The Restored Papal Head
By M. C. W.
The Socialistic Kingdoms to Arise — The Last Human Experiment “And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou wonder? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and the ten horns. The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and is about to come up out of the abyss, and to go into perdition. And they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, they whose name hath not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast, how that he was, and is not, and shall come. Here is the mind that hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth; and they are seven kings; the five are fallen, the one is, the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a little while. And the beast that was, and is not, is himself also an eighth, and is of the seven; and he goeth into perdition. And the ten horns that thou sawest are ten kings, who have received no kingdom as yet; but they receive authority as kings, with the beast, for one hour.” Rev. 17: 7-12. First of all, the seventh head seems to be made up of a combination of two heads or phases of the beast power, the last development of which is the restoration of the fifth or papal head. For the beast which John saw in the wilderness, we have learned, was Rome under papal supremacy, A. D. 538 to 1798. It is therefore one of the seven; and when restored, it will be the last phase of beast power. In the seventeenth chapter, it is the eighth; but uniting with the seventh, together they form the seventh head of chapters 12 and 13. Seven denotes completeness. The whole career of the antagonistic Babylonian system of government is to be developed under seven forms, molded more or less by the instigation of the devil. Rev. 12: 3; 13: 1. As there are but seven, the last two of chapter seventeen naturally constitute the last one of chapters 12 and 13. The first development of the seventh head is the rise of a confederacy of ten republics, symbolized by the ten horns, “who have received no kingdom as yet; but they receive authority as kings, with the beast, for one hour.” Rev. 17: 12. These are not the ten kingdoms of Daniel 7 and Revelation 12 and 13. These first ten horns, which arose in the breaking up of the Roman Empire, between the years A. D. 351 and 476, were as follows: the Alemanni, the Franks, the Burgundians, the Vandals, the Suevi, the Visigoths, the Saxons, the Ostrogoths, the Lombards, and the Heruli. Three of these were to be plucked up, the prophecy declares, before the development of the papal power; and even so it came. Between the years 493 and 538, the Heruli in Italy, the Vandals in Africa, and the Ostrogoths in Italy, were overthrown, leaving seven. There were just ten between the years 476 and 493, as predicted in Daniel 7. After that, the number of the states in Europe differed, until to-day we have Great Britain, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, Austria-Hungary, Denmark, Norway, Sweden. Some of these are outside the boundary of the early Western Roman Empire, but these thirteen may be said to lie within the natural extension of that empire northward. Then, too, those first divisions were never united in giving their power and authority to the beast, or the church and state régime, during the time of their existence. The tenure of papal domination was a great deal of the time uncertain or disquieting. Nor were ever all united in a concentrated effort to carry forward any general scheme. The papacy oftentimes played one power against another, thus making capital out of their differences. During the papal régime of the past, there was never a complete confederacy to exalt it. But the last ten divisions “have one mind, and they give their power and authority unto the beast.” The ten divisions of the Middle Ages are symbolized by ten horns bearing crowns; but the horns of Revelation 17 have no crowns in the symbol, which might seem to indicate that they are republican or socialistic in form. From the chronological application of that prophecy of Revelation 17, which we have learned is the present time, the last ten divisions “have received no kingdom as yet”; and when they do, they continue but “a little while.” There have been no such developments in the past as here predicted. The only conclusion is that they are a development of earth power which lies just before. That it is near is indicated by the language, “about to come,” in verse 8. It is what the student of prophecy may soon expect. The character of this development differs from that of other heads. It comes up “out of the abyss,”—“the bottomless pit,”—out of incomprehensible and deplorable confusion. The same language is used in the prophecy concerning the French Revolution, and its outcome, in Rev. 11: 7. That unique, socialistic, iconoclastic government arose out of the confusion preceding the Revolution, the reaction from the long papal domination. That movement was limited to one tenth part of the great typical city of Babylon, the tenth part of the empire of Rome,—France,—Rev. 11: 13. Conditions then were a fitting type of conditions even now—conditions that will be even more manifest at the close of this great war. The conditions then are the conditions now in larger measure. Prominent men see it. To quote one witness, the North American Review of October, 1914, page 492: “This war is no more inexplicable, though on a vaster scale, than the French Revolution. It is in a sense a working out of those inscrutable forces of humanity on a more tremendous scale, a more fearful plan, but along the same lines as that which gave us the most stupendous enigma in history until now, the French Revolution.” The “inexplicable” and “inscrutable” have their origin in the bottomless pit, in the unexplored abyss of rebellion against God. Striking are the words of the Economist, of London, in a leading editorial in its issue of March 27. Commenting on a recent speech by Sir Edward Grey, it says: “As soon as the main issue for which we are fighting can be achieved, it is just as much the duty of our statesmen to make peace as it was in the view of Sir Edward Grey to make war at the end of July. . . . The time may come before long when it will be possible to consult the dictates of humanity and at the same time secure the objects indicated by Sir Edward Grey. If such an opportunity is lost, the war will not go on forever. It will end in revolutionary chaos, beginning no one can say where, and ending in no one can say what.” As the French Revolution arose out of the failure of fifteen centuries of church and state government and perverted Christianity, which brought all Europe to a crisis, so out of the failure of modern civilization, issuing in this fearfully destructive war, unutterable confusion is resulting; and there will result in this, and out of this, the greatest war yet of the world. In it the sixth head, in its various forms of government, has been proved utterly inadequate to meet the world problems. To what kind of government will the world look? It has tried imperial autocracy, aristocracy, man-made theocracy, oligarchy, monarchy, republic. Some of these have done well for a time and then have gone down. And now failure is written large over all in the political heavens. But there is one form of government that has not yet been tested in a general and large way. Its advocates are stalwart critics of other forms of government. They are excellent diagnosticians respecting the diseases under which the bodies politic suffer. They think they have the remedy. The world has not tried it, save in limited fields. It will grasp it as a drowning man grasps at a straw. The world will try socialism. God has given man, who rebelled against Him, the privilege of testing every kind of government he could invent or devise. And man has followed the weary way of his own devisings. Empires, kingdoms, republics, have perished. The socialistic, the rule-of-the-people, of-the-mass scheme is left, and the next and last world attempt will be socialism. Socialism has not been slain by this war. The masses yet uncommitted are not satisfied. When this war closes and the wrecks of government strew the ravaged territory of Europe, and the people see how they have served and starved and slaved beneath unbearable burdens, how they have fought and bled and died with nothing to show for it all but ruined governments, ruined homes, ruined families, ruined fortunes, lands filled with sick and crippled men, trenches filled with dead, and the survivors236loaded with bonded, unpayable debts, they will rise in their might, throw off the custom yoke of kings, and form socialistic states. The imperialism of iron will be set aside for the clays of the social democracy. Daniel 2. As quickly as Brazil turned from an empire to a republic, so will the imperial, monarchical, republican militarism of Europe yield to the socialism of the masses. The last experiment will be socialism. Men are looking for it. The editor of the British Weekly, Sir Robertson Nicoll, about three years ago, in speaking of the coming of the people into power, said: “Nor is there going to be any substitute for democracy [social democracy]. Every other instrument of power has been exhausted and thrown aside, and from the judgment of the people there is no earthly appeal. “Very much may be said and has been said about the evils and dangers of democracy. But while it is easy to criticize democracy, it is by no means easy to answer the argument that democracy is necessarily the righteous form of government. “In any case, Demos is not going to abdicate. What he has gained by long labor and travail he is going to keep. . . . “But the fact that confronts us is that democracy is the last experiment, that there will never be another. The only hope for Demos is that Demos should be a Christian. A people’s impulses are often capricious. Israel, Athens, Rome, and England all show that the people have had cowardly and bloodthirsty fits as well as moods of magnanimity and faith. “Take away Christianity, extinguish public worship and private prayer, reduce the Bible to a book like any other book, give us a faithless world, and we shall have the inevitable end of black despair and bitter spite.” Federation, the Trend of the Age
Therefore out of this war, or at least after it, if we read the prophecy aright, will come ten republics forming a confederation, a United States of Europe. Federation is the trend of the age. By federation they believe they will form a stable government, which can meet the waves of unrest and the storms of anarchy and lawlessness sweeping over the world. Just how it will be brought about, just how long it will take, we do not know; but history makes with extreme rapidity in these days. Who would have dreamed that Brazil in a few months would change, by a bloodless revolution, from an empire to a republic, as she did in 1889? or that China, the oldest of nations, would completely remold her government into a republic, as she did in 1911? We may well believe, as able men have repeatedly predicted, that after this war there will follow representative government, and the dominant center will be the ten-horned confederacy. But it is not wise to speculate as to details. There are various ways that look reasonable to various men. These we leave with God. The great facts of prophecy are assured. But in that socialist democracy, too, there will be failure. Stability, peace, and prosperity, however guarded by law, can persist only through the righteousness of unselfishness. And that righteousness can come only through the creative power of the religion of Jesus Christ, by faith, and not by evolution, or revolution, the demonstration of the failure of which is before us. The righteousness of the everlasting nation, says the Lord, “is of Me.” Isa. 54: 17. The righteousness of socialism is of the human, of evolution, apart from God. It will fail in the mass as it has failed in the man. It will fail in the end as it has failed in this present time. Mindful of this, the confederated republic will demand more than federation. The prejudices of the people, the superstition of masses, must be considered. The demand of the papacy will have to be regarded, and the forms of professed Christianity will be accepted for its life. The restoration of the fifth head, the placing of the papacy again in power, will be the union effected through the influence of the federation. In other words, the restoration of the papacy as the head over the churches, the power to define and declare heresy, with its penalties, and the punishment of heretics, will be the restoration of the fifth head, the healing of the deadly wound of the papal phase of the beast, finally inflicted in 1798. These ten powers shall “have one mind,” to “give their power and authority unto the beast.” The two together form the last head, the eighth of chapter 17, but the seventh head of chapters 12 and 13. It seems reasonable to believe that in some such way the angel’s words will be fulfilled: “And the ten horns that thou sawest are ten kings, who have received no kingdom as yet; but they receive authority as kings, with the beast, for one hour;” that is, with the beast under the restored fifth head, the papal beast. The beast, let it be remembered, has a continued existence from its Babylonian origin; but the special phase with which this chapter deals is the beast under the fifth head, and the restoration or healing of that head, which will constitute again the papal beast. The sixth head, decentralized in its government, anti-papal to a large extent, was not such a fearful foe to God and His people; and this not wholly because it was professedly Protestant, but because it did not have the power to persecute that the centralized papal head had, and which that head will again have when restored, out of seeming necessity, by the ten horns. Soon, therefore, after that confederation is formed, or in the last steps of its formation, will come the restoration of the beast. The Prejudices of the Masses
The prejudices of the masses must be satisfied, as Napoleon found out when he desired the throne of France. He had to bargain with the papacy for influence, even as he played on the religious prejudices and sentiments of the Moslems in Egypt in 1798, for policy’s sake. And for this the ten divisions of the confederacy “have one mind, and they give their power and authority unto the beast” restored. The Central Point of Apostasy
There is one institution upon which apostasy—whether called papal, Protestant, or social—can unite, and will; and that is that institution which the papacy claims as the mark of her authority, the change she has sought to make in God’s law, the substitute for the sign of God’s creative and re-creative power, namely, the Sunday-sabbath. The adherent of the papal power will accept it as a sign of loyalty to that power. The apostate Protestant will accept it as a “patriotic,” professedly Christian duty; the socialist and all others, as a “politic” and an “expedient” measure. But all together they will exalt, by statute, the false sabbath in the place of the true; and what power can better direct and control in this than the papacy, with whom the institution had its origin? For this has the papacy been working. For this the two-horned beast—the false prophet—is working in the Western Continent (Rev. 13: 11-17). In this the ten horns unite. To secure religious support, the papacy is again exalted. Against this world agreement and apostasy, God thunders His great threefold message of Rev. 14: 6-12. M. C. W. (Continued in our next number)