Modern Commentary Related to Chapter III
PROGRESS, DECLINE, AND FINAL LOSS OF THE SCIENCE OF THEOLOGY AMONG THE GENTILES—FORESHADOWINGS OF ITS RESTORATION FOR THE USHERING IN OF THE MILLENNIUM.
Oh Mystic Babel, long has been thy reign!
What direful evils follow in thy train!
The veil is rent—thy mystery revealed,
Angels cry wo! and God thy doom has sealed.
The nations, from thy long and dreary night,
Are waking now to everlasting light.
Returning to the Gentile Church, we find the science of Theology, with all its miraculous powers of visions, dreams, angels, revelations, prophecy, healings, &c., everywhere enjoyed. It had abated none of its powers, in its transition from Jew to Gentile. The wild branches, being engrafted into the good old stock, immediately partook of the root and fatness of the tame olive tree, and thus was produced the natural fruit.
But Paul, the great Apostle of the Gentiles, in his writings to the Romans, cautioned them to beware lest they should fall away after the same example as the Jews had done before them.
Said he—”If God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee.”
John the Apostle also predicted the rise and universal sway of a certain mystical power, a Babel of spiritual or religious confusion, in short—”Mystery, Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth.”
This power should bear rule among all nations. The kings and rulers of the earth should be drunken with the wine of her fornication. The merchants of the earth should become rich through the abundance of her delicacies.
This power should, according to the Prophet Daniel and the Apostle John, “wear out the Saints of the Most High;” “change times and laws;” “be drunken with the blood of the Saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus;” “destroy the mighty and the holy people;” “make war with the Saints, and overcome them” until a set time.
All these predictions, and many others, foretell the doom of the Gentile Church—its destruction from the earth, and the consequent decline and cessation of the science of Theology, and of its powers and blessings in the Gentile world.
Connected with these predictions, we have the most positive prophetic declarations of Holy Writ concerning the overthrow and entire destruction of this same mystical power, which had made war with the Saints.
Its judgments are set forth as far more terrible than those which befell Jerusalem. Plague, pestilence, sword, earthquake, and the flame of devouring fire will cause her to cease to be.
Then will usher in the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ. Then will the Saints of the Most High take the kingdom, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven.
Thus are to be revived the ancient powers and blessings, the knowledge and wisdom, of the science of Theology.
In the fulfilment of the foregoing predictions, the science of Theology declined, and passed away from among the Gentiles, just in proportion as the Church, or the Saints of the Most High, were warred against and overcome.
For years, centuries, ages, there has been no voice from heaven among the Gentiles, any more than among the Jews. They have fallen “after the same example of unbelief,” notwithstanding the caution of their great Apostle.
No Gentile Prophet has arisen and uttered his voice.
No kind angel has ministered to them.
No vision from the Lord.
No answer.
No inspired dream.
No voice.
No sound from the heavens.
No revelation has burst upon the silence of midnight darkness which has brooded over the nations.
Or, if such voice, such vision, such Prophet has occasionally burst forth with the testimony of Jesus, the spirit of prophecy, his testimony has been unheeded by the mass of the people called Christians, his voice silenced in death, or himself and his followers have been banished from society, to wander in the mountains, forests, caves, or deserts of the earth; or, on the other hand, compelled to drag out an existence in the solitude of the dungeon.
Ages, centuries have passed, and Oh! what suffering! what torture! what rivers of tears! what oceans of blood! what groanings! what strong crying and tears on the earth! what prayers in heaven!
“How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood, on them that dwell on the earth?”
The fire consumed.
The sword devoured.
Hell’s artillery bellowed.
Devils hugely grinned.
Widows and orphans mourned.
Heaven wept.
Saints prayed.
Justice stood aghast.
Mercy, retiring, dropped a tear of blood.
Angels, starting, half-drew their glittering swords.
And the Gods, in solemn council, decreed a just vengeance.
Protest upon protest! reforms and re-reforms; revolutions, struggles, exertions of every kind, of mere human invention, have been tried, and tried in vain. The science of Theology, with all its keys and powers, once lost, could never, consistent with the ancient Prophetic testimony, be restored to either Jew or Gentile, until the full time should arrive—”The times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets, since the world began.”
The time for a mighty angel to fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting Gospel to preach to them who dwell on the earth; to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people. (See John’s revelation.)
The time of judgment for “Mystery Babylon.”
The times of “the fulness of the Gentiles.”
The times for the grafting in again of the Jews, and all the natural branches of Israel.
Then, and not till then, could the science, the keys, the powers of
Theology, be restored to man.
No individual or combined human action could obtain or restore again these keys—this science.
A mighty angel held the keys of this science for the last days. A mighty angel was to restore the keys of the ancient Priesthood, Apostleship, power and blessings. A voice from heaven was to reveal the time, and send forth the cry—”Come out of her my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.”
All the darkness of the middle ages; all the priestcraft or kingcraft of every age, since the slaughter of the Apostles; all the oppressions, persecutions, or abuses of power; all the extravagancies and idleness on the one hand, and all the sufferings and miseries of the toiling millions for want of the comforts of life, on the other; all the ignorance, superstitions, errors, divisions and contentions which have transpired in the name of “Christianity” down to the present time; have been the results of the decline, and loss of the keys and powers, of the science of Theology, or for want of attention to them when existing on the earth.
Nor will the “Christian” world ever attain to any considerable degree of knowledge, power, or union in religious progress, until they discover their loss of this science, become sensible of the need of its restoration, and humble themselves as in the dust, and welcome a messenger who comes in the name of the Lord, with a commission from heaven, and with keys committed by the Angels of God—a new Apostolic commission, a restoration of the Kingdom and Church, and power and gifts of God; a new dispensation, universally proclaimed in all the world, with power and signs following; and the whole consummated by the glorious restoration of Israel and Judah to their own land and nationality, and to the true fold of God; together with the second advent of Messiah and all his Saints with him, to overthrow “Mystery Babylon,” and reign on the earth.
Such are the events, such is the remedy for the past and present evils.
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