“And she brought forth a male child, who is about to rule all the nations with an iron sceptre” — verse 5
The Spirit is here careful to designate the sex of the child that was to be'born of the Woman. It is termed in the original, huion arrhena, literally, a male offspring. He was brought forth at length; but not “devoured” by the Dragon-Power; for he was destined to “rule all the nations with an iron sceptre,” in the Italian Heaven, from which the Woman’s adversary, or Satan, was to be ejected. It was not a female child that was to be bom; but a man, whose birth had long been foretold in the prophets. In Psa. 10:15,18, he is styled “the wicked and evil man,” and “the Man of the Earth,” whose arm is broken in the epoch when “Yahweh” becomes “King of the hidden period and beyond; and the heathen are perished out of His land.” The Spirit in David makes the following address to him in Psa. 52: “Why boastest thou thyself in mischief, O Mighty Man? The mercy of Ail is all the day. Thy tongue de- viseth mischiefs; like a sharp razor working deceitfully. Thou lovest evil more than good; and lying rather than to speak righteousness. Thou lovest all devouring words, O thou deceitful tongue! But Ail shall beat thee down forever, He shall take thee away, and pluck thee from thy dwelling-place, and will root thee out of the land of the living. The righteous shall see and fear, and upon it they shall laugh, saying, Behold the man that made not Elohim his strength; but trusted in the abundance of his riches, and strengthened himself in his wickedness.”
Daniel styles this Mighty Man, “the King”—a man of power; ruling potentially and sovereignly over nations, during many centuries to the epoch of his destruction in the time of the end.” He is thus described in Dan. 11:36-39. “And the King shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every ail (or Power); and shall speak marvellous things concerning the Ail of ails (the Power of powers, or the greatest, and the source, of all power); and he shall flourish till the indignation shall be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done. Neither shall he regard the gods of his ancestors, elohai avothahv; nor the desire of wives, nor regard any eloahh, “or god”. “But upon his place (or throne) shall he do honor to the eloahh mahuzzim—the god of guardians: and to an eloahh, ‘or god,’ which his ancestors knew not shall he do honor with gold, and silver, and with costly gems, and durable things. Thus shall he do to the Bazaars of the guardians pertaining to a foreign god (eloahh) whom he shall acknowledge and increase with glory: and he shall give them authority over many: and shall divide the land for gain.”
Thus, we see exhibited in the ancient and remarkable oracle of the Deity, an Absolute Sovereign Power, which repudiates the gods of his predecessors, and sets up in their place a god of foreign origin, who becomes a constituent of the power by which he is enthroned. Hence, the power consists of, or is represented by, the King and his god; who exalt and magnify themselves above every power, temporal and spiritual, claiming sovereignty and lordship upon the whole habitable. The King has the priority of existence in the New Constitution of things—new in relation to the old, under which the gods of his predecessors bore rule through their priests. The priority is manifest from the fact, that he is the founder of the glory of his New God—“whom he shall acknowledge and increase with glory.” The acknowledgment of the candidate for divine honors, must be accepted as the date of his creation: that is, the aspirant became a god, as soon as he was recognized by the King. Until this recognition, the King would be supreme in all the spiritual and temporal affairs of his dominion. He would be the chief magistrate, the commander-in-chief of the military forces, and the chief bishop, of his empire; but when he should come to set up his new god, he would in so doing, delegate to him the supervision and administration of all spiritual and ecclesiastical affairs. This arrangement would make his god “the Head of all the Churches” of the habitable; while he would reserve to himself the headship of the State.
This foreign god unknown to his predecessors, is styled Eloahh Mahuzzim — a god of fortresses. A fortress is a strong place affording defence and protection. “The way of God,” is termed in Proverbs 10:29, “a fortress to the upright”. Upon the same principle, “saints and angels” are regarded as fortresses, or guardians, to those who worship them. These are the fortresses, or Mahuzzim, of the system of superstition, whose Supreme Pontiff is the god created by “the King”. His special fortress, is a phantasm he styles St. Peter. This is the guardian of his god- ship; besides which, he claims the protection of all the supposed existences of “the spirit-world”. The Virgin Mary, whom he styles “the Queen of heaven,” is conspicuous among these. No god, according to his own tradition, was ever so strongly fortified as he. All the conceivable saints and angels of the invisible world are his fortresses, protectors, or guardians. One cannot help but think, however, that they must be very negligent of their duty at the present time; for his godship is manifestly dying for want of protection by the powers of heaven and earth.
Illustrative of these fortresses are the remarks of Chrysostom, a subject and priest of the King, who flourished in the 4th century. In his homily on the martyrs of Egypt, he says: “The bodies of those saints fortify the city more effectually for us than impregnable walls of adamant; and like towering rocks placed around on every side, repel not only the assaults of enemies that are visible, but the insidious strategems also of invisible daemons, and counteract and defeat every artifice of the devil as easily as a strong man overturns the toys of children.”
The buildings pertaining to this God of Guardian Saints and Angels are styled by Daniel, “the Bazaars of the Guardians”. The noun mivtzahr, is derived from the root bahtzar, which among other meanings signifies to enclose with a wall. As a noun betzer signifies ore of gold and silver, precious metals, store, or treasure so secured. Parkhurst has the following upon the word: “Derivative, Bazaar, a kind of covered market-place among the eastern nations, somewhat like our Exeter ‘Change in London; but frequently much more extensive. Latin, or rather Punic, Byrsa, the Burse at Carthage;” equivalent to the French Bourse. In the English version, the phrase is rendered, “the most strongholds, ” with which those who compiled the marginal readings were not satisfied; and therefore they have tried to improve it by substituting the words “fortresses of munitions”. Moses Stuart renders it fenced strongholds; and the foreign god he styles, “the god of strongholds; that is, the god that has power over them.” He confesses, however, that verse 39 is “a difficult verse, which has occasioned many discrepant interpretations.” He refers to Lengerke, who, he remarks, “makes the fenced strongholds to mean temples, and the sentiment to be, that the tyrant will do for temples and their foreign gods the same thing that verse 38 says he will do in respect to the god of strongholds, that is, he will bestow many liberal presents upon them.” As neither Lengerke nor Moses Stuart seem to see anything in Daniel (the last chapter, perhaps, excepted) beyond the times of Antiochus, some hundred and sixty years, or so, before the birth of Jesus Christ, their temples and “strongholds” have relation to “fortified strongholds of foreigners” attacked by Antiochus, and temples of idols. Lengerke has almost fallen upon the correct meaning. Had he referred the betzer, heemantively written mivtzar, to the temples of “guardian saints” instead of to those of the pagan Greeks, he would have hit the mark exactly; but then, how could he be so uncharitable as to turn the “Holy Father” of Christendom so-called, into a foreign god, and all the ecclesiastical edifices of his bishoprick dedicated to the disembodied ghosts of reputed saints, into Bazaars, or places of traffic in spiritual merchandise, and in “the bodies and souls of men!” (Apoc. 18:13).
The churches, chapels, and cathedrals, then, are “the most strongholds” of the King’s superstition, which has spread itself over Europe and America. They are the houses of business dedicated by the prospering craft to “Guardian Spirits”. There are laid up in store the images and pictures of reputed saints. They are Saints’ Houses in which are deposited their shrines; silver, gold and ivory crucifixes; “religious articles” of all sorts; together with old bones, and various kinds of votive trumpery. They are literally, “Dens of Thieves,” without ever having been houses of the Father — dens, where people are hoodwinked, and by “sharp practice” robbed of their money under divers false pretences. They are places where pews are sold by auction, the proudest sittings being knocked down to Mammon’s greatest favorites; places where fairs of vanity and deceit are held for “pious objects;” and whose spiritual empirics pretend to “cure souls” in consideration of so much per annum. In view of these facts, the Scriptural epithet bestowed upon the ecclesiastical edifices of the Apostasy , is most appropriate. They are truly bazaars of spiritual merchandise; and the prospering craft, “the great men of the earth,” papal, catholic, and protestant, made rich by trading in their wares, are the Bazaar-Men, who extort all kinds of goods from their deluded customers by putting them in sulphurous and mortal fear; and comforting them with counterfeits upon some transpa- tial bank when time shall be no more! They “buy and sell” under license from the Ecclesiastical Power, having received its “mark upon their foreheads, or on their right hands.” The reader may find their inventory of merchandise in Apoc. 18:12,13. Among the articles received in exchange for their “spiritual things,” are tithes, bodies (somata) and souls of men. But the trade of these soul-and-body merchants is in anything but a satisfactory state at present. Great numbers of their customers have discovered that the profit is all upon one side; nor are they backward in proclaiming that when a favorable opportunity presents they will break up the iniquitous concern, and make the cheats disgorge their unhallowed gainst. This will be to them a sad day — a day of universal $ When Eureka was written there was vigorous opposition manifested towards the Papacy throughout the countries of Western Europe in fulfilment of the prediction of Rev. 17:16: “the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire”. This antagonism had been generated by the political philosophy of Karl Marx, whose Manifesto of The Communist Party, written in the same year as Elpis Israel, resulted in a revolutionary spirit being manifested throughout the Continent. There were widespread anti-papal movements and in Italy these culminated in the loss of temporal power by the Papacy, anticipated by Bro. Thomas, but which took place in 1870 after his exposition had been published. However, in recent years, the Papacy has gamed in influence both in Europe and the Third World; and this, too, is in accordance with the requirements of the prophecy. For John saw the Papacy at the epoch of its judgment at the hands of Christ and the saints, in a position of dominance over the “oeast” and its European “horns” which, in order to “fulfil the words of God” are required to give “their kingdom unto the beast” (Rev. 17:17). In a very exciting manner, because of the implications relating to the return of Christ, the prophecies of The Apocalypse are being fulfilled. — Publishers.
bankruptcy for the weeping and wailing merchants of “Babylon the Great;” for “no man buyeth their merchandize any more.” When a man’s trade is thus extinguished, nothing but ruin stares the shattered tradesman in the face. This is the fate that awaits the preachers of all the “other gospels” of the bazaars—gospels other than Paul preached, and which leave men in ignorance and disobedience; gospels which make them partisans of human crotchets and traditions; and the apologists of anything sincerely professed as a substitute for the truth.
It is a remarkable feature in this prophecy that the Bazaars for priestly and clerical wares are distinguished from houses or shops of fair and honorable trade, by being styled Bazaars of Mahuzzim. When jewellers, bakers, hardware-men, and such-like, open stores, they emblazon their signs with their own names. When people go to the baker’s or the butcher’s, they do not say they are going to St. Paul’s or St. Barnabas’, as if the stores were theirs. But when the clergy of “the King” and his foreign god, whether they be loyal or non-conformist, open bazaars for the sharp practice of their trade, they impose upon the credulous and strongly deluded public the idea that they belong to the apostles and their brethren! They say that these ancients “of whom the world is not worthy,” are still alive and in heaven, and greatly interested in human affairs, especially in church edifices, and in the orchestral and pulpit demonstrations therein! Hence, they set up statues in niches, and on parapets, which they call by their names, and make them presents of their churches, as is evident from the names they bear; as St. Sophia’s at Constantinople, St. Peter’s at Rome, Our Lady’s at Paris, St. Paul’s at London, and so forth. The flagrancy of the imposture, however, consists in this, that while they profess to give these houses of the king’s god to the “departed spirits” they call by these names,, they will not permit the gospel the apostles preached, and the institutions they ordained, to be announced in their walls; but, by various arts, perversely persist in its exclusion, and in making it of none effect by their vain and foolish traditions. But the whole system is a cheat, and a very profitable one for the present to those who live by it. It is ecclesiastical craft caused to prosper by the Civil Power, or “the King;” and it will continue to prosper “till the indignation shall be accomplished;” when Israel’s Commander will bring it to an end, and cause the truth, by the energy whereby he is able to subdue all opposition, and to unmask all impostures, to prevail at last.
This king, or Imperial Power, and its foreign god, are presented in Dan. 7:8,20,24,25, under the symbol of a Little Horn, in which were Eyes like the eyes of man, and a Mouth speaking very great things. In this, the Eyes and the Mouth are representative of the foreign god;
while the Little Horn itself is significative of “the king,” or power, that glorifies him. This remarkable constitution of Church and State did not obtain in the days of Paul and John. The former in 2 Thess. 2 predicted its manifestation as the result of apostasy from the faith; and that when that apostasy was well developed, the power would be revealed. Not, however, in full manifestation at the beginning. The power had to receive its birth, and to grow to manhood, or maturity; so that when it had fully established itself above all, it might be in a position to set up its foreign god. Paul styles the power, “the Man of Sin, the Son of Perdition:” and foreseeing the extraordinary arrogance of the spiritual element of the power, he speaks of it as one “who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called a god, or an object of reverence; so that he as a god sitteth in the temple of the god, showing himself that he is a god.” This is the god Daniel styles “a foreign god;” and by John in Apoc. 13:2,5, “the Mouth of the Beast as the mouth of a lion, and speaking great things and blasphemies;” and in verses 14,15, “the Image of the Beast,” which received life and ability to speak from the Civil Power.
Now, the Pagan Imperial Roman Power existed before the Woman; and so did Jesus Christ. Neither of them, therefore, could be the son to be bom of her. But in the days of Constantine, there was a great revolution in the State, the effects of which are felt in all Europe and America to this day. When he became Emperor of Rome, the constitution of the empire was modified in Church and State. He assumed supremacy in both; and became the Chief Bishop — “the Bishop of the bishops” — of “the Holy Apostolic Catholic Church,” so called. He established the Catholic Apostasy as the most favored religion of the Roman State; but, according to Labanius, “made no alteration in the legal worship; the temples indeed were impoverished, but the sacred rites were performed there.” Though the Court was transferred to Constantinople, the Senate continued to hold its sessions in Rome, where by solemn decrees it still presumed to consecrate the divine memory of their sovereigns; and Constantine himself was associated, after his death, to those gods of his predecessors whom he had renounced and insulted during his life. “The titles, the ensigns, the prerogatives, of Sovereign Pontiff,” says Gibbon, “which had been instituted by Numa, and assumed by Augustus, were accepted without hesitation, by seven Christian emperors, who were invested with more absolute authority over the religion which they had deserted, than over that which they professed.” Hence, this Son of the Woman, styled by historians “the first Christian emperor,” was at pnce Sovereign Pontiff of paganism, and Chief Bishop of the Catholic Church! Such a child bom and son given could be no other than “the Man of Sin.” The historical testimony of Gibbon concerning this personage is demonstrative of the true character of the Woman’s Son. “The first of the Christian emperors,” says he, “was unworthy of that name till the moment of his death.” This he clearly proves in his great work. In the days of the apostles they only were Christians who believed “the gospel of the kingdom,” and were immersed; but Constantine was ignorant of it, and therefore could not believe it, and was not immersed until three days before his death, A.D. 337. During many previous years he was reputed a Christian by the Catholic Church. He assumed the character of a bishop, presided at ecclesiastical councils, gave judgment against Christians reputed “heretical” by his party, enjoined the solemn observance of the first day of the week, which he called the day of the sun, Die Solis, affer his once favorite god, and in the same year, A.D. 321, directed the regular consultation of Auruspices.i He was permitted by the Catholic Woman to enjoy most of the privileges of her communion. Instead of retiring from the congregation, when the voice of the deacon dismissed the profane multitude, he prayed with the faithful, disputed with the bishops, preached on the most sublime and intricate subjects of theology, celebrated with “sacred rites” the vigil of Easter, and publicly declared himself, not only a partaker, but, in some measure, a priest and hierophant of the “Christian mysteries”. In view of such premises as these, what shall we say of such a church, and of such a religion, whose professors could permit, and even applaud, such flagrant violation of the first principles of the doctrine of Christ? The only conclusion attainable is that such a community is the Church of Anti-christ, and her imperial protector and chief, the Man of Sin.