would owe its origin and existence to "the working of Satan," instead of to the operation of the Spirit of God. It was a "mystery of iniquity," instead of a mystery hid in God; its votaries are "wicked," full of lying, of deceivableness, of unrighteousness; deluded and unbelieving, instead of being fruitful in every good work, through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth. It has a mere earthly human head instead of a Divine and heavenly one; and its ultimate destiny is "everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord" at His second coming, instead of the rapture to be "for ever with the Lord" which awaits the true Church at that crisis. Both apostles thus predict that there will arise in the course of the Christian dispensation an ecclesiastical organization like the true Church in some respects, but utterly unlike it in others,-possessing the features of a worthless imitation,—and produced by Satan to oppose and counterwork Christ and the true Church. Now this was a strange prediction. It would have been natural to foresee for the Church Jewish opposition, or heathen opposition, or even general declension and backsliding. But Christian opposition! that was something which human intelligence would never have surimised as possible in the apostolic era. That the Christian Church should ever reign over the kings and nations of the world at all seemed extremely improbable. But that, being so exalted, its influence should be for evil, and not for good,— used to oppose Christ and His true witnesses,—that would have seemed well-nigh incredible! An evil world? Yes! But an evil Church? That was no native idea in Paul or in John! It was inspiration that foretold the actual though most improbable future. True, Christ had Himself predicted that Christendom would present a mixed condition of wheat and tares, good and bad; but this is something very different. It is a revelation that just as out of the incoherent mass. of a Christianized world there would be gathered, by the working of Christ's Holy Spirit, a true Church, so out of the same mass would be also gathered, by the working of Satan, a false Church. This last would equally with the first be an organic unity, something different from a number of individual false professors, scattered all over Christendom like tares in a wheat-field. It would be one whole, a body with a head, which would govern and direct all its movements. But as no bond of true spiritual life would exist between its members, as in the case of the true Church, this body would have visible bonds of outward uniformities to unite each to all and all to the head. Moreover, this false Church would also be in some sense a bride. Not the chaste and beloved bride of Christ, joined to the Lord in one spirit, but a corrupt, faithless, worthless "harlot," selling herself to the kings of the earth for filthy lucre, until by them detested and destroyed prior to being whelmed under Divine judgments at the second advent of Christ. It would be a counter "mystery," a Satanic parody of God's true Church. And its head would be a counter-Christ, an anti-Christ,—not by opposition, but by imitation,—not by fighting against Christ, but by substituting himself for Christ, putting himself in Christ's place, making men regard him as Christ's vicegerent. Just as the real Church would be the salt of the earth and the light of the world, so this false Church would be the leaven of the earth, corrupting it more than it is naturally corrupted, and would obscure the gospel light, love darkness, teach lies, and deny the truth. So far from witnessing for Christ, she would kill His witnesses; and so far from shedding her own blood for His sake, she would. drink herself drunken with the blood of His martyrs. Moreover, and this is a most important point, the existence of this false Church with its sinful human head-this imitation Church born of the working of Satan-would run parallel with the existence of the true Church; it would form the most conspicuous of the dangers and difficulties of the saints of God during the Christian dispensation. Its incipient workings were already apparent in the days of Paul; they would never cease until they produced, in his full-blown iniquity, "the man of sin," or human head of this false Church, and he would continue his career of blasphemous selfexaltation until destroyed by the second advent. Thus the entire interval from Paul's day to the end of this age at the return of Christ, would be occupied by the rise, culmination, reign, and decay of this corrupt Church system and its head. No time of peace and purity, no age of truth and righteousness, could consequently be expected. The reign of "the man of sin," the rule of a false and persecuting Church, a Satanic propagation of delusion and error, this was the future which the apostles foretold-this, and nothing but this, -until Christ comes again, and His people are caught up to meet Him in the air. 1 1 Our subject here forbids us to do more than make a passing reference to the strange fact that while this is unquestionably the apostolic programme, the Church has so neglected its predictions as positively to have come to expect a state and age of millennial blessedness before the return of Christ! No prediction of such an age can be found in the New Testament programme. On the contrary, it uniformly presents the interval as one filled with most un-millennial characteristics-wars, famines, bloodshed, persecution of the truth, sackcloth witnessing, Jerusalem trodden down, the Jews dispersed, the leaven working corruption, the anti-Christ tyrannizing, iniquity abounding, love growing cold, faith failing, the virgins slumbering, the servants, many of them unfaithful, scoffers mocking, perilous times, even in the last days; and the question asked is, “When the Son of man cometh, will He find faith on the earth?" Where in such an age shall we place a millennium? Our New Testament programme never speaks of one at all until after the return of Christ, consequently the second advent must be pre-millennial. Could the Holy Spirit have omitted the prediction of a prolonged age of purity and peace, if such were to come before the return of Christ? Why, it would have been naturally the most prominent feature of the programme! But He places the second advent, not the millennium, before the Church, as its hope. This advent closes the existing Christian age. The millennial age is a distinct one, beginning with the advent. This is, however, a question of unfulfilled prophecy, and hence beyond The apostolic predictions of this apostate Church are copious. They comprise more points than space will permit us to take up here. As our argument is evidential and not controversial, it will suffice if we show that an organization of immense importance, calling itself a Christian Church, and answering to every feature of these prophetic portraits, came into existence centuries after the prophecy was given, rose to a position of supremacy in the earth, ruled and reigned for ages, and exists in a decadent state to this day, awaiting the just judgment of God. As the prediction of this apostasy is but one feature of one section of our programme, we can give but a few pages to its consideration; less than the immense evidential value of the fulfilment demands, but sufficient, we trust, to prove that it has been fulfilled. Combining, then, the features of these two apostolic predictions, what is foretold in relation to the great apostasy of the Christian dispensation as to 1. The place where it should arise. 2. The historic juncture at which it would appear. 3. The period which it would last. 4. The political relations it would sustain. 5. The moral character of its influence. 7. The climax at which it will be destroyed. Now, just as in looking for a certain place on the map we take its latitude and longitude from the table, and at the point where the two intersect find the spot we seek; or as in searching the heavens for a certain star we learn first its right ascension, and then its declination, and are thus guided to its exact position;-so the intersection of all the above lines cannot fail to enable us correctly to apply this com our subject here. Those who wish to consider it are referred to our work "The Approaching End of the Age." plicated prophecy; and the application gives us the fulfil ment. If, at the place and in the sphere indicated, there arose at the predicted juncture an ecclesiastical power which has lasted for the period and stood in the political relations prophesied, which has borne the moral character and done the deeds foretold; if it has been gradually undermined and consumed by the very agents described, can we doubt that we have found the power intended? The last point, the climax of its destruction, is still future. If all the other lines intersect in one and the same organization, and in no other, it must be the fulfilment we seek. Our point here is neither controversial nor theological, but simply evidential. If the result of search for a fulfilment leads us, as it inevitably must do, to stigmatize a certain ecclesiastical power as the great predicted apostasy, that is an incidental result only in this place; as the prophecy predicts an apostasy, the historic fulfilment, when discovered, must of course be an apostasy. We glance, then, over the whole eighteen Christian ages looking for the predicted apostasy, for a great, long-lasting, mighty, influential, reigning ecclesiastical power calling itself the Church of Christ. We see many Churches-the " Catholic" Church, the Greek Church, the old Armenian and Nestorian and Coptic Churches, the young Protestant Churches of many lands. Many of them are grossly corrupted, some of them are decayed, half-dead. Which is THE great apostasy? Which is the false Church par excellence, the great enemy, the principal and cruel foe of the true Church, of that invisible "body" consisting of all true saints? The apostolic predictions say you will find it seated at a certain place, and that place the seven-hilled city which reigned over the kings of the earth in John's day-ROME. Now we have our longitude! Turning away, therefore, from all Churches which have not had their centres at Rome, E E |