The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 4

III. The Call to Separate Reluctantly Issued

The situation could not continue as it was. Miller’s pre-millennialism, though in reality but the continuation of the earlier teaching of the church, was increasingly looked upon as a heresy, and regarded as a new and subversive doctrine. It was therefore bound to encounter growing opposition—or, at the very least, to be countered by inertia. Leaders of various church groups began to challenge the Adventist lecturers at their conferences, and resolutions were passed putting the ban on Adventist teaching. Credentials were taken away and ministers discharged. This brought on the time of inevitable separation. Various ministers, along with their congregations, had become Adventists. Others had stifled their convictions and given up the doctrine because of pressure from their denominational superiors. But that Rome alone does not exhaust the intent and scope of “Babylon” came to be increasingly though reluctantly believed. PFF4 767.1

Indeed, the application of “Babylon” and other prophetic symbols, at least in part to Protestantism, was a long-established concept. It did not originate in Millerism, or even in this country. It is interesting to note that Cardinal Newman, in combating the Protestant view of the Roman Church as Antichrist, cited a number of English writers who had directly or by implication referred to certain aspects of the Church of England, or church-state union in general, in terms of Antichrist or Babylon. These included Nonconformists like Browne, Barrowe, Milton, and later writers. ⁸ PFF4 767.2

Alexander Fraser of Scotland and David Simpson of England (both reprinted in America) held similar views. Fraser (1795) regarded only the “church ... invisible” as uncorrupted -with all church bodies being tinged with the spirit of Antichrist. ⁹ Simpson, an Anglican but a champion of religious liberty for dissenters, furnishes an illustration of three types of prophetic application to Protestantism that are encountered repeatedly: He sees Protestant churches, under certain circumstances, as participating in the prophetic delineations of the Roman apostasy: PFF4 768.1

“I strongly suspect, that though the Pope and the Church of Rome may be, and certainly are at the head of the grand 1260 years delusion, yet all other churches, of whatever denomination, whether established, or tolerated, or persecuted, which partake of the same spirit, or have instituted doctrines and ceremonies inimical to the pure and unadulterated Gospel of Christ, shall sooner or later share in the fate of that immense fabric of human ordinances.” ¹⁰ PFF4 768.2

He finds among Protestant establishments the “daughters” of the mother Babylon: PFF4 768.3

“These [abuses], and some other matters, which might be brought forward more at large, seem, to many very well Informed and respectable persons, truly objectionable, and strong indications that we are not so far removed from the old meretricious lady of Babylon, as we would willingly have the world to believe. Among the several Protestant establishments, we [the Church of England] must, they fear, be, at least, considered as the eldest daughter of that first-born of wickedness.” ¹¹ PFF4 768.4

He therefore applies the warnings against the Beast, image, and mark to Protestantism as well as to Rome: PFF4 768.5

“We Protestants too read them, and make ourselves easy under the awful denunciation, by applying them exclusively to the Church of Rome, never dreaming, that they are, at least, in a second sense equally applicable, not only to the English, but to every Church Establishment in Christendom, which retains any of the marks of the beast.” ¹² PFF4 768.6

These ideas also obtained in America. Roger Williams (1605-1683), for example, early regarded the Anglican Church as part of the “abomination of antichrist”; he saw many Protestants clinging to the spirit of Babylon, and persecuting in the spirit of the Beast. ¹³ Later, Samuel Hopkins (1721-1803), noted Congregational theologian, had also said that the Protestant churches were not yet wholly reformed, that few churches or individuals have come far enough out of Rome, “the mother of all the false doctrines, superstition, infidelity, and abominable practices in the Protestant world”; although some churches are purer than others, there is much of Antichrist in them. ¹⁴ PFF4 769.1

In 1802 and onward the anti-Calvinist pamphleteer, Elias Smith, bombarded New England with prophetic expositions of Antichrist and the other terms and symbols as applied primarily to the Papacy, but also involving other churches. In Antichrist he included all persecuting hierarchies, from the Jewish leaders down through popes, prelates, and bishops, to the New England state-supported clergy. He regarded all churches receiving civil support as the daughters of Babylon, partaking of the same nature as their mother Rome, and thereby being included in the other symbols, such as Antichrist and the two-horned ecclesiastical beast of Revelation 13. Thus Smith’s widely read expositions spread the idea that Protestant churches, including American churches, might be related to Rome. ¹⁵ PFF4 769.2

Hinton, Baptist contemporary of Miller, evidently alluded to a commonly held view of established churches when he said in 1843 that, “while the constitution of the United States exists, the ‘mother of harlots’ can have no daughter” churches here. ¹⁶ He spoke only ten years after Massachusetts disestablished the last American state church inherited from Colonial days. PFF4 769.3

Thus there was evidently a wide background of popular thinking receptive to the idea that Protestant churches, if they resembled the papal church in doctrine, practice, repression, or state support, might be identified in some degree with Mother Babylon. And it was particularly easy for “left-wingers” of the no-creed, Bible—only type to react similarly when they encountered creed-bound bigotry in the more conservative denominations. PFF4 770.1

It was not, therefore, a revolutionary idea when various leaders among the Millerites began to apply to Protestant churches the prophetic call to separate from Babylon. And it was a rather natural development, since the churches in general, after first welcoming and profiting by the Miller revival, were now closing their doors to the advent preachers, putting pressure on their Millerite members, and in many cases expelling them. Hence the natural reaction was to call for separation, and to establish Adventist congregations to care for increasing thousands who could find no congenial home in churches that had rejected their teaching on the prophecies, ridiculed their devout hopes of the near advent, and were wielding the rod of creed more than Scripture, and applying ecclesiastical censures if not excommunication. PFF4 770.2

Miller himself did not sound this call, and later deplored its indiscriminate application. But he wrote in 1844 that the churches that came out of Rome the mother may as well bear the name of her daughters. ¹⁷ It was small wonder, then, that the cry, “Come out of her my people,” began to spread through the length and breadth of the Millerite movement. PFF4 770.3