The meaning of the last verb in 2 Thessalonians 2:22That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. (2 Thessalonians 2:2) is not “at hand,” but “is present.” I am not aware of a single case where this form of word could have any other meaning. Nor does it occur seldom in the New Testament: see Rom. 8:3838For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, (Romans 8:38); 1 Corinthians 3:22; 7:2622Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; (1 Corinthians 3:22)
26I suppose therefore that this is good for the present distress, I say, that it is good for a man so to be. (1 Corinthians 7:26); Gal. 1:44Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father: (Galatians 1:4); Heb. 9:99Which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience; (Hebrews 9:9), in all which it unequivocally means present, repeatedly in express contrast with what is at hand or future. In 2 Timothy, is a different form of the word; but there too it means that difficult times shall be there, not merely imminent. These are all the occurrences in the New Testament. Without exception, they are every one clear and explicit in their sense as to this. “The day of the Lord is at hand” would be a different phrase. When the apostle means “at hand” he says so, using quite another word. Further, this erroneous version, as in the English Bible, makes the apostle contradict himself, for the Epistle to the Romans tells the Romans that “the day is at hand.” How then could the misleaders at Thessalonica be consistently charged with error if they only taught that the day of the Lord is at hand—the same thing he afterward teaches himself? But no; these false teachers had given out that the day was (not coming ever so soon, but) actually arrived; and this was filling the saints with panic, especially as they pretended to a revelation for it, and even more, as we shall see.
There is an indubitable sign of false teachers that I must here commend to the notice of all Christians, for we need it in these days, and may need it yet more if the Lord tarry. Observe then that the false teacher ordinarily does one or two things, sometimes both: either he lulls asleep those who ought to be roused, keeping them entranced in the deadly slumber of fallen nature, or he tries to alarm true believers by endeavoring to shake their confidence in the grace and truth of God, filling their minds with groundless alarm. Not possessing peace himself, he is often deceived as well as a deceiver; for he knows not in his own experience peace and joy in believing. The false teacher then either injures the children of God by weakening their confidence in God, or, at the same time with this, he lulls with opiates those whom God would have to be awakened from their dangerous insensibility. In short false teachers either flatter the world or try to alarm the true children of God.
The truth does exactly the contrary; it always has for its effect to rouse men from their state of guilty indifference or their self-confidence, setting before them their fearful danger for eternity. But it tells them of a divine Savior and of a present salvation. Along with this there is the comforting, establishing, and leading on of the believers into all their privileges and responsibilities, their proper joys in communion with the Lord and one another, and their growth in the knowledge of His mind and ways for worship and service. For all these things are the portion of the believer.
What were those about who misled the Thessalonians? They pretended to the word and Spirit for their cry that the day of the Lord was come; false teachers often do as much. But they did more; they grew bolder in their iniquity; they pretended to have a letter of the Apostle Paul affirming that “the day of the Lord was present.” I am aware that some learned men have thought they alluded to the former epistle. Thus Paley says that the apostle writes in the second epistle, among other purposes, to quiet this alarm and to rectify the misconstruction that had been put on his words; in that the passage in the second epistle relates to the passage in the first. But this is an oversight. It is certain and evident that the epistle alluded to here was not his; for he says “that ye be not soon shaken in mind or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us.” He does not say the letter that we wrote, but a letter as from us, or purporting to be from us. It was a supposititious letter, not his first epistle.
The pretended letter of the apostle was to the effect that the day of the Lord was already come; but the day of the Lord, according to the Bible, in general will be one of trouble and anguish, a day of clouds and darkness for the world. You may read this abundantly in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Joel, and many of the prophets. On what pretext then was the cry raised at Thessalonica? The Thessalonians were suffering great trouble and persecution for the truth's sake. The false teachers seem to have converted this into that day, alleging that the day of the Lord had come. All indeed knew it to be a day of fearful trial, and that all meanwhile goes on worse and worse till the evil is then put down and the power of God victorious. Hence the saints that did look for that day, according to the first epistle, became troubled by this cry and were shaken in mind. For, as we have seen, false teachers naturally shake the righteous, instead of seeking to comfort and stablish them. On this occasion they contrived to excite no little panic and anxiety as if the day of the Lord had actually come.
Not at all, says the apostle: do you not know that the Lord is coming to gather you to Himself?
“We beseech you, brethren, by the coming (or presence) of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together to Him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind nor troubled.” He first appeals to a known motive of joy and confidence in their hope and then goes into a prophetic reason, thus giving the idea a complete refutation. But you may notice that it is never supposed the saints wait for the day of the Lord to be taken up and meet Him in the air. It is the coming of the Lord they await for this.
“The coming of the Lord” and “His day” are two quite different thoughts often confounded by men.
The coming or presence (παρουσία) of the Lord is a much wider term, embracing the day as well as what is just before the day. But the part of His coming that is called “the day of the Lord” consists of the execution of His judgment on the earth and then of His reign. The first object is to gather those He loves home. Love would always secure the object of affection first.
The coming of the Lord then is bound up closely with the gathering of the saints; the day of the Lord with the execution of judgment on His enemies here below. Hence we find here, “let no man deceive you by any means.” It is evident there might be a great deal of mistake on this subject; “for that day shall not come except there, come the falling away (or apostasy) first.” “That day shall not come” is an insertion of our translators, marked therefore by italics, though, I believe, substantially correct. It should not be till the apostasy, the public abandonment of Christianity throughout Christendom. Oh, how men deceive themselves, when they think that all is going on to progress and triumph! There will be victory when Christ comes, not before. What is revealed is a very different and more humbling prospect. The distinct intimation is that ["that day shall not come"] except there come the falling away first, the apostasy. And what is the character of modern infidelity, but preparing the way for the apostasy; men bearing the Christian name, yet giving up all the Christian substance; men who still carry on the dead forms while the spirit has fled? This will grow and extend, and men are getting ready for it too. They are destroying everywhere on earth the outward and public recognition of the truth. There will soon be no outward homage paid to Christianity in Europe. I mean that the governments of the world are gradually stripping off all connection with the Christian name. There are those who think this is a great boon. Though I have not the smallest interest or affinity for established religion, I cannot but think the act criminal and that this will turn out more serious than the reformers expect. I believe it was a most serious evil when the Christians accepted an alliance with the world; but it is a totally different and most solemn issue for the world when it casts off all its connection with Christianity.
It was a deep loss for the Christians when they sought the world's recognition; it will be an awful day for the world when it, is so tired of the union as to throw off Christianity.
The consequence will be that that most slender tie which binds and attaches men to the reading of the Bible or going to church will be broken when it has no longer connection with the government. You may live to see the vast change which will take place. I grant that there is no reality, no divine life, there is no true honor paid to the Lord, in carrying on a mere outward profession; but people who go to church, as it is called, hear the word of God and the name of Christ. When this is no longer publicly recognized, they will give it up as an antiquated prejudice, and go to shoot, fish, ride, or drink. They will amuse themselves in reading anything but the Bible. There will be the most rapid decay. Not so with the saints of God. The result will be, no doubt, that the real will be the more evident. They will rest only on the word of God; but as regards men of the world, it will bring about the apostasy.
This is what is before the world!
The First Epistle to the Thessalonians was also the first written by the apostle; the Second, from the nature of the case, was written shortly after. Thus, from the very beginning of Christianity—from the first communications of the Spirit of God to the churches—such is the solemn result of which they were warned. Those who profess the gospel will abandon it ere the end of this age come. But that day is not to be “except there come the falling away first.” It is not merely a falling away here, and a falling away there, but the falling away, or the apostasy.
Further, “That man of sin will be revealed, the son of perdition.” There was once a man of righteousness—the Savior; but He was rejected. There will be a man of sin—the son of perdition “who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped.” I am aware that many people apply this to the Pope of Rome.
I do not for a moment agree with them, though regarding the system as a frightful delusion, even Babylon. But I dare not say that the apostasy has arrived yet, and it is a sorrowful thing to use Scripture with a party aim, or for controversial objects; it is a sorrowful thing in the presence of growing evil, which pervades both Protestant and Catholic countries alike—a sorrowful thing to cast such a stone from one to the other. No, beloved friends, the apostasy is the result of despising the gospel, of trifling with the truth, of keeping up forms that are unreal, and then casting them off with shame.
The apostasy will be the result wherever Christendom extends. Wherever the gospel has been preached, or at any rate the Lord professed, the apostasy will be the issue, whether of Catholics or Protestants, whether of Greeks or Copts or any others; such will be the result, not outside but within Christendom. It does not mean the end of the Jews, or of the heathen. The apostle is here speaking of that broad scene wherever the name of the Lord has been professed. “The day of the Lord cannot be, except there come the falling away first and the man of sin be revealed.” The climax is that lawless one who “exalteth himself.” Jesus humbled Himself, and only exalted God. Here is a man, the man of sin pre-eminently, the personal adversary of the Lord Jesus. And, as the Lord said to the Jews, they would not have Him who came in His Father's name; they will receive him who comes in his own name. At the end of this age he will come, and accordingly he is found as Satan's winding-up, not merely of apostate Christianity, but of apostate Judaism also.
I have already shown the connection with Christendom, but now I will briefly touch on Judaism, for this personage “opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.”
As the true church began in Jerusalem, the great result of the apostasy will find itself conspicuously in Jerusalem. It was this city that saw Pentecost; so far as the world could behold, it beheld that which belongs to heaven on the earth.
Jerusalem will see the judgment. of that which, long a counterfeit, will end in a manifestation of hell — the fruit of the amalgam of Christianity with Judaism. So the apostle reminds them, “Remember ye not that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things. And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time.”
There is a withholding power. What is that power? I cannot doubt it is the Holy Ghost. It is not evil which so opposes evil, but good. That which effectually hinders the outbreak of the power of Satan is not the energy of mortal man. I am aware the ancients used to think it was the Roman empire. This being long gone led some to conceive that the papacy is meant by the beast, as well as the apostasy, the man of sin, &c. But I am not prepared to allow that the beast is come yet. The “mystery of iniquity” is working still. It was working then, and is working now; but even now it does not show itself in its most horrible colours. The apostle says, “The mystery of iniquity doth already work: only there is one now who letteth (or resttaineth), until he be taken out of the way.” Thus you see the hindering power is to disappear. Further, it is both a principle and a person (being spoken of as neuter as well as masculine); it can therefore apply to none so well as the Spirit of God, who still, for the sake of the children of God, and to sustain His testimony, continues to hinder the first manifestation of Satan's power. But then that is only for a time, it will not be for ever. “Only there is one who now letteth until he be taken out of the way.” The Spirit of God will by and by cease to stand in the way of the working of the Evil One. “And then shall that lawless one be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the shining forth (or appearing) of His coming.” The Lord Jesus is the appointed destroyer of this lawless being, the one who is elsewhere called the antichrist. Even now there are many antichrists, says John; when the antichrist comes, he will be destroyed by the Lord Jesus coming from heaven and publicly. Then shall that lawless one be revealed whom the Lord Jesus shall consume with the spirit of His mouth. he critical addition of “Jesus” I put in, because it is certainly genuine and gives more definiteness to the thought.
Now mark the first verse. The apostle does not say the appearing of His coming when Christ gathers the saints. “We beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together unto Him.” Here, when the destruction of the man of sin is in question, he speaks not merely of His coming but of the appearing—the epiphany or brightness—of His coming. If when the Lord comes to gather His saints He appears, why should not His appearing be brought in there? Is it not manifest that the coming of the Lord does not of necessity mean His appearing? How else the phrase of verse 8? It was necessary, when His appearing was meant, to say so; and this is when He judges. When it is the dealing of is grace in translating us to heaven, His coming or presence is named, but not a word about His appearing. When the lawless one shall be destroyed, it is not merely His presence or coming, but the shining forth of it. For He might come without being seen beyond what He pleased; but here we have the manifestation of His advent. When He comes to take up His saints, what will he world have to do with it? It was His own love which saved them; they belonged to Him, not to the world. He comes to claim His own. He does not make the world a spectator before He appears in glory for the destruction of the antichrist.
The world will have bowed down to the antichrist. Gentiles as well as Jews will have accepted him. Just as the blessed Lord Jesus is both the true Messiah and the God of Israel, so this false personage, the man of sin, will set up to be both the Messiah and Jehovah of Israel, and the mass will be led away by the fatal delusion. The same unbelief which rejects the true will bow down to the false.
These are the dismal prospects of the world according to the Scriptures. A very different future fills the imagination of men generally. Why wonder at this? How can they truly prognosticate what is to be? No man can discern the future unless he believes the prophecies of God.
I am aware they will tell you how dangerous it is to predict. But the study of prophecy is calculated and meant to keep us from predicting. Those who study prophecy should be humble enough to be content with prophecy. If you despise the prophecies of God, you may set up to be a prophet; but, if so, you must always be a false one. It is only God who knows and can tell the future. But God has revealed it: we have the responsibility of believing. A man cannot believe these things without their leaving their impress upon his heart. If you have truth in your heart, show it in your hand and on your forehead, seeking to prove true to what you believe. The Lord Jesus is coming; but He is going to appear also, not merely coming to receive His own, for His coming will be in the twinkling of an eye. That the world should see the change and translation of the saints is not at all necessary, for the Lord has many ways of taking His own to Himself without death. Suppose the Lord were to cause a tremendous earthquake to happen, would not the wise men of the world say that the Christians had been swallowed up in the earthquake? It is easy enough to conceive a way in which the Lord could conceal the matter; but He does not conceal from us, nor will He from men, what He will do to the misleader of the world. This, at least, will be manifest to every eye. Hence we find that, whenever judgment is in question, manifestation characterizes it. When the Lord Jesus called Saul of Tarsus, his companions felt the tokens of some extraordinary action going on, though they knew nothing about itself. There were not a few men in the throng going to Damascus, yet only one man saw the Lord Jesus; all the rest only heard an inarticulate sound. They did not hear the words of His mouth; Saul of Tarsus did. Then, again, we find Philip caught up and carried to another place; but what did the world know of all that? There was a subsequent occasion when the apostle Paul was caught up into the third heaven. But was this divulged for the good of the world?
Nothing, then, is easier than for the Lord to show things in a partial way on these occasions; but He will do them on a grand comprehensive scale when the judgment of the world comes, after taking on high His people previously.
Manifestation is always connected with the world's portion. The Lord, when He comes for the saints, will manifest Himself to them of course; but that He will manifest Himself to the world is nowhere said in the Bible. There is a positive intimation that it will not be so at the end. “When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall we [be not caught up but] appear with Him in glory.” Consequently, the world cannot have seen Christ when He came to take His people. The very same moment that the world sees Christ appearing in glory they will see the saints appearing in glory along with Him. If Christ could appear before the saints were caught up the Scriptures would be contradicted.
I will refer to one Scripture more before I close; and it is a very solemn one. It is from Rev. 17. There are two great objects of judgment brought before us there. One is called the great harlot, the other is the beast. The first object is seen sitting upon many waters, “with whom the kings of the earth,” &c. (1St to 6th verse.) That is a corrupt woman, seated upon a most remarkably characterized beast, a beast with seven heads and ten horns. What is the meaning of these two symbols? You may easily gather it by comparing the 1St verse with the 9th and 10th verses of chap. 21, “And there came one of the seven angels,” &c.
Now it is plain from this, that the one is the counterpart of the other; that Babylon, the harlot, is Satan's sad contrast to the bride, the Lamb's wife. As the one is the holy city, the bride of the Lamb, the other corrupts herself with the kings of the earth, and corrupts them. This explains why she is styled “harlot.” She is the great ruling city of the world, which has her kingdom over the kings. The church glorified, the body of Christ, the Lamb's wife, is said to be “the holy city, Jerusalem,” that comes down out of heaven from God. This, then, is the holy (not the great) city. “He showed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem.” The word “great” ought to be expunged, and the word “holy” transposed to take its place— “the holy city, Jerusalem.”
But still, the very fact that the holy city, Jerusalem, is the church glorified, gives the greatest possible help towards understanding what Babylon means. What is the religious body which, under the shelter of Christ's name, pretends to be the mother of all the churches? Can one hesitate?
I grant you that much evil has been done by what is called established churches, the national body of this country, and the national body of that; but what is this in comparison with the pretensions of her that claims all countries and tongues, kings aw well as subjects? Can there be any question who and what she is? Has there ever been any but one?
There can be no reasonable doubt about the meaning of Babylon; but as if to preclude the possibility, we have several marks. First, she is a persecuting power, the greatest of all persecutors, drunk with the blood of the saints. Have you not heard of an ecclesiastical body which thinks it her duty, for the love of God and the good of men's souls, to exterminate heretics? She is herself as innocent as Pilate. She kills none; she only hands them over to the civil power to be punished! Alas! there never was a Pagan power, there never was a Jewish frenzy, which so tortured the saints of God as Babylon has done. So clear is her identification that I do not require to point her out. Surely the truth must be indeed evident when it is unnecessary to name who she is.
Nor is this nearly all we are told here. The last verse says, “The woman is the great city which reigneth over the kings of the earth.” There is a distinction of importance. This chapter does not confound the harlot and the woman. For the woman is here declared to be the symbol of the ruling city. This is unquestionable. Now there never was one that ruled as this city did. The better you know history the more you will feel that Rome only it can be. There was but one city which ruled more and longer than any empire since the world began; and everybody in John's day would know where that city lay and what was its name.
It was not Athens—for Athens could never for any considerable time rule even Greece. It was not Jerusalem before nor Constantinople since. Some think that this chapter refers to the literal Babylon of Chaldea; but this was a city built on the plain of Shinar. How could such a city be truly said to be built on seven hills? The Chaldean capital had been a great city; it passed away, and only remained to occupy the curiosity of the learned men. Here was one then ruling over the kings of the earth. There was but one city that could he said so to reign in the days of John, and no one ever has so reigned since.
This city was to become the harlot, and so to exercise power over the Roman beast or empire, the beast of seven heads and of ten horns. But at first sight there is a difficulty here; for the Roman empire has disappeared. It existed and has fallen. How then are we to understand the chapter? The historian tells us that the Roman empire long ago declined and fell. There he stops; he cannot lift the veil. Not history explains prophecy, but prophecy explains history. Prophecy is the true and divine key to the prospects of the world. Accordingly here is the explanation—the beast that then was, the Roman beast, would cease to exist. “The beast that thou sawest was, and is not.” Its vast power was to perish; and the infidel historian chronicles the fact. But you have another thing which history could not divine. If God's word is true and sure, the Roman beast is to revive. It is well known that its revival has been essayed. Charlemagne tried; Napoleon the First tried; Napoleon the Third would have liked well to have tried. Not that I have sympathy with those who pretend to point out the person. There were many that fixed on the last-named fallen potentate; and a few cling to their notion still [1873]. They are premature: better leave guess-work to such as do not search into prophecy.
Here is the word of God. Why should you predict? You had better not pretend to it; the word of God has spoken already; be you content with its predictions. Now the word of God has said nothing of the sort; it speaks of the beast that should ascend out of the bottomless pit, or abyss, and go into perdition. Why add to this? Why speculate? Let us only believe. Diabolical power will revive the Roman empire. “And they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not; and yet is.” The common reading “and yet is” (καἰπερ ἐστἰν) is incorrect. “And shall be present” (καὶ πάρεσται) is the true sense. Here, then, we have the clearest intimation that the Roman empire is to be reconstructed under the worse influence before the age ends and the Lord returns in judgment.
Let us look back for a moment at the history of the world, and compare it with the present and the future.
In the time of John the Roman empire ruled the known world. That empire had then but one governor or chief. Gradually the power began to weaken and wane. First came the division into east and west. Then some time afterward the Germanic barbarians broke up the Western empire and founded those separate kingdoms, of Europe, which, after feudalism, passed on to the constitutional monarchies of modern times. Such has been the result of the breaking up of the Roman empire. Here we find the two conditions: the beast that was, the beast that is not. But it “shall ascend out of the bottomless pit.” This will be a new trait in the world's history. The worst of powers is better than anarchy; the most grinding tyrannies are safer than no authority at all. So, it is evident that, whatever changes may have occurred in the world's affairs, there has never been a power without the sanction of God, had as its exercise of authority may have been. The letting loose of the power of Satan is not yet, because there is One who withholds (2 Thess. 2); but when He withdraws the hindrance, the beast ascends out of the bottomless pit. John of course speaks symbolically of the Roman empire in its last Satanic uprising and state. In the end of this age Satan will be allowed by God to re-establish that great object of human ambition. Men are even now yearning after an energetic central authority in the West. It is the plain fact that the ten horns, or kingdoms (supposing for the moment that the kingdoms of Western Europe comprised just ten) have no political coherence. One of their marked features has been that they are constantly in danger of war with each other. They have sought by what they term “the balance of power,” to maintain a measure of mutual understanding, peace, and order. But in consequence of this very arrangement no one power has been allowed to get the upper hand.
Many have desired it; but the result of their desires, when action has followed before the time, is that such perish. But by and by it will be accomplished. Then the beast will be reconstituted. There will be unity, one central authority, without extinguishing the separate kingdoms, save that the little horn acquires three. Thus there will be the revived Roman empire, with distinct kingdoms. The future state will consist of the imperial headship, along with the subordinate kingdoms of the once united western empire. The balance of power will then be required no longer. The day is coming when Satan will deceive the world. God has accomplished His own purpose of gathering out His saints to Himself. And then the world is allowed to have its little moment when Satan has consummated his power on earth. (See verses 12 and 13).
The state here described is perfectly unexampled before or since the fall of the Roman empire. One knows the independence of even the least of the kingdoms. They do not like people to interfere, if they be ever so little. Several too join—some for and some against. Such is the way things have long gone on in the political world of the west.
Here the principle of national independence has disappeared. Separate or party action is all gone. The time is come for a vast change in the world. This will be the character of it: a great imperial power, called the beast, not absorbing but wielding the separate powers of the west. The beast is a type of strength, no doubt, but without reference to God. So it will be then at the close. The Western imperial system will have thrown off all care for God or thought of Him. Apostasy will have prepared the way. This imperial power will have the direction of the western nationalities of Europe. The separate kings will be flattered with the idea that they have each a separate existence and will. But they are only the sinews of the strong man who wields them all. What do they then? “These shall make war with the Lamb.”
What a difference from the blessed reign of peace and righteousness, no less than from what men dream as the gradually coming future! On the other hand, the saints come from heaven, being with the Lamb when the conflict arrives. (Compare Rev. 19:1414And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. (Revelation 19:14)). Being changed, they are forever with the Lord, and follow Him. So, when the final contest arises between the Lord Jesus and Satan represented by the leader of the west, the Lord is accompanied by His saints. They are here (17:14) styled “called, and chosen and faithful.” Some have thought they must be angels. But they are not, For angels are never called “faithful.” And, again, they are said to be not merely chosen, but “called.” How could an angel be “called” Calling is an appeal of grace, which comes to one who has gone astray in order to bring him back again. But this is never true of an angel. The gospel is God's calling fallen and guilty man to give him, through faith and by means of redemption, a place with Christ in heaven. Those who believe on Him are here shown to be with Him; and they are “called, and chosen and faithful.”
But there is more. What becomes of the woman?
We hear about her too in the 15th verse, and here discern vast religious influence. It is not a national church, but an idolatrous, persecuting, religious system, claiming to be the spouse of Christ, but really an unclean harlot that extends its influence over all the world. It is easily seen what, and what only, such a system can be. There is but one such in Christendom, though she has daughters. Further (as in verse 16), what a change takes place! Instead of these horns, or kings of the west, being any longer subjected to Babylon, they turn furiously with the beast against her. Would it not be a very strange thing if the Pope turned against his own church or city? The Pope is not the beast, and has nothing directly to do with Babylon's destruction. It is the symbol of the empire in its last phase, it is the beast from the abyss which joins with the various leaders of the different kingdoms of the west against that ecclesiastical system.
Babylon had long intoxicated man, persecuted saints, and dallied with the kings of the earth. Now the turn of the tide comes: Babylon was not of God, but a corrupt idolatrous imposture. But there is nothing of Christ in her destroyers. It is Satan against Satan. The end of the proud world-church is come, and, soon after, of her destroyers. The beast and the ten horns, throughout the Roman empire, have risen up. The ten kingdoms of western Europe turn against the Roman harlot, and strip, eat, and burn her.
There are solemn premonitory signs even now. Let me mention only one fact noticed by both Romanists and Protestants. You are aware of the Ecumenical Council lately held in Rome. Its distinctive character is remarkable, and emphatically indicative of the change that has taken place even among the Western powers. For the first time the Pope could not ask one Catholic sovereign to sit in this council. It was composed simply and exclusively of priests. Not a single ambassador or representative of the crowned heads was there. There never was such a state of things before in mediaeval or modern Europe.
I grant you that infidelity lies under the change. It is overflowing even now everywhere, as by and by the beast will be steeped up to the eyes in blasphemy. He and the horns will be given over to the hatred of God, while, at the same time, they hate the harlot which had deceived them so long. It is a violent reaction against the lies of Babylon, but no less a rejection of the truth. You see its spirit in our own country and day. Men take pleasure in spoiling the religious dignitaries and their earthly goods. This is going on in all lands; but the end of it will have a deeper dye.
Let me repeat that I do not mean that we are yet come to the beast or the ten horns of Rev. 17. I am only showing the tendency of the present times—the way in which the wind is blowing in the west. Men prepare to turn violently against what they had been so long enslaved to.
As the end approaches, the word of God asserts its majesty and power, as fresh as at the beginning; for we are verging towards the close of the profession of Christianity on the earth, when the Lord is leading His own to expect their removal to heaven to meet the Bridegroom. We have these admonitory symptoms that the world gets weary of false religion, and becomes ashamed of forms which are themselves superstitions. And no wonder, for there is scarcely an outward ordinance remaining, scarcely even a form, which has not been utterly perverted, as well as the truth itself ignored or denied.
(Concluded from page 224)
W.K.