It is not only in the realm of material things that thought precedes action, or is necessary for it. To have them, to have them as they are, they need the constructive certainties and legal forms which direct or inhibit, and  are to inhabit them. In the political arena, it is much the same, except that when man goes mad in lust, passion and prestige hunting parties, the forms themselves may be mutilated; but then, at that, their results work out in the manner of things invisible, determinable by will. It is another realm, but not without its own rules.

In Britain, there was a Protestantism so intense, so zealous, for whatever reasons, that the very thought of papal power again intruding her bloodied ambitions into the realm was as foreign as Asia, and indeed more so, for it had been tasted at VERY close quarters, for a LONG time! The plotting even in the days of Elizabeth was again so profound that Mary lost her head, a second and final time. The Armada was from a Romish power. The Holy Roman Empire was not a mere amusing name. It had strength. It used it. Rome ruled heads off bodies and bodies into flames without mere idyllic talk. It actually did it.

It is not then  at all surprising, that the ceremonies attaching to the coronation, in Great Britain, are exceedingly intense on the side of the wisdom from the Bible which the sovereign is expected to gain and act upon. That is the indication made in the form of the ceremony.

Now ? How changed the actuality is becoming! There was a day when, of course, we were assured that EUROPE, the United Europe, after all a genuine idea in the mind of Winston Churchill, was a trading need, a unity achievement to facilitate things. The idea of a super-power usurping sovereignty was not to the point, any more than it was in the World Council of Churches, as a super-church: though in spiritual eminence the latter has been anything but that! Yet power aggregates in this world, unless sanctified by the Lord's own presence, and its many ministers tend to corrupt themselves into what they can get for purposes ... at once developing and developmental! This and that is to be sacrificed for it. It MUST be so.

Europe MUST have a common currency to dilate the trade, improve the unity, make more realistic the whole bundle of co-operation which business so greatly needs for its integral character, its ready ramifications and its pleasant assurances of action uncomplicated by oddities and variabilities in this and that land. Naturally, it needs a common defence. Necessarily, there must likewise be cohesion in its defence of the market place, and is this not likewise security ? But of course it needs also a communication sorting room, so that all may be au fait with anything any nation may be planning; for, don't you know, the sense of community is SO important for a sound base for transactions! But a parliament, a European Parliament: how futile and illusory would seem a mere series of meeting. Yes, a Parliament is seen necessary. But a Parliament with power: what is the use of going to all that trouble and having all that talk, only to be like some back-street side-show.

• So it develops precisely as predicted (cf. SMR pp. 902-931, 957ff.).

But from what ? and at whose hands ? THESE are the questions to ask.

Thus the appalling horror of having a land not sufficiently corrupt sexually, now by JUDICIAL POWER ABROAD, being made more so - indeed  by a European Court,  comes to add iron to the mixture. If it were not enough for some pockets of decency and at least traditional morality to remain, in the midst of the huge lapses in many a nation, then here is the answer: have the European body, replete with its heavily Roman past, both in Empire and in Holy Roman Empire, start giving the morals of what might Biblically justly be called "the harlot" (Revelation 17:15), although to be sure (SMR pp. 946ff.), that is the specific sobriquet of the Roman ecclesiastical body.

Europe ? it is still the land the pope statedly felt should be ... his (cf. SMR pp. 955ff.). Indeed, is not all the world in this condition according to the RC Council of Trent (SMR pp. 903, 913-916).  Both swords, symbols of power and rule, the TEMPORAL and the SPIRITUAL, are statedly "in the power of the church" - that -means, in this context, the specialised Roman body.

As to that body, and the question of its Master, hear Boniface VIII, in his thoughts about Philip the Fair of France: "How shall we assume to judge kings and princes, and not dare to proceed against a worm! Let them perish forever, that they may understand that the name of the Roman pontiff is known in all the earth and that he alone is most high over princes" (SMR p. 913).

Certainly, the Council of Europe in its Article 1 (a) stated:

• "The aim of the Council of Europe is to achieve a greater unity between members for the purpose of safeguarding and realising their ideals and principles which are their common heritage and facilitating their economic and social progress" -  SMR p. 923.

 

 

In that place in our trilogy, this comment is made on that assertion of common heritage:

What however are the 'ideals and principles' which loom in a 'common heritage'? The rule of the force of a Hitler ? of a Bonaparte ? of a Mussolini ? Is it then the ungodly horror of pope and (Holy Roman) Emperor, striving for supremacy, the one over the other, for so long as to leave a... tradition! Is it their use of material power to implement (Roman) Catholic imperialistic ends (the term is just: the explicit claims are already noted). And what have these ends, these aims, involved ? not only the elevation of the pope at the expense of Christ, but the effectual belittling of the commands of Christ in the Bible, in the interim. The interim ? that until He personally returns, as He so clearly and so often stated, to deal with King impersonators and disbelievers; for they cannot stay, who will not stay with God, for God remains (cf. Zechariah 9:7, and pp. 623 ff. supra). And He remains God, and He alone (Isaiah 45:21-25). Even among the sons of the mighty, there is none like Him... not even like Him! (Psalm 89:5-6.)

Is this occasion of war - on Christ, on Christians (cf. Revelation 19:19), is this the 'common heritage', is it found, this communal past, in the Inquisition - so astonishingly long-lived, as we saw, with its ferocity still so readily unleashed in 'new ways', even this century ? Is it here, perchance! Is the torture of Christians, the butchery, no less, by Romanists to be seen in the light of a common heritage, as if blood reduces all, and being drunk with it effaces thought ? Forgiveness is not stultification... Is it like a game, with both sides part of the whole show ? Which side, then, is death, in union ?

6. The Illusions of Unity and the Marshalling of the Marketeers

Is the Reformation and the anti-Reformation a common heritage ? Is the despatch of corpses by burning, and the experience of being burnt, a common heritage ? Is it so when the very Canons of Trent remain unchanged, and 'infallible' ex cathedra popes have called to the heavens to sanctify their desire to exterminate... extirpate... any who dare diverge from their pontifical, dynamic dogmatism in doctrine ?

Ever new, this dogma reaches to the very heavens, where last century they installed Mary complete with a sinless life, having loaded her with blasphemous titles such as redemptrix (i. e. female redeemer, versus Acts 4:12, Hebrews 9:12-28, 10:26-29, Luke 2:23-24 with Leviticus 12:8 and Hebrews 9:15; Psalm 49:6-7,15, Romans 3:23, 1 John 1:8-9, Hosea 13:14, Isaiah 43:11), queen of heaven and sundry pagan insults to the very name of God and indeed to Mary (Jeremiah 7:18 and 44:15-30) who did nothing to earn this abuse of her name (Isaiah 26:13, 1 Timothy 2:5-6, Ephesians 1:10, Hebrews 10:20,29, Matthew 12:46-50). The category of redeemer of the soul of man is herein, by the word of God, shown to be exclusive to God, to a non-sinner, and once again Rome confuses Creator with creature, insulting the purity of Christ. This function of redemption excludes all help, aid, or work, but that of the one God Himself!

Is then political pragmatism and religious innovation (versus Galatians 1:6-9 which damns it) deemed a common heritage ? Is the infallible word of the unchanging God, Himself alone the mediator in the form of man, who once was in the form of God (Philippians 2) and now has a name above every name, by which alone salvation is to be found (Acts 4:12): Is this, leading to pure and sacrifical adherence to the scriptures, to be put with that!

Do we cast the beauty of freedom from
the threefold papal crown with all its political assertions and worldly, carnal pretensions (versus Philippians 2:8; 2:20-22; Matthew 5:5; 18:1-5, 20:24,27-28, 23:11 Ezekiel 31:10-18, II Corinthians 10:5, Isaiah 2:10-11, 1 John 2:27, Luke 22:26, John 13:14-15!)
into one common pot
with the rule of the 'spiritual' OVER the temporal, of Pope over prince (verses John 18:36):
as the accepted tradition of ALL!

This rugged, and all but comic craze, sent Europe almost reeling for centuries as Emperor and Pope pursued their unseemly quest for dominance, with grandiose papal bulls scouring the heavens for further means of higher exaltation of that name which is not "above every name": since it was never that of Jesus (Acts 4:11-12, Philippians 2:9); and has not been so elevated, since no pope did ever, leaving the form of God, take the form of a man, a servant, to the point of becoming obedient to death, even the death of the cross (Philippians 2:5-9), the cited Biblical preliminary for such exaltation of Him who alone will be exalted in that day (Isaiah 2:10-11).

It is this same Jesus, who sinless, unlike every pope (1 Peter 2:22-25) or invention of the pope, or of his dogmas, did not need to first pay for His own sins (Hebrews 7:27), as do all sinners, who must be redeemed, men and women (Romans 3:23), all other members of the human race whatsoever: but by the body of His flesh through death redeemed all sinners who are His, those wholly dependent on His unique act (Colossians 1:22-23, Romans 5:1-10, 8:32, John 10:26, 8:24). That act depends, as Colossians there shows, on His unique post as co-Creator of all that was created, and His having all the fulness of the Godhead dwell in Him (Colossians 1:19-23, 2:9).

Indeed, He "in all things has the pre-eminence", it is here scripturally stated,because it so pleased the Father that this Person, with His plenary place before and with God, should so humble Himself and so act, in life and in death on earth. His is no meretricious exaltation: He was God, and HE humbled Himself to become a servant. He did not exalt himself to become a Lord, from the status of a creature; but, quite the reverse, as God assumed the status of man, so that He might bring us back to God, from whom He came.

This in its magnificence of uncreated humility, a common heritage with pope and emperor challenging and humiliating each other, in the way so famous from the medieval era, so 'infallibly' enshrined within the Roman church's structure of power and concept and Trent itself: is this 'common' to all!

Will unity then come because Rome will repent ? Yet in modern times from John Paul in his 'ecumenism' to the present Pope, there is constant reiteration of Trent! It is like Lenin to the Marxists. Must one be blind and deaf not to hear the Popes, per se, constantly reiterate this dogmatic determination to stay what they are: with their bundle of traditional infallibility, like a bionic electrode, sticking into their very beings. Do not mistake. This is one example only of tension and empty words, in a full program and agenda for that Europe, with its special emphasis on Rome that Daniel foretold as being the kingdom of the end. In Europe it is; and Rome is the name for it, the exemplar and the base in history to which Daniel refers (*11).

Where there is room for such an example of illusory European 'unity', there is room for a further, a more developed illustration of the unity resolution. Any makeshift mischief may be 'found' to be mandatory and obvious, to bring Europe to the power of dictatorial unbelief which makes up a 'beast'. Where 'ideals' for this Common Market are formulated in high-sounding words, where in fact there is such a morass of contrariety and divergence, from a history of such still unresolved terror and evil, not formally repented of... what would the REPARATIONS BE, for the countless slain of the INQUISITION ?... such ideals can still be 'interpreted' as may seem best for the great objectives.

If scripture is now almost routinely, rankly interpreted by contradiction, how much more are mere historical facts alone and vulnerable, without Him! Where God is not in explicit rule, then man, with such dominion as the Common Market countries envisage (and with first increasing, but then decreasing resistance from Britain as 1992 approached), can invent any form of control, as if it were the very criterion of freedom.

Sad is Britain's moral decline; but this is an ACCELERATION FROM OUTSIDE, yes from Europe!

In a document, called the GAY LAW NEWS, which appears anything but perverse on the sexual question, we have the report of these developments. It starts:
 

"UNITED KINGDOM, London - The Ministry of Defence is to pay millions of pounds to Service personnel dismissed from the Armed Forces for being homosexual."

 

It is objected by the European Court that this is a PRIVATE matter, the sexual 'orientation' of warriors, and that it is perverse and improper for her Majesty's Government to make an issue of it. It is, they indicate, biased and unsustained, this persecution of the discriminated, and it must be paid for, and stop!

That is a fine European message, and the tone of it is so different from the rather vague, almost romantic seeming ramblings of the Council of Europe articles, that it is apparent that a steel industry has grown up in Europe, in the interim of some few decades. It injects.

We next find reported that Geoff Hoon, Defence Secretary, has promised a change of policy, with ministry sources saying it would come as quickly as possible.

The most interesting section of the European sanctions against this British moral insistence for its armed forces is this: the European Court noted that the Ministry of Defence policy (concerning non-allowance of homsexuals in the armed forces) was not based on a particular moral standpoint and the physical capability, courage, dependability and skills of homosexual personnel were not in question.

Whatever the case may be, this last point does not appear with any reported justification. There are obvious grounds for manipulation of those whose conduct is immoral, let the 'social conscience' say what it may; and this has been seen in the infamous spying ring which betrayed British atomic secrets to Russia for so long, with such results. It is not the place here to consider to what extent the different sexual orientation makes people of male gender more readily manipulable by those to whom the marital program is attached, but in the male line and without issue; and vice versa, in the female case. It is however the case that the result in this connection has been almost enough to end the power of England.

Certainly God has His own ways of rebuke; and if it is not given by one method, He may freely choose whatever method He prefers.

However, in detail,  our concern is now with the former point from the European centre of judgment in this case: the Court is here shown to be claiming that the British desire to exclude those of this sexual attitude, was not FOUNDED ON MORAL CONSIDERATIONS.

With the Church of England the national church, and the Queen alleging an attitude to the wisdom of the Bible which is to all appearances, unequivocal, it would have seemed in any ordinary approach, that the MORAL QUESTION was not really uncertain (death penalty in the Old Testament, and exclusion from eternal life in the New - Leviticus 18:22, I Timothy 1:9, I Corinthians 6:10). Unrepented sin, to be sure, is of this type, for when sin is the ruler and Christ is not, how is HE Lord ? If one insists on being a thief, it is the same. If a man says, Stealing is my commercial orientation, it is the same. If this is the cap you make, then wear it. If you wear it, then this is the Biblical result. To fight against sin is one thing; to endorse it is another.

However, although the sovereign at coronation so praised the wisdom of the Book, yet the church itself in England, the national one, has been only marginally clear on the issue, though it is true that its large and contemporary council came down in the direction of orthodoxy. If this were the direction, however, it is by no means the same as a DIRECTIVE! Nevertheless, this does show the trend from Europe, the more clearly.

• One wonders what the Court would do if it did see clearly enough for its eyes to behold, that it WAS A MORAL RULE that Britain wished to keep, and that in the case of the Army, where the privacies of changing and sleeping are most commonly involved, it has particular impact and importance. Thus,  the young might in such a setting, be systematically misled by the old, to take but one example, and the defence of the realm be an offence to the fighters, yes and their downfall before any military battle.

In other words, to bow to such sanctions is to abrogate the wisdom of the Bible, and to fall further in the way Britain has already so famously, markedly and tragically fallen, in the atomic realm. If this is what in fact Britain wants, despite its brave words, and if a departure from the Bible of this categorical and basic magnitude is in view, then Britain is going on its own way. However, what is clear is this: Europe is changing the balance of power in Britain on this point.

As to danger: It is useless to consider the small number of cases cited; it is enough that it is Biblically condemned by the God who states that He works all things after the counsel of His own will, and knows how to rebuke the two-faced, the double-tongued and the brow audacious against His rulings; and the more so, when there is a measure of national commitment to Him, which is thus openly breached!

Israel scarcely, at times, seemed to know how to cease to provoke the Lord, and continued, as Britain is now being REQUIRED BY EUROPE to continue, until the end came (II Kings 17:7-18). They "SOLD THEMSELVES TO DO EVIL", is one of the judgments of God against the sundered and scattered northern land of Israel, at that time, and this may readily be read in the indictment words, just cited above from Kings.

Thus one by one, what had been in some measure and sense, bastions, are going. The US with the Clinton affair, not even rebuking him in the Senate, has already made its relativistic mark, as if personality were god, and morality were an option, rather than the God of truth the Lord, and morality one key area of demonstrating WHERE YOU BELONG. It is of course by FAITH that a person is saved, but faith without works is dead; and the dead works are mounting as if THIS, this immoral paunch on the political life of our time, were to become the status symbol of the new century, the century of Sodom: and worse than this, for as in Israel sexual sin and spiritual deviation were parallel, so here what is forecast is the decline in both together. After all, you cannot legislate for sexual perversion, Biblically defined and condemned, and subject people to it as a lawful exercise, if your nation has concern to keep Biblical truth. Hence, in principle, the one CAN go only if the OTHER has gone, for a free people.

This we are seeing.
 
 

Europe is here acting as an accelerator. Britain is being defeated not in battle, as by the Romanish Spanish Armada defeated in 1588, one undoubtedly intended to FORCE England back to the rule of Rome; nor by the RC leaning Hitler, who admired the Jesuit organisation, and whom Franco reported at the end as a loyal RC. No, such is not the case. Rather,  her fall is being undertaken in this cardinal respect, by her CHUNNEL partners in the European Court, with principles more corrupted than those she has so far permitted herself;  and this Court in this is requiring her fall to be deeper.

That, Biblically is the position. That is what the word of God provides in principle in this arena.

So do men makes of themselves the slaves of folly and the servants of sin, not where their courage was well roused and their mettle was good; but when their hearts grew sick.

As to the morals, as one can read in the Biblical references given: IT IS WRITTEN. Where the Bible is heeded, THIS IS THE CASE. It is NOT an opinion. In all this, God is being mocked. But ... God is not mocked (Proverbs 1:26,, Psalm 2, Galatians 6:7) and the way that works can be quite, quite fatal. Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind (Hosea 8:7) is an advice which it is NOT well to follow.

As the word of the Lord, in country after country, is being minimised and dismissed, reviled and contravened, mocked and immorally sent into subsidence in the hearts of many, the exact conditions for which the return of the Lord is the terminus, are appearing. But many sleep, like the 10 foolish virgins (Matthew 25:1-10); and many, like the 'virgins' are asleep in their pews, where increasingly, what they hear is sweet music, contrary to the word of God (cf. Stepping Out for Christ 1); which was also predicted for such a time as this.

The Jews are back, so that the time IS POSSIBLE; and their RULE means that the time of the GENTILES IS ABOUT OVER. The rest nestles in the complex like a delicatessen shop in a shopping complex. It is very snug, and has interesting wares, and beware of its dainties.

It is time, sleeping virgin, to wake up.

It is time travailing politician, to wake up.

It is time to seek the Lord, to seek meekness, to seek righteousness (Zephaniah 2:3).

There may not be much of it left.

"Seek the LORD, all you meek of the earth,
Who have upheld His justice.
Seek righteousness, seek humility.
It may be that you will be hidden in the day of the LORD's anger" - Zeph. 2:3.