Two Reformations—Type and Antitype
By I. E. Kimball
Two Reformations—Type and Antitype.
It will be remembered that after some years (about, fifteen), at the instigation of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, the people arose under Joshua and Zerubbabel and began to build the temple. Many returned from Babylon. All restrictions were taken away, and forthwith the king ordered the tribute money beyond the river to be at their disposal for the accomplishment of the work. He threatened with death any opposer. So we find after the Gospel temple was founded, the work thereon was hindered, and, seemingly, finally suspended; for antichrist seemed wholly to rule the world. But the Reformation began, and the temple began to go grandly up. The Reformers to a man believed the Roman Church to be Babylon, or a part thereof. They cried mightily to forsake her, and thousands responded, and came out, as they had from the Jewish church in the times of Christ. Was the Rome of Luther’s day Babylon? I have showed the spiritual usurpation of Babylon over Judea anciently, and how God gave them up, and also her spiritual usurpation in Christ’s day. The apostate people were scattered to the four winds as a consequence. When the people of God retrograde to the spiritual standing of Babylon, and are deceived by her lying spirits, they become a part of her. Now, that Babylonish superstition and practice was rife in the church even of the fourth and fifth century, most of us are fully assured. It is enough to make a plain statement of facts, and the careful student of history will not gainsay them. The church of the third century was greatly debauched. Heathen and heathenism were fast gaining full control of the church in the fourth century. In the fifth century the church was a very pit of corruption, utterly filled with false miracles, the work of the demons of heathenism deceiving her most trusted divines. Monkery drained off nearly all religious feeling from society, altho the entire mass of humanity were looked upon as the church, and received the sacrament; and yet they were no better than heathen communities in general. The sixth century and onward the church was simply a cesspool, including all crimes and sins within its pale. This Salvian, a faithful writer and a truly Christian man of the fifth century, affirms as the truth in his own times. He was not splenetic in his utterances, but bitterly lamented the fall of the church. It was simply the Babylonism of the world. The things now sacrificed to God were once dedicated to the service of idolatry—days, times, incense, noon candles, mysteries, and sacred signs, holy water, bones, and relics, and shrines. It was heathenism through and through. Sunday, Christmas, Lady day, and Easter—who does not know that these days were first dedicated to the service of idolatry before their introduction into the Christian calendar? See Rev. 2 : 14, 20. Celibacy, professedly so, and virginity were all of heathen origin, and may be seen carried out as fully as they were in the early church, in eastern countries. Even the spectacles in the arena were dedicated to Christ; everybody swore by Christ. False miracles are as sure a sign of Satan’s church as true miracles are of a true church, and whoever reads the records of the miracles of the fifth century and later, will be constrained to believe the counterfeit was here shown—not the genuine. Babylon had made a complete conquest, and her vicar became seated in the chair of “St. Peter.” Paganism was swallowed up in this monstrous power, which came to sway such an influence politically that all nations feared, bowed, and received the yoke of the popes. Thus the dragon of Revelation 12 gave his power, seat, and authority to the beast—a new phase, a religious phase of Rome; and while worshiping the dragon they also worshiped the beast. Rev. 13 : 4. I conclude, therefore, that Romanism is but Babylonism, and that this is one part of Babylon, which is shown to be finally divided into three parts. Rev. 16 : 19. We have found two of them, Paganism and Catholicism. Then, as anciently, after the temple had remained for years in an unfinished state, by the decree of Smerdis the people were aroused by the prophets of God, and put their hand to the work once again, and the cry was raised by the prophets: “Ho, ho, come forth, and flee from the land of the north, saith the Lord; for I have spread you abroad as the four winds of heaven, saith the Lord. Deliver thyself, O Zion, that dwellest with the daughter of Babylon.” Zech. 2 : 6, 7. Doubtless multitudes responded, as we would also infer from the record in 1 Esdras. So the Reformers of the present era raised the cry, “Come out of her, my people,” and we know well the result. Tens of thousands broke the thrall of that antichristian power, and fled forth from her gates. Then the temple of Christ arose in splendor, and to the foundation of the apostles and prophets of old they brought precious, living stones, with mind fully set to finish the work so long before begun. As, anciently, under the second decree the workmen commenced in opposition to the powers of earth, when, lo, a decree said to them, “Build,” so the Reformers commenced, and so the decree of God sustained them. For God was also the Author of the decrees made by the Persian kings. Isa. 44 : 28. The Reformers protested against “mysteries,” holy water, incense, noon candles, and rites, classes, and orders, against fastings and the flagellations of the unkempt saints, whose picture is shown in Col. 2 : 23. They protested against the many intermediaries between man and God, the human authority of priest over laiety, and bishops and cardinals and primates and popes—five cordons stretched between man and his God. They protested against the supreme pontiff, the evident successor8of the pagan Roman pontiff, who was high priest of the pagan religion, an office which Constantine held all through his life; for it was, after the times of Cæsar, vested in the emperors, and the Roman pontiff was the manifest successor to the Babylonian pontiffs of old, as shown in Nebuchadnezzar; for even to this day it is a notable fact that the pope perpetuates in his attire the inimitable costume of the Babylonian kings, as described by Strabo and Herodotus. The ring, the slipper upon the foot, the toe of which tributary kings bowed down to kiss, the white cassock hanging to the feet, the white cloak open to the shoulder, the high round cape with pendant fillets, which was death for any other to wear, attendants clothed in scarlet, with chains of gold about the neck—all this tells the tale that Rome is but a continuation of Babylon. The Reformers protested against the unmerciful spirit which is manifest in the words of Thomas Aquinas:— The heretics must not be tolerated because they deserve it, we must bear with them till, by a second admonition, they may be brought back to the faith of the church; but those who, after a second admonition, remain obstinate in their errors, must not only be excommunicated, but they must be delivered over to the secular power, to be exterminated.
Thus Babylon drank the blood of the servants of God, and fifty million martyrs will testify in the judgment how rigidly Aquinas’ doctrine was carried out in the church. But, as with the builders anciently, mountains should become plains, all difficulties be overcome by the power of God, so the Reformers wrought by the power of God, and they prospered and builded. The powers of hell were massed against them; nevertheless, they passed through the sea of afflictions and persecutions, and found rest. The world was enlightened, the pontiff’s power broken, freedom to worship God according to the dictates of enlightened conscience secured, and a glorious step forward taken. But another and more important era follows.