Beginning with the 11th verse of Revelations 13, directly after
the prophecy of the Roman Catholic hierarchic power, we have the
spectacle of a second beast, having two horns like a lamb but
speaking as a dragon. The fact that he speaks gives him the quality
of ecclesiastical rule. In this beast we have man rule in the
form of Protestantism. He has a lamb-like aspect instead of the
vicious, threatening character of Rome in the days of her power;
but he has the voice of a dragon, which betrays his diabolical
spirit. He exercises as much power in the world as Roman Catholicism
did before him. He deceives by doing "great wonders," displaying
spiritual manifestations. He causes people to worship the first
beast (Catholicism) by copying its standards and doing reverence to
a human ecclesiastical system; and an image to the first beast is
made whenever a sect is organized. He causes the image to "speak"
(exercise man rule) and to persecute those who, instead of bowing to
the sect image, are disposed to exercise in their spiritual freedom
and give allegiance alone to God.
Thus we see so-called Protestantism as a particular form of beast
religion, a distinctive spirit that animates and dominates the
sectarian system. The beast element is the man rule. We are not
speaking merely of human instrumentality, which God certainly uses in
his church when the will is wholly submitted to him and susceptible
to his Spirit, but of that exercise and dominance in ecclesiastical
matters which, as apart from God, is distinctly human. Such
prevails more or less as a system in all sects, gives occasion for
jealousy, pride, and emulation, wants to be let alone, and opposes
any reform that threatens it. This is the element which naturally
becomes disturbed at the preaching of the truth that exposes it,
and which became a persecuting power against Brother Warner and all
who executed the divine judgment against false religion. In this
deceptive form of evil covering almost four hundred years Satan has
had his seat. When the present reformation shall have resulted in
bringing God's people out of sectarian divisions and placing them
on the whole-church basis, Satan, driven to some new project, will
muster the Gog and Magog forces in a last conflict against the
saints, which shall end with the utter destruction of those forces by
the judgment fires.
We have, then, Protestantism represented in two aspects: 1. As a
period during which truth by a succession of reform movements has to
a considerable extent been recovered from apostasy and restored to
God's people. 2. As a system of false religion, a form of spiritual
Babylon that is pervaded by a satanic spirit that deceives the world
and opposes any effort to restore the church of God to her Scriptural
unity, since such effort naturally threatens the ecclesiastical
element lying at the base of organized sectarianism.