Signs of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 51. (12/24/1896)

Signs of the Times

Dec 24, 1896

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 24, 1896

The Peace of God.

"The fruit of the Spirit is . . . peace." Peace is not a feeling, or an emotion. It has its emotions; but it is itself a condition of being or existence, a cessation of strife. The original word from which it comes in the Hebrew Scriptures—shalom—is defined as "completeness, to be safe, to be well, or perfect." The word in the Greek Scriptures—eirēnē—comes from a root meaning to join, and is defined as "oneness, peace."

Man Has Not This Peace in himself.

It is well expressed by the prophet, "The way of peace they know not," and, "The wicked are like the troubled sea, when it can not rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked." This is not because God does not desire that he shall have peace, but man loves sin better than he does peace, and there is no peace in the way of sin. And yet the greater part of man's efforts in this life are put forth to bring peace. The strivings after riches, power, fame, love; the penances, the scourgings, the pilgrimages; the various systems and theories of false religions, of inward meditations, theosophy, Christian Science, false Christianity,—all are human efforts, or human perversions of divine effort, to obtain a peace which never comes.

The Existing Strife

among churches, societies, nations, and the constant preparations for war, are evidences of what is within the individual human heart. And the ceaseless strife is no nearer ceasing now by human effort than it was a hundred years ago. True, there are truces called; there are patched-up unions, confederations on a half basis or wrong basis, because truth is compromised in the union, but there is no real peace, no genuine "completeness," "oneness," "wholeness." It is sad that it is so, but the best in church, society, and state recognize and deplore the condition. There is the longing, unutterable longing, for peace and rest, but it comes not. The great sea of human life is as turbulent and uneasy as ever, and its ceaseless storms and wails and moans are forever ascending.

The Cause of Human Unrest Is Sin.

It is the sinful, the wicked, who know not the way of peace, who are like the troubled sea. Man has perverted God's way of righteousness; he has transgressed God's holy law. "All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." All are afflicted with the humanly incurable leprosy of sin. "The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is desperately sick; who can know it?" (R. V.) "From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores; they have not been closed [by human effort or skill], neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment." The universal disease pervades the world, and even "the health of the daughter of My [God's] people" is affected. There is no completeness, no wholeness, no rest. Politics can never heal the wounds. Philanthropy is helpless. Human knowledge stands abashed before the awful condition. Is there no healing Balm? Is there no Physician who can cure?

The Great Human Longing

and need are met, ay, more than met, in God. He is "the Lord of peace," "the very God of peace," "the God of love and peace." When he gave his only-begotten Son in the beginning, even as at his birth, he proclaimed, "Peace on earth, good-will toward men." In all ages has he declared, "Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith the Lord; and I will heal him." There is perfectness, wholeness, completeness in God, and he declares it all for man. He gave Christ Jesus, his eternal Son, that we might be made whole. There is Balm in

Gilead; there is an all-sufficient Physician there for all who will come to him, and who will heed his prescriptions and counsel.

The Divine Diagnosis

of our disease determines it to be sin incarnate, and by any or all human means absolutely incurable. The Physician declares: "Without me ye can do nothing." "None of these can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him." It is like the leper seeking to heal himself; or the soldier in battle seeking to restore his right arm, which had been shot away, by grafting upon the stump his left arm, cut off for that purpose. Man can not heal himself. In obtaining peace, he can not bring God to his terms; for "as for God, his way is perfect;" "the law of the Lord is perfect;" "the Lord is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works." And man's wretchedness, unrest, sickness, come because he has rebelled against God, and allowed sin to rule in his being. Man has yielded himself, his mind, his strength, to the control of sinful flesh, its multiform passions and lusts. "They that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh," and "the mind of the flesh is death;" furthermore, "the mind of the flesh is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be; and they that are in the flesh can not please God." (R. V.) It is a terrible truth, God's diagnosis of sinful man, but it is told in love.

The Remedy of the Fearful Disease Is in Jesus Christ.

"Him [Christ] who knew no sin He [God] made to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness [completeness, wholeness] of God in Him." (R. V.) "For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in Him." And this completeness brings peace between us and God; nay, it is peace. "For He is our Peace, who hath made both one," uniting us with God, who before were at enmity. "He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed." "As for God, his way is perfect. . . . It is God that girdeth me with strength, and maketh my way perfect." O, there is peace; there is healing Balm; there is a Physician!

The Prescription, the Counsel of the Great Physician,

must be followed to make his remedy efficacious. His way is perfect; his counsel could not be otherwise. His directions may seem to be as foolish to our human wisdom as they were to the leper Naaman, when he was told to dip himself in Jordan for the cure of his leprosy, but it behooves the dying to leave all in the hands of the One "mighty to save." It behooves the rebel, starving, sick, hopeless, and helpless, to lay down his arms of rebellion and surrender to Him who has purchased a most honorable and infinitely valuable peace at immeasurable cost. True, he finds us helpless; but he asks only that which we can do. He simply asks us of our own free will to "choose life," that we may live. With infinite condescension, he says, "Come now, and let us reason together;" the leopard can not change his spots, nor the Ethiopian his skin; nor can you wash away your indelible sins; but I will make the scarlet sins as white as snow, and the crimson iniquities like the whitest of wool. All that God asks is that we yield all to him—the carnal heart, the carnal ways, the sin, the selfishness, the all in all of our lives, and accept of Jesus Christ, his ways, his life. Let Jesus Christ live his life in us. He would make us entirely at one with him; but he must have our all, or he can not do it. If there is any reserve on our part, there is unrest, and perfect peace is not yet. Accept of his prescription, believe his counsel, give all. "Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backsliding." "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." And pardon means peace. "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." If we have surrendered, there is no more war. If we have accepted Jesus Christ as revealed in his word,—and we have not surrendered unless we have,—peace is ours. He is our peace. We have peace in him, for "ye are complete in him." It matters not what Satan may whisper, what sins of the past he may recall to your mind, there is peace in Jesus Christ. Accept it, rejoice in it, and rest; poor, weary, sin-sick soul, rest in Jesus Christ.

This Is the Lesson of Many Miracles.

The Israelites in the desert of Edom were bitten with the fiery serpent representing sin. The message was, Look and live. Jesus Christ was lifted in symbol. Looking was faith, faith was surrender, and surrender was peace and life in God. Said Jesus again and again to the disease-laden, sin-burdened souls, "Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace;"; "Thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace." O soul, there is healing in Jesus Christ; there is blessed peace in surrendering to walk in his paths of peace. Following him, in him, "thy peace shall be as a river," flowing on, never ceasing, bearing blessings all the way. But tho the peace is like a river, yet there will be the peace and the rest of peace, as calm as the placid lake, as firm as the Rock of Ages; for has his Spirit not said of him, "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee; because he trusteth in thee. Trust ye in the Lord forever; for in the Lord Jehovah is the Rock of Ages"? (Margin.) Church of the living God, called-out-ones to his service, trust him. Storms may arise and will arise in the sea of this world's life; the boat may seem frail and certain to go down, but Christ is in the ship. At the right time he will say to the turbulent, angry waves, "Peace, be still," and the storm will become a calm. In the meantime no ship, no soul in which Christ is, which is in Christ, can be destroyed. His message to us is Peace. Our message to the world is Peace in Jesus Christ, peace that the world can neither give nor take away; but that the world needs. Our work here is to be heralds of "peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ." There is no lasting peace in the compromise of truth or righteousness. Seek the peace of God. "Let him take hold of my strength," saith the Lord, "and make peace with me, and he shall make peace with me." The peace of God is that of "righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost." "Great peace have they that love Thy law; and they have no stumbling block." Through all the strifes of earth, all its sadness, its crimes, its miseries, its woes, blessed indeed is the abiding peace of God. Beyond, in the presence of our Lord, is "the abundance of peace." To our readers, yea to all others, for the year 1897 do we wish that "the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost."

BABYLON IS FALLEN.

What Does Babylon Mean? Where and with Whom Did It Originate? What Is Its Essential Nature? What Are Some of the Salient Points in Its History? What Is Babylon Now? What Is Her Fall? What Is the End? What Shall We Do?

THE purpose of this article, reader, is to set forth in the briefest outline, and yet we hope clearly, what is suggested in the questions above. That the subject is important and vital is indicated by its use and prominence in the word of God from Genesis to the Revelation. In discussing it we deal with principles, to which we, with all others, are amenable. Theories are nothing, opinions are of little worth; what is the truth of the word of God?

What Does "Babylon" Mean?

The word "Babylon" is the Greek form of the Hebrew word "Babel." It meaning is confusion. (See Gen. 11:9, margin; compare Gen. 10:10, margin.) It implies that there is a condition of things in which there is no confusion. This is precisely the case with God's perfect plan and purpose; "for God is not the author of confusion." God is one, his law is one, his purpose one. He is perfect in all his ways. His object is to make man like himself in character; hence man was created in his image. After man fell, God could not change his law or his purpose. That which is perfect in purpose and design admits of no change. "I am the Lord, I change not;" "with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever." This is God's character in love, in precept, in promise, in fulfilment. Confusion is caused by interjecting into God's plan a foreign element, or erecting other standards before men than that of God's.

When and with Whom Did This Confusion Originate?

It antedates our race. Perhaps there is no better way of showing its origin and revealing its essential character, than to set before the reader the personification of the two great characters which have revealed to the world in themselves the principles of good and evil, the principles of God's purpose and the principles which constitute Babylon.

The first of these characters is the Son of God, he who is in the bosom of the Father, and who in himself revealed or declared to the world the Father's character. (John 1:18.) The other is the one-time Lucifer, or Day Star, of God, who sealed up in himself the sum of all created perfection, who was the brightest angel around the throne. He is now known as Diabolus, and Satan. He is the primal "king of Babylon," and is so called in Isa. 14:4. That these two characters and the principles which made them may be more clearly seen, we present them in parallel columns:—

Principles of the Son of God, Christ Jesus.

"Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus; who, being originally in the form of God counted it not a thing to be grasped to be on an equality with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, becoming in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross." (Phil. 2:5-8, R. V., margin.)

THE RESULT.

"Wherefore also God highly exalted HIM, and gave unto him the name which is above every name; that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." (Verses 9-11.)

Principles of Lucifer, the King of Babylon.

"How art thou fallen from heaven, O Day Star [Lucifer], son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst lay low the nations! And thou saidst in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God [the other angels]; and I will sit upon the mount of congregation [presiding], in the uttermost parts of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High." (Isa. 14:12-14.)

THE RESULT.

"Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the uttermost parts of the pit." Verse 15.

"Therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth. . . . Thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more." (Eze. 28:18, 19.)

Here we have set in opposition the way of God revealed in the character of Jesus Christ, and the way of confusion revealed in Lucifer, the king of Babylon. In the one is revealed unselfishness, love, self-denial, self-effacement, the utter emptying of self even unto the nothingness of death, that God might be glorified, and man might be saved. This is love. God in his fulness entered the Humble One and revealed himself the God of love, an all-sufficient Saviour; and he who humbled himself was exalted of God, and exalted with him are all those who are his. (See John 17:24; Rom. 8:15-17.) This is faith, love, obedience to the one will of the one God. This is Christianity, and may all be summed up in that faith which lays self upon the altar, and accepts of the will of God as set forth in God's word and in Jesus Christ, as the one supreme standard. Thus "God was manifest in the flesh" of Jesus Christ (1 Tim. 3:16; 2 Cor. 5:19); thus is God through Christ manifest in our flesh (Gal. 2:20; Rom. 5:21; 2 Cor. 4:10, 11); and this is "the mystery of God," "the mystery of godliness," "Christ in you the hope of glory," as opposed to "the mystery of iniquity," which is a characteristic of a fully developed Babylon (compare 1 Tim. 3:15; Col. 1:26-28; 2 Thess. 2:3, 7).

On the other hand is selfishness, self-exaltation, self-salvation, self-glorification, even at the expense of a ruined universe. This is the essential nature of Babylon. It is rarely put forth as rebellion, as direct opposition to God. More often it is but the slightest perversion of God's will, the erection of another standard seemingly like God's will, declared to be God's will, and yet essentially different, in that it creates confusion and glorifies man instead of God. It ever results in putting man in the place of God, and in substituting man's ways, man's traditions, man's theories, man's power, for God's ways, God's word, God's truth, and the power of God's Spirit. This is Babylon, as manifest in its "king," Lucifer; and, as we will see, in its offspring of earth. Wherever we find these principles dominant we find Babylon, confusion. Like causes will produce like results. Environments may retard or accelerate, the great controller may change form or appearance, to deceive, but the essential nature is the same.

Origin of Earthly Babylon.

God designed, alike after the deluge as in the beginning, that man should be like him, and should people the earth with beings of a like character. Thus would man be blessed, and be a blessing. (Gen. 1:28; 8:16, 17.) Against this, selfishness asserted itself as follows:—

"And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city, and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." (Gen. 11:3, 4.)

Notice the objects and the antagonism of these objects to God's plan: (1) We will exalt ourselves; we will build ourselves a city and a tower. Instead of God being the center of worship, this city and tower would be. So rebellious Saul set himself "up a place" after God gave him a great victory. (1 Sam. 15:12.) (2) "Let us make us a name." They would honor themselves instead of God. God only has the right to make himself a name by his glorious works (Isa. 63:12, 14), and he will bestow that glorious name upon all who are his (2 Chron. 7:14; Eph. 3:15). (3) They would save themselves from another flood by building a tower whose top should reach unto heaven. And so they called the whole scheme, as the records of the thoroughly burnt bricks declare. They named the city and tower Bab-il, the "Gate of God," or "Gate of heaven." That was what they in their selfish blindness thought it would be to all the children of men. (4) By this they also thought they would prevent the children of men from scattering abroad in the earth.

The essential root of it all was selfishness, that which will not mix with God's all-beneficent oil of love. That selfishness was manifest in self-exaltation, a scheme for self-salvation, and finally flat rebellion against God. And yet all the time, blinded by sin, they thought the whole thing to be the Gate of God.

Well, the Lord looked upon the city and the tower, and with divine irony, and language adapted to the children of men, he said:—

"Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth; and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth; and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth."

And this also is recorded in the monuments. Says Lenormant, in "Manual of Ancient History," volume 1, page 24: "Babylon is often designated in the cuneiform text [on the bricks and tablets] by a symbolic name, ideographically written, meaning the tower of the root of languages." Borsippa, once included within the walls of Babylon, containing the ruins of the tower of Babel, meant in that idiom (Semitic) "the tower of tongues;" and by another meaning, "the tower of the dispersion of tribes."—Id., pp. 24, 482, 483. So Nebuchadnezzar, a later Babylonian emperor, records in a tablet left by him, in which he states that he finished the tower: "Since a remote time people had abandoned it, without order expressing their words."—Fausset's Biblical Cyclopedia, art. Babel, Babylon.

Nimrod was the mighty rebel, and became one of the first gods under the name Bel, identical with Baal, the Phenician sun-god. Man said that his scheme was the "Gate of God." God named it "Confusion." In it is the very mystery of iniquity, and its inevitable result, destruction.

Some of the Salient Points of History.

We need not pause to tell of how these principles of putting man in the place of God grew. The prophet declares the truth: "Babylon hath been a golden cup in the Lord's hand, that made all the earth drunken; the nations have drunken of her wine." (Jer. 51:7.) A short time after her origin, largely through her beautiful and licentious queen, Semiramis, the heathen "mysteries" of nature-worship were instituted. Among the rites were the drinking of mixed wine. To drink of "mysterious beverages," Salverté tells us, was indispensable on the part of all who sought initiation in these mysteries. The greatest idolatry was that of sun-worship, of all the most abominable and licentious. Sun-worship, and other forms of nature-worship, with all their abominations, spread from nation to nation, until all were drunken of the wine of Babylon.

All this false religion brought in confusion more and more. "Mysteries" multiplied. False gods, and demon-worship—the worship of dead heroes—multiplied. "Confusion worse confounded" resulted. And all this false worship, chief of which was sun-worship, originated with, and may be traced to, Babylon.

Church and State.

Another important fact is that the systems of religion founded upon Babylonian principles, always, when possible, united with the state. She made the nations drunken, that she might as a harlot obtain her hire. Disconnecting from God, that she might follow her own way,—which has ever been God's way perverted,—Babylon was left without power. This she has ever endeavored to supply by enlisting the state in her behalf.

The same pride and exaltation of self manifest in Lucifer and Nimrod, were shown in Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. 4:29, 30), and it resulted in a legal creed, and religious persecution (Daniel 3); but the final result was the destruction of the proud city (Isa. 13:19-22; Jer. 51:29-64). The daughter of Chaldea, or Babylon, "the lady of kingdoms," is represented as "given to pleasures, that dwellest carelessly, that sayest in thine heart, I am, and there is none else beside me; I shall not sit as a widow, neither know the loss of children." (Isa. 47:8, R. V.) The result is destruction. (Verse 9.)

It would be interesting to trace the back-sliding of Israel in this connection; the apostasy of the nation to Baal, or sun-worship, and captivity in Babylon, but we have not space.

What Is Babylon Now?

In the days of Christ and the apostles the church of God knew no written or unwritten creed of men. The word of God alone, was its standard. Faith in that word as it is in Christ Jesus was its requirement (Rom. 10:17; 2 Tim. 3:16; Acts 20:32); and this resulted in unity and obedience to all of God's requirements as observed by Jesus Christ. There was no connection with the state; it was forbidden of Christ. (John 18:36; Matt. 26:52, 53.) No temporal judgment or penalty was to be visited upon the sinful (Luke 9:54-56; John 12:47); in matters pertaining to religion God was to be obeyed, not men (Acts 5:29; 4:19; Matt. 22:21).

It is therefore evident that as soon as human creed, human standards, found place in the early church, confusion would result. One man would call here, another there, another elsewhere, and dire confusion would reign. This is just what did occur. The mystery of iniquity already began to work in the apostles' day (2 Thess. 3:7), hindered only by Christ within the hearts of so many; and immediately following that period, we are assured that out of the church would men arise, "speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them" (Acts 20:30). Here is Babylon again. And here began the development of modern Babylon.

The mysteries of heathenism, the church historians tell us, crept into the church. The days and times and years of heathenism found place in the Christian calendar. The heathen Sunday pushed up its head as a rival of the Sabbath of the Lord. Faith gave way to crosses, processions, relics, works of supererogation, pilgrimages, and a multitude of superstitions. Men endeavored to crystallize the living word of God into cold, dead unchangeable creeds in order to erect towers and cities lest they be scattered abroad, and to make themselves names for self-glorification. All this meant confusion, and so Babylon was developed, and called Christian. Yet Babylon had some faith. But cutting loose from God, she lost his power, appealed to the state, and a

Union of Church and State Resulted.

Thus the virgin daughter of Jerusalem turned from her husband, Jesus Christ (Rom. 7:4; 2 Cor. 11:3), and committed fornication with the world. This is the fall of Babylon. The state was put in the place of the executor of God's judgment. The church and its officers in the place of God. Tradition and creed were exalted above the word of God. It was the repetition of the experiment of Babylon of old. There resulted from this union of church and state the persecution of the Dark Ages.

The Reformation

called out on right principles the true people of God; but it did not have all the truth. It did have, however, those principles which would inevitably have led to the whole truth of God's word as it is in Jesus and the unity for which Christ prayed if the principles had been followed. But they were not. The creed power came in. Man exalted his interpretation of the word in the creed above that word in the Book of God. What was the result? The churches of the Reformation became a part of Babylon, daughters of the old mother, because developed by, and following in, the same principles. But as they departed from the word of God and his Spirit,—the only source of divine power,—they turned, as did the church of old, to the state, committed fornication with the powers of earth, and fell.

Out of these bodies of state churches God has called others; but creeds have been exalted instead of the word of God, or that word has been divided, mutilated or destroyed, a part only accepted, the rest rejected. Man's judgment has been set against God, and confusion—Babylon—results. Yet God has been wondrously good. He has wrought through many of these religious bodies to the salvation of many souls; but now he is calling them out of Babylon, back to the one standard of his word. The greater number are in Babylon still, but following in imperfect light the Gospel. But now what do we see? We see representations of nearly all the great churches of Christendom, with their confused creeds, uniting as did the men of old to build a mighty city of organization, great world-wide federations to control the religion and government of the world. The one dogma above all others exalted in this crusade is "the wild solar holiday of all pagan times," the rival of the Lord's rest day, the pago-papal Sunday, concerning the holiness of which the word of God is absolutely silent. It has no Scripture authority. No two original investigators will agree in its defense with themselves or with each other. And yet this great Babylon of federations, churches, societies, guilds, leagues, and we know not what, is rapidly uniting to exalt the Sunday in all the nations of earth, and to crush out the only day commanded of God, and hallowed by patriarch, prophet, apostle, and Lord of glory.

O, it is pitiful to see the professed churches and ministers of Christ turning from the word of God, turning from Jesus Christ their strength, and turning to the Assyria and Egypt of politics for aid in religion.

The doing of these very things before constituted Babylon; is it not the same now?

The turning from God to the world, to the powers of earth, constituted spiritual fornication of old; does not the doing of the same thing now mean fornication?

When Israel of old united with Egypt it resulted in her utter defeat and confusion (Isa. 30:1-7), and the fall of Egypt (Isa. 31:1-3); and when the Jewish church chose Caesar as king instead of Christ, it resulted in their utter destruction as the church and nation of God (John 19:15; Luke 20:13-16); will it not be the destruction of the Christian churches, to turn from God to the powers of earth, and place the power of men in the place of God, the power of force in the place of love, the power of tradition in the place of truth, the power of law in the place of the Gospel? This course will deceive the nations; it will oppress the people of God who follow Christ and obey his word, but it will not deceive God. Its final result will be the everlasting destruction of Babylon and her daughters, Babylon the great, including every organization which has exalted itself against God and his word, and the destruction of every nation deceived by Babylon. This means all except the elect and holy nation, whose king is Jesus, whose law is his word.

What Shall We Do?

What shall we do, fellow Christian, in view of God's solemn warning of history and example, of prophecy and precept? It matters not who you are, to what denomination you belong, what men may call you, with what church you may affiliate; this is not the question. What shall we do with Jesus which is called Christ? with his word? with his truth? with his example? Shall we prefer Babylon with her traditions, her errors, her mysteries, her pomp and display, her wealth and numbers, to Christ and his Gospel? aye, and eternal riches of grace and life everlasting? God has told us what to do with respect to Babylon. Here is his word, and may God help you to obey:—

"And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies."

"And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues." (Rev. 18:1-4.)

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