The Fall of Babylon

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 29, 1867

The Fall of Babylon.

The World's Crisis is offering some indirect comments upon Babylon and her fall, upon which we cannot forbear offering a word of criticism. As noticed in our issue of Jan. 15, the Crisis makes Babylon to mean the “church at Rome.” Then those who are to be called out of Babylon, are the people of God (?) in the “church at Rome.” An angel is sent with a special message to call them out. What this angel is, and who the people of God are who are to be called from the church at Rome, the Crisis makes known in the following, which we clip from its issue of Jan. 16.

“‘COME OUT OF HER.’”

“A little while before the fall of Babylon, or the harlot ‘woman’ on the ‘seven hills’ at Rome, those who do not sympathize with her, are to be called ‘out of her,’ in order that they ‘be not partakers of her sins,’ and that they ‘receive not of her plagues.’ We think that time is drawing near. Travelers begin to shun an entrance into Rome. A late telegram from Italy says:—

“‘Foreigners have nearly deserted the city of Rome, apparently from fear of civil disorder. There are few persons at the hotels, and many are suffering from the stagnation of trade.’”

“There is no room for doubt that the end of the Papal power is at hand; and consequently we must be near the end of the present dispensation.”

There are some shocking conclusions, which, as it looks to us, necessarily attach themselves to this language, of the legitimacy of which we shall leave the reader to judge for himself. As the events mentioned in the extract are given as a fulfillment of the call, “Come out of her,” we inquire what, according to this view, is the angel that is calling people out of Babylon? Answer, “Fear of civil discord.” This is what is driving people out of Rome; and hence, the angel flying through the midst of heaven with a special message, saying, Come out of her my people, is reduced to the simple idea of fear of civil discord existing in the minds of sojourners at Rome!

And who are those who, in response to the “voice from Heaven,” to “Come out of her my people,” leave Rome? Answer, “Foreigners!!” It is, no doubt, very liberal—to the foreigners! to rank them all indiscriminately as the people of God; but what connection have they with the church at Rome, out of which, according to the view before us, the people of God are to be called? None at all. So there is an absolute and fatal break in the exposition, be as lenient to it as we will.

The fall of Babylon is here set forth as “the end of the Papal power.” The widest latitude we can give to this is to let it mean as expressed by D. T. Taylor, in the same paper, the stripping of the papacy of temporal power and support; or as he describes it in other words, the change in her condition, from a woman seated upon a beast, to a woman seated in the dust. But as we look at the prophecy, we see that the people of God are called out lest they be partakers of her sins; that is, Babylon after her fall, and as the result of her fall becomes exceedingly corrupt and sinful. But how can the papal church become more corrupt by being deprived of temporal power? How can it become any more corrupt than it has been during its long career of darkness, blood, and crime? It cannot. This fall, therefore, which leads to a state of moral filth and pollution, does not and cannot apply in any sense to the papal church.

Adventism once commended itself to candid people for its careful and judicious interpretations of the prophecies. But what shall be said of the great mass of that which goes under that name to-day? On the principle involved in the extract introduced above, if there is any principle in it, what inconsistency may we not indulge in! What groundless and illogical conclusions may we not draw! What degrading of the sublime into the ridiculous, have we not full license for! Again we ask, What Adventist can be satisfied with such an exposition?