and satanic doctrine of the inherent immortality of the soul, and thus, before the day of judgment and awards, it has, contrary to the Bible, peopled heaven with intercessory saints, and purgatory and hell with suffering sinners. It is all but a continuance of the old Babylonian demon-worship and pagan tartarus translated into an apostate Christianity. It makes man's salvation depend on the good works of men instead of the free grace of Jesus Christ. It makes the saints to whom the intercessory prayers are offered omnipresent, like God, or, rather, deceives those who thus seek the aid of "saints" with the veriest mockery. In almost every imaginable way are the character of God, and Christ's priesthood in the sanctuary above, and the ministration of holy angels, perverted by the erroneous doctrines held by many sincere souls, but not the less soul-destroying.
4. WAR WITH THE SAINTS.—We need not recount the war of the Papacy against the people of God. It is estimated that during the 1,260 years over fifty million souls went to their deaths at the cruel and merciless hand of the papal phase of that beast-system. Of course the Papacy did not count them Christians; neither did the Jews count Christ a good man. "He is worthy of death," said they, because "He deceiveth the people" and "subverteth the nation." He is a Samaritan and hath a devil. They are worthy of death, said the Papacy. They are heretics, Jews, infidels, apostates, traitors against civil power. They ought to die. And then she turned them over to the often merciless power of papal governments to be tortured and executed by methods most ingeniously cruel, satanic, and inhuman. Even tho those put to death were very heretics, it is, according to the words of Jesus Christ, greater heresy to put even the HERETIC to death. (See John 12:47; Luke 9:53-56.)
5. POWER OVER ALL NATIONS.—This Spiritual Domination over the nations represented by the ten horns is to be considered in a general way, and not in its absolute sense. There never was a time during the 1,260 years when all the kingdoms of Western Rome were thoroly united in upholding and obeying the Roman see. But by promises, persuasion, craft, combinations, threats, and wars, these kingdoms were kept subject to the Papacy during the great part of this period. The completer fulfilment of that prediction is yet to be seen.
6. THE WORSHIP OF THE BEAST.—The highest worship is not in form or words, but in obedience. This is expressed in the following words of our Saviour: "Why call ye Me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?" Luke 6:46. "Thou shalt WORSHIP the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou SERVE." Matt. 4:10. True service, the doing of God's commandments, is the highest form of worship. As God alone is the only object of worship, it follows that the worship of the beast is a false worship opposed to that of God. And as the highest proof of worship is obedience, it likewise follows that the worship of the beast is obedience to the law of the beast instead of obedience to the law of God. The whole duty of man is summed up in obedience to God's commandments (Eccl. 12:13), His holy law of liberty (James 2:8-12), of which Jesus Christ was the exemplification (Ps. 40:7, 8; John 15:10), and the Decalogue is the summary. The law of the beast power is opposed to God's law. Its distinguishing feature is and must be the DIFFERENCE between the two laws. The prophet Daniel, speaking of the same power, said, "He shall think to change the times and the law." (Dan. 7:25, R.V.) And this the Papacy has sought to do; it has attempted to change the law of God in that particular which relates to time, not only as regards the day, but as regards the time of beginning of the day. The law of God declares, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. . . . The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God." (See Ex. 20:8-11.) But "Butler's Catechism," of the Roman Catholic Church, declares that what is commanded by the Sabbath law is "to sanctify the Sunday." And that church further declares, in numerous works of authority, in substance like the following, which we quote from one, the "Doctrinal Catechism," page 101:
Ques.—Have you any other way of proving that the church has power to institute festivals or precepts?
Ans.—Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her—she could not have substituted the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday, the seventh day, a change for which there is no Scriptural authority.
Another Catholic work, called "Abridgement of Christian Doctrine," has the following:
Ques.—How prove you that the church hath power to command feasts and holy days?
Ans.—By the very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday, which Protestants allow of; and therefore they fondly contradict themselves by keeping Sunday strictly, and breaking most other feasts commanded by the same church.
Q.—How prove you that?
A.—Because by keeping Sunday they acknowledge the church's power to ordain feasts, and to command them under sin; and by not keeping the rest by her commanded, they again deny, in fact, the same power.
To worship is to obey; knowingly to obey the Papacy instead of God. This Rome, by deception and force, has caused all nations to do. And in the crisis now rapidly developing, all will, without excuse, be found on one side or the other. The question is, Shall it be God's Word or tradition, however hoary that tradition may be? Will we accept or continue to pass the well-worn counterfeit bill, which will be burned in the fire of just wrath? or will we accept the genuine gold of God's truth?
7. THE DEATH STROKE OF THE BEAST.—Verse 3 of Revelation 13 declares, "I saw one of its heads as it were wounded to death;" literally, "slain unto death." (See R.V., margin.) It was as truly killed or slain as was the Lamb of chapter 5:6. So also in chapter 13:10: "He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword MUST BE KILLED with the sword." The influence of the Reformation weakened the power of Rome in the German and British dominions; and those powers threw off the yoke of the Papacy, and prospered, notwithstanding the anathemas of popes. In the persecutions that waged in Catholic countries oftentimes, the rulers saw that the best citizens were either slain or forced to flee to Protestant countries or the open arms of the unknown America. In 1776 Maria Theresa of Austria issued her decree of toleration, and in 1798 the death stroke was given to that head—the papal—of that satanic system of earthly rule, by General Berthier, acting under the orders of the French Directory, and Pius VI was taken prisoner, dying in captivity August 29, 1799.
But it was not the mere captivity of a pope which dealt the death-blow. Such things had occurred before. It was the taking away of the Spiritual Domination, the undoing of the dignity conferred by Justinian, the taking away of the civil power. The Papacy was NO LONGER ACKNOWLEDGED the "Head of all the Churches." The decrees of the "True and Effective Corrector of Heretics" could not be enforced. Previous to that time no greater honor could be accorded a sovereign than to be crowned by the pope or his envoy, but after that none was so poor as to do him homage. Pope Pius VI at that time lost his civil power, but the Ecclesiastical Power of the Papacy was not destroyed; and even to the time of his death, at Valence, France, August 29, 1799, he was the head of the Roman Catholic Church, but not the recognized religious head and corrector of heretics BY THE GOVERNMENTS of Europe. The French Republicans would have been glad to overthrow the Papacy entire, but this they could not do. Within itself it possessed the power of perpetuating the ecclesiastical system independent of civil power. Says one historian:
However desirous the French Republicans might be that Rome should not have another pope when Pius VI expired, the great bulk of those who professed its religion felt very differently. Austria gave effect to their wishes. The Emperor procured a meeting of the dispersed cardinals at Venice, then an appendage to his monarchy, and they elected, on the 14th of March, 1800, Barnabas Chiaromonti to fill the papal see. He called himself Pius VII, and within a few weeks of his election he entered his capital as a sovereign prince; the French armies having sustained such reverses in the preceding autumn as left Southern Italy to its ancient masters.
Afterward negotiations were opened with France, Napoleon acting as first consul. But it is noticeable that the Spiritual Domination of the Papacy had gone, and the Pope was obliged to accept the conditions of Napoleon if he would retain any hold upon France at all. This was most manifest immediately after the restoration of the Temporal Power in the connection of the Papacy with France. Napoleon thought it best to re-establish religion, in order that the religious French might not be governed by foreign bishops. He divided his realms, marked out the bishops' sees, fixed their salaries, brought the Pope to his coronation, and then crowned himself, took the management of things into his own hands generally, limited the powers of the Papacy, and the Papacy was obliged to submit. The Spiritual Domination of the Vatican was gone. That phase of the persecuting system represented by the papal head, was slain. The Papacy, as a persecutor, was killed. All Europe felt the humiliation of the Papacy, and the abject attitude of the Pope toward infidel France drove away the last respect or fear that lingered in European governments.
8. THE HEALING OF THE DEADLY WOUND.—Note again that the head was wounded unto death. The R.V. margin reads, "slain unto death." The word rendered "slain" is the same as is rendered "slain" in Rev. 5:6, 9, 12; 13:8; 18:24. The prophecy declares that "his death stroke was healed." R.V. There must therefore be restored to him just what he lost. The deadly wound was given by taking away one of the essentials of a persecuting agency; control of civil power to enforce its decrees. To heal that wound, that control of civil power must be restored. The governments of earth must again acknowledge the pope of Rome Head over all Churches, and True and Effective Corrector of Heretics. Then will that phase of the beast again live, and all the world shall wonder and worship. This will be more fully considered in connection with Revelation 17.