The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 4

VI. Father Thayer-Challenges Protestant Position on Antichrist

Father JOHN THAYER, ²⁵ in his discourse at Boston, delivered on the same national Fast Day, of May 9, 1798, emphasizes the wanton cruelty and heavy loss of life under the French Revolution-tens of thousands of victims by guillotine, shooting, and drowning, and a total toll of two million civilians. ²⁶ He then refers to the pope’s sufferings in exile, and the strange exultation of Protestants “over the misfortunes of the Pope as if the fall of anti-christ were near at hand.” PFF4 67.3

In this discourse he tacitly recognizes the common understanding among Protestants, from which, but naturally, he emphatically dissents. Thayer feelingly likens the captivity of Pius VI to the insult and reviling accorded the world’s Redeemer, “whom he represents,” and his imprisonment, possibly..“loaded with chains,” to the lot of Peter, and adds that perchance he has even “fallen a victim to the fury of the enemies of God and man, and has thus become a glorious martyr.” ²⁷ PFF4 68.1

Then, in a footnote to the printed sermon, he refers to the further fact that “there are many persons who fancy, and boldly assert, that all the impieties and disorders of the French Revolution are so many steps to bring about what they term, the millennium/’ which Thayer denounces as “a mere chimerical state, which will never have an existence except in their imagination.” He even expresses surprise that they cannot see that all of these turmoils, “instead of being signs of the overthrow of anti-christ already established, are the predicted forerunners of his approaching reign!” ²⁸ That, of course, was standard Roman Catholic exposition-a single heinous individual, overshadowing all, at the end of the age. PFF4 68.2

Contending that the pope is indeed the “Vicar of Jesus Christ on earth,” he boldly asserts that Christ will assuredly have a successor “even until the end of the ages,” and that “the bark of St. Peter, with his successors at the helm, shall sail triumphantly down the stream of time.” The Catholic Church will only be purified, as “gold tried in the fire,” in the present “crucible of tribulation.” ²⁹ PFF4 68.3

In another footnote Thayer refers resentfully to “Dr. Belknap’s remarks on popery,” made after “twenty years of attentive contemplation, with the best helps/’ which have resulted in “the ludicrous discovery, that the English and French governments are ‘rotten toes of Nebuchadnezzar’s image,’ and that the pope is doubtless a beast and a whore.” Attempting to ridicule such an exposition of the symbols of Revelation 13 and 17, as applied by Belknap and Lathrop ³⁰ and in Morse’s Fast Day sermon, Thayer complains that “the ministers must be always seeking some occasion of venting their spleen upon the poor pope,” and upon the church that is combating Deism and atheism. Then he cries out dramatically, “If he is falling, in God’s name, let him go off the stage in peace.” ³¹ Such is another resounding echo, off key, of the intensive recorded discussion of the day. Prophecy was both a matter of serious, earnest exposition and sometimes a bone of contention. PFF4 69.1