pontificate, to enroll the name of this mighty conqueror among the tutelary saints of the church." To extend his own dominion and that of the Roman Church was the object of this warrior and his successors: to impose his own name upon the world by force of arms and that of his holiness of Rome, or Roman Saint. To maintain the faith and privileges of the church, formed a part of the coronation-oath of Charlemagne; and we find Frederic III. 1451, before he could enter the territorial patrimony of St. Peter to receive the imperial crown, obliged to take an oath conceived in these terms: "I Frederic king of the Romans, promise and swear, by the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, by the word of the vivifying cross, and by these reliques of saints, that if, by permission of the Lord, I shall come to Rome, I will exalt the holy Roman church, and his holiness who presides over it, to the utmost of my power. Neither shall he lose life, limb, or honor, by my counsel, consent, or exhortation. Nor will I, in the city of Rome, make any law or decree touching those things which belong to his holiness or the Romans, without the advice of our most holy lord Nicholas. Whatever part of St. Peter's Patrimony shall fall into our hands, we will restore it to his holiness; and he, to whom we shall commit the administration of our kingdom of Italy, shall swear to assist his holiness in defending St. Peter's patrimony to the utmost of his power. So help me God, and his holy Evangelists!" Russell Modern Europe, vol. II. p. 59, 1822.

How the emperors of the Romans exalted the holy Roman church and his holiness, will appear from the following facts. In order to bring the Pagan Saxons, whom Charlemagne had subdued, to Christianity, he decreed (and the method was honored with the approbation of Pope Adrian I.) that, "every Saxon who con

temptuously refused to receive the sacrament of baptism, and persisted in his adherence to Paganism, was to be punished with death.” Mosh. Cent. VII. p. 1, c. 1, s. 6, note, i. “The pain of death was pronounced against the following crimes :-1. The refusal of baptism; 2. The false pretence of baptism; 3. A relapse to idolatry; 4. The murder of a priest or bishop; 5. Human sacrifices; 6. Eating meat in Lent. But every crime might be expiated by baptism or penance." Gibb. IX. xlix. n. 98. In A. D. 810, Charlemagne established the Vahmic court in Germany, to search out and punish those who did not adopt Christianity. Longchamps. Les Fast. Uni. S. D. Relig .A. D. 810. Otho, A. D. 937, subdued Bohemia, and obliged the Bohemians to embrace Christianity. The same Cæsar of the Romans obliged the Danes to pay him tribute, A. D. 948, and receive baptism as an earnest of their good behaviour. Russell Modern Europe, vol. 1. p.p. 119, 121. But in all this it was not the religion of Jesus that was propagated: the name of Christianity was made use of to sanctify violence, and teach the conquered that "the powers that be" (the victors) were " ordained of God," while indeed that very revelation had declared them to be of diabolical origin. The dragon gave them their power, and their seat, and great authority. It was not the religion of Jesus, it was the religion of the Roman Churches and tithes that was extended. "It will be proper here to transcribe,” says Mosheim," from the epistles of the famous Alcuin, once abbot of Canterbury, a remarkable passage, which will shew us the reasons that contributed principally to give the Saxons an aversion to Christianity, and at the same time will expose the absurd and preposterous manner of teaching used by the ecclesiastics who were sent

to convert them. This passage in the 104th epistle, and the 1647th page of his works, is as follows: "Si tanta instantia leve Christi jugum et onus ejus leve durissimo Saxonum populo prædicarentur, quanta decimarum redditi vel legalis pro parvissimis quibuslibet culpis edictis necessitas exigebatur, forte baptismatis sacramenta non abhorrerent. Sint tandem aliquando doctores fidei apostolicis eruditi exemplis : sint prædicatores, non prædatores." Here the reader may see a lively picture of the kind of apostles that flourished at this time; apostles who were more zealous in exacting tithes, and extending their authority, than in propagating the sublime truths and precepts of the gospel; and yet these very apostles are said to have wrought stupendous miracles." Cent. vi. p. 1, c. 1, s. 6, note h. The laws of the Eastern Emperors were revived by Frederic II. In 1224 he ordered the secular judges to deliver to the flames those whom the inquisitors should condemn as heretics, and to leave in perpetual imprisonment those who recanted. He applied the law of high treason to heretics, and pronounced the pain of death against those whom the church should declare such. Les F. Univ. S. de Relig. 1224.

It was before the tribunal of the Western Cæsar of the Romans, Sigismund, at the council of Constance, that John Huss, A. D. 1415, and Jerome of Prague, 1416, were brought, and by it condemned to the flames. By the refusal of the cup in the sacrament to the Hussites, they were driven in open rebellion against the Emperor, A. D. 1419, and though they obtained a general amnesty, A. D. 1436, would have again been compelled to revolt, had not Sigismund's death prevented his carrying into execution another attempt to tyrannize over their con

sciences. But it was for the German Cæsar, Charles V.* crowned Emperor of the Romans by Leo X. A.D. 1530, whose Empire extended over Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, and part of Italy, and only wanted France to make it equal to that of Charlemagne, to exhibit the boldest characters of the image, when that sore of the first vial, the reformation, fell upon his worshippers, and one half of Germany revolted from the see of Rome. For the cause of religion in the Netherlands alone, more than one hundred thousand of his subjects are said to have suffered by the hand of the executioner. Gibb. 11. xvi. n. n. 185. Under the Emperors Matthias, Ferdinand II. and III. a furious civil war desolated Germany for thirty years, A.D. 1618-1648, commenced by the Bohemian protestants, whose rights the first of these Cæsars had invaded. And thus did the image endeavour to impose his authority and that of his holiness of Rome, who created him, upon great and small, by tyrannizing over men's consciences and killing the obdurate. But upon the memorable peace of Westphalia, 1648, the Protestants were put upon an equal footing with the Catholics in the German Cæsariate, and after that the persecuting spirit of the image seems to have died away.

10. The scarlet coloured beast.-The beast that was, and is not, and yet is: the eighth king, i. e. kingdom or empire under the dynasty of the French kings, put for the Roman empire or ten kingdoms itself, of which they

*The title assumed by this Emperor was: Karulus Quinctus favente Dei clementia imperator Romanorum, perpetuum Augustus, rex Germaniarum, Hispaniarum, Siciliarum, Hierosolymorum, Pannoniarum, Dalmatiæ, Croatia, Sardinia, Corsica, Balearum insularum, Canariarum, Indiarum et littoris Oceani Dominator, exarchus Austriæ, dux Burgundiæ, etc. pius, felix, inclytus, victor ac triumphator. Le Nouveau Traité de Diplom.

H

take the lead, now drunk to the full with the blood of the saints, shortly after the period of the 1260 years.

11. Beast of the bottomless pit. The beast of the abyss or sea.

12. The four beasts which surround the throne. See CREATURES.

13. A beast's heart. See MAN.

BED,-i. e. A bed of sickness and pain. Great tribulation and anguish, Rev. ii. 22. I will cast her into a bed.

BLASPHEME, (BLASPHEMY),

1. To speak irreverently of sacred persons or things: or apply divine titles and attributes to improper objects. Rev. ii. 9; xiii. 6; xvi. 9, 11, 21.

2. Names of blasphemy. A Hebraism, blasphemous names. Rev. xiii. 1.

3. To blaspheme God's name, Rev, xiii. 6. Dan. viii. 11, 25; xi. 36. To assume it, as did the Roman Emperors, who called themselves, God Emperor, our Divinity, our Eternity, our Perpetuity, the Oracle of the Divine Voice, and such more in their codes and elsewhere; and Divus Imperator is generally used for the Emperor by Justinian. Selden Titles of Honour. 1631. In the Code Theodosian 1. vi. tit. v. leg. 2, the Emperor Gratian confirming a law of precedency, published by Valentinian his father, styles himself, our Deity, declares his injunctions to be divine, and pronounces those who disobey them to be guilty of sacrilege. Impp. Gratianus, Valentinianus, et Theodosius, A. A. A. ad Prætextatum, P. V. Celestis recordationis Valentinianis genitor, numinis nostri singulis quibusque dignitabus certum locum meritumque præscripsit. Si quis igitur indebitum sibi