Loss of Children and Widowhood
By R. F. COTTRELL
“Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans; for thou shalt no more be called, The lady of kingdoms. “I was wroth with my people, I have polluted mine inheritance, and given them into thine hand; thou didst show them no mercy; upon the ancient hast thou very heavily laid thy yoke. And thou saidst, ‘I shall be a lady forever;’ so that thou didst not lay these things to thy heart, neither didst remember the latter end of it. “Therefore hear now this, thou that art given to pleasures, that dwellest carelessly, that sayest in thine heart, ‘I am, and none else besides me; I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children; but these two things shall come to thee in a moment, in one day, the loss of children, and widowhood; they shall come upon thee in their perfection for the multitude of thy sorceries, and for the great abundance of thine enchantments.’ Isa. 47: 5–9. In this scripture, ancient Babylon, the daughter of the Chaldeans, seems to be taken as a type to represent “Babylon the great, the mother of harlots,” of the book of Revelation. God’s ancient Israel were carried captive to Babylon, and afterward delivered thence. God was wroth with his people, and says, “I have polluted mine inheritance, and given them into thine hand.” In accordance with this, in Dan. 7:25 it is predicted that the people of God should be given into the hands of the little horn, the papacy, during a specified period of time, the 1260 years, from 538 to 1798; at which time the people of God were delivered from the heavy yoke of oppression. But this “lady of kingdoms,” this “mother of harlots,” that has committed abomination with the kings of the earth by the union of church and state, and thus reigning “over the kings of the earth,” became “drunken with the blood of the saints,” elated with the past, in her intoxication she still puts forth the claim: “I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow” (Rev. 18, 7); or, in the language of Isaiah, “I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children.” Has not this, together with the preceding claim, “I am, and none else besides me,” been strikingly fulfilled in the late voice of the church claiming infallibility for its head? But on the contrary, the Lord declares, “These two things shall come to thee in a moment, in one day, the loss of children, and widowhood.” Has not this threatening also had its fulfillment in the loss of those children of the church which the infallibility dogma has taken from her, and in the fact that her husband, civil power, has departed, leaving her a widow indeed? What comes next? Her plagues and her utter destruction, as written in Rev. 18, “For she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire; for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.” She is now sitting silent, her head self-imprisoned in the Vatican, and she will soon go into darkness. “Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans; for thou shalt no more be called, The lady of kingdoms.” The kings of the earth, who have formerly committed fornication with her, bowing down and kissing the feet of “His Holiness,” shall no more woo an alliance, but shall stand afar off for fear of her burning. And her daughters who are now courting the United States shall share in her fate.