The Demise Of
The Millennial Teaching
George N.H. Peters
[This writing is taken
from "The Coming Day" (vol. 9)]
The doctrine of the Kingdom, as held by the early church, was finally
almost exterminated under the teaching and power of the Papacy. This is so plain a historical fact that it needs no
special evidence to sustain it. Roman
Catholic writers, eccleslastical historians, and
others have repeatedly recorded the statement, and no denial of it has ever
appeared.
If
there is any propriety and force in the position of the Romish Church - that tradition should be authoritative with
Scripture in deciding doctrine - then surely the traditions of the first
centuries ought to have made, by their overwhelming weight, the Roman Church
Chiliastic. But in this case ambition, pride, conscious power, the possession of
honours and wealth, etc., override tradition, as they often have done
Scripture.
The
Papacy has been ever hostile to our doctrine, owing to the Chiliastic
opposition to its pretensions, its provisions looking to futurity, its
hierarchical endowments, corruptions, and bold assumptions of being the
promised Kingdom. The early
Millenarians, without exception, regarded the
Before
the union of Church and State, the Empire was the object of suspicion;
after the union, while the belief was still continued respecting
Various
writers have expressed this as follows:
Dr. Burnett, after showing how the Romish church discountenanced the doctrine, and declaring
that he had never met with a Popish doctor who regarded it with favour,
concludes: "Since Millennium properly consists of
reward and triumph for those who come out of persecution, such persons as have
lived always in pomp and prosperity can pretend to no share in it or benefit by
it. This has made the church
of Rome to always have an ill eye upon this doctrine, because
it seemed to have an ill eye upon her. And
as she grew in splendour and greatness, she eclipsed and obscured it more and
more, so that it would have been lost out of the world as
an obsolete error if it had not been revived by some of the Reformation."
Brooks writes: "When the Christian Bishop of Rome came, in progress of time,
to be elevated to the high rank which he attained under the papacy, the
inconvenience of explaining Rome to be the capital city of the Antichrist and
the 'Babylon' and 'Harlot' of the Apocalypse, was more sensibly felt
than ever; because it could not be asserted without giving occasion for the
very obvious conclusion that the Bishop of Rome would some day apostatise,
together with the church in general over which he was the head. Accordingly, from the time of Justinian, efforts were both openly and clandestinely
made to get rid of the doctrine altogether by removing or corrupting the
evidence in its favour, or by affixing to it the stigma of heresy"
(Elements Of Prophetic Interpretation).
Seiss declares:
"It is a sad fact, however, that from the fourth century until the
sixteenth, this doctrine gradually lost its hold upon the minds and hearts of
professed Christians and went down into almost absolute neglect. But with it went down the great doctrine of
justification by faith, and nearly everything that is distinguishing in gospel
religion. It fell only as Popery
arose, and it is only as
it rises again that Popery shall shrink and quail. So long
as men think they see and hear Christ in the Pope and believe that they are
worshiping and honouring Christ by serving and obeying hierarchies regarded as pure
divino, we need never expect them to believe that
Christ will ever reign here in person. The two ideas are fundamentally
antagonistic. If Christ is
himself to reign here in universal empire, He has not given that Empire into
the hands of a vicar; and if He has made the Pope the supreme Lord of the
world, it is settled that He will never reign here otherwise than by the Pope. Either proposition confutes the other. The two cannot live together. And this puts into our hands the key
to the true explanation how the church has come to lose sight of the
primitive and apostolic faith upon this subject" (Last Times).
Establishing The
Roman Church As The "Kingdom"
In
the very nature of the case, the Chilistic
Kingdom of the Abrahamic Davidic covenant as
taught by the Fathers, the hope in the constantly
expected Advent of Jesus to establish such a kingdom, the anticipated
struggle with an Antichrist in ecclesiastical-political power,
the view entertained respecting the church as a struggling, tried body awaiting
deliverance and triumph alone through the personal Advent
of the Messiah - these prevented aspiring prelates and the
ambitious, learned priests from endorsing it.
It
was an easy matter, by adopting the Origenistic
interpretation* of several senses, to reject the covenanted restored
Davidic throne and Kingdom under a personal Messiah, and to substitute in its
place an existing Kingdom under the rule of appointed
hierarchs, and claim that in and through them Christ was
already reigning in His promised Kingdom.
[Origen removed virtually all literal interpretation of
Scripture and saw everything as some kind of metaphor, leaving room for all
manner of explanation and interpretation. of prophecy, but rarely, if ever, the
literal one]
This
caricature of the Messiah's Kingdom was varnished over by
the most laudatory and fulsome language (even applying to it the predictions
alone applicable to the mighty Theocratic King) which self-interest and
vain-glory could suggest. Very soon,
too, these declarations were summed up and declared to be "the voice of the church;" the later
Fathers superseding those who previously entertained Chiliastic doctrine, now so
detractive and humiliating to Popish presumption.
When
a church arrogates to itself the great honour of showing forth within its
borders the predicted millennial glory (as e.g. Eusebius and others, dating its
inauguration from Constantine, or Augustine and others, dating the same
from the First Advent of Christ); when it enforces the belief by a wholesale
appropriation of prophecy without the least regard to its connection, covenant
basis, prospective attitude, relation to the Jewlish
nation, union with the Second Advent, etc.; when it hedges this around by a
confessional barrier and calls for all its membership to receive it as the
truth - then, especially when it has the ecclesiastical and civil
power under its control to compel obedience, it is not
strange that the doctrine, so hostile to these arrogant
assumptions, as ours is, should be hated
and repressed.
The
Hierarchy could not, as a matter of mere consistency, receive the notion of a
Kingdom (that of the reign of the Messiah in the covenanted Theocratic-Davidic)
that protested against and condemned its substitution. Hence Shimeall correctly observes: "Then,
too, the Popes, in after ages, discountenanced Millenarianism, inasmuch as
it militated against their antichristian usurpation and dogma -
that the Millennium commenced with Romish domination
in the church" (Eschatologv).
Dr. West says: "By union of church and state, and perversion of victory,
the foundation was laid in the Empire for a carnal and a Satanic caricature
of the Millennial Kingdom of Christ on earth before the time - a
Millennium sunk in the gross materialism and idolatry of a mediaeval,
political, and military Christianity. By
union of Church and State the matyr
doctrine itself was martyred, no council resisting, and vanished
from view with the departing glory and last remnant of a suffering but pure
apostolic church" (The
History of Pre-Millennial Doctrine).
Chillingworth - of whom Professor Bush declares "Certainly there are few persons more competent to
pronounce on the fact - makes a strong argument against the Church of Rome, in
its refusing to accept the millennial doctrine when professing to receive by
tradition the pure doctrines of the primitive and apostolic age. He conclusively proves the generality of the
doctrine entertained - that for some time it was un-contradicted, that all the
Fathers, East and West, held it. He
shows that they professed not only to teach it "as doctors but as
witnesses." He
proves that it was esteemed as an "apostolic tradition"
received by persons in personal communication with apostles and elders;
that it was regarded as the faith qf
orthodox believers. Then,
in the light of all is accumulated evidence, he argues that, in this matter at
least, the Roman Church "has grossly falsified the creed of
antiquity, inasmuch as there is ample evidence that the doctrine of the
Chiliasts was actually the Catholic faith of more than one
century."
Bowers, in his life of Damasus, takes the same ground, for, after describing the
millenarian doctrine and its extent, he remarks, "And
yet such a doctrine is now rank heresy in the Church of
Rome. But by declaring it such, have
they not overset their own system, which places tradition upon a level with the
canonical books of the Scripture? Can
they allege a more ancient tradition, one more universally received, or
equally countenanced by Scripture, in favour of the many
traditional articles of faith that they have obtruded upon the world? Papias declares
he received the above-mentioned doctrine of those who had learned it immediately
of the apostles. If such
a tradition is rejected as false, what other has a right to be admitted
as true?"
Reasons For
The Repression Of Millennial Teaching
It
may then be briefly stated as a self-evident fact that the entire spirit and
aim of the Papacy is antagonistic to the early church
view, being based on coveted ecclesiastical and secular power, on extended
Jurisdiction lodged in the hands of a Primate. When Episcopal palaces
with their palatial endowments were erected under the fostering care of the
Emperors; when the rulers of the church enjoyed the rich
vestments, emoluments, and honour of office; when magnificent
churches, with altars and walls adorned and enriched by the costly gifts of its
devotees, were built all over the Empire; when ambitious
men, under the cloak of an established Messianic Kingdom, formed the idea of a
universal government; when men addicted to pleasures tasted
the enjoyments afforded by rich revenues and the servile honour paid to them by
the multitude; when a system was founded which decided
that the reign of the saints had already begun - that the Bishop of Rome ruled
on earth in Christ's place; that the deliverance from the curse would only be
effected in the third heaven; that in the church, as a Kingdom, there was
"an aristocracy" to which
unhesitating obedience must be rendered; that the prophetical announcements
respecting Messiah's Kingdom were fulfilling in Romish
predominance, splendour, and wealth; that the rewarding and elevation of saints
was not dependent upon the Second Advent, but upon the power lodged in the
existing Kingdom, etc., etc. - then it was that Chiliasm, so distasteful and obnoxious
to these claims and doctrines, fell beneath the powerful
and world-pervading influence exerted against it.
The
institution of mockery exerted a powerful influence in causing the rapid
decline of our doctrine. They formed,
owing to their privileges, numbers, sanctity, etc., the most effective
allies in upholding Papal claims and doctrines and, of course, in decrying
with the populace, all antagonistic utterances. From the fourth century down, they greatly
moulded or impressed the sentiments and views of the church; therefore, the
student, in estimating the causes leading to a suppression of Chiliasm, must
not forget to estimate the leverage exerted by mockery.
The authority of Councils, in the interest of hierarchical
tendencies, materially aided in obscuring the doctrine of the Kingdom. Indirectly, by exalting and confirming the
kingship of Christ to His Divine nature, and
correspondingly lowering the human - forgetting that the covenanted
kingship is given to “the Son of Man"
who is of the Davidic lineage. This resulted mainly from the Arian and
other controversies respecting the natures of Christ, when one extreme led to
its opposite. It took effect directly by
endorsing the polity of the church and state, the ambitious projects aiming at
universal power, and the supposed Kingdom as exhibited under the leadership of
one Bishop. The decisions of Councils
were finally elevated to equality with the Scriptures, and
thus aided in crushing the doctrine.
In
The Conflict Of Christianity With Heathenism, Uhlhorn shows that after the
Church introduced hierarchical tendencies and dreams of conquest, then
"the hope of the speedy Advent, which
shone so brightly in the early days, has now become dimmed,"
and while "the earlier period had no thought of
any victory but that which Christ was to bring at His Coming," the
church now entertained hopes of victory over the Empire and the world. This was largely aided by Councils, aided and
supported by imperial patronage and power.
Theology,
under the constant surveillance of a church jealous of its
delegated kingly authority, in its more systematic arrangements, was entirely
controlled so as to favour the substituted Kingdom. We find, therefore, in all such works, running
down through the scholastic age to the Reformation, a set apologetic defence of
the Romish notions of the Kingdom. Starting with the idea - often taken for
granted as a settled premise or inferred by far-fetched inferences - that the Romish Church is the predicted Kingdom of the Messiah, everything is made to bend to
that theory.
The
utterances of later Fathers, the decrees of Councils, and the self-interested
statements of Popes and Prelates, are appealed to with unbounded confidence,
just as if, in so fundamental a matter, the fallible utterances
of man were equal, if not superior, to Scripture itself since many of
these, whose comments were quoted, had been canonized by the
church they favoured, their saintship
corroborated, in the eyes of many, the claims and doctrines that
they endorsed. To oppose such a swollen stream, guarded by thousands upon thousands of
devoted adherents, was simply to risk reputation and life.
Dr. Willis Lord remarks: "In the Apostolic and
The Demise Of
Such A Fundamental Doctrine Was Prophesied
The
historical fact that Millenarianism was thus crushed is far from being dishonourable
to us. Indeed, we rather glory in
the occurrence as an indirect proof of the truthfulness of our
position. A defection from the truth was
predicted by the apostles to take place; therefore, we hold that the very form
of doctrine that was departed from - once generally held, and contained (even
in the literal sense) in the Word - must be regarded as approaching the nearest
to sound doctrine. The warnings specially given
respecting this doctrine in its leading feature of the Second Advent, etc., unmistakably
indicate a foreseen denial of its characteristics. Hence, we have corroborating evidence in its
favour, when we bear the Roman Catholic Baronius telling us: "The figments of the Millenaries being rejected everywhere, and denied by the learned with hisses and laughter, and
being also put under the ban, were entirely extirpated."
The
reader will observe that if our doctrine had always remained the generally
received doctrine of the church, it would not meet the
requirements of prediction respecting the lack of faith in
Christ's coming, the attitude of professed servants who say that Christ delays
His coming, the abounding of unbelief and apostasy, etc.
The
truth is, that while our doctrine was obnoxious to, and detested by, the
Bishops and many of the leading clergy, through partisanship, yet it was not so
early authoritatively condemned, seeing that such a condemnation would involve
a disastrous controversy respecting the regular perpetuation of the
church. The Bishops and Prelates were
too shrewd to do this, seeing as they did, that this would involve so many of
the Fathers that it would be difficult and hazardous, yes, impossible, to
trace the true church unless through "heretics." Hence the cautious policy was
adopted, not to condemn it in any regular decree, but in establishing as the faith of the church its opposite, and making all submit to the
latter as the truth.
The Continuing Testimony
Baronius and others have asserted that for
a long time the doctrine was "entirely extirpated."
This is not strictly correct.
It certainly was brought into such
disfavour by a ruling Romish Church that during
"the dark ages," down to the
Reformation, it was scarcely known. Still we have intimations, plain and
decided, that it was held by individuals and, at least, in some of its
features, by the Vaudois or Waldenses,
Albigenses, Lollards or Wickliffites, and the Bohemian Protestants.
This
testimony could, undoubtedly, be extended, if we only had the opinions of many
who fell under Romish condemnation, and of whom it is
said that they were detested and rooted out on account of opposition to Romish doctrines. But
even if all such intimations were lacking, it would only indicate how
wide-reaching the apostasy had grown, how fearfully
prediction on the subject was verified, and how important it
was for the old truth to be revived.
Misconceptions
Regarding 1000 A.D.
Various
writers in tracing our doctrine have, through inadvertency or misapprehension
of our belief, made the unscholarly mistake of attributing
a revival of our faith to the extended belief in the Advent of Jesus to
judgment about the year A.D. 1000 and succeeding dates, and, with evident
relish, endeavour to make our system accountable for the calamitous results (so
graphically described by Mosheim). But
this belief arose from The Romish view and not
from Millenarianism. The
proof is self-evident, and the least knowledge
of the facts will make it apparent to every one.
The
Augustinian theory, so generally adopted by the Popish doctors, commenced the
Millennium with the First Advent of Christ, and consequently, in agreement with
this view, when the thousand years, dated from the First Advent, expired,
Popery, driven to a conclusion by its own adopted Millennial
theory, looked for the Coming to judgment and, with its doctrine of the end of
the world, etc., for a general destruction of an sublunary things.
Now
this was the opposite of Millenarian views, which made the
Millennium future, to be introduced by a resurrection, and to be followed by a
glorious restoration of all things. The
misapplication of the Millennium (making it Pre-Advent) and of the Second
Advent (making it Post Millennial) is purely Romish
error, and, in view of the extent in which it was held and the
miseries that it entailed, is decisive proof how largely Millenarianism had
been obliterated.*
- George
N.H. Peters, taken
from The Theocratic Kingdom
(Volume 1)*. This excellent
three-volume work has recently been reprinted by Kregel
Publishers,
-------