The basis of the Rapture teaching was to take pressure off Roman Catholicism

which was branded by early Christians as "The Mystery Harlot of Babylon".

This is a detailed, and suspense filled account of how Christian groups in England

were infiltrated in the 1600's, and sold the fallacious "Rapture" doctrine.

An important read for all Catholic or Protestant Christians!

This is the factual and historical account of a Jesuit priest

who posed as a Jewish Rabbi converted to Christianity,

to invent and place the rapture theory within the church.

A work of love, encouraging, thrilling, full of suspense,

and once you start reading it, you can't put it down!

READ IT BELOW IN IT'S ENTIRETY OR DOWNLOAD IT IN A PDF OR DOC FORMAT.

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The

Rapture

of the Saints

BY DUNCAN McDOUGALL

CONTENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

 REV. DUNCAN MCDOUGALL,.  M.A.

One of Scotland's well-known Gaelic scholars, the Reverend Duncan McDougall graduated at Edinburgh University in Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Gaelic, taking Gaelic medals, Blackie Prize and MacPherson Scholarship (twice).  After leaving college he was Examiner in Hebrew for eleven years to the Free Church College, Edinburg, in which he had taken his theological course.  Having been posted to Holland in the First World War,  Mr. McDougall had acquired a working knowledge of Dutch, and in expectation of a mission appointment in South America, which, however, did not materialize, he set himself to acquire a working knowledge of Spanish.  He was therefore a linguist of very considerable repute.

     A devout Christian, Mr. McDougall was ordained to the Ministry of the Free Church of Scotland, a denomination which has long been known for its firm adherence to the teaching of the Holy Scriptures and its repudiation of modernistic and higher critical views.  For six years he was Lecturer in Christian Evidences to the Vancouver Bible School, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.  Finally returning to Scotland, he was appointed Minister of the Free Church in Dundoon, a post which he held until his retirement.

PROPHECY AND ITS FULFILLMENT

Many professed Bible Teachers have been busy in Bible studies, conventions, revivals, religious papers, leaflets, and books, telling with an air of authority (which amount almost to a claim to Divine inspiration), all about the "secret rapture" of the saints and what is to take place on this earth after they are gone.  According to their theory the Lord is to come SECRETLY for His saints: they are to be caught up (raptured) to meet Him in the air without the world knowing that anything is happening.  All who are unprepared are to be left on earth in an unsaved state, then an individual known as the "Antichrist' is to make his appearance, to assume power as a world Dictator, to revive the old Roman Empire as a ten-kingdom confederacy, and to rule over it, to make a covenant with the Jews to allow them to set up again their temple worship in Jerusalem, and at the end of three-and-a-half years, to break the covenant and persecute them.  After seven years Christ is to come back with His saints to destroy the Anti-Christ and set up His reign of a thousand years on this earth.  All these things are described in as much detail as if they were actually taught in the Bible, and even some good men have got the impression that the Bible does actually contain them.

It will come as a shock to many good people that not only is this teaching not in the Bible, but that it was originated by the Bible's worst enemies.  If Christians would only study God's Word, coming to the Bible with an open mind instead of coming with their heads filled with the teachings of human and fallible men whom they treat as if inspired, they would not be so readily 'carried away with [this] wind of doctrine'.

     If they would accept the teaching of Christ that "a corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit," or the warning given to Daniel that "none of the wicked shall understand," they would know better than to expect to get a clean bird out of a foul nest.  The pity is that so many choose to remain ignorant of the nest out of which the bird has come, and so, "professing themselves to be wise," they proclaim their ignorance as it were on the house-tops.  To these "blind leaders of the blind," ignorance is a Pearl of Great Price, and to offer them any enlightenment on historical facts is an attempt to rob them of their precious jewel.  If any of them have ever read any of the writings of the Reformers on the subject of Prophecy, they seldom by the slightest allusion betray the fact.  Being neither willing to admit, nor able to refute, the wisdom of all these mighty Spirit-taught men of God, our modem Bible Teachers studiously ignore them, and speak as if they themselves were the people, and wisdom had been born with them.  One would never guess from the writings of these "Bible Teachers" that any expositor existed earlier than J. N. Darby.  Naturally to tell them the truth is to become their enemy.

THE HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION

When the Bible, after being almost unknown for centuries, was suddenly made an open book at the Reformation, the Reformers saw in it a full-length portrait of the great anti-Christian system known as the "Church" of Rome, with the Pope at its head.  They found in the Book of Revelation a prophetic account of the fiery trials through which the True Church was to pass, and also of God's judgments on her enemies.  They recognized the Romish system as the spiritual Babylon denounced in that prophecy, and the Pope as the Antichrist, the Man of Sin and Son of perdition.  They used the prophecy as a sharp two-edged sword with which to smite the iniquitous imposture which had usurped the place of the Church of Christ.  The interpretation of prophecy as a foretelling of actual history which had been and was being strikingly fulfilled, was largely blessed of God in bringing about the Reformation.

     What could Rome do?  She could not blot the Book of Revelation out of the Bible.  She had to find some other meaning for the Book, which would provide her with an alibi and turn aside the accusing finger pointed at her.  The Jesuits, the most unscrupulous body of men on earth, whose "moral theology" reeks of the bottomless pit, a body whom Loyola had formed specially to undo the work of the Reformation, set to work to find a meaning for the Revelation which would side-track the Protestant.'

THE PRAETERIST THEORY

Alcazar, a Spanish Jesuit, started the idea that the Apostle John could not possibly foretell events which were to happen hundreds of years after his own time; that he was writing merely about what was happening in his own day, and that his Antichrist was probably the Emperor Nero or some other early persecutor.  This theory has been adopted by German rationalists, and finds favor with the modernists in the churches today1.

THE FUTURIST THEORY

Ribera2, another Spanish Jesuit, went to the other extreme and propounded the theory that the whole Book of Revelation related to events to take place just at the time of Christ's Second Coming, and therefore still in the future.  The Antichrist was to be a World-Dictator who would appear at the end of this dispensation. 

The Massacre of St. Bartholomew, instigated by the Jesuits, took place in 1572, and Ribera published his theory in or about 1580.  The blood-stains had scarcely disappeared from the streets of Paris and in the sight of God the hands of the Jesuits were still deep-dyed with the innocent blood of the Protestants of France when they gave their theory to the world.  It was published with a design to shift the odium of being the Antichrist away from the Pope, who had held a festival and struck a medal in commemoration of the massacre.  Ribera was not simply a disinterested lover of the Word of God studying prophecy for its own sake.  God has testified: "None of the wicked shall understand" yet thousands of "Bible Teachers" today maintain strongly that Ribera's idea of a future personal Antichrist is the right interpretation, and that the Reformers' view of the papacy as the Antichrist is wrong1.

      For 250 years from 1580 to 1830, the idea of an individual personal Antichrist to appear sometime in the future was the recognized teaching of the Church of Rome, while the belief that the reign of Antichrist extended all through the Dark Ages, from the fourth century to the Reformation, was universally held by the Protestant Churches.

BRIDGING THE GULF

The Jesuits, owing to their vicious principles and their encouragement of treachery and violence making orderly and peaceable government impossible, have been expelled sooner or later from almost every civilized country in which they have set foot.  Their record covers about a hundred orders issued by different governments for their expulsion.  When they were expelled from Chile, Emanual Lacunza (pronounced Lacuntha), a Chilean of Spanish descent, who had become a member of the order in 1747 at the age of sixteen and had risen to be superintendent of the Noviciates, training them zealously in the principles of Jesuitry; came and settled in the north of Italy.   He devoted the remainder of his days to writing a book entitled, "The Coming of the Messiah in Glory and Majesty."  Lacunza was of course, steeped in the current Jesuit teaching that the appearance and reign of Antichrist was still in the future and to this he added a touch of his own, namely, that in order to make room for all the events which he anticipated, at the coming of Christ there would have to be a period of time between the rapture of the saints and the actual appearance of the Messiah in His Glory.  He conceived the idea that:

     Here is the germ out of which sprang the whole theory that Christ was to come TWICE, once for His saints, and again some time later with His saints.

     Lacunza, though largely in bondage to Romish teaching, and vigorously asserting that the Book of Revelation "is wholly directed to the coming of the Lord," and that it did not find its accomplishment in any sense in the facts of history during the Christian dispensation - a contention in which all Futurists and Roman Catholics are agreed - was to some extent an independent thinker and gave expression to several views which could not but be anathema to Rome.  He at least hinted that the Antichrist would appear in Rome and that he would usurp the place of the Head of the Church.  He also stated plainly that the second beast of the thirteenth chapter of Revelation signified the priesthood, not of some false religion, but of the Church of Rome, which he regarded as the true Church.  This priesthood, he believed, was to apostatize on the appearance of Antichrist, just as the Jewish priesthood apostatized when they crucified Christ, and, owing to the supposed sanctity of their office, they would be able to seduce the vast majority of the Christian world, and would persecute the true saints of God.

     What was most damaging of all from the Pope's point of view was the fact that Lacunza ventured to call in question the teaching of his own church as to the individual personal Antichrist, with all the supernatural powers for evil which he was to exercise within his few years reign.  He actually yielded the main contention of the Protestants, that the Antichrist of the Scripture was not one man, but a mighty system or body of men animated by one spirit.  Speaking of the teachings of the Romish doctors on the person of the Antichrist, he refers to their ideas as "so various, so obscure, and so ill-founded," and adds:

     The childish notion that Mussolini, or any such individual Dictator, such as the accepted Romish teaching had led men to anticipate, can fulfill the Divine predictions concerning Antichrist, was condemned by Lacunza in words which modern "Bible teachers" might well take to heart:

     The Reformers had unanimously pointed to the dreadful persecutions of the Bohemians in Eastern Europe, and of the Waldenses in the West, the long drawn-out excruciating agony, the burnings, tortures, and unspeakable atrocities committed by the brutal soldiery of one nation after another, urged on to the murderous work by a line of Popes more degraded than the most beastial of the assassins, over a period of more than three centuries, and ending in the extermination of the Bible witness just before the Reformation, as the fulfillment of the prophetic description of the sufferings of the "Two Witnesses" and their death at the hands of the beast.  The Jesuit doctors had vehemently asserted that the Two Witnesses were to be two men who should appear during the reign of the Antichrist just before the coming of Christ, and they were almost unanimous in predicting that the two had never tasted death.  Lacunza strenuously opposed this view, and argued at length that:

     Lacunza is striking at the speculations of the theologians of his own Jesuit order; but if he had lived today and been commenting on the imaginings of our "Bible teachers", he could not have expressed himself in any other terms.  Here several pointed questions arise which are not so easy to answer.  On a number of the main contendings of the Reformers, Lacunza appears to be deliberately giving Rome's case away to them in the most palpable manner - an attitude which in a Jesuit must appear peculiar; yet on other aspects he zealously maintains Rome's point of view.  In a word, what he does is to take the Reformer's picture and try to fit it into Rome's frame; and the two do not fit.

     He agrees with the Reformers (though without giving the slightest hint that he had ever heard of their tenets or even knew of their existence).-

1.   That "the beast' or Antichrist is not one man, but a vast world-wide organization animated by one spirit and ruled by one official Head who was to usurp the place of the Head of the Church, and was to have his seat in Rome.

2.  That the "two witnesses" are not two individuals, but two bodies of faithful ministers of God, who were to oppose the Antichrist, and were to be finally overcome by him.

How Lacunza could describe the events so accurately, and yet fail to see the very scene he was depicting, written in fire and blood across the page of history, must remain a riddle.  But to the jaundiced view of the Jesuit, the martyrs were all heretics, while he who shed their blood was the "Vicar of Christ".

     But he maintains with all other Romish theologians of the Ribera school:

I.    That the appearance of the Antichrist and of the two witnesses, and the fulfillment of all prophecies concerning them, are still in the future.

2.   That they will all be fulfilled in a very short space of time, just prior to the Second Coming of our Lord in His Glory.

     He adds as a speculation of his own the surmise that the whole career of Antichrist will be run and all these prophecies fulfilled, within a period that will elapse between Christ's setting out from heaven and issuing the command to His angels to go out for the saints, and His actual arrival at the earth with the saints.

     There is an inconsistency between the two parts of Lacunzas picture, which will  at once strike every logical mind.   If the whole prophecy were to be fulfilled in a short space of time, it would be more reasonable to suppose that it would be carried out under the control of one man, or super-man, and that the Antichrist would be an individual World Dictator.  If, on the other hand, what was prophesied was to be a vast world-wide organization, opposed by the witness of two churches or bodies of Christians, reason itself would indicate that these would require some time to develop, and that the prophecy must cover a considerable period of history.

Thus Lacunza's half-way house is an untenable position.  From whichever direction it is approached, the reasoning mind cannot stop there.  If he could have influenced the Church of Rome to accept the view that the Antichrist was a world-power animated by one Spirit, the inexorable force of logic would compel Roman Catholics to acknowledge that history had already produced one world-power, and only one, to answer the description.   In other words, Rome would be driven to accept the Protestant position.  But if he could induce the Protestant world to accept the view that the Antichrist was to appear only for a few years at the end of this dispensation, logic would equally force Protestants to picture that Antichrist as an individual person, in other words Protestantism would be compelled to accept Rome's alibi.

WHICH OF THESE TWO was LACUNZA'S OBJECTIVE?

     It stood to reason that Lacunza's book would not affect the beliefs of his own church. It would not, it could not, be read by faithful Roman Catholics.  It differed just so widely from the accepted teaching of Rome, that it was certain to be placed

by the Vatican on the "Index" of prohibited books as soon as it made its last appearance, and none knew this better than the author.  This indeed may well have been part of his plan.  But if it was not to be read by his own Church, for whom was it written?  Did he expect that a book written by a Jesuit would be read and accepted by Protestants, even if it came with the commendation of having been condemned by the Pope?  That is a question.  Let us see.

     For four centuries before the Reformation, the Church of Rome built up her pretensions on what are known as the "Decretals of Isidore "7, a fictitious collection of Bulls and Rescripts supposed to have been issued by the Bishops of Rome during the first three centuries of the Christian Era to show the authority of the popes of that early age.  They were alleged to have been the fruit of the researches of Isidore of Seville, one of the most learned bishops of the ninth century.   They were only given to the world two centuries after Isidore's death.  In the general ignorance that characterized the Golden Age of the Church of Rome, the Decretals were everywhere accepted as authentic, and men beheld with awe the autocratic power wielded by Peter and his immediate followers.  At the Reformation the genuine history of these centuries was examined, the forgery was discovered, and the "Decretals of Isidore" exposed as the most audacious imposture ever palmed off on an unsuspecting world.  But for four centuries they did their work, and Rome reaped the benefit.  What Rome has done once, she always expects to be able to do again.

     It may seem a hard thing to suggest that a book written as a solemn meditation on "The Coming of Messiah in Glory and Majesty" was produced with the intention of imposing on the world in the same way.  Yet the facts point that way.  Lacunza wrote under the name of "Rabbi Ben Ezra,"8 supposedly a learned Jew who had accepted Christ as his Saviour and was writing with a view to the conversion of his Jewish brethren.   Possibly you had never heard the name of Lacunza before, and you did not know who he was,  but you may have heard about "Ben Ezra" before.  You have come across some Futurist writers quoting, frequently with approval from "Ben Ezra".   Only, you always thought he was a Christian Jew; you never had any idea he was a Jesuit.  Exactly.  That is just what Lacunza intended you should think.  How else could he expect his teaching to gain a hearing, not to speak of being accepted, in the Protestant world?  With Jesuit cunning and Jesuit thoroughness the cloak of the converted Jew is worn throughout the work.  Even the dedicatory prayer at the opening of the book is the prayer of "Juan Josafat Ben Ezra",  the converted Jew pleading with the Almighty to use the book for the enlightenment of his Jewish brethren.  This Jewish Rabbi does not placate the priesthood when he adds in his prayer the petition that his work would "oblige the priests to shake off the dust from their Bibles",  which appear "in these times to have become, to not a few of them, the most useless of all books."

     We might feel impelled to throw the cloak of charity over Lacunza, and suppose that, fearing the displeasure of his own Church for his "errors," he merely wished to hide his identity under a "non de plume."  But one has only to glance at any account of the fierce persecution of the Jews by the Church of Rome in Spain - a vivid picture of the awful sufferings inflicted on the Jews in the name of Christ as given in

Dr. Grattan Guinness's "Light for the Last Days"9 to see that with such bitter

hatred existing between the Jews and the Roman Catholics, the guise of a Jewish Rabbi was the one best suited to secure the absolute exclusion of the book from the Roman Church.   Lacunza's views might be tolerated if coming from a Jesuit, for the Jesuits within the bosom of the Church were allowed to air all kinds of views; but coming from a Jewish Rabbi the book was certain to be put on the "Index" of prohibited books.

     Did Lacunza really expect to reach the Jews by pretending that the author of his work was a Jewish Rabbi?  It is very unlikely that he did.  The Jew, even the converted Jew, has a mentality of his own which it would be futile for any Gentile to try to impersonate and Lacunza either was ignorant of or did not attempt to copy the peculiar workings of the Jewish mind.   He was certainly ignorant of the writings of the genuine Jewish Rabbis, which any learned Jew would have made reference to.  Moreover, the Jewish world is too compact, and the records of all its Rabbis too well known, for any fake Rabbi to go far among them without detection.  The unbelieving Jews would only smile at any attempt to influence them in favour of Christianity by foisting a fictitious Jewish Rabbi upon them.  It would have the opposite of the desired effect.

     There remain only the Protestants, and there can be little doubt that it was for their consumption that this elaborate forgery was prepared.  To get them to begin dabbling in the theory of a future Antichrist was worth a vast amount of time and labour to the Church of Rome.

     Had Lacunza lived to see his work given to the public, he might have so managed it that the world would never have discovered the secret of its authorship.  That evidently was the intention.  Lacunza was found dead by the side of the river where he was accustomed to go for a walk, on the morning of the 17th of June, 1801.  There is no record of what caused his death.  His book, or rather what appears to have been an abridgement of it, was first printed in two small volumes at the Isle of Leon, Spain, in 1812, during the short period of the Cortez, Spain's ill-starred bid for freedom.   As soon as the monarchy and papacy regained power, it was suppressed.  It was also placed, as might have been expected, on Rome's Index of prohibited books, and denounced as such by the Inquisition.  This was the best advertisement it could have got in those days.  Immediately after the extinction of the Cortez, there were formed in Spain numbers of societies of young men and women, the object of which was "to procure and read those books expressly prohibited by the Inquisition" of which they had got a taste under the government of the Cortez.  Finding the work of "Ben Ezra" mentioned in the list, they made it their business to secure copies, which they read with delight.  Soon copies or extracts made their way into France and were read by members of the Gallican Church.

     In 1816 a complete edition (apparently the first complete edition), of Lacunza's work, in four volumes, was published in London by the Diplomatic Agent of the Republic of Buenos Aires.  The secret of the real authorship of the work, though still hidden from the world under its disguise, must have been known to those concerned in this publication.  Otherwise, how would the Diplomatic Agent of a South American Republic be interested in the work of 'Rabbi Ben Ezra' a converted Jew?  At a time when ninety-five per cent of the whole population of South America were still illiterate, when its infant republics were struggling to lift their heads out of the primordial slime of Romish depravity and to crawl towards the cherished goal of the terra firma of civilization, an important theological work by a Native Son was something for all South America to be proud of.  True, the authors identity could not be divulged as yet.  Protestant England could not be trusted to give an unbiased opinion of a book known to have been written by a Jesuit.  The Author must go before the British public in the disguise of the converted Jewish Rabbi, as he had himself planned.  When a sufficient number of the leaders of religious thought in England had committed themselves to approval of the work, or acceptance of its teaching, when it would be too late for them to reverse their verdict, then would be time enough to reveal the identity of the author and give "honour to whom honour was due."

     At that time everything in a printer's shop: type setting, press work, folding, binding; all had to be done by hand and the output of books in London was but a mere fraction of what it is today.   The production of a thelogical work in Spanish, in four volumes, was an important undertaking, liable to attract much attention. Though Spanish is a simple language, one of the simplest in Europe to master, the number of people in England who would be qualified to read this work was necessarily limited.  The number of copies required would be small, and the cost per set correspondingly high.  Today a copy of these four volumes from an art dealers point of view might well be worth their weight in gold.  When they were published, to possess and be able to read the work of this wonderful Jewish Rabbi would be quite a mark of distinction among the learned in London.

     There was one library in London which could not afford to be without a copy of the new publication, a theological library which was and still is second to none in England with the possible exception of the great university libraries of Oxford and Cambridge.  That was the library of the Archbishop of Canterbury, maintained not for his private use only but for the whole Church and people of England.  We may be sure that if the Archbishop or his librarian did not take care to secure a copy, the Diplomatic Agent would be diplomatic enough to place a copy at their disposal.  It must be available to any who wish to consult it at this center of sacred learning.

      Here then, on the library shelves of the official head of the Anglican Church, at the very heart's core of British Protestantism, we leave these four volumes.  Rome has done her work well.  She has drilled the hole in the Rock of Reformed Theology; she has driven home the charge; she has laid the fuse; all is set for the blast which is to rend the Rock in pieces.  How long will it be till the explosion takes place?  It may take years.  But Rome has infinite patience.  She is willing to wait.

     It took ten years.  Ten years are not a very long time to produce a radical change in the thinking of a seasoned scholar and theologian, to get the man who had the care of these volumes so saturated with their teachings that he was himself precipitated into authorship.

     In 1826, ten years after the publication of Lacunza's work, Dr. Maitland, librarian to the Archbishop of Canterbury, startled the Protestant world with the first of a series of pamphlets on prophecy10.  He propounded the theory, already taught for 250 years by the Jesuits 11  that the whole book of Revelation refers only to the future, and is to be fulfilled in a short period at the return of Christ.  Rev.  E. P. Cachemaille, of Cambridge describes these Pamphlets as:

     What Cachemaille failed to notice was that Dr. Maitland was borrowing not from Ribera direct, but from Lacunza.  This argument about "the day of the Lord" is Lacunza's.  In fairness to Dr. Maitland we must believe that he was quite unaware that he was using the ideas of a Jesuit.  He could only have known the work as that of "Rabbi Ben Ezra", a converted Jew.  The disguise had done its work.  But the force of logic drove Dr. Maitland back to Ribera's position about the personal Antichrist.  Having accepted the Futurist teaching that the whole book of Revelation was to be fulfilled in a short period of a few years, the idea that the Antichrist was to be one individual World-Dictator followed naturally.

     Seeing that Cachemaille has selected the argument of Dr. Maitland on the first chapter of Revelation as one point on which he seems to show some originality, we might take it as a test, and see whether the idea did not really originate with Lacunza.  Listen to what Lacunza has to say on this subject:

     These extracts should be sufficient to dispel any reasonable doubt as to the source from whence Dr. Maitland drew his inspiration.  If the most original idea he had to put forward was this one as to the first chapter of Revelation referring to the day of the Lord's second coming, we find that this was argued at length by "Rabbi Ben Ezra", and published in London ten years before Dr. Maitland used it.  Dr. Maitland's argument bears the imprint of the master-hand of Lacunza.

THE TRACTARIAN MOVEMENT

- LANDSLIDE TOWARDS ROME -

     Almost immediately after the appearance of the first of Dr. Maitland's pamphlets a Mr. Burgh16 in Ireland published a book on the Futurist Antichrist, along similar lines, and evidently drawn from the same source.  But another seven years were to elapse before the disintegration of Protestant Christianity would begin in earnest.  These seven years were needed, both in England and in Ireland, for the idea to take root that the Reformers had done the papacy an injustice in regarding it as the Antichrist of Scripture; and that Rome was really a "sister church" and should be so regarded by the Protestants of Britain.  The year 1833 was the crucial time when the vision of the Seer of Patmos was to begin to be fulfilled : "And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet; for they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world . . . "

Rev. 16:13,14.

     Cardinal Newman17 long afterward stated in his Apologia18 that he never considered and kept July 14th, 1833 as the start of the Tractarian Movement19.  Newman's work on the Arians of the Fourth century, published early in October of that year, appears to have been the first publication of the new movement for Reunion with Rome, the fore-runner of the Tracts for the Times which gave the movement its name.  It is important, remember that date - July, 1833.  Even Pusey20, most advanced Romanizer of all, did not join the movement till near the close of this year.   The only publications preparing the minds of the people of England for a return to Rome, prior to July, 1833, and which might be said to belong to the Tractarian Movement, were Maitland's and Burgh's pamphlets on the Future Antichrist.

     It would take us too long to follow all the ramifications of the Oxford21 or Tractarian, or, as it is now called, the Anglo-Catholic Movement - that is, Anglican in name and Romish at heart.  We need only to note that Dr. Maitland's theory of a future Antichrist was one of the main weapons used in the Tractarian defence of the papacy from the charges leveled against it by the Reformers.  It was part of the kindly light which "amid the encircling gloom"  that clouded Newman's soul, "led him on" into the arms of the Pope.  It was part of the "Faith of our fathers, holy faith," which Romish apologists are fond of pitting against the teaching of Scripture, and which Faber enshrined in a hymn which he left behind22, to be invoked by "Protestant" congregations when he himself, with seven of his monkish brotherhood, flopped over into the Church of Rome.  The Romish monasteries and convents, confessionals, candles, incense, adoration of the host, and other ritualistic practices smuggled into the Church of England; the Society of the Holy Cross, Order of Corporate Re-Union, Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament, and all the other paraphernalia of the Oxford Movement, still reaping its deadly harvest in the engulfing of precious souls in Rome's pit of perdition; all are the fruits of this teaching that the Antichrist is still in 'the Future, that the papacy is not the Antichrist but the true Vicar of Christ, and that the papal system is a sister Church and not the Babylon of Revelation AND THE END IS NOT YET.

ANOTHER FISH ON THE HOOK

     But we must go back to Lacunza.  This wonderful Spanish Work of "Rabbi Ben Ezra" had attracted so much attention in London that it must be translated into English.  And here the slimy trail of the Jesuit branches off in another direction.  The work of translation was undertaken by a young Scottish Presbyterian minister, brilliant but erratic, who had been assistant to the great Dr. Chalmers in Glasgow, and had come to London as minister of the Scots Church there.  This was Edward Irving, founder of the "Irvingites", or as they now call themselves, the "Catholic Apostolic Church",  a body whose beliefs and practices are among the most peculiar in Christendom.  Some at least of these vagaries are distinctly traceable to the views Irving imbibed from Lacunza.

     It is to Irving we are indebted for all that we know of Lacunza's life.  In connection with his work of translation, Irving took pains to search for some information about the life of Rabbi Ben Ezra, the supposed author.  The sponsors of the Spanish edition of 1816, must have thought the reputation of the book sufficiently securely established to make it safe to divulge the real authorship, for Irving was able to secure details of Lacunza's career and publish them in the preface, although the work was still given out under the name of "Rabbi Ben Ezra".

     Irving was more inexcusable than Dr. Maitland.  He knew that he was giving to the world the teaching of a Jesuit, and with his Scottish Presbyterian training, he knew enough of the morality of the Jesuits to be aware of the suicidal folly of such an undertaking.

     When Irving began his translation or when he finished it might not seem of much interest, but in this case, the date is of vital importance.  I have not seen the original edition, but it was a voluminous and expensive work and some time after it was published some parties, who, like most of the Tractarians, chose to remain anonymous, made an abridgement of it in order to publish a cheap popular edition which would give it a much wider circulation.  Irving refused to allow this cheap edition to be published until his own first edition was sold out.  I have here a copy of this cheap edition, published in 1833, the year in which the Tractarian movement began; and judging from the editor's apology for the delay in getting it out, I gather that there were some parties waiting to use it as soon as it appeared.  This is significant.  On the title-page are the words: "Being an Abridgement of a work translated from the Spanish, and published in 1827."   Beneath is this wish:

"Oh that my brethren in Christ might have the same divine satisfaction, and unwearied delight in reading that I had in translating this wonderful work.  Translator."  Thus Irving must have been absorbed in Lacunza at the very time when Dr. Maitland was busy on his pamphlet.   A coincidence?

     At this very time Irving heard what he believed to be a Voice from heaven commanding him to preach the Secret Rapture of the Saints.  Obeying this Voice, he began to preach that Christ was to come TWICE; first, secretly FOR His saints: then, after an interval of seven years - the reign of Antichrist - gloriously WITH His saints, to destroy Antichrist and to reign.  Protestants had always believed, as taught in

1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, that the saints would be "caught up" (raptured) when Christ would appear in glory; and Irving's is commonly supposed to have been the first mention in the whole history of the Church of a SECRET rapture of the saints prior to Christ's appearing in glory.

     I have already shown where this idea originated.  As the point is of such importance, let me quote again the suggestion of Lacunza, that:

     The words: "He will give His orders, and send forth His command," in this passage, refer to the 'rapture' or gathering of the saints; and Lacunza says this is to happen 'much before His arrival at the earth,' so much before, in fact, that the whole reign of Antichrist and all the other events foretold in the Book of Revelation, are to take place between the rapture and Christ's arrival with His saints.  This is exactly the order of events as described by Irving.

     Please remember that I am quoting these words from Irving's own English translation of Lacunza's work, so that there can be no question that Irving had seen and studied this Jesuit doctrine before he gave out his own teaching on the subject.

THE OXFORD MOVEMENT

     The Oxford Movement was founded on Falsehood, cold blooded and deliberate.  This may seem a hard thing to say about the conduct of professedly Christian men.  But I don't have to say it; the leaders of the Movement say it for themselves- Newman claims Clement of Alexandria as his authority for his own rule that a Christian both thinks and speaks the truth except when careful treatment is necessary, and then, as a physician for the good of his patients, he will LIE, or rather utter a LIE, as the Sophists say.  Ward, who became leader when Newman went over to Rome, is quoted by his own son in his biography of his father as holding that "when duties conflict, another duty may be more imperative than the duty of truthfulness."  The son says that his father expressed his rule thus

'Make yourself clear that you are justified in deception, and then LIE LIKE A TROOPER".   Hurrell Froude, another of the first leaders as early as 1834, referred to the whole Movement as "The Conspiracy", a term which accurately defines it.  Pusey25 describes their method as "disposing of Ultra-Protestantism by a side wind, and teaching people Catholicism, without their suspecting," so that they might find themselves Catholics before they were aware."  Their whole campaign was run according to that truly Jesuitic maxim stated by Newman in his Apologia:  "There is some kind or other of verbal misleading, which is not sin."

     It might be supposed that a movement professing such a low moral standard would find little support among the clergy of the Church of England but the movement swept England like a prairie fire.  The publication of Newman's Tracts was like the sowing of the dragon's teeth, which immediately sprang up into a host of armed warriors.  The founders of the movement were so amazed at the result that they were convinced that behind it all there must be a mighty spiritual power of which they were merely the instrument.  Some of them, like the Witch of Endor, were startled by the spirit which they had aroused.

     "Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God."   There can be no question that there was a supernatural power at work.  WHAT WAS THAT MIGHTY SPIRIT POWER?  It is our duty to TRY THE SPIRITS.  Would the Spirit of God, the God of Truth, teach the leaders of the movement to LIE?  Surely not.  This must be a LYING SPIRIT, bringing on men "a strong delusion, that they should believe a lie."    Dr. Maitland's teaching of a Future Personal Antichrist had created in the minds of those who accepted it, a bitter revulsion of feeling against the Reformers who charged the papacy with being the Antichrist, which prepared their minds for the reception of other teaching favorable to the Church of Rome.  Hence the readiness with which the strong delusion took root.

     As in the case of Dr. Maitland and the Tractarians, so in the case of Irving26.   His obedience to the "Voice" which commanded him to preach the Secret Rapture seems to have been the signal for the loosing of a veritable deluge of "spirit manifestations" upon him and his poor deluded congregation.  The result was a fanatical outbreak which scandalized the whole Church.  Led by a Mr. Robert Baxter, who is described as "for a time one of the most deluded men in the Church's History,"  who gave utterance to the most extraordinary prophecies and angel communications, which were accepted as truths by the infatuated people, the congregation went from one fanatical extreme to another, until what had been a Presbyterian congregation formally applied for admission to the Church of Rome.

     Cachemaille gives this further information, which sums up the whole connection of the "Secret Rapture" theory:

     As Irving's followers had shown such fanatical tendencies, his influence would be confined to a comparatively narrow circle.  This would not suit the delusive spirit who had initiated the work, and so, as in the case of Dr. Maitland, the teaching had to be passed on to a body filled with misguided zeal, who would create among the dissenting bodies the same confusion as the Tractarians were to create within the Anglican communion.

THE BRETHREN MOVEMENT

     And so we must cross over to Ireland, to witness the formation of just such a body.  In the "Brethren" movement28 the seed sown by Lacunza was to find the most congenial soil in which to spread rapidly over the whole Protestant world. 

     It may surprise some of you to be told that there is anything in common between Tractarianism, with its hankering after everything Romish, and Brethrenism, which appears to be a deeply spiritual and evangelical movement.  I have long worked in the closest harmony with many earnest men among the Brethren, for whose sincerity and piety I have the utmost respect, and I should be sorry to give offence to any of them.  But in the matter of prophecy, it cannot be denied that if you scratch a Brethren skin you will draw Tractarian blood29.  Just try it for yourself, if you doubt my words.  Suggest to any one of the Brethren that the Pope is the Antichrist, the Man of Sin and Son of Perdition, and that Rome is the Babylon of Revelation, the Scarlet Woman, and you will see him bridling up as if the Pope were a personal friend of his, and as if he held a brief for the defense of Rome.  Tractarians couldn't be more zealous in the Pope's behalf.  It will be stoutly asserted of course, that the Brethren and Tractarian movements will never come together.  That may be true.  It is also true that parallel straight lines will never meet, for the simple reason that they are proceeding in exactly the same direction.  These two have attacked the citadel of evangelical Protestantism from opposite sides, but the effect on the citadel is largely the same in either case.

     "Serving and Waiting," the magazine of the Philadelphia School of the Bible, during 1925 ran a series of articles by Harry A. Ironside, now Dr. Ironside, pastor of the Moody Church in Chicago 30,  on "The Brethren Movement."  Dr. Ironside had been for years, nearly thirty, associated with assemblies of the "Brethren" and had access to documents and sources of information available to very few.  He was therefore peculiarly fitted to present the world with an authentic account of Brethrenism, as it was and is; and as he was, and I believe still is, a sincere believer in the "Secret Rapture" theory.   He appears to regard J. N. Darby as God's chosen instrument -eighteen centuries after the time of Christ - for first revealing this "precious" truth to the Church, therefore we shall not do the Brethren an injustice by following his version of the beginnings and works of this movement.

     Dr. Ironside mentions seven leaders of the first Brethren assembly formed in Dublin, and adds: "Of these it would seem that Edward Cronin was the chosen instrument to first affect the others." 31  In other words, it was Cronin who started the meeting, and thus was the real founder of Brethrenism.  Again I quote Ironside: "Mr.  Cronin was a young dental student who had been brought up as a Roman Catholic, but had been graciously enlightened by the Spirit of God through personal faith in Christ and into the knowledge of peace with God through resting upon the atoning work of the Lord Jesus." 32   Now, strange as it may seem to some, it is nevertheless true, that there are, and always have been, true children of God within the Church of Rome; souls that have passed through the experience of conversion which Ironside here describes, and yet have not seen enough of the light to come out from Rome and be separate.  Cronin came out of Rome, but he never came into the full light of Protestantism; he came far enough to form a half-way house - Brethrenism -combining the pietism of such Romanists as Thomas A Kempis with an instinctive dislike to many of the fruits of the Reformation.  Such a half-way house could not have been founded by anyone who was in full sympathy with the battle waged by the Reformers.

     As I have been accused of making a false charge on this head, I must, at the risk of being a little longer than usual, give a few points of Brethrenism.

First:     Cronin adhered to the Romish definition of the word Church, as meaning one thing, and only one, namely, the whole body of the faithful, a body every member of which is a true child of God, and outside of which there is no salvation.  Luther's discovery of the distinction between the visible church and the church invisible was never understood by Cronin or his followers.  Luther discovered that all the separate Churches mentioned in the New Testament were outwardly visible organizations, each and all of which contained members who were not truly born again, and therefore not members of the true body of Christ.  None of these, nor all of them put together, were identical with the true Church, the mystic Body, which were invisible to the world and known to God alone.  Cronin thought the wheat and tares should be separated here and now, and the mystic Body be identified as a visible organization.  In this boast of doing what the Apostles failed to accomplish, Brethrenism and Rome are unanimous.  But the Brethren are more Romish than Rome herself, in that they carefully avoid the New Testament use of the word Church as referring to a local congregation, knowing that to use Church in this sense would spoil their whole argument.

Second:     Cronin and his followers carefully copied Rome in the exclusiveness and arrogance of its claim to "THE CHURCH" and even in the subtlety of the language embodying the claim.  Rome arrogates to herself the title "Catholic" (Universal) but disliked the word "Roman" as that may seem to imply that she is only one of several Churches, and that there are other branches of the True Church besides herself.  In the same way, Cronin and his followers avoided the use of any term that would seem to imply that there were any other Christians on earth besides themselves.  Ironside apologizes for having to use even the term "Brethren" as if it were merely the name of a sect, adding: "They have from the first refused any name that would be distinctive or that could not be applied, rightfully to all of God's people.  Therefore, they speak of themselves as brethren, believers, Christians, saints, or use any other term common to all members of the body of Christ."   Just as Rome takes a name that belongs to the whole body of Christ.  Anyone who likes can draw the inference that there are no believers, Christians, saints, outside the ranks of those to whom they apply the names.  Sometimes it suits to draw it, and again, sometimes it does not.

Third:     Cronin had all a bigoted Romanist's contempt for the Protestant "sects" and before forming a sect of his own tried to achieve the Romish ideal of "unity" by breaking down the bulwarks of Church membership and discipline which the Churches had erected for their own preservation.  He claimed that having professed to be converted, he had a right to sit at the Lord's Table in any and every Church in the city, without becoming a member of any.  John Calvin nearly lost his life in Geneva when he stood guard over the Lord's Table and refused to allow the Libertines to partake, claiming that it was his duty as the minister of God to judge the lives of those who made this profession, and to keep out those who were unworthy.  Cronin's plan, if it had succeeded would have broken down all such rule and discipline, giving the pastors or elders no "oversight" (1 Peter 5:2) over the membership of the Church.  I myself have had a teacher of "Brethren" doctrine attempt to sit at the Lord's Table in my church without being a member of any Church; but let any of you try and go in and "break bread" as they call it, in any Brethren meeting, and see how far you will get.  Would they tolerate what Cronin tried to force upon the Churches?  Certainly notl

Fourth:       Cronin "also found growing up within himself a feeling of repugnance to a one-man ministry, for it seemed to him that there was no place for this in the New Testament Church."  The spirit of the French Revolution was abroad in the world, and men everywhere were inclined to rebel against all authority in both church and state.  The "true saying" of Paul that "if a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work" (1 Timothy 3:1) would be reserved by Cronin, who apparently did not see why any man should be set apart to "labor in the Word and doctrine," and be "worthy of double honour" (1 Timothy 5:17).  The cry of "liberty, equality, fraternity" had gone forth, and who should be on a footing of perfect equality more than the disciples of Christ?  Christ had said, "All ye are brethren" but there was a vast difference between the "brotherhood" of the New Testament, where some were set apart as elders to "feed the flock of God . . . taking the oversight thereof," and others were commanded to "obey them that have the rule over you," and the "Fraternity" of the Revolution, which aimed at obliterating all such distinctions.  This is the "gainsaying of Core" (Jude 11), for the protest