The late Brother Frank Walker, “Printer and Publisher, 41 Stokes Croft, Bristol”, guided many books, pamphlets and magazines through his press in the 1930s and ’40s, and a number of them (for example, Helps for the Christian Warfare and Answers to Bible Questions) have become minor Christadelphian ‘classics’, much appreciated by those who know them. It is with real pleasure, therefore, that the reviewer is able to note the republication, by the immensely productive Christadelphian Scripture Study Service, of one of Brother Walker’s own extended essays, originally published by him as part of a larger compilation—also well known to an earlier generation of readers—Watchman! What of the night?
First published in 1942, in the darkest days of World War II, the essay’s subtitle (“The Divine Portrait of the Papacy”) explains the subject matter, but gives no real impression of the author’s expansive and vigorous treatment of it. Important and extensive quotations from ecclesiastical historians (principally Mosheim), expositional set pieces about key scriptures, and personal Bible-based musings about the state of the world, are interspersed with fascinating illustrations of popes, martyrs and apocalyptic symbols, making the whole thing a kind of boiled-down Hislop’s Two Babylons written from a Christadelphian point of view.
The text of the essay is broken down into thirty-six parts in a thinly-veiled chronological sequence, taking the reader swiftly, but surely, from the very beginnings of the Divine purpose right through to its certain and earnestly prayed – for end, when that “other woman” (as Brother Walker calls the papacy, in contrast to the Bride of Christ) will be “put to sleep with violence”. The persecution of the Lamb’s wife and the suppression and perversion of the Truth are the backcloth to the author’s selective analysis of over 1,500 years of papal history—a fearful but salutary tale well worth retelling and rereading.
Three passages selected as representative of the author’s approach will perhaps serve to convey also the flavour of the book as a whole. On the eclipse of the doctrine of the Millennium Brother Walker writes: “It was in the third century that the light of this glorious Truth was eclipsed. The oriental Gnostics with their mystic doctrines had by this time eaten their way into the constitution of the Church to such an extent that they had displaced and made of none effect the purpose of God to fill the whole earth with His Glory. No wonder the Apostle warned us of its teaching! But give ear to the historian (Mosheim) who writes concerning this matter: ‘The most famous controversies that divided the Christians during this century were those concerning the Millennium, or reign of a thousand years, the baptism of heretics, and the doctrine of Origen. Long before this period an opinion had prevailed that Christ was to come and reign a thousand years among men, before the entire and final dissolution of the world. This opinion, which had hitherto met with no opposition, was differently interpreted by different persons; nor did all promise themselves the same kind of enjoyments in that future and glorious kingdom. But in this century its credit began to decline principally through the influence and authority of Origen, who opposed it with the greatest warmth, because it was incompatible with some of his favorite sentiments’ “.
In a section entitled “The ‘other woman’—marks of identification” (perhaps the most useful and informative section of all), no less than fourteen different distinguishing features of the papacy in history are examined in the light of Bible prophecy. Regarding the Divine claims of the popes, for example, forecast by Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2:3,4, Brother Walker writes : “There has been no system of religion under heaven since the days of the Apostles that has laid such claims to divine attributes and powers (possessed by only God Himself), as this ‘woman’. There is no need to strain the historical evidence to make it fit the case; it is the simple narration of the events as they have happened, which, when compared with the Divine ‘key’, shows that it applies to her—and can apply to no other. The following language, as quoted by Foxe in his Acts and Monuments (which see for full text), affords a mere sample of thousands of such blasphemous claims by various Popes: ‘All the earth is my diocese, and I am the ordinary (i.e. the bishop, R.P.C.) of all men, having the authority of the King of all kings upon the subject. I am all in all and above all, so that God Himself and I, the Vicar of God, have but one consistory (i.e. ecclesiastical court of judgement, R.P.C.), and I am able to do almost all that God can do. In all things that I list (i.e. wish, R.P.C.), my will is to stand for reason: for I am able by the law to dispense above the law, and of wrong to make justice in correcting laws and changing them .. . Wherefore if the things that I do be said not to be done of man, but of God, what can you make me but God?. . . Wherefore, no marvel if it be in my power to change time and times: to alter and abrogate laws, to dispense with all things, yea, with the precepts of Christ: for where Christ biddeth Peter put up his sword, and admonishes his disciples not to use any outward force in revenging themselves, do not I, Pope Nicholas, writing to the Bishops of France, exhort them to draw out their material swords?’ “.
“The fires of Smithfield” is a sometimes moving section in which Brother Walker pays due tribute to those whose protests against the Roman Catholic system led to the Bible being ‘wrenched’ from “the exclusive grasp of the Papacy”, and the opening of its illuminating pages to the eyes of man”. Brother Walker continues: “The fires of Smithfield have died down, but the candle of liberty has been lighted by our God. The translation of the Scriptures, together with the wideness of its publicity and the freedom to read its saving message has blazed into such a flame, that it has been one of God’s severest blows to the Papacy, from the effects of which it will never recover. Do we not, today, revel in the thought that we have an ‘open Bible’? And by its sweet message of salvation are we not rejoicing in the hope of coming deliverance? And, further, are we not proclaiming far and near, ‘Back to the Bible!’ and inviting all who will to turn their ear to the Gospel call? And how has all this been made possible? By ‘blood and tears’—the gibbet and the stake—the torture chamber and the fires of Smithfield! The devilish acts of Rome have been turned upon her by God, and already the sword of His judgements has entered her soul, and it will not be long ere her body will lie prostrate and dead under the feet of Him whom she has so much misrepresented and maligned”.
The value of all the material brought together in this single extended essay lies not simply, however, in its convenience for the student of Bible prophecy and ecclesiastical history. The hideous picture of the apostate Roman Catholic system which emerges is also, as Brother Brian Luke emphasises in the new preface which he has written for this edition, a timely reminder of the true nature of the now massively popular Church of Rome, with its deceptively charismatic head, John Paul II. “Let us be on our guard, keen to know the facts and act upon that sure knowledge. Let the ‘daughters’ return to their mother if they will, but let us have no part of their delusion”, writes Brother Luke. With these sentiments all true Christadelphians will heartily concur. The reissue of this book will surely help us to know the papacy for what it is, and to keep our foreheads free from the dreadful mark of the ‘other woman’.
Review of “The Early Earth” by John Whitcomb (1972)