of Turkey, or the dragon of China, than the much abused symbol of the cross is of the papal Latin empire-The name then of the beast is Latinus; the number of his name is 666; and his mark, ¥ the cross.

With his description of the name of the revived beast the prophet interweaves an intimation of the extreme jealousy with which the ecelesiastical beast should regard every opposition to his authority. All, who refused to bear the name of Latins or Romans, and to receive the mark of the cross, as badges of their communion with him, and as an acknowledgment of his supremacy, should be allowed neither to buy nor to sell.

No one can be ignorant of the tremendous interdicts and excommunications of the Pope. St. John however does more than merely speak of them in general terms; he points out the precise mode of their operation. Bp. Newton has collected a variety of instances in which the predicted tyranny of the ecclesiastical beast has received even a literal accomplishment. "If any," says he,

"dissent from the stated and authorized forms of "the Latin church, they are condemned and ex"communicated as heretics; and, in consequence "of that, they are no longer suffered to buy or "sell: they are interdicted from traffic and com"merce, and all the benefits of civil society. So Roger Hoveden relates of William the Con

queror, that he was so dutiful to the Pope, that "he would not permit any one in his power to buy

"or sell any thing, whom he found disobedient to "the apostolic see. So the canon of the council "of Lateran under Pope Alexander the third, "made against the Waldenses and Albigenses, in

joins upon pain of anathema, that no man pre"sume to entertain or cherish them in his house or "land, or exercise traffic with them. The synod "of Tours in France under the same Pope orders, "under the like intermination, that no man should

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presume to receive or assist them, no not so "much as to hold any communion with them in

buying or selling; that, being deprived of the "comfort of humanity*, they may be compelled "to repent of the error of their ways. Pope "Martin the fifth, in his bull set out after the "council of Constance, commands in like man"ner, that they permit not the heretics to have "houses in their districts, or enter into contracts,

or carry on commerce, or enjoy the comforts of humanity with Christians t.'

The sum then of the whole is this. The two

Such are the convincing arguments used by Papists against those whom they are pleased to style heretics. The same pains and penalties appear to be still attached to excommunication in Ireland, so far as the Popish priests are able to enforce them. In the debate in the house of Lords (May 10th 1805) on what has been insidiously termed the catholic emancipation, Lord Redesdale publicly declared, that he knew a protestant gentleman, who had saved an unfortunate man under a popish sentence of excommunication from starving in the streets.

+ Bp. Newton's Dissert. on Rev, xiii.

apocalyptic

1

apocalyptic beasts are the two contemporary Roman Empires, temporal and sisting under its proper head.

spiritual, each subThe last head of the

one, under which it will go into perdition, is its double head, the patricio-imperial line of the Carlovingian Emperors: the sole head of the other is the line of Popes from the year 606, when the saints were formally given into the hand of the little horn, and when the period of 1260 days commenced. These two Empires mutually support each other in their joint tyrannical persecution of the witnesses; and are primarily, though unconsciously, influenced in their proceedings by the infernal serpent.

In order that the close connection of the two empires may the more evidently appear, St. John gives us a complete double, though united, symbol of them both, as they stand leagued together till their final destruction under the last vial at the termination of the 1260 years.

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And there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew "unto thee the judgment of the great whore, that "sitteth upon many waters: with whom the kings "of the earth have committed fornication, and the

inhabiters of the earth have been made drunk "with the wine of her fornication. So he carried "me away in the spirit into the wilderness; and I “saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, "full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads

and

and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold "and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand, full of abominations and filthi"ness of her fornication. And upon her forehead "was a name, written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE 66 GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABO66 MINATIONS OF THE EARTH. And I saw the "woman drunken with the blood of the saints, "and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: " and, when I saw her, I wondered with great "admiration."

Here again we behold the great secular Roman beast seven-headed and ten-horned, now represented as closely leagued with a mystic harlot, in the same manner as he was before connected with the twohorned beast. The reason is this: a harlot is only another symbol of an apostate idolatrous church: both the woman and the second beast equally typify the spiritual empire of the Papacy. In the former symbol, Popery was described as the coadjutor and instigator of the temporal beast: in the present symbol, it is represented in the plenitude of its power riding triumphantly upon the neck of kings, and exalting its authority far above that of its secular colleague*.

The

The construction of this compound hieroglyphic furnishes another argument, in addition to those already adduced, to prove that the ten-horned beast cannot be the Papacy. The harlot is evidently a distinct power froin the beast upon which she rides. But the Harlot is the Papacy. Therefore the beast cannot be the Papacy likewise. It is not unworthy of obser

vation,

The great whore is said to sit upón many waters These waters are explained by the angel to mean peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues. The sitting therefore of the whore upon many waters is precisely equivalent to her sitting upon the beast; for the beast symbolizes the divided Roman empire, and consequently all the waters or nations which it comprehends.

She is the whore, with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and with whose infatuating cup all their subjects have been intoxicated-The kings of the earth are the kings within the precincts of the Roman earth or empire ; and the fornication, which they have committed with the whore, is spiritual fornication, or an idolatrous apostasy from the simplicity of the Gospel.

As the kings or horns of the secular beast supported with all their might the corruptions of the whore, so were their subjects made drunk with her poisonous doctrines. None escaped, but the two mystic witnesses and their refusal to partake of the wine of her fornication was the cause of all the persecution which they endured both from the kings and from the inhabitants of the Roman earth, who had tasted of her maddening cup.

The place, where St. John beheld the whore riding upon her scarlet beast, was the wilderness-He

saw

vation, that the love of system has actually led some commentators to assert expressly, that the beast is the same as his rider. “Idem Antichristus per mulierem et per bestiam spectandus "producitur.” Pol. Synop. in loc.