The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 3

VI. Historian Jones-Depicts Fate of Papal Antichrist

Besides those organized into study groups were individuals like WILLIAM JONES (1702-1846), Baptist religious writer, who was born in Lancashire. He was a bookseller before he became pastor of the Scotch Baptist church at Finsbury, London, where he served until his death. He was the author of numerous able works, among which were a helpful History of the Waldenses (1811), a History of the Christian, Church (1816), and a well-known Biblical Encyclopedia (1816), as well as a Dictionary of Christian Biography (1829). His Lectures on the Apocalypse appeared in 1830. Jones thus had an unusual historical back ground acquaintance for his expositions of prophecy ⁵³ Upon this he drafted constantly. PFF3 509.5

1. ROMAN PAGANISM RETARDS PAPAL APOSTASY

In his History of the Christian Church, of 1816, Jones quotes extensively from the Waldensian “Treatise concerning Antichrist,” with all its applications to the Papacy of the prophetic symbols of Daniel, Paul, and John. He cites their apology and their pro test, and the persecutions visited upon them, as well as the ad missions of their enemies. Jones tells the story of the Anti-Christian apostasy, particularly as a fulfillment of 2 Thessalonians 2, at first kept back by the hindering restraint of the pagan Roman government. He maintains that Antichrist a rose-arid corrupted the early Christian church, and will be destroyed by the brightness of the Lord’s coming, when the cities of the nations fall. This is the continuing keynote of the volume. ⁵⁴ PFF3 510.1

2. EXPOSITION OF SYMBOLS IN CYCLOPEDIA.-

In his popular Biblical Cyclopedia many of the fundamental interpretations appear under such topics as “Antichrist,” “Babylon,” “Daniel,” “Locust,” “Millennium,” “Persia,” and “Revelation.” Detailed exposition of the prophetic symbols was thus upon the general reference shelf. For example, under “Antichrist,” the seven hilled seat of its residence, the blend of ecclesiastical and political power, its persecuting character, its length of continuance on the year-day principle, and other features were set forth with clarity and force. ⁵⁵ This continued with discussions on the “rise and ravages of the Turks” as the sixth trumpet, the French Revolution “earthquake” and France as the tenth part of the city, the two beasts of Revelation 13 with the first as secular Rome and the second as the hierarchy or false church itself, which is contemporary, and all along acts in concert with the first or secular beast. ⁵⁶ This was all standard teaching. PFF3 510.2

3. STANDARD POSITION ON Daniel 2 and 7

Jones’ Lectures on the Apocalypse, of 1830, was occasioned by the issuance of Drummond’s Dialogues on Prophecy (1827), which in turn was the result of the Albury Park Conferences. |ones had been associated with Drummond in the establishment of the Continental Society. Now Drummond places with him the first volume of Irving’s translation of Ben-Ezra for perusal. This, with the awakened interest in prophecy on the part of many able men, and the apathy and scorn of others concerning prophecy, as well as the compromises on the part of not a few who would “meet Antichrist hall-way,” ⁵⁷ moved Jones to write. PFF3 511.1

In his discussion of the trumpets of Revelation 8, Jones diverts to the identity of the four beasts of Daniel 7, stoutly maintaining that they symbolize Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome, with the various features incident ⁵⁸ These in turn are identical with the four parts of the image of Daniel 2, only in Daniel 7 Antichrist is introduced as the “Little Horn ⁵⁹ springing up among the “ten distinct kingdoms.” PFF3 511.2

4. DISMEMBERMENT ACCOMPLISHED BY EARLY TRUMPETS.

These horn-kingdoms were the same as the divided state of the feet and toes of the image, accomplished by the incursions of the northern barbarians. These invasions were indicated in the Apocalypse by the first four trumpets of Revelation 8. ⁶⁰ under the fourth, with Odoacer, comes the extinction of the Western Empire ⁶¹ and the ten kingdoms resulting are listed. PFF3 511.3

5. PAPAL LITTLE HORN FOR 1260 YEARS

Returning to the little horn of Daniel 7, Jones applies the symbol to the popes of Rome and discusses the blaspheming, persecuting, and lawless character of the Papacy, treating the three and a half times of flourishing as 1260 years of dominance in scattering the people of God ⁶² PFF3 512.1

6. FIFTH TRUMPET PAPAL; SIXTH TURKISH

Jones differs from many in holding that the fifth trumpet, or first woe, applied to Antichrist, or the kingdom of the clergy; but he agrees that the sixth trumpet applies to the Mohammedan Turks ⁶³ with their subversion approaching ⁶⁴ PFF3 512.2

7. Two WITNESSES ARE THE Two TESTAMENTS

On the Two Witnesses of Revelation 11, Jones holds that they denote the Old and New Testaments. These “testified of Christ and his kingdom in opposition to Antichrist and his kingdom.” ⁶⁵ Although the seventh trumpet will mark the doom of Antichrist and his supporters, it will be “a kind of jubilee-trumpet,” announcing the time of the church’s “enlargement and deliverance from captivity.” ⁶⁶ PFF3 512.3

8. SECOND BEA.ST SAME AS LITTLE HORN

Holding the woman of Revelation 12 to be the church, and the man-child to be Christ Jesus, Jones applies the dragon to Imperial Rome ⁶⁷ The two beasts of Revelation 13 he believes to be the secular and ecclesiastical aspects of Antichrist ⁶⁸ the second beast being the same as Daniel’s Little Horn ⁶⁹ with its “terrible engine of anti-christian tyranny,” the spiritual courts of the Inquisition ⁷⁰ PFF3 512.4

9. PAPAL BABYLON Is ECCLESIASTICAL ROME

In Revelation 17 the seven mountains upon which the fallen church sits are the seven forms of government, ⁷¹ the ten horns are the same ten kingdoms of the divided Rome of the former chapters ⁷² Jones then ties together the whole picture of the multiple symbols of Antichrist in this one comprehensive statement: PFF3 512.5

“Can we be at any loss, then, in recognizing Daniel’s little horn, and Paul’s Man of sin, in the woman enthroned in the midst of the mystical Babylon? What ecclesiastical domination has Rome ever known, save that of the papacy? What heresy has ever so copied the trappings of the harlot, or so beguiled the rulers and the people of the earth into the practice of irreligious and idolatrous devices? The name engraven on the brow of Christian Rome, as it is called, and engraven alike by history and prophecy, is ‘Mystery, Babylon the great, the mother of harlots, and of the abominations of the earth!!’ ⁷³ PFF3 513.1

Jones’ understanding of prophecy gave new meaning to his church history and led him to seek for hidden features that other wise would have passed unnoticed. Contrariwise, his familiarity with church history made his expositions of prophecy more sound and clear than were those without such a background. Thus knowledge enhanced knowledge. PFF3 513.2