IS THE VIRGIN MARY ALIVE OR DEAD?

Chapter 9

There is yet another identifying feature of the beast that must be addressed—that He would “think to change times and laws.” (Daniel 7:25). I will never forget the day I learned that the Roman Catholic Church and the papal power were foretold in the Bible prophecy. One Saturday morning I had been invited to a local church to hear a young minister who was speaking on the prophecies of the Book of Daniel. That morning he taught on the prophecies of Daniel 7, which reveal the four great world powers that would successively rule the world. These four monolithic empires were Babylon (the lion, verse 4), Medo-Persia (the bear, verse 5), Greece (the leopard, verse 6), and Rome (the fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, verse 7).  He then explained that out of the fourth beast, Rome, which is “the fourth kingdom upon earth” (verse 23), would come a “little horn” (verse 8), who “shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and dividing of time” (verse 25).

“Now how did the papal power think to change times and laws,” he asked the class, “and what laws would Satan specifically target in his attack?” “The most likely answer would be the law of God—the Ten Commandments ,” he said. The shocker came to me when the young minister began to explain how the Roman Catholic Church did, indeed, just that. “They took out the second commandment, which says: ‘Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth ,’” he said. Immediately I thought about the images of Mary, Baby Jesus, and the Saints in the Cathedral of the Annunciation. How I revered the statues, especially the ones of Mary. I remember wondering, as I listened to the minister speak, why there were statues in the Cathedral, anyway, when the second commandment forbade image worship. Either the statues were a violation of God’s law, or the second commandment, as the young minister insisted, had been changed! What about the bleeding icons and the weeping statues? Would God work miracles through graven images which He forbade?

Eager to learn more, I continued to listen closely to what the young man had to say about the “little horn” power of Daniel 7. “Not only did the Pope ‘think’ to change the second commandment,” he continued, “but he moved the rest of the other nine commandments up one number [number three was now number two, and number four was now number three, etc.], and then he divided number ten in half, making two commandments out of the one, so that there would still be ten commandments!” I remember the day I looked in a Catholic Catechism to verify this for myself and gasped. The second commandment was gone, the fourth commandment, which says: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God” was now the third and simply said: “Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath.” Number nine said, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife.” And number ten said, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods.” What authority did the Roman Catholic Church have, anyway, to change the law of God, I wondered? The young minister continued with his lecture by challenging my lifelong beliefs even further when he asked the question, “How did the little horn think to change ‘times’?”

Before I answer that question, I first want to tell you a little more about my life as a young Catholic boy. Every Sunday I was required to attend 9:00 A.M. Mass at the Cathedral of the Annunciation. If I missed a Sunday, I was required to bring a note from my parents explaining why I had missed Mass that day, or I would have to stay after school for detention. It was a law!—a “Sunday Law”! In fact, it is a mortal sin to miss Mass on Sunday, according to the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. Therefore, I was quite surprised when the young minister began to question Sunday-keeping. He began by stating that nowhere in the Bible is Sunday regarded as a “holy day.” In fact, A Doctrinal Catechism , by Rev. Stephen Keenan, page 174 says:

“Question—Have you any other way of proving that the church [Roman Catholic] has power to institute festivals of precept?

“Answer—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 not Scriptural authority.”

“The Catholic church, by virtue of her divine mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday.” (The Catholic Mirror, official organ of Cardinal Gibbons, Sept. 23, 1893).

Again the question is asked of them in still another catechism:

“Question—Which is the Sabbath day?

“Answer—Saturday is the Sabbath day.

“Question—Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday?

“Answer—We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church, in the Council of Laodicea, (A.D. 336), transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday.” (The Convert’s Catechism of Catholic Doctrine, p. 50, Third Edition, 1913, a work which received the “apostolic blessing” of Pius X, Jan. 25, 1910).

After the young minister’s lecture, which both shocked and disturbed me, I ran out of the church and remember looking for one of the Catholic priests that had taught me “the truth.” It so happened that the very next evening I was going to a party to which I had been invited the week before. And whom do you think I ran into there? It was one of the priests from the Cathedral of the Annunciation! Talk about Providence! With a cocktail in one hand and a cigarette in the other, the priest seemed pleased to see me after so many years. My mind was racing, and it wasn’t long before I sprung the unexpected question upon him: “Which is the Sabbath day?” I asked. With an interesting look in his eye, he answered cautiously, “Saturday!”

I then probed him further as to how God’s holy day (Isaiah 58:13), the Seventh-day Sabbath, got changed from Saturday to Sunday? With raised eyebrows, and the smell of liquor and tobacco on the “holy” man’s breath, he answered, and I kid you not, “the pope changed the day!” I then asked him if the Catholic Church had indeed killed millions of Christians during the Dark Ages? He reluctantly answered, while looking into his glass, “We would like to forget that.” And to think that I used to confess my sins to these “reverend men of God,” who buy pornographic literature, smoke cigarettes, and get drunk in public!

Chapter 10

So it was all true. The young minister had spoken the truth that Saturday morning! The “little horn” of Daniel 7 and “the leopard-bodied beast” of Revelation 13 is the Roman papacy, who thought to change “times and laws.” Satan had succeeded through his earthly agent, the pope of Rome, to change the time we are to worship the Creator—from the seventh day to the first day of the week—and, as a consequence, many Christians are keeping, most of them unknowingly, mind you, the “commandments of men.” Did not Christ warn us: “But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men”? (Matt. 15:9). Friends, Satan in his efforts to usurp the throne of God and sit in the sides of the north (Isa. 14:13, 14) as God Himself, has changed “times” by changing the day the Bible says we are to worship the Creator! By this apparent change, the creature Satan, through his human agents, has claimed the authority of the Creator, and millions and millions of people all over the world are unknowingly paying homage to the “father of lies” by worshipping at his commandment on the first day of the week—the venerable day of the sun—Sunday!

“The detector of error having been removed, Satan worked according to his will. Prophecy had declared that the papacy was to ‘think to change times and laws.’ Daniel 7:25. This work it was not slow to attempt. To afford converts from heathenism a substitute for the worship of idols, and thus to promote their nominal acceptance of Christianity, the adoration of images and relics was gradually introduced into the Christian worship . The decree of a general council finally established this system of idolatry. To complete the sacrilegious work, Rome presumed to expunge from the law of God the second commandment, forbidding image worship , and to divide the tenth commandment, in order to preserve the number.

“The spirit of concession to paganism opened the way for a still further disregard of Heaven’s authority. Satan, working through unconsecrated leaders of the church , tampered with the fourth commandment also, and essayed to set aside the ancient Sabbath, the day which God had blessed and sanctified (Genesis 2:2, 3), and in its stead to exalt the festival observed by the heathen as ‘the venerable day of the sun. ’ This change was not at first attempted openly. In the first centuries the true Sabbath had been kept by all Christians. They were jealous for the honor of God, and, believing that His law is immutable, they zealously guarded the sacredness of its precepts. But with great subtlety Satan worked through his agents to bring about his object. That the attention of the people might be called to the Sunday, it was made a festival in honor of the resurrection of Christ . Religious services were held upon it; yet it was regarded as a day of recreation, the Sabbath being still sacredly observed.

“To prepare the way for the work which he designed to accomplish, Satan had led the Jews, before the advent of Christ, to load down the Sabbath with the most rigorous exactions, making its observance a burden. Now, taking advantage of the false light in which he had thus caused it to be regarded, he cast contempt upon it as a Jewish institution. While Christians generally continued to observe the Sunday as a joyous festival, he led them, in order to show their hatred of Judaism, to make the Sabbath a fast, a day of sadness and gloom.

“In the early part of the fourth century the emperor Constantine issued a decree making Sunday a public festival throughout the Roman Empire. The day of the sun was reverenced by his pagan subjects and was honored by Christians; it was the emperor’s policy to unite the conflicting interests of heathenism and Christianity. He was urged to do this by the bishops of the church, who, inspired by ambition and thirst for power, perceived that if the same day was observed by both Christians and heathen, it would promote the nominal acceptance of Christianity by pagans and thus advance the power and glory of the church. But while many God-fearing Christians were gradually led to regard Sunday as possessing a degree of sacredness, they still held the true Sabbath as the holy of the Lord and observed it in obedience to the fourth commandment.

“The archdeceiver had not completed his work. He was resolved to gather the Christian world under his banner and to exercise his power through his vicegerent, the proud pontiff who claimed to be the representative of Christ. Through half-converted pagans, ambitious prelates, and world-loving churchmen he accomplished his purpose. Vast councils were held from time to time, in which the dignitaries of the church were convened from all the world. In nearly every council the Sabbath which God had instituted was pressed down a little lower, while the Sunday was correspondingly exalted. Thus the pagan festival came finally to be honored as a divine institution, while the Bible Sabbath was pronounced a relic of Judaism, and its observers were declared to be accursed.

“The great apostate had succeeded in exalting himself ‘above all that is called God, or that is worshipped.’ (2 Thessalonians 2:4). He had dared to change the only precept of the divine law that unmistakably points all mankind to the true and living God. In the fourth commandment, God is revealed as the Creator of the heavens and the earth, and is thereby distinguished from all false gods . It was as a memorial of the work of creation that the seventh day was sanctified as a rest day for man. It was designed to keep the living God ever before the minds of men as the source of being and the object of reverence and worship. Satan strives to turn men from their allegiance to God, and from rendering obedience to His law; therefore he directs his efforts especially against that commandment which points to God as the Creator .

“Protestants now urge that the resurrection of Christ on Sunday made it the Christian Sabbath. But Scripture evidence is lacking. No such honor was given to the day by Christ or His apostles. The observance of Sunday as a Christian institution had its origin in that ‘mystery of lawlessness’ (2 Thessalonians 2:7, R.V.) which, even in Paul’s day, had begun its work. Where and when did the Lord adopt this child of the papacy? What valid reason can be given for a change which the Scriptures do not sanction?” (The Great Controversy, pp. 51-54).

What does the fourth commandment actually say: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day [Saturday] is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.” (Exodus 20:8-11).

Does the Catholic Church acknowledge that there is no command in the Bible for the sanctification of Sunday? “You may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we never sanctify.” (Faith of Our Fathers, p. 111).

Does Revelation 12:17 make more sense to you now? “And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.” Revelation 14:12 also adds: “Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God , and the faith of Jesus”; and Revelation 22:14 concludes: “Blessed are they that do His commandments [not Satan’s], that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city .” The Apostle John also penned the following words while under inspiration: “And hereby we do know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He that saith, I know Him, and keepeth not His commandments, is a liar , and the truth is not in him.” (I John 2:3, 4). After all, Christ Himself said: “If you love me, keep My commandments....even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in His love.” (John 14:15; 15:10).

Chapter 11

Friends, from our study thus far, you can plainly see that the “beast,” or “little horn,” is the Roman papacy. So, what is the mark of the beast—or the mark of the Roman papacy? Before I answer that question, let me first show you what the seal of God is. A seal can be an embossed emblem, symbol, letter, etc., which is attached to a legal document. It has to do with legal matters. A seal has three parts: The name of the ruler, the ruler’s title, and the extent of the ruler’s territory. The Bible gives us an important clue as to where God’s seal is located, for it says in Isaiah 8:16: “Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples.” In fact, the “new covenant” (Heb. 8:8) that God made with His people involves His law.

In Hebrews 8:10 we read: “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put My laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts : and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people.” In Revelation chapter 7, we read in verses 2 and 3: “And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels...Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads .” Therefore, we can conclude that God’s seal has something to do with His law in our foreheads, or in our minds. Behind the forehead is the part of the brain called the frontal lobe, where our moral decisions are made. It is also the part of the brain where the conscience is located.

God’s law is known as the Ten Commandments —His ten principles of love. They are also referred to as the “royal law” or the “law of liberty,” according to the Apostle James, by which all mankind will be judged. (See James 2:8-12; Eccl. 12:13, 14). In fact, the Bible gives the following definition of sin: “Sin is the transgression of the law [the Ten Commandments].” (I John 3:4). Therefore, it is safe to say that God is looking for an obedient people—a people in whose minds are written His moral law, His law of love , and who would rather die than transgress His commandments. It is interesting to note that in the bosom of God’s Ten Commandments, which, by the way, are impossible to keep without the aid of the Holy Spirit writing these beautiful principles in one’s heart, is the Sabbath—the one commandment that gives the name, the title—or office , and the territory of God Almighty!

“Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God ...For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth , the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.” (Ex. 20:8-11). This, friends, is the only place in the Bible where you will find God’s seal! The Sabbath contains His name, “the Lord thy God;” His title or office, [the Creator who] “made;” and His territory, “the heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is.” This is why the Prophet Ezekiel said: “And hallow My sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between Me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your God.” (Ezek. 20:20).

Thus, the seal of God, which is to be in the heart of man, is in the heart of God’s law! Notice also that the command is to keep holy the Sabbath Day. “Ye shall be holy; for I am holy.” (Lev. 11:44). The day itself is already holy, because God at Creation had done three things to make it that way forever to represent His own holiness: He rested on the Sabbath Day with man; He blessed the day; and He sanctified it (or set it apart for a holy use). Thus, the day is and remains holy forever. “Whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever.” (Eccl. 3:14). But it is impossible to keep the Sabbath holy while breaking any other one of the nine remaining commandments, or principles of holiness. Hence, the keeping of the Sabbath Day holy uniquely embraces all the rest of the Ten Commandments, which are to be sealed in the heart [mind], and is especially suited by its very function to be the “seal of God” under the Holy Spirit, “whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.” (Eph. 4:30).

I remember the first time I read about the Sabbath in the Book of Isaiah. A deep conviction came over me as I learned that the prophet referred to the seventh-day Sabbath as God’s “holy day.” The prophet wrote while under inspiration: “If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day ; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour Him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth.” (Isaiah 58:13, 14). In fact, just a few chapters later, Isaiah further tells us that the saved will worship the Lord on the seventh-day Sabbath in the Earth Made New! “For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord.” (Isaiah 66:22, 23).

I remember asking myself the question, “Would God give to man instructions to keep the seventh-day Sabbath holy in the Garden of Eden (see Genesis 2:1-3) and to His people throughout the Old Testament, and then change the day in the New Testament from Saturday to Sunday, and then back again to His original Sabbath in the Earth Made New? Of course not! The very idea seems preposterous! Christ kept the Sabbath holy in the New Testament, “as was His custom” (Luke 4:16), and even identified Himself as the “Lord of the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27, 28). The Apostle Paul, “as his manner was,” also kept the seventh-day Sabbath. (See Acts 13:14; 16:13; 17:1, 2; 18:4)!!!

“Throughout the New Testament, written years after Christ’s ascension, the Holy Spirit, speaking of the seventh day, calls it ‘the Sabbath’ upwards of fifty times....In the Levitical or sacrificial ordinances of the sanctuary services there were annual sabbaths and feasts, associated with meats and drinks and ceremonial observances. But in appointing these the Lord specifically distinguished between them and the one and only weekly Sabbath, which was from the beginning. ‘These are the feasts of the Lord,’ He said, ‘beside the Sabbaths of the Lord.’ Lev. 23:37, 38.

“The annual festivals and sabbaths, like all the ordinances of the Levitical service, were shadows of things to come, and found their fulfilment in the great sacrifice of Calvary. Col 2:16, 17. But the Sabbath of the Lord was made blessed and holy by God at the creation , before sin had entered the world, before any sacrificial or shadowy service was instituted to point to a coming Redeemer. It is a fundamental and primary institution, a part of the moral order of God’s government for man , the same as the obligations set forth in each of the other commandments....Thus we find the seventh-day Sabbath a plant of the heavenly Father’s planting, rooted deep in all Holy Scripture, and abiding eternally in the world to come .” (Our Day in the Light of Prophecy, pp. 163, 164).

Has it occurred to you that most Christians in the world keep only nine commandments? This could be the reason why God began the fourth commandment with the word, “Remember, ” for He must have known we would forget! Besides, would not a change, involving the day God expects us to worship and praise Him, be in the Bible? And why is there not a verse in the Holy Scriptures supporting the observance of Sunday? The Scriptures say: “For I am the Lord, I change not....Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto Me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts.” (Mal. 3:6, 7). Before we look at some heavier issues involving the “mark of the beast,” please remember that God is seeking to write His law in our hearts, but only with our consent, of course. A Scripture that has become precious to me which verifies this promise is in II Corinthians 3:3: “Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart.”

Chapter 12

In the book of Revelation, chapter 17, we find yet more clues as to who the “great whore” of Bible prophecy is. But in addition to that, there is in this chapter a great parallel involving the word “mystery” that must be considered, because it will explain the origin of Mariology (the body of belief, doctrine, and opinion concerning the Virgin Mary), and how it crept into the Christian church.

The first six verses of the chapter read: “And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will show unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication. So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour , and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.” (Rev. 17:1-6).

One historian, Alexander Hislop, the author of The Two Babylons, spent years researching the connection between ancient Babylon and the papal system of worship. He wrote: “The gigantic system of moral corruption and idolatry described in this passage under the emblem of a woman with a ‘golden cup in her hand’ (Rev. 17:4) ‘making all nations drunk with the wine of her fornication’ (Rev. 17:2; 18:3), is divinely called ‘MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT’ (Rev. 17:5). That Paul’s ‘Mystery of Iniquity,’ as described in II Thess. 2:7, has its counterpart in the Church of Rome , no man of candid mind, who has carefully examined the subject, can easily doubt....Now, as the system here described is equally characterized by the name of ‘Mystery ,’ it may be presumed that both passages refer to the same system. But the language applied to the New Testament Babylon, as the reader cannot fail to see, naturally leads us back to the Babylon of the Ancient world. As the Apocalyptic woman has in her hand a cup, wherewith she intoxicates the nations , so was it with the Babylon of old. Of that Babylon, while in all its glory, the Lord thus spake, in denouncing its doom by the prophet Jeremiah: ‘Babylon hath been a golden cup in the Lord’s hand, that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunken of her wine; therefore the nations are mad.’ (Jer. 51:7). Why this exact similarity of language in regard to the two systems? The natural inference surely is, that the one stands to the other in the relation of type and antitype . Now, as the Babylon of the Apocalypse [Revelation 17:5] is characterized by the name of ‘Mystery,’ so the grand distinguishing feature of the ancient Babylonian system was the Chaldean ‘Mysteries,’ that formed so essential a part of that [ancient, secret religious] system [that included ceremonies and the worship of certain gods and goddesses]. And to these mysteries, the very language of the Hebrew prophet, symbolical though of course it is, distinctly alludes, when he speaks of Babylon as a ‘golden cup.’ To drink of ‘mysterious beverages,’...was indispensable on the part of all who sought initiation in these Mysteries. These ‘mysterious beverages’ were composed of ‘wine, honey, water, and flour.’” (The Two Babylons, pp. 4, 5). Just as this “mysterious beverage” had an intoxicating nature, so it is with the “Mystery of iniquity,” who spiritually is “making all nations drunk with the wine [her intoxicating and mysterious doctrines] of her fornication.”

“The Chaldean Mysteries can be traced up to the days of Semiramis...that beautiful but abandoned queen of Babylon ...the great ‘Mother ’ of the gods ...the Mother of all impurity,...[the one who] raised the very city where she had reigned...as the grand seat...of idolatry and consecrated prostitution. Thus was this Chaldean queen a fit and remarkable prototype of the “Woman” in the Apocalypse, with the golden cup in her hand, and the name on her forehead, ‘Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of harlots and abominations of the earth.’ The apocalyptic emblem of the Harlot woman with the cup in her hand was even embodied in the symbols of idolatry derived from ancient Babylon, as they were exhibited in Greece...and it is singular that in our own day, and so far as appears for the first time, the Roman Church has actually taken this very symbol as her own chosen emblem. In 1825...Pope Leo XII, struck a medal, bearing on the one side his own image, and on the other, that of the Church of Rome symbolized as a ‘Woman,’ holding in her left hand a cross, and in her right hand a cup , with the legend around her, ‘Sedet super universum,’ ‘The whole world is her seat.’

“....It was a matter, therefore, of necessity, if idolatry were to be brought in, and especially such foul idolatry as the Babylonian system...that it should be done stealthily and in secret....The priests were the only depositories of religious knowledge; they only had the true tradition, by which the writs and symbols of the public religion could be interpreted; and without blind and implicit submission to them , what was necessary for salvation could not be known. Now compare this to the history of the Papacy, and with its spirit and modus operandi throughout, and how exact was the coincidence! Was it in a period of patriarchal light that the corrupt system of the Babylonian ‘Mysteries’ began? It was in a period of still greater light that that unholy and unscriptural system commenced, that has found such rank development in the Church of Rome. It began in the very age of the apostles, when the primitive Church was in its flower, when the glorious fruits of Pentecost were everywhere to be seen, when martyrs were sealing their testimony for the truth with their blood. Even then, when the Gospel shone so brightly, the Spirit of God bore this clear and distinct testimony by Paul: ‘The mystery of iniquity doth already work.’ (II Thess. 2:7).

That system of iniquity...in due time would be awfully ‘revealed,’ and would continue until it should be destroyed ‘by the breath of the Lord’s mouth, and consumed by the brightness of his coming.’ (Ibid., v. 8). But at its first introduction into the Church, it came in secretly and by stealth, with ‘all deceivableness of unrighteousness.’ It wrought ‘mysteriously’ under fair but false pretenses , leading men away from the simplicity of the truth as it is in Jesus. And it did so secretly, for the very same reason that idolatry was secretly introduced in the ancient Mysteries of Babylon; it was not safe, it was not prudent to do otherwise. The zeal of the true Church, though destitute of civil power, would have aroused itself, to put the false system and all its abettors beyond the pale of Christianity, if it had appeared openly and all at once in all its grossness; and this would have arrested its progress. Therefore it was brought in secretly, and by little and little , one corruption being introduced after another , as apostasy proceeded, and the backsliding Church became prepared to tolerate it, till it has reached the gigantic height we now see...the system of the Papacy.

“....Craftily and gradually did Rome lay the foundation of its system of priestcraft, on which it was afterwards to rear so vast a superstructure. At its commencement, ‘Mystery’ was stamped upon its system....The clerical power of the Roman priesthood culminated in the erection of the confessional . That confessional was itself borrowed from Babylon....The dictate of Scripture in regard to confession is, ‘Confess your faults one to another’ (James 5:16), which implies that the priest should confess to the people, as well as the people to the priest, if either should sin against the other...Rome, leaving the Word of God, has had recourse to the Babylonian system. In that system, secret confession to the priest, according to a prescribed form, was required of all who were admitted to the ‘Mysteries’....Now, this confession is made by every individual, in secrecy and in solitude, to the priest [on pain of perdition] sitting in the name and clothed with the authority of God, invested with the power to examine the conscience, to judge the life, to absolve or condemn according to his mere arbitrary will and pleasure....Without such confession, in the Church of Rome, there can be no admission to the Sacraments, any more than in the days of Paganism there could be admission without confession to the benefit of the Mysteries ....This is the grand pivot on which the whole ‘Mystery of Iniquity,’ as embodied in the Papacy, is made to turn; and wherever it is submitted to, admirably does it serve the design of binding men in abject submission to the priesthood.” (The Two Babylons, pp. 5-11). [No wonder the counterfeit Virgin Mary told the visionaries who saw her in Medjugorje the following: “One must invite people to go to Confession each month....Monthly Confession will be a remedy for the Church in the West. One must convey this message to the West!” (The Thunder of Justice, p. 198)].

“In conformity with the principle out of which the confessional grew, the Church, that is, the clergy, claimed to be the sole depositories of the true faith of Christianity. As the Chaldean priests were believed alone to possess the key to the understanding of the Mythology of Babylon, a key handed down to them from primeval antiquity, so the priests of Rome set [themselves] up to be the sole interpreters of Scripture...They, therefore, require implicit faith in their dogmas; all men were bound to believe as the Church believed, while the Church in this way could shape its faith as it pleased....In every respect, then, we see how justly Rome bears on its forehead the name, ‘Mystery, Babylon the Great.’” (The Two Babylons, p. 11).

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