The Abiding Gift of Prophecy

Popery the Consummation of Apostasy

But the most alarming of the predictions of the change destined to take place in the church is the one recorded by Paul in his second letter to the Thessalonians: AGP 196.2

“Let no man deceive you by any means’ for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things? And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming: even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.” 2 Thessalonians 2:3-10.

This, we understand, foretells seeming rejection of the pagan gods and religion of Rome, and the establishment in their place of the papal church—with the thinly disguised principles and practices of that selfsame paganism. This was accomplished during the first six centuries of the Christian era. Just what was involved in this transition—this substitution of a masked Christianity for the stark paganism of the empire—is very clearly explained by Wylie. How the dire inroads of centuries of almost imperceptible but nevertheless steady progress were made toward this satanic achievement, is condensed into this one comprehensive statement: AGP 196.3

“Popery, then, we hold to be an after-growth of paganism, whose deadly wound, dealt by the spiritual sword of Christianity, was healed. Its oracles had been silenced, its shrines demolished, and its gods consigned to oblivion; but the deep corruption of the human race, not yet cured by the promised effusion of the Spirit upon all flesh, revived it anew, and, under a Christian mask, reared other temples in its honor, built it another Pantheon, and replenished it with other gods, which, in fact, were but the ancient divinities under new names. All idolatries, in whatever age or country they have existed, are to be viewed but as successive developments of the one grand apostasy. That apostasy was commenced in Eden, and consummated at Rome.” “The Papacy; Its History, Dogmas, Genius, and Prospects,” J. A. Wylie, Book I, chap. I, pp. 12, 13. Edinburgh: Johnstone and Hunter, 1852.