VIII. A Great Earthquake:

Revelation XI 12

"There was a great earthquake."

That is, a great revolution; following immediately on the ascent of the Witnesses into the heaven of political elevation.

The Fall of the Tenth Part.

"The tenth part of the city fell." The great city included in its empire Ten Kingdoms. One of these "fell" -an expression used in prophecy of cities or countries conquered and transferred to the dominion of a triumphant enemy; thus in Isaiah xxi. 9, of the fall of ancient Babylon. This implies the conquest and overthrow of the Papal Empire in one of the Ten Kingdoms, by the aggression of Protestantism; for it was from Protestantism that the earthquake, a great political schism, had its origin.

"All the tithe of the land is the Lord's."

Here was the quit-rent, in acknowledgement of the Lord's title to the whole. The very proportion may have been meant to show that it was an act asserting His right to the whole, in accordance with His planting His right foot the sea and His left on the land.

The tenth part of the city "fell." It is not said to have been swept away, to have been moved elsewhere, or to have entirely disappeared; but simply to have been laid in ruins, so far as it's having been a portion of the Great City was concerned.

Seven Thousands Slain.

"There were killed.. . names of men, seven thousand." That is, they were politically or nationally slain, as members of the Papal Empire. Compare Ezekiel xxxvii. 9, said of Israel, slain as a nation. Also Revelation ix. 5, 15, 18, 20, said of political extinction. It is said that these seven thousands were killed by the fall on them of the tenth part of city to crush them. On the contrary the two events, though linked together, are expressly dissociated from one another: "And there were killed in the earthquake...," not essarily in the fall of the tenth part.

Thousands, not Thousand.

Seven "Chiliads," or "Thousands"; not, "Seven thousand." The "Thousand" was most important of the subdivisions of a tribe, and was first introduced by Moses on advice of Jethro; the people being divided into" thousands, hundreds, etc." (Exod. 21; see also Num. x. 36). When the people were established in Canaan, the "thousand was increased in number as the tribe multiplied, and was endowed with a portion of the territory belonging to its tribe; so that like the English "hundreds" in a county, "thousands" became identified with certain districts, each with its chief town (see v. 2).

Roman Christendom has been represented under the symbol of the Twelve Tribes. Was any group of seven subdivisions, in the commonwealth of Western Europe, destroyed as members of the Papal Empire, in the same political earthquake as that in which England fell?

The Earthquake of the Reformation.

Writers of every creed agree in speaking of the Reformation as one of the mightiest of revolutions. For example:

"The Reformation was a tremendous earthquake; it shook down the fabric of mediaeval religion and as a consequence of the disturbance in the religious sphere filled the world with revolutions and wars. But it left the authority of the Bible unshaken, and men might feel hat the destructive process had its limits and that adamant was still beneath their feet." (Prof Goldwin Smith.)

"The depth of the convulsion, the marvellous rapidity with which it was propagated, upheaving it caused in even sphere of human thought. Destined to produce mighty throes and conflicts in the whole of Christendom." (Hardwick.)

The events that have been detailed involved a mighty schism from the Popedom of those countries in which Protestantism had been established as the State religion; that is, of Saxony, Prussia, Sweden and Denmark. It was indeed " a great earthquake." But all these countries lay north of the Rhine or the Danube, outside of the boundary of the old Roman Empire. What further influence was this mighty revolution to have? The angel had planted his right foot on the sea and his left on the land. Accordingly, two grand and permanent political changes in Europe arose out of the earthquake of the Reformation, one in insular England, the other in continental Holland.

Fall of the Papal Supremacy in England.

Was there any one of the Ten Kingdoms of Papal Christendom in which, at about the same time as the political exaltation of the Protestants in Northern Germany, the Papal Supremacy fell, overthrown by Protestantism? History answers England, which till then had been one of the most notable of the Ten Kingdoms. The Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy was completed latest of the Kingdoms, A.D. 582, and so formed the tenth kingdom in order of time. Papal England, as a tenth part of the Papal Empire, fell in that great earthquake. The effect of the Reformation was that the Papal Supremacy in that country was put an end to for ever.

A Political Move, but Prepared for.

God works in divers ways, and overrules the most unlikely characters and events for His own purposes. To all appearance the movement in England at this era was more political than spiritual; but hearts had long been secretly prepared for it by Tyndale, Wickliffe, the Lollards, and the Lutheran doctrines brought to our shores from the continent. England had shared in the light and truth of the earlier stages of the Reformation, As portrayed in these Visions.

"Without Luther there would have been either no change in England in the sixteenth century or a change purely political." (Froude.)

"The Reformation of England, perhaps to a greater extent than that of the Continent, was effrcted by the Word of God. Those great individualities we meet with in Germany, Switzerland, and France, men like Luther, Zwingle, and Calvin-do not appear in England; but Holy Scripture is widely circulated. The religion of the Anglo-Saxon race is particularly distinguished by its Biblical character." (D'Aubigné.)

"God was first creating by His Word a spiritual church, before He broke by His dispensations the bonds which had so long fastened England to the power of Rome. It was His good pleasure to give first truth and lift, and then liberty " (ib),

Erasmus' Greek Testament was published in 1517, and was received by all men of upright mind with unprecedented enthusiasm. Never had any book produced such a sensation. It 'was in every hand. The words it contained enlightened every heart.

The Divorce

Henry VIII, dissatisfied with his marriage with Queen Catherine, and doubting its lawfulness, sued the Pope for a divorce. Unsuccessful, and revolted by the chicanery of Rome, he summoned his Parliament, and in 1534 the memorable Act was passed by which the Papal Supremacy was renounced in England, and the King declared the termporal Head of the Church. The first threatening of separation between the King and the Pope had been in 1529, just when the German Reformers, united under the name of Protestants; and the Act of Parliament was passed in 1534, the year of the Treaty of Kadan. So did the Papal Supremacy in England fall in the earthquake.

Henry VIII, in 1521, had actually come forward as a champion of the Papacy, to dispute with Luther in that year "the English monarch forwarded to Rome a copy of the treatise he had just completed in refutation of 'Martin Luther the heresiarch.' On this occasion, Clerk, the envoy who presented the sumptuous manuscript to Leo X, expatiated on the perfect orthodoxy of his countrymen and their entire devotion to the Roman Pontiff; little dreaming that in the course of the next thirty years an era fatal to the old opinions would have dawned on every shire of England, as on the a parts of Western Christendom; and least of all anticipating that one of the prime movers in changes then accomplished would be Henry Viii himself who in return for his chivalrous vindication of the Schoolmen had been dubbed 'Defender of the Faith.' (Hardwick.)

Pope Leo XIII, in his "Letter to the English People," in April, 1895, thus bewails the crisis:

"In the storms which devastated Catholicity throughout Europe, in the sixteenth century England too, received a grievous wound, for it was first unhappily wrenched from communion with Apostolic See, and then was bereft of that holy faith in which for long centuries it had rejoiced found liberty. It was a sad defection, and our predecessors, while lamenting it in their earnest made every prudent effort to put an end to it, and to mitigate the many evils consequent upon it"

No more Appeals to Rome.

The sole material change affecting the internal polity of the Church was, that ap from the Metropolitan tribunals could no longer be carried out of the island to Roman Pontiff, but must pass directly upwards to the king, who by his delegates now the power of final adjudication. This subverted the state of things, in which priesthood had more or less been exempted from the common laws of the realm, a which a foreign jurisdiction was allowed to overrule the home tribunals.

"There is no people among whom the Reformation has produced to the same degree that and order, that liberty, public spirit, and activity which are the very essence of a nation's ,qrea Just as the Papacy has degraded the Spanish Peninsula, so has the Gospel exalted the British Is (D'Aubigné.)

Building up: not only Casting Down.

As yet, however, Protestantism was not established in England. Through Henry VIII's reign Popery lay in ruins, but no edifice of real Biblical Protestantism was erected in its stead. This was happily effected under Edward VI, when the English Protestant Reformed Church was fully organized and established on the ruins of the Papal Queen Mary during her short reign did her best to subvert it, to restore Popery, and rebuild the "Tenth" that had fallen; but the sufferings and constancy of the 288 martyrs brought to the stake during that time effectually endeared the Reformation to the hearts of the people.

In the next reign, that of Elizabeth, the half reconstructed "Tenth" of the Papal City fell again, and the Protestant of Witness Church of England was fully fixed in the heaven of political exaltation, where it has ever since remained.

Everything proves that the English Reformation was no sudden storm, and no mere theological episode. It causes went deep into every sphere of national and social life. Politically and ecclesiastically it as a deliberate revival of that sounder and more national condition which had prevailed in Church and state before the Norman and Papal Conquest. Theologically, it was a revolt agaisnt false and unhistorical Catholocism; against the material, sacerdotal, innovative dogmas and practices of Innocent III and his Lateran Council. It was a deliberate return to more primitive wasys of belief and worship; a deliberate repudiation of the mediaval Papacy and its theology. Spitually, it meant a desire to regain Christianity as it is found in the New Testament, and as it was not found in the Papal and mediaeval Church. Inellectually, it meant the revival of sound and learning, the recovery of Greek, of the original scriptures, of Christian history and literature; a release from the limitations and ignorance of the middle ages. (Galton: Attitude towards Eng. R. Catholics, pp. 37, 38)

The English Reformation was, above all things, an appeal to sound learning, to primitive belief and practice, to ancient freedom. The corporate life and fabric of the old national Church were not touched. There was no break in continuity, no change in the ancient form and machiney of government. Scripture was made the final standard and arbiter of belief, as it had been to the Early Church. Everything which could not meet the test of Scripture was judged to be merely human. It might be advisable as a matter of sediment and order. It could not be binding as a matter of faith and conscience. The results of the new learning were accepted, and accepted, and applied both to Scripture itself and to antiquity. By these aids, our first generation of Reformers abolished a great many Papal and mediaeval accretions upon the ancient faith. Their model of belief and practice was the primitive church, not the mediaeval. They deliberately rejected the ritual, beliefs, theology, litergies, and practices of the thirteenth century. They repudiated all the Papal claims and usurpations. They reasserted those liberties which had once been possessed by every national church, and which our own Church had enjoyed until the eleventh century. These were the ends set by Cranmer and his fellow workers before themseleves. They strove to attain them with utter honesty, carrying their lives in their hands. (ib., p. 55.)

That consciousness of the divine presence; that honest striving after the truth; that reaching back through controversy, through all the centuries of ignorance, of official deciets, and of blind corruption; that effort to regain the "primitive Church," to restore as far as possible the Christianity of the New Testament: these were the aims of our Reformers. The determination to secure these good things enabled them to carry on that struggle which won our theological and historical position; and which though it was not seen clearly at the time, ensured our national independence,a s well as our political and civil freedom (ib., p. 57)

The Seven Dutch Provences

Did any of the seven subdivisions in western Christendom at, at this time fall away from from the Papal Empire, or be politically slain tot eh Papacy, in the same "earthquake" in which Papal England fell?

The answer stands forth in the history of Europe. During Elizabeth's reign, the Seven Dutch United Provences were emancipated from the Spainish yoke, and the Papal rule and religion in them were destroyed. It is a long but deeply interesting story, as readers of Motley's Dutch Republic well know.

The War with Spain

In 1569 the war began under Phillip II. Before this the Reformed doctrines had made their way amongst the Dutch, the Gospel had been preached, the blood of martyrs had been shed. The earthquake in whuich the tenth kingdom of Popedom had recently fallen, began to convulse and to threaten the Papal Supremacy also in these lesser districts. In the midst of the terrible disasters brought on the country by the Duke of Alva, William of Orange openly espoused the cause of Protestantism, and with it that of civil and intellectual freedom. Aided by a host of coadjutors, he took to the field in 1568. At first their heroism was ineffectual, but in 1579 it had so far prospered in the desperate struggle as to rend the Seven Northern Provinces from their connection with the other ten, and to secure their independence.

Union of the Seven Provinces

In 1579 the union of these Seven Provinces was effected, the remnant adhering to Spain and the Papacy. To the eye of man their cause seemed hopeless; Phillip so mighty, tey so few and feeble, Spain the greatest state of Christendom, and the Spaniards the best soldiers of the day.

But God was with them. An indomitable courage as imparted to these few Hollanders by their religion, and to encourage them they had the example and sympathy of England. It is a glorious history. After thirty seven years of war, in 1609 their independence was virtually acknowledged by Spain. Out of the ruins of of seven old Papal Lordships arose the Protestant Republic of Holland, the Lordships as such having been slain. It is one ofhte most interesting and momentous revolutions in recorded history.

Thus, besides the fall of the tenth part of the city, there had been slain to the Papacy seven thousands, names of men; both these events being in earnest and pledge of the total fall, still future. The difference in terms used for England and for the Dutch provinces is nessesary from the difference of their constitution; England being at that time an independent kingdom, but the others only a small part of the Spanish realm.

Effect on the Rest

In England and Holland, "the rest" that is, the Papaists that remained inthem, after the fall of the Papal power and the victorious ascendancy of Protestantism "were afrighted." Penal enactments were passed against them, somethimes in forgetfulness of Christian Charity. Popular feeling was agaisnt them. The great majority conformed tot eh Protestant faith, and thus at least outwardly "gave glory to the God of heaven."

By sovereign and people in England, Holland, and Germay, all these great results were puplically acknowledged as the Lord's doing. Glory was given, not as formally in England and still other Papal countries, as to saints, or to the Virgin Queen of heaven, but to the God of heaven. (Compare Revelation 16:9)

Two Permanent Changes

These were the two grand and perminant political changes in Europe that arose from the earthquake attendant on the Reformation. The Angel's right foot had been planted on the sea, and the result was that insular England had been broken off from the Papacy; His left foot had been planted on the land,and He claimed continental Holland.

Thus a dramatic unity reigns through this division of the prophecy. What was signified in the first act is consummated in the close. What more apparently hopeless thanm the condition of things before? What more magnificent, influential, and enduring than the results obtained in the short space of about fifty years? "If the Reformation in Germany was the foundation of the building, that of England was its crowning stone." (D'Aubigne). It is the Lord's doing,a nd it is marvelous in our eyes.

Commerce and Colonies

From this time also commerce and maritime power flowed in upon England and Holland, and colonies dependent on them were formed in America and Asia. Later on England began to use this influence and connextion as a means for spreading through out the world the word of God and the tidings of the everlasting Gospel.

"About the time that the maritime greatness of England was beginning, she began to be a great manufacturing country….The England we know, the supreme maritime, commercial, and industrial Power, is quite of modern growth; it did not clearly exhibit its principle features till the eigtheenth century, and the seventeenth is the period when it was gradually assuming this form. It began to do so in the Elizabethan age" (Seeley: Expansion of England, Loot. V)

"The world was astonished to see a petty state, with barren soil and insignificant population, not only hold its own against the Spanish empire, but in the midst of this unequal contest found a great colonial empire for itself in both hemispheres. Meanwhile the intellectual stimulus which the sea had begun to give these Westen states was nowhere more manifest than in Holland. The same small population took the lead in scholarship as in commerce, welcomed Lipsius, Scaliger and Descartes, and produced Grotius at the same time as Piet Hein and Van Tromp." (ib.)

To 1688

The prediction seems to embrace a period reaching down to the memorable epoch of the Reveocation of the Edict of Nantes, 1685, and of our glorious Reveolution of 1688.

Not till near the predicted results in North Germany and England receive their final settlement. In 1620 the Emperor Fernand II issued the terrible Restitution Edict, by which German Protestants were required to restore to the Church of Rome all the possessions they had become masters of in consequence of the religious peace concluded in the preceding century. A war arose in defence of Protestant rights, in which Gustavus Adolphus fell victorious at Lutzen, 1632; nor was it till1648 that these rights were re-established on a firm and lasting basis by the Peace of Westphalia.

In England by Charles II, and yet more by James II, his brother and successor, advances were made towards the restoration of Popery; until at length in 1688, through God's gracious favour, William of Orange superseded James II in the government. Thus just when Protestantism and Protesants were being ruthlessly crushed in France, the political elevation and establishement of Protestantism was finally secured in England, and eventually also in Holland.

One most remarkable experiment had been tried on this strange Empire [Spain]. A small feragment, hardly a 300th part of the whole in extent, hardly a 30th part of the whole population, had been detached from the reat, had from that moment begun to display a new energy and enjoy a new prosperity, and was now, after the lapse of over 200 years, far more feared and reverenced than the huge mass of which it had been an obscure corner. What a contrast between the Holland which Alva had oppressed and plundered, and the Holland from which Willam had sailed to deliver England! (Macaulay: History of England, chap. XXIII; year 1698)