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the Antichrist by the Reverend Dr. J.
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And now to the message of Part 2
from The Papacy is the Antichrist.
We pray that the Lord Jesus Christ will
greatly bless you as you listen.
Chapter 9 The All-Power of Christ and
of Antichrist We advance to another point in
the parallelism between Christ and Antichrist.
We find in the pretended miracles by which
the papacy has sought to persuade the world
that it was not the adversary but the
friend of Christ.
This pretense of miracles was to form a
far too prominent feature in the coming Antichrist
to be left out in Paul's great portraiture
of him, whose coming is after the manner
of Satan, says the Apostle speaking by the
Spirit in 2 Thessalonians 2.9, with all
power and signs and lying wonders.
The essential characteristic of Antichristianism, we have said,
is its assumption of a character the very
opposite of its true character.
It was to be a secret undermining of
Christianity under the show of being itself Christianity,
a deadly war waged against Christ under the
bold assertion that itself is Christ.
This necessitated on the part of the papacy
a profound study of the mission and character
and life of Christ in order to make
its imitation as close and perfect as possible
and so draw the world away from him
and after itself.
It must not be a vague and shadowy
resemblance, traceable in only a few points.
If the world is to be deceived, the
counterfeit must be skillfully executed, the work of
a great master, and it must be consistently
sustained throughout.
Ancient paganism was no lame or despicable counterfeit
of the divinely appointed worship at Jerusalem.
Ancient paganism, however, was but a first attempt,
and it was far from having exhausted the
ingenuity and resource of its author.
His subtlety and craft were to be set
a-working a second time, and the result
was to be a perfect and finished counterfeit,
a masterpiece, whose coming is after the working
of Satan.
The two comings here contrasted, we say contrasted
for the parallelism is only on the surface,
beneath all is contrast and contrariety, are the
coming of Christ in the mission of his
Son and the coming of Satan in the
mission of Antichrist.
God is the author of truth, and the
manner of his coming is by the propagation
of great truths, which dispel the darkness around
the soul of man and chase the night
of error from the world.
Satan is the author of falsehood.
He has been a deceiver from the beginning,
and he comes in the propagation of deceits,
chicaneries, lies, errors, and delusion, which, blinding the
mind, only prepare men for being plunged into
still greater errors and delusions.
With all power.
Let us mark how like Antichrist was to
be to Christ in the particular just noted,
all power.
Antichrist was to come with an assumption of
power, an air of majesty, as if to
say, I am the Son of the Highest.
His look, how lofty, his words, how stout.
So had Daniel in the night visions beheld
him.
He waxed exceeding great, says Daniel, toward the
south and toward the east and toward the
pleasant land.
He stood before the prophet, his feet planted
on the earth, his head among the stars,
claiming lordship over both worlds.
He waxed great even to the host of
heaven, and he cast down some of the
host and of the stars to the ground
and stamped upon them.
Daniel 8 verse 10 All power, said Christ
to his disciples, is given unto me in
heaven and in earth.
This power was the eternal gift of the
Father to the Son as mediator.
This power he wielded from the first moment
of his entering on his work of mediation.
Though veiling it during the days of his
humiliation on earth, this power was in him
and showed itself at times in some stupendous
act.
The elements of nature were obedient to him.
So too were the spirits of darkness, and
not less, the angels of heaven.
If need were, he had only prayed to
his Father, and the celestial squadrons would have
hastened to his aid.
Satan could gather enough from ancient prophecy and
song to show him that such power was
to be the attribute of the Messiah.
I will make him my firstborn higher than
the kings of the earth, so sang David.
He shall have dominion also from sea to
sea and from the river unto the ends
of the earth.
The kings of Tarshish and of the Isles
shall bring presents.
The kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer
gifts.
Yea, all kings shall fall down before him,
all nations shall serve him.
Such was the glory which the coming Messiah
cast before him in prophecy, ages before he
came.
Satan must need send forth his counterfeit Messiah
with the mock symbols and attributes of a
like power.
Antichrist too cast his shadow before him in
prophecy before his actual coming as the triple
crown chief of the papacy.
Daniel had seen his day afar off.
How he contemplated and spoke of him we
have already seen.
With a few graphic strokes he paints the
whole history of the papacy.
He traces it from its insignificant beginnings till
it reaches its amazing and portentous height.
We see the first sprouting of the little
horn.
We see Caesar vacate his seat.
We see the Vandal, the Ostrogoth, and the
Longobard plucked up before it.
We see it rising by leaps and bounds,
and now its head is among the stars.
We see its stout looks, we hear its
great words, and we witness with an awe
bordering on terror its truculent deeds.
He tramples on thrones, he roots up nations,
he plucks the stars from their orbits.
In fine he does all his pleasure, and
there is none who can withstand his power
or say to him, What doest thou?
John had a nearer view of the Antichrist
in the visions of Patmos.
He too, like Daniel, is struck with his
mighty and apparently irresistible power, and he makes
this attribute prominent in his portraiture of him.
John had known the vast prerogative of the
Roman emperors, but here was a measure of
power which surpassed that of the old masters
of the world, and which appeared to the
apostle more than human.
In fact, he expressly calls it the gift
of the dragon.
The dragon gave him his power, says John.
What the dragon gave to the Antichrist was
not the power of the old Roman empire,
but his own, that is, the dragon's power.
And they worshipped the dragon, which gave power
to the beast, that is, the temporal and
spiritual monarchy, which forms the papacy.
And they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is
like unto the beast?
Who is able to make war with him?
And power was given him over all kindreds,
and tongues, and nations.
That's Revelation 13, verses 2, 4, and 7.
In his intercessory prayer we find Christ saying,
Father, glorify thy Son, that thy Son also
may glorify thee.
As thou hast given him power over all
flesh, that he should give eternal life to
as many as thou hast given him.
The power here said to be given the
Son over all flesh was not his power
as God.
That could not be given him, for he
possessed it inherently.
It was his power as mediator, and the
end for which it was given is especially
noted, that he should give eternal life to
as many as thou hast given him.
That's John 17, verses 1 and 2.
In like manner, the power over all kindreds,
and tongues, and nations, which the dragon gave
to the deputy whom he sent unto the
world, was a gift, and it was given
for a draconic end.
And accordingly, no sooner is this power conferred
than we hear a chorus of worship ascending
to the dragon from all them that dwell
upon the earth, whose names are not written
in the book of life of the Lamb,
slain from the foundation of the world.
Revelation 13.8 An obvious contrast to the
company referred to in our Lord's intercessory prayer,
Them whom thou hast given me.
And next, in meet accompaniment of the worship
offered by those who had made the dragon
their God, is the roar of blasphemy which
is heard rising and swelling to heaven.
There is given the Antichrist a mouth, and
the opening of his mouth is as the
opening of the doors of the pit.
There issue out of it great things and
blasphemies.
He opened his mouth in blasphemy against God,
to blaspheme his name and his tabernacle, and
them that dwell in heaven.
And the scene finds fitting outcome in the
proclamation of war against the saints, which continues
to be carried on all through his predicted
term of power.
Yes, verily prophecy makes no mistakes, and history
makes none in interpreting it.
He who hath understanding may read of the
visions which were seen on the banks of
the river of Uli, and in the isle
of Patmos, and the events which have since
passed over Europe.
Let us now open the roll of Christendom.
Let us survey its ages from the fifth
to the fifteenth century.
We are conscious at first of gazing only
at chaos, the crowd of actors, and the
conflict of events, but distract and perplex the
mind.
Europe is a tumbling sea in which the
old nations are being engulfed, and new and
barbarian races are arriving to take their place.
We can discover neither unity nor progress in
the drama.
All is tumult and darkness.
Let us shut up the roll, but stay.
Before putting it away, let us search it
again, and it may be we shall find
footsteps in these great waters.
The cloud begins to lift in order to
appear.
The ferment in the minds of men gives
birth to a great system, as yet without
form or name.
The materials of which this system, not yet
constituted, is composed, are drawn from a great
variety of sources.
Ancient paganism, Druidic and Scandinavian superstition, Jewish rabbinicalism,
and Oriental philosophy all contribute their share to
it.
A corrupt church arranges, combines, and concatenates these
heterogeneous elements, and stamping them with its own
impress presents it to the world as Christianity.
The new worship must have celebrants.
A human agency gathers round it, and that
agency comes gradually to be summed up and
embodied in one great personality.
Let us mark this colossus.
His visage grows as the centuries revolve, and
comes at last to look forth upon us,
distinct and stout and terrible.
But it is not new.
We have seen it before.
It is the same that looked forth upon
us from the prophecies of Daniel and John.
It is the same that shows itself incarnated
in the popes of the Middle Ages.
Let us mark how complete and perfect an
incarnation we have of it in Innocent III,
in whom the popedom came to its full
growth, and showed itself to the world in
all its superhuman magnificence and grandeur.
During the terrible pontificate of this man, all
that prophecy had spoken of the Antichrist was
verified in fullest measure.
Its predicted height of arrogance, of blasphemy, and
of domination was reached.
While this mighty pope stood over it, Christendom
was still with fear.
The stricken kings and nations cowered beneath him.
He was God's vice-regent, and claimed to
be obeyed with the instant and profound submission
which is due to the Eternal King.
He promulgated the dogma of transubstantiation.
He initiated the holy office of the Inquisition.
He launched the crusades against heresy and heretics,
and dealt his thunderbolts of interdict and excommunication
all round Christendom and beyond it, crushing everyone
and everything that dared to lift up the
heel against his pontifical will.
If this is not the Antichrist, then Antichrist
we never can see.
For what more can we have of any
prophecy than a complete and perfect fulfillment?
And this is a complete and perfect fulfillment
of the prophecy of the power and pride
of Antichrist.
The power of the man of sin will
come again before us farther on.
Meanwhile, we pass to another point in the
parallelism.
Chapter 10.
Signs and Wonders of Christ and of Antichrist.
This was to be a notable characteristic of
the Antichrist, whose coming, says the Apostle in
2 Thessalonians 2.9, is with signs and
lying wonders.
These words were fitted to turn the eyes
of the early Christians back upon the prophecy
of Daniel, in which it had been foretold
of the Antichrist that he should practice and
prosper.
Daniel 8.12. The phrase is suggestive of
imposing by delusive arts upon the senses and
understandings of men, and so gaining an ascendancy
over them.
Of a like meaning is the phrase which
occurs farther on in verse 25 in the
same chapter, he shall cause craft to prosper
in his hand.
Still clearer on this point are the prophecies
of John, not yet given it is true,
but which were to close the volume of
inspiration, and be the guide of Christians in
the next age in their outlook for the
Antichrist.
The claim to work miracles is here set
down as one of his notable marks.
And he doeth great wonders, says John, speaking
of the second beast or ecclesiastical organization of
the Antichrist, so that he maketh fire come
down from heaven on the earth in the
sight of men, and he deceiveth them that
dwell in the earth by the means of
those miracles which he hath power to do.
This is Revelation 13 verses 18 and 14.
This is in full agreement with Paul, who
had already warned the primitive church that Antichrist
would make his appearance as a miracle worker.
Let us reflect how imperative it was on
the Antichrist that he should claim the power
of working miracles.
Had he come as an open enemy, he
would have had no need to pretend to
such power.
But coming as the substitute and vicar of
Christ, he must necessarily in this, as in
other points, imitate him whose substance and vicar
he professed to be.
The coming of Christ was signalized by mighty
signs and wonders.
The glory of miracle illustrated every step of
his progress through the towns and villages of
Galilee and Judea.
The ancient prophets had performed miracles, but in
none of them was seen the same affluence
of miraculous power as in Christ.
As light is in the stars, so was
power in the prophets.
But as light is in the sun, so
was power in Christ.
As he passed through the crowds of stricken
men, virtue flowed out of him, and to
touch the hem of his garment or hear
the accents of his voice was to be
healed.
Sight was given to the blind, hearing to
the deaf, strength was infused into the withered
limb, reason resumed its office in the brain
of the maniac, and the pulse in which
fever throbbed and burned became calm and cool
at his word or at his touch.
Even the grave owned his power and opened
its doors in obedience to his summons and
gave back its tenant to the world of
the living.
Such were the signs and wonders that heralded
the advent and attested the messiahship of Jesus
of Nazareth.
The papacy, as the vice Christ, has, in
like manner, sought to announce its advent and
certify its mission by the performance of signs
and wonders.
Scarce is there a miracle recorded of the
Son of God which the church of Rome
does not profess to have wrought.
She pretends to have opened blind eyes, to
have unstopped deaf ears, to have cured fevers,
palsies, madness, to have cast out devils, to
have driven away pestilence, stayed the ravages of
blight, and done things which were too tedious
to mention.
Extending so far through the sphere of her
miraculous operation, she has entered the realms of
the grave, and shown that thereto she wields
power by pretending to give life to the
dead.
Certain of her saints have possessed the gift
of miracles in an eminent degree, and their
lives are one long record of prodigy and
wonder.
They have dried up rivers, walked upon the
ways of the sea and stilled tempests.
Angels have descended to minister to them, and
preternatural stars have shone out to lead them
in the dark.
In short, the church of Rome claims to
have wielded the same unbounded power over both
the visible and the invisible world which Christ
did, and to have imitated him in all
things.
Well, save the meekness of his spirit, the
purity of his doctrine, and the holiness of
his life.
Popery professes too to work spiritual wonders.
Those divine and saving changes on the heart
and soul of man which Christianity accomplishes and
which it is the prerogative of Christianity alone
to accomplish.
The church of Rome professes in baptism to
regenerate the soul and change the eternal destinies
of the baptized.
By anointing with oil, she fills men with
the Holy Ghost.
By her sacraments, she replenishes them with grace.
By ordination, she bridges over eighteen centuries and
joins the priest to Peter.
Five words spoken at the altar change the
bread and wine into the body and blood
of Christ.
Two words uttered in the confessional affect the
pardon of the penitent, and the viaticum gives
assurance to the man setting out in his
last journey that he shall find the gates
of paradise open to give him entrance among
the blessed.
These are mighty wonders.
It is thus that the false Christ has
carried on the war against the true Christ.
But a single term is thrown in which
effectually breaks the spell and dissolves the power
of these wonders over all who are not
willfully subject to their illusion.
The mystery of iniquity was to come with
lying wonders, a most essential difference, which it
becomes all to know to have a mind
not to be deceived to their eternal loss.
The miracles of Christ were done in the
light of day, in the presence of thousands
who could sift them and subject them to
infallible tests, and who, having done so, were
forced to the conclusion that either the miracle
was true or their senses were false.
Of those who saw them done, not a
few were the bitter enemies of the person
who wrought them and would have been glad
to find that they were cheats and not
slow to proclaim the imposter to the world.
And yet these miracles remained uncontradicted.
No one in all the nation of the
Jews ventured to deny the truth of any
one miracle of Jesus.
The farthest that malevolence and slander deemed it
prudent to go was to insinuate that the
miracle had been wrought by satanic power.
The reply to the accusation given, on the
spot and at the time, was as conclusive
as it was dignified, and it has lost
none of its force even yet.
Can Satan cast out Satan?
But let us mark how different it is
with the other class of miracles and how
lacking they are in that indubitable evidence that
attested the mission of the Son of God.
There is not one of them that could
maintain its claim as a veritable fact before
a tribunal of unbiased and enlightened judges.
Some of these miracles were evidently cheats on
those in whose presence they were wrought.
Of late, many startling discoveries have been made
of the machinery by which these miracles were
done.
Many of these wonders were not published to
the world till some hundreds of years after
they were said to have been wrought.
Their workers would seem to have been unambitious
of living fame, seeing they hid their light
under a bushel.
And some of these miracles are so childish
that it is an insult to our understandings
to ask us to believe that God ever
interposed His power to work such deeds.
Prophecy gave them the right name before they
were done.
They are lying wonders.
The spiritual performances of the Church of Rome
are emphatically lying wonders.
Baptismal regeneration is a lying wonder.
Sacramental grace is a lying wonder.
Priestly power is a lying wonder.
The absolution of the confessional is a lying
wonder.
Transubstantiation is the biggest wonder and the greatest
lie of all.
And extreme unction is a last and fatal
lie.
There is no reality behind any of these
things, and they are the more to be
deplored that they have immediate reference to the
eternal world and that millions take their departure
to the world fully confiding in these lies
for salvation.
Let us mark the parallelism.
It is at once a parallel and a
contrast.
The gospel came amid the effulgence of real
miracles which were wrought by God and were
a divine attestation to the Messiahship of His
Son.
Popery came amid the murky and delusive glare
of false miracles which were wrought by Satan
and which were his signed manual bearing witness
to all that the system in behalf of
which they were done was the mystery of
iniquity.
Chapter 11 Antichrist's Signs and Wonders of Terror
There is another class of wonders that the
papacy professes to do and which are of
a nature not quite so innocent and harmless
as those enumerated above.
Though equally false, they owe the terror they
inspired and the suffering they inflicted to the
belief that they were true and real.
Speaking of the two-horned lamb-like beast
of the earth, John says, And he doeth
great wonders, so that he maketh fire to
come down out of heaven upon the earth
in the sight of men.
Revelation 13, verse 13 The prophecy found a
striking fulfillment in the papal interdicts and excommunications
so frequent in the Middle Ages and not
unknown even in our own day.
These demonstrations of pontifical vengeance, it was pretended,
were fire out of heaven.
The fire of the wrath of God, which
the pope had power to evoke, therewith to
burn up his enemies.
The blinded nations believed that in the voice
of the pope they heard the voice of
God and that the fulminations of the Vatican
were the thunderings and lightnings of divine wrath.
A papal excommunication was more dreadful than the
invasion of thousands of armed men.
When launched against a kingdom, what dismay, misery,
and wailing overspread it.
The whole course of life was instantly stopped.
The lights were extinguished at the altar.
The church doors were closed.
The bells would not be tolled.
Marriages were celebrated in the graveyard, and the
dead were buried in ditches.
Men dared not make merry, for a sense
of doom weighed upon their spirits.
These terrible edicts pursued men into the other
world, and souls arriving from the unhappy realm
overhung by the papal curse found the gates
of paradise shut and had to wander forlorn
until it should please the divinity of the
seven hills to lift off his sentence.
Thus did the papacy cause fire to come
down from God out of heaven, and men
believing it to be real fire were scorched
by it.
In the days of King John, England lay
under interdict for more than six years.
To the mightiest sovereign, even the papal excommunication
was a dreadful affair.
He shook and trembled on his throne, for
his army could give him no protection.
It was well indeed if both soldiers and
subjects did not unite in carrying out the
papal behest by driving him from his kingdom,
if some fanatic monk by the more quick
dispatch of the dagger did not save them
the trouble.
European history furnishes a list of more than
sixty-four emperors and kings deposed by the
popes.
In the numbers, Henry II of England, deposed
by Alexander III, King John by Innocent III,
Richard and Edward by Boniface IX, Henry VIII
by Clement VII, and again by Paul III,
Elizabeth by Pius V.
Even King Robert the Bruce had this terrible
curse launched against him, but thanks to the
caldee element still strong in Scotland, King Robert
and his subjects held the popes' fulmination but
a brutum fulmin, and so it did not
harm them.
Almost all the bulls against crowned heads have
contained clauses stripping them of their territories and
empowering their neighbor kings to invade and seize
them.
Influenced partly by a desire to serve the
pope and partly by the greed of what
was not their own, they have not been
slow to act on the papal permission.
As a specimen of the lofty style of
these fulminations, the mouth speaking great things, we
give the Bull of Excommunication, issued by Sixtus
V, 1585, against the King of Devar and
the Prince of Conde, whom he calls the
Two Sons of Wrath.
It runs thus, The authority given to St.
Peter and his successors by the immense power
of the Eternal King excels all the power
of earthly princes.
It passes uncontrolled sentence upon them all, and
if it find any of them resisting the
ordinance of God, it takes a more severe
vengeance upon them, casting them down from their
throne, however powerful they may be, and tumbling
them to the lowest parts of the earth
as the ministers of aspiring Lucifer.
We deprive them and their posterity of their
dominions forever.
By the authority of these presents we absolve
and free all persons from their oath of
allegiance and from all duty whatever relating to
dominion, fealty, and obedience, and we charge and
forbid them all from presuming to obey them
or any of their admonitions, laws, or commands.
The Romanists themselves have chosen the very figure
of the Apocalypse, Fire from Heaven, to designate
the papal excommunications and anathemas.
Thus Gregory VII spoke of the Emperor Henry
IV when excommunicated as struck with thunder.
To the same effect is the account of
the excommunication of the Emperor Frederick by Pope
Innocent at the First Council of Lyon.
Quote, These words of excommunication uttered in the
midst of the council struck the hearers with
terror as might the flashing thunderbolts.
When with candles lighted and flung down, the
Lord Pope and his assistant prelates flashed their
lightning fire terribly against the Emperor Frederick, now
no longer to be called Emperor.
His procurators and friends burst into a bitter
wailing and struck the thigh or breast on
that day of wrath, of calamity, and of
woe.
Unquote.
It was in the days of Gregory VII
that the papal heavens began thus to thunder
and lightning.
The first burst of the tempest continued for
nearly two hundred years, its fury falling mainly
on rebellious kings.
When the kings were subdued, the storm was
next directed against heresy and heretics.
Since the days of Innocent III till our
own revolution of 1688, there were only brief
periods of silence in the pontifical firmament.
For five centuries these thunders rolled almost without
intermission or pause.
Peel followed peel in rapid succession.
The crusades of the Waldenses, the Hussite campaigns
in Bohemia, the wars of Charles V in
Germany, the wars of the League in France,
the butcheries of Alva in the Low Countries,
the Thirty Years' War in the German fatherland,
the St. Bartholomew Massacre in France, and the
equally bloody massacre of Irish Protestants in 1641.
These are only a few of the more
notable thunderbursts which have marked the course of
that long tempest of pontifical wrath which began
in the days of Hildebrand in the eleventh
century and continued its terrible reverberations until 1688.
In Rome's great book of curses, one of
the most notable is the Bullum Conei Domini.
It is truly an utterance from the mouth
speaking great things.
Framed since the Reformation, it curses all the
various sections of the Protestant Church, giving special
prominence to Calvinists and Sanguilians.
Its scope is wide indeed.
The world and its inhabitants, so far as
they were known to the framers of this
bull, are compendiously cursed in it.
Its thunders are heard re-echoing far beyond
the limits of Christendom, and its lightnings are
seen to strike the pirates of barbarous seas
as well as the Calvinists of Great Britain.
This bull was wont to be promulgated annually
by the Pope in person, attended by a
magnificent array of cardinals and priests.
The ceremony took place on Maundy Thursday, the
Thursday before Easter, and was accompanied by numerous
solemnities fitted to strike the spectators with awe.
It was read from the lost vestibule of
the church of the Lateran, amid the firing
of cannon, the ringing of bells, the blaring
of trumpets, and the blazing of torches.
When the curses of the bull had been
thundered forth, the torches were extinguished and flung
into the great piazza beneath to signify the
outer darkness into which all heretics shall finally
be hurled.
Pope Ganganelli, in 1770, forbade the public reading
of the bull, but the practice was soon
revived, and is still continued at Rome, though
not in the same public fashion.
But the discontinuance of its open promulgation matters
nothing.
It is unrepealed.
All heretics are ipso facto under its ban,
and the establishment of the papal hierarchy gives
it to all Romanists the force of law
in the United Kingdom.
The papal wrath can at pleasure extend or
contract its sphere.
Nothing is so lofty as to be beyond
its reach, and nothing is so minute as
to be beneath it.
It can vent itself in a tempest that
covers a whole kingdom, and it can concentrate
itself on a single individual.
If it shall be said that the mouth
that spoke these great things in the past
would not give utterance to them now, nor
will ever utter such things in time to
come, in other words, that the Roman Church
and her popes have renounced all these lofty
claims, and no longer challenge supremacy over kings
and princes, we have to remind those who
make this affirmation that the late pope Pius
IX, in a great state document to which
the seal of infallibility has since been twice
appended, gives this assertion the most distinct and
explicit contradiction.
In the twenty-third article of the syllabus,
Pius IX condemns the proposition that the Roman
pontiffs and ecumenical councils have at any time,
quote, exceeded the limits of their power or
usurped the rights of princes, unquote.
This is a justification ex cathedra of the
loftiest claims that ever emanated from the papal
chair, and the most tyrannical usurpations ever made
by popes on the prerogatives of princes and
the liberties of nations.
With the history of the popes before him,
he solemnly declares that no one of them
ever exceeded the bounds of his power, or
as Dr. G.F. Von Schulte, professor of
canon law at Prague, summing up the teaching
of canon law on this point, puts it,
quote, the limits of the papal almightiness on
earth consist solely in their own will, unquote.
We may say with Shakespeare, here's a large
mouth indeed that spits forth death and mountains,
rocks, and seas.
These characteristics belong to the whole series of
symbolic representations of the apostate power in scripture,
and thus they establish a perfect identity between
the little horn of Daniel, the two-horned
lamb-like beast of the apocalypse, the man
of sin of Paul, and the antichrist of
John.
Chapter 12 The All-Deceivableness of Unrighteousness The
coming of the man of sin was to
be with the all-deceivableness of unrighteousness, with
finished, perfected, and till the man of sin
appeared, unparalleled craft.
Let us mark the phrase.
It is a very remarkable one.
It is used in no other place.
It is employed to describe no other system.
It describes the great apostasy and it alone.
It is not simply deceivableness, nor is it
simply unrighteousness.
It is the deceivableness of unrighteousness.
Nay, it is the all-deceivableness of unrighteousness.
Craft and deceivableness were no unknown things before
the papacy under the world.
Priests and statesmen have in every age dealt
largely in deceivableness.
But the deceivableness particular to herself is the
deceivableness of unrighteousness.
Not only is it a craft more subtle
and more defined than any with which man
operated in former ages, it is a craft
of a new order.
It is a system of unrighteousness so set
forth as to seem that system of righteousness
which God has revealed for the salvation of
the world, and by consequence accepted as such
by all who, not taught of the Holy
Ghost, are deceived and destroyed by it.
Paganism was a system of deceivableness.
It was the worship of a false god
under the pretense of being the worship of
the true god.
But popery is a deceivableness on a scale
far beyond that of paganism.
The one was a counterfeit of the religion
of the gospel.
Popery has a god of its own, him
even whom the canon law calls the Lord
our God.
It has a savior of its own, the
church to wit.
It has a sacrifice of its own, the
mass.
It has a mediator of its own, the
priesthood.
It has a sanctifier of its own, the
sacrament.
It has a justification of its own, that
even of infused righteousness.
It has a pardon of its own, the
pardon of the confessional.
And it has in the heavens an infallible,
all-prevailing advocate, unknown to the gospel, the
mother of God.
It thus presents to the world a spiritual
and saving apparatus for the salvation of men,
and yet it neither sanctifies nor saves anyone.
It looks like a church.
It professes to have all that a church
ought to have.
And yet it is not a church.
It is a grand deception, the all-deceivableness
of unrighteousness.
There is another point here that merits our
attention.
It relates to the architecture or order of
the spiritual house, the church.
Popery from its foundation to its top stone
is imitated that order.
That Christ is the Son of God is
the cornerstone of the gospel church.
Out of that root the whole gospel springs.
It is the rock on which Christ, addressing
Peter, said that he would build his church.
That the Pope is the vicar of Christ
is the cornerstone of the papal church.
Out of that root does the whole of
popery spring.
On that rock, said Boniface III in the
7th century and Gregory VII, with yet greater
emphasis in the 11th, will I build my
church.
Let us further mark that both churches rest
not on a doctrine but on a person.
The church of God rests on a person,
even Christ.
No one is saved simply by believing a
system of truth.
The truth is the light that shows the
sinner his way to the Savior.
He is united to Christ by his faith,
which takes hold of the Savior, and by
the Spirit who comes to dwell in his
heart.
Thus he is a member of the spiritual
body.
The Bible, ministers, and ordinances are the channels
through which the life of the head flows
unto the members of the body.
Thus are they built up a spiritual house,
a holy temple.
Built on the foundation of prophets and apostles,
Jesus Christ himself the chief cornerstone.
All this is most adroitly counterfeited in the
Pope's church.
It is only in the way of the
members of that church resting on Peter, or
what is the same thing, on the Pope,
that they can be saved.
Romanists tell us that it is essential to
the salvation of every human being that he
be subject to the authority of the Pope.
Peter, that is the Pope, is the one
reservoir of grace.
From him it flows down through the grand
conduit of apostolical succession to all the members
of the church, and thus are they built
up a spiritual house.
Built upon the foundation of traditions, sacraments, priests,
bishops, cardinals, the Pope himself being the chief
cornerstone.
Moreover, the whole policy and actings of the
Roman church have been marked by a deceivableness
unequaled by any other society or confederacy known
to history.
Her popes have been the most astute race
of rulers the world ever saw.
What a depth of cunning and craft!
Where is the cabinet or monarch that can
cope with it?
Her more than human insight Rome conceals under
the guise of artlessness and simplicity.
She looks so guileless and so lamb-like
that statesmen say we shall have no difficulty
in holding our own against diplomats like these.
It is only when they are outwitted and
fooled by them that they open their eyes
and begin to wonder where the strength lies
that has baffled them.
Rome buys and sells statesmen in her market.
She uses them as the muleteer, his beasts
of burden.
When they are old and broken down and
can no longer do her turns, she hurls
them from the high places to which she
had exalted them and leaves their mangled reputations
like unsavory carcasses on the highway of history,
that posterity may see how Rome rewards those
who serve her.
It was written of her of old time,
she hath cast down many wounded, yea, many
strong men have been slain by her.
This vast deceivableness is one of the main
sources of the strength of the so-called
Church of Rome.
She has the art of enlisting all the
claims of virtue and all the sanctions of
law on the side of that by which
virtue is outraged and law violated.
Where her purpose is the most cruel, her
speech is ever the most bland.
Where her motive is the most villainous, her
profession is ever the most plausible.
She always gives the holiest name to the
most unholy deed.
When she burns a heretic, she calls it
an auto de fe, an act of faith.
When she ravages a province with fire and
sword, she styles it a crusade, that is,
an evangelistic expedition.
Her torture chamber is styled the holy office.
And when she deposes monarchs, stripping them of
crown and kingdom, and compelling them, as she
did Henry IV of Germany, to stand with
naked feet at her gates amidst the drifts
of winter, it is with the make-believe
of a kind father administering salutary chastisement to
an erring son.
In short, she not only transforms herself into
an angel of light, but vice itself she
transforms into virtue, decking blackest crime in the
white robe of innocence, and arraying foulest iniquity
with the resplendent airs of holiness.
What are the sacraments by which she professes
to replenish men with grace?
What are the masses by which she professes
to impart Christ and His salvation to them?
What are the crucifixes, rosaries, and amulets by
which she fortifies men against the assaults of
Satan and evil spirits?
What are the indulgences by which she shortens
the sufferings of souls in purgatory?
What the pardons with which she sends men
away into the other world?
What the vows of poverty under which she
cherishes a pride the most arrogant, and an
aboriginess the most insatiable?
What are the vows of celibacy under which
she veils an unbridled lewdness?
What are the dispensations by which she releases
men from the obligations of the moral law,
and professes to annul oaths, promises, and covenants?
Above all, what are her logic and system
of ethics by which, as in the hands
of Liguri, she makes vice and virtue falsehood,
and truth change sides, and shows how one,
if he but direct aright his intention, can
commit the most monstrous crime, and yet contract
not a particle of guilt?
What are these things, we ask, save the
deceivableness of unrighteousness?
For surely the utmost limits of deception have
here been reached, and the deceiver himself can
go no farther.
He has produced his masterpiece.
Chapter 13 The Culmination of Parallelism An Enthronization
We now approach the point where the parallelism
culminates.
Clear and distinct, like an alpine peak, rises
the climax in each case.
The one stands clothed in the pure spiritual
glory of heaven, the other rays itself in
the false splendors of earth.
How close, apparently, are these two culminations, and
yet how immeasurable a distance between them!
Not all at once do we ascend these
lofty summits.
We must permit the apostle to lead us
up by the several successive stages which conduct
to them.
In this way only can we obtain a
full view of the parallelism, and be in
a condition to see how real and grand
it is.
The apostle begins at the lowest stage of
the vast ascent.
And now ye know what withholdeth that he
might be revealed in his time.
For the mystery of iniquity doth already work.
Only he who now letteth will let, until
he be taken out of the way, and
them that shall, that wicked, be revealed.
2 Thessalonians 2 6, 7, 8 The time
for the revelation or apocalypse of Antichrist, for
Antichrist was to have his apocalypse, even as
Christ had his, was not yet come.
The mystery of iniquity was already working, working
in the region of principles and influences, and
working in the region of seducing spirits.
But meanwhile there existed a great let, or
obstruction, to his open revelation.
Paul hints very plainly that the Thessalonian Christians
knew what that obstruction was, and therefore he
did not name it.
He had visited them sometime before, and talked
freely with them about the coming apostasy, and
had mentioned the let, which must first be
removed before the apostasy could be free to
develop itself.
That obstruction was the Roman Empire.
When present, talking freely with them on the
subject, Paul could say so and express terms,
but it might be dangerous to name the
Roman Empire in an epistle to be read
openly and go the round of the churches.
That might draw down on the Christians the
displeasure of the Roman authorities.
The apostle knew the hindrance in Antichrist's path,
having learned it doubtless by the study of
Daniel, and the revelation of the Spirit.
It was known moreover to the early fathers,
who all turned their eyes to Rome, as
the fated spot where the lawless one was
first to show himself.
But they spoke of him with bated breath,
and in circumlocutionary phrase.
While the Roman Empire stood, it was impossible
that Antichrist should appear.
Caesar was Pontifex Maximus, and while he held
possession, there could not be two high priests
occupying the same capital, sharing the same throne,
and sacrificing at the same altars.
The first and lesser Pontifex Maximus must be
removed before the second and greater could stand
up.
This was to happen in no long time.
God would remove the let by bringing the
Gothic nations into Italy, overturning the empire, and
making vacant the throne of Caesar.
Then Antichrist would climb up to the empty
seat.
God chased the Caesars from Rome, says Demaestra,
that he might give it to the popes.
Let us mark next that it had been
decreed of both Christ and Antichrist that they
should occupy thrones.
No meaner seat than a royal one must
either of them have.
Christ was to sit on the throne of
David, and Antichrist was to sit on the
throne of Caesar.
In pursuance thereof, a train of providences proceeded
the advent of each, the final end of
which was to make vacant the throne they
were respectively to occupy.
Three revolutions in the royal line of Judah
were to make way for Christ, and four
consecutive revolutions in the line of the world
power were to open the way for the
coming of Antichrist.
Jacob, on his deathbed, had given his posterity
a sign of the instant appearance of the
Messiah.
That sign was a final breakdown in the
royal line.
The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor
a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh
come.
When the time drew nigh, Ezekiel sounded the
alarm more definitively, giving warning that the throne
of Judah should fall once, and a second
and a third time, and then there would
stand up a king whose dominion is an
everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away.
Thus saith the Lord God, Remove the diadem,
and take off the crown.
I will overturn, overturn, overturn it, till he
come, whose right it is, and I will
give it unto him.
Ezekiel 21, chapters 26 and 27 The throne
of Judah was overturned a first time by
the separation of the ten tribes from the
house of David.
It was overturned a second time by the
deportation of the nation to Babylon.
It was overturned a third and last time
in the subjugation of Judea by the Romans,
who stripped the descendants of David of the
shadowy dominion they had wielded down to this
time.
Then Christ came, of whom the angel who
announced his birth spoke thus, The Lord God
shall give unto him the throne of his
father David, and he shall reign over the
house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom
there shall be no end.
Luke 1, verses 32 and 33 In Antichrist's
counterfeit church and kingdom, the parallelism on this
point is striking indeed.
The man of sin was, when fully developed,
to occupy the throne of this world.
This magnificent post had been offered by the
tempter to the true Christ.
All the kingdoms of the world and the
glory of them will I give thee, if
thou wilt fall down and worship me, said
Satan.
The offer was promptly declined.
The tempter next turned unto the false Christ.
I will convert thy chair into a throne,
said he to the bishop of Rome, and
thy pastoral staff into a royal scepter, if
thou wilt be my vassal.
The offer met no second refusal.
The bargain was struck and faithfully fulfilled on
both sides.
The stipulated worship was rendered and the wages
were fully paid.
In witness we cite Innocent III in the
thirteenth century.
Do we not hear him boasting that he
had been set over the kingdoms to build
and to pluck up at his pleasure?
And how often do we find the same
mighty claim in the mouth of his successors
in the following centuries?
Nay, even on our own day the echoes
of the same proud boast are heard from
the papal chair.
It took a thousand years to prepare the
way of both and seat each in his
respective throne.
The throne of David was emptied again and
again, that it might be filled by the
king of the eternal empire.
The throne of the world power was in
like manner emptied again and again, that it
might be filled by the king of whom
it had been written, He goeth into perdition.
The throne of the world power was overturned
the first time in the fall of Babylon.
It was overturned a second time in the
overthrow of the Medo-Persian power.
It was overturned a third time in the
extinction of the Greek kingdom.
And it was overturned a fourth and last
time when the Roman empire fell before the
Goths.
There was no longer a Caesar at Rome.
He that letteth will let, the apostle had
said, until he be taken out of the
way.
He had now been taken out of the
way, and the hour was come for that
wicked to be revealed.
Let us here mark that both mysteries have
the same culmination, an enthronization even.
The mystery of godliness, beginning in the cradle,
ends on the throne, the throne of heaven.
The mystery of iniquity, beginning in the silent
and hidden workings of early times, ends on
the throne, the throne of earth.
It appears plain to us, though expositors have
passed it over, that the two passages, 1
Timothy 3.16 and 2 Thessalonians 2, verses
3-12, the one descriptive of the mystery
of godliness and the other descriptive of the
mystery of iniquity, were intended by the apostle
to be, and are, parallels, clause by clause.
Each clause in the one throws its light
upon the corresponding clause in the other, and
thus the depth and height of each mystery
are evolved.
A single glance at these two passages will
suffice to show that it is by the
same ascending gradations that we mount up to
the climax of both mysteries.
Let us look at each.
1 Timothy 3.16 And without controversy great
is the mystery of godliness.
God was manifest in the flesh, justified in
the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the
Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up
into glory.
It is thus the apostle, in a single
verse, with masterly comprehensiveness, states the successive steps,
the whole of that magnificent graduation by which
the mystery of godliness reached its mighty climax.
God was manifest in the flesh.
Mary brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped
him in swaddling clothes and lay him in
a manger.
There was the beginning of the mystery.
This is the first step in the mighty
ascent, justified in the spirit.
As when the spirit descended upon him in
a visible form at his baptism, and again
when he began his public ministry with all
its attendant miracles and wonders, the spirit of
the Lord God is upon me, were the
words with which in the synagogue at Nazareth
he opened his first sermon, for he hath
anointed me to preach good tidings to the
meek.
Seen of angels, as when they sang his
natal hymn at Bethlehem, and when they ministered
to him in the wilderness after his temptation,
and again in his agony in the garden,
when there appeared an angel from heaven strengthening
him, and on the morning of his resurrection
when two of them waited in his sepulchre
to tell the women that he was risen.
Preached unto the Gentiles.
Go ye into all the world and preach
the gospel to every creature, was his last
charge to his apostles when about to ascend
from the Mount of Olives.
No sooner was the spirit given at Pentecost
than his apostles and evangelists traveled all through
the land of Israel, and passing beyond the
bounds of Jewry, they preached the gospel in
the cities of Greece and Rome, and going
on still farther toward the west, carried the
tidings of the cross to the shores of
Britain.
Believed on in the world, so rises the
gradation, and so does the mystery of godliness
advance to its culmination.
The gods of paganism fall before the preaching
of the crucified.
Mighty nations, both east and west, become obedient
to the faith.
The gospel made good its claim to be
of heaven by the blessed fruits it everywhere
brought forth, and Jesus was believed on as
the true Messiah and Savior of the world.
Received up into glory.
This is the final step.
Here the mystery culminates.
We can now look along the entire line
of its development, from the cradle and the
stable, to the eternal gates, which are seen
to lift themselves up that the King of
Glory may enter, and sit down on the
throne of universal and everlasting dominion, while Seraphim
and Seraphim and every creature which is in
heaven and on the earth and under the
earth and such as are in the sea,
and all that are in them, are heard
saying, Blessing and honor and glory and power
be unto him that sitteth upon the throne
and unto the Lamb forever and ever.
The mystery of iniquity passed through a precisely
similar gradation to issue in a climax, which
is an obvious and striking counterpart of that
which we have just described.
The mystery of iniquity doth already work.
We here see it in its cradle.
It was justified of Satan by the lying
signs and wonders which he enabled its propagators
to work.
It was published unto the Gentiles by preaching
friars and itinerant monks who sought in all
the deceivableness of unrighteousness to persuade men that
the Pope was God's vicar and that the
traditions of his church were the true gospel.
It was believed on in the world by
those whose names are not written in the
book of life.
And finally it was received up into the
heavens of ecclesiastical dominion and imperial glory.
Its chief was now seen sitting in the
temple of God, showing himself that he is
God, while the kings and nations of the
earth are beheld bowing before him and ascribing
to him dominion and power and glory.
They worshiped the beast, saying, Who is like
unto the beast?
Power was given unto 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.
Revelation 13, 4-8 The Pope on the
throne of thrones on earth is the counterfeit
of Christ on the throne of thrones in
heaven.
Chapter 14 Antichrist's Usurpation over Kings and Nations
Mounted on the world's highest seat, how was
the Antichrist to demean himself with an arrogance
never witnessed before?
As regards kings, he was to hold himself
their master, and as regards God, he was
to deem himself his equal.
Who opposeth and exalted himself above all that
is called God or that is worshipped, so
that he as God sitteth in the temple
of God, showing himself that he is God.
2 Thessalonians 2, 4 These words would appear
to foreshadow a double usurpation on the part
of Antichrist, the first over all earthly rulers
and the second over the great ruler of
heaven.
The testimony of history is clear on both
points.
It shows that the ambition of the Pope
has been twofold.
He has vaulted over the throne of kings
into the seat of God.
Who are they who are called God, whom
Antichrist was to oppose and over whom he
was to exalt himself?
We are strongly inclined to think that it
is magistrates and kings who are meant.
Righteous law is the expression of God's will.
Those who administer it are his deputies.
On earth they fill the office and bear
the image of the supreme magistrate.
Thus, in Scripture, magistrates are called gods.
I have said ye are gods, Scripture says.
God sitteth in the assembly of the mighty.
He judges among the gods.
Psalm 82, verse 1 There be, says the
Apostle in 1 Corinthians 8, 5, that are
called gods whether in heaven or on earth.
And we are commanded to be subject to
kings and in all authority for conscience' sake.
In this light the clause foretells that Antichrist
would usurp supremacy over all civil authority and
rule on earth.
This is the true exegesis of the passage.
In the Greek, it is all called theotes,
or that is sabasma, which we may render
thus, all that is called divine, or that
is venerable.
And truly the papacy has fulfilled the prophecy
to the letter.
As a pretended divine and infallible vice-regency,
it claims to hold in its hands the
administration of all human affairs, temporal and spiritual,
and to make all nations, magistrates and kings
accountable at its bar.
Let us here again mark the parallelism.
This assumed vice-regency over all human affairs
is another part of the false Christ's imitation
of the true Christ.
Christ possesses this power in reality, therefore Antichrist
must needs possess it in appearance.
God the Father is the immediate governor of
the universe, but he carries on his government
through God the Son.
This power he has delegated to Christ as
head of the church and as a reward
of his sufferings.
He raised him from the dead, says the
apostle, and set him at his own right
hand in the heavenly places, far above all
principality and power and might and dominion, and
every name that is named, not only in
this world, but also in that which is
to come, and hath put all things under
his feet, and gave him to be head
over all things to the church, which is
his body.
Ephesians 1, verses 20-23 These words expressly
teach that the Father made Christ head of
the church, and so gave him all spiritual
power, and head of the world to the
church, and so subordinated to him all temporal
power.
The passage, in fact, presents him as seated
on the throne of the universe, on his
head the diadem of unlimited and everlasting dominion,
in his hand the scepter of a boundless
empire, and at his bidding all the princedoms
and powers of heaven, all the thrones, armies,
and potentates of earth, in order to the
effectual carrying out of the great ends of
his mediatorial sovereignty.
The popes were true to their assumed character
as vice-Christs in this point also.
They claimed to be the world's supreme magistrates.
Cardinal Balarming informs that every title which is
in scripture given to Christ appertains also to
the pope.
Binding up in one colossal jurisdiction things temporal
and spiritual, the pope stretched his scepter over
all the seats of human judicature, and sat
with his feet on the necks of kings
as well as of priests.
He claimed it as his prerogative to judge
all, but to be judged by none, to
make laws, but to be subject to no
law, thereby unconsciously vindicating his prophetic appellative the
lawless one.
He has had himself depicted holding in one
hand the keys of spiritual authority, and in
the other the sword of temporal power.
He is taught that it was fit that
all princes should kiss his feet, and has
extorted from not a few this act of
obedience.
He has inculcated on monarchs that sound orthodoxy
requires them to hold their kingdoms as fiefs
of the papal chair, and to keep alive
in them this pious frame of mind, he
has imposed on them and their subjects the
tax of Peter's pence.
If still he discerned in them the risings
of pride, this meek vicar of Christ has
plucked the scepter from their hand, kicked their
crown with his pontifical foot, and transferred their
dominion to some more devout and jumble-minded
neighbor.
All this he has done as set of
God over the kingdoms and nations to plant
and to pluck up, to build and to
pull down, to make and unmake kings.
As Pope Boniface VIII said to Philip, king
of France, Is not the king of England
my bondslave?
These were the words from the great mouth.
And the popes have shown themselves on occasion
as mighty in deeds as in words.
Gregory VII to throne Henry IV of Germany,
Innocent III, Otho, and our king John, Paul
III, Henry VIII, and Pius V and Gregory
XIII pass sentence of deposition on Queen Elizabeth.
Pius V as, quote, he alone who had
been constituted prince over all nations and all
kingdoms, to pull down, destroy, dissipate, disperse, plant,
and build, pronounced the said Elizabeth a heretic
and deprived her of the pretended right to
the kingdom as well as in every other
dominion, dignity, and privilege whatsoever.
Unquote.
Pronouncing the same anathema on all who dare
obey her.
If the annals of the papacy of this
hour are not illustrated by these solemn acts
of pontifical justice, it is because the power
and not the right is lacking.
The Roman church has made it the solemn
duty of all her members to destroy all
Protestants when they are able to do so
without danger to themselves.
Bannes, a Dominican, determines that, quote, Catholics in
England and Saxony are excused from rising up
against their Protestant princes with their subjects because
they commonly are not powerful enough, and the
attempt in such circumstances would expose them to
great danger.
Unquote.
Bellarmine, one of their greatest authorities, is equally
frank and explicit.
He says, quote, if it were possible to
root out the heretics, without doubt, they are
to be destroyed root and branch.
But if it cannot be done because they
are stronger than we, and there be danger
that if they should oppose us that we
should be worsted, then we are to be
quiet.
Unquote.
The two latest popes, Pius IX and Leo
XIII in their public manifestos claim the same
formidable power, but they prudently postpone the exercise
of it till the arrival of a happier
day to the papacy.
This ends part two of The Papacy is
the Antichrist by the Reverend Dr. J.
A.
Wiley, read by W.
J.
Mankaro, and produced by Stillwater's Revival Books.
Thank you for listening, and we hope you
will go on to the next part in
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