Summary Of The Foregoing History

In the twenty-four verses, Revelation 10:1 - 11:13, which has now been explained, there has been given in symbol a history of that great religious and political movement of the sixteenth century. The symbolic picturing is carried through all the stages of the history exactly as they followed each other in actual fact; and the whole is placed in its proper chronological position that is, under the second half of the Turkish woe.

Not only is this a most graphic and complete exposition of the whole movement, laying bare its origin, prowess, and results; not only do these twenty four verses furnish an admirable and trustworthy epitome of the history of the Reformation period; but also what is far more important, all this is given as from God's point of view. It is the historically inspired by His Spirit, and revealed by His Son, and therefore true and reliable, putting the right light and in their philosophic relation the momentous events of those times.

No history of the Reformation so exactly traces according to truth the main outward steps and epochs, and the inward and spiritual principles and secret springs of action, in the course of that great revolution. The Visions lead us from its very commencement in Luther's first discovery of Christ as the Righteousness of His people, to the establishment of the now purified Churches in many countries of Christendom; more especially in the tenth kingdom of Papal Christendom, thence forward Protestant England; and in the Seven "Thousands" thenceforth the Dutch Protestant United Provinces.

If the Reformation be indeed, as it is here shown, the Lord's own doing, with what repect and confidence should it be regarded. Who that loves the Lord will dare to mourn over it aas a deplorable schism? To work on Reformation lines is, in a very true sense, to be a fellow worker of God.

"There certainly never has been a movement which, in its ultimate results, has contributed so largely to the emancipation of the human mind from all superstitious terrors as the Reformation." (Lecky: Rationalism in Europe, chap. 1)

"The Reformation, beyond the region of opinions, was a historical fact, an objective subject which may be studied like any of the facts of nature. The Reformers were men of note and distinction, who played a part for good or evil on the stage of the world. If we except the Apostles, no body of human beings ever printed so deep a mark into the organization of society; and if there be any value or meaning in history at all, the lives, the actions, the characters of such men as these can be matters of indifference to none at of us. We have not to do with a story which is buried in obscure antiquity. The matters admit being learnt. The truth whatever it was concerns us all equally…. Fiction in such matters may be convenient for our immediate theories, but it is certain to avenge itself in the end" (Froude: Short Studies: Times of Erasmus Luther.)

"The Protestant creed was by no means a mere negation of the Papacy a simple renunciation. It was in the highest degree positive, a renovation of Christian sentiments and principles that govern human life even to the most profound recesses the Soul" (Ranke: Popes, Book V)

If we fairly balance gain with loss, the Reformation is to be esteemed among our choicest blessings. It recovered what is even more precious than ecclesiastical unity - the Primitive and Apostolic faith. From it, accordingly, has dated a new era in the moral progress of the Western nations, and the spiritual development of man. It has to some extent replaced him in the liberty wherewith Christ had made him free. It has unloosed the trammels that oppressed not only his understanding but also his conscience. It has led to their rejection of that semi Judaism in thought and feeling, which however it has overruled for good and training the barbaric nations of the North, was notwithstanding, a melancholy relapse into eh servile posture of the Hebrew, as distinguished from the free and filial spirit that should characterize the children of God.

"Above all; the reformation vindicated for our Blessed Lord the real headship of the Church, exalting Him as the One Source of Life and Righteousness, and thereby placing saints, and priests, and sacraments in their true subordination. Personal faith in Him, the Reconstructor of humanity, the living Way unto the Father, was now urged with emphasis unequalled since the age of St. Augustine; and this quickening of man's moral consciousness' imparted a new stimulus to individual effort." ( Hardwick: Reformation.)

Romish Expositors of Prophecy

For some time after the Reformation, as Foxe and Brightman report, the Romish doctors were very shy of prophetic exposition. At the first, indeed, on Luther's protest, some unguarded doctors of the Papacy took up the theory of the Fifth Lateran Council that the then Church of Rome was the New Jerusalem of the Apocalypse, and that the Papal dominion was Daniel's Fifth Monarchy or reign of the Saints.

But then what of the Little Horn or Antichrist that was to intervene between old Rome's Iron Empire and the Saints reign? The question was so puzzling that is must have been evident to all thoughtful Romanists that such a theory was untenable, and that some better one must be taken up if the Papal citadel were to be defended on prophetic grounds.

Futurist and Praeterist Schemes

At length, as the sixteenth century was drawing toa close, the views of Apocalyptic exposition were put forth which, after long reflrction, the Papal doctors thought best for meeting the arguments so fearfully urged against tehm from that propheyc. Two Jesuits published their respective but quiteopposite opinions.

About 1585, Ribera, a Jesuit priest of Salamanca, published an Apocalyptic commentary which, on the grand points of Babaylon and Antichrist, was substantially what is now called the Futurist Sceme. According to this, the greater part of the prophecy is made to relate to things even now still future, the things concerning Christ's Second Advent.

Alcazar, also a Spanish Jesuit of Seville, published a scheme which on main points is that ofhte modern Preterists. This restricts almost the whole of the Apocalypse to the catastrophies of the Jewish Nation and of the old Roman Empire.

Either scheme almost equally well promoted the object of the writers, namely to set aside all application of these prophecies to the Catholic Church and the Papacy. The Praeterist made the journey stop short of he era of Papal Rome; the Futurist made it overlap the whole interval since the prophecy had been given, and plunge into the far distant future just before the consummation.

The strange thing is that at the present time many Protestants should have adopted the views favored by one or the other of these schemes, coming as they do of such a parentage, and having been launched for such a purpose.

"Modern historical interpreters of the Apocalypse are in good company; they stand with the Fathers, the Confessors, the Martyrs, the Reformers, with men who suffered for the truth they believed, and were practically guided and inspired by the interpretations they have handed down to posterity."