This is the continuation of a book The Prophetic Outlook Today – The Second Advent Order of Events, by E. P. CACHEMAILLE. It’s one of the most succinct expositions of Antichrist I have ever read.

THE ANTICHRIST

In order to get a true and complete view of this great antagonist of Christ and of His Church, we have to bring together the several prophecies and instructions given by the Holy Spirit, for the purpose of guiding in a sure path those who really desire to learn.

These are the following:—

1. The Little Horn of Daniel’s Fourth or Roman Beast (Dan. vii. 8), that grows up amidst the other Ten Horns, and for a long period lords it over them.

2. The self-deifying king of Dan. xi. 36.

3. St. Paul’s prophecy in 2 Thess. ii. 3 as to the coming Apostasy, the “falling away” from the true faith, with which compare 1 Tim. iv.

4. His prophecy, also in 2 Thess. ii., as to the “Man of Sin,” and the restraining Power that for a time was to prevent his open manifestation.

5. St. John’s description of the Antichrist, so named only by St. John in five places in his Epistles.

6. The Beast with Seven Heads and Ten Horns of Rev. x., xiii., xvii., and xix.

7. The City of Antichrist, called the Great City and Babylon, which he was depicted in Rev. xvii. as supporting and upbearing, marked out as being Rome by its having a seven-hilled locality in St. John’s day, and supremacy in St. John’s time over the kings of the earth (Rev. xvii. 18).

A Complex Portrait

All these describe not so many separate powers or personages, appearing at different times or places in the history of Christendom. On the contrary, they are so many portraits of one and the same great Power, of long duration, taken from different points of view, and not all belonging to the same eras in his history. But they all refer to him. All these prefigurations together cover the whole history and reveal the main features of that evil Power, which lasts from the time of its appearing, all through the dispensation, till the return of our Lord.

To discuss and to explain all these Divine forecasts would take us far beyond our present limits. That is done elsewhere. They are not of necessity all fulfilling together at any one period of Antichrist’s history, for he has beginnings, growth, maturity, career of power, and then decay and final destruction. But they are all to be taken into account, all to be combined¹ and fitted together, for the complete historical portrait and entire identification, which also must ultimately satisfy all the requirements of them all.

It may be said at once that all these portraits, all these features, find their exact counterpart, and all meet, in one Power and one Power only, of all that are known to History, a Power that is in existence at the present time, and has been for more than twelve centuries.

Meaning of the Name “Antichrist”

In the name “Antichrist, Christ” is the subject and “Anti” the predicate; that is to say, he is a “Christ,” usurping the name and the place of Christ, making use of Christian phraseology and institutions, and professing the doctrine of Christ; but all the while he is in reality “anti,” “instead of,” the true Christ, and therefore also opposed to Him. Yet he is a “Christ,” one who sets himself up as the counterpart of the true, and therefore one who under the same professed name and character is a disguised enemy to the true Christ.¹

Archbishop Trench, in his Synonyms of the New Testament, explains that the Greek preposition anti in composition has both forces, meaning sometimes substitution, sometimes opposition, and occasionally in the same word it will have both meanings. The name itself does not decide the matter, but leaves it to be settled by other considerations.

Bishop Westcott, on The Epistles of St. John, affirms that the name means far more than simply “an adversary of Christ.” It means one who takes the place of Christ, or one who under the same character, assuming the guise of Christ, opposes Christ.

A similar usage is seen in the French contre-maitre, contre-amiral, and several like words; that is, a shipmaster or an admiral qualified to take the place of the actual master or admiral.

An excellent illustration of this meaning is the word of the Middle Ages, “Antipope,” meaning not simply an enemy to the Pope, as a hostile Emperor might be, but a self-substituted, usurping, hostile Pope, occupying the proper Pope’s place, receiving his honours and exercising his functions.

It is most important to bear in mind that “Antichrist” cannot mean simply and solely an enemy to Christ; it can only mean either a Vice-Christ, or a false opposing Christ, or both; a professed Christian, but in reality an apostate, and therefore an enemy, though in friendly disguise. Outside of the professing Christian Church there originates no Antichrist, in the Biblical sense of the term. Antichrist is not an atheist or an infidel; he might ultimately become such in fact, whatever his professions, but he is not such at first, nor in the greater part of his career: he is a professed Christian.

So his Church, called Babylon, is a professedly Christian Church. Almost to the very last there are in it some of Christ’s true disciples, who are urged to come out of her lest they share her doom (Rev. xviii. 4). Is it credible that such could knowingly have joined themselves to an infidel system, acknowledging an infidel head? They have been deceived by false appearances, and have had no opportunity of learning better; but in God’s mercy they are solemnly warned of their danger, if only they will give heed to the warning ere it be too late.

“Vicar of Christ”

Antichrist, then, was to appear as a Vice-Christ, as the “Vicar of Christ,” in the mystic Temple or professing Christian Church, and in that character and position was to act out the part of usurper and adversary against Christ Himself and the members of His true Church. Antichrist was to corrupt the doctrines of the Gospel, and was to make war with Christ’s saints and to slay them.

This hostile Power had previously been made known and talked of among Christians (1 John ii. 18) as the one pre-eminently great enemy (not one of two) that was to come. He was not to be a professed atheist, but in mouth would confess Christ, while practically setting Him and His truth aside; calling himself the Vicar of Christ, and professing in His place to be the power, wisdom, and salvation of God, yet in reality denying the Father by denying the Son, for the Son alone can reveal the Father.

It is sometimes confidently affirmed that the majority of Bible students believe there will be a personal infidel Antichrist. This is very far from being the case. For example, Bishop Ellicott, Bishop Westcott, Professor Swete, the Expositor’s Greek Testament, Hastings’ Bible Dictionaries, the greater and the less, and Murray’s Bible Dictionary, do not one of them describe the Antichrist as an infidel, nor does the name itself allow this. To be looking for an infidel is to be looking for what is not foretold. It is one of the devices for diverting attention from the real danger and the real foe, who is far more subtle, far more seducing, and far more dangerous than would be an open infidel. An infidel system is open, is no mystery; not so this.

When was he to appear?

Daniel’s prophecy (Dan. vii.) connected this dread Power with the last of the four great Empires—that is, with the Roman.

St. Paul, living under the Roman Empire, spoke of the principle of the apostasy which was to be headed by the Man of Sin, as already sown and working in his day (2 Thess. ii.); but a certain hindrance or restraint had first to be removed out of the way ere room could be made for the development of the Man of Sin. Observe—that restraint was not to be utterly destroyed, but only moved aside, taken out of the way.

This hindrance was well understood by the Christians of those days to be the Roman Imperial Power ruling at Rome, as the early Fathers testify, and the Apostle himself says to the Thessalonians (2 Thess. ii. 6), “Now ye know that which restraineth’; but it was not actually named by St. Paul in his public Epistles, for the obvious reason that to have done so would have brought fierce persecution on the Christians. It was therefore needful for him to practise reserve as to it in writing, although he had described it clearly to them in speaking. He had made it known in conversation, and from so important a seaport as Thessalonica, situated on a great Roman road, the information would soon spread to the other churches, and be with them a matter of common knowledge, as the early Christian writings testify. Nine of the Fathers may be quoted as witnesses to this effect.

It is to be noted also that the “one that restraineth” is spoken of by St. Paul as if a single individual, yet this “one” really represents a succession of about sixty-four Roman Emperors, from St. Paul’s day to A.D. 476. In like manner the “Man of Sin” represents the whole succession of Popes, not one individual only. His continuance far exceeds the lifetime of any one individual. He has a corporate existence. (Note: The primary reason behind that is Satan is ruling the earth through each and every pope. When the mortal pope dies, the immortal Devil takes over the next pope to continue his rule over the earth.)

After the Break-up of Western Rome

The Fourth Beast of Daniel’s Vision (Dan. vii.), on whose head, in its last or Ten-Horned state, the Little Horn (that is, the Antichrist) was seen to sprout and grow after the rise of the Ten Horns, could be no other than the Roman Empire, according to the plain facts of History; and so accordingly it was understood by the chief of the early Fathers. The time of Antichrist’s coming forth was to be after the breaking up of the old Roman Empire in the West, from which have come the States of Mediaeval and Modern Europe.

The natural inference would be that Antichrist was a Power to rise on the removal from Rome to Constantinople of the Empire and Emperors; it might even be inferred that he would rise in the same place that had been occupied by the hindrance, as well as on its departure.

The Signs of his Coming

The coming of the Man of Sin, the Antichrist, was to be ushered in by two signs of quite different and independent character, but which have actually appeared, and together.

1. The Religious Sign of corruption within the Church, working on into apostasy from the true faith; not into desertion of the Visible Church, but—while remaining in it, and indeed claiming to be still the only true representative of Christ’s Church on earth—falling away from Christ’s true faith and true spiritual disciples.

Ecclesiastical History witnesses to the growth of error, doctrinal and practical, in these ages of the Church, especially in regard to the Sacraments, and to the invocation of other mediators than the only true One.

The baptismal error, exposed in Rev. vii. 1-8, (Note: I don’t know what this means! The Scripture reference seem to have nothing to do with baptism. It could mean some other book in the Bible.) was the foundation stone of the great foretold Apostasy, whose grand object and characteristic, ever followed out with admirable unity of purpose by its originator, the Master Spirit of Evil, was this: Within the Christian Church itself, while professedly exalting Christ and His institutions, and making free use of Christian phraseology, practically to set Christ aside out of the Christian system from first to last, in respect of one and all of His saving acts and offices.

2. The Political Sign of the Roman Imperial Power in the West being moved away from the city of Rome, and the Roman Western Empire breaking up into ten separate kingdoms. This is an unquestioned historical event, the consequences of which are to be seen today in the existence of the separate States of Europe.

This crisis of History, the removal of the Caesars from Rome and the breaking up of the old Western Roman Empire into the kingdoms of Europe, cannot possibly be repeated. And since the Papacy, which thus appeared at the crisis predicted for the appearance of the Antichrist, bears all the marks of the Antichrist, it seems impossible to resist the conclusion that the Papacy itself, and not only some future individual, is the Antichrist of prophecy.

The Ten Kingdoms

The seat of Empire and the Emperors were moved away from the city of Rome, and the whole of the Western Roman Empire was broken up into separate States, which, during all these twelve or more succeeding centuries, have averaged ten in number.

Daniel’s First Vision, of the Great Image, had foretold attempts at reunion, and again separations, between these divided kingdoms; this would cause temporary variations in their number, there being sometimes more, sometimes less, than the actual ten within the area in question. But the average over the whole period has been ten, and in the year 1918 the number was still actually ten.

The Great Earthquake and the Tripartition

Moreover, after the Great Earthquake of the Seventh Vial (Rev. xvi. 19), —that is, a mighty European Revolution,—the Great City—that is, the area of the ten kingdoms—breaks up and settles down into three parts, no longer into ten. At that epoch, to which we are drawing near, the tenfold division that has lasted some thirteen centuries comes to an end, and gives place to a threefold division.

The Little Horn

But if the Ten Horns be the kingdoms of Mediaeval and Modern Europe, there can be no question as to what the Little Horn among them is. The right historical interpretation of the Ten Horns identifies the Papacy with that Little Horn that rises among them and lords it over them, and whose lordship is recognised and allowed by them, till God’s time has come.

Here is the Man of Sin foretold by St. Paul, here is the Antichrist described by St. John. In every particular—time, place, character, doings, all of which have to be taken into account—the identification is complete.

It is plain from Dan. vii. and Rev. xvii. that Antichrist was to be a Power contemporary with the Ten Horns of the symbolic Beast, a common head supporting and forming a centre of union to them. That is, Antichrist is a Power contemporary with the European kingdoms of the Middle and Modern Ages; and this is the position assigned to the Papacy by all the history and by all the standard historians of those times.

[All this is more fully treated in the author’s larger work, Present-Day Papers on Prophecy.]

A Personal Antichrist at the Last

While it is affirmed that the Papal Power, in its rise, career, and doom, is the true fulfilment of the Antichrist of prophecy, and of the other prophetic portraits of the same great enemy, it is freely allowed that there is room for the fullest illustration of the chief features of the Antichrist on an individual scale, in the person of the last Pope or Popes, in the Papacy at the close of its career.

The Antichrist of the last days will then be the Papacy in its last form and fully developed character; not a new and short-lived creation of Satan, but an awful development by Satanic power of the Antichrist that has existed all along during the 1260 years. Because the Papacy is not yet the full-grown ripened Antichrist of the last days, is it therefore not the present Antichrist?

Other Antichrists

In proving the Papacy to be the Antichrist, it is not intended to deny that there have been other Antichrists, and even that there are others now in the world, as there were many in St. John’s time. In fact, all false religions may be regarded in some sense as so many Antichrists.

But the Papacy is that particular form of Antichristianism which above all others has been selected by Divine foreknowledge to be the subject of prophecy, so as to warn the Church of Christ—if she will take the warning—against her most insidious and formidable foe.

The Seventy Weeks

The prophecy of the Seventy Weeks in Dan. ix. has nothing whatever to do with Antichrist; it is occupied exclusively with the First Advent of Christ, His rejection and death, and the Roman destruction of Jerusalem which was the result. It is a fulfilled prophecy. The 70th week, or any part of it, may not be wrenched away from the other 69, and relegated to some distant future; it cleaves to the 69th. The 70 weeks, being a definite measurement of time, run on continuously from 1 to 70, the last week being divided into two halves; otherwise the measurement would have no meaning. As though you promised a measurement of 70 lengths to reach a certain point, and you gave 69 of these, but said that the 70th was you knew not how far away in the distance. Of what use would the measurement of 70 be? To place an indefinite gap between the 69th and the 70th weeks is to destroy the value of the 70 weeks’ period as a definite measure of time.

Suppose you have a rod 70 inches long. From any fixed point you can lay the rod in any direction, and the points its end reaches will always be just 70 inches from the starting-point. But suppose you break off from the end of the rod one inch, or one half-inch, and then tie between the two broken ends a long piece of elastic. You can then stretch the broken piece away to any distance you please, but you have destroyed the measurement of 70 inches. It may now be 100 inches, or 700, or more; but no longer is it 70.

Antichrist has to do with Christendom

Antichrist has to do with Christendom, not with the Jews. In prophecies of events to take place during the “times of the Gentiles”—that is, during the present age—the Jews are to a large extent overlooked. They are the natural branches of the olive tree, but for the present they are “broken off.” They knew not the day of their visitation, and the Kingdom of God is taken from them and given to others. “Blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in, and then all Israel shall be saved.”

Hence the great Antichristian Power symbolised as the “Little Horn” and called the “Man of Sin”; and the eighth head of the Beast, being the last form of Gentile Power, and belonging to these “times of the Gentiles,” has little to do with the literal Israel, or the literal Jerusalem, or a literal Temple. He coexists not with a recognised Jewish nation, but with the rejection and dispersion of the Jews, and with a recognised professing Christian Church.

His sphere is not Palestine, but Christendom; his throne is not at Jerusalem, but at Rome. Though Jews also have suffered grievously from his persecutions, by far the greater number of his victims are Christians, not Jews.

A Succession, not only one Individual

As has already been mentioned, it is to be noted that the Roman Imperial succession, the “hindrance” or “restraint,” is by St. Paul spoken of as if a single individual—“one that restraineth now”; yet it was not one Emperor only, but a succession of about 64 individual Emperors from St. Paul’s day onwards to A.D. 476. In like manner the other phrase in the passage, “The Man of Sin,” denotes a succession, and not only one individual.

The Apostle John, in his Second Epistle, writes (ver. 7): “Many deceivers are gone forth into the world, even they that confess not that Jesus Christ cometh in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the Antichrist.” This conclusively proves that St. John did not use the term “the Antichrist” to designate a single individual person, but as a collective designation of the false teachers who in the name of Christ taught doctrines contrary to the truths of Christ and His Gospel.

So in the Psalms and other Scriptures, “the wise man,” “the perfect man,” “the man of God,” “the righteous,” “the godly man,” are frequently contrasted with the fool, the wicked man, the ungodly, “the son of wickedness,” and the transgressor. Each of these expressions represents not an individual only, but a class, a body, or a succession of persons answering to that character. Samuel’s prophecy (1 Sam. viii. 10-18) concerning “the king” of Israel is a prophecy not of one individual king, but of the line of Israelite monarchs which began with Saul.

Similarly the “Man of Sin” designates a succession of persons, not one alone.

History illuminates these Prophecies

We have to take account of the facts of History, which powerfully illuminate the forecasts in these Visions. Before the events of the History had begun to happen at all, these solemn and somewhat mysterious warnings were given to the Church, and many were the guesses as to how they were to be fulfilled. That could not be otherwise.

But for us all this has been wonderfully cleared up by the event. Time is a great interpreter of prophecy. We have now centuries of History, of accomplished facts, recorded for our learning. We now know from Roman History precisely when and how and whither “the one that restraineth” was moved out of the way. We have also seen, in the History of Europe, how a certain Power, ruling from Rome, has claimed and does claim to be the Vicar of Christ, a Christ instead of the true One; how in every detail the features of the prediction have found and are still finding their accomplishment; how at that precise era the Bishop of Rome began to transform himself into the Roman Pope, who has lasted from then down to the present day. The abandonment of Rome by the Caesars was the liberation of the Pontiffs.

The Pope has claimed to be reverenced as Christ, and in every way has inculcated Christ’s impersonation in him on the minds and eyes of men. This answers, as a translation in terms, to the word Antichrist in its first sense—a Christ instead of the true One. Inasmuch also as this is an utter falsehood and blasphemous usurpation, it answers also to the second sense—a hostile, counter Christ. But in either case he is professedly a Christ.

War with the Saints

The same character and spirit are displayed from first to last throughout his history. To take one feature only. In the earliest prophecy, that of the Little Horn in Dan. vii., it is said that “the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them.” And in the latest prophecies, in Revelation, the same feature reappears. The Beast makes war with Christ’s witnesses, and overcomes them and kills them. The Harlot Babylon, riding on the Beast, is seen to be drunk with the blood of Christ’s saints. The identity of character is maintained throughout. It is all along the same Power, with the same evil policy of deadly enmity against Christ’s true saints, who keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus.

We turn to the page of History, and read the pitiful records of God’s slaughtered saints in the valleys of Piedmont and in Bohemia, of the Vaudois, the Lollards, the massacred Huguenots in France, the victims of the Inquisition, and many, many others.

A traveller, happening to be near Madrid when a new road was being cut through the spot where martyrs and victims of the Inquisition were burned, finds himself standing breast-high among their ashes and calcined bones.

A Motley stirs our enthusiasm as he tells of the successful struggles of that brave little Dutch Republic against the then mighty power of Spain, but also of the awful massacres of those multitudes who would cleave to the teaching of the pure Word of God.

These are only some instances of many. Who slew all these? The numbers thus slain in the countries named, and elsewhere, including our own land, have been computed at over fifty millions, besides the unknown sufferers who cannot be numbered. As a question of History— who is responsible for all this most dreadful slaughter? When History is seriously inquired of, it will return no uncertain answer.

“Denying the Father and the Son”

It is objected that the Papacy has never denied, and does not now deny, the Father and the Son. It receives and acknowledges the Christian Creeds, which express the beliefs of the whole Christian Church.

But look beneath the surface. St. John, after defining the Antichrist as “he that denieth the Father and the Son,” goes on to say, “Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father.” To be false to the one is to be false to the other. With this agree the words of our Lord (John v. 23): “He that honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father which sent Him.” It all turns, therefore, not on the words of the lips, but on the real attitude towards the Son and His work; for the Son may be verbally confessed in the Creeds, while He and His work are denied—that is, put aside and superseded in practice; and the Father also is denied by denying the Son.

The term “deny” in this connection is not used in the infidel sense of denying the existence or the Godhead of God and Christ, but it is applied to those who, while professing to be Christians, practically dishonour the Lord by corrupting His doctrine, and so proving false to Christ.

The “Apostasy,” the “falling away,” is a declension from the primitive standard of faith. There has been a previous profession of the truth, but apostasy—departure therefrom—has supervened. Wrong teaching about the Person and Work of Christ has ever been Satan’s great weapon against Him. The Antichristian spirit, which in St. John’s day animated the false but professedly Christian teachers, took the form of corrupting the truth of the Gospel, with regard to the Person and Office of Christ. This, St. John says, is really a denial “that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.” It cuts at the root of the Incarnation, and ruins the Gospel

Object of the Great Apostasy

The one grand object and characteristic of the great predicted Apostasy (as stated above), ever followed out with admirable unity of purpose by its originator, the Master Spirit of Evil, is this:

Within the Christian Church itself, and while professedly holding the Christian faith, honouring Christ and His institutions, and making free use of Christian phraseology, practically to set Christ aside out of the Christian system from first to last, in respect of one and all of His saving acts and offices.

The Apostasy openly declared itself towards the end of the fourth century, with the baptismal error exposed in Rev. vii. 2-8 (see Present-Day Papers on Prophecy).

The general principle of this Apostasy, of which the Papacy is the head, is to deny openly nothing Christian, but to profess the whole of it; to acknowledge the Christian Creeds and the chief Christian doctrines, and to use the Christian phraseology. But in practice—besides making unauthorised additions—to divert adoration and trust away from the Lord Jesus Christ to other objects, as to His Mother, to saints, to sundry practices of religion—all, it may be, having the outward appearance of true Christian devotion. A great deal that is professedly Christian is allowed to be retained, provided that the heart’s real trust is diverted ever so little away from Christ to someone or something else. Thus it is most truly Antichristian (“anti,” instead of).

Naturally, many other evils follow, as is invariably the case when the Divine Lord and His truth are forsaken. But the main principle is, practically forsaking the Lord Himself, in His various offices, while still professing His Name and retaining Christian phraseology. No wonder that multitudes are deceived and led astray, and are made to believe that they are holding the true Christian faith of the New Testament and of the Primitive centuries. Even to the last, some of Christ’s true saints are to be found in the Pope’s Church, Babylon (Rev. xviii. 4).

The Mediatorship of Christ

The real question then is, How does the Papacy regard the Mediatorship of Christ? To whom does it send the penitent seeking for pardon and peace? Does it forthwith direct him to the Lord Jesus Christ, and to Him first and alone who has said, “Come unto Me”?

No. It is rather to His Mother that the sinner is first directed, or to other so-called intercessors, that these may incline the Lord Himself to be merciful; thus disbelieving, denying the willingness and the abundant promises of the Saviour to receive any that come to God through Him, and the plain statement that there is but one Mediator between God and man. It is a notorious fact that, at the present time especially, our Lord, in the matter of mediation, is by the Papal teaching placed in a secondary position, if not lower.

In the year 1916 Cardinal Bourne urged on Roman Catholics constant prayer in connection with the War. In his Pastoral he exhorted his people to turn to God “through the intercession and under the guidance of her who by her lifelong anxieties and unsurpassed compassion was privileged to share, as no other creature can ever do, in the all-atoning sacrifice of her Divine Son.”

Thus in actual practice, whatever may be the profession of the lips, the Son in His mediatorial character is denied, and in consequence the Father also.

AntiChrist’s Character and Teaching

Here is a portrait sketched long ago by some who had good reason to know what they were writing about:

A Professed Friend, but a Deadly Enemy

Here is another instructive sketch:

Which would be viewed with the deeper abhorrence?

An avowed, open, desperate enemy, sworn against your life, family, friends, and property:

Or one that, while professing the utmost friendship, should by some strange impersonation of yourself in your absence insinuate himself into your place in the family, seize your estate, seduce your wife to be as his wife, your children to look to him as their father, and, if yours be a king’s dignity, seize upon your kingdom for himself; that he should then make use of his opportunities to train your wife, children, and subjects into unfaithfulness and rebellion to all your most solemn and cherished wishes and commands, falsifying your letters, and forging your handwriting, in order the more effectually to carry out his plan.

Such is somewhat the view of Antichrist presented in Scripture prophecy, and such is what has been actually realised in the Popes and the Popedom. These prophecies, rightly applied, give the Divine estimate of the greatest system of corrupted religion the world ever saw, and stamp as Satanic the Power which claims to be Divine and infallible, and which still lords it over hundreds of millions of mankind.

The Three Frogs

We are seeing around us today the operations of the Three Unclean Spirits like Frogs (Rev. xvi. 13, 14), who come forth under the Sixth Vial —the Vial of the drying up of Turkey—and whose range is over the whole inhabited earth. These three are materialistic Infidelity, Popery, and Priestcraft, from the mouths of the Dragon, Beast, and False Prophet respectively. We have now been since A.D. 1820 under the Sixth Vial, and along with the drying up of Turkey which is going on before our eyes, we see these Three Evil Spirits hard at work all over the world. It is the preparation for the great war of Har-Magedon; it is the last supreme effort of the powers of evil against Christ and His cause. They are nearing their doom, and perhaps they know it.

There is nothing in the prophetic Visions to authorise the expectation that in the last days infidelity will be universally substituted for superstition and other corruptions of the truth. The fact that shortly before the final consummation these Three Unclean Spirits like Frogs—not one only—go forth, shows that up to the very end Antichristian error will be various in form. There are two other spirits besides the spirit of Infidelity from the mouth of the Dragon.

The great conflict takes place under the Seventh Vial, which has now begun. The tremendous warfare, following on the strange spirit of unrest and revolution that has broken out in all parts of the world, in resistance to social order and constituted authority, looks singularly like what is foretold as characterising that Seventh Vial. We must be prepared and guided by a true and intelligent knowledge of these prophecies, if we would be ready in time to take our place on the right side. It is for the express purpose of so guiding His people that the Lord has caused these wonderful predictions to be written for our learning.

Why does not everyone see this?

Someone will ask, “If all is so plain, why does not everyone see and admit it?”

Must it always be so, in spite of the darkness and enmity of the human heart, and the snares and deceptions of the great enemy? Alas!

When the “Let” was removed

When the restraining Power that prevented the open manifestation of the Man of Sin had been moved away in A.D. 476, why did not the Christians of those days recognise the crisis and what it portended? St. Paul had quite plainly told the Thessalonians what that restraining Power was, and his warning was clearly understood by the early Christians to refer to the Roman Imperial Power ruling at Rome, as their writings testify. Why then did the warning fail of its effect when the time actually came?

The following reasons have been assigned:—

1. The universal prevalence in the West of the mystical principle of interpretation, throughout almost the whole period from A.D. 500 to 1100, and considerably in the East also. By this principle, all in the prophetic symbols, as to geography and chronology, that was most definitely applicable to Papal Rome, was spiritualised away.

2. The Greek Ruler at Constantinople was still called and thought of as Roman Emperor, after the Gothic catastrophe, though not having Rome itself as the seat and centre of his power. Some three centuries later arose what was called the “Holy Roman Empire’; first under Charlemagne, who was crowned by the Pope at Rome, a.D. 800; and next under Otto 1., crowned at Rome, A.D. 962. Hence expositors reasoned as if the “Let” still remained. The “Holy Roman Empire” was put an end to by Napoleon in 1806.

3. The generally received idea that the times people were then living in were a part of the Millennium, previous to Satan’s being loosed for a little season of three and a half literal years, and previous to the manifestation of Antichrist.

4. The political fact, that in these early centuries the Bishops of Rome rose gradually and almost furtively to political power; and with such a combination of lamb-like pretensions to sanctity, and of lion-like pretensions as Christ’s Vicegerents on earth, as served in that dark and unintellectual era to blind the minds even of expositors to the real correspondence between the Papacy and the foretold Antichrist.

5. The moral fact, that the corruptions of Christian doctrine and worship enforced by Papal Rome were participated in, more or less, by the expositors themselves, in West and East. Hence their blindness to these grand marks of the Antichristian Apostasy already developed.

Twofold Character of the Papacy

The Pope unites in himself two distinct personalities, and in consequence makes two vast but separate claims.

1. There is the immeasurably higher, mightier, but usurped character of Christ’s Vicegerent upon earth, as “Vicar of Christ,” with consequent supreme headship over kings and peoples. This is royal, or rather super-royal, and is signified by the three-crowned tiara. When the Pope is crowned in St. Peter’s at Rome these words are used (in Latin): “Receive the tiara adorned with three crowns, and know that thou art the father of princes and kings, the ruler of the terrestrial orb, the Vicar of our Saviour Jesus Christ, to Whom is honour and glory for ever and ever.”

This claim is made by a dynasty of temporal sovereigns of longest continuance in Europe, who assert themselves to be the supreme rulers of the kings and temporalities of the Roman world; and notwithstanding all that has taken place in History, this claim is put forth in all its fullness at the coronation of a Pope at the present day, in the light of the twentieth century.

2. There is also the patriarchal headship of the Church of Rome, and the claim of supreme headship over the general Christian Church. This is sacerdotal or ecclesiastical, and is signified by the mitre.

What creates complexity is the strange fact that these two distinct characters and functions are united in the same personage—a political power and an ecclesiastical system. But they can be regarded apart from one another, and one might perish while the other remained. The members of the Papal dynasty have been not only heads of a Church, but also European monarchs and temporal sovereigns, until in 1870 the last of their territorial possessions was taken from them. Enthroned at Rome, they succeeded to the Western Empire of the Caesars, and for more than twelve centuries united in a bond of common obedience to themselves all the nations of the Western Empire of Rome.

None of these claims have been renounced. It is a grave mistake to regard the Papacy simply as an ecclesiastical system, with the Pope as its head. It is also a most formidable political organisation, ever busily at work, but mostly under the surface.

The Jews and the Messiah

Remember how the Jews, with all the prophecies in their hands, with Moses constantly read in their synagogues, and the voices of the Prophets sounding in their ears, nevertheless failed to recognise Jesus Christ as their true Messiah, and as a nation fail to recognise Him still. To us, prophecies and fulfilment alike seem wonderfully plain; not so to them. The veil is on their hearts.

So likewise, while to not a few—and one would fain hope to an increasing number—these prophecies of AntiChrist seem wonderfully plain, and their accomplishment unquestionable, there are still many who have these prophecies and hear their explanations, yet cannot recognise him to whom they all point. So, with all the help and the warnings that the Holy Spirit has given, it is still possible to fail to see aright.

When the “Let” spoken of by St. Paul had been removed, and the era for the manifestation of the “Man of Sin” had arrived, the signs of the times, and the furtive rise of the foretold Antichrist, were not rightly read by the Christians of those days. Wherefore? Here is a significant extract from Mede’s works:

And while they were thus looking for an Antichrist of their own imagining, the real Antichrist stole unperceived into their midst, and is here amongst us now. He is far more deeply concerned in the present European troubles than most people suspect. One of the Three Unclean Spirits like Frogs issues from his mouth, and is in league and co-operation with the other two.

Of course those who are on the side of Antichrist cannot be expected, at least at first, to admit any of this. But those may be left out of account at present; we are speaking only of those who are not of necessity prejudiced in that direction.

What is wanted for all is more and more earnest and prayerful study of these prophecies; and more readiness, if need be, to give up our own persuasions, and to lay to heart what God has to teach us; that we may be led by the Holy Spirit into all the truth on this deeply import ant subject.

Tremendous Issues

Tremendous issues depend on the identification and recognition of this great foe, the most insidious and most formidable enemy of our Lord, of His truth, and of His Church.

God, in His Prophetic Word, has given us most elaborate and abundant description, warning, and guidance as to this foe, his aims and methods, and his final doom. There it all is, in Daniel, St. Paul, and St. John, if we will attend to it, and put aside our own prepossessions, and what may even be the most popular notions of the day.

Why all this wealth of description, these elaborate picturings of the foe and his doings? Because he has very special powers of deception; because it will be very difficult to recognise him as the foe that he is. Many will be deceived into regarding him as a friend, or at least a neutral. The object of all this descriptive detail is to enable us to unmask the professed friend and to discover the real foe; and the abundance of the help provided means that the matter is difficult, demanding careful examination and honest attention to one and all of the details given.

For it is possible to see, and yet not to perceive. But it will be disastrous indeed if we get on the wrong track; if, instead of becoming aware of and being on our guard against the real foe that God has pointed out to us, and who is actually in our midst, we are gazing into a far future to discover some imaginary personage, who is expected to do things not assigned in the prophecies to the real enemy. We shall then be presently taken by surprise by the crafty and powerful adversary, and because ignorant and unprepared, we shall be taken at a disadvantage, to our confusion and perhaps defeat. Which God forbid!

Important for the Clergy

Especially is all this important for us clergy, who are responsible for giving official teaching from the Word of God on this as on other Scripture topics. We ought indeed to be clear in our own minds.

The real Antichrist has been in our midst for many centuries, close to us, doing exactly what is assigned to him; and many of us have not known it, or else refuse to admit it. How grievous the apathy, the ignorance of so many, who neglect to study for themselves the forecasts God has given, comparing them with the solid facts of History (e.g. Dan. vii.), and are content to pick up current notions, or to follow some professed leader in exposition, or, sadder still, to put this great subject aside altogether.

But there is much worse. What an awful delusion, not only to ignore all this Scripture teaching, but even to be yearning and working, as some amongst us are,—not curates only,—for reunion with this chief enemy of Christ and of His truth and Church! Will not these be led to reconsider their position in the light of God’s Prophetic Word, and come over to the ranks of those who know the real enemy, and are doing what they can to unmask and resist him? “O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!”

Remember that at the present time every effort is being made to keep these topics out of sight, to minimise their importance, to put them aside as belonging to a bygone age. The purpose is to distract attention from the true Antichrist, and to pervert or to turn aside what Scripture so plainly declares, applying it to some other Power or Personage, who is not the real foe against whom the Holy Spirit so elaborately warns us. Many minds that do not look deeply into things are easily captured by these crafty devices.

We must be on our guard against this danger. For if we let these Divine admonitions pass unheeded by, they will nevertheless all be fulfilled, but our blood shall be upon our own head.

Continued in The Vial Poured Out Upon The Air; And The Three Unclean Spirits Like Frogs.

All Sections of The Prophetic Outlook Today by E. P. CACHEMAILLE

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