In so doing they become part and parcel with her, while they justify her course and fill up the measure of her iniquities, just as surely as did the scribes and Pharisees fill up the measure of their fathers who killed the prophets. (Matt. 23:31,32) All this, of course, neither Protestants nor Papists are ready to admit, because in so doing they would be condemning themselves.

This fact is recognized by the Revelator, who shows that all who would get a true view of Babylon must, in spirit, take their position with the true people of God "in the wilderness." The wilderness is a condition of separation from the world and worldly ideas and mere forms of godliness. A condition of entire consecration and faithfulness to and dependence upon God alone. "So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness; and I saw a woman"— Babylon. Rev. 17:1-5

Since the kingdoms of the civilized world have been largely dominated by the influence of the great ecclesiastical systems, especially Papacy, accepting from them the appellation "Christian nations" and "Christendom," and accepting on their authority the doctrine of the divine right of kings, they also link themselves with great Babylon, and become part of it. As in the type, the name Babylon applied, not only to the city, but also to the whole empire, here also the symbolic term "Babylon" applies, not only to the great religious organizations, Papal and Protestant, but also, in its widest sense, to all Christendom.

The nations beyond Christendom will also feel the weight of the heavy hand of recompense because they also are to some extent bound in with the nations of Christendom by various interests, commercial and others. Justly, too—because they have also failed to appreciate what light they have seen. They have loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

As the Prophet declared, "All the earth [society] shall be devoured with the fire of God’s jealousy" (Zeph. 3:8). But against Babylon, Christendom, because of her greater responsibility and misuse of favors received, will burn the fierceness of his wrath and indignation. (Jer. 51:49) "At the noise of the taking of Babylon the earth is moved, and the cry is heard among the nations." Jer. 50:46

But some sincere Christians, not yet awake to the decline of Protestantism, do not realize the relationship of the various sects to Papacy. Yet, they perceive the unrest and the doctrinal upheavals in all the religious systems. They may still be anxiously inquiring – "If all Christendom is to be involved in the doom of Babylon, what will become of Protestantism, the result of The Great Reformation?" This is an important question.

Let the reader consider that Protestantism, as it exists today, is not the result of the Great Reformation, but of its decline. Protestantism now partakes to a large degree of the disposition and character of the Church of Rome, from which its various branches sprang.

The various Protestant sects (with all due deference to a comparatively few devout souls within them, whom the Lord designates as "wheat," in contradistinction to the overwhelming numbers of "tares") are the true daughters of that degenerate system of nominal Christianity, the Papacy.

The Revelator makes reference in applying to her the name "Mother of harlots." (Rev. 17:5) Let it not pass unobserved that both Romanists and Protestants now freely own the relationship of mother and daughters. The former continually styles herself the Holy Mother Church, and the latter, with pleased complacency, endorses the idea, as shown by many public utterances of leading Protestant clergymen and laymen. Thus, they "glory in their shame," apparently unmindful of the brand which they thus accept from the Word of God, which designates the Papacy, as "the mother of harlots."

Nor does the Papacy, in claiming her office of motherhood, ever seem to have questioned her right to that title, or to have considered its incompatibility with her profession still to be the only true church, which the Scriptures designate a "virgin" espoused to Christ. Her acknowledged claims of motherhood are to the everlasting shame of both herself and her offspring.

How do the Protestant systems sustain this relationship of daughters to Papacy? Since "mother" Papacy is not a single individual, but a great religious system, in keeping with the symbol we should expect to see other religious systems answering to the illustration of daughters of similar character. The daughters would not, of course, be so old, nor necessarily so depraved, as Papacy. Nevertheless, "harlots" in the same sense — religious systems claiming to be either the espoused virgin or the bride of Christ, yet courting the favor and receiving the support of the world, at the price of disloyalty to Christ.

To this description the various Protestant organizations fully correspond. They are the great daughter systems.

As already pointed out the birth of these various daughter systems came in connection with reforms from the corruptions of the mother Church. The daughter systems parted from the mother under circumstances of travail, and were born virgins. However, they contained more than true reformers. They contained many who still had the spirit of the mother — they inherited many of her false doctrines and theories. It was not long until they fell into many of her bad practices and proved their characters true to the prophetic stigma — "harlots."

Let it not be forgotten. Yes, the various reformation movements did valuable work in the "cleansing of the sanctuary." But only the temple class, the sanctuary class, has ever been the true Church, in God’s reckoning.

The great human systems called churches, have never been more than nominally the Church. They all belong to a false system which counterfeits, misrepresents and hides from the world the true. The true church is composed only of fully consecrated and faithful believers, who trust in the merit of the one great sacrifice for sins. These are to be found scattered here and there within and outside of these human systems, yet always separate from their worldly spirit. They are the "wheat" class of our Lord’s parable, clearly distinguished by him from the "tares."