II. Papal Thunders:

Revelation X 13,4.

"And when he cried, the seven thunders uttered their voices. And when the seven thunders uttered their voices, I was about to write: and I heard a voice from heaven saying, Seal up the things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not."

After the voice of the Angel, roaring as a lion, "the seven thunders" are said not to sound only but to speak. They have voices of their own, and speak in a manner evidently quite intelligible to St. John. In this they are unlike the thunders elsewhere described in this Book as proceeding from the throne; those are sounds of wrath and judgment from on high, but not articulate or vocal as these are. Compare John xii. 28, 29, where mention is made of an articulate voice from heaven. Some thought it was thunder, others an angel; but the very words are given.

"THE Seven Thunders and their Voices"

The article does not refer to some previously-mentioned thunders, as was the case with "the rainbow of Revelation X 1"; but it implies that these are "the well-known seven thunders," or the thunders that come from a sevenfold source. They are earthly thunders, not from the Throne.

They had " their voices," voices peculiarly and distinctively their own, in contrast with the voice of the Covenant Angel just before and the " voice from heaven" mentioned just after. They were opposed to or discordant from both of these.

Their voices fell on St. John's ear not only intelligibly, but also as an oracle or voice from heaven. It will be remembered how the Jewish Rabbis had been wont to palm upon the people their own false religious decrees and dogmas, as if "Bath Kol" a voice or oracle from heaven. St. John says, "I was about to write." He was writing down everything as he saw or heard it, for so the Lord had bidden him (Revelation i. 11); and he was going to do the same for these voices also. He thought them authoritative, and therefore was about to write them down, and so give them recognition and authority.

But he now heard a voice from heaven, bidding him seal up what had been uttered, and not write it down. Sealing is for authentication, or for concealing from public view; evidently the latter is the sense here. When the Apostle is told to "write," it is because the voice is true and faithful, the voice of the Spirit, the true saying of God; e.g., the Epistle to the Seven Churches, also Revelation xiv. 13, xix. 9, xxi. 5. In this case he is told, "Write not," because what the Seven Thunders uttered, though like an oracular voice from heaven, was not true and faithful, not the voice of the Spirit, not the true saying of but false and an imposture. He is to give them no recognition, no authority.

St. John being, as before, a representative man, this part of the Vision foreshows the impression that would be, produced at the time on men holding the apostolic faith. After the discovery of Christ the Saviour, and after His roaring as a lion against the usurpinc foe, certain well-known voices, described as those of the "seven thunders," would be heard by those whom St. John represented. What was uttered by those voices would regarded at first as authoritative, and worthy of attention; but presently a true vo from heaven would be heard, forbidding to write, preserve, or authenticate what thunders had spoken.

The Thunders of the Vatican

At the epoch belonging to the Vision, the thunders well-known throughout Christendom, and acknowledged as having authority, were those that proceeded from the Seven-hilled. City of Rome, the Papal Thunders, the Thunders of the Vatican. In reference to them these expressions occur continually in the histories of those times.

There is no need to relate how, very shortly after the publication, of the Theses, the Papal Thunders of intimidation began to make their voices heard against them.

"I Was About to Write"

The words in the Vision imply that those members of Christ's church symbolized by John, and especially their leader and mouthpiece Luther, even after witnessing Chris glory and beauty, would yet from long habit and association, and old-established claim on hearing the Papal Thunders be ready to receive and acknowledge them, as if they really were what they professed to be, a voice from heaven.

So it was, strange as it may seem. The truth was that Luther had formed acquaintance with the character of Christ some years before he formed acquaintance with that Antichrist. The cry of the Papacy being Antichrist, raised long before by the followers Waldo, Wickliffe and Huss, had almost died away in Christendom, and if heard Luther was regarded by him only as, a blasphemous heresy. His conscience was very der, and he was tremblingly afraid of offending God. The supposed sacredness authority of the Pope, as head of the Church and "Christ's Vicar," in accordance with long received superstition, all induced him to bow with deference to the Papal decision.

Early in 1518 there had taken place at Frankfert-on the-Oder a disputation with Tetzel on the subject of the Indulgences, in which that shameless trafficker took shelter with all his disorders and scandals under the mantle of the Pope. To Luther's great astonishment, the ground of dispute was changed from the Indulgence markets to the halls of the Vatican. In the place of the despicable broker whom he had so firmly grasped, there was substituted the sacred person of the head of the church. Thence forward it was no question of a discredited traffic, but of Rome itself.

After this, in the summer of that year, Luther wrote most submissively to the Pope, acknowledging his voice as that of Christ. In the spring he had indeed begun to draw a distinction between the infallibility of Holy Scripture and that of the most able pontiff; denying to the latter any authority to speak from himself alone, " independently of General Councils, except as the interpreter of, the decrees they had put forth. Still, when the Seven Thunders uttered their voices, he was about to write; that is, to recognize and act on them as if they really were what they professed to be, an oracle from heaven.

The Voice from Heaven

But at this critical moment of danger there came to him a real voice from heaven; the Spirit's whisper began to be heard, saying to him, "Write not." He doubted, discredited the fact of the Pope's sanction being given to the system of Indulgences. Soon after, the publication of the Pope's Bull (December 13, 1518), in sanction of Indulgences, forced him to identify the Pope himself with these abuses.

At this epoch he wrote to his friend Link (December 11, 1518): My pen is ready to give birth to things much greater. I know not whence these thoughts come to me. I will send you what I write, that you may see if I have well conjectured that the Antichrist of whom, Paul speaks now reigns in the Court of Rome."

For a while he combated the thought, to him so fearful. Next year, March 13, 1519, he wrote to the Elector of Saxony, that he began to entertain doubts whether the Pope were not the very Antichrist of Scripture. About a year later the suspicion had considerably ripened. He had read the treatise of Laurentius Valla, proving that the Donation of Constantine" was a forgery; this so exasperated him that he thought the 'Antichrist "is not a Pauline word; it is peculiar to St. John. St. Paul speaks of him. but not by that name. Papacy capable of all enormities. He still spoke half respectfully of Leo X, considered in his personal capacity, and represented him (October, 1520) as "a Daniel in Babylon." Further study of Scripture, further teaching of the Holy Spirit, and further examination of the Papal character and claims, filled him with surprise, and turned what had been a suspicion into a real and awful certainty

When the Pope thundered forth his final Bull of anathema and excommunication against him (June 15, 1520), Luther published his famous book on, The Babylonish Captivity of the Church," which appeared on October 6, 1 520; also on November 4, 1520, his treatise "Against the Bull of Antichrist." On November 17 he formally made an appeal to a General Council, bringing the gravest charges against the Pope. This protest was circulated throughout Germans; and sent to most of the Courts of Christendom.

At length he did an action by which all Europe was thunderstruck. On December 10,
1520, in presence of a vast concourse outside the walls of Wittenberg, he committed the Papal Bull and the Decretals and Canons to the flames. The Pope's Legate, travelling to Worms, to his astonishment found himself disregarded and shunned as an agent of Antichrist.

"A holy terror seized upon the souls of the people. It was Antichrist whom they beheld seated on the Pontifical throne. This new idea, which derived greater strength from the prophetic descriptions launched forth by Luther into the midst of his contemporaries, inflicted the most terrible blow on Rome. Faith in the Word of God took the place of that faith which the Church alone had hitherto enjoyed; and the power of the Pope, long the object of adoration among nations, had now become a source of terror and detestation." (D 'Aubzqné.)

The Usurper Discovered

It was a mighty revolution, a lasting discovery The view, though bitterly disputed, has never since been lost. The light which previously had only gleamed here and there on the subject and then had long been all but quenched, suddenly burst into a blaze. The voice of the Waldenses, Wickliffites, and Hussites, protesting against the Papacy as the Apocalyptic Beast, and Rome as the Apocalyptic Babylon, revived in power hitherto unparalleled.

Vain was the authoritative prohibition by the Fifth Lateran Council, of writing or preaching on the subject of Antichrist. There was an energy in the discovered truth that could not be kept down, for it came not from books or earlier traditions, but from the Spirit's own teaching out of God's Word. Alike in Germany, Switzerland, France, Denmark, Sweden and England, it was received as an almost self-evident and fundamental truth by the founders of the several Protestant churches; indeed as of itself a sufficient justification of the mighty act of their separation from Rome.

Two Grand Discoveries

These verses, Revelation X 1-4, prefigure the two grand religious discoveries, made first to Luther and then to multitudes in Christendom, that introduced the great and glorious Protestant Reformation: the discovery of Christ the Saviour, and the discovery of the Usurper.

The era witnessed a great advance in prophetic interpretation, as it was then that the true character of the Papacy was first universally recognized. It became a general conviction among Reformed Christians that the Babylon of the Apocalypse was Papal Rome. Towards the close of the century there were put forth the views of Apocalyptic exposition which, after long reflection, the Papal doctors thought best for meeting the arguments urged against them with such fearful force from the Apocalypse. These were the Preaterist and the Futurist schemes of interpretation.

When " anti" is joined to a noun that describes some kind of agent or functionary the compound word means either a vice-functionary or an opposing functionary of the same kind, or sometimes both.

It is most important to remember that the word Antichrist" cannot mean only any or every person opposed to Christ, or an enemy to Christ. It means a vice-Christ, or a false Christ opposing, or both; but in any case a Christ of some kind, who is" anti "-"instead of "-the true Christ. Antichrist is neither more nor less than another Christ, a pro-Christ, a vice-Christ, who sets himself up as the counterpart of the true, and claims to be the "Vicar of Christ."

Bishop Westcott, in his commentary on the Epistles of St. John, says that the word means far more than simplyn "an adversary of Christ." As far as the form is concerned, it may describe "one who takes the place of Christ," or "one who under the same character opposes Christ." It seems most consonant to the context to hold that Antichrist, in St. John, describes one who assuming the guise of Christ opposes Christ. In this sense it embodies an important truth that that hostility is really formidable in which the adversary keeps the likeness of the excellence which he opposes. The Antichrist assails Christ by proposing to do or to preserve what He did, while yet denying Him.

An excellent illustration is the famous word used in the Middle Ages, "Anti.pope." This meant not an enemy to the Pope, such as the then German Emperor ; but a hostile, self-substituted, usurping Pope, occupying the place of the proper Pope, exercising his functions and receiving his honours.

Similarly in French" contre" is used in certain compounds, such as "contre-admiral," a vice-admiral; "contre-maitre," a vice-master.