WE are told that “there is another way of reaching the same result,” i.e., 5896(1/2), or our 1898(1/4), “viz., by dealing with Babylon” (p. 6). But this is only ringing a change without giving new evidence. It repeats what we have already had in substance with a variation of phrase. There is no proof here any more than before, but looseness in confounding Babylon with Babylonia, and its fall with that of the Beast, which quite differs. The prominence given to Babylonia introduces a fresh element of error of no small moment, which not only misleads but directly contradicts the warning of the Holy Spirit. The following is the new way of making out the case—
“3466(1/2) Babylon, with King Belshazzar,
fell by the sword of Cyrus.
200 years the Medo-Persians continued to
hold Babylon.
304 the Grecians held Babylon.
666 the Roman power dominated over
Babylonia.
1260 the Mohammedans succeeded, and are
to hold Babylonia 1260 years.
—————————
5896(1/2) again.
“Hence we see that the fall of Turkey will also literally be the fall of Babylonia, for the city of Babylon has no existence except by Constantinople its head, as described most graphically in Rev. 18”
We have already discussed briefly the assumptions unproved and the actual mistakes, in these alleged periods, wrong in the starting-point, and still more flagrantly in blotting out the predicted revival of the Roman Empire, on which final judgment is to be executed. We have shown the absurdity of the 666 “years” assigned to the Roman power on the ground of a scripture entirely misunderstood and in no way chronological; and also the anti-scriptural interpolation of an evil fifth power into Dan. 7; whereas the prophet distinctly intimates no more than four beasts, the last of which by its last chief's “great words,” brings us, not a mere change of dynasty as before, but definitive and divine judgment when the Ancient of days comes, and the Son of man's universal and everlasting dominion. The simple statement of Daniel excludes Mohammedanism from having anything to say to the “time, times, and half a time” of Dan. 7:2525And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time. (Daniel 7:25). Besides reasons were given why that term should be understood of 1260 days in the great future crisis.
But this dream of here introducing Turkey has misled Mr. D. to substitute the comparatively unimportant Babylonia for the portentous Babylon of Rev. 18, which is clearly not on the literal plain of Shinar, but that more corrupt system against which the great book of Christian prophecy so energetically testifies, having its central seat in Rome, and in Rome, not Pagan, but since it tortured the gospel into what a famous Pope called truly their “profitable fable.” For the corruption of the best thing is admittedly the worst corruption. No spiritual eye can contemplate what God says of Babylon in the Book of the Revelation without learning that of all. objects of divine displeasure none is so disgusting to God, none so roused the wonder of the prophet, none has so large notice in the latest inspiration, none filled heaven with a louder or more reiterated Hallelujah over her judgment. “The Beast” may be fuller of proud self will, violence, and blasphemy, the second or false prophet Beast more audaciously impious and lawless; and both suffer the due reward of their deeds in being cast alive together into the lake of fire that burns with brimstone. But she on whose forehead was written “Mystery, Babylon the great, the mother of the harlots and of the abominations of the earth,” she who was drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus, has a character of loathsome hypocrisy, of shameless idolatry, and of gloating cruelty, which coupled with the highest pretension to truth, holiness, and title of universal rule, elicited the holy indignation of heavenly minds, even beyond the open madness of self-exaltation with which Satan filled the first Beast or his wicked ally claiming to be God in His temple.
How absurd then is this error about Turkey, which lands in the notion that Babylonia or the land of the Chaldeans is described in Rev. 18. Babylon of old was indeed the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldean's pride; but it has for ages been, according to Isaiah, as when God over threw Sodom and Gomorrah. It has, as Jeremiah predicted, “become heaps,” “an astonishment and a hissing without an inhabitant “; “jackals lie there,” and “owls dwell there.” No Arab pitches his tent there, nor there does “shepherd fold sheep.” Hillah's being built out of its ruins, like other greater places further off, in no way conflicts with the utter waste. “Thou shalt be desolate forever, saith Jehovah” (Jer. 51:26, 6226And they shall not take of thee a stone for a corner, nor a stone for foundations; but thou shalt be desolate for ever, saith the Lord. (Jeremiah 51:26)
62Then shalt thou say, O Lord, thou hast spoken against this place, to cut it off, that none shall remain in it, neither man nor beast, but that it shall be desolate for ever. (Jeremiah 51:62)). Babylon, not Babylonia, was by the inspiring Spirit made symbolic of another city, characterized in John's day as seated on “seven mountains,” in marked contrast with the Chaldean prototype, but even more emphatically than it, “the great city that reigneth over the kings of the earth” (Rev. 17:9-139And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth. 10And 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. 11And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition. 12And 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. 13These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast. (Revelation 17:9‑13)). Further, the Beast, or Roman empire, was said to “carry her” (ver. 7), which is as inapplicable to Mohammedanism as to Babylonia. And how possibly make Babylonia in Mohammedan times to be the mother, not only of the harlots, but of “the abominations (or idols) of the earth”? A horrid imposture is Islam, a sensual brutal system of vain self-righteousness; but of all systems it is the most notoriously iconoclastic. The identification of it which Mr. D. desires with the Apocalyptic Babylon is therefore grotesquely false and impossible.
But there is more to observe. The error has the deplorable result of blinding souls to the hateful plague-spot of Rome, the great harlot, drunken with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus. Here again it is Rome, Popery in its central seat, that is characteristically thus branded far beyond Mohammedanism which expended its rage on idolators. One may not go with the dates as applied by the pious Fleming, or the late learned and God-fearing E. B. Elliott; but at least they were sound and godly in their abhorrence of the Roman harlot and her abominations. Ought we not to detest what God detests? Here was no “unchristian spirit,” but bright zeal against idolatrous Christendom, the guiltiest, haughtiest, and least scrupulous idolatry under the sun. It is no wonder that Pagans should persecute those that preached and lived the truth that condemned themselves; nor is it strange that Mussulmans should despise and hate image-worshippers, who were the worse for calling themselves Christian. But that a corrupt and worldly-minded system, claiming to be Christ's bride, should play the strumpet with the kings, intoxicate the masses, and persecute the faithful with an ingenuity of torture beyond either Pagan or Turk, could not but fill the prophet with extreme amazement. I do not believe that the little horn of Dan. 7 is the papacy, but the last apostate chief of the Roman empire when revived and filled with Satanic energy. I believe that “the harlot” is to he destroyed by the kings and the Beast before he is hurled into perdition, in God's judgment under the seventh vial (Rev. 16) Much that these Protestant expositors say of Babylon is true and wholesome; but what Mr. D. in this page writes of Babylon in the future is unmitigated error, and mischievous in its palliation of Rome. And here closes this notice of “The New Era at hand,” with more than sufficient proof given of its unreliability. There is no wish to add more.