PROTESTANTISM IN REVELATION 13
Beginning with the 11th verse of Revelations 13, directly after the prophecy of the Roman Catholic hierarchic power, we have the spectacle of a second beast, having two horns like a lamb but speaking as a dragon. The fact that he speaks gives him the quality of ecclesiastical rule. In this beast we have man rule in the form of Protestantism. He has a lamb-like aspect instead of the vicious, threatening character of Rome in the days of her power; but he has the voice of a dragon, which betrays his diabolical spirit. He exercises as much power in the world as Roman Catholicism did before him. He deceives by doing "great wonders," displaying spiritual manifestations. He causes people to worship the first beast (Catholicism) by copying its standards and doing reverence to a human ecclesiastical system; and an image to the first beast is made whenever a sect is organized. He causes the image to "speak" (exercise man rule) and to persecute those who, instead of bowing to the sect image, are disposed to exercise in their spiritual freedom and give allegiance alone to God.
Thus we see so-called Protestantism as a particular form of beast religion, a distinctive spirit that animates and dominates the sectarian system. The beast element is the man rule. We are not speaking merely of human instrumentality, which God certainly uses in his church when the will is wholly submitted to him and susceptible to his Spirit, but of that exercise and dominance in ecclesiastical matters which, as apart from God, is distinctly human. Such prevails more or less as a system in all sects, gives occasion for jealousy, pride, and emulation, wants to be let alone, and opposes any reform that threatens it. This is the element which naturally becomes disturbed at the preaching of the truth that exposes it, and which became a persecuting power against Brother Warner and all who executed the divine judgment against false religion. In this deceptive form of evil covering almost four hundred years Satan has had his seat. When the present reformation shall have resulted in bringing God's people out of sectarian divisions and placing them on the whole-church basis, Satan, driven to some new project, will muster the Gog and Magog forces in a last conflict against the saints, which shall end with the utter destruction of those forces by the judgment fires.
We have, then, Protestantism represented in two aspects: 1. As a period during which truth by a succession of reform movements has to a considerable extent been recovered from apostasy and restored to God's people. 2. As a system of false religion, a form of spiritual Babylon that is pervaded by a satanic spirit that deceives the world and opposes any effort to restore the church of God to her Scriptural unity, since such effort naturally threatens the ecclesiastical element lying at the base of organized sectarianism.