Christ gave to us, and of which kings might be only the nursing-fathers, or patrons, Is. xlix. 23, the abovementioned potentates seized and took to wife, and made her the "WHORE" and " THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS," Rev. xvii. 1-5. They gave her to the beast; i. e. they subjected her to the same sort of Gentile authority, dominion, and lordship, as the Roman Emperors exercised, and of which they were the originators and inventors, who did with her whatever they pleased. Now the church, or Roman Empire in its ecclesiastical capacity, is represented as in good condition enough before its last struggle with, and its victory over, Paganism, Rev. xii. 7—11; and when that has happened, viz. at the time it became subject to the Roman Emperors, it is represented as immediately flying to the wilderness. But why flying to the wilderness then? Because only then its individual members had become corrupt? Nay—for these, as the state-churchman Milner, in his History of the Church of Christ, Cent. iv. chap. xvii. has successfully shewn, had become corrupt before. Why then is it not represented as flying to the wilderness before? Because, though the individual members of the church had become excessively corrupt, yet as the constitution of the church was not materially altered till the usurpation of Constantine, and its alliance with, or dependence on, or subjection to, the state, and as it had still power to recover its early condition of purity from the vigour of its own unimpaired organization, it was still the Church of Christ; but when once it submitted to any interference from the civil power, however corrupt its members might have been before, yet then only as the intrinsic principles of its government were given up, did it cease to be Christ's kingdom, and become the "Whore" of the Beast, and the "Mother of Harlots." See HARLOT.

7. The beast that was and is not, and yet is. See 5.

8. Two horned beast of the earth. The papacy which extended over the two Prætorian Præfectures of Gaul and Italy. See ANGEL, 2. He had two horns like a lamb. Over these two Præfectures the Pope exercised a jurisdiction seemingly like that of the Lamb, our Lord, a spiritual one. But he spake as a dragon. He, like the princes of the Gentiles, exercised dominion over them, contrary to the system of our Lord, who has created us to make us his equals, his companions in his regal hierarchical republic, where all receive their equal stipend : like man, vain man, tricked out in a little brief authority, he played his tricks before high heaven as made the angels weep. He spake as big as a Pagan Tyrant, or Dæmon-god. He exercised all the power of the first beast in his presence. Rev. xiii. 11, 12. See Horn 1.

9. Image of the sea beast. The Western Empire revived by Charlemagne, A. D. 800, and continued afterwards under the German Cæsars of the Romans, who were the heads, by turns, of ten, seven, and again ten electors, who had the authority and power of kings, and answered to the number of horns of the great prototype, the Latino-Greek decemvirate or septemvirate of the empire, ten of whose horns were likewise reduced to seven by the eradication of three of them before the Pope, though they again regained their original number by the subsequent new construction of the kingdoms in the various revolutions of Europe. "Seven of the most powerful feudatories were permitted to assume, with a distinguished name and rank, the exclusive privilege of choosing the Roman emperor; and these electors were, the king of Bohemia, the duke of Saxony, the margrave of Brandenburgh, the count palatine of the Rhine, and the three Archbishops of Mentz, of Treves and of Cologne." Gibb. ix. xlix. n. n. 149. But "at the elec

seven.

tion of Lothaire, in 1124, the princes, it is said, trusted the choice of an emperor to ten persons. This precedent was, in all likelihood, followed at all subsequent elections," till in 1239, or by the Golden Bull of Charles IV. A. D. 1355, the number was absolutely restrained to "The dignity of Elector was then enhanced as highly as an imperial edict could carry it; they were declared equal to KINGS and conspiracy against their persons incurred the penalty of high treason. Many other privileges were granted to render them more completely sovereign within their dominions." Hallam's Europe during the Middle Ages, vol. ii. p.p. 108, 120, 121-4th Edition. One elector was added in 1649, and another in 1692, and at the commencement of the nineteenth century they became ten again: "Yet the supremacy of the Emperor was not confined to Germany alone," says Gibbon ix. xlix. n. n. 153: "the hereditary monarchs of Europe confessed the pre-eminence of his rank and dignity: he was the first of the Christian princes, the temporal head of the great republic of the West: to his person the title of majesty was long appropriated; and he disputed with the Pope the sublime prerogative of creating kings and assembling councils." "In 1806, from the arbitrary policy of Buonaparte, the cumbrous and intricate Germanic system received so rude a shock, that Francis II. disclaimed all future concern in the general government, and, renouncing that dignity, which he had acquired by election, declared himself emperor of Austria." In 1815, a new organization was given to the Germanic body. "The ten princes who had the privilege of electing the emperor, were, at the time of the abolition of the Germanic constitution, the elector prince archbishop of Ratisbon (or Aschaffenburg), arch-chancellor of the empire-the king of Bohemia (the Austrian

emperor, who was styled grand cup-bearer-the king of Bavaria, who was grand sewer, or the officer who served out the feasts-the king of Saxony, the great marshal-the elector of Brandenburg (king of Prussia) arch-chamberlain -the elector of Hanover (king of Great Britain), arch-treasurer-the elector of Saltzburg—the king of Wurtemburg, arch-pantler-the electors of Baden and Hesse." Yet the Emperor of the Romans still exists, and " the title of the sovereign of Austria, since his assumption of the hereditary imperial dignity, is: Francis, by the Grace of God, elected EMPEROR OF THE ROMANS, always august, hereditary emperor of Austria, king of Hungary, Bohemia, and Lombardy, archduke of Austria, duke of Lorraine, Saltzburg, &c." Guthrie's Geogr. Gr. 24th Edit. 1827.

St. John says, that the earth beast, which is the Pope or Papacy, Rev. xiii. 12, 13, 14, exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast whose deadly wound was healed. And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, and deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live. The Pope had hitherto reverenced the power of the LatinoGreek Emperors and caused all the earth to acknowledge their authority; but when the Greek emperor, Leo the Isaurian, A. D. 726, proscribed by an edict image-worship, and “the images of Christ and the Virgin, of the angels, martyrs, and saints, were abolished in the churches of Italy," those images which Pope Gregory II. asserted to be "the genuine forms of Christ, his mother and his saints, who had approved, by a crowd of miracles,

the innocence and merit of this relative worship," "he boldly armed against the public enemy, and his pastoral letters admonished the Italians of their danger and their duty. The Italians swore to live and die in defence of the pope and the holy images; and so high was the public indignation, that the Italians were prepared to create an orthodox emperor, and to conduct him with a fleet and army to the palace of Constantinople. In that palace, the Roman bishops, the second and third Gregories, were condemned as the authors of the revolt, and every attempt was made, either by fraud or force, to seize their persons, and to strike at their lives. To restore his dominion in Italy, the emperor sent a fleet and army into the Adriatic gulf. After suffering from the winds and waves much loss and delay, the Greeks made their descent in the neighbourhood of Ravenna: they threatened to depopulate the guilty capital, and to imitate, perhaps to surpass, the example of Justinian the second, who had chastised a former rebellion by the choice and execution of fifty of the principal inhabitants. The women and clergy, in sackcloth and ashes, lay prostrate in prayer; the men were in arms for the defence of their country; the common danger had united the factions, and the event of a battle was preferred to the slow miseries of a siege. It was a hard-fought day, as the two armies alternately yielded and advanced, a phantom was seen, a voice was heard, and Ravenna was victorious by the assurance of victory. The strangers retreated to their ships, but the populous sea-coast poured forth a multitude of boats; the waters of the Po were so deeply infected with blood, that during six years the public prejudice abstained from the fish of the river; and the institution of an annual feast perpetuated the worship of images, and the abhorrence of the Greek tyrant. Amidst