Conclusion of the Matters Here Related

We will now take leave of the popes, and let them pass. It is enough for us to know that their succession, of which the papists boast so much, is confused and empty, or at least without solid grounds. How we have proved this is not for us to say; we let others judge.

This would be the proper time to show the highly renowned Latin church, the Roman Babylon, in her full form; to bring up from the bottom, and set out in detail and in the best order, the many and irreconcilable disputes which have arisen from time to time in, with, and among them over matters of faith, although they have so much to say about their extraordinary unity: how the popes contended against the councils, and the councils against the popes; how one annulled and rejected what the other had made and established; indeed, how they sometimes persecuted one another even to death, and devoured and killed each other in the most cruel manner, as though they were fighting with their sworn enemies; to say nothing of the great amount of superstition and human invention,* which, like horrible monsters and deformed births, have come, now from one, then from another, out of the lap of the wrongly named holy Roman church; for to treat this as the subject demands would be an almost endless task, or at least require a whole book. [n81-1] What was once a comedy (with respect to the cheerful and merry rule of the papal dominion) has, through the beginnings of its downfall, been changed into a tragedy. However, what we have shown relates only to this present life; but the most mournful tragedy, according to the threatening of God (still, we hope for the best), is yet to come, and concerns the future and eternal life.** [n81-2]

Besides these most ungodly things which we have mentioned, they were drunk with the blood of the saints; indeed, they did not only pour out the blood of the beloved friends and children of God like water, and cool their thirst for blood with it, but, besides unthinkable cruelties, they also heaped the greatest disgrace upon their bodies, throwing them like mud upon the ground, or giving them to the beasts for food, or, on stakes and wheels, to the birds to devour.*** [n81-3]

God will certainly still visit this upon them, and not let it go unavenged. "He who touches you," says Zechariah to the church of God, "touches the apple of his eye" (Zechariah 2, verse 8).

Oh, that they would be converted in time! Oh, that they would get ahead of the uplifted rod of the divine wrath! Oh, that they would fear, and escape, through genuine repentance, the fearful kindled fire of his everlasting displeasure, which the wicked and unrepentant will certainly bring upon themselves. That meanwhile all those who are still imprisoned in Babylon, and sit in the darkness and shadow of death, would, for the saving of their soul, flee out of her; that they would set out for Jerusalem, the spiritual vision of peace (understand, the true church of God); that they would seek their souls' salvation while there is time, indeed, that they would find it, obtain it and keep it! This is certainly a thing to be wished for.

NOTE. "Come out of her, my people, that you not be partakers of her sins, and that you not receive of her sins" (Revelation 18, verse 4).

These words, it appears, are taken from the address of the prophet Jeremiah to the Israelites who were in bondage, in Babylon, spoken as in a hurried and frightened voice: "Flee out of Babylon, and let every man deliver his soul; do not be cut off in her iniquity; for this is the time of the Lord's vengeance; he will render to her a recompense" (Jeremiah 51, verse 6).