to come to one mind, and to give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God should be accom-plished.”
Of this Babylon the Great, it is said in Rev. 14:8. R. V.: “Fallen, fallen, is Babylon the Great, which hath made all the nations to drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.” But at last these same nations whom she has made to drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication are commanded by God to give unto her “the wine of the fierceness of His wrath.”
This command is found in Rev. 18:68־, R. V.:
“Render unto her even as she rendered, and double unto her the double according to her works ; in the cup which she mingled, mingle unto her double. How much soever she glorified herself, and waxed wanton, so much give her of tor-ment and mourning: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow and shall in no wise see mourning. There-fore in one day shall her plagues come, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire; for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.”
The destruction of Babylon the Great by the beast and the ten horns takes place under the pouring out of the seventh plague, as seen from Rev. 16:1719־, R. V.:
“And the seventh poured out his bowl upon the air . .	.	. and Babylon the Great was remembered in the
sight of God, to give unto her the cup of the fierceness of His wrath.”
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Thus it is shown that Babylon the Great is made to drink of the cup of the fierceness of God’s wrath at the hands of the nations whom she made drunk with the wine of her wrath, and that this destruction occurs under the seventh plague.
And inasmuch as the beast and the ten horns destroy the woman under the seventh plague, and later are themselves destroyed in the battle of Armageddon, it follows, as before shown, that the battle of Armageddon is fought under the seventh plague, after the destruction of Babylon the Great.
“WHAT IS THIS BABYLON THE GREAT V*
To this question the Lord makes a positive, plain reply: “The woman which thou sawest [Babylon the Great] is the great city which hath a kingdom over the kings of the earth.” Rev. 17:18, R. V. Margin.
This is the only definition of Babylon the Great that the Lord ever gave, and is the only definition that any man should ever give. The angel promised to explain to John the mystery of the woman, and he fulfilled his promise. He said : “I will tell thee the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carrieth her which hath the seven heads and ten horns.” Rev. 17:7.
He then proceeds to keep his promise thus :
“The woman which thou sawest is the great city which hath a kingdom over the kings of the earth.” If this great city is not a great city which reigneth over the kings of the earth, then what is it? If this great city is not a great city, then the angel has not explained the symbol as he promised, and “the great city” is as much of a mystery as the figura-tive woman, and each one is forced to hunt for its meaning just as though the angel had never explained it as he prom-ised.
And failing to accept the explanation of the angel, that it is the great city which hath a kingdom over the kings of the earth, one says it is the money powers of the world, or “com-mercialism.” Another says it is the Protestant churches, or backslidden Protestantism.
If the angel had said, “The woman which thou sawest is commercialism,” which has reigned over the kings of the earth, I would have accepted that explanation. But he did not say that.
And if the angel had said, “The woman which thou 106
sawest is the Protestant churches which reign over the kings of the earth,״ again I would have accepted that defini-tion; but he never said it. The woman is Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots. And the mother could not possibly be her daughters. The state-supported Protestant churches can be the daughters, but never the “mother.” This would make the scripture read, “The woman, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots, is her daughters, the Protestant churches, which reign over the kings of the earth.”
All these untenable theories are swept aside by the plain statement of Christ through the angel, “The woman which thou sawest [Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth] is the great city which hath a kingdom over the kings of the earth.”
And there is not an unprejudiced, intelligent man or woman who is acquainted with but the elements of the his-tory of the dark ages, but would state promptly that, the great city which has reigned over the kings of the earth for centuries, and has made the nations carry her, and has drunk herself drunk with the blood of the saints, is Rome, the cen-ter and seat of that powerful but fallen church system, the Roman Catholic Church.
Reader, I exhort you in Christ’s name, if you have em-braced a theory in the place of the plain, positive statement of the Lord Jesus Christ as given by the interpreting angel, abandon it at once, and accept the simple statement of the Word which is in perfect harmony with reason, revelation and history.
It is the failure to accept the plain statement of the Word that is responsible for divisions and dissentions among men.
Among Seventh-day Adventists who accept the writings of Mrs. E. G. White, there will be no disposition to ques-tion the conclusion that Babylon the Great of Revelation 17 is Rome.
On page 382 of “The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan,” we find these plain statements of the meaning of the mystical woman, and of the beast that carrieth her— statements in perfect harmony with the explanation given by our Lord through the interpreting angel.
“The woman (Babylon) of Revelation 17 is described as ‘arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold
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and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in hef hand full of abominations and filthiness: . .	. and
upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots/ Says the prophet, *I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus/ Babylon is further declared to be ‘that great city which reigneth over the kings of the earth/ The power that for so many centuries maintained despotic sway over the monarchs of Christendom, is Rome. The purple and scarlet color, the gold and precious stones and pearls vividly picture the magnificence and more than kingly pomp affected by the haughty see of Rome. And no other power could be so truly declared ‘drunken with the blood of the saints,1 as that church which has so cruelly per-secuted the followers of Christ. Babylon is also charged with the sin of unlawful connection with ‘the kings of the earth/ It was by departure from the Lord, and alliance with the heathen, that the Jewish church became a harlot; and Rome, corrupting herself in like manner, by seeking the sup-port of worldly powers, receives a like condemnation.״
Here we have Babylon the Great declared to be Rome. MThe power that for so many centuries maintained despotic sway over the monarchs of Christendom, is Rome." And the beast which carried the woman is explained to be “the mon-archs of Christendom" Notice it is not “the monarchs” of pagan times, but “the monarchs of Christendom.” And, of course, since the woman is “the haughty see of Rome” “that church which has so cruelly persecuted the followers of Christ,” the "monarchs" which carry the church for “so many centuries” must be “the monarchs of Christendom " and not the monarchs of paganism which reigned centuries before the Roman Church was bom.
CHAPTER XXII
ONLY ONE BABYLON THE GREAT
With this clear, consistent, Scriptural explanation of the symbolical woman and beast, we ought to be able to pass immediately to a study of what constitutes the ״fall" of Baby-Ion the Great. But strange as it may seem, there are those 108
who teach that there are two Babylons the Great pictured in the book of Revelation, one the Protestant churches described in the 14th and 18th chapters, and the other the Roman Church described in the 17th chapter.
That “Babylon the Great״ of Revelation 14:8 is the same as “Babylon the Great״ of Revelation 17:5, is clear beyond all question.
Revelation 14:8 as rendered in the Revised Version and the American Standard, reads:
“Fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great, that hath made all the nations to drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornica-tion.
The harlot woman of the 17th chapter bears the same name, “Babylon the Great״ (v. 5). And not only does the Lord call her by the same name, but He charges her with the same wicked work. He says of the Babylon the Great of the 14th chapter that she “made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornications.״ And of the same Babylon the Great of the 17th chapter He says: “With whom [with Babylon the Great] the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication״ (v. 2).
It is impossible to believe that Babylon the Great of the 14th chapter is a different Babylon the Great from the 17th chapter. How could two Babylons the Great make all nations drunk? Since Babylon the Great of the 14th chapter makes all nations drunk, they are drunk, and there is no chance for another Babylon the Great to make them drunk.
Again, if the explanation given of Babylon the Great of the 17th chapter is not the explanation of Babylon the Great of the 14th chapter, then there is no definition given of the Babylon the great of the 14th chapter, and each one is left to follow his imagination in explaining the symbol.
Having shown that Babylon the Great of the second angel's message of the 14th chapter is the same as Babylon the Great of the 17th chapter, and therefore Rome, “the great city which hath a kingdom over the kings of the earth,״ it will next be shown that Babylon the Great of the 18th chapter is the same as Babylon the Great of the 14th and 17th chapters.
First, the Lord calls the woman of the 18th chapter by the same name which he calls the woman of the 14th and 17th chapters.
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“And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying Baby-Ion the Great is fallen, is fallen.״ Chapter 18:2.
And not only is the woman of the 18th chapter called by the same name as the woman of the 14th and 17th chapters, but she is charged with the same crimes. “For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her. Verse 3.
If this unlawful connection with the kings of the earth by Babylon the Great of the 17th chapter unmistakably points to Rome, so must this same unlawful connection prove this Babylon the Great to be Rome.
Of Babylon the Great of the 17th chapter it is said, “And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls.״ V. 4.
And of Babylon the Great of the 18th chapter it is said that she “was clothed in fine linen and purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls.״ V. 4.
And since, as the author previously quoted truthfully says of Babylon the Great of the 17th chapter, “the purple and scarlet color, the gold and precious stones and pearls, vividly picture the magnificence and more than kingly pomp affected by the haughty see of Rome," so must the same “purple and scarlet,” the same “gold and precious stones and pearls״ of Babylon the Great of the 18th chapter “vividly picture the magnificence and more than kingly pomp affected by the haughty see of Rome "
Of Babylon the Great of the 17th chapter it is said, she was “drunken with the blood of the saints״ ; and our author says in the same quotation that this points to Rome, “that church which has so cruelly persecuted the followers of Christ.״
But this same bloody work is charged against Babylon the Great of the 18th chapter thus: “In her was found the blood of prophets and saints, and all that were slain on the earth.״ V. 24.
Since the bloody persecution of the saints by Babylon the Great of the 17th chapter points to Rome, so must the same persecution charged to Babylon the Great of the 18th chapter point to Rome.
The Lord’s plain definition of Babylon the Great of the 17th chapter is “the great city which hath a kingdom over the kings of the earth.” V. 18.
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And four times in the 18th chapter is Babylon the Great called ״that great city” and once ״this great city ." Vs. 10, 16,18,19 and 21.
Another positive proof that Babylon the Great of the 18th chapter is Babylon the Great of the 17th chapter, is found in the statement of the Lord through the angel, “I will show unto thee the judgment of the great whore.” Rev. 17:1. But this promise was not fulfilled in the 17th chapter. Not until we reach the 18th chapter is this judgment of Babylon the Great shown to the prophet. In verse 16 of chapter 17 John was told what powers would punish Babylon the Great, but not until the 18th chapter is this punishment pictured.
Therefore Babylon the Great of the 18th chapter whose judgment is so vividly shown, must be the same Babylon the Great of the 17th chapter, whose judgment the angel prom-ised to show John, but which he did not show in the 17th chapter but did show in the 18th.
Thus it is seen that Babylon the Great of chapter 18 is the same as Babylon the Great of chapter 17, and therefore Rome with its Roman Catholic Church, because :
1.	Both are called by the same name.
2.	Both make all nations drink of the wine of their forni-cation.
3.	Both shed the blood of saints and prophets.
4.	Both are clothed in purple and scarlet and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls.
5.	Both are burned with fire at the hands of the kings of the earth. Rev. 17:16, and 18:68־.
And since both Babylons the Great are the same, and it is as plain as the Lord can make it that Babylon the Great of the 17th chapter is Rome, it follows that Babylon the Great of the 18th chapter is Rome, and the Babylon the Great of the 14th chapter is Rome, and her fall the fall of Rome and the Roman Catholic System centered there.
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CHAPTER XXIII
BABYLON THE GREAT—(Continued)
As before proved, Babylon the Great is destroyed by the beast and the ten horns before they are destroyed in the Battle of Armageddon. Rev. 17:16 Revised Version. Rev. 16:17-19, and 19:1921־.
Before dealing with the fall of Babylon, it seems necessary to review, and emphasize the Bible evidence as to what is Babylon the Great.
The angel, after showing John the woman, Babylon the Great, seated on the beast with the seven heads and ten horns, says to him, “I will tell thee the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carrieth her.״ Rev. 17:7.
The angel then proceeds to tell John what the heads of the beast represent.
The seven heads on which the woman sat are explained to be seven kings or kingdoms. Rev. 17:9, 10.
All accept the explanation of the angel and undertake to find seven literal kingdoms, one following the other, that meet the description given by the angel.
The angel next explains the meaning of the ten horns.
He says : “The ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings which have received no kingdom as yet, but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.״ Ver. 12.
All are agreed that the angel has explained the symbol of the ten horns, and that they represent ten literal kings or king-doms.
If the kingdoms are not real kingdoms, then the angel has not explained the meaning of the ten horns as he promised.
The angel next explains the “many waters” on which the fallen woman sits.
“The waters which thou sawest where the whore sitteth are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues.״ Rev. 17:15.
No one will deny that these nations and tongues mean real nations speaking real tongues or languages.
Why not, then, accept the explanation which the angel gives of the woman in like manner ?
“The woman which thou sawest is the great city which 112
hath a kingdom over the kings of the earth.״ Rev. 17:18, Revised Version, margin. This is in strict harmony with the Greek text. The Greek word translated “reigneth״ in the Authorized Version occurs 159 times in the New Testament, and in every case except this one it is translated "kingdom ״ And the Revised Version and the American Standard has in the margin this note, “Greek, hath a kingdom.”
The angel’s explanation of the woman is, “the great city which hath a kingdom over the kings of the earth.”
If the woman does not represent a great city, a literal, real great city, why did the angel say the woman represented “the great city” ?
All accept the angel’s explanation of the other symbols, and believe real kingdoms and real nations and real tongues or languages are meant. Why not believe that the angel meant “the great city״ when he said “the great city״?
But not only did the angel say that the woman represented “the great city,” but “the great city which hath a kingdom.” We must therefore look not only for “the great city” but for “the great city which hath a kingdom.”
A kingdom calls for a king and a system of government, and it calls for subjects. We must therefore not only find the real great city, but the city must be the capital of a kingdom, and the center of a system of government, with subjects over which this kingdom rules.
And not only must we find a great city, the capital city of a kingdom, which has in it the throne of a king, that reigns over subjects, but that reigns over kings and kingdoms.
We must therefore find a great city which has a king and a kingdom which reigns over earth’s kings and their kingdoms. And this is not all. We must not only find the great city which has a kingdom over the kingdoms of the earth, but we must find a great city which holds its kingdom over the king-doms of the earth, not by its military and naval power, but by its “sorceries.״ “For by thy sorceries were all the nations deceived.״ Rev. 18:23.
We must also find “the great city” the center of a church-kingdom, for she is charged with being a harlot and with unlawful relations with the kings of the earth. This great city, with its church-kingdom, is charged with making the nations drink of the wine of her fornications.
And now, let those who profess to find the majority of the 113
seven kingdoms before the appearance of papal Rome, point out in the days of old Babylon and Persia and Grecia and Pagan Rome, “the great city” which had a kingdom main-tained by deceptive sorceries, not by military or naval power, over Babylon, and then over Medo Persia, and next over Greece, and then over Rome.
Remember the city is ever the same; and the kingdom cen-tered in that city is ever the same. The kingdoms over which this city and its deceptive kingdom reign, one after the other rise and carry this church-kingdom, and then fall; but this city with its ruling kingdom lives on and on and on until it meets its eternal doom from “the cup of the wine of the fierceness of God’s wrath” under the seventh plague. Rev. 16:19.
What city, separated and apart from old Babylon, which was the center of an ecclesiastical kingdom, which, without military or naval power, but by its deceptive claim to rule in heaven, earth and hell, was able to pull down and set up the kings of Babylon ?
What city with her pope-king and her papal kingdom was able to make Alexander the Great come and kneel at her throne and receive his right to reign from its hands?
Where is the great city with its king claiming to be King of kings and Lord of lords, claiming the keys of heaven, earth and hell, that was able to so deceive the Caesars as to compel them to stand outside the palace gate three days and nights, bareheaded and barefooted, begging the king of the kingdom centered in the great city to give him back his crown, his scepter and his kingdom, which this “King of kings” had wrested from him by a few strokes of his pen ?
No man can find these specifications fulfilled in any city before the birth of papal Rome ; but after that, for more than a thousand years, every single specification can be found in that city with its throne of St. Peter and its pope-king, and its church-kingdom, maintaining a despotic reign over the kings of the earth by means of the wine of its fornication and its deceiving sorceries.
That Rome is the center of a kingdom of which the pope is king is known to every intelligent man and woman. That every loyal Roman Catholic is a citizen and subject of that papal kingdom is also known. That every Cardinal is a prince of this church-kingdom and ranks with the princes or 114
sons of the secular kings, is also a well-known fact. That this strange kingdom with its Papal kings and its Papal princes has maintained a kingdom over the kings of the earth for many centuries ought to be known to every intelligent man and woman.
Reader, the explanation of the angel is a literal, plain, com-píete interpretation of the woman. Why not throw to the winds all preconceived theories and accept it?
“The woman which thou sawest is the great city which hath a kingdom over the kings of the earth.”
That great city is none other than Rome, Papal Rome, Rome of the Roman Catholic Church.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE FALL OF BABYLON THE GREAT
Having shown from the Scriptures that Babylon the Great of Rev. 17:5, which “made” “the inhabitants of the earth drunk” “with the wine of her fornication,” is the same Baby-Ion the Great of Rev. 14:8, which “made all nations drink of the wine of her fornication,” and the same as Babylon the Great of Rev. 18:2, of whom it is written, “All nations have drunk of the wine of her fornication”—having shown that they are the same, and therefore there is but one Babylon the Great in the Book of Revelation ; we will now inquire What is her fall?
Nearly all the old Protestant writers agree that Babylon the Great of Rev. 17, is Rome with its ecclesiastical king-dom which has “for so many centuries maintained despotic sway over the monarchs of Christendom.”
But since it has been shown that Babylon the Great of the fourteenth chapter is the same as Babylon the Great of the seventeenth chapter, it follows that Babylon the Great of the fourteenth chapter is Rome also.
And since Babylon the Great of the eighteenth chapter is the same as Babylon the Great of the seventeenth chapter, it follows that Babylon the Great of the eighteenth chapter is also Rome.
But if Babylon the Great of the fourteenth and eighteenth chapters is Rome, what is the meaning of the announcement
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that she “is fallen ?” How can Rome backslide when she has been morally fallen to the lowest depths for centuries?
The explanation is found in the truth that the term “fallen” has no reference to the backsliding of Babylon the Great, but to her destruction, her doom.
What is meant by her fall is plainly pictured in Rev. 18:21, as rendered in the Revised Version :
“And a strong angel took up a great stone as it were a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with a mighty fall shall Babylon the Great city be cast down, and shall be found no more at all.” The word “fallen” in Rev. 14:8 and 18:2 is not the word for apostasy as used in 2 Thes. 2:3, “except there come a falling away first.” The word is used twenty-one times in the Revelation, and in all other in-stances refers to a falling down and not a backsliding. “Rocks, fall on us and hide us”; (6:16) “and the tenth part of the city fell11:13) ;״) “and the cities of the nations fell״; (16:19) “five are fallen17:10) ;״) “I fell at his feet”; (19:10).
That the term “fallen” in Rev. 14:8 and 18:2 refers to the doom or destruction of the Roman Catholic system, is plainly taught in the S. D. A. Sabbath School Quarterly of 1913, Second Quarter.
Under Lesson 2, April 12 in “General Note” we have this statement :
“The purpose of this lesson is to show that ancient Babylon is a type of modern Babylon, the papacy, and that therefore the history of ancient Babylon, as it is recorded in the Scrip-tures, is a prophetic history which will find its counterpart in a general way in Modern Babylon, the Church of Rome״
Question 16, Lesson 2, reads thus:
“In what language was the utter overthrow of (ancient) Babylon foretold ? Jer. 51:59-64.”
Question 17 is:
“In what similar language is the final destruction of mod-ern Babylon [“the papacy״] foretold? Rev. 18:21.”
Again under lesson 12, question 10, we have the following question and answer:
“What gospel message, following the proclamation of the judgment, is made concerning Babylon? Ver. 8 [Rev. 14.] Compare Rev. 18:21-23.”
From this it is plain to be seen that the author of these les-116
tons and the denominational committee which endorsed them, believe that the fall of Babylon announced in the second angel's message is the same as that pictured in Rev. 18:2123־, and both announce “the final destruction of modern Babylon" as stated in question 17 of lesson 2, as before quoted.
Further proof that the author and the committee be-lieved that the second angel’s message announced the doom of the Roman Catholic system, is found in the use of the word “gospel”
“What gospel message ... is made concerning Baby־ Ion?"
If the “fall" of Babylon is the moral fall of the Protestant churches as formerly taught, is it good news to announce that Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians have backslidden away from God? But it is good news to announce the destruction of that apostate church-system that has drank herself drunk with the blood of the saints.
Now that it is clear that the fall of Babylon is her “final destruction” how is it that God’s people are called out of Babylon, after the announcement of her fallf Is it not rather late to call them out after her destruction has come ?
The term “is fallen" has led to the conclusion that it must mean a moral fall. For how could it refer to a “final destruc־ tion" when the call “come out of her," follows the announce-ment of her fallf
Had the students studied the announcement of old Baby-Ion’s fall, this would have been explained.
In Jer. 51:8, we have the announcement of the fall of old Babylon, and the term “is suddenly fallen and destroyed” was used while she was in the height of her glory. The explana-tion of this is that the prophet sees in a vision the city in ruins, and announces what he sees, and therefore he uses the present tense.
Again in verses 41-43 we have the prophet’s vivid descrip־ tion of the ruin which his prophetic eye beholds:
“How is Sheshach taken ! and how is the praise of the whole earth surprised! how is Babylon become an astonishment among the nations ! The sea is come up upon Babylon : she is covered with the multitude of the waves thereof. Her cities are a desolation, a dry land, and a wilderness, a land wherein no man dwelletht neither doth any son of man pass thereby."
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That the prophet is describing a future destruction is clear from verses 60-64.
“So Jeremiah wrote in a book all the evil that should come upon Babylon, even all these words that are written against Babylon. And Jeremiah said to Seraiah, When thou comest to Babylon, and shalt see, and shalt read all these words; Then shalt thou say, O Lord, thou hast spoken against this place, to cut it off, that none shall remain in it, neither man nor beast, but that it shall be desolate forever. And it shall be, when thou hast made an end of reading this book, that thou shalt bind a stone to it, and cast it into the midst of Euphrates : And thou shalt say, Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise from the evil that I will bring upon her.״
Here we have a complete parallel with the announcements concerning modern Babylon. First her destruction is an-nounced in the present tense, then the people of God are called out (v. 45), and next a stone is tied to the prophecy and it is cast into the Euphrates with the announcement that “thus shall Babylon sink.״
In like manner the “final destruction of modern Babylon״ is announced in the present tense, because that destruction is seen by the prophetic eye of Christ whose testimony the angel announces (Rev. 1:13־), and this is followed by the call, “Come out of her my people :״ and the nature of the fall is pictured by the “mighty fair (R. V.) of a millstone cast into the sea, with the words announcing a future ruin.
“Thus with a mighty fall shall Babylon the Great city be cast down and shall be found no more at all.״ Rev. 18:21. R. V.
With this Scriptural explanation of the use of the present tense, all is clear.
In Rev. 18:2 it is said that Babylon after her fall becomes “the habitation of devils and the hold (Greek, prison) of every foul spirit, and the cage (prison) of every unclean and hateful bird.״ Ho'tf is this to be understood in harmony with the view that it is a literal doom that is pictured and not a backsliding? some may ask.
The words “hold״ and “cage״ where the foul spirits and devils are shut up are the same word that is translated “pris-on in chapter 20:7. “And when the thousand years are finished Satan shall be loosed out of his prison
Thus it is made plain that ruined Babylon becomes the 118
prison of devils during the thousand years, just as old Baby-Ion became the habitation of dragons after her fall. See Isa. 13:19,22.
Since the fall of Babylon means the “final destruction of modern Babylon״ “the church of Rome,״ and not the back-sliding of Protestant churches, when is that message due to the world ? This will be the subject of the next chapter.
CHAPTER XXV
“THE HOUR OF HIS JUDGMENT IS COME”
As before shown, the battle of Armageddon represents the last of a series of judgments which terminate with the second coming of Christ at the beginning of the thousand years, or the millennium.
This series of judgments is announced by a solemn but joyful message recorded in Rev. 14:6, 7.
“And I saw another angel flying in midheaven, having eternal good tidings to proclaim unto them that dwell on the earth, and unto every nation and tribe, and tongue, and peo-pie; and he said with a loud voice, Fear God and give Him glory; for the hour of his judgment is come; worship him that made heaven and earth and the sea and fountains of waters.״ American Standard Revision.
The common version which reads “Having the everlasting gospel to preach,״ is not in harmony with the original. The text has no reference to the gospel of salvation from sin through the death of Christ. This angel’s good tidings is something very different.
The word “gospel” which appears in our common version occurs seventy-seven times in the New Testament, but this is the only instance where it appears without the definite article “the” or some other definite modification like “my gospel,” “our gospel,” or “Gospel of God.” Here the Greek word “evaggelion” stands alone and is faithfully translated by the version quoted above.
If the term “eternal good news,” or gospel, does not refer to salvation from sin, to what does it refer?
The angel tells exactly what his good news is. Refer back to the scripture as quoted and it will be clear to the careful
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reader what the good news of the message is. No, it is not “Fear God and give glory to Him,״ for that is not good news, but an exhortation in view of the good news. No, it is not ‘1worship Him that made heaven and earth,” for that again is an exhortation. The good news is couched in seven words of everlasting glad tidings, "the hour of His judgment is come ”
This good news is not salvation f rom the sins of a wicked world, but from its sinners.
That the announcement, “the hour of His judgment is come” is indeed good news is abundantly shown in the same book of Revelation. Notice the following :
“And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the Word of God and for the testimony which they held ; and they cried with a loud voice, saying : How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth.” Rev. 6:9, 10.
This loud cry of the blood of the martyrs for punitive judg-ment is answered with the statement that they “that dwell on the earth” will kill the brethren of these martyrs for a “little season,” yet future, and then the cry for judgment will be answered.
Reader, when the hour comes for this bloody work of kill-ing the saints to be ended forever in the destruction of those who have drunk their blood, will not the announcement that this judgment hour has come be indeed good news to the saints of both heaven and earth? And this is the good news of the first angel’s message.
Notice that the souls under the altar are not begging the Lord to start an investigation to see whether an atonement should be made at the mercy-seat to silence the claims of a broken law for their death as transgressors of that law ; but they are crying to God with a loud voice petitioning Him to “judge” . . . them that dwell on the earth ” those who had slain them “for the Word of God and for the testimony which they held.”
Let us now notice those scriptures which record the answer of God to the cry of the martyrs for judgment upon their persecutors, and the joy and rejoicing which follows.
“And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters, and they became blood. And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous O Lord, 120
which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus. For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink ; for they are worthy. And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are Thy judgments” Rev.
.7־16:4
“And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials and talked with me saying unto me, Come hither and I will show unto thee the judgments of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters.״ Rev. 17:1.
This promised judgment is pictured in the 18th chapter.
Speaking to the nations whom Babylon has made drunk with the wine of her fornication, God says:
“Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup she has filled, fill to her double. How much she has glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her; for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death and mourning and famine : and she shall be utterly burned with fire; for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.״ . . . “Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mightv city! for in one hour is thy judgments come” Rev. 18:6-10.
“Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye saints, and ye apos-ties, and ye prophets; for God hath judged your judgment on her.״ Rev. 18:20, Revised Version.
“And after these things I heard a great voice of much peo-pie in heaven, saying, Alleluia, Salvation, and glory and honor and power unto the Lord our God ; for true and righteous are His judgments; for he hath judged the great whore which did corrupt the earth with her fornication and hath avenged the blood of His saints at her hand. And again they say Alleluia. And her smoke rose up forever and ever.״ Rev. 19:13־.
By this time the reader must be deeply impressed with the truth that the announcement that the hour of God’s judgment is come, is indeed "eternal good tidings,” and it is good tidings because it announces the destructive judgments of God upon the persecutors of His saints and their eternal deliverance thereby. But the shouting has only begun.
“And the four and twenty elders, and the four beasts (liv-121
ing creatures) fell down and worshipped God that sat on the throne, saying Amen, Alleluia; And a voice came out of the throne, saying Praise our God, all ye His servants, and ye that fear Him, both small and great. And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying Alleluia, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth ״ Rev. 19:4-6.
Who has been reigning? “The.woman which thou sawest is the great city which hath a kingdom over the kings of the earth.״ Rev. 17:18.
Notice that all this tremendous rejoicing in heaven and earth, of the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures and the saints “small and great,” is over the fact that the hour of God's judgment has come and He has by His puni-tive judgments delivered His saints from those who were persecuting them.
The first angel’s message is therefore plainly, "eternal good tidings״ from God, when it announces that “the hour of His judgment is come.״
And now that it is plain that the good news that the hour of God’s judgment is come, is primarily the announcement that the hour of God’s destroying judgments has come in which the saints are delivered; the next question is, when is this glad tidings due as a definite message to the world ?
In deciding this question the following facts must be our guide :
1.	God’s punitive judgments are first visited on the wor-shipers of the beast and his image who have “shed the blood of saints and prophets.” Rev. 16:1-11.
2.	The Lord next visits His destroying judgments on Babylon the Great under the seventh of the seven last plagues. Rev. 16:17-19.
3.	God’s judgments on the harlot are executed by the “beast” (the eighth and last kingdom which carries her) and its ten federated kingdoms. Rev. 17:1, 16, 17, and 18:6-8.
4.	This judgment is inflicted on the harlot at the time she is seated on the eighth and last kingdom. Rev. 17:1, 7-11 and 18:7, 8.
5.	The judgment on the beast and the false prophet and their federated kings is visited on them in the battle of Armageddon after the beast and the ten federated kings have destroyed the harlot. Rev. 19:11-21.
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It therefore follows that the hour when God's destroying judgments are visited, cannot come until the “beast״ or eighth kingdom, which is a federation of “many waters״ (Rev. 17:1, 11, 15), shall “ascend out of the abyss and carry the harlot for the last time in her pride and power. And then, not until the two-horned beast shall have made an image to this federa-tion of nations, or another federation.
From these Scriptural facts it is plainly seen that there must be another federation of nations in Europe carrying the Roman Catholic Church, and an image of that federation in the Western Hemisphere ; both persecuting those who refuse to worship the beast and his image and receive his mark in their foreheads or in their hands; before God's destroying judgments can be visited on these persecuting church and state powers.
Therefore the first angel’s message, like the second and third, in its full and final meaning is future; and must await the coming of the beast and his image and the final and fatal reign of the harlot over the kings of the earth.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE SEVEN LAST PLAGUES AND THE EIGHTH AND LAST HEAD«
Elliott, in his four-volume work on Revelation, “Horae Apocalypticae," with others of the Historic School of In-terpreters, teaches that the seven last plagues began to be poured out at the time of the French Revolution. The sev-enth vial had begun to be poured out at the time the author was issuing the fifth edition of his work in 1861. But all this is error as the careful reader has plainly seen from the following established facts:
1.	The first of the seven last plagues falls on those who worship the beast and his image.
“And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, go your way, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth. And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth ; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the
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beast, and upon them which worshipped his image ” Rev. 16:2.
2.	This beast is the eighth and last kingdom of the series, because the image of the beast is an image made of the healed head of the 13th chapter beast [Rev. 13:12 and 14]; and this healed head, as has been clearly shown, is identical with the eighth head of the 17th chapter beast. Therefore the image of the healed head is an image of the eighth head. Hence the first of the seven last plagues is poured out upon the worshippers of the eighth head and his image.
3.	This eighth head, which is a federation of nations car-rying the fallen church for the last time [Rev. 17:1, 3, 15], has not yet come up from the abyss [or place of death, Rom. 10:7], but must appear, for Babylon the great is destroyed while seated on this eighth head and its federated kings. Rev. 17:16, 17 and 18:7.
4.	Therefore, since this federated kingdom, the eighth and last, has not yet appeared, the image of it has not yet been formed; hence the first of the seven last plagues has not yet been poured out because the first will not be poured out until the beast and his image are in the world and the solemn warn-ing against their worship has been proclaimed to every na-tion, kindred, tongue and people; and every soul has made a final decision to worship God or the beast, and has received either the stamp of God or the mark of the beast.
Thus easily is another error swept away by a correct under-standing of the truth taught in the 17th chapter of Revela-tion which, as Dr. Guinness truthfully teaches, is the key to the whole book.
Mr. Elliott devotes more than 200 pages of his scholarly work to showing that the seven plagues have been poured out; when, had he known the truth of Rev. 17, he would never have written a page of it. Let us be thankful today for the clearer light that is illuminating these things.
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CHAPTER XXVII.
THE BEAST FROM THE SEA AND THE BEAST FROM THE ABYSS
Elliott attempts to prove that the “beast” from the “sea,” as described in Rev. 13:1, 2, is identical with the “beast” from the “bottomless pit,” as described in Rev. 17:3 and 8. But all his efforts in this direction are wasted, and worse still, all the conclusions based on this fundamental error are false.
Had Mr. Elliott shown that the beast of the 13th chapter under his healed head, was identical with the beast of the 17th chapter under his eighth head, he would have been working in harmony with the truth.
The term “sea” in chapter 13 is from a different Greek word in the original from the term “bottomless pit” (or “abyss,” as in the Revised Version) in the 17th chapter.
The Greek word translated “sea” occurs ninety-one times in the New Testament, while the Greek word translated “bottomless pit” occurs but nine times. In our common ver-sion it is twice translated “deep” and seven times “bottomless pit.” In the Revised Version it is consistently translated in all cases, “abyss.” The Greek word is “abussos.”
The word is explained in Rom. 10:7, where it is translated “deep” in the authorized version, and “abyss” in the Re-vised. “Who shall descend into the deep? (that is to bring up Christ from the dead).” The word abyss refers, there-fore, to the place of the dead.
Now the beast of the 13th chapter did not come up out of the abyss, or bottomless pit, but out of the sea. And the coming up out of the sea represents the beginning or birth to power of the seven-headed beast under its first head. This is the commonly accepted interpretation given this expression by interpreters, but better still, it is the interpretation given by the Lord.
In Dan. 7 the four beasts which "came up from the sea” are explained by the angel thus: “These great beasts, which are four, are four kings which shall arise out of the earth.” Dan. 7:3, 17. Coming up out of the “sea” is therefore a
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symbol of the rising to power of a kingdom—its beginning or birth to world-power.
But the beast of the 17th chapter does not come up out of the sea, but out of the abyss, or place of death. He must, therefore, have lived before and died. And this fact is clearly stated of him thus : “The beast which thou sawest, was, and is not ; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit and go into perdition. Rev. 17:8.
Since we have found that the bottomless pit, or abyss, is the place of the dead, and since this beast lived, and then ceased to live—was and was not—it follows logically that when he comes again he must come from the dead—from the abyss.
And this abyss is not the same as the lake of fire as Elliott and others teach; for he comes up “out of the abyss״ and goes “into perdition״ or the lake of fire. Rev. 17:8, and 19:20. And another proof that they are not the same is found in Rev. 20:14, where “death and hell״ (the grave) are “cast into the lake of fire.״
But while the beast which comes up from the sea is not the same as the beast that comes up out of the abyss, yet they are both heads of the same seven-headed beast. The beast from the sea is the beast as he appears under his first head, while the beast from the bottomless pit or abyss is the beast under one of his seven heads revived, or under his eighth head. The angel plainly tells John that the beast from the abyss is number eight.
“The beast that thou sawest was and is not, and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit and go into perdition.	. .
The beast that was and is not, even he is the eighth and is of the seven and goeth into perdition ” Rev. 17:8 and 11.
Although the coming up out of the sea of the beast of the 13th chapter under his first head, is not the same experience as the coming up out of the abyss of the beast under his eighth and last head, yet there is one of the heads of the 13th chapter beast which does have the same experience as the eighth head from the abyss.
After describing the beast from the sea as he appeared at his birth to power under his first head, John says: “I saw one of his heads as though it had been smitten unto death and his death stroke was healed, and all the world won-dered after the beast.״ Rev. 13:3 R. V. Here is a head that
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lived, was ‘‘smitten to death״ and then lives again, in perfect harmony with the same head in the 17th chapter which “was” then was not, and later comes up out of the grave and lives again. Another point of identification is in the fact that the world wonders after each when he lives the second time. See Rev. 17:8.
And now we are prepared to answer the question, “Is the leopard beast of the 13th chapter the same as the scarlet colored beast of the 17th chapter? ” And this is the answer:
The leopard beast is the seven-headed beast as he appeared at his birth from the sea under his first head. And this cor-responds with the facts of both Scripture and history. The woman, Babylon the Great, sits on each of the successive seven heads. Rev. 17:9. This woman is a symbol of the Roman Church, and the first kingdom that officially recog-nized and supported that phase of professing Christianity which recognized the bishop of Rome as head of the church, was the Greek Empire in the time of Justinian. And the Greek Empire then occupied the territory of the old Greek Empire symbolized in Dan. Ί, by the leopard beast.
The scarlet colored beast is the seven-headed beast under his last head. And this last head is numbered eight because it is that head of the beast which had lived and was smitten to death, comes up out of the grave after the seventh head, and carries the woman the second time; and consequently is numbered eight.
Therefore the leopard beast and the scarlet-colored beast are heads or phases of the same beast, but they are not the same heads or phases of the beast.
The leopard beast represents the beast under his first head, and the scarlet-colored beast represents the beast under his last head.
Some of our readers may think that these distinctions are not vital, but if they would read the books and see the pyramids of error which are built on basic blunders of these interpretations, they would see the importance of thoroughly understanding what Christ has testified concerning these things.
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CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE “FALSE PROPHET״ OF ARMAGEDDON, AND THE “FALSE” PROPHET”
OF ARABIA
Influenced, no doubt, by the similarity of names, some have reached the conclusion that the “false prophet” of Mo-hammedanism is the same as the “false prophet” of Revela-tion. Let us bring this theory to the touchstone of the Word.
Mohammedanism has occupied more than twelve centuries of history, having been founded about A. D. 622. It rose from an insignificant beginning to a world power, and at its zenith threatened the conquest of Europe by its military triumphs, and the supplanting of the papal cross by the Turk-ish crescent. Since then it has steadily waned until today its sun of aggressive religious and political power is set.
On the other hand the “false prophet” of Revelation has not yet begun to act his part on the international stage of prophecy. If this statement can be verified, then the teaching that Mohammed is the “false prophet” of Revelation is proved to be false.
1.	The “false prophet” of Rev. 16:13, and 19:20 is the same as the two-horned beast of Rev. 15:11-15. This is proven by the Scriptural facts that both work miracles, both work miracles to deceive, and both work miracles to deceive in the presence of the “beast” Comp. Rev. 13:14 with Rev. 19:20.
2.	The beast here mentioned is the healed head of Rev. 13:3 that was once smitten to death, and, as has been shown, is identical with the eighth head of the seven-headed beast of Rev. 17.
3.	This eighth and last manifestation of the series of beastly governments is a federation of nations (Rev. 17:1, 3, 15) that once carried the papal church and fell, and will arise again and seat the harlot on the throne of temporal power for a brief period, and then assist in her everlasting destruction. Rev. 17:16 R. V. and Rev. 18:6-8.
4.	No federation of nations exists today that openly recog-nizes and sustains the papal claim to temporal power, though
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it is not difficult to see its outlines emerging from the abyss of war and death.
5.	The two-horned beast or false prophet does not appear on the prophetic stage as actor and speaker until this future federation of nations which received the deadly wound, is healed—not until the beast shall ascend out of the abyss. As this point is most vital to the truth, and fatal to the error we are considering, the three scriptures which support it are here quoted :
“And he (the false prophet) exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him (in his presence R. V.), and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
“And (he) deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by the sword and did live ” Rev. 13:12, 14.
“And the beast was taken and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast and them that worship his image.״ Rev. 19:20.
In verse 11 of chapter 13 it is stated that the two-homed beast or false prophet, speaks as a dragon; but it does not tell when he speaks. Verses 12 and 14 tell when he speaks and what he speaks. And all his recorded acting and speak-ing are in the presence of the beast, the federation of nations composing the eighth and last kingdom which is to come up out of the abyss.
6.	The conclusion is therefore inevitable that Mohammed and Mohammedanism, which for centuries has figured so prominently on the stage of religion, politics, and prophecy, cannot be the false prophet of Revelation whose appearance on the stage as a prophetic actor and speaker is still future and awaits the arrival of the beast from the bottomless pit.
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CHAPTER XXIX.
PAPAL TESTIMONY THAT BABYLON IS ROME
Sufficient evidence has been produced to prove that the sym-bolic woman of the Apocalypse, Babylon the Great, drunk with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus, and having a king-dom over the kings of the earth, points to Rome, the center of a great apostasy from the true faith and the seat of anti-christ.
It may surprise some of our readers to know that the Roman church teaches the same view, the only difference being that the apostasy centered at Rome is yet future, and will be a falling away from the papacy.
In 1861 Cardinal Manning published a book entitled, “The Present Crisis of the Holy See Tested by Prophecy.״ The book is indorsed by Cardinal Newman. In it the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation regarding the antichrist are ex-plained and applied. Abundant evidence is produced by the Cardinal in proof that the teachers of the church of Rome declare that Babylon the Great is a symbol of ROME. The following quotations are presented in proof of this startling interpretation :
“We read of the city of Rome, that she said in the pride of her heart, ‘I sit as a queen, and am no widow, and sorrow I shall not see. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine, and she shall be burned with the fire, because God is strong who shall judge her* (Apoc. 18:7,8.) Some of the greatest writers of the church tell us that in all probability, in the last overthrow of the enemies of God, the city of Rome itself will be destroyed; it will be a second time punished by Almighty God as it was in the beginning. .	.	.
“The writers of the church tell us that in the latter days the city of Rome will probably become apostate from the church and Vicar of Jesus Christ ; and that Rome will again be punished, for he will depart from it; and the judgment of God will fall on the place from which he once reigned over the nations of the world. For what is it that makes Rome sacred, but the presence of the Vicar of Jesus Christ? What has it that should be dear in the sight of God save
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only the presence of the Vicar of His Son? Let the church of Christ depart from Rome, and Rome will be no more in the eyes of God than Jerusalem of old. Jerusalem, the holy city, chosen by God, was cast down and consumed by fire, because it crucified the Lord of glory ; and the city of Rome, which has been the seat of the Vicar of Jesus Christ for 1800 years, if it become apostate, like Jerusalem of old, will suffer a like condemnation. And, therefore, the writers of the church tell us that the city of Rome has no prerogative except only that the Vicar of Christ is there ; and if it become un-faithful, the same judgments which fell on Jerusalem, hal-lowed though it was by the presence of the Son of God, of the Master, and not the disciple only, shall fall likewise upon Rome. . .	.
“First, Malvenda, who writes expressly on the subject, states as the opinion of Livera, Gaspar Melus, Viegas, Suarez, Ballarmine, and Bosius, that Rome shall apostatize from the faith, drive away the Vicar of Christ, and return to its ancient paganism. Malvenda’s words are: ‘But Rome itself in the last times of the world will return to its ancient idolatry, power, and imperial greatness. It will cast out its pontiff, altogether apostatize from its Christian faith, terribly perse-cute the church, shed the blood of martyrs more cruelly than ever, and will recover its former state of abundant wealth, or even greater than it had under its first rulers.’
“Lessius says: ‘In the time of antichrist, Rome will be destroyed as we see openly from the thirteenth [xviii] chap-ter of the Apocalypse and again : ‘The woman whom thou sawest is the great city which hath a kingdom over the kings of the earth, in which is signified Rome in its impiety, such as it was in the time of St. John, and shall be again at the end of the world.’
“And Bellarmine (writes) : ‘In the time of antichrist, Rome shall be desolated and burnt, as we learn from the six-teenth verse of the seventeenth chapter of the Apocalypse.’ On which words the Jesuit Erbermann comments as follows : ‘We all confess with Bellarmine that the Roman people, a little before the end of the world, will return to paganism and drive out the Roman Pontiff.’
“Viegas, on the eighteenth chapter of the Apocalypse says : ‘Rome, in the last age of the world, after it has apostatized from the faith, will attain to great power and splendor of
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wealth, and its sway will be widely spread throughout the world, and flourish greatly. Living in luxury and the abund-anee of all things, it will worship idols, and be steeped in all kinds of superstition, and will pay honor to false gods. And because of the vast effusion of the blood of the martyrs which was shed under the emperors, God will most severely and justly avenge them, and it shall be utterly destroyed, and burned by a most terrible and afflicting conflagration/
“Finally, Cornelius a Lapide, sums up what may be said to be the common interpretation of theologians. Comment-ing on the same 18th chapter of the Apocalypse, he says: 1These things are to be understood of the city of Rome, not that which is, nor that which was, but that which shall be at the end of the world/
“Such they believe will be the history of Rome : pagan un-der the emperors, Christian under the apostles, faithful under the Pontiffs, apostate under the Revolution, and pagan under the antichrist.” pp. 8691־.
From the foregoing the reader will see that no time need be spent in proving to Romanists that Babylon the Great, which has a kingdom over the kings of the earth, is a symbol of Rome. No time need be wasted in proving that Rome is the seat of antichrist, the head of a great apostasy from the faith. No time need be spent in proving that this great apostasy centered in Rome, persecutes and puts to death the martyrs of Jesus, and for the shedding of this blood of the saints, the city of Rome with its persecuting system is to be utterly burned with fire.
All that is left to prove is that the papacy is that apostasy, and the millions of men and women which it has put to death for refusing to accept its idolatry, are the martyrs whose blood is charged against the symbolic Babylon the Great.
The cunning trick of crowding all this apostasy and per-secution into a brief period at the end of the world, which was invented to save the papists from the application of the prophecy, and which has trapped the guileless Futurist, is easily exposed. Babylon the great is not an ephemeral, short-lived actor appearing for a brief period just before the curtain falls on the drama of the ages, but according to the inter-preting angel, is an old age-lasting harlot who sits on seven successive mighty mountain kingdoms, and finally on one of these revived, making eight successive kingdoms over which 132
she reigns. How futile the attempt to telescope all these powerful empires into a brief period of forty-two months at the end of the age. And how foolish to attempt this impos-sible task when history plainly declares that a great apostasy from the faith, centered in Rome, has reigned over the moun-tain-thrones of Europe for more than twelve centuries; and during this long, dark period, has put to death millions of the saints and martyrs of Jesus. O peoples of the Protestant faith, heirs of the Reformation, and children of the martyrs of Jesus, be not deceived by this modern teaching that ignores the fulfillment of the prophecy in the dark and bloody papal past, and attempts to crowd all these long centuries of blood-letting into a brief three and a half years yet future, and charges it all against an infidel antichrist who will curse God and His Son and openly espouse the infidelity of paganism.
CHAPTER XXX.
PAPAL TESTIMONY TO ROME’S REIGN OVER THE NATIONS
“And the woman whom thou sawest is the great city which hath a kingdom over the kings of the earth.” R. V. margin.
The testimony of Jesus concerning the ruinous rule of Ro-manism over the nations for many centuries, we have dwelt upon at length. To this reign of papal Rome, secular his-tory bears unanimous testimony. A single example will suf-fice. Gibbon says :
“Under the sacerdotal monarchy of St. Peter, the nations began to resume the practice of seeking on the banks of the Tiber their kings, their laws, and the oracles of their fate.” Decline and Fall. Chap. 49.
Even though the case against a criminal be abundantly proved by many reliable witnesses, his confession of the charge is always considered valuable. Therefore we will introduce here Rome’s acknowledgment that her church is a kingdom centered in “the great city” Rome, and that this church kingdom has reigned over the kings of the earth for many centuries.
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In 1861, Cardinal Manning published the second edition of his work entitled “The Temporal Power of the Vicar of Jesus Christ,״ from which the quotations in the four follow-ing chapters are taken. Let the reader keep in mind that the testimony of Jesus declares that the woman “is the great city which hath a kingdom over the kings of the earth.״ Emphasis is by the author in all quotations.
“They (Protestant churches) put their doctrines before those who are willing to listen, and if they listen, and, by good fortune, agree with them, they remain with them: if not, they go their way. But where is the government over the willf Can they say, ‘In the name of God, and under pain of mortal sin, you must believe that God was incar-nate, and that our incarnate Lord offers himself in sacrifice upon the altar, that the sacraments instituted by the Son of God are seven, and that they all convey the grace of the Holy Ghost?’ Unless they have an authority over the will as well as over the intelligence, they are only a school, and are not a KINGDOM. Now this is a character entirely wanting in every society that cannot claim to govern in the name of our divine Lord, and with a divine voice; and therefore the church of God differs from every other society in this particular, that it is not only a communion of people who voluntarily unite together, but it is a KINGDOM. It has a legislature; the line of its councils for eighteen hun-dred years has sat, deliberated, and decreed with all the solemnity and the majesty of an imperial parliament. It has an executive which carries out and enforces the decrees of those councils with all the calmness and all the peremptory decision of an Imperial will. The church of God [Roman-1st], therefore, is an EMPIRE within [over] an empire; and the governors and princes of this world are jealous of it for that very reason. They say, ‘Nolumus hunc regnare super nos’—‘we will not have this man to reign over us.’ It is precisely because the Son of God, when he came, estab-lished a kingdom upon earth, that therefore, in every land, in every nation, the Catholic church governs with the au-thority of the universal church of God.״ pp. 155, 156.
This Kingdom Is Centered in Rome
“Can you find the Christianity of the world anywhere ex-cept as identified with that one great world-wide organization, the center of which is RomeV* p. 48.
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,‘If we believe that God has instituted his kingdom upon earth, and fixed the head and center of it in Rome, as of old in Jerusalem, it is God himself who by His divine action has taken Rome out of this category of mere natural society.״ p. 44.
It Reigns Over the Kings of the Earth
“Thus he [the pope] is in himself a personal sovereign, and can be subject to none ; and thus, also, he has, in virtue of his Pontificate, a divine authority over all other powers, personal or princely, that can be found among men ; forasmuch as when our divine Lord said to Peter, ‘Feed my sheep/ He gave the whole world into his hands. . . . Our divine Lord com-mitted to Peter and his successors the direction and guidance of the civil order which should arise in the world, of nations and their princes. It is his divine office to see, and his duty to enforce, obedience to the faith and to the laws of God. It is his official duty, therefore, to judge and to pronounce on the acts of individuals and peoples, of nations and their princes " pp. 181, 182.
“He sits as a sovereign among sovereigns, and as a sovereign of higher jurisdiction, as the guardian of the Christian faith and law among the people of other sovereignties. It is an amiable, but not a wise enthusiasm to say that, if he sat as an apostle among sovereigns, he would exert a greater power. As an apostle only, the Vicar of Jesus Christ never did, and never could sit among sovereigns as their judge. Would he sit there as the subject of any one of them, or of all together? And
if he be not subject he, ipso facto, becomes sovereign........
Therefore among the sovereigns of the nations he presides as one over whom none has power, as one who has power over all; for to him is divinely committed the custody of the new law, and the judgment of all, whether princes or people, who by baptism are subjects of that law.״ pp. 49, 50.
“For these two great powers, spiritual and temporal—the temporal power in the old heathen Empire of Rome, and the spiritual power in the new supernatural kingdom of God— met together. They were coincident as it were in their cir-cumference throughout the world ; but they met together in their center, which was in the city of Rome. There they stood, at first face to face in conflict, then side by side in peace.
. . . And this mighty conflict between the two sovereignties at last ended in the conversion of the empire to Christianity,
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and, therefore, in the enthronement of the church of God in a supremacy over the powers of the WHOLE WORLD. Then right had power and supremacy over might, and the divine authority prevailed over the authority of man; then these two powers were blended and fused together: they be-came one great authority, the emperor ruling from his throne within the sphere of his earthly jurisdiction, and the Supreme Pontiff ruling likewise from a throne of higher sovereignty over the nations of the world ” pp. 124, 125 and 126.
In the foregoing remarkable papal statements we have these facts plainly stated by Cardinal Manning :
1.	Rome is the great city
2.	which had a kingdom
3.	over the kings of the earth.
In the following remarkable prophetic statement we have these same facts plainly stated by Jesus Christ:
1.	“The woman ... is the great city
2.	which hath a kingdom
3.	over the kings of the earth.״
What more could any honest, intelligent Bible student ask in proof that Babylon the Great is a symbol of the great city Rome with its ecclesiasticaFKingdom which has reigned over the kings of the earth ? And yet there is more.
CHAPTER XXXI
PAPAL TESTIMONY THAT ROME REIGNED OVER FEDERATED KINGDOMS
The testimony of Jesus declares that Babylon the Great reigns over “many waters,״ many nations federated in a single political whole. The angel speaking for the Lord, said : “Come hither, I will show thee the judgment of the great harlot that sitteth upon many waters.״ Rev. 17:1. R. V.
The “many waters״ are explained to be many “peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues.״ v. 15. This proves that according to promise the angel showed John the woman sit-ting on “many waters״ or many nations. But what did John see ? “And he carried me away in the spirit into a wilderness : and I saw a woman sitting upon a scarlet colored beast, . . .
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having seven heads and ten horns.״ v. 3. Therefore the beast on which John saw the woman sitting must be com-posed of many nations. No, the many heads do not compose the many nations, because the beast has but one head at a time, representing successive kingdoms, and the many waters or many nations upon which John saw the woman sitting, was the eighth kingdom, the last manifestation of the beast.
“The beast that thou saw est was, and is not; and is about to come up out of the abyss and to go into perdition. . . . And the beast that was, and is not, is himself also an eighth, . . . and he goeth into perdition.״ Vs. 8 and 11. R. V.
Therefore John saw the eighth and last manifestation of the beast which will be composed of many waters, many na-tions, speaking many languages, which once existed, carried the woman, and fell; but which will come up out of the abyss and carry her once more.
Every student of history knows that this is a perfect de-scription of “The Holy Roman Empire״ which carried the Roman church and whose representatives Luther faced at the Diet of Worms.
And now let the reader note carefully the following papal testimony that the Roman church did create and reign over just such a federated kingdom:
“I say, secondly, that the Catholic church, which springs from the incarnation, discharges in the world the same func-tions in regard to the nations of the world as our divine Lord in regard to his disciples. It has a two-fold mission ; first to convert and to save individuals, one by one, as by the apostolic missions ; and next, having converted individuals and families, cities and nations, to assimilate, to change, to transform, to unite, to organize them like as our divine Lord did with his disciples. . . . And thus has arisen Christendom, the great Christian family spread throughout the world. And what was its productive cause and root ? The incarnation, and the visible church which springs from it. What is the trunk which supports Christendom to this day but that same visible church around which it was woven and entwinedf ’What, then, was the seed and stem of Christendom but the Holy See, the center of that church, the source of the spiritual pow-ers which have taken to themselves and assimilated the civil powers of the world ” The Temporal Power of the Vicar of Jesus Christ, pp. 36, 37.
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“But who, I ask, has been the leader, the guide, and the legislator of this Christian Europe—who but the Supreme Pontiff? . . . And these kingdoms, which, in the first in-stance, rose up under the power and influence of the Holy See, were consecrated, concentrated, and united into ONE GREAT CONFEDERACY, were held together by a gen-eral law, by a transcendent principle of community, which op-erated through them all, and bound them all to one center, and gave them all one arbitrator. pp. 44 and 45.
“No sooner was the material power which once reigned in Rome consecrated and sanctified by the investiture of the Vicar of Jesus Christ, with temporal sovereignty over the city where he dwelt, than he began to create throughout Europe the order of Christian civilization, Christian empires, Chris-tian monarchies, which confederated together, have main-tained the peace and order of the world from that hour to this. What we call Christendom, that is to say, the great family of Christian nations, Christian races organized and knit together with their princes and their legislatures, by in-ternational law, mutual contracts, treaties, diplomacy, and the like, which bind them together in one compact body—what is this but the security of the world against disorder, turbulence, and lawlessness?” pp. 126, 127.
“And therefore, as we believe that in the beginning the church, by its simple, spiritual power, subdued the world, and then by its two-fold power, spiritual and civil, created Chris-tendom, and has called into existence monarchies and king-doms, and empires, and confederations of empires, and has created even the law of nations by which the world is civilized and held together; so also we believe that its great mission shall go onward to the end, and that the church will be as it has been, and now is, the sole sustaining power of Christen-dom.” pp. 184, 185.
Thus we see that the testimony of the papacy that Rome has reigned over many waters, many nations, federated in one political system, is in perfect harmony with the testimony of Jesus that an ecclesiastical kingdom centered in a great city, would reign over many waters, many nations united in one kingdom. What more could any honest man ask to convince him that Babylon the Great symbolizes papal Rome? But there is more.
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CHAPTER XXXII
PAPAL TESTIMONY THAT ROME REIGNED FOR TWELVE CENTURIES
The testimony of the Lord in Dan. 7:25 concerning the persecuting “little horn,” is that he should “wear out the saints of the Most High״ “until a time, and times, and half a time.״ This same period appears in Rev. 12:14, where it is expressed in the same terms, “a time, and times, and half a time.״ In verse six of the same chapter the same period is expressed in days “a thousand two hundred and three score days.״
In the thirteenth chapter, verse five, the same period is ex-pressed in months, “forty and two months.״ Therefore the “little horn,״ the seven-headed dragon, and the seven-headed beast, all persecute the same saints at the same time and for the same length of time. The little horn which appears among the broken fragments of pagan Rome, wears out the saints for twelve hundred and sixty days; the seven-headed dragon, after the man-child is caught up to God and His throne, persecutes the sun-clothed woman for twelve hundred and sixty days; and the seven-headed beast inspired by the seven-headed dragon, makes “war with the saints״ for the same twelve hundred and sixty days, or forty-two months.
Time will not be taken here to produce the evidence that this period is prophetic and represents twelve hundred and sixty years; but papal testimony will be introduced to show that the persecuting papal woman confesses to have reigned over the kingdoms of the earth for at least twelve hundred years.
“I say, then, that it was God’s own act which liberated his Vicar upon earth from subjection to temporal power; and that for twelve hundred years the bishops of Rome have reigned as temporal princes. “The Temporal Power of the Vicar of Jesus Christ,” page 16.
“And yet it was a government of priests that created mod-ern Europe. It is the government of priests that now, for twelve hundred years, has reigned over the fair fabric of Christendom. Page 52.
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*‘And now for these twelve hundred years the peace, the perpetuity, and the fruitfulness of the Christian civilization of Europe, has been owing solely in its principle to this con-secration of the power and the authority of the great Empire of Rome, taken up of old, perpetuated, preserved, as I have said, by the salt which had been sprinkled from heaven and continued in the person of the Supreme Pontiff, and in that order of Christian civilization of which he has been the creator.” Page 127.
“The conversion of the empire to Christianity, and then its removal, its banishment into the far east, freed the Vicar of Jesus Christ from temporal subjection ; and then, by the action of the same Providence, he was clothed with the pre-rogatives of a true and proper local sovereignty over that state and territory and people so committed to his charge. From that hour, which I might say was fifteen hundred years ago, or, to speak within limit, I will say was twelve hundred, the Supreme Pontiff has been a true and proper sovereign, exercising the prerogatives of royalty committed to him by the will of God over the people to whom he is father in all things both spiritual and temporal.” Page 182.
And thus again the incriminating testimony of Jesus is in perfect harmony with the confessions of the papacy.
CHAPTER XXXIII
PAPAL PREDICTIONS OF THE RESTORATION OF THE RULE OF ROME
“It may be that the Vicars of Jesus Christ have only begun their toil and their tutelage of the monarchies and dynasties of princes and their royal houses; that a wider, larger, and weightier mission is before them to the nations and confeder-ation of commonwealths, and to the wayward tubulence of the popular will. . . . The Christendom of today may be no more than the blade, or at most the stalk, to the full com in the ear, which shall be hereafter. The Pontificate and the sovereignty of the Vicar of Jesus Christ will then reign with their divine authority over a fold which shall enclose nations as yet neither Christian nor civilized, to which all the Chris-140
tendom of the past is but as the first fruits to the harvest.״ The Temporal Power of the Vicar of Jesus Christ, page 53. Preface.
“The time will surely come, nay, is almost come already, when men will see that the only preservation of the civil order of the world from dissolution is the law of God, and the only record in which the law of God is to be found written is in the church of God ; for the church of God is the depository of that law, and the unity of the church is the bond of the unity of kingdoms. And they will return to see that the only authority whereby the church of God can apply this law is the Holy See. The Supreme Pontiff, reigning over the whole church, legislates and applies the law of God ; and therefore, strange as it may seem, the day will come when prince and people, nations and their statesmen, will recognize in the temporal power of the Holy See a divine provision for the maintenance and order of the Christian world, and will re-turn to it as the only solution of the conflicts by which the civil order of the world is broken, the only preservation against the rising flood of revolution. . . . The world has warred upon the temporal power of the Vicar of Jesus Christ. It has shaken the yoke and broken the bonds. In its liberty, it has fallen prostrate ; and by its fall its ‘sense is restored1 to it. pp. 235, 236.
“The mutation of races and kingdoms is the perpetual run-ning contrast to the immutability of the Holy See. It has re-newed its relations again and again with hordes and races, monarchies and republics, empires and confederations. It is no new thing for the Vicar of Jesus Christ to create and to inaugurate, to recognize and to renew, another form of Chris-tian society, or a new combination of ancient Europe. What has been, may be. We have an undying and an unbounded faith in the church of God. We have received ‘an immovable kingdom/ The changes around it pass like winds of the wild-emess. It outlives empires, as it outlives men. It is never old or young, but ‘yesterday, and today, and the same forever/ Heb. 13:8״ pp. 237-239.
Let the reader take notice of the testimony to the broken reign of Rome through the centuries, as pictured by the moun-tains and the valleys of Rev. 17, which appear in the two foregoing quotations.
“Kingdoms which sprung from the will of man have been 141
and are not ; but the church of God cannot be moved. Eight-een hundred years of conflict have thrown out into relief and light its divine stability, its imperishable life, its invisible unity, its infallible voice, its perpetual visibility, its temporal sovereignty, its two-fold prerogatives, spiritual and temporal, whereby it has ruled the destinies of the world, and will reign, even through conflict, to the end. Come what may, the church of God, both center and circumference, is immovable. The persecutions of a heathen world could not shake it; the persecutions of antichrist will be broken upon it. ‘Whoso-ever shall fall on this stone shall be broken ; but on whomso-ever it shall fall, it shall grind him to powder.’ Matt. 21:44. The storm which sweeps over the mountain clings to it for a moment, and seems to overpower it, but in an instant it is rent asunder and hurried away. .	. . Its pontiffs reigned
in Rome, all pagan as it was ; they have reigned over the city of the Seven Hills in all the alterations of its destinies—in its splendor and its desolation, in its sieges and its deliverances— Bishops of Rome, Successors of St. Peter, and Vicars of Jesus Christ. And as it has been said, so it shall be, in all and through all, unto the consummation of the world.
“Even now, in the dimness of the present, we see the out-lines and the preludes of a higher and more glorious manifes-tation of the kingdom of God on earth. They who will here-after look back upon the age of Pius IX. will see in its breadth and maturity that which we see only in its germ; and the faint lights which streak our sky, and even the clouds which darken it will be to them more luminous and splendid than the ages of the Leos and the Gregories are to us. Pages
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“Nothing can harm the church of God, nothing can harm the Vicar of Jesus Christ. For through His church God is with us ; and in the person of Pius IX., Jesus reigns on earth, and ‘He must reign until he hath put all enemies under his feet.’ ״ Page 245.
The prophetic eye of Him who sees the end from the be-ginning has beheld this final and fatal reign of Rome over the nations; and His listening ear has heard these proud boastings of the mother of harlots, and He has pictured in Rev. 17 this return to the mountain-throne of political power, and has penned in a single brief sentence these boastful claims : “I sit 142
a queen and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.״ Rev. 18:7. But to this proud boasting He answers:
״Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.״ Rev. 18:7, 8.
CHAPTER XXXIV
PAPAL TESTIMONY ON THE PERSECUTION OF HERETICS
Of the symbolic “little horn״ of Dan. 7, which rides the beast, it is written, “He shall wear out the saints of the Most High,״ “and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and half a time.״ R. V.
Of this same power symbolized by the harlot of Rev. 17:6, which rides the same beast, it is written, “And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.״ As the little horn used the beast, or earthly kingdoms which it rode, to wear out the saints ; so the harlot, Babylon the Great, uses the beast which she rides to shed the blood of the same saints.
We have seen that the papacy admits that Babylon the Great is a symbol of the city of Rome, the center of a great governing system which is an apostasy from the true faith. But it denies that it is a symbol of the city of Rome with its apostate papal system operating during the long centuries of the dark ages ; but insists that it is a symbol of Rome of the future when there shall be a great apostasy from the pope and the doctrines of the papacy.
The only remaining difference between the writer and the Romanist on that point is that the writer believes that the great apostasy from the truth centered in Rome is the Roman Church, which has for so many centuries corrupted the truth and cruelly persecuted God’s saints, which the papacy denies.
But there is another point on which we are in agreement. We are agreed that the Roman Church for more than twelve centuries used the kingdoms of earth to punish those who opposed her claim to be the true church, and taught doctrines
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contrary to her creed. Here is the acknowledgment from a Roman Catholic work entitled, “Half Hours with the Ser-vants of God,״ previously referred to.
“For many ages after the conversion of Constantine it was easier for the church to repress heresy by invoking the secular arms than by organizing tribunals of her own for the pur-pose. Reference to ecclesiastical history and the codes of Justinian and Theodosius shows that the emperors generally held as decided views on the pestilent nature of heresy and the necessity of extirpating it in the germ before it reached its hideous maturity as the popes themselves. They were willing to repress it, they took from the church the definition of what it was ; and they had old established tribunals armed with all the terrors of the law. The bishops, as a rule, had but to notify the appearance of heretics to the lay power, and the latter hastened to make inquiry, and, if necessary, to repress and punish. But in the thirteenth century a new race of tern-poral rulers rose to power. The Emperor Frederick II, per-haps had no Christian faith at all; John of England medi-tated, sooner than yield to the pope, openly to apostatize to Islam ; and Philip Augustus was refractory toward the church in various ways. The church was as clear as ever upon the necessity of repressing heretics, but the weapon—secular sov-ereignty—which she had hitherto employed for the purpose, seemed to be breaking in her hands. The time was come when she was to forge a weapon of her own ; to establish a tribunal the incorruptness and fidelity of which she could trust ; which, in the task of detecting and punishing those who misled their brethren, should employ all the minor forms of penal repres-sion, while still remitting to the secular arm the case of ob-stinate and incorrigible offenders. Thus arose the Inquisi-tion. . .
“The duties and powers of inquisitors are minutely laid down in the canon law, it being always assumed that the civil power will favor, or can be compelled to favor, their proceed-ings. Thus it is laid down, that they ‘have power to constrain all magistrates, even secular magistrates, to cause the statute against heretics to be observed/ and to require them to swear to do so ; also that they can ‘compel all magistrates and judges to execute their sentences, and these must obey on pain of ex-communication / also that inquisitors in causes of heresy ‘can use the secular arm/ and that 1all temporal rulers arc bound 144
to obey inquisitors in causes ot faith.* No such state of things as that here assumed now exists in any part of Europe; no-where does the state assist the church in putting down heresy ; it is therefore superfluous to describe regulations controlling jurisdiction, which has lost the medium in which it could work and live.״ Pages 5860־.
Let the reader note carefully that this papal authority boldly admits that the Roman church used the “secular arm״ to “punish״ “heretics״ and continued to use it against them for “many ages,” until the nations “grew refractory toward the church״ and refused to “repress and punish״ “heretics.״ Then the church “forged a weapon of her own,״ the Inquisi-tion. This awful tribunal continued to punish “those who misled their brethren״ for centuries longer until the bloody and diabolical institution was abolished by the civil rulers.
If these “heretics,״ which were punished by the papacy, were really God’s saints, and all Protestants believe they were, then we have the Roman Church for full 1260 years (the period symbolized by the 1260 days during which the persecution of the little horn was to wear out the saints of the Most High), doing the very work which the prophecy de-dared she would do.
Before commenting further, another papal witness will be introduced to show that the Romanists admit that they shed the blood of “heretics.” The following is from the papal notes appended to the Rhemish New Testament, “first pub-lished at Rheims, A. D. 1582.” This is the translation used by the Roman Church today. However, many of the original notes have been suppressed, this one among others, because they were being used by Protestants to show the persecuting spirit of that church. The writer has a book containing 500 pages of these suppressed notes.
In commenting on the harlot of Rev. 17:6, who is described as drunken with the blood of the saints, we find this note :
“The Protestants foolishly expound it of Rome, for that they put heretics to death, and allow of their punishment in other countries; but their blood is not called the blood of saints, no more than the blood of thieves, man-killers, and other malefactors; for the shedding of which, by order of justice, no commonwealth shall answer.״ Notes of the Douay Bible, pages 490 and 491.
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And now let us see how near we are agreed with the papists on the points under consideration.
1.	We are agreed that the church of Rome used the “secu־ lar arm,״ the governments of the nations, to punish and put to death “heretics.״
2.	We agree that she used the nations to “repress and pun-ish״ “heretics״ for full 1260 years, from the sixth century, to the abolition of the Inquisition in the end of the eighteenth century.
On only one point are we in disagreement. The Roman Church claims that the men and women whom she put to death were “heretics,״ that is, enemies of the “true faith,״ and should be classed with “thieves, man-killers and other malefactors.״
The reader must see that if the blood which the papists ad-mit they shed during 1260 years, was not the “blood of thieves, man-killers, and other malefactors,״ but “the blood of the saints,״ “the blood of the martyrs of Jesus,״ then the pre-dictions of Dan. 7 and Rev. 17 find a perfect fulfillment in the persecutions of the saints by the Roman Church, both as to time, 1260 years, and to the “medium,״ the “lay power״ or kingdoms of earth.
Who were these “heretics״ whose blood they admit they shed through many centuries? Were they malefactors like “thieves and man-slayers?” Let our Romanist friends pick out the most earnest, God-fearing, loving, merciful, helpful, Presbyterians, Baptists, Episcopalians, or Lutherans of their acquaintance, and they will have found the kind of people whom their church called “heretics״ and put to death by mil-lions for a period of more than twelve centuries.
These neighbors believe and teach the same simple story of free salvation that the men and women believed and taught and lived, who were put to death as malefactors. It was the Wycliffites, the Waldenses, the Albigences, Hugenots, Hus-sites, and Lutherans, who were put to death for their faith. And the very best of the Protestants of today are the legiti-mate descendants, both as to faith and practice of these mar-tyrs. If these ancients were “malefactors,״ like “thieves and man-slayers,״ whose blood ought to be shed, then these neigh-bors of ours should be put to death for the same reason.
Turning to the Futurists: Do you not believe that these millions of martyrs whom the papists confess to have slain 146
during more than twelve centuries, were the martyrs of Jesus? Of course you do. Then has not the prophecy of Dan. 7 and Rev. 13 and 17 had a marvellously accurate fulfillment in the long centuries of papal persecution ? Why ignore the awful blood-shedding of these dark ages of papal supremacy and look for all these predictions to be fulfilled in a brief period of three and a half years at the close of the age.
We sympathize with the honest, intelligent Futurist who cannot agree with the teachers of the extreme wing of the Historical School who teach that all the persecutions predicted in the prophecy are in the past, who tell us that the beast and his image, the seven last plagues, the reign of the bloody har-lot are all in the past. We join with you in rejecting this error, and we believe with you that there is a time of great tribulation still future in which these powers will unite to per-secute the remnant because they keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. But we cannot agree with you, in the face of the bloody persecutions of the centuries past, that these predicted powers have never yet appeared in the world, and when they do appear they will be confined to a brief period of forty-two literal months.
Such a theory is unscriptural, unreasonable and ignores the plainest facts of history, besides condemning the teaching of all the martyrs and reformers.
CHAPTER XXXV
THE FALLACIES OF THE FUTURISTS
We wish to impress our readers with the great illuminât-ing Bible truth, presented in this series of studies, namely, the continuity and long continuance of the powers symbolized by the dragon, the beast, the sun-clothed woman and the har-lot. Although they figure in the closing events of the age, they are not new, previously unknown actors, and are not confined to the last forty-two months of the age. But on the other hand, they are all powers which have been in the world for centuries. And this truth, if understood and applied, will brush away at one sweep the whole system of the Futurist in-terpretation, which is today sweeping almost everything before it among those who are interested in prophetic study.
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Let it be understood that the Futurists teach that the “man of sin״ described by Paul in 1 Thess. 4 is a power that has not yet appeared in the world, and will not be manifest until “he who now letteth (interpreted to mean the Holy Spirit!) shall be taken out of the way.”
Regarding the beast of Rev. 13 and 17, the Futurist tells us that he has never yet appeared in the world ; and when he does appear his activity will be confined to forty-two literal months.
Babylon the great is also a power unknown to the eighteen centuries past, but will appear as a companion of the beast only for the brief period of three and a half years. But Babylon the great is not confined to the last days, but is a power whose harlot life and bloody work span the centuries. “The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sitteth, and they are seven kings.״ Rev. 17:9, 10, R. V. Thus the fallen woman is the symbol of a power which has ridden a chain of seven successive mountain-kingdoms span-ning the centuries. And to complete her career, one of the seven mountain-thrones that once supported her and fell, re-vives again and carries her for the eighth and last time, mak-ing eight mighty empires which in succession carry the woman.
Reader, is it not worse than folly to attempt to crowd these eight powerful kingdoms into forty-two months of literal time? Let it be noticed that the woman has a continuous career from her first to her final sitting. The mountain-thrones on which she sits, rise and fall, but the harlot lives on. Like the field general who changes mounts as one after another is shot from under him, so the woman changes her mountain-thrones as one after another falls under her cursing crushing weight.
Likewise the beast is not a disconnected, isolated, last-day actor only. As before shown, when he appears in the final act, he is the eighth in a chain of mountain-kingdoms, the reappearing of one of the first five. As all of the seven heads appear on one body, so the seven kingdoms all appear in one body politic, all in the same territory, and among the same people, the people of the broken body of the old Roman Empire.
Let it be carefully noted that the beast of the third angel’s message, of the seven last plagues, and of Armageddon, is not a new blasphemous power, but the revival of one of a series of 148
seven, on all of which appear names of blasphemy. The blasphemy of the eighth and last is nothing new in blasphemy. It is but a continuance of the blasphemy of all his seven pre-decessors. And as before shown, this blasphemy lies in the claim common to all the kingdoms, that they are the king-dom of God, when in fact they are all inspired by the power of the satanic serpent.
Again the reader is asked to note how this plain truth of both Scripture and history utterly annihilates the theory of the Futurist which makes the beast a new, unconnected, previ-ously unknown power whose career is confined to a brief period of forty-two months.
And what is true of the seven-headed beast and the blood-drunken harlot, is also true of the seven-headed dragon. He is not a short-lived actor whose work is confined to the sunset of the age. He first appears in the prophecy as the enemy of the sun-clothed woman, waiting to destroy her Son who was born to rule the nations with a rod of iron, and who was caught up to God and His throne. This Son is plainly de-dared in Rev. 13:19 and 16 to be the “Word of God,״ “the King of kings.״
Soon after the ascension of Christ, the church, symbolized by the sun-clothed woman, went into the wilderness pursued by the dragon, where she is preserved from destruction for a period of 1260 days, or forty-two months. That this period is symbolic of 1260 years, as the seventy weeks of Dan. 9:24 represent 490 years, it seems folly to deny. Has satan perse-cuted the church only forty-two months since the ascension of Christ? Or has he persecuted her not at all as yet, but will persecute her for a brief period of forty-two months after the bride has been caught away? No, no. The dragon, through the beast under his healed head, his eighth and last, persecutes the two witnesses and the remnant of the seed of the sun-clothed woman after the long period of 1260 years is in the past. Rev. 11:3 and 7.
Therefore it is clearly proved that the seven-headed dragon, like the harlot woman and the seven-headed beasts, is a sym-bol of the satanic persecution of the saints of God down through the Christian centuries.
The seven-headed beast persecutes the saints for forty-two months, and then under his eighth head persecutes the rem-nant for a brief period. The seven-headed dragon, which the
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Lord twice declares is 1*the devil and satan,״ persecutes the same saints for the same forty-two months, and then makes war on the remnant. And as before shown, the seven-headed dragon or satan, since he gives his power to the seven-headed beast, is the life and persecuting spirit of each and all the heads of the beast. The devil does not have seven heads all at once, and neither does the beast. All this symbolism is in-tended to teach is that each one of these successive kingdoms was inspired in its persecution by the spirit of satan.
It is therefore plain that the sun-clothed woman and her harlot enemies, the seven-headed beast and the seven-headed dragon, each and all are symbols of powers which span the centuries ;and are not ephemeral characters which act only on a temporary stage for a brief period of forty-two months in the twilight of the ages.
The interpreters of the historical school are in serious error when they teach that these symbols cover centuries of history, but have all been fulfilled in the events of the past. The Futurist is right when he insists that there is a great tribuía-tion yet to come, but he is wrong when he confines all the actors to forty-two months yet future, and ignores the plain facts of both history and Scripture which declare that their activities also cover the centuries of bloody persecution now past .
The only new, and before unknown actors which appear in the final scene, are the two-horned beast or false prophet, and the image of the eighth and last head of the beast, which the false prophet is instrumental in making.
The next chapter will answer the objection of the Futurist and the papist that the papacy does not fulfill the prophecy as to blasphemy and the denial that Christ has come in the flesh.
CHAPTER XXXVI
PAPAL DENIAL THAT CHRIST HAS COME IN THE FLESH
Romanists and Futurists unite in denying that the papacy fulfills the descriptions of antichrist because, among other things, antichrist denies the Father and the Son, denies that Christ is come in the flesh and blasphemes God and His saints, 150
while, they say, the Roman church is guilty of none of these.
The fatal blunder of these interpreters lies in the belief that these characteristics of antichrist will be of the nature of blatant infidel rcvilings, as if the very elect would be deceived by such open, crude and undisguised denial of God and Christ ! These men seem to overlook the Scripture statement that the man of sin is a satanic disguise in which the enemy of all truth works “with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish ; because they receive not the love of the truth that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie; that they all might be damned who believe not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.2 ״ Thess. 2:912־.
Let the reader weigh well the words, “all deceivableness״ and "strong delusion!’ Since Satan, in Paul’s day, was already “transformed into an angel of light” and his apostles transformed “into apostles of Christ,”—“ministers of right-eousness,” why are not men consistent with the warning of the Word ? Why do they not look for the antichrist’s decep-tion, his strong delusions, under “sheep’s clothing,” the deceiv-ing cloak of Christianity? And this is precisely what the papacy has been for more than twelve centuries. Under this cloak of Christianity, and by means of her “sorceries were all the nations deceived.” Rev. 18:23.
But does the papacy “deny the Father and the Son?” There is more than one way that men can deny God. Speaking of the Christian apostasy which characterizes the professedly Christian church in the last days, Paul in the Spirit, charac-terizes the professors as “having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof.” 2 Tim. 3:5. Again in Titus 1:16 the same Greek word appears in the same setting. Speaking of a certain class of professing Christians, Paul writes: “They profess that they know God, but in works they deny Him ” Again Peter, in the Spirit, predicts the rise of false teachers in the Christian church, and uses the same Greek word in describing their deceiving work, that John does in describing the work of antichrist. The passage is as fol-lows:
“But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall
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bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.2 ״ Pet. 2:L
And now since “Satan is transformed into an angel of light״ and his “ministers״ claim to be “apostles of Christ,״ and since these apostles deny both the Father and the Son while professing to teach the gospel, why not be consistent and look for this kind of denying instead of expecting to see a raw infidel cursing and reviling God ?
But do not the papists teach that Christ has come in the flesh ? No, while professing to teach this vital doctrine they in fact deny it in the modern dogma of the immaculate con-ception. This papal error was proclaimed as an infallible truth “by Pope Pius IX, on the feast of the conception, De-cember 8, 1854, in the church of St. Peter and in the pres-ence of more than 200 cardinals, bishops and other dignita-ries.״
This papal doctrine refers not to the conception of Christ, but to the conception of His mother Mary. It was Mary who, according to this dogma, was “in the first moment of her conception״ “preserved immaculate from all stain of origi-nal sin.״
According to this “infallible״ doctrine, Mary is declared free from the fall which was shared by all the other sons and daughters of Adam. It distinctly contradicts the Scripture statements, “by one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners.” “By the offense of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation.״ Rom. 5:1819־.
If Mary was preserved from all stain of original sin, she must have inherited different flesh from the rest of the chik dren of fallen Adam. But she could not have inherited this immaculate flesh from her parents because their flesh was stained with original sin. It follows that if Mary inherited from her parents flesh different from the fallen race, her parents must in some way come into possession of flesh differ-ent from the rest of Adam’s children. “St. Bernard, the greatest doctor and saint of his age,” opposed the doctrine of the immaculate conception which was advocated by “the canons of Lyons, who introduced the festival of the conception of the immaculate Mary, December 8, 1139.” He argued that “on the same ground they might appoint festivals for the conception of the mother, grandmother, and great-grand-152
mother of Mary, and so on back to the beginning.״ Schaff-Harzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Article, The Immaculate Conception.
But the Romanists would not dare claim freedom from the fall for all the ancestors of Mary, because the Bible records present some very sinful characters in the lineage of Mary. How then do they escape the dilemma and save Mary from coming in the flesh of common humanity ? It is accomplished by having her parents come into possession of other flesh than that of the children of men. To do this they have “St. Joachim and St. Anne,״ regarding whom the Bible is utterly silent, but whom their tradition asserts were the father and mother of Mary,—they have them, by penance and good works, so purify their flesh before the conception of Mary that they were able to transmit to her unfallen, sinless flesh.
In 1894 the writer visited the shrine of St. Anne at Beaupre, Quebec, where thousands of pilgrims resort every year to worship at her shrine and to receive of her healing power. At the altar of the church, enclosed in a glass case, is purported to be a bone of St. Anne, which glass case the priest rubs over the afflicted pilgrim, as he kneels before the altar rail. It was here that I purchased at the papal book store a work entitled “Good St. Anne.״ In this book, en-dorsed by Cardinal Tascherau, Archbishop of Quebec, and by “J. H. P. Kockerols, C. SS. R. Superior of the Belgian Province,״ we are told how St. Anne and St. Joachim ac-complished the miracle of transforming their sinful flesh into immaculate flesh. Here is the story :
“However holy Joachim and Anne were at the time of their marriage, they were not yet sufficiently so to give such a daughter as Mary to the world. By multiplying their fasts, their alms, through so many long years, in order to ob-tain this grace from God’s goodness, they made rapid progress in perfection and in the love of God, and at length arrived at the degree of purity and holiness desired by the Holy Ghost.״ Page 158.
“Thus mortification and sacrifice had done its work in St. Anne and St. Joachim, purifying, refining, and not leaving in them even a shadow of defilement. God could take of that pre-sanctified earth to create His well beloved daughter.״ Page 72.
And this is the way Mary came into possession of her im-153
maculate conception. This places Mary far above the rest of the children of fallen Adam. She comes in a flesh that is not the flesh of other mortals, but, as this blasphemous book says, in a flesh, “purer than the angels, holier than the archangels.״ It exalts her to a position “higher than the thrones, more powerful than the dominions, more enlightened than the cherubims, more inflamed with divine love than the sera-phims.” “She [Anne] is the mother of her [Mary] who is called and who is the oldest daughter of the Father, the true mother of the Son, the spouse of the Holy Ghost. She is the mother of her who is *full of grace,’ of her who has bestowed and still bestows ransom on the captive, strength to the weak, sight to the blind, consolation to the afflicted, hope to the de-sponding, and overflowing joy to the angels, human flesh to the divine Word.” Page 72. All emphasis by the author.
And now the reader must perceive the object of this bias-phemous scheme. It was for the purpose of preventing Christ from coming in the flesh of fallen humanity.
One more quotation will be submitted on this vital point:
“From the marriage just contracted would be bom Mary, and from Mary the Saviour Himself. And thus the blood of Joachim and Anne, passing through the pure heart and veins of Mary, was to become the blood of Jesus ... the blood transmitted by Joachim and Anne to Mary was to form that divine flesh. Pages 152, 153.
According to this scheme of the mystery of iniquity, Christ did not come in the flesh—the only flesh known to the fallen race—but in "divine flesh/' a flesh “purer than the angels” and “holier than the archangels.” This, of course, puts Christ far away and out of reach of sinful men, so that he cannot be approached without a human ladder. And so we read on page 73: “Anne is the mother of her who is the ladder to heaven, the anchor of the shipwrecked, the star of the mariner, the bridge whereby God crossed the abyss which separated us from Him.”
By this papal scheme Christ, who is the “one Mediator be-tween God and men,” [ 1 Tim. 2:5] is pushed so far away out of touch with the sinner that Mary and the saints must mediate between the sinner and Christ. And so we have these words:
“Mary is our great and universal mediatrix with Jesus Christ. It is she who renders our prayers agreeable to him
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and seconds them with her all powerful intercession; it is she who opens the treasurehouse of the merits of Jesus Christ when she will, and as she will, and in favor of whom she will. So that whoever merits Mary’s favor is certain of having his name written in the book of the predestined, and this doctrine is held by all the saints.״ Page 62.
And consequently we have such idolatrous prayers as the following :
“0 glorious parents of the Queen of Mercy [Mary] ; she will never refuse to pray for those recommended to her by you ! Vouchsafe then, to recommend me to her and beg of her to inscribe me among her servants and clients : thereby shall 1 be inscribed in the book of life. If you will do this, Mary will grant me her favor, and I shall be saved. . . . Good St. Anne, plead for me with Mary.״ Page 167.
Nothing is more plainly taught in the Scriptures of truth than that Christ came in the flesh, the only flesh known to humanity. And here follows some of the scriptures that teach this important truth.
“For as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that hath the power of death that is the devil, . . . For verily he took not on him the nature of angels ; but he took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succor them that are “tempted.״ Heb. 2:1418־. “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities ; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.״ Heb. 4:15.
Of the trinity of tempters—the world, the flesh and the devil—the temptations which proceed from the flesh are un-surpassed. “But of all the foes we meet, none so apt to turn our feet ; none betray us into sin like the foes we have within.״ If the flesh in which Christ came was “purer than angels, holier than archangels,״ then He did not come in our flesh and was not “tempted in all points like as we are.״
“God sent his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.״ Rom. 8:3. Surely the flesh in which Christ condemned sin was the sinful flesh in
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which He was sent. No other but sinful flesh needed His sin-cleansing power. In Rom. 9:3, Paul speaks of the unbeliev-ing Jews as “my kinsmen according to the flesh.״ No one will deny that this expression teaches that Paul was bom of Jewish parents and came in Jewish flesh. In the next verse but one we have the identical Greek expression used of the birth of Christ. “From whom is that anointed one accord-ing to the flesh " kata sarta. Emphatic Diaglot.
Thus it is abundantly proved that Christ did come in the flesh, the only flesh in this fallen world in which He could come, and the only flesh in which He was needed to condemn sin.
And now since Peter tells us in the quotation before cited that it is by “damnable heresies” that “false teachers” “deny the Lord,” it must be evident to the reader that in this damna-ble heresy of the Romanists they deny both the Father and the Son.
By the foregoing it is abundantly proven that Romanists do deny that Christ has come in the flesh. And this denial lays the foundation for the sin of Mariolatry, and places Christ the “one Mediator between God and man,” so far removed from the seeking sinner that it becomes necessary in order to reach Him, to provide a human ladder of myriads of living priests and dead saints.
How can men be blind to all these deceptions of Satan which, through the Roman church, have deceived untold millions in centuries past, and are deceiving millions today— how can they pass all these by and focus their gaze on a future, short-lived, infidel antichrist who will deceive all the world by openly, and without the deceiving cloak of Chris-tianity, blaspheming God and denying the fundamental doc-trines of Christianity !
CHAPTER XXXVII PAPAL BLASPHEMY
Because the “little horn” of Dan. 7, speaks “great words against the Most High,” because antichrist blasphemes God ; the Romanists and the Futurists declare that the papacy can-not be the antichrist because it does not blaspheme God.
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Hence, both are looking for the coming of an infidel anti-christ who will literally curse God. But would such a wolf in wolfs clothing be a deception to any Christian? Surely not. But antichrist deceives if possible the very elect. This compels us to cast aside all crude blaspheming of common infidelity, and look for a more deceptive kind of blasphemy. And when we examine the Scriptures we find another sort of blasphemy which wonderfully fits and fulfills the prophecy. In Rev. 2:9 we read these significant words to the church in Smyrna :
“I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty (but thou art rich), and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of satan.״
Here we have a divine definition of blasphemy. Here is a synagogue or congregation claiming to be the true people of God, but in fact it is the church of the devil ; and in claiming to be the synagogue of the Lord when it is the synagogue of Satan, it blasphemes God according to this testimony of ״the faithful and true witness.״
And this kind of blasphemy was recognized by the Jews. When Christ told them that He was one with the Father, they attempted to stone Him. When He asked them for what good work they were about to stone Him, they an-swered :
“For a good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemyt and because that thou being a man makest thyself God.״
. . . “Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said I am the son of Godf John 10:33, 36.
Again in Mark 2:57־ we have the record of Chrisfs heal-ing of the sick of the palsy and His statement to the man, “Thy sins be forgiven thee״; to which the Pharisees said in their hearts, “Why doth this man speak blasphemiesf Who can forgive sins but God only ?”
These three scriptures give a clear understanding of the kind of plasphemy which is attributed to antichrist in the testimony of Jesus. Had the statement of Christ “I and my Father are one״ been false, had He not been the Son of God, and had He not had power on earth to forgive sins, then His claims would have been blasphemy. Hence according to the Scripture definition of blasphemy, anyone claiming divine office or power when the claim is false, or any church or syna-
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gogue claiming to be the church of God when it is not, is guilty of blasphemy.
And in this sense the little horn speaks great words against the Most High. The word here translated “against” is a Chaldean word and occurs in but one other passage of scrip-ture, Dan. 6:5, where it is translated “concerning” “We ehall not And any occasion against this Daniel, except it be against him concerning his God.״ If the same word in Dan. 7:25 had been translated in the same way, it would have read: “He shall speak great words concerning the Most High.” These words to fulfil the prophecy, do not need to be spoken in open opposition to God, but only words concerning the Most High.
And now to the application: Does the Roman Church claim to be the only true church ? Yes, in the most persistent and positive manner. But is she the one only true church? If she is not, then in claiming that she is, according to the Bible definition of blasphemy, she is guilty of blasphemy, as sure as were those cited in the message to the church of Smyrna. And it is our settled belief that the message to the church of Smyrna is prophetic, and that this divine charge of blasphemy is directed against the Romish Church.
The papacy claims that its head, the pope, is infallible and cannot err when he speaks excathedra, that is by authority of his position as head of the church. Is he? If not, then his claim is nothing short of the most blatant blasphemy.
The pope claims to be the vicegerent of Christ, and to hold the keys of heaven, earth, and hell. But is he the vicar of Christ? Does he hold the keys for everlasting weal or woe on behalf of the whole fallen world ? If not, then the words of the claim are great words concerning the Most High, and are the very summit of dreadful, daring blasphemy.
And now we appeal to the candor and intelligence of the members of the Futurist school who reject these false claims of the papacy. Do not the papists in these heaven-daring claims, meet and wonderfully fulfil the prophecies which pre-diet that the antichrist would speak great words concerning the Most High ?
And just as the little horn represents the papal church, so does the beast on which the little horn appears, represent the papal political kingdom or government which supports the church. And just as the church is charged in Dan. 7 with 158
speaking great words concerning the Most High, so in Rev. 13 the beast which in Rev. 17 is pictured as carrying the same little horn under the symbol of a harlot, is charged with bias-pheming God.
And since we found from Rev. 2:9 that when a church claims to be the church of God, when it is the synagogue of Satan, it is guilty of blaspheming God, it follows that when a kingdom claims to be the kingdom of God, when it is the kingdom of Satan, it is also guilty of blaspheming God.
The Holy Roman Empire, as we have shown, claimed to be the kingdom of God ; and its king claimed to be the earthly king of the kingdom of God ; its capital, the capital of the kingdom of God, and its citizens the citizens of the kingdom of God. And now since the Lord plainly tells us that the devil gave this beast, his seat and great authority, it follows that his seat was “Satan’s seat” (Rev. 2:13), and his power Satan’s power. And consequently when this kingdom was Satan’s kingdom and not the kingdom of God, and when its seat or sanctuary was Satan’s seat and not God’s dwelling-place, and when its citizens were the citizens of Satan’s king-dom ; it follows that this beastly, Satanic kingdom, in making this awful claim, “opened its mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme His name, His tabernacle and them that dwell in heaven.” Rev. 13:6.
What a blasphemous misrepresentation of God, His dwell-ing place, and His heavenly and holy people, for the blood-thirsty, harlot-ridden kingdom of satan to claim that it was God’s kingdom, its king, God’s king, its capital, God’s capital, and its citizens, the citizens of the kingdom of God !
O why will men close their eyes to this marvelous fulfill-ment of the prophecy in the blasphemous claims of the Roman Church, which by these claims has deceived untold millions —why do they ignore all this fulfilled prophecy and look to the future for something altogether new, to an antichrist whose blasphemy will be open and defiant opposition to God, the blasphemous barkings of a wolf in wolf’s clothing!
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CHAPTER XXXVIII
CARDINAL MANNING AND “THE MAN OF SIN״״
Next in importance to the direct evidence in favor of truth are the admissions of its enemies.
The Romanists charge that the application to the papacy of the prophesies relating to the antichrist and the man of sin is a false and foolish application. However, in their own interpretation they make some admissions that are fatal to their cause and favorable to the Protestant view. Cardinal Manning in his work, “The Present Crisis of the Holy See Tested by Prophecy,” admits that the “little horn” of Dan. 7 is identical with the “man of sin” of 2 Thess. 2. Here is his statement :
“First of all, let us consider more particularly what is the character of *this wicked one/ or antichrist, who shall come. The word used by St. Paul in this place signifies *the lawless one/—the one who is without law, who is not subject to the law of God or of man, whose only law is his own will, to whom the license of his own will is the sole and only rule which he knows or obeys. The Greek word is ‘ho anomos/ the lawless, or licentious one. Now in the book of the prophet Daniel there is a prophecy, almost identical in terms, where he foretells that there shall arise in the latter ages of the world a king ‘who shall do according to his own will/ who shall exalt himself above all that is called God, who *shall speak great words against the High one/ (Dan. 7:25.) This is almost word for word the prophecy of St. Paul, which shows us that St. Paul was literally quoting or para-phrasing the prophecy of Daniel.” P. 37.
The next important admission is that the fourth beast of Dan. 7, on which the little horn appears, and the power which “let” or hindered the manifestation of “the man of sin,” is the old pagan Roman empire. The quotation fol-lows:
“First, then, the power of the heathen empire of Rome was undoubtedly the great barrier against the outbreak of the spirit of lawless disorder; for, as we know, it was the principle of unity by which the nations of the world were held together. It organized and combined them under the
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authority of one legislature, of one mighty executive, and of one great sovereignty, with a jurisdiction springing from one fountain, administered by tribunals all over the world. The peace of nations was maintained by the presence of standing armies; the legions of Rome occupied the circumference of the world. The military roads which sprang from Rome traversed all the earth ; the whole world was as it were held in peace and in tranquility by the universal presence of this mighty heathen empire. It was ‘exceedingly terrible/ accord-ing to the prophecies of Daniel (Dan. 7:19) ; it was as it were of iron, beating down and subduing the nations, holding them in subjugation, and thereby, as with a rod of iron, giv-ing peace to the world. There is no doubt that so long as the Roman Empire continued in its strength, it was impossible for the principle of revolution and disorder to gain head, and therefore these early Christian writers were perfectly correct in interpreting the hindrance to this spirit of lawless-ness to be the spirit of order, of government, of authority, and of an iron justice which ruled the nations of the world.״ Id. pp. 39 and 40.
Another serious admission of truth is that the “falling away״ which produces the “man of sin״ is an apostasy from the true faith.
“First, then, what is the revolt? In the original it is called ‘apostasia/ ‘an apostasy/ ... It seems to need little proof that this revolt or apostasy is a separation, not from the civil, but from the spiritual order and authority; for the sacred writers, again and again, speak of such a spir-itual separation; and in one place St. Paul seems expressly to declare the meaning of this word. He forewarns St. Timothy that in the later days, .	.	. ‘some shall de-
part or apostatize from the faith / and it seems evident that the same spiritual falling away is intended by the apostasy in this place.״ Pp. 3 and 4.
And now we are agreed that
1.	The little horn of Daniel 7 and the “man of sin״ are the same power; and that
2.	They represent an apostasy from the truth.
3.	And this apostasy from the truth, which was already working in PauPs day, was hindered by the presence of the pagan Roman Empire; and
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4.	This apostasy would appear as soon as that empire should be taken out of the way.
The next link in the chain of evidence that identifies the little horn and the man of sin with the papacy, is the fact, admitted by the Cardinal, that the hindering Roman Empire was taken out of the way by the torch and sword of the northern barbarians. Here is his statement from another of his works:
,‘Perhaps you may think that it was this organization (the pagan Roman Empire) which the church took possession of. No; before the church assumed its civil mission to create modern Europe, the seven vials from heaven were poured out upon that empire, and the seven trumpets blew, and the four winds of heaven were let loose, and the great angel cast the mighty stone into the sea, and said, ,Babylon the great is fallen;״ for that great empire was ravaged, desolated, and pillaged by the invasion of the barbarians, by hordes from every quarter, until there remained of all its structures scarcely anything but mutilated ruins of its greatness, its aqueducts, its military roads, the Flavian amphitheatre, and the Pantheon. Before Almighty God sent his church out into the world on its civil mission, the whole of that vast empire was burnt up by fire and deluged by blood. Italy became a desolation, and Africa was abandoned to itself, and Britain was cast off, and Spain was forgotten; for the em-pire departed to Constantinople: the Byzantine emperors were feeble and helpless; they were harassed by the assaults of the Oriental tribes and Italy they were no longer able even to protect. This is what all historians tell us. There was a time when even Rome itself is said to have been with-out a living inhabitant, when foxes ran over the Palatine Hill, and their voice alone was heard in the golden house of the Caesars. Such was Rome, this mighty Rome, which once had some two millions of inhabitants, and twelve miles of diameter stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to the Sabine Hills—it was gone to desolation. And for centuries after this it was ever and again the object of attack. It was besieged, it was sacked, it was ruined again and again. All its civil power had departed; and its sovereignty existed no more.״ The Temporal Power of the Vicar of Jesus Christ, Pp. 38 and 39.
The last link in this chain of admissions which binds the 162
papacy to the proud, lawless, persecuting little horn and the same self-exalting, deceiving, soul-destroying ‘‘man of sin,” is the further fact, admitted by the Cardinal, that it was after the pagan Roman Empire was thus taken away that the papacy appeared among the ruins as a political power ruling over the fragments of the broken empire.
“The interval between thè failure of the empire in Italy and the confirmation of the Temporal Sovereignty of the Pontiffs was an interregnum, nor was it of long duration. In the three hundred years before the translation of the em-pire, a power had grown up far more imperial over the rea-son and will of man than the iron despotism of the Roman. .	.	. And this interior and supernatural power of direc-
tion and government over the actions and hearts of men flowed from one center, and was embodied in one person, the Bishop of Rome. On him developed, by the inevitable opera-tion of a moral and political necessity, the chief authority to sustain, protect, and uphold the broken and abandoned social order of Rome and Italy. The floods which swept all other authorities away threw out into bolder relief, and more con-spicuous prominence, the Supreme Pastoral authority of the Vicars of Jesus Christ. To whom else should the people go? For they alone had not only the words of eternal life, but the sole and supreme moral power to support and to reorganize the shattered society of Rome.” Id., pp. 30, 31 of Preface.
The reader will wonder how the papacy attempts to escape from this binding chain of historical facts which it has here admitted.
1.	The great and terrible beast of Dan. 7 is the pagan Roman Empire, the “let” or hindrance to the manifestation of “the man of sin.”
2.	Its ten horns represent the broken fragments of that empire.
3.	The little horn which rises to power among these frag-ments is the antichrist, or “man of sin,” who was to appear when the Roman Empire fell to fragments.
4.	That empire was shattered to fragments in the fourth and fifth centuries.
5.	When it was broken to fragments there stood out in “bolder relief” amid the “shattered society of Rome” “a power,” the papacy, which “had grown up far more imperial
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over the reason and will of man than the iron monarchy of Rome.״
How does the papacy attempt to escape from these facts? By the doctrine of the Futurists of which it is the father. After all these admissions, we are blandly told that the anti״ christ of Daniel, the man of sin of Paul, has not yet appeared because the Roman Empire has not yet fallen!
But has not Cardinal Manning declared in most emphatic terms that pagan Rome perished? Yes, but that testimony was for another purpose. Now to shield the papacy from the inevitable conclusion that it is the predicted antichrist, the Cardinal is compelled to deny his own testimony and the testi-mony of all history, and declare that “the Roman Empire has not ceased,״ but is continued in the power of the papacy. This is how he performs this marvelous feat of mental som-ersault.
“It was not the Roman Empire or Rome alone, (which was the ‘let’) but the kingdom of God which descended upon the whole earth, and from the day of Pentecost spread throughout the circuit of the Roman Empire, with an author-ity higher than the authority of Rome. .	. St. Thomas
.	.	. says that the Roman Empire has not ceased, but is
changed from the temporal into the spiritual. . . . Dominicus Soto holds the same opinion. It was, then, the Apostolic Church, which, spreading throughout all the na-tions, already combined together by the power of the heathen empire of Rome, quickened them with a new life, penetrated them with a new principle of order. .	.	.
“These two great powers, spiritual and temporal—the temporal power in the old heathen empire of Rome, and the spiritual power in the new supernatural kingdom of God— met together. They were coincident as it were, in their cir-cumference throughout the world ; but they met together in their center, which was in the city of Rome. There they stood, at first face to face in conflict, then side by side in peace. .	.	. This mighty conflict between the two sov-
ereignties at last ended in the conversion of the empire to Christianity, and therefore in the enthronement of the Church of God in a supremacy over the powers of the whole world. Then right had power and supremacy over might, and the divine authority prevailed over the authority of man; then these two powers were blended and fused together ; they be-164
came one great authority, the emperor ruling from his throne within the sphere of his earthly jurisdiction, and the Supreme Pontiff ruling likewise from a throne of a higher sovereignty over the nations of the world. .	.	.
“No sooner was the material power which once reigned in Rome, consecrated and sanctified by the investiture of the Vicar of Jesus Christ with temporal sovereignty over the city where he dwelt, than he began to create throughout Europe the order of Christian civilization, Christian empires, Christian monarchies, which, confederated together, have maintained the peace and order of the world from that hour to this. .	.	. What is this but the security of the world
against disorder, turbulence and lawlessness? And now for these twelve hundred years the peace, the perpetuity and the faithfulness of the Christian civilization of Europe, has been owing solely in its principle to this consecration of the power and the authority of the great empire of Rome, taken up of old, perpetuated, preserved, as I have said, by the salt which had been sprinkled from heaven, and continued in the per-son of the Supreme Pontiff, and in that order of Christian civilization of which he has been the creator. . .	.
“The lawless one, who knows no law, human or divine, nor obeys any but his own will, has no antagonist on earth more direct than the Vicar of Jesus Christ, who bears at one and the same time the character of royalty and of priest-hood, and represents the two principles of order in the tern-poral and in the spiritual state—the principle of monarchy, if you will, or of government, and the principle of apostolic authority. ... In the slow course of time, as the work of the apostles matured and ripened, what we call Christen-dom has arisen, [the papacy] fulfilling the predictions to the letter, manifesting that which the apostle foretold would hinder the development of this principle of lawlessness, and the revelation of the person who should be its chief. What, then, is it that at this moment holds in check the manifesta-tion of this antichristian power, and the person who shall wield it? It is the remnant of the Christian society (papal governments) which is still existing in the world.״ Pp. 123-128.
The Cardinal, having built up this transparent camouflage to hide the papal antichrist, next attempts to tell us what the mystery of iniquity really is which gives birth to the anti-
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christ. It is none other than Protestantism ! Our Protestant friends of the Futurist school, who join with the Romanists in diverting attention from the papal antichrist to a future short-lived infidel, will please take notice of the following quotations where they as Protestants are identified with the antichrist :
“Physiologists tell us that there is a perfect ultimate unity even in the countless diseases which devour the body ; never-theless, each disease seems to throw out its progeny by a cor-ruption and reproduction. So in the history and development of heresy. To name no more than these,—Gnosticism, Ari-anism, and, above all, Protestantism, have generated each a multitude of subordinate and affiliated heresies. But it is Protestantism which, above all others, bears the three notes of the inspired writers (describing antichrist) in the greatest breadth and evidence. Other heresies have opposed parts and details of the Christian faith and church; but Protest-antism, taken in its historical complex, as we are now able, with the retrospect of three hundred years, to measure it, reaching from the religion of Luther, Calvin, and Cranmer at the one end, to the Rationalism, and Pantheism of England and Germany at the other, is of all the most formal, detailed, and commensurate antagonist of Christianity. I do not mean that it has as yet attained its full development, for we shall see reasons to believe that it is still pregnant with a darker future; but even as ‘the mystery of iniquity has already worked,1 no other antagonist has as yet gone so deep in un-dermining the faith of the Christian world.” Id., pp. 89, 90.
“It seems inevitable that the enmity of all nations which are separated from the Catholic unity and penetrated by the spirit of the Reformation, that is, by the spirit of private judgment as opposed to the Divine Voice of the living Church, and by the unbelief which has banished the Euchar-istical presence of the Incarnate Word, should be concen-trated upon the person who is the Vicar and representative of Jesus, and upon the Body which witnesses alone for the incarnation, and for all its mysteries of truth and grace. Such is the one Holy Catholic and Roman Church, and such is the Supreme Pontiff, its Visible Head. Such, in the words of Holy Scripture, are the two mysteries of godliness and of iniquity. All things are throwing out into light and prom-inence the two ultimate powers which divide the destinies of 166
men. The conflict is a simple antagonism of Christ and anti-christ ; and the two arrays are marshalling in order, and men are choosing their principles.״ Id., pp. 101, 102.
“The senseless interpretations of prophecy by Protestants, who, confounding all things, make Christ and antichrist to change places. From which, too, it is evident that the hoa-tility of Protestantism and of the revolution against the Church in Rome is a prelude of antichrist, and a sign of antagonism to the kingdom of Jesus Christ on earth.” Id. pp. 164,165.
And now the papal theory of antichrist stands unveiled. The rule of the popes is that which has saved and is saving the world from the appearing of antichrist! And Protest-antism is the mystery of iniquity which will produce the anti-christ ! Comment is unnecessary.
CHAPTER XXXIX
WHY GOD’S WRATH UPON THE BEAST AND HIS WORSHIPERS?
In the battle of Armageddon, Christ, the King of kings, “treads the wine-press of the fierceness and wrath of Al-mighty God” upon “the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies.” The fierceness of God’s wrath against the beast worshipers is expressed in the words of the angel, “If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation ; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb; and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.” Rev. 14:9-11.
This, the most terrible of all God’s threatenings, is occa-sioned by the effort to compel all men to worship the beast and receive his mark. And so successful is the effort, in the face of this warning, that it is declared: “All that dwell
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upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life.” Rev. 13:8.
Referring to the activities of the image of the beast, it is written : he shall “cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.” Rev. 13:15.
God’s first answer to this effort of the beast and his image to divert man’s worship from the divine to the human, is announced by the angel, thus: “And I saw another angel flying in mid-heaven, having eternal good tidings to pro-claim unto them that dwell on the earth, and unto every nation and tribe and tongue and people ; and he saith with a great voice, Fear God, and give him glory; for the hour of his judgment is come : and worship him that made the heaven and the earth and sea and fountains of waters.” Rev. 14:6, American Standard.
Here is a ringing call from heaven to worship God instead of the beast, to worship the Creator of the heavens and the earth instead of a creation of man.
And the fierceness of God’s wrath against the worshippers of the creature is couched in the burning words of the third angel first quoted.
It thus appears that the cup of God’s indignation is filled to overflowing against this final effort to compel all men, by threats of death, to transfer their allegiance from the Creator and Redeemer to the “beast,” a human organization of man’s creation.
Now this “beast” stripped of all symbolism was, and will be, that persecuting instrument of popes and devils, known to history as The Holy Roman Empire. And the one object of this hydra-headed monster from his birth to his death, was to compel all the children of God to worship man in-stead of God. It was ignorant of the fact that God had endowed man with a conscience. It did not know that the head of every man is Christ. It did not recognize that one is your Master, even Jesus, and all ye are brethren. It looked upon men as so many beasts of burden to be ridden and controlled as a man his mule. All claims to individual conscience, all assertions of the right of the individual, led by the Spirit, to search out truth for himself, all individual, personal worship of God in obedience to the divine call, was considered a sign of insanity or demon possession. Conse-quently, when the Holy Roman Empire burned John Huss
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and the other martyrs for the crime of worshipping God in-stead of the beast, it clothed them in garments decorated with pictures of devils.
The Reformation of the sixteenth century was a revival and reannouncement of the divine right of individuality in the search after, and the service of God. This reform prepared the way for the smiting to death of the beast. But the waning of the Reformation, the dying out of individual seeking and serving God, the exchange of the narrow way for the broad way, the compromising of conscience to follow the crowd, the ignoring of God’s opinion to follow the path of “public opinion,״ is paving the way for the return of the beast from the bottomless pit. It is preparing the way for the binding of earth’s nations into two great bundles, neither of which will recognize the Christian and Reformation prin-ciple of individuality in the realm of conscience and worship.
And the reason why God manifests such wrath against the beast and its worshippers is because all the creatures of his creation and redemption who worship the beast become like the beast, beastly and devilish.
“Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey ; whether of sin unto death, or obedience unto righteousness.” Rom. 6:16.
Those who, in the face of threatened death, obey the com-mand from heaven and “worship him who created the heavens and the earth,” are sealed in their foreheads with the seal of God; while those who yield, and worship the beast and his image, are marked with the mark of the beast.
The reason why God stamps men with His stamp is be-cause they are His, because they are like Him, because, ignoring the middle man and the middle machine, they have come into direct personal touch with God in Christ; have become branches of the true vine, filled with divine life, and reflecting His image.
And the reason why men are marked with the mark of the beast is because they are like the beast, because they belong to him, because they have permitted a human organization to come in between them and their God; because, in obeying man in the place of God, and serving the creature rather than the Creator, they have become transformed into the same image.
The question might be asked, Why has the message of 169
warning against the worship of the beast, with its fearful threat of divine judgments, been delayed until the last mani-festation of the beast? An answer is found in the fact that added light brings added responsibility. Christ said to the Pharisees, “If ye were blind ye should have no sin: but now ye say, we see; therefore your sin remaineth.”
“If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloak for their sin.״ John 9:41, and 15:22.
The greater part of the career of the beast was passed in the darkness of the dark ages. The masses were ignorant, bùt few could read. Before the invention of printing Bibles were scarce and very expensive. Men did not know until the Reformation broke the chains of priestcraft and threw the light of its flaming torch on the hideous form of the har-lot and the beast—men did not know what God had written about these characters. But today the world is full of Bibles which picture in the plainest prophecy, the true nature of both harlot and beast. And the world is full of histories, secular and religious, which record the persecutions of the beast and the harlot in frightful fulfillment of these prophe-cies. And today the world is without excuse.
If men return to the beast, and obey him and his image in this, God’s noon-day of light and truth, they are without excuse, and must drink of the wine of the wrath of God which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation.
The persecuted remnant seed who must face a feder-ated world and refuse to obey the decrees of that which claims to represent God, claims to be the firm and final establishment of the kingdom of God on earth, are referred for comfort and encouragement to the record of God’s deal-ings with the faithful three in the fiery furnace, Daniel in the lions’ den, and the apostles in prison.
No earthly government ever had a clearer title to the claim that it was “ordained of God,” than the empire of Nebu-chadnezzar. (Dan. 5:18, 19.) And yet God took sides with the three Hebrews when that empire attempted to come in with its decrees between these men and their God.
God gave this kingdom to the Medes and Persians (Dan. 5:28). And yet when “the laws of the Medes and Persians which change not” came in conflict with the law of God, 170
which changes not, God sent an angel into the lions* den to defend Daniel the dissenter, who had broken the law of the mightiest empire of that day.
And God delivered Peter and John from the prison where they had been placed for preaching contrary to the law of his chosen nation, and sent them back with the words, “Go. stand and speak in the temple, to the people, all the words of this life.״ Acts 5:20.
There is no more faithful, obedient man to “the powers that be״ than the loyal child of God, so long as these powers keep their place and attend to the business for which they are ordained of God—“to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.״ But when they assume the place that the beast has always attempted to occupy, and attempt to rule in the place of God in things which should be rendered to God alone; when they depart from the work to which they are ordained, and execute wrath upon him that doeth good, then the child of God is justified in continuing his obedience to God in the face of all human law to the contrary. “If any man worship the beast and his image and receive his mark in his forehead or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation.”
CHAPTER XL
DR. GUINNESS ON THE DOCTRINES OF THE FUTURISTS
The writer cannot command words sufficiently forcible to properly characterize the fallacies of the Futurists; but he has found one who is abundantly able for the task. He is H. Grattan Guinness, D. D., who has published a book dealing especially with this Futurist idea. The following is from this work, Romanism and the Reformation. Pp. 250260־.
Do not misunderstand me. I do not say that the teachings of Scripture prophecy form the sole foundation of the Refor-mation. The doctrinal and practical truths of Scripture guided the action of the reformers as well as the prophecies of die Word of God. It might be difficult to say which of the
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three weighed with them most. On each they were clear and emphatic. These three elements cannot be separated in esti-mating the springs of the Reformation. From the first, and throughout, that movement was energised and guided by the prophetic Word. Luther never felt strong and free to war against the Papal apostasy till he recognized the pope as anti-christ. It was then he burned the Papal bull. Knox’s first sermon, the sermon which launched him on his mission as a reformer, was on the prophecies concerning the Papacy. The reformers embodied their interpretations of prophecy in their confessions of faith, and Calvin in his “Institutes.” All the reformers were unanimous in the matter; even the mild and cautious Melancthon was as assured of the anti-papal meaning of these prophecies as was Luther himself. And their inter-pretation of these prophecies determined their reforming ac-tion. It led them to protest against Rome with extraordinary strength and undaunted courage. It nerved them to resist the claims of that apostate Church to the uttermost. It made them martyrs ; it sustained them at the stake. And the views of the reformers were shared by thousands, by hundreds of thousands. They were adopted by princes and peoples. Un-der their influence nations abjured their allegiance to the false priest of Rome. In the reaction which followed, all the pow-ers of hell seemed to be let loose upon the adherents of the Reformation. War followed war; tortures, burnings, and massacres were multiplied. Yet the Reformation stood un-defeated and unconquerable. God’s Word upheld it, and the energies of His almighty spirit. It was the work of Christ as truly as the founding of the Church eighteen centuries ago; and the revelation of the future which He gave from heaven —that prophetic book with which the Scripture closes—was one of the mightiest instruments employed in its accomplish-ment.
To resist the use to which Scriptwre prophecy was put by the reformers is no light or unimpotant matter. The system of prophetic interpretation, known as Futurism, does resist this use. It condemns the interpretation of the reformers. It condemns the views of all these men, and of all the martyrs, and of all the confessors and faithful witnesses of Christ for long centuries. It condemns the Albigenses, the Waldenses, and the Wycliffites, and the Hussites, and the Lollards, the Lutherans, the Calvinists ; it condemns them all, and upon a 172
point on which they are all agreed, an interpretation of Scrip-ture which they embodied in their solemn confessions and sealed with their blood. It condemns the spring of their action, the foundation of the structure they erected. How daring is this act, and how destitute of justification ! What an opposi-tion to the pillars of a work most manifestly Divinel For it is no less than this, for Futurism asserts that Luther and all the reformers were wrong in this fundamental point. And whose interpretation of prophecy does it justify and approve? That of the Romanists. Let this be clearly seen. Rome felt the force of these prophecies, and sought to evade it. It had no way but to deny their applicability. It could not deny their existence in Scripture. They were there plainly enough. But it denied that these prophecies referred to the Romish Church and its head. It pushed them aside. It shifted them from the entire field of mediaeval and modern history. As to Babylon the Great, it asserted that it meant Rome pagan, not Rome Papal. Rome pagan shed all the blood referred to in Reve-lation 17 and 18. Rome Christian had shed none of it. Prophecy was eloquent about the deeds of the Caesars, but silent as to those of the popes; and this though the persecu-tions perpetrated by the popes had exceeded those of the Caesars. Prophecy expended its strength in warning the Church of the perils from heathenism, which it perfectly un-derstood, and was speechless as to the far greater perils aris-ing from the Christian apostasy on which it needed the fullest warning and instruction. It was eagle-eyed as to dangers from without, but blind to dangers from within. It guided and guarded the Church of the three first centuries, but left the Church of the next thousand years and more without a lamp to light its footsteps. As to the prophecies of the man of sin, or antichrist, these had nothing to do with the middle ages, or with the Roman popes, or the long central cen-turies of the Church’s sorest conflicts ; they only referred to a diminutive interval in the far-off future, at the end of the world. The man of sin was only an ephemeral persecutor. His whole power was to continue but three and a half years. He was to be a cunning Jew of the tribe of Dan ; a clever infidel, who was to call himself God, and set himself up in a Jewish temple at Jerusalem. Christians have nothing to do with him as such. A Jew was to do all the mischief. The whole evil was but a Jewish infidel spasm in the very last 173
hour of history before the second advent. Therefore the re-formers were all wrong in their denunciations of the Papacy. They were foolish, misguided, unreasonable, fanatical, and the popes were uncondemned by the voices of the prophets. Daniel and John said nothing about them. They were not the predicted apostates. What though they did shed the blood of heretics like water, and drink it like wine, and make themselves drunken with it, and exalt themselves above kings, and above the world, and clothe themselves with wealth and splendor, with purple and scarlet, gold and pearls ! What though they did sit supreme upon the seven hills, and ride and rule the Roman empire and its divided Gothic state, and use its powers for the persecution of heretics, and the suppression of what some presumed to call the gospel of Jesus Christ! The prophecies which those contemptible re-formers and miserable so-called martyrs said applied to them did nothing of the sort ; it was folly to suppose they did. They applied to other people and to other circumstances. They only applied to paganism and infidelity: a past and bygone paganism, and a future shortlived infidelity, and nothing more. Three centuries in the past, and three years in the future, that was all they had anything to do with. As to the fifteen centuries which lay between, they had no bearing upon them whatever. Popes might make themselves easy, and cardinals and councils and papal princes and priests, in-quisitors and persecutors, Dominicans and Jesuits! The thunders of prophecy were not directed against them, but against those dead Caesars, and that unborn Jew, And so they puffed at the reformers, and scoffed at the martyrs, and scorned and derided and despised them, and went on in their proud tyranny and abated nothing of their blasphemous pre-tentions and bloody persecutions.
Which think you were right in their interpretations of Scripturef Those proud popes, those cruel inquisitors, those inhuman monsters who mangled the bodies of holy men and women in their torture chambers, those sanctimonious mur-derers who stirred up all the might of Christendom, from century to century, against the gospel and against the faithful witnesses of Jesus ; or those pure and persecuted saints, th09e faithful Waldenses and Wycliffites, those earnest Hussites and Lollards, those self-sacrificing Lutherans and Hugue-nots, those noble confessors, reformers, and martyrs? With 174
one mind and mouth all these Protestants agreed in the sub-stance of their protests. To them Rome was Babylon, and its proud head, the antichrist. Were they all mistaken, de-luded, and their cruel, tyrannical oppressors and persecutors correct? What think you?
Perhaps you say, But was Rome right in nothing? Must a doctrine be wrong because Rome holds it ? Does not Rome hold the truth as to the divinity of Christ, and as to some other points of importance ? I grant Rome holds some truths. It would have no moral power unless it did. Even the Mohammedans hold some great truths, and the heathen also. But mark, this is a question of Rome's judgment con-cerning herself, and the bearing of prophecy on her own his-tory and character. It is here in this judgment that the Fu-turist claims that Rome was right, and the reformers in the wrong. And the consequences are most serious, for we are living in an age of revived Papal activity. Not only is the Papacy exerting an enormous influence in the outside world, not only has it formulated and decreed its own infallibility, not only is it attacking Protestantism in its strongholds with every weapon in its reach, political, civil, religious, but the principles and practices of the system it guides and governs have been introduced into the bosom of the Protestant Church, and planted securely within its walls, and are work-ing most disastrously for its corruption and overthrow. Never was there a time in the Church's history when she more needed the barriers which prophecy has erected for her protection. And now when they are so sorely needed, they are not to be found. Futurism has crept into the Protestant Church, and broken down these sacred walls. Romanists, Ritualists and Protestant Futurists are all agreed as to the non-applicability of Scripture prophecies to the Church of Rome and the Papacy. The Romanists are two hundred mil-lions, the Ritualists are hundreds of thousands, and Protestant Futurists are many thousands in number. They all deny these prophecies their place and office. They remove these barriers. What then is to keep out the incoming Papal flood ? The Word of prophecy in its solemn warning of the dangers the Church has to encounter, the foes it has to resist, is as-serted to be silent as to this. Why then should this be feared ? The reformers were mistaken ; the popes were right. Charles V and Charles IX, and Philip of Spain, and Mary of Eng-
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land, the Duke of Alva, and Louis XIV, and all the tribes of Innocents and Leos, Gregories and Clements, and Pius IV and Pius IX—all these were right in rejecting the funda-mental position that Papal Rome is Babylon, and its head antichrist ; and all the reformers, without an exception, were wrong in maintaining it ; they were foolish interpreters of the “sure word of prophecy,” and utterly in error as to the real testimony of Scripture concerning the Church of Rome.
Is this the position you adopt? Is this the conclusion you defend? Are these the views you advocate? You, a Protes-tant, and this after all that has been written upon the subject, and all the blaze of light which history and experience have poured upon it? If it is, look to it that you be not found fighting against the truth, warring against the Word of God, resisting the testimony of the prophetic Spirit, hindering the work of the Reformation, promoting the progress of the apostasy, opposing Christ, and helping antichrist.
Even the Romanists themselves shame you in their clear-sighted comprehension of the issues of this question. Cardinal Manning says, "The Catholic Church is either the master-piece of Satan or the kingdom of the Son of God.'J Cardinal Newman says, "A sacerdotal order is historically the essence of the Church of Rome; if not divinely appointed, it is doc-trinally the essence of antichrist ” In both these statements the issue is clear, and it is the same. Rome herself admits, openly admits, that if she is not the very kingdom of Christ, she is that of antichrist. Rome declares she is one or the other. She herself propounds and urges this solemn alterna-ti ve. You shrink from it, do you ? I accept it. Conscience constrains me. History compels me. The past, the awful past rises before me. I see THE GREAT APOSTASY, I see the desolation of Christendom, I see the smoking ruins, I see the reign of monsters ; I see those vice-gods, that Greg-ory VIL, that Innocent III., that Boniface VIII., that Alex-ander VI., that Gregory XIII., that Pius IX.; I see their long succession, I hear their insufferable blasphemies, I see their abominable lives; I see them worshipped by blinded generations, bestowing hollow benedictions, bartering lying indulgencies, creating a paganized Christianity; I see their liveried slaves, their shaven priests, their celibate confessors; I see the infamous confessional, the ruined women, the mur-dered innocents; I hear the lying absolutions, the dying
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groans ; I hear the cries of the victims ; I hear the anathemas, the curses, the thunders of the interdicts; I see the racks, the dungeons, the stakes; I see that inhuman Inquisition, those fires of Smithfield, those butcheries of St. Bartholomew, that Spanish Armada, those unspeakable dragonnades, that endless train of wars, that dreadful multitude of massacres. I see it all and in the name of the ruin it has wrought in the Church and in the world, in the name of the truth it has denied, the temple it has defiled, the God it has blasphemed, the souls it has destroyed ; in the name of the millions it has deluded, the millions it has slaughtered, the millions it has damned; with holy confessors, with noble reformers, with innumerable martyrs, with the saints of ages, I denounce it as the masterpiece of Satant as the body and soul and essence of antichrist.
CHAPTER XLI ARE WE PESSIMISTS?
Those who faithfully warn the people of the soon coming tribulation to be experienced by the remnant through the per-secutions of the beast and his image, are charged with being pessimists, prophets of evil, and other agents of gloom. But these critics are mistaken. We are the most optimistic people in the world. With high hopes we are headed toward “the times of the restitution of all things which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.” Acts 3:21.
We are pessimists as regards the world being saved by a better environment, better economic conditions, better educa-tion, and better legislation. But with regard to salvation from sin by the gospel of the cross, and salvation from a sin-cursed world by the second coming of Christ, we belong to heaven’s hallelujah chorus.
All the false prophets of the Bible record were optimists as regards the conditions of men and nations of their day. All the true prophets were prophets of evil touching the world conditions then present, but they were the most enthusiastic optimists as regards God and His saints and the coming kingdom. We are all hallelujah highlanders; but we shout
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in chorus with the choir on Heaven’s highlands and not with the crowd on the lowlands of the broadway. Heaven’s shout-ing day is future, and so is ours. Here is when we shout :
“After these things I saw, and behold, a great multitude which no man could number, out of every nation and of all tribes and peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb arrayed in white robes, and palms in their hands ; and they cry with a great voice, saying, Salvation unto our God who sitteth on the throne and unto the Lamb. And all the angels were standing round about the throne and about the elders and the four living creatures ; and they fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God, saying, Amen: blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen.
“And one of the elders answered saying unto me, These that are arrayed in the white robes, who are they, and whence came they? And I said unto him, My Lord, thou knowest. And he said unto me, These are they that come out of the great tribulation, and they washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God ; and they serve him day and night in his temple ; and he that sitteth on the throne shall spread his tabernacle over them. They shall hunger no more, neither shall the sun strike upon them, nor any heat: for the Lamb that is in the midst of the throne shall be their shepherd, and shall guide them unto fountains of waters of life: and God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes.” Rev. 7:917־, R. V.
And here is when we sing:
“And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire; and them that come off victorious from the beast, and from his image, and from the number of his name, standing by the sea of glass, having harps of God. And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, say-ing,
“Great and marvellous are thy works, O Lord God, the Almighty : righteous and true are thy ways, thou King of the ages. Who shall not fear, O Lord, and glorify thy name? for thou only art holy; for all the nations shall come and worship before thee; for thy righteous acts have been made manifest.” Rev. 15:24־, R. V.
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Here again is where we shout:
1‘After these things I heard as it were a great voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, Hallelujah ; Salvation, and glory, and power, belongeth to our God : for true and right-eous are his judgments; for he hath judged the great harlot, her that corrupted the earth with her fornication, and he hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand. And a second time they say, Hallelujah. .	.	. And a voice came
forth from the throne, saying,
“Give praise to our God, all ye his servants, ye that fear him, the small and the great.
“And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunders, saying,
“Hallelujah: for the Lord our God, the Almighty reign-eth. Let us rejoice and be exceeding glad, and let us give the glory unto him : for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. And it was given unto her that she should array herself in fine linen, bright and pure: for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.״ Rev. 19:18־. R. V.
And here is where we are optimists:
“And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth are passed away ; and the sea is no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of the throne saying,
“Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and he shall dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God him-self shall be with them, and be their God : and he shall wipe away every tear from their eyes ; and death shall be no more ; neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more: the first things are passed away.״ Rev. 21:14־. R. V.
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Other Works hy the Same Author
THE PROCLAMATION OF LIBERTY and
THE UNPARDONABLE SIN
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It teaches with Paul, that all men are under grace and not under law, yet the man who breaks the law because he is not under law, is in danger of committing that fatal sin which Paul and John call the “sin unto death.”
It completely overthrows the Unitarian error that the death of Christ is not vital to the plan of salvation.
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A simple heart-to-heart talk with the reader on the re-ception and work of the Holy Spirit, in which the author relates his own experiences at every step. Over two hun-dred pages. Price, cloth bound, 75 cents.
Power For Witnessing, by Albion F. Ballenger, is to be com-mended for hearty zeal, and its great store of plain, honest, evan-gelistic experiences.—EVANGELIST.
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