aside, were for this purpose resorted to; and the evil symbols and appellations, therein used to prefigure themselves, applied to Christ's saints.'-Then were there also the bloody persecutions and crusades (mark the mockery of that term) raised against them by the Pope :-the promise of forgiveness of sins and salvation being his incentive to the Crusaders ;2 and their answer too often, "We have spared neither age nor sex; we have smitten every one with the edge of the sword."3 Besides which they were at all times by the Canon Law deprived of civil privileges; and it was declared that to murder such excommunicated heretics was no homicide.+-And so it was that they were at last overcome, as here foretold; and the Beast's pæan of triumph raised over their dead bodies, just before the Reformation. Of this, as I have told it before, it needs not that I now repeat the story. Let me only add that even afterwards the same spirit of blasphemy and cruelty against them, wherever opportunity offered, still continued. Witness the tone of the subsequent Papal Decrees, and of those too of the Pope's vassal kings, against them. Witness the doings of the Inquisition, the murders of Protestant martyrs in Italy, Belgium, Spain, England, and the massacre on St. Bartholomew's day of the French Hugonots. Of the latter I append the Romish commemorative medal. And I must observe that its still authorized re-casting at Rome," combined with the solemn annual repetition of the cursing of Protestant heretics, furnishes evidence both to the eye and to the ear of Protestants there sojourning, that the Papal resemblance to the Apocalyptic Beast remains on this, as on other points, unchanged, unchangeable. 1 e. g. Babylon, the Beast, the Apocalyptic locusts, the crucifiers of Christ, the emanation from the pit of the abyss, wolves in sheep's clothing, abomination in the holy place, &c. &c. The orations in the Councils offer ample exemplification. 2 As by Innocent III; Hard. vii. 3, 78. The Popes were wont to send a standard on such occasions to the Crusaders; with a Cross painted on it and the Papal Keys. Ducange on Vexillum S. Petri. 3 Ranke i. 32. 4 "Homicidas non esse qui excommunicatos trucidant." Gratian. Gibb. ix. 141. 5 See Ch. iii. Part iii, on the Papal conquest and slaughter of the Witnesses. 6 Given by Sir W. Cockburn, as the Frontispiece to his work on the subject. 7 For it is a re-casting without protest. 8 See my Vol. II. p. 393, Note 3: also my Note 4 p. 180 infrà. Thus have I shewn from history the application of all that was figured and explained to St. John respecting the Apocalyptic TEN-HORNED BEAST and its LAST RULING HEAD, to the POFEDOM and POPES of Western Europe. And I confidently appeal to the reader whether in regard alike of the heads and horns, and the characteristics of superhuman pride, and blasphemies, supremacy of power unparalleled, and oppression of the saints, (as well as in regard also of St. Paul's, St. John's, and Daniel's other predictions about ANTICHRIST,) there have not been shown a perfect coincidence such as seems to me to be not only convincing,' but wonderful.-And then what when we turn to consider the thing prefigured? Surely at this we must marvel; even as St. John, when he beheld the woman, or apostate Roman Church, upheld by the tenhorned monster, marvelled with great astonishment.2 To think that the simple Bishop of Rome should have ever conceived to found upon his episcopacy The late learned Bishop Van-Mildert in his speech on the Roman Catholic claims in the House of Lords, thus solemnly exprest his convictions on the great question considered in this chapter. "I am convinced, and that upon no light or superficial grounds, but after many years of studious consideration and enquiry, that the religion of Popery is distinctly and awfully pointed out in Scripture, as the one great apostacy from the truth, the declared object of the divine displeasure." See the Memoir prefixed to his Sermons and Charges, p. 103. I cannot but think that one main cause of the want of general conviction on this most important point, has been the fact of most English modern expositors interpreting the Apocalyptic Beast to mean the Western secular Empire and Emperors. Could it be said that the world worshipped the secular Emperors of the West, so as the Apocalyptic Beast was to be worshipped? Fact says plainly the contrary. To this I alluded at p. 92, on the opening of the subject; and again at p. 96 showed the inconsistency of such an interpretation with the prophecy of the local seat of the Beast being Rome's seven hills. To which let me here add, further, that the line of the Western Emperors is not continuous even from Charlemagne. E. g. Gibbon (ix. 190) notes a term of seventy-four years, between the abdication of Charles the First and establishment of Otho, as a period of vacancy of the Empire: and he also adds that the Italians (as Muratori for example, and so too Martene de Rit. ii. 213,) only reckon those to have been Emperors who have been crowned at Rome; i. e. only a few comparatively. 2 Apoc. xvii. 3. Of this vision of the Roman Church, "Mother and Mistress of all Churches," more in a subsequent Part of my Book, which takes directly into consideration that later vision. Let me however just suggest in passing two illustrations of the symbol of the Antichristian monster carrying that apostate Church, which he calls his bride: the first directly, from the Pagan fable of Jupi ter in the shape of a Bull carrying Europa, and the Hindoo fable of the Elephantgod carrying his wife;-the other in the way of contrast, from what is said in Scripture of God carrying and supporting the true Church, his Bride. Deut. xxxii. 11; Isa. lxii. 9, &c. the extraordinary character of CHRIST'S VICAR on earth, and under it so to add to his episcopal mitre the regno, or rather triregno crown, of super-imperial, might I not say of divine majesty,'-and that when he exhibited himself in this character of ANTI-CHRIST, arrayed in the pontificals of his See, (pontificals just such as are also Apocalyptically prefigured, of purple and scarlet and precious stones, the common sense as well as moral sense, of Christendom should have so prostrated itself, as for full 1200 years and more, to allow of, yea, and to adore the monster, the phænomenon must surely seem so wonderful as to be accountable for in no other way, than from the influence of the Dragon, the old Serpent, to blind the minds of men. The great earthly means and help to his assumption of the claim, and success, form the subject of the two next Chapters. But the real author of his success is expressly declared to have been the Dragon or Devil: who, after long reigning in the Paganism of the old Roman Empire, " gave him his seat, and power, and great authority,' CHAPTER VI. THE TWO-HORNED LAMB-LIKE BEAST. : 3 "And I beheld another wild Beast coming up out of the earth and he had two horns like a lamb; and he spake as a dragon. And he exerciseth all the power of the first wild Beast, before him. And he causeth the earth, and them which dwell therein, to worship the first wild Beast, whose deadly wound was healed. And he doeth great signs; and he maketh fire to come down from heaven on the earth, in the sight of men and The triregno, or triple crown, was worn in sign of the highest super-imperial power attaching to the See of Rome. See Ducange on Regnum: also my Vol. ii. p. 51, Note, and Note 2, p. 143 of this Volume. 2 Apoc. xvii. 3. See also Vol. ii. p. 78. VOL. III. M 3 Or land; EK TNS YNS. |