Page 24. TITLES. Pope Innocent III declared that the Roman pope is “the vicegerent [administrative deputy] on earth, not of a mere man, but of very God.” See Decretals of the Lord Pope Gregory IX, liber 1, title 7, chapter 3. Corp. Jur. Canon. (2nd Leipzig edition, 1881), col. 99. LF 274.1
For the title “Lord God the Pope,” see a gloss on the Extravagantes of Pope John XXII, title 14, chapter 4, Declaramus. In an Antwerp edition of the Extravagantes, dated 1584, the words “Dominum Deum nostrum Papam” (“Our Lord God the Pope”) occur in column 153. LF 274.2
Page 24. INFALLIBILITY. See Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, volume II, Dogmatic Decrees of the Vatican Council, pages 234-271; The Catholic Encyclopedia, volume VII, article “Infallibility”; James Cardinal Gibbons, The Faith of Our Fathers (Baltimore: John Murphy Co., 110th edition, 1917), chapters 7, 11. LF 274.3
Page 25. IMAGE WORSHIP. “The worship of images ... was one of those corruptions of Christianity that crept into the church stealthily and almost without notice or observation.... So gradually was one practice after another introduced in connection with it, that the church had become deeply steeped in practical idolatry, ... almost without any firm objection; and when finally there was an attempt to root it out, the evil was found too deeply fixed to allow removal.”—J. Mendham, The Seventh General Council, the Second of Nicaea, introduction, pages iii-vi. LF 274.4
For a record of the proceedings and decisions of the Second Council of Nicea, A.D. 787, called to establish the worship of images, see A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd series, volume XIV, pages 521-587 (New York, 1900); C. J. Hefele, A History of the Councils of the Church, From the Original Documents, book 18, chapter 1, secs. 332, 333; chapter 2, secs. 345-352 (T. and T. Clark, 1896 edition), volume 5, pages 260-304, 342-372. LF 274.5
Page 25. THE SUNDAY LAW OF CONSTANTINE. The law is given in Latin and in English translation in Philip Schaff's History of the Christian Church, volume III, 3rd period, chapter 7, section 75, page 380, note 1. See discussion in Albert Henry Newman, A Manual of Church History (Philadelphia: The American Baptist Publication Society, 1933), revised edition, volume 1, pages 305-307; and in L. E. Froom, The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1950), volume 1, pages 376-381. LF 274.6
Page 26. PROPHETIC DATES. An important principle of interpreting time prophecies is the year-day principle—under which a day of prophetic time equals a year of calendar time. These are some of the Bible reasons for this principle: (1) The year-day principle is in harmony with the principle of symbolically interpreting beasts as kingdoms, horns as powers, oceans as peoples, etc. (2) The Lord, speaking in Numbers 14:34 and Ezekiel 4:6, upholds the principle. (3) The 2,300 days (years) of Daniel 8:14 cover the history of the Medo-Persian, Grecian, and Roman empires, as the angel explains in verses 19-26 (“the vision refers to the time of the end,” verse 17). These empires lasted many times longer than 2,300 literal days. Nothing can fit except the year-day principle. (4) Daniel 11 is an expansion of the prophecy of Daniel 8, yet Daniel 11 is not symbolic. Three times it speaks of “years” (verses 6, 8, 13) as a parallel of “days” in Daniel 8:14. (5) The angel explained to Daniel that these prophecies concerned the time of the end (8:19, 26; 10:13, 14). If the “days” were literal, the prophecies would not continue long enough to make sense. (6) A day for a year was a common way of speaking in Old Testament Hebrew. See Leviticus 25:8; Genesis 29:27. (7) The book of Revelation unlocks the prophecies of Daniel, showing that their fulfillment was still future in the time of the apostles. Further, many careful Bible students have recognized and accepted the year-day principle as a valid biblical principle. Among them are Joachim of Floris, Wycliffe, Joseph Mede, Sir Isaac Newton, Bishop Thomas Newton, Alexander Keith, and many others. LF 275.1
Page 27. FORGED WRITINGS. Among the documents generally admitted to be forgeries, the Donation of Constantine and the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals are of major importance. See The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, volume III, article “Donation of Constantine.” LF 275.2
The “false writings” referred to in the text also include the “Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals”—fictitious letters ascribed to early popes from Clement (A.D. 100) to Gregory the Great (A.D. 600) and later incorporated in a ninth-century collection claiming to have been made by “Isidore Mercator.” The falsity of the Pseudo-Isidorian fabrications is now admitted. LF 275.3
Page 28. PURGATORY. Dr. Joseph Faa Di Bruno thus defines purgatory this way: “Purgatory is a state of suffering after this life, in which those souls are detained for a time, who die after their deadly sins have been forgiven as to the stain and guilt, and as to the everlasting pain that was due to them, but who still have some debt of temporal punishment to pay because of those sins. It is the same for those souls who leave this world guilty only of venial sins.”—Catholic Belief, page 196 (edition 1884; imprimatur Archbishop of New York). LF 275.4
See The Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 12, article “Purgatory.” LF 276.1
Page 28. INDULGENCES. For a detailed history of the doctrine of indulgences, see The Catholic Encyclopedia, article “Indulgences,” volume 7; A. H. Newman, A Manual of Church History (Philadelphia: The American Baptist Publication Society, 1953), volume 2, pages 53, 54, 62. LF 276.2
Page 32. THE SABBATH AMONG THE WALDENSES. Historical evidence exists for some observance of the seventh-day Sabbath among the Waldenses. A report of an inquisition before whom were brought some Waldenses of Moravia in the middle of the fifteenth century declares that among the Waldenses “not a few indeed celebrate the Sabbath with the Jews.”—Johann Joseph Ignaz von Dollinger, Beitrage zur Sektengeschichte des Mittelalters (Contributions to the History of the Sects of the Middle Ages), Munich, 1890, part 2, page 661. This source clearly indicates the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath. LF 276.3
Page 35. EDICT AGAINST THE WALDENSES. A portion of the papal bull or edict (from Innocent VIII, 1487) against the Waldenses is given in an English translation in Dowling's History of Romanism, book 6, chapter 5, section 62 (edition 1871). LF 276.4
Page 38. INDULGENCES. See note for page 28. LF 276.5
Pages 38, 39. WYCLIFFE. For the text of the papal bulls (edicts) issued against Wycliffe with English translation, see John Foxe, Acts and Monuments of the Church (London: Pratt Townsend, 1870), volume 3, pages 4-13; see also summaries in Merle D'Aubigné, The History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century (London: Blackie and Son, 1885), volume 4, division 7, page 93; Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church (New York: Chas. Scribner's Sons, 1915), volume 5, part 2, page 317. LF 276.6
Page 39. INFALLIBILITY. See note for page 24. LF 276.7
Page 46. INDULGENCES. See note for page 28. LF 276.8
Page 46. COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE. Publications on the Council include K. Zahringer, Das Kardinal Kollegium auf dem Konstanzer Konzil (Munster, 1935); Th. F. Grogau, The Conciliar Theory as It Manifested Itself at the Council of Constance (Washington, 1949); Fred A. Kremple, Cultural Aspects of the Council of Constance and Basel (Ann Arbor, 1955). LF 276.9
See John Hus, Letters, 1904; E. J. Kitts, Pope John XXIII and Master John Hus (London, 1910); D. S. Schaff, John Hus (1915); and Matthew Spinka, John Hus and the Czech Reform (1941). LF 276.10
Page 57. INDULGENCES. See note for page 28. LF 276.11
Page 98. JESUITISM. See Concerning Jesuits, edited by the Rev. John Gerard, S. J. (London: Catholic Truth Society, 1902). In this work it is said that “the mainspring of the whole organization of the Society is a spirit of entire obedience: ‘Let each one,’ writes St. Ignatius, ‘persuade himself that those who live under obedience ought to allow themselves to be moved and directed by divine Providence through their superiors, just as though they were a dead body, which allows itself to be carried anywhere and to be treated in any manner whatever, or as an old man's staff, which serves him who holds it in his hand in whatsoever way he will.’”—p. 6. LF 276.12
Page 99. THE INQUISITION. See The Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 8, article “Inquisition”; and E. Vacandard, The Inquisition: A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church (New York: Longmans, Green, and Company, 1908). LF 277.1
For the non-Catholic view, see Philip van Limborch, History of the Inquisition; Henry C. Lea, A History of the Inquisition in the Middle Ages, 3 volumes LF 277.2
Page 113. CAUSES OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. See H. von Sybel, History of the French Revolution, book 5, chapter 1, pars. 3-7; H. T. Buckle, History of Civilization in England, chapters 8, 12, 14 (New York, edition 1895), volume 1, pages 364-366, 369371, 437, 540, 541, 550; Blackwood's Magazine, volume 34, number 215 (November 1833), page 739; J. G. Lorimer, An Historical Sketch of the Protestant Church in France, chapter 8, pars. 6, 7. LF 277.3
Page 113. PROPHETIC DATES. See note for page 26. LF 277.4
Page 114. EFFORTS TO SUPPRESS AND DESTROY THE BIBLE. The Council of Toulouse ruled: “We prohibit laymen possessing copies of the Old and New Testament.... We forbid them most severely to have the above books in the popular language.” “The lords of the districts shall carefully seek out the heretics in homes, the humblest shacks, and forests, and even their underground retreats shall be entirely wiped out.”—Concil. Tolosanum, Pope Gregory IX, Anno chr. 1229. Canons 14, 2. This council sat at the time of the crusade against the Albigenses. LF 277.5
“This pest [the Bible] had gone to such an extreme that some people had appointed priests of their own, and even some evangelists who distorted and destroyed the truth of the gospel and made new gospels for their own purpose, ... [they know that] the preaching and explanation of the Bible is absolutely forbidden to the lay members.”—Acts of Inquisition, Philip van Limborch, History of the Inquisition, chapter 8. LF 277.6
At the Council of Constance in 1415, Wycliffe was condemned after his death as “that dangerous wretch of damnable heresy who invented a new translation of the Scriptures in his mother tongue.” LF 277.7
Opposition to the Bible by the Roman Catholic Church increased because of the success of the Bible societies. On December 8, 1864, in his proclamation Quanta cura, Pope Pius IX issued a list of eighty errors under ten different headings. Under heading 4 we find listed: “Socialism, communism, clandestine societies, Bible societies.... Pests of this sort must be destroyed by all possible means.” LF 277.8
In recent years a dramatic and positive change has occurred in the Roman Catholic Church. On the one hand, the church has approved several Bible versions prepared on the basis of the original languages; on the other, it has promoted the study of the Holy Scriptures by means of free distribution and Bible institutes. The church, however, continues to reserve for herself the exclusive right to interpret the Bible in the light of her own tradition. In this way she justifies those doctrines that do not harmonize with biblical teachings. LF 278.1
Page 117. THE REIGN OF TERROR. For a reliable introduction to the history of the French Revolution, see L. Gershoy, The French Revolution (1932); G. Lefebvre, The Coming of the French Revolution (Princeton, 1947); and H. von Sybel, History of the French Revolution, 4 volumes (1869). LF 278.2
See also A. Aulard, Christianity and the French Revolution (London, 1927), which carries the account through 1802—an excellent study. LF 278.3
Page 118. THE MASSES AND THE PRIVILEGED CLASSES. See H. von Hoist, Lowell Lectures on the French Revolution, lecture 1; also Taine, Ancient Regime; and A. Young, Travels in France. LF 278.4
Page 120. RETRIBUTION. See Thos. H. Gill, The Papal Drama, book 10; Edmond de Pressense, The Church and the French Revolution, book 3, chapter 1. LF 278.5
Page 120. THE ATROCITIES OF THE REIGN OF TERROR. See M. A. Thiers, History of the French Revolution (New York, edition 1890, tr. by F. Shoberl), volume 3, pages 42-44, 62-74, 106; F. A. Mignet, History of the French Revolution (Bohn, edition 1894), chapter 9, paragraph 1; Sir Archibald Alison, History of Europe From the Commencement of the French Revolution to the Restoration of the Bourbons in 1815, volume 1, chapter 14 (New York, edition 1872), volume 1, pages 293-312. LF 278.6
Page 121. THE CIRCULATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. In 1804, according to Mr. William Canton of the British and Foreign Bible Society, “all the Bibles extant in the world, in manuscript or in print, counting every version in every land, were computed at not many more than four millions.” LF 278.7
From 1816 to 2010, the American Bible Society (ABS) alone published more than 3.8 billion copies of the whole Bible and over 1.1 billion copies of portions of the Bible. In just the year 2010 the ABS published 4.2 million copies of the whole Bible. Other Bible societies would add many millions more copies to these figures. LF 278.8
The United Bible Societies reported that while the Bible was available in only sixty-eight languages at the beginning of the nineteenth century, by 2008 it was available in 2,479 languages, with at least 451 of them having the complete Bible. LF 278.9
Page 121. FOREIGN MISSIONS. The missionary activity of the early Christian church had virtually died out by the year 1000, and was followed by the military campaigns of the Crusades. The Reformation era saw little foreign mission work. The pietistic revival produced some missionaries. In the eighteenth century, the work of the Moravian Church was remarkable, and the British formed some missionary societies to work in colonized North America. But the great revival of foreign missionary activity began around the year 1800, at “the time of the end” (Daniel 12:4). In 1792 the Baptist Missionary Society sent William Carey to India. In 1795 the London Missionary Society was organized, and another society in 1799, which in 1812 became the Church Missionary Society. Shortly afterward the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society was founded. In the United States, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions was formed in 1812, and Adoniram Judson was sent out that year to Calcutta. He established himself in Burma the next year. In 1814 the American Baptist Missionary Union was formed. The Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions was formed in 1837. LF 279.1
“In A.D. 1800 ... the overwhelming majority of Christians were the descendants of those who had been won before A.D. 1500.... Now, in the nineteenth century, came a further expansion of Christianity.... Never in any similar length of time had Christianity given rise to so many new movements. It had never had quite so great an effect on Western European peoples. From this great vigor came the missionary efforts that so greatly increased the numerical strength and the influence of Christianity during the nineteenth century.”—Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of the Expansion of Christianity, volume IV, The Great Century, A.D. 1800-A.D. 1914 (New York: Harper and Bros., 1914), pages 2-4. LF 279.2
Page 128. LISBON EARTHQUAKE. In the time since the author first wrote these words in 1888, other earthquakes have been recorded with greater loss of life and perhaps higher magnitudes. (Scientific measurement of earthquakes was not yet in existence in 1755.) Still, the Lisbon earthquake ranks as one of the most important in modern history, not merely for its physical devastation, but because of the profound philosophical, theological, and cultural changes that resulted from this disaster. LF 279.3
Page 137. A DAY FOR A YEAR. See note for page 26. LF 279.4
Page 138. THE YEAR 457 B.C. For the certainty of the date 457 B.C. being the seventh year of Artaxerxes, see S. H. Horn and L. H. Wood, The Chronology of Ezra 7 (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1953); E. G. Kraeling, The Brooklyn Museum Aramaic Papyri (New Haven or London, 1953), pages 191-193; The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1954), volume 3, pages 97-110. LF 279.5
Page 141. FALL OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. Throughout the Reformation era Turkey was a continual threat to European Christendom; the writings of the Reformers often condemn the Ottoman power. Christian writers since have been concerned with the role of Turkey in future events, and commentators on prophecy have seen Turkish power and its decline forecast in Scripture. LF 279.6
For the “hour, day, month, year” prophecy, as part of the sixth trumpet, Josiah Litch worked out an application of the time prophecy, ending Turkish independence in August 1840. LF 280.1
A book by Uriah Smith, Thoughts on Daniel and the Revelation, revised edition of 1944, discusses the prophetic timing of this prophecy on pages 506-517. LF 280.2
Page 156. ASCENSION ROBES. The story that the Adventists made robes with which to ascend “to meet the Lord in the air” was invented by those who wished to discredit the advent preaching. Careful investigation has shown that it was false. LF 280.3
For a thorough refuting of the legend of ascension robes, see Francis D. Nichol, The Midnight Cry (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1944), chapters 25-27, and Appendices H-J. See also L. E. Froom, The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1954), volume 4, pages 822-826. LF 280.4
Page 180. A THREEFOLD MESSAGE. Revelation 14:6, 7 foretells the proclamation of the first angel's message. Then the prophet continues: “Another angel followed, saying, ‘Babylon is fallen, is fallen.’ ... Then a third angel followed them.” The word here rendered “followed” means “to go along with,” “to follow one,” “go with him.” It also means “to accompany.” The idea intended is that of “going together,” “in company with.” The idea in Revelation 14:8, 9 is not simply that the second and third angels followed the first in point of time, but that they went with him. They are three only in the order of their rise. But having risen, they go on together. LF 280.5
Page 184. SUPREMACY OF THE BISHOPS OF ROME. See James Cardinal Gibbons, The Faith of Our Fathers (Baltimore: John Murphy Co., 110th edition, 1917), chapters 5, 9, 10, 12. LF 280.6
Page 234. THE SABBATH AMONG THE WALDENSES. See note for page 32. LF 280.7
Page 235. THE ETHIOPIAN CHURCH AND THE SABBATH. Until rather recent years the Coptic Church of Ethiopia observed the seventh-day Sabbath. The Ethiopians also kept Sunday. The observance of the seventh-day Sabbath, however, has virtually ceased in modern Ethiopia. For eyewitness accounts of religious days in Ethiopia, see Pero Gomes de Teixeira, The Discovery of Abyssinia by the Portuguese in 1520 (translated into English in London: British Museum, 1938), page 79; Father Francisco Alvarez, Narrative of the Portuguese Embassy to Abyssinia During the Years 1520-1527, in Records of the Hakluyt Society (London, 1881), volume 64, pages 22-49. LF 280.8