“Come Out of Her, My People”

I. WHAT IS BABYLON?

It is Antichrist: all those to whom Christ will say, at his appearing, “Those mine enemies who would not that I should reign over them, bring hither and slay them before me.” It is every thing belonging to the vine of the earth, which, at the appearance of one like the Son of man on a white cloud, is to be reaped, and cast into the great wine-press of the wrath of God. CHMP 5.1

What then is Antichrist? 1 John 4: “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is of God: and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist whereof ye have heard that it should come, and even now already is it in the world.” 2 John 1:7: “For many deceivers are entered into the world. who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an anti-Christ.” CHMP 5.2

It must be admitted that a spirit which is of God, while it confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, will readily assent and conform to all the objects for which he came. To confess with the lips that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, and yet to be opposed in heart and life to the objects for which he came, is certainly to be Antichrist. The spirit therefore which is of God, while it confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, will cordially embrace, and heartily enter into all the objects for which he was thus manifested. All else must be Antichrist. What then was the end for which Jesus Christ was manifested in the flesh? Luke 24:45: “Then opened he their understandings that they might understand the Scriptures, and said unto them. Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day: and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” This was one object of Christ’s coming in the flesh; and when Peter rebuked Him for foretelling such things concerning himself, Christ turned and rebuked Peter, saying, “Get thee behind me, Satan; for thou savorest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men.” Peter then, was at that time Antichrist, in being opposed to the sufferings of Christ in the flesh. CHMP 5.3

But did Jesus Christ come in the flesh for no purpose but to suffer? Hear Peter on the day of the Pentecost, after he had been baptized with the Holy Ghost, and fully qualified to set forth the objects of Christ’s coming. Acts 2:29: “Men and brethren, let me freely speak to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day. Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath, to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh. He would raise up christ to sit on his throne: he, seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of Christ,” etc. Here we are informed that God had sworn with an oath to David, that He would raise up Christ in the flesh to sit on David’s throne. Christ was therefore to come in the flesh to reign on David’s throne, and was raised up from the dead with flesh and bones for that purpose; and in that same body ascended to heaven, and angels declared that He would so come again, in like manner as He went into heaven. Now, as His ascension is personal, His coming must be personal. CHMP 6.1

Isaiah had prophesied, in his ninth chapter, “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulders: His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace; of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom, to order it and to establish it with judgment and with justice, from henceforth, even forever: the zeal of the Lord of hosts shall perform this.” CHMP 7.1

Again: Jeremiah 33:15: “In those days and at that time will I cause the Branch of righteousness to grow up unto David; and He shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land. In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely; and this is the name wherewith He shall be called, the Lord our righteousness. For thus saith the Lord, David shall never want a man to sit upon the throne of the house of Israel.” Verse 20: “Thus saith the Lord, if ye can break my covenant of the day and my covenant of the night, and that there should not be day and night in their season, then may also my covenant be broken with David my servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne.” CHMP 7.2

Luke 1:30: “And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favor with God; and, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His father David, and He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there shall be no end.” CHMP 7.3

Now as surely as the birth of Christ was personal and not spiritual, his life, his death, his resurrection, his ascension, personal, so surely his coming must be. As he has taught in Luke 19., he is now gone into a far country to receive to himself a kingdom, and to return; and “he shall so come again in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.” In Psalm 89 we read: “Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David; his seed shall endure forever, and his throne as the sun before me. It shall be established forever as the moon, and as a faithful witness in heaven.” CHMP 7.4

Then Jesus Christ has come in the flesh to sit on David’s throne—he is to sit upon it personally and for ever. For at the sounding of the seventh trumpet there shall be heard great voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever.” “He shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth.” (Psalm 72:8.) He said, indeed, at the bar of Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world;” and for the reason that the earth which now is, is kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men; and as Christ’s kingdom can have no end, God has promised a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness, and has said, “As the new heavens and the new earth which I will make shall remain before me, so shall your seed and your name remain.” (See 65th and 66th chap. Isaiah, and 2 Peter 3 chap.) In the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness, therefore, Christ will sit personally and eternally on David’s throne, ruling the world in righteousness, and of his kingdom there shall be no end.” Thus, as Paul said to the Hebrews, Christ, “for the joy set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of God.” He also tells us that Christ is “from henceforth expecting until his enemies shall be made his footstool.” The joy set before him, and for which he endured his sufferings on the cross, must be the joy of his eternal kingdom, when he shall reign in glory and blessedness with all his saints. Christ then was manifested in the flesh, and was raised up, and is now immortalized, for the express purpose of coming again, in like manner as he went up into heaven, to reign eternally over the entire world, on David’s throne. Hence it follows, that whoever is opposed to the PERSONAL REIGN of Jesus Christ over this world on David’s throne, is ANTICHRIST; for though he may admit that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, he is opposed to the object for which he came, and therefore must be Antichrist; for “the kingdoms of this world must become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever.” CHMP 8.1

We have therefore only to inquire who is opposed to the personal reign of christ on David’s throne, in order to ascertain who is ANTICHRIST, or who is in Babylon, to be destroyed when Christ shall appear in the clouds of heaven, to establish his kingdom. Who, then, is opposed to the personal reign of Christ on David’s throne? CHMP 9.1

1st. The entire roman catholic church. The primitive church believed in the personal reign of Christ, and looked and longed for it, and waited for his appearing, and loved it as the apostles had done before them. Justin Martyr, one of the primitive Christians, declares that this was the faith in which all the orthodox in the primitive church agreed. But when the papacy came into power, they concluded to have Christ reign, not personally, but spiritually, and hence the Pope entered into the stead of Christ, and undertook to rule the world for him—claiming to be God’s vicegerent on earth. Inasmuch, therefore, as the Papists wish to retain their power, we find them all opposed to Christ’s coming to establish a personal reign. They are willing that Christ should reign spiritually, provided they can be his acknowledged agents, and thus bring the world to bow down wholly to their dictation, and use God’s authority for their own aggrandizement. But to the idea of Christ’s coming to establish a personal reign, they are decidedly and bitterly hostile. CHMP 9.2

They will not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh to reign. They are willing to admit that he has come to suffer, but they will not award him his crown, and consent to his taking his seat on the throne of David, while they bow down and worship. Hence they are Antichrist. When the Israelites of old departed from the true God, and worshiped idols, and made these their dependence, God charged them with the sin of whoredom toward himself. The Catholics, while claiming to be the church of God, have always, when they could, looked for support to the secular power, instead of trusting God to maintain them. Hence God accuses them of committing fornication with the kings of the earth; and the Romish church is called the great whore that did corrupt the nations, drawing them from the worship and service of the true God, to support her in her nameless and horrid abominations. But, CHMP 10.1

2nd. Is the catholic church, only opposed to the personal reign of Christ? What shall we say of Protestant Christendom in this respect? Among all the sects into which the Protestant church is divided, where is one that is not decidedly hostile to the Bible truth that Christ has been raised up to sit personally on David’s throne? Indeed, where has such a notion originated, as that Christ is to have only a spiritual reign? There is nothing in the Bible that furnishes the least shadow of a foundation for such an idea. Paul has, however, given us a clue to the origin of the very thing, (2 Timothy 4:3,) “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears, and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned to fables.” This is at present true of all sects in Protestant Christendom. The sound scriptural doctrine of the personal reign of Christ on David’s throne cannot now be endured, and hence the teachers which the various sects have been heaping to themselves have turned away their ears to the groundless fable of a spiritual reign of Christ, during what is called a temporal millennium, when they expect all the world will be converted; and each sect is expecting at that time to have the predominant influence. Each one of these sects is willing to rule the world, as the Papists have done, FOR Christ; but no one of them is willing to have Christ come in person to rule the world for himself, while they take their place at his feet, to do his bidding; nor are they willing to listen for a moment to what the Bible says respecting Christ’s personal coming. It is only here and there, among all the sects, that a place of worship can be obtained for the purpose of showing the people what is contained in the Bible respecting Christ’s coming and kingdom. Nor are these sects honest in their pretended attachment even to the spiritual reign of Christ, for there is not a sect among them all that will now allow Christ to reign over them in a spiritual sense, inasmuch as they do not, as a sect, make Christ’s principles and precepts their rules of life. No one sect can be found that does live by Christ’s rules. They would call it ultraism to think of doing so. Besides, if they had been sincere in their desires for the spiritual reign of Christ, they might have sent the gospel into every dwelling on the face of the earth long ago. Christ said, by their fruits ye shall know them; and the fruit which he expected his true disciples to bear was, obedience to his precepts. “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” His precepts were such as these: “Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth. Sell that ye have, and give alms. Give to him that asketh of thee, and of him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away. Be merciful and do good, and lend hoping for nothing again. Bless them that persecute you. Do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you.” By such fruits they were to be known. The practical motto in this day is, by their creeds ye shall know them. If a man subscribes to an orthodox creed, and covenants to deny himself all ungodliness and every worldly lust, he may after this serve the devil with both hands, and yet be regarded as a good Christian. With a Presbyterian, or an Episcopalian, or a Methodist, or a Baptist book of discipline in his pocket, he may gird up all the energies of his being to amass wealth, and live solely for purposes of personal aggrandizement, and yet pass among professedly Christian sects as a disciple—a follower of Him who on earth had not where to lay his head, and who has said to his followers, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth.” Though the Bible says. “They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition,” the various sects of professed Christendom expect that their members will make the accumulation of wealth the object of their lives. And yet they profess to be desiring the spiritual reign of Christ, and to be living for the conversion of the world to the religion of the crucified Nazarene. Tell them, however, that Christ is coming in person, according to the oath of God, to carry out the principles of his own religion for ever, and they are ready to fight against it with all their might. We are living in the very state of things predicted by our Savior, “And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.” To such an extent has the love of this present world abounded, in the hearts of those who say they are Christ’s, that nothing is so unwelcome to the mass of them as to tell them that their Savior, whom they profess to regard as their best friend, is soon coming to take his people to be with him. CHMP 10.2

The apostle John writes as follows: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world; and the world passeth away, and the lust thereof, but he that Doeth the will of God abideth for ever. Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come, even now there are many Antichrists, whereby we know that it is the last time..” Inasmuch as all these multiplied sects are opposed to the plain Bible truth of Christ’s personal reign on earth, they are anti-Christ. CHMP 12.1

John saw a sea of glass mingled with fire, and them that had got the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, standing on that sea of glass, having the harps of God. The Greek word arithmos, here translated number, is also thus defined: “a mob, a worthless multitude, a herd; and some have suggested that these sects make up the number of six hundred three score and six, which is ascribed to the Antichristian beast; and I confess, that the idea of getting the victory over the worthless multitude of the beast, looks to me far more consistent, and far more likely to be ascribed by inspiration to the mind that hath wisdom and understanding, than the usual idea of getting the victory over the Hebrew, or Greek, or Roman letters whose numerical value amounts to 666. These various Protestant sects have no occasion to take credit to themselves on account of their professed desires for converting the world to Christ, for the Pope is as loud in his professions of this sort as they, and far more consistent, and persevering, and efficient in his efforts. But altogether, Catholics and Protestants, are determined on a spiritual reign, and each hopes, in their fabled millennium, to be the predominating sect. If, by the way, either of these sects were to rule the world, it might as well be the Catholics as either, inasmuch as sects have always grown carnal and corrupt in proportion as their power, and influence, and wealth, have increased; and there is not a sect among them all but would unquestionably become as corrupt, and as cruel and tyrannical, as the Catholics ever were, by the time they had gained the same summit of greatness to which the Catholics did once obtain. There is not the sect nor the individual on earth that is worthy of being trusted with irresponsible power. Many a sect, if told that they would become as wicked as the Catholics ever were, when once they should have the power—would be ready to exclaim with one of old, “And we dogs that we should do these things?” And yet, like him, when once the power should be in their hands, would go straightforward and do them. None is worthy to reign over this world but Christ—none else has a right to reign; and he is coming in the clouds of heaven for that very purpose: while the whole professed Christian world, Catholic and protestant, are determined that it shall be only a spiritual reign, when each particular sect is hoping to have the ascendancy. CHMP 13.1

One most unscriptural feature in all their plans is, to have the world given to a generation of Christians who have never known anything but peace and safety; while the Bible says, “If we suffer, we shall reign with him;” that we are “heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be glorified together;” that “blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven;” that through much tribulation we must enter into the kingdom of God; that those which were beheaded for the witness of Jesus and the word of God, shall rise and reign with Christ: and these John heard singing praise, and saying, “Thou hast made us unto our God kings and priests, and we shall reign on the earth.” Notwithstanding all these Scripture declarations respecting those who are to reign with Christ, when the kingdoms of the world are his, and he shall reign for ever and ever, it is now claimed that those shall possess the world and reign without Christ, who shall be born and live in a time of universal peace, and never have a hair plucked from their heads by way of suffering for Christ’s sake. There is no language that can express the immeasurable folly of such Biblical expositions as these. They are immeasurable nonsense. Again, all these pretended Christian sects are particularly opposed to the idea that Christ is coming speedily in person, to take the dominion of the world; and especially to the idea that there is Bible evidence for believing that he will come during the present Jewish year. Against this they can find no words to express their indignation. If it could be deferred a thousand years or so, the idea might be endured. But to think that anybody should believe that Christ is coming the present year to take his seat on David’s throne for ever, this is intolerable. In these particulars, therefore, the professed Christian world. Catholic and Protestant, are Antichrist. They will not submit to Christ’s personal reign. They will not love his appearing, and especially not at present Said a professed minister of the gospel, in the State of New Jersey, “If Christ is coming to reign in this world, I’ll not stay with him.” Said another minister in New York, “If Christ is coming thus to destroy his enemies, I’ll not worship him.” Said another minister in the State of Ohio, “God has no right to destroy the world at present. He had no right to make it to be destroyed at such a time. These men were all indulging the very spirit of Antichrist. Thus I have defined what Babylon, or Antichrist is. It is everything that rises in opposition to the personal reign of Christ on David throne, and to the revealed time for his appearing and here we do find the professed Christian world Catholic and Protestant, on the side of Antichrist. They all say, let us take the kingdom, and let Christ, and the departed saints that have suffered with him, to whom the kingdom has been promised, remain where they are. CHMP 14.1