which the dragon gave “his power, and his seat, and great authority.” This
symbol, as most Protestants have believed, represents the papacy, which
succeeded to the power and seat and authority once held by the ancient
Roman empire. Of the leopard-like beast it is declared: “There was given
unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies.... And he opened
his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme His name, and His
tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. And it was given unto him to
make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him
over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.” This prophecy, which is
nearly identical with the description of the little horn of Daniel 7,
unquestionably points to the papacy.
“Power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.” And, says the
prophet, “I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death.” And again,
“He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth
with the sword must be killed with the sword.” The forty and two months
are the same as the “time and times and the dividing of time,” three years
and a half, or 1260 days, of Daniel 7,—the time during which the papal
power was to oppress God’s people. This period, as stated in preceding
chapters, began with the supremacy of the papacy, A.D. 538, and terminated
in 1798. At that time, the pope was made captive by the French army, the
papal power received its deadly wound, and the prediction was fulfilled,
“He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity.”
At this point another symbol is introduced. Says the prophet, “I beheld
another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a
lamb.”(737) Both the appearance of this beast and the manner of its rise
indicate that the nation which it represents is unlike those presented
under the preceding symbols. The great kingdoms that have ruled the world
were presented to the prophet Daniel as beasts of prey, rising when the
“four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea.”(738) In Revelation
17, an angel explained that waters represent “peoples, and multitudes, and
nations, and tongues.”(739) Winds are a symbol of strife. The four winds
of heaven striving upon the great sea, represent the terrible scenes of
conquest and revolution by which kingdoms have attained to power.
But the beast with lamb-like horns was seen “coming up out of the earth.”
Instead of overthrowing other powers to establish itself, the nation thus
represented must arise in territory previously unoccupied, and grow up
gradually and peacefully. It could not, then, arise among the crowded and
struggling nationalities of the Old World,—that turbulent sea of “peoples,
and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.” It must be sought in the
Western Continent.
What nation of the New World was in 1798 rising into power, giving promise
of strength and greatness, and attracting the attention of the world? The
application of the symbol admits of no question. One nation, and only one,
meets the specifications of this prophecy; it points unmistakably to the
United States of America. Again and again the thought, almost the exact
words, of the sacred writer have been unconsciously employed by the orator
and the historian in describing the rise and growth of this nation. The
beast was seen “coming up out of the earth;” and according to the
translators, the word here rendered “coming up” literally signifies “to
grow or spring up as a plant.” And, as we have seen, the nation must arise
in territory previously unoccupied. A prominent writer, describing the
rise of the United States, speaks of “_the mystery of her coming forth
from vacancy_,”(740) and says, “Like a _silent seed_ we grew into empire.”
A European journal in 1850 spoke of the United States as a wonderful
empire, which was “emerging,” and “_amid the silence of the earth_ daily
adding to its power and pride.”(741) Edward Everett, in an oration on the
Pilgrim founders of this nation, said: “Did they look for a retired spot,
inoffensive for its obscurity, and safe in its remoteness, where the
little church of Leyden might enjoy the freedom of conscience? Behold the
_mighty regions_ over which, in _peaceful conquest_, ... they have borne
the banners of the cross!”(742)
“And he had two horns like a lamb.” The lamb-like horns indicate youth,
innocence, and gentleness, fitly representing the character of the United
States when presented to the prophet as “coming up” in 1798. Among the
Christian exiles who first fled to America, and sought an asylum from
royal oppression and priestly intolerance, were many who determined to
establish a government upon the broad foundation of civil and religious
liberty. Their view found place in the Declaration of Independence, which
sets forth the great truth that “all men are created equal,” and endowed
with the inalienable right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness.” And the Constitution guarantees to the people the right of
self-government, providing that representatives elected by the popular
vote shall enact and administer the laws. Freedom of religious faith was
also granted, every man being permitted to worship God according to the
dictates of his conscience. Republicanism and Protestantism became the
fundamental principles of the nation. These principles are the secret of
its power and prosperity. The oppressed and down-trodden throughout
Christendom have turned to this land with interest and hope. Millions have
sought its shores, and the United States has risen to a place among the
most powerful nations of the earth.
But the beast with lamb-like horns “spake as a dragon. And he exerciseth
all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and
them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound
was healed; and ... saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they
should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword and did
live.”(743)
The lamb-like horns and dragon voice of the symbol point to a striking
contradiction between the professions and the practice of the nation thus
represented. The “speaking” of the nation is the action of its legislative
and judicial authorities. By such action it will give the lie to those
liberal and peaceful principles which it has put forth as the foundation
of its policy. The prediction that it will speak “as a dragon,” and
exercise “all the power of the first beast,” plainly foretells a
development of the spirit of intolerance and persecution that was
manifested by the nations represented by the dragon and the leopard-like
beast. And the statement that the beast with two horns “causeth the earth
and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast,” indicates that
the authority of this nation is to be exercised in enforcing some
observance which shall be an act of homage to the papacy.
Such action would be directly contrary to the principles of this
government, to the genius of its free institutions, to the direct and
solemn avowals of the Declaration of Independence, and to the
Constitution. The founders of the nation wisely sought to guard against
the employment of secular power on the part of the church, with its
inevitable result—intolerance and persecution. The Constitution provides
that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” and that “no religious test
shall ever be required as a qualification to any office of public trust
under the United States.” Only in flagrant violation of these safeguards
to the nation’s liberty, can any religious observance be enforced by civil
authority. But the inconsistency of such action is no greater than is
represented in the symbol. It is the beast with lamb-like horns—in
profession pure, gentle, and harmless—that speaks as a dragon.
“Saying to them that dwell on the earth, that _they_ should make an image
to the beast.” Here is clearly presented a form of government in which the
legislative power rests with the people; a most striking evidence that the
United States is the nation denoted in the prophecy.
But what is the “image to the beast”? and how is it to be formed? The
image is made by the two-horned beast, and is an image _to_ the first
beast. It is also called an image _of_ the beast. Then to learn what the
image is like, and how it is to be formed, we must study the
characteristics of the beast itself,—the papacy.
When the early church became corrupted by departing from the simplicity of
the gospel and accepting heathen rites and customs, she lost the Spirit
and power of God; and in order to control the consciences of the people,
she sought the support of the secular power. The result was the papacy, a
church that controlled the power of the state, and employed it to further
her own ends, especially for the punishment of “heresy.” In order for the
United States to form an image of the beast, the religious power must so
control the civil government that the authority of the state will also be
employed by the church to accomplish her own ends.
Whenever the church has obtained secular power, she has employed it to
punish dissent from her doctrines. Protestant churches that have followed
in the steps of Rome by forming alliance with worldly powers, have
manifested a similar desire to restrict liberty of conscience. An example
of this is given in the long-continued persecution of dissenters by the
Church of England. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
thousands of non-conformist ministers were forced to leave their churches,
and many, both of pastors and people, were subjected to fine,
imprisonment, torture, and martyrdom.
It was apostasy that led the early church to seek the aid of the civil
government, and this prepared the way for the development of the
papacy,—the beast. Said Paul, “There” shall “come a falling away, ... and
that man of sin be revealed.”(744) So apostasy in the church will prepare
the way for the image to the beast.
The Bible declares that before the coming of the Lord there will exist a
state of religious declension similar to that in the first centuries. “In
the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be _lovers of their
own selves,_ covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to
parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers,
false accusers, incontinent, fierce, _despisers of those that are good_,
traitors, heady, high-minded, _lovers of pleasures more than lovers of
God; having a form of godliness_, but denying the power thereof.”(745)
“Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall
depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of
devils.”(746) Satan will work “with all power and signs and lying wonders,
and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness.” And all that “received
not the love of the truth, that they might be saved,” will be left to
accept “strong delusion, that they should believe a lie.”(747) When this
state of ungodliness shall be reached, the same results will follow as in
the first centuries.
The wide diversity of belief in the Protestant churches is regarded by
many as decisive proof that no effort to secure a forced uniformity can
ever be made. But there has been for years, in churches of the Protestant
faith, a strong and growing sentiment in favor of a union based upon
common points of doctrine. To secure such a union, the discussion of
subjects upon which all were not agreed—however important they might be
from a Bible standpoint—must necessarily be waived.
Charles Beecher, in a sermon in the year 1846, declared that the ministry
of “the evangelical Protestant denominations” is “not only formed all the
way up under a tremendous pressure of merely human fear, but they live,
and move, and breathe in a state of things radically corrupt, and
appealing every hour to every baser element of their nature to hush up the
truth, and bow the knee to the power of apostasy. Was not this the way
things went with Rome? Are we not living her life over again? And what do
we see just ahead? Another general council! A world’s convention!
Evangelical alliance, and universal creed!”(748) When this shall be
gained, then, in the effort to secure complete uniformity, it will be only
a step to the resort to force.
When the leading churches of the United States, uniting upon such points
of doctrine as are held by them in common, shall influence the state to
enforce their decrees and to sustain their institutions, then Protestant
America will have formed an image of the Roman hierarchy, and the
infliction of civil penalties upon dissenters will inevitably result.
The beast with two horns “causeth [commands] all, both small and great,
rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in
their foreheads: and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the
mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.”(749) The third
angel’s warning is, “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.” “The beast” mentioned in this message,
whose worship is enforced by the two-horned beast, is the first, or
leopard-like beast of Revelation 13,—the papacy. The “image to the beast”
represents that form of apostate Protestantism which will be developed
when the Protestant churches shall seek the aid of the civil power for the
enforcement of their dogmas. The “mark of the beast” still remains to be
defined.
After the warning against the worship of the beast and his image, the
prophecy declares, “Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and
the faith of Jesus.” Since those who keep God’s commandments are thus
placed in contrast with those that worship the beast and his image and
receive his mark, it follows that the keeping of God’s law, on the one
hand, and its violation, on the other, will make the distinction between
the worshipers of God and the worshipers of the beast.
The special characteristic of the beast, and therefore of his image, is
the breaking of God’s commandments. Says Daniel, of the little horn, the
papacy, “He shall think to change the times and the law.”(750) And Paul
styled the same power the “man of sin,” who was to exalt himself above
God. One prophecy is a complement of the other. Only by changing God’s law
could the papacy exalt itself above God; whoever should understandingly
keep the law as thus changed would be giving supreme honor to that power
by which the change was made. Such an act of obedience to papal laws would
be a mark of allegiance to the pope in the place of God.
The papacy has attempted to change the law of God. The second commandment,
forbidding image worship, has been dropped from the law, and the fourth
commandment has been so changed as to authorize the observance of the
first instead of the seventh day as the Sabbath. But papists urge, as a
reason for omitting the second commandment, that it is unnecessary, being
included in the first, and that they are giving the law exactly as God
designed it to be understood. This cannot be the change foretold by the
prophet. An intentional, deliberate change is presented: “He shall _think_
to change the times and the law.” The change in the fourth commandment
exactly fulfils the prophecy. For this the only authority claimed is that
of the church. Here the papal power openly sets itself above God.
While the worshipers of God will be especially distinguished by their
regard for the fourth commandment,—since this is the sign of His creative
power, and the witness to His claim upon man’s reverence and homage,—the
worshipers of the beast will be distinguished by their efforts to tear
down the Creator’s memorial, to exalt the institution of Rome. It was in
behalf of the Sunday that popery first asserted its arrogant claims;(751)
and its first resort to the power of the state was to compel the
observance of Sunday as “the Lord’s day.” But the Bible points to the
seventh day, and not to the first, as the Lord’s day. Said Christ, “The
Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath.” The fourth commandment declares,
“The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord.” And by the prophet Isaiah
the Lord designates it, “My holy day.”(752)
The claim so often put forth, that Christ changed the Sabbath, is
disproved by His own words. In His sermon on the mount He said: “Think not
that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to
destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth
pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all
be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least
commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the
kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall
be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”(753)
It is a fact generally admitted by Protestants, that the Scriptures give
no authority for the change of the Sabbath. This is plainly stated in
publications issued by the American Tract Society and the American
Sunday-school Union. One of these works acknowledges “the complete silence
of the New Testament so far as any explicit command for the Sabbath
[Sunday, the first day of the week] or definite rules for its observance
are concerned.”(754)
Another says: “Up to the time of Christ’s death, no change had been made
in the day;”(755) and, “so far as the record shows, they [the apostles]
did not ... give any explicit command enjoining the abandonment of the
seventh-day Sabbath, and its observance on the first day of the
week.”(756)
Roman Catholics acknowledge that the change of the Sabbath was made by
their church, and declare that Protestants, by observing the Sunday, are
recognizing her power. In the “Catholic Catechism of Christian Religion,”
in answer to a question as to the day to be observed in obedience to the
fourth commandment, this statement is made: “During the old law, Saturday
was the day sanctified; but _the church_, instructed by Jesus Christ, and
directed by the Spirit of God, has substituted Sunday for Saturday; so now
we sanctify the first, not the seventh day. Sunday means, and now is, the
day of the Lord.”
As the sign of the authority of the Catholic Church, papist writers cite
“the very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday, which Protestants allow
of; ... because by keeping Sunday, they acknowledge the church’s power to
ordain feasts, and to command them under sin.”(757) What then is the
change of the Sabbath, but the sign, or mark, of the authority of the
Roman Church—“the mark of the beast”?
The Roman Church has not relinquished her claim to supremacy; and when the
world and the Protestant churches accept a sabbath of her creating, while
they reject the Bible Sabbath, they virtually admit this assumption. They
may claim the authority of tradition and of the Fathers for the change;
but in so doing they ignore the very principle which separates them from
Rome,—that “the Bible, and the Bible only, is the religion of
Protestants.” The papist can see that they are deceiving themselves,
willingly closing their eyes to the facts in the case. As the movement for
Sunday enforcement gains favor, he rejoices, feeling assured that it will
eventually bring the whole Protestant world under the banner of Rome.
Romanists declare that “the observance of Sunday by the Protestants is an
homage they pay, in spite of themselves, to the authority of the
[Catholic] Church.”(758) The enforcement of Sunday-keeping on the part of
Protestant churches is an enforcement of the worship of the papacy—of the
beast. Those who, understanding the claims of the fourth commandment,
choose to observe the false instead of the true Sabbath, are thereby
paying homage to that power by which alone it is commanded. But in the
very act of enforcing a religious duty by secular power, the churches
would themselves form an image to the beast; hence the enforcement of
Sunday-keeping in the United States would be an enforcement of the worship
of the beast and his image.
But Christians of past generations observed the Sunday, supposing that in
so doing they were keeping the Bible Sabbath; and there are now true
Christians in every church, not excepting the Roman Catholic communion,
who honestly believe that Sunday is the Sabbath of divine appointment. God
accepts their sincerity of purpose and their integrity before Him. But
when Sunday observance shall be enforced by law, and the world shall be
enlightened concerning the obligation of the true Sabbath, then whoever
shall transgress the command of God, to obey a precept which has no higher
authority than that of Rome, will thereby honor popery above God. He is
paying homage to Rome, and to the power which enforces the institution
ordained by Rome. He is worshiping the beast and his image. As men then
reject the institution which God has declared to be the sign of His
authority, and honor in its stead that which Rome has chosen as the token
of her supremacy, they will thereby accept the sign of allegiance to
Rome—“the mark of the beast.” And it is not until the issue is thus
plainly set before the people, and they are brought to choose between the
commandments of God and the commandments of men, that those who continue
in transgression will receive “the mark of the beast.”
The most fearful threatening ever addressed to mortals is contained in the
third angel’s message. That must be a terrible sin which calls down the
wrath of God unmingled with mercy. Men are not to be left in darkness
concerning this important matter; the warning against this sin is to be
given to the world before the visitation of God’s judgments, that all may
know why they are to be inflicted, and have opportunity to escape them.
Prophecy declares that the first angel would make his announcement to
“every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people.” The warning of the
third angel, which forms a part of the same threefold message, is to be no
less wide-spread. It is represented in the prophecy as being proclaimed
with a loud voice, by an angel flying in the midst of heaven; and it will
command the attention of the world.
In the issue of the contest, all Christendom will be divided into two
great classes,—those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of
Jesus, and those who worship the beast and his image and receive his mark.
Although church and state will unite their power to compel “all, both
small and great, rich and poor, free and bond,” to receive “the mark of
the beast,”(759) yet the people of God will not receive it. The prophet of
Patmos beholds “them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over
his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on
the sea of glass, having the harps of God,” and singing the song of Moses
and the Lamb.(760)
26. A WORK OF REFORM.
[Illustration: Chapter header.]
The work of Sabbath reform to be accomplished in the last days is foretold
in the prophecy of Isaiah: “Thus saith the Lord, Keep ye judgment, and do
justice: for My salvation is near to come, and My righteousness to be
revealed. Blessed is the man that doeth this, and the son of man that
layeth hold on it; that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and keepeth
his hand from doing any evil.” “The sons of the stranger, that join
themselves to the Lord, to serve Him, and to love the name of the Lord, to
be His servants, every one that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and
taketh hold of My covenant; even them will I bring to My holy mountain,
and make them joyful in My house of prayer.”(761)
These words apply in the Christian age, as shown by the context: “The Lord
God which gathereth the outcasts of Israel saith, Yet will I gather others
to him, beside those that are gathered unto him.”(762) Here is
foreshadowed the gathering in of the Gentiles by the gospel. And upon
those who then honor the Sabbath, a blessing is pronounced. Thus the
obligation of the fourth commandment extends past the crucifixion,
resurrection, and ascension of Christ, to the time when His servants
should preach to all nations the message of glad tidings.