The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 3

II. Address on Popery Reveals Penetrating Exposition

Gaussen’s keen exposition can best be glimpsed through this recital. On October 3, 1843, just back from a trip to Rome, Gaussen delivered a remarkable address ⁷ to his students in Geneva, Le Souverain pontife et l’Eglise de Rome, soutiens de la verite, par I’accomplissement des Ecritures (The Sovereign Pontiff and the Church of Rome, Upholders of the Truth Through the Fulfillment of the Scriptures). It sets forth four teen marks for identification of the Little Horn, forming an inescapable composite picture. Translated into English for the New York Observer, it was reprinted by). V. I limes in The Midnight Cry! ⁸ and published by him in tract form, with notes and illustrations of the four beasts of Daniel 7, under the title The German Rebuke of American Neology. PFF3 690.2

To the prophetic faith of their Geneva forefathers, Gaussen now adds “many new reasons which our fathers did not possess.” His basic proposition is that “Rome is the Babylon of which John speaks; the pope, the Man of Sin, the son of perdition of whom Paul speaks; popery, the little horn of which Daniel speaks.” This, he holds, has been the teaching of the church lor centuries. PFF3 690.3

“This doctrine, constantly held in the church of God for more than twelve hundred years has been lightly esteemed” in later times of laxity. Then mention is made of Waldo, Wyclif. Huss, Jerome, mid the later Reformers in Switzerland and France. ⁹ PFF3 690.4

After their French forefathers had made their Confession of Faith at La Rochelle, says Gaussen, they added, at the Synod of Gap in 1603, Article 31 declaring that the bishop of Rome, having reared up for himself a monarchy in Christendom by claiming dominion over all chinches and pastors, had lifted himself up to the extent that he called himself God, insisted on being worshiped, decided articles of faith, interpreted Scripture at will, released from vows and oaths, ordained new services of God, and trod underfoot the legitimate authority of magistrates. Gaussen adds that Protestant ministers were persecuted there after for fifty years because of this article. But they still retained their characterization of Antichrist in the Synod of Loudun, in 1659, with the declaration: PFF3 691.1

“We are resolved, niter their example, never to abandon them [their positions regarding Antichrist] by the grace of God, but to preserve them inviolably to the last moment of our lives.” ¹⁰ PFF3 691.2

In Daniel 2, Gaussen continues, the history of the nations is portrayed under the figure of the image, up to the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. In Daniel 7 “the same succession of four great monarchies” brings us to the time and place of “a most frightful apostasy,” which would afflict the church for centuries, which would lake “its rise in the empire of the Latins, soon after its division into ten distinct kingdoms,” and which “should not be destroyed till the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” PFF3 691.3

Four great beast-kingdoms, symbolizing the four monarchies, equally cruel and tyrannical, will oppress the people of God-Babylon, Medo-Persia, Macedonia, and the Latin kingdom, which becomes divided in the ten horn-kingdoms of Gothic origin. These are the Visigoths, Heruli, Ostrogoths, Franks, Burgundians, Vandals, Alans, Suevi, Gepidi, and Lombards. Thus the time and place of the predicted apostasy is disclosed. It is the “Roman apostacy, it is the whole territory of the Latin monarchy; its time is the ages which shall follow the invasion of this empire by the ten barbarian kings.” Popery is here found “completely described” by fourteen identification marks, which Gaussen now unfolds and integrates: PFF3 691.4

1. Its nature-a priest-king, among the ten but different from the others, having a “political and a religious character.” PFF3 692.1

2. Its geography-the “lands of the church” are found in Italy, and the theater of its power is the “vast empire of the ten Latin kingdoms.” It is the “city of seven hills.” It has a Roman Pontiff, and its territory extends “between the Rhine, the Danube, the Greek Empire, the Adriatic. Mount Atlas, and the great ocean”-or throughout the territory of the fourth beast. PFF3 692.2

3. Its origin-slowly, imperceptibly, as a horn grows, appearing among the ten. PFF3 692.3

4. The chronology-“immediately after the division of the Latin empire into its ten Gothic kingdoms,” in the sixth or seventh century. PFF3 692.4

5. Its territorial acquisitions supplanting “the Herules, the Ostrogoths, and the Lombards,” the pope’s Babylonish tiara bearing the three crowns of the horns plucked up before him. PFF3 692.5

6. Its extraordinary sagacity-exercising consummate skill, policy, vigilance, and power, ruling the whole Catholic empire, and agitating the world. Its eyes are the “secret of its power, “exercising constant oversight over every part of the earth by her religious orders, Jesuits, apostolical prelates, and confessionals. Its penetrating eye “never sleeps.” It has the cumulative knowledge of centuries. PFF3 692.6

7. Its deceivableness-by false legends, books, relics, medals, cures, and especially its “false decretals” that deceived all Europe for 500 years, ministering to its success. PFF3 692.7

8. Its pomp-greater than the greatest kings, with pictures in the Vatican of kings like Henry IV and Frederick Barbarossa in penitence, and the Pontiff borne on the shoulders of men, as his subjects kneel and kiss his feet. PFF3 692.8

9. Its language-great swelling words, threatening words, words of pride and command, sending nations on remote expeditions and wars of extermination. For centuries its thunders and anathemas have resounded. PFF3 693.1

10. Its duration-until the coming of Christ, surviving the centuries with impunity. PFF3 693.2

11. Its blasphemies—called the pope Holy Father, Most Holy Father, His Holiness, declaring him infallible, releasing man from the commands of his Creator, creating priests who in turn create God in a bit of bread. PFF3 693.3

12. Its homicidal hatred-its persecution of true Christians through the dungeons and auto-da-fes of the Inquisition. Other governments kill men, but the Pontiff has put to death the saints, the duty of putting heretics to death being binding through the irrevocable decrees of councils. PFF3 693.4

13. Its audacious heresies-pretending to change the law of God, putting its decrees and traditions above Scripture, pretending to pardon sins and to dispense with duties which the law commands, forbidding the reading of the Scriptures in the vernaculars. PFF3 693.5

14. Its exact duration-for 1260 years, which period is repeated, specified, and exactly fulfilled. Such was Gaussen’s penetrating identification of Antichrist in 1843, summarized under fourteen divisions. PFF3 693.6