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The Last Reformation

By F.G. Smith



BY THE SAME AUTHOR

WHAT THE BIBLE TEACHES
THE REVELATION EXPLAINED
PROPHETIC LECTURES
ON DANIEL AND
REVELATION



PREFACE


God's true people everywhere are looking for light on the church
question. A deep undercurrent of dissatisfaction with the present
order of things exists in the ecclesiastical world. The historic
creeds are stationary and conservative, but religious thought can
not always be bound nor its progress permanently hindered. Honest
Christian men and women will think, and they are now thinking in the
terms of a universal Christianity. If I am able to discern the signs
of the times, the rising tide of Christian love and fellowship is
about to overflow the lines of sect and bring together in one common
hope and in one common brotherhood all those who love our Lord Jesus
Christ in sincerity.

What will constitute the leading characteristics of the church of
the future? This is the burning question. Spiritual-minded men are
conscious that things can not long continue as they now are, but what
and where is the remedy?

After this book was completed and in the hands of the printers,
I received a copy of "The Church and its Organization," by Walter
Lowrie, and was surprized to find in it much truth that I had
already received through independent investigation and embodied in my
manuscript. I refer particularly to the charismatic organization and
government of the church. It is gratifying to know that other minds
are being led to the same conclusions regarding a subject of such
vital importance to the future of Christianity.

In writing the present work I have endeavored to present the
Scriptural solution of this great problem, a solution which takes
into account, and gives due respect to, historic Christianity, the
prophecies respecting the church and its destiny, and the fundamental
characteristics of our holy religion as it emanated from the divine
Founder.

If this work can be of service in pointing out Christ's plan and
purpose to "gather together in one the children of God which are
scattered abroad," and also be instrumental in helping to accomplish
this grand Christian ideal, I shall feel abundantly repaid. F.G.
SMITH.


Anderson, Indiana, May 6, 1919.




CONTENTS

                                              PAGE
Introduction--"The Time of Reformation"          9

Part I--The Church in Apostolic Days

CHAPTER
    I The Church Defined                        19
   II The Universal Church                      21
  III The Local Church                          33
   IV The Organization and Government of the
      Church                                    41


Part II--The Church in History

    V Corruption of Evangelical Faith           73
   VI Rise of Ecclesiasticism                   87
  VII The Reformation                          101
 VIII Modern Sects                             111
   IX The Church of the Future                 125


Part III--The Church in Prophecy

    X Interpretation of Prophetic Symbols      141
   XI The Apostolic Period                     149
  XII The Medieval Period                      169
 XIII Era of Modern Sects                      209
  XIV The Last Reformation                     223




INTRODUCTION

"THE TIME OF REFORMATION"


In ecclesiastical history the term Reformation has been applied
specifically to the important religious movement of the sixteenth
century which resulted in the formation of the various Protestant
churches of that period. Since the sixteenth century there have been
other religious reformations, some of considerable importance and
influence.

[Sidenote: A present reformation]

There is a present reformation specially distinguished from all those
that have gone before. It is resulting from the particular operation
of the Spirit of God as predicted in the Word of God, and its
influences are being felt in varying degrees throughout all
Christendom. Many Christians are already stirred to action by the
conscious knowledge of Christ's message for these times, while
multiplied thousands of others who love the Lord Jesus are
experiencing within their own hearts the awakening of new aspirations
and impulses, the real meaning of which they do not as yet
understand, but which are, through the leadership of the Holy
Spirit, unconsciously fitting them for their true place in this great
world-wide movement which is destined to exceed in importance and
influence all other religious reformations since the days of primitive
Christianity.

Since, as we shall show, the present reformation is the work of the
Spirit affecting all true Christians, drawing them together for
the realization of a grand Scriptural ideal, it is evident that no
particular band of people enjoy its exclusive monopoly. May the same
Holy Spirit illuminate our hearts and minds in the contemplation of
the truths of the divine Word.

The term _reformation_ signifies "the act of reforming or the state of
being reformed; change from worse to better; correction or amendment
of life, manners, or of anything vicious or corrupt." In its
application to the religion of Christ, reformation means the
correction of abuses and corrupt practises that have become associated
with the Christian system; the elimination of all unworthy, foreign
elements. In other words, it implies _restoration_, a return to the
practises and ideals of primitive Christianity.

[Sidenote: What the final reformation must include]

If we inquire concerning the limits of true reformatory work, we see
at once that, if there is to be a final reformation, such a movement
must restore in its fundamental aspects _apostolic Christianity_--its
doctrines, its ordinances, its personal regenerating and sanctifying
experiences, its spiritual life, its holiness, its power, its purity,
its gifts of the Spirit, its unity of believers, and its fruits.
This assumes, of course, that during the centuries there has been a
departure from this standard.

[Sidenote: The church itself the real object of reformation]

No reformation since apostolic times has covered all this ground. All
the reformations taken together fall far short of this standard. They
have been reformations only in part, each movement simply placing
special emphasis on particular doctrines, or ordinances, or personal
experiences. Hence the need of further reformation. The present
movement embraces all the truth contained in all the previous
reformations of Protestantism. But it does not stop there. It stands
committed to all the truth of the Word of God. It goes straight to
the heart of the reformation subject and reveals the pure, holy,
_universal_ church of the apostolic times as made up of all those who
were regenerated, uniting them all IN CHRIST; in the "church of the
living God," which church was "the pillar and ground of the truth" (1
Tim. 3:15); the church that was graced with the gifts of the Spirit
and filled with holy power.

The true apostolic church has been largely lost to view since the
early Christian centuries, when a general apostasy dimmed the light
of truth and plunged the world into the darkness of papal night.
In modern times the term "church" as applied to a general body of
religious worshipers is usually employed in a restricted sense,
specifying some particular organization, as the hierarchy of Rome or
the aggregation of local congregations constituting a Protestant sect.
By a natural reaction from the Romish extreme, wherein the church and
church relationship are exalted above the personal relationship of
the individual with his God, many teachers now incline to an
opposite extreme, which makes little of the church as an institution,
substituting therefor a sort of "loyalty to Christ," _individualism_,
subversive of true New Testament standards.

[Sidenote: The true church Scripturally important]

The church is not to be exalted above the Christ, nor is it a
substitute for the Christ; but in the light of New Testament teaching
we must regard the true church as _the_ instrument--the divinely
appointed instrument used by the Holy Spirit in carrying forward the
work of Christ on earth. Jesus himself said, "Upon this rock I will
build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it"
(Matt. 16:18). At a later time we read, "And the Lord added to the
church daily such as should be saved" (Acts 2:47).

If Paul were living today, he also might despise the "church" idea in
its narrow sectarian sense. But from the apostle's words, it is very
evident that he regarded the church as it existed in his day as an
institution crowned with glory and honor, the concrete expression
of Christ and his truth. "_God hath set some_ IN THE CHURCH, first
apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles,
then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues"
(1 Cor. 12:28). "And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and
some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting
of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the _edifying of the
body of Christ_; till we all come in the unity of the faith ... that
we ... may _grow up into him in all things_, which is the head, [of
the body, _the church_, Col. 1:18] even Christ" (Eph. 4:11-15).

[Sidenote: The church as a divine institution]

Inasmuch as God set in the church apostles, prophets, evangelists,
gifts of miracles, of healings, etc., we must regard the church
as originally instituted as being more than a mere aggregate of
individuals associating themselves together for particular purposes.
We must recognize the divine element. This company was the host of
redeemed ones whom Christ had saved, in whom he dwelt, and through
whom he revealed God and accomplished his work on earth. It was his
body--the organism to which he gave spiritual life and through which
he manifested the fulness of his power and glory.

[Sidenote: Church relationship vs. individualism]

Any reformation that has not for its object the full restoration of
the New Testament church, can not be a complete reformation, but
must be succeeded by another. In this respect the church subject
is fundamental and all-inclusive. To emphasize a mere
"personal-union-with-Christ" theory to the disparagement of the divine
_ekklesia_, is to evade the real issue. Jesus declared, "I will build
my church," and that church was an objective reality, which was not
intended to be concealed under high-sounding theological verbiage nor
dissipated in glittering generalities. It is true that Christ himself
must be presented as the ground of our hope and salvation and as the
object of our personal faith, love, and devotion; as "the way, the
truth, and the life"; but we must not forget that there is also
a revelation of the way, the truth, and the life in the church of
Christ. The apostles preached Christ as the divine "way"; but when men
believed on him, he straightway "set the members every one of them
_in the body_"--the church (1 Cor. 12:18). "And the Lord added _to
the church_ daily such as should be saved" (Acts 2:47). They preached
Christ as the personification of "truth." But they also taught that
the gospel was a special "treasure" committed to the church for
dispensing to the nations. Paul said that God hath "committed _unto
us_ the word of reconciliation" (2 Cor. 5:19). Therefore he could
represent the church of God "as the pillar and ground of the
truth." They preached him as "life," but he was also the life of the
collective body of believers as well as of individuals. He dwelt in
his church. He was its life, and through it he manifested himself
in the only form in which, since the incarnation, he can be fully
exhibited to men.

[Sidenote: Avoiding extremes]

The fact that Romanism has stressed the "church" idea, parading before
the world as the church an organic body devoid of true spiritual life,
a mere corpse, is no reason justifying a view which, ignoring the
practical church relationship taught in the New Testament, talks
glibly of an ethereal, intangible, ghostly something which, without a
body, lacks all practical contact with men. The Bible standard is the
proper union of soul and body. It is certain that, as in apostolic
days, such union is necessary to the proper exhibition of the divine
life and absolutely essential to the full accomplishment of the divine
purposes in Christ's great redemptive plan.

Christ, the life of his spiritual body, and the life-giver, remains
the same in all ages. Hence the church _body_ is the part that has
been disrupted and corrupted by apostasy and sectarianism, and is
therefore the sphere of reformatory effort. And while reformation
pertains to historical Christianity, it implies, as we have already
shown, a return to the primitive standard. Therefore, before
proceeding to describe particularly the present reformation, we must
give attention to the constitution of the apostolic church, the divine
original.




PART I

The Church in Apostolic Days




=The Last Reformation=




CHAPTER I

THE CHURCH DEFINED


[Sidenote: The term "church"]

The word "church" as used in the New Testament is, in most cases,
derived from the Greek word _ekklesia_. The component parts of this
word literally mean to summon or call together in public convocation.
It was, therefore, used to designate any popular assembly which met
for the transaction of public business. As an example of the secular
use of the term, see Acts 19: 32, 39. This particular application of
the word, however, does not here concern us.

Since the word _ekklesia_ conveys the idea of an assembly of "_called
ones_," it expresses beautifully the Christian's call to churchly
association. The divine call of believers is frequently expressed
in the New Testament: they are "called with an holy calling" (2 Tim.
1:9); "called in one body" (Col. 3:15); "called unto his kingdom and
glory" (1 Thess. 2:12); or, as Peter expresses it, "Ye are a chosen
generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people;
that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out
of darkness into his marvelous light" (1 Pet. 2:9). While these texts
and many others describe the exalted rights and privileges accorded
the "called ones," there is distinctly implied the idea of their
organic association, and it was this association that constituted them
the Christian church.

[Sidenote: Its two Christian phases]

"The church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood" (Acts
20: 28), is Clearly set forth in the New Testament. And the term
"church" in its religious usage is given two significations. In its
largest and primary signification, the church of God is the entire
body of regenerated persons in all times and places, and is in this
respect identical with the spiritual kingdom of God, the divine
family. In a secondary sense, church designates an individual assembly
in which the universal church takes local and temporary form and in
which the idea of the general church is concretely exhibited. Besides
these two significations of the Christian term "church," there are,
properly speaking, no other in the New Testament. It is true that
_ekklesia_ is sometimes used as a collective term to denote the body
of local churches existing in a given region, but there is no evidence
that these churches were bound together in groups by any outward
organization which separated or distinguished them from other
congregations of the general church. Therefore this use of the term
"church" can not be regarded as adding any new sense to those of the
general church and the local church already referred to.




CHAPTER II

THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH


Matt. 16:18 introduces in the gospel history the subject of the
church. Jesus said, "I will build my church; and the gates of hell
shall not prevail against it." This text implies that the church as
an institution was not yet founded, and it also clearly implies that
Christ himself was to be the founder and builder of his church.

Jesus had already preached that the kingdom of heaven was at hand, and
when he sent forth his twelve apostles he commanded them to preach
and say, "The kingdom of heaven is at hand." Jesus himself taught
the doctrines of the kingdom, but in the words of our text there is
implied deeper ideas of the kingdom of God yet to be revealed in all
their fulness of meaning.

[Sidenote: The body of Christ]

We should divest our minds, temporarily at least, of preconceived
ideas of formal church organization and earnestly seek to understand
the real signification of that church of which Christ was himself
personally the founder. A few texts make this point clear: "And hath
put all things under his [Christ's] feet, and given him to be the head
over all things to the church, _which is his body_, the fulness of him
that filleth all in all" (Eph. 1: 22, 23). The church, then, is the
body of Christ. Of this body Jesus himself is the head. "And he is the
head of the body, the church ... that in all things he might have the
preeminence" (Col. 1:18). "For his body's sake, which is the church"
(verse 24). Christ is head of but one body. "There is _one_
body" (Eph. 4:4). In these texts the body and the church are used
interchangeably, referring to one and the same thing. The body of
which Christ is the head is the church that he built, "the church of
God, which he hath purchased with his own blood" (Acts 20: 28).

[Sidenote: The atonement its procuring cause]

It is therefore to Calvary that we must look for the specific act by
virtue of which Christ personally became the founder of his church.
_There_ it was "purchased with his own blood." _There_ we find the
application of those sublime words of the Savior, "And I, if I be
lifted up from the earth, _will draw all men_ UNTO ME" (John 12: 32).
By virtue of that act, God "put all things under his feet, and gave
him to be the head over all things to the church." Yea, by virtue
of that act, "God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name
which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should
bow,... and that every tongue should confess" (Phil. 2:9-11).

The church, then, proceeds from Calvary: Pentecost was but its initial
manifestation to men and its dedication for service. Of this we shall
have more to say hereafter.

[Sidenote: Composed of true Christians]

Since through his death Christ proposed to draw all men unto him, it
is evident that all the members of Christ are therefore members of his
body, the church. To this agrees the words of the apostle Paul, "For
as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same
office: so we [true Christians], being many, are _one body in Christ_,
and every one members one of another" (Rom. 12: 4, 5). "Now hath God
set the members _every one of them_ in the body, as it hath pleased
him" (1 Cor. 12:18).

[Sidenote: Mode of admission]

Becoming a member of the spiritual body of Christ is necessarily
a spiritual operation. Men may admit members to a formal church
relationship, but only the Spirit of God can make us members of
Christ. "For by one Spirit are we all baptized [or inducted] into one
body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and
have been all made to drink into one Spirit" (1 Cor. 12:13). This
text does not refer to literal water-baptism, but to the work of the
"Spirit," by whom we are inducted into Christ. "_God hath set the
members_ every one of them in the body" (verse 18). And since this
is the work of the Spirit, it is evident that none but the saved can
possibly find admittance into the spiritual body of Christ. Under a
different figure Jesus conveys the same truth. "I am the door: by me
if _any man_ enter in, _he shall be saved_" (John 10: 9). "And the
Lord added to them day by day those that _were being saved_" (Acts
2:47, R.V.). Salvation, then, is the condition of membership.

[Sidenote: Family relationship]

The members of Christ are members of God's family. How do we become
members of the divine family? "Except a man _be born again_, he can
not see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3). "As many as received him, to
them gave he power to become the sons of God ... which were _born ...
of God_" (John 1:12, 13). "Beloved, now are we the sons of God" (1
John 3:2). Since this family, or church, is composed of the saved,
or those who are born again, and excludes all the unsaved, we can
understand Paul's reference to "a glorious church, not having spot,
or wrinkle, or any such thing," but "_holy and without blemish_" (Eph.
5:27).

We have spoken of the union of all believers with Christ when he draws
them unto himself and becomes their spiritual life. But this unity of
all believers _with Christ_ is a spiritual relationship and experience
not to be confused with external things. The Bible speaks of
Christians as being "in Christ." What does this mean? It certainly
means to be "born again," for without that experience we "can not see
the kingdom of God" (John 3:3). "Therefore if any man be _in Christ_,
HE IS A NEW CREATURE: old things are passed away; behold, all things
are become new" (2 Cor. 5:17). "Whosoever abideth _in him_ sinneth
not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him" (1 John
3:6).

[Sidenote: Unity of believers]

But our union with Christ, by which we become members of the divine
family, necessarily fixes our relationship with all those who are
members of Christ. If, through salvation, we are brought into a sacred
unity with Christ, we are by the same act brought into essential unity
and fellowship with the members of Christ. This the Word distinctly
affirms: "We, being many, are one body in Christ, and _every one
members one of another_" (Rom. 12: 4, 5). "There should be no schism
in the body; but the members should have the same care one for
another" (1 Cor. 12:25). While this last text relates literally to the
physical body, the apostle applies it in an illustrative way to
the spiritual body. "Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in
particular" (verse 27).

[Sidenote: Unity and uniformity]

Harmony in a normal physical body is not effected by external means,
but is organic. The members may be many and diverse, but they are all
necessary and have their respective places and work. So also with
the body of Christ. Union with Christ is not dependent upon absolute
uniformity except in the one thing--the fundamental experience by
which we are made members of Christ. In the apostolic period the
children of God who loved our Lord and were known of him were not all
of one age or size or nationality. They had not all enjoyed the same
social advantages, nor had they had the same intellectual attainments.
The act of receiving Christ and his salvation did not perfect their
knowledge; therefore they had to be patiently taught in order to bring
them into the "unity of the faith." And for this purpose divinely
chosen instructors were appointed, who must themselves "study" and
give careful attention to "doctrine" (Eph. 4:11-14; 1 Tim. 3:13-16).
But the gospel penetrates beneath the surface; it goes straight to the
heart and reaches fundamental things. "There is neither Jew nor Greek;
there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: _for
ye are all one_ IN CHRIST JESUS" (Gal. 3:28).

The unity of believers with Christ is, therefore, based on divine
relationship, and _this is the fundamental basis of the true
relationship of believers with each other_. In order to maintain
spiritual relationship with Christ and his people, the Christian must
have an obedient heart and "walk in the light of the Lord"; but we
should always be ready to extend our fellowship to those whom Christ
really receives and approves.

How prone men have ever been to ignore this simple, divine standard
and set up arbitrary rules of their own by which to measure others!
This wrong tendency combined with the carnal ambitions of men who
love to parade their own unscriptural ideas before the world and gain
adherents has been the real cause of the disunion of Christians. But
the Bible standard is what we are now considering. It teaches that
the saved people were "members one of another" as well as members of
Christ; that they were, in fact, "_all one in Christ Jesus_."

[Sidenote: Unity a practical reality]

According to the New Testament standard, unity of believers is more
than an invisible, intangible, spiritual fellowship. They are "members
one of another" as well as members of Christ. That unity was designed
to be visible and to form a convincing sign to the world of the mighty
power of Christ. This stands out prominently in that notable prayer
of our Lord recorded in John 17, which was uttered on the most
solemn night of his earthly life. First he prayed for his immediate
disciples, then for all believers, in these words: "Neither pray I
for these [twelve] alone, but for them also which shall believe on me
through their word; THAT THEY ALL MAY BE ONE; as thou, Father, art in
me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: THAT THE WORLD MAY
BELIEVE _that thou hast sent me_" (verses 20, 21).

Such unity is a real standard. It will convince the world. The
practical force of this last scripture can not be lessened by
reference to those other words of Jesus, "By this shall all men know
that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one for another" (John 13:
35), for Jesus taught the inseparable nature of love and unity. Love,
as an inward affection, produces deeds and results, and is measured
thereby. Jesus said, "If a man love me, he will _keep my words_; and
my Father will love him, and we will _come unto him_, and _make our
abode with him_" (John 14: 23). And just as love to God invariably
produces union with God, so also true love to man will result in
unity. "My little children, let us not love in word, neither in
tongue; but _in deed and in truth_" (1 John 3:18). Carnal divisions
can not exist where true love reigns.

[Sidenote: Christ died for unity]

For this visible unity Christ prayed--"That they all may be one,...
_that the world may believe_." More than this, he died that unity
might be effected. John 11:52 clearly shows that one purpose of
Christ's death was that "he should gather together _in one_ the
children of God that were scattered abroad." Therefore unity of
believers is a sacred truth resting on the solid basis of the
atonement. That this unity is more than that general union resulting
from the personal attachment of separate individuals to Christ as a
common center, is proved by the fact that it is designed to gather
together in one the scattered _children of God_. Jesus himself said,
"Other sheep I have [Gentiles], which are not of this [Jewish] fold:
_them also I must bring_, and they shall hear my voice; and THERE
SHALL BE ONE FOLD [flock] AND ONE SHEPHERD" (John 10:16).

[Sidenote: Jew and Gentile united]

Broadly speaking, there were at that time but two classified divisions
of men--Jews and Gentiles. Jesus predicted that his sheep from both
sections should be brought together into one flock. In the second
chapter of Ephesians, Paul tells us how this was accomplished.
Although "in times past" the Gentiles were "strangers from the
covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world," in
Christ they were "made nigh by the blood." "For he is our peace,
who hath made both [Jews and Gentiles] ONE, and hath broken down the
middle wall of partition between us ... that he might reconcile
both unto God _in one body_ by the cross" (verses 12-16). Since this
glorious reunion through Christ, the Gentiles "are no more strangers
and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the
household of God." They also "are built upon the foundation of
the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief
corner-stone ... in whom ye also are builded together for an
habitation of God through the Spirit" (verses 19-22).

On account of the high standard of unity set forth in his epistles,
Paul has been branded an idealist. But what shall we say of Christ who
prayed for such visible unity and died for it? An idealist is one
who forms picturesque fancies, one given to romantic expectations
impossible of accomplishment. The idealist usually has but few
practical results. But Paul accomplished things. He broke away from
his Jewish prejudices, which brought down upon his head the wrath of
his fellows. He went into the synagogs of the Jews and brought out
those who were willing to become disciples of Jesus. To build up the
work of the Lord he labored night and day with tears; he laid broad
and deep the very foundations of the Christian faith in heathen lands.
Within a very few years he established Christian churches in four
provinces of the Roman Empire--churches in which Jew and Gentile met
together in common fellowship, _in one body_. If this is idealism,
Lord, give us many more such idealists.

[Sidenote: The burden of Paul's ministry]

But the unity described by Paul in the epistles which he wrote late in
life is not given as a mere ideal standard for the future toward which
men should strive. It is given as the record of a historic fact, the
accomplishment of which lay at the very foundation of Paul's call to
the ministry.

In the second chapter of Ephesians, already quoted, Paul declares
that both Jews and Gentiles were reconciled to God in one body _by the
cross_. In the next chapter he shows his part in the accomplishment of
that end. First, he was called of God as the apostle of the Gentiles;
then by revelation was made known unto him "the mystery of Christ
which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men ...
that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, and OF THE SAME BODY, and
partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel" (Eph. 3:4-6). The
promise referred to was doubtless the "promise of the Father," the
gift of the Holy Ghost. "That the blessing of Abraham might come on
the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the _promise
of the Spirit through faith_" (Gal. 3:14). "For this cause," says
Paul, "I was made a minister ... that I should preach among the
Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; and _to make all men see_
what is the fellowship of the mystery ... to the intent that now unto
the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known BY THE
CHURCH the manifold wisdom of God" (Eph. 3: 1-10).

[Sidenote: Was divinely attested]

Paul was given a tremendous task--"TO MAKE ALL MEN SEE" that mystery.
This task required from God "the effectual working of his power"
(verse 7). And in another place he also shows that this power was not
lacking: "For I will not dare to speak of any of those things which
Christ hath not wrought by me, to make the Gentiles obedient, by word
and deed, through mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit
of God" (Rom. 15: 18, 19).

Paul, then, was divinely commissioned "_to make all men see_" the
mystery of this union of all classes of men "_in one body_ by the
cross" (Eph. 2: 16), all in "the SAME body, and partakers of his
promise in Christ by the gospel" (Eph. 3: 6). And when Paul's career
was finished, the same mystery was given over to others that it might
be "known BY THE CHURCH" (verse 10), "the church, which is his body"
(Eph. 1: 22, 23). The ministry, then, should have held the ground
already attained, the actual union of all the saved in one body, and
have labored earnestly "to make all men see" that that body only is
the church.




CHAPTER III

THE LOCAL CHURCH


The words of Christ, "I will build my church; and the gates of hell
shall not prevail against it" (Matt. 16: 18), convey a deeper meaning
than the simple preaching of the kingdom. As we have already shown,
the one specific personal act by virtue of which Christ became the
founder of the church was his atonement on Calvary, where the church
was "purchased with his own blood" (Acts 20: 28). The church, then,
as an institution, resulted from the atonement. Paul, describing the
union of Jews and Gentiles in one body, the church, declares that it
was effected "by the cross" (Eph. 2: 16).

There was power in redemption. It brought into the lives of believers
forces that could not but unite them in social compact. It threw them
together in living sympathy and united their hearts firmly in the
strong bonds of brotherly love. Their outward organic union as a
church was the natural and inevitable result of this inward life and
love.

[Sidenote: Local church defined]

By the impartation of spiritual life to believers and by the agency of
the Holy Spirit operating in the apostles as special agents appointed
to do his work, Christ built his church on earth. There was a building
of the church, then, which pertained specifically to its _local_
and _visible_ development among men. The expression "_I_ will build"
indicates the transcendent element, the divine element, in church
organization. This being true, it follows that the local church was
not merely an aggregate of individuals accidently gathered together,
but was the local, concrete embodiment of the spiritual body of
Christ; the unified company of regenerated persons who, as a body,
were dedicated to Christ, acknowledged of Christ, and used by Christ
through the Holy Spirit for the accomplishment of his work. Jerusalem
furnishes the first example, dating from Pentecost (Acts 2).

[Sidenote: Particular example: Corinth]

That this is, generally speaking, the Scriptural definition of a local
church of God, is further shown by another particular example. Paul
addressed two of his epistles "to the church of God which is at
Corinth" (1 Cor. 1: 2; 2 Cor. 1: 1). As individuals they are called
"saints" and "brethren," but collectively as a church they are called
"the church of God" and referred to as "God's building" (1 Cor. 3:
9). And the apostle says to them, "Know ye not that ye are a temple of
God, and that the _Spirit of God dwelleth in you_?" (verse 16, R.V.).
They had been inducted by the Spirit into the "_one body_," and they
were filled with the gifts of the Spirit--wisdom, knowledge, faith,
healing, miracles, prophecy, discernment, and tongues (chap. 12). In
fact, the apostle said, "Ye come behind in no gift" (chap. 1: 7). And
he said particularly, "_Ye are the body of Christ_" (chap. 12: 27).

A true local church, then, was the concrete embodiment of the
spiritual body of Christ in a given place. It was the body of Christ
because it was made up of the people of God, manifested the power of
God, was the repository of the truth of God, was filled with the
gifts of the Spirit of God, and was actually used by the Spirit in
performing the works of God. Such characteristics made it "_the church
of God_."

[Sidenote: Local membership]

Membership in the general body of Christ was conditioned solely on
the new birth, or salvation. Since the individual church was the local
embodiment of the general church, none but the saved could properly
become members thereof, and all who were truly saved (in the same
locality) belonged to it by divine right. At this point, however, the
human element in the constitution of the local church became manifest.
We have pointed out the divine element in the true church--the element
that particularly distinguished it as the church of God, but the
bringing together of many individuals in one assembly involved also a
social element and required the principle of _recognition_. There
is, however, no evidence that such recognition was given by a formal,
official act of the church in its corporate capacity. And since
salvation is of the heart, it was possible for human recognition to
temporarily miss its true purpose. Thus, in the church at Jerusalem
we find recognized as a constituent part of the assembly two false
members--Ananias and Sapphira. On the other hand, when the converted
Saul "was come to Jerusalem, he essayed to join himself to the
disciples: but they were all afraid of him, and believed not that he
was a disciple" (Acts 9: 26). The church at Corinth, already referred
to, had some false members at the time the Pauline epistles were
written. The church at Samaria also tolerated for a time one whose
"heart was not right in the sight of God" (Acts 8).

[Sidenote: A holy church]

Since the local church was designed to exhibit concretely the
spiritual body of Christ, none but saved persons could _properly_
hold membership therein; therefore the local church when in its normal
condition was free from sin and sinners. The physical body, which
Paul uses to illustrate the spiritual body, is normal only when every
member possesses the life of the body and functions properly. So also
was the body of Christ. It was not God's will that there should be
(as recognized members) "sinners in the congregation of the righteous"
(Psa. 1: 5). It was his will to purge Jerusalem "by the spirit of
judgment and by the spirit of burning" until "_he that is left_ in
Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called _holy_,
even _every one_ that is written among the living in Jerusalem" (Isa.
4:3,4).

[Sidenote: Discernment and judgement necessary]

The local congregation in Jerusalem did not cease to be the church
of God because two unworthy persons obtained recognition in it. This
incident gave occasion for the church to manifest its inherent _life_
by its ability to discern and then cast off the secret offenders just
as a healthy physical body casts off effete matter. As a result of the
judgment pronounced on Ananias and Sapphira, "great fear came upon all
the church ... and of the rest _durst no man join himself to them_;
but the people magnified them" (Acts 5:11, 13). The fiery judgments
of God put an end to formal church-joining there, as a result of which
"believers were the more _added to the Lord_, multitudes both of men
and women" (verse 14). "And the Lord added to them day by day those
that were being saved" (Acts 2:47, R.V.).

A clean, pure local church was the divine standard. It is evident that
such could never be obtained and maintained except by the power of the
Holy Spirit, who discerned evil and prompted its elimination. Peter
discerned the condition of the two false members in the church at
Jerusalem and removed that blemish. He also exposed the hypocrisy
of Simon at Samaria, and Paul pointed out the evil affection in the
church at Corinth and directed its removal. Chief responsibility
for the maintenance of the normal condition of the church will be
considered in our discussion of the particular features of church
organization and government.

[Sidenote: Apostasy possible]

We have shown the characteristic, spiritual features of a New
Testament congregation in its normal condition; also the possibility
of deviation from that standard. A practical question is, How far
could such a congregation lapse into an abnormal state and still be
a church of God? Or, Can a church as a body backslide? The church at
Ephesus evidently was on the verge of such an apostasy. Therefore in
the special message addressed to it in Revelation the Lord said: "I
have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.
Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the
first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and _will remove
thy candlestick_ out of his place" (Rev. 2: 4, 5). So also the church
at Laodicea. "I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I
would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art luke warm, and
neither cold nor hot, _I will spew thee out of my mouth_" (Rev. 3: 15,
16).

[Sidenote: The line of distinction]

The physical body may experience the mutilation of some of its members
and still survive, but there is a limit beyond which death will ensue.
So also the spiritual body may survive the encumbrance of a few
false members. From the general facts and principles already adduced,
however, we may safely assert that a local church is a church of God
only so long as it is able to function properly _as a body_. As long
as the Spirit of God is in the ascendency, so that the people of God
as a body manifest the power of God, maintain the truth of God, are
filled with the Spirit of God, and are actually used by the Spirit
in performing the works of God, so long they are the church of God.
Whenever another spirit gains the ascendency and the divine, spiritual
characteristics are lost to view, then is brought to pass the saying
that is written, "_I will spew thee out of my mouth_." Beyond that
time they may continue their formal services, singing hymns, saying
prayers, and making speeches; but the real message of God describing
their condition is, as was true of Sardis, "Thou hast a name that thou
livest, _and art dead_" (Rev. 3: 1). Such dead congregations are no
longer a part of the true church and are unworthy of the recognition
of spiritual congregations.




CHAPTER IV

THE ORGANIZATION AND GOVERNMENT OF THE CHURCH


[Sidenote: The fact of organization]

We have already shown that the words of Christ "I will build my
church" have a deeper meaning than the simple preaching of the
kingdom. They imply the formation of an organized structure against
which even the gates of hell should not prevail. They can signify
nothing less than the visible establishment of the church among men as
the concrete embodiment of the divine kingdom or family. The church,
then, as made up of local congregations, is an institution of divine
appointment. This is shown by the words of Christ in Matt. 18: 17,
according to which it sometimes becomes necessary in admonishing
and disciplining trespassers to "_tell it unto the church_"; and the
appellation "church of _God_" is frequently applied to individual
congregations (1 Cor. 1: 2, et al.).

Many teachers hold that Christ did not build a church and that the
"form of church organization is not definitely prescribed in the New
Testament, but is a matter of expediency, every body of believers
being permitted to adopt that method of organization which best suits
its circumstances and condition." Such is the Protestant view
put forth by those who seek an excuse for the modern system of
sect-building. The incorrectness of this theory is easily shown.
First, as we shall see, it underestimates the need of divine direction
in church relationship and ignores well-established facts in the New
Testament history. Secondly, if it proves anything, it proves too
much; for to admit such a principle of "church powers" is to admit
that the papacy and every other human system of church control is
justified--systems which can be historically shown to be subversive of
the church as a spiritual body.

That the church was actually organized into local assemblies in
apostolic days is abundantly shown by the New Testament record. They
had regular meetings at stated times (Heb. 10:25; Acts 20:7; I Cor.
16:12); officers (Acts 20:28; 1 Pet. 5:2; Eph. 4:11, 12); recognized
authority (1 Tim. 5:17; Heb. 13:17); discipline (1 Cor. 5:13; 2 Thess.
3:6, 10-14); a system of contributions (1 Cor. 16:1, 2); ordinances
(Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 10:16; 11: 23-29); a common work, etc. On one
occasion Paul instructed Titus to "_set in order_ the things that are
wanting, and ordain elders in every city" (Tit. 1:5).

[Sidenote: By whom effected]

The words of Jesus "I will build my church" point us to the Christ
as its real founder. Since the life and genius of the church is
the superhuman element, which element must at all times be given
precedence over mere outward forms and human characteristics, and
since this life proceeds from Christ as the Redeemer of men, therefore
in all fundamental aspects he is the personal founder of the church.
But more than this, working by proxy, Jesus gave even external form to
his church, employing for this purpose his chosen apostles, to whom
he gave special instruction and authority. Even during his personal
ministry Jesus performed some of his work by proxy. It is expressly
stated that he baptized many (John 3: 22; 4: 1), and yet explanation
is made that "Jesus himself baptized not, _but his disciples_" (John
4: 2).

So also in the organization of the church. The germ of that
organization existed during Christ's personal ministry. Doctrine
was given, ministers preached, baptism was administered, and people
believed, but this embryonic organization could not be completely
established as a church before the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
Therefore provision was made for its progressive development under the
tutelage of specially inspired apostles. Doctrine was given gradually,
yet invariably through the oral and written teaching of these inspired
apostles. Therefore we can not but believe that the same invariable
guidance of the Holy Spirit also perfected through them God's own plan
of church organization and work. The gradual development of church
organization under the labors of the apostles, therefore, no more
proves the theory of a constant historic development than does the
fact of a gradual unfolding of the Christian faith and doctrine by
the apostles prove a constant and unending revelation of the gospel
through all succeeding ages. One writer has well said, "The same
promise of the Spirit which renders the New Testament an unerring and
sufficient rule of faith renders it also an unerring and sufficient
_rule of practise_ for the church in all places and times." We
must therefore regard the organization of the church, as we do the
unfolding of the gospel message, as complete in all its fundamental
and essential aspects before the close of the sacred canon.

[Sidenote: Apostolic agency]

There is no doubt that the apostles occupied a special place in the
divine establishment of the church and its message. Regarded as a
temple, the church is "built upon the foundation of the apostles and
prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone" (Eph. 2:
20). The Old Testament Scripture "came not in old time by the will of
man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost"
(2 Pet. 1: 21). But now we read, "God, who at sundry times and in
divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
hath in these last days _spoken unto us_ BY HIS SON" (Heb. 1: 1, 2).
Moses, representative of the law, and Elias, representative of the
prophets, appeared in glory on the Mount of Transfiguration; but
when Peter suggested that they be accorded equal honors with Jesus,
immediately a cloud overshadowed the company and a voice out of the
cloud said, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; HEAR
YE HIM." "And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man,
save _Jesus only_" (Matt. 17:1-8).

[Sidenote: Model for all ages]

The revelation of divine truth, therefore, as the foundation of our
faith, reached its highest level in the Son. We need not look for
another gospel--_hear him_. He has also said, "I will build my
church"; hence we need not look for another church--HEAR HIM! Paul
declares that the gospel with its revelation of the "mystery" of the
union of the saved in one body, the church, was in his day "_made
manifest_," and, "according to the commandment of the everlasting God,
made known to all nations _for the obedience of faith_" (Rom. 16:25,
26). See Eph. 2; 3:1-10. While therefore Christ was the author of
the truth in its highest form of revelation, also the founder of his
church, both reached their fulness of perfection under the inspired
apostles and was by them "made known to all nations _for the obedience
of faith_." The unity of all believers for which Christ solemnly
prayed was to be accomplished through the direct agency of the
apostles, the result of believing on Christ "_through_ THEIR _Word_"
(John 17:20).

In describing how both Jews and Gentiles were reconciled in one body
by the cross, Paul says that God "hath raised us up together, and made
us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: _that in the ages
to come_ he might show the exceeding riches of his grace" (Eph. 2: 6,
7). The unified church of the apostolic day is therefore the divine
model for all succeeding ages.

[Sidenote: Paul's relation thereto]

Since the first apostles were employed as special agents in
establishing the perfected New Testament church, Paul's connection
therewith is of particular importance. Paul was not one of the
original twelve, yet he exerted a tremendous influence in that period
and was undoubtedly one of the chief agents used in establishing the
church and fixing its external form and character.

Many believe that Paul belonged among the twelve as the real successor
of Judas. According to this view, the election of Matthias to the
apostleship was without divine sanction, being proposed by the
impetuous Peter, who, before the descent of the Holy Ghost, often
proposed inadvised things. Strength is given this view by the
oft-repeated assertion of Paul that he was an apostle, "not of men,
neither by men, but by Jesus Christ" (Gal. 1: 1). We are not forced to
that conclusion concerning Matthias, however. In writing the Acts of
the Apostles, Luke the companion of Paul, records the appointment of
Matthias without intimating that it was a mistake. In Scripture usage
a certain parallelism is maintained between the twelve apostles of the
Lamb and the twelve tribes of the children of Israel. When we recall
that there were literally thirteen tribes in Israel, Ephriam and
Manasseh standing for Joseph, we need not be surprized that there
should be literally thirteen foundational apostles in the Christian
church, Matthias and Paul standing, as it were, in the place of Judas.

There can be no doubt that Paul really ranked with the Twelve. He
was a "chosen vessel," the "apostle of the Gentiles." Although as one
"born out of due time," he himself saw Jesus and from him received the
entire gospel by direct revelation. Consequently the other apostles
possessed no advantage over him. He himself says, "The gospel which
was preached of me was not after man. For I neither received it of
man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ"
(Gal. 1:11, 12). He "was not a whit behind the very chiefest
apostles" (2 Cor. 11:5). And it was through Paul particularly that
the revelation of the "mystery" was made complete--"that both Jews and
Gentiles should be fellow heirs and of _the_ SAME _body_," and he was
commissioned "_to make all men see_" it.

The general church was, therefore, made up of various local
congregations, which were "set in order" by apostolic authority. The
essential nature of this organization is determined by the object for
which these congregations were formed, the conditions of membership
therein, and the kind of laws by which they were governed.

[Sidenote: Nature of its organization]

The primary object for which the local church was formed was the
establishment and extension of the kingdom of God among men. A
secondary object was the encouragement and mutual edification of the
believers themselves, which was best obtained by united worship in
prayer, exhortation, praise, thanksgiving, and religious instruction.

We have already noted the conditions of membership in the local
church. None but those who were already members of the body of Christ
could properly be recognized as members in a congregation which was
designed by Christ to exhibit in local and temporary form the
true idea of the church universal. According to this standard of
membership, every individual owed allegiance directly to Christ
himself as the great head of the church. Christ was the only lawgiver.
The relation of the individual to the local church, then, did not
in any sense supersede his personal relations to Christ, but simply
strengthened and further expressed this higher relationship.

In this standard of church-membership is found the secret of the union
in one body of all apostolic Christians. The standard was _personal
relationship to Christ_, and this relationship could be obtained
only by an experience of salvation and humble obedience to the law
of Christ. Therefore all the truly saved were members of Christ and
members of each other. This standard being the same for all, it led
to absolute equality among members. Hence Paul could say, "There
is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is
neither male nor female: for ye are all one _in Christ Jesus_" (Gal.
3:28).

The law of the church, as already stated, was simply "the law of
Christ"; first as delivered orally by specially inspired apostles, and
afterwards expressed by them in the Christian Scriptures.

[Sidenote: Organization and government]

The closest relationship necessarily existed between the organization
of the church and its method of government. It is impossible for us
to get a clear conception of either independently of the other; and
in order to understand the subject at all, we must bear in mind the
fundamental nature of the church itself, what it was and what it was
designed to accomplish. The church was not, as we have seen, a mere
aggregate of individuals that happened to gather or that assembled for
ordinary purposes. A social club or a business organization would have
possessed all those features. The church was the body of Christ, the
body to which he gave spiritual life and through which he designed
to manifest his power and glory. Hence its visible organization was
secondary, merely incidental as the means for the accomplishment
of those higher ends involved in the transcendental element of the
church. The relation of the divine and the human characteristics was,
therefore, the relation of _soul and body_--Christ, the soul; redeemed
humanity, the body. The establishment of this relationship was
the manifestation to the world of the "body of Christ." It was
organization of the church.

From the foregoing considerations, we are certain that in the
apostolic church the real emphasis was placed on _life_ and that the
governmental power and authority of the church was derived from its
divine life in Christ and not from its organization. Apostolic church
government was, therefore, more than the adoption of some particular
form of external organization and administration.

[Sidenote: Divine administration]

The origin of the church was divine. Jesus said, "I will build my
church." And though, as we have seen, he employed human agents in its
completion, these agents were so specially inspired and directed by
Christ through the Holy Spirit that it was in reality _his_ work.
Jesus was not only the initial founder of the church, but he was its
permanent head and governor. Isaiah, predicting the coming of Christ,
declares that "the government _shall be upon_ HIS _shoulder_" (Isa.
9:6). And again, we read that "HE _is the head of the body, the church
... that in all things he might have the preeminence_" (Col. 1:18). He
it was who called and commissioned Paul and then personally directed
his ministerial labors (Acts 26:13-19; 16:6-9). He it was who
walked in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, encouraging or
reproving the congregations of Asia (Rev. 1:17, et seq.). He is
"alive forever more" (Rev. 1:18); "the same yesterday, and today, and
forever" (Heb. 13: 8); "upholding all things by the word of his power"
(Heb. 1:3). "To him be glory _in the church_ ... throughout all ages,
world without end. Amen" (Eph. 3:21).

[Sidenote: Christ the living head]

Thus, the general nature of church government was an absolute
monarchy, or, to use a better term, a theocracy. Christ was king and
lawgiver, governor and administrator. Whoever the instruments employed
in carrying out his purposes, whatever the scope of their particular
activities, all were governed directly by Christ through the Holy
Spirit. It was _his_ church. He was its living head. No other church
was known in those days. It was only when the living, vital union of
Christ with his church was lost to view that men began endeavoring
to strengthen the bonds of external union by unscriptural human
organization, just as when life is departed from the physical body we
seek by an embalming process to prevent its speedy dissolution.

[Sidenote: Delegated authority]

In order to understand church government, therefore, we must begin
at the central source of authority and proceed to its varied
manifestations. We have seen that Christ employed human agents in
accomplishing his work; hence, in thus performing the work of Christ
as commanded by Christ, and as personally directed by the Spirit of
Christ, these men possessed the _authority of Christ_. Any church
governmental authority that does not proceed directly from Christ
through his Holy Spirit is but human authority, an usurped authority,
and has no place in the real church of Christ.

[Sidenote: Ministerial oversight]

The apostles were the first to whom Christ delegated authority. They
became his special representatives. They established the church and
became responsible for its general direction and oversight, "the Lord
working with them, and confirming the word with signs following" (Mark
16:20). But these twelve did not stand alone in the government of
the church. Soon a host of ministers were raised up, and these also
possessed divine authority for their representative lines of work.
To the elders of Ephesus, Paul said, "Take heed therefore unto
yourselves, and to all the flock, over which _the Holy Ghost hath made
you overseers_, to feed the church of God" (Acts 20:28). Peter also
writes: "The elders which are among you I exhort ... feed the flock of
God which is among you, _taking the oversight thereof_" (1 Pet. 5:1,
2). "The Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work
whereunto _I have called them_ ... so they, _being sent forth by the
Holy Ghost_, departed" (Acts 13: 2-4). "AND HE GAVE some, apostles;
and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and
teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the
ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ" (Eph. 4:11, 12). In
accordance with this standard, we read, "Obey them that have the rule
over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, _as
they that must give account_" to him who is "that great shepherd
of the sheep" (Heb. 13:17, 20). The ministers were under-shepherds
appointed to feed the flock of God, for which service they had to give
account to the great Shepherd.

The foregoing scriptures and many others show conclusively that, while
in the apostolic church spiritual oversight was, in general, vested in
the ministry, it did not originate with them; that it did not proceed
from the general body of believers by a majority vote or by conference
appointment; but that it came by the Holy Spirit direct from the great
head of the church, who alone determined the general bounds of that
authority and responsibility. This ministry, or presbytery, consisted
of two classes--local ministers and general ministers. Before
proceeding from this general classification to a discussion of the
more specific duties and responsibilities of the individual ministers
comprising this presbytery, I shall call attention briefly to the
geographical distribution of their work as a body.

[Sidenote: Local and general phase]

We have already shown that the church in its visible phase was made up
of various local congregations "set in order" by apostolic authority.
So far as their own local affairs were concerned, these congregations
were autonomous. When a matter was purely local, such as the financial
oversight and ministration in the church at Jerusalem, the local
congregation itself determined the course of action and (excepting
that class of officials who were divinely chosen) who should be
appointed to oversee it. In the Jerusalem example cited, the apostles
suggested, "_Look ye out among you_ seven men," etc., "and the saying
pleased the whole multitude: _and they chose_" the proper persons for
that work (Acts 6:1-5).

But while these congregations possessed such autonomy and were
distributed over a wide territory, they were not in all respects
independent, isolated units. As members of Christ sharing in a common
life and engaged in a common cause, they were bound together in one
brotherhood by ties of fellowship and love. In addition to the union
of separate individuals in one locality under the care of the local
presbytery, the local congregations themselves were brought into
close, sympathetic relationship with one another through the labors
and influence of those general ministers who were not attached to
particular churches, but whose gifts, callings, and qualifications
fitted them for general service throughout the various congregations.
The responsibility and authority of these general ministers varied in
accordance with their own gifts and qualifications and the degree of
development attained by the churches among which they labored. In
the case of infant churches, it is evident that oversight was of
the apostolic kind--direct and immediate. But whenever they became
thoroughly established, the principle of local autonomy was recognized
and the relation of the general ministers to such congregations
was evangelistic rather than apostolic--helpers and advisors, not
administrative directors.

[Sidenote: Geographical distribution]

That the foregoing analysis is correct is abundantly proved by the
history of events in the Acts respecting the geographical distribution
of the churches and their relation to one another. Jerusalem was the
original seat of Christianity. Isaiah prophesied, "Out of Zion shall
go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem" (Isa. 2:3).
Jesus told the apostles "that repentance and remission of sins should
be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem"
(Luke 24:47). And again, "Ye shall be witnesses unto me both in
Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost
part of the earth" (Acts 1:8). Philip went from Jerusalem to Samaria
and there preached Christ with great success. "Now when the apostles
which were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the Word of
God, _they sent unto them Peter and John_" (Acts 8:14). Later we
read that when churches had been established throughout all Judea and
Galilee and Samaria, "it came to pass, _as Peter passed throughout all
quarters_, he came down also to the saints which dwelt at Lydda" (Acts
9: 31, 32). It was while he was on this general tour visiting the
churches that he came to Joppa and there received the vision which led
him to the household of Cornelius, after which he came to Jerusalem
and was there called to account for his action in visiting the
uncircumcised Gentiles.

There is no doubt that there was exerted from Jerusalem a general
care over the surrounding churches. Some of the disciples who were
scattered from Jerusalem at the time of persecution, went as far as
Cyprus and Antioch, preaching the word, and many believed and turned
to the Lord. "Then tidings of these things came unto the ears of the
church which was in Jerusalem: _and they sent forth Barnabas_ that
he should go as far as Antioch" (Acts 11: 19-22). Barnabas went to
Antioch and there found such a splendid work that he departed at once
for Tarsus seeking Saul, and together they returned to Antioch and
preached for a whole year.

[Sidenote: Operative centers]

While this principle of general superintendence of infant churches
originated with the apostles themselves, it was extended to others who
were not of the first apostles. Barnabas and Saul were successful at
Antioch and there established the first Christian community outside
the confines of Judaism, as the result of which Antioch became the
seat of Gentile Christianity. Shortly afterwards "certain prophets and
teachers" in the church at Antioch, men who were not of the original
apostles, were directed by the Holy Ghost to send forth Barnabas
and Saul on their first missionary journey, and they went forth
establishing local churches and afterwards setting them in order by
ordaining elders, after which these ministers returned to Antioch,
gathered the church together, and gave them a report of their work.
Antioch was, therefore, an operative center.

At a later time Paul established the truth in Ephesus, the chief city
of Proconsular Asia. As might naturally be expected from the strategic
position and political importance of that city, Ephesus also became
an operative center for Christianity, "so that all they which dwelt
in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks" (Acts
19:10). Thessalonica in Macedonia and Corinth in Achaia are other
examples of the kind.

[Sidenote: Regional units]

The work of the church naturally fell into these geographical units;
therefore the word "church" is sometimes used as a collective term
designating a body of regional congregations. The church "throughout
all Judea and Galilee and Samaria" (Acts 9:31), "the seven churches
which are in Asia" (Rev. 1:11), "the churches of Macedonia" (2 Cor.
8:1), "the churches of Galatia" (1 Cor. 16:1).

We must bear in mind, however, that this regional concept of the
church was not an integral part of fundamental apostolic church
government, but was merely incidental, the result of geographical
location. In fundamental analysis distinctions are always drawn
between things that are _different_, not between things of the same
kind. These regional churches were not different kinds of churches;
they were not bound together in separate groups by an external
organization which placed a wall between them and other congregations
of the saints. There was no authority here for the national-church
theory nor for the sectarian church idea. Geographical separation
there was, but not denominationalism.

[Sidenote: Common bond of unity]

We have already shown from Paul's writings that under his ministry
both Jews and Gentiles were united in one body, "the _same_ body."
That these regional units to which we have referred were no denial of
this clear truth, but that collectively they constituted one body, is
further shown by the indications we have of their _operative unity_.
Notwithstanding the poor facilities for communication and travel
in those days, which made general cooperation very difficult, and
notwithstanding the fact that the record of historic Christianity in
the Acts is exceedingly brief, we have, nevertheless, clear proof that
there was cooperation throughout the apostolic church. Two instances,
one of a business nature, the other ecclesiastical, establish
this point. The churches of at least three provinces of the Roman
Empire--Galatia, Macedonia, and Achaia--united under Paul's direction
in establishing a weekly financial system, the immediate object of
which was to assist in accomplishing a particular object in which they
were all interested (2 Cor. 8:9; 1 Cor. 16:1-3). The ecclesiastical
example is the council of the apostles and elders held in Jerusalem
and recorded in Acts 15. A question of doctrine and practise arose in
Antioch; the church there was not able to settle it; therefore it
was "determined that Paul and Barnabas, and certain other with them,
should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this
question" (verse 2).

This was not a general council of the church. No other sections or
provinces were represented. Nor did it meet as a legislative body,
even though there were present specially inspired apostles, to whom
had been given the commission to unfold the gospel as an authoritative
revelation. It is clear that the ministers of this council even sought
to avoid the legislative function. "For it seemed good to the Holy
Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these
necessary things" (verse 28). While this incident does not prove
an administrative human headship of the whole church centralized at
Jerusalem, it does prove that the individual congregations were not
isolated units, but that they had respect for, and sought the advice
and counsel of, older established congregations, and particularly of
those general ministers whose gifts, qualifications, and reputation
fitted them for general care of all the churches.

When we consider the divine nature of the church's organization,
with the ever-living Christ working mightily in all his ministers and
through them in particular administering its government, we can see
that the entire church was necessarily one body joined together in a
common fellowship and actually laboring together in the performance of
common tasks.

[Sidenote: Bishop and elder]

The presbytery, to whom was given particular oversight and government
of the church, was set apart by the Holy Ghost for this special work.
Different terms, such as "elder" and "bishop," were used to designate
this office. The term "bishop," which literally means _overseer_,
implies the duties of the office, while "elder" denotes its rank. That
these terms were used interchangeably and applied to the same order
of persons is proved by Acts 20:28 (cf. 17); Phil. 1:1; 1 Tim. 3:1, 8;
Tit. 1:5, 7; 1 Pet. 5:1, 2. This was admitted by many early writers,
as Jerome, Augustine, Urban II, Petrus Lombardus, Chrysostom,
Theodoret, and others.

From the general classification already given, let us proceed to the
specific. This body was made up of elders or bishops. The fact that
the terms "elder" and "bishop" were applied to all the presbyters
shows equality of rank; that the office was one. We find, however,
that these elders as individuals were diversified in their gifts and
callings in accordance with the specific work which the Holy Ghost
designed them to perform. Under one classification there were, broadly
speaking, two kinds of elders--local and general; that is, those whose
sphere of operation was particularly local and those whose influence,
work, and responsibility extended beyond any congregational
limitation. This distinction was not made arbitrarily, however; for
it was essential to the performance of the twofold class of work to be
done and was the inevitable result of that operation of the Spirit
in individual ministers which fitted them particularly for these
distinctive lines of activity.

[Sidenote: Divine gifts]

To be still more specific, we must go a step farther and consider the
reason why and the process by which ministers became differentiated
from other saints. In this we shall find the inner secret, both of
particular spiritual organization and of divine church government. The
apostle says, "By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body" and
"God hath set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath
pleased him" (1 Cor. 12:13, 18). These texts suggest more than a mere
attachment to the body: they imply _functional activity in the body_.
The functions of the body as described by Paul means the exercise of
spiritual gifts. "Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same
Spirit ... there are diversities of operations, but it is the same
God _which worketh all in all_. But the manifestation of the Spirit is
given to every man to profit withal. For to one is given by the Spirit
the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same
Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of
healing by the same Spirit; to another the working of miracles; to
another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers
kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues; but all
these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man
severally as he will" (1 Cor. 12: 4-11).

[Sidenote: Basis of ministerial authority]

The foregoing scripture is a mere enumeration of the gifts that God
implanted in the church as a body. The more particular application of
these gifts and their relation to church organization and government
are given further on in the same chapter. "Now ye are the body of
Christ, and members in particular. And God hath set some in the
church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after
that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities
of tongues. Are all apostles? are all prophets? are all teachers? are
all workers of miracles? have all the gifts of healing? do all speak
with tongues? do all interpret? _But covet earnestly the best gifts_"
(verses 27-31).

Comparison of verses 4 to 11 with verses 27 to 31 of the chapter just
quoted shows conclusively that one is the counterpart of the other,
the latter merely amplifying and explaining the former. From this
clear teaching it is evident that the work of apostleship, of
teaching, of governing, etc., were all based upon and grew out of
divine gifts implanted in the heart by the Holy Spirit.

The same truth is taught by Paul in another place. Speaking of Christ,
the apostle says, "When he ascended up on high, he ... _gave gifts
unto men_ ... and he gave some, _apostles_; and some, _prophets_;
and some, _evangelists_; and some, _pastors_ and _teachers_; for
the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the
edifying of the body of Christ" (Eph. 4: 8-12).

According to these scriptures, the very governmental positions of the
church with their authority and responsibility were the product of
those gifts and qualifications bestowed upon certain individuals in
particular. Such gifts could be legitimately coveted with a view to
spiritual edification of the body (1 Cor. 12:31; 14:12). "If a man
desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work" (1 Tim. 3:1).
"Helps" doubtless included that class of assistants commonly called
deacons (1 Tim. 3:8-11).

Since in the primitive church organization and government were
determined by the divine gifts and callings possessed by individuals,
it is evident that we have in this something totally different
from that later conception of church government as a mere human
arrangement. At a subsequent time, as we shall show, church government
was patterned after the forms of political government in that it was
vested inherently in men. Four such forms have been developed--the
imperial, or papal; the episcopal; the presbyterial; and the
congregational. While these four differ in external form, they are all
alike in fundamental character, in that they assume that the governing
power rests inherently in _men_.

None of these forms of government represent the New Testament church.
The organization and government of that church was based upon the
_charisma_, or divine gifts and callings, of individuals composing the
church. The power and authority of an apostle or of an evangelist, for
example, did not rest upon any selection or appointment made by
men. The church did not act in a corporate capacity and confer
ecclesiastical power and authority upon any one. All such power and
authority came direct from God through the Holy Spirit, and it was
in God's name and by his authority alone that they acted. The
organization of the church was therefore charismatic. If, for example,
the gifts of an apostle were conferred by the Holy Spirit upon an
individual, he possessed apostolic responsibility and authority. The
brethren recognized such gifts when these were evident, and submitted
themselves voluntarily to such spiritual leadership and oversight; for
at this period there had not been developed that ecclesiastical system
by which human election and appointment gave positions and authority
to men. In fact, we shall clearly show later that the true church can
not be _legally_ organized. Every attempt of men to assume the reins
of authority and give governmental form and administrative direction
to the church has been denominational and sectarian.

[Sidenote: Ordination]

The true church was the whole family of God directed by his
Holy Spirit. Ministerial appointment, with its authority and
responsibility, was therefore divine. We have seen that through the
spiritual operation called the new birth, one became a member of
Christ, and hence by divine right belonged to whichever congregation
of the church he might be able to associate with; but that in
practical experience, such local membership involved recognition on
the part of the other members. So it was with the divine appointment
to the ministry. The only other essential to its practical operation
was simply recognition of that call. Such recognition, in the last
analysis, belonged to the whole church (1 Tim. 3: 2-7; Tit. 1:
6-9), but was given formally by the laying on of the hands of the
presbytery.

[Sidenote: Plurality of local elders]

The development of ministers in an apostolic church was a divine,
natural process, the inevitable result of the emphasis placed on the
gifts and callings of the Spirit. This free exercise of the Spirit's
gifts working in the members doubtless accounts for the plurality of
ruling elders found in those local churches. See Acts 14:23; 20:17;
Phil. 1:1; 1 Tim. 5:16, 17; Tit. 1:5. It could not be otherwise as
long as the churches were Spirit-filled, working congregations and
the Spirit of God had his way. The system that limited local church
government to a one-man rule originated in the apostasy, after the
gifts of the Spirit had died out. It is simply one part of that great
system of human organization that developed the full-grown papacy. Of
this we shall learn more hereafter.

The same principles that developed local ministers produced also
ministers of the general class. While some naturally became "pastors,"
"teachers," and "helpers" in the local church, particular gifts and
qualifications fitted others for "apostles" and "evangelists," whose
particular sphere was general oversight and work in the churches. The
prophet was not limited to either class.

[Sidenote: Apostolic oversight]

As it is not germane to my present purpose, I shall not here attempt
to define the various phases of ministerial work designated by various
terms but all included under the one generic term "elder." The work
described by the term "apostle," however, requires brief notice, on
account of its bearing on the subject of church government. The fact
that Paul had particular "care of all the churches" (2 Cor. 11:28)
and that he gave special instructions to Timothy and Titus, other
ministers (1 Tim. 5: 21; Tit. 1:5), forms the basis for the episcopacy
argument--church rule by a superior order of clergy called bishops.

"Apostle" literally signifies "a planter." The term belongs
specifically to the first founders of the Christian faith, but is
loosely applied in a more general sense to any minister who plants
Christianity in a new territory. It is clear that the first apostles
were especially inspired for a particular work in laying the
foundations of the Christian church and in writing the New Testament
Scriptures. Hence the apostolic office in this special sense passed
away with them. But there was, nevertheless, an apostolic work such
as planting and overseeing the infant work in a new field, and in this
sense Barnabas also was an apostle (Acts 13:46 with 14:4).

That the word "apostle" really signified a planter and was therefore
descriptive of the kind of work done is shown by the words of Paul
himself: "For he that wrought effectually in Peter to the apostleship
of the circumcision, the same was mighty in me toward the Gentiles"
(Gal. 2:8). And again, he says to the Corinthians, "If I be not an
apostle unto others, yet doubtless I am _to you_; for _the seal of
mine apostleship are ye in the Lord_" (1 Cor. 9:2). In another place
he says to the same church, "Though ye have ten thousand instructors
in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have
begotten you through the gospel" (1 Cor. 4:15).

The special, personal relation that the apostle, or planter, sustained
to the work which he had founded and over which he exercised general
jurisdiction, was but temporary, a sort of fatherly care. He was
obliged to oversee the work as a whole, including young ministers,
until it became thoroughly established. After others were able for the
work and the apostle's special oversight was withdrawn, there might be
ten thousand other instructors, but _no more fathers_. This disproves
entirely the episcopal idea as an essential feature of church
government. The apostle Peter even classes himself simply as an elder
in common with other elders (1 Pet. 5:1). But with the exception of
the original apostles, who were specially commissioned to reveal the
doctrine and message of the gospel and to establish the Christian
faith, the difference existing between elders in the primitive
church was not a difference in kind, but in degree only, varying in
accordance with their ability to put forth some portion of that moral
and spiritual power by which alone Christ governs his church.




PART II

The Church in History




CHAPTER V

CORRUPTION OF EVANGELICAL FAITH


It is not my purpose to write an ecclesiastical history, but in order
to make clear the work of final reformation, it will be necessary to
present at least a brief sketch of historic Christianity, outlining
particularly those leading features which show a radical departure
from the true church as originally constituted by our Lord and his
apostles.

[Sidenote: "The faith"]

In the days of primitive Christianity there was something called "the
gospel," "the truth," "the form of sound words," "_the faith."_ To
understand its fundamental nature is not difficult, for it has been
preserved and handed down to us in the writings of the New Testament.
According to this record, the gospel message, or "the faith," centered
in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, who died and rose again that
he might be a "Prince and a Savior, for to give repentance to Israel,
and forgiveness of sins" (Acts 5:31). "And that repentance and
remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations,
beginning at Jerusalem" (Luke 24:47). Around this central fact of
salvation from sin through faith in Christ clustered those other
truths and facts which either necessarily resulted from the new
relationship of redeemed humanity with God or were essential to its
visible manifestation and propagation. Prominent among these features
were the entire sanctification of believers, holy life and conduct,
the baptism, gifts, and leadership of the Holy Spirit, and the visible
unity and relationship of believers in one body, the church.

[Sidenote: An apostasy foretold]

I need not take time or space to describe the wonderful successes of
Christianity as long as the primitive purity and power of the
gospel message was sustained and its results realized in a living,
Spirit-filled church. But facts compel me to record a change from that
happy condition. This transition was foreseen by those who "spake as
they were moved by the Holy Ghost." Paul declared: "Some shall depart
from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of
devils" (1 Tim. 4:1); "Also of your own selves shall men arise,
speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them" (Acts
20:30). Peter predicted, "There shall be false teachers among you, who
privily shall bring in damnable heresies" (2 Pet. 2:1). Jesus himself
declared, "Many false prophets shall arise, and shall deceive many.
And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold"
(Matt. 24:11, 12).

Paul gives a more particular description of the coming apostasy in
the second chapter of Second Thessalonians. Asserting that the second
coming of Christ was not at that time imminent, he says: "Let no man
deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there
come a _falling away_ first, and that man of sin be revealed, the
son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that
is called God, or that is worshiped; so that he as God sitteth in the
temple of God, showing himself that he is God" (verses 3, 4).

The development of the "man of sin," which was occasioned by the
"falling away," was to be gradual, but should finally assume great
proportions, "so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God showing
himself that _he_ is God." The apostle further states: "For the
mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will
let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that wicked be
revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth,
and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming" (verses 7, 8). We
should not seek for the fulfilment of this prediction in those minor
sects and heresies which at an early date arose and soon passed away:
the description refers to some great power occupying the greatest
prominence, making the most pretentious claims, a power that is to
endure until the second advent of Christ. We must, therefore, look
for its fulfilment in what we may term the main line of historic
Christianity.

[Sidenote: First evidences of decline]

The "falling away" from the simple truths and standards of the gospel
began at a very early date. The mystery of iniquity was already
working in the apostles' day. Before the close of the first century
we find in the churches of Asia Minor a sad deflection from their
primitive condition. The church at Ephesus had left its first love
(Rev. 2:4); the church at Pergamos was tolerating false teachers and
being ruined by false doctrines (2:14, 15); Thyatira had lost the
spirit of holy judgment against wrong-doing and was therefore affected
by a shocking degree of immorality (2: 20-23); the message to Sardis
was, "Thou hast a name that thou livest, _and art dead_ (3:1);
Laodicea had become so lukewarm that the Lord said, "I will spew thee
out of my mouth" (3:15, 16).

[Sidenote: The apostolic fathers]

The transition from the apostles to the age of the early church
fathers is involved in considerable darkness. Not until the middle of
the second century, when Justin Martyr appears on the scene, does the
church emerge from its obscurity into the clear light of history. The
apostolic fathers--Clement of Rome, Ignatius, the Pastor of Hermas,
Papias, and the unknown author of the Epistle to Diognetus--all these
lived and wrote during that transitional period, and they could have
told us much, but they have told us little. We can not but admire the
beautiful spirit in which they wrote, and their style is earnest and
vital. Nevertheless, we discern in these works two leading tendencies
which stand, so to speak, as prophecies of what was to predominate in
the ecclesiastical thought of succeeding centuries.

In the mind of the author of the Epistle to Diognetus, the grand
central thought is the incarnation and the spiritual presence of
Christ in redeemed humanity, by which they are led to the "free
imitation of God," as a result of which they become to the world
what the soul is to the body--its life and the means of holding it
together. This teaching is an epitome of the Greek theology developed
later by Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Athanasius. But in Papias,
who attaches much importance to oral traditions that "came from the
living and abiding voice"; in Ignatius, who exalts the bishop
above other presbyters; and in Clement, who, writing as a Roman,
is concerned with matters of administration and subordination to
authority--in these we discern the beginnings of the Latin theology
developed later by Tertullian, Irenaeus, Cyprian, and Augustine,
which produced the papacy, and which, as we shall show, has in a great
measure dominated the ecclesiastical thought of the world until the
present day.

[Sidenote: The Ante-Nicene age]

After emerging into the clear field of historic Christianity in the
time of Justin Martyr, we find everywhere evidences of a rapidly
developing apostasy. In one respect we approach an examination of the
Ante-Nicene church with feelings of admiration. This was a heroic age,
an age of Christian martyrs. The struggles of Christianity against the
powers of heathenism enthroned in the Roman Empire and throughout
the world form a bright chapter in the annals of historic deeds and
supreme loyalty to lofty ideals. When we view the subject from
this angle, it would almost seem to be an act of irreverence or of
sacrilege to call in question the doctrines and practises of that
period when the church was baptized by fire and waded through rivers
of blood. Reverence for the martyrs and for their noble efforts to
extend the cause of Christ is praiseworthy, but in justice to truth,
we must remember that even the martyrs were not inspired teachers
commissioned to build a model for all succeeding ages. That they
were heroic does not prove them infallible. We should never hesitate,
therefore, to compare their teaching with the pure doctrines of the
Word of God, and wherein there is any lack of harmony, we should be
guided by the truth as it is in Jesus.

However much we may admire the early church fathers, we can not help
noticing the sharp contrast between them and the first apostles;
between their writings and the sublime, inspired teaching of the
divine Word. If, after reading Paul, Peter, or John, we turn to
Tertullian, Irenaeus, or Cyprian, we instinctively realize that
we have, so to speak, been transferred from sunny Italy to frigid
Siberia. We are conscious of a change to another era, and to another
country. Notwithstanding the fact that we find numerous familiar
objects, we know that we are moving in another atmosphere amid foreign
surroundings.

[Sidenote: Growth of ritualism]

The church of the Middle Ages was the natural fruitage of the seeds
planted during the second and third centuries. There we began to
notice particularly foreign elements which stand out in bold
contrast to the simple forms of primitive Christianity. One of these
innovations was the development of the ritualistic spirit, according
to which undue importance was attached to particular forms of worship,
such as time, place, positions of the body, and ceremonial observances
in general. Take baptism for an example. Apart from erroneous notions
concerning the efficacy of baptism, which will be referred to under
another head, the writings of the church fathers abound with the
most minute and puerile details concerning how the act is to be
performed--details of catechism, of consecration of waters, of
dressing and undressing, exorcism, anointing from head to foot with
oil, the laying on of hands, etc., all of which were to be carried out
in the most exacting and solemn manner.

[Sidenote: Example from Tertullian]

As an example of the ritualistic character of Christian worship at the
beginning of the third century, I will cite a passage from Tertullian.
In the third chapter of his work De Corona, this celebrated Latin
father undertakes to defend customs and practises that he confesses
were received "on the ground of tradition alone." He says: "I shall
begin with baptism. When we are going to enter the water, but a little
before, in the presence of the congregation and under the hand of the
president, we solemnly profess that we disown the devil, and his pomp,
and his angels. Whereupon we are thrice immersed, making a somewhat
ampler pledge than the Lord has appointed in the gospel.[A] Then
when we are taken up (as new-born children) we taste, first of all, a
mixture of milk and honey, and from that day we abstain from the daily
bath for a whole week. We take also, in congregations before daybreak,
and from the hand of none but the president, the sacrament of the
Eucharist, which the Lord both commanded to be done at mealtimes and
enjoined to be taken by all alike. As often as the anniversary comes
round, we make offerings for the dead as birthday honors. We count
shouting or kneeling in worship on the Lord's day to be unlawful. We
rejoice in the same privilege also from Easter to Whitsunday. We feel
pained should any wine or bread, even though our own, be cast upon the
ground. At every forward step and movement, at every going in and out,
when we put on our clothes and shoes, when we bathe, when we sit at
table, when we light the lamps, on couch, on seat, in all the ordinary
actions of daily life, we trace upon the forehead the sign of the
cross."

In words immediately following, at the beginning of Chapter 4,
Tertullian says: "If for these and other such rules you insist upon
having positive Scriptural injunction, you will find none. Tradition
will be held forth to you as the originator of them, custom as their
strengthener, and faith as their observer."

According to this confession, all the ceremonial observances here
set forth are without Scriptural authority. When we read in the
New Testament concerning the simple act of baptizing believers, and
compare it with the customs and practises that had grown up in the
Ante-Nicene church, we do not wonder that evangelical faith was soon
afterwards almost entirely lost in ritualistic forms; that, like the
Pharisees of old, men made the faith of God of none effect by their
traditions.

[Sidenote: False doctrines and heresies]

Another evidence of the decline of evangelical faith is found in
the presence of many false doctrines among the leaders of so-called
orthodox Christianity in that period of which I now write. Paul not
only taught that at a later time some should "depart from the faith,
giving heed to seducing spirits and devils" (1 Tim. 4:1), but he
referred to some who had already "erred concerning the faith" (1 Tim.
6:21), and named two persons, 'who, concerning the truth, had erred,
saying that the resurrection was past already, and overthrew the faith
of some' (2 Tim. 2:18). After the death of the apostles, error made
deeper inroads, and its baneful influence cast a shadow over the
church, which rapidly deepened into the darkness of spiritual night.

[Sidenote: Baptismal regeneration]

One of the earliest corruptions of apostolic truth concerned the
design and purpose of baptism. It was not long until unscriptural
significance was attached to the literal rite itself, so that what was
originally a mere sign, was substituted for the thing signified, and
thus baptism took the place of spiritual regeneration. In several
places in the writings of Justin Martyr, who lived about the middle of
the second century, his language seems to attach undue importance to
the literal rite; but other passages from the same author indicate
that he had not as yet entirely lost sight of the apostolic standard.
In his Dialog with Trypho, chapter 14, he says: "We have believed and
testify that that very baptism which he [Isaiah] announced is alone
able to purify those who have repented ... and what is the use of that
baptism which cleanses the flesh and body alone? Baptize the soul from
wrath and covetousness, from envy and from hatred, and lo, the body is
pure."

In his First Apology, chapter 61, the same writer draws a clear
Biblical distinction between spiritual regeneration secured through
repentance and faith, and ritual regeneration in baptism as a mere
outward sign of the inward work. He says: "I will also relate the
manner in which we dedicated ourselves to God when we had been made
new through Christ ... as many as are persuaded and believe that
what we teach and say is truth, and undertake to be able to live
accordingly, are instructed to pray and to entreat God with fasting
for the remission of their sins that are past, we praying and fasting
with them. Then they are brought by us where there is water and are
regenerated in the same manner in which we were ourselves regenerated.
For, in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the Universe, and of
our Savior Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, they then receive the
washing with water."

Other writers of the period under consideration, however, praise the
saving efficacy of baptism in the most exalted terms. According to
their minds, it is the actual means of the redemption of sins, not
a mere literal rite expressing ceremonially the work of God's Spirit
within the heart; it is an illumination; it extinguishes the fire
of sin; it removes the unclean spirits from men and seals them for
heaven. Tertullian wrote extensively on this subject. In his work
On Baptism, chapters 3 to 8, he maintains the doctrine of baptismal
regeneration "by which we are washed from the sins of our former
blindness and set free for eternal life." He declares that by this act
men are prepared to receive the Holy Ghost; that in the literal act,
"the spirit is corporeally washed in the waters, and the flesh is, in
the same, spiritually cleansed." Cyprian, bishop of Carthage (third
century), in his treatise concerning the Baptism of Heretics, teaches
the same doctrine in no uncertain terms.

[Sidenote: Other erroneous doctrines and practises]

The limits of this work preclude the historic treatment of the rise
and development of the host of false doctrines and practises that
finally bound the people in the thralldom of superstition and plunged
the world into the darkness of spiritual night. One who is free from
such influences can scarcely read without feelings of disgust the
elaborate treatises of these church fathers wherein they extol the
virtues of virginity as forming a new order of life, as an evidence of
divinity, as making virgins while in this world "equal to the angels
of God," and as a certain surety of special rewards in heaven. From
this false standard proceeded at length the celibacy of the clergy and
monkery with all their attendant evils. And the time would fail me to
tell of the introduction of images and image-worship in the Western
Church and of that superstitious regard for miserable relics of every
description and kind. True evangelical faith was at length lost to
view, buried beneath the rubbish of men's traditions. The treatment
of such matters, however, belongs to the church historian, and as the
general facts are well-known, it is unnecessary here to make more than
a brief reference to them so as to prepare the mind for that treatment
of the reformation which is a special object of the present work.


[Footnote A: Tertullian is the earliest writer that clearly and
unmistakably teaches trine immersion, or records its practise. But
here he honestly confesses that it is a "somewhat ampler pledge than
the Lord has appointed in the gospel."]




CHAPTER VI

RISE OF ECCLESIASTICISM


[Sidenote: Two phases of apostacy]

In order to understand the place which the work of reformation has in
the plan and purpose of God respecting his church, we must carefully
observe the twofold character of the apostasy. Both these phases
are clearly outlined in that remarkable prediction of Paul to which
reference has already been made, recorded in the second chapter
of Second Thessalonians. The first phase, described as "_a falling
away_," was that decline from true Christianity which we have
considered in the preceding chapter as the Corruption of Evangelical
Faith. The second phase was the rise and development of a foreign
element which was from its beginning "the mystery of iniquity" and
which in certain respects usurped the true place of Jehovah himself
in spiritual worship in the temple of God. This phase now demands our
special attention.

Since the sixteenth century reformation a large part of the Christian
world has renounced the right of the pope to sit as the supreme
earthly head of the church, but we shall show later that these same
modern Christians who have sought the restoration of the evangelical
_faith_ have not discarded the essential elements of the papal
hierarchical system, but have perpetuated them in their own
ecclesiastical constitutions, and that this relic of medievalism is
the chief barrier to a reunited Christendom and the restoration of
pure apostolic Christianity. It is highly essential, therefore, that
this phase of the apostasy be carefully considered. It is not enough
to reject the pope and his college of cardinals. If that tree, as
judged by its fruits, is an "evil" tree, we should seek to know where,
when, and by whom the evil seed from which it grew was first planted,
and then _reject it from the roots up_. Then, and not until then, can
the work of reformation be made complete. We have, therefore, to trace
the rise and development of what may be forcibly expressed by the
apparently pleonastic phrase _human ecclesiasticism_.

[Sidenote: Divine authority vs. positional authority]

We have already seen that in the church, as originally constituted,
organization, authority, and government proceeded from the divine and
not from the human. The agents whom Christ used in performing his
work and in overseeing his church were called and endowed by the
Holy Spirit, and this divine endowment was the real basis of their
authority and responsibility. Paul's authority and responsibility as
an apostle, for example, was not positional authority, or authority
proceeding from a certain position to which he had been appointed or
elected. His authority was divine, and out of that divine authority
grew his positional responsibility as the "apostle of the Gentiles."
Over and over he affirmed that he was an apostle, "not of men, neither
by man, but by Jesus Christ" (Gal. 1:1). On the same principle the
position, work, and responsibility of all the members of the body of
Christ grew out of the gifts and qualifications possessed by them, and
thus the church was divinely organized and divinely governed.

[Sidenote: Original bond of union]

The bonds which united primitive Christians in one body were
essentially moral and spiritual. Christ was their ever-living and
ever-acting head. Their life proceeded from him, and they were all
one in him. While those living in widely separated districts
consulted together concerning matters of general concern, or united
in cooperative efforts to accomplish common tasks, there is not the
slightest evidence that there was an external human organization
of the primitive church--either sectionally, nationally, or
universally--centralized under a human headship of the administrative,
legislative, and judicial kind. Christ was the head of the general
church, the head of all the local churches, the head of all the
individual members of the church. In him, the source of their common
life, the primitive Christians were essentially one, and by his Spirit
he operated in all hearts, in all the individual churches, and in all
the ministers whose particular gifts and qualifications fitted them
for divinely appointed oversight, both local and general. By this
means the primitive church was able to perform the work of Christ
harmoniously and present to the world the grand spectacle of one body.

[Sidenote: First steps to ecclesiasticism]

Jesus taught the humble equality of the New Testament ministry. "All
ye are brethren" (Matt. 23:8). According to the New Testament they
were all of one general order or rank, although greatly diversified
in gifts and qualifications and the kind of work accomplished by each.
The first example we have in Scripture of _positional authority_ in
the ministry as distinguished from the authority of the Holy Spirit,
is the case of Diotrephes, of whom the apostle John wrote in his
third epistle. We are also informed as to the nature of the authority
exercised by him and the direction in which it led. It was _human
authority_, something additional and foreign to the authority and
government through the Holy Spirit, and the first example of church
government by a single man. It proceeded from the evil root of pride
and ambition, the love of "preeminence" among the brethren; and
this usurped power and authority led to a judicial process by which
innocent brethren were 'cast out of the church.'

What a contrast this presents to that New Testament picture of the
divine ecclesia, exhibiting the highest form of human society known
to history, a body in which every member had his gift and use for it.
Among these many activities, oversight and preaching had their place,
but did not constitute the whole sum of Christian service. Paul
describes Christ as the living head "from whom the whole body fitly
joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth,
according to the _effectual working in the measure of every part_,
maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love" (Eph.
4:16). The object of the ministerial function was "the perfecting of
the saints, unto the work of ministering, unto the building up of the
body of Christ" (verse 12, R.V.).

In his early epistle to the Philippians, Paul makes reference to
the officers that guided that church. He sends greetings "to all the
saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the bishops and
deacons" (Phil. 1:1). Polycarp, writing to the same church in the
next century, addresses the "presbyters and deacons," showing that the
apostolic order was still preserved there.

[Sidenote: Bishops vs. Presbyters]

In the Ignatian epistles, however, written early in the second
century, there appears positional authority of a new order. In place
of the New Testament standard of a plurality of elders, or bishops,
jointly teaching and guiding the local church, we find recognition of
an office which was superior to that of the presbyters and to whose
incumbents alone the term "bishop" was applied. A few extracts from
his writings will make clear this recognition of a threefold order of
the ministry--bishops, elders, and deacons. "Wherefore, it is fitting
that ye should run together in accordance with the will of your
bishop, which thing also ye do. For your justly renowned presbytery,
worthy of God, is fitted exactly to the bishop as the strings are to
the harp" (To the Ephesians, chap. 4). "He is subject to the bishop
as to the grace of God, and to the presbytery as to the will of Jesus
Christ" (To the Magnesians, chap. 2). And again, in the same epistle
he says, "I exhort you to study to do all things with a divine
harmony, while your bishop presides in the place of God, and your
presbytery in the place of the assembly of the apostles" (chap. 6).
"In like manner, let all reverence the deacons as the appointment of
Jesus Christ, and the bishop as Jesus Christ, who is the Son of the
Father, and the presbyters as the Sanhedrin of God, and assembly of
the apostles. Apart from these there is no church" (To the Trallians,
chap. 3). To the Smyrnaeans he writes: "See that ye all follow
the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father.... Let no man do
anything connected with the church without the bishop" (chap. 8). "It
is not lawful without the bishop either to baptize or to celebrate a
love-feast; but whatsoever he shall approve of, that is also pleasing
to God" (chap. 8). "It is well to reverence both God and the bishop.
He who honors the bishop has been honored of God; but he who does
anything without the knowledge of the bishop, does [in reality] serve
the devil" (chap. 9).

That this early recognition of a superior order of ministers was a
distinct innovation is also shown from the literature of that period.
In the Shepherd of Hermas, dating from the first part of the second
century, elders and presbyters are distinctly named but no bishop
in contrast therewith. In the so-called "Teaching of the Twelve
Apostles," also dating from the first part of the second century,
bishops and deacons only are named as teachers and leaders of the
church, showing that the original signification of the term "bishop"
is here retained. Clement of Rome, in his first epistle to the
Corinthians, speaks of the ministry as an institution of the apostles,
but he mentions, nevertheless, only a twofold order--elders and
deacons, presbyters and deacons, or bishops and deacons. The same
classification is made in the second epistle of Clement to the
Corinthians, a work which is generally ascribed to another author; so
also in the epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians.

[Sidenote: Innovation becomes general]

The superior office of _the_ bishop as distinguished from the local
presbytery was, therefore, an innovation, but in process of time its
recognition became general. It is probable that in the local
presbytery of the primitive church some one minister excelled in
special gifts and qualifications and consequently became a natural
leader of his brethren. _Such_ leadership was of God, comes general
because it was based on the authority proceeding from the Spirit of
God. Such was the leadership which Paul held in a sphere of activity
wider than a local congregation. But such was not positional authority
or authority proceeding from a humanly created superior office and
appointment thereto. It was of divine order. But this fact of
distinguished leadership at first, doubtless furnished an excuse for
the creation of a distinct office with carefully defined functions and
limits of authority. The power of the bishop thus constituted advanced
steadily. The churches of the cities where they were located extended
their influences over smaller towns in the surrounding territory, and
thus the city bishop came to rule over the elders of the lesser
churches of a district.

[Sidenote: Development of hierarchy]

When the first step toward ecclesiasticism was definitely taken,
by the recognition of official position authority, and government
proceeding from human appointment alone, the way was prepared for
rapid progress toward a highly organized system of man-rule. When the
bishops met in provincial councils, special deference was given those
bishops from cities of great political importance, and they were
exalted to the presidency of these councils, and this in time led to
the recognition of a new order of church officials--_metropolitans_.
Later the metropolitans seemed too numerous for general utility in
governmental functions; therefore general leadership gradually became
centralized more and more in the bishops or metropolitans of
certain of the most important cities, until they were finally given
recognition as an order superior to that of metropolitans and were
styled _patriarchs_. The first Council of Nice recognized this
superior authority possessed by the patriarchates of Alexandria, Rome,
and Antioch. The General Council of Constantinople placed the bishop
of Constantinople in the same rank with the other three patriarchs,
and the General Council of Chalcedon exalted the see of Jerusalem to
a similar dignity. The race for leadership between the patriarchates
then began. On account of the Moslem invasion in the seventh century,
Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch fell away from their former
positions of greatness; therefore the rivalry for leadership was
henceforth between the see of Rome and the bishop of Constantinople.
Rome possessed many natural advantages, and consequently the bishop
of Rome gained the greater prestige. The full-fledged papacy was the
result.

[Sidenote: Fundamental causes]

What produced that transition from the humble apostolic church of the
brethren to the medieval church of the impious Hildebrand, who caused
monarchs to tremble on their thrones? The change resulted from two
particular causes, and it is highly essential to our purpose that
we understand them. One was a misconception both of the Fundamental
constitution of the true church itself as designed by its Founder
and of Christ's perpetual relationship to it; and the second was
the imperialistic tendencies of that age to which the first error
naturally exposed the church.

It is unnecessary here to recite at length that conception of the
primitive church which we have described in preceding chapters as
the concrete expression of the kingdom of God. Such was the only true
_catholic_, or universal, church. Its catholicity, however, was a
moral and spiritual dominion exercised over men by the truth and
Spirit of God, and was rendered visible only in the society of
redeemed believers who held the truth and bore its appropriate fruits
of righteousness. Being composed of the redeemed, it lovingly embraced
within its membership the entire brotherhood of Christ.

[Sidenote: Two theories of catholicity]

It is not too much to say that in the age in which Christianity first
appeared it was difficult for men to appreciate the conception of a
purely moral and spiritual authority which was to be universal and
perpetual. Another idea of catholicity soon began to take possession
of men's minds--the idea of a temporal and earthly organization of the
kingdom of heaven. In this conception of the church the bond of union
was not moral and spiritual--not the inevitable result of divine life
and love in the individual members--but its pretended catholicity was
to be secured by official, administrative, legislative, and judicial
functions under a human headship and a self-perpetuating human
magistracy. Such was the "mystery of iniquity," and in its developed
form historically it was "the man of sin." The student of the New
Testament can easily see that the great Founder never intended that
the boundary of his church should be determined by the administrative
functions of a self-perpetuating clerical corporation. But, on
the other hand, the real church embraces the entire _spiritual
brotherhood,_ and out of this spiritual membership was developed by
the Spirit of God the capacity and authority to teach, guide, and
instruct. What a contrast these two conceptions present!

[Sidenote: The power of the keys]

Out of that worldly conception of the kingdom of God grew the Romish
figment of the "power of the keys." According to this idea, Christ
constituted his ministers a sort of clerical, close corporation
invested with direct authority over souls so that without their
priestly mediation the kingdom of heaven is forever shut against men.
The words "keys of the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 16:19) are evidently
nothing more than a figurative expression indicating the moral
influence in the kingdom which Peter in particular should wield with
peculiar energy and efficiency. According to Matt. 18:18 all the
apostles and others were to exercise the same functions. In time, this
expression denoting moral influence and usefulness in the service of
Christ was tortured into an engine of despotism and made the means of
spiritual tyranny over the consciences of millions of men and women.
The corporation entrusted with such power durst not be resisted, and
the church was identical with the hierarchy.

But all of Rome's boasted catholicity, centralized in an official,
administrative corporation, is a chimera; for it is a fact that
multitudes are accepted of God as members of the divine family who are
not identified with the hierarchy. The real catholic church, embracing
the whole spiritual brotherhood, is therefore something else.

[Sidenote: Main source of ecclesiasticism]

But we have not yet reached in this discussion the tap-root of the
evil tree of human ecclesiasticism. The fundamental error underlying
all other errors on this subject, was the idea of an absent Christ.
Notwithstanding the definite assertions of our Lord, "I am with you
alway, even unto the end of the world" and "Where two or three
are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of
them"--notwithstanding these reassuring promises and the definite
statements of the apostles which represent Christ as the ever-living
and ever-acting head of the church, soon after the apostolic period
men lost the consciousness of the divine presence and began to think
and to act as if Christ were indeed absent and would not return again
for thousands of years. The presence of gigantic evils in the world
with no apparent available means of redressing them, the dead weight
of heathenism, and the disturbing influences of speculative Oriental
philosophies impressed upon the conscience of the world a despairing
pessimism. In the midst of this trial there was a revival of the
Platonic philosophy. The treatise of Plato that made the most profound
impression upon the religious thought of the second century was the
"Timaeus," wherein the Deity is pictured as withdrawn from the world
into a distant heaven separated from all creation because of the evil
with which matter is essentially connected. With God withdrawn from
the world and Christ absent on a long journey, what was man to do?
What was the hope of the world?

Here ecclesiasticism found its real opportunity. Here human authority
and government could be and was substituted for that spiritual
dominion of Christ which gave life, form, and character to his church
in primitive days. Here grew up that conception of the church as
identical with the hierarchy whose power and authority was handed
down by direct descent from the apostles and without whose priestly
mediation there was no hope of salvation. Here was introduced the
idea of world-wide centralization of administrative, legislative,
and judicial functions in a self-perpetuating human headship. What a
contrast! With Christ absent, the church an ark for the saving of the
world, the truth a mere deposit made to the church for safe keeping to
be handed down like a heirloom from generation to generation, and with
a self-perpetuating priestly corporation as master of the destinies of
the universe, we are prepared to understand the tyrannical rule of the
church of Hildebrand and Innocent III. Traced to its source, this evil
system is found to have sprung from that worldly conception of the
kingdom of Christ which was substituted for the inconceivably grander
conception of its Founder--a kingdom whose dominion is moral and
spiritual under the personal supervision of Christ himself in all
ages, and which embraces in its membership the entire spiritual
brotherhood.




CHAPTER VII

THE REFORMATION


The age of popery's greatest glory was the world's midnight. I have
not attempted to give an adequate description of that long reign of
superstition and error preceding the reformation of the sixteenth
century. Such is the particular province of ecclesiastical historians.
I have simply confined the discussion to certain features essential to
our present purpose.

One point of importance I have endeavored to impress, namely, that
the papal hierarchy, with all its attendant evils, corruption,
superstition, and spiritual despotism, was the logical successor of
the Ante-Nicene church; that the ripened fruits of papalism were the
direct results of the seeds of error planted in the second and third
centuries. In view of this fact, one is led to inquire why true
Christianity was not permanently buried in oblivion beyond the
possibility of resurrection, how any reformation could be possible.

If Christianity were nothing more than a human religion, its
reformation at such a period of decline and corruption would appear
impossible. But Christianity was of divine origin. No matter how
deeply it was buried under the rubbish of human tradition and
superstition, no matter how grossly it was perverted and misunderstood
by men, it still retained within itself the vital spark of divine
life, the living principle of reformation.

[Sidenote: First cause of reformation]

The secret of this reformatory power was Jesus Christ himself, the
great ever-living head of the church. Notwithstanding the decline
of faith and morals among those professing Christ, the wonderful
character of Jesus still stood out with remarkable clearness and
power in the records of the New Testament and could not but exert a
tremendous influence in spite of prevailing standards; could not
but shed rays of light and warmth in the midst of the surrounding
darkness. Although men's ideas of the church became perverted, they
could not entirely lose sight of the great Founder of the church, and
they could not escape the conviction that the record of the founding
of that church was given in the writings of the New Testament and that
these writings were worthy of peculiar veneration. Perhaps this is
the main reason why the learning of antiquity was chiefly preserved in
monasteries and churches. There were ecclesiastics in all these
ages who were acquainted with the Scriptures in Latin, and this
acquaintance tended to preserve the knowledge of Jesus the Christ as
portrayed in the original gospel records. The history of that epoch
proves that there were men who loved the Lord more than priestly forms
and ceremonial observances. John Wyclif, Jerome of Prague, John Huss,
and others experienced that deeper longing for personal relationship
with Christ, and they proclaimed the gospel of Christ in a manner that
could not be understood by the hierarchy of their times.

[Sidenote: Classical learning]

Jesus was indeed the Christ of God. The light which shone forth from
his presence could not be totally obscured, and the moral power and
influence of his life and teaching could not be destroyed. The revival
of classical learning restored the Greek Testament to western Europe
and attracted the attention of students and learned men in all the
monasteries and universities. While the hierarchy insisted on the
exclusive right to interpret the Scriptures, the simple reading of
these wonderful records could not but create new conceptions of truth
which no clerical prohibition could banish. Life was springing up in
the midst of death.

[Sidenote: Love for truth]

The Reformation was the sincere effort of honest men to restore the
truth of primitive Christianity, that the world might again experience
the triumph of evangelical faith. To the everlasting credit of the
Continental reformers be it said that their motives were not selfish.
They sought not for themselves freedom of thought and speech nor
church power. Their immediate object was the restoration of the
gospel; all other results were but secondary. Nothing is more
certain than that at the first Luther had no idea of assailing the
organization of the papal church. Most of the reformers at the first
still believed most earnestly in the imperial government of the
universal church; and they relinquished this long-cherished ideal only
when driven by force of circumstances which were at first unseen and
unsuspected. Luther did not at first question the doctrine of the
supremacy of the pope; but when he found that the reigning pope could
not be reconciled with the principles of truth which he taught, Luther
proposed to appeal the matters in question to a general council,
notwithstanding the melancholy example, a century earlier, of the
Council of Constance and the fate of John Huss and Jerome of Prague.

[Sidenote: Indulgences]

The real occasion for the outbreak of the Reformation was the papal
traffic in indulgences. Leo X had great need of money for the building
of St. Peter's, and other undertakings, and in order to fill the
coffers of the church he had recourse to the sale of indulgences.
The power of dispensing these indulgences in Saxony in Germany was
committed to a Dominican friar named Tetzel, a fanatical enthusiast
who entertained the most extravagant notions concerning their efficacy
in forgiving not only the sins already committed but even those which
were contemplated. Luther's soul burned with righteous indignation. Of
what use was the doctrine that forgiveness of sin came by the death of
Christ on the cross if any sinner could obtain it from an emissary of
the pope for a pecuniary consideration. Luther felt that this infamous
traffic was making the Word of God of none effect. He therefore drew
up ninety-five theses against the doctrine of indulgences and nailed
them on the church-door at Wittenberg. The printing-press scattered
copies of these theses everywhere, and soon the continent of Europe
was in a blaze of controversy. Such, in short, was the beginning of
the Reformation and some of the causes leading thereto.

[Sidenote: Gospel standard sought]

The key-note of the reformers was, therefore, the gospel. The views
of the reformers with respect to truth were not altogether harmonious,
and it is evident that some of them had much clearer conception of the
gospel than had others. Nevertheless, their primary purpose was the
same. They were gradually forced to the conviction that Rome had
made the faith of God of none effect by her traditions, errors, and
superstitions, so much so as to make it practically unknown. It was
the purpose of these heroic preachers to bring out these long-obscured
truths and thus make them effectual in the saving of men. The main
doctrine around which the Reformation centered was justification by
faith independent of human mediation.

So far as the Reformation restored to the world right doctrine, it
tended to correct the evils of that phase of the apostasy which we
have characterized as the corruption of evangelical faith. But it did
not remove that other evil characteristic of the apostasy, the parent
of nearly all other evils--_human ecclesiasticism_. Viewed from one
angle, that power appears to have been modified; but from another
point of view, we can see that what was formerly an imperial system
of centralized ecclesiastical control simply ended now in nationally
centralized systems perpetuating the same principles. Thus, from the
centralized dominion of the papal hierarchy there sprang the national,
or state, churches in Switzerland, Germany, Holland, England, Sweden,
and Scotland.

[Sidenote: Lingering influence of Rome]

We have already shown that development of ecclesiasticism which
culminated in the papacy. From the primitive autonomy of the local
churches, there came the centralization and consolidation of churches
sectionally under a human headship with administrative functions, then
provincial or national centralization, then finally the primacy of
Rome over them all. The reason for this is evident. When the moral and
spiritual dominion of Christ's kingdom was lost to view or could not
be appreciated, the wrong conception of the church as a world-empire
naturally took possession of men's minds; for in that age vast,
centralized, imperial power was the ideal government. When, however,
the political empire fell, and men witnessed the ruin of their
political ideal, they sought to realize the same universal conception
in a world-church possessing imperial powers under the pope of Rome.

[Sidenote: National churches]

At the period of the Reformation the Christian world had been in the
grip of this world-church idea for more than a thousand years. As
already stated, the reformers, whose minds were directed chiefly
toward the restoration of evangelical doctrine, had at first no idea
of breaking away from this standard. Evidently they had no conception
of that moral and spiritual dominion of Christ by which alone he
governs his church--a 'kingdom that is not of this world.' They
therefore abandoned the world-church idea reluctantly, and not until
the opposition of the hierarchy drove them to separation. When the
issue was clearly drawn, they of course decided to obey God rather
than man. Having no idea of the real spiritual character of the divine
ecclesia, they had to content themselves with that _national_ church
unity which was still in their power.

The clergy, who had long been accustomed to the imperial tie, believed
that a national headship was now necessary. The governments of Europe
at that time were for the most part absolute monarchies, about the
only limits to the sovereign power of these kings being the control
which the pope exercised over the ecclesiastical affairs of the
nations. From this control the Reformation liberated them. Therefore
they eagerly took upon themselves the oversight of the national
churches, and thus came into existence the church-and-state system of
Protestant Europe. To a great extent the power that the imperial head
of the church lost was acquired by the national heads.

All this seemed perfectly consistent to the reformers. They felt the
necessity of lodging somewhere that power of human control which had
been formerly exercised by the pope. As one writer has said, "They
could not understand that Christianity could prosper without a
strongly organized and governed church or without the presence of a
strong and vigorous hand ready at all times to repress dissent
and enforce uniformity of faith and worship." The time of absolute
religious freedom was not yet.

[Sidenote: Ecclesiasticism perpetuated]

As might be expected, numerous modifications of the principles and
usages of the papal church occurred in the change from imperial
control to the state-church system. This diversity took place in the
different countries in accordance either with prevailing conditions
and sentiments or with the whims and caprices of the reigning
sovereigns. While some retained the episcopate, others greatly
modified it or rejected it altogether. In forms of worship, ritual,
and other things numerous changes were also made. But notwithstanding
the diversity in forms of worship and in church polity, in two
respects there was perfect agreement among all the Reformed
churches--two things brought over from the papacy--namely, first,
the idea of a self-perpetuating clerical caste possessing in their
corporate capacity legislative and judicial authority over the
church; and second, the centralization under a human headship of
administrative functions, instead of that local autonomy which
prevailed in the congregations of apostolic times. The doctrine of the
"power of the keys," a power wielded by a clerical corporation with
authority to prescribe the very manner and form of worshiping God and
to require men to comply therewith or else exclude them from gospel
privileges. That doctrine was accepted without question. It was the
same power in principle as that which was wielded so terribly by
Gregory VII in the papal church of the eleventh century.




CHAPTER VIII

MODERN SECTS


[Sidenote: A mental picture]

Picture a keen observer living in the middle of the first century
of our era. He travels about from place to place studying the
development, nature, and fruits of the recently established religious
phenomenon--Christianity. He observes the purity of its doctrines and
the high moral standard exemplified in the lives of its adherents, and
he inquires particularly concerning the secret of that mysterious bond
which unites in one body and in one fellowship, sympathy, and love the
entire society of believers in Jesus. He departs. After the lapse of
long ages he returns near the beginning of the twentieth century,
and lo, what is it that meets his astonished vision? The mournful
spectacle of a divided Christendom; of rival sects compassing land and
sea to make proselytes; of the spiritual alienation of those who, in
reality, belong to the one divine family; of waste and inefficiency
in methods of evangelical effort; not to mention the error, pride, and
worldliness inherent in the gigantic ecclesiastical systems known as
denominational churches. What a change!

It is useless to minimize the evils inherent in the sect system.
Intelligent men the world over need not the services of an
eye-specialist to see clearly that there is something wrong with
modern Christendom; that the sect system does not represent the
standard of primitive Christianity, but that in reality the sect
principle misrepresents the apostolic ideal as portrayed in the New
Testament. We may as well face the facts honestly and seek for
a remedy for this disease that has so long marred the beauty and
corrupted the nature of the true Christian system.

[Sidenote: Inherent evils]

I cheerfully admit that God has worked among his people in all ages
in accordance with the degree of light and truth which they possessed.
But I can not forget that the greatest revivals of evangelical
religion have either taken place in spite of the sect system or
among those who had just made their escape from the bondage of
ecclesiastical despotism and had not as yet become very deeply
affected by the sectarian principle. To what source, then, are we to
trace sects? What is their cause?

[Sidenote: Alleged causes of sect-making]

A large proportion of the Christian world would reply without
hesitation that the existence of the modern sects is due to these
two things: the principle of religious liberty and the limitations
of human knowledge. Such an answer reveals a superficial view of
the whole subject. Religious liberty among Christians existed in the
primitive church before the rise of ecclesiastical tyranny over the
conscience, and the masses of men in those days were at least as
limited in knowledge as are we. Still, the church was one; it was not
divided into rival and hostile sects. There was no need in those days
of constructing churches to conform to the limited capacity of men's
minds; for there was already in existence a church sufficiently
_catholic_ in its nature and spirit to accommodate all classes of
minds, because there was in operation the power of the Spirit of
God which revealed truth to men and thus enlightened their minds and
brought them into harmony with the divine standard. Concerning the
principle of religious liberty, I shall have more to say hereafter.

[Sidenote: Human limitations]

The natural limitations of human knowledge may account for difference
of opinion, but more than this is required to account for the entire
system of organized sects such as we see it today. Millions of
evangelical Christians possessing spiritual affinity and holding
opinions no more divergent than often exist between members of the
same sect, are, nevertheless, divided into independent, rival parties.
Something else originated and now perpetuates that barrier between
them.

When differences are fundamental and therefore unavoidable, they will
become more pronounced under test than at any other time. If, during
an epidemic, a physician believes that the method of treatment
employed by another doctor is actually killing the patients, his
opposition to such a method will then he stronger than at any other
time. As long as that method is simply a theory, it is harmless. Only
when put into practise does it become dangerous.

It is a matter of common knowledge that evangelical Christians are
not driven further apart but are really driven together whenever
Christianity itself is placed under any special trial, as, for
example, in foreign missionary work in heathen lands. And even in our
own country, whenever a great local interest is taken in the work
of soul-saving there is a corresponding tendency for Christians
of different sects to ignore their differences of opinion and get
together as if they believed in a common Lord over all and were all
members of the same family. Thus, whenever the high tide of evangelism
comes in, the landmarks of sects are scarcely visible; but whenever
the tide goes out, behold, _the ancient boundaries of sects appear as
before_. This fact proves that there are no fundamental reasons why
sects should exist. It proves that in reality sects are a barrier
to the true work of Christ; hence are, in their essential nature,
antichristian. What, then, is the real cause of sects'?

Traced to the original source, modern sects, we find, originated where
the papacy originated--in the corruption of Christianity in the early
centuries. All came from the same roots of error.

[Sidenote: True causes of sects]

However modified and diversified in external form and in doctrinal
teaching they may now be, they exhibit in their ecclesiastical
constitutions a foreign character derived from the foreign stock from
which they sprang. Into this system there have been engrafted many
noble scions of truth from the "good olive-tree," and these have
produced commendable fruits of righteousness. But we are here
concerned with pointing out those fundamental characteristics of the
system that are foreign to the true church of Jesus Christ.

[Sidenote: Erroneous ideas of the church]

The first cause to which I call attention is an erroneous conception
of the church itself. At the cost of some repetition I must point
out that in the beginning the church was the universal company of the
redeemed, the whole _spiritual brotherhood_, whether isolated members
of Christ or those worshiping in local assemblies distributed over the
earth. The tie which united these members of Christ in one body
was their common faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and the life of the
Spirit. But as in those times vast centralized imperial power was
a divinity that every one worshiped, it was impossible properly to
appreciate _the moral and spiritual dominion_ of Christ by which
alone he designed to rule his church; therefore men soon proceeded to
pattern the church of Christ after the political government, first
by grouping together under one administrative human headship the
congregations of a province or section of the empire, and then finally
uniting these different provinces under one administrative headship
at Rome. From that day until the present time the church-idea that has
generally prevailed in Christendom has been an organization fashioned
according to the kingdoms of this world; a human organization in which
the administrative functions of government are centralized under some
form of human headship; a unity that is not moral and spiritual, but
official and administrative, as well as legislative and judicial.

[Sidenote: Wrong standard of church-membership]

Coincident with the creation of foreign ideals concerning church
societies was the formation of of a foreign idea of church-membership
and church-relationship. In the beginning, as we have shown, the
church was simply the divine family. Therefore salvation through
Christ was its sole condition of membership. "And the Lord added to
them day by day those that were being saved" (Acts 2:47, R.V.). And as
the local congregation was but the concrete expression of the ideals
of the general body or church, that membership in Christ which made
men members of the general body, made them, by a moral and spiritual
law, members of all the other members of Christ, and therefore fixed
their local relationship: they belonged by divine right with whichever
company of believers they happened to be associated. Nothing more than
simple recognition of what God had done for them and the according
to them of the local rights and privileges that naturally belonged
to them was necessary on the part of a local congregation to make the
actual union complete.

The wrong conception of the constitution of the church necessarily
required another standard of church-membership. When _church_ came
to signify merely a group of congregations consolidated under a
centralized human headship possessing administrative, legislative, and
judicial functions (so organized as to distinguish it from all other
organized groups or congregations), simple membership in Christ was
insufficient to mark the convert with the stamp of denominational
individuality. Salvation itself made no one a member of a church
fashioned according to the kingdoms of this world. Consequently
another standard of membership was necessary, a standard which
required acceptance of and conformity to the self-made rules and
regulations of that foreign society called a church. And when these
earth-born institutions became identified in the public mind with
the real church of Christ and membership in them became confused with
membership in the true church of God, the natural result was that
millions complied, in a formal manner at least, with the conditions of
the counterfeit church membership who never knew what it meant to be
vitally joined to Christ. In this we see the "evil" fruit which grew
on that tree of error. The multitudes that have been by this means
deceived with the thought that they were Christians, only to be lost
at last, will not be known until that awful day of final reckoning.

[Sidenote: Divisive nature of the creeds]

The formation of creeds tends to create division and to perpetuate
division. Cæsar's maxim illustrates their history: "Soldiers will
raise money, and money will make soldiers." So creeds will make sects,
and sects will make creeds. "A creed or confession of faith is an
ecclesiastical document--the mind and will of some synod or council
possessing authority--as a term of communion by which persons and
opinions are to be tested, approbated or reprobated." The sect
churches are built on their creeds, although, of course, they affirm
that their creeds are built on the Bible. In this case, however, it is
usually apparent to the careful observer that the Bible is that part
of the foundation which is buried out of sight below the ground. The
creed is the real test applied to persons, the measure by which their
opinions are judged. It is the creed upon which the sect is built that
gives the denominational character and distinctiveness.

It is a fact of history that the primary purpose of the historical
creeds was not to unite men but to separate them. The Nicene Creed was
made to exclude the Arians. The Decrees of the Council of Trent were
framed to exclude Protestants; the Westminster Confession, to exclude
Arminians; and the Episcopal Articles, to exclude Catholics and
Independents. To rally around a creed framed by human authority and
make it the basis of union is but to teach a system--a sect system;
but to rally around the person of Jesus Christ and make him the
supreme object of our faith, hope, and love is to contend for what
the Bible terms the faith, the truth, the gospel. This is infinitely
better than any document proceeding from Nicea, Trent, Dort, Augsburg,
or Westminster.

[Sidenote: Power of the keys]

Another cause, both for the origin of the sect system and its
perpetuation, is the assumed "power of the keys" which has been
carried over from the Church of Rome. The idea that the administrative
rule and government of the church of Christ has been, by divine
decree, centralized in a self-perpetuating clerical caste with
authority to legislate for the church and then to enforce its
decisions by judicial procedure, is foreign to the primitive church as
recorded in the New Testament. It is a product of Papalism, and yet
it has been, in its essential characteristics, transferred directly to
the sects of Protestantism. The New Testament recognizes no such human
positional authority. It recognizes only that divine authority which
operates through God's chosen ministers and helpers by virtue of
the Spirit-bestowed gifts and qualifications. The only governmental
authority exercised by the New Testament ministers was in cooperation
with Christ, the visible head, by putting forth, in accordance with
the Spirit's gifts and qualifications, some portion of that moral
power by which alone Christ governs.

The idea that to a clerical order has been committed the exclusive
guardianship of the church, with full power to admit to or exclude
from the worship and service of God all except those who come by
way of their priestly mediation, is the basest assumption. It is a
violation of the rights of individual conscience. Yet just such
power has been and still is being exerted as a means of enforcing
acquiescence in matters of opinion and submission to customs and
practises which every unprejudiced man knows, or can soon see, is no
part of the New Testament teaching and requirements. What a weapon
has this ecclesiastical assumption been! One always ready for use. It
makes no difference whether it is wielded by a Methodist conference,
an Episcopal judicatory, a Presbyterian synod, or a Catholic pope, it
is all the same in principle--"the power of the keys."

[Sidenote: Lack of religious freedom]

This assumed corporate power of the clergy has been one of the
fundamental causes of sect-making. When a general clerical body
assumes the right in its corporate capacity to prescribe rules of
either faith or practise, written or unwritten, and then to enforce
them by judicial action, it is a direct violation of the New Testament
standard, and of the rights of individual consciences. It was because
of this lordly, unscriptural rule that many sincere men of God have
been forced to sever their connection with the older sects in order
to find a place where a greater degree of light and truth could be
experienced and proclaimed. In such cases it was not religious liberty
that caused the formation of new movements and new sects, but _the
lack of religious liberty_.

That "power of the keys," making and then enforcing the standards of
creeds, has done violence to the conscience of both the clergy and
the laity. Conscienceless persons subscribe to the creed without any
particular hesitation, but the truly conscientious suffer the greatest
embarrassment They must either refuse altogether and withdraw from
all connection, or else subscribe with a mental reservation amounting
practically to hypocrisy.

[Sidenote: Inflexible character]

This inflexible character of the sect institution has been a most
fruitful cause for the production of new sects. No matter how
spiritual the movement at its beginning, when its leaders were not
longing for church power but were earnestly preaching the Word of
the Lord as it came unto them, as soon as the sect machinery was
thoroughly organized and was set in motion the inevitable tendency has
been to throw around the movement a wall of creedal and ecclesiastical
exclusiveness which shut out other true people of God; and then
began a process of crystalization which ever afterwards precluded the
unfolding of new truth. It is a well-known fact that the high tide of
truth-discovery in every religious movement in Protestantism has
been at the time of its beginning. A fixed law of immobility has ever
afterwards prevailed. The reason is clear: whenever men grasp the
reins of government and assume those prerogatives which belong to God
alone, the rule of the Spirit ends. The unfolding of new truths by
the operation of the Spirit is impossible within the limits of the
old order where human ecclesiasticism reigns. But truth can not be
permanently suppressed. If it can not find room for development
within the existing order of things, God will raise up men who
will, independently, proclaim the Word of the Lord. This he has done
repeatedly, only to have the new movements end in the same manner--in
a rule of human ecclesiasticism.

Human ecclesiasticism has always been the greatest barrier to the free
spiritual development of the work of Christ. According to that relic
of the papal church, authority and rule is vested in the clerical
corporation and is by them conferred upon other individuals by the
act of ordination. How different the standard of the Word! In the Old
Testament times the office of prophet did not come in the priestly
line, but on whomsoever the spirit of prophecy descended--whether upon
Amos, the herdsman, or David, the king--he spake as he was moved by
the Holy Ghost. There has never been a time under the divine economy
when any man to whom the Word of the Lord came was not divinely
authorized to proclaim his message wherever he could get a hearing,
whether in synagog or temple, or out under the broad canopy of heaven.




CHAPTER IX

THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE


What about the church of the future? Is the modern sect system the
ultimate goal of Christian attainment in this world? While the sects
contain much truth and many of the people of God, their ecclesiastical
constitutions are foreign to the true church of Jesus Christ, and it
is inconceivable that the great Founder would make no provision either
in his Word or in his plan for the correction of the evils which have
grown up around the Christian system during the dark ages of the world
and which have in a great measure perverted the gospel itself and
lessened its wholesome efficiency as the universal remedy for human
ills.

Since no sect can make good a claim to being exclusively the church of
God, a general feeling of toleration at least (if not in all cases
of sincere respect) has come to prevail respecting the different
denominational churches. Men have come to look upon the sects as
a mere matter of fact, not to be seriously questioned, and we are
supposed to cover the whole scene with the mantle of patience and
charity and make the best of a bad situation.

[Sidenote: The Protestant truce]

Dr. J.M. Sturtevant has expressed this general attitude so well that I
shall quote his own words: "It has long been true in this country that
no Protestant can freely expose the errors and superstitions of the
papal church, especially from the pulpit, without incurring the charge
of intolerance, bigotry, and uncharitableness. Religious controversy
itself has been placed under the ban, as in its own nature
uncharitable. When once any religious opinion has organized itself
into a sect, it is thought to have acquired a sacredness which, in the
name of Christian charity and in the interest of the tranquility of
the community, defends it from any open assault. We have come into the
condition in which Rome was when she had extended her conquests from
the British Isles to the Euphrates and had transferred to Rome the
divinities of all the countries conquered. People of every nationality
might worship their own divinities, but must respectfully tolerate the
worship of every other. In this way only could religious conflict be
avoided. The chief reason why Christianity was persecuted was that
from its very nature it could accept no such truce. It is either
a universal religion or no religion at all. It is, like all other
systems which claim to be the true, in its own nature exclusive."

It is because of its universal character that truth can accept no such
truce as has been declared by the modern sects. Truth is exclusive,
and hence can make no compromises. The church of God is universal or
it is no church at all. The whole truth concerning the church question
must and will come out. The times demand it; the people of God
demand it; the Spirit of God demands it; and, as we shall show, the
Scriptures declare it.

[Sidenote: A new awakening]

It is very evident that the people of God are not satisfied with
the present sectarian situation. Everywhere there is manifested a
restlessness and uneasiness respecting the arbitrary lines of
sect which separate between those who have a recognized spiritual
affinity--recognized except formally by the ecclesiastical powers that
be. _The Christian consciousness is becoming awakened._ Men are coming
to see that Christianity is to be measured, not by sect lines, but by
that broader, Scriptural rule of the divine family embracing all
true disciples of Jesus--those who possess his life and bear the
appropriate fruits of righteousness. This awakening, with its logical
consequences, is what I have termed THE LAST REFORMATION. It will give
form and character to the Church of the Future.

[Sidenote: Apologies for sects]

Sectarianism still has its defenders, however. In the midst of the
rising tide of spiritual fellowship and love, there are those who
bring forward a few sickly apologies for sects, apologies which
generally impress the earnest student of the Scriptures with the
thought that the apologist has a hard case to make out. The excuse
most commonly advanced is that the sect system is a useful arrangement
for accommodating the variety of tastes and feelings found
among Christian people. It is assumed that some are natural-born
Episcopalians, with an innate fondness for formal liturgies and
ecclesiastical vestments, and that others are so constituted by nature
as to require certain other particular forms of worship.

[Sidenote: Diversity of taste and culture]

If there is any such fundamental demand in human nature for a variety
of sects, as different climates are required to suit different
orders of life on our planet, it is strange indeed that the apostles
overlooked such an important point and failed to provide for it. Why
was not the primitive church constructed so as to bring into existence
at once a variety of human sects to accommodate the different classes
of people then existing? From the modern point of view they had an
excellent excuse for starting with at least two churches--one for
the Jews and another for the Gentiles; and if these had not been
sufficient, before the end of their personal ministry they could have
brought into existence a whole brood of sects.

Now, the student of the Scriptures knows that the apostles proceeded
exactly in the opposite direction. They labored earnestly to bring all
classes into love and fellowship _in one body_. This course was not in
accordance with the wisdom of the world, but the twentieth century is
beginning to see that it was "the wisdom of God."

The reason why men have a liking for formal liturgies, stately
ceremonies, and ecclesiastical vestments is because of environment.
They have been trained that way. Here again we see the natural
tendency of sects to make sectarians and thus reproduce their kind.
When particular forms and ceremonies, which are not required
by Scripture, are enforced upon men by a self-constituted,
self-perpetuating ecclesiastical authority, the inevitable result
is to stamp the same principles upon succeeding generations and thus
perpetuate the sect system exercising such authority.

[Sidenote: The sect spirit]

In a final effort to lessen the odium attaching to what is now widely
recognized as an evil, some assert that the cause of mischief is the
sect spirit. This statement contains truth, but it does not tell the
whole truth. One of the worst evils of human slavery was the extreme
tyranny which some slave-masters exercised. But the real fact was that
the system itself tended to convert good men and women into tyrants.
The special manifestation of evil was both effect and cause. It
was the natural tendency of the system to make tyrants, and tyrants
perpetuated the system. So also with sectarianism. Though all can
realize a theoretical difference between the sect spirit and simple
denominationalism, yet the very tendency of the system itself is
to create party interests and to introduce party rivalries, which
naturally foster the sect spirit. Without that devotion to party and
party interests--a devotion almost equal to their devotion to the
gospel itself--sects would perish. _If sect-members should become so
universal in their love and sympathy as to devote themselves to the
work of Christ alone--forgetting party interests--sects would die. The
sect spirit is, therefore, essential to the maintenance of the life
and individuality of the sect body._

[Sidenote: What is the remedy?]

The remedy for sectarianism is not a return to imperialism. The
world-church idea as exemplified in the papal church is not the goal
of Christianity. Such might hold dominion over men in the barbaric
ages of the world, but its universal sway has ceased. The Inquisition
will never be reestablished. The unity of the church is not to be
found in an imperial hierarchy.

Nor is Christian unity to be obtained by adherence to the historic
creeds. These documents may express many noble sentiments respecting
Christ and his truth, and they may express the fullest knowledge of
the truth known in the days when they were written. But knowledge
of the truth is progressive, while creeds are stationary. No human
document, therefore, can serve as a permanent basis upon which to
build our faith. And then, too, we have seen that creeds are in their
very nature divisive. Hence they can not be made the basis for the
realization of unity.

Nor is the unity of the church to be found in some particular form
of exclusive church polity, as Episcopalianism, Presbyterianism, or
Congregationalism. We have conclusively proved that that conception of
the church patterned after the forms of political government, in which
government and authority are vested inherently and exclusively in
human hands, is foreign to the original conception of the church as it
existed in the minds of its Founder and his apostles. The government
of the New Testament church is a theocracy. Christ is head. He rules
through his Holy Spirit by moral suasion and spiritual influence, and
the ministers and helpers whom he calls and qualifies share in that
oversight and responsibility to the same extent that they are able
to wield the same moral and spiritual power. _This is the only church
authority and government recognized in the New Testament_.

[Sidenote: The perpetual theocracy]

Here I shall digress long enough to point out by way of contrast
the true form of divine government. Every one is familiar with the
theocratic government of Israel under the Old Testament dispensation.
God ruled. He who carefully reads the New Testament can not fail to
discern the same type of government in the church before the rise of
human ecclesiasticism. The first preachers of the gospel spoke with
an authority not derived from a human source. When Peter and John were
threatened before the Council and commanded not to speak or teach in
the name of Jesus Christ, they gave the sublime answer: "Whether it
be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God,
judge ye. For we can not but speak the things which we have seen and
heard" (Acts 4: 19, 20). The same principle stands out in bold relief
in the experience of Paul. Although that great apostle was forward
to cooperate with other apostles and ministers of Christ, one can
not fail to see that his whole career exemplified the principle of
theocracy. He "was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision."

[Sidenote: An important parallelism]

Permit me to call attention particularly to an important parallelism
between the government of Israel under the theocracy and the
government of the New Testament church before the rise of
ecclesiasticism. God led his people out of Egypt by Moses and Joshua.
These men are a type of Christ, who leads his people. After the
Israelites were settled in Canaan, they had no central government,
but each locality or city was autonomous, having its local judges or
elders. In a time of crisis God raised up a judge to lead the people
in the necessary cooperative efforts to preserve or regain their
liberties. Their miseries Were always the result of their own sins,
not a failure of the divine form of government. Their appointing a
king and thus setting up a centralized human government was called
_rejecting God as ruler_. And this is exactly parallel with what
ecclesiasticism has done and is doing with the same results. God's
government of the church is set aside and rejected.

[Sidenote: Not church federation]

Nor will an organic union of all the sects solve the problem of
unity. In the first place, the tendency of such a union is toward
imperialism, the creation on the federation plan of another
world-church. In the second place, such a federation would strengthen
rather than lessen the authority of human rule, while the compromises
necessary to make such a project possible would lessen in the same
degree that freedom of the Spirit by which alone the full gospel can
be given to the world. And in the third place, such a federation would
not be the church of God, for the very framework on which it would
rest, human ecclesiasticism, is foreign to the original conception of
the church. It would be only a human arrangement patterned after the
model of a world-empire. And for another reason such would not be the
church. The divine _ekklesia_ includes in its membership the whole
family of God. Thousands of men and women who are united to Christ
and in fellowship with all the saved are not members of the formally
organized sects. Therefore the union of all such churches in one
federation would not include the whole family.

[Sidenote: Back to the Bible standard]

Thus, the remedy for sects is not church federation, nor a return to
the historic creeds, nor the adoption of one of the exclusive forms
of church polity; neither is it an attempt to hide the sin of the
obnoxious sect system by covering it with a mantle of charity and
patience--as a sort of necessary evil. What, then, is the real remedy
for sects? It is the absolute rejection of every foreign element that
has crept into the Christian system and the return to that primitive
conception of the church as made up of the entire brotherhood of
Christ, organized and controlled by the Holy Spirit. For true unity
we must turn from hierarchies and apostolical successions and priestly
corporations and church synods and human creeds to THE CHRIST who
alone is the head of the church.

[Sidenote: True membership]

Such a movement requires a moral revolution with respect to the
attitude of God's people toward membership in sects. It requires the
obliteration of sect lines and the recognition of no other bond of
union than that of a common brotherhood through union with Christ.
Divine life secured through repentance and faith is the sole condition
of membership in the church of Christ, and this relationship is
maintained by obedience to the commands of Christ and consistent
Christian conduct. "If we walk in the light, as he is in the light,
we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his
Son cleanseth us from all sin" (1 John 1:7).

[Sidenote: Elimination of ecclesiasticism]

Such a movement and such a standard of church relationship require the
elimination of all ideas of priestly ecclesiasticism. The Christ
of the New Testament church is not an absent Christ. He has
never resigned his position as head of the church and vested the
governmental authority in a self-perpetuating clerical caste. His
government is theocratic. He administers it himself through his Holy
Spirit. Hence no men or set of men can confer any power or authority
whatsoever upon any individual to act for Christ. Christ calls his
own assistants, and any man unto whom the Word of the Lord comes is
divinely authorized to proclaim His message. The only sphere of human
operation respecting this administration of divine government is
simple recognition of what God has done, and this recognition in the
last analysis belongs to the whole body of God's people. The basis
of every man's authority and responsibility is, therefore, not human
appointment or official position, but the divine call, gifts, and
qualifications, that he possesses. If, for example, he is called to
apostolic work and endowed with gifts and qualifications fitting him
for such service, he has apostolic authority and responsibility,
and there is nothing for other ministers or Christians to do but to
_recognize what God has done_. "Now hath God set the members every one
of them in the body, as it hath pleased him" (1 Cor. 12:18). Such, in
short, is the divine organization and government.

[Sidenote: What of the future?]

The realization of this grand ideal of the restoration of the New
Testament standard of church membership, government, and authority,
is impossible within the sect system. For the sects to turn all the
people of God loose from subjection to every foreign yoke and make
them free to associate without restriction with all the saved of God,
would be an act of suicide. _Only by division and by holding the grasp
of ecclesiastical rule can sects survive._ But he is blind to the
signs of the times who can not see that the grip of ecclesiasticism is
slipping and the bonds of true catholicity becoming strengthened.
The true people of God are becoming more and more dissatisfied with
present conditions and are beginning to think in terms of a universal
Christianity. The rising tide of evangelism among such is already
beginning to overflow the lines of sect. What may we expect in the
future?

Things can not continue as they have been in the ecclesiastical
world. A sweeping reformation is imperative and imminent. In fact,
the vanguard of this great movement is already visible. What will the
future bring forth? Will the sects themselves fade away and gradually
become dissolved? or will the powers that rule in the ecclesiastical
world finally set themselves against the spirit of catholicity and
thus practically force the true people of God to ignore absolutely
all sectarian lines and step out on the broad platform of truth and
universality, united in Christ alone, knowing no head but Christ and
no creed but His truth? Who can tell?

[Sidenote: A fundamental difference]

In the present work I have given a brief historical sketch of the
leading ecclesiastical events, showing the apostasy as it existed
under two phases, the corruption of evangelical faith and the reign
of ecclesiasticism. I have also shown that the reformations of
Protestantism have tended to the correction of that first phase
pertaining to doctrine, but that a complete reformation requires the
elimination of ecclesiasticism. Hence what I have termed the Last
Reformation, if it is to be the _last_, not only must include the
restoration of pure doctrinal truth but must also restore the real
church of the New Testament. So far as true doctrine is concerned,
such a reformation will differ from other evangelical movements in
degree only--it must ultimately comprehend the whole truth. But the
fundamental difference between the reformation herein considered and
all other preceding reformations is that it strikes the death-blow
to the very root of error that produced the sect system--_human
ecclesiasticism_--and substitutes therefor the administrative
authority of the Holy Spirit working in varying degrees in all the
members of Christ throughout the world. The last reformation therefore
must differ from all others, not in degree only, but _also in kind_.

[Sidenote: The witness of prophecy]

God alone understands the future. During the ages past he has not left
his own work without the witness of prophecy. We may rest assured,
therefore, that in the prophecy of the divine Word he has given us
an outline of the history of his church. So I shall ask the reader to
patiently follow me through a brief sketch of ecclesiastical events
as described in the prophecies of the Revelation. Such an examination
will throw a large amount of additional light on the subjects I have
already treated historically, and will also give us a divinely drawn
picture of the church of the future. Such will enable us to understand
better the real character and extent of THE LAST REFORMATION.




PART III

The Church in Prophecy




CHAPTER X

INTERPRETATION OF PROPHETIC SYMBOLS


[Sidenote: Value of prophecy]

The value of prophecy in establishing the religion of the Bible as the
religion, of God has been generally recognized. Its value, however,
is not limited to the proof of the divinity of Biblical truth which it
furnishes: it serves a definite and most important purpose in the life
and work of God's believing children in all ages. By it we are better
able to understand God's own plan and purposes in human history, and
by it we are made conscious of our own whereabouts along the pathway
of time. The movements of God in the history of the past that were
predicted by earlier prophets have received their chief inspiration
from the conscious knowledge the leaders had of the prophetic
character of their work. It was Daniel's study of prophecy that
stirred his soul for the restoration of Israel to the favor of God
and to their own land (Dan. 9:2), and at the same time opened his own
heart for the wonderful revelation concerning future events. It was
the consciousness of prophetic fulfilment that gave John the Baptist
his inspiration for work (John 1:23); and in establishing the truths
of the gospel of Christ, the apostles placed leading emphasis on the
fact that these things were written in the law and in the prophets.

The love and care that Christ had for his people did not cease in the
beginning of the gospel dispensation; for he gave the promise, "I
am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." It is altogether
reasonable, then, that we should receive "the revelation of Jesus
Christ, which God gave unto him, to _show unto his servants_ things
which must shortly come to pass" (Rev. 1:1). Through the varying
conditions of time, Christ leads his people on to certain victory.

Since the mission of the church was to be world-wide and perpetual, it
is fitting that the church should be described prophetically in order
that we might have definite information concerning the operations
of the divine hand in working out the great problem of the church's
destiny after the close of the sacred canon.

[Sidenote: Prophetic symbols]

Before proceeding with our discussion of those prophecies which
concern the church, let us pause and consider briefly the character
of symbols. The prophecy of the Scriptures is presented to us in two
distinct forms--direct statements in the ordinary language of life and
in symbolic representations, but far the greater part is expressed
in symbols, as in the book of Daniel and in the Revelation of John.
Without an understanding of the nature of symbols we can not get a
proper understanding of such prophecies.

Spoken or written language is a very complicated affair, but it is
in reality an arbitrary arrangement. The name that we attach to a
particular object could as well be given to a totally different object
instead if we only agreed to make the change. For this reason spoken
language is variable. Changes are constantly taking place. The
language of Bible symbols, on the other hand, is not subject to
the law of change, as we shall see; it is not based on arbitrary
arrangement or mere convenience, but its foundational principles exist
in the very nature of things.

Webster defines _symbol_ as follows: "The sign or representation of
any moral thing by the images or properties of natural things. Thus,
a lion is the symbol of courage; the lamb is the symbol of meekness or
patience." Horne, in his Introduction to the Study of the Bible, says:
"By symbols we mean certain representative marks, rather than express
pictures; or, if pictures, such as were at the time _characters_, and
besides presenting to the eye the resemblance of a particular object,
suggested a general idea to the mind, as when a _horn_ was made
to denote _strength_, an _eye_ and _scepter_, _majesty_, and in
numberless such instances, where the picture was not drawn to
express merely the thing itself, but something else, which was or was
conceived to be, analogous to it."

According to these definitions, the main idea of a symbol is the
representation of an object or quality, not by exhibition of itself,
but by another object or character analogous to it. Nor are we limited
in the use of symbols to the exhibition of moral subjects alone.
Any object may be symbolized, provided a corresponding object can be
found.

[Sidenote: Analogy the basic law]

Analogy, then, is the fundamental law of symbols. This being true,
it is clear that symbols must be definitely applied. They are not
arbitrary. There is no reason why we could not call a book a table,
and a table it would be, provided we agreed universally to adopt that
designation; but we violate nature if we attempt to represent the
quiet, peaceful, gentle disposition of a child by a lion or a tiger,
or a cruel, vindictive, tyrannical disposition by a lamb. A polluted
harlot may represent an apostate church, but not the true church. A
proper correspondence of character and quality must be observed. We
must follow nature strictly. And this is the law of symbols.

Symbols are drawn from different departments--from angelic life, human
life, animal life, and inanimate creation. But in every case there
is in the selection and use of the symbol a proper correspondence of
character and quality.

[Sidenote: Twofold object of symbols]

The deciding factor in the original selection of a symbolic object
is the nature of the thing to be symbolized. In the field of Bible
prophecy the general design is in the main twofold--the representation
(1) of the affairs of the church and (2) of the political history of
those nations and kingdoms which were to exert an important influence
on the life and development of the church. It is evident that in the
divine estimation the church and its welfare is of infinitely greater
importance than the affairs of nations and kingdoms. Therefore we may
reasonably expect that, according to the nature of symbolic language,
symbols designed to represent the church will be found to be of the
most exalted type, whereas those representing political things will be
found to be selected from an inferior department. In accordance with
this fundamental classification we shall find that symbols drawn from
angelic life and human life invariably refer to the department
of ecclesiastical affairs, while those drawn from animal life or
inanimate nature represent political things. The only apparent
exception to this rule is that certain inanimate objects formerly
consecrated to the service of God and thus associated with the
department of the church are sometimes used to represent spiritual
things, because the analogy is obvious. Bearing in mind this
fundamental distinction between the representation of things political
and things ecclesiastical, we are prepared to understand other shades
of distinction.

Nations may be peaceful or tyrannical and oppressive, and churches
may be good or apostate; but the exact character can be analogously
represented by the symbolic object. A vicious wild beast stamping and
devouring would naturally represent a cruel, tyrannical government;
and a good woman represents the true church, while a vile harlot
represents the church apostate. But whatever the nature of the symbol,
whether beast, locust, lion, horse, temple, angel, or man, we may
know at once from the nature of the symbol where to look for its
fulfilment. This important guide in the study of prophetic truth--a
guide overlooked by most of the commentators--relieves us of much of
the uncertainty hitherto connected with the subject.

Since, as we have seen, symbolic language is based on analogy, it
is evident that there are some objects whose nature forbids their
symbolization, there being no corresponding object in existence.
God can not be symbolized. "To whom then will ye liken God? or what
likeness will ye compare unto him" (Isa. 40:18). There may be certain
symbols connected with his person setting forth the dignity, majesty,
and eternal splendor of his name, but he himself appears unrepresented
by another. The same is true also of the person of Jesus, our
Redeemer, although in this case we must distinguish between the
Christ incarnate and Jesus in his essential divinity. Considered as
incarnate--both God and man--the human aspect of his character as
manifested in his sacrificial death may be analogously represented as
a Lamb slain. But considered in his essential divinity, he can not
be symbolically represented. Therefore, whenever the glorified Christ
appears on the symbolic stage, he always appears in his own person
proclaiming his own name. "I am he that liveth, and was dead; and,
behold, I am alive for evermore" (Rev. 1:18). "He hath on his vesture
and on his thigh a name written, King of kings, and Lord of lords."

In Rev. 6:9 the souls of the martyrs are represented as crying unto
God for the avenging of their blood on them that dwell on the earth.
There is no object analogous to a disembodied spirit. It is easy to
give them an arbitrary name. Therefore they simply appear under their
own appropriate titles as "the _souls_ of them that were slain."

Whenever we attach a literal significance to a symbolic object, we
immediately destroy its character as a symbol. This should not be
done. With the exception of those instances where the nature of
an object forbids its symbolization and where the description must
therefore of necessity be literal, we should always look for the true
fulfilment, not in that department from which the symbol is drawn, but
in another department--that to which the symbol by analogy refers us.

[Sidenote: Field of present inquiry]

The limits and object of the present work preclude an exhaustive
treatment of prophecy in general. Our immediate purpose is to set
forth particularly those prophecies of the divine Word which clearly
portray and outline the character of a world-wide religious movement
in the last days. To do this effectually, however, we must briefly
consider those prophecies which describe the principal ecclesiastical
events in history which form the basis of, or lead up to, the Last
Reformation. The subject as outlined in the prophecies and as based on
the facts of history, naturally divides into four parts, or epochs, as
follows:

  I   The Apostolic Period
  II  The Medieval Period
  III Era of Modern Sects
  IV  The Last Reformation

For the sake of brevity, we shall, as far as possible, exclude from
our present inquiry those prophecies pertaining to civil and political
affairs, retaining only such as have an important bearing on the
church subject.




CHAPTER XI

THE APOSTOLIC PERIOD


[Sidenote: The star-crowned woman]

The twelfth chapter of Revelation introduces an important line of
prophetic truth respecting the church, beginning with these words:
"And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the
sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve
stars: and she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained
to be delivered." "And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule
all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God,
and to his throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness, where
she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a
thousand two hundred and threescore days" (verses 1, 2, 5, 6).

As we have already stated and as will be made very clear hereafter,
symbols drawn from human life are used to represent ecclesiastical
affairs. Therefore in the symbol now before us we have a
representation of the church, and from the general description given
we infer that it must be the pure church of God, for the brightest
luminaries of heaven are gathered around her and no evil thing is said
concerning her. That this woman is the special object of God's care
and concern is further shown by the fact that when she fled into the
wilderness, she had "a place prepared of God, that they should feed
her there." That this interpretation of the woman is correct is also
shown by other texts in Revelation.

In chapter 21:9 an angel talking with John said, "Come hither, I will
shew thee the _bride_, the Lamb's wife." And again, in chapter 19:7,
where the church is undoubtedly referred to, a great multitude is
represented as saying, "Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to
him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his _wife_ hath made
herself ready." In the seventeenth chapter the church apostate is
without doubt described by the symbol of a vile, polluted harlot.

The pure woman of chapter 12, then, represents the apostolic church in
all its beauty and glory. She is represented as clothed with the sun,
a striking emblem of the light of the glorious gospel of Christ
which shone forth from the early church. The moon under her feet is
generally understood to designate the typical worship of the Jewish
age, which was a shadow of things to come but which now stands
eclipsed in the superior light and glory of the new and better
dispensation. The moon is the lesser light and derives its
illumination from the sun; so also the Mosaic period was the moonlight
age of the church and reflected a part of the gospel which, at a later
time, was to be revealed in all its glory with the rise of the "Sun of
righteousness."

The crown of twelve stars adorning the diadem of the church is a fit
representation of the twelve apostles of the Lamb, they being in one
important sense permanent fixtures in the church. According to chapter
1:20, stars are sometimes used to represent Christian ministers, the
analogy as light-givers being obvious. "They that be wise shall
shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to
righteousness as the stars forever and ever" (Dan. 12:3).

The prominent position occupied by this woman and the light which
shone forth from the sun with which she was clothed stand out in
marked contrast with the later description given of her flight into
and seclusion in the wilderness. The latter stage of her experience
I shall describe further on, but a brief allusion to it will make
her first appearance more impressive. The wilderness describes the
apostasy which was to envelop the woman and thus obscure her light.
Therefore her first appearance as in the planetary heavens presents a
sublime description of her dignity and excellence in the morning time
of the gospel era. Her light shone upon all and her glory could be
seen by all. She presents that fundamentally distinct characteristic
of the true church of God--universality; not a mere isolated star
shedding its feeble rays in competition with the other orbs of night;
but a cluster of bright, shining stars and _the very sun itself_. The
light of the apostolic church was, therefore, all-inclusive in the
sense of reflecting all the truth. It is essential to our proper
understanding of the symbols that follow that we comprehend the true
character of the church of God--the bride of Christ.

[Sidenote: The man child]

The next object to claim our attention in the vision under
consideration is that of the man child to whom the woman is said to
give birth. A variety of interpretations of this man child have been
given. Some say that it refers to Jesus Christ, but this application
is objectionable for different reasons. First, Jesus is everywhere
represented as the founder of the church, not as its child. Second,
true analogy is lacking: there is nothing about a mere child to
proclaim divinity. Others have identified the child with the Emperor
Constantine; but here again the consistent use of symbolic language is
overlooked; for if the woman, the mother, represents the church, then
the child horn of her can not represent a single, definite individual,
but rather a collection of individuals or another phase of the
church itself. In other words, if the one single symbol represents a
particular individual, the other must also represent an individual.
Thus, if the man child is identified with Christ, the mother should
signify the Virgin Mary; or if Constantine is intended, then Helena,
mother of Constantine, should be represented by the woman.

It is clear, however, that the woman signifies, not a single
individual, but the church. Therefore the child born of her must
simply signify another phase of the church but the same family. By
means of this twofold symbol--involving the closest relationship
known--is set forth the fruitfulness and perpetuity of the church.
There is also another reason why a double symbol should be selected
to set forth the true church--to represent two distinct phases of the
church's life and history, which, in the nature of the case, could
not be represented under a single symbol. According to the description
given, the man child was caught up to God and to his throne, while the
woman remained on earth and fled into the wilderness, where she had a
place prepared of God for 1,260 days. The man child, then, represents
that phase of the church which was caught up from the earth but
ascended to heaven and there lived and reigned with Christ; while the
woman represents that phase of the church which continued on earth and
fled into the wilderness during the period of the great apostasy.

There is also direct Scriptural testimony justifying this
interpretation of the man child. In Isaiah 66 we have a sublime
description of Zion, God's church and people, represented as a
woman, a mother. The context shows that this scripture is a prophetic
allusion to the church of the New Testament age. "Before she
travailed, she brought forth; before her pain came, she was delivered
of a _man child_. Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such
things? Shall the earth he made to bring forth in one day? or shall
a nation be born at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought
forth her children" (verses 7, 8). Here Zion is represented as a
mother bringing forth a man child, but this is interpreted to be _a
nation born at once_. According to Heb. 12:22, 23, this Zion, or Sion,
represents the New Testament church. There is no doubt, then, that the
man child of Revelation 12 refers to the great host of new converts
with which the early church was blessed. The scripture in Isaiah
just cited met its fulfilment on the day of Pentecost and shortly
afterwards, when thousands were brought into the church in a day. The
apostle Paul also refers to the great company of Jews and Gentiles who
were reconciled to God as constituting _"one new man" in Christ_ (Eph.
2:15).

[Sidenote: The great red dragon]

The next object in the vision to which our attention is directed
is introduced in these words: "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 born" (Rev. 12:3, 4).

The dragon is the name given by the ancients to a fabulous monster
represented as a large winged lizard or serpent. It was regarded as
the enemy of mankind, and its overthrow is made to figure among the
greatest exploits of the gods and heroes of heathen mythology. The
symbol, being drawn from the natural world, directs us by analogy to
persecuting, tyrannical government. We must not suppose that this is
a literal description of Beelzebub; for there is no proof that the
personal devil has any such appearance as this monster with seven
heads and ten horns, and a tail dragging after him a third part of the
stars of heaven.

In the second verse of the next chapter John describes the rise of a
beast that also had seven heads and ten horns; "and the dragon gave
him his power, and his seat, and great authority." The fact that the
dragon was succeeded by the beast, who reigned in his stead, is proof
that the dragon does not signify the personal devil; for, as far as
we know, the archfiend has never resigned his position, but is still
doing his infernal business at the same stand.

In many respects the beast is similar to the dragon. In the
seventeenth chapter the beast appears again, and the explanation given
by the angel will enable us to understand the signification both of
the dragon and of the beast. "The beast that thou sawest was, and is
not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition
... and here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven
mountains, on which the woman sitteth. And there are seven kings: five
are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he
cometh, he must continue a short space.... 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" (verses 8-12).

With these facts before us and with our understanding of the nature of
symbols, it is easy to identify the dragon and the beast as the Roman
Empire, first under the pagan form and later under the papal form.
Although the beast was to succeed the dragon, yet in identifying the
heads of the beast, the angel informed John that in his day five had
already fallen, while one then existed and the other was future. This
proves, then, that the same heads served both for the dragon and for
the beast, thus establishing their essential identity. And it is a
fact well known that there is no essential difference between Rome
pagan and Rome papal. The seven heads of Rome, therefore, signify the
distinct forms of government that ruled successively in the empire,
for they are represented, not as simultaneous powers, but as
consecutive powers. The five that had already fallen when John
received the vision were the regal power, the consular, the
decemvirate, the military tribunes, and the triumvirate. "One is"--the
imperial. The seventh, or future one, was the patriciate.

It is natural that the pagan Roman Empire should be represented as a
dragon. In the prophecy of Daniel the Grecian kingdom is represented
by a he goat for no other apparent reason than the fact that the goat
was the national military standard of the Grecian monarchy. So also
the dragon was the principal military standard of the Romans next to
the eagle. Arian, an early writer, mentions the fact that dragons were
used as military standards by the Romans. The dragon of Revelation
12 is also described as a _red_ dragon. The dragon standards of the
Romans were painted red. Ammianus Marcellinus mentions "the purple
standard of the dragon." By this fabulous beast described as a great
red dragon, then, is symbolically represented the heathen Roman
Empire.

The ten horns, or kingdoms, which had not yet risen when the
revelation was given, were the ten minor kingdoms that grew out of
the Roman Empire during its decline and fall. These are as follows:
1. Anglo-Saxons; 2. Burgundians; 3. Franks; 4. Huns; 5. Heruli; 6.
Lombards; 7. Ostrogoths; 8. Suevi; 9. Vandals; 10. Visigoths.

The dragon is described with the horns, although they were not yet in
existence and did not arise until about the time the dragon became
the beast. He is also represented with seven heads, although he really
possessed only one head at a time and five had already fallen and one
was yet to come. He is described with all the heads and horns he had
ever had or was to have. The reason why the same general power is
described under two forms--first as the dragon and later as the
beast--will appear more clearly hereafter.

The fact that the dragon was called the devil and Satan has led some
to think that the personal devil himself is meant. The foregoing
explanation concerning the heads and the horns shows conclusively,
however, that by the dragon is meant the pagan Roman Empire, and not
Beelzebub. The Hebrews applied the term "Satan" to an adversary, or
opposer, as can be seen by examining in the original the following
and many other texts: Num. 22:22; 1 Sam. 29:4; 2 Sam. 19:22; 1 Kings
11:25. The term is also thus used in the New Testament, signifying
merely an opposer. "But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee
behind me, _Satan_" (Matt. 16:23). "The things which the Gentiles
sacrifice, they sacrifice to _devils_" (1 Cor. 10:20). Paganism was
the great opposer of Christianity; hence was a Satan to it, while the
apostle Paul denominated its religious rites as devil-worship. We must
remember that the text does not say that the dragon was the devil and
Satan, but that he was _called_ the devil and Satan. He partook of the
nature and character of the personal devil, was the chief instrument
through which the devil worked, and was therefore called by his name.

The tail of this dragon "drew the third part of the stars of heaven,
and did cast them to the earth." This is not a literal description,
for the fixed or planetary stars never fall to the earth. If they did,
they would destroy it. The stars are doubtless employed as symbols
set in the ecclesiastical firmament, giving light amid the surrounding
darkness. Light is so often used as the representative of gospel
truth that the application of the stars to prominent characters in
the church is obvious. Jesus is the Sun of Righteousness, and his
ministers are bright, shining stars--light-givers. The ministers
of the seven churches of Asia Minor are represented as stars (chap.
1:20). "They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the
firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars
forever and ever" (Dan. 12:3). The casting down of the third part of
the stars, therefore, signifies the warfare which the dragon power
waged against the early church, in which conflict the ministers of
Christ became the marked objects of heathen wrath.

[Sidenote: The war in heaven]

"And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against
the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not;
neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon
was cast out, that old serpent 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" (Rev.
12:7-11).

The symbolic scene suddenly changes, and instead of the woman and the
man child, Michael and his angels appear in conflict with the dragon
and his angels. This change of symbols indicates the introduction of
a different phase of thought. From the nature of the symbols we can
quickly ascertain the reason for this change. The woman represents the
true church and is a proper symbol of its unity, beauty, purity,
and glory. But there is another phase of the church which can not be
represented symbolically by a woman--the militant phase. The church is
also an aggressive, fighting power, ready to wage warfare against the
powers of evil. We would not expect to see the church left helpless
like a woman before a great dragon. We would naturally expect to
see divine aid extended, and this is done by the change of symbolic
imagery, Michael (Christ) and his angels appearing to wage war against
the dragon.

The battle between Michael and the dragon signifies the great conflict
which took place between primitive Christianity and the powers of
paganism enthroned in the Roman Empire. It will be observed that this
scripture has no reference to the origin of Satan himself, as some
people have supposed; for the conflict was fought in the Christian
dispensation, as is proved by the weapons which the followers of
Michael employed--"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." Under this figure, the followers of Michael are
represented as victors, the dragon being cast down to the earth,
or overthrown. It is a fact of history that primitive Christianity
succeeded in its fight against paganism.

In the nineteenth chapter of Acts we have an account of the effect
Christianity had on heathenism. Paul went to Ephesus, which at that
time was the chief capital of proconsular Asia, a leading mart of
heathen idolatry, and in which was situated one of the seven wonders
of the ancient world--the temple of Diana. The preaching of the gospel
produced such a mighty effect that the followers of Diana, fearing
lest their magnificent system of worship should be destroyed, stirred
up the people in a tumult until the city was in an uproar, a great mob
shouting, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians."

Before the end of the first century, according to the testimony of
the younger Pliny, the temples of the gods of Asia Minor were almost
forsaken. Well has Butler said, "The final victory of Christianity
over heathenism and Judaism, and the mightiest empire of the ancient
world, a victory gained without physical force, by the moral power
of faith and perseverance, of faith and love, is one of the strongest
evidences of the divinity and indestructible life of our holy
religion."

It is a fact worthy of mention that the early Christians regarded
the Roman Empire as a great enemy to the truth, and described it as a
dragon, the victory of Christianity over heathenism being represented
by the overthrow of the dragon. Constantine and others of his time
describe these events thus. Says Bishop Newton, "Moreover, a picture
of Constantine was set up over the palace gate, with a cross over his
head, and under his feet the great enemy of mankind (who persecuted
the church by means of impious tyrants), in the form of a dragon,
transfixed with a dart through the midst of its body, and falling
headlong into the depth of the sea."

Verse 11 seems to indicate that many of the followers of Christ lost
their lives in this conflict, and this doubtless is parallel with the
statement that the man child was caught up to God and to his throne.
It may also imply that in the conflict the dragon employed the arm of
civil power in his opposition to the truth. But Christianity increased
notwithstanding the violent opposition. During the reign of the
Emperor Septimus Severus, about the close of the second century, when
a violent persecution of the Christians occurred, Tertullian, the
first of the great Latin Fathers, wrote a notable apology for the
Christian faith, addressed to the Emperor. In this important document
this noble defender of Christianity sets forth so clearly the nature
of the conflict between truth and error that I shall make rather a
lengthy quotation from his writing.

"Rulers of the Roman Empire," he begins, "you surely can not forbid
the truth to reach you by the secret pathway of a noiseless book.
She knows that she is but a sojourner on the earth, and as a stranger
finds enemies; and more, her origin, her dwelling-place, her hope, her
rewards, her honors, are above. One thing, meanwhile, she anxiously
desires of earthly rulers--not to be condemned unknown. What harm can
it do to give her a hearing?... The outcry is that the state is filled
with Christians; that they are in the fields, in the citadels, in the
islands. The lament is, as for some calamity, that both sexes, every
age and condition, even high rank, are passing over to the Christian
faith.

"The outcry is a confession and an argument for our cause; for we are
a people of yesterday, and yet we have filled every place belonging to
you--cities, islands, castles, towns, assemblies, your very camp, your
tribes, companies, palace, senate, forum. We leave to you your temples
alone. We can count your armies: our numbers in a single province
will be greater. We have it in our power, without arms and without
rebellion, to fight against you with the weapon of a simple divorce.
We can leave you to wage your wars alone. If such a multitude should
withdraw into some remote corner of the world, you would doubtless
tremble at your own solitude, and ask, 'Of whom are we the governors?'

"It is a human right that every man should worship according to his
own convictions ... a forced religion is no religion at all.... Men
say that the Christians are the cause of every public disaster. If the
Tiber rises as high as the city walls, if the Nile does not rise over
the fields, if the heavens give no rain, if there be an earthquake, if
a famine or pestilence, straightway they cry, Away with the Christians
to the lions.... But go zealously on, ye good governors, you will
stand higher with the people if you kill us, torture us, condemn
us, grind us to the dust; your injustice is the proof that we
are innocent. God permits us to suffer. Your cruelty avails you
nothing.... The oftener you mow us down, the more in number we grow;
the blood of Christians is seed. What you call our obstinacy is an
instructor. For who that sees it does not inquire for what we suffer!
Who that inquires does not embrace our doctrines? Who that embraces
them is not ready to give his blood for the fulness of God's grace?"

[Sidenote: The woman's flight]

Under the figure of Michael and his angels, the early church is
represented as victorious in casting down the powers of heathenism;
but under the symbol of the woman, the church is apparently
represented as defeated; for after the casting down of the dragon it
is said, "To the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she
might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished
for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent"
(verse 14). This agrees with verse 6, where it is said that "the woman
fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God,
that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and three score
days."

The flight of the woman into an obscure place in the wilderness
presents a striking contrast with her first appearance in the
planetary heavens, where she was "clothed with the sun, and the moon
under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars." By this
sudden change in the symbolic representation of the woman's position
is set forth the ecclesiastical change that took place in the early
part of the church's history. First she appears as the glorious bride
of Christ adorned in beauty and splendor and radiating the light of
his glorious gospel. She was then "the light of the world." Later we
find a great change taking place. Instead of the church representing
all the truth to the world, we find the beginning of a great apostasy,
which in time was to eclipse and well nigh extinguish the light and
glory of primitive Christianity by substituting in its place the
darkness of the apostasy born in ages of ignorance and superstition.

That such a change in the history of the true church should occur
was predicted by Christ and the apostles. Jesus said, "And because
iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold" (Matt. 24:12).
Peter said, "There shall be false teachers among you, who privily
shall bring in damnable heresies" (2 Pet. 2:1). Paul said, "Also of
your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw
away disciples after them" (Acts 20:30). To the Thessalonians who had
been troubled with the report that the second coming of Christ was
then near at hand, Paul said, "Let no man deceive you by any means:
for that day shall not come, except there come _a falling away first_,
and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth
and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is
worshiped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, and showing
himself that he is God.... For the mystery of iniquity doth already
work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of
the way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall
consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the
brightness of his coming" (2 Thess. 2:3-8).

The reader can scarcely consider these texts without perceiving
clearly that change which came over the primitive church resulting
in a transition from her glorious state of innocent beauty to the
full-grown papacy--the "mystery of iniquity."




CHAPTER XII

THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD


The fact of history pertaining to the true church which Paul described
as a "falling away" is represented by the Revelator by the symbol of
the woman fleeing into the wilderness. The other fact mentioned by
Paul pertaining to the rise and development of the man of sin is
represented in the visions of the Revelation as follows:

[Sidenote: The ten-horned leopard-beast]

"And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out
of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten
crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. 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 I saw one of his
heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed:
and all the world wondered after the beast. And they worshiped the
dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshiped the beast,
saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with
him? and there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and
blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two
months. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme
his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. And it
was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them:
and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.
And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are
not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation
of the world. If any man have an ear, let him hear. He that leadeth
into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword
must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of
the saints" (Rev. 13: 1-10).

From the nature of the symbol employed, we should naturally infer that
a persecuting, tyrannical kingdom or empire is meant. That such
an application of the term "beast," when used in connection with
prophetic symbols, is correct, is shown by a reference to the
interpretation given concerning the fourth beast of Daniel's vision.
"The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon the earth" (Dan.
7:23). We have already shown conclusively that by the dragon was meant
the pagan Roman Empire, and the same heads and horns are apparently
ascribed to this leopard-beast, the only difference being that the
crowns--a symbol of sovereignty--have been transferred from the heads
to the horns. This substantial agreement with the facts of history
makes certain the identification of this beast with the revised
western Roman Empire under the papal form, the sovereignty being
vested in the ten minor kingdoms until they chose to "give their power
and strength unto the beast" (Rev. 17:13).

The symbol of a beast considered merely _as a beast_, could not, in
the nature of the case, signify anything more than a temporal kingdom
or political empire. It will be noticed, however, that this particular
prophetic symbol is _more than a beast_; for, combined with his
beastly nature, there are certain characteristics which unmistakably
belong to the department of human life--a mouth _speaking_ great
things; power to magnify himself against the God of heaven, to set
himself up as an object of worship, to single out the saints of
God and kill them, etc. This combination of symbols from the two
departments--animal life and human life--points us with absolute
certainty to the political-religious system of Rome.

Every historian knows that _pagan_ Rome was succeeded by _papal_ Rome.
The transfer is expressed thus: "And the dragon gave him his power,
and his seat, and great authority" (verse 2). The rising papacy
succeeded to the power and authority formerly exercised by pagan Rome;
and when the political capital was removed to Constantinople, the pope
was left in possession of the ancient seat of empire and government.
"The beast" therefore refers to Rome either as a political power or as
an ecclesiastical power, the context determining whether the political
or the ecclesiastical phase is meant in a given instance. It will be
observed, however, that the leading actions ascribed to this beast
are derived from its human characteristics, pointing unerringly to the
papacy for its fulfilment.

This beast the world admired. "And they worshiped the dragon which
gave power unto the beast; and they worshiped the beast, saying,
Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?" The
expression "_worshiped_ the dragon" shows that reference is made to
the dragon, not as a political power, but as a religious power. This
worship of the dragon by those who worshiped the beast which succeeded
the dragon was fulfilled by the perpetuation under the papacy of
the rites and ceremonies of paganism. Roman Catholicism is a strange
amalgamation of Judaism, Christianity, and heathenism. The part
derived from paganism occupies such a prominent place in Roman
Catholic practise and worship that we can not fail to observe its
close resemblance to, if not absolute identity with, heathenism. Just
to mention a few points:

1. The high priest of the pagan religion was called Pontifex Maximus,
and he claimed spiritual and temporal authority over men. The pope of
Rome borrowed the title and made the same claims, even being clad in
the same attire.

2. The heathen wore scapulars, medals, and images for personal
protection. Romanists wear the same things for the same purpose.

3. Pagans, by an official process called _deification_, raised men,
after their death, to a dignified position and accorded them
special honors and worship. Papists, by a similar process called
_canonization_, exalt men after their death to the dignity of saints
and then offer up prayers to them.

4. Papists' adoration of idols and images was also borrowed direct
from the heathen; for all such practises were absolutely forbidden by
the Mosaic law and had no place in primitive Christianity.

5. Their religious orders of monks and nuns were also in imitation of
the vestal virgins of antiquity.

The beast is described as a blasphemous power. Adam Clarke has stated
that "blasphemy, in Scripture, signifies _impious speaking_, when
applied to God; and _injurious speaking_, when directed against our
_neighbor_." A name of blasphemy would therefore properly signify the
prostitution of a sacred name to an unholy purpose. An example of this
kind is given in Rev. 2:9, where we read, "I know the blasphemy of
them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagog of
Satan." In this case certain wicked men blasphemed the name by calling
themselves Jews, since according to Scripture 'he _only_ is a Jew who
is one inwardly.' But to prostitute a sacred name to an unworthy use
would be no more impious or blasphemous than would the assumption by
man of those rights and prerogatives which belong to God alone. This
the pope has done for ages. Among the blasphemous titles which he has
assumed are these: "Lord God the Pope," "King of the World," "Holy
Father," "King of kings and Lord of lords," "Vicegerent of the Son of
God." For ages he has claimed infallibility, and this claim became
a dogma of the church when adopted by the General Council of 1870.
Further, he claims power to dispense with God's laws, to forgive sins,
to release from purgatory, to damn and to save. To call the Roman
Catholic Church the _holy_ church of the Bible is to prostitute a
sacred name to an unworthy institution. And to elevate a man to the
place where "he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself
that _he_ is God," by claiming those prerogatives which belong to God
only, is most flagrant blasphemy.

[Sidenote: A persecuting power]

"And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to
overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues,
and nations" (chap. 13: 7). Here we have a direct prediction of that
reign of tyranny in the Dark Ages in which millions of people suffered
martyrdom at the hands of papal Rome.

I am aware that many Catholics affirm that their church never
persecuted, that it was the civil power that did this dread work of
slaughter. We must remember, however, that the beast of Revelation
13 signifies the imperial and the ecclesiastical power in the closest
union possible; for the beast appears _as one_, the two phases being
represented by the combination of symbols from the two distinct
departments of life--human and animal. In the seventeenth chapter
we have the same distinct characteristics again set forth, but in a
different combination, the beast appearing simply as a beast, thus
representing the political power of Rome; while the ecclesiastical
power is represented by a corrupt woman sitting on the beast and
directing its course. In that description it is stated, "And I saw
_the woman_ drunken _with the blood of the saints, and with the blood
of the martyrs of Jesus_" (verse 6). The Romish church itself is,
therefore, represented as participating in the work of martyrdom.

Does this divine prediction agree with the facts of history? It is
altogether impossible to compute correctly the number of those who
were in different ways put to death for opposing the corruption of the
Church of Rome. A million Waldenses perished in France. Nine
hundred thousand Christians were slain within thirty years after the
institution of the Jesuits. The Duke of Alva boasted that he had
put to death 36,000 in the Netherlands by the hands of the common
executioner. The Inquisition destroyed 150,000 within thirty years. If
it be asserted that this was accomplished by the secular arm, I reply
that sentence of death was pronounced upon so-called heretics by the
church and that the secular power was simply a tool for carrying the
barbarous sentence into execution. We can not forget that the pope
applauded Charles IX of France and his infamous mother, Catherine de
Medici, for their part in the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and ordered
a medal struck in honor of the event; that following the revocation
of the Edict of Nantes, when 300,000 were cruelly butchered during
the reign of Louis XIV, Pope Innocent XI extolled the king by special
letter, as follows: "The Catholic Church shall most assuredly
record in her sacred annals _a work of such devotion toward her_
and CELEBRATE YOUR NAME WITH NEVER-DYING PRAISES ... _for this most
excellent undertaking_."

Popery has for ages claimed the right to exterminate by death those
who were heretics. Numerous provincial and national councils have
issued cruel and bloody laws for the extermination of the Waldenses
and other so-called heretics. Besides these, at least six of their
_General_ Councils, the highest judicial assemblies of the Roman
Church, with the popes themselves sometimes present in person, have
by their decrees pronounced the punishment of death for heresy: 1. The
Second General Council of Lateran (1139) in its twenty-third canon. 2.
The Third General Council of Lateran (1179), under Pope Alexander III.
3. The Fourth General Council of Lateran (1215), under Pope Innocent
III. 4. The Sixteenth General Council, held at Constance in 1414. This
council, with Pope Martin present in person, condemned the reformers
Huss and Jerome to be burned at the stake, and then prevailed on the
Emperor Sigismund to violate the safe conduct which he had given Huss
and signed by his own hand and in which he had guaranteed the reformer
a safe return to Bohemia; and this inhuman sentence against Huss
was then carried out. 5. The Council of Sienna (1423), which was
afterwards continued at Basil. 6. The Fifth General Council of Lateran
(1514).

That such teachings and practises were an integral part of Romanism is
easily shown. St. Aquinas, the "angelic doctor," argued that heretics
might justly be killed. Cardinal Bellarmine, in a Latin work, _De
Laicis_, still extant, entered into a regular argument to prove that
the church has the right of punishing heretics with death and should
exercise that right. Bellarmine was a nephew of one pope and a close
friend and associate of others, a champion of Romanism, and a defender
of its doctrines. In the work above referred to be declares that
"_heretics were often_ _burned_ BY THE CHURCH." "The Donatists,
Manicheans, and Albigenses were routed and annihilated by arms."

Many timid-hearted Christians in the present age of religious
toleration think that it is almost unchristianlike for us to bring
up and lay to the charge of Rome such a sweeping indictment for those
massacres of Christians in a barbarous age. Such it would be had Rome
ever disavowed these acts or shown any signs of true repentance. The
fact is that it is the boast of Catholics that "Rome never changes."
Well has Charles Butler said, "It is most true that the Roman
Catholics believe the doctrines of their church to be unchangeable;
and that it is a tenet of their creed, that what their faith ever has
been, such it was from the beginning, _such it is now, and such it
ever will be_."

In a copy of the eleventh edition of "The Faith of Our Fathers," by
Cardinal Gibbons, page 95, I read: "It is a marvelous fact, worthy of
record, that in the whole history of the church, from the nineteenth
century to the first, no solitary example can be adduced to show that
any pope or general council ever revoked a decree of faith or morals
enacted by any preceding pontiff or council. Her record in the past
ought to be a sufficient warrant that she will _tolerate no doctrinal
variations in the future_." So the doctrine of her inherent right to
persecute and slay every one who disagrees with her, which has been
enacted by popes and general councils and carried out in the past, is
still in vogue.

"And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the
blood of the martyrs of Jesus."

In our study of Revelation 12 and 13 we have observed that Rome in its
twofold form--pagan and papal--is represented by the dragon and the
beast respectively. This has been established so clearly as to
remove well nigh all doubt concerning the identification. It will be
profitable, however, to give brief consideration to certain parallel
prophecies in Daniel; for in addition to covering the same ground and
describing under other symbols the same general facts of history, they
furnish us an infallible starting-stake, thus establishing definitely
the truth of the interpretation concerning the Roman power, and giving
us a solid basis from which we can proceed with logical certainty to
the interpretation of other symbols in the Revelation.

[Sidenote: The image of Nebuchadnezzar's dream]

In the second chapter of Daniel we have the narrative of a dream which
Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, had during the time of the Jewish
captivity in that city. After the king awoke, he was so confused that
notwithstanding the deep impression made by his nocturnal experience,
he could not recall to mind the dream itself. He therefore had
recourse to the Chaldeans and wise men of his realm. They failed to
make known his dream, whereupon he became furious and decreed their
death. At this juncture Daniel came forward and announced that if
given time he would fulfil the king's desire, and shortly afterward he
appeared before the king and addressed him as follows:

"Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image,
whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee: and the form
thereof was terrible. This image's head was of fine gold, his breast
and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, his legs of
iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. Thou sawest till that a
stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet
that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. Then was the
iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces
together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing-floors;
and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and
the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the
whole earth" (Dan. 2:31-35).

The interpretation of this dream, as given by the prophet,
particularly concerns and interests us. Said Daniel: "This is the
dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king."
"Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given
thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. And wheresoever the
children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the
heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over
them all. Thou art this head of gold" (verses 36-38).

At the time of this vision the Chaldean monarchy was in the height of
her power and glory. Babylon, the capital city, was the chief "pride
of the Chaldees' excellency," containing those magnificent hanging
gardens, one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. Nebuchadnezzar
was pointed out particularly as the head of gold in the image, but we
should bear in mind that in the general language of prophecy,
"kings" signify not merely individual monarchs but monarchies under a
succession of princes of the same nation. That the real significance
of the head of gold is the Babylonian Kingdom or Monarchy is shown by
the fact that in the description of the other three divisions of the
same image they are referred to directly as _kingdoms_. The Babylonian
Kingdom came to an end with the death of Belshazzar, and the overthrow
of his father Nabonadius in 538 B.C.

"And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee"
(verse 39). This is the explanation given of that part of the image
represented by the breast and arms of silver. This refers to the
Medo-Persian empire, which, under Cyrus the Great, captured Babylon
538 B.C. and terminated the Chaldean empire. The Persian kingdom
was in certain respects inferior to the Chaldean, just as silver is
inferior to gold. It was neither as wealthy nor as prosperous, and
was particularly inferior in the character of its kings, for from the
death of Cyrus they are said to have been "as vile a set of men as
ever disgraced human nature."

"And another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all
the earth." This refers to the Macedonian, or Greek, empire founded
by Alexander the Great. After subduing Greece and reducing Egypt,
Alexander penetrated into Asia, took Tyre, met and overthrew Darius
the Persian at Arbela, in 331 B.C., thus terminating the Persian
Empire. The Grecian Kingdom had less external magnificence than those
which preceded it and was founded and maintained by force of arms;
but it was more extensive than the others, including many dominions
in Europe, Africa, and regions farther to the east in Asia than had
before been penetrated. It was foretold that this kingdom should "bear
rule over all the earth"; it was the main boast of Alexander that he
had subdued the whole world.

"And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron
breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh
all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise" (verse 40). This
corresponds to the "legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of
clay," in the dream itself. The reference is to the Roman Empire,
which succeeded the Grecian. Whether or not the two legs had any
special significance is not stated, but commentators frequently refer
us to the two divisions into which the empire of Rome was afterwards
divided--East and West. So also the ten toes of the image are often
explained as signifying the ten minor kingdoms which grew out of the
empire. But we should bear in mind that this is not stated either
in the vision itself or in its inspired interpretation. Only four
kingdoms are referred to as such. The fourth division, representing
Rome (in both its strong and its weak condition), is described simply
as "the kingdom," "the fourth kingdom." The Roman Kingdom was at first
"as strong as iron." No other people have ever made such extensive
conquests through a long period of time as did the Romans.

If Nebuchadnezzar's dream brought a man into prominence as a symbolic
object, we should think that, in accordance with the nature of
symbols, a religious power or powers only were intended; but the
symbol is not a man, but only the _image_ of a man, and that image is
composed of inanimate materials, which, drawn from the department
of nature, refer to something political. We therefore have political
kingdoms set forth. The very fact that they are represented as
appearing in the form of a man, however, may at least allude to
their being political powers combined with religious systems. But the
combination is not such a one as would naturally lead us to conclude
that reference is made to God's church.

The description of Nebuchadnezzar's dream represented "a stone cut out
without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron
and clay, and brake them to pieces" (verse 34). The interpretation of
this event is given as follows: "And in the days of these kings shall
the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed:
and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break
in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever"
(verse 44).

The kingdom of God appears as the fifth universal kingdom, destined
to survive and surpass all others. It is of divine origin, cut out
"without hands." The other kingdoms are similar in their nature and
closely connected, in the single image of a man; but the kingdom of
God is altogether different and antagonistic. The prophecy refers
to the establishment of the kingdom of God in the early days of
Christianity; for, _be it observed_, this stone struck the image _when
all its four divisions were yet standing_. Not, only was the iron and
the clay broken by the impact, but "the iron, the clay, _the brass,
the silver, and the gold_" were "_broken to pieces_ TOGETHER, and
became like the chaff of the summer threshing-floors" (verse 35).

Here is a most important fact wholly unnoticed by those millennialists
who look to the future of our day for the establishment of the kingdom
of Christ. If the stone has not yet struck the image, then the chief
part of the prophetic description _never can be fulfilled_; for there
is no sense in which the advent of the divine kingdom in this late age
of the world can break in pieces the entire image of Nebuchadnezzar's
dream, there being no way in which it can truthfully be said that its
four divisions are yet standing. All these facts were true in the days
of Rome, however, when Christ appeared. The Roman Kingdom possessed
all the distinguishing marks and characteristics of the preceding
empires. This is true not only of their territorial possession but of
their distinctive characteristics. The opulence of the Babylonians,
the splendor of the Persians, the strength and discipline of the
Greeks, were all merged into the Roman Empire. And more than
this, these kingdoms were all idolatrous, and the religion of
the Babylonians was merely absorbed in the Persian Kingdom (not
destroyed); that of the Persian was perpetuated under the Greek
reign; and all these found recognition in the divers forms of paganism
existing under Rome. _In this sense_ the image, as opposed to the
divine kingdom of Christ, was all standing at the time of the
first advent of the Messiah, and the overthrow of paganism by early
Christianity corresponds with the stroke given by the little stone of
Daniel 2.

Notice how this fulfilment is parallel with the prophecies of the
Revelation. In chapter 12 the Roman Empire under its pagan form is
represented by the dragon. Christianity waged warfare with this huge
system of false religion and overthrew it. "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" (chap. 12:10).

The kingdom represented in Nebuchadnezzar's dream came in the day
of incarnation and soon smote the kingdoms of heathen darkness as
existing in the embrace of Rome, and broke them in pieces. It was
then in the stage represented by a _stone_. At a later time we shall
observe the kingdom in its _mountain_ epoch, when it becomes a great
mountain and fills the whole earth.

[Sidenote: Vision of four beasts]

The four constituent parts of Nebuchadnezzar's visionary image were
interpreted to signify four successive monarchies, the Babylonian
being the first. In the seventh chapter Daniel records his own vision
of four great beasts that arose out of the violently agitated sea, and
these represent the same four kingdoms described in Nebuchadnezzar's
dream. "These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which
shall arise out of the earth" (verse 17). To the worldly, carnal mind
of Nebuchadnezzar, empires possessed a show of grandeur and glory, and
they were therefore represented accordingly in his vision; but to the
spiritual-minded Daniel they would appear odious and terrible, and
they were therefore represented to him under the symbol of devouring
_beasts_.

The kingdoms symbolized by the first three beasts of this vision
have no particular bearing on our subject, aside from assisting us in
fixing the chronology of certain events. The first beast signifies
the Babylonian Empire, corresponding to the head of the image in
Nebuchadnezzar's vision; the second, the Medo-Persian, corresponding
to the breast and arms of silver; the third, the Grecian,
corresponding to the belly and thighs of brass. The description
of these beasts shows that in one sense they are successive and in
another sense simultaneous.

I have already shown that the entire image of Nebuchadnezzar's dream
was standing in the days of Roman ascendency, when the kingdom of
God came. The same fact is brought out in the chapter now under
consideration. After mentioning particularly the fourth beast, Daniel
says, "As concerning the rest of the beasts, they had their dominion
taken away: yet their lives were prolonged for a season and time"
(verse 12). When these kingdoms lost their independent sovereignty,
they still continued as provinces, ruled by another similar power.

[Sidenote: The fourth beast]

The description of the fourth beast directly concerns our subject:
"After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast,
dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron
teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with
the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were
before it; and it had ten horns. I considered the horns, and, behold,
there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were
three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in
this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great
things" (verses 7, 8).

The interpretation of this beast given by the angel possesses unusual
interest. "Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom
upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour
the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.
And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise"
(verses 23, 24). Since the interpretation given by Daniel identifies
the first kingdom with the Babylonian Empire, we have an infallible
starting-stake. Therefore the "fourth" kingdom represented by the
terrible nondescript beast of chapter 7 is none other than the Roman.
The ten horns of this beast are interpreted to signify ten kings,
or kingdoms, thus representing the ten minor kingdoms into which the
Roman Empire was finally subdivided.

The description given of the tyrannical reign of this fourth beast
aptly portrays the history of Rome. By wars and conquests the Roman
power broke down all opposition and reduced almost every kingdom in
the then-known world to a state of dependence. She drew the spoils of
their capitals to enlarge her own proud metropolis and thus tyrannized
over all who did not quietly yield to her unquestioned obedience.

The beast considered as a beast, could signify nothing more than a
political power, and the ten horns temporal kingdoms. But in this
connection I wish to call attention to a singular fact; namely,
that, associated with the animal propensities, there are certain
characteristics drawn from human life. "I considered the horns, and,
behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom
there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and,
behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth
speaking great things" (verse 8).

[Sidenote: The marvelous horn]

A horn with the eyes and mouth of a man is a most unusual thing, and
yet it is just such a combination as we might expect when we possess
a correct understanding of the nature of symbols. These closely united
symbols drawn from two departments--human and animal life--point
us with absolute certainty to a temporal power combined with an
ecclesiastical power. The chronology of the event is fixed by the
fact that this eleventh horn came up among the ten horns, three of the
original ten being removed in order to give it room. The ten kingdoms
all arose within two centuries after 356 A.D.; therefore the facts
brought out in the symbol direct us to the period of the downfall of
Western Rome for the rise into prominence of the little horn.

In giving Daniel the interpretation of the fourth beast, the angel
also described more particularly this little horn and the nature of
its work. First Daniel said: "I would know the truth of the fourth
beast ... and of the ten horns that were in his head, and of the other
which came up, and before whom three fell; even of that horn that had
eyes, and a mouth that spake very great things, whose look was more
stout than his fellows. I beheld, and the same horn made war with
the saints, and prevailed against them" (verses 19-21). And the angel
explained: "The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth
... and the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall
arise: another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the
first, and he shall subdue three kings. And he shall speak great words
against 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 time. But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his
dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end" (verses 23-26).

With the explanation that the fourth beast signified the fourth
kingdom, it is impossible to evade the conclusion that the
politico-religious power symbolized by the little horn that came up
among the ten horns refers directly to the papacy. There is no other
object that can fulfil the prophecy. The papacy was just beginning
to make itself strongly felt among the divisions of the Western Roman
Empire, and it is a fact of history that three of the original
ten divisions _in the territory of Italy_ were actually plucked
up successively before the rising papacy as if to give it room for
development.

When the Western Empire was overthrown in A.D. 476, the kingdom of
the Heruli was established in Italy. In 493 this was succeeded by
the Ostrogoths, which continued for sixty years and was afterwards
succeeded by the Lombards. The Lombard Kingdom was overthrown by Pepin
and Charlemagne, who gave a large part of the conquered territory to
the pope, thus favoring the papacy with her _first temporal power_.
This grant completed the symbol of Daniel's vision by constituting the
papacy a temporal as well as an ecclesiastical power.

The description of the great things spoken by the mouth of the little
horn and of the persecution of the true saints of God by this power
corresponds so minutely with the characteristics of the first beast
of Revelation 13 that no further description is here necessary. It is
said that he would also "think to change times and laws." The language
is spoken as if this were a most extraordinary thing to do. Surely it
is no extraordinary thing for a king to alter _secular_ laws in his
own dominion; and so far as heathen kingdoms are concerned, it would
be no sacrilegious act for them to alter their _religious_ laws and
customs. But the little horn was to set himself up against the Most
High and think to change _His_ times and laws--an act of unparalleled
audacity, impiety, and blasphemy. This description the papacy has
consistently and constantly fulfilled. The pope has assumed the power
to make time holy or unholy as he sees fit; to command men to abstain
from meat and to cease work, contrary to the demands of God. He has
claimed the power to dispense with God's laws or obedience to them,
"forbidding to marry," and through his indulgences to remit the
penalty due to sin.

The student of prophecy can not fail to see the striking similarity
between the description of the little horn in Daniel 7 and that of
the ten-horned leopard-beast of Revelation 13. The following parallels
prove their identity:

1. Both are blasphemous powers (Dan. 7:25; Rev. 13:6).

2. They speak great things and blasphemies (Dan. 7:8, 20; Rev. 13:5).

3. Both are persecuting powers making war on the saints (Dan. 7:21;
Rev. 13:7).

4. The chronology of each shows that the power rose to prominence
about the time of the cessation of the pagan Roman Empire.

5. The length of time during which they were to continue is the
same--forty-two months, or twelve hundred and sixty days.

6. Both are to be gradually but finally destroyed (Dan. 7:26; Rev.
13:10).

These powers, then, appear at the same time, in the same territory,
have the same character, do the same work, continue the same length of
time, and meet the same fate. _These facts prove identity._ We have,
therefore, positive proof drawn from the parallel prophecies in Daniel
that the first beast of Revelation 13 signifies the politico-religious
system of Rome.

[Sidenote: Length of papal reign]

The identification of the little horn of Daniel 7 with the
leopard-beast of Revelation 13 is now complete. That both apply to the
papacy has been conclusively shown. We shall now turn our attention
to the length of time that this power was to reign. Daniel limits the
triumph of the little horn to "a time and times and the dividing of
time" (Dan. 7:25). "Time," in the singular, of course, signifies one
time. "Times," plural, without a designating number, signifies two
times. "The dividing of time" is rendered in chapter 12:7, also in
both texts in the Revised Version, "a half." So the entire period is
three and a half times.

The seven-year period of Nebuchadnezzar's insanity is described as
seven _times_ (chap. 4:25). We therefore conclude that the period of
three and a half times signifies three and a half years. This agrees
with the reign of the leopard beast of Revelation 13, namely, "forty
and two months" (verse 5), or according to the Jewish method of
computing time--thirty days to the month--twelve hundred and sixty
days. Notice that this also agrees both in the manner of statement and
in point of duration with the flight of the woman into the wilderness,
as described in Revelation 12. She was to be nourished for "a time,
and times, and half a time" (verse 14), which period is spoken of in
verse 6 of the same chapter as "a thousand two hundred and threescore
days."

The terms ordinarily used to measure the duration of time may be and
often are used in a symbolic sense; for time, as well as anything
else, can be symbolized. Thus days may properly symbolize years; for
they are analogous periods of time, the diurnal revolution of the
earth being taken to represent the earth's annual movement. Other
standards of reckoning may also be employed symbolically, but the one
here referred to is doubtless most frequently employed. Such a system
of reckoning time was known anciently. The Mosaic law recognized two
kinds of weeks, the first of seven days' duration, the last day of
which was a Sabbath; another week of seven years' duration, the last
year being a Sabbath of rest for the land. This fact explains such
expressions as "forty days, _each day for a year_" (Num. 14:34), and
"I have appointed thee each day for a year" (Ezek. 4:6).

There is no doubt that the year-day method of computing time is used
in the prophecy of Daniel 9, the sixty-nine _weeks_ reaching from the
time of the decree of Artaxerxes in 457 B.C. until A.D. 26, the year
when Christ was baptized and entered on his personal ministry.

[Sidenote: The correct starting-point]

Applying the year-day standard to the period of twelve hundred and
sixty days, we have twelve hundred and sixty years. The next question
to arise is, What date shall we select as the proper time from which
to measure this 1,260-year period? It is important that we correctly
solve this question. Expositors have selected different dates. They
usually point out some particular historical date having an important
bearing on Rome's development; as, for example, A.D. 606, when Phocas,
Emperor of the East, accorded the Church of Rome special recognition.
But the papacy grew up in the _West_. If we are to regard as of
unusual importance political recognition of the claims of the papacy,
why not give preference to imperial recognition in the very section
that constituted the home of the papacy?

Before considering further the relation of the growing papacy to the
imperial power in the Western Empire, I must call attention to an
important fact generally overlooked or disregarded by expositors.
The 1,260-year period not only marks the time of triumph by the
beast-power, but also _measures the period during which the woman, or
true church, was to be secluded in the wilderness_. Two parallel lines
of prophetic truth--respecting the true church and a false church--are
therefore set forth as coexistent and in contrast with each other.
The correct starting-stake can not, therefore, be when the papacy
had obtained complete ascendency, for this would be too late to
consistently begin to measure the decayed state of the true church.
The date selected must be consistent with both lines of prophecy.
The apostasy did not take place suddenly, however, but was a gradual
decline, a "falling away"; and the papacy, on the other hand, did not
rise to great power suddenly, but grew up by degrees. It was at
first "a little horn," but finally his "look was more stout than
his fellows." Paul says that the "mystery of iniquity"--the seed of
apostasy--was already working in his day and that later "that Wicked"
should be revealed in all its terrible features (see 2 Thess. 2:3-8).
We therefore have to deal with a sliding-scale, a gradual decline on
the part of the true church, and a constant increase of that false,
apostate power which finally culminated in the full-grown papacy.

Bearing in mind that the 1,260-year period measures both phases, we
are obliged to select for our beginning a time about half way between
both extremes, a time when, we might say, the "falling away" from the
pure apostolic truth and standard was about half completed and when
the papacy was about half developed. While the woman was secluded in
the wilderness, the beast-power occupied the public view; and this
was exactly the reverse of apostolic times, when the woman was exalted
above all and before all, "clothed with the sun and with the moon
under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars." In other
words, the extreme of darkest night succeeded the light of glorious
day.

The period of the first apostles was the period of the church's purity
and triumph. In their hands the cause was safe and the pure truth
shown forth in beauty and power. But with the close of the apostolic
era, the apostasy came on at a rapid rate, as the extant writings of
the early church fathers show.

By the middle of the fifth century the light of the gospel was
eclipsed in the darkness of Romanism. During this century the papacy
secured political recognition of its claims to direct jurisdiction
over all churches. This occurred during the pontificate of Leo I, who,
because of his success in furthering the interests of the popedom,
shares alone with Pope Gregory the title of "the Great." To quote from
the New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia, Leo "entered upon a pontificate
which was to be epoch-making for the centralization of the government
of the church." Political causes combined to advance the claims of the
papacy to universal recognition. Attila, with his fierce barbarians,
invaded Italy and laid waste many of her fairest provinces and then
advanced boldly on Rome, whereupon Pope Leo went out to the camp of
the invaders and secured the evacuation of Italy. The pope obtained
the full support of Valentinian III. In 445 Leo enforced authority in
the distant patriarchate of Alexandria. In 444-446 he was in conflict
with the Illyrian bishops. During this time in a letter addressed
to them he laid down the principle that St. Peter had received the
primacy and oversight of the whole church and that hence all important
matters must be referred to and decided by Rome. He also proceeded
to extend his authority over Gaul. In this effort he obtained from
Valentinian III the famous decree of June 6, 445, which "recognized
the primacy of the Pope of Rome based on the merits of Peter, the
dignity of the city, and the decrees of Nice (in their interpolated
form); ordained that any opposition to this rulings, which were to
_have the force of law_, should be treated as treason; and provided
for the forcible extradition by provincial governors of any one who
refused to answer a summons to Rome."

The apostle John was banished to the Isle of Patmos in 95. Regarding
that date as the close of the pure apostolic era, and 445, when the
pope received from the emperor of the West official recognition of his
claims to universal supremacy in the church, as representing one other
extreme, we have but to calculate the time half way between these
extremes to find the consistent starting-stake for the beginning of
that time prophecy which is to measure both lines of prophetic truth.
From 95 to 445 is a period of 350 years. Half of this period is
175 years. Therefore 175 years after 95, or 270, is the correct
starting-point.

Protestant church historians recognize the decline that came in the
early church. Many of them, as D'Aubigne, Marsh, Rutter, Waddington,
and others, point to the third century, or the latter half of the
third century, as marking an unusual epoch in this declension. Others,
however, who view things almost wholly from the external point of
view, regard the accession of Constantine in the early part of the
following century as marking the important epoch. With reference
to this subject, I quote Joseph Milner, the English ecclesiastical
historian: "I know it is common for authors to represent the
declension of Christianity to have taken place only after its external
establishment under Constantine. But the events of history have
compelled me to dissent from this view of things."--Ch. Hist., Cent.
IV, Chap. I.

It is also evident from the facts of history that, in addition to
the corruption of evangelical faith, that other phase of the
apostasy--human ecclesiasticism--was also highly developed before the
end of the third century. George P. Fisher says, "The accession of
Constantine [A.D. 312] found the church so firmly organized under
the hierarchy that it could not lose its identity by being absolutely
merged in the state."--History of the Christian Church, p. 99.

In the year A.D. 270 Anthony, an Egyptian, the father of monasticism,
fixed his abode in the deserts of Egypt and formed monks into
organized bodies. Dowling, describing the extravagance of monkery and
the false standard of piety and holiness it created, declares that
monkery "_actually affected the church universal_." See History of
Romanism, pp. 88, 89. Very few marks of genuine piety remained. With
the decline of evangelical knowledge came a reign of superstition
and ignorance. Milner, adverting to the institution of monkery in the
_third century_, expresses his "regret that the faith and love of
the gospel received toward the close of it a dreadful blow from the
encouragement of this unchristian practise."--Century III, Chap. XX.

In another place the same historian, speaking of the absence of truth
and the prevalence of error in the third century, says: "It is vain to
expect Christian faith to abound without Christian doctrine. Moral and
philosophical and monastical instructions will not effect for men
what is to be expected from evangelical doctrine. And if the faith of
Christ was so much declined (and its decayed state _ought to be dated
from about the year 270_,) we need not wonder that such scenes as
Eusebius hints at without any circumstantial details, took place in
the Christian world."--Century IV, Chap. I. (Parenthetical clause is
Milner's; italicizing, mine.) In addition to this quotation, and as if
to give emphasis, the historian places prominently in a side-head the
words, "_Decay of pure Christianity, A.D. 270_."

Measuring forward from A.D. 270 the alloted period of twelve hundred
and sixty years brings us to A.D. 1530, a year which marked the
beginning of Protestantism in its organized form. The first Protestant
creed, the Confession of Augsburg, was made that year.

The description of the papal power under the symbol of the ten-horned
beast of Revelation 13 and the little horn of Daniel 7 presents a
melancholy picture of world-events during the long period of twelve
hundred and sixty years ending with the sixteenth century reformation.

[Sidenote: Principle of parallelism]

Before proceeding to give in chronological order a description of
events following the reign of the beast, I wish to call attention to
an important plan followed in the Biblical presentation of prophetic
truth; namely, that the events are taken up by parallel series
covering the same period of time. But in addition to this point, we
observe the principle of _contrast_. When the history of political
events is described, we have in contrast therewith a description of
ecclesiastical events; and with the representation of a false church
or an apostate state of Christianity, we have in immediate contrast
the history of God's chosen people. Or perhaps the order is reversed,
but the principle remains the same. While, in the nature of things,
these distinct lines can not always be well represented symbolically
as occurring at the same time, they are presented in parallel series,
thus proving that they were to be fulfilled simultaneously.

In direct contrast with the power of apostate Christendom represented
by the papacy, which for certain reasons I have presented first, we
have in chapter 11 of the Revelation a brief history of God's true
people that existed during the papal reign. In this case, however, a
description of the apostasy and of the true church are presented in
the same series and in such a way as to give special emphasis to the
point of contrast as well as to prove their simultaneous fulfilment.
Thus we read: "And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and
the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the
altar, and them that worship therein. But the court which is without
the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the
Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two
months. And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall
prophecy a thousand two hundred and three score days, clothed in
sackcloth" (chap. 11:1-3).

It is clear that two powers in the Christian era are here represented,
the one continuing "forty and two months" and the other twelve hundred
and sixty days, or years, heretofore explained as measuring the length
of the beast's reign, also of the woman's seclusion in the wilderness.
This similarity naturally suggests that we have here the same general
facts set forth under other symbols. Jerusalem, the holy city, the
temple, and the two witnesses therefore correspond to the woman of
chapter 12. The crowd of uncircumcised Gentiles and their profanation
of the city of God for twelve hundred and sixty years correspond to
the beast-power of chapter 13.

Wonderful truth is represented in the vision of this chapter. The
symbols are drawn from Old Testament history, from the religious life
of the Jews--God's chosen people in contrast with the uncircumcised
Gentiles. It is evident, therefore, that the true church and the false
church of the gospel era are represented.

Notice carefully the symbols: holy city, temple, altar, worshipers,
and living witnesses, or prophets. These represent the sum and
substance of all divine revelation in the Mosaic age: holy city,
Jerusalem--_the place where God set his name_; the temple--_divinely
authorised, holy, acceptable worship_ based on careful adherence to
God's commandments formerly given; the altar--_the great symbol of
atonement, the reconciliation of humanity with the divinity_;
the worshipers in one temple--_all of God's people in unity_; the
prophets--_the divinely commissioned representatives of God bearing
a living message for the people of their time_. These conditions
represent the Judaic ideal. Whether they were ever able to reach their
ideal or not, it is evident that the Jews had the conception of a
unified, holy, acceptable service (see Isa. 4:3; 52:1; 62:1-7). The
two witnesses referred to are clearly represented as prophets; for
the work ascribed to them as attesting their divine commission is a
repetition of the miraculous works of Moses and Elijah by which
they established their claims to be prophetic leaders authorized by
Jehovah. The witnesses seem to be distinguished from the worshipers
simply on account of their power and message.

[Sidenote: The two witnesses]

These symbols represent the true apostolic church. It is the holy
city, Jerusalem, his temple, whose holy, united worshipers obey the
commands of God. The application of the "witnesses" particularly
specified as they are in the description, requires further
explanation. It is said, "These are the two olive trees and the
two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth" (Rev. 11:4).
Whatever these two witnesses signify in particular, they are the
same as the olive trees and candlesticks spoken of. It appears that
allusion is made to Zechariah 4, where two olive trees are represented
as standing, one on each side of a golden candlestick, distilling into
it their oil for light. When the angel was asked for an explanation of
these two olive trees and the candlestick, he answered, "This is the
_Word_ of the Lord ... by my _Spirit_ saith the Lord" (verse 6). We
are to understand, therefore, that God's Word and Spirit are the "two
witnesses" in his church; that is, they signify the divine element
operating in his church. Just as the mediation of the prophets was
necessary in the olden times to maintain constant contact with God,
without which the religious exercises degenerated to mere formalism,
so the living _Word_ and _Spirit_ of God were present in the apostolic
church to elevate its service above mere human systems and forms
of worship. That the Word of God and the Spirit of God are special
witnesses is proved by many texts. Jesus said, "Search the scriptures
... they are they which _testify_ of me" (John 5:39). "This gospel of
the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a _witness_ unto
all nations" (Matt. 24:14). "The Holy Ghost also is a _witness_" (Heb.
10:15). "The Spirit itself beareth _witness_" (Rom. 8:16). "It is the
Spirit that beareth _witness_" (1 John 5:6).

Of the uncircumcised Gentiles it is said, "The holy city shall they
tread under foot forty and two months." This signifies the great
apostasy that overspread the earth, defiling and perverting the true
worship of God. The burden of this series, however, is not to describe
the foreign element thus introduced, but to set forth in greater
fulness the fact that during the same time that the idolatrous
multitude of Gentiles trod down the holy city God preserved his own
people. _The temple still remained_, and it had devout worshipers;
_the two witnesses still prophesied_, although clothed in sackcloth,
an emblem of melancholy and mourning. While the visions of the
Revelator describe particularly the power of apostasy and iniquity
reigning during the Dark Ages, they do not fail to give us the
assurance that at the same time God had a people whose names were
written in the book of life (chap. 13:8)--"saints" (chap. 13;10).
And these were made the object of the most violent persecution (chap.
13:17; 17:6).

It is rather difficult to trace the true work of God during those
times; for his "saints" were either ignored by the professed multitude
or else regarded as heretics. But there existed in different countries
bands of people who opposed the doctrines and ecclesiastical tyranny
of Rome and who claimed adherence to the simple, primitive faith
of Christ as expressed in the gospel. Among these were the Cathari,
Lombards, Albigenses, Waldenses, and Vaudois. I will not say that all
these so-called heretics are to be regarded as the true people of God,
but from the few records that we have of them, derived chiefly from
their enemies, it seems clear that there were among them many who were
truly "saints" and who clung tenaciously to the true faith of Christ.
God's Word and Spirit were therefore prophesying, although in
an unnatural condition, symbolized by the sackcloth state of the
witnesses. We must also remember that even among the Catholic party
were to be found noble persons whose hearts were true to whatever
truth they had and whose emotions and aspirations at times broke over
the bounds of traditional theology and gave expression to sentiments
Scriptural and sublime.

The time period first specified in this special scene is the same
twelve hundred and sixty years that marks the reign of the beast and
therefore closes with the reformation of the sixteenth century. We
shall have occasion to return to this series later and trace its
predictions down to our own times.




CHAPTER XIII

ERA OF MODERN SECTS


[Sidenote: Another epoch predicted]

We have seen that the 1,260-year universal reign of the first beast
of Revelation 13 ends with the period of the Reformation. The exact
manner in which this should be accomplished is not definitely given
in the prophecy, aside from the statement, "He that leadeth into
captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must
be killed with the sword" (verse 10). This description would seem to
indicate a period of captivity in which the papacy would be deprived
of its great power, after which it would be finally destroyed; and
this agrees with Paul's description of the papacy in 2 Thessalonians
2, where he speaks of that Wicked "whom the Lord shall consume with
the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his
coming" (verse 8). And Daniel, speaking of the end of the 1,260-year
reign of the same papal beast, points out a reformation time when
"they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto
the end" (Dan. 7:26).

There is no doubt that these references point out the work of the
Reformation which broke the power of Rome's universal supremacy and
her long reign of tyranny over the earth. Humanism, discovery of the
art of printing, the revival of learning, and other causes contributed
to this result. But the real revolt came in 1517, when Luther in
Saxony nailed to the church door in Wittenberg his ninety five theses
against the papal traffic in indulgences. The Reformers made their
appeal from the decisions of Councils to the inspired Word of God,
and this was the secret of their success. With wonderful power and
boldness they proclaimed truth that had been neglected or discredited
for ages. The holy fire spread over Western Europe. Men became
agitated as if moved by a mighty unseen power, until the papacy was
shaken from end to end.

[Sidenote: Protestantism in prophecy]

We regret that the true work of reformation did not long continue.
A.D. 1530 marks a new epoch--the rise of organized Protestantism;
marks the end of the 1,260-year period, and the introduction of
another ecclesiastical power. The historian D'Aubigne recognizes
the distinction between the Reformation as such and organized
Protestantism. In his well-known work, History of the Reformation, he
says: "The first two books of this volume contained the most important
epochs of the Reformation--the Protest of Spires and the Confession of
Augsburg.... I determined on bringing the reformation of Germany and
German-Switzerland to the _decisive epochs_ of 1530 and 1531. The
History of the Reformation, properly so-called, is then in my opinion
almost complete in those countries. The work of faith has there
attained its apogee: that of conferences, of interims, of diplomacy
begins.... The movement of the sixteenth century has there made
its effort. I said from the very first, It is the History of the
Reformation, and not of Protestantism, that I am relating."--Preface
to Volume IV.

Protestantism, then, is to be distinguished from the Reformation.
Considering its prominence in the ecclesiastical world, we should
naturally expect to find it represented in the symbols of the
Revelation. Strangely enough, few commentators ever make the least
effort to identify Protestantism with any of the symbols of this book.
Mohammedanism is there; Paganism is there; _the true church_ is
there, and, it is universally admitted, _the false church_ is there.
Therefore, whether Protestantism be true or false, _it_ must be there,
but where?

The application of the first beast of Revelation 13 to the papacy has
been so clearly established that the point is well-nigh indisputable.
The period of its universal supremacy is clearly limited to the
1,260 years. And everyone knows that it was the sixteenth century
reformation that ended that period of tyranny. We have shown that
that period ends with A.D. 1530. The prophecy immediately following
describes Protestantism in these words:

[Sidenote: The two-horned beast]

"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. And he exerciseth all the
power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them
which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was
healed. And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down
from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, and 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 a sword, and did live. And he had power to give life unto the
image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and
cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should
be killed. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor,
free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their
foreheads: and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the
mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is
wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the
beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred
threescore and six" (Rev. 13: 11-18).

Protestant commentators generally apply both the ten-horned beast and
the two-horned beast to Rome, the first representing the political
power, and the second the ecclesiastical power. But this position,
while clearing Protestantism of any moral stigma, is such a manifest
violation of the laws of symbolic language and the general principles
of Scriptural interpretation that I marvel that any critical thinker
could decide to adopt it. The two beasts are especially distinguished,
and in each case the symbol is complete. The first beast combines with
its beastly characteristics the qualities of the human, as did the
little horn of Daniel 7, thus clearly and positively representing
_both the political and the ecclesiastical dominion_ of Rome. It is
the human characteristics that constitute the leading feature of the
terrible work ascribed to the first beast; therefore, the papacy _as a
religious power_ is particularly intended. Hence the second beast can
not be intended to represent the ecclesiastical phase of Rome. Notice,
also, that the symbol of the second beast is likewise complete in
itself--animal and human--thus embracing both the political and the
ecclesiastical. _Another system totally distinct from the first is
therefore represented._

I call attention to certain distinct points proving that these two
beasts are not identical or simultaneous:

1. The first is spoken of as "a beast"; the second is called "another
beast."

2. The first came up from the sea; the second came out of the earth.

3. The first was like a leopard; the second was like a lamb.

4. The first had ten horns signifying ten temporal kingdoms; the
second had two horns, referring to but two temporal powers that
supported it.

5. The first blasphemed God and his tabernacle, and was therefore
antichrist; the second claimed to be the true prophet of God and
brought down "fire from heaven" to attest his claim, but he was in
reality a "false prophet" (chap. 16:13; 19:20).

6. The first obtained his power and authority from the dragon which
preceded him; while the second derived his power from the ten-horned
beast "before him."

7. The first caused people to worship the preceding power styled "the
dragon"; while the second caused people to "worship the first beast."

8. The first was to continue 1,260 years; while the reign of the
second is not here stated, but is covered in a parallel prophecy to
which we shall refer later.

The first beast came up out of the sea, which signifies the empire in
an agitated state; and it is a fact of history that the ten kingdoms
came up through great political convulsions. The empire was in a state
of comparative quiet, however, when the second beast "_came up out
of the earth_." This beast stands as the symbol of Protestantism in
Europe, although his power and influence was afterwards to extend to
"the whole world" (chap. 16:14). But this beast existed first on
the same territory occupied by the papacy; therefore the two horns
doubtless signify temporal kingdoms also, and two of the original
ten. The two nations first to turn violently against the papacy and
to become the chief supporters and defenders of Protestantism were
Germany and England.

It is evident that the second beast of Revelation 13 was not to be
such a terrible power politically as was the first beast, for it is
described merely as having "two horns _like a lamb_." But as soon as
we enter the department to which _speaking_ by analogy refers us, we
find him to be a great religious power, and it is in this character
alone that he is delineated in the remainder of the chapter. That his
religious power is his leading characteristic is further proved by
the fact that in every subsequent reference he is styled the "false
prophet" (chap. 16:13; 19:20; 20:10). Every reference which I give
to the second beast must therefore be understood as signifying the
religious system known as Protestantism.

This beast was to exercise great power--"all the power of the first
beast before him." By this expression we are to understand that
Protestantism was to exert a universal influence; that it was to
become a leading factor in the world's history, as was Romanism before
it. This has already been fulfilled. The leading nations of the world
today, the nations that have contributed most to the development of
modern civilization and to the light and progress of the age, are
Protestant nations. Those countries that have retained the yoke of
Romanism are still withering under its blighting influence.

It is said that this beast causes people to "worship the first beast."
This is parallel to the statement that during the reign of the first
beast the people "worshiped the dragon," which in reality preceded
it. I have shown that the devotees of Romanism worshiped the dragon by
perpetuating in their religious ceremonies and worship the practises
of paganism. Likewise Protestants have brought over and incorporated
in their religious system doctrines, rites, and ceremonies that
originated in Romanism; and in this respect they worship the first
beast, even in the very act of rendering service to their own system.
Such doctrines as infantile damnation, sprinkling for baptism, the
eternal destruction of all those who are outside the pales of the
church, infant baptism, and other things are all children of the
apostasy originating in Rome. The Romish Church possesses a human
ecclesiastical headship and an earthly government ruling in the place
of Christ, and Protestants make an "image" to this beast by building
their sects in imitation--sects made and ruled by men. To these they
attach their own names and the distinctive creeds and doctrines of
men, and thus their devotees receive the "mark" and "name" of the
beast.

At this point we must make a distinction which, being true in the
facts of history, must necessarily be intended in the symbolic
representation. This beast was to bring down "fire from heaven."
According to the symbols of chapter 12, the woman, or true church,
"fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God,
that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore
days." The time prophecy is the same, and covers the same period, as
the reign of the papal beast. Therefore, just as an important change
in the papacy occurred at the expiration of that prophetic period,
so also a radical change must be expected with reference to the true
church: it must be no longer completely obscured in the wilderness.
Now, as the Reformation and Protestantism as a religion were the means
of ending Rome's universal spiritual supremacy, so also they must
be regarded as possessing sufficient light and truth to bring into
prominence once more the work of the Spirit and the true people of
God. "Fire from heaven" may therefore be regarded as describing the
divine work of reformation, the unfolding of truth accompanied by the
saving power of God. Such spiritual work has accompanied the origin of
various religious movements during the Protestant era.

The general description of the two-horned beast, however, makes
prominent an evil characteristic--the disposition to lead the people
into deception by making an image to the beast and then worshiping it.
The evil is not located in the ability to bring down fire from heaven,
but in the deceptive work of image-making and image-worship, for which
the spiritual work simply furnished an occasion. The spiritual work of
reformation is, therefore, to be distinguished from the later work
of creed-and sect-making; and since the beast takes advantage of the
manifestation of spiritual power and deceives men, he becomes a sort
of apostate and is denominated "the false prophet" (see chap. 16:13;
19:20).

The beast, ecclesiastically considered, stands as the symbol of the
religious system and practise of Protestantism as a whole--a peculiar
combination of truth and error, of good and bad, of "fire from heaven"
and false miracle-working power (chap. 16:14); while the "image to
the beast" signifies the sectarian institution--the man-made and
man-controlled unscriptural sect machinery constructed in imitation
of the papal original. To construct such earth-born churches and lead
people to adore and worship them is but a species of idolatry and the
rankest deception. It is a sad fact, in Protestantism as well as in
Catholicism, that vast multitudes of people are more devoted to their
respective churches than to the Lord Jesus Christ. They can witness
the open rejection of God's precious Word and the vilest profanation
of his holy name without uttering a word of protest; but let any one
say a word against _their church_, and instantly they are aroused to
the highest pitch of indignation. _Beast-worshipers!_

The Protestant era has witnessed many wonderful reformations in which
the true fire of God fell upon waiting souls, but this initial work of
the Spirit has in each instance been employed as an excuse for taking
the next step--making an image; and thousands of honest souls, lacking
better light, have been induced to submit to such human organization.
Those of this number who were truly saved, however, always loved
and adored their Lord more than the human church to which they
were attached, and consequently they should not be regarded as
beast-worshipers. They are the ones whom the Lord denominates _his
people_ when the voice calls them out of Babylon (chap. 18:4).

The second beast also exhibits the characteristics of a persecuting
power, and in this respect it is similar to the ten-horned beast. The
early history of Protestantism shows that at that time the principle
of religious intolerance brought over from Romanism manifested itself
in the actual putting to death of numerous dissenters. Thus, we find
Calvin, at Geneva, consenting to the burning of Servetus because of a
difference in religious views. At a convention in Torgau, in 1574, the
Lutherans established the real presence of Christ in the eucharist and
then instigated the Elector of Saxony to seize, imprison, and banish
those who differed from them in sentiment, as a result of which Peucer
suffered ten years of the severest imprisonment and Crellius was put
to death. The Protestant Council of Zurich condemned Felix Mantz to be
drowned because he insisted that infant sprinkling was not baptism. In
England the "Bloody Six Articles" of Henry VIII are a silent testimony
to the intolerant spirit of that age, when the royal reformer
dragged dissenters forth to execution. Witness also the twelve years'
imprisonment of John Bunyan and hundreds of others confined in jails
throughout the country; the persecution of the Quakers; the relentless
opposition to the Covenanters of Scotland, who were hunted and
destroyed like beasts because they insisted on their right to worship
God in their own way. It was this intolerant spirit that drove the
Puritans to the inhospitable shores of America, where they might have
the free privilege of worshiping God according to the dictates of
their own conscience.

It is possible that the persecuting principle ascribed to the
two-horned beast may include both the literal and the ecclesiastical
cutting off, reference being made directly to the spirit of
intolerance which manifested itself first in literal slaughter and
later in an unwarranted ecclesiastical exclusiveness.

The "number of the beast" alludes to his pretentious claims and is
probably a symbol of division. The definite number 666 is said to be
also the number of a man, and since the pope is the most important man
connected with the papal system, it is natural to identify him with
the individual referred to. Paul doubtless pointed out the pope
particularly as the "_man of sin_," "the son of perdition" (2 Thess.
2:3). In former ages, before the modern system of notation was
introduced, the only method of denoting numbers was by employing the
letters of the alphabet, certain letters having the power of number
as well as of sound. We still employ the same system for certain
purposes. The number of a name was simply the number denoted by the
several letters of that name.

The pope has a special title. He wears in jeweled letters upon his
mitre the inscription, _Vicarius Filii Dei_--Vicar of the Son of
God. Taking from his name all the letters that the Latins used for
numerals, we have just 666.

The era of modern sects is also covered in other places in Revelation,
for the ecclesiastical history of the Christian dispensation is
described under different parallel series of symbolism. In the other
series, however, the symbols representing Protestantism stand so
closely connected with predictions of the last reformation that
I shall not attempt to enumerate them in this chapter, but shall
consider them briefly in connection with those symbols describing the
great final religious movement toward which all the prophetic lines
of truth converge and which forms the special subject of the present
work.




CHAPTER XIV

THE LAST REFORMATION


The scene changes, and again we have the picture of God's chosen
people set in bright relief against the dark background of
Protestantism and the still darker shades of papal apostasy.

[Sidenote: The 144,000 on Mount Zion]

"And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on Mount Sion, and with him an
hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father's name written in
their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many
waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of
harpers harping with their harps: and they sung as it were a new song
before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no
man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand,
which were redeemed from the earth. These are they which were not
defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow
the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men,
being the first-fruits unto God and to the Lamb. And in their mouth
was found no guile: for they are without fault before the throne of
God" (Rev. 14:1-5).

What a contrast with the beast powers described in the preceding
chapter of the Revelation! This redeemed company is on Mount Zion, not
hidden in the darkness of the wilderness. They are with the Lamb, not
wandering after the beast. Instead of being oppressed and overcome by
opposers, they are singing the joyful song of redemption and harping
with their harps; and instead of having the "mark of the beast," they
have their "_Father's name written in their foreheads_." The manner in
which this joyful, redeemed company is distinguished from the host
of beast-worshipers brought to light under the preceding symbols,
proclaims unmistakably the fact that we have here a description of
the true people of God who have obtained victory over the apostasy. In
other words, a distinct reformation is predicted.

This sublime scene is not a description of heaven, for the context
shows its direct contact with the forms of apostate Christianity with
which it is placed in contrast on earth. Certain leading figures in
the scene, as Christ the Lamb and a number of angels, are heavenly
beings; but their presence simply shows the divine character of the
work in contrast with those other religious powers, one of which came
up out of the sea and the other out of the earth. Besides, we have
already shown that whenever angels figure in the symbolic scene _on
earth_, they represent distinguished agencies among men, and the
message of good angels, being obviously from heaven, is therefore the
message of God. When different angels, bearing different messages,
appear in the same general symbolic scene, they represent not isolated
or independent movements, but different phases of the same work.

The Revelator introduces another phase of the religious movement under
consideration with these words: "And I saw another angel fly in the
midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them
that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue,
and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to
him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made
heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters" (verses
6, 7).

In the message of the angel there are set forth a number of distinct
truths. Prominence is given to the call to worship the one true God.
This stands in contrast with the apostasy preceding; for under the
papacy its adherents "worshiped the dragon" and "they worshiped the
beast," while the second beast caused people to "worship the first
beast" and to "worship the image of the beast." The message of this
angel is universal and indicates a world-wide missionary effort in
which the true God and his holy worship alone will be exalted, and
that before the end of time, for the judgment is set forth as an
impending event for which men must speedily prepare.

But the description does not end here. An awful revelation, falling
like hail-stones or coals of fire upon the heads of the devotees of
modern churchianity, is proclaimed by divine authority: "And there
followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that
great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the
wrath of her fornication. And the third angel followed them, saying
with a loud voice, 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" (verses 8-10).

Here we are brought face to face with some of the most solemn truths
contained in the Book of God. The very powers of apostate Christianity
just described under the symbols of two beasts are now represented
_by the angel_ as Babylon; for, be it observed, the divine message
is against those who worship the beast _and his image_. The image was
made by the second beast. Therefore Babylon includes both Romanism
and Protestantism--the whole realm of formal churchianity; and
beast-worship is here condemned in one of the most terrible
denunciations found in all the Word of God. All the evils inherent
in the false, unscriptural systems of so-called Christianity are here
summed up under the one word _Babylon_, of which we shall have more to
say later.

Two things prominently brought out in these symbols should be
remembered, however--first, that even during the reign of the beast
and his image, God had true people who were carefully distinguished in
the prophecy as those whose names were written in the book of life and
who would not "worship the image of the beast"; and second, that the
symbolic scene now being considered represents these saved individuals
as gathered out into one company with the Lamb on Mount Zion, before
the end of time. The illustration is that of the joyful Israelites
who made their return to Zion after the fall of literal Babylon, where
they were long held in captivity. This is the illustration and the
prophetic description; therefore we may rest assured that just as
truly as time revealed the rise of the papal and Protestant systems,
as set forth in the symbols of the Revelation, just so surely will
there come _before the end of time_ a revival of pure, apostolic
Christianity, a reformation in which the true people of God will take
their stand outside of all forms of the apostasy and carry the full
gospel of the Son of God to "every nation, and kindred, and tongue,
and people."

We have traced in prophetic symbolism the four epochs of the Christian
dispensation represented respectively by the star-crowned woman, the
leopard-beast, the two-horned beast, and the redeemed company gathered
together with the Lamb on Mount Zion. The papal period, represented
by the leopard-beast, continued for 1,260 years, its universal sway
terminating with the sixteenth century reformation. The length of the
Protestant reign following is not stated in this series.

[Sidenote: The two witnesses]

Let us now return to the description of the two witnesses given in
Revelation 11. We have already considered the first part of that
symbolic description pertaining to the 1,260 years during which the
holy city was to be trodden under foot and the two witnesses were
to prophesy in sackcloth; and we have shown that this description is
exactly parallel with the prophecy that set forth the period of the
papal supremacy. But the description continues, covering the era of
modern sects and leading up to the work of a final reformation.

After describing the 1,260-year prophecy of the two witnesses,
the narrative continues: "And when they shall have finished their
testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall
make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. And
their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which
spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was
crucified. And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations
shall see their dead bodies three days and an half, and shall not
suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves. And they that dwell
upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send
gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that
dwelt on the earth" (Rev. 11:7-10).

[Sidenote: The witnesses slain]

This intricate picture of symbolical imagery is placed chronologically
just after the 1,260-year reign of Romanism and hence it was to meet
its fulfilment during the Protestant era. It describes in the most
graphic and realistic manner the evil characteristics and tendencies
of the sect-system. I have already shown that in the primitive church
the two witnesses--the Word and the Spirit of God--were the real
vicars of Christ, giving both character and government to the
universal church of God on earth. We have also seen that with the rise
of human ecclesiasticism the reign of the Word and Spirit ended in
so far as the Church of Rome was concerned. The same is true also
of Protestantism. The establishment of man-made creeds and the
concentration and centralization of church power and governmental
authority in human hands--a church-rule patterned after the kingdoms
of this world--is a _rejection of the divine government of God_
just as the appointment of a king in the Old Testament times was a
rejection of God's plan of governing Israel. In this sense God's two
witnesses have been openly ignored and rejected in Protestantism as
well as in Romanism and the ancient churches of the East, and man-made
creeds and systems of government substituted in their stead. They are,
therefore, represented as slain, although of course a certain amount
of respect is still shown them in that they are not suffered to be
wholly put out of sight.

[Sidenote: The witnesses resurrected]

"And after three days and an half the spirit of life from God entered
into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon
them which saw them. And they heard a great voice from heaven saying
unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud;
and their enemies beheld them. And the same hour was there a great
earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake
were slain of men seven thousand: and the remnant were affrighted, and
gave glory to the God of heaven. The second woe is past; and, behold,
the third woe cometh quickly" (verses 11-14).

The resurrection of the witnesses doubtless signifies a time of
reformation and implies its true character. If the death of the
witnesses was the result of ecclesiasticism and false teaching, their
resurrection must signify a final triumph over ecclesiasticism and the
restoration of primitive Christianity under the direct authority
and government of God. Even omitting all details in this complex
description, we can scarcely avoid the conclusion that if the general
description given in this chapter means anything, it means the
restoration of Christianity before the end of time to the condition in
which it existed before the apostasy.

[Sidenote: The time prophecy]

The time prophecy "three days and a half" is difficult to explain
except in the light of clearly ascertained historical facts. The term
"day" is of itself very indefinite, being used in the Scriptures
to designate periods of different length. In the description under
consideration it evidently can not signify the ordinary 24-hour day
nor yet the year-day; for it covers the Protestant period
following the 1,260-year reign of Romanism and preceding the Last
Reformation--the same period of time covered by the second beast of
Revelation 13.

The events of the Protestant period naturally divide it into shorter
epochs of about a century each in length. The historian D'Aubigne, who
wrote about 1835, noticed this distinction and referred to it in his
famous History of the Reformation. These are his words: "It has been
said that the three last centuries, the sixteenth, the seventeenth,
and the eighteenth may be conceived as an immense battle of _three
days_' duration. We willingly adopt this beautiful comparison ... the
first day was the battle of God, the second the battle of the priest,
the third the battle of Reason. What will be the fourth? In our
opinion the confused strife, the deadly contest of all these powers
together TO END IN THE VICTORY OF HIM TO WHOM TRIUMPH BELONGS."--Book
XI, Chap. 9.

"Three days and a half," or three hundred and fifty years, after the
formation of the first Protestant creed, in 1530, God began to reveal
special light and truth on his Word and to cause a great awakening,
which is gradually resulting in the rejection of human ecclesiastical
rule, the recognition of the primitive government of God, and the
restoration of all the pure truths of the Word of God.

Another point in the prophecy under consideration assists us in fixing
the chronology of the reformation predicted. The "great earthquake"
stands closely associated with the time of the resurrection and
exaltation of the witnesses. The principles of interpreting symbols
would lead us to identify this earthquake as a mighty political
convulsion destructive in its nature, and yet one that would be
overruled for the furtherance of Christ's kingdom--a convulsion that
would also terminate the destructive reign of the "second woe." I can
not here digress to give proofs, but there is no doubt that the
second woe of Revelation (see chap. 9:13-20) signifies the political
dominancy of the Ottoman Empire. This power, constituting the
political backbone of Mohammedanism, has indeed been a most serious
woe upon the inhabitants of the earth and an obstacle in the path of
true missionary progress. With these facts before us, we can clearly
see that the earthquake was the great European War and that we are now
living in the time when a special reformation is due.

[Sidenote: Another important series]

Another parallel series of prophecies covering the same ground and
terminating at the same point will bring the subject of the Last
Reformation to a grand climax. I have shown that the religious powers
described in Revelation 13 as two beasts were also termed Babylon. We
shall now give a more particular description of this antitype of
the Old Testament Babylon. The Euphratean city--Babylon--the
proud metropolis of the Chaldean monarchy, combined in itself the
corruptions and wickedness of the world and then filled up the measure
of its sins by destroying the temple in Jerusalem and leading into
captivity the chosen people of God. When John wrote, however, this
ancient city was no more. It had long since been destroyed, and it
has never been rebuilt to this day. Even the Arab refuses to pitch his
tent among its lonely, serpent-infested ruins. The city to which
the apostle alludes in these prophecies must therefore refer, not to
ancient Babylon, but to some other analogous power which was yet to
arise and of which the old Babylon was a type.

OUTLINE OF PARALLEL PROPHECIES SHOWING FOUR ECCLESIASTICAL EPOCHS

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
  The Apostolic | The Medieval Period |  Era of Modern |     The Last
      Period    |                     |     Sects      |   Reformation
----------------+---------------------+----------------+-------------------
     DRAGON     |    LEOPARD-BEAST    |   TWO-HORNED   |     FALL OF
  Rev. 12:3, 4, |    Rev. 13:1-10     |      BEAST     |     BABYLON
      7-17      |                     |  Rev. 13:11-18 |   Rev. 14:1-9
----------------+---------------------+----------------+-------------------
   PURE WOMAN   |  WOMAN SECLUDED IN  |                | 144,000 ON MOUNT
     Rev. 12    |   THE WILDERNESS    |                |      ZION
                |      Rev. 12:6      |                |   Rev. 14:1-6
----------------+---------------------+----------------+-------------------
   TEMPLE AND   |  HOLY CITY TRODDEN  | TWO WITNESSES  |    WITNESSES
  TRUE WORSHIP  |        DOWN         |     SLAIN      |   RESURRECTED
   Rev. 11:1    |      Rev. 11:2      |  Rev. 11:7-10  |  Rev. 11:11-14
----------------+---------------------+----------------+-------------------
                |   GREAT BABYLON     |     HARLOT     |   GOD'S PEOPLE
                |    Rev. 17:1-6      |    DAUGHTERS   |    CALLED OUT
                |                     |    Rev. 17:5   |   Rev. 18:1-4
----------------+---------------------+----------------+-------------------
     FOURTH     |    REIGN OF THE     |                | CHRIST'S KINGDOM
     BEAST      |   "LITTLE HORN"     |                |    TRIUMPHANT
 Dan. 9:7, 23,  |   Dan. 7:8, 20-25   |                |  Dan. 7:26, 27;
      24        |                     |                |     2:34, 35
----------------+---------------------+----------------+-------------------

[Sidenote: Great Babylon]

A more particular description of the antitypical Babylon is given by
the Revelator in the seventeenth chapter, as follows: "And there came
one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me,
saying unto me, Come hither; I will show unto thee the judgment of the
great whore that sitteth upon many waters: with whom the kings of the
earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth
have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication. 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 woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet
color, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having
a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of
her fornication: and upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY,
BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE
EARTH. And I saw a woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and
with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered
with great admiration" (verses 1-6).

The careful student will immediately perceive that we have here
another representation of the same apostate powers already described
under other symbols. The leading figures--a woman and a beast--combine
symbols from human life and animal life, thus representing clearly the
union of civil and ecclesiastical power. The combination is exactly
the same in its essential characteristics as that presented by the
first beast of Revelation 13. And since it is the same seven-headed
and ten-horned beast, representing the same political power, we
conclude that the human characteristics exhibited in this connection
symbolize the same religious power--the Church of Rome. In the
present vision, however, the ecclesiastical phase is singled out
and particularly distinguished and described, thus placing special
emphasis on the papal church itself in contradistinction to the
temporal power of the empire. The political phase of Rome's history
has already been sufficiently described for our present purpose. We
shall, therefore, devote our attention to the ecclesiastical phase as
developed under this particular symbol of the woman.

The nature of the symbol itself fixes the interpretation. A woman
must of necessity symbolize a church, but we must determine by the
character of the woman whether or not the true church or a false
church is represented. The woman of the vision was splendidly attired
and evidently occupied a prominent place; for she is represented as
riding on the beast, the political empire, thus directing its course;
and she is also represented as sitting upon many waters, interpreted
as "peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues" (verse 15),
denoting her wide influence over distant nations. She is not
simply represented as a prominent person, however, but _as a vile
character_. She is "a great whore," "with whom the kings of the
earth have committed fornication." It is clear that in Scripture
false, idolatrous worship is represented as _whoredom_ (see 1 Chron.
5: 25; Ezekiel 16 and 23). Hence a false church is represented.

[Sidenote: Mother and daughters]

There is only one church that can fulfil the description, and that
is the Church of Rome. Long has she delighted in calling herself the
"mother church," but centuries before she made this claim, the pen
of inspiration affixed to her indelibly the title of
"_mother_"--"MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH."
She bore upon her forehead this inscription, together with the title
"Mystery, Babylon the Great." Other false apostate churches there are,
but she heads the list and is the mother of them all. No wonder the
apostle marveled when he saw this professed church of Jesus Christ
defiled by the most abominable wickedness, in league with all the
evil powers of earth, and, above all, "drunken with the blood of the
saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus." That Rome from
the date she became firmly established in power has ever been a
constant persecutor of the saints, the pages of all history abundantly
attest. Even Rome's ecclesiastical writers and historians themselves
admit her use of force in destroying those whom she denominated
heretics.

Revelation 17 covers the same period chronologically and ends at
the same point of time as did chapter 13. Hence we should naturally
suppose that it would also describe in some manner the power
symbolized by the two-horned beast--Protestantism--as well as
duplicate the description of the ten-horned beast--Catholicism. That
the papacy is symbolized in chapter 17 by the corrupt whore sitting
on the ten-horned beast, is too plain to need any particular
demonstration. The other division of the apostasy is included under
the term "harlots," the daughters of the "mother" church. In our
interpretation of chapter 14 we showed that the angel clearly
applied the term Babylon to the worshipers of the second
beast--Protestantism--as well as to those of the first beast.
Therefore we must regard Babylon as a general term denoting the whole
city of religious confusion, the mother and her harlot daughters being
simply specific divisions.

[Sidenote: Testimony of commentators]

Many commentators, even Protestant commentators, have been frank
enough to admit the real application and force of these symbols of
Revelation as applying to both Catholicism and Protestantism. Auberlen
asserts that "'harlot' means, in the Old and New Testaments, the
apostate church of God."--Prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation,
p. 278. Again, he says, "Not simply Rome, but Christendom as a whole,
even as Israel as a whole, has become a harlot. The true believers are
hidden and dispersed."--Ibid., p. 290. While it may not be exactly in
accordance with the Scriptures to speak of the true church of God as
being apostate, yet in a sense it is true, for a large part of those
who originally constituted the church of God actually did apostatize,
until a false church assumed almost universal sway and divers forms
of error prevailed, practically eclipsing, for a long period, the true
church of God on earth. Auberlen stated his conclusion in these words:
"Notwithstanding the universal character of the harlot, it remains
true that the Roman and Greek churches are in a more peculiar sense
the harlot than the Evangelical Protestant."--P. 294.

In the well-known Commentary by Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown, the Rev.
A.R. Fausset, writing on Rev. 17:2, says of the harlot: "It can not be
Pagan Rome but Papal Rome, if a particular seat of error be meant,
but I am inclined to think that the judgment (chap. 18:2) and the
spiritual fornication (chap. 18:3), though finding their culmination
in Rome, are not restricted to it, but comprise the whole apostate
church--Roman, Greek, and even Protestant, so far as it has been
seduced from its 'first love' to Christ, the heavenly Bridegroom, and
given its affections to worldly pomps and idols."

William Kincaid, in Bible Doctrine, p. 249, says: "I think Christ
has a true church on earth, but its members are scattered among the
various denominations, and are more or less under the influence of
mystery Babylon and her daughters."

Alexander Campbell said: "The worshiping establishments now in
operation throughout Christendom, increased and cemented by their
respective voluminous confessions of faith, and their ecclesiastical
constitutions, are not churches of Jesus Christ, but the legitimate
daughters of that mother of harlots, the Church of Rome."

Lorenzo Dow says of the Romish Church: "If she be the mother, who are
the daughters? It must be the corrupt, national, established churches
that came out of her."--Dow's Life, p. 542.

Again, Hahn in Auberlen says: "The harlot is not Rome alone (though
she is preeminently so), but every church that has not Christ's mind
and spirit. False Christendom, divided into very many sects, is truly
Babylon, i.e., confusion."

The description of the two forms of the apostasy, Papal and
Protestant, given in the thirteenth chapter of Revelation, was
conveyed under the symbols of two beasts, differing in external
appearance, but in certain respects similar in character. Immediately
following that representation there is, as we have already shown, a
description of a distinct reformatory work set forth by the 144,000
with the Lamb on Mount Zion, the fall of Babylon, and the promulgation
of the everlasting gospel in all the world. The term "Babylon" as used
in that scripture is applied to both the worshipers of the beast and
the worshipers of the image of the beast (made by the second beast);
therefore it embraces both forms of the apostasy.

We have just seen that the description of Babylon, given in Revelation
17 under the symbols of a corrupt woman and her harlot daughters,
represent the papal church and the divisions of Protestantism. We
shall now proceed to show that the two lines of prophecy (chaps. 13
and 17) are parallel chronologically, for they both end at the same
time and in the same manner.

[Sidenote: The last reformation]

As the first of these two series of prophecy ended with the fall of
Babylon and the deliverance therefrom of a people who were with the
Lamb, not wandering after the beast, and who had "the Father's name
written in their foreheads," not the name or the mark of the beast,
so also the second series ends in the same manner. After describing
Babylon under its twofold form, mother and daughters, the Revelator
says: "After these things I saw another angel come down from heaven,
having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. And
he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is
fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the
hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful
bird. 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, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the
abundance of her delicacies. And I heard another voice from heaven,
saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her
sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues" (chap. 18:1-4).

A movement of mighty power is symbolized in these verses. The language
is based on the experience of the ancient Israelites in literal
Babylon, who, when the fall of the city occurred, obtained release
from their enforced captivity, and were permitted to return to their
own land. The real meaning in this case is clear: that apostate
Christianity has been a veritable Babylon in which the true people
of God have been held as in captivity, and that the time of their
deliverance would come, when they would, by divine authority, be
called out. Notice the parallelism in the two descriptions of the fall
of Babylon. In chapter 14 an angel declares "Babylon is fallen, is
fallen" (verse 8), and the next angel _with a loud voice_ warns that
those who "worship the beast and his _image_ ... shall drink of the
wine of the wrath of God" (verses 9, 10); while in chapter 18 the
first angel cries "mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon
the great is fallen, is fallen" (verse 2), and "_another voice_ from
heaven" says, "COME OUT OF HER, MY PEOPLE, that ye be not partakers of
her sins, and that ye _receive not of her plagues_" (verse 4).

That this symbolic picture represents a wonderful religious
reformation is almost too clear to need proof, for it succeeded
chronologically, and is placed in direct contrast with, the apostasy;
hence there can be but one logical conclusion, namely, that neither
Catholicism nor Protestantism is the last work and that God has
authorized a work that shall gather his true people out of the entire
babel of sect confusion. And that this movement is to be effected
before the end of time is also clearly shown. In the following
chapter, after describing God's judgment on Babylon, and the call of
his people out of her, "a voice came out of the throne, saying, Praise
our God, all ye his servants, and ye that fear him, both small and
great" (verse 5). God's servants are called upon to rejoice on
account of their deliverance. Those who are at heart image-makers and
beast-worshipers will oppose this truth, and when they witness the
departure of the faithful followers of the Lord, leaving to Babylon
nothing but the godless, graceless professors, they will "weep and
mourn over her" (chap. 18:16) and cry, "Alas, alas that great city"
(verse 16). But the voice of heaven calls on the saints for a song
of thanksgiving, saying, "Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy
apostles and prophets" (verse 20). Yea, "praise our God, _all ye his
servants_, and ye that fear him, both small and great" (chap. 19:5).

Are we to expect such a response? Yes. It is true in the prophecy and
will therefore be true in fact before time ends. "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. Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor
to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made
herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in
fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness
of saints" (chap. 19:6-8).

The scriptures just cited complete another line of symbolic truth.
The primitive church was represented as a pure woman, the bride (chap.
12:1). During the reign of the papacy a false, immoral woman reigned
over the kings of the earth, while the true woman, or church,
was hidden 'in the wilderness' (chap. 12: 6). Under the reign of
Protestantism her members were scattered in all parts of the city of
Babylon. But, thank God, they are to be called out of their scattered
condition, and as a company are represented in two forms--first, as a
redeemed host with the Lamb on Mount Zion, bearing the Father's name
only (chap. 14:1-5), and second, _as the bride of Christ_ preparing
herself for the soon coming of the Lord. This is proof positive that
the true church is to be brought out and placed on exhibition _before
the end of time_.

Others of the sacred writers describe this same prophetic movement.
Zechariah predicts it thus: "And it shall come to pass in that day,
that the light shall not be clear, nor dark: but it shall be one day
which shall be known to the Lord, not day, nor night: but it shall
come to pass, that _at evening_ _time it shall be light_" (Zech. 14:6,
7). These verses stand a little clearer in the Septuagint Version:
"And it shall come to pass in that day [the papal day] that there
shall be _no light_: and there shall be for one day [the Protestant
day] _cold and frost_: and that day shall be known to the Lord; it
shall not be day or night [a mixture of light and darkness]: but
_towards evening it shall be light_."

We have seen that Daniel predicted the long reign of darkness and
apostasy in the Christian dispensation. Desiring to understand
the matter, he made inquiry, and although the same thoughts
are beautifully expressed in the Authorized Version, I shall,
nevertheless, quote from the Septuagint, which makes the thought
still clearer: "_When will be the end_ of the wonders which thou hast
mentioned? And I heard the man clothed in linen ... swear by Him that
lives forever, that it should be for a time of times and half a time:
when the dispersion is ended they shall know all these things" (Dan.
12:6, 7).

"A time, and times, and the dividing of time" is the same prophetic
period of 1,260 years, the reign of the papacy. This was to be
followed by a period of "dispersion," and such Protestantism has been,
for the people of God have been scattered in hundreds of bodies. But
this dispersion was to be "_ended_" some time, and then the people of
God would "know all these things." "And I heard, but I understood not:
and said I, O Lord, _what will be the end_ of these things? And he
said, Go, Daniel: for the words are closed and sealed up _to the time
of the end_" (verse 9). At the "time of the end" the dispersal of God's
saints was to cease. This predicts the evening-time reformation, and
the nature of its work is shown in the following verse: "Many must
be CHOSEN OUT, _and thoroughly whitened, and tried with fire, and
sanctified_" (verse 10).

The same spiritual movement is also predicted by Ezekiel. In chapter
34 he describes the people of God as sheep (see verse 31). These
sheep are represented as abused, oppressed, and scattered by false
shepherds. Their gathering in this Last Reformation is predicted in
verses 11 and 12: "For thus saith the Lord God; Behold I, even I, will
both search my sheep, and seek them out. As a shepherd seeketh out his
flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered; _so
will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places
where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day_."

Reader, this is the work of reformation that God is now accomplishing
in the world. Babylon is spiritually fallen, and God is calling his
people out. In the well-known Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown Commentary,
Rev. A.R. Fausset, commenting on Rev. 18:4, has well said: "Even in
the Romish Church, God has a people; but they are in great danger;
their only safety is in coming out of her at once. So also in every
apostate or world-conforming church, there are some of God's visible
and true church, who, if they would be safe, _must come out_."

When literal Babylon was overthrown, the Jews escaped to their own
land. Likewise God's people in spiritual Babylon are commanded to come
out, and with songs of rejoicing they are to make their way to Mount
Zion, and then lend all their efforts to the one work of restoring
primitive truth, thus making Jerusalem "the joy of the whole earth."
Like the Jews of old, "the ransomed of the Lord _shall return_ and
COME TO ZION with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they
shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away"
(Isa. 35:10).

The Psalmist informs us that in Babylon the Jews hung their harps on
the willows and wept when they remembered Zion. When their captors
demanded of them the songs of Zion, they answered despairingly, "How
shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" (Psa. 137:1-4).
Zion's songs were _songs of deliverance_; hence the Jews could not
sing them in captivity. So also has it been in spiritual Babylon. But
when the ransomed of the Lord "return and come to Zion," "songs and
everlasting joy" break forth again.

The Revelator describes this glorious result after the period of the
apostasy in these words: "And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled
with fire: 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_. And they _sing
the song of Moses_ [a song of deliverance] the servant of God, and
the song of the Lamb [a song of redemption]" (Rev. 15:2, 3). Those who
have returned from Babylon have heavenly harps and can sing the songs
of Zion. Praise God!

  "From Babel confusion most gladly I  fled,
  And came to the heights of fair Zion instead;
  I'm feasting this moment on heavenly bread;
    I'll never go back, I'll never go back.

  "The beast and his image, his mark, and his name,
  My love or allegiance no longer can claim,
  Though men may exalt them to honor and fame;
    I'll never go back again."


The prophecies already cited make clear a mighty religious movement
before the end of time, a movement designed to triumph over the
apostasy. Since the apostasy was twofold in its nature, comprehending
a corruption of evangelical faith and the development of
ecclesiasticism, it is evident that the Last Reformation must both
restore primitive truth and eliminate ecclesiasticism, thus bringing
back to the world the original conception of the church as embracing
the whole divine family under the direct moral and spiritual dominion
of Christ. It is also evident from the prophecies that this is to be
accomplished by literally forsaking the systems of man-rule just
as ancient Israel was restored after the captivity by God's people
leaving Babylon and coming home to Zion.

Zion represents the church in its primitive, unified condition under
the government and law of Christ alone. Babylon represents a foreign
rule and another law. The two systems are fundamentally different.
This difference was true in the type and must therefore be true in
the antitype. In the old days of Israel's glory foreigners visited
Jerusalem, but their presence in the city of God did not make them
Israelites. And at one time the people of God were carried into
captivity in Babylon, but their presence in that foreign, heathen city
_did not make them Babylonians_.

This distinction is also clear in the antitypical relation. We do not
have to go to prophetic symbols to find in the New Testament clear
predictions of the rise of a false Christianity in opposition to the
true. They stand out in marked contrast in the prophecy. On the one
side there is a false religious system described as a beast power
reigning. On the other side is placed in contrast a company that have
gotten the victory over the beast and over his image and over his
mark, and they stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God. The
mother of harlots appears, but in contrast therewith is seen a pure
woman, the bride of Christ. In contrast with Babylon we have Zion.

The sect system, wherein ecclesiasticism reigns and where the full
truth in all its purity can not be taught and practised, does not
represent the true church, but Babylon. The system is foreign. It
contains, however, many _who are not Babylonians_ but children of
the divine family--Israelites indeed. The awful judgments of God
pronounced against Babylon are directed against the false system
itself and the real beast-worshipers it contains, not against the
true people of God, who love their Lord and are willing to walk in the
light of his Word as fast as they are able to understand it. When
we consider that this sect system has been the means of deceiving
millions--millions who will come up in that last day and plead their
religious profession, only to hear the awful words, "Depart from me,
I never knew you"--when we consider, I say, these evil results, we can
not but repeat the words of the prophecy concerning the overthrow of
Babylon, "True and righteous are His judgments." The commandment of
God is, "_Come out of her_, MY PEOPLE, that ye be not partakers of her
sins, and THAT YE RECEIVE NOT OF HER PLAGUES."

The movement to ignore sect lines and bring the true people of God
into unity is not based upon a mere interpretation of prophecy,
however. The necessity of such a work is being felt by the true
people of God everywhere, even those who make no particular claims
to knowledge of prophetic interpretation. Knowledge that the
ecclesiastical systems of the present day do not represent the
real church outlined in the New Testament is all that is absolutely
necessary in order to stir the heart for reformatory action. Departure
from the truth of God carries with it responsibility on the part of
all those who become awakened to that departure--_responsibility to
return to the Bible standard_. A final reformation there must and
would be even if it had never been predicted by the prophets of old;
for Christ, the great ever-living head of the church, would at the
proper time pour out upon his servants the spirit of judgment
against all unscriptural systems and forms of worship and demand the
restoration of the pure church of the morning time of our era.

[Sidenote: The future prospect]

The work of God in the latter days is to be more extensive, however,
than simply calling God's people together from their scattered
condition in sect Babylon. There are indications in the prophecy
already cited that the "everlasting gospel" is to be carried to
the ends of the earth. The movement is to be world-wide. In our
consideration of parallel prophecies in Daniel, we saw that the
kingdom is represented in two phases--first as a _stone_, under which
symbol it broke down the kingdoms of heathen darkness; and then as
a _mountain_, when it _is to fill the whole earth_. And again, after
describing the 1,260-year reign of the papacy, Daniel said: "But the
judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume
and to destroy it unto the end. And the kingdom and dominion, and the
greatness of the kingdom _under the whole heaven_, shall be given
to the people of the saints of the most High, whose kingdom is an
everlasting kingdom, and _all dominions shall serve and obey_ HIM"
(Dan. 7: 26, 27).

There is abundant evidence to be seen by the careful observer that
there are now at work in the Christian world forces that are preparing
for great changes. Christian charity is refusing to be confined by
sectarian barriers. The Christian consciousness is becoming aroused to
the evils of sectarianism and sectarian systems as it has never been
aroused in any past age. There is a longing among spiritual
people everywhere to escape from the blighting effect of a divided
Christianity. Evangelism is becoming more and more detached from
organized denominations, and the denominational lines are being
ignored in a way that would have astonished the people of a
century ago. Numerous attempts are being made to unite the various
denominations on the mission fields and in the homeland. While many
of these efforts are mere blind groping for a way out of the fogs of
sectarianism, they show unmistakably that back of and underlying all
these efforts is a mighty force slowly but surely gathering power
that (so far as God's true people are concerned) shall in time rise
to break once for all the rigorous reign of human ecclesiasticism and
reestablish in power and glory the simple, primitive theocracy, where
Christ shall be exalted as the true and only ruler of his people.

Ecclesiasticism, however, dies hard. In fact, it is scarcely correct
to say that it will die at all. The churches of men are largely made
up of worldly-minded professors who know not the birth and life of
the Spirit. To such the church will never appear as anything different
from an institution organized and governed after the pattern of the
kingdoms of this world. According to the prophecy, God's true saints
will die to ecclesiasticism by forsaking the sect system, but the
rule of human churchly power will go right on until the end of time.
Furthermore, we may expect the contrast and the conflict between these
two forces to become more pronounced as the years go by. While the
Revelation represents the call of God's people out of Babylon as
the movement that again brings into prominence the "bride," the true
church (chap. 19:1-9), it also reveals the fact that there will be
another great movement in opposition to the truth.

"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 battle of that great day of God Almighty"
(chap. 16:13, 14). The nature and purpose of this gathering is
described in another place. "Satan ... 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" (chap. 20:7-9).

Let this be a solemn warning to all, that God's people may discern
between the false and the true. The movement that brings together
in one the real saints of the Lord is effected by the Spirit of
God, while "unclean spirits" operating in the apostate powers of
the ecclesiastical world will effect a totally different union. The
distinction is clear in the prophecy and must therefore become true in
fact.

The final reformation is on. "Final," I say, because it leaves nothing
to be restored as regards either doctrine, practise, or spirit.
It stands committed to the restoration of the whole truth and
the harmonious unity of all true Christians in one Christ-ruled,
Spirit-filled body. In short, it stands committed to the restoration
of apostolic Christianity in its entirety--its doctrines, its
ordinances, its personal regenerating and sanctifying experiences, its
spiritual life, its holiness, its power, its purity, its gifts of the
Spirit, its unity of believers, and its fruits. This reformation will
continue until it becomes a great mountain and fills the whole earth,
until "the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom
under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of
the Most High."

Nor is this picture of events a mere dream of fanciful idealists; for
it is already true in part, and the "more sure word of prophecy" to
which we have appealed sustains our hope. The actual fulfilment of so
many predicted events assures us that there shall not fail one word
of all his good promises. Already multiplied thousands of the Lord's
redeemed people have discerned God's plan of effecting unity and have
completely ignored all the lines of sect and human ecclesiasticism,
recognizing as the church nothing else than the entire brotherhood in
Christ, and recognizing as ecclesiastical authority nothing else than
that moral and spiritual dominion of Christ by which alone he governed
his people in primitive times.

This reformation is the movement of God. It is not a humanly organized
movement depending for its success on the ability of men to persuade
people to leave other churches and join them. God himself is breaking
down the barriers that divide, and in response to his call the
redeemed are forsaking human sects and creeds, and their hearts are
flowing together. The center of this movement is not a particular
geographical location, nor is its nucleus a particular set of fallible
men: the center and nucleus of this world-wide movement is OUR LORD
JESUS CHRIST, and its operative force is the SPIRIT OF THE LIVING
GOD, which draws the faithful together in bonds of holy love and
fellowship. Multitudes already recognize no other bonds of union than
that moral and spiritual affinity which is the common heritage of
all the disciples of Jesus that know the blessed experience of the
heavenly birth. Multitudes more are beginning to see the light of this
glorious truth, and in due time Christ, the Light, will illuminate the
hearts of all the saved ones. All hail the day that lies just ahead!

  "Back to the one foundation, from sects and creeds made free,
  Come saints of every nation to blessed unity.
  Once more the ancient glory shines as in days of old,
  And tells the wondrous story--one God, one faith, one fold."