ALONE WITH GOD     

  In Rev. 12: 14 we see the woman—church—fleeing from the dragon into a wilderness, "where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time. " This wilderness signifies the obscurity into which the true church went, and in which she remained during the dark reign of the papacy. Thus during the reign of popery the woman—church of God existed in the place prepared of God. She was nourished and kept alive for a time, times, and half a time; hut during this period she was largely in obscurity, symbolized by a wilderness. Here again we have the paper reign or supremacy over God's people measured by inspiration. The wilderness state of the church is the same period as that in Daniel's prophecy—three and one half times— years. This reduced to months equals 42 months, or 1,260 days. "And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days." Rev. 12: 6. Here again we have the same period— 1,260 days—of the beast—popery. It was said he should continue " forty and two months " (Rev. 13:5). This reduced to days gives us 1,260. "And the holy city [church] shall they tread under foot forty and two months" (Rev. 11: 2), or 1,260 days. "And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth." Rev. 11:3. Here are other texts giving the same period, or measurement—1,260 days. This can not refer to natural days, for then the period would cover only three and one half years. The language of prophecy in Revelation is largely symbolic. These, then, must be symbolic days, each day for a year.

  Under the law there was a week of seven days and a week of seven years. This was common among the Jews. In Num. 14: 34 this thought is presented. "After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years. " Again, in Ezek. 4: 6: "And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of >Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year. " Applying this rule, the 1,260 days in which the church was to remain in the wilderness state equals so many years.

  A careful consideration of all the foregoing time prophecies reveals the fact that the mere reign of the papacy from the time of its establishment to its overthrow is not the central thought, but how long that power would hold down God's people and keep the Word and Spirit of God in sackcloth. How long the church was to continue in a state of apostasy—that is the thought. The 1,260 years were to measure the time from which the church went into real darkness until she came out in the clear light. Some have supposed that this period must have dated from the time when popery became fully established. Such, however, could not be the case, although the time period includes that event; for the power of apostasy was greatly developed centuries before the final supremacy of the pope was established, and it was necessary to prepare a way for their exaltation. Popes obtained their authority by degrees. In A.D. 606 the Emperor Phocas conferred the title Universal Bishop upon the pope of Rome. In A. D. 756 the pope became a temporal sovereign, but the power of papal usurpation did not reach the summit until the reign of Hildebrand, who succeeded the pope in A. D. 1073 under the title of Gregory the Seventh.

  I will give a number of quotations from history which clearly locate the time in which the church really went into apostasy. Some of these are extracts from " The Revelation Explained," by F. G. Smith. "The living church retired gradually within the lonely sanctuary of a few solitary hearts. An external church was substituted in its place, and all its forms were declared to be of divine appointment. Salvation no longer flowing from the Word, which was hence forward put out of sight, the priests affirmed that it was conveyed by means of the forms they themselves invented, that no one could obtain it but by these channels. The doctrine of the church and the necessity of its visible unity which had begun to gain ground in the third century favored the pretensions of Rome." D'Aubigne's History of the Reformation, book I, chap. I.

  "At the end of the third century almost half of the inhabitants of the Roman empire and of several neighboring countries professed the faith of Christ. About this time endeavors to preserve a unity of belief and of church discipline occasioned numberless disputes among those of different opinions and led to the establishment of an ecclesiastical tyranny. "—Encyclopedia of Religious knowledge. Concerning the Roman diocese the Encyclopedia Britanica gives the following:

 " Before the termination of the third century the office was held to be of such importance that its succession was a matter of interest to ecclesiastics living in different sees. "—Vol. XIX, page 488.

 "Almost proportionate with the extension of Christianity was the decrease in the church of vital piety.. A philosophising spirit among the higher and a wild monkish superstition among the lower orders fast took the place in tile third century of the faith and humility of the first Christians. Many of the clergy became very corrupt and excessively ambitious. In consequence of this there was an awful defection of Christianity."—Marsh's Church History, page 185.

  "We have found it almost necessary to separate and indeed widely to distinguish, the events of the two first from those of the third century, for nearly at this point we are disposed to place the first crisis in the internal history of the church. "Waddington's Church History.

  "This season of external prosperity was improved by the ministers of the church for the exertion of new claims, and the assumption of powers with which they had not been previously invested. At first these claims were modestly urged, and gradually allowed; but they laid a foundation for the encroachments which were afterwards made upon the rights of the whole Christian community, and for lofty pretensions to the right of supremacy and spiritual dominion.... Several alterations in the form of church government appear to have been introduced during the third century. Some degree of pomp was thought necessary.... An external dignity of the ministers of religion was accompanied by a still greater change in its discipline. .

  Many of the Jewish and pagan proselytes . . languished in the absence of ceremonies which were naturally adapted to the taste of the unreflecting multitude, while the insolent infidel haughtily insisted upon the inanity of a religion which was not manifested by an external symbol or decoration. In order to accommodate Christianity to these prejudices, a number of rites were instituted; and while the dignified titles of the Jewish priesthood were, through a compliance with the prejudices of that people conferred upon the Christian teachers, many ceremonies were introduced which coincided with the genius of paganism. The true Gospels were taught by sensible images, and many of the ceremonies employed in celebrating the heathen mysteries were observed in the institutions of Christ, which soon, in their turn, obtained the name of mysteries and served as a melancholy precedent for future innovations and as a foundation for that structure of absurdity and superstition which deformed and disgraced the church."—Rutter's History of the Church, pages 52-56.

  This " season of external prosperity" mentioned by Rutter began with the accession of Gallienus to the imperial throne in A. D. 260. Up to this time the hand of persecution had been raised against the church almost incessantly, and from 260 until the reign of Diocletian persecution ceased, during this space of almost forty years. But this period also marked the greatest decline in spiritual things and marvelous development of the hierarchy. Speaking of the bishop of Rome in these times, Dowling says: "He far surpassed all his brethren in the magnificence and splendor of the church over which he presided, in the riches of his revenues and possessions, in the number and variety of his ministers, in his credit with the people, and in his sumptuous and splendid manner of living."—History of Romanism, page 34.

  Speaking of the period now under consideration, Eusebius, "father of church history," "mentions one Paul, who was at this time bishop of Antioch, who lived in luxury and licentiousness, and who was a teacher of erroneous doctrines, and usurped such great authority that the people feared to venture to accuse him. In the conclusion of the same chapter in which this is found, he shows that after a general council was held at Antioch, this Paul was excommunicated and robbed of his bishopric by the bishops of Rome and Italy. Frorn this it appears that they possessed a power and authority still greater than that usurped by Paul." The following are his words: "Paul. therefore. having thus fallen from the episcopate, together with the true faith as already said, Domnus succeeded in administration of the church at Antioch. But Paul being unwilling to leave the building of the church, an appeal was made to the emperor Aurelian, who decided most equitably on the business, ordering the building to be given up to those whom the Christian bishops of Italy and Rome should write. "—Ecclesiastical History, book VII, chap. 30. The Encyclopedia Brittanica says that this council at which Paul was excommunicated was held "probably in the year 268," and that "Paul continued in his office until the year 272, when the city was taken by the emperor Aurelian, who decided in person that the church building belonged to the bishop who was in epistolary communication with the bishops of Rome and Italy."—Vol. XVIII, page 429.

  The above extracts show not only the developrnent of error in the church, but also the great power already obtained by the hierarchy. Geo. Fisher says: " The accession of Constantine [A. D. 312] found the church so firmly organized under the hierarchy that it could not lose its identity by being absolutely merged in the state."—History of the Christian Church, page 99.

  "In the year A. D. 270 Anthony, an Egyptian, and founder of the monastic institution, fixed his abode in the deserts of Egypt and formed monks into organized bodies. Influenced by these eminent examples [Anthony, Hilarion, et al.] immense multitudes betook themselves to the deserts, and innumerable monasteries were formed in Egypt, Ethiopia, Lybia, and Syria. Some of the Egyptian abbots are spoken of as having had five, seven, or even ten thousand monks under their personal direction; and Thebias, as well as certain spots in Arabia, are reported to have been literally crowded with solitaries. Nearly a hundred thousand of all classes, it is said, were at one time to be found in Egypt. .. . Although the enthusiasm might be at a lower ebb in one country than in another, it actually affected the church universally' so far as the extant materials of ecclesiastical history enable us to trace its rise and progress.... The more rigid and heroic of the Christian anchorets dispensed with all clothing except a rug or a few palm leaves around the loins. Most of them abstained from the use of water for absolution; nor did they usually wash or change the garments they had put on. Thus St. Anthony [the founder of this order] bequeathed to Athanasius a skin in which his sacred person had been wrapped for half a century. They also allowed their beards and nails to grow, and sometimes became so hirsute as to be actually mistaken for hyenas or bears. "—History of Romanism, pp. 88, 89. Reader, what was the condition of the church in A. D. 270, that the introduction of such abominations was possible?

  Although many more examples of this might be added, I will conclude with two extracts from Joseph Milner:

  " We shall, for the present, leave Anthony propagating the dispensation, and extending its influence not only into the next century, but for many ages afterwards, and conclude this view of the state of the third century, with expressing our regret that the faith and love of the gospel received towards the close of it a dreadful blow from the encroachment of this unchristian practice."—Cen. III, chap. 20.

  "Moral, and philosophical, and monastic instructions will not effect for men what is to be expected from evangelical doctrine. And if the faith of Christ was so much declined (and its decayed state ought to be dated from about the year 270), we need not wonder that such sins as you see Eusebius hints at without any circumstantial details took place in the Christian world."—Cen. IV, chap 1.

  I have thus quoted at considerable length to show the reader that the real decline of the church and its rapid drift into the apostasy took place about the middle or during the third century. Taking this century as our starting point, the 1,260 years would reach into the sixteenth century somewhere; and when we come to consider the statements of history, as Milner puts it, it is not hard to place a definite date—the year 270 A. D. Measuring forward from this date, the 1,260 years brings us to the exact date of the first Protestant creed—the Augsburg Confession in A. D. 1530. To this date we must point both for the end of Rome's universal supremacy and for the rise of Protestantism. True, the work of reformation began before this time, but the adopting and the forming of the Augsburg Confession marks a clear dividing line between the age of Romanism and the real rise of Protestantism. And this is the date and period at which God's people who had been held captive in the darkness of the papacy came out into clear light. Thus unmistakably inspiration has marked out the exact time that God's people were held fast during the dark night of popery.