Babylon–Mother and Daughters

“Now some sincere Christians, not yet awake to the decline of Protestantism, and who do not realize the relationship of the various sects to Papacy, but who perceive the unrest and the doctrinal upheavals in all the religious systems, may still be anxiously inquiring—

If all Christendom is to be involved in the doom of Babylon, what will become of Protestantism, the result of The Great Reformation?

This is an important question; but let the reader consider that Protestantism, as it exists today, is not the result of the Great Reformation, but of its decline; and it now partakes to a large degree of the disposition and character of the Church of Rome, from which its various branches sprang. The various Protestant sects (and we say it with all due deference to a comparatively few devout souls within them, whom the Lord designates as “wheat,” in contradistinction to the overwhelming numbers of “tares“) are the true daughters of that degenerate system of nominal Christianity, the Papacy, to which the Revelator makes reference in applying to her the name “Mother of harlots.” (Rev. 17:5)

And let it not pass unobserved that both Romanists and Protestants now freely own the relationship of mother and daughters, the former continually styling herself the Holy Mother Church, and the latter, with pleased complacency, endorsing the idea, as shown by many public utterances of leading Protestant clergymen and laymen. Thus they “glory in their shame,” apparently all unmindful of the brand which they thus accept from the Word of God, which designates the Papacy, as “the mother of harlots.” Nor does the Papacy, in claiming her office of motherhood, ever seem to have questioned her right to that title, or to have considered its incompatibility with her profession still to be the only true church, which the Scriptures designate a “virgin” espoused to Christ. Her acknowledged claims of motherhood are to the everlasting shame of both herself and her offspring.

The true Church, which God recognizes, but which the world knows not, is still a virgin; and from her pure and holy estate no daughter systems have ever sprung. She is still a chaste virgin, true to Christ, and dear to him as the apple of his eye. (Zech. 2:8; Psa. 17:6,8) The true Church cannot be pointed out anywhere as a company from which all the tares have been separated, but it consists only of the true “wheat,” and all such are known unto God, whether the world recognizes them or not.

But let us see how the Protestant systems sustain this relationship of daughters to Papacy. Since Papacy, the mother, is not a single individual, but a great religious system, in keeping with the symbol we should expect to see other religious systems answering to the illustration of daughters of similar character–not, of course, so old, nor necessarily so depraved, as Papacy–but nevertheless, “harlots” in the same sense; i.e., religious systems claiming to be either the espoused virgin or the bride of Christ, and yet courting the favor and receiving the support of the world, at the price of disloyalty to Christ.

To this description the various Protestant organizations fully correspond. They are the great daughter systems.

As already pointed out *the birth of these various daughter systems came in connection with reforms from the corruptions of the mother Church. The daughter systems parted from the mother under circumstances of travail, and were born virgins. However, they contained more than true reformers; they contained many who still had the spirit of the mother, and they inherited many of her false doctrines and theories; and it was not long until they fell into many of her bad practices and proved their characters true to the prophetic stigma–“harlots.” (D28-30)

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*“The political circumstances during the time of the reformation, combined with the fact that even the leaders of the reform were only beginning to get awake to some of the moral and a few of the doctrinal errors of Papacy, lead us to wonder at the rapid strides taken toward the right, rather than to harshly condemn them for not making the cleansing more thorough. But when the Protestant churches united with the state, progress and reform came to a standstill. Soon creeds were formed which were almost as unyielding and opposed to growth in knowledge as the decrees of Rome, though nearer to the truth than Rome’s–bondage’s of greater latitude.

Thus, the same kind of union between church and state which had worked such injury to the truth before, in Papacy, was the snare by which the adversary impeded and obstructed the “cleansing of the sanctuary,” so nobly begun. Reformation and cleansing for a time ceased, and, instead of progressing with the cleansing, the reformers gave attention to organizing themselves, and to revamping and repolishing many of the old papal dogmas, at first so loudly condemned. Thus did Satan decoy the reformers into the very “harlotry” (union of church and state) which they had denounced in the Church of Rome. And thus, the deadly wound which Papacy had received was for a time healed. Rev. 13:3

But the “cleansing,” thus begun and thus interrupted, must start afresh and go on; for by the end of the 2300 years the Sanctuary must be cleansed. And so, it has been. The recurrence to the Bible as the only authority for faith, by which the reformation was begun, planted deeply seeds which have since sprouted time and again, and brought forth one and another reform, in spite of the fact that the leading reformers speedily attempted to hinder the spread of reform beyond their own measure, by establishing creeds and bulwarks of faith beyond which, regardless of the teachings of the Bible, none were permitted to go, without drawing down upon themselves the anathema of “heretic.”

Glancing along the pathway of the Church, from Luther’s day until now, we can see that, step by step, reform or cleansing has progressed; and yet the same tendency is marked at every step; for each set of reformers, as soon as they accomplished their own little item of cleansing, stopped and joined the others, in opposition to all further reform or cleansing.

Thus, for example, the Church in England, casting aside some of the grosser doctrines and practices of the Church of Rome, claimed, and still claims, that it is the only true Church, and that its bishops have apostolic succession, and hence supreme control of God’s heritage. This “daughter” of Rome, leaving the “mother,” took the proffered arm of England, and made the sovereign of the empire the head of that church. Yet, as with the Lutheran daughter, even this was nevertheless a reform, and in the right direction–a partial cleansing.” (C111-112)

Continued with next post.