{p.282}
CONCLUSION
I HAVE now finished the task I proposed to myself. Even yet the
evidence is not nearly exhausted; but, upon the evidence which has
been adduced, I appeal to the reader if I have not proved every
point which I engaged to demonstrate. Is there one, who has
candidly considered the proof that has been led, that now doubts
that Rome is the Apocalyptic Babylon? Is there one who will
venture to deny that, from the foundation to the topmost stone, it is
essentially a system of Paganism. What, then, is to be the practical conclusion
from all this?
1. Let every Christian henceforth and for ever treat it as an out
cast from the pale of Christianity. Instead of speaking of it as a
Christian Church, let it be recognised and regarded as the Mystery
of Iniquity, yea, as the very Synagogue of Satan. With such over
whelming evidence of its real character, it would be folly it would
be worse it would be treachery to the cause of Christ to stand
merely on the defensive, to parley with its priests about the lawful
ness of Protestant orders, the validity of Protestant sacraments, or
the possibility of salvation apart from its communion. If Rome is
now to be admitted to form a portion of the Church of Christ, where
is the system of Paganism that has ever existed, or that now exists,
that could not put in an equal claim? On what grounds could the
worshippers of the original Madonna and child in the days of old be
excluded "from the commonwealth of Israel," or shown to be
"strangers to the covenants of promise"? On what grounds could
the worshippers of Vishnu at this day be put beyond the bounds of
such wide catholicity? The ancient Babylonians held, the modem
Hindoos still hold, clear and distinct traditions of the Trinity, the
Incarnation, the Atonement. Yet, who will venture to say that
such nominal recognition of the cardinal articles of Divine revelation
could relieve the character of either the one system or the other from
the brand of the most deadly and God-dishonouring heathenism?
And so also in regard to Rome. True, it nominally admits Christian
terms and Christian names; but all that is apparently Christian in
its system is more than neutralised by the malignant Paganism that
it embodies. Grant that the bread the Papacy presents to its
votaries can be proved to have been originally made of the finest of
the wheat; but what then, if every particle of that bread is combined
with prussic acid or strychnine? Can the excellence of the bread
overcome the virus of the poison? Can there be anything but death,
spiritual and eternal death, to those who continue to feed upon the
poisoned food that it offers? Yes, here is the question, and let it be
{p.283} fairly faced. Can there be salvation in a
communion in which it is declared to be a fundamental principle, that the
Madonna is "our greatest hope; yea, the SOLE GROUND OF OUR HOPE"?1
The time is come when charity to the perishing souls of men, hoodwinked by a
Pagan priesthood, abusing the name of Christ, requires that the truth in this
matter should be clearly, loudly, unflinchingly proclaimed. The beast and the
image of the beast alike stand revealed in the face of all Christendom; and now
the tremendous threatening of the Divine Word in regard to their worship fully
applies (Rev. xiv. 9, 10): "And the third angel followed them, saying, If
any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead,
or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, poured
without mixture into the cup of His indignation; and he shall be tormented with
fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of
the Lamb. "These words are words of awful import; and woe to the man who is
found finally under the guilt which they imply. These words, as has already been
admitted by Elliott, contain a "chronological prophecy," a prophecy not
referring to the Dark Ages, but to a period not far distant from the
consummation, when the Gospel should be widely diffused, and when bright light
should be cast on the character and doom of the apostate Church of Rome (ver.
6-8). They come, in the Divine chronology of events, immediately after an angel
has proclaimed, "BABYLON is FALLEN, is FALLEN." We have, as it were, with our
own ears heard this predicted "Fall of Babylon" announced from the high places
of Rome itself, when the seven hills of the "Eternal City" reverberated with the
guns that proclaimed, not merely to the citizens of the Roman republic, but to
the wide world, that "PAPACY HAD FALLEN, de facto and de jure,
from the temporal throne of the Roman State."2
Now, it is in the order of the prophecy, after this fall of Babylon, that this
fearful threatening comes. Can there, then, be a doubt that this threatening
specially and peculiarly applies to this very time? Never till now was the real
nature of the Papacy fully revealed; never till now was the Image of the beast
set up. Till the Image of the beast was erected, till the blasphemous decree of
the Immaculate Conception was promulgated, no such apostasy had taken place,
even in Rome, no such guilt had been contracted, as now lies at the door of the
great Babylon. This, then, is a subject of infinite importance to every one
within the pale of the Church of Rome to every one also who is looking, as so
many at present are doing, towards the City of the Seven Hills. If any one can
prove that the Pope does not assume all the prerogatives and bear substantially
all the blasphemous titles of that Babylonian beast that "had the wound by a
sword, and did live," and if it can be shown that the Madonna,
{p.284} that has so recently with one consent been
set up, is not in every essential respect the same as the Chaldean "Image" of
the beast, they may indeed afford to despise the threatening contained in these
words. But if neither the one nor the other can be proved (and I challenge the
strictest scrutiny in regard to both), then every one within the pale of the
Papacy may well tremble at such a threatening. Now, then, as never before, may
the voice Divine, and that a voice of the tenderest love, be heard sounding from
the Eternal throne to every adherent of the Mystic Babylon, "Come out of her, My
people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her
plagues."
2. But if the guilt and danger of those who adhere to the Roman Church,
believing it to be the only Church where salvation can be found, be so great,
what must be the guilt of those who, with a Protestant profession, nevertheless
uphold the doomed Babylon? The Constitution of this land requires our Queen to
swear, before the crown can be put upon her head, before she can take her seat
on the throne, that "she believes" that the essential doctrines of Rome are
"idolatrous." All the Churches of Britain, endowed and unendowed, alike with one
voice declare the very same. They all proclaim that the system of Rome is a
system of blasphemous idolatry And yet the members of these Churches can endow
and uphold, with Protestant money, the schools, the colleges, the chaplains of
that idolatrous system. If the guilt of Romanists, then, be great, the guilt of
Protestants who uphold such a system must be tenfold greater. That guilt has
been greatly accumulating during the last three or four years. While the King of
Italy, in the very States of the Church what but lately were the Pope s own
dominions has been suppressing the monasteries (and in the space of two years no
less than fifty-four were suppressed, and their property confiscated), the
British Government has been acting on a policy the very reverse, has not only
been conniving at the erection of monasteries, which are prohibited by the law
of the land, but has actually been bestowing endowment on these illegal
institutions under the name of Reformatories. It was only a short while ago,
that it was stated, on authority of the Catholic Directory, that in the space of
three years, fifty-two new convents were added to the monastic system of Great
Britain,3
almost the very number that the Italians had confiscated, yet Christian men and
Christian Churches look on with indifference. Now, if ever there was an excuse
for thinking lightly of the guilt contracted by our national support of
idolatry, that excuse will no longer avail. The God of Providence, in India, has
been demonstrating that He is the God of Revelation. He has been proving, to an
awe-struck world, by events that made every ear to tingle, that every word of
wrath, written three thousand years ago against idolatry, is in as full force at
this day as when He desolated the covenanted people of Israel for their idols,
and sold them into the hands of their enemies. If men begin to see that it
{p.284} is a dangerous thing for professing
Christians to uphold the Pagan idolatry of India, they must be blind indeed if
they do not equally see that it must be as dangerous to uphold the Pagan
idolatry of Rome. Wherein does the Paganism of Rome differ from that of
Hindooism? Only in this, that the Roman Paganism is the more complete, more
finished, more dangerous, more insidious Paganism of the two.
I am afraid, that after all that has been said, not a few will revolt from the
above comparative estimate of Popery and undisguised Paganism. Let me,
therefore, fortify my opinion by the testimonies of two distinguished writers,
well qualified to pronounce on this subject. They will, at least, show that I am
not singular in the estimate which I have formed. The writers to whom I refer,
are Sir George Sinclair of Ulster, and Dr. Bonar of Kelso. Few men have studied
the system of Rome more thoroughly than Sir George, and in his Letters to the
Protestants of Scotland he has brought all the fertility of his genius, the
curiosa felicitas of his style, and the stores of his highly cultivated
mind, to bear upon the elucidation of his theme. Now, the testimony of Sir
George is this: "Romanism is a refined system of Christianised heathenism, and
chiefly differs from its prototype in being more treacherous, more cruel, more
dangerous, more intolerant."4
The mature opinion of Dr. Bonar is the very same, and that, too, expressed with
the Cawnpore massacre particularly in view: "We are doing for Popery at home,"
says he, "what we have done for idolaters abroad, and in the end the results
will be the same; nay, worse; for Popish cruelty, and thirst for the blood of
the innocent, have been the most savage and merciless that the earth has seen.
Cawnpore, Delhi, and Bareilly, are but dust in comparison with the demoniacal
brutalities perpetrated by the Inquisition, and by the armies of Popish
fanaticism."5
These are the words of truth and soberness, that no man acquainted with the
history of modern Europe can dispute. There is great danger of their being
overlooked at this moment. It will be a fatal error if they be. Let not the
pregnant fact be overlooked, that, while the Apocalyptic history runs down to
the consummation of all things, in that Divine foreshadowing all the other
Paganisms of the world are in a manner cast into the shade by the Paganism of
Papal Rome. It is against Babylon that sits on the seven hills that the saints
are forewarned; it is for worshipping the beast and his image pre-eminently,
that "the vials of the wrath of God, that liveth and abideth for ever," are
destined to be outpoured upon the nations. Now, if the voice of God has been
heard in the late Indian calamities, the Protestantism of Britain will rouse
itself to sweep away at once and for ever all national support, alike from the
idolatry of Hindostan and the still more malignant idolatry of Rome. Then,
indeed, there would be a lengthening of our tranquillity, then there would be
hope that Britain would be exalted, and that its power would
{p.285} rest on a firm and stable foundation. But
if we will not "hear the voice, if we receive not correction, if we refuse to
return," if we persist in maintaining, at the national charge, "that image of
jealousy provoking to jealousy," then, after the repeated and ever-INCREASING
strokes that the justice of God has laid on us, we have every reason to fear
that the calamities that have fallen so heavily upon our countrymen in India,
may fall still more heavily upon ourselves, within our own borders at home; for
it was when "the image of jealousy" was set up in Jerusalem by the elders of
Judah, that the Lord said, "Therefore will I also deal in fury; mine eye shall
not spare, neither will I have pity; and though they cry in mine ears with a
loud voice, yet will I not hear them." He who let loose the Sepoys, to whose
idolatrous feelings and antisocial propensities we have pandered so much, to
punish us for the guilty homage we had paid to their idolatry, can just as
easily let loose the Papal Powers of Europe, to take vengeance upon us for our
criminal fawning upon the Papacy.
3. But, further, if the views established in this work be correct, it is time
that the Church of God were aroused. Are the witnesses still to be slain, and
has the Image of the Beast only within the last year or two been set up, at
whose instigation the bloody work is to be done? Is this, then, the time for
indifference, for sloth, for luke-warmness in religion? Yet, alas! how few are
they who are lifting up their voice like a trumpet, who are sounding the alarm
in God's holy mountain who are bestirring themselves according to the greatness
of the emergency to gather the embattled hosts of the Lord to the coming
conflict? The emissaries of Rome for years have been labouring unceasingly night
and day, in season and out of season, in every conceivable way, to advance their
Master's cause, and largely have they succeeded. But "the children of light"
have allowed themselves to be lulled into a fatal security; they have folded
their hands; they have gone to sleep as soundly as if Rome had actually
disappeared from the face of the earth as if Satan himself had been bound and
cast into the bottomless pit, and the pit had shut its mouth upon him, to keep
him fast for a thousand years. How long shall this state of things continue? Oh,
Church of God, awake, awake! Open your eyes, and see if there be not dark and
lowering clouds on the horizon that indicate an approaching tempest. Search the
Scriptures for yourselves; compare them with the facts of history, and say, if
there be not reason after all to suspect that there are sterner prospects before
the saints than most seem to wot of. If it may turn out that the views opened up
in these pages are Scriptural and well-founded, they are at least worthy of
being made the subjects of earnest and prayerful inquiry. It never can tend to
good to indulge an uninquiring and delusive feeling of safety, when, if they be
true, the only safety is to be found in a timely knowledge of the danger and due
preparation, by all activity, all zeal, all spirituality of mind, to meet it. On
the supposition that peculiar dangers are at hand, and that God in His prophetic
{p.287} Word has revealed them, His goodness is
manifest. He has made known the danger, that, being forewarned, we may be
forearmed; that, knowing our own weakness, we may cast ourselves on His Almighty
grace; that we may feel the necessity of a fresh baptism of the Holy Ghost; that
the joy of the Lord being our strength, we may be thorough and decided for the
Lord, and for the Lord alone, that we may work, every one in his own sphere,
with increased energy and diligence, in the Lord's vineyard, and save all the
souls we can, while yet opportunity lasts, and the dark predicted night has not
come, wherein no man can work. Though there be dark prospects before us, there
is no room for despondency; no ground for any one to say that, with such
prospects, effort is vain. The Lord can bless and prosper to His own glory, the
efforts of those who truly gird themselves to fight His battles in the most
hopeless circumstances; and, at the very time when the enemy cometh in like a
flood, He can, by His Spirit, lift up a standard against him. Nay, not only is
this a possible thing, there is reason, from the prophetic word, to believe that
so it shall actually be; that the last triumph of the Man of Sin shall not be
achieved without a glorious struggle first, on the part of those who are leal-hearted
to Zion's King. But if we would really wish to do anything effectual in this
warfare, it is indispensable that we know, and continually keep before our eyes,
the stupendous character of that Mystery of Iniquity embodied in the Papacy that
we have to grapple with. Popery boasts of being the "old religion;" and truly,
from what we have seen, it appears that it is ancient indeed. It can trace its
lineage far beyond the era of Christianity, back over 4000 years, to near the
period of the Flood and the building of the Tower of Babel. During all that
period its essential elements have been nearly the same, and these elements have
a peculiar adaptation to the corruption of human nature. Most seem to think that
Popery is a system merely to be scouted and laughed at; but the Spirit of God
everywhere characterises it in quite a different way. Every statement in the
Scripture shows that it was truly described when it was characterised as
"Satan's Masterpiece" the perfection of his policy for deluding and ensnaring
the world. It is not the state-craft of politicians, the wisdom of philosophers,
or the resources of human science, that can cope with the wiles and subtleties
of the Papacy. Satan, who inspires it, has triumphed over all these again and
again. Why, the very nations where the worship of the Queen of Heaven, with all
its attendant abominations, has flourished most in all ages, have been precisely
the most civilised, the most polished, the most distinguished for arts and
sciences. Babylon, where it took its rise, was the cradle of astronomy. Egypt,
that nursed it in its bosom, was the mother of all the arts; the Greek cities of
Asia Minor, where it found a refuge when expelled from Chaldea, were famed for
their poets and philosophers, among the former Homer himself being numbered; and
the nations of the European Continent, where literature has long been
cultivated, are now pro- {p.288} strate before it.
Physical force, no doubt, is at present employed in its behalf; but the question
arises, How comes it that this system, of all others, can so prevail as to get
that physical force to obey its behests? No answer can be given but this, that
Satan, the god of this world, exerts his highest power in its behalf. Physical
force has not always been on the side of the Chaldean worship of the Queen of
Heaven. Again and again has power been arrayed against it; but hitherto every
obstacle it has surmounted, every difficulty it has overcome. Cyrus, Xerxes, and
many of the Medo-Persian kings, banished its priests from Babylon, and laboured
to root it out of their empire; but then it found a secure retreat in Pergamos,
and "Satan's seat" was erected there. The glory of Pergamos and the cities of
Asia Minor departed; but the worship of the Queen of Heaven did not wane. It
took a higher flight, and seated itself on the throne of Imperial Rome. That
throne was subverted. The Arian Goths came burning with fury against the
worshippers of the Virgin Queen; but still that worship rose buoyant above all
attempts to put it down, and the Arian Goths themselves were soon prostrate at
the feet of the Babylonian goddess, seated in glory on the seven hills of Rome.
In more modern times, the temporal powers of all the kingdoms of Europe have
expelled the Jesuits, the chief promoters of this idolatrous worship, from their
dominions. France, Spain, Portugal, Naples, Rome itself, have all adopted the
same measures, and yet what do we see at this hour? The same Jesuitism and the
worship of the Virgin exalted above almost every throne on the Continent. When
we look over the history of the last 4000 years, what a meaning in the words of
inspiration, that "the coming of the Man of Sin" is with the energy, "the mighty
power of Satan." Now, is this the system that, year by year, has been rising
into power in our own empire? And is it for a moment to be imagined that
lukewarm, temporising, half-hearted Protestants can make any head against such a
system? No; the time is come when Gideon's proclamation must be made throughout
the camp of the Lord: "Whosoever is fearful and afraid, let him return and
depart early from Mount Gilead." Of the old martyrs it is said, "They overcame
by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony, and they loved not
their lives unto the death." The same self-denying, the same determined spirit,
is needed now as much as ever it was. Are there none who are prepared to stand
up, and in that very spirit to gird themselves for the great conflict that must
come, before Satan shall be bound and cast into his prison-house? Can any one
believe that such an event can take place without a tremendous struggle that
"the god of this world" shall quietly consent to resign the power that for
thousands of years he has wielded, without stirring up all his wrath, and
putting forth all his energy and skill to prevent such a catastrophe. Who, then,
is on the Lord's side? If there be those who, within the last few years, have
been revived and quickened stirred up, not by mere human excitement, but by the
Almighty grace of God's Spirit, what is the {p.289}
gracious design of this? Is it merely that they themselves may be delivered from
the wrath to come? No; it is that, zealous for the glory of their Lord, they may
act the parts of true witnesses, contend earnestly for the faith once delivered
to the saints, and maintain the honour of Christ in opposition to him who
blasphemously usurps his prerogatives. If the servants of Antichrist are
faithful to their master, and unwearied in promoting his cause, shall it be said
that the servants of Christ are less faithful to theirs? If none else will
bestir themselves, surely to the generous hearts of the young and rising
ministry of Christ, in the kindness of their youth, and the love of their
espousals, the appeal shall not be made in vain, when the appeal is made in the
name of Him whom their souls love, that in this grand crisis of the Church and
of the world, they should "come to the help of the Lord the help of the Lord
against the mighty," that they should do what in them lies to strengthen the
hands and encourage the hearts of those who are seeking to stem the tide of
apostasy, and to resist the efforts of the men who are labouring with such zeal,
and with so much of infatuated patronage on the part of "the powers that be," to
bring this land back again under the power of the Man of Sin. To take such a
part, and steadily and perseveringly to pursue it, amid so much growing luke-warmness,
it is indispensable that the servants of Christ set their faces as a flint. But
if they have grace so to do, they shall not do so without a rich reward at last;
and in time they have the firm and faithful promise that "as their day is, so
shall their strength be." For all who wish truly to perform their part as good
soldiers of Jesus Christ, there is the strongest and richest encouragement. With
the blood of Christ on the conscience, with the Spirit of Christ warm and
working in the heart, with our Father's name on our forehead, and our life, as
well as our lips, consistently bearing "testimony" for God, we shall be prepared
for every event. But it is not common grace that will do for uncommon times. If
there be indeed such prospects before us, as I have endeavoured to prove there
are, then we must live, and feel, and act as if we heard every day resounding in
our ears the words of the great Captain of our Salvation, "To him that
overcometh will I grant to sit with Me on My throne, even as I also overcame,
and am set down with My Father on His throne. Be thou faithful unto death, and I
will give thee a crown of life."
Lastly, I appeal to every reader of this work, if it does not contain an
argument for the divinity of the Scriptures, as well as an exposure of the
impostures of Rome. Surely, if one thing more than another be proved in the
previous pages, it is this, that the Bible is no cunningly devised fable, but
that holy men of God of old spake and wrote as they were moved by the Holy
Ghost. What can account for the marvellous unity in all the idolatrous systems
of the world, but that the facts recorded in the early chapters of Genesis were
real transactions, in which, as all mankind were involved, so all mankind have
preserved in their various systems, {p.290}
distinct and undeniable memorials of them, though those who have preserved them
have long lost the true key to their meaning? What, too, but Omniscience could
have foreseen that a system, such as that of the Papacy, could ever effect an
entrance into the Christian Church, and practise and prosper as it has done? How
could it ever have entered into the heart of John, the solitary exile of Patmos,
to imagine, that any of the professed disciples of that Saviour whom he loved,
and who said, "My kingdom is not of this world," should gather up and
systematise all the idolatry and superstition and immorality of the Babylon of
Belshazzar, introduce it into the bosom of the Church, and, by help of it, seat
themselves on the throne of the Caesars, and there, as the high-priests of the
Queen of Heaven, and gods upon earth, for 1200 years, rule the nations with a
rod of iron? Human foresight could never have done this; but all this the exile
of Patmos has done. His pen, then, must have been guided by Him who sees the end
from the beginning, and who calleth the things that be not as though they were.
And if the wisdom of God now shines forth so brightly from the Divine expression
"Babylon the Great," into which such an immensity of meaning has been condensed,
ought not that to lead us the more to reverence and adore the same wisdom that
is in reality stamped on every page of the inspired Word? Ought it not to lead
us to say with the Psalmist, "Therefore, I esteem all Thy commandments
concerning all things to be right"? The commandments of God, to our corrupt and
perverse minds, may sometimes seem to be hard. They may require us to do what is
painful, they may require us to forego what is pleasing to flesh and blood. But,
whether we know the reason of these commandments or no, if we only know that
they come from "the only wise God, our Saviour," we may be sure that in the
keeping of them there is great reward; we may go blindfold wherever the Word of
God may lead us, and rest in the firm conviction that, in so doing, we are
pursuing the very path of safety and peace. Human wisdom at the best is but a
blind guide; human policy is a meteor that dazzles and leads astray; and they
who follow it walk in darkness, and know not whither they are going; but he
"that walketh uprightly," that walks by the rule of God's infallible Word, will
ever find that "he walketh surely," and that whatever duty he has to perform,
whatever danger he has to face, "great peace have all they that love God's law,
and nothing shall offend them."
This page last updated: 13/05/2008