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I. WHAT IS THIS RESTRAINING POWER?

1. The explanation, now so difficult, was no difficulty to the Thessalonians. They knew what it was; and the Church of the first three centuries said without hesitation that it was the Roman Empire.

2. History has taught us the literal incorrectness of this, for the Roman Empire has passed away, and it is to play with language to regard it as living on in the German or Austrian Empires. This fact modified the interpretation of the later fathers, who regarded it as the restraining discipline of Divine order; and Christian thinkers are now coming to regard it as the regulated social order, that spirit of obedience to law which is the direct antagonist to the spirit of lawlessness which was embodied in ancient Rome; but this spirit is sustained by the working of the Spirit of God.

3. As a matter of fact the spirit of religion has been in all ages the restraining influence. Man is naturally attracted to lawlessness. Within Christian nations there have been the elements of destruction, but they have been held in check in three ways.

(1) Christianity has created and sustained a public opinion which has supported law and is antagonistic to lawlessness.

(2) It has called the conscience in to the support of constituted order because it has taught men that that order has supernatural sanction.

(3) It has created and administered a healthy discipline and taught men that obedience to the law of righteousness is the true regulation of life. For fifteen hundred years politicians have been ready to recognize this restraining influence.

4. By God's will there are two great coordinate authorities, the civil and the ecclesiastical; He would have these work in their own sphere, the Church not invading the province of the State, and vice versa. And the Church has thus gone on in union with the State exercising its restraints.

II. WHAT IS MEANT BY THIS POWER BEING TAKEN OUT OF THE WAY? I believe it to be that crisis in our race which in the Apocalypse is called the Fall of Babylon — the collapse of the ecclesiastical influence in politics.

1. Babylon is represented as a harlot, a term distinctly applied in the Old Testament, not to heathenism, but to a faithless Church. And so in the New Testament it is only the professed Church that can fall into that depth of iniquity.

2. Turn to Revelation 17 and Babylon is riding, controlling, guiding a scarlet-coloured beast. Afterwards there is the bitterest antagonism, and the beast and ten kings rise up against the apostate Babylon and treat her shamefully.

3. Now go back to mediaeval Europe, and the one arresting political feature is the Church. The Pope is virtually king of kings and lord of lords. In those days priests were judges, ecclesiastics, politicians, and the mystic woman is seen riding on the beast — the Church at least lending her authority to the maintenance of civil order. But her position was full of danger. It was the Master's temptation to world empire over again. Christendom failed where the Master won, and sought to realize a true conception by false means. She lost her spirituality and fell under the power of a mere secular ecclesiastieism. Contrast the Church of the Middle Ages with that of the first.

4. You cannot be surprised at people identifying Babylon with the Papacy, for the description of the apostle almost necessarily leads us to think of Rome. The spirit that rules the Roman see is of the earth earthy. Its policy is ruled not so much by principle as by the intricacies of human politics, and it is ever swayed by the three sad spirits that are predicted of mystic Babylon — ambition, covetousness, and luxury. The ideal of Ultramontanism, that the Church on earth is a perfect entity is true, but its sin is that it is the material realization of a conception that is emphatically spiritual.

5. What is the effect? This, that as the claims of the ecclesiastical spirit have become more and more intense, the nations of the world have revolted against the power with which for centuries they have been in closest alliance, Is not this the case in France, Germany, Belgium, and even Spain? Where can we find a country whose Church gives obedience to the Papacy that is not in conflict with the Papacy?

6. But this is not only with the Churches that own obedience to Rome. What about the great Eastern churches who have delivered up so much of their power to the Czar? What about our own? Is truth never compromised for expediency? Nay, the spirit of corruption has permeated Christendom, and our position is one of humiliation before God. And now mark the movements that are going on. Society and civilization for fifteen hundred years have had a Christian basis, but both are being constructed on a secular basis (See Lecky's chapter on "the Advance of Secularizing Polities").Conclusion: What then is our position?

1. We must recognize the withdrawal of this restraining influence of civilization, and in it a warning of the approaching Advent. Christ may see fit to delay — but "Be ye ready."

2. We should do all that in us lies to perpetuate the ministry and the restraining power that we may lengthen the days of opportunity for the race.

(Canon Body.)

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KJV: And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time.

WEB: Now you know what is restraining him, to the end that he may be revealed in his own season.