His Dying Sentiment Will Have Profound Effect — The Papacy Will Get Much Credit for It — The Trend of Such Events
THE last month has brought us a storm of striking world events — a veritable cyclone, with localized tornadoes in various countries. The fearful carnage in Europe had hardly begun ere the news came of not only the death of the head of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Pius X, but the death of the general of the Jesuit order, often called the “black pope,” both of them dying the same day, and the Roman Catholic world being thrown into grief because of it.
DIED FROM GRIEF OVER THE WAR
We are told that the pope’s death, which occurred August 20, was largely caused by his grief over the war. This too is said to have been the cause of the death of Francis Xavier Wernz, the “black pope,” one report declaring that his fatal illness was superinduced by his anxiety over the war. Pope Pius X grieved because his children — the members of the Roman Catholic Church — were fighting each other. The Jesuit general constantly prayed that victory should rest on the Austro-German arms, and he was anxious also as to the fate of the Jesuits in France, Germany, and Austria.
From all parts of the world have come expressions of sympathy to the Vatican over the death of the pope. For instance, at the request of President Wilson, Secretary Bryan sent, August 21, the following telegram to the Vatican:
“The president desires me to express his sense of the great loss which the Christian world has sustained in the death of his holiness, Pius X. By his pure and gentle and unaffected piety, and his broad and thoughtful sympathy with his fellow men, he adorned his exalted station and attracted to himself the affectionate regard of all who felt his world-wide influence.”
From nearly all the various nations of earth similar expressions of sympathy have been sent to Rome.
INFLUENCE THE CARDINALS SEEK TO EXERT
The next conclave of cardinals, for the election of the new pope, will meet in Rome. Requests have been made of the belligerent nations, it is reported, that a truce be called for a week or more, until a new pope is elected. It would hardly seem that in the very heat of conflict this request would be granted. The fact, however, that the request is made, shows very clearly that the Roman Catholic Church feels that it is held in very high regard by the nations of earth; and doubtless the death of the pope, coming at such a time as this, will kindly dispose most of the governments of earth toward Roman Catholicism.
It seems now that the next pope will be Italian, as there will doubtless be more Italian cardinals at the conclave than any other, and Italy remaining neutral, the conclave is to be held in the Vatican. The election of the general of the Jesuit order will probably have to wait until the war is over, it is thought, as delegates of that order would not be treated with the same consideration that the cardinals will receive.
So much for the reported news concerning the papacy, and prospects of the future pope.
FROM THE STANDPOINT OF THE PROPHECY
To the student of prophecy, there is much more than a mere matter of news in this. It involves not simply the sympathy of the world now, but more or less of world history in the future, as it has involved world history in the past. The papacy is pre-eminently a world power. The Roman Catholic Church has a strong membership in all the various nations; and in this article
and in all other remarks concerning it, we speak not against Roman Catholics as such, nor against the kindly old gentleman who recently died in the Vatican. We have nothing against any of these. We have naught but the kindest feelings toward every Roman Catholic upon the face of the earth. We admire the sincerity, the devotion, and the singleness of purpose, of many of them; but we believe that the system itself, composed as it is of principles antagonistic to the gospel of Christ, is detrimental to the liberties of mankind, not only from a civil view-point, but from a religious view-point as well; that the system has stood, during all the ages of its existence, for the limiting of civil liberty and the utter perverting of religious liberty.
There is presented before us in the prophecies of the word of God, in the thirteenth chapter of the Apocalypse, a beast with seven heads and ten horns, which receives its power from a dragon. That dragon first appears in chapter 12, having the same characteristics. We have not time to develop the meaning
of these symbols in detail in this article. Suffice to say that the beast represents the great system of church and state which has existed and will exist in seven different forms, represented by the heads, from the days of Babylon until the time when Christ shall come again.
THE RIGHTFUL SOVEREIGN
The government of this world belongs to Jesus Christ. He is the rightful king. To him belongs the homage, the obedience, the devotion, of all who live upon the earth. They are His by creation. They are His by redemption. To Him they belong, body, soul, and spirit. To Him should be rendered in love all the powers of heart, mind, soul, and strength. The kingdom is the Lord’s, but it is also true that a usurper has entered the kingdom. It is true that the usurper has perverted the laws of God, and has turned the allegiance which men owed to God, to allegiance to apostasy. That apostasy has come in a twofold form, under civil and religious powers united.
It is God’s order that there shall be civil government for the restraining of uncivil things. Such government is ordained of God; but it is the duty of civil government to deal with those things only which have to do with man’s relation to his fellows and to earthly government. Man’s religious duties are to be rendered to God; but the enemy of all righteousness has perverted these, and has placed man or a system in the place of God; has made that man, or that system, the vicegerent of God upon earth, and has demanded, under civil laws and penalties, that these duties shall be rendered regardless of men’s consciences.
UNION OF CHURCH WITH STATE REQUIRED
In order to enforce these, there must be a union of the religious system with the civil power. No earthly government will enforce religion unless connected in some way with it legally. No church can enforce religion, no system of religion can enforce its dogmas, unless it has civil power so to do. The union of these two makes the beast of prophecy, and this beast of prophecy has existed under the various forms set forth in the thirteenth chapter of Revelation.
The first of these is that of Babylon, the very beginning of antagonistic world powers in prophecy, represented also by the lion mouth of the beast itself, as we learn from Dan. 7:4, where the lion is used as a symbol of Babylon. It was with Babylon that the captivity of God’s people began. It was under the power of Babylon that Israel lost her king. It was at that time that she began looking and longing for the Saviour who was to548come. Micah 4:9, 10. And from Babylon down to the time of the end, God has set before us this sevenfold phase of apostasy. It first opposed God's people and brought them into persecution under Babylon; then under Medo-Persia. See examples of this persecution as set forth in Daniel 3 and in Daniel 6. Then came Grecia, and the fearful sufferings of the Jewish people under that regime; then pagan Rome,—the death of the Lord Jesus Himself under the power of that empire, and the ten so-called pagan persecutions which followed.
GOOD PERSONS, REGARDLESS OF THE SYSTEM
The fifth phase of that prophecy was the Roman Catholic phase—better to be called the papal phase. The Roman Catholic Church has within its fold earnest, sincere, God-fearing members, those who rise above the system of the papacy, and who really do not know, in their own experience, the system of the papacy, but whose whole heart is given to God, and who serve Him with all the light they have. And so we would distinguish between the papacy—the system itself, which demands temporal power and control of all the various kingdoms of earth—and the Roman Catholic Church as an ecclesiastical power. It is the papacy, the fifth head of that beast, the religious power which gave character to that beast during the twelve hundred sixty years of the Dark Ages, that is the dominant feature of the beast of Revelation 13.
A PERIOD OF PAPAL SUPREMACY
That twelve hundred sixty years began in the period of time between 533 and 538, when the bishop of Rome became, by the decree of Justinian, head over all the churches, and true and only corrector of heretics. The 'twelve hundred and sixty years,' the 'forty and two months,' the 'time, times, and a half,' of prophecy, began at that period and ended in the five-year period of 1793 to 1798, when the papal union with the state was broken, and the power of the papacy to persecute was taken away. This was accomplished through the influence of the Reformation, and by such tolerant decrees as were made by France, Austria, and other powers in Europe that had before been under the control of the papacy.
Since that time, we have had another phase of that beast power, namely, the various kingdoms of Europe, with their established church and state governments, who, in the words of Mr. James Bryce, 'maintained the despotic system of the Middle Ages, while it forsook the grounds on which that system had been based. It was thus that there arose national churches which were to be to the several Protestant countries of Europe that which the church Catholic had been to the world at large—churches, that is to say, each of which was to be coextensive with its respective state, was to enjoy landed wealth and exclusive political privilege, and was to be armed with coercive powers against recusants.' (See 'The Holy Roman Empire,' edition of 1875, pages 332-334.)
A DEADLY WOUND INFLICTED
The prophecy declares that the beast existing under the fifth head for twelve hundred sixty years, received a deadly wound. This wound was the separating of these two elements, church and state. Only by the
union of the two could the beast, the persecuting power, be formed. Either one taken away, and as a beast it is destroyed. It receives a deadly wound. The ecclesiastical power could not be taken away without the destruction of the entire church; but it could be deprived of its power to adjudge heresy and the punishment that was due to those guilty. And that was utterly lost to the Roman Catholic Church in 1798.
The deadly wound had been received, or 'the repeated wounding,' as the original indicates, resulting in the destruction of that head; but the prophecy also declares that the deadly wound was healed—that is, that there would be a resumption, after the sixth head had run its career, of the fifth head of the beast, the papal system.
UNION OF THE SCATTERED BRANCHES
In the Los Angeles Examiner of September 29 of last year, Cardinal Gibbons declared that 'the reunion of the scattered branches of Christendom is a consummation devoutly to be wished, and I would gladly sacrifice the remaining years of my life in lending a helping hand toward this blessed result. The first essential requirement is the recognition of the sovereign pontiff who, as the successor of Saint Peter, is the divinely appointed head of Christendom. Every organization, whether religious, civil, or political, needs a head for its peace and security as well as for its very existence. Once the proper position of the pope is recognized, I do not believe that the other controverted doctrines are as formidable as is commonly imagined. . . . And if the various Christian denominations in the United States were once united, working with one heart and one spirit, what a wonderful influence our Christian forces would exert in the civilization and the Christianizing of mankind! What amazing things would then be done for society and humanity!'
This is the dream of the papacy—a united Christendom with the pope at its head. And with the pope at its head, and all that the Roman Catholics themselves demand, namely, such a recognition of the civil power as would place them just where Justinian placed the pope in the beginning of the twelve hundred sixty years, 'head over all the churches, and true and effective corrector of heretics,'—that is, recognized by the civil powers,—the papacy would define what heresy was, would adjudge the punishment that was due, and the civil power itself would execute the punishment.
THE MOST PROMINENT PERSONAGE AT THE HEAD
One of the means by which this is to be brought about is such a federation of the world as will place at its head the most prominent, striking, and influential person in the world. The sympathy that is just now extended to the Vatican over the death of the pope, would very clearly point out the one individual who would have stronger influence and would be more highly regarded than any other; and that is the one who sits in the Vatican, as the head of the largest religious body in the world—or at least of the largest professedly Christian body in the world.
NOT AT THE HAGUE CONFERENCES
The papacy was not represented at the Hague conferences. He could not enter that
conference on equal terms with the representatives of the Italian government, with both claiming identical territory. Since the time when the present ruling house of Italy took possession of the government, and the pope was overthrown—1870—losing the last vestige of his temporal power at that time, the popes have considered themselves prisoners in the Vatican. It has been very clearly and strongly expressed, by noted papal prelates, that the only thing in the world which will satisfy the papacy will be a position where it will be free and untrammeled by any government on earth. That is, it must have an independence that is internationally guaranteed. These are the very terms in which its ambition is expressed; and if that independence is internationally guaranteed, then the pope will not be subject to any power upon earth as a citizen or as a man. He will be in that position where he can exercise absolute freedom, guaranteed by the powers of earth.
THE NATURAL HEAD TO SELECT
Naturally, with the world feeling as it does at the present time, he would be the very one chosen to act as head of any peace congress which the world itself might call. It is for that that the papacy is longing. It is for that that some of her greatest prelates are working. It is that which they are expecting. It is that very thing which the Bible itself declares will come; for we read in the seventeenth chapter of Revelation regarding the restoration of that head, and the last-day powers which exist under the symbol of the ten horns, 'And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, who have received no kingdom as yet; but they receive authority as kings, with the beast, for one hour. These have one mind, and they give their power and authority unto the beast.'
Never could this be said of the powers of Europe in the past. There have been times, all through the twelve hundred and sixty years that the civil powers were under the control of the papacy, when the power of the papacy was acknowledged; but they were not always united in this. Some of them were under that control because they were compelled by circumstances to submit, some because they were compelled by other powers so to do; but the prophecy indicates that this last-day ten-horned confederation will be united in the work of restoring the beast power that has been lying prone under the deadly wound since the closing part of the eighteenth century.
'I SIT A QUEEN'
When that power is restored, we will find the church, which then becomes dominant, saying, 'I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall in no wise see mourning.' Rev. 18:7. At that time would we have the great peace cry going forth to the world which is so clearly delineated in Isaiah 2 and Micah 4, in which 'many people' would say, and 'many nations' would say, that the house of the Lord has become dominant, and that through His representatives in the earth, He will judge between the nations, and rebuke strong nations afar off, who 'shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks.' But the 'sure word of prophecy' also declares that when we near the day of God, and that great delusive cry of peace goes forth to the world, and 'when5they are saying, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall in no wise escape.' 1 Thess. 5:3.
HER PLAGUES AND DESTRUCTION COME
We have the same thought expressed right in connection with the triumphant song of the antitypical Babylon herself, for when she declares, 'I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall in no wise see mourning,' then 'in one day shall her plagues come, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire; for strong is the Lord God who judged her.' Rev. 18:7, 8.
It is with no human desire that we write upon these great prophecies. We would prefer, from selfish standpoints, to say nothing, and let the world drift on; but loyalty to God, loyalty to His word, loyalty to our love for those who do not know, even under the great papal system, will demand that we should set forth what God has said in His word. That system which changes God's law at will, that system which exalts man to the place of God, that system which claims to forgive sins and to release men from divine penalties, that system which confessedly has put to death many thousands for daring to assert their right of individual belief, is an enemy of liberty.
INFALLIBLE ALL THE TIME
She is the enemy of liberty of her own children. As she was during the Dark Ages, so she is now confessedly. She not only makes no pretension of being different from what she was then, but she declares that she has been infallible all the way through; and some of her children who are bold and honest, declare that if she had power now as she had then, she would do now as she did then regarding those whom she adjudged to be heretics.
But many in the Protestant world, having lost their love for the Bible, lost faith in the Bible, lost regard for the great prophecies of God's word, are blinded by the overwhelming power and magnificence of Rome, and are yielding to her blandishments and allurements. We plead with all within that church and without to turn from all human systems, and find help and solace and comfort and strength in the Word and in the Word alone.
