Facts for the Times

WHAT IS BABYLON?

Jeremiah 51:6-9. Revelation 14:8; 17:5; 18:2-4.—The word Babylon comes from Babel and signifies “mixture, confusion.” We read of Babylon the great, the mother of harlots, etc. Protestant commentators agree that this “mother” is the Catholic church, and if so, who are the “harlot daughters,” but the various Protestant sects? If “the woman” singular [Revelation 17:4] be a symbol of one church, (Catholic) then, “women” plural, [Revelation 14:4,] are symbols of CHURCHES. The Catholic church is a unit the world over. But when we consider the hundreds of Protestant sects, with all their discordant theories, their spirit of oppression, and their connection with the civil power, we cannot avoid the conclusion that they belong to the Babylon of the Apocalypse. FT 18.1

On this subject J. N. ANDREWS says: FT 18.2

“The United States disclaim a national religion, and yet nearly all her religious bodies are incorporated by the State. Babylon has made all the nations drunken with her wine; it can therefore symbolize nothing less than the universal worldly church. War, slavery, conformity to the world, pride, intemperance, politics and the like, identify with sad and faithful accuracy, the great body of the Protestant churches, as an important constituent part of this great Babylon.”—Three Angels pp. 46, 47. FT 18.3

“This confusion,” says J. II. WAGGONER, “was aptly noticed in an anniversary sermon in New York by Dr. Riddle of Pittsburgh, who thus speaks of the danger of the country from Catholic influence and the want of union and energy on the part of Protestants. FT 19.1

“A village in the West, for one half its population, which is Catholic, has one church and pastor, one Lord, one faith, one baptism; the other half which is Protestant, has five or six pastors and churches, and each has his separate ‘psalm, doctrine, tongue, revelation, and interpretation!’ Yet, ‘God is not the author of confusion,’ but of peace, in all the churches of the saints.” FT 19.2

This frank statement of a Protestant doctor shows clearly that the confusion is not alone in the ‘Catholic, but in the Protestant churches. FT 19.3

The Tennessee Baptist says: FT 19.4

“This woman [Popery] is called the mother of harlots and abominations. Who are the daughters? The Lutheran, the Presbyterian and the Episcopalian churches are all branches of the [Roman] Catholic. Are not these demonstrated ‘harlots and abominations’ in the above passage. I so decide. I could not with the stake before me decide otherwise. Presbyterians and Episcopalians compose a part of Babylon. They hold the distinctive principles of Papacy in common with Papists.” FT 19.5

ALEXANDER CAMPBELL says; FT 20.1

“The worshipping establishments now in operation throughout christendom, increased and cemented by their respective voluminous confessions of faith, and their ecclesiastical constitutions, are not churches of Jesus Christ; but the legitimate daughters of that mother of harlots—the church of Rome.” FT 20.2

LORENZO DOW says: FT 20.3

“We read not only of Babylon, but of the where of Babylon, styled the mother of harlots, which is supposed to mean the Romish church. If she be a mother, who are her daughters? It must be the corrupt national established churches that came out of her; if so, what of those governments that support them? But oh! the cry of national sins! are not Connecticut and Massachusetts in possession of a quaternion, or some of the tincture? Behold the conduct of the clergy!”—Dow’s Life, p. 542. FT 20.4

The Religious Encyclopedia, (Art. Anti-christ,) says: FT 20.5

“Is Anti-christ confined to the church of Rome? The answer is readily returned in the affirmative by Protestants in general; and happy had it been for the world were that the case. But although we are fully warranted to consider that church as “the mother of harlots,” the truth is that by whatever arguments we succeed in fixing that odious charge upon her, we shall by parity of reasoning be obliged to allow all other national churches to be her unchaste daughters; and for this very plain reason among others, because, in their very constitution and tendency, they are hostile to the nature of the kingdom of Christ.” “Such national churches therefore, though they may be purged from many of the grosser evils of the Romish church, yet being constituted upon similar principles, ...can only be allowed to differ from the Romish church, as a grain of arsenic differs from an ounce. FT 20.6

“The writer of the book of Revelation tells us he heard a voice from heaven saying, ‘Come out of her my people, that ye partake not of her sins, and receive not of her plagues.’ If such persons are to be found in the ‘Mother of Harlots,’ with much less hesitation may it be inferred that they are connected with her unchaste daughters, those national churches which are founded upon what are called PROTESTANT PRINCIPLES.” FT 21.1

Dr. John Cummings, of England, says: FT 21.2

“If all visible ecclesiastical organizations—church of England, church of Scotland, church Independent, Wesleyan, and Baptist—are to be broken up in order to give place to a nobler that man cannot make, etc., ...let us think less of being Churchmen, or of being Dissenters, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, or Baptists; and be more anxious to be what was first at Antioch, and shall be last on earth—Christians, or followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have seen that great Babylon is to be broken up and destroyed. If this be the case, and it is to be consumed, what should it teach us? What course of conduct should we pursue? First, surely it is not our duty to support it. This is neither our duty, nor will it lengthen the existence of Babylon a single day. Nor, secondly, is it our duty to persecute it; that would be to take weapons from her armory as unchristian as her own. Then what is our duty? To call to all that are at this moment in the church of Rome, whether sprinkled by her baptismal waters, or imitating within ANOTHER CHURCH her forms, her ceremonies, her pomp, and her grandeur, to come out of her, lest partaking of her sins they receive also of her plagues.”—The End, p. 241. FT 21.3

The prophetic Word describes Babylon after her fall, as the “habitation of devils,” and it is a fact that thousands in the various Protestant churches are becoming Spiritualists. FT 22.1

The Spiritual Age says: FT 22.2

Many prominent clergymen of this city [N. Y.] are much interested, and hold private circles together to investigate it, where many convincing tests have been given.” FT 22.3

The Spiritual Telegraph says: FT 22.4

“The churches are beginning to make up their minds that a Spiritualist may even be a Christian.” FT 22.5

Again a writer in the same paper says: FT 22.6

“Thus Spiritualism has advanced, and thus has fallen the opposition, until in Vermont alone seventy churches [built by, or embracing nearly all our sects] have been opened for the use of Spiritualists.” But to return to the general fact, the writer humbly admits that he can hardly explain why seventy churches have been opened; he can only cite the power of the spirit; he will not be deemed assuming or excited when he claims that his knowledge of these things is certain. After traveling in nearly all parts of the State, and meeting with thousands of intelligent men and women, and occupying [by invitation] more than sixty of the seventy desks, he must know something of the condition of his State.” FT 22.7

A clergyman, a Spiritualist of Phillipston, Mass., writing to the Spiritual Telegraph, says: FT 23.1

“For five years I have preached these same views as fast and as far as they have been communicated to my mind; and although the wolves have sometimes howled, still the people have heard me gladly. There is a power exercised over me in the pulpit [or through me] of which I am unconscious elsewhere, and as yet no voice has been raised within or without the church to silence me.” FT 23.2

“Voice from the fifth century. Chrysostom, on false teachers, says, “When thou seest the holy Scriptures regarded as an abomination by men that outwardly profess to be Christians, and those that teach God’s word, hated; when the people rush to hear fable-mongers and genealogies and teachings of Demons, then bethink thee of the saying, ‘In the last days there shall be an apostasy from the faith.’” 1 Timothy 4:1.—Voice of the Church, p. 208. FT 23.3