older discovery that the Inquisition, if generally a remorseless servant of popery, was sometimes a haughty and stubborn opponent of the Pope. The government considers it to be dangerous to allow a body to exist which is useless, and always armed against reason," is the language of one of the writers, who announces the measure, and his assertion carries with it the weight to be derived from the history of the Popedom.

The extinction of torture and secrecy is the virtual extinction of the tribunal. The power of the Pope, as a systematic persecutor, has been annulled by the events growing out of the Republic of 1793. prophecy is fulfilled.

The

Yet it is predicted that persecution shall yet make one fierce struggle, in which the Papacy with its auxiliary ministers shall be conspicuous. In what shape that calamity may come is still obscure, but its time. shall be brief. The system of persecution was broken in the same æra that saw the chains fall from around the Bible.

Ver.1. And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father's name written in their foreheads.

2. And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: And I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps:

3. And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth.

4. These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whith

came out of the wine-press, even unto the horse-bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.

INTERPRETATION.

Ver. 1. As the preceding chapter began with a view of that state to which the Papacy was to arrive at the fulness of its power, so this chapter gives at its commencement a view of the Church in the triumph to which it shall arrive only at the close of the present order of the world.

The 144,000 standing on mount Sion are the Church of God in its completed number on earth. Thus, the Apostle; "But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God."**

AT

Ver. 2. Its completion is a subject of rejoicing in Heaven. It holds a communication of joy and thanksgiving with heaven neither understood nor shared in by the rest of mankind.

Ver. 3, 4. Those are they which were not defiled by turning away to image worship; they are henceforth to be in the perpetual presence of the Lord; they are purified from all sin through his blood.

Ver. 6, 7. The church having been shown to the prophet in its triumph, the steps by which that triumph is to arrive are now detailed. The first distinct point of the advance was the general diffusion of the Bible through the world, an evidence to all nations that the time of the final catastrophe is at hand, "the hour of his judgment is come."

Ver. 8. Connected with this diffusion was the sentence passed on the Papacy; whose career of persecution was broken off at the same period.

Ver. 9, 10, 11. A summons goes forth, whether by the transmission of the Bible alone, or by missions in conjunction with it to the papal nations, adjuring

them to fly to the Gospel from the utter ruin that is about to overwhelm the Papacy, its dominions, and its people.

Ver. 12. This ruin has been long since predicted as the punishment of its persecution of the people of God. He that killeth with the sword, must be killed by the sword; this is the patience and faith of the saints."*

Ver. 13. The voice of God, the "voice from heaven," declares that the saints who now die shall not, like those who died before, be retarded from their glory in the kingdom of the Lord. They shall soon enter into their rest, the seventh age, the Sabbath of God; their works shall follow them," they shall receive without delay the reward of their labours in the cause of holiness. The end of human evil and of the polluted state of the world is at hand.

Ver. 14, 15, 16. The day of the Divine Visitation comes; our Lord, at length crowned, being about to receive his kingdom, first gathers his people, the wheat of the great harvest. The earth is reaped, probably by a brief but violent persecution.

Ver. 17, 18, 19, 20. The final affliction begins, the wine-press is trodden, the frequent Scripture emblem of havoc. There is boundless destruction of life in battle, "blood to the horses' bridles." Sixteen hundred furlongs was the measurement of the land of Canaan. The visitation is merciless War.

Thus the Vision of the Church terminates, like the Seals, Trumpets, and Vials, in an universal war. The 1600 furlongs, comprehending the whole Jewish territory, are the symbol of the whole of Christendom; which, we may easily conceive, cannot be involved in hostilities of such fierceness, without involving all

*

† Joel iii. 13.

+ Mede states it to be also the measurement of the Papal terri

Apoc. xiii. 10.

tory,

nations. We are to observe also how closely this vision coincides with those already detailed, which place the diffusion of the Bible at but a short interval from the final convulsion.

PROPHECY.

THE FALL OF PAPAL ROME.

CHAPTER XVII.

Ver. 1. And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will show unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters:

2. With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.

3. 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 ten horns.

4. 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 filthiness of her fornication:

5. And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABY

LON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.

6. 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.

7. And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns.

8. The beast that thou sawest was, and is not: and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they be hold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.

9. And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.

10. And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue A short space.

11. And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.