from f^e feiBrarg of (pxofcBBox ^amuef (gttffer in (gl-emorg of Sub^e ^amuef (gtiffer (grecftinribge 3?teeenfeb 6g ^amuef (gtiffer (gtecftinrib^e feong fo f^ &i6rarg of (Princeton ^^^eofogicctf ^eminarg copy I AN EIPOSITION OF THE APOCALYPSE. BY DAVID N. LORD. HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 82 CLIFF STREET, NEW YORK. 184 7. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1846, By DAVID N. LORD, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. CONTENTS. Introduction. Section I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. IX. X. XI. XII. XIII. XIV. XV. XVI. XVII. XVIII. XIX. XX. XXI. XXII. XXIII. XXIV. XXV. XXVI. XXVII. XXVIII. XXIX. XXX. XXXI. XXXII. XXXIII. XXXIV. XXXV. Page. The Inspiration of the Apocalypse 5 The Reception of the Apocalypse by the Church. ... 19 The Apocalypse not a Poem 20 The Laws of Symbolic Representation 22 The Title of the Apocalypse 37 The Apostle's Salutation of the Churches 38 The First Vision. Christ's Annunciation 39 Epistles to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, and Thyatira 44 Epistles to Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea 46 The Vision of the Deity 52 The Delivery of the Book to Christ 60 The First Seal 65 The Second Seal 73 The Third Seal 105 The Fourth Seal 125 The Fifth Seal 153 The Sixth Seal 160 The Sealing of the Servants of God 169 The Multitude in White Robes 179 The Seventh Seal 186 The First Trumpet 192 The Second Trumpet 197 The Third Trumpet 201 The Fourth Trumpet 205 The Angel flying in Mid-heaven 208 The Fifth Trumpet 212 The Sixth Trumpet 221 The Rainbow Angel 229 The Temple and Witnesses 249 The Slaughter and Resurrection of the Witnesses . . . 295 The Seventh Trumpet 308 The Woman and Dragon 312 The War of Michael and the Dragon 337 The Flight of the Woman 347 The Ten-horned Wild Beast 365 The Two-horned Wild Beast and the Image 398 The Hundred Forty-four Thousand on Mount Zion . . 446 The Angel having the Everlasting Gospel 454 The Fail of Babylon 456 CONTENTS. Page. Section XXXVI. The Third Angel denouncing Wrath on the Wor- shippers of the Beast and its Image 459 XXXVII. The Angel like the Son of Man and the Harvest. 462 XXXVIII. The Vintage 466 XXXIX. The Victors on the Glassy Sea 469 XL. The Seven Angels with the Seven Vials 471 XLI. The First Vial 473 XLII. The Second Vial 477 XLIII. The Third Vial 480 XLIV. The Fourth Vial 482 XLV. TheFifthVial 485 XLVI. The Sixth Vial 488 XLVII. The Unclean Spirits 490 XLVIII. The Seventh Vial 492 XLIX. The Woman, Great Babylon, the Ten-horned Wild Beast, and the Kings 494 L. The Fall and Destruction of Great Babylon 500 LI. The Hymn of the heavenl}^ Hosts on the Destruc- tion of Babylon 505 LII. The Marriage of the Lamb 506 LIII. The Word of God and his Armies 508 LIV. The Binding of Satan 513 LV. The First Resurrection 517 LVI. The Release of Satan 522 LVII. The Resurrection and Judgment of the Unholy Dead 524 LVIII. The new Heaven and new Earth 527 LIX. The new Jerusalem 529 LX. Final Commands and Warnings 533 Conclusion 536 INTRODUCTION. I. THE INSPIRATION OF THE APOCALYPSE. The Apocalypse is more eminently marked than any other part of the sacred writings, by the peculiarities which distin- guish the works of inspiration from those of men ; — a truth and wisdom of thought, a suitableness to the attributes and preroga- tives of God, a greatness and majesty, that could proceed only from the Omniscient. I. These characteristics are seen in the annunciation of him- self, which the Redeemer employed both in the first and the last vision, to raise the apostle to a sense of his deity. Like a shaft of lightning from a midnight cloud, shedding illumination over a landscape, and raising the forms and relations of its ob- jects into distinctness, it flashes on us a gleam that reveals the ground within us on which the government of God is built, which is fully known only to him, and which men either fail to discover, or disown and wrap in darkness. " I am the Alpha and the Omega, First and Last, the Beginning and the End;" — embracing in himself therefore all duration, and anteceding all other existences ; their creator then, owner and ruler ; and therefore almighty, all-wise, and all-good ; — the characteristics — self-existence, eternity, omnipotence, rectitude, and the relations of creator — ascribed to him by the living creatures, chap. iv. 8, and that, on the one hand, are peculiar to him, and distinguish him above all others, alike from imaginary deities and from crea- tures ; and that on the other, irresistibly impress the heart with the feeling of his rightful authority over it, and title to its hom- age. Our nature is such, that no one could hear an utterance like that from heaven, without an instinctive conviction that the Being whom it announces is God, and has the right of dominion. They are attributes and relations that, by the law of our consti- tution, awaken in us a sense of subordination and responsibility. The employment of that annunciation to raise the apostle to a perception of his divinity, bespeaks accordingly a knowledge of 6 INSPIRATION OF TUE ArOCALYPSE man and of God, that is not only never seen in the uninspired, but is not equalled in the thoughts which the prophets themselves have uttered, in their addresses to the Deity. Great and beau- tiful as the conceptions they sometimes express are, above those of other minds, they are limited and faint compared to these. They are the thoughts of mortals, illumined indeed and exalted by the inspiring Spirit ; but these are the utterance of the Self- existent himself, conscious of the attributes and relations that pe- culiarly distinguish him, and aware of our moral nature, and the instruments that most powerfully excite in us a sensibility to his rights. So far are men from having realized that these are the relations that most intimately and indissolubly connect us with him, and the thoughts that have the strongest hold of our moral sensibili- ties, that whether heathen or christian, philosophers or theolo- gians, they have almost without exception, looked in a wholly different direction for the grounds of right, and the most effective considerations to impress the conscience, — to the sense of pleas- ure, to self-love, to gratitude, to expedience, to general utility, to prevalent opinion, to custom, to the will of the magistrate ; and when, in endeavoring to excite in their fellow-men a sense of duty, they have employed the considerations suggested by the Scriptures, it has often at least been without a perception of the grounds on which they were proceeding, and under the impulse of feeling, rather than the guidance of theory. The Redeemer, instead of descending to such inadequate and unsuitable means to raise a sense of his divinity, employs an instrument whose legitimacy our whole nature instantly acknowledges ; proclaims his self-existence, eternity, omnipotence, and relations as crea- tor and preserver, and builds on the foundation on which the fabric of his government rests, and is to rest throughout its everlasting years, and displays therein a perfection of intelli- gence and rectitude that belongs only to God. A similar adaptation and greatness mark the expression which he employed in announcing himself to the apostle as the incar- nate Word. " I am the First, and the Last, and the Living. I was dead, and I live for evermore, and have the keys of death and the grave ;" conceptions that in vastness and sublimity im- measurably surpass any to which uninspired mortals ever ascend- ed,— extreme and opposite characters and prerogatives, self-ex- istence and mortality, captivity to death, and dominion over it and the bodies of the dead, that were never together predicablo of any but Jesus Christ. Nothing in the wiiole circle of the ad- INSPIRATION OF THE APOCALYPSE. 7 dresses of God to us, is at a greater distance from tlie concep- tions of mortals, exhibits more clearly his knowledge of our moral • constitution, or displays a greater wisdom of adaptation, than the use of these thoughts to raise the prophet to a recog- nition of him as the incarnate Word. II. A similar proof of its divine origin, is seen in the personal appearance of the Deity, in the opening and several of the sub- sequent visions. There is an obvious necessity that God should appear in the visions as the Creator and Ruler of the universe ; the rightful object of homage, and the author of the revelation : and the Redeemer also, both as the Lamb slain for men, and after his sacrifice, as the Almighty King accomplishing the great scheme of redemption. Yet it were inconsistent with their nature, to represent them by any thing drawn from the created universe. There is nothing among creatures presenting any analogy to the Selfexistent, the Eternal, the Almighty. To attempt a repre- sentation through them, were to degrade, not exalt our concep- tions of him. The law of symbolization accordingly forbids his introduction by representatives. To meet therefore, on the one hand the necessity of exhibiting him as the author of the revelation, and yet not detract on the other from his dignity, analogy is laid aside, and he appears in his own person. A shape immeasurably transcending our loftiest conceptions of created grandeur, invested with the insignia of infinite power, knowledge and dominion, appears enthroned. Various orders and innumerable hosts of intelligences bending in his presence, recognise and worship him as the Selfexistent, the Creator and Ruler of all, and hymn the rightfulness, the w^isdom and the benignity of his reign. In like manner the Redeemer appears in the first vision, in his human form glorified to dazzling majesty, with symbols of his peculiar character and office as the head of the church. This expedient is marked by a loftiness and beauty of wisdom, wholly transcending the genius of mortals. Had there been no visible exhibition of God, it would have detracted greatly from the perfection of the revelation. The apostle would have been left, not indeed without a knowledge from whom the visions pro- ceeded, but without that effulgence of demonstration which be- came the divine majesty, and which his necessities required. The concinnity of the spectacle would have disappeared. It would have been an apocalypse without a visible revealer ; a series of divine acts, without a manifested deity. His appear- S INSPIRATION OF THE APOCALYPSE. ance gave the visions their proper relation. The dazzhng splen- dor of his aspect, the annunciation of his attributes, the awful symbols of his supremacy, the homage of the universe, distin- guished him from all other actors in the scene, and raised tp vastness and intensity the apostle's conceptions of his distance from creatures. Had he not appeared in person, but been represented by a created intelligence, it had been to neglect the care vk^ith which he ever guards his deity ; to descend to the false conceptions of men, in place of exalting their thoughts of him to truth and dig- nity; and to stamp an imperfection on the revelation that would have bespoken it the work rather of human contrivance, than divine wisdom. It has been the disposition of men in all ages, however lofty their genius, to represent God and his attributes in the forms of creatures, and by fancied analogies. With what beauty his wisdom appears in this instance in avoiding all coun- tenance to that tendency, and yet meeting at once the demands of our nature, and of his majesty. III. There is a suitableness of the symbols to the agents and events they are employed to represent, that bespeaks them the work of a higher wisdom than that of man. They give in all instances with great clearness and strength, a color of representation that accords with the beings and agen- cies which they foreshadow. They arc chosen in conformity with a single, a simple, and however it has been overlooked, a most obvious law, which when understood, renders at least the species of agents and events which they denote, of easy dis- covery. When they deviate from that law, it is by the intro- duction, as in the instances already noticed, of the beings them- selves to be exhibited, from the impossibility of finding an ap- propriate substitute. And they display the great characters of the agents and objects which they represent, with a sublime brevity, clearness and strength, that are seen only in delineations by the pencil of God. There is thus a beautiful propriety, an impressive grandeur, in the exhibition of a gigantic angel, robed in a cloud, with an iris glory encircling his head, descending from the atmosphere, as a representative of illustrious men whom God commissions to proclaim anew the gospel to the world, and be the instruments of conducting multitudes from age to age to the knowledge and acceptance of salvation. A monster brute formed by the union of the most character- istic parts of the principal ferocious beasts, is an apt emblem of INSPIRATION OF THE APOCALYPSE. 9 a vast combination in a government of savage and tyrannic men, wantonly slaughtering and devouring to satiate their lawless and cruel passions. What other portent of terrific grandeur can be imagined so suited as a lasting eclipse or obliteration of the sun^ to denote the fall from the pinnacle of glory of an ancient government, and the darkness, confusion and dismay with which such a ca- • tastrophe overwhelms a people deprived in an instant of the pro- tection of law, robbed of rank, plundered of property, and ex- posed to the ruthless passions of brutal conquerors. Or what event in the natural world more fit than an earthquake agitating the surface of vast regions, and dashing down the fabrics of art, can be found to symbolize a great political revolution in which the whole structure of society is shaken with passion, all ordi- nary law suspended, ancient institutions overthrown, and an aspect of violence and disorder impressed on every scene. An eminent appropriateness and adequacy thus mark all the symbols of the Apocalypse. They deviate in no instance from the most conspicuous propriety. They are never disproportioned in significance to the objects they are employed to represent. IV. Its exhibition of the eternal Word as exalted to the ad- ministration of the universe, and the recognition by all orders of intelligences of his title on the ground of his work as Redeemer to reign, is a mark of its inspiration. The views which it presents of his station and work as Re- deemer, are in accordance with the representations of the other Scriptures. He appears in the first vision, and in the addresses to the Asiatic messengers, as the head of the church, holding the stars in his hand, walking amidst the candlesticks, chasten- ing his offending people, rewarding the faithful, destroying his enemies ; — in the second as receiving from the Father the vol- ume of his designs to unfold them to the apostle, and in the following as executing them by his providence. His elevation thus to the throne of heaven, administration of the divine gov- ernment through a vast succession of ages, and reception of the homage of the universe, is one of the most wonderful of his agencies as Redeemer, and doubtless one of the most essential to the perfection of his work. Whatever other reasons there may have been for that measure, it is apparent, that it gives birth to several most important results which would not have been otherwise attained ; a demonstration on an infinite scale of his deity ; a recognition of his deity and title to reign by the universe ; an intimate relationship between him as the incarnate 2 10 INSPIRATION OF THE APOCALYPSE. Word, and all his intelligent subjects ; and thence a manifesta- tion to them of his work as Redeemer, and communication of the infinite aids to wisdom, rectitude and happiness which the knowledge of it is suited to yield. The Apocalypse exhibits this great feature of his work in a most impressive form ; and it is a mark that it is a revelation from him. What a grandeur of design it displays ! How suitable to the greatness of God ! How adapted to the necessities of his kingdom ! Into what an im- measurable significance it expands the work of redemption : and how it reconciles with his infinite dignity and wisdom, the con- descension of the eternal Word to so humble a nature as ours, and the labors, the ignominies and the sufferings through which he purchased salvation ! What an elevation it displays above the views which are usually entertained by men, who limit their thoughts of the influence of his work almost wholly to our race ! And what a contrast it presents to the false and impious concep- tions of it, which, when left without restraint, they adopt and maintain, as is shown in the symbolization of the apostate church ! V. The thoughts, purposes and actions which are ascribed to the Word, are such as befit his station as Redeemer and Ruler of the universe, and could never have proceeded from the un- aided genius of man. He proclaims his attributes and prerogatives as the Self- existent. He acts as intrusted with the assertion and support of the rights of God. He displays his purpose to maintain a government of spotless righteousness, and reward the obedient with the gifts of immortal life, and the incorrigible with eternal death. He exhibits an attention to all the actions of his people, and knowledge of their thoughts, of which none but the Om- niscient is capable ; and an awful justice towards sinners, that belongs only to a being of infinite intelligence and rec- titude. On the other hand he displays a majestic forbearance, tender- ness and benignity toward his people. He stoops to their ne- cessities ; he supports them in their trials ; he is the witness of all their obedience ; he holds a crown of life in his hand to reward their fidelity. Of all the delineations of love that have ever been drawn, there is none that approaches in beauty and sublimity that presented in the Apocalypse, of the sentiments with which the Saviour regards those whom he is first to raise from death ; chap. xiv. 1-6. They are youths, in the bloom and spotlessness of first maturity. They bear on their brows a INSPIRATION OF THE APOCALYPSE. 11 circlet on which his name, and the name of the Father are en- graven. Their song is exhibited as marked by a significance and fraught with a homage which neither any others of the redeem- ed, nor the angehc hosts can equal. They are associates and companions of the Lamb, and follow him whithersoever he goes. He remembers none of their offences. Their fidelity is un- questioned. They are without fault before him. From what heart but his who loved them and washed them in his own blood, and made them kings and priests unto God, could ex- pressions like those proceed ! The patience, the tenderness, the condescension, the love displayed by parents towards their offending offspring, are always beautiful, and often rise to gran- deur. But in their happiest forms and highest energies, they are only proportional to their limited nature and relations. The love of Christ has a greatness and sublimity of which the In- finite alone is capable. The ascription to the Redeemer of thoughts and affections so suited to his complex nature, his station and agency, required a higher judgment than man's, and bespeaks it the work of the Omniscient Spirit. There is no task so difficult to even the greatest geniuses, as the conception of thoughts, affections, and actions appropriate to the Deity. The great poets have failed in none of their attempts so universally and conspicuously as in tjiis. They have seldom risen, even in their addresses to the Supreme, to a becoming simplicity and sublimity of thought. The opposite natures, the infinite energy, the lofty suitableness both to his deity and his manhood, of the affections and actions ascribed in the Apocalypse to the Redeemer, form a picture of truth and beauty which none but the all-perfect Intelligence himself could have drawn. VI. The system of administration through a vast period, fore- shown in the Apocalypse, is such as no uninspired mind could have anticipated from the Redeemer's exaltation to the throne of the universe. Such is the permission of an extreme debasement and corrup- tion of the church through a long tract of time ; the continued allowance of idolatry over a great part of the globe ; the rise and spread of new forms of false religion ; the cruel domination over his people through ages of apostate powers ; the slaughter of his faithful witnesses ; his continuing to leave their dust to slumber in the ignominious ruin of the grave through a vast round of cen- turies ; and his release of Satan from imprisonment after the mil- lenium, and permission again to tempt the nations, and convert 12 INSPIRATION OF THE APOCALYPSE. the world into a scene of rebellion and misery. We can now indeed sec that results spring from this procedure that are of the utmost importance to the understanding and vindication of the work of redemption itself, and serve to prepare the way for the measures of grace that are to follow through interminable ages. That man is truly such a being as the work of salvation assumes, is shown on a boundless scale ; his greater readiness to reject and pervert the grace of God than to accept it ; the inadequacy of secondary means to convert or restrain him ; the facility with which he yields to temptation ; the incorrigibleness with which he perseveres in sin ; and the inextinguishable malice of Satan, whose obduracy no punishment can soften, whose thirst of evil no success in ruining immortal beings can satiate. But who, anterior to the commencement of this administration, could have deemed it would be chosen by the Son of God in preference to all otiiers ; that after having, by his sacrifice, rendered it com- patible with justice to save the race, he should continue genera- tion after generation to leave a vast proportion to perish ; that instead of displaying his infinite power and delight to subdue his enemies to obedience, he should allow them to triumph over him ; that he should leave his faithful people to be trampled down and slaughtered by apostate powers arrogating his rights and usurp- ing his throne ; and finally, that after having conquered the eartli and converted it into a paradise of beauty, virtue, and bliss, and reigned over it in majesty through a vast circle of ages, he should again allow Satan to deface it with rebellion and death, and drag new millions down the abyss of hopeless ruin. These are measures which no human being, however exalted in intellect, could have deemed the most eligible. They are measures which no one, unless taught by the Spirit of inspiration, could have thought were even compatible with wisdom and benignity. They contradict the expectations of the church at the period when they were written, in place of according with them ; and reason in every age, instead of being able to discover their necessity, has been baffled by them and confounded. The prediction of a pro- cedure so opposite to all that we should naturally expect, and to the faith and hope of the church at the time of its promulgation, could have emanated from no one but the Omniscient himself, who formed and executes the purposes which are here made known. VII. The thoughts and sentiments ascribed to the redeemed and angelic hosts, are marked by a truth, a wisdom, and grandeur, immeasurably distant from the imperfect conceptions of men. INSPIRATION OF THE APOCALYPSE. 13 Thus they are exhibited as aware of the right of God to the liomage of his creatures, from his self-existence, eternity, omnip- otence, and work as creator ; and as worshipping him on that ground. " Holy, holy, holy. Lord God Almighty, who was, and who is, and who is to come. Thou the Lord our God art worthy to receive glory and honor and power, for thou didst create all things. For thy will they were, and were created." This recogni- tion and acknowledgment of that foundation of his rights is highly beautiful, as it is a response to the proclamation of his attributes and agency, addressed by him to the apostle and the churches, in which he exhibited them as the ground of his title and claim to their homage. It is eminently becoming those glorious beings, as it de- notes an elevation immeasurably above the narrow and erroneous views of men, who have displayed in every age a singular inadvert- ence of these rights, and in vast multitudes, even amidst the light of revelation, entertained and taught the most adverse and unwor- thy theories ; some openly denying that he has any merit of homage because of his deity and work as creator, and maintaining that the only worship to which he is entitled, is that of gratitude ; and that his claim therefore has its foundation and its measure in the happiness which he bestows ; and others asserting that his deity and agency as creator, so far from investing him with rights over his creatures, place him under obligation to them, and give them a title to claim from him the gift of the utmost happiness of which their natures render them capable ; — a scheme which, degrading God to the condition of a subject, and exalting creatures to the throne, exhibits a government over them as impossible. And er- rors scarcely less absurd and portentous lie couched in all the great theories of obhgation ; — self-love, utility, benevolence, will, custom, — which have enjoyed through ages, and still enjoy a principal currency. But those august intelligences, many of whom have lived in his presence through innumerable years, whose thoughts are intermixed with no errors, and overclouded by no uncertainty, and who have risen to lofty views of his infi- nite greatness, and the significance of his relations, see in the clearest light, and feel with the profoundest sensibility, his title to reign because of his deity and work as creator and upholder, and yield him their homage for the reasons for which he claims it. They appear in majestic beauty also in their celebration of the rectitude, wisdom, and benevolence of his government. The raptured sense which they display of the grandeur of those per- fections, bespeaks a truth and largeness of understanding and sanctity of affection eminently befitting beings exalted to stations 14 INSPIRATION OF THE APOCALYPSE. in his presence, given to survey the vast spectacle of his sway over the worlds, and formed to find a happiness great in propor- tion to the strength of their nature in the contemplation and ex- ercise of wisdom and virtue. But they ascend to a still sublimer height in their ascriptions of rectitude and wisdom to him in the infliction of his wrath, and summons of the universe to joy and thanksgiving at the destruc- tion of his enemies. What a strength of understanding such a chant of acquiescence in the eternal overthrow of innumerable myriads bespeaks ! What an energy of rectitude ; what a sense of the rights of God ; what a comprehension of his ways ; what views of the guilt of incorrigible sinners, and the necessity that they should be treated according to their deserts ! What a fore- sight of the influence of that great measure on the obedient uni- verse ! The ascription to them of views and afl'ections thus suit- ing their exalted stations, is the work manifestly of a higher intelligence than that of man, and can have proceeded from none but the all-comprehensive wisdom of the revealing Spirit. VIII. There is a vastness and beauty in the designs foreshown in the Apocalypse, that not only transcends human contrivance, but which none of its numerous students, with all the aids which a large accomplishment furnishes, seem to have comprehended. There is a greatness and wisdom of which none but the Infi- nite is capable, in the purpose of such an administration as that which has already been exercised through eighteen hundred years, in which men are still allowed to sin and perish on a vast scale, and a foundation thereby laid by the verification it presents of the grounds on which the work of redemption proceeds, for a safe and boundless exercise of power and grace towards the race through the innumerable ages that are to follow. Who but he whose intelligence is all-comprehensive, whose rectitude and be- nignity are equal to his omnipotence, and who builds to meet for eternity the necessities of a boundless kingdom, could have dis- cerned the expediency, and had strength of wisdom to choose such a procedure. Men so far from having risen by their unas- sisted faculties to the perception of such a reason for that great measure, or learned it from the Scriptures, have resorted for so- lutions to the most distant and preposterous conjectures : — to a denial on the one hand of power to God to exert an eff"ectual in- fluence on the minds of creatures ; to an ascription to him on tiie other, of a preference that they should sin and perish rather than obey. How majestic is the purpose to raise the redeemed from the INSPIRATION OF THE APOCALYPSE. 15 imperfection of our present nature, to a splendor of form, and strength and elevation of faculties, resembling the glorified hu- manity of the Redeemer, and fitting them to dwell in his pres- ence and fulfil illustrious offices in his empire ! How suitable to his perfections, and adapted to glorify him, the design to put an end at length to the reign of sin and misery on earth ; to banisli from it the disorders to which revolt has given birth, and convert it again into a paradise of beauty, rectitude, and bliss, that its adaptation to the wants of such a race as are made its tenants may be seen, and man's capability be shown, of the exalted wis- dom, virtue, and happiness to which he was originally called ! What effulgent characters of wisdom mark the purpose of the Redeemer, by descending in visible majesty to the earth, and reigning over it through immeasurable periods, to exalt it into an intimacy and grandeur of relation to himself, proportional to the greatness of the measure by which he opened the way for its sal- vation ! How consonant to the boundlessness of his understand- ing and benevolence, the design to continue the redemption of generation after generation without end, and thus furnish through eternal years a perpetually accumulating demonstration, how ade- quate to justify his interposition, the great objects are for which he stooped to incarnation and death ! And how beautiful the grace, how sublime the wisdom of the purpose, to give his re- deemed, raised in glory from the grave, to reside with him on the earth, fulfil majestic offices of love toward the unglorified church, and display in that manner the contrast of their rectitude, wisdom, and benevolence, to the fraud and malignity of Satan andhis hosts ! How immeasurably this vastness transcends the nothingness of men ! How suitable to the boundless strength of his intellect, and infinite fervor of his benignity ! How adapted to the instruc- tion of the countless multitudes of moral creatures, whom he is to supply with materials of thought, and lead on from height to height in wisdom, virtue, and bliss, throughout the round of ever- lasting years ! IX. The agents and events foreshown in those predictions of the Apocalypse which have already been fulfilled, are such as none but the Omniscient could have foreseen. To the foresight indeed of a single event, and especially a dis- tant one in the agency of creatures, no being is adequate but the All-seeing. The foreknowledge of such an event, includes a knowledge also of the nature of the agent who is to exert it, the certainty of his existence, the conditions in which he is to act, the influences that are to prompt him, the object of the action, 16 INSPIRATION OF THE APOCALYPSE. Its effects, and thence necessarily of the whole train of causes and effects, of agents and influences, that are to intervene from the period of the foreknowledge, to the occurrence of the event foreseen ; and especially of the purpose of God to give existence to the physical causes and voluntary agents, and to allow the influences that belong to that train. But such a knowledge none manifestly but God himself can enjoy. The number of agents, causes, acts and effects that enter into such a succession, when the event is distant, must be such in multitude and complexity, as no created intellect, were the series revealed, could possibly grasp. How much morc^must the infinite complexity transcend the narrowr limits of the human intellect, when the agents, actions and events foreshown are innumerable ; and not only of our race, but of other orders of beings ; — disembodied spirits, myriads of holy angels, the legions of the fallen ; and through a vast suc- cession of ages ; and finally when the agencies and events fore- told are such as had never been beheld, and as no experience or observation could render probable ; as are many of the actors and events exhibited in the Apocalypse, that have beyond all rational disputation appeared on the theatre of the world,' and are still accomplishing the agency and exerting the influences fore- shown of them. Such pre-eminently is the disruption of the western Roman empire into ten kingdoms, the subsequent rise among them of an eleventh, their cotemporaneous subsistence thence through a long tract of ages, and union and resemblance in such a degree, that notwithstanding their individuality and difference of language, manners, and policy, they are justly considered as still one em- pire, and their rulers represented by a single symbol. To one reasoning from the history of preceding empires, it might indeed have seemed probable that the Roman would at no distant period undergo a division into different kingdoms ; but nothing in the nature of its territory or population could suggest ten, any more than any other as the number into which it was to be divided ; nor could any thing in the history of earlier nations, suggest the possibility that such a number of cotemporaneous states, dif- fering in language, laws, pursuits, and policy, and almost per- petually warring on each other, could yet so resemble each other in religion especially, and so unite in a common relation to an eleventh, as in an emphatic sense to constitute them one, and render it requisite to represent those who rule them by a single symbol. No such union or resemblance was ever seen in the ancient cotemporary governments. INSPIRATION OF THE APOCALYPSE. 17 Such is the rise of the eleventh government, first as an eccle- siastical power, next as a kingly, by the fall before it of a part of the ten kingdoms, and its subsistence through a long series of ages in that form, in intimate relations with the others, and the exertion over them of momentous influences. And finally, such is the concession by the others to that ele- venth kingdom of an ecclesiastical rule over them closely resem- bling in the rights it usurped, and the power it exerted, the im- pious assumptions, and tyrannic sway of the rulers themselves of those kingdoms. Nothing of that nature had before been seen in the history of the world. Nothing in the nature of men, or the laws of divine providence, could at the promulgation of the Apocalypse have suggested it to one contemplating the future, as probable or possible. In the novelty then and singularity of these agents and events, the almost infinite multitude and complication of persons, causes, circumstances, influences, acts and results that enter into the series, and the consideration that at innumerable steps in the train, the absence, or variation of a single agent, such for exam- ple as a Charlemagne, a Gregory VII., an Innocent III., a Leo X., a Charles V., a Pius V., a Sixtus V., would have changed the whole result, we have a demonstration immense and overwhelming, of a knowledge to which the human intellect is wholly inadequate, and proof that it is the work of the Omnis- cient Spirit. X. There are several things in the Apocalypse which it is incredible would have been introduced, had it been the contri- vance of an uninspired person. Such is the representation of a sharp two-edged sword pro- ceeding from the mouth of the Saviour, in the first and in the nineteenth chapter. Eichhorn accordingly, who treated the work as the mere invention of the apostle to adorn and aggrandize some of the events that marked the early progress especially of Christianity, regarded this as an egregious violation of good taste. Such is the scene in the fifth chapter, in which the apostle exhibits a mighty angel as crying with a loud voice, who is wor- thy to open the book of God's purposes, and loose the seals thereof; and when no creature appeared to open it, represents himself as overwhelmed with disappointment and grief, under the apprehension that it must forever remain sealed. No one would deliberately contrive a scene, exhibiting himself as falling in that manner into the error of imagining that creatures can unfold the 3 18 INSPIRATION OF THE APOCALYPSE. boundless purposes of God to the church, and weeping under the mistake. Who, following the suggestions of his unassisted judgment or fancy, would have introduced the silence of half an hour as the first consequence of opening the seventh seal ? Its significance and propriety, arc at least very far from being obvious, if one may judge from the perplexity it has given interpreters. Of a like nature are the voices of the seven thunders, and the prohibition to write their prophecy. What imaginable motive could have prompted the introduction of such an incident, had the scene of which it is a part been, not truly symbolic of agents and actions, but the mere work of the writer's fancy ? It has been generally thought to contribute nothing to the progress of the revelation, but rather merely to baffle excited curiosity, and embarrass the reader with a feeling of disappointment. It is incredible also that the author, had he written the work without inspiration, and for the mere purpose of displaying his genius, would have represented himself as falling down to wor- ship the interpreting angel. It were gratuitously to exhibit him- self as betrayed into a species of that creature-homage which he represents as the characteristic of apostates, and debarring from the kingdom of the Redeemer. XI. All the doctrines and sentiments of the Apocalypse are accordant with the other scriptures, and exhibit that elevation and grandeur which are peculiar to inspired writings. Such eminently are the views which it displays of the majesty of God, his omnipotence, his omniscience, the sanctity of his rights, the inflexibleness of his justice, the subordination to him of the universe, the sacrifice and exaltation of Christ, the won- derfulness of his love, the aims of his providence, the nature and beauty of his designs, the characteristics of his redeemed people, the relations of his work to the intelligent universe, the grandeur of the results that are to mark its everlasting progress. It pre- sents no inconsistency v/ilh the other parts of the sacred word. It sinks in no instance below the dignity of the subject of which it treats. It soars above every other work of inspiration, exhibits in each stroke effulgent proofs of its divine origin, and is worthy the all-perfect wisdom and benignity of the Deity. To suppose a work fraught in an unexam])led degree with these lofty char- acters, can be the contrivance of mere art and fraud, were sole- cistical and monstrous in the extreme : — It were to ascribe to depravity the display of infinite rectitude, and the most majestic wisdom to weakness and folly. RECEPTION OF THE APOCALYPSE. 19 XII. To these considerations, its immeasurable elevation above the uninspired vi'ritings of the period in which it appeared and the following ages, may be added as a further proof that it cannot have sprung from the unassisted powers of man. Of all the ancient religious writings that have descended to us, there are none perhaps that exhibit a more deplorable contrast to the Apocalypse, than those which are usually ascribed to the apostolic fathers, with the exception of the letters of Clemens and Polycarp generally supposed to be genuine, which with little force of thought or elevation of views, have still the merit of simplicity and consistency with the gospel. After a large sub- traction from the others of the errors and weaknesses with which they are marked, as the work, in the letters of Ignatius at least, of interpolators and forgers, not a trace appears in the remainder, of the truth, the largeness, the dignity, the harmony of thought that distinguish the Apocalypse. ISo far from it, they are among the weakest of human compositions, vague, confused, illogical, inflated, absurd, and often false and impious, the pro- ductions manifestly of feeble, vain, and ignorant minds, most un- just to religion and discreditable to the church. II. RECEPTION OF THE APOCALYPSE BY THE CHURCH. The proofs of its inspiration thus graven on its whole structure, are corroborated by its reception in the church. It is expressly ascribed by the earliest ecclesiastical authors whose writings are of authority, to the apostle John, and said to have been acknowl- edged as his by others whose works have not come down to our age. Thus Papias who was a cotcmporary and hearer of the apostle, is represented by Eusebius as having held, agreeably to chapter xx. 4. 5, that Christ is to reign on the earth a thousand years after the resurrection of the dead ;^ and by Andrew bishop of Caesarea Cappadociaof the fifth century, to have given his testimony to its inspiration.^ Justin, who suffered mar- tyrdom in the year 16.3 or 164, and wrote his dialogue with Try- pho according to Pagi in 139,^ received it as the work of John.^ Irenaeus, whose birth is generally referred to the first quarter of the second century, and who lived to its close, exhibits the apos- tle John as its author, and represents it as revealed no long pe- * Eusebii Eccl. Hist. lib. iii. cap. 39. "^ Michaelis'Introd. N. Test. chap. 33. ' Crit. in Baron, A. D. 148, No. 5. * Dial, cum Tryph. cap 81. Eusebii Eccl. Hist. lib. iv. c. 18. 20 THE APOCALYPSE NOT A POEM. riod before, bul almost in his own age, toward the end of the reign of Domitian,^ which terminated September 18th, in the year 95 or 96.^ Mehto, bishop of Sardis in Lydia, who lived about the J rear 170, wrote a comment on it.^ It was quoted by Theophi- us, bishop of Antioch, of the same period ;* and also by the churches of Vienne and Lyons in the year 177 in their epistle to the churches of Asia and Phiygia.^ It was recognised conspic- uously by Clemens of Alexandria,'^ and Tcrtullian who flourish- ed at the close of the second century ;'' and though questioned, or rejected by some few persons of the following age, on the ground of its style and predictions, not from a want of external testimo- ny,^ it has ever since been held by the church as a part of the sacred canon. III. THE APOCALYPSE NOT A POEM. EicHHORN regarded the Apocalypse as a poetic drama. It has no characteristic, however, that entitles it to be considered a poem. It is wholly without the rhythm and modulation which arc the dis- tinguishing elements of poetry. A composition can no more be a poem without measure and harmony, than a succession of sounds can be a tune, without bearing any musical relation to each other. The exaltation of inanimate and inferior things into the rank of intelligences by personification, ascribing to them faculties, dis- positions and agencies, as men, angels or demons, is a conspic- uous characteristic of poetry. But the symbolizations of the Apocalypse are the converse of that figure. Instead of personi- fying faculties, elements, or other natural objects, it exhibits or- ders and successions of men, nations, and rulers, by unintelligent existences, as brutes, monsters, the earth, the sea, the air, moun- tains ; and the agencies of such cojnbinations of men, by those of storms, falling stars, earthquakes, and volcanoes. There are no two species of composition, therefore, more unlike. To call this symbolic representation a poem, is as incorrect as it were to ap- ply that denomination to the hieroglyphs of an Egyptian ob- elisk, or to regard the pictorial illustrations of the scener)", actors and actions of a poem, as the poem itself. * Eusebii Eccl. Hist. lib. v. c. 8. » Pagi refers his death to the year 96. Dr. Jarvis, Introd, Hist. Church, p. 322 to 9a » Eusebii Eccl. Hist. lib. iv. c. 26. * Eusebii Eccl. Hist. lib. iv. c. 24. * Eusebii Eccl. Hist. lib. v. c. 1. * Stromal, lib. vi. p. 667. Pajdajrofr, lib. ii. c. 12, p. 207. ^ Adver. Marcionem, lib. iii. c. 14. Lib. iv. c. 5. Do Praiscrip. Hasrct. c. 33. * Eusebii Eccl. Hist. lib. vii. c. 25. Larduer's Credibility, vol. v. chap. xxiL THE APOCALYPSE NOT A POEM. 21 The Apocalypse is almost wholly without the embellishments that are characteristic of poetry. There is no instance in it of personification. It has not in the symbolic parts a single meta- phor, except in the titles of the Redeemer. It has but few com- parisons, and those of the simplest kinds, as of the voice of the Son of God to a trumpet and the sound of many waters, his eyes to a flame of fire, his countenance to the sun, his hair to wool and snow, his feet to fine brass, the faintness with which the spec- tacle struck the apostle to death, and others of the like nature, chiefly in the letters to the churches, and in the fourth, ninth, and tenth chapters. The Apocalypse is a description in prose of symbolic agents, actions and effects, exhibited in vision to the eye of the apostle, and the recital of voices he heard ; and is no more entitled there- fore to be denominated a poem, than a description in prose, or a pictorial representation is, of the figures on a triumphal arch, or tlie actors, actions and scenes of the Iliad or Paradise Lost. The fancy of Mr. Stuart that the Apocalypse is an epopee, is a still greater error than that of Eichhorn, as it overlooks the rep- resentative character of its actors and actions. In a drama one set of persons acts in the place of another. But nothing of that nature is known in the epopee, which is historical simply, and is either related by the poet, or represented as recited by actors and spectators of the scenes which it describes. It never personates one set of agents by another even of the same species ; and still more emphatically, never like the Apocalypse, exhibits agents of one class by those of another. There is no species of poetry to which the Apocalypse bears a less resemblance than the epopee. These attempts to dignify it by appropriating to it titles of hu- man works with which it has no affinity, are extremely misjudged. So far from illustrating or exalting, they obscure and degrade it; and instead of indicating superior intelligence and taste in their authors, bespeak an inacquaintance with the nature of poetry as well as of symbolization. They are fraught also with a denial of the miraculousness of the visions, and thence of their title to be regarded as the work of inspiration. Mr. Stuart as well as Eich- horn, treats the symbols, which he perpetually confounds with personifications, metaphors and similes, as the contrivance of the writer, and designed chiefly to give pleasure to the passions and fancies of his readers. But that is directly to contradict the apos- tle, and assume that he was guilty of a misrepresentation in the pretence that the symbols were exhibited to him in vision. No asseveration could be more false and deceptive, than that he be- 22 THE LAWS OF SYMBOLIC REPRESENTATION. held the Son of God, as he is dehneated in the first vision, and heard from him the utterances which are ascribed to him, if in- stead of beholding such a vision, it was the work of his mere fan- cy ; while on the other hand if he beheld such a vision, no room existed without an equal violation of truth, for the introduction in the delineation of it, of any fanciful additions. But the apostle expressly asserts that that to which he gave his testimony in the Apocalypse, was that which he saw and heard ; and so far from being the inventor of the symbols, and decorating them with their accompaniments for the purpose of gratifying the taste of his read- ers, he exhibits himself as unaware of their full design, and as needing and enjoying the aid of an angel to unfold the principle on which they are employed, and interpret their significance. To suppose him, therefore, guilty in these representations, of an at- tempt to betray his readers into the belief, that mere pictures drawn by his fancy, were the work of the Almighty, is to suppose him wholly devoid of reverence toward God, and truth toward men, and exhibit his pretence to inspiration as deceptive. IV. THE LAWS OF SYMBOLIC REPRESENTATIOJST. The distinguishing characteristic of the Apocalypse is, that it foreshadows what it reveals, not by words, like ordinary prophecies, but by representative agents and phenomena exhib- ited to the senses of the apostle. A knowledge of the prin- ciple on which those signs are used, is indispensable therefore in order to their interpretation. To overlook or misconceive it, is as fatal to the interpreter, as a similar negligence or error were to the just construction of ordinary language. He would no more necessarily misjudge, who should regard written words, as signs of something else than the significant voices which they represent, than he errs in the solution of symbols, wiio misconceives the species of objects they are employed to denote. What then is the principle of symbolization? What is the law by which one set of agents and phenomena, is used in the place of another, in making to the senses a mystical representa- tion of the future ? Are the signs chosen from the class of objects which they are employed to represent, and on the ground of a similarity of nature ; or from another but in some respects a resembhng class, and on the ground of analogy ? — the ques- tion, the reader will soon perceive, on the decision of which, the whole interpretation turns. For the principle on which they are ' THE LAWS OF SYMBOLIC REPRESENTATION, 23 used, is undoubtedly in all cases the same. If a victorious warrior be a representative of bodies and successions of conquer- ing warriors ; if a civil magistrate be a symbol of a combination or series of civil magistrates of a similar character ; — then must an animal also be taken as a precursor of a herd and succession of similar animals ; and monster shapes like the locusts and horsemen of the fifth and sixth trumpets, and the seven-headed and two-horned wild beasts, be regarded as foreshowing the appearance on the theatre of the world, of races of similar monsters. Otherwise there can be no uniform law of symbol- ization, and thence no certainty of interpretation. It were as incompatible with a demonstrable meaning, that symbols should be used without any rule of relationship or significance ; as that sounds, or letters and written words, the representatives of sounds, should be used without any estabhshed and uniform meaning. As the letters of the alphabet, had they no fixed character either as consonants or vowels, and were no more marks of one set of vocal accents than another, could not serve as signs of the voice, nor be instruments of representing audible expressions of thought and feeling ; and as Avritten words could form no intelligible language, had they no settled meaning, and sustained no uniform relations to each other, so neither can the symbols of prophecy, if the principle on which they proceed, be not invariably the same. To suppose their relationship to the objects which they represent is without any uniformity, is to suppose there is no clue whatever to their meaning. To assume that their relations in different cases are precisely the reverse of each other, is to assume that true and false constructions are equally probable. The principle of representation therefore, — the relation of the sign to the thing signified, is undoubtedly in all cases the same, not various and opposite ; and the rule of construction as universal, as certain, and as simple, as are the laws of the signs by which the voice is represented. But that relation manifestly is not a similarity of nature. A wild beast is not a representative of a herd or succession of wild beasts of the same species. There are no seven-headed and ten-horned monsters in the forests or cultivated tracts of the Roman empire ; nor horses with lions' heads, and tails hung with a growth of serpents. A symbolic sea in like manner, is not a representative of a literal sea ; nor a fountain or river, of some real fountain or stream of the apocalyptic earth. It were as erroneous and absurd to impute to the symbols such a rela- tionship in this instance, as in the former. It were to miscon- 24 THE LAWS OF SYMBOLIC REPRESENTATION. ceivc the nature of symbolization, as he would misconceive the nature of a simile, who should regard it as a comparison of a thing with itself, instead of some other object of an analogous nature — as a lion with a lion, a tempest with a tempest ; instead of man or some other creature, in respect to courage with a lion, or passion with a whirlwind. It were entirely to set aside the mysleriousness of symbolization, and treat it as merely equivalent to a verbal description of the things which it denotes. If a fountain be the representative of a fountain, what enigma is there in the symbolization ? What is the object of presenting it in vision ? Why is not a verbal description as suitable a means of foreshowing it, as a visible exhibition ? If the drunk- en sorceress borne on the wild beast, be a precursor of a suc- cession of such sorceresses ; what mystery is there in the sign ? What veil is left on the meaning ? What peculiar need is there of wisdom to its interpretation ? But that that is not the rela- tion of the sign to the thing signified, we know by the interpre- tation given of many of the symbols by the great Revealer him- self, and the attending angels. A star we are told by the Re- deemer, is a symbol of the messenger or minister of a church, not of a succession of stars ; and a candlestick of a church itself, not of a multitude or series of candlesticks. A horn represents a succession of kings, and the drunken sorceress, a great combination of nationalized religious teachers and rulers. The ground of symbolization is indisputably therefore, not a similarity of nature, but analog)' ; — general resemblances by which objects of one species, may be employed to represent those of another. A combination of bloody and tyrannical rulers, is symbolized by a ferocious wild beast, because their temper and agency toward individuals, communities, and na- tions, is like that of a ravenous brute, that kills and devours in- ferior and harmless animals. A vast multitude united in a single community, or under one government, is represented by a sea, because of its resemblance to such a collection of waters, and relationship to inferior and tributary communities, like that of a sea to the fountains and streams that devolve into it ; while lesser communities, and distant dependent tribes, are symbolized by streams and fountains, because of their analogous relations to some great central community toward which they tend. In like manner a volcanic mountain precipitated into the sea, pro- jecting its burning elements over the waters, destroying the fish, and firing the ships, is employed to symbolize the intrusion into a great empire of a hostile nation, estabhshing a separate gov- THE LAWS OF SYMBOLIC REPRESENTATION. 25 ernment, and sending out from its capital devastating expeditions into tlie neighboring territories. The symbols of the Apocalypse, and of all the prophets, are accordingly taken in all cases, where the subject is of a nature to admit it, from objects or phenomena of a different class from those which they are employed to represent, but that present striking resemblances in their chief characteristics ; and the fact that they are drawn from one department, whether of civil life, the animal kingdom, or the material universe, which may serve as a representative of another, is an infallible token that they are signs, not of things in that department, but of something analogous in some other sphere of the religious or civil world. Thus when symbols like the first four seals, are drawn from the military and civil chiefs of the Roman empire, they denote, not such actors and actions in that civil and military state, but anal- ogous agents and agencies in some other body of men, em- bracing like that empire, all varieties of good and bad, and sus- taining resembling relations to each other ; and in those in- stances denote the ministers of the church. When like the first four trumpets, they are drawn from the material universe, they indicate analogous agents and events in the world of men ; and in those instances in the Roman and neighboring civil and military empires. Babylon the metropolis of an idolatrous per- secuting kingdom, is employed as a symbol of a resembling organization of apostate and persecuting teachers professing to be true ministers of God. A woman clothed in a robe of sun- light, crowned with stars, crying out in the endeavors of child- birth, and bearing one who siiould rule the nations, is a symbol of the church in fervent desire and successful endeavor that one of her offspring may be advanced to the throne of the em- pire, and give release from persecution. When the relation of the teachers and rulers of the nationalized church to the civil powers of the empire, during the twelve hundred and sixty- days, is to be represented, a drunken sorceress is exhibited as borne by a monster wild beast, the symbol of the rulers of that empire. The woman clothed in sunlight, driven from society into a desert, is the emblem of the true people of God frowned on and persecuted by the antichristian rulers, and compelled to refrain from the expression of their evangelical faith before the world, and retire into seclusion. The true ministers and wor- shippers in their relations as assertors and vindicators of the gospel in opposition to antichrist, are symbolized by the wit- nesses clothed in sackcloth, bearing testimony to the truth, and 4 26 THE LAWS OF SYMBOLIC REPRESENTATION. enduring persecution and martyrdom ; wliile faithful ministers and true servants of God, proclaiming great truths, assailing and defeating antichrist, and fulfilling important offices for the ad- vancement of the Redeemer's kingdom, are denoted by angels descending from the sky. Similar relations of the representative agents and agencies to those tliat are represented, are seen in the other symbols. Stars and lamps that radiate light on the eye, are used to denote agents that communicate spiritual light to the mind, chap. i. 20, iv. 5 ; the influence of an irritating material cause on the body, to indicate the agency of harassing political causes on the mind, xvi. 2 ; the torturing influence of poisonous animals on the body, to symbolize the torturing inflictions on the church of cruel conquerors who exercise an antagonist religion, ix. 10; and the deadly agency of venomous animals, to represent tlie deadly influence of false religious teachers, ix. 19, 20. The agency of material causes destroying the life of animals, is em- ployed to denote the violent agency of men in destroying fellow- men, xvi. 3, 4 ; the violent destructive action of powerful physical agents on the vegetable world, to symbolize the violent and resistless agency of masses of men destroying classes and multitudes in the political world, viii. 7; the tinging of symbols of communities with blood, to denote that those whom they re- present are to become besmeared with blood by the slaughter of one another, or of foreign masses invading or repelling them, xvi. 3, 4, 5 ; and the infusion of a deadly element into the sym- bol of communities, to indicate the generation in them of dispo- sitions prompting them to a destructive agency on other com- munities, viii. 10, 11, This law of analogy in characteristics of nature and agency, in contradistinction from a sameness of species, thus holds throughout the Apocalypse. The only deviations in any degree are, when the agents to be represented are of a nature that can- not properly be symbolized by any thing else than themselves, such as separate spirits, saints raised from the dead, the deity, the incarnate Word in his station as King of kings and Lord of lords. There is obviously nothing in the whole circle of the social or material world, that can properly symbolize the spirits of the martyrs. There is no other order of beings that has undergone an analogous cliange in its mode of existence. Tiiere is no other within our knowledge capable of such a change ; and to have employed an arbitrary sign, that sustained no re- semblance to them, would not only have misled or given no THE LAWS OF SYMBOLIC REPRESENTATION. 27 information whatever, but would have thrown uncertainty over the whole system of symbolization ; inasmuch as analogy or hkeness would have ceased to be uniformly its characteristic. If there were an instance in which the use of the sign to denote the thing signified, was not founded on resemblance, and no rea- son could be discerned for the choice of such a sign in that instance, what assurance could be felt, that analogy is the principle of sym- bolization, and furnishes the clue to its meaning ? No arbitrary sign then could have answered the end, as there would have been no key to the signification : nor could have been safe, as it would have rendered the relation of all other symbols doubtful to the things represented by them. From the necessities of the case therefore, in order to their representation to the senses of the prophet, the disembodied martyrs appear in their own persons ; and to guard the student of the vision against interpreting them like other symbols, as representatives by analogy, they are ex- pressly declared to be the spirits of those who had been slain for the Avord of God and for the testimony which they held, and exhibited as uttering sentiments, and receiving an answer, ap- propriate to that relation to God. A similar reason exists in all the other instances, for the introduction in person of the beings whom the visions represent : as of the Deity, the incarnate Word, the martyrs and saints raised from the dead, and Satan. There is nothing in the universe presenting any analogy to the Selfexistent, the Redeemer in his glorified human nature and exaltation to supreme dominion, the saints raised from the dead incorruptible and glorious, nor the great prince of fallen angels, or his subordinates. These deviations from the general law of symbolization therefore, occasioned as they thus are by an im- possibility of following it in these instances, and being the only mode of deviation that offers it no contradiction, manifestly sup- port, instead of weakening it, and confirm the propriety of ad- hering to it in the construction of all other symbols. To depart from it, is as fatal and as absurd, as it were to violate any other invariable and important law of language. It would be uni- versally felt to be an error, were an interpreter, in endeavoring to unfold the allegories of the prophets, to overlook the fact that ihey are all founded on one principle, and to be construed by one rule, — that of an analogy between the objects they paint to the eye and fancy, and another class which they are employed to illustrate ; and to construe some, as having no representative significance, and others as truly allegorical. Yet such an inter- preter were not more unskilful, nor more inconsistent with him- 28 THE LAWS OF SYMBOLIC REPRESENTATION. self, than he who pursues a similar course in the solution of prophetic symbols, treating some of them without any reason, as mere signs of agents or events like themselves, and others as representatives of agents and events of a different and analo- gous nature. This, then, is the first great law of symbolization ; the most extensive in its application, and the most essential to be under- stood. Unhappily, however, though graven in the most con- spicuous characters on every page of the Apocalypse, it has not been tiie guide of interpreters, nor even attracted their notice. Had it been discerned and obeyed, it would have withiield them from a large portion of the solutions, which they have deemed of the utmost significance, and relied on with the greatest confi- dence. It overturns innumerable shadowy fabrics, which genius and learning have erected, and endeavored to invest with the air of truth, as The sword of Michael smites and fells Squadrons at once. Had it, for example, been perceived that symbols drawn from the rulers of the Roman empire, are not representatives of agents absolutely like themselves, but analogous persons in some other body of men, having a resemblance to the population of that em- pire, as a vast community of various characters, and sustaining a common relation to laws, teachers, and rulers, it would have withheld them from looking to the military or civil history of Rome for the verification of those symbols ; it being as prepos- terous to turn in that direction for the agents and events denoted by them, as it were to look to a vineyard for the agents and events denoted by the allegory of Isaiah, chap. v. ; or to an eagle, a ce- dar, and a vine, for those represented in the allegory of Ezekiel, chap. xvii. Yet, such is the error of Grotius, Dr. Hammond, Eichhorn, Rosenmuller, and others, in interpreting the first, third, and fourth seals of the insurrections and wars of the Jews ; and of Mr. Brightman, Mr. Mede, Dr. More, Mr. Whiston, Sir Isaac Newton, Bishop Newton, Mr. Fabcr, Mr. Elliott, and many oth- ers, in referring them to other military and civil actors and events of the Roman empire. There are several subordinate laws of great importance, to vvhicli the law of analogy gives birth. II. When intelligent beings or creatures of life are used as symbols, they represent intelligent agents ; never mere abstrac- tions, actions, or qualities, in distinction from beings of whom THE LAWS OF SYMBOLIC REPRESENTATION. 29 they are predicable. This is obviously required by analogy. What resemblance is there between a creator, and the work which he creates ; an agent, and the acts which he exerts ; a being of whom a faculty or virtue is predicable, and an abstract conception of that faculty or virtue. There manifestly are no things in the whole circle of existence more distantly unlike, and whose rela- tions are more emphatically the converse of each other. It is equally requisite, also, in order to a certainty of interpretation. As several of those symbols are indisputably representatives of intelligent agents, and as no imperative reason can be conceived for a deviation from that usage, a departure in a single instance would throw a cloud of doubt over every other similar symbol. That this is invariably the law, is indisputably clear, moreover, from the fact that in every instance where a living being is used as a symbol, actions are predicated of it, which were solecistical, were that which it denotes an action, not an agent. This is true not only of human and angelic symbols, as of the first three seals, the majestic shape ascending from the east with the seal of God, the giant form, clothed in a cloud and circled by a rainbow, de- scending from heaven ; of monster shapes likewise, as the lo- custs and horsemen of the fifth and sixth trumpets, the seven- headed dragon, the ten-horned wild beast, and the beast with two horns, but also of the spirits of the martyrs and saints in the twentieth chapter, whom many interpreters have regarded as representatives of actions and qualities, rather than agents. They are as indisputably as any other symbols in the visions, treated in their representative character as persons. They are not only exhibited as having at a former period acted in a relation to the wild beast, uttered a testimony for God, and been put to death, but as being now raised from the dead, and as reigning as kings with Christ a thousand years. To regard them as mere symbols of characteristics, such as the courage, patience, or fidelity of martyrs, is moreover to reverse the whole significance of the vision, and make it indicative of a persecution by the beast, and false prophet of the faithful, in place of their resurrection from death, exaltation to thrones, and reign with Christ on the earth. A patient endurance of evil, a dauntless courage, an inflexible adherence to the faith, amidst the greatest trials and sufferings, such as were displayed by the martyrs, can only be exhibited in conditions of reproach, persecution, and martyrdom like theirs. III. The Son of God, when appearing as a symbol, is a repre- sentative only of his own person, never of his mere agency, the agency of the Spirit, or an act of providence. There is no anal- 30 THE LAWS OF SYMBOLIC REPRESENTATION. ogy between his person and his actions ; there is no analogy be- tween his person and an act of the Holy Spirit ; there is none between him, and an event of providence. To regard him as the representative of either of tiiese, were therefore not only wholly without reason, but to contradict the principle of symbolization. It were likewise in contradiction to the reason that he appears in person in the visions, that there is nothing in the universe that can properly represent his nature and station as the King of kings ; and finally, that he represents his own person only, not any other of the Godhead, nor his own, nor any other agency, is certain from the fact, that in each vision in which he appears, he is shown to be the Word of God, both by sym- bols of his attributes and office, and express declarations ; and by the ascription to him of actions that are peculiar to him in his exaltation as the incarnate King of kings. IV. In all instances where beings appearing as symbols repre- sent their own persons, it is clearly shown by declarations and descriptions who they are. Thus the glorious human form appearing in the first vision, ex- pressly declares himself to be the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, who had been dead and is alive for evermore, and has the keys of death and the grave ; characters that belong only to the incarnate Word in his exaltation to the throne of the uni- verse. The disembodied spirits appearing under the fifth seal, are said to be the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God, by the inhabitants of the earth ; those also who appear in the twentieth chapter, are represented as having lived at a for- mer period on the earth, and many of them as having refused worship to the wild beast, and suffered martyrdom ; and the dragon of the twentieth chapter is expressly declared to be the devil, who deceives the nations. As it is a deviation from the law of analogy that these beings appear as the representatives of themselves, care is thus taken to guard the reader against the error to which that law might otherwise have led, of regarding them as representatives, like other symbols, of analogous agents. V. Wlicn purely fictitious agents are employed as symbols, they are exhibited in vision to the prophet acting out their agency, and invested in that manner with a sensible existence. Other- wise there were a want of reality, and therefore of analogy, in the representation. It were incongruous to employ an absolute non-existence, to foreshadow a real one. This is an invariable law accordingly of symbolization. Not only are the fictitious representatives of the Apocalypse, such as THE LAWS OF SYMBOLIC REPRESENTATION. 31 the locusts and horsemen of the trumpets, the seven-headed drag- on and ten-horned wild beast, and the beast of two horns, exhib- ited in vision, but so also were the wild beasts of Daniel, the image of Nebuchadnezzar, and the symbolic agents of Zechariah. VI. When the real persons appearing in the visions are exhib- ited with symbolical insignia or accompaniments, the uses ascribed to those symbols are also symbolical. This is required by analogy. Thus as the sword proceeding out of the mouth of the Son of God, is a symbol of the organ of speech, so the use ascribed to it is representative of the sentence of death he is to pronounce on his enemies. And as the horse on which he is exhibited in the nineteenth chapter is a symbol, so is his descent from heaven on the horse, symbolic of a descent in an analogous manner, suited to his station as the King of kings, and the vic- tory he is to achieve over his foes. VII. The terms in which the symbols and their actions are described, are always literal, never metaphorical, and of propri- ety. To unite a symbol and a metaphor in the same expression, were as incongruous, as to attempt to metaphorize a personifi- cation. VIII. There are no representative agents in the Apocalypse, except those that are exhibited as actors in the visions. Thus the seven churches obviously are not symbols. The letters ad- dressed to them are not prophetic, but only declaratory of the attributes, rights, will, and purposes of the Redeemer. No agency is ascribed to them as certainly future. They are only apprized by the Saviour of his perfect knowledge of their past and present character, and of the gifts with which they were to be rewarded if faithful ; and the judgments with which they were to be overwhelmed if disobedient. Neither for the same rea- sons, are any of the persons mentioned in the epistles to those churches symbolic ; such as the Jews, Antipas, false prophets, Jezebel, the Nicolaitans, and Balaamites. To regard them as symbolic were to overlook the distinction between symbols and simple history, and run into as gross an error as it were to treat symbolic representatives, as like ordinary portraits and land- scapes, denoting nothing but such objects and agents as they present to the eye. IX. Though nothing in the Apocalypse is representative, ex- cept what is exhibited in vision, yet in other prophecies symbols are employed that were not shown in vision, but merely dis- played in verbal description. They, however, are distinguished by two characteristics. 32 THE LAWS OF SYMBOLIC REPRESENTATION. First. The symbolic agents are such as were known to the prophet and those whom he addressed, and their actions and phe- nomena such as are natural. Thus the chief of them are the sun, llie moon, meteors, the air, the earth, the sea, rivers and foun- tains, a city : and the phenomena ascribed to them such as are proper to those objects respectively, such as obscuration to the sun, dimness and bloodiness to the moon, a fall to meteors, light- nings, thunders, darkness to the atmosphere, earthquakes to the land, a fall to a city ; — appearances and events, which being real and common, a visionary exhibition was not requisite in order to a knowledge of their nature. Next. They are accompanied by an express designation of the persons or communities which they are employed to represent, and always exhibit an indisputable mark that they are symbols, not metaphors, in their insusceptibility of conversion, like meta- phors, into similes, or allegories, which differ from metaphors only as they exhibit the particulars of resemblance at large, and are accompanied by a notice of the persons or subjects which they are employed to illustrate. Whether a prediction, therefore, be simply metaphorical, or symbolic, in which, like the visionary emblems of the Apocalypse, the actors, actions, and effects are represented by agents and phenomena of a different species, may be determined by introducing the term of comparison. If the expression may be translated in that manner into a mere simile, without varying the sense, it is a metaphor. Thus the meaning of the metaphor, Judah is a lion's whelp, is the same as of the simile, Judah is like a lion's whelp. But the prediction of Isaiah, " All the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heaven shall be rolled together as a scroll, and all their hosts shall fall down as the leaf falleth off from the vine, and as a fall- ing fig from the fig-tree," is as obviously symbolical, as no term of comparison can be inserted between the heavens and their hosts and the events predicted of them, and those events them- selves arc compared to a different class, of which a scroll, the leaves of the vine, and the fruit of the fig-tree are the sub- jects. Similes and metaphors are founded on partial, not like sym- bols on general resemblances ; and are used only for illustration, not as representatives. Types are founded on more general re- semblances, and used according to the following laws : — 1. No mere fictitious agents are made representatives of real agents in typical predictions. Nothing out of the circle of reali- ties is used as an emblem, except symbols that are exhibited in THE LAWS OF SYMBOLIC REPRESENTATION. 33 vision, and endowed in that manner with a sensible existence. A mere non-existence cannot represent a real one. 2. No person is exhibited as a type of another, except in a re- lation or station which he has himself sustained. Had not David been a king, he could not have been used as a type of the Mes- siah as king. Had not Elijah been a prophet, he could not have been employed as a type of John the Baptist. Had not Abraham been a believer, he could not have served as a representative or exemplar of believers. 3. No action of a person except one that he has already exert- ed, is made a representative of an analogous act of another person or community, and for a similar reason. It were to make a nonentity the pattern or representative of a reality. A return of the Jews, for example, to their own land, cannot be made a type of any other analogous action, either of that or any other people, unless such a return from dispersion have actually taken place. 4. The Son of God in his exaltation, is never exhibited as a type or representative of any other being ; nor any action of his, as a type of the action of any other being. And the reason is obvious. It were inconsistent with his deity to be made a .repre- sentative of any dependent being. It were inconsistent with the pecuharity of his person, station, and agency, as the incarnate Word, to be made the representative of the Holy Spirit. 5. Were one of his acts to be made the symbol of another and difterent agency, to be exerted either by himself or the Spirit, still, agreeably to the third law, it could not be used as a type, until he had exerted it. Before his coming in the clouds visibly to every eye, can be a type of any other agency, he must so come in the clouds, and exert all the acts, and fulfil all the condi- tions predicted of that appearance. X. All the agents and phenomena exhibited in the visions of the Apocalypse are symbolic, except the interpreting angels and those bearing the trumpets and vi^s, whose office is merely to assist the revelation. Thus the silence of half an hour, after the opening of the seventh seal, the angel flying through mid- heaven saying, with a loud voice, " Woe, woe, woe, to the in- habitants of the earth," and the voices from heaven, are doubtless as representative as any of the other agents and phenomena pre- sented to the senses of the prophet. XL The symbolic agents attending the throne of the Almighty, and serving in his presence, are to be distinguished from those that appear on the earth. The former, such as the living crea- tures, the elders, and the angels uniting in their worship, minis- 5 34 THE LAWS OF SYMBOLIC REPRESENTATION. tering at the altar, and fulfilling other offices in the divine pres- ence, are to be regarded as representatives only of agents there, not on earth. The latter, such as the hosts of Michael and Satan warring in the atmosphere, the angels having power over the four winds, the majestic shape ascending from the east bearing the seal of God, the gigantic form robed in a cloud and crowned with iris splendors that descending set, Upon the stormy ocean his right foot, On the green land his left, and others of the like nature fulfilling their offices on earth, are in like manner representatives only of agents here. XII. In complex symbols, the representative person is to be distinguished from the symbolic accompaniments, which are merely designed to show his office, character, and relations. Thus, under the first seal, the rider of the horse is the symbolic agent, the bow but denotes his office, and his station and move- ment on the horse, that he is in the successful excercise of that office. In like manner in the cherubim of Ezekiel, it is doubt- less the face of man that denotes the order of intclhgehces to which the cherub belongs, while the face of the lion, the eagle, and the ox, the wings and the innumerable eyes, are employed merely to denote the vast sublimation of their sensitive nature, expansion and refinement of faculties, and strength and perfec- tion of character to which they are there exalted. XIII. Symbolic agents that are representative of men, denote an order and succession of agents, acting in the same relations, and exerting a similar agency. That such is the office of the principal symbols is indisputable, as of the ten-horned wild beast, which denotes the united civil rulers of the western Roman em- pire after its division into ten kingdoms, through a period of many generations ; of the image, which symbolizes a similar union of the numerous ecclesiastical rulers and teachers of the same empire through successive ages ; the seven-headed dragon, the monster locusts and horsemen ; as is manifest from the period through which their agency continues ; the woman clothed with .sunbeams, her son, the witnesses, the horsemen of the first four seals, the angels flying through the midst of heaven, the angel clothed in a cloud, and the angel bearing the seal of God. Tiie offices they sustain, the agencies they exert, and such of their periods as are specified, require that construction. And thence this method of representation is requisite throughout, in order to a due proportion of tiic agents and their agency to each other. THE LAWS OF SYMBOLIC REPRESENTATION. 35 As a vast body and succession of men is denoted by a wild beast, whose term of life, according to analogy, must be short ; and as the period of its agency is for that reason represented by a proportionably short duration, so in order to concinnity and likelihood, other classes and successions of men are required to be represented by single agents, and long periods of agency by periods that are short. XIV. Accordingly the periods ascribed to those representa- tive agents, the wild beast, the witnesses, the star-crowned wo- man, are denoted by terms proportionably diminished, by the substitution of days for years, and months for a number of years equal to their number of days. XV. In interpreting symbols like those drawn from the phy- sical world, embracing many classes of objects, they are to be contemplated as a whole, and a counterpart sought sustaining towards them an analogy as a whole ; not considered in detail, as the elements differ of which they consist, and as though each, notwithstanding its relations to the whole, retained its own pecu- liar meaning. Thus though mountains, trees, grass, are used in other Scriptures to metaphorize classes of men, or men in gene- ral, it does not follow that they bear a similar signification in a symbol of which they are a part ; or that it is to their having such meanings as metaphors, that symbols in which they are united owe in any degree their significance. The assumption that they still retain their metaphorical meaning is preposterous, and has been a fruitful source of error in the exposition of the Apocalypse. As there is no counterpart to the physical, except the social world, symbols drawn from the one, embracing a va- riety of objects, like a landscape, a country, the earth, of course denote an analogous union of agents in the social world, either religious, or civil, or military. When the whole, therefore, thus of necessity denotes men, it is preposterous to regard that repre- sentation as the office of only a part ; or the signification of the whole as the consequence of the unsymbolic meaning of subordi- nate portions. It is the union of the whole in the symbol and thing symbolized, that constitutes the analogy ; not any separate adap- tation of the particulars of the one, aside from that union, to represent the particulars of the other. More, perhaps, of the errors of expositors are traceable to the neglect of this obvious law than any other. The question is perpetually raised by them. What do mountains, trees, seas, hills, rivers, denote in other Scriptures, and on the assumption that their import when united 36 THE LAWS OF SYMBOLIC REPRESENTATION. in a symbol, is to be determined by their meaning when used separately as metaphors or similes. XVI. The import ascribed to a symbol is to be limited to that which it naturally involves, irrespective of any peculiar or meta- phorical use of its agents, actions, or terms, which other passages may present. Thus to harvest the grain crops of a season, is to cut them from the stalk, bind them in sheaves, and gather them together, in order to preservation and appropriation to use. It denotes nothing more. When used, therefore, to symbolize an agency on men, it is to be interpreted as simply representing them as gathered together from their scene of life, in order to some subsequent destiny. But whether good or evil, if deter- mined, is to be determined from something else than the mere symbol. To infuse into it a higher meaning, because a harvest is thought to denote in other passages the gathering of men for destruction, is to create a sense for the symbol, not to interpret it ; to superinduce a foreign meaning, not to unfold that with which it is itself fraught. XVII. The station of the heavenly sanctuaiy is to be conceived as over Patmos, at a great elevation, whence the apocalyptic earth, from the Euphrates to tlie west and north of Europe, was visible ; the throne as in the holy of holies, and the apostle as at first in the sanctuary whence the holy of holies, the inner sanctu- ary, the veil being withdrawn, might be seen ; afterwards at the vestibule or court, from which the earth with all its great objects, seas, rivers, mountains, forests, and cities might be beheld, and often on the earth itself. THE APOCALYPSE. SECTION I. CHAPTER I. 1-3. THE TITLE. The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him to show- to his servants what must shortly come to pass, and sending he sig- nified by his angel to his servant John, who attested the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ, whatever he saw. Blessed is he who reads and they who hear the words of the prophecy, and keep the things written in it, for the time is near. The title of the prophecy was obviously prefixed after the vis- ions were written, as it was after the symbols had been shown and interpreted by the angel ; while the visions themselves, manifestly from chapter x. 4, were written successively as they were beheld. The delivery of the Apocalypse to Christ, was doubtless the de- livery of the sealed book its symbol, of which there is a repre- sentation in the fifth chapter. The apostle's attesting the word of God, is his record as a prophet of the revelation as it was made to him in the visions, and interpreted by the angel. That to which he gave his testimony, he says both here and in the last chapter, was that which he saw. It is apparent also from his benediction of those who read and hear the words of the prophecy, and keep the things that are written in it. To regard, with Dr. Hammond and Vitringa, not the revelation, but the gospel which he had preached and written, as the subject of his testimony, is to refer the benediction likewise to the readers of his gospel in- stead of the Apocalypse, which is in contradiction to his language, and misrepresents his gospel as a prophecy, instead of a history. That blessing implies that the prophecy is easily intelligible to the attentive reader and hearer, and that they who understand and treasure up the great things which it teaches, will find them sources of enjoyment here, and everlasting happiness hereafter. The office of the angel was simply to guide and interpret, not 38 THE apostle's salutation of the churches. as some seem to imagine, to display the visionary spectacle to the apostle. That is to exalt him to the station of the incarnate Word, whose prerogative alone it is to reveal to creatures the purposes of God. The testimony of Christ which the apostle witnessed, is his annunciation of himself in the first vision and messages to the churches of Asia ; the word of God, his purpose as made known by the symbols, the voices from heaven, and the interpreting angel. As the revelation embraces a vast succession of events extend- ing through many ages, that they were soon to come to pass, im- plies, not that they were soon to reach their completion, but only that the series was speedily to commence. That representation is agreeable to usage. It is customary to speak of successions of events and periods of lime as nigh, how vast soever or intermi- nable even they may be, when the commencement is at hand ; as of a war, an age, a century, the millennium, eternity, though the term covers every other part as absolutely as the first of the period or series. SECTION II. CHAPTER I. 4-8. THE apostle's SALUTATION OF THE CHURCHES. John to the seven churches which are in Asia; grace to you and peace from Him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits which are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful Witness, the Firstborn from the dead, and the Ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and has washed us from our sins in his blood, and made us kings and priests unto God even his Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Behold, he comes with the clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they who pierced him, and all the tribes of the earth shall wail be- cause of him. Yea, amen. I am the Alpha and the Omega, saith the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Al- mighty. The seven spirits are the Holy Spirit, denominated seven be- cause symbolized by seven lamps. Paul's salutations of the churches are eminently beautiful, and rise in some instances to grandeur. But this transcends them in vastness and majesty of THE FIRST VISION. CHRIST S ANNUNCIATION. 39 thought, presenting in a few words the loftiest conceptions of which we are capable of the Deity ; and the most impressive of the office and work of the Redeemer. His coming with the clouds, is that doubtless which is symbolized by his descent on the white horse, in the nineteenth chapter ; and they who pierce him are they who, like the Jews, are to reject him as Messiah, choose some other method than his of salvation, and endeavor to debar him from his throne. That all the tribes of the earth are to wail because of him, implies that they are to survive his ad- vent, and expect from him an avenging judgment. The assevera- tion. Yea, amen, and proclamation of his attributes, denotes the certainty of his coming, and that it is to carry to all his creatures a resistless demonstration that he is the Self-existent, the Eter- nal, and Almighty. SECTION III. CHAPTER I. 9-20. THE FIRST VISION. — CHRIST's ANNUNCIATION. I John your brother and fellow-partaker in the affliction, and king- dom, and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle called Patmo , on account of the word of God and of the testimony of Jesus Christ. I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a loud voice as of a trumpet, saying, What thou seest write in a book, and send to the seven churches in Ephesus, and in Smyrna, and in Per- gamos, and in Thyatira, and in Sardis, and in Philadelphia, and in Laodicea. And I turned to see the voice which spake with me, and having turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks, and in the midst of the seven candlesticks, one like a son of man, clothed with a robe to the feet, and girded at the breasts with a golden girdle. And his head and hairs were while as white wool, as snow ; and his eyes as a flame of fire, and his feet like glowing brass, as purified in a furnace, and his voice as a voice of many waters ; and holding in his right hand seven stars ; and from his mouth a sharp two-edged sword pro- ceeded, and his countenance [was] as the sun shining in its strength. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he put his right hand on me, saying, Fear not : I am the First and the Last and the Living. I was dead, and behold I am alive forever and ever, and have the keys of death and of the grave. Write therefore what thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which are 40 THE FIUST VISION. CIIRIST's ANNUNCIATION. to be after these ; the mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are messengers of the seven churches, and the seven candle- sticks are the seven churches. Being in the Spirit was being in the prophetic ecstasy in which visions were beheld and revelations received : being like a son of man, was being of a human form simply. That he was the incarnate Word whom the apostle beheld, was shown not by that form, but by his annunciation of himself, and the symbols which he bore. The design of this vision was to apprize the prophet, from whom the commands and messages about to be uttered proceeded, and raise him to becoming thoughts of him, and the grounds on which he founds his government. And the means chosen for the purpose, the personal appearance and address of Christ, are marked by the highest adaptation. Our sensitive and rational nature is such, that the presence of such a majestic being daz- zling us with the effulgence of his countenance, accompanied by insignia of dominion, and addressing us with authority, would in- stantly raise in us an irresistible conviction of his deity, and our responsibility to him. Equally suited to that end are the thoughts which the Redeemer addressed to the apostle, who had fallen as dead at the spectacle. Of all the conceptions of which wc are capable, they take a more powerful hold than any others of our moral nature, filling the intellect with his greatness, indepen- dence, and dominion, and the heart with a sense of his riglits. In this use of means more adapted than any others to impress the apostle with his divinity and office as Redeemer, he display- ed a knowledge of our nature and a beauty of wisdom and con- descension, that are seen only in God. That a foundation exists in us for a recognition of the Deity, and an all-powerful sense of his rights over us, is indisputable. If we endeavor to conceive the impressions whicii would be made on us by such a vision, the more adequate our apprehensions become of the convictions and emotions to which it would give birth, the clearer will be our sight, and the profounder our feeling, that it would bear us irre- sistibly to the conclusion that we were in the presence of our Maker. It is a law of our nature which no logic can set aside, and to whicii no unbelief, ignorance, or stupidity can offer an ob- struction. Not only the apostle in this instance, and at the trans- figuration with Peter and James, but Paul, Daniel, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Moses, Job, sunk overwhelmed at the presence of the Almighty. THE FIRST VISION. CHUIST's ANNUNCIATION. 41 And such a sensibility to tlie proofs of his presence and rights, is obviously necessary to fit us to be subjects of his mor- al government. Were there not a foundation within us for such an instinctive and all-powerful feeling of his title to our homage, because of his nature, and relations as our Maker, his claims could lay no hold of our consciences. We should be incapable indeed of a sense of responsibihty to him. Were not that feeling independent of our reasonings, spontaneous, and absolutely irre- pressible, however much we might strive to stifle or escape it, it would at the best be but feeble and inefficient even in those who sought to cherish it, and would fade into extinction in those who endeavored to counteract or mislead it by false reasonings. But God has not built his government on so precarious a founda- tion as our wishes or opinions. He has so formed us, that he has a grasp on our moral nature which no struggles of ours can evet escape, no aversion diminish, nor sophistry relax. He has but to reveal himself to us and proclaim his deity, and blindness, unbelief, and insensibility vanish, and our whole nature responds to the rightfulness of his claims to our awe and love. The grounds of his government are thus laid in our constitution beyond the possibility of eradication by us, and are to endure throughout our immortal existence. The truth thus taught in the first vision, presents a sublime exemplification of the blessings, which the things written in the book are suited to yield to those who understand and observe them. Had it been studied attentively, apprehended and obeyed, it would have prevented the vast cloud of false and pernicious speculations with which philosophers and theologians have filled the world, respecting the foundation of morals. In what a resist- less light it exhibits the folly and impiety with which most of them are marked ; — the doctrine of expedience, of the greatest good, of human authority, of custom, and, which transcends all others in the audacity with which it sets aside the claims of the Al- mighty, the doctrine that he has no right as God and creator, but only as benefactor ; and that that right .sinks as his bounties di- minish, and expires when he punishes. A just understanding of the grounds on which he builds his government, would have with- held them too, from many of the erroneous constructions which they have put on the visions. It is from his prerogatives as the Self-existent and the creator, that the falsehood and impiety of the claims of the wild beast and false prophet to a supreme hom- age are seen. While the Redeemer's person and annunciation of himself re- 6 42 THE FIRST VISION. CIIRISt's ANNUNCIATION. vealed his deity, the accompanying symbols denoted the agency he was to exert ; his relation to the stars and candlesticks, his rule over the church ; the sword proceeding from his mouth, the avenging sentence he was to pronounce on his enemies. In denominating the seven stars and seven candlesticks a mys- tery, and explaining their meaning, it is shown that the objects presented in the visions are representative, and that the principle of representation is analogy. A star is a teacher who spreads the light of God's word througli the circle around him ; a candle- stick a church supporting such a teacher in the station in which he fulfils that office. The seven churches are treated by Vitringa and many others as symbolic, but in violation of analogy, as it implies both that the representative agents are of the same species as the beings whom they represent, and their actions the same as those which they foreshadow. The admission of such a principle of represen- tation, were to involve the whole Apocalypse in uncertainty. If each of the seven churches indicate a similarity of doctrine and character in the church at large at a later period, then must the wild beast with seven heads and ten horns be held as symbol- izing a vast body of similar wild beasts ; which as it would imply the creation of a new species, and therefore a total departure from the laws of providence, and is unworthy to be made the subject of prophecy, is wholly incredible. It is equally at variance with the law, that no act of a sj'mbol can represent an act of the agent symbolized, unless it be either really exerted by the representative, or exhibited to the prophet in vision. But of the things predicated of those churches, a por- tion were future. Some of their members were to be cast into prison, and to suffer persecution ten days ; some were to be kept from the hour of temptation which was to come on the whole world ; and others were to be rebuked in love and chastened. In order, therefore, that their future existence and agency in those conditions, might be made a symbol of the existence and like agency of the church in similar conditions at future periods, the agents, scenery, and actions should have been exhibited to the apostle in vision. Such is invariably the law of symbolization, and obviously for the most imperative reasons. To make a mere fictitious act, which has not been invested with even a visionary existence, a representative, w^re to make a nonentity a sign ; and thence, if the assumption on which the construction in ques- tion proceeds were legitimate, that the symbol and thing symbol- ized arc of the same species, were to make the action foreshown THE FIRST VISION. CHRIST's ANNUNCIATION. 43 also a nonentity ; which were not only to degrade the whole to utter unintelligibleness, but to make the pretence that it is a rep- resentation of the future, a mockery. These views are confirmed by their want of success, who have endeavored to show a correspondence between the characteristics of the first six of the churches, and the church at large at six successive periods. The applications of Mr. Brightman, Dr. More, Vilringa, and others, are wholly arbitrary, exhibit no bet- ter resemblances than might be found at many other periods, and are embarrassed at every step by flagrant contradiction, or a total want of likeness. Equally erroneous is the assumption which others have ad- vanced, that those churches were symbols of the church at large of that period. That is likewise against analogy, which forbids the use of a symbol of the same species, as the thing symbol- ized, except when no other adequate representative can be found. But that reason does not exist for making the church a symbol of itself, as it is actually represented in the Apocalypse by a can- dlestick. Those churches then are not symbolic. Neither are the mes- sages addressed to them wholly prophetic, though they foreshow trials and persecutions on the one hand, and supports and rewards on the other. They are however not the less important, as they make known the great principles on which the Redeemer was to conduct his administration through a long succession of ages, and form thence a most instructive introduction to the visions, in which the conduct of men under that administration is foreshown. Thus he not only proclaims to them his deity, his prerogatives as the Ruler of the universe, his claims to their homage, and his per- fect knowledge of their character and condition, but apprizes them that he is to subject them to trial, and allow some to be persecu- ted and put to deatli ; that he shall desert and disown the luke- warm, and overwhelm with terrible judgments the apostate, but support the faithful with his presence, and finally crown them with eternal rewards ; — promises and threatenings that have been conspicuously verified in his providence toward both churches and individuals, through the long series of ages that has followed. 44 EPISTLES TO EPHESUS, SMYRNA, ETC. SECTION IV. CHAPTER II. 1-28. EPISTLES TO EPIIESUS, SMYRNA, PERGAMOS, AND THYATIRA. To the messenger of the church in Rphesus write ; These saith he who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks : I know thy works, and thy labor, and tliy patience, and that thou canst not bear the wicked, and thou hast tried them who call themselves apostles, and are not, and hast found them false ; and thou hast patience, and hast borne for my name, and hast not fainted. But I have [it] against thee that thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore whence thou hast fallen, and reform and dp thy first works. But if not, I come to thee quickly ; and I will remove thy candlestick from its place, unless thou reform. But thou hast this, that thou hatest the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give to eat of the tree of life which is in the paradise of God. And to the messenger of the church in Smyrna write : These saith the First and the Last, who was dead and has revived, I know thy works, and afiliction, and poverty, (but thou art rich,) and false accusation by those who say they are Jews, and are not, but a syn- agogue of Satan. Fear not what thou art about to sufl'er. Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried ; and ye shall have afiiiction ten days. Be faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life. He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes shall not be injured by the second death. And to the messenger of the church in Pergamos write : These saith he who has the two-edged sharp sword, I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, where the throne of Satan [is.] And thou holdcst my name, and wouldst not deny my faith even in the days in which Antipas [was] my faithful witness, who was put to death among you, where Satan dwells. But I have a few things against thee ; that thou hast there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumbling-block before the children of Israel, to eat offerings to idols, and commit fornication. So also thou hast those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans in like manner. Reform therefore. But if not, I come to thee quickly, and I will fight with them with the sword of my mouth. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who over- comes, I will give of the manna which is hidden. And 1 will give EPISTLES TO EPHESUS, SMYRNA, ETC. 45 him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written, which no one knows but he who receives it. And to the messenger of the church in Thyatira write : These saith the Son of God, who has his eyes as a flame of fire, and his feet hke glowing brass ; I know thy works, and love, and faith, and ministry, and thy patience, and thy last works to be more than the first. But I have [it] against thee that thou suff'erest thy wife Jeze- bel, who calls herself a prophetess, and teaches and seduces my servants to commit fornication, and eat offerings to idols. And I gave her time that she might reform, and she chooses not to reform from her fornication. Behold, I cast her into a bed, and those who commit adultery with her into great affliction, unless they shall re- form from her works. And I will slay her children with death. And all the churches shall know that I am he who searches the reins and hearts, 9nd I will give to each one of you according to your works. But to you the rest who are in Thyatira I say, as many as do not hold that doctrine, who have not known the depths of Satan, as they speak, I lay on you no other burden ; but what ye have, hold until I come. And he who overcomes, and who keeps my works to the end, I will give him power over the nations, and he shall rule them with an iron sceptre, as vessels of clay are broken, as I have received of my Father. And I will give him the morning star. He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The doctrine of Balaam was the doctrine that the ministers of God might, for gain, counsel and promote the seduction of his people to mingle in the feasts and impurities of idolaters : the doctrine of the Nicolaitans probably, that the people of God might lawfully partake of their offerings to idols, and indulge in their excesses. To slay with death, is to destroy by a natural disease, in con- tradistinction from an extraordinary and violent instrument, as by the pestilence instead of the sword. As all the gifts promised to the victorious are gifts after their victory, the hidden manna denotes the sustenance in the life of the future world, and subsequently to their resurrection doubt- less, like the other rewards, all of which are of that period. Thus the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God, is the tree of life in the new Jerusalem, which descends out of heaven from God at the establishment of Christ's kingdom on the earth, after the first resurrection. To be freed from the power of the second death, is to have part in the first resurrection. To receive a white stone, on which a new name is written, is to receive a badge of the new and peculiar relation to Christ, to which the redeemed 46 EPISTLES TO SAUDIS, PHILADELPHIA, ETC. arc to be exalted at their resurrection and acceptance. To have power over the nations, and rule them with an iron sceptre, is to be made a king over them, and to reign with Christ, which is not to be granted till the commencement of his visible reign on earth, after the first resurrection. As Christ is the bright and morning star which is then to rise on the new Jerusalem, and supersede the need in it of sun or moon ; to have that star is to belong to the new Jenisalem at its descent from heaven. To be clothed in a white robe, is to be clothed as the bride is adorned, when prepared by a resurrection and acceptance for a descent as the new Jerusalem. To have the name of God written on the fore- head, and the name of the city of God the new Jerusalem, is to be one of the raised and glorified saints. And to sit with Christ on his throne, is to reign with him in his kingdom, duting the pe- riod denoted by the thousand years, after the first resurrection. The reason that the blessings thus promised to the faithful are all blessings of the life that is to follow the resurrection, is, doubtless, that otherwise they were not blessings of a full re- demption from the curse of sin, and an elevation to the stations and honors which Christ is to confer on his people, on their pub- lic adoption as joint heirs with him and sons of God. Their full release from the penalty of sin is not to be accomplished till they are restored from the dominion of death, its great public penalty, and raised to an immortal and glorious life. To have promised any thing less than these gifts, had been only to promise some- thing intermediate between the blessings of this life and a full salvation. SECTION V. CHAPTER III. 1-22. EPISTLES TO SARDIS, PHILADELPHIA, AND LAODICEA. And to the messenger of the church in Sardis write : These saith he who has the seven spirits of God, and the seven stars, I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead. Be watchful, and strengthen the things remaining that are about to die ; for I have not found thy works perfectly performed before my God. Remember, therefore, how thou hast received, and heard, and hold, and reform. If therefore thou shouldst not watch, 1 will come to thee as a thief, and thou canst not know in what hour 1 will come EPISTLES TO SARDIS, PHILADELPHIA, ETC. 47 to thee. But thou hast a few names in Sardis which have not de- filed their garments ; and they shall walk with me in white, for they are Avorthy. He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot his name from the book of life ; and I will ac- knowledge his name before my Father, and before his angels. He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. And to the messenger of the church in Philadelphia write : These saith he who is holy, who is true, who has the key of David, who opens and no one shuts, and shuts and no one opens ; I know thy works. Behold, I have given before thee a door opened, which no one can shut ; for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name. Behold, I give of the synagogue of Satan, who say they are Jews, and are not, but lie ; behold, I will constrain them that they shall come, and shall fall before thy feet, and know that I have loved thee. Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of trial, which is about to come on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth. I come quickly. Hold what thou hast, that no one may take thy crown. Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he can never more go out. And I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which descends out of heaven from my God, and my new name. He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the cu^:""hes. Ana to the messenger of the church in Laodicea write : These saith th3 Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Head of the crea- tion of God ; I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot. I would thou wert cold or hot. So because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to cast thee from my mouth. Be- cause thou sayest, I abound, and am enriched, and have want of nothing ; and thou knowest not that thou art wretched, and pitiable, and poor, and blind, and naked ; I counsel thee to buy of me gold, purified by fire, that thou mayest be rich, and white garments that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness may not appear, and eye-salve to anoint thine eyes that thou mayest see. As many as I love I rebuke and chasten. Be zealous therefore and reform. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any one hear my voice and open the door, I will enter to him and sup with him, and he with me. To him who overcomes I will give to sit with me on my throne, as I also overcame, and sat with my Father on his throne. He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The epistles, though resembling each other in many respects, differ in the attributes and prerogatives which the Redeemer pre sents as the ground of his title to the homage of the church. It 48 EPISTLES TO SARDIS, PHILADELPHIA, ETC. is he who holds the seven stars in his right hand, and walks in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, who addresses the church at Ephesus ; the First and the Last, who was dead and nas revived, who speaks to the messenger of Smyrna; and the Son of God, who has liis eyes as a flame of fire, and his feet like glowing brass, who utters the terrible denunciations to the apos- tates, and the sublime promises to the faithful of Thyatira. It is he, who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars, that exhorts the church at Sardis to reformation, vigilance, and stead- fastness ; he who is holy, who is true, who has the key of Da- vid, who opens and no one shuts, and shuts and no one opens, who promises deliverance and a victory to the saints of Philadel- phia ; and the Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Head of the creation of God, who forewarns the lukewarm of Laodicea of their rejection. These annunciations of himself are inimita- bly grand, and suited, immeasurably above any others that can be conceived, to impress those to whom they were addressed, with a sense of his infinite knowledge and power, his universal dominion, the awfulness of his justice, and the riches of his grace ; and they close with an expression of condescension and love which is scarcely equalled in any other part of the Scrip- tures. He exhibits himself as standing at the door, and solicit- ing admission to the presence of his people, and promises to those who allow him to enjoy their society here, a participation in the regal honors to which he is exalted in heaven. What a beauty of condescension ! What a grandeur of benignity ! The term ayys'kog, translated in the common version angel, liter- ally denotes a messenger, and is undoubtedly employed in that sense. It is certain that it is used literally, inasmuch as it is used, chap. i. 20, in the explanation of the symbolic stars ; which are employed to represent the angels of the churches. To use a metaphor to explain a symbol were incongruous. "AyyeXoc:, mes- senger, is undoubtedly therefore used as literally in that inter- pretation, as is sxxkY,gia, church. But it has no literal meaning as a title of men, except that of messenger ; and its secondary use as the name of an order of spiritual agents, is founded on their employment as messengers ; it being applied to the whole order, because those of them who have visited our world, have come as the ministers of God. There is no conceivable ground for the use of the term in these instances as a metaphor. Wliat- ever theory is entertained of the ministers of the seven churches, there is no relation in which an anffclic being can be imagined with any propriety to be used to mctaphorizc them. An angel EPISTLES TO SARDIS, PHILADELPHIA, ETC. 49 most certainly is not an appropriate representative of authority. Angels are ministers in their relations to men, as well as to God, not rulers ; and their office as ministers Avho bear messages, is that which the name literally denotes. That it is used in its original sense of messenger, is seen finally from the fact, that the letters were to be sent by the apostle to the churches, and sent therefore by messengers, and messengers doubtless commissioned by the churches themselves, as it is not probable that appropriate persons could have been found by the apostle in the desert isle of Patmos. This supposition more- over is in accordance with the customs of the primitive church. Paul speaks of it with surprise and disapprobation, that on his first arraignment at Rome, all his friends forsook him, 2 Tim. iv. 16 ; which indicates that it was deemed becoming, and was customary, that the associates of those who were suffering per- secution, should attend and sustain them in their trials. He commended Onesiphorus, that he sought him out on his visit at that city, refreshed him often, and was not ashamed of his chain, 2 Tim. i. 16, 17. He was allowed during his long residence there as a prisoner, to live in his own hired house, and all who chose were permitted to visit him. The representation in the letter to the Romans, ascribed to Ignatius, and in the story of his martyrdom, that some of the church of Antioch accompanied him in his journey to Rome, and that in his progress through Asia Minor, pastors and members of the churches visited him, administered to his wants, and testi- fied their interest in his approaching martyrdom, though those writings are undoubtedly supposititious, may justly be regarded as founded on the custom of the churches to delegate some of their number to attend the martyrs on their removal to distant places, and at their dcath.^ It was indisputably customary during the later pagan perse- cutions, for the members of the church to visit the confessors in prison, supply their wants, and comfort and encourage them. Dionysius of Corinth, in a letter to the church at Rome, written between the years 168 and 176, when Soter was its bishop, re- presents it as having been the custom of the Christians of that city from the first, to assist their fellow-believers who were in want or suffering persecution ; sending to the numerous churches in other cities, such things as were needful both for the supply of the poor, and the relief of those of the brethren who were sen- ' Iguatii Epist. ad Rom. c. 9, 10. Martyrii c. 3. Eusebii Eccl. H. lib. iii. c. 36. 7 50 EPISTLES TO SARDIS, PHILADELPHIA, ETC. tenced to the mincs.^ Tcrtullian in like manner relates that the Christians of Africa, were accustomed to appropriate a portion of their earnings to the relief, not only of orphans, the aged, and the unfortunate among them, but of those who were imprisoned or condemned to the mines for their confession of the faith.^ Cyprian in his first letter written to the presbyters and deacons of Carthage during his concealment, while exhorting them to take all needful care to supply the indigent, and relieve those who were imprisoned for their confession of Christ, desired them also to caution the people against unnecessarily exciting the dis- pleasure of their enemies, by assembling in crowds at the prison, in order to administer to the necessities of the brethren who were held in confinement.^ It is represented by Eusebius as an un- usual cruelty in Licinius, that he prohibited the Christians from visiting their associates whom he had imprisoned, and supplying them with food, though no adequate provision was made for their sustenance by the magistrates.* The ministers of the churches also in their imprisonment, exile, or voluntary retreat into seclusion, to avoid the persecuting ma- gistrates, were accustomed to communicate with their people by messengers and letters. Cyprian appointed certain ministers of the church of Carthage, to convey his letters to his people and return their replies, and maintained a continual correspondence with them during the two years of his concealment.^ It was customary likewise to employ ministers of the church as messengers to convey letters to distant churches and indivi- duals, and give and receive advice. Thus Clemens sent the letter of the church of Rome to the Corinthians by messengers, and intimates the expectation that the Corinthians would respond by a written or verbal message on their return.'' The letter of Ignatius to the Philadelphians, exhibits it as becoming them to ordain a deacon to go on an embassy to the church of Antioch, to congratulate it on its release from persecution, and represents that some of the neighboring churches had already sent bisiiops, presbyters, or deacons ;' and that that letter was to be sent to Phil- adelphia from Troy, by one who had been commissioned by the churches of Ephcsus and Smyrna, to attend him to that place, on liis way to llome.^ There is a similar request in his letter to the Smyrinans,^ and to Polycarp.*" This custom of the church is ac- cordingly represented by tiie author of the supposititious conslitu- ' Eusebii Eccl. Hist. lib. iv. c. 23. " Apologetic!, c. 39. ' Epist. V. Edit. Lips. 1838. ■• Eccl. Hist. lib. x. c. 8. *Epist.xxix. "0.59. ' c. 10. ' c. 11. " c. 11. " c. 7. THE VISION OF THE DEITY. 51 tions ascribed to the apostles, as expressly enjoined by them. " If any Christian be condemned by the idolaters to the spectacles, the beasts, or the mines, for the name of Christ, do not neglect him, but send of your earnings for his sustenance, and a gift to the soldiers, that he may be better treated."^ It is apparent thus from the New Testament, and the histories of the ages that immediately followed the period of the revela- tion, that messengers were customarily sent by the churches to those who were imprisoned or banished, to administer to their wants and ask instruction, who carried back their letters and verbal counsels. There is no reason to doubt therefore that the individuals denominated angels, were messengers sent by the churches to which the letters are addressed, to visit the apostle in his exile, express to him their affection, and receive from him encouragement and instruction in their difficulties. They were ministers of the word, manifestly from the duties enjoined on them, and were delegates doubtless of the teachers of the several churches, and were on that account addressed as their represen- tatives. The reason accordingly that the epistles were addressed to those churches and not to others, probably was, that messen- gers were sent by them to the apostle ; while the reason that they sent those messengers probably was, that they were the great and conspicuous churches of that part of Asia, that they sustained peculiar relations to him, and that they eminently needed instruc- tion and encouragement in their trials. He represents himself as their companion in the affliction and kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ. He is said by the early writers to have resided at Ephesus toward the close of life, and to have died there.^ He not improbably therefore had visited all those churches which were in the circuit round Ephesus, and become familiar with their ministers and members. SECTION VI. CHAPTER IV. 1-11. THE VISION OF THE DEITY. After these, I looked, and behold a door opened in heaven, and the first voice which I had heard as of a trumpet speaking to me ' Apostol. Const, lib. v. c. 1. " Eusebii Eccl. Hist. lib. iii. c. 20, lib. v. c. 24. 52 THE VISION OF THE DEITY. saying ; Ascend here, and I will show thee what must be after these. And immediately I was in the Spirit. And behold a throne set in heaven, and one sitting on the throne. And he who sat was in ap- pearance like a jasper stone and sardius. And an iris arched over the throne in appearance like an emerald. And circling round the throne [were] four and twenty thrones, and on the thrones four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white garments, and on their heads golden crowns. And from the throne proceeded lightnings and voices and thunders. And seven lamps of fire [were] burning before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God. And in front of the throne [was] as it were, a glassy sea, like crystal. And be- fore the throne and in the circuit of the throne, four living creatures full of eyes before and behind. And the first living creature [was] like a lion, and the second living creature like an ox, and the third living creature had a face as of a man, and the fourth living crea- ture [was] like an eagle flying. And the four living creatures had each six wings, around and within full of eyes. And they have no pause day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy Lord the God Al- mighty who was and who is and who is to come. And when the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to hin] who sits on the throne who lives forever and ever, the four and twenty elders fall before him who sits on the throne, and worship him who lives for- ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou the Lord our God art worthy to receive glory and honor and power, for thou didst create all things ; and for thy will they were, and were created. The spectacle presented in this vision, was designed to show that it was from the Deity that the revelation about to be made proceeded, and to raise the prophet to a becoming sense of his infinite greatness, independence, relations and rights as creator, and the grounds on which he builds his government : and with what a beauty of wisdom were the means suited to the end ; — the disclosure to him through the disparted heavens of a form of dazzling majesty, accompanied by the insignia of deity, light- nings perpetually effulging from his presence, resounding thun- ders, and the loftiest forms of created intelligences and regal shapes of the redeemed bending at his feet, chanting him the Self-existent, the Eternal, tlie Omnipotent, the Holy, tlie Creator of all, and acknowledging his right because of those attributes and relations to dominion over his works. Our nature is so formed, as to be irresistibly borne by such a sight to the convic- tion that it is llie Deity who reveals himself to us, and filled with an irrepressible sense of his right to our homage. It is this that distinguishes us from irrational beings, and fits us to be subjects THE VISION OF THE DEITY. 53 of law ; on this that God founds his government, and will main- tain it throughout our existence ; through this that each spirit as it passes into the invisible world and is raised to a clear per- ception of his being, presence, and relations, becomes instantly- aware of its responsibility to him, and the justice or grace of his dealings with it ; and through this that when the Redeemer shall come in the clouds with power and great glory, all the tribes of the earth will immediately recognise him, and sink over- whelmed with a consciousness of guilt and inability to escape his wrath. As lamps can be the Spirit of God only as representatives, the statement that the seven lamps burning before the throne are the seven spirits of God, is an express explanation of them as sym- bols, and indicates accordingly that that is the office also of the other agents and objects in the visions. The living creatures stationed near the throne are intelligen- ces. They stand perpetually in the presence of God. They celebrate his deity, his moral perfections, and his work and right as creator. They sustain relations of superiority to the elders, as it is in concurrence with them that the latter fall down and worship. They performed offices in the conduct of the revela- tion also, summoning the symbolic agents as the seals were opened, and delivering to the angels the vials of wrath. They are intelligences of our race also, as is seen from their uniting in the acknowledgment of Christ's worthiness to receive the book and open its seals, because of his having redeemed them by his blood, made them kings and priests unto God, and appointed them to reign on the earth : chap. v. 9, 10. This is indicated also by the human face of those seen by Ezekiel, by which these are to be interpreted. That face undoubtedly denotes the order of intelligences to which they belong, while the office of the other faces and the numerous eyes is, to indicate the far superior sen- ses and vaster gi"asp of thought to which they are there exalted. The elders are also of our race, as is seen from their form, and their acknowledgment of Christ as their Redeemer: chap. v. They fulfilled offices likewise in conducting the revelation, in hymning the right of God to reign over his creatures, and the worthiness of Christ to be exalted to the throne, and conduct the administration of the world during the work of redemption. One of them also addi'essed the prophet, and apprized him that though no creature was adequate to unveil the divine purposes respecting the work of salvation, yet the God-man, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, had acquired that right by his mediation, and 54 THE VISION OF THE DEITY. would receive and open the book. They appear in their own persons, from the want of analogous agents to represent them. No other order of beings has undergone such a change in their mode of existence as disembodied spirits ; no other sustains such relations to God as they who are redeemed. The living creatures and ciders are representatives of the mul- titude of the redeemed in heaven, it would seem from their ac- knowledgment of Christ's having redeemed them by his blood unto God out of every tribe and language and people and nation, chap. V. ; a reason for his exaltation to the administration of the universe common to all the redeemed ; and as the tribes and lan- guages and peoples and nations are very numerous, implying also a far greater number than the living creatures and elders united. Besides that relation as symbols of the redeemed in heaven, they also manifestly, from the vials of odors which they hold symbolic of the homage of the saints, sustain a representative office to- wards other holy beings ; as the office of priest to which the of- fering of incense belongs, is universally representative. They sustain undoubtedly therefore that official relation to another or- der of beings. Whether it be to the redeemed on 'earth alone, or to other holy beings also, which is not improbable, the lan- guage docs not determine. While these two classes are thus representatives of the whole body of the redeemed in heaven, they yet differ greatly from each other ; the living creatures being stationed nearest the throne, superior in rank to the elders, and preceding them in acts of worship. Whether the difference be merely in station and office, or in nature also, is left in uncertainty. The living crea- tures may be glorified saints who have been translated like Enoch and Elijah, and raised from the dead like the many who were raised after Christ's resurrection ; or they may be disem- bodied spirits differing from the elders in wisdom and dignity, as star differs from star in glory. This view of the station and relations of the living creatures to the multitude of worshippers, is corroborated by the cherubic symbols in the tabernacle and temple, whicli were made after the pattern of heavenly things. In the holy of holies, which denoted the heavenly tem})le, were stationed two ciierubs on cither side the throne or mercy-seat, and numerous figures of them were wrought on the curtains of the tabernacle, and graven on the doors and walls of the temple ; — those in the inner sanctuary de- noting that some of their order arc perpetual attendants of God ; those in the outer, that others fulfil ofRces to the worshippers on THE VISION OF THE DEITY. 55 earlh and perhaps in other worlds, and bear back to God notices of their homage and love. This is in accordance with the great purpose of the Redeemer to raise those whom he saves, to a grandeur of nature like his own glorified humanity, and a dignity of station in his kingdom suited to their intimate relations to him. They are heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, and kings and priests unto him, and are to reign on the earth, not doubtless in respect to one another, but to others, and not in respect to the ungiorified church on earlh alone perhaps, but to other orders also of holy beings, and thus be the ministers in gathering together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth. How august the view the vision thus presents of the govern- ment of God ! How gracious, how wise, how beautiful that the majestic beings who serve in his immediate presence, are ap- pointed to offices of rule and love to the holy dwelHng in distant realms of his empire, and returning serve as representatives of those orders, and present to him symbols of their homage ! In what grandeur it exhibits the work of redemption, through which men are exalted to that station, made the agents of displaying its greatness and beauty to all orders of intelligences, and thence of advancing them to a loftier understanding, a more fervent love, and a higher enjoyment of God ! It is no obstacle to this construction, that there were cherubim anterior to the redemption of any of our race. Their name is a name of office, not of nature, as is apparent from the fact, that the elders are not cherubim, though they as well as the living creatures are of our race. That that office was sustained by another order of beings in earlier periods of the universe, is no demonstration that the redeemed are not exalted to it under the reign of Christ. The worship of the living creatures and elders bespeaks a lofty perfection of knowledge and beauty of rectitude. They are aware of the attributes that distinguish God from creatures : — self-existence, eternity, independence, omniscience, omnipotence ; and they adore him for that which he is. They see and realize his title as creator to dominion over his works, and make that a ground of their acknowledgment and celebration of his right to reign. Their sensibihty to the glory of his moral perfections is raised to a refinement and strength, equal to the perfection of their intelhgence. They see an infinite beauty in his spotless righteousness, his unchangeable truth, his boundless benignity, liis majestic condescension, and the vast, the all-perfect, and innu- 5$ THE VISION OF THE DEITY. merable forms in wliicli they are displayed toward his creatures, and are borne by an irresistible impulse of delight to their per- petual celebration. How beautiful in beings raised from the dis- tance, the blindness, the alienation of revolt ! How becoming those who serve in the immediate presence of the Almighty, and fulfil the otfices of kings and priests towards distant obedient hosts, unfolding to them his rights, interpreting the measures of his administration, conveying to them his will, and representing them in his presence by presenting symbols of their homage ! What a contrast their conceptions of him and the grounds of duty to liim form to the speculations of men, who in their definitions of virtue almost universally exclude all peculiar relations to the Deity, and resolve it into policy, self-love, benevolence, opinion, or some other quality which implies that the reason that God is to be adored and obeyed, and man to be loved, is precisely the same, and wdioUy overlooks therefore his peculiar rights because of his nature and agency ! The doctrine, indeed, that self-love is the only motive to virtue, dethrones the Deity, and exalts the individual creature in his place. The theory that opinion is the ground and rule of right, deifies in like manner the- community which furnishes that opinion ; and the dogma that benevolence is the distinguishing ground and characteristic of virtuous acts, deifies the sensitive and intelligent universe, in the proportion which their limited capacity of happiness bears to the infinitude of his. With what horror would the authors of those systems have turned from them, had they studied aright the views and senti- ments of these worshippers in the heavenly temple. Blessed is he who reads and they who hear the words of the prophecy, and keep the things that are written in it. Mr. Stuart exhibits the seven lamps burning before the throne, as denoting seven presence angels ; but it is inconsistent with the symbolizations of this and the following vision, and with the wish of grace in chapter i. 5, from the seven spirits which they denote. That those spirits are not created intelligences, is ap- parent from the use of lamps as their symbols, and from the agency they are employed to represent. Had the design been to symbolize created intelligences of an angelic order, they would doubtless have been exhibited in their own persons, as the angels, hving creatures, and the elders are in this and the following vision. Beside, if the seven lamps are regarded as symbols of created intelligences, according to the use of other symbols of creatures in this and the other visions, they should be interpreted as representing an order and a vast multitude, not themselves THE VISION OF THE DEITY, 57 only. The agency moreover which llie action of the lamps rep- resents, is not appropriate to created intelligences stationed in the presence of God. The office of a lamp is to give light to intel- ligent creatures, in order to the employments to which they are called ; and as the body is the counterpart of the mind, and the corporeal eye of the spiritual, the light which is designed for the former must, according to analogy, be ihe symbol of knowledge imparted to the latter. The agent, therefore, symbolized by the lamps, is an agent that enlightens intelligent creatures in the know- ledge of God, and especially men, towards whom peculiarly it is that the offices are sustained, and the agencies exerted that are represented by the lamps, manifestly from the wish of grace and peace to the seven churches from the spirits which they denote. But angels are not assigned to that office ; it is the peculiar work of the Holy Spirit. It is He therefore undoubtedly from that con- sideration that is denoted by the lamps ; and that is certain from the invocation of grace and peace from the seven spirits before the throne, as well as from him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. That in- vocation is an act of the highest religious homage. It involves an ascription to that which the seven lamps denote, of the attri- butes and prerogatives of the Deity ; and the union in the invoca- tion of that which they denote with the Self-existent, and the in- carnate Word, implies that it is equal in nature, rights and rela- tions toward us with the Father and the Son. But it is impossi- ble that God can have sanctioned the ascription to creatures, of the attributes, rights, and relations that are peculiar to himself ; and it is in contradiction also to the obvious aim and most conspicu-* ous symbolizations of the book ; the object of which is to show on the one hand that the self-existent, eternal, and almighty creator is alone entitled to worship, and that the true worshippers ac- knowledge his right to reign over them because of his attributes and work as creator, and pay to him alone their homage ; and on the other, that they who legislate over his rights and laws, usurp a dominion over him, and make themselves objects of worship ; and that they who yield to that usurpation and accept creatures as their religious lawgivers, mediators, and redeemers, ascribe to ihem his prerogatives, and pay them a homage that is due only to him. No construction therefore could be more at war with the great characteristics of the revelation, than that the seven lamps are representatives of angels. The supposition that they are a symbol of the Holy Spirit, is 58 THE VISION OF THE DEITV. not inconsistent with the law that no Hving creatures can be em- ployed to represent the creator, as lamps have neither intelli- gence nor life. Their station before the throne exliibits him in the relation ascribed to him in the Scriptures in the work of re- demption, as sent by the Father and the Son ; and the office de- noted by the radiation of light by the lamps, is that which he is represented as filling in the illumination and sanctification of men. Mr. Stuart represents the living creatures as symbols of the attributes of God. But that is inconsistent alike with the divine nature, the law of symbolization, and the agency ascribed to the living creatures. It implies the greatest of all solecisms, that the attributes of God exist separate from himself. Why else should they be separately symbolized ? or how could they consistently with the supposition that the form addressed as the self-existent, eternal, and almighty, truly represents him as such ? If the being enthroned truly symbolizes God as self-existent, eternal, and al- mighty, what necessity could exist of other symbols exterior to himself, representative of his attributes ? But it is as irreconcileable with the law of symbolization as it is with the divine nature. If there be any rule of representation that is indisputable, and the observation of which is indispensa- ble to the interpretation of the visions, it is that agents symbol- ize agents, and agencies agencies. There is no analogy between an agent and a mere attribute ; between a nature of many diifer- ing characteristics, and a single characteristic of that or some other nature. Attributes are predicates of agents, and each class or peculiar combination, is characteristic of the class of agents of which it is prcdicable, and is to be regarded as theirs, as ab- solutely as their activity, life, or form, if a symbol then be a living agent, nothing can be more certain than that the attributes which are prcdicable of it belong to itself, and thence if they are divine, demonstrate it to be divine also. His assumption, there- fore, that the living creatures symbolize divine attributes, implies not that the attributes of the personage seated on the throne are divine, but that they are themselves divine persons. It is inconsistent also with the representation that the living creatures fall down and worship him that sits on the throne, and hymn him as the self-existent, eternal, almighty, and all-holy. What can be more incongruous than thus to represent the attri- butes of the Self-existent as separate agents, bending in homage to his form conceived as symbolizing his mere nature irrespective of his attributes, and ascribing themselves to him ! Mr. Mode and some others regard the living creatures as sym- THE VISION OF THE DEITY, 59 bols of the church or congregation of worshippers on earth, and the elders as representatives of the ministers ; Mr. Daubuz inter- prets the hving creatures as symbols of the ministers of the church on earth, and the elders as representing the congregation of worshippers ; Vitringa exhibits the elders as denoting the rulers of the church, and the living creatures its eminent teachers and ministers through every age. But if they are symbols of the church on earth, then must the throne and he who sat on it be regarded as symbolizing a visible throne and monarch in the church on earth, the temple a scene of worship here, the angels an order of worshippers who are not of the church, and the wor- ship, a worship paid to some being visibly throned in the church on earth. But as there is no one who has here seated himself on a throne in the church, and demanded a worship, but anti- christ, that construction makes the vision a symbol of the Man of Sin, and the idolatrous worship paid to him by the apostate church, which is impossible. None of the agents and actions of the heavenly temple are symbolic of agents and actions on earth. The assumption on which these writers proceed, involves them in like manner in inextricable difficulties in their exposition of many other passages. Dr. Hammond exhibits him who sat on the throne, as the me- tropolitan bishop of Judea, as a representative of God ; the elders as diocesan bishops of Judea, and the living creatures as four apostles, as symbols of the saints who are to attend the Almighty as assessors in judgment. But that is first to make a creature a symbol of God, which is against analogy ; and next to exhilnt the living creatures and elders as ascribing the attributes and acts of the deity to a creature, and paying him the highest homage, which is to represent them as guilty of the false worship which the prophecy exhibits as the peculiarity of apostates. There moreover is not only no evidence nor probability of the existence, at the period to which he refers the vision, the reign of Claudius, of either what he denominates a metropolitan bishop at Jerusa- lem, or twenty-four or any other number of diocesan bishops in Judea ; but the most ample demonstration that neither of those orders were in existence at the period of the visions. The ear- liest mention of a metropolitan is in the acts of the council of Nicaea in the fourth century ; — the earliest existence of diocesan bishops, of which there is any proof, toward the close of the second. The annunciation in this and the first vision, that the self- existence, eternity, omnipotence, and work of God as creator, 60 DELIVERY OF THE BOOK TO CHRIST. give liim a right to reign, and arc the ground on vv^hich he founds his government, presents tlie first great truth of the Apocalypse, in the hght of wliich all the other visions are to be contemplated in order to discern their import. The true worshippers are they who acknowledge and honor him for what he is, and refuse to yield to usurping creatures the homage that is due only to him. The antagonist powers are they who usurp his rights, and claim a worship which supersedes his ; and the apostate worshippers they who yield those usurpers their claims, and ascribe to them prerogatives and honors that belong only to the creator. SECTION yii. CHAPTER V. 1-14. THE DELIVERY OF THE BOOK TO CHRIST. And I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne, a book written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals. And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, Who is worthy to open the book and loose its seals ? And no one in heaven, nor on the earth, nor under the earth was able to open the book, nor to look at it. And I wept much that no one was found worthy to open the book, nor to look at it. And one of the elders saith to me. Weep not. Behold the Lion who is of the tribe of Judah, the Root of Da- vid, has prevailed to open the book and its seven seals. And I saw before the throne and the living creatures and within the elders, the Lamb, standing as slain, having seven horns, and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God that are sent to all the earth. And he came and took the book from the right hand of him who sat on the throne ; and when he took the book, the four living creatures, and the four-and-twenty elders fell before the Lamb, having every one harps and golden vials full of incense which are the prayers of the saints. And they sing a new song, saying. Thou art worthy to take the book and to open its seals ; for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and na- tion, and hast made us to our God kings and priests, and we shall reign on the earth. And I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels in a circle round the throne, and the living creatures, and the elders, and their number was ten thousands of ten thousands and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and DELIVERY OF THE BOOK TO CHRIST. 61 Strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing. And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth, and whatever is in the sea, and all that are in them I heard saying, To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb, blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever. And the four living creatures said. Amen. And the four-and-twenty elders fell and worshipped. The object of this great scene was to show that Christ is ex- alted to the throne and exercises the government of the universe ; that he attained that exaltation by his work as Redeemer ; that thence the right belongs to him alone to reveal to creatures his designs ; and that he is to conduct his administration in the re- demption of his people according to the eternal purposes of God. That the Lamb who is the eternal Word having seven horns and seven eyes, the symbols of all-perfect dominion and all-per- fect knowledge, had been slain, was indicated by the glory to which in consequence of his death his human form was changed at his resurrection. The book was the symbol of the purposes of God. The seals by which it was closed, denoted that his de- signs in regard to the administration of the church and world, were hidden from creatures ; and the summons by the angel, who is worthy to open the book and to loose its seals, that no created being was capable unaided of discerning it, or of a dignity equal to the office of revealing it to the hosts of heaven or the church on earth. The disappointment and tears of the apostle that no one was found vi^orthy to open the book, or to inspect it, bespeak a fervid interest in the divine purposes, and an expectation that great and wonderful events were approaching. The mode is eminently beautiful in which the elder apprized him that the Re- deemer was to make known and execute the divine designs. He spoke of him, not as the Self-existent, but as the incarnate Word. Weep not. The Lion who is of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed to open the book and its seven seals. He who assumed our nature has become the head of the church, and is to reign over it as lawgiver and teacher, and complete the work of redemption. Expositors generally have regarded the Lamb standing as slain, as literally a lamb symbolizing the Redeemer ; not the Redeemer himself in his human form, which showed that he had been slain, by the majesty to which in consequence of his death, it was transfigured at his resurrection. But they appear not to have considered that the metaphorical titles by which he is designated in the ancient Scriptures and in the gospels, are appropriated to him as proper names in the Apocalypse. Thus he is in this 62 DELIVERY OF THE BOOK TO CHRIST. passage denominated the Lion of the tribe of Judah, and the Root of David ; and in others, the Word, the Offspring of David, and tlie Star. In accordance with tliat usage, the term Lamb in this and the numerous other passages in which it occurs, is to be re- garded as merely a proper name of the incarnate Word drawn from his office as a sacrifice. That construction is required also by analogy. It is inconsistent with liis deity and office as ruler of the universe, that he should be symbolized by a mere crea- ture and a lamb. A lamb was suited to represent him only in liis human and mortal nature, and in the relation of a passive suf- ferer of a violent death. It had no adaptation to symbolize him as a self-existence, the revealer and executor of the divine pur- poses, and the ruler and judge of the universe. A mere creature can only symbolize a creature ; God alone can represent himself. The Redeemer accordingly appears in his own person in his hu- man nature glorified, in all the visions in which he is seen. In conformity with this, acts are ascribed to him, — the reception of the book, and opening of the seals, — that are proper to his nature and office as the incarnate Word, but wholly inappropriate to a lamb. The presence of the angels and of the redeemed, shows that the revelation was made to them as well as to men. The worship of the living creatures and elders on Christ's re- ception of the book, bespeaks on the one hand in the most em- phatic manner his deity, and on the other their sense of the pro- priety of his exaltation as the head of the church. Thou art worthy to be the revealer and the executor of the divine pur- f)oses respecting the salvation of men, for thou wast slain and last redeemed us to God by thy blood out of all nations, and hast made us to our God kings and priests, and we shall reign on the earth. It is meet that he should reign and conduct the work of salvation, not only that he may display his deity, and adequacy to the work, and that the universe may behold and acknowledge him as divine, and testify their sense of the rightfulness, wisdom and glory of his work ; but also that those whom he has constitu- ted heirs of God and joint heirs with him, and exalted to majes- tic stations in the conduct of his kingdom, may fill those offices in a conspicuous relation to him as their head, in whose presence in his glorified form alone it is that their nature especially fits them to serve, and will still more pre-eminently fit them when they shall be raised from the grave in a like glorious shape. The responsive ascri])tions of the angelic myriads bespeak their per- fect knowledge of the deity of Christ, his incarnation and sacri- DELIVERY OP THE BOOK TO CHRIST. 63 fice, the great purposes and influence of his death, and llic pro- priety that he should assume the government of the world, and be the revcaler and executor of his designs. The chant of ac- quiescence that then came from all the distant realms of the uni- verse, and ascriptions both to God and to the Lamb of honor and glory and power forever and ever, is inimitably grand, denoting their acquaintance also with the Redeemer's work, their sense of its infinite importance to God and his empire, their personal and supreme interest in it, and assurance that it is to display his glo- ry in dazzling effulgence, and contribute to the wisdom and bless- edness of his kingdom. A vast and august recognition is thus made in this scene of all the great truths on which the government of the universe and the redemption of men proceed, — the nature, the agency, the rela- tions, the rights of God ; the knowledge and celebration of his perfections both by the beings who serve in his presence, and who dwell in his distant realms ; the exaltation of the Redeemer to supreme dominion, and exercise of the office of revcaler to the heavenly hosts and the church on earth ; the suitableness of his assuming that station because of the demonstration it presents of his deity ; the appropriate relations to him into which it raises the redeemed who are heirs of God and joint heirs with him ; the vindication which the greatness of its results is to form of the propriety of his interposition ; and finally the understanding acknowledgment and adoring celebration of these truths by all orders of his intelligent creatures throughout his immeasurable kingdom. The book was written within and without. Some interpreters, forgetting that the volume was a symbol, have treated it as though it were the Apocalypse itself written by the finger of God, and attempted to distinguish the chapters that were written on the outside. Nothing can be more groundless, or could involve the whole spectacle in more preposterous confusion and unintel- ligibleness. It is to contradict the representative character of the scene, and adopt a rule of construction which is wholly imprac- ticable in respect to most of the symbols. If the book were not a symbol of the purposes of God, but the Apocalypse itself, and its characters those wliich the prophet afterwards inscribed on his scroll and which form our present Apocalypse, then all the other objects in this and the following scenes must on the same principle be likewise taken as precisely what they are denomi- nated, and without any mystical meaning ; — the living creatures, the horsemen with the bow, the sword and the balance, death 64 DELIVERY OP THE BOOK TO CHRIST. and its attendant, and all the monster shapes of the subsequent visions, which were absurd and impossible. That assumption is equally irreconcilable with the mode in which the symbolic ob- jects were presented to the apostle and the whole revelation con- ducted. They were exhibited to him in vision acting out their representative agency. He says expressly he saw the horsemen go forth as the seals were successively opened, the soids at the altar, the majestic shape ascending from the east with the seal of God, the innumerable company clothed in white robes, and heard the voices of the living creatures, the cry of the martyr spirits, the number of the sealed, and the ascriptions by the palm- bearing multitude of salvation to him that sat on the throne and to the Lamb ; not that mere verbal descriptions of them such as he himself wrote, were presented to him. But if those agents were shown him, not on the scroll, but visibly in a distant scene, of what instrumentality to their manifestation was the unfolding of the scroll, or the inscription on it of those voices ? Can the proclamation at the opening of the third seal have been read from the scroll ; the cry of the martyr spirits, the answer, and the call under the sixth seal of the kings and great men of the earth, the bond and the free, to the rocks to fall, and to the mountains to cover them from the face of him who sat on the throne ? Were the ad- dresses of the interpreting angel ? If not, how did their inscrip- tion in tiie book contribute to their revelation to the prophet ? Were the first five chapters which preceded the opening of the seals, embraced in the volume ? Is such a supposition reconcila- ble with the representation that the whole of its contents were unknown and undiscoverable by creatures ? If, as these writers assume, the whole of the events belonging to each seal be not de- noted by the symbols of that seal, but partly by others inscribed on the exterior of the scroll, what means are there of de- termining what those events are ? On what grounds that are not wholly arbitrary, and at war with all order and certainty, can it be assumed that the series of events denoted by the second, third and fourth seal, begin after those of its predecessor had closed ? But if that assumption be not authorized, — and it is indisj)utably clear, that they are cotemporary through long pe- riods— on what principle can different classes of cotemporaneous events afterwards revealed, be divided among those cotemporary seals ? And finally, if the book were the Apocal3'pse and not a symbol, why was it not after tiie visionary exhibition, delivered to the apostle ? Why was he directed to write what he saw, rather than copy or deliver to the churches that which was already THE FIRST SEAL. 65 written by the pen of the Almighty ? The assumption is mani- festly embarrassed in every relation with insuperable difficulties. As then the whole revelation was obviously conducted without any reference to the inscription on the book ; as the seals served no other office than to signify that the purposes of God were unknown and undiscernable by creatures ; and their opening by the Redeemer no other end, than to show that to him alone be- long the power and right to unfold and execute those purposes ; and as the law of symbolization itself imperatively requires us to regard the volume as a mere representative ; it is manifest that those who deem it the Apocalypse itself, and found their constructions on that assumption, are wholly in error ; and the inextricable difficulties in which their theories involve them, ex- emplify the embarrassments that usually spring from a neglect, in the exposition of the book, of the law of analogy. SECTION VIII. CHAPTER VI. 1,2. THE FIRST SEAL. And I looked when the Lamb had opened one of the seven seals. And I heard one of the four living creatures say, as a voice of thun- der, Come. And I looked, and lo, a white horse, and he that sat on him having a bow, and a crown was given to him, and he went forth conquering, and that he might conquer. There is no indication that the spectacle thus displayed to the apostle was a mere delineation on the scroll. Nor is the de- scription compatible with that hypothesis. So far from it, the symbol, it would seem, did not appear until after the summons by the living creature. Indeed, it was to the horseman undoubt- edly, not the prophet, that that summons was addressed. The xai fSXsfs, and see, of the received text, are not admitted in the best editions. The voice of thunder would seem extremely dis- proportioned if addressed to the apostle ; but appropriate, if de- signed for the angelic armies, whose number was so vast that the stations of many must have been remote, and who yet cannot be supposed to have been required successively to approach the throne, in order to see the scroll. So far from being a mere pic- ture, or verbal description, the rider and horse, it is apparent from every part of the narrative, and from the laws of symbolization, 9 66 THE FIRST SEAL. were living agents. The apostle not only says that there was a white horse, and that he that sat on him had a bow, but that a crown was given to him, and tiiat after his appearance undoubt- edly ; and that he went forth conquering and that he might con- quer ; actions Avhich could not be represented by a single delin- eation, and which it were incongruous to ascribe to a mere picture. A fictitious action moreover cannot be a representative of a real one, unless it be acted out in vision before the prophet ; nor can an agent be the representative of an action. There is no analo- gy on which to found such a representation, no relations being miore conspicuously the converse of each other, and no dissim- ilarities more absolute, than those of cause and effect. All the symbols of agents in the Apocalypse are accordingly agents, and all actions of agents represented by corresponding actions of sym- bols. And that mode of representation is obviously requisite in order to a certainty of meaning. Were there no uniform analo- gy between the sign and the thing signified, — if a thing incapable of action might both represent a thing like itself and an agent ; and an agent, both an agent and a thing incapable, of an action ; a cause an effect, and an effect a cause, — then as the relations of the symbol to the thing represented might in different instances be exact opposites, opposite constructions would be equally prob- able, and all certainty therefore of meaning be wholly unattaina- ble. But that the rider and horse were real agents, not a mere picture, is manifest finally from the scene of his agency, which, as it was a scene into which he went forth, and was the theatre of his victories, was the earth, not the mere scroll, nor the heav- ens. The opening of the seal manifestly then had no other sig- nificance than to denote that it was by the act of the Redeemer that the purposes of God about to be unfolded were revealed ; and no otlicr instrumentality in the revelation, than that it was the signal for the manifestation in vision to the prophet, of the symbolic spectacle by which it was followed. The personage on the horse is a warrior, manifestly from his being armed with a bow ; an instrument in chief use in the east at that period by cavalry especially, in attacks at a distance. The crown was given him for conquests he had already attained, and denoted that he had gained them for the power from which he drew his authority, and received his crown, not for himself; and that he had conducted his warfare therefore conformably to the ends and laws of iiis oflice. Otherwise he would not liave re- ceived a crown. The office of the horse was simply to exhibit him on the one hand in the attitude in which victorious warriors THE FIRST SEAL. 67 appeared when decreed a crown and triumph, and on the other in the exercise of his profession ; a mere subsidiary to his ex- erting a representative agency ; as in the vision of the nineteenth chapter, the sword proceeding from the mouth of Christ, is de- signed merely to indicate the character of the sentence he is to pronounce on his enemies, and the horse on which he is seated, that he is to descend in a manner suitable to his station as a vic- torious king, to execute that sentence. The symbol is then drawn from military and civil life in the Roman empire ; in which it was customary to grant a triumphal return to the capital, and a crown to a victorious warrior, which, as it was the act of the senate, was a civil act ; and the person- age taken as the symbol was doubtless Trajan, who, in the year 96, immediately after the period of the visions, being adopted by Nerva and declared by the senate his colleague and successor,^ marched with a powerful army against the Dacians, gained im- portant victories and conquests, and on his return was decreed a triumph.^ Hadrian and the Antonines, who followed him, princes of a similar character, and under whom the empire continued to flourish, may also be considered as embodied in the horseman. As the symbol is thus drawn from the military and civil cus- toms of the empire, we are to look, in order to find the persons denoted by it, not to the same, but some resembling department of life ; precisely as were we foreshown that some agent, having a similitude to a lion, an eagle, or a dragon, was soon to appear on the theatre of the world, we should look, not for the animal itself which was used for exemplification, but for some different agent of resembling characteristics. And where shall we find any such analogous community as the symbol requires, except in the religious world ? any such conquerors, except in the faithful ministers of the Christian church ? or any such conquests, ex- cept in the conversion of worshippers from idols to God ? It is to them that we are naturally led by the Revealer, and the great subject of the Apocalypse, and in them and them alone that we find the correspondences which the law of symbolization demands. A warrior who conquered provinces or kingdoms, transferred the allegiance of the vanquished people from their old to nev/ rulers. He placed them under new laws ; he impressed a new character on all their civil and military relations. So the minister of Christ who, by proclaiming the gospel, became the instrument of con- verting individuals and communities to faith in him, transferred ^ D. Cassii, lib. 68, c. 3, 4. Gibbon's Hist. Decl. and Fall, chap. iii. » D. Cassii, lib. 68, c. 10, 15. 68 THE FIRST SEAL, their supreme love from self, and their religious homage from the idol shapes or imaginary deities they had before worshipped, to the true God. He introduced them into a new community. He subjected them to new laws, and worked a radical change in their moral relations. And no similar agencies were exerted, no like agents existed in any other department of the social world at that period. The ministers of paganism wrought no such changes in that or the following ages, in large bodies of men either within, or without the Roman empire. The incorporation into the state of new provinces or kingdoms by conquest, brought with it no such revolution in their religion. There were none but idolaters to be vanquished, and the conquered were universally left to con- tinue their homage to the gods they had before worshipped.* Nor did the philosophers of that or the following ages, the only other class who can be thought to exhibit such an analogy as the symbol requires, work any such revolution in the principles and practice of communities or large numbers of men. There were no philosophical communities. The number of the lettered and thence of the speculative, was extremely small compared to the multitude. There was no order of men devoted by office to the propagation of philosophy. The philosophy which prevailed at that period could scarcely have rendered tribes that were van- quished, or others more false in faith, or corrupt in morals, than their religion had already made them, and was wholly ineffica- cious for reformation. False, shadowy, and absurd, unaccom- panied by any firm convictions of its doctrines, unattended by any influential sanctions, and in harmony in a large degree with the fashionable idolatries and public and private manners, it at best left their principles and their passions as it found them. The requisite resemblances then are seen in the ministers, and no- where else, of the Christian church, who make conquests to the Redeemer in accordance with the ends and laws of tiieir office. The symbol conqueror, like other symbols of men in the pro- phecy, is the representative, not of an individual merely, but of the pure teachers of Christianity at large, who went forth from the period of the visions, and fulfilled their office conformably to the word of God, assailing with the arrows of truth the hostile armies of idolatry, and subjecting them to the sceptre of Christ. In correspondence with this construction, the writers of the ' Nam solere Romaiios religiones urbium superatarum partira privatim per fa- miliaB spargcre, partim publico coiisecrari. — Arnobii adv. Gentes, lib. iii. c. 38. Gib- bon's Hist. Decl. aud Fall, chap. ii. THE FIRST SEAL. 69 ages that immediately followed the visions, represent that there was a rapid and almost uninterrupted spread of the gospel, from the last years of the first century especially, until the persecution by Decius in the middle of the third, and in an inferior degree to its close. Most of the persecutions of the long space from Do- mitian to Decius were provincial, of short continuance, and left the large body of the Christian teachers to continue their labors with but little obstruction.^ This construction is corroborated by the perplexities which embarrass other interpretations. 1. Those who, like Grotius and Rosenmuller, regard it as sjmi- bolizing the first acts of the war of Nero and Vespasian against the Jews, or other calamities of that people immediately prece- ding that war, are obhged to assume that the Apocalypse was written during the reign of Claudius or Nero ; — if in the former some forty years, at least, and if in the latter not less than twenty- eight or nine, earlier than the date ascribed to it by the first ec- clesiastical writers ; or else like Eichhorn, that it was not written until twenty-five or six years after the fall of Jerusalem, and was thence a mere representation of the past, in place of a symboli- zation of the future. 2. The ascription to it of so early a date, is not only without any adequate historical grounds and against the most reliable testimony, but is irreconcilable with the representation of the Apocalypse respecting the Asiatic churches. The works as- cribed to them, the fidelitj'^, the patience, the endurance of per- secution as their first character, and at length their decline in love, the rise among them of false teachers, and the apostasy of some to idolatry, imply not only that a period of some length had passed from their first estabhshment, but a considerable space also after the ministry of Paul at Ephesus had closed. Yet no such period intervened between either the date of his epistle to the Epliesians, or his last interview with the elders on his way to Jerusalem, if the Apocalypse were written during the reign of Claudius or Nero. So far from it, the periods universally assigned to the interview and the epistle, are subsequent to the reign of Claudius, which terminated October 13th, in the year 54 f and the distance from those dates to the commencement or ^ Justini Mart. Dial, cum Trj'ph. c. 117 : Irenasi adv. haer. lib. i. c. 10. Tertul- liani cont. Jud. c. 7. Apologet. c. 37. Plinii Epist. 97, lib. 10. Lactantii de Just c. 13. De Mort. Persecut. c. 3. Eusebii Hist. Eccl. lib. v. c. 21. Lib. viii. c. 1. Mosheim, Hist. Church, Cent. ii. p. i. chap. i. Cent. iii. p. i. chap. i. Moshemii de rebus Christ, secul. ii. pp. 203, 217. ' Lardaer's Credibility, vol. v. p. 518. 70 THE FIRST SEAL. close even of the persecution by Nero, is wholly inadequate. His visit to Miletus is usually referred to the year 58,* and his epistle to tiie year 61.^ The persecution by Nero began about the middle of November in the year 64,^ and terminated vv^ith his death, June 9lh, 68.'* In neither tiie Acts nor the epistle is there any intimation of such a decline of the Ephesian Christians from their first love. In place of exhibiting them as already sunk into lukewarmness, or turned to false doctrines, the apostle warned the elders in his farewell at Miletus, that it was after his departure that false teachers were to arise and draw away disciples. His martyrdom is usually assigned to the year 65.^ It is incredible therefore that so great a change in their faith and practice could have taken place in so short a period — two or three j'cars. 3. There are no indications in the histories of that period, of any persecution of the church during the reign of Claudius.** Nor is it certain, though probable, that Nero's persecution, which is exhibited as the first,' extended to the Asiatic churches.^ 4. The calamities of the unbelieving Jews were not of such interest to the Asiatic churches, as to render it probable that so large a portion of the Apocalypse as the seals, all of which the commentators in question, Grotius, Dr. Hammond, Eichhorn, and Rosenmuller, apply to the insurrections, wars, or other calamities of that people, would be devoted to their symbolization. 5. It is incredible that such a symbolization was made after the Jewish war had begun ; yet if the revelation be assigned to the last year of Nero, as the war was commenced in the year 66, its first acts preceded it at least one, perhaps two years.° 6. There is no correspondence between the events of the Jew- ish insurrections and wars, and the symbols of the sixth seal. A great earthquake, an obscuration of the sun, an eclipse of the moon, a fall of the stars, a departure of the heavens, a removal of the mountains and islands from their places, denote a univer- ' Lardner's Credibility, vol. v. p. 52G. " Ibid. vol. vi. p. 29, 37. ' Mosheniii De reb. Christianoruni, cap. 34, p. 107. * Fagi Crit. in Ann. Baron, anno. G8, n. iii. ' Pagi Crit. in Annal. Bar. anno. G5, no. ii. G7, no. iii. Lardner's Credibil. vol v. p. 53.5. " Pagi Crit. in Annal. Barouii, ann. 268, no. vi. an. 269, no. ii. ' Tprtuliiani Apolog. c. 5. Lactantii de Mort. Persecut. c. 2. Eusebii Eccl. Hist. lib. ii. c. 25. * Moshemii de reb. Christ, ante Const, sec. i. c. 35. Pagi Crit. in Annal. Barou. auuo. G4, no. iii. iv. v. ' Pagi Crit. in Annal. Baronii. anno. G6, no. ii. no. iii. THE FIRST SEAL. 7| sal convulsion of the political world, and overthrow of every form of government. All classes of rulers and all orders of subjects are represented accordingly as overwhelmed with the conviction that their civil and social relations were forever terminated. The kings of the earth, and the great men, and the commanders of a thousand, and the rich and the mighty, and every bondman and freeman, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains and to the rocks, Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb ; for the great day of his wrath is come, and who is able to stand ? Not the slightest resemblance subsists between this terrific prediction, and the events of the Jewish war. No kings were interested in that war. No government was over- thrown by it. The Jews were not an independent people, but conquered and tributary, and the result of their revolt, after vast slaughters and the destruction of their cities, was their reduction again to submission. Though many were driven into other provinces, and many sold into servitude, yet a vast proportion of the survivors continued to reside in their native land, and again at the distance of sixty years, attempted to throw off the Roman yoke, and met a still more disastrous defeat. But the demonstration of their error is completed, by the ab- surd and impossible construction of many of the other symbols, to which the rule on which they proceed must, if legitimate, lead. If as they assume, in looking to the Roman military and civil liislory for the agents and agencies denoted by the seals, the sym- bol and that which it symbolizes belong to the same class ; then must death on the pale horse and the grave his attendant, denote the entrance on the apocalyptic earth, of a throng and succession of precisely such agents and objects ; the monster locusts and horsemen of the trumpets, must foresliow the rise of armies and successions of similar shapes ; and the seven-headed and ten- horned wild beast portend a herd and series of such monsters ; and no approach to a verification of their views of the prophecy can be made, except by a demonstration of the appearance and agency on the theatre of the empire of those non-existences. The application of the symbol by Mr. Jurieu and others to Roman emperors of the first, or first and second centuries, is ob- noxious to similar objection. They assume that the symbol and the symbolized agent are of the same species, and set aside therefore the law of analogy. The victories and conquests of the emperors of those periods, were of no such significance as to en- title them to a representation in the prophecy. They were of fU THE FIRST SEAL. no higher importance to the empire itself, than many others of a later age that are not noticed in it. They sustained no peculiar relations to the church, no Christians, or but a very inconsidera- ble number, entering at that period into the Roman armies. They exerted no influence whatever, as far as can be discerned, either to accelerate or retard the spread of the gospel and conver- sion of individuals or communities. And finally the principle on which that construction is founded, must if legitimate, be taken as the key likewise of every other part of the prophecy, and force us to the conclusion that the symbolizations of the fourth seal, the fifth and sixth trumpets, the seven-headed dragon, the ten-horned and two-horned wild beasts, can only be accomplished by the appearance on the apocalyptic stage, of agents like those monster shapes. Similar incongruities embarrass their views, who have regard- ed the horse as symbolizing the Roman people, or armies ; not as the mere instrument by which the rider fulfils his office. It is to confound the horse of a warrior, with the associate warriors, that as subordinates conquer with him ; — a mere subsidiary by which he more successfully leads his squadrons, with the squad- rons themselves which he leads to battle and victory. The white steed rode by Sylla in the battle with the Samnites, was as subsi- diary to his office as the sword which he bore, and could no more be made a representative of his cohorts, than the color by which he was distinguished, or the ground on which he trod. It subverts all certainty in respect to the other parts of the symbol. If the horse be not a mere subsidiary, exhibiting the rider in the exercise of his profession, on what ground can the bow be regarded as denoting the nature of that profession, or the crown the result of his conflicts ? What proof is there that he is a warrior, not a civil magistrate, or that his victories were gained in the battle-field, not in the hippodrome ? Mr. Brighlman regarded truth as the horseman, and interpreted his conquests of the successes of the Christian apologists during the reigns of Hadrian and the Antonines. But that is to make an intelligent agent, the representative of a mere abstract quality, or characteristic of propositions, which is against analogy. Grotius regarded the gospel as the horse, and Christ in his kingly character as the rider ; Cocceius, the church as the horse, and the horsemen as ecclesiastical teachers and rulers. These in- congruous constructions bespeak the same inacquaintance with the principle of symbolic representation, as those interpretations which exhibit the symbol and thing symbolized as of the same species. THE SECOND SEAL. "7^ Those who have interpreted the symbol as prophetic of the prosperity of the church, have yet placed tlieir construction on mistaken grounds ; — some, as Grotius, Mr. Mede, Mr. Whiston, and Vitringa, seeming to found that solution on the assumption that the personage on the horse is the Son of God, not discern- ing that he never appears except when accompanied by express designations and symbols of his deity, and that it is unbefitting his dignity that he should be made the representative of his minis- ters ; and others, as Dean Woodhouse, building their interpreta- tion, not on the laws of symbolization, but on the erroneous as- sumption that the prophecy foreshadows none but ecclesiastical agents and events. SECTION IX. CHAPTER VI. 3-4. THE SECOND SEAL. And when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, Come. And there went forth another a red horse. And to him that sat on him, it was given to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another. And there was given to him a great sword. The summons by the living creature was undoubtedly address- ed in this instance as before to the symbolic agent, not to the prophet. This horseman is a warrior also. The sword like the bow, is the instrument of contest and dominion, but is more destructive, and as it is used only in close combat, not like the bow at a dis- tance, is employed with greater passion, and is the implement alike of defence, of ambition, and of revenge. This warrior takes peace from the earth. He is aggressive therefore as well as the former, not occupied in self-defence ; but unlike him employs himself in endeavoring to conquer the empire which it is his office to sustain. He interrupts and de- stroys the security and peace which he is bound to promote, and grasps at an authority and dominion that do not belong to him. He uses his sword therefore for personal and sinister objects, and against the ends for which it is designed ; and accordingly is not crowned, but only obtains a greater sword, by which his power to 10 74 THE SECOND SEAL, destroy is increased. And in thus taking peace from the earth, he prepares llie way for his own destruction. As he conspires against others and slays lliem, so he is himself conspired against, and thus usurper supplants usurper, and the slaughter of one set of favorites and adherents is quickly followed by the slaughter of another. This symbol also like the former is taken from military and political life in the Roman empire. Such destroyers of peace and fomentors of slaughter were the long train of conspirators and usurpers that rapidly followed each other from the beginning of the reign of Commodus to the accession of Diocletian ; and the individual taken for the symbol is perhaps Quadratus the first in the series, who attempted the assassination of the em- peror in the year 183. After Quadratus, Perennis, Maternus, and Cleander having been thwarted in their designs on his life, the plot of Lffitus at length succeeded in the year 192.^ Pertinax who was chosen his successor was immediately conspired against by one of the consuls, and at the end of three months beheaded by the praetorian guards, to whom he owed his elevation. The election of Julian in his place was contested by Albinus in Bri- tain, Niger in Syria, and Severus in Pannonia. Severus having destroyed his competitors Julian, Albinus and Niger, was plotted against by his son Caracalla."^ On the accession of Caracalla and Geta, to whom he left the empire, they conspired against each other. Caracalla, after having assassinated Geta, became the victim of his ministers. Macrinus his successor soon fell in the contest with his rival Elagabalus. In less than two years Elagabalus was assassinated by his guards. After a short reign his successor Alexander Severus was conspired against by Max- imin and slain. The two Gordians whom the senate elevated as successors to Severus, met a speedy death. Maximin was in the beginning of the fourth year of his reign assassinated by his own troops, and Maximus and Balbinus the successors of the Gordians at Rome, slaughtered by the praetorian guards. The third Gordian was soon dispatched by his successor Philip.^ After a reign of five years Philip was slain in a battle with De- cius, whom the legions of Maesia had invested with the purple. Against Gallus, who on the fall of Decius in the war with the Goths was chosen his successor, Emilianus a successful rival soon rose ; and Emilianus, at the end of four months, was dis- ' Gibbon's Hist. Decl. and Fall, chap. iv. * Gibbou's Hist., chap. v. * Gibbon's Hist, chap. vi. vii. THE SECOND SEAL. 75 patched by his competitor Valerian. After the capture of that prince by the Persians, the throne of his son Galhenus was at- tempted during the eight following years by nineteen usurpers. On the death of Gallienus, the sceptre of Claudius, whom he had nominated his successor, was contested by Areolus : and during the reign of Aurelian, the next in the train, numerous aspirants contended for the empire both in the west and in the east, and revolts continued to mark the short reigns which followed, with the exception of that of Carus, till on the assassination of his son Carinus, the empire submitted to Diocletian.^ These usurpers and rivals took peace from the earth. They not only rendered the throne and life of the monarch insecure, and the fortunes and lives also of all his powerful adherents, but spread ter- ror, devastation, and slaughter through the whole empire. With the chief fell also his partisans whose station or agency rendered them objects of fear or resentment. The contests between the legions were civil wars, and carried all the mischiefs of a defeat to the provinces whose candidate proved unsuccessful. The magistrates who had favored him were treated as traitors, and the inhabitants surrendered as a legitimate prey to the exaspera- ted passions of the soldiers.^ For the counterpart to the military and political agent in this symbol, we are, as in the former instance, to look to the religious world. As the symbolized agents are not of the same class as the symbol, but of an analogous species, they are not an order that literally bear a sword and gain their victories by force, but that conquer by persuasion and authority, and whose dominion therefore is religious, not military and political. And they are of the Christian church, as there have been no other religious teachers since the date of the visions, that have not relied chiefly or wholly on mere force for the propagation of their doctrines. The pagans employed it to sustain theirs at the period of the revelation, and for several ages after. The Mahometans, the only authors of a new religion, relied on the sword to spread their faith, and propagated it only as they conquered. But the only official weapons of the Christian teachers are those of per- suasion and authority. The agents whom the symbol denotes are teachers therefore of the church. To slay one another with the sword being to destroy by vio- lence,— as the counterpart of the natural life is the spiritual, — to destroy each other's spiritual life by violence, is to sentence to * Gibbon's Hist. chap. x. xi. xii. ' Gibbon's Hist. chap. v. 76 THE SECOND SEAL. an exclusion from salvation by what is deemed an authoritative act ; and in a still higher sense, to compel one another by the power of their office to embrace an apostate religion, by which they naturally and necessarily perish. What class then of teachers and rulers is there in the church, in whose agency these peculiarities meet ; — a usurpation of powers which Christ has not authorized, an interception thereby of religious peace from the earth, and finally a compulsion of men to apost&sy in order to confirm and perpetuate that usurpa- tion. All these are conspicuous characteristics of diocesan bishops, especially of the Asiatic, African, Greek, and Latin churches. The bishops of the churches instituted by the apostles were not a separate order from presbyters, as is manifest from the ap- propriation of the titles bishop and presbyter as equivalent to each other to the same individuals, and the omission in the New Tes- tament of all notice of the institution or existence of a diocesan order. Nor were diocesans introduced into the church until a long period after the apostolic age, manifestly from the fact that no ecclesiastical writings that are entitled to be regarded as genuine, of an earlier date than the latter part of the second century, present any indications of their existence. As no spacious edifices were erected by Christians for their wor- ship during the first two centuries, and it was inexpedient in seasons of persecution to assemble in large bodies, the converts in the cities were distributed into several congregations which met in the syna- gogues of the Jews, in private houses, in apartments appropria- ted to schools, and at length in cemeteries, caves, and other se- cluded places, where they might hope to escape the notice of their enemies ; and the number of presbyters accordingly was increased in proportion to the separate assemblies. The whole of the communicants of the several congregations of a city were considered as one church, and all their presbyters as presbyters of that church, though each probably statedly taught in a })articular assembly.' The presbyters were of equal authority. No one had any ofi[icial precedence of the others. No one had any higher power over his own particular congrega- tion, than each of the others over his. Nor had any one any * That is implied in the letter of Clemens to the Corinthians, written probably within a short period after the Apocalypse. It is not easy to see how a faction could have ejected some of the presbyters of that church from their stations, ex- cept by gaining a majority iu the congregations in which they taught. He repre- sents it as the work of a party, not of the church at large. THE SECOND SEAL. 77 authority in respect to the church at large, but such as was com- mon to all. The churches of the several cities were in like manner equal in right and authority, and wholly independent of each other, and neither they nor the presbyters had any legislative power either over themselves or others. Before however the close of the second century, strifes for distinction and power arose among the presbyters, each one claiming a peculiar right to his own congregation, or those whom he introduced into the church, and endeavoring to retain them under his control independently of the other presbyters and con- gregations. And to remedy this evil, it was decreed through the church generally, by the councils doubtless which began to be held at that period, that one chosen by the presbyters of their own number and invested with the requisite powers, should be placed over the others, and denominated their bishop. The new office, however, thus instituted, instead of a check to ambition, was a contrivance to gratify it, by creating a power and dignity greatly surpassing any to which mere pre'sbyters could be- fore aspire ; and accordingly inflamed in a proportional degree in both orders the desire of conspicuity, honor, wealth, and influence, and soon gave rise to intrigues, rivalries, and con- tests, that were fatal to the peace of the church and the empire, and has continued to generate them through every sub- sequent age. That such was the origin of the order, is asserted or implied by several of the most distinguished writers who flourished soon after the nationalization of the church. Thus Jerome : " A presbyter therefore is the same as a bishop, and before by the instigation of the devil religious parties were formed, and it was said among the people, I am of Paul, I of ApoUos, and I of Cephas, the churches were governed by the common council of the presbyters. But afterwards when every one regarded those whom he baptized as his own, not Christ's, it was decreed through the whole world, that one chosen from the presbyters should be placed over the others, that he might be charged with the whole care of the church, and the occasions of schism re- moved. Does any think it is merely our opinion, not the repre- sentation of the Scriptures, that bishop and presbyter are one, the one being the title of age, and the other of office. Let him read the words of Paul to the Philippians : Paul and Timothy, servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons, grace to you 78 THE SECOND SEAL. and peace. Philippi is a city of Macedonia, and there surely cannot have been in one city naany bishops of the kind now de- noted by that title. But as at that time bishops were the same as those who were called presbyters, he denominated them in- differently bishops and presbyters. If this still seem doubtful to any one, let it be confirmed by another proof. It is written in the Acts of the apostles, that when Paul had reached Mile- tus, he sent to Ephesus and called the presbyters of the church of that city, to whom on their arrival among other things he said, Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock over which the Holy Spirit placed you bishops, to feed the church of the Lord which he purchased with his own blood. Here notice carefully, that those whom he calls presbyters of the single city Ephesus, he afterwards denominates bishops." "These things we have quoted that we might show that among the ancients presbyters and bishops were the same, but that grad- ually, in order that the germs of dissensions might be extirpated, the whole care was devolved on one. As therefore the presbyters know that it is by the custom of the church that they are subject- ed to him who is placed over them, so the bishops should know that it is rather by custom than a veritable divine appointment, that they are superior to presbyters, and ought to govern the church in common."^ * Idem est ergo presbyter, qui episcopus, et antequam Diaboli instinctu studia in religioue fierent, et diceretur in populis : Ego sum Pauli, ego Apollo, ego autem Cephas, communi presbyteroruin consilio ecclesiae gubernabantiu-. Postquam vero unusquisque cos quos baptizaverat, suos putabat esse, nou Christi, in toto orbe decre- tum est, ut unus de presbyteris electus supei-poneretur coeteris, ad quern omnia ecclesite cura portineret, et schismatmn semina toUerentur. Putat aliquis non scrip- turarum sed nostram esse sententiam, episcopum et presbyterum unum esse, et aliud aetatis, aliud esse nomen officii, relegat Apostoli ad Phillippenses verba dicentis : Pau- las et Timotheus servi .Tesu Christi, omnibus Sanctis in Christo Jesu, qui sunt Phil- lippis cum episcopis et diaconis, gratia vobis et pax et reliqua. Phillippi una est urbe Macedonia, et certe in una civitate plures, ut nuncupantur, episcopi esse non poterant. Sed quia eosdem episcopos illo tempore quos et presbyteros appellabant, proptorea indifl'erentur de episcopis quasi do presbyteris est locutus. Adliuc hoc al- icui videatur ambiguum, nisi altero testimonio comprobetur. In Actibus apostolorum Bcriptum est, quod cum venisset apostolus Milotum, emiserit Ephesum et vocaverit presbyteros ecclesice ejusdem, quibus postea inter ca;tera sit locutus : Attendite vo- bis, et omni gregi, in quo vos Spiritus Sanctus posuit episcopos, pasccre ecclesiam Domini, quam acquisivit persanguinem suum. Et hie diligentius observate, quomodo unius civitatis Kphesi presbyteros vocans, postea eosdem episcopos dixerit. — HtEO propterca ut ostendercmus apud veteres eosdem fuisse presbyteros quos et epis- copos ; paulatim vero ut dissensionum plantaria evellerentur, ad unum omnem so- licitudinem esse delatam. Sicut ergo presbyteri sciunt se ex ecclesite consuetu- dine ei qui sibi prnjposilus fuerit esse subjectos, ita episcopi noveriut se magis con- suetudine quain dispositionis doniinictc vcritate presbyteris esse niajores, et in cominuno dcbcre ecclesiam regcro. — Comment, in Epist. ad Titum cap. I. THE SECOND SEAL. 79 Other passages might be added from Jerome, Chrysostom, and Theodoret, indicating the identity of the primitive bishops and presbyters, and asserting or implying that the institution of dio- cesans was the work of a later age. The order thus had its origin as the symbol indicates, in a dis- position of the ministers of the church to make their office the in- strument of ambition, and appropriate the flock of Christ to them- selves. Instead however of restraining, it gratified and inflamed in a tenfold degree the passions it was designed to check, and led soon not only to the usurpation of powers that belong prop- erly to presbyters, but to the assumption of the prerogatives of God. Thus in place of acting as the representatives and agents of the presbyters, which was originally their office, they soon ar- rogated an absolute jurisdiction over them, and assumed the sole right of ruling and of ordaining to sacred offices. But by far the most momentous of their usurpations, was their assumption of power to legislate over the church, and thence over the will and rights of God. This usurpation was involved in their arrogation of authority to define or determine what the doctrines are of the Scriptures, to institute rites of worship, and to enforce their legislative acts as obligatory on the church. They therein treated the rights and laws of God as subject to their will, as wholly without validity when not in accordance with their enactments, and as indebted therefore for whatever authority they possessed, to their concurrence and sanction. No arrogation could indeed be more unauthorized and impious. The proper sphere of human rulers is the relations of men to one another, not their relations to God. When they extend their laws over their relations to him, they in fact legislate over his rights and him, as truly as over their fellow men. But no assutaption can be more solecistical than that a subject has the right to legislate over the laws of his legitimate and supreme ruler, and enlarge, diminish, modify, contradict or rescind them as he may think proper. It is to assume not only that he is equal, but superior to his lawgiver. Yet such was their arrogation. Otherwise their dictation could have been nothing but advice or the expression of opinion, and could have had no influence on the duty of the church to regard God as the only religious lawgiver, and receive his will as of it- self and alone supremely obligatory. They accordingly imposed their definitions and canons on the church, as of absolute author- ity. " Let all who dare to disannul the decree of the great and holy synod assembled at Nicaea in the presence of the emperor Constantine respecting the feast of the passover, be debarred 80 THE SECOND SEAL. from communion and excommunicated from the church !"^ They treated a dissent from them as of the same guih, as the rejection or violation of the known will of God. " The violators of the canons are severely sentenced by the pious fathers, and condemned by the Holv Spirit by whose inspiration and gift they were dictated ; for they who not of necessity but spontaneously transgress or im- peach tiiem, or concur with their violators, are not improperly regarded as blaspheming the Holy Spirit."^ " Like the four vol- umes of the holy gospel, I receive and venerate the four coun- cils, the Nicene in which the dogma of Arius was overthrown, the Constanlinopohtan in which the error of Eunomius and Ma- cedonius was censured, the first Ephesian in which the impiety of Nestorius was condemned, and that of Chalccdon which de- nounced the depravity of Eutychcs."^ "I receive the six holy gen- eral councils and their godlike dogmas and doctrines as delivered to us by divine inspiration."'* They denied or abrogated all the great moral laws which he has imposed, and important doctrines of his wcrd, substituted other doctrines and laws in their place, and introduced innumerable other beings, real -or imaginary, and material forms as objects of worship. The second council of Nicaea sanctioned the invocation of saints and the worship of im- ages. Thus Tarasius the patriarch of Constantinople whose creed was approved by the synod. "I invoke the intercessions of the most holy and spotless queen mother of God, and ever virgin Mary, of the holy angels also, and most holy apostles, prophets, martyrs, confessors and teachers, and salute their ven- erable images."^ Theodore of Jerusalem also : " We receive ' Synodi Antioch. Can. I. Labbei Concil. torn. ii. p. 1.307. * Violatores volimtarii qanonum graviter a Sanctis patribus judicantur et a Spiritu Sancto cujus instinctu ac dono dictati sunt, dainnantur ; quoniam blasphemaro Spiritum Sanctum non incongrue videntur qui contra eosdcm sanctos canones, non necessitate compulsi, ut pra;fixum est, aliquid aut proten'C agunt, aut ioqni prjBsu- munt, aut facero volentiijus spouti consentiunt. — Labbei Con. toin. iii. p. 423. Gra- tiani Decret., Causa xxv. c. v. ' Sicut sancti evangelii quatuor libros, sic quatuor concilia suscipere et venerare me fatcor, NicEuuna scilicet in quo perversum Arii dogma dcstniitur ; Constantiuo- politanuin quoquo in quo Ennomii et Macedonii error convincitur ; Ephcsinum eti- am prinium in quo Nestorii impietas judicatur ; Chalcedonense vero in quo Eutychia et Dioscorique pravitas reprobatur. — Gratiani Decret. Dist. xv. c. 2. * Labbei Concil. tom. xii. p. 1124. The creed also of Theodore patriarch of Jeru- ealcm which, like the profes.sion of Tarasius from which the preceding extract is ta- ken, was ratified by the synod. " The six holy general councils which were assem- bled through the Holy Spirit in opposition to every heresy of whatever place or time, we also receive and confirm, in proclaiming which the churches of tiie orthodo.t throughout the world are established in their accurate and inspired dogmas, recei- ving what they received, and rejecting what they rejected." — p. 1138, 1139. ' Labbei Concil. tom. xii. p. 1123. THE SECOND SEAL. 81 and embrace the apostolical traditions of the church by which we are taught to salute, honor and worship the saints, venerating them as the servants, friends and children of God."^ So likewise the fourth Lateran council and the council of Trent. " The holy- synod commands all bishops and others sustaining the office of teachers, that according to the usage of the Catholic and apos- tolic church from the earliest ages of the Christian religion, the consent of the holy fathers and decrees of sacred councils, they instruct the faithful in respect to the intercession and invocation of the saints, the honor of relics, and the legitimate use of ima- ges ; teaching them that the saints reigning with Christ offer their prayers for men to God ; that it is proper and useful suppliantly to invoke them, and to have recourse to their prayers for aid, in order to the benefits which are to be obtained from God through his son Jesus Christ our Lord, who is our only Redeemer and Saviour ; and that they entertain an impious sentiment who de- ny that they are to be invoked, or assert that they do not pray for men, or that to ask their prayers for us as individuals is idolatry, or contrary to the word of God, adverse to the honor of Jesus Christ the only mediator between God and men, or foolish. Also that the sacred bodies of the holy martyrs and others living with Christ, which were his living members and the temple of the Holy Spirit, and are to be raised by him to eternal life and glory,are to be venerated by the faithful, manybenefits being there- by procured from God : and that they are altogether to be con- demned who aflirm that homage and honor are not due to their relics, that no benefit arises from honoring them or other sacred monuments, or that it is vain to celebrate their memory in order to obtain their aid ; as the church has heretofore condemned and now denounces them again. That images moreover of Christ, of the virgin mother of God, and of other saints, are to be kept and continued in temples especially, and due honor and homage paid to them ; not that it should be believed there is any divinity or virtue in them for which they should be worshipped, or that any thing is to be sought from them, or that trust is to be placed in them, as was formerly done by the pagans who put their hope in idols ; but because the honor shown them is referred to the pro- totypes which they represent, so that we adore Christ through the images which we kiss and before which we uncover the head and kneel, and pay homage to the saints whose similitude they bear." They denied that the Scriptures are the only legitimate rule of faith and worship, exalted the canons of councils, the opin- * Labbei Concil. torn. xii. p. 1143. ' Concil. Trident, Sess. xxv. 11 82 THE SECOND SEAL. ions of the fathers, and the decrees of the pope to an equal author- ity, and icensed the violation of all the laws of God and man by the authorization of indulgences. " Moreover the holy synod in order to restrain presumptuous dispositions, decrees that no one relying on his own wisdom, shall presume in matters of faith and customs that pertain to the support of Christian doctrine, to distort the sacred Scriptures to his own opinion, or interpret them contrary to that sense which the holy mother church has held and holds, whose it is to judge in respect to the true import and exposition of the sacred word, or contrary to the unanimous con- sent of the fathers, even although interpretations of that kind should never be made public. Let whoever does otherwise be reported by the usual officers and punished according to the laws."^ " Since the power of conferring indulgences^ has been con- ceded by Christ to the church, and she has exercised it from the earliest ages, the holy synod teaches and enjoins that the use of them, highly salutary to the Christian people, and sanctioned by the holy councils, is to be continued in the church, and pronounces an anathema on those who either assert that they are useless, or deny that the church has power to confer them."^ All the other false doctrines and superstitious and impious rites of the ancient and modern Asiatic Greek and Latin churches, have in like man- ner been legalized and enforced by canons of synods or decrees of patriarchs and popes, and a boundless demonstration furnished that the right of legislation which they have thus assumed, in- volves in practice as well as principle, an arrogation of absolute authority over the laws and prerogatives of God. Li tlie exercise of the stupendous powers thus usurped, they look peace from the earth by animosities, rivalries, contests, and endeavors to conquer and destroy each other officially ; by tyranny over their inferiors, the persecution of those who refused submis- sion to their dictation, encroachment on the citil powers, and quarrels with monarclis and princes, analogous to the revolts, strifes, battles and slaughters in the empire, of which in the second and third century political and military usurpers were the authors. The spirit willi which they ruled their dioceses within a short period of their institution of the office, is indicated l)y Cyprian in his letter to Cornelius, in which lie represents all the heresies and schisms that had arisen, as having sprung from a refusal to ' Concil. Trident,. Sess. iv. ' All iudiilgeiico is a release from obligation to law, and is either a license to sin with impunity, or an exemption from liability for sins already committed. ' Concil. TrJdeut, de ludul. Sesa. xxv. THE SECOND SEAL. 83 acknowledge the bishop alone as a priest and judge in the church in the place of Christ ; which, however extravagant, reveals the feeling which he exhibits in many of his letters, and which be- came common to his order, that every disobedience to the will of the bishop and every exercise of the sacred office without his permission, was a violation of his rights, rebellion against God, and a just ground of the deprivation of office and excommunica- tion with which they then began to visit those who dissented from their doctrines, or refused subjection to their authority.^ That love of power, pride, discord, strife, and tyranny, soon be- came their characteristics, is shown by Eusebius, who represents their ambition, abuse of their authority by the introduction of unworthy persons into the sacred office, and contentiousness in the period immediately preceding the persecution by Diocle- tian, as too discreditable to the church to be recorded.^ Sozo- men exhibits them as accustomed immediately on being freed from persecution by the civil powers, to engage in disputes and contentions with one another.^ Alexander of Alexandria, repre- sents ambition and avarice as perpetually exciting bad men to intrigue for the great churches.^ Chrysostom presents a fright- ful picture of the influence of the office from the passions to which it gives birth. He exhibits the mind of the priest as ruffled by waves more violent than those which tempestuous winds excite on the sea ; that the first dangers which he is called to encounter are those of vain-glory, more fatal than the rock of the syrens ; that to be installed in the office is like being exposed to perpetual laceration by those monsters ; and that the ambition, anger, strife, envy, jealousy, and detraction that attend it, are so many furies that rend and devour the soul." That their ambition soon led to collision and excited distrac- tions in the church, is indicated by the canons of councils and forged documents which were employed to restrain their usur- pation of each other's prerogatives, and encroachment on one another's jurisdiction. " Let not a bishop presume to make an ' Neque enim aliunde haereses obortae sunt, aut nata sunt schismata, quam inde, quod sacerdoti Dei non obtemperatur, nee unus in ecclesia ad tempus sacerdos et ad tempus judex vice Claristi cogitatur : cui si secundum magisteria divina obtem- peraret fraternitas uuiversa, memo adversum sacerdotum collegium quidquam mo- veret, nemo post divinum judicium, postpopuli suf&agium, post coepiscoporum con- sensum, judicem se, jam non episcopi, sed Dei faceret, nemo discidio unitatis Christi ecclesiam scinderet. — Epist. 59. See also Epist. 66. ^ Euseb. Eccl. Hist. lib. viii. c. 1, 2. De Martyribus, c. 12. ' Sozomeni Eccl. Hist. lib. vi. c. 4. * Theodoiiti Hist. Eccl. lib. i. c. 4. * De Sacerdot. lib. iii. c. 9. 84 THE SECOND SEAL. ordination in cities or rural places not subject to him. Should he be convicted of having done it without the approbation of those who hold those cities or villages, let him be deposed, and those also whom he has ordained."* " Let no bishop presume to pass from one province into another and ordain any to the sacred office, unless by a written invitation from the metropolitan and subordinate bishops of the province which he enters. Should he without a call proceed to ordain persons and administer eccle- siastical affairs that do not belong to him, his acts are without authority, and as a fit punishment for his disorderly and presump- tuous attempt, he is deposed by this holy synod,"^ A large part of the acts of the first councils of which we have any memorials, and tiie forged canons, constitutions, and decretals ascribed to the apostles, and the bishops of Rome of the second, third, and fourth centuries, are in like manner designed to repress their lawless ambition of power and disposition to encroach on each other's prerogatives. The usurping spirit which thus characterized the order, accordingly either gave birth to most of the dissensions, disgraceful strifes, and bloody quarrels which agitated and wasted the church through a long succession of ages, or raised the dif- ferences in faith and practice that sprung from other causes into a factitious importance, and made them the occasions of violent discord, exacerbated animosities, and the deposition and ejection of one another from the churches. It was thus the imperious and domineering spirit of Victor, bishop of Rome, that near the close of the second century rendered the differences of the east and west in respect to the day on which Easter was to be observed, the occasion of the passionate contests, enmities, and excommuni- cations of each other with whicii the church was distracted and disgraced on that subject. His attempt to compel the churches of the east to conform to the west, was pronounced by the great body of the bishops of the age an unauthorized arrogation of power ; and his debarring them, on their refusing obedience to his mandate, from communion with those of his patriarchate, rebuked as a wanton violation of the peace of the church.^ The violent contests with which the churches, first of Africa, and at length of Europe and Asia, were for generations agitated in respect to the rebaptism of those who were received from dis- senting sects, were occasioned in a chief dcgi-ce by the claims of the bisiiops to legislative power over the church, and endeavor ' Canon Apost can. xxxiv. Labbei, torn. i. p. 35. ' Concil. Anlioch i. can. xiii. Labbei, torn. ii. p. 1314. • Euseb. Eccl. Hist. lib. v. c. 24. THE SECOND SEAL. 85 to enforce their will as of divine authority. Those of each party denounced and excommunicated their opponents as heretics, and endeavored to induce the church at large to unite in debarring them from fellowship. How violent the passions and language of C5^prian sometimes were, though more moderate than many, may be seen from passages like the following. He says of those who rejected the doctrine he maintained respecting the power of bishops, the unity of the church, and baptism : "Is God hon- ored by the friend of heretics and enemy of Christians, who thinks the priests of God who keep the truth of Christ and the unity of the church, are to be debarred from communion ? If that is honoring him, if his fear and discipline are in that manner main- tained by his worshippers and priests, let us throw down our arms, let us yield our hands to be bound, let us deliver to the devil the institution of the gospel, the appointment of Christ, the majesty of God ; let the oaths of fidelity in the sacred warfare be abrogated, let the standards of the heavenly camp be surren- dered, let the church succumb and yield to heretics, light to darkness, truth to perfidy, hope to despair, immortality to death, Christ to anti-christ."^ It was ambition of the episcopal chair at Rome, that gave birth about the middle of the third century to the contest between Novatian and Cornelius, which led to the ordination of Novatian as an anti-pope, the formation of the party which bore Iris name, and thence to strifes and violences which tore and disgraced the churches of Italy, Africa, and Asia, in a measure, for many cen- turies.^ The adherents of Novatian soon becoming numerous, and or- ganized under their own bishops, the contest between them and their antagonists degenerated in a large degree into a mere struggle for power, in the progress of which they not only excommunicated each other as heretics, but excited the civil magistrates to enforce their anathemas by proscription, confiscation, and banishment.^ The still more unhappy schism of the Donatists was originated likewise by the bishops, and owed to their ambition, arrogance, and obstinacy the immeasurable evils which it drew in its train. The bishop of Carthage dying in the year 311, at the instigation ' Epist. 74, c. 8. ^ Euseb. Eccl. Hist. lib. vi. c. 43. Socratis E. H. lib. ii. c. 38, lib. iv. c. 9, lib. vii. c. 9, 11. Sozomeni E.H. lib. ii. c. 32. Cypriani Epist. 50, 60. ' At the distance of eighty years from the schism, Constantino granted them toleration and legalized their possession of the churches, cemeteries and other pro- perty which they had acquired during their separation. Codicis Theodos. lib. xvi. Tit. V. 1. 2. 86 THE SECOND SEAL. of two presbyters wlio aspired to tlie office, an election and insti- tution of a successor was held by the bishops of the vicinity, before the arrival of those summoned from Numidia, who had been accustomed to take part in the election and ordination. On their arrival, who were seventy in number, they, and especially their primate, complained of the violation of their rights in the induction of a bishop \vithout their concurrence, and encouraged by a faction organized by the disappointed candidates and other enemies of Caecilianus the new bishop, summoned him before them, and on his disregarding their call, deposed him and elected and ordained another in his place. Hinc schismatis ac dissen- sionis initium ; sic altare contra altare erectum est : such was the origin of the schism. They then addressed letters to all the churches of Africa, in which to justify themselves, they accused the bishop who ordained Coecilianus of having surrendered the Scriptures to the heathen magistrates, — an offence of which their primate and several of the others had been guilty, — and become incapable thereby of inducting into the sacred office, pronounced his ordination invalid, and enjoined them to exclude him from their communion, and acknowledge Majorinus, whom they had ordained his rival, as the only legitimate bishop. Those representations from so numerous a council command- ing the belief of great numbers, the whole African church be- came divided into two parlies, and a violent contest arose between the antagonist primates to secure the acquiescence of their subor- dinates, maintain their authority, and gain possession of tiie church edifices and property, in which all the arts of fraud, de- traction, and demagoguism were employed, especially by the Donatist faction, on a boundless scale, and violences, robberies, assassinations, and slaughters perpetrated, that are scarcely equal- led in the history of any other people. Several councils were called by Constantine for the purpose of hearing their accusa- tions of Caecilianus, and remedying their difficulties, and several synods held by the Catholic bishops of Africa to effect a recon- ciliation, but without success. The bishops on either side, but especially the Donatists, exacerbated by intolerance, inflamed vv'ith ambition, and embittered by mutual injuries, strove rather to perpetuate than terminate the strife. The Donatist bishops not unfrequently headed the bloody bands of the Circumcellions in the robbery and abuse of the helpless, the destruction of churches, the promiscuous slaughter of families and communi- ties, and the conflagration of villages and cities ;* and continued ' S. Optali, De Schis. Douat. lib. i. Augustjni Oper. torn. ix. p. 59 i. THE SECOND SEAL. 87 the war of revenge and blood, till in the eighth century both par- ties were swept from existence by the sword of the Saracens.^ The principal dissensions and schisms of the Donatists them- selves originated in like manner with the bishops, and that espe- cially between the Primianists and Maximianists, which com- mencing in an uncanonical deposition of Maximian and others by Primian, led to the deposition of Primian by one synod, and the substitution of Maximian in his place, and the condemnation of Maximian and those who ordained him by another, and thence to a strife between the rivals, which was marked like the contest of the party with the Catholics, by infuriate passions and bloody tumults.^ The schism of the Melitians, in the year 306, had its origin in like manner in a deposition of Melitius, the bishop of Lyco- polis, in upper Egypt, by the bishop of Alexandria. The party of Melitius soon becoming powerful, a violent war of denunci- ation was continued for several years, and the church throughout Egypt, and the neighboring provinces, in a degree embroiled in the contest.^ The dissensions respecting the divine nature commenced not long after by Arius, whether they had their origin, as the bishop of Alexandria represented, in the disappointment of his ambition of that see,^ or in a conviction of the truth of the doctrine which he advanced, soon degenerated into a strife for power between the bishops of the two parties, and a war of prerogatives. His deposition and denunciation by Alexander of Alexandria, led to the organization of a large party, embracing many prelates of great talents and authority in the eastern provinces, and excited disputations and contests throughout the whole church,^ so seri- ous, as to induce the emperor, at the recommendation of the orthodox bishops, to summon the council of Nicaea, and to ratify the creed and canons, which it adopted for the government of the church in its new organization as nationalized, and enforce them on Arius and his adherents by the penalties of deposition and banishment. The usurpation by the prince of authority over the faith of the church, being thus sanctioned by the bishops, and the deprivation at his will of its ministers justified and applauded, his religious opinions, which as they varied changed the relations ' Gibbon's Hist. chap. xxi. and xxxiii. ' Augustini in Psal. xxxvi. torn. iv. pp. 279, 280. Contra Crescon, lib. iv. c. 4. ' Socrat. Eccl. Hist. lib. i. c. 6, c. 9. Sozom. Eccl. Hist. lib. i. c. 24. Theo- doriti, Eccl. Hist. lib. i. c. 9. * Theodoriti, Eccl. Hist. lib. i. c. 4. ' Theod. Hist. Eccl. lib. i. c. 6. 88 THE SECOND SEAL. of the antagonist parties from authority to degradation, or from degradation to authority, became invested with the utmost im- portance, and gave birth to boundless intrigues and cabals to sway him to the faith of the respective parties, in order to secure there- by the honors and emoluments of power. The decrees of the sy- nod accordingly, his edicts, and the deposition and banishment of the Arian prelates who refused the legalized creed, so far from terminating the contest, only excited their party to the most art- ful and strenuous endeavors to change the judgment of the em- peror, and lead him to regard them, if not with approval, at least with commiseration ; and among those expedients, one of the most efficient was the false imputation of infamous crimes to their great antagonist the patriarch of Alexandria, and at a later period to the patriarchs of Constantinople, Antioch, and Rome, and the prelates of other principal dioceses ; and their intrigues were so successful as to lead repeatedly to the ejection of the ortliodox from their sees, and the substitution of Arians in their place, and to the deposition on the other hand and banishment of the Arians, and reinstallment of their antagonists. The emperors Constan- tine, Conslantius, Jovian, Valentinian, Valens, Theodosius, Hono- rius, Arcadius, and a long line of princes on the Greek throne, became in a great degree the instruments of the ambitious and domineering prelates.^ As the orthodox when in the majority had persecuted the Arians, so the latter on their accession to power in the reigns of Constanlius and Valens, persecuted their antagonists, and with a violence and mercilessness that had scarcely been equalled by the pagans ;^ and were themselves again, on the elevation of Theodosius, deposed, banished, and subjected to all the evils of a relentless persecution ."* Antago- ' Hosii Epist. ad Constant. Labbei Concil., torn. iii. p. 246. ' " Macedonius having obtained the patriarchal chair of Constantinople, inflicted innumerable evils on those who did not choose to adopt his sentiments, and on No- vatiaus as well as Catholics. Many bishops who were distinguished for piety, were seized and put to the torture, because they refused to communicate with him, and after being tortured, were compelled by him to partake of the eucharist by violently forcing the elements into their mouths. Women also and children were seiied and forced to receive baptism. If any refused or spoke in opposition to it, scoiirgings immediately followed, and after scourgings, chains, imprisonment, and other dread- ful severities, among which was the eradication of the breasts by the saw, the knife, or the ap])lication of eggs raised to a burning heat ; — a species of torture never used by the pagans, and known only to those who professed to be Christians." Soc- ratis Hist. Eccl. lib. ii. c. 38. His attempt to force the Novatians of Paphlagonia to adopt his creed, led to a battle with the imperial troops which he employed, and the slaughter of great numbern on both sides. Socratis Hist. Eccl. lib. ii. c. 38. » CodiciB Theod. lib. xvi. tit. i. 1. 2. THE SECOND SEAL. 89 nist councils alternately denounced anathemas on each other ;^ aged bishops were scourged^ into an assent, against tlieir princi- ples, to the legalized faith f unwelcome prelates inducted into their sees and aided in their merciless tyranny by military bands ;* and the populace of the great cities excited to the demo- lition of churches, the resistance of the magistrates, insurrections, and bloodshed ; and thus through a long tract of years, not only all freedom of opinion and security of office withdrawn from the clergy, but all liberty of thought and safety of person taken from the church at large .^ The bishops of the several sects into ' Most of tlie councils which defined doctrines and imposed creeds, denounced anathemas on dissentients from their faith ^ Socratis Hist. Eccl. hb. ii. c. 31. ^ Ubique autem scandala, ubique schismata, ubique perfidia sunt. Hinc illud est ut ad professionem subscribendse fidei aliqui eorum, qui ante ahud scripserant co- gerentur. Hilarii de Synodis c. 63. Athanasii Epist. ad Sohtar. op. tom. i. p. 815. * Macedonius was placed on the episcopal throne at Constantinople by the prae- torian prefect and a military guard, and upwards of three thousand of the populace slain in the tumult which it occasioned. Socratis Hist. Eccl. lib. ii. c. 16. Gregory weis escorted by troops to Alexandria and installed by violence, and by bis outrages provoked the populace to fire the church. Socratis Hist. Eccl. lib. ii. c. 11. George the Cappadocian was put in possession of the see of Alexandria by a mil- itary force, and employed troops and the mob to incarcerate the virgins, chain and guard the bishops, break open and plunder the houses of orphans and widows, drive the orthodox from the cemeteries in which they had assembled for worship, lacerate the faces of young women and hold them to a fire to compel them to profess them- selves Arians, and scourge men to death with palm boughs armed with sharp points, and prevent their friends from interring their bodies. Socratis Hist. Eccl. lib. ii. c. 28. Athanasii Epist. ad Solitar. op. tom. i. p. 815, 816. * The power they assumed when assembled in synods and conferred on metro- politans, exarchs and patriarchs, of depriving one another of office, was exercised in the most arbitrary and remorseless manner, and proved wholly destructive of peace and security. A large proportion of those who attained the episcopal chair during the hundred years that followed the nationalization of the church, were divested of their authority and expelled from their sees. Athanasius of Alexandria was de- posed three times and driven into exile. Gregory his successor was soon set aside by an Arian sjmod, and George substituted in his place, who, after having trans- ported fifteen of the bishops of his patriarchate into exile, and induced more than twice that number to elude his vengeance by flight, was himself deposed by the synod of Seleucia, and finally perished by assassination. Peter, who was elevated to the see on the death of Athanasius, was soon forced to resign it to Lucius, and Lu- cius, after a short reign, to relinquish it again to Peter. Paul, the patriarch of Constantinople, was four times deposed, and finally slain ; his successor Macedonius driven from his see twice, Chrysostom twice, and Eva- grius and Demophilus once each. The sjmod of Serdica deposed Theodore of Her- aclea, Narcissus of Nerodia, Stephen of Antioch, George of Laodicea, Menophantes of Ephesus, Ursacius of Singidunum, Valens of Mursa, and Patrophilus of Scythop- olis ; while the eastern bishops who refused to meet with that synod exconununi cated Hosius of Corduba, Julius of Rome, and several others. The synod of Seleucia deposed Acacius of Csesarea, Uranius of Tyre, Eudoxius 12 90 THE SECOND SEAL. which the Arians became divided in the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries, were embroiled in similar contests, and hurled denun- of Antioch, Theodulus of Chteretapor, Theodosius of Philadelphia, Evagrius of My- tilene, Leontius of Trijwli, Auxeulius, Cuius, and several others. At different periods Eustathiiis of Antioch, Marcellus and Basil of Ancyra, Pho- tinus of Sirmium, Liberius of Rome, Elusius of Cyzicum, Dracontius of Pergainos, Nerona of Seleucia, Cyril of Jerusalem, Eustathius of Sebaste, Dyonisius of Milan, Hilary of Poictiers, Gregory of Nyssa, Eusebius of Vercelli, were ejected from their stations, besides a crowd both in the east and in the west, whoso names have not come down to us. Valens expelled nearly all the orthodox in the churches of Asia Minor — .Socratis, H. E. lib. iv. c. 17 ; Gratian the Eiinomiaiis and Photinians in those of Europe — Socratis, H. E. lib. v. c. 2 ; and Theodosius all in both empires who were not of the Nicene faith — Codicis. Theod. lib. xvi. tit. i. c. 2. Gregory Naziausen and Basil of Caesarea appear to have been the only conspicuous prelates of their period who were not ejected from their sees. Basil was long threatened, and escaped at first by a favorable impression made by his intrepidity on the em- peror, and finally it is probable by death ; while Gregory evaded deposition by yielding to the intrigues which were employed to induce him to resign. In the next age, the war of deposition was resumed, and at the council of Ephe- sus, Cyril and his party deposed Nestorius of Constantinople, and separated John of Antioch and thirty-six others from the communion of the church, while John of Antioch and his adherents deposed Cyril of Alexandria, and Memnon of Ephesus, excommunicated the bishops, a hundred or more in number, who supported them, and procured the banishment of a great number of the party of Nestorius, as well as of Cyril ; and a similar strife of ambition and vengeance was continued by their successors through a long series of ages. Though many of those prelates were wholly unworthy of their stations, yet their expulsion was not usually founded on their demerits, but was the work of party spirit, resentment, and an ambition of con- Bpicuity and power. Socratis Eccl. Hist. lib. ii. c. 42. The ambition, recklessness, and profligacy ascribed by Basil to the prelates i)f his age, continued to disgrace the order for a long period. " The aspiring who are not restrained by the fear of God, intrude into the highest stations, and promotion has become the reward of impiety, so that he who blasphemes the most furiously is regarded as the best qualified to be the bishop of the people. The sanctity that befits the priesthood has disappeared ; they are no longer pastors who feed the flock of the Lord with knowledge, but the ambitious and profligate, who appropriate to their pleasures what should be distributed to the poor. The canons are no longer strictly observed, but a largo license is allowed to sin ; they who owe their advance- ment to power, to the passions of men, naturally repaying the favor by yielding to their indulgence. The law is not enforced, but everj- one walks according to the desire of his own heart, and wickedness has become excessive. No warnings are given to the people ; they who are in authority being the slaves of those to whom they owe their promotion, and restrained from speaking freely. When projecting war with one another, they are accustomed to veil their private enmities under the pretence that they are contending for religion. Some, to avoid reprehension for their disgraceful conduct, endeavor to divert the people from the notice of their crimes by embroiling them in mutual contentions, and the fear that peace would lead to their exposure, will induce them to continue the war. While the unbelieving laugh at these things, the weak are shaken, and they even who have faith are made to doubt, for they not only are not furnished with any solid instruction, but are cheated of their knowledge by these malignant perverlers of the word. In the mean time, the lips of the pious are silenced, wliile every blas])heming tongue is at liberty. Sacred things are so profaned that the sound part of the people avoid the houses of prayer, as schools of impiety, and retreating to secluded places, lift up their hands to God with groans and tears. But the news must have reached you that the people of THE SECOND SEAL. 91 ciations and anathemas at each other with an equal pride and ferocity. The organization of the church by Constantine as a national establishment, and investiture of the patriarchs of the capital cities with a legal jurisdiction over the bishops of their provinces, ren- dered those sees the objects of a still greater ambition, and gave birth to new and more rancorous contests between the great pre- lates and their subordinates. The elections of the bishops of the great cities were frequently disgraced by insurrections and blood- shed, and the patriarchs of Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Je- rusalem, and Alexandria, animated by a restless jealousy of each other, and ambition of encroaching on one another's dominion. It was this insatiable thirst of power that gave birth to the long contests of the patriarchs of Rome and Constantinople, and led, after the most exacerbated reproaches, accusations, and anathe- mas, to the separation which has now continued near a thousand years. On the other hand, the confirmation of their authority by the nationalization of the church, and enforcement of their canons and decrees by civil penalties, enabled the bishops by the im- position of false doctrines, the institution of superstitious and idolatrous rites, and the exaction of immense revenues to inflict new inquietudes on the church at large. They destroyed the peace of myriads and millions by the injunction of celibacy, by the im- position of cruel penances, by compelling a participation in rites that were felt to be idolatrous, by the tyranny of the confessional, by levying enormous exactions as the price of exemption from the penalties of violating the civil and canon laws. Several of the councils themselves instead of the gravity, can- dor, meekness, and piety, which become assemblies of the min- isters of religion, were noisy, factious, and intriguing to a degree that would disgrace the lowest political cabal, and torn with in- furiate contentions and rivalries.^ many of the cities have gone out of the gates with their wives and children, and the aged even, and worshipped under the open sky, bearing with patience all the severities of the weather, and looking for relief from God. What lamentations can equal such calamities, what fountains of tears suffice for these evils !" " But it is a still more unhappy circumstance that they who seem to be sound in the faitii are divided among themselves, and difficulties invest us like those iu which the Jews, when besieged by Vespasian, were embroiled, who were at once pressed by the war without, and wasted by insurrection within ; for besides the con- tests with the heretics, another is waged among ourselves that has reduced the church to extreme weakness." Basilii Epist. 69, op. torn. iii. pp. 109, 110. Sim- ilar representations occur in his 6lst and 70th, and several other letters. Febronii de Statu. Eccl. Pra3f. ' Gregory Naziansen represents himself as resolved never to attend another 92 THE SECOND SEAL. While dissensions, encroachment, and tyranny were thus the characteristics of the bisiiops as a body during the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries, the vast aggrandizement of the pa triarchs of Rome in the ages that followed, and acquiescence of the nations in their claims of authority over the whole western church, armed them with a tenfold power to disquiet it, which they exercised with a proportional restlessness and energy. They took away the peace of the church by enforcing the law of ce- libacy on the clergy, by which thousands of families were torn asunder and consigned to ignominy and wretchedness, and my- riads and millions of the unmarried harassed with perpetual temptation, or precipitated into hopeless vice. They filled the civil empire and the church with distractions, rivalries, and war, by arrogating the right of investiture to vacant bishoprics, assert- ing a jurisdiction over the prelates of other kingdoms, as well as the patriarchate of Rome, and assuming the power of interdicting the living at their pleasure from the rites of worship, and the dead from burial, and excommunicating princes, divesting monarchs of their authority, and absolving their subjects from allegiance. There has scarce been a pause in their contests with the cities, the states, and the princes of Italy, from the gift to them of a civil dominion by Pepin, down to the present hour. By their quarrels with the emperors of Germany, the nations both of that kingdom and of Italy were distracted by contentions, rebellions, and wars for several generations, and the factions to which they gave birth continued to disorder and harass the Italians through a succession of centuries. A war of prerogatives with the Gal- ilean church and monarchy, excited the jealousy, inflamed the resentment, and provoked the resistance of the prelates and princes of that people, through a thousand years. Their kings were repeatedly excommunicated and dethroned, the kingdom placed under interdict, the prelates deprived of office and sum- moned to Rome, and the whole population harassed by threats and smitten by anathemas. A similar war of usurpation and tyranny was waged with Spain and the British isles. Several of the monarchs of England were excommunicated and dethroned, and others threatened with those inflictions, the kijigdom repeatedly placed under interdict, and assembly of bishops, on the ground that ho had never known a synod that ended happily, or tliat did not increase ratlier tiiaii diminisii the evils it was designed to allay. The spirit of contcntiousaess and ambition with which they were ani- mated, he exhibits as transcendiu}; description, and rendering their difficulties more hopeless of a remedy than those of any other class. Epist. 55. THE SECOND SEAL. 93 the prelates and people for ages oppressed with enormous exac- tions. It was with the bishops or pope that all the religious dis- sensions that distracted that kingdom during its submission to the sway of Rome had their origin. It was the factious bish- ops, aspiring cardinals, and profligate and tyrannical pontiffs, who gave birth to the great schism of the papacy in the fourteenth century, and all the boundless distractions with which the church was rent during that feud. The popes and subordinate bishops took away the peace of the church by denying all liberty of dissent and freedom of thought, and persecuting the witnesses of God, who from age to age testified against their idolatries, and rebuked their usurpa- tions ; the Pauhcians, the Albigenses, the Wicklifites, the Lol- lards, the Waldenses, the Bohemians, prompting the civil rulers to the ravage of their fields, the conflagration of their cities, and the promiscuous slaughters by which they were nearly extermi- nated. Nor was this war on the peace of the church any less their characteristic after the revival of learning in the fifteenth century, and the secession of the Protestant nations from their jurisdiction. Those blows at their power only prompted them to new arts and more strenuous endeavors to maintain their usurped authority, and hold their vassals in bondage. They re- newed their intrigues to control the civil governments, rekindled the fires of persecution, and redoubled their exertions to overawe the timid by the force of authority, and exterminate those who refused submission to their will by the tortures of the inquisition. And such for a long period was the character in a large degree of the prelates of England after their secession from the com- munion of Rome. They arrogated a similar right to legislate over the prerogatives and laws of God, and a similar authority over the hberlies and consciences of his worshippers, and acqui- esced in their assumption by the civil rulers ; they were animated by an equal ambition, and guilty of equal violations of the rights and peace of those under their sway. The pride, intolerance, and tyranny with which for ages they pursued and crushed the dis- sentients from their creed and rites ; the malignity with which they sometimes attempted to debase the ministers of their own communion illustrious for learning, piety, and usefulness, and swerve them from allegiance to tlie Almighty ; and the cruelty with which they consigned their families to disgrace and beg- gary, and strove to hunt them from existence, have no parallel in the history of any other Protestant nation. Large as the num- ber is of great and good men who have held the episcopal ofiice 94 THE SECOND SEAL. in that church, vast as the myriads are who through divine grace have washed their robes under their ministry, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, and gone up from the conflicts of this stormy scene to the rest of heaven, she is yet among the guikiest of usurpers and tyrants. Her crown is sulhed, her stole is purpled with the blood of multitudes of the witnesses of God whom she has wantonly slain, and thence, like her persecuting sisters, she is ere long to be struck by avenging justice from her throne. Such are some of the various forms in which these usurpers of the rights of God have taken peace from the earth ; such the vast extent to which they have filled the church and civil empire with disquiet and tumult. To delineate at large the disastrous agency w'hich they have thus exerted, were to give a history of nearly all the religious contentions, and a principal share of the civil calamities with which the church has been afflicted for six- teen hundred years. There has not been an age in which mil- lions have not been harassed by them with disquietudes and alarms, and subjected to innumerable sufferings. There is not a dungeon within the circuit of their jurisdiction that has not been peopled by their victims, nor an ancient city which they have not hghted with the fires of persecution, and stained with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. There is not a hamlet that has not been terrified by the threats of their remorseless ven- geance, and resounded with the shrieks of the young and the aged, the beautiful and holy dragged forth by them to scourging, to torture, and to death ; nor a sequestered vale that has not been wet with the tears of those w^hom they have overwhelmed with injuries, and driven to despair. The representation that power was given to those whom the horseman represents, that they should kill one another, has Jiad an equal verification in their history. As the power of the ecclesiastic to destroy, which the sword of the civil usurper is employed to symbolize, is a power to inflict what is deemed a fatal spiritual wound, and is an official power, the killing which the symbol foreshows is on the one hand either an excommunication from the church, or a sen- tence to destruction, which in their judgment infallibly draw after them the ruin of the soul, and are the only species of official acts that are supposed to carry with them that influence ; and on the other, an authoritative compulsion to apostasy. They have from the commencement of their usurpations, held that union with their church, and a participation in its rites, were THE SECOND SEAL. 95' essential to salvation, and claimed the power and right to admit at their will to the kingdom of heaven, by admission to the church, or exclude from it by excommunication, and sentencing to destruc- tion. Thus Cyprian : " Whoever is separated from the church, is joined to an adulteress, and disinherited of the things promised to the church ; for he cannot attain the rewards which Christ bestows, who leaves the church of Christ. He is an alien, pro- fane, an enemy. He cannot have God as a father, who has not the church as a mother. As well might any one have escaped who was out of Noah's ark, as he may who is out of the church."* In like manner the fourth Lateran Council in 1215 ; una vera est fidelium universahs ecclesia, extra quam nullus omnino salva- tur.'^ " There is one true universal church of believers, out of which no one can be saved." Boniface VHI. also : " We firmly believe and sincerely profess one holy catholic church, and that apostolic, out of which there is neither salvation, nor remission of sins."^ Cyprian, and those who followed in his train, likewise regarded the gift of the keys to Peter, and the promise to the apostles generally, that whatever they loosed or bound on earth, should be loosed and bound in heaven, as indicating their invest- iture with the power of giving or denying salvation by an admis- sion to the sacraments, and a sentence of absolution on the one hand, or debarring from them, and sentencing to excommunica- tion and destruction on the other.* Thus Chrysostora : " Priests have received a power which God never chose to confer on an- gels, for it was never said to them, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven. Earthly princes have a power of binding, of bodies only however ; but this bond grasps the soul, and extends to heaven, so that whatever the priests do be- low, God legitimates above, confirming the sentence of his servants. But what less is this, than that he has conferred on them all celestial power ; for whosesoever sins, he said, ye remit, they are remitted, and whosesoever ye retain, they are retained. Can any authority be greater than this ? All judgment was given to the Son by the Father, but here I see it all devolved by the > De Unit. Eccl. c. 6. * Labbei Concil. torn. xxii. p. 982. Bellarmine also : Extra ecclesiam nemo salvatur, sicut extra arcam Noe. De Eccl. lib. iii. c. 3. ' Unam sanctam ecclesiam catholicam et ipsam apostolicam urgente fide credere cogimur et tenere, nosque banc firmiter credimus et simpliciter confitemur, extra quam nee salus est, nee remissio peccatorum. Const. Extravagan. lib. i. tit. viii. c. 1. * Cypriani de Uuitate, Eccl. c. 4. 96 THE SECOND SEAL. Son on ihem ; for they arc advanced to this supremacy precisely as though they were already translated to heaven, exalted above human nature, and freed from human passion. Moreover, were a king to confer on one of his subjects authority to imprison and again release whoever he pleased, he Avould be admired and envied by all. But the priest receives an authority from God as much greater, as heaven is superior to earth, and souls to bodies. " It is madness to despise this power without which we can nei- ther attain salvation, nor any of the blessings that are promised ; for if no one can enter into the kingdom of heaven except he be born of water and the Spirit, and he who does not eat the flesh of the Lord and drink his blood is excluded from eternal life, and none of these are possible except through the consecrated hands of the priest, how can any one without him escape the fire of hell and attain a crown ?"^ Bellarmine also : " We and all Catholics interpret the keys given to Peter of supreme power over the whole church." — " In the Scriptures he is said to bind, who enjoins and who punishes ; — for the church binds those on whom she inflicts excommunica- tion : — but he is said to loose, who remits sins — who frees from punishment, who releases from law, from vows, oaths, and simi- lar obligations. When therefore it was said to Peter generally, whatsoever you loose and bind, power was given him of enjoin- ing, of punishing, of releasing, of remitting, so that he was con- stituted the judge and the prince of all who are of the church."^ " The fathers expressly assert that in the promise whatsoever thou shalt loose, the power is given of remitting sins through the sacraments of baptism and penance."*^ To be debarred from the sacraments therefore was in their judgment to be debarred from salvation ; and to be excommunicated from the church and anathe- matized by a bishop, a pope, a synod, or a general council, to be ' De Sacerdotio, lib. iii. c. v. " At nos, et Catholici omnes per claves datas Pctro intelligimus summam potes- tatem in oinnem ecclesiam. — In Scripturis ligaro dicitur, qui prsecipil et qui punit. — Ligat enim ecclesia eos quos punit poena oxcommunicationis. Solvere autem dicitur, qui reniittit pcccata, qui liberat h ])oena, qui dis])pnsat in lege, in votis, juraniontis, et simiiibus obligationibus. Cum ergo dicitur I'etro gencraiiter: — quic- quid solvere, &c., datur ei potestas pneeipiendi, puniendi, dispensandi, remittendi proinde fit judex, et princeps omnium, qui sunt in ecclesia. Bcllannini do Roman. Pont. lib. i. c. 13. See also Van Espen do Censuris Eccl. cap. i. ' Deniquo pafres diserte asserunt dari bic potestatem remittendi peccati, per sa- cramenta ba|)tismi, et poenitentiw. Bellarmini do Roman. Pont. lib. i. c. 12. See Barouius also, Auuo 34, No. 197; and Casauboii Exercit. iii Baron. No. 127, p. 612. THE SECOND SEAL. 97 devoted to perdition.' It has been the doctrine accordingly of the bishops in every age, that they held a spiritual sword f and to strike with a sentence of excommunication, or an anathema, has been in their vocabulary to strike spirituali gladio, with the spirit- ual sword ; excommunicationis gladio, with the sword of excom- munication ; apostolico mucrone, with the apostolic blade ; and pontificis gladio, the sword of the pontiff. " The proud and con- ' " There is nothing the Christian should so dread as to be separated from the body of Christ ; for if separated from his body he is not a member of him ; and if not a member he is not quickened by the Spirit. But whoever has not the Spirit of Christ is none of his. Nihil enim sic debet formidare Christianus quam separari a corpore Christ!." Augustini apud Gratiani Decret. Causa xi., q. 3, c. 33. Anciently excommunication, when distinguished from anathema, denoted a de- privation of the sacraments ; and an anathema an ejection from the church as a lieathen and publican, and sentence to destruction. After the twelfth century ex- communication was distinguished into the less, which was a simple exclusion from the sacraments, and the greater, which was an ejection from the church, while an anathema was a sentence to destruction: Anathema est Eetemae mortis damnatio. Van Espen, do Poenis et Censuris Eccl. c. v., s. 1,2, 3. In the first ages set forms of excommunication seem not to have been used. The canons and decrees of the councils of the fourth, fifth, and sixth ages, simply sentence their violators to separation from the church, and denounce on them an anathema. After the eighth century, to invest them with greater significance they were often expressed in set forms, embracing an enumeration of the curses to which their victims were devoted. Among them are the following: " By the judgment of God Almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and of the blessed Peter, prince of the apostles and of all saints, and also by our subordinate authority and the power divinely given us of binding and loosing in heaven and on earth, we debar him and all his accomplices and favorers from the participation of the precious body and blood of Christ, and from the society of all Christians, exclude him from the threshold of holy mother church in heaven and on earth, decree him to be excom- municated and anathematized, and adjudge him condemned with the devil and his angels, and all the reprobate, to eternal fire, until he shall recover himself from the snare of the devil, return to amendment and penance, and make satisfaction to the church of God which he has injured." Van Espen, do Censuris Eccl. c. v., s. vi., p. 108. " Unless they sincerely repent and make satisfaction to our mediocrity which they have injured, we confound them with an eternal malediction, we condemn them with a perpetual anathema. Let them incur the wrath of the supreme judge. Let them be aliens from the heritage of God and his elect, and neither in the pres- ent life have communion with Christians, nor obtain a part with God and his saints in that which is to come ; but let them be associated with the devil and his minis- ters, and suffer the punishment of avenging fire with eternal sorrow. May they be hated of heaven and earth, and tortured with the inflictions of hell forever. Let them be cursed in the house, let them be cursed in the field. Let the food and fruit of their bodies be cursed. Let all be cursed which they possess, from the dog that barks at them, to the cock that crows in their hearing. Let their part be with Dathan and Abiron whom hell engulfed alive, with Ananias and Sapphira who were instantly struck dead, and with Pilate and Judas the traitor, nor let them have any otlier burial than that of an ass, and so let their lamp be extinguished ui dark- ness. Amen." Van Espen, de Cens. Eccl. c. v., s. vi., p. 108. ' Uterque ergo est in potestate ecclesise, spiritualis scilicet gladius et materialis. Extravagan. Comm., lib. i., tit. viii., c. i. 13 98 THE SECOND SEAL. tumacious are slain with llic spiritual sword when they are eject- ed from the church.'" " The sword of excommunication is the ef- fective instrument of ecclesiastical discipline."^ " They are brand- ed with infamy, and cut off by the apostolic blade from the bo- som of holy mother church."^ " The throats of the heresies that arose during this pontificate, were cut by the sword of the Pon- tiff."* And those spiritual wounds could, in their judgment, be healed only by the hand which inflicted them, or some superior power intrusted by the canons with the requisite authority. The power they thus acquired to kill one another, according to their estimate of the official import of those acts, they have exercised on a vast scale. Excommunication was the usual penalty inflicted by bishops for the violation of their canons, and the councils began at an early day to excommunicate those whom they condemned, and pronounce anathemas on those who dissented from their doctrine, or disregarded their disciplinary laws. Thus the council of Nicaea sentenced those to excom- munication who held the doctrine of Arius.. The Arian coun- cils of Sirmium and Seleucia pronounced anathemas on those who dissented from their creed. The council of Antioch ex- communicated those who disregarded the doctrinal definitions of Nicaea, or violated its own canons. At the council of Ephe- sus, Cyril and his party excommunicated John of Antioch and his associates, and John and his coadjutors retorted the sen- tence on Cyril and his party. The council of Constantinople under Leo excommunicated the worshippers of idols ; the second council of Nicsea and the fourth Latcran those who denounced their worship as idolatry. The bishop of Rome excommunicated the patriarch of Constantinople, and tlie patriarch of Constantino- ple the bishop of Rome. The pope excommunicated the pre- lates of Germany, the prelates of Germany excommunicated the pope ; and the rival popes of the fifteenth century excommuni- cated each other, and were themselves excommunicated by the councils of Pisa, Constance, and Basle. The contests of patriarchs and popes with each other were of ' Spirituali gladio superbi et contumaccs nccantur, dum de ecclesia ejiniuntur. (lypriaiii Epist. iv., c. 4. " Excommniiicationis gladius nervus sit ccclcsiasticffi disciplinte. Concil. Trident. Seas. XXV. do Reformatioae, c. iii. ' Infamia sunt iiotati, et a simi sanctffi matris ecclesioe apostolico mucrone ab- licissi. Fabiaui Supp. Ei)ist. i., Labbei Concil. torn. i. p. 772. * Pontificis gladio jiifjulatiB Hunt. Labbei Concil. toni. i. p. 7G8, n. There are many other forms: Excornniunioationis se noverit mucrone percussiim. Eum eccle- siasticeD animadverKioniH mucrone I'eriemus. Eum apostolico anuthematis mucrone vulnerit. Aiiathcmalis se sciat mucrouo pcrcussum. THE SECOND SEAL. 99 little significance however, compared with the ceaseless blows inflicted by them on their inferior bishops, and by the bishops on their clergy and flocks. From the tenth to the sixteenth cen- tury especially, the whole episcopal army were incessantly bran- dishing their swords, and striking down their victims, and ren- dering the church by their folly and vengeance a vast scene of terror, turmoil, and misery. The frequency of excommunication during the tenth and following ages, and the frivolousness of the causes for which it was inflicted, especially after the prelates began to use their spiritual sword for the protection of their tem- poral as well as their ecclesiastical rights, transcends description. The evil became so enormous that decrees were enacted by the councils of Constance and Trent to restrain the abuse.^ But beside these sentences, which were regarded as carrying spiritual death to those against whom they were directed, they made their legislative and judicial power the means of actually inflicting a fatal wound on one another, and on multitudes of their people, by betraying or forcing them to an apostasy from God that necessarily involved a spiritual death. They have from the commencement of their usurpation im- posed their legislative acts on one another, and enforced them by all the pretended authority of their office, and all the rewards and penalties with which the civil magistrate has been induced to support tlieir discipline ; and held that as they had a right to dictate to their people, so they were under obligation to submit to the decrees and enactments of their own order as of absolute authority, when imposed by the body, a general, national, or pro- vincial council to which they were subordinate, or a patriarch or pope to whom they regarded themselves as owing allegiance ; and have thus betrayed each other into apostasy from God by that assumption of legislative power over his rights and laws, and by their usurped authority have driven each other in numerous instances into the adoption of doctrines that involved a revolt from him, and transference of their homage to creatures and to idols, and thence inevitably precipitated them to everlasting ruin. Thus the Arians on their accession to power under Constantius and Valens, induced the great body of the clergy by authoritative dictation and the threat of deposition, confiscation of their pro- perty, torture and banishment, to adopt their peculiar creed, and sincerely, doubtless in many instances, on the ground on which the nationalization of the church and the legislation of councils proceeded, that bishops and princes had a right to dictate the ' Van Espen. de Cens. Eccl. c. vii. s. v. 100 THE SECOND SEAL. faith and worship of the church. The councils of Chalcedon, the fourth Lateran, and Trent, authorized and enjoined the invo- cation of saints, the homage of rchcs, and the worship of images, enforced them on all the churches subject to their jurisdiction by an anathema, and by their authority thus became the reason to the thousands that followed in their train, of receiving those im- pious doctrines, and offering that idolatrous worship. But besides this legislative authority, other efficient induce- ments were employed to constrain them to the reception of their creed and participation in their rites. The excommunicated were not only not allowed to unite in the worship of the church, or enter religious assemblies, but were debarred from society, deprived of civil privileges and rights, divested of their property, and rendered infamous. Thus the tenth canon falsely ascribed to the apostles — " If any one unites in prayer with an excommu- nicate even in a family, let him be debarred from communion ;"^ and the council of Antioch, " It is not allowable to communicate with the excommunicated, nor to assemble in. private houses to pray with those who do not pray together in the church, nor to receive those in one church who do not meet together in another. Let the bishop, presbyter, or deacon who is found communicating with the excommunicated, be himself excommunicated for disre- garding the canons of the church."^ They were not allowed to give evidence against a bishop, whatever were his official crimes either against them or others. Thus the council of Constanti- nople : " It is not lawful for heretics to accuse orthodox bishops in respect to ecclesiastical affiiirs ; and by heretics we mean those who have first been ejected from the church and afterwards anathematized, and those also who, though professing the true faith, have yet separated and been cut off, and formed an assem- bly adverse to our canonical bishops."^ They were denied the rights of property and citizenship, and placed out of the protec- tion of law. Thus pope Gregory X. sentenced Guide dc Mont- fort : " Athough such temerity transcends the severest punish- ment, yet that it may not go wholly unrequited, and its impunity excite to further attempts, we have determined as far as our official power allows to visit him with merited acerbity. There- fore having deliberated with our brethren and giving sentence by their counsel, we pronounce the aforesaid Guide de Montfort a ' Labbei Concil. torn. i. p. 33. ' Labbei Concil. torn. ii. c. 2, p. 1309. Also Concil. Carth. cau. vii. Labbei, torn. iii. p. 694. ^ Labbei Concil. torn. iii. p. 5G1. THE SECOND SEAL. 101 convicted perpetrator of that flagitious crime" — assassination — " condemn him as such to the loss of his rank, and sentence him to be branded with perpetual infamy. Let him be so wholly detestable that he can neither make a will, nor receive property either by will, or from an intestate, or by succession to any one. Nor let him be allowed to give testimony. His goods also wher- ever situated, we sentence to confiscation by those within whose jurisdiction they are, without prejudice to any one's right. We forbid to Guido himself all jurisdiction, care and power over the lands also and other property of his wife, strictly enjoining that no obedience be rendered to him in respect to them or any other lands whatsoever, and bind any one who may obey him, with the sentence of excommunication ; and the land which obeys him we subject to an ecclesiastical interdict, so that no sacrament can be administered to any one in it, except baptism to infants, penance, and the eucharist to the dying. We deprive him wholly of all that he holds from churches of whatever kind, or has in trust in any other manner, so that it may revert without obstruction to the churches to which it pertains. And that the punishment of his crime to be inflicted and to abide on his posterity, also may be made known to all in future times, we by the same authority decree that neither Guido nor his descendants to the fourth gen- eration, unless they shall become entitled to the favor of this seat, shall be eligible to any dignity. No access to any dignity shall be opened to them, or any one of them, nor any audience be granted to them, or others in their behalf in order to their soliciting it. No one of them shall ever be advanced to any ecclesiastical or worldly honor, or any public office whatever, ecclesiastical benefice, or promotion in the monasteries. More- over we divest the aforesaid Guido of all protection short of the peril of death and mutilation, and put him under interdict, so that excepting that danger, his person may be freely seized by any one. We moreover strictly command all prefects of pro- vinces whatever may be the title they bear, and all magistrates, consuls, and commanders of cities, camps and other places, to seize him and conduct him to our court to be committed to pri- son, or punished in such other manner as we may approve. We bind him also as sacrilegious and contumacious with the sentence of excommunication, and decree that all places which he enters, unless seized and detained in them in order to be conducted to us, be placed as long as he remains in them, under an ecclesias- tical interdict. We moreover by this interdict prohibit all and every city, community, and corporation whatever, and all persons 102 THE SECOND SEAL. of whatever rank or condition though even of imperial, regal, or any other dignity, from receiving him, or as far as in their power allowing him to be received. Let no one have any transaction or commerce with him, unless such as concerns the salvation of his soul. Let no one yield him any aid, or counsel, or favor, open or secret. Let no one enter into any association or con- federation with him under any pretext, color or machination whatever ; and all persons whatever who presume to do other- wise, shall incur by that act the sentence of excommunication, which we now pronounce on them, — and the society that shall do otherwise and their lands who shall enter into a confederation with him, we place under an ecclesiastical interdict. " And finally, we wish all the aforementioned sentences of ex- communication to be so inflexibly observed, that we divest all our penitentiaries, confessors, and all others of all power of absolving from them, or relaxing them, except at the moment of death. "^ This sentence .to excommunication, disfranchisement, and in- famy, though prompted in the instance of Guide by an atrocious crime, exemplifies the penalties with which they were accustom- ed to pursue all who refused submission to their sway. The ecclesiastical sword, when so tempered as to give birth at every stroke to this tremendous array of consequences, became an instrument of persuasion and compulsion which no human power, unless armed by the grace of the Almighty, was adequate to resist, and crushed every order of the hierarchies themselves, and the Avhole church and empire into unquestioning and abject acquiescence in whatever doctrines and rites it was employed to enforce. To such an extent was this carried, that an acknowl- edgment of the usurped powers of bishops, patriarchs, popes, and councils became the great test of orthodoxy and piety, and the reception or rejection of their doctrines and rites continued of importance less because of their own nature, than of the acknowl- edgment or denial which they involved of that authority. Bish- ops were required on their induction into office to profess the false dogmas and adopt the idolatrous rites of the church, ratify all the arrogations of the pope, and promise implicit obedience to his will ; and so absolute was the triumph of the artifice over the general reason and conscience, so blind and unquestioning was the credence of all orders in its legitimacy, that for many centu- ries scarce a monarch, a prince, or a prelate who was struck by an anathema, failed to procure by submission, bribes, or force, a reconciliation with the papal see. It was extorted by the sword, ' BuUaiii Mag., toiii. viii. pp. 81, 82. THE SECOND SEAL. 103 purchased by gifts, or gained by concessions and humiliations, by the emperors of Germany, the kings of France, England, Spain, and Sicily, and a long train of princes, prelates, barons, statesmen, and speculatists. It was thus by this dread engine that the several orders of ecclesiastics were made to unite in the superstitions, idolatries, and blasphemies of the Greek and Papal systems, and the whole body of the church struck with spiritual death. It was the instrument by which they were forced to all the great steps of their apostasy, the worship of images, the hom- age of relics, the invocation of saints, the idolatry of the mass, the exaltation of the pope. It was the power by which opposi- tion was arrested, dissidence silenced, and every incumbent of the sacred office compelled info concurrence and approval. Had there been no legislation in the Greek and Latin churches in the eighth century, the worship of images would not have gained a universal prevalence. Had the powerful party which opposed it been allowed freedom of discussion, and liberty to follow the teaching of the Scriptures, they would have preserved the knowl- edge and belief of the truth, and perpetuated a succession of true worshippers. Had the opponents of transubstantiation in the tenth and eleventh centuries been allowed to assail error without obstruction, they would have triumphed over the ignorance, ab- surdity, and blasphemy of that doctrine, and been followed in integrity and wisdom by a vast train of disciples to the present day; and were perfect freedom of discussion now permitted in the Catholic and Greek communions, and the Scriptures alone made the standard of faith, a vast crowd whose lips are now sealed, and whose reason and conscience are smothered by a blind trust in the prerogatives of councils and popes, or a dread of anathemas, would speedily emerge from the abyss of error and folly in which they are immersed, and discern, embrace, and ad- vocate the truth in its purity and dignity. And finally, on the acquisition of this tremendous power, the representation that a great sword was given to the horseman, was verified. The bishop originally had authority only over his own diocese, and could discipline and excommunicate none but those of his own church. By their association, however, in synods, they ac- quired authority over each other, and on their organization under metropohtans and patriarchs, they invested those great prelates with the power of assembling synods, and issuing and enforcing authoritative sentences ; and finally, on the elevation of the pope to supremacy, he acquired the power of dictating whatever doc- 104 THE SECOND SEAL. trines and enjoining whatever worship he pleased, and of enforcing his will by all the penalties which the most remorseless malice could invent, or the most lawless tyranny inflict, and exerted his authority at his will, not only on individuals, whether monarchs, princes, prelates, or unoflScial, but often struck at once with his gigantic sword whole classes, whole hierarchies, and whole na- tions. Such are the verifications of the symbol which the history of the church presents ; such the resistless demonstration that the prelates to whom I have applied it, are the persons whom it rep- resents. There is no other order of men in the church to whom it is in any degree applicable. No class of its ministers except bishops, for a long series of ages arrogated the power of legisla- tion over its faith and worship. No order except diocesans have by their official power taken peace from the earth, and agitated, torn, and devoured alike the church and civil empire with ani- mosities, discords, and wars ; and they are the only class in the churches under episcopal government that have ever had author- ity to depose from the sacred office, strike with excommunica- tions and anathemas, and compel one another thereby to the re- ception of doctrines and adoption of rites that necessarily carried death to the soul. The expositions that have been given of this seal are very va- rious. Mr. Brightman interprets it of the wars of the Roman empire with exterior nations ; Grotius, Dr. Hammond, Cocce- ius, Eichhorn, and Rosenmullcr of the contests of the Jews with the people with whom they were intermixed in Judea and else- where, or with the Roman armies during the reign of Nero and Vespasian ; Mr. Mode, Dr. More, Mr. Daubuz, Mr. Jurieu, Mr. Lowman, Mr. Whiston, Bishop Newton, and others, of the re- volts of the Jews under Hadrian ; Mr. Elliott of the revolutions and slaughters by the praetorian guards during the second and third centuries ; Vitringa of the persecutions of Christians by Dccius, Valerian, and Diocletian ; and Mr. Faber of the Medo- Persian empire. These incongruous and contradictory interpre- tations are all founded on the assumption that the symbol and the agents symbolized are of the same species, and carry on their front therefore the most indisputable proof of their erroneousncss. Dean Woodhouse, who regards the symbol as representing con- tests within the church, interprets it also literally of slaughters and wars, and violates therefore in like manner the law of analogy. THE THIRD SEAL. 105 SECTION X. CHAPTER VI. 5-6. THE THIRD SEAL. And wlien he opened the third seal, I heard the third living crea- ture say, Come. And I looked, and lo, a black horse, and he that sat on him having a balance in his hand, and I heard a voice in the midst of the four living creatures say, A choenix of wheat for a de- narius, and three choenices of barley for a denarius, and the oil and the wine thou mayest not injure. This sjanbol also is taken from political life in the Roman em- pire, and is a ruler who reduces bis subjects to want and mis- ery by taxation ; as is denoted first by the balance, the symbol of a civil magistrate, as a bow or a sword is of a warrior ; next, by the wheat and the barley, the oil and the wine, which indicate that he exercises authority over those articles. Thirdly, by the price, which implies that he determines the rates at which they are to be valued, if coin be received in their place, or the price at which the produce of land is to be taken to render the sum in coin at which it is to be assessed, proportional to its productive- ness ; and the rates also at which it is to be sold when distributed to the citizens from the public granaries at a price. Fourthly, by the prohibition to injure the oil and the wine, which denotes that the exactions are so oppressive that the husbandman prunes the fig-tree and vine to such a degree as to prevent their bearing, in order to exempt them from assessments. And finally, by the color of the horse, which is indicative of affliction. The voice from the living creatures is to be regarded as de- scriptive of the agency he is to exert, and the laws he is to im- pose, not prophetic of restraints to which he is himself to be sub- jected. A denarius it would seem from Matthew xx. 2, was the usual price at that period in Judeaof aday's labor in agriculture. A choenix of wheat was in Greece the usual allowance for a day's sustenance.* Thence that rate of wheat, though the capacity of the choenix is uncertain, may be considered as denoting a diffi- culty to the poor of supplying their personal wants, and much more the wants of famihes and dependants. Greater exactness in weight and measure is observed by those who create high * Herodoti lib. vii. 187. 14 106 THE THIRD SEAL. prices ; and high rales of food, as they almost universally involve a corresponding depreciation of other rates, and of labor as well as commodities, render it difficult to the poor to gain adequate means of subsistence. That scarcity is the effect of the horse- man's agency, is seen moreover by the exhibition of death under the fourth seal, as employing the agents of the second and third, under the denomination of the svi^ord and famine. That such is the horseman, and such the agency he is to ex- ert, is confirmed moreover by the incongruities which embarrass other constructions. Thus to regard him, as he has been exhib- ited by many interpreters, as famine itself, not one who causes famine, is to make him the mere symbol of a symbol ; for if the horseman with his accompaniments as a symbol is famine, he is indisputably such not literally, but only by representation. A rider on a black horse holding a balance and determining the rates of grain, is not identically the same as famine. The one is a living intelligent agent acting in a particular sphere, and exert- ing a peculiar agency ; the other a certain relation between eat- ers and the supply of food. But to treat the representative agent in that manner as not the real symbol, but the mere personifica- tion of the symbol, is wholly unauthorized, and overthrows all certainty of interpretation. As well might it be assumed that the words which the apostle employed in describing the horseman and his agency, are not the real words which embody their de- scription, but only representatives of another and wholly different set to which that office is assigned. The horseman is himself therefore with his accompaniments the symbol ; is like those which preceded him an agent, and exerts an agency in conform- ity first with his office, denoted by the balance and the determi- nation of the prices of grain ; and next, with the mode in which he administers that office, indicated by the color of the horse, the high rates of grain, and the prohibition to injure the oil and the wine. All these were characteristics and peculiarities of the Roman emperors, especially of the third and fourth centuries. They im- posed the various taxes for the support of the court, the army, the civil service and the cities, and determined the species in which they were to be levied, and the modes of their collection.* ' " All magistrates shall, when a census is made, designafo with their own hand the species of produce and other things which are rated in the uidiction, and express the quantities." Mann [)ropria Judices universi prriculo suo annonarias sj)ecies et cte- tera quro indictione penduntur, dcfiuitis qnantitatihiis, et coniprehensis inodis, facta adscriptionc, designcnt. — Codicis Thcod. lib. xi. Tit. i. 1. 3. Soo also 1. 6, 15, 18, 20, 2d. THE THIRD SEAL. 107 A large portion of the contributions exacted from the subject were the products of the soil, grain, oil, wine, wood,* The lands were assessed in proportion to the nature of their products and their fruitfulness. The subject in some cases, instead of delivering the kinds that were levied, which he might be obliged to pur- chase or convey to an inconvenient distance, was allowed to give their equivalent at rates fixed by the exactor in coin.^ At other periods the receivers were prohibited from such exchanges, and required to exact the articles designated in the indictions.* The exactions were so excessive as to induce the cultivators in some cases to mutilate their fruit trees and vines to such a degree as to render them miproductive, at least for the year of assessment, in order to escape the tax on their products. " If any one shall sacrilegiously cut a vine, or stint the fruit of prolific boughs, and craftily feign poverty in order to avoid a fair assessment, he shall immediately on detection suffer death, and his property be con- fiscated."^ If, as is probable from the period of the indictions,^ the measurement of the lands and estimate of their produce was made but once in fifteen years, that space presented a strong motive to such an expedient. The prohibition denotes the extreme to which assessments were carried. All fruitful trees and vines were numbered, an estimate made of their annual products, and a contribution levied proportional to that estimate.''' It indicates likewise the severity with which the impositions were exacted. Of the produce thus drawn from Italy and the provinces, a large portion was destined for the great cities, especially Rome, and ' Codicis Theod. lib. xi. tit. i. 1. 6, 15. Dion. Cassii Hist. Rom. lib. Ixxvii. c. 9,10. ^ Codicis Theod. lib. xiii. tit. xi. 1. 2, 3. = Codicis Theod. lib. xi. tit. i. I. 6. ^ " Let no one liereafter exact gold of the city of Rome, instead of the species which are levied." Nemini aurum pro speciebus urbis Romas liceat exigere de futuro. — Cod- icis Theod. lib. xi. tit. i. 1. 8. " That no one may presume that money is to be sub- stituted for produce, let it be made known that no receipt will be given to those who captiously violate the law on this subject." Ne quis pro speciebus annonariis pecu- nias existimet inferendas, scientibus cunctis, quod si quis contra banc Serenitatis Nos- tra legem captiosmn aliquid putaverit perpetraudum, Securitatibus hoc mode editis eos esse carituros. — Lib. xi. tit. iii. 1. 5. Also, tit. ii. 1. 4. ^ Si quis sacrilega vitem falce succideret, aut feracium ramorum fetus hebetaverit, qu6 declinet fidem censuum, et mentiatur callidfe paupertatis ingenium, mox delec- tus capitale subibit exitium, et bona ejus in fisci jura migrabunt. Illo videlicet vi- tante calumniam, qui fortiter detegitur laborasse, pro copia ac reparandis agrorum ftt'tibus, non sterilitatem aut inopiam procurasse — taking care, however, not to con- found that pruning which is designed to promote fruitfulness, with that which is in- tended to cause sterility. — Codicis Theod. lib. xiii. tit. xi. 1. 1. ° Gibbon's Hist. Decl. and Fall, chap. xvii. '' Agri glebatim metiebantur, vites et arbores numerabantur, animalia omnis gen- eris scribebantur, hominum capita notabantur. — Lactantii de Mort. Persecut. c. 23. 108 THE THIRD SEAL. in the fourth century Constantinople ; and though designed as a provision against scarcity,* was occasionally at least so adminis- tered as to give birth to that evil. The gratuitous distribution was sometimes suddenly diminished or discontinued, and private dealers and the prefect of the public magazines enabled, by the great multiplication of purchasers, to exact higher prices. Thus Augustus on one occasion reduced the recipients from an almost innumerable multitude, to two hundred thousand f and Nero sus- pended the donation altogether.^ The quantity to be distributed to individuals* and the rates at which sales were made from the public granaries, were fixed by the prefect f and the latter some- times wantonly advanced for the purpose of causing distress and discontent. Dionysius Papirius, the prefect under Commodus, raised the rates in a time of famine, in order to inflame the peo- ple against Oleander the chamberlain and prefect of the army and a monopolist.^ These exactions were so enormous, and often so lawless and wanton, as to reduce great numbers from riches and competence to poverty. Caracalla is represented as animated by a furious passion to wrest their possessions from every class of citizens, and reduce them to ruin. He frequently seized the produce of their farms, and the provisions collected for their families, or compelled them to purchase grain, wine, and other articles, at great expense, and without remuneration, and gave them to his troops, or sold them to raise money. He often exacted large donatives from ordinary citizens as well as from the rich. He renewed all the impositions that had been remitted by his prede- cessors, advanced the most oppressive, the tax on inheritances, from a twentieth to a tenth, and by extending the gift of citizen- ship to all provincials, subjected the whole population to the pe- culiar burdens annexed to that privilege. When about to return ' Dio. Cass. Hist. Rom. lib. liv. c. 1 , lib. Iv. c. 31. Tacit! Amial. lib. i. c . 7, lib. xv. c. 39. Codicis Theod. lib. xiv. tit. xv. x\'i. ^ Dio. Ca.ss. Hist. Rom. lib. Iv. c. 10. ' Dio. Cass. Hist. Rom. lib. Ixii. c. 18. * Dio. Cu.ss. H. Rom. lib. Iv. c. 26. ' That the people of Rome may not bo served with bad bread, let the mea-surere and barfjenien bo compelled to sell to tiio bakers at low prices only two hundred thousand measures of pure and sound grain. Ne pe.ssimus panis Populi Roniani usi- bus ministretur sola ducentenamiUia modiorum frumenti, integri adque intemerati, juxta priscum morem, mensores et caudicarii levioribus pretiis pistorii)us venundare cogantur. — C'odicis Theod. lib. xiv. tit. xv. 1. 1. The other grain required by the bakers being furnished grat\iitously from the public magazines, they had no motive to adulterate their broad from an advance of price in the market. ' Dio. Cass. Hist. Rom. lib. Ixxii. c. 13. THE THIRD SEAL. 109 from the camp, or from distant cities to the capital, he compelled the citizens to waste vast sums in the erection of numerous struc- tures along the line of his progress for his repose, and amphi- theatres and circuses wherever he wintered, or proposed to win- ter, which were left to dilapidation, and seemed designed for little else than to wear out his subjects.^ The enormity and violence of these exactions sprung in a de- gree from the rapid succession of tyrants, each one of whom was compelled to purchase the support of the army by large dona- tives, and to satiate the avarice of a vast train of subordinates f and continued through a series of years, wasted the wealth of the capital and the provinces, and intercepted and discouraged agri- culture to such a degree, as at length to give birth in the reigns of Valerian and Gallienus to a severe scarcity, and at a later pe- riod to depopulation through wide regions.^ The horseman of this seal, then, as well as his predecessors, is a Roman emperor or usurper, and is Caracalla doubtless, who commenced a system of excessive taxation, and was followed by a long train of similar oppressors. Under the second seal those tyrants were exhibited in their relations to each other as compe- titors for the throne, conspiring to acquire, or endeavoring to retain it, taking peace from the earth, and slaughtering each other in the contest. In this they are exhibited in their relations to the people as oppressors, employing their vast powers to wrench from those whom it was their business to protect and foster, their possessions and means of subsistence, and reduce them to poverty and famine. The symbol being thus drawn from civil life, to what other department of society are we to look for a class and succession of official persons exerting an analogous agency ? Not certainly to the idolatrous or philosophic world. The priests and specu- latists of those classes never subjected their followers to a fam- ine of their doctrines ; nor had they, could it have been regarded as a calamity, or entitled to an introduction into the prophecy. It is to the church, the only resembling society, indisputably therefore that the actors denoted by the symbol belong. > Dio Cass. Hist. Rom. lib. Ixxvii. c. 9, 10. " In the seventy-two years from Septimius Severus to Diocletian, twenty-six held the sceptre. The number of unsuccessful aspirants, many of whom, followed by armies, wasted the fields, exacted contributions from the cities, and preyed on the helpless population in all the usual forms of tyranny, was far greater. ' Desererentur agri, et culturae verterentur in silvam. The fields were de- serted, and scenes of cultivation turned into forest. Lactantii, de Mort. Persecut. c. 7. Gibbon's Hist. Decl. and Fall, chap. x. 110 THE THIRD SEAL. What agency, then, of the ministers of that spiritual kingdom can this misrule of emperors and usurpers appropriately repre- sent ? What is it in those whose office it is to feed the flock of God, to subject it to a famine, analogous to that to which the population of the empire was reduced by tyrannous and wanton exaction ? To withdraw from them the supports of spiritual life ; that knowledge of God, of themselves as needing redemp- tion, and of the method of salvation, to which they were entitled, and which are requisite to a vigorous piety ; — to obstruct them in its cultivation, and render their endeavors after sanctification fruitless. And this perversion of their office was the most con- spicuous characteristic of the agency of the ministers of the ciuirch, from the close of the second century to the second quar- ter of the fourth. I. They discontinued, in a large degree, during that space, to preach the great truths of the gospel in their simplicity. There is no clear and emphatic exposition in any of the writers whose works have come down to us, from Clemens Alexandrinus to Athanasius, of the rights of God on which his government is founded, of the sanctity of his law, of the alienation and guilt of men, and need of such a redemption as is revealed in the gos- pel, of Christ's death as a vindication of the rights of God and an expiation for sin, of the nature and necessity of failii in him, of regeneration by the Spirit through the apprehension of the truths of the gospel, or of justification by faith in the Redeemer. They neither preached Jesus Christ and him crucified by simply proclaiming his death on behalf of men, and the proffer of par- don to those who accepted him by trust in his blood, and calling on men to repent and believe, without entering into any formal exposition of the great principles on which the work of Ciirist proceeds ; nor did they preach him by unfolding and enforcing those principles. They thus, in a most emphatic sense, with- held from their people the bread of life ; reducing tiiose wjio had already become the children of God to a famine of knowl- edge ; and leaving others, and the young especially, without any thorough initiation into those great truths, an acquaintance with which is essential to a just sense of sin, a perception of the ne- cessity of a gratuitous salvation, and a reception of Christ as a sacrifice and justificr. In their discussions, with idolaters espe- cially, the peculiarities of the w^ork of Ciirist were studiously kept out of sight, the Scriptures were neglected, and Chris- tianity exhibited as little else tiian a system of morals.* Of ' Clemens Alexandrinus represents himself as intentionally concealing the groat THE THIRD SEAL. Ill the extent to which the disregard and depreciation of the word of God prevailed, the works of Minutius Fehx, Arnobius, and Lactantius, may be taken as examples. One would scarce- ly suspect, from a large part of the first six books of the Insti- tutes of Lactantius, that the church had an authentic revelation from God, in which all the great truths of his government, of our condition, of the method of salvation, and of the retributions that are to follow this life, are made known, and claim a reception from all. He intentionally, indeed, neglected the Scriptures, and relied for the conversion of the world on the testimony of men, the pretended prophecies of the sibyls, and the doctrines of phi- losophy.^ II. Besides this studied neglect of the Scriptures, the mystic and allegorical methods of interpretation introduced by Clemens Alexandrinus and Origen, contributed much to divert the atten- tion of the church from their great truths, and obstruct the knowl- edge of them. Men were taught to disregard and set aside their natural and obvious meanings, and search for such as were dis- tant, fanciful, and often absurd. All histories were converted into fables and parables ; all laws, doctrines, and promises, into types ; and the whole volume of revelation thus made a chaos of shadows, from which imagination was allowed to shape what- ever forms it pleased.^ elements of tlie trutli in his Stromata, from tlie appreliension that to teacli them openly, would be to expose them to abuse and contradiction by unprincipled op- ponents. Strom, lib. i. p. 279. ' Instit. lib. V. c. 4. * Clemens Alexandrinus held that besides the literal import, a mystical meaning lies couched under the language of the Scriptures, which is to be elicited only by interpretation, and wished his readers to regard his Stromata as written in that manner with a double sense. " Mysteries are taught mystically, so that the lan- guage in which they are expressed may denote them, and yet not so much to the ear as to the understanding." Strom, lib. i. p. 275. Origen represented the Scriptures as involving a threefold sense, and regarded the most obvious as not only the least in value, but often deceptive and dangerous, and the occasion of all the errors into which interpreters had fallen. " A three- fold explication should be given of the meaning of the sacred word, that he who is most simple may be edified by its flesh or its obvious sense, he who has made some progress by its soul, but he who is perfect, like those of whom the apostle speaks, by the wisdom of God, or its spirit ; for as man consists of body, soul, and spirit, so the Scriptures, in order that they may minister to the salvation of men, are constituted with a triple meaning." De Princip. lib. iv. c. 9. He held that there are mysteries veiled beneath the narratives of the Old Tes- tament, which the most acute are unable fully to unfold. " Thai there are some mystical dispensations indicated in the Scriptures, all, even the most simple, who receive them believe ; but what they are, the intelligent and modest acknowledge they do not know. Should any one, for example, inquire in regard to Lot and his daughters, Abraham's two wives, the two sisters whom Jacob married, or his two 112 THE THIRD SEAL. III. The Scriptures were further depreciated and set aside by the fabrication and countenance of gospels and other supposititious works in the name of the apostles and their cotemporaries, mark- ed by extreme meanness of conception, abounding with gross errors, and adapted to lead to low and false apprehensions of the government of God, the work of redemption, and the nature of piety.' IV. The attempts of Clemens Alexandrinus, Origen, and oth- ers, to accommodate the facts and truths of revelation to the doctrines of philosophy, led not only to a formal neglect of them, but still more to exhibitions which misrepresented their nature. They were often treated as substantially the same, their dogmas as alike authoritative, and salvation as attainable by the one as well as the other.^ The attempt moreover to incorporate them, maids, no other answer can be given than that they are mysteries that are incom- prehensible by us." De Princip. hb. iv. c. 11. He proceeds to exemplify liis theory of a secondary and a spiritual meaning, and represents that God chose to veil the knowledge which he reveals of himself and his administration, under visible symbols, such as the creation of the world and of man, the obedience of the righteous and the sins of the wicked, that none but the studious and wise may comprehend them ; that deep mysteries lie envel- oped in the Old Testament in the histories of the wars of the Israelites and others, ill which the vanquished and victors are commemorated ; and finally, that the written law is rather a mere prophecy than an expression of the truth itself, and is to be divested of the integuments in which it is wrapped, in order to a full dis- covery of its meaning. De Princip. lib. iv. c. 14. ' Irenajus represents the multitude of books that were forged and circulated to excite the wonder of the unlettered as innumerable. Contra Haereses, lib. i. c. 17. Eusebius also speaks of them as numerous, unapostolic in style, and ab- surd and impious in their sentiments. Hist. Eccl. lib. iii. c. 25. That they yet had a vast influence, and on the church, is apparent from the complaints of Irenoeus and other fathers, and the fact that several of them, as the false gospels and acts, the Sibylline Verses, the Recognitions of Clemens, the Apostolical Canons and Constitutions, and the letters ascribed to Ignatius, were regarded as of au- thority, and quoted by men of learning and eminence for many ages. See Jones on the Canon. Casaub. Exercit. in App. Baron, no. x. p. 65. Moshemii Dissert.de Causis Suppos. Librorum. " Clemens Alexandrinus devoted a large part of the first and sixth books of his Stromata, to the commendation of the Greek philosophy ; representing a knowl- edge of it as not only useful, but almost indispensable to an understanding of the gospel, and exhibiting it as a revelation from God as well as the !Scrii)tures, and a law and rule of justification to the Gentiles, as the Old Testament was to the Is- raelites. " We cannot err in saying that all things that are necessary and useful to life come from God, and especially that the philosophy given to the Greeks as a peculiar covenant, is the foundation of that of Christ." — Stromat. lib. vi. p. 648. " The law to the Jews, but philosophy to the Greeks until the advent of Christ, when all were called into the church by the teaching of faith." — Strom, lib. vi. p. 650. " Before the advent of t'hrist, philosophy was necessary to the Greeks in order to justification, and still subserves the piety of those who found their faith oil demonstration ; for it led the Gentiles to Christ as the law did the Hebrews, and prepared the way for that which is perfected luider him." — Stromat. lib. i. p. THE THIRD SEAL. 113 led to the discussion of numerous questions that have httle con- nection with theoretical or practical religion, and drew the atten- tion of the church from reahlies to shadows ; from the wisdom of God to the folly of men. V. Not only were vain and dangerous speculations thus ob- truded into theology, but conceptions were formed also of the sacraments of the gospel, that were false and pernicious. Such were the views that were entertained of baptism. It was held as early as the age of Justin Martyr that remis- sion of sins was conferred in baptism on those who were already regenerated : " We will also state how having been renewed through Christ, we consecrate ourselves to God. They who are persuaded of the truth of what we teach and relate, receive it with faith, and promise as far as they are able, to live accord- ingly, are taught fasting to ask of God forgiveness of their former sins, and we unite with them in those acts. Then they are led by us where there is water, and begotten again with the new generation with which we were ourselves rebegotten ; for this washing with water is done in the name of God the Father of all, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit ; for Christ said. Except ye be begotten again, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven."^ By the new generation by water he means, not the renovation of the mind which is the work of the Spirit, but simply the introduction of one already renewed into the church by baptism, entrance on a new life as a subject of Christ, and attainment thereby of the forgiveness of all former sins. " The name of the Father of all is pronounced over him who desires to be rebegotten and repents of his sins, in order to his obtaining remission of his former offences."^ " And this wash- ing is called illumination, inasmuch as they are enlightened who have learned these things."^ It was regarded as a symbol or expression of the knowledge and faith which they professed. 282. Origen, the disciple of Clemens, adopted this theory, and followed it in his speculations, treating the doctrines of the Greek philosophy as a key to the histo- ries and doctrines of the Scriptures, and employing them to solve the mysteries of the divine administration. He introduced accordingly into his theology a great number of false, absurd, and impious conjectures and dogmas, which ob- scured, adulterated, or set aside the truth, and formed emphatically another gospel ; and he was followed by a vast crowd of disciples and imitators for several ages. See Moshemii de rebus Christ, ante Constant, sec. iii. pp. 604-629. Dupin, Biblioth. Nova, tom. i. pp. 190-224. Thus within a httlo more than a century of the death of the last apostle, did the ministers of the church begin to neglect and depreciate the Scriptures, and adopt that wisdom by which the world knew not God, as a more efficacious instrument of leading them to salvation. ' Justini Mart. Apolog. i. c 61, pp. 256-258. " Ibid. c. 61, p. 258. ^ Ibid. c. 61, p. 260. 15 114 THE THIRD SEAL. " After wc have thus waslicd him who has beheved and assented to our faith, wc conduct him to the assembly of the brethren, and together offer fervent prayer for ourselves and him who has been enlightened and all others wherever they are, that having learned the truth we may have the blessedness to be found in our works, good citizens, and observers of the commandments, so that we may obtain eternal salvation."^ Clemens Alexandrinus held that illuminating and sanctifying influences of the Spirit were conferred in the baptism of the be- liever, as well as remission of sins. " Immediately therefore after having been rebegotten, we obtain that perfection after which we earnestly endeavor. For we are illuminated, that is, with the knowledge of God."^ " Being baptized we are en- lightened ; being enlightened w-e are adopted as sons ; being adopted we are perfected ; and being perfected we are made im- mortal. He says, ' I said ye are gods, and all the sons of the Most High.' This work is variously denominated grace, illu- mination, perfection, and the bath ; the bath by which sins are washed away, grace by which the penalties of sin are removed, illumination by which we obtain the holy and saving light — that is, by which we see clearly that which is divine ; and finally it is denominated perfection, inasmuch as it has nothing wanting, for what docs he lack who knows God ?"^ It is in this relation ac- cordingly doubtless, as attended with enlightening and sanctify- ing influences, that it is spoken of in the fable of John and the robber as a perfect protection against sin.'* Tertullian also represents the sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit, as well as the remission of sins, as conferred in baptism. He exhibits the water as imbued with a miraculous power by the descent of the Spirit into it at its consecration, in virtue of which, in its application in the rite, it exerted a purify- ing influence on the soul, like that of water on the body. " Once wc enter the bath, once sins are washed away, so that it is not necessary to repeat the rite."'' " All waters acquire by the invo- cation of God the sacramental virtue of sanctification ; for the Spirit immediately descends from heaven, rests on them, and sanctifies them by itself, and being thus sanctified by union with the Spirit, they acquire the power of sanctification .... For as the waters of Bcthcsda were imbued with a medicinal virtue by the ' Justini Mart. Apol. i., c. C5, p. 2G6. ' Pa.-dagog. lib. 1. c. G, p. 92. ' Poedagog. lib. i. c. 6, p. 93. * Clem. Alcxand. lib. (juis dives, c. 42. " Semel ergo lavacrum iuimus, semel dolicta diluuntur, quia ea iterari noii opor- tet. — De baptisnio, c. 15. THE THIRD SEAL. 115 intervention of the angel, so the Spirit is diffused through the waters of baptism, and the person to whom they are apphed, is spiritually purified by them."^ That he did not regard it as re- generation, but as a rite by which those who had already believed were to be admitted to the church, and made partakers of gifts which were bestowed on those only who made a profession of their faith, is indicated by the caution which he teaches should be used in its administration.^ Origen likewise regarded the remission of sins and the sancti- fying influences of the Spirit, as given in baptism to those who were prepared by repentance to receive it, but not to others. " Come, ye catechumen, repent that ye may obtain baptism to the remission of sins. He receives baptism to the remission of sins, who ceases to sin. But if any one comes to the baptistery sinning, he does not obtain remission. Come not to baptism therefore I pray you without wariness, and a diligent scrutiny, but first exhibit the fruits that become repentance."^ " All are not laved unto salvation. Prepare yourselves while catechumen that ye may come to the baptistery and be washed to salvation ; and not like those who are washed, but not to salvation ; receiving the water, but not the Spirit. He who is laved to salvation, re- ceives not only the water but the Holy Spirit."* But by a large part of the bishops of that and the following age, it was not only held that sanctifying influences and the re- mission of sins were conferred in baptism whenever rightly administered and received, but the still more erroneous and dan- gerous doctrine that it is a spiritually regenerating rite, and its mere reception thence made an absolute ground of reliance for ' Igitur omnes aqusB de pristina originis prserogativa sacramentum sanctifica- tionis consequuntur invocato deo. Supervenit enim statim spiritus de coelis et aquis siiperestj sanctificans eas de semetipso, et ita sanctificatae vim sanctificandi com- bibunt. . . . Igitur medicatis quodammodo aquis per angeli interventum, et spiritus in aquis corporaliter diluitur, et caro in eisdem spiritaliter mundatur. — De baptismo, c. 4. " It was not rashly to be conferred on whoever desired to receive it. The reason that the Eunuch was immediately baptized by Philip was, that he gave evidence of a true faith, and Paul was not baptized until it had been revealed that he was a chosen vessel. Discretion was therefore to be used in its administration, and it was judicious to delay it according to the condition, disposition, and age of each person, and especially the young. Ceterum baptismum non temere credendum esse sciunt, quorum officium est. — Itaque pro cujusque personse conditione ac dis- positione, etiam setate cunctatio baptismi utilior est, praecipue tamen circa parvu- los. — De baptismo, c. 18. ' Venite catechumeni, agite pcenitentiam, ut in remissionem peccatorum bap- tisma consequamini. In remissionem peccatorum ille accipit baptisma qui peccare desistit. Si quis enim peccans ad 1 avacrum venit, ei non fit remissio peccatorum Homil. xxi. in Lucam. tom. iii. p. 957. * Homil. vi. in Ezek. torn. iii. p. 378. 116 THE THIRD SEAL. salvation. Thus Cyprian, " Inasmuch as the second birth in which we are born unto Christ through the bath of regeneration is spiritual, it were incongruous to say that any one may be spiritually born among heretics, with whom it is acknowledged the Spirit is not. For water alone cannot cleanse away sin and sanctify the man, unless it have the Holy Spirit. It must of necessity therefore be conceded that the Spirit is there, where it is asserted that baptism is, or else that there is no baptism where the Holy Spirit is not ; inasmuch as baptism is not possible without the Holy Spirit. But what is it to assert and contend that they may be sons of God, who are not born in the church ? For baptism is that by which the old man dies and the new is born, manifestly from the apostle's declaration, ' he saves us through the bath of regeneration.' But if regeneration is by the bath, that is by baptism, how is it possible that a sect that is not the spouse of Christ, can bear sons to God through Christ ? For it is the church alone that is united to Christ that can spiritually bear sons, as the same apostle teaches in the saying, Christ loved the church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify it, pu- rifying it in the bath of water. "^ The same views were held also by Firmihan, bishop of Cffisa- rea Cappadocia : " Let us not forget that according to the Song of songs, the church is a garden enclosed, a sealed fountain, a para- dise of apples. But how can they who have never entered that garden, nor seen the paradise planted by the Creator, give any one from the fountain which is enclosed in it and sealed with God's seal the living water of saving baptism ? Moreover, as Noah's ark which saved those only who were within it, all who were without being destroyed, was a mere symbol of the church of Christ, we are taught thereby to inculcate the unity of the church, as Peter also indicates in saying, ' in like manner bap- tism saves us' — showing thereby as they who were not with Noah in the ark, not only were not purified and saved by the water, but instantly perished in the deluge, so also now whoever are not in the church with Christ, will perish without, unless they are turned to the sole and saving bath of the church through penitence."^ He ascribes the same view also to Step"hen, the bishop of ' Baptisina enim esse, in quo liomo vetus moritur, et novus nascitur, inanifestat et probat beatus apostolus diceiis ; Servavit iios per lavacruin regcneratioiiis. Si autem in lavacro, id est in baptismo est regeneratio, quomodo gencrari filios deo heeresis per ('liristuin potest, quw Christi sponsa non est. Ecclesia est eiiini sola, quffi Christo conjuncla et adiinata spiritaliter filios general. — Epist. 74, c. 5, 6. ' Cypriani Epist. 75, c. 15. THE THIRD SEAL. 117 Rome. " Stephen, who boasts that he has succeeded to the chair of Peter, is not animated by any zeal against the heretics, but concedes to them not only a moderate but the greatest powers of grace, saying and asseverating that they by the sacrament of baptism wash away the pollution of the old man, remit all former deadly sins, make sons of God by a celestial birth, and renew them unto eternal life by the sanctification of the divine bath. After ascribing these great and celestial prerogatives of the church to heretics, what else can he do than to communicate with those to whom he attributes such grace ?"^ The rite being thus exalted from its original design as a pro- fession of faith in Christ and initiation into the church, into a re- generative office by which the subject was created a spiritual child of God, endowed with sanctifying influences and full for- giveness ; its reception was treated as involving all that was for the time requisite to salvation ; a mere sacramental religion sub- stituted in the place of repentance, faith, love, adoration, and the other aff'ections which are required by the gospel ; and the church thus taught to seek the blessings of life in a false direction ; to look to the minister of the church instead of the Spirit of God for the grace of renovation ; to submit to baptism instead of repent- ing, believing, loving, adoring, and obeying ; and in place of the fruits of the Spirit, to regard the mere reception of that rite as a proof of piety and preparation for heaven, and made so abso- lutely to rely on it, that it became customary to postpone it till the last hour, in order to secure by it as far as possible a full re- mission of sins.'* This doctrine soon gaining a general prevalence, and becom- ing invested with a factitious importance by the contests respect- ing the rebaptism of heretics, and its adaptation to exalt the power of the bishops,^ it drew a larger share of attention for a long pe- riod than any other, was more zealously inculcated, and was ' Cypriani Epist. 75, c. 17. * Constantiiie was not baptized till his last illness. Eiiseb. de Vita, lib. iv. c. Gl, 62. Nor Constantius till about to engage, a few days before his death, in a war with Julian. Socratis Hist. Eccl. lib. ii. c. 57. ^ This doctrine was a principal ground on which the bishops commenced and raised the towering structure of their power over the church. To convince the flock that to be baptized by a minister of the true church was to be renewed and consti- tuted an heir of heaven, that that was the only method of regeneration and pardon, that bishops alone had power to confer that baptism, or commission others to confer it, and that it could be administered to none but those who placed themselves under their jurisdiction and yielded implicit subjection to their teachings and commands, was to lay the foundation for the most superetitious and abject dependence on the one hand, and the most lawless and merciless tyranny on the other. It was tlirough 118 THE THIRD SEAL. thence made a most efficient means of blighting the church with a spiritual famine. VI. In like manner the eucharist began at this period to be re- garded as fraught with a saving virtue, its reception deemed an adequate preparation for death, and a presumptuous trust placed in it that naturally led to a neglect of repentance, faith, and love, and reconciled a life of irreligion, debasement, and exacerbated rebellion, with a confident expectation of forgiveness and salva- tion. Thus Cyprian recommended the gift of the eucharist to fortify the church against the danger of defection, and strengthen it to meet death if necessary for the sake of Christ. " But now peace is necessary not to the weak but the strong, and fellowship is to be granted by us not to the dying but to the living, that we may not leave those unarmed and naked whom we excite and urge to the battle, but fortify them with the protection of the blood and body of Christ ; and as the eucharist is instituted that it may be a defence to the receivers, let us arm those whom we wish to be secured against the adversary with the shield of the Lord's feast ; for how can we teach and excite them to pour out their blood in the confession of Christ's name, if we deny them his blood when about to engage in that conflict 1 or how can we make them ade- quate to the cup of martyrdom, if we do not first by the right of fellowship admit them to drink the cup of the Lord in the church ?" " He cannot be equal to martyrdom who is not armed by the church for the battle. The mind faints which is not strengthened and inflamed by the reception of the eucharist."^ In like manner, Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, who flour- ished at the same period, represents the eucharist as given at the moment of death to one who had sacrificed, and as constituting by the reconciliation with the church and remission of sins whicli it involved, a preparation for heaven.^ this rite accordingly that the doctrines of a priestly power to regenerate men, for- give sins, and confer salvation, of the impossibility of salvation except through the offices of the priests, and of the transmission from the apostles of their pow^ers and prerogatives to their successors, were first broached. ' At vero nunc non infirmis, sed fortibus pax necessaria est, nee morientibus sed viventibus communicatio a nobis danda est ; ut quos excitamuset hortamur ad pra'- lium, non inermes et nudos relinciuamus, sed protectiono sanguinis et corporis Christi muniamus, et cum ad hoc fiat eucharistia, ut possit accipientibus esse tutela, quos lutos esse contra adversariuin volumus, munimcnto dominica; saturitntis armcmus. . . . Idoneus esse non potest ad martyrium, qui ab ecclesia non arniatur ad proclium, et mens deficit, quam non recepta eucharistia eriget et accendit. Epist. 57, c. 2, 3. * Serapion, an old man who had no other fault than that ho had sacrificed during the persecution, being about to die, desired a child who was in attendance to call a presbyter to fit him for his departure. The presbyter being ill, and having been di- rected by Dionysius to show favor to the dying who sought it, that they might pass THE THIRD SEAL, 119 This misconception of its efficacy was soon carried so far, that it was given to infants/ administered in all cases at the approach of death to those under penance, though they became insensible or delirious,^ and was sometimes even placed in the lips of the dead.^ Union with the church and the reception of the conse- crated bread and wine, were thus again, like baptism, substituted in the place of repentance and faith as the conditions of accept- ance with God, and made the ground of a deceptive reliance. VII. Another fatal step in their downward progress was the adoption of the Platonic ideas of the grounds and nature of sin, and the modes and means of sanctification ; and the introduction thereby into the church of a false code of virtue, and the substi- tution of dispositions and acts that involve no excellence, for the fear and love of God, the faith in Christ, and the social affections and agencies which are enjoined by the gospel. Assuming that the grounds of our sinning lie in our corporeal nature, and thence that tlie indulgence of the appetites and passions that have their foundation in it, is necessarily evil, or at least incompatible with the higher degrees of piety ; they inferred that virtue must, so far as they are concerned, lie, not in their subordination to law, but in their absolute denial and extinction. Hence these disciples of Plato introduced into the church the monstrous doc- trines and discipline of fasting, celibacy, and asceticism, with which it became infatuated and debased in the third and follow- ing centuries,^ as the great and almost the only means of sancti- fication, and the loftiest modes of piety .^ Instead of being in- structed to restrain their appetites, and yield to them only in those relations in which God allows or enjoins their indulgence, his people were taught to regard every impulse of hunger, thirst, or desire, however involuntary or irresistible, as degrading and sin- from life with a good hope, gave the boy a fragment of the eucharist, and directed him to dip it in water and let the drops fall into the dying man's mouth. The child followed the directions, and the old man immediately on imbibing the drops exphing, it was deemed by Dionysius that he was preserved till that was accomplished, in cvder that he might be released from excommunication, and liis sins being blotted out, be acknowledged for the good deeds he had before done. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. vi. c. 44. ' Van Espen, de Eucharist, c. ii. s. 2. * Concil. Carthag. c. 76. Labbei Concil. tom. iii. p. 957. ' Several councils in the fourth and fifth centuries prohibited its administration to the dead. " The eucharist should not be given to the bodies of the dead, for it is written, take ye, eat, but the bodies of the dead can neither take nor eat." Concil. Carthag, Labbei Concil. tom. iii. pp. 719, 880. ■• Near a fourth of the works of Tertuilian is devoted to these topics ; and celi- bacy was approved and encouraged by Cyprian and Origen. * Mosheimii de rebus Christ, sec. ii. pp. 310-312, sec. iii. pp. 658-690. 120 THE THIRD SEAL. ful, and to be opposed and suppressed by a stem and merciless violence. Marriage, the first social institution of the Almighty, and the most propitious to all the forms both of virtue towards men and piety towards God, was denounced and calumniated as merely sensual, sinful, and fit only for the debasement of demons and brutes.^ Thence thousands and myriads were induced to withdraw from the spheres which God assigns for the obedience he requires, to refuse and disown wholly all the domestic and so- cial virtues, and to retreat to lofty mountains and solitudes re- mote from their fellow-men, and spend their days in the idleness, the ignorance, and debasement of savages, struggling by star- vation, perpetual vigils,^ self-torture, and endeavors to suppress ^ The celibates of tlie age of Tertulliau and Cyprian continued to live in society and engage in the usual pursuits of life. The first ascetic who withdrew into soli- tude was Paul of Thebais, who about the year 260 retired to a cave at the foot of a mountain, and there continued sixty years, unvisited by any one except in a single ulstance by Antony. Hieron. Vita Pauli. Antony soon imitated his example in Lower Egypt, spent near seventy years in solitude, and much of it in a sepulchre on the borders of the desert, and drawing a va.st cro\vd to adopt the ascetic life, united them in associations or monasteries. Athanasii de Vita Anton, op. torn. ii. pp. 456, 457. Sozomen says of him : He repressed his corporeal appetites by voluntary inflictions, and the passions of his mind by a lofty resolution. His ojily food was bread with salt, his drink water, his dinner hour sunset. He often continued two days, and sometimes more, without eating. He watched usually till dawn, em- ploying himself in prayer. If he grew drowsy, he lay down for a few moments on his mat. Often, however, the bare ground was his bed. He declined the use of oil, the bath, and things of that nature, as renderiug the body effeminate. It is said he never beheld himself undressed. He had no knowledge of letters, nor did he esteem them. Sozomeni Hist. Eccl. hb. i. c. 13. * Of the exploits of the ascetics, their imagined conflicts with demons and victo- ries over them, were regarded as a signal proof of the excellence of their discipline, and its offensivcness to the powers of darkness. Athanasius relates that the devil, inflamed with envy and hatred of virtue at the sight of Antony's self-denial, assailed him with all the arts of temptation of which he was master, at one time approach- ing him in the form of a woman, and endeavoring to excite his passions ; at another attempting to terrify him by assuming the shape of a black boy, and announcing himself as the great enemy of virtue ; and on his enclosing himself in the sepulchre, attacking liim with a nmltitude of demons, and scourging him till he swooucd. The solution of these contests, which were common phenomena of the ascetic life, doubt- less is, that the exhaustion consequent on extreme fsisting uiduced tliat derangement of the nervous system not infrequent in sickness, by which all objects of thought present themselves in sensible forms of the utmost vividness ; such as represent in- telligent agents and material objects seeming to be beheld by the eye, the voices which they are conceived to utter to be heard by the ear, and their imagined touch to produce the impression of a real one. Persons in that slate are often perfectly conscious that it is an illusion. It is the connnencing process, however, of delirium, and when that consciousness is lost and the spectres of the brain are taken for realities, becomes insanity, and in its highest forms, the wildest madness. So debased had the views of religiou entertained by the greatest genius of the age become, that the illusions of disease were thus regarded as the sublimest fliglits of virtue, and the hopeless shipwreck of body and mind a victory over the embattled hostH of hell. Athanasii Vita Anton, tom. ii. pp. 454, 458. THE THIRD SEAL. 121 thought and consciousness itself, to annihilate their appetites, and elevate themselves to the passionless calm of incorporeal beings ; a process in v^^hich they generally became extremely debased, sunk often to premature decrepitude, and not unfrequently into madness and idiocy.^ The annals of ignorance, folly, degrada- tion, fanaticism, and crime, present few pictures more alien from the purity, the dignity, the wisdom of religion, or more dishonor- able to our nature than the records drawn by their admirers of the solitary and associated ascetics of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries. By this false theory of the nature and remedy of sin, the victims of this miserable delusion were thus thwarted in all their endeavors after sanctification. Like the millions of the empire whose ef- forts to supply their wants by the culture of their fields were defeated by the seizure of their crops, or taxation that exhausted all their means, they were starved by those who should have fed them with the bread of life, and perished by the discipline on which they relied for salvation. VIII. The errors that were held in regard to the influence of demons, were fraught with a similar tendency. It was im- agined that the excitement of the appetites and passions was the work of mahgnant spirits, and their expulsion therefore neces- sary in order to exemption from temptation.^ Exorcism was ac- cordingly regarded as an important step in the process of sancti- fication, and relied on as a means of preparation for heaven. ' Eva^ius says of those of the age of Arcadius : " Some of them enclose them- selves in houses so small that they can neither stand erect nor lie down at length. Others associate with beasts, and pour out prayer to God in the obscure caves of the earth. But they devised another mode of discipline that seems to transcend the ut- most powers of endurance ; for men and women go into the desert, wearing only what clothing decency requires, and expose the rest of the body naked to the extremes of cold and heat, regardless alike of each. They also reject all food that is appropriate to man, and graze the earth, whence they are called foragers, and provide only enough to support life, so that in time they resemble beasts, be- coming changed in their appearance, and so averse to men that they flee at their approach, and if pursued conceal themselves by a rapid flight, or retreat into some inaccessible place. I will mention anothercharacteristicstillmore worthy of consider- ation. There are some among them, though few, who after having reached through virtue an insusceptibility of passion, return to the world, and by feigning to be insane, trample down vain-glory, which Plato says is the last coat of which the soul divests itself. They learn to eat so wholly without sensibility, that if it were necessary even with innkeepers or hucksters, they would feel no delicacy in respect to the place, the company, or any thing else. They enter baths that are frequented, associate much with women, and lave with them. They become so superior to passion as to triumph over nature, so that neither the sight, the touch, nor the embrace itself of a woman excites any natiu'al sensation." Evagrii Hist. Eccl. lib. i. c. 21. * Athauasii Vita Anton., torn, ii., p. 456. Moshehn, Hist. Ch., cent, iii., p. ii., c. 4, 8.4. 16 122 THE THIRD SEAL. " The Scriptures, and the ancient and uniform practice of the church in baptism, clearlj^ show that infants are freed fflom the sway of the devil when they are exorcised, and promise through those who bear them to renounce him."^ IX. On similar false principles a system of external discipline of dishonor and deprivation, was employed to correct and restore those penitent members of the church, who had either fallen into great sins, or even violated the most unreasonable canons.^ In- stead of higher instruction, and more authoritative and affection- ate appeals, they were debarred from the renewal of their vows and the celebration of the death of Christ, excluded from the station of communicants, driven to the vestibule or area of the house of worship,^ and systematically deprived, often for a long series of years, of the very aids that were most needed to con- vince them of their sins, recall them to penitence, and confirm them in faith and love.* Those of the excommunicated, though for the most trivial and unjustifiable causes, who did not seek a reconciliation with the church and submit- to the prescribed pen- ance, were rendered infamous, and debarred the rights of citizen- ship and of humanity. X. A course of reserve and concealment was systematically pursued with the young. Instruction in the higher truths of Chris- tianity, especially those indicated by the sacraments, was delib- erately withheld from all candidates for baptism and confirmation.^ ' Circumstipantur enim et divinarum auctoritato lectionum, et antiquitus tradito et retento firmo ecclesise ritu in baptismate parvulorum ubi apertissime demonstrantur infantes, et cum exorcizantur et cum ei so per cos, ti quibus gestantur, renuntiare respondent, i diaboli dominatione liberari. Aujjt. Epist. 194, c. 43. See also Con- cil. Carthag. c. 7. Labbei Concil. tom. iii. p. 952. " Mosheim, Hist. Church, cent, iii., part ii., c. iv., s. 1. ' " The place of weeping, where tlie offender should stand and ask the prayers of believers as they enter, is without the door of tlie oratory. The place of hearing, within the door in the porch, where the sinner should stand as long as the catechu- men, and go out then, for having heard the Scriptures and the discourse, let them be e.xcluded as unfit to be present at the prayer. The place of prostration is such, that he who is stationed within the gate of the temple may go out with the cate- chumen. The place of the assembly such, that he who belongs to it may stand with the believing, and not go out with the catechumen. And finally, there is the place of participating the sacraments." Gregorii Thaum., c. xi. ; Labbei Concil. tom. i., p. 1030. * Pulscnt sane fores, sed non utiquo confringant. Adeant ad limen ecclesiaj, sed non uti(iue transiliant. Cypriani Epist. xxx., c. 7. By the council of Eliberis, those who left the C^alholic church and joined a sect were, if they returned, debarred from comnuuiion and sulyected to penance ten years ; other oirendcrs seven years, five, and shorter periods ; and such as were guilty of sacrificing, manslaughter, and infanticide, were forever debarred from readmission. Labbei Concil., tom. ii., pp. 5-9. ' Origen compared the gradual initiation of the catechumen to the progress of the THE THIRD SEAL. 123 Thus they whose office it was to teach the gospel, by- neglecting and suppressing the truth, by substituting philoso- phy in its place, and by inculcating false views of the nature and means of sanctification, verified in a terrible manner the prophecy, and reduced the church to a destitution of the means of spiritual life, analogous to the dearth of bread produced by oppressive exactions in the empire. Expositors have universally, so far as I am aware, formed a different judgment of this symbol ; m.)st of them regarding the horseman as an emblem of famine itself, occasioned by ordinary causes, not one who induces a scarcity by wrongfully usurping the means of subsistence, and obstructing and dis- couraging their culture. Thus Grotius and RosenmuUer in- terpret the symbol of the general famine in the reign of Clau- dius, predicted by Agabus, Acts xi. 28 ; Dr. Hammond of one foreshown in Matthew xxiv. 7, which he referred to Judea an- terior to the siege of Jerusalem ; Mr. Brightman and Mr. Dau- buz, of a scarcity in the time of Septimius Severus ; and Mr. Lowman of a dearth during the reign of the Antonines. But that, in whatever relation it is contemplated, is untenable. If the horseman be regarded as a personification of famine, or famine as a symbol, and in that character foreshowing a literal famine, as he can only be such by representation, he is treated as the symbol of a symbol, which is inadmissible. If he be regarded as merely symbolizing a famine, then he is made the symbol of a mere relation, which is against the law of analogy. The construction of Mr. Mede, Mr. Whiston, Mr. Jurieu, and Bishop Newton, who exhibit the symbol as foreshowing a period Israelites from Egypt to Canaan. " When having left the darkness of idolatry you desire to approacli and hear the divine law, you leave Egypt. When you are cu- re lied among the catechiunen, and begin to conform to the ecclesiastical rules, you advance to the Red Sea, and gain a station in the desert, where you hear the voice of God and daily behold the glorified countenance of Moses. But if you approach the mystical fount of baptism, and standing with the Levitical order are initiated into the venerated and august sacraments, which they know to whom the know- ledge is lawful, then having passed Jordan by the ministry of the priests you enter the land of promise, where Joshua succeeding to Moses receives you and becomes your leader during the remainder of the journey." Homil. iv. in hb. Jesu Nave, c. i., p. 405. Athanasius says, " It is becoming, as it is written, to conceal the beautiful mys- tery of the King. And the Lord commands, ' cast not holy things to the dogs nor pearls before swine,' for it is not lawful to celebrate the mysteries before the un- initiated, lest the idolatrous who are ignorant should laugh, or the catechumen hur- ried on too rapidly should be scandalized." Apol. ad Imp., tom. i., p. 731. See also Concil. Laod. can. xix. ; Labbei Concil., tom. ii., p. 567 ; Casauboni Exercil. xvi. in Baron., p. 478 ; Pagi Crit. in Baron, anno 118. 124 THE THIRD SEAL. of just and severe government in the Roman empire, and refer it to the reign of Septimius Severus, is open to the same objection. If the horseman as a symbol be regarded as justice, he can only be such by representation, which is absurd. If he be regarded as merely symbolizing the exercise of justice, he is then made the symbol of a mere action or quality, which, as no resemblance whatever subsists between them, is incompatible with analogy. Moreover, if the horseman and his accompaniments be a mere symbol of justice, not of an agent exercising justice, how does it appear but that its whole office as a symbol is fulfilled in that representation ? On what ground can it be assumed that the justice thus represented, is itself likewise a symbol, and fore- shows something else ? If, on the other hand, such a secondary symbolization be allowed, what clue is there to its nature ? What does justice symbolize ? What proof is there that that which it foreshows may not likewise be a mere representation of some subsequent agent, event, or characteristic ? Where is the succession to terminate ? How is the interpreter to ascertain when he has reached the agent or event which it is ihe final de- sign of the vision to symbolize ? Cocceius exhibits the rider as a symbol of avaricious and as- piring bishops prostituting their office to worldly ends, and the voice from the living creatures as the voice of the church de- manding from them the service they are bound to yield, and prohibiting them from obstructing the truth. But to make the hving creatures symbols of the church on earth, is to make the throne and him who sat on it symbols also of a throne and mon- arch in the church on earth, and thence to exhibit the worship oflfered him as idolatry, which is impossible. Mr. Elliott regards the horseman as a Roman procurator, intrusted with the collec- tion of revenue and produce from the provinces, and the voice from the midst of the living creatures, as denoting the laws of that office prohibiting injustice, and assigning the values of prop- erty, and interprets the symbol of oppressive taxation under Caracalla and his successors. But that is founded on the as- sumption that the representative agent and agency are of the same species as the agent and action symbolized, and is in viola- tion therefore of analogy, Vitringa regarded the horseman and his accompaniments as an emblem of a slight scarcity of corn exciting the apprehension of a greater, and a public decree in regard to its price ; but alle- ged as its fulfilment the dissensions and contests of the church on the one hand exciting the fear of spiritual famine, and the THE FOURTH SEAL. 125 remedial and preventive doctrinal decrees of the councils re- specting them on the other. But what relation is there between a slight famine of corn and a superabundance of dissensions and ecclesiastical canons, except it be of dissimilarity ; or on what ground can an emblem of one effect be regarded as symbolizing the cause and remedies of another effect ; — a scarcity of pro- visions the cause and the cure of a spiritual famine, than which no two things are more devoid of resemblance ? Dean Woodhouse regards the color of the horse as denoting darkness, the balance, or yoke, as he renders it, as an emblem of slavery, the price of wheat and barley as symbolizing a scar- city, and interprets them of the extreme ignorance, the burden- some rites, and the gross superstitions on the one hand, and the dearth of practical religion on the other, which marked especial- ly the middle, and in a large degree, several of the earlier ages. But that is obnoxious likewise to insuperable objections. He founds his reference of the symbol to those events, not on the ground of analogy, but on the assumption that all the prophecies of the Apocalypse are to be taken as relating to the church, ex- cept when on his views of the rules of construction, the symbols or language render that application impossible ; which is to in- terpret them not by the laws of symboHzation, but by a mistaken conjecture. He overlooks the consideration that the horseman is the representative agent, his accompaniments merely signifi- cant of his office and agency, and that the law of symbolization requires that he should be interpreted as representing a resem- bling order of agents that give birth to an analogous class of events ; and instead, exhibits the whole symbol as denoting effects merely, not agents producing them ; and the several parts of the symbol as denoting different species of effects, as ignorance, bondage, and a dearth, which is equally against analogy. SECTION XI. CHAPTER VI. 7-8 THE FOURTH SEAL. And when he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, Come. And I looked, and lo, a pale horse, and he who sat on him, his name was Death ; and the grave follow- 126 THE FOURTH SEAL. od with him. And power was given to him over a fourth part of the earth, to kill with the sword, and with famine, and with death, and by the wild boasts of the earth. ■ The agencies of the preceding horsemen were employed chief- ly in varying the condition of tlie living. The office of this is to kill, not merely to lessen the enjoyments of life, or lay a founda- tion for its destruction, and his name is for that reason Death. This character is indicated also by the cadaverous color of the horse and by his attendant the grave, which hades undoubtedly denotes. It were indeed more terrible to conceive of it as a yawning passage to the realms of the lost, following death's foot- steps, and disclosing to the spectators the myriad spirits of those killed by him descending to that world, but analogy forbids it. Of what world is hades the symbol, if it be taken as the invisible dwelling of the lost ? No delineation is given of the figure of the horseman. He was doubtless, however, a human form, as it is said not that he was death itself, but that his name was death, — a destroyer. The pestilence is his peculiar instrument of destruction ; to kill by death in contradistinction from the sword, being to kill by a natu- ral disease, instead of violence. He uses other weapons also, power being given him over a fourth part of the earth to kill with the sword, and with famine, and by the wild beasts of the earth, as well as with death. Of these instruments, the first is that of the armed competitors for the throne of the second seal, who take peace from the earth and kill one another ; the second that of the oppressors of the third seal, who by excessive exactions reduce their subjects to poverty and famine. Death, the third, is a pesti- lential element breathed from his own lips into the atmosphere tainting the vitals of whoever inhales it. These he himself di- rectly wields. The fourth are agents who act at his bidding, the dragon exhibited in subsequent visions as standing before the wo- man, and the wild beasts emerging from the sea and the earth and exercising a tyrannical sway over their respective territo- ries. This symbol is taken also doubtless like the former from the empire, and at a period when there were several acknowledged emperors or Caesars who contended with each other for larger or exclusive authority, who reduced their subjects to famine by oppression, whose reigns were marked by pestilences, and who destroyed their subjects also by wild beasts. And such a period was the reign of Diocletian and his immediate successors. He THE FOURTH SEAL. 127 introduced a division of the imperial power by elevating Maxim- ian Herculius to the rank of Augustus, and Maximian Galerius and Constantius Chlorus to that of Caesar, and assigning to each a separate territory ; — a distribution of pow^er sometimes to more, sometimes to fev^^er hands, that with few interruptions continued to the fall of the western empire. But some of those thus exalt- ed to authority, soon became jealous of their associates or dissat- isfied with a limited rule, and conspiring against one another, took peace from the earth by rivalries and mutual slaughters. Thus Diocletian himself and Maximian Herculius, were induced or compelled by the ambition of Galerius, to abdicate and exalt him and his associate Caesar to the station of Augusti ;^ and a succes- sion of plots and civil wars for the empire followed for near twen- ty years. Maxentius the son of Maximian Herculius usurping the purple at Rome, and Maximian himself resuming it without the consent of Galerius, they conspired against Severus, who on the abdication of Maximian had succeeded him in the command of Italy, and inducing his soldiers to desert him, compelled him to surrender himself to their hands, and put him to death .^ Ga- lerius himself was thwarted in an attempt to reconquer Italy, and forced to retreat in disgrace. Maximian soon after conspiring against Constantine, who had succeeded his father Constantius Chlorus in the command of the west, met an ignominious death. His son Maxentius perished in a civil war which immediately succeeded between him and Constantine. Maximin, the Caesar of the east, usurped the rank of Augustus against the wishes of Galerius, and on the death of the latter, made war on Licinius who succeeded that emperor, and was defeated and soon perish- ed ;^ and finally Licinius himself met a similar overthrow in a contest with Constantine and suffered a violent death.^ The period was thus marked by the usurpations, rivalries and bloodshed of the horseman of the second seal. It was not less distinguished by the enormous and violent ex- actions of the third. The institution of four separate civil es- tablishments instead of one, and great augmentation of the mili- tary forces consequent on their jealousies and civil wars, natural- ly led to a heavier taxation ; but to those necessary burdens were added the demands of an insatiable avarice and boundless prodi- gality. Lactantius represents the increase of the civil and mili- tary establishments as rendering the number who were to be ' Lactantii de Mort. Persecut. c. 18. ^ Ibid. c. 26. Zosimi Hist. lib. iL c. 10. ^ Lactantii de Mort. Persecut. c. 37-50. * Eusebii Hist. Eccl. lib. x. c. 8. 128 THE FOURTH SEAL. supported at the public expense, greater even than the contribu- tors, and the resources of the farmers as so exhausted by the enormity of the exactions required for their support, that fields were deserted, and scenes of cultivation left to overgrow with wood. The impositions enforced by threats, violence and con- fiscation, at length gave birth to a severe scarcity, which was still further aggravated by Diocletian's attempting to prescribe the rates of sale.^ To these impositions, other demands equally ruinous were added of materials, utensils, artisans and laborers, for the erec- tion of palaces, amphitheatres, and other edifices at his new capital Nicomedia ; and a favorite method of grasping means for that purpose, was the execution of the wealthy on false accusations in order to the confiscation of their property.^ Maximian Herculius was not less rapacious, less merciless, nor less bloody, but it was reserved to Galerius to carrj'^ extor- tion and violence to their utmost extreme. His accession to su- preme power inflamed him with a passion to vex and torture his subjects. " Swarms of exactors sent into the provinces and cities filled them with agitation and terror, as though a conquering en- emy were leading them into captivity. The fields were separate- ly measured, the trees and vines, the flocks and herds numbered, and an enumeration made of the men. In the cities the cultiva- ted and rude were united as of the same rank. The streets were crowded with groups of families, every one being required to ap- pear with his children and slaves. Tortures and lashes resound- ed on every side. Sons were gibbeted in the presence of their parents, and the most confidential servants harassed that they might make disclosures against their masters, and wives that they might testify unfavorably to their husbands. If there were a to- tal destitution of property, they were still tortured to make ac- knowledgments against themselves, and when overcome by pain, inscribed for what they did not possess. Neither age nor ill health was admitted as an excuse for not appearing. The sick and weak were borne to the place of inscription, a reckoning made of the age of each, and years added to the young and de- ducted from the old, in order to subject them to a higher taxation than the law imposed. The whole scene was filled with wailing and sadness. At length money was paid for each individual, and a ransom given for life. Yet no faith was put in these tax gath- erers, but others and others again after them, were sent to renew the search for more property, and the assessment always raised, ' Lactantiide Mort. Persocut. c. 7. » Lactantii do Mort. P. c. 7. THE FOURTH SEAL. 129 though nothing new were found, that they might have the satis- faction of seeming not to have been sent in vain. In the mean time individuals died, and the herds and the flocks were diminish- ed, yet tribute was none the less required to be paid for the dead, so that it was no longer allowed either to live or to die without a tax. Mendicants alone escaped from whom nothing could be wrenched, and whom misfortune and misery had made incapable of further oppression. These the impious wretch affecting to pity, that they might not suffer want, ordered to be assembled, borne off in vessels, and plunged into the sea. Such was the be- nignant method in which he undertook to provide that no one should be miserable under his reign. That no one might escape the census under the pretence of mendicity, he thus put to death a great multitude of the miserable."^ Similar exactions, violences and barbarities marked the reign of Max- imin in the east, and gave birth in a like manner to a famine,^ of Maxentius also at Rome, and of Licinius in Illyria and Asia.^ The period was signahzed also by deadly pestilences, which not improbably sprung in some degree from the scarcity and mis- ery produced by the tyranny of the rulers. Eusebius relates that while Maximin himself and his army suffered severely in the war with the Armenians, the people at large who inhabited the cities under his rule, were harassed both by famine and pestilence. "A measure of wheat of six bushels was sold for two thousand and five hundred Attic drachms. Multitudes died in the cities, but still greater numbers residing in the country and in villages, the rustics formerly very numerous being almost exterminated either by a want of sustenance, or a pestilential disease. Some were glad to sell their most precious things to the rich for a morsel of food, others having parted with their possessions little by little, were driven to such extreme want as to eat noxious vegetables and straw, by which they destroyed their health and perished. Women of rank were forced to beg in the markets. Some so withered that they seemed like ghosts staggering to and fro and * Agri glebatim metiebantiir, vitcs et arbores numerabantur, animalia omiiis gen- eris scribebantur, hominum capita notabanlur, in civitatibus urbanoe ac rusticae ple- bes adunatae, foras omnia gregibiis familiarum referta, unusquisque cum liberis, cum eervis aderant, tomienta ac verbera personabant, filii adversus parentes suspende- bantur, fidelissimi quiqne servi contra dominos vexabantur, uxores adversus maritos. Si omnia defecerant, ipsi contra se torquebantur, et cum dolor vicerat, adscribebantur quae non habebantur. — Lactantii de Mort. Persecut. c. 23. " Eusebii de Martyr Patest. c. iv. Hist. Eccl. lib. ix. c. 8. ^ Eusebii Hist. Eccl. lib. i.x. c. 8 : lib. x. c. 8. 17 130 THE FOURTH SEAL. unable to support themselves, fell in the public ways and ex- pired. Dead bodies cast into the market places and streets, stripped and lacerated by dogs, presented for many days a horrid spectacle. The pest thus devoured whole households and fami- lies, and especially of those who having an abundance of food were protected from hunger : so that the most opulent magis- trates of the provinces and persons of rank, as though the famine had designedly reserved them for the pestilence, perished by deaths of the most acute and rapid form. Two and sometimes three dead bodies were carried together out of the same house."^ The same pestilence raged also in the west.^ And finally these tyrants destroyed their subjects by wild beasts. Not only were the Christians during the persecutions thrown to panthers, bears, boars, and bulls in the amphitheatres for the amusement of the people,^ but it was the common sport of Gale- rius to feast the numerous wild beasts which he kept in his train on his living subjects. " The cruelties which he had learned in the persecution of the Christians he exercised towards all. None of his punishments were light. Not the islands, not the prisons, not the mines, but fire, the cross, and wild beasts were the chosen and daily instruments of his barbarity."* " He had bears resembling himself in size and ferocity which he collected through the whole period of his reign, and as often as he wished to amuse himself, he or- dered some of them to be brought, and men to be thrown to them, not so much to be chewed as to be swallowed. As he beheld their limbs torn asunder, he was accustomed to laugh with de- light. He never supped without human blood."" All the characteristics of the symbol were thus found in the emperors during the reign of Diocletian, and his associates and successors, and it is from that terrible combination of destroyers, doubtless, that it is taken. This horseman, like those who preceded him, is the represent- ative of a class and succession of agents, manifestly from the nature and variety of the instruments he employs, and the extent " Eusebii Hist. Eccl. lib. ix. c. 8. ° Cypriani lib. ad Demetrianum, c.2,5. * Eusebii Hist. I'jCcI. lib. viii. c. 7. ■* QuiE ijritur in Ciiristianis excruciandis didicerat, cousuetudiiie ipsa in omnes ex- ercebat. Nulla pcriui pones euni levis, non insuloe, non carccres, non nictalla, sed ignis crux feni; in illo crant quotidiana et facilia. — Lactantii de Mort. Persecnt. c. 22. * Habebat ursos ferocia; ac mafrnitudinis sum siinillimos, qnos toto iini)erii sui tein- pore clcgorat. Quoticns delectari libuerat, lioruni aliqucin adferri nominulini jubebat. His homines nou ])lanc cornodendi, sed obsorbendi objectabantur ; iinornin art us. cum dissiparentur, ridebat «-:uavissinio ; uec uuquani sine humauo cruoro cccuabat. — Lact. de Mort rerseciit. c. 21. THE FOURTH SEAL. 131 of his ravages. The scene of his agency is like theirs, the re- ligious world also, not the philosophic ; and the Christian, not the pagan, as is seen from his use of the instruments of the second and third horsemen, and from the consideration that neither any new agents, hke those which he denotes, have appeared in the pagan world, nor was the system of idolatry capable of any such deterioration as his agency represents. A moral pesti- lence itself, no new infusion was requisite to render it the instrument of death to its votaries. The Christian church is the only community that presents the requisite analogies to the civil empire. Who then are they in the church of that and subsequent ages that answer to the symbol, breathing from their lips a pestilence on the souls, like that which the horseman breathed on the bodies of men ; and using the instruments also of the second and third seals, and the power symbolized in the prophecy by wild beasts as the instruments of destruction ? As the antithesis of the body is the soul, and of a pest that destroys the body, a false religion that destroys the soul, they must be an order that teaches an apostate rehgion. As to kill by the sword in contradistinction from famine and disease, is to kill by violence ; and to cause spiritual death in an analogous manner, is to cause it by violence, and therefore by the spiritual sword, or the mere power of office, they must be an order of supreme authority in the church who by their official power impel men to apostatize from God. And, finally, as the wild beasts are employed in the prophecy to sym- bolize the civil rulers of the empire who persecute and slaugh- ter the people of God, they must be an order that uses the civil rulers as instruments in compelling them to apostatize. All these peculiarities meet in the metropolitans, archbishops, and other superior prelates of the fourth and subsequent ages, and especially in the patriarchs of the Greek and the popes of the Latin church. Those orders of bishops rose into existence, acquired their peculiar powers, or at least first obtained a recog- nition and confirmation of them from the church and the civil government, at that period. Neither patriarchs, metropolitans, nor archbishops, were known till the reign of Constantino, under whom an ecclesiastical hierarchy was erected after the model of the civil government of the empire, he being the head of the one as well as the other. The bishops of each province who had before been equal in office and rank, were placed in subordina- tion to the bishops of the metropolis of the province, and the metropolitan bishops to a patriarch or archbishop of the capital 132 THE FOURTH SEAL. of the diocese in which their provinces were situated,^ The pre- cedence which the bishops of the chief cities, Rome, Alexan- dria, Antioci), had before obtained chiefly from the rank of those cities themselves, and partly by concession from their equals in official authority and by usurpation, was then converted by the council of Nicffia and the emperor into a legal right.^ Metropol- itans were invested with authority over the bishops of their prov- inces, their concurrence was necessary in order to their ordination, they had power to suspend, depose, and excommunicate them, assemble them in council, preside in their deliberations, and su- perintend and enforce the execution of their decrees, which were made by the civil government as well as the council obligatory on the clergy and cliurches in their jurisdiction.^ The patriarchs had the right of ordaining all metropolitans within their jurisdic- tion, of assembling the bishops under them in council, presiding in their deliberations, and executing their canons.'* They soon, however, encroached on the prerogatives of the metropolitans, ' TJiat there was no bishop of bislioi)s in the age of Cyprian, is seen from his address to the council of Cartha(fo. " Let us each state the views we entertain on the subject of rebaptif.rn, neither condemning any one, nor divesting liim of the right of fellowship should he diflcr from us in opinion, for no one of lis constitutes himself a bishop of bisho])s, or forces his colleagues by the terror of a tyrant to follow his will, but each has the utmost freedom of decision, and is neither liable to a sentence by another, nor able to subject another to his judgment." Neque enim quisquam nostrum episcojium se esse episcoporum constituit, aut tyrranico terrore ad obsequendi iiecessitatem coUegas sues adigit. Concil. Carthag. Labbei, torn. i. p. 951. ^ The supreme authority conferred on tlio patriarclis was expressly founded on the rank of their cities. " The bishop of Constantinople takes rank next after the Idsliop of Uorne, because Constantinople is the new Rome." Concil. Constantinop. c. iii. Labbei, tom. iii. p. 5r)!>. .Socratis Hist. Eccl. lib. v. c. 8. It was decreed by the council of Nicii;a that the customs which had long pre- vailed in Egypt, Lybia, and Pentapolis, should be constituted law, so that the bishop of Alexandria should have authority over them all, hko the authority which was customary with the bishop of liomo. Their rank was also to be continued to the churches at Antioch, and in the other ci)archie8. Can. vi. Labbei Concil. tom. ii. p. «70. In like manner the false letters ascribed by Isidore to Anacletus and Stephen, represent the hierarchies as modelled after the civil government. " No metropoli- tans or other bishoi>s should be called primates, except those who hold the first seats, and whoso cities the ancients regarded as i)rimafes. The rest who have obtained other metropolitan cities should not bo called primates, but either archbishops or iiietro[)olitans. J'"or the cities and places over which primates ought to preside were not eonstitut<-(l in modern times, but long anterior to the advent of Christ, to whose chief niagistratrs the heathen carried up their great causes by appeal, and it was in those cities after the advent of Christ that the apostles and their successors placed patriarchs and primates, to whom the important alFairs of the bishops and great causes are to be referred." Labbei Concil. tom. i. p. 8!»1, can. vi. p. Clii, can. iv. • Concil. Nica;ni can. iv. v. Dupin. de Ant. Eccl. Discip. Dissert, i. c. 11, 12. i * Dupin. do Ant. Eccl. Discip. Dissert, i. c. 11, IJi. THE FOURTH SEAL. 133 assuming often the ordination of the bishops of their provinces, and denying them the right to ordain, except with their sanction,' and at length the patriarchs of Rome extorted the right to ap- point to all vacant sees, to determine all ecclesiastical causes, and to legislate for the church, and thereby reduced the whole body of the clergy and people of the western empire to an absolute vassalage to themselves.^ It was at that period, and under the promptings and guidance of those great prelates, that the church first formally apostatized from the faith and worship enjoined in the gospel, and embraced a false religion. The preceding century had been marked by a neglect and adulteration of the word of life, not by a public and legalized substitution of an opposite system in its place. It was not until after the accession of Constantino, that the worship of the cross, the superstitious and idolatrous regard of relics, the invocation of saints, the homage of images, and other chief ele- ments of the great anti-christian system, were introduced, and made emphatically the religion of the nationalized church. I. The patriarchs, metropolitans, and archbishops of that and the following ages, breathed a pestilence of false doctrine from their lips which infected the whole body of the church, and car- ried spiritual death to myriads of their people. The ascription to the image of the cross by Constantino of a divine virtue, and pretence that it was through that that he gained his victories over Maxentius, Licinius, and other enemies,' if not the device of the prelates whom he made his associates - Dupin do Ant. Eccl. Diseip. Dissert i. c. 13. '^ Ibid. Dissert, ii. ' CotistatUine related tluit as ho was about to attempt tho coiifjuest of Italy from Maxentius, tho form of a cross was displayed to him in tho sky with tho inscrip- tion, " Con THE RAINBOW ANGEL. 233 a rainbow. They uttered their message with a Hon voice that re- sounded through all the valleys of Europe, echoed from her re- motest mountains, and struck their foes with a terror like that with which the onset of that monarch of beasts strikes its victims. Their voice drew from innumerable multitudes of the nations of Europe instantaneous and passionate expressions of thought and feeling, that shook the ecclesiastical and civil governments to their foundations, as loud thunders shake the dome of heaven. One of the first and most violent of those thunder utterances was a false pretence to inspiration, and expression of the persuasion that tiie period had arrived of the final overthrow of antichrist and es- tablishment of the Redeemer's millennial kingdom. That expres- sion prompted the Reformers and their successors to correct the error by an appeal to the Scriptures, and demonstration that the advent of Christ is not to take place until the sound of the sev- enth trumpet, and the close of the period of the wild beast, as was foreshown to the ancient prophets, Daniel and Zechariah, to the apostles by Christ, and to the churches by the apostles. They delivered to their followers the word of God, opened to their pe- rusal by translation into their several languages, and easy and cheap multiplication through the art of printing, and like the an- gel enjoined them as an imperative duty and inestimable privilege to receive and study it as his, and the only authoritative revela- tion of his will. The Scriptures were received and studied by their followers with the utmost eagerness and delight, but diversities of opinion, alienations, contentions, and intolerances, soon sprung from the study of them, that distracted the Protestant churches, and filled them with confusion and misery. The Reformed teach- ers fulfilled, and their successors have continued in a degree through every subsequent age, to fulfil the office of witnesses for God, in opposition to the usurpations of the wild beast and er- rors of the false prophet ; and they are still to sustain that office, as is shown in the following chapters, till the mystery of God is finished. All these characters meet in them so eminently and so notori- ously, as to leave it scarcely necessary to verify the application by references to history. Luther commenced the Reformation in 1517, one hundred years after the invasion of the eastern empire by Tamerlane, and sixty-four after the conquest of Constantino- ple by the Ottoman Turks, but near one hundred before they reached the acme of their power, and relinquished the endeavor and hope to extend their empire over a larger space of eastern Europe. During that whole period they were objects of su- 30 234 THE RAINBOW ANGEL. preme terror lo both the Catholic and Protestant worlds. The attack on the papacy by Luther, Zuinglius, and their associates, and proclamation in opposition to the false doctrines and impious superstitions of the Romish church of the great truths of the gos- pel, instantly produced a thunder explosion of passion from the people throughout Germany and Switzerland, and subsequently the other nations of Europe. I. Of those multitudes there were many, especially in Germa- ny, who not only anticipated the speedy overthrow of antichrist and the establishment of the empire of the saints, but assumed the office of proplicts, predicted the immediate fall of the apostate church, and claimed for their announcement the authority of in- spiration. " A body of persons secretly sprung up at this period, 1522, who asserted that they had communications from God, and had received a command to slay all the wicked and constitute a new world, in which the pious only and innocent should live and rule. They disseminated their doctrine clandestinely in that part of Saxony chiefly which borders the river Sale, and even Carlostadt, according to Luther's representation, approved of their opinions ; for being unable from Luther's influence to effect his wishes at Wittemburg, he left his station there and joined these. "^ "In November, 1524, the peasants in several parts of Ger- many engaged in seditions, and in the spring of 1525 vast bodies rose, especially on the borders of the Danube, and made war on the papal ecclesiastics, partly in order to gain greater civil, and partly in order to religious freedom."^ " This contest was exci- ted in a degree by a class of rash preachers of whom the princi- pal was Thomas Muncer, who abandoning the gospel, proposed a new doctrine. He assailed not only the Roman pontiff, but Luther also, and denounced their doctrines as alike defective and corrupt, asserting that the pontiff" chained the minds of men by too severe laws, and that Luther unloosed those chains indeed, but granted too great indulgence, and neglected to teach the things of the Spirit ; that if we would gain salvation we must not only abstain from all flagitious crimes, but chasten and macerate tiie body by fasting, look grave, be taciturn, and wear a long beard. These and other things of the kind he called the cross, tlie mor- tification of the flesh, and discipline. Having prepared his fol- lowers by these instructions, he then directed each to retire from the crowd, and meditate on God, considering what he is, whetii- er he exercises a providence over us, whether Christ died for us, • Sleidanj Comment, de Btatii. Rclig. lib. iii. f. 47. ^ Ibid. lib. iv. f. 6G, 68, 69. THE RAINBOW ANGEL. 235 and whether our religion is preferable to that of the Turks ; and to ask God to testify by a sign that we are the objects of his care, and are in the way of the true religion, and if he should not im- mediately grant a signal, to persist nevertheless and with the ut- most urgency in prayer, and even seriously expostulate with him as unjust in not yielding an answer ; that as the Scriptures repre- sent him as willing to give whatever is asked, it would not be just should he grant no sign to one who prayed for a true knowl- edge of him; and such expostulation and anger he said were ex- tremely grateful to God, as he saw from them their disposition towards him and earnestness ; and there was no doubt but that being importuned in that manner, he would declare himself by some conspicuous signal, slake their thirst, and act with them as he formerly did with the patriarchs. He taught also that God manifested his will by dreams, made them the great instrument of his schemes, and when he succeeded in interpreting one, boasted of it in his public addresses. When he had in this man- ner induced a large number to join him, he began to enrol those who promised him assistance in his attempt to slay the un- godly and institute a new magistracy, asserting that he had a com- mission from God to destroy the old rulers and establish new ; collected a vast crowd of followers half armed and without disci- pline to accomplish his purposes, and perished and a vast body of his adherents in the attempt."^ At the distance of ten years a party of similar fanatics again organized under Cnipperdoling who claimed prophetic gifts, was constituted their king, and asserted that the kingdom of Christ was to be like his till the day of judgment, in order that the wick- ed being wholly destroyed, the pious and elect might reign. He taught that it was lawful for the people to abolish their magistra- cies ; that although the apostles were not commanded to assume a civil jurisdiction, yet the present ministers of the church ought to take the sword and by force constitute a new republic f that this was the time in which all the prophets had foreshown that righteousness was to prevail throughout the world ; the time in which Christ had said the meek should possess the earth.^ > Sleidani Comment, lib. v. f. 71-74. ^ Ibid. lib. x. f. 152. ' Ibid. Rauke presents tlie same representation. " In 1521 a sect congregated around a fanatical weaver named Claus Storck, that professed the most extrava- gant doctrines. Luther did not go near far enough for them. Very different men they said, and of a much more elevated spirit were required ; for what could such servile observance of the Bible avail. That book was insufficient for man's instruc- tion ; he could only bo taught by the immediate inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Their fanaticism soon rose to such a pitch as to convince them that this was actually grant- 236 THE RAINBOW ANGEL. II. That misapprehension the Refornners and their successors endeavored to counteract by an appeal to the word of God as the only revelation of his purposes, and exposition of the pro- phecies respecting the conflicts of the church with antichrist, and the advent of the Redeemer, which show that the persecu- ting powers are not to be overthrown until the times of the gen- tiles reach their end, the judgment of the wild beast is set, and the period of the seventh trumpet arrives. Thus Luther immediately opposed these fanatics, pointed out their errors, and endeavored to recall them from their presump- tuous schemes. He notified the magistrates of Mulhausen, into which Muncer was designing to introduce himself and his party, that he regarded him as a seditious person who thought of noth- ing but violence and robbery, that his plans were known, and that he ought therefore to be carefully watched, and not allowed to enter their city ; and apprized them that if they rejected his counsel, and afterwards became involved in difficulties, he, hav- ing so carefully forewarned them, should be blameless. He recommended them to ask him who called him to the office which he assumed, and should he pretend to have been appoint- ed by God, to require him to demonstrate his vocation by some evident sign, and if he declined, to reject him.^ And as the agita- tion spread through Germany, and indications appeared of a tu- mult, he published a book in which he warned all to abstain from sedition ; and stated that although terrific mobs seemed to en- danger the Roman ecclesiastics, yet in his judgment they were not to overturn their power ; the calamities that were threatened to be inflicted on them were of a far different nature ; Daniel and Paul had foretold that their tyranny was to be overthrown, not by the hand of man, but by the advent of Christ, and by the Holy Spirit. All endeavors therefore to conquer them by arms would prove vain ; the only method of overcoming them was to expose their crimes and preach the gospel. If that were faith- fully continued their kingdom would soon fall, or if any portion ed to them ; that God spake to them in person, and dictated to them how to act, and what to preach. On the strength of this immcdiato inspiration, they pressed for various alterations in the service of the cliurcli." " They asserted that the world was threatened with a general devastation, of which the Turks were, perhaps, to bo tlie instruments. No priest was to remain alive, nor any luigodly man ; but after this bloody purification liie kiiifrdom of God would commence, and there would be one faith and one baptism." — Hist. Reformation, vol. ii. pp. 22, 23. lie goes on to re- late that they were inclined to begin that work themselves, and collected arms with the design of as.sa»lting and slaugiitcring their opponents, but were intercepted and dis- persed. See also vol. ii. chap. vi. * Slcidani Comment, lib. v. f. 74. THE RAINBOW ANGEL. 237 should not be overturned by that means, it would be extinguished at the advent of Christ.^ He held that there was to be no sud- den extermination of error, but instead a long and strenuous con- flict, in which no means were authorized or could prove successful but those of the gospel. " We are neither able to hurl the pon- tiff from his station, nor will the truth ever be safe while the pa- pacy survives." " We have no right to introduce or tolerate any thing in the church except what can be sustained by the word of God."2 His comments on the second Psalm abound with similar rep- resentations. " In our time the success of the gospel at first was great, and all like the apostles before being taught by the Spirit respecting the kingdom of Christ, hoped that the inculcation of its precepts would bring political liberty and peace. But when Muncer, who was animated by a seditious spirit, began to excite tumults, and afterwards the church was distracted by Carlostadt, Cinglius, and other fanatical teachers, it came to be understood that it is in accordance with the representation of the Scriptures, that distractions take place in it, and seditions in the state, and that the saints are marked by great infirmities ; and it was felt that the only safety lay in not hoping for safety amidst such pressing dangers. Many, however, then became discouraged, recoiled, and even turned to a hatred of the gospel." " But the sole reason of this error was, that they were not aware that the nature of Christ's kingdom is such, that it is naturally assailed on every hand by Satan and the world. Being ignorant of this, they yield to danger, and condemn the gospel as the cause of seditions. The Psalmist therefore to guard them against this misapprehension, here paints the kingdom of Christ according to its varying circumstances, and teaches that it is to have numerous and powerful enemies."^ He goes on through the exposition to show that a perpetual warfare is to be maintained with foes, and that they are to be • Nam longe aliam ipsis impendere calamitatem, et fore quod post Danielera Paulus etiani prajnuntiavit, ut ipsorum tyrannis nulla vi humana, sed adventu Christi servatoris et Spiritu Dei corruat. Hoc suae sententice esse fimdamentum. — Sleidani Comment, lib. v. fol. 74. Postremo celebrandam esse doctrinam evan- gelii, et pontificum imposturas orbi terrarum patefaciendas, ut deteetis erroribus et agnita veritate, homines pro nihilo ducant et piano contemnant quicquid ab illis profectum fuerit. — F. 75. " Nee enim nos pontificem loco deturbare possumus, neque vera doctrina, salvo poutificatu, incolumis esse potest . . . Nee enim est arbitrii nostri statuere vel toler- ate aliquid in ecclesia quod verbo Dei defendi non potest. — Sleidani Comment, lib. vii. f. 115. • Lutheri Op. torn. iv. f. 735. 238 THE RAINBOW ANGEL. overcome by the Spirit of God, by prayer, faith, watchfahiess, and the word of the gospel. Such arc his representations also in his comment on Joel, in which he teaches that the gifts be- stowed by the Spirit, are bestowed through the written word, not through new revelations ; that the acts to which he excites are faith, a warfare against sin, self-denial, and universal obedience to the gospel ; and that the written word is the sole instrument through which God deigns to awaken and enlighten men, and finally turn them from thoughtlessness to fear, and from fear to comfort through the sacrifice of Christ, and a hope that neither dangers nor death itself can shake.' The pretences of the Anabaptists to inspiration were in like manner denounced by Melancthon. " The Anabaptists infatu- ated by the devil have boasted of a new species of sanctity, as though they had left the earth, and ascended to the skies ; and given out moreover that they enjoy extraordinary inspiration. But as the pretence was hypocritical, and designed merely to sub- serve appetite and ambition, they soon plunged into debauchery, and then excited seditions, and undertook to establish a new Je- rusalem, as other enthusiasts have often attempted. A like trage- dy was formerly acted at Pepuza in Phrygia, which fanatical prophets denominated the New Jerusalem."^ He taught also that the pious in place of a sudden deliverance from trial, and exemption from annoyance by enemies, were still to suffer affliction, and be pursued as in all former ages by vin- dictive foes. He regarded it as a settled law of the divine ad- ministration that the church was to be subjected to the cross. " Such has often been the aspect of the church. We must not distrust God, if in this last age we see it severely shaken, but remember that by his wonderful counsel it is to be subjected to the cross."^ He also refuted by the Scriptures the expectation of the Ana- baptists of the immediate establishment of Christ's millennial kingdom. He regarded the term antichrist as denoting both the Mahometan empire and the papacy, and held that they were not to be overthrown till the time of the resurrection of the dead, and that a considerable period was to pass before that event. "God showed to Daniel a series of monarchies and kingdoms which it is certain has already run to the end. Four monarchies have passed away. The cruel kingdom of the Turks which arose out of the fourth, still remains, which as it is not to equal the ' Lutheri Op. torn. iv. f. 789. ' Melaiictlioui Oj). toiii. iv. p 411. ' Ibid. torn. ii. p. 446. THE RAINBOW ANGEL. 239 Roman in power, and has certainly therefore already nearly reached its height, must soon decline, and then will dawn the day in which the dead shall be recalled to life." He then repeats the saying ascribed to Elias, that six thousand years were to pass before the advent of Christ ; two thousand before the law, two under the law, and two under the gospel : and proceeds to show that four hundred and fifty-eight years were therefore to intervene before the advent of the Redeemer, the destruction of antichrist, and the establishment of the kingdom of the saints. *' It is known that Christ was born about the end of the fourth millenary, and one thousand five hundred and forty-two years have since re- volved. We are not therefore far from the end. Daniel asked in respect to the time of the end, and a number was given which, although it seems to respect the time of the Maccabees, yet un- doubtedly has a reference to the end of the world, and the appli- cation is easy, if days be taken for years. They will be two thousand six hundred and twenty-five. We do not endeavor to ascertain the moment when the last day is to dawn. That is not to be sought. But inasmuch as this number happily agrees with the words of Elias, I regard it as denoting the years through which the world was to subsist from the time of Daniel, There were six hundred, or near that, from Daniel to the birth of Christ. There remained therefore two thousand years as the last age of the world. "^ Luther also founded his Supputation of times on the saying of Elias, that the world was to continue seven thousand years, and regarded the sixth thousand as having commenced with the elev- enth century, and as therefore little more than half passed at his publication of that work in 1545.' Flacius in his Catalogue of Witnesses, represented the twelve hundred and sixty days of the wild beast as having commenced in 606, and consequently referred its destruction and the advent of Christ to the year 1866.^ These views corresponding so conspicuously with the symbol, continued to be repeated by a crowd of writers, till at the dis- tance of sixty-seven years from the death of Melancthon, the celebrated Joseph Mede published his Clavis Apocalyptica, in which he showed from the coincidence of the periods of the ^ Melancthoni Op. torn. ii. p. 525. ^ Lutheri Op. torn. iv. f. 730. See also Confess. August, c. 17. " Damnamiis Anabaptistas qui nunc Judaicas opiniones spargunt, fingunt ante resurrectionera pios regna mundi occupaturos esse, ubique deletis aut oppressis impiis." ' Bellarmini de Rom. Pont. lib. iii. c. 3, pp. 710, 711. 240 THE RAINBOW ANGEL. wild beast and the witnesses, that the advent of the Redeemer, and destruction of the antichristian powers were not to be ex- pected unlil twelve Imndrcd and sixty years had passed from the rise of the ten kingdoms, and that near one hundred of them therefore were still to revolve. As that period expired, and the knowledge of the prophecy advanced, the catastrophe of the wild beast was referred to a later lime. Many recent expositors regard the twelve hundred and sixty years as having reached their end in 1792 ; and most refer the fall of the antichristian pow- ers to the last half of the present, or the beginning of the next century. III. The Scriptures, which the Catholic clergy had for ages almost wholly withheld from the people, the Reformers transla- ted, and presented to the nations of Europe, and enjoined the reception and study of them as the only revelation from God, and the only authoritative rule of faith. Luther published his translation of the New Testament in September, 1522. Tindal's English translation of the New Testament was published in 1526; Coverdale's of the whole Scriptures in 1535; Mathews' Bible in 1537, and Cranmer's in 1539. A Latin translation of the Bible was printed in Italy in 1527; an Italian of the New Testament in 1530, and of the whole Scriptures in 1532. Several others also soon followed. A French translation was published soon after the Reformation, and in 1543 the New Testament, and in 1553 the whole Scrip- lures in Spanish. They were translated also into Portuguese, Danish, and Swedish, and placed throughout the Protestant na- tions in the hands of all classes. IV. Yet diversities of opinion, bitternesses, and violent and ran- corous contentions, have been among the most cons])icuous of the consequences that have sprung from the enjoyment of that gift, and the freedom of opinion to which the Reformation gave birth. Dr. Mosheim says of the Lutheran divines of the sixteenth century, " The spirit of zeal tiiat animated them was, generally sj)eaking, very far from being tempered by a spirit of charity. If we except Mclanclhon, in whom a predominant mildness and sweetness of natural temper triumphed over the contagious fe- rocity of the times, all the disputants of this century discovered too nnich bitterness and aniinosily in their transactions and in their writings. Luther himself appears at the head of this san- guine tribe, whom he far surpassed in invective and abuse, treat- ing his adversaries with the most brutal asperity, and sparing THE RAINBOW ANGEL. 241 neither rank nor condition, however elevated or respectahlc tlicy might be."' Of those of the next century he gives a similar character. " The Lutheran church was involved in the most lamentable commotions and tumults during the whole course of this century, partly by the controversies that arose among its most eminent doctors, and partly by the intemperate zeal of vio- lent reformers, the fanatical predictions of pretended prophets, and the rash measures of innovators, who studiously spread among the people new, singular, and for the most part extrava- gant opinions."^ The first of these dissensions was that commenced in 1522 by the fanatical pretenders to inspiration, with Carlostadt at their head ; who by their wild and preposterous doctrines exposed the Reformation to imminent jeopardy. They denounced all learn- ing, set aside the Scriptures in a great degree, relied on the im- mediate aid of the Spirit for teaching and guidance, and endeav- ored to excite the multitude to lake arms and destroy their opponents by violence. This delirious scheme was instantly met by Luther, its falsehood and folly exposed, and all but the lowest rabble restrained from yielding it countenance.^ The next, the most passionate and the most disastrous of their controversies, commenced in 1523 respecting the manner in which the body and blood of Christ are present in the eucharist, agitated the whole Protestant church through a long period, and was marked by a violence, acerbity, and abusiveness that have seldom been equalled in the annals of religious contention.'* Schwenckfeldt, a mystic and enthusiast, soon after rose, and excited great disturbances and contentions respecting the euchar- ist, the efficacy of the divine word, and the nature of Christ. His views were considered so false and dangerous, that they were expressly condemned in the Form of Concord published in 1576.5 In 1538 a fresh contention was excited by a party, who were accused of denying the obligations of the moral law, and justify- ing their unscrupulous gratification of the sensual and malignant passions. A far more bitter and mischievous discussion arose after the death of Luther, in respect to the edict denominated the Literim, which divided the church for many years, and greatly obstructed the progress of the Reformation. " The de- ' Mosheim, Hist. Ch. vol. iii. p. 22H. » Ibid. vol. iv. p. 28. * Ranke's Hist. Reform, vol. ii. p. 21-39. * Mosheim, Hist. Church, vol. iii. p. 48-57. * Walshii Introd. ad Symb. p. 886-899. 31 242 THE RAINBOW ANGEL. fenders of the primitive doclrines of Lulheranism, with Flacius at their head, attacked with incredible bitterness and fury the doctors of Witteniburg and Leipsic, and particularly Melancthon, and accused them of apostasy from religion ; while Melancthon, on the other hand, seconded by the zeal of his friends and disci- ples, justified his conduct with the utmost spirit and vigor."^ That controversy gave birth to several others respecting the necessity of good works, the mode of the regenerating and sanc- tifying influences of the Spirit, the divine image, repentance and justification, that distracted the Lutheran churches for a long series of years, and were marked by the utmost rancor of intol- erance, vituperation, and malignity. The death of Melancthon in 15G0, was followed by disputes of equal vehemence respecting the doctrines of Calvin, and those succeeded by others occasioned by endeavors to allay the vio- lence of contention and re-excite a spirit of piety, that inflamed and devoured the church the whole of the following century.^ The Reformed churches of Switzerland, France, and Holland, were agitated by nearly equal contentions with one another and with the Lutherans during the sixteenth century respecting the eucharist, predestination, the deity of Christ, and grace ; and in the following were rent by Arminius into two great parties which have continued to war with each other almost without intermis- sion to the present day.^ The British isles also have been the scene of fierce and ran- corous contention from the dawn of the Reformation, two par- ties having at every period divided the established church — a pa- pal and a protcstant, a high and low church, or a formal and an evangelical — that have carried on a ceaseless and violent conflict ; while the dissentients from the days of Elizabeth have been dis- tributed into numerous parties in respect to doctrine, rites, and government, and wasted a large share of their labor and zeal in intemperate accusations of each other, reproaches, and strifes. These hostile dispositions and quarrels were carried to such an extreme through a hundred and fifty years, that they became a most important element in the politics of Europe. While they ' Mosheim, Hist. Churcli, vol. iii. p. 2.34. ' Mosheim, Hist. Church, vol. iv. chap. i. ' " The Lutherans and Calvinists stood opposed to each other with a feeling of mutual hatred." " Dut the Culviuists, or as they aro called in Germany, the Re- fonned Church, were also divided among themselves. Episcopaliiins and Puritans, Arminians and Gomarists, attacked each other with the fiercest hate, and in the assembly of the Huguenots at Saumur in IGll, a schism broke out which was never radically healed." Ranke's Reformation, vol. ii. p. 453, 454. THE RAINBOW ANGEL. 243 alienated the Protestant nations from each other, they induced the Catholics to unite in assaihng them, and in several instances placed both the Lutheran and the Reformed churches in immi- nent danger of extinction. V. Many of them and their followers fulfilled the oflSce of wit- nesses for God, in opposition to the wild beast and false prophet. Luther himself was called in 1521 to testify for God in the presence of Charles V. and the great princes of the empire at Worms, where he openly proclaimed his rejection of all rules of faith and guides in religion except the word of God, reasserted the accusations he had uttered of the pope and his followers, and avowed his purpose inflexibly to maintain the truth of God what- ever opposition from princes or people he might be called to en- counter ;^ and being condemned, and all his adherents, by an edict of the emperor, his writings and those of his followers sentenced to be burned, and a censorship of the press established that no similar works might thereafter appear,^ was placed and his whole party in a relation to the princes and people by which all their proclamations of the Gospel thereafter were made a formal testi- mony for God in opposition to the antichristian powers ; and great numbers were called almost immediately to confirm their testimony with their blood.^ The office of witnesses for the truth was in the year 1529 assumed at the Diet of Spires by the whole body of princes who favored the preaching of the gospel, by a public protestation against the edict of that diet which prohibited all further innova- tions in religion, required the evangehcal to conform their instruc- tions to the doctrines of the Catholic church, and denounced the penalties of proscription and death on those who should violate its injunctions. From that great act they drew the name by which they and their followers have ever since been distinguished of Protestants, which is descriptive of the office ascribed to them in this passage, of public witnesses against the false doctrines of the papacy, and impious usurpations of the civil powers. The office was again fulfilled by Luther, Melancthon, and the Protestant princes, in a still more emphatic manner at the diet * " Since, great Caesar and illustrious princes, you require a specific answer ; this is my decision. Unless I am convinced by proofs from the sacred writings or evi- dent reason, I cannot recall any thing that I have written, or taught, for I cannot do what would wound my conscience. On the other hand, I have no faith in the Roman pontiff and mere councils, and do not regard them as of authority, for they have frequently erred and contradicted themselves uj their decrees, and are liable to misjudge and be deceived." Sleidani Comment, lib. iii. f. 41. ' Rauke's Hist. Reform, vol. i. p. 544. ' Ibid. vol. ii. p. 26 L 244 THE RAINBOW ANGEL. of Augsburg in the year 1530, by the dehvery to the emperor and princes of the Confession of their faith, in which they avowed on the one hand the great doctrines of the gospel, and rejected on the other the usurpations, errors, and superstitions of the apostate church. The Hke office was fulfilled also at the same time by the Protestants of Slrasburg, Constance, Meminger, and Lindau, and by Zuinglius, by the presentation to the diet of their Confessions, in which they avowed the evangelical system, and renounced the errors and jurisdiction of Rome.^ The Augsburg Confession, enlarged and in some degree varied, was again presented to the emperor in 1540. The ministers of the churches of Saxony presented the Confes- sion of their faith to the council of Trent. The Belgic churches published theirs in 1561, "that it might be known what their doctrines were who, in Flanders, Artesia, and Hannonia, had suffered, like the Protestants of France, the most violent perse- cution from the year 1525."^ The Protestants of France pre- sented theirs to the king and princes of that kingdom at the con- ference of Poisy in 1561. The ministers of many of the Hel- vetic churches drew up a confession of their faith in 1536, and in 1566 they generally united in addressing it to the Protestants of Germany for the purpose of making known their views of the gospel, and testifying against the false doctrines and usurpations of Rome.^ The whole body of the Protestants on the continent were thus brought, in their relations to the civil governments and in the presence of kings, to fulfil the office of witnesses for God, by a public avowal of the great doctrines of the gjospel, and renuncia- tion of the usurped dominion, false teachings, and idolatrous worship of the antichristian church. The same office was fulfilled also by a vast body of Protest- ants in England and Scotland, who delivered a testimony to the great truths of the divine word in the presence of persecuting princes and a hostile people, maintained a contest for the truth through a century and a half of persecution, and sealed in nu- merous instances their profession with their blood. And finally, as the wild beast still continues his usurpation of the rights of God and tyranny over the church, so many of the witnesses for God are still fufilling their office by testifying against that usurpation, and are to continue their testimony until his seal is set on the foreheads of his servants, and they also who ' Sleidani Com. lib. vii. f. IOC, 107. • Syll. Confess, p. xviii. * Ibid. p. xiv-xvii. THE RAINBOW ANGEL. 245 after that period still linger among the apostates, are withdrawn from great Babylon. And these characters meet in the Reformers and their succes- sors alone. The asseveration of the angel shows that the gospel was to be the theme of which those whom he symbolized were to treat. But since the conquest of Constantinople, or the period of Tamerlane's invasion, there has been no violent and general excitement respecting the doctrines of the gospel answering at all to the representations of the symbol, except that of the Re- formation ; an excitement, the authors of which were most con- spicuous, illustrious, and mighty ; its subjects prompted in vast multitudes to free and impassioned utterances of opinions and expectations, and that were essentially erroneous in respect to the overthrow of the wild beast and advent of the Redeemer ; which led to the delivery to them of a volume of such supreme interest as to be eagerly received and studied by them universal- ly, whatever their language ; which gave birth among them to bitter passions and contentions ; and yet whose doctrines many of them faithfully taught and maintained in opposition to usurp- ing civil nilers and ecclesiastics, and amidst the trials of oppres- sion by those apostate powers, persecution, and slaughter. Noth- ing that occurred in the Romish church betwixt the fall of Con- stantinople and the ministry of Luther ; nothing that has taken place in that church independently of the Reformation since that event, has the shghtest claims to be regarded as the counterpart to the symbol. The Reformation is the only great movement of the kind, not only during the last four hundred years, but in the career of the church, and has been the cause of all the subor- dinate excitements and revolutions that have followed it, alike in the Protestant and the Catholic communions. Interpreters have varied greatly in their views both of the na- ture of this symbol, and the events which it foreshows, and have fallen generally into errors that misled them in the construction of the chapters that immediately follow. Grotius and Rosen- muller exhibit the angel as representing Christ. But that is against the law of symbolization, there being no analogy between a creature and the Creator. Others, as Mr. Brightman, Mr, Jurieu, Mr. Whiston, Cocceius, Mr. Cuninghame, and Mr. El- liott, regard the angel as Christ himself, which is equally against the law of symbolization. It is as inconsistent with his deity and station as the King of kings, that he should appear as a rep- resentative of creatures, as it is that a creature should be em- ployed to represent him. Besides, whenever he appears in the 246 THE RAINBOW ANGEL. vision, he is expressly designated by his titles, as the Alpha and the Omega, the Word of God, or the King of kings, and Lord of lords ; but tliis agent is denominated an angel. The conjecture of Vitringa that he is the Holy Spirit, is obnoxious to the same objection. Grotius, Dr. Hammond, and Rosenmuller, regard the seven thunders as symbols of the calamities of the siege and overthrow of Jerusalem by Titus, and the greatness and dreadfulness of those calamities, as the reason that they were not allowed to be written. But that assumption is both without any ground, and extremely absurd. Were the horrors of that siege greater than those with which the wild beast and false prophet are to be over- whelmed when taken and cast alive into the lake that burns with fire and brimstone ? Were they greater than those inflicted on the apostate hierarchies, when the kings of the earth eat their flesh and burn them with fire ? The thunders obviously, from the response of the angel, are not symbols of calamities, but of expressions from vast multitudes of thoughts and emotions ex- cited by the loud voice he had uttered. They have no adapta- tion to symbolize calamities ; and finally, the siege and capture of Jerusalem were many years anterior to the period of the visions, and cannot therefore be the subject of any of the symbols. Cocceius exhibits the thunder voices as merely indicating that events were to happen unexpectedly. But that is to suppose them symbolic, not of events, but only of their characteristics or mode of occurrence, which is against analogy. Events and agencies are symbols of events and agencies, not of their charac- teristics. If the intensity of the symbol indicate a correspond- ing intensity of the event which it denotes, it must be by some analogous characteristic : but there obviously is no more adapta- tion in the loudness than in the softness of a voice, to indicate the unexpectedness of an event. Mr. Cuninghame regards the angel's voice as symbolic of the seventh trumpet, and the thunders of the seven vials. But that is to make them mere symbols of symbols, which is both against analogy, and is to strike from beneath us all grounds of assu- rance in their interpretation. What higher reason is there for assuming that the vesture of this angel, his actions, and the con- sequents of his agency are mere symbols of the symbols of the advent of Christ in the clouds, the sound of the seventh trumpet, and the seven vials, than there is for assuming that that advent, that sound, and those vials, arc mere symbols of some other symbols ? The admission of such a species of representation THE RAINBOW ANGEL. 247 would annihilate at once all certainty of meaning, and render the attempt alike absurd, either to interpret a revelation made through such means, or to make such a revelation. Of those who regard the angel as the Son of God, some ex- hibit the opened book as the book of seven seals, or a part of it containing the revelations of the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth chapters. But that proceeds on the assumption that the sealed book was a written copy of the Apocalypse, and not as sealed a mere symbol, and as opened, like its seals and the trumpets, a mere instrument of the revelation. If the sealed book were an autograph of the Apocalypse, why was not the apostle allowed to send it to the churches, instead of indepen- dently writing another ? If that book embraced the whole Apocalypse, how can the chapters following this vision have been contained in a different and supplemental volume ? On what ground can the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth chap- ters be considered as having been delivered to the apostle and eaten by him, any more than the other parts of the Revelation ? Those assumptions are manifestly without any authority what- ever, and involve their authors in inextricable perplexities. The book of seven seals was a mere symbol of the purposes of God. Its being sealed denoted the undiscoverableness of his designs by the unaided efforts of creatures. The opening of the seals by Christ indicated the procedure of the Revelation from him, and their whole office was fulfilled in the representation of those truths. Expositors exhibiting the angel as Christ, interpret his station on the sea and the land, as significant of his universal dominion. But it has no adaptation to denote such a relation ; and as he is a symbol of men, and as teachers, not as rulers, that cannot be its import. It doubtless denotes a characteristic of their agency whom he represented. His form was gigantic. He probably in descending from the atmosphere advanced from the northwest, the direction of Saxony from Patmos, and alighted at the Adri- atic or ^gean sea ; and his placing his right foot on the sea, and his left on the land — which is the attitude of one, not at rest, but who is still to advance — signifies undoubtedly that some of those whom he symbolized were to cross the ocean, and bear the gos- pel to new isles and continents, and had its fulfilment in the mi- gration of Protestants to this country and others, and proclama- tion of the gospel in these distant scenes. As England was one of the seven kingdoms, the migration cannot have been to her. Mr. Brightman regards the seven thunders as the seven vial 848 THE RAINBOW ANGEL. angels, which is not only without analogy, but is to make them mere symbols of tlie symbols of a subsequent vision. Others, as Dean Woodhouse, regard the import of the thunder voices as inspired, but concealed for reasons of sovereignty or expedience. Mr. Daubuz, who regards the angel as a symbol of Luther, and the book opened as the Scriptures, interprets the thunders as the edicts of seven governments eslabhshing the Protestant religion. But the laws of the Protestant kingdoms establishing the Re- formed religion were not expressive of opinions respecting the period of the overthrow of the wild beast or Christ's advent, and furnished no occasion therefore for the response of the angel in regard to that advent. Nor is there any analogy between a thun- der voice, and the enactment by rulers of a law. A thunder crash is the effect of a violent electrical explosion, and is itself a rapid and strong vibration of the atmosphere. The enactment and promulgation of an authoritative law are deliberate acts, and designed to give birth to order and stability. It is the vehement expression of passion by a vast multitude, not the calm acts of a legislature or monarch, that a thunder voice is suited to sym- boHze. Vitringa exhibits the voice of the angel as prophetic of calami- ties denoted by the seven thunders, and those thunders as em- blematic of the seven crusades. But first, the assumption that the thunder voices were inspired, indicative of the same thing as the voice of the angel, and prophetic of calamities, is ob- viously without any ground, and against analogy. Next, the crusades preceded the last army of the Turks and the fall of Constantinople, and were several centuries therefore anterior to the events denoted by this symbol. And finally, there is no an- alogy between a thunder crash, and the march of a devastating army. It is the lightning which kills, rends, and burns. The peal that follows is but the vibration of the air produced by its passage. Sir Isaac Newton exhibits the seven thunders as a repetition of the prophecy of the seven trumpets, which is also wholly without authority, and presents no reason for the angel's response. Mr. Elliott, who deems the angel to be the Son of God, regards the seven thunders as representing the bulls and anathemas of the pope in opposition to Luther, and their number as significant of the seven hills of Rome. Those bulls, however, do "not ex- press any opinion respecting the period of the overthrow of the wild beast and Christ's advent, that could give occasion to the an- gel's response. There is no conceivable relation between a pa- THE TEMPLE AND WITNESSES. 249 pal excommunication of Luther and an asseveration by the Son of God that his advent is not to take place till the seventh trumpet, nor is it consistent with the majesty of Christ to exhibit him as responding to the blasphemous assumptions and execrations of that apostate power. Mr. Keith exhibits the angel as denoting the Reformers, the book as representing the Scriptures, and the thunders as symbols of wars. But a thunder voice symbolizes a violent expression of thought and feeling, not a battle onset. It is by weapons that men are killed, not by voices. SECTION XXV. CHAPTER XI. 1-6. THE TEMPLE AND WITNESSES. And a reed like a rod was given to me, saying, Rise and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and those who worship in it. And the court which is without the temple reject, and measure it not, for it is given to the Gentiles, and the holy city they shall tread for- ty-two months. And I will give to my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and sixty days, clothed in sack- cloth. They are the two olive-trees and the two lamps which stand before the Lord of the earth, and if any one wills to injure them, fire proceeds from their mouth, and devours their enemies ; and if any' one wills to injure them, so he must be killed. They have power to shut heaven that rain may not fall during the days of their prophecy, and have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the land with every stroke as often as they may will. The scene of this action was obviously the earth also, to which the apostle had descended to receive from the rainbow angel the little book. Jerusalem, with its temple and courts, was display- ed, therefore, before him. The rod, the temple, and the measur- ing are symbolic. The rod is the symbol of the revealed will of God, in conformity with which the temple was built. The tem- ple was the edifice erected by his command in which the worship enjoined by him was to be publicly offered ; and consisted first of the holy of holies, in which was his mercy-seat or throne ; and next of the sanctuary or main part of the structure in which the golden candlestick, the altar of incense, and the table of bread were sta- tioned, and prayers were offered by the priests, and hymns sung 32 250 THE TEMPLE AND WITNESSES. by the Levitcs. As the former symbohzed, as we are expressly told, Hebrews ix. 11, 12, 23, 24, the heavens, the scene in which God visibly manifests himself, Christ intercedes, and the cheru- bim, the representatives of the redeemed, serve in his presence ; so the other sanctuary symbolizes the place or places on eartli in which the true worshippers offer him the pubhc worship which he enjoins. The altar on which incense, the symbol of prayer, was offered, represented the cross of Christ, the instrument of his expiation,^ and thence of reconciliation and access to God ; and the worshippers denoted those who conduct the public worship he has appointed, sustaining the same relations to the place of homage, and the rites and worship that are enjoined, that the priests and Lcvites sustained to the sanctuary and the services of their office. To measure the temple, then, was to seek and learn the truths taught in the Scriptures, and symbolized, first by the inner sanc- tuary respecting the throne of God in heaven, the exaltation and intercession of Christ in his presence, and the relations to him there of the spirits of the redeemed denoted by the cherubim ; and next the truths symbolized by the outer sanctuary respecting the place or places on earth, which he has appointed for the wor- ship which he enjoins on his people, respecting the expiation on which they arc to rely for pardon and acceptance denoted by the altar, and respecting the ministers who conduct the worship he enjoins, represented by the offerers of the worship in the sanc- tuary. The court which was on the outside, was that in which the congregation stood while incense was offered,^ and denoted the station of the congregation of visible worshippers, in contradis- tinction from theirs who conduct the public worship. To reject it as nopartof the temple, was, therefore, to reject the body of the nom- inal or visible, as not true worshippers ; and the direction to reject it, was equivalent to a prophecy that the nominal was not to be a true church ; that the vast crowds who were to tlirong the court professedly to pay homage to God, were not to be his adorers. The holy city was the city in which the ancient temple stood, and the priests and daily worshippers resided, and to which those dwelling elsewhere went to offer homage. The prediction, there- fore, that the court without should be given to tlie Gentiles, and that they should tread the holy city forty-two months, denoted that they should constitute the congregation of visible v»^orship- pers during that period, and exercise the civil polity under which » Ara Crucis. Concil. Trident. Sess. xxii. c. 2 "" Luke i. 9, 10, 21, 22. THE TEMPLE AND WITNESSES. 251 the church should subsist ; and as during the continuance of the temple the Gentiles were aliens from God and idolaters, in con- tradistinction from the Jews who were his covenant people, it de- notes that the visible should be an apostate and idolatrous church during that period, and give occasion thereby for the testimony of the witnesses to the truth, against false teachers, and usurping and persecuting rulers. This is seen also from the fact that the Gentiles have belonged to the visible church and constituted it solely for a much longer period than the forty-two months. There has been no purely Jewish church since the first ages. The relation, therefore, in which the Gentiles were to constitute the church during that period, was not literally as Gentiles in op- position to Jews, but as apostates from God in contradistinction from true worshippers. The promise to give to the two witnesses, was a promise of such gifts to them as were requisite to quahfy them for their office. To prophesy as a witness, is to proclaim the revealed will of God and vindicate his prerogatives, in opposition to false teachers who pervert and deny his truth, and to rulers who usurp his rights and arrogate a dominion over his people and his laws. The period of their testimony was to correspond to the apostasy of the church, twelve hundred and sixty days, and forty-two months of thirty days each, being the same. Sackcloth is a symbol of humiliation and sorrow. Their proph- ecy in sackcloth thence denoted their witnessing for God in hu- miliation, under a profound sense of his rights, and in grief at the apostasy of his professing people. The two olive-trees and two lamps which symbolize the two witnesses, are those doubtless, or like those exhibited in vision to Zechariah, chap. iv. 4, 11, 14, of which the trees that distilled the oil into the lamps represented the teachers, and the lamps the recipients of their doctrine or believers. The two witnesses are the teachers then and the recipients of the truth, in whom it exerts and displays its power, as the oil transmitted from the olive- trees to the lamps burned and diffused its light through the tem- ple. The representation that if any one wills to injure them, fire proceeds out of their mouth and devours their enemies, is a pre- diction that they were to defend themselves from their persecu- tors by their words as witnesses for God, and by those alone, and that the ihreatenings of vengeance which they were to proclaim from his word were to be fulfilled on their enemies. That they were to have power to shut heaven that rain should not fall du- 252 THE TEMPLE AND WITNESSES. ring their prophecy, and power over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the land with every stroke as often as they may choose, denotes that the denunciation of terrible judgments on apostates was to be an eminent part of their office, as it was of Moses and Elijah ; and that their ministry was to receive from God the most evident sanctions in the destruction of those who, in despite of their teachings and warnings, should persist in apos- tasy. The period denoted by twelve hundred and sixty days, is un- doubtedly twelve hundred and sixty years. There are examples of that use of days in the symbolic prophecies of Ezekiel, chap, iv. 4-6, and Daniel, vii. 25, viii. 14, xii. 11, 12; and it is in accordance with analogy. A day, during which the earth re- volves on its axis, has a resemblance which fits it to be a symbol of the period of its revolution round the sun ; and it is the only period drawn from the motion of the earth that presents that similitude. All shorter spaces are artificial divisions ; all longer are either artificial, as jubilees and centuries, or founded, like cycles, on relations to other celestial bodies that bear no analogy to a revolution round the sun. It is the only period therefore formed by the earth's motion, that could be used to symbolize a year. That it is to be treated as symbolic, is indisputably cer- tain. It is unquestionably a measure of time. But if a measure of time, it is of necessity a symbolic measure ; inasmuch as the agency which it measures is symbolic. Founded altogether as the symbol is on analogy, it must be interpreted throughout in accordance with that relation. To deny that character to any part of it, were in effect to deny it to the whole ; while to admit that the measure of the witnesses' agency is symbolic, and yet interpret it literally, were to assume that the symbol is identically the same as that which it represents, which is against analogy. In like manner a month, during which the moon revolves on its axis, has a resemblance which fits it to be a symbol of the ■period of its revolution round the sun, and that is the only longer period to which it presents that similitude. The forty-two months therefore arc by the same law twelve hundred and sixty years, and solar years doubtless ; as though the monthly division of time was drawn from the revolution of the moon, yet it was reckoned as of thirty as well as of twenty-nine days, and the year itself was determined by the revolution of the earth round tlie sun. It may be thought an obstacle to this construction, that as the period of a lunar revolution is not thirty days, forty-two lunar THE TEMPLE AND WITNESSES. 253 months are not equal to twelve hundred and sixty days. But neither are twelve hundred and sixty days equal to the number in three and a half years, nor the number in forty-two montRs of thirty days each equal to the number in three years and a half ; the astronomical year consisting of three hundred and sixty-five days and a fraction, in place of three hundred and sixty, at which it was reckoned by the Jews and other eastern nations, \ et three hundred and sixty days were taken as the period of the revolution of the seasons or a )'^ear, although they were known not to be the true period ; and thirty days were taken also as the period of a lunar revolution or a month, although they were in like manner known not to be the true period ; and they are used interchangeably accordingly for the same period, and employed with equal propriety as a representative of twelve hundred and sixty astronomical years. The command to measure the temple of God, was addressed to the apostle doubtless, as representing the same persons as he symbolized in the prediction that he must again prophesy before peoples, and nations, and tongues, and many kings ; and his action denoted that they were to seek and learn, first, the truths which the Scriptures teach, and that were symbolized by the inner sanctuary, respecting the throne of God, the interces- sions of Christ, and the residence of the spirits of the redeemed in his presence ; and next, the truths that were symbolized by the outer sanctuary respecting the expiation on which the true wor- shippers on earth rely for pardon and acceptance, the places in which acceptable worship is offered, and the ministers who offer that worship. The prediction, on the other hand, that the witnesses were to prophesy forty-two months against persecutors, was a prediction that they were to proclaim those truths and vindicate the rights ^ , of God against false teachers and usurping rulers, and denounce ^ the judgments threatened in his word against their usurpations and idolatries. The agency symbolized by the measuring of the temple, had a most exact and conspicuous counterpart in the ministry of the Reformers and their successors. The great truths which they drew from the Scriptures, and proclaimed in opposition to the apostate church, were precisely those which were symbolized by the inner and outer sanctuary ; — that God alone has the rights of deity, and is the only object of worship, in opposition to anti- christ, to canonized creatures, and to idols ; that Christ's sacrifice is the only expiation for sin, in contradiction to the sacrifice of the 254 THE TEMPLE AND WITNESSES. mass, and voluntary inflictions ; that he is the only intercessor, in opposition to saints and angels ; that the spirits of the re- deemed pass immediately into his presence and are accepted and exalted to happiness, in contravention of the doctrine of purga- tory ; that acceptable worship is offered wherever two or three gather together in the name of Christ, in contradiction to the doctrine of the apostate church, that homage can be offered only in edifices consecrated by superstitious rites, sanctified by the presence of relics, and furnished with an altar, images of saints, and other idolatrous objects ; and finally, that they are legitimate offerers of worship who are publicly set apart to that office, and who proclaim the truths and present the homage which God en- joins in his word, in opposition to the teachers of the apostate church, who regard those alone as true ministers who derive their authority from the pope, or from patriarchs, metropolitans, or diocesan bishops. I. They learned from the Scriptures and proclaimed the truths symbolized by the mercy-seat, that God alone fills the throne of the universe, and has the rights of deity, in opposition to the doctrine of the apostate church, that the pope is his vicegerent, and is invested with all his legislative and judicial rights. The mode in which the rights of God were arrogated by the popes and ascribed to them by the church, is shown by the following passages. "We agree that the holy apostolic chair and Roman pontiff hold the primacy over the whole world, and that the Roman pontiff himself is the successor of the blessed Peter, the prince of the apostles and the true vicar of Christ, the head of the whole church, and the father and teacher of all Chris- tians, and that through the blessed Peter, plenary power was given to him by our Lord Jesus Christ to feed, guide, and govern the universal church."^ In assuming to be the vicar of Christ on earth, the pope claims to be invested with his rights and prerogatives as the king, the lawgiver, and tlie judge of the church, and thence to be entitled to the same absolute submission and obedience from men as are due to him. " If the pontiff be compared to Christ in respect to plenitude of power, he has not that absolute plenitude, but only his own peculiar portion, according to the measure of Christ's gift : for Christ reigns over the whole church whether in heaven, in purgatory, or on earth, embracing all from the beginning to the end of the world ; and can moreover make laws at his pleas- ure, institute sacraments, and confer grace even without sacra- ' Definit. Concil. Florcnt. Labbei Concil. torn. xxxi. p. 1031. THE TEMPLE AND WITNESSES. 255 ments ; but the pope only governs this part of the church which is on earth while he lives, and cannot change the laws of Ciirist, institute sacraments, or remit sins without a sacrament. If, how- ever, the supreme pontiff be compared with other bishops, he may be justly said to have a plenitude of power ; for others have only a limited authority over limited districts, but he is placed over the whole Christian world, and has all the plenary power which Christ left for the benefit of the church on earth. "^ " The church is a fold, a kingdom, a body. But a fold must have a shepherd, a kingdom a king, a body a head. Some one therefore must succeed St. Peter in the primacy. It cannot be said that Christ is the head and king of the church. Christ is indeed the invisible head of the church ; but inasmuch as the church is a visible and outward society, it must have a visible and outward head succeeding to Peter in the pontificate, whose office it is to exercise an outward care of the whole family or society."^ The pope accordingly claims and is held by the Catholic church to have Christ's power as a lawgiver : " Our inquiry is whether the pope has a real power over all the faithful in spirit- ual things, as kings have in temporal ; that as they can frame civil laws, and punish transgressors with temporal punishments, so the pontiff" can enact ecclesiastical laws truly obligatory on the conscience, and punish transgressors with at least spiritual punishments, such as excommunication, suspension, an interdict:" and the answer is, that " it has ever been held by the Catholic church, that bishops in their own dioceses, and the Roman pon- tiff" in the whole church, are true ecclesiastical princes, who can by their own authority, without the consent of the people or con- currence of the presbyters, enact laws which bind the conscience, judge in ecclesiastical causes in the manner of other judges, and niflict punishments."^ Bouvier in like manner enumerates among the prerogatives of the pontiff", the power of issuing doctrinal decrees, and enacting laws which are obligatory on all Christians.* ' Bellarmini de Rom. Pont. lib. i. c. ix. p. 536. * Bailly, de Eccl. torn. ii. p. 174. ' At in ecclesia Catholica semper creditum est, episcopos in snis dioecesibus, et Romanum pontificem in tota ecclesia esse veros principes ecclesiasticos, qui pos- sint sua auctoritate etiara sine plebis consensu, vel presbyterorum concilio, leges ferre quse in conscientia obligent, judicare in causis ecclesiasticis, more aliorum judicum, ac demum punire. Bellarmini de Rom. Pont. lib. iv. c. xv. pp. 845, 846. * Bouvier, de Vera Eccl. p. 309. Prserogativa tertia est, Potestas edendi decreta fidei et condendi leges quee cunctos obligent Christianos. 256 THE TEMPLE AND WITNESSES. He claims in like manner the power of forgiving sins, and of debarring from forgiveness. " He is said lo loose who remits sins, who frees from punishment, who exempts from law in re- spect to vows, oaths, and similar obligations. When, therefore, it was said to Peter generally. Whatsoever you loose or bind, the power was given him of legislating, rescinding, punishing, remitting, so that he became the judge and prince of all who are in the church."* " Should any one say the words of the Saviour, * Receive the Holy Spirit ; whosesoever sins ye remit they are remitted to them, and whosesoever ye retain, they are retained,' are not to be un- derstood of the power of remitting or retaining sins by the sa- crament of penance, as the Catholic church has always held, and shall turn them against the institution of this sacrament, tc the authorization of preaching the gospel, let him be accursed."^ But in this arrogation the pope usurps the incommunicable rights and prerogatives of God. He openly claims that he holds in the church on earth the station of the eternal Word, exhibits himself as seated on his throne, and demands a homage that is due only to him. And that is the peculiar characteristic of the great rival of Christ, the man of sin, the son of perdition, as de- scribed by the pen of inspiration, who is hostile and contemptuous towards all that is called divine or that is venerable, so that he seats himself in the temple of God as the Almighty sat in the inner sanctuary, and proclaims that he is God by the assumption of his throne and arrogation of his rights. The Reformers accordingly discerned and denounced this im- pious arrogation, and embraced and proclaimed the doctrine of the Scriptures, that God alone is the lawgiver, king, and judge of the church. Luther devoted his tract respecting the power of the Roman pontiff to the refutation of his claims and vindication of the pre- rogatives of God, pronouncing it blasphemy to represent that Peter held the rights of a divine sway, asserting that he was but a mere minister of the word, and that Christ is the sole Lord of the church in heaven and on earth, and showing that the lofty terms empire, the rights of empire, and celestial and terrestrial empire, are appropriate only to God, and that in applying them to the pope tFicy made him a deity .^ He accordingly denounced the pope as antichrist, and the papal hierarchy as the kingdom ' Bellarmini do Rom. Pont. lib. i. c. xiii. p. 558. * Concil. Trident, sess. xiv. de Sacranien. Poenit. can. 3. * Lutheri Op. torn. i. f. 304, 305. THE TEMPLE AND WITNESSES. 257 of that rival. " I assent to the impudent boast of the sacerdotal order, that they have separated themselves from the church of God and exercise a despotism over it ; for it is the acknowledg- ment of that which I allege, that the church of the pope is the kingdom of antichrist, which opposes, and exalts itself above God, and all that is divine, and as God seats itself in his tem- ple."i Leo X. accordingl)'-, in his bull against Luther, alleges it as one of the grounds of condemning him, that he asserted that the Roman pontiff, the successor of Peter, was not constituted the vicar of Christ over all the churches of the world.^ Melancthon, in like manner, denominates the papal kingdom the kingdom of antichrist.^ And Calvin : "Daniel and Paul fore- told that antichrist was to put himself in the temple of God. We regard the Roman pontiff as the head of that abominable king- dom."^ And such were the views of all the Reformers.^ They denounced his assumption of legislative and judicial au- thority over the church as a usurpation. " The church can have no other head than Christ." " We do not approve of the doc- trine of the Roman clergy who make their Roman pontiff the universal pastor and supreme head of the Catholic church mili- tant on earth, and thence the true vicar of Christ, having a pleni- tude of power, as they express themselves, and absolute do- minion over the church. But we teach that Christ is Lord, and is to continue the only universal pastor and high-priest in the presence of God the Father, and to fulfil all the offices of high- priest and pastor to the end of the world, and therefore needs no vicar, who is the representative only of one that is absent, but Christ is present with the church and its vivifying head."^ " Bishops have not the power of enacting any thing contrary to the gospel." " It is not lawful, for any creatures, whether angels or men, kings or bishops, to institute laws or rites that are at war with the word of God.""^ And as they thus held God to be the only religious lawgiver, so they held the Scriptures to be the only rule of faith. "The canonical Scripture — the word of God, revealed by the Holy ' Lutheri Op. torn. i. f. 513. ' Lutheri Op. torn. i. f. 478. Romanus pontifex Petri successor, non est Christi vicarius super omnes totius muiidi ccclesias ab ipso Cliristo in B. Petro institutus. V — ^ Melanctlioni Op. toin. ii. p. 451. " Cai. Inst. lib. iv. c. ii. s. 12. \ * Bellarmini de Rom. Pont. lib. iii. c. i. p. 701. * Confess. Helvet. c. xvii. '' Confess. August, de Potest. Eccl. So also the Saxon: Est igitur prima regula ; nulli creatures, non angelis, noii hominibus, non reg;ibus, non cpiscopis, licet condere leges aut ritus pugnantes cuna verbo Dei. Sax. Confess, c. xx. de Tradit. 33 258 THE TEMPLE AND WITNESSES. Spirit and communicated to the world ihrougli prophets and apostles — alone contains the whole of religion and the whole law of hfe, and its import is to be sought from itself alone, by making it its own interpreter."^ They thus, in respect to the mercy-seat, fulfilled the symbol of measuring the inner temple, by exhibiting God as alone filhng the throne of the universe, and vindicating his incommunicable prerogatives as the lawgiver of his kingdom. II. They learned from the Scriptures, and proclaimed the truths symbolized also by the inner temple, that God is the only object of worship, in contradistinction from creatures and ima- ges, to which the apostate church offered her homage. The pontiffs not only encouraged and enjoined the worship of saints and angels, but assumed the power of declaring who of the dead were saints, and constituting them objects of homage. " Canonization is nothing else than the public testimony of the church to the true sanctity and glory of one who has died, with a judgment and decree by which the honors are assigned to him that are due to those who reign happily with God. And those honors are seven. For first, they who are canonized are in- scribed in the catalogue of the saints, and it is ordered that they shall by all be publicly held and denominated saints. Next, they are to be invoked in the public prayers of the church. Thirdly, temples and altars are to be dedicated to God in mem- ory of them. Fourthly, sacrifices, as well of the eucharist, as of praises and prayers which are commonly called the service, or canonical hours, are to be publicly offered to God in their honor. Fifthly, festal days are to be celebrated in their memo- ry. Sixthly, their likenesses are to be painted and crowned with rays of light, in token of the glory to which they are exalted in heaven. And finally, their relics are to be enclosed in costly shrines, and publicly honored." " In regard to the question to whom does the pov^^er belong of canonizing the saints, it is to be noticed that a person may be canonized in two modes ; — in one particularly, so that he may be held and worshipped as a saint only in a single province or dio- cese ; — in the other generally, so that he may be held by tiic whole church to be a saint, and no one have leave to doubt of his saintship. In the first mode any bishop has the right to canonize. But Alexander III. and Innocent III., perceiving the abuses that arose from that mode of canonization, forbid that any one should thereafter be made the object of worship, except with ' Confess. Helvet c. 1, 2. THE TEMPLE AND WITNESSES. 259 the approbation of the Roman pontifF, to whom it is miiversally held the power belongs of canonizing in the second manner, so that persons shall be held as saints by the whole church.''^ The BuUarium Magnum contains, accordingly, many of the decrees by which, "after sacred hymns, litanies, and invocations of the grace of the Holy Spirit, the pontiff proceeds, in order to the honor of the most holy and indivisible Trinity, the exaltation of the Catholic faith, and the augmentation of the Christian re- ligion, by the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, and with the counsel of the cardinals, patriarchs, archbishops, and bishops of the city, to declare the subject of the canonization a saint, inscribe him in the catalogue of the saints, and enact that on the day of his death every year, the commemoration of him among the holy confessors shall be observed by the whole church with a pious homage. "^ In conformity with this legalization of the worship of saints, pictures, or images and relics, the council of Trent enjoined all bishops and other teachers to instruct the faithful to invoke the saints, honor their relics, and worship their images.^ And all who are inducted into the sacred office in that church, are re- quired to assent to the creed of Pius IV., which asserts that the saints who reign with Christ are to be worshipped and invoked, that they offer prayer to God for us, that their relics are to be venerated, and that the images of Christ, the ever virgin mother of God, and other saints, are to be kept and treated with honor and veneration.* But this worship the Reformers saw was wholly unauthorized by the Scriptures, and an open and formal idolatry. Thus Lu- ther, in his Babylonian Captivity, represents the papal doctrines respecting the homage of the saints as adverse to the worship of God, and denounces the pontiffs as mere ministers of golden calves, total strangers to the divine law, wholly unacquainted with the gospel, ignorant of the duty of pastors, and teaching nothing except their own inventions. ^ In like manner Melanc- thon : °" The invocation of the dead, as is customary m what is called the worship of the saints, is manifestly a mad idolatry." " It is a palpable abuse to conceive of the saints as auxiliaries who cure diseases, avert dangers, or fight battles, as is pretended of St. George, since they are works of which God alone is the 1 Bellarmini do Sanct. Beatit. lib. i. c. vii. viii. pp. 699-701. " BuUar. Mag. Decret. ii. Innocentii XII. torn. vi. p. 128. 8 Concil. Trident. Sess. xxv. de Invocat. * Syll. Confess, p. 5. * De Captivit. Bab. torn. ii. f. 277. " Melancth. Op. torn. iv. p. 531 260 THE TEMPLE AND WITNESSES. author. It is a heathen madness to ascribe particular offices to certain saints, or imagine that a saint hears prayers addressed to one statue rather than another.'*' " All worships are idolatrous that are instituted without a command from God. The first pre- cept is, Thou shalt have no foreign gods, which is to be under- stood not only of formal idolatry, such as the worship of statues, but of all human worships, which are necessarily idolatrous, in- asmuch as they are instituted in opposition to this command."^ " Invocation is an honor that is to be rendered to God only, the eternal Father, the Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit." " They who invoke God should offer their prayers through the Son. But the custom of invoking men who have departed from life, is to be rejected and denounced as transfer- ring to them the glory which is due only to God, ascribing to them omniscience and omnipotence, and obscuring the glory of Christ, by attributing to them his office as Mediator. We alto- gether condemn, therefore, the custom of invoking saints who have departed from this life."^ So also the Helvetian Confession : " We teach that the true God is alone to be adored and worshipped, according to the com- mand, Thou shalt adore the Lord thy God, and worship and serve him alone. We therefore do not worship nor invoke the saints in heaven, nor acknowledge them as our intercessors or mediators in the presence of the Father, for God and Christ the Mediator suffice for us."'* The sole right of God to the homage of creatures, and the idolatry of exalting the saints to the station of mediators, were principal themes, in hke manner, of the pub- lic teachings and writings of Calvin, and all the other Reform- ers.^ Thus they measured the inner temple as the symbol of the heavenly sanctuar}^ in which the Self-existent alone is en- throned as God, and has tlie rights of homage from worshippers. HI. They learned from the word of God, and proclaimed the truth symbolized by the altar, that Christ's sacrifice is the only expiation for sin, in opposition to the expiations of the apostate church by masses and penances. The Catholics held that the sacrifice of Christ is efficacious only for the sins that precede baptism, and that expiations were ' Act. Worm. op. torn. iv. p. 678. ' Ennar. in PhuI. 114, torn. ii. p. 807. Constat autcm hanc vcre esse idolatriara cum pro Deo colitur quod non est Deus, aut cum Dcus alius finfrjtur quam est. • Confess. August, c. xxi. Syll. Confes.s. p. 188. ■* Syil. Confess, pp. 23, 24. * Cal. Inst. lib. i. c. xiv. s. 12, lib. iii. c. xx. s. 20, 21, 22, 23. Sax. Confess. Syll- Confess, p. 307. Chcnuiicii Exam. Concll. Trident, pr. iii. do luvocut. Sauct. pp. 140-227. THE TEMPLE AND WITNESSES. 261 made for subsequent transgressions by the mass, and satisfactions by penances. Thus the Council of Trent : " Inasmuch as in the divine sacrifice which is offered in the mass, the same Christ is contained and is immolated without blood, who once offered himself with blood on the altar of the cross, this holy synod teach- es that that sacrifice is truly propitiatory, and that if we approach God contritely and penitently, with a true heart, a right faith, with fear and awe, we shall obtain compassion through it, and find grace opportunely for us, the Lord being propitiated by the oblation of it, and granting favor and forgiving sins even that are great ; for it is one and the same victim that is now offered by the ministry of the priests, who then offered himself on the cross. The fruits indeed of his bloody oblation are most abundantly ac- quired through this, which is without blood, so far is it from der- ogating in any manner from that ; and therefore it is to be offered not only for the sins, punishments, satisfactions, and other needs of living believers, but for the dead in Christ also who are not yet fully purified."^ ^ , i i i " If all the regenerate had such gratitude to God, that they al- ways preserved the rectitude which they receive by his grace in baptism, there would be no necessity that another sacrament be- sides that should be instituted in order to the remission of sins. But God who is rich in mercy and knows our nature, provided a remedy for those who should afterwards yield themselves to the service of sin and power of Satan, in the sacrament of penance, by which the benefit of Christ's death is applied to those who fall after baptism."^ " The Catholic church teaches and has always taught that the sacrifice of the mass is not only a propitiation for punishments, but for sins also, and for great as well as small ; and that it is the means of procuring not only spiritual benefits, but temporal also, and may, therefore, be offered for sins, for punishments, and for all other necessities."^ " A satisfaction is nothing else than an action by which he who has injured another, does as much as is sufncient to compensate for the injuiy, or as much as he who is injured justly exacts."^ " Although we acknowledge that chas- tisements inflicted by God, if borne with equanimity, are of no small service towards a satisfaction, yet the term more properly denotes labors that are voluntarily assumed or imposed by a spir- itual judge, to make compensation to God for injuries." • Concil. Trident, sess. xxii. de Sacrif. M. c. 2. "" Ibid. sess. xiv. c. 1. »BellarminidoMissa, lib. ii. c. l.tom.iii.pp. 795, 796. * Ibid, de PcEuit. lib. iv. c. 1, torn. iii. p. 10b 7. " Ibid. lib. iv. c. 12, torn. ui. p. 11 -'J. 262 THE TEMPLE AND WITNESSES. " If any one shall say that a true and proper sacrifice is not offered to God in the mass, or that the offering is nothing else than that Christ is given to be received by us by the hand, let him be accursed.'" " If any one shall say that penance in the Catholic church is not a true and proper sacrament for believers, instituted by Christ in order to their reconciliation to God as often as they fall into sin after baptism, let him be anathema."^ " If any one shall say that the satisfactions by which the pen- itent purchase release from sin through Jesus Christ, are not of divine institution, but are traditions of men that obscure the doc- trine of grace, the true worsiiip of God, and the benefit itself of Christ's death, let him be accursed."^ But these false and impious doctrines the Reformers rejected, and taugiitthat the sacrifice of Christ is the only expiation for sin. Thus Melancthon : " That sacrifice which pacified the wrath of God against the sins of men, was the price for sin, and procured reconciliation, grace, and eternal life, was the death alone of the Son of God, who offered himself to the eternal Father, and was himself the high priest of his oblation."^ " There is no sacrifice, nor ever vi^as, that could procure a remission of sins and be ap- plicable to others, except the one sacrifice of Christ, once made on the cross. The mass, therefore, the work of a priest, is not a sacrifice that can procure the pardon of sin, either to himself or others."^ In like manner Luther also : " It is a most impious abuse by which it has come to pass, that no opinion is more generally re- ceived in the church, than that the mass is a sacrifice."*" " The sufferings of Christ were the oblation and sacrifice not only for original, but also for all other sins." " This glory of Christ's sac- rifice ought not to be transferred to the work of the priest, for it is expressly said, by one oblation the saints are perfected. It is, moreover, impious to transfer to the work of the priest, the reli- ance which should be placed on the oblation and intercessions of Christ."^ " The offering of the mass for the dead is heretical and " Concil. Trid. sess. xxii. de Sacrif. MisesB. Can. 1. ' Ibid. 8688. xiv. de Poeait. Can. 1. * Ibid. can. 14. * Melancth. op. torn. iv. Act. Ratisbon, c. 7. p. 746. ° Ibid. lorn. ii. de usu Sacram. p. 190. Also, in Psal. 116, p. 833. Sax. Confess, do Remiss, ap. Syll. Confess, p. 251. * Luthcri op. loin. ii. dc Capt. Bab. fol. 264, 268, 269. Also his tract de Abrog. MisscD. torn. ii. fol. 440—168. ' Confess. August, ap. Syll. Conf. p. 194. THE TEMPLE AND WITNESSES. 263 blashemous, and the pretence that it was instituted by Christ a palpable he."^ So also Calvin : " It is an intolerable blasphemy of Christ and the sacrifice which he offered in his death for us on the cross, to repeat an oblation for the purpose of propitiating God, purchasing forgiveness, and obtaining justification."^ The Reformers rejected the doctrine likewise of satisfaction for sins by penance. " But these satisfactions have obscured the work of Christ, as the learned have imagined they were an equiv- alent for eternal death, while the unlearned have thought a re- mission of sins was purchased by them, as is usual with the wor- ships that are not commanded by God, such as vain repetitions of prayer, invocations of saints, and pilgrimages."^ Such were the teachings of the whole body of the Reformers,* and thus they verified the vision by measuring the altar, the symbol of Christ's sacrifice, the only expiation for sin. IV. They learned from the word of God, and proclaimed the truth symbolized also by the altar of incense, and by the entrance of the high priest into the inner sanctuary, that Christ is the onl)^ intercessor, in opposition to creatures, to whom the apostate church ascribes that office. The Catholics held that the saints who reign with Christ are mediators and intercessors, and are to be invoked as such. Thus Bernard represents the mother of Christ as our advocate with him. " Let us worship Mary with all our hearts, for it is his will who wishes us to be his, wholly through her. You fear to ap- proach the Father. He has given you Jesus as a mediator. But perhaps you fear the divine majesty in him, inasmuch as though he has become man, he A^et remains God. Do you wish an ad- vocate with him ? Repair to Mary, and I hesitate not to say, she will be heard. The Son will hear the mother, and the Father will hear the Son. This is my chief confidence. This is the whole ground of my hope. We seek grace, and we seek it through Mary, and what she seeks she finds, and cannot be frustrated."^ A great number of passages occur in his sermons on the Virgin in which he exhibits her as a mediator, and ascribes to her all the offices of Christ as an advocate and intercessor. The following is a prayer addressed to her by one of the popes, ' Lutheri. disp. cont. Lovan. torn. i. f. 538. " Cal. lust. lib. iv. c. 18, s. 14. ^ Confess. August, ap. Syll. Conf. p. 200. * Cal. Inst. lib. iii. c. 4. s. 25. Chemnicii Exam. Concil. Trid. pr. iii. p. 88, pr. iv. pp. 55-7G. * Beruardi in Nativ. Mar. torn. i. pp. 1014, 1015. 264 THE TEMPLE AND WITNESSES. who promised ihrcc liundred days indulgence to whoever daily repeated it to her honor. " 0 most clement queen and sweet vir- gin, holy Mary mother of God, mother of orphans, solace of the desolate, way of the erring, safety and hope of those who trust in thee, fountain of life and favor, fountain of health and grace, foun- tain of piety and indulgence, fountain of consolation and joy, grant me true and becoming tears of lamentation for my sins, and give me truly to know, frequently by thy aid to begin, persever- ingly to pursue, and happily to finish whatever thy Son requires of me. O, flower of virgins, queen of heaven, I heartily implore that with all the saints and chosen of God thou wouldst hasten to my counsel, and aid in all my prayers, trials, and necessities. 0 star of the sea, port of safety, holy guide of the shipwrecked, sweet patron of the miserable, most learned advocate of the guil- ty, the only hope of the despairing, august saviour of sinners, in my last day irradiate me I pray tlicc with the splendor of thy countenance ; be tliou the herald, sacred and pious nurse, of the day and hour of my death. Grant thou a harbor to the shipwreck- ed, interpose for the culprit, give solace to the wretched. Be thou my hope that I may not sink in despair in the agony of death, as there can then be no other hope than thee, virgin parent and daughter of the Fatiier, to whom do thou reconcile me. 0, inexhaustible fountain of compassion and favor, compassion and favor itself, repelling no one, most benignant auditor, graciously hear and receive this prayer, and grant me eternal life. Listen and hear me, most benignant virgin, mother of God and of mer- cy."^ Very similar prayers addressed to a vast crowd of saints, may be seen in the Roman Breviaries. And the saints were regarded by Catholics universally as necessaiy and efficacious intercessors with God.^ But the ascription thus of this office of Christ to creatures, was regarded by the Reformers as impious in the utmost degree, and rejected and denounced. Thus in the Augsburg Confession : " God has proposed to us his son Jesus Christ as the mediator and high priest interceding for us, and assured us that it is for his sake alone that wc are to be heard and accepted."^ The Helve- tic Confession, also : " We teach that God alone is to be adored and worshipped." " We invoke him alone in all the necessities and conditions of life, and through the intervention of the only mediator and intercessor, our Lord Jesus Christ." "The saints ' Chemiiicii Exam. Concil. Trid. pr. iii. p. 156. ' Belianuini do Missa, lib. ii. c. 8, toui. iii. ' Syll. Confess, p. 188. THE TEMPLE AND WITNESSES. 265 in heaven we neither adore, invoke, nor acknowledge as media- tors or intercessors with God."^ So hkewise the Saxon : " We condemn it as a heathenish debasement that the custom is main- tained of addressing those who have departed from hfc, and in- voking aid from them. Such an invocation is an apostasy from God, and an ascription of efficacious assistance and intercession to creatures." " To ascribe omnipotence to creatures is an im- piety. The invocation of a creature who has departed from this life is an ascription to him of omnipotence, for it implies that he sees the hearts of all, and distinguishes true from false regrets. But that is to be ascribed only to the eternal Father, to his Son our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the Holy Spirit. No invocation, therefore, should be addressed to the dead."^ In like manner, Calvin, Chemnitz, and the whole body of the Reformers.^ They thus verified the prophecy by measuring the altar of incense and the inner sanctuary, the symbols of Christ's sole mediation and intercession in the presence of God in the heavenly temple. V. They learned from the Scriptures, and proclaimed the truth symbolized by the cherubim in the inner sanctuary, that the re- deemed at death pass immediately to heaven, and are accepted and exalted to stations in the presence of Christ, in opposition to the Catholic doctrine of purgatory. The papists hold that " purgatory is a place in which as in a prison, souls that are not fully cleansed here, are purified after this life, in order that they may enter heaven, where nothing is admitted that is defiled."^ The council of Florence decreed that if true penitents departed from life in the love of God l)efore tliey had made the requisite satisfaction by penance for their sins and omissions, their souls were purified by purgatorial punishments after death ; and that in order to their release from those punish- ments, the suffrages of believers are serviceable, such as the sacrifice of the mass, prayers, alms, and other works of piety which the faithful are accustomed to perform for other believers according to the appointments of the church ; that the souls of those who after the reception of baptism had not contracted any spot of sin, and those also who after having incurred the stain of sin are purified either while in the body, or after their release from it, are immediately received into heaven, and clearly behold God as he is ; one more perfectly, however, than another, ac- ' Syll. Confess, pp. 23, 24. = Ibid. 307, 308. ' Cal. Inst. lib. iii. c. xx. s. 20-27. Chemnicii Exam. Concil. Trident, pr. iii. pp. 140- 227 Bellarmiai Disp. torn. ii. de Sanct. Beat. lib. i. c. xv. p. 71 G. * Bellarmiai de Purgat. lib. i. c. 1, p. 561. 34 266 THE TEMPLE AND WITNESSES. cording to the diversity of their merits ; but that the souls of those who die, either in actual, mortal, or original sin only, im- mediately descend to hell, to be punished, however, in different degrees.' The council of Trent also : " Since the Catholic church, in- structed by the Holy Spirit through the Scriptures, and the an- cient tradition of the fathers, has taught by the holy councils, and recently by this general synod, that there is a purgatory, and that souls detained there are aided by the suffrages of the faithful, and especially by the acceptable sacrifice of the altar ; this holy synod commands the bishops to endeavor diligently that the sound doctrine received from the holy fathers and sacred councils re- specting purgatory, be everywhere taught, received, and held by believers."^ It was accordingly everywhere taught and received. Masses and prayers were offered for the dead, for which the priest ex- acted payment, and the doctrine thence made the means of a vast system of extortion. But the fiction was rejected and exposed by the Reformers. Thus Melancthon : " The souls of the just do not go to tortures, but to spiritual joy and peace."^ " Let the doctrine be held which was taught by prophets and apostles, who point out only two ways to the dead ; for they assert that they who are convert- ed to God are assuredly heirs of eternal salvation ; and that they who are not converted are as certainly cast into eternal punish- ment."* Luther for a short period retained his belief in purga- tory, as is seen in his Leipsic disputation, and his assertion of the articles ascribed to him in the bull of Leo X. f where, how- ever, he admits that it could not be proved from the Scriptures. He soon, however, rejected it. " I fully approve of your denial of purgatory, and condemnation of masses, vigils, and whatever else is founded on that imposture."^ It was rejected also by all the other Reformers. Thus the Helvetic Confession : " We liold that believers pass immediately from death to Christ, and have no need of the suffrages of the living, prayers, or any other offices for the dead. We hold, on the other hand, that the unbe- lieving are immediately precipitated into hell, from which no exit ' Labbei Concil. torn. xxxi. p. 1031. ' Concil. Trident, scss. .xxv. de Purgat. " Melancth. de Eccle.s. Op. torn. ii. p. 143. * Melanctli. Kespon.s. ad Artie. Bavar. torn. i. f. 378. * Lutheri Op. torn. i. f. 25fi, torn. ii. f. 313. * Lutheri Lib. ad Waldenscs, ap. Beliarminum, de Purgat. lib. i. c 2. THE TEMPLE AND WITNESSES. 267 is procured by these impious offices."^ So also Calvin, Chem- nitz, and others.^ They tiius verified the vision by measuring the cherubim of the inner sanctuary, the symbols of the redeemed, who at death pass immediately into the presence of Christ in the heavenly temple. VI. They learned from the sacred word, and proclaimed the truth symbolized by the priests and Levites, that they are legiti- mate offerers of the worship which God enjoins, who are publicly set apart to that office according to the directions given in the New Testament, and who fulfil the duties of the ministry as they are enjoined by the Spirit of inspiration, by preaching the gospel in its purity, and offering the homage to God through Christ which is due to him, in opposition to the arrogations of the apostate church, that none have authority to exercise the min- istry unless invested by the pope, or an order of bishops, who are unknown to the New Testament. It is the doctrine of papists that bishops alone have power to ordain to sacred offices, and that ordinations by them alone con- fer authority to preach the gospel and administer the sacraments. " This holy synod declares that besides other ecclesiastical grades, bishops who succeeded to the apostles belong to the hierarchical order, and were appointed by the Holy Spirit to rule the church of God ; that they are superior to presbyters, and have power to bestow the sacrament of confirmation, to ordain the ministers of the church, and perform many other things for which the in- ferior ranks have no power. "'* " If any one shall say that bishops are not superior to presby- ters, or have not the power of confirming and ordaining, or that the power which they have is common to them with presbyters, or that ordinations conferred by them without the call or consent of the people or secular authority are invalid, or that they who are not rigiitly ordained, nor sent by ecclesiastical and canonical power, but enter another way, are legitimate ministers of the word and sacraments, let him be accursed."'* And such had been the pretences of the hierarchies from the period of their nation- alization in the fourth century. But these arrogant claims were rejected by the Reformers. Luther, in his tract respecting the power of the Roman pontiflf, not only denied the supremacy of the pope, his superiority to ' Syll. Confess, p. 95. ' Cal. Inst. lib. iii. c. v. s. 6. Chemnicii Exam. Concil. Trident, pr. iii. pp. 88-140. ' Conoil. Trident, sess. xxiii. de Sac. Ord. c. iv. * Concil. Trident, sess. xxiii. de Sac. Ord. can. vii. 268 THE TEMPLE AND WITNESSES. Other bishops, and the superiority of one bishop to another, but denounced the whole fabric of episcopacy as the mere work of men ; and asserted that by the institution of Christ bishops and presbyters are equal. " It is the common opinion of the whole church, and is demonstrable from the letters of Cyprian, that every priest in a case of death or necessity, is a bishop and a pope, having the utmost plenitude of power in respect to the per- son making confession. The consequence follows therefore in- fallibly that a pope is not superior to bishops by divine right, nor a bishop to presbyters, inasmuch as a divine right is immutable as well in life as at death. "^ He held that all believers are priests, and that all the authority which they who are ordained, and exercise the ministry possess above other believers, is con- ferred by the church, and is merely of ecclesiastical, not of divine right. " What if they should be forced to admit that all of us who have been baptized are priests, as we truly are ; and although the ministry is by our consent committed to them alone, they should at the same time know, that they have no right of empire over us, except so far as we voluntarily allow it. For thus Pe- ter, ' Ye are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a sacerdotal king- dom.' Wherefore all of us who are Christians are priests ; and those whom we call priests are mere ministers chosen by us, who do all things in our name. And there is no other priesthood than a ministry. Thus Paul : ' Let a man esteem us as minis- ters of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God ;' from which it follows that if one who is called to this office by the church, does not preach the word, he is not a priest ; and that the sacra- ment of ordination is nothing else than a particular mode of electing a preacher."^ Mclancthon likewise, while willing that episcopacy should be continued, yet held that it was merely of human, not of divine institution, denied the necessity of the confirmation of prelates by the pope, and asserted the legitimacy of ordination by presby- ters. " The ordination of ministers of the gospel in our church, is legitimate according to Paul's direction to Titus to constitute presbyters in every city." " I know tlie adherents of the pon- tiff declaim fiercely that a consecration cannot be made by those who are not ordained by bishops, and that they are not bishops who are not confirmed by the Roman pontiff. But this papisti- cal folly is refuted by the example of the oriental churches,"^ » Liitheri tic Potest. Rom. Pont. torn. i. f. .319. " LiUhcri do Cuptiv. Bub. torn. ii. ff. 282, 283. ' Melaiicth. Rcspous. ad Bavar. Op. torn. i. f. 3G6, 3G7. Apol. Confess, f. 95 THE TEMPLE A.ND WITNESSES. 269 Theyhel^to the necessity of ordination. "We hold in re- spect to ecclesiastical ordinations, that no one should publicly teach in the church, or administer the sacraments^ unless regu- larly called."^ In like manner the churches of Switzerland : " One and the same power or office is given to all ministers in the church. It is certain that at the beginning bishops or pres- byters governed the church by a common care. No one exalted himself over another, or usurped superiority or dominion over fellow-bishops."^ So also the Belgic : " We believe that the church should be ruled by that polity which God has himself in- stituted in his word, namely, that it should have ministers who should preach and administer the sacraments ; that its senate should consist of presbyters and deacons ; and that they should be called to their office by a legitimate election by the church."^ So also Calvin : "In denominating those who rule the church, bishops, presbyters, pastors, and ministers will\out discrimina- tion, I have follov/ed the usage of the Scriptures, for they give the title of bishops to whoever exercised the ministry of the word."* And such were the views universally of the Reformers of the sixteenth century. Their rejection alike of the claims of the pope to supremacy over all churches, and of bishops to su- periority to presbyters, and sole right to induct into the sacred office, was as universal and conspicuous, as their rejection of the mass, indulgences, purgatory, or the celibacy of the clergy. They held that they were true and legitim'ate ministers, who, having been chosen by the churches, and inducted into the office by presbyters, preached the gospel in its purity. They who re- tained episcopacy, retained it as a human institution, not as of divine appointment.^ They thus fulfilled the vision by measuring the priests and Le- vites of the outer sanctuary, the symbols of the legitimate teach- ers and offerers of acceptable worship in the church under the gospel. VII. They learned from the Scriptures and taught the truths symbolized by the outer sanctuary, that any place is appropriate for the offering of acceptable homage, from which the offerers of ' Confess. August, ap Syll. Conf. p. 127. " Syll. Confess, p. 71. ' Syll. Confess, xxx. xxxi. p. 347. * Cal. Inst. lib. iv. c. 3, s. 8-16. ■* See Stillingfleet's Irenicum, chap, viii., in which numerous proofs of this fact are alleged from the Reformers and later divines of England and the continent. It was not till seventy years from the commencement of the Reformation that the doctrine of the divine right of episcopacy began to be advanced by Protestants. p. 394. Neal's Hist, of the Puritans, vol. i. pp. 480, 481. 270 THE TEMPLE AND WITNESSlTS. worship and the worshippers look up to the heavenly sanctuary, and address tiieir adoration and prayers to God through Christ, in opposition to tiie doctrine of the apostate church, that the only legitimate places of worship are edilices that are consecrated by superstitious rites, made the depositories of relics, and furnished with altars, shrines of martyrs, and the images of saints. The Cathohc canons require that even the grounds on which churches are erected should be devoted to God, in order that the edifices may be appropriated to his service. " That no church should be consecrated, nor sacrifice offered of the mass, except in places dedicated to God, unless in cases of the utmost neces- sity, is known to all who are aware of the commands of the Old and New Testament."^ It was claimed that no edifices for wor- ship should be erected without permission from the pope. "We are informed that some have ventured to erect basilicas and ora- tories without permission of the apostolic see."^ It was held that no church newly erected should be dedicated without the authority of the supreme pontiff,^ and no one could build a church until the bishop of the diocese had marked out and consecrated the site by superstitious rites. " Let no one erect a church till the bishop of the city come and set up a cross on the site, and mark out the court ; nor until he who desires to erect it have shown that he has appropriated sufficient means for the lights, care, and wages of the keepers of such a building. And after he has consecrated it, let him sprinkle the court with holy water."^ " No presbyter may erect another altar in a conse- crated church unless it be dedicated or permitted by the bishop of the place, that there may be a discrimination between what is sacred and what is not."^ Churches were not to be consecrated without a deposite in them of relics. " We decree that a deposite of the relics of holy martyrs be made with the customary prayers in all churches that have been consecrated without them ; and should a bishop here- after consecrate a church without holy relics, let him be deposed as a transgi'cssor of the ecclesiastical traditions."^ Images and pictures were required to be placed in all churches. " Tiic image of Christ, of the virgin mother of God, and of other saints, are to be placed and preserved in the temples especially, and honored with due veneration."^ ' Gr.itiani Decret. de Consecrat. Dist. i. c. i. ' Ibid. Dist. i.. c. iv. " Ibid. Dist. i. c. v. " Ibid. Dist. i. c. i.\. ' Ibid. Dist. i. c. x.w. • Coiicil. Nicceni, ii. can. vii. ; Labbci torn. xiii. p. 751. Van Esjjcn, pr. ii. tit. xvi. c. iii. do Consecrat. Eccl. ' Concil. Trident, boss. x.w. do Sac. Imag. THE TEMPLE AND WITNESSES. 271 No church could be consecrated without the sacrifice of the mass. " All basilicas should be consecrated with the mass."* The mass was not to be offered in any except a consecrated place. " The solemnities of the mass are to be celebrated, not anywhere, but only in places consecrated by the bishop, or where he permits."^ So also the capitulary of Charlemagne in the year SOI. " Let no priest venture to celebrate mass in any other house or place than dedicated churches."^ But all these superstitions and idolatries were rejected by the Reformers. Images, pictures, and relics, were removed from the churches. Edifices were erected for public worship only because of their convenience, not that they are requisite to an acceptable homage ; and the doctrine of the Scriptures taught and held that God is ever present with his people when they assemble for his worship, whether in temples, in private dwell- ings, or the open fields ; and hears the accents of adoration and love from whatever station they are breathed, cottage or palace, the dungeon where his martyrs are chained, the deep glens and caverns of the mountains to which his witnesses have fled from their persecutors, or the towering structures which have been set apart for his homage, and in which his worshippers are as- sembled. " The Lutherans and Calvinists allow temples, but only for public teaching and the administration of the sacraments. They disapprove of their erection as mere oratories and in honor of saints, and of their being consecrated with peculiar rites, and decorated with expensive ornaments."^ " As believers are required to offer public prayer, temples are requisite for that purpose, nor is that, as some who would avoid worshipping with God's people pretend, inconsistent with the direction to enter into our closets. For in promising that he will do whatever two or three who are gathered together in his name shall ask, God shows that he is not averse from open and united prayer ; only let ostentation and endeavors after vain-glory be avoided, and the affection be sincere. But if that be the legiti- mate use of temples, as it certainly is, care is again to be taken that we do not regard them as they were held in some ages, as the peculiar habitation of God, in which he listens to us most readily, or ascribe to them a secret and incomprehensible sanc- tity tliat renders prayer more holy."^ ' Gratiani Decret. de Consecrat. Dist. i. c. iii. " Ibid. Dist. i. c. xii. c. xv. ^ Capit. Reg. Franc, anno 801, can. ix. — anno 769, can. xiv. Tom. i. pp. 359, 192. * Bellarmini de Cultu Sanct. lib. iii. c. 1. ' Cal. Inst. lib. iii. c. 20, s. 30. 272 THE TEMPLE A.ND WITNESSES. They thus measured the outer sanctuary, as the symbol of the places in which acceptable worship is offered by the church under the gospel. VIII. And finally, they complied with the direction to reject the court which was without, and measure it not, by representing the votaries of the apostate hierarchy as members of a false, not of a true church, and yet not assuming but that there were indi- viduals in that communion who were true worshippers of God. Thus Calvin : " It will clearly appear what place we are to assign to those churches which are under the tyranny of the Ro- man idol, if we compare them with the ancient Israelitish church, as it is described by the prophets, A true church subsisted among the Jews as long as they adhered to the laws of the cove- nant; that is, as they retained through the favor of God those things by which a church consists. They had the true doctrine, in the law and its ministry by priests and prophets. They were initiated by circumcision, and disciplined by other sacraments to the confirmation of faith ; and there is no doubt but that the benedictions which God pronounces on the church were appli- cable to their society. But after having turned from the law of the Lord, and degenerated to superstition and idolatry, they lost in a degree that prerogative. For who on the one hand will ven- ture to deny the title of the church to those among whom God establishes the preaching of his Avord and the observation of the sacraments ; or who on the other will dare to denominate that assembly, without any limitation, a church, in which the word of God is openly and with impunity trodden under foot, and its ministiy, the chief nerve and soul as it were of the church, ex- tinguished ? As then some peculiar prerogatives of the church remained among the Jews, so we would not deny to the papal such traces of the church as God pleases should survive among them. He having once established his covenant with the Jews, it continued to subsist by its own strength, not by their preserv- ing it. His faithfulness was not annihilated by their perfidy, nor circumcision so polluted by their impious hands, but that it was still a sign and seal of the covenant ; whence he denominated the children that were born to them his, although they were not such except of special grace. So when he had established his covenant in Gaul, Italy, Germany, Spain, England, in order that it might continue inviolable wiiile tiiose provinces were oppressed by the tyranny of antichrist, he first preserved baptism there, the witness of the covenant, which being consecrated by his own lips, retained its force notwithstanding man's impiety : and THE TEMPLE AND WITNESSES. 273 next, he also preserved there a remnant that the church might not absolutely expire." " While then we are not willing to concede the title of a church to the papists without a limitation, we yet do not deny that there are churches among them, but contend only in respect to the true and legitimate constitution of a church, which is required in order to a communion of sacraments, and in a still higher degree of doctrine. The prophets predicted that antichrist was to seat himseff in the temple of God. We regard the Roman pontiff as the head of that abominable kingdom. That his seat was to be placed in the temple of God, implies that his kingdom was to be such as still to retain the name of Christ and the church ; and hence it appears we are not to deny that churches still remain under his tyranny, although he has profaned them with a sacrilegious impiety, afflicted them with a savage domination, and corrupted and almost exterminated them by deadly doctrines and poisonous potions ; and Christ lies half sepulchred in them, the gospel is buried, piety driven away, and the worship of God almost abolished."^ And similar views were entertained by Luther, Melancthon, and the Reformers gener- ally.^ They thus cast out the outer court as occupied generally by apostates, and yet did not attempt to determine but that some of those who were in it, were true worshippers. The prophecy had thus in all these relations the most conspic- uous fulfilment. The great and peculiar truths of the Scrip- tures which were proclaimed by the Reformers, are precisely those symbolized by the temple, the altar, and the offerers of worship ; while the great errors and idolatries of the apostate church which they rejected, are precisely the opposite of those truths which the false prophet had substituted in their place. The prediction respecting the treading of the holy city by the Gentiles during twelve hundred and sixty days, and the prophecy of the witnesses in sackcloth, have also had a conspicuous fulfil- ment. That period commenced at the close of the sixth or beginning of the seventh century, on the conversion of the Gothic princes and nations to the faith of the Catholic church. The Greek and Latin communions had in that age openly apostatized from God, ascribing his rights as lawgiver to men, and paying the worship due only to him, to creatures, to relics, to images, and to imagi- nary existences ; and they have continued and advanced in that • Cal. Inst. lib. iv. c. ii. s. 7, 11, 12. * Confess. August, art. viii. op. Melancth. torn. i. f. 29. Apol. Confess, de EccL torn. i. f. 79, 80. 35 274 THE TKMPLE AND WITNESSES. apostasy through all the ages that have followed. On the other hand, at every period of that long night of idolatry and persecu- tion, God raised up a few witnesses both teachers and recipients of their doctrine, who proclaimed and vindicated the truth in op- position to those errors, and denounced the judgments which God has threatened to inflict on the idolatrous church and perse- cuting civil rulers. Such conspicuously were many of the Pau- licians, the Alhigenses, the Waldenses, the Wickhfites, the Lollards, the Bohemians ; and such have been vast numbers of Protestants of the last three hundred years. The symbolization of the olive trees and the lamps was veri- fied in them. They were dissentients from the nationalized Greek and Latin churches, held separate assemblies, had teach- ers of their own appointment, and offered a peculiar worship. Thev fulfilled their oflUce also in sackcloth, under a profound sense of the rights of God, in humiliation for their sins, and in grief at the dishonor of his name by apostates. They were perse- cuted in every age, from the seventh to the nineteenth century. And their great and peculiar teachings were in vindication of the rights of God, in assertion of the work of Christ as sole Re- deemer and intercessor, and in denunciation of the idolatrous homage of relics, saints, and images, and the false doctrines of the apostate church respecting the priesthood, the sacraments, celi- bacy, fasting, and purgatory. That there were persons at the period of the conversion of the ten kingdoms, who testified against the worship of images as idolatrous, is apparent from the letters of Gregory the Great, in 599 and 601 . On hearing that Serenus, the bishop of Marseilles, had broken those in his church, because he saw they were made objects of adoration, he wrote to him disapproving of their de- struction, and recommending that they should be used as pictures were in the churches, for the instruction of such as were unable to read the histories of the saints. But the counsel was deemed so unevangelical by Serenus, that he doubted the genuineness of the letter, and wrote to Gregory to learn if he were its author.' That there were many, both in the eastern and western em- pire in the eighth century, who rejected the worship of images, is manifest from the council of Constantinople in 754, in wiiich it was denounced as idolatrous -^ and from the protestation of Charlemagne and the prelates of France against the legalization ' Gregorii M. Epist. 105, lib. ix. Ind. ii. ; Ep. 13, lib. xj. Ind. vf. * Labbei Concil. torn. .\iii. p. 3i23. THE TEMPLE AND WITNESSES. 275 of their worship by the second council of Nicaea in 787.^ Nei- ther of those bodies, however, can be considered as among the witnesses denoted by the text, as notwithstanding their disappro- bation of images, they were addicted to the veneration of relics, and the invocation of saints, and arrogated to themselves the right of legislation over the church, and justified it in their predeces- sors. They render it credible nevertheless that there were per- sons who rejected the whole system of false doctrines and idola- trous rites of the age, the error and impiety of which were as apparent as of the adoration of images. And of the existence of such from the seventh century through all the ages that fol- lowed, there are adequate proofs. There arose in Armenia about the middle of the seventh cen- tury, a body of Christians denominated Paulicians, who, with- drawing from the nationalized church, rejected the usurpations, false doctrines, and idolatries of the hierarchies, and continued, to utter a testimony to the truth for two centuries in the east, and subsequently in Bulgaria, Illyria, Bohemia, Italy, and France, to the dawn of the Reformation. I. They regarded God as the sole lawgiver of the church,- held the New Testament in the highest estimation, and made it the rule of their faith, taught that it was to be studied by the people as well as by the ministers of the church, and accused the priests of the Greek communion of the grossest violation of the divine will, in withholding it from the laity. " They receive the words of the Lord, of the apostles also, and the other writings, I mean the Acts of the Apostles and the Catholic epistles, except those ascribed to Peter ; for they do not receive them literally." " Even the Acts of the Apostles and the Catholic epistles are reckoned with the gospels by a part of them only, not by all."^ " Therefore this new sprout from those old seeds, neither ap- proves nor regards the writings of the Manichean teachers, but deceitfully pretends to hold to those only in which the words of the Lord are written, and the epistles of the great apostle Paul, and by some the Acts of the Apostles, and the Catholic epistles, except those of Peter, and they affect to appropriate them to themselves, that they may easily deceive the unlearned."^ " The Paulician woman, when she first conversed with Ser- gius, asked him. Why do you not read the gospels ? And he, the ' Dupin, N. Biblioth. in Charlemagne, vol. vi. pp. 134-138. « Photii contra Mauich. lib. i. c. 8, ap. J. C. Wolfii Anecdot. Grsc. pp. 27, 28. ' Photii contra Mauich. lib. i. pp. 56, 57. 276 THE TEMPLE AND WITNESSES. apostasy not having yet pervaded his heart, repHed, ' A laic is not allowed freely to read the sacred oracles, for that work is as- signed to the priests.' The infuriate woman retorted — ' It is ir- rational to cherish such a scrupulousness in regard to them ; for there is no respect of persons with God. He wishes all to come to the knowledge of the truth and be saved. But that you are to regard the divine word with such awe, is not from a care for its honor. Instead, it is the artifice of your priests, who, desiring to make a traffic of it, wish to keep you ignorant of its myste- ries. It is for that reason that they restrain you from reading it, and only allow you to become hearers when they have separated that which they are to read from its connection and torn it to pieces.' "* II. They rejected the Greek hierarchy of bishops, and their usurped right of legislation over the church. They had but two orders of ministers, and never attempted to enforce the reception of their doctrines by mere human authority. " They do not re- ceive the presbyters of the Catholic church, nor the other priests, because they say the priests and presbyters of the people consti- tuted the council against Christ. On the contrary, they denom- inate those who hold the place of priests among them, not priests, but companions in travel, and notaries. Those orders, however, exhibit nothing different from the multitude in dress, diet, or any thing else that is a mark of dignity."^ They held no councils ; their clergy enacted no decrees or canons ; they appealed to no authority but the word of God for their doctrines ; and are rep- resented as having in all instances, when arraigned by their per- secutors, offered that as the reason of their faith. III. They rejected the worship of the cross. " Then followed another question. Why do you not worship and embrace the cross of Christ ? The Paulician again subjected him who does not worship the living cross to a curse, by the cross, meaning Christ himself, who formed, he said, the figure of the cross by the ex- tension of his arms."^ " The gospels which we have, they do not hesitate to venerate, not indeed where the figure of the cross is delineated, but on the other parts of the volume where no im- age of the cross is drawn, and they reverence the book, they say, because it contains tiie words of the Lord."* " But the literal cross, which they say was wood, the implement of injustice, and the subject of a curse, they hold ought not to be worshipped and kissed."" • Photii contra Manich. lib. i. pp. 100-102. ' Ibid. lib. i. pp. 31, 32. » Ibid. lib. i. p. 79. * Ibid. lib. i. pp. 32, 33. * Ibid. lib. i. p. 23. THE TEMPLE AND WITNESSES. 277 IV. They rejected in like manner the worship of saints. " In addition to these questions he asked, Why do you not honor the holy mother of God with due homage and worship ? And he, continuing his manner, denounced an anathema against those who do not venerate the holy mother of God, adding that he em- braced and venerated that into which our Lord Jesus Christ en- tered, and from which he came, the New Jerusalem, the mother of us all."^ "And blaspheming our most holy queen the mother of God, these men worthy not once, but thrice of destruction, do not fear to say what is neither fit to be written, nor heard : we believe in the most holy mother of God into which the Lord en- tered, meaning the New Jerusalem, and saying into that Christ our forerunner has entered for us."^ V. They rejected the doctrine of the age respecting the eu- charist, which represented it as the real body and blood of Christ, ascribed to it a sanctifying power, and taught that its reception was necessary at death in order to absolution. " A fourth ques- tion was proposed to him : ' Why do you insult and contemn the spotless and fearful body and blood of Christ our God, and not endure to partake of them V And the thrice wicked again struck with an anathema him who treats with dishonor the body and blood of Christ, and lives without partaking them — understanding by the body and blood, not what our Lord has taught us to call the body and blood, but instead the Lord's words" — that is un- doubtedly, not the bread and wine, but that vsrhich the Lord em- ployed them to represent.^ Photius, indeed, asserts that they did not partake the bread and wine, but it is obviously a misrepresentation, as he alleges in the same passage that they affirmed they received the body and blood, ascribing a wonderful or spiritual meaning to Christ's words. Take ye, eat ; which is the manner in which they would have expressed themselves, had they contemplated the elements simply as the representatives of his body and blood, and regarded themselves as receiving him in those symbols only in a spiritual sense, not literally, as was held by the Greeks. He accordingly affirms, on a subsequent page, that many of them partook of the eucharist with the Greeks, though he asserts it was merely to deceive the simple.^ He accuses them also of rejecting baptism, and yet admits that by the rejection which he ascribes to them, he means only that they assigned to the rite an office or import different from that ' Photii contra Manich. lib. i. pp. 79, 80. ' Ibid. lib. i. pp. 20, 21. » Ibid. lib. i, pp. 80, 81. * Ibid. lib. i. p. 30. 278 THE TEMPLE AND WITNESSES. ascribed to it by the Greek church, which held it to be accom- panied by the renovating influences of the Spirit, and to secure the forgiveness of all antecedent sins. He allows that they bap- tized, but denied that the rite or the sign of the cross was eflUca- cious to the purification of the soul.^ To this view of their doctrines and character, it is objected that Pholius also represents them as holding the Manichean dogma of two principles. But that is most obviously a false accusation, as he as well as his cotemporary Petrus Siculus, who also assailed them with that charge, admits that they never open- ly taught or avowed Manicheism, that they pronounced the im- putation of that impious system to them wholly unjust, that they specifically disowned and rejected all the works and all the doc- trines of Manes ; and that they received the New Testament as the word of God, and made it the sole rule of their faith; — ac- knowledgments wholly inconsistent with that charge. The Manicheans never professed to found their dogmas on the New Testament. Such a pretence had been preposterous in the ex- treme, as they are directly opposed to all the great doctrines of the gospel. Instead, they openly rejected the Scriptures both of the Old and New Testament, and substituted forged gospels and other supposititious writings in their place, as the oracles of their system. As that imputation by his own representation can- not have been founded on any express avowal by tliem of Mani- cheism, it must either have been built like the false charge that they rejected the eucharist and baptism, on a mere perversion of the language in which they expressed some truth, or been the work of sheer and malignant misrepresentation. That a specific and formal profession of a truth, and in the language of the Scriptures and of the church, was no obstacle to his accusing them of rejecting it, is apparent from his charging them with a rejection of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit by the as- cription of an impious meaning to the terms, although he allows that they acknowledged the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and anathematized those wiio denied them.^ On the principle on which he proceeds in that imputation, it would be impossible for a witness for God ever to vindicate himself from the most gra- tuitous and atrocious calumny. Of what significance is an ingen- uous and faithful profession of the truth, — of what avail are inno- cence, faith, and fidelity to God, if the accuser is at hberty, without a particle of evidence, and against the most resistless demonsira- ' Photii contra Manich. lib. i. pp. 29, 30. ' Ibid. lib. i. pp. 18, 19. THE TEMPLE AND WITNESSES. 279 tion, to assume that the accused use tlie language of truth in a false and impious «ense ? When the traducers and persecutors of the children of God find themselves obliged to resort to such pretences to justify themselves, it indicates that they are without any legitimate grounds of accusation, and bespeaks a majestic innocence and dignity in the objects of their malice. But by his own admission the Paulicians gave the most deci- sive and stupendous proofs of their sincerity in the profession of the gospel, and rejection of the impious system ascribed to them. He acknowledges that the effort was made to extort from them an avowal of Manicheism, by the threat and the infliction of con- fiscation, imprisonment, exile, torture, and death, and yet, with scarce an exception, without success. They inflexibly main- tained their profession of the truth, when stretched upon the gib- bet, when chained to the stake, when precipitated into the waves, when subjected to every species of outrage and promiscuously slaughtered by a ferocious soldiery, and when driven from their burning villages and cities to the forests and mountains to perish of hunger and cold. That the experiment was made on a vast scale he admits, and is apparent from the long period through which they were persecuted, and the multitudes that were put to death. ^ What more decisive and stupendous proofs could they possibly have given of their sincerity ? The very endeavor to force them by those terrible inflictions to acknowledge themselves Manicheans, demonstrates that no public evidences existed that they were such. It is from the suspected and accused only, not the openly and indisputably guilty, that men attempt to extort confessions by the scourge and the rack. And finally, Photius refutes his pretence that they concealed their Manicheism, in order to escape the punishments which the laws denounced against the disciples of that system, by relating that they were still put to death, and in vast crowds, and almost without exception, through one hundred and fifty years, notwith- standing their uniform disavowal of the doctrines of Manes. As the denial yielded them no exemption, and was found to yield ' Theodora attempted in 845 either to convert or to exterminate them, and her generals undertook to accomplish her wishes by the cross, the sword, and the wa- ters. One hundred thousand were sacrificed in those forms in a single campaign. " Porro Theodora ut refert Porphyrogenneta, Paulicianos quoque per Orientem conatur ad veram transferre fidem, sin minus extirpare, ac de medio tollere : qua3 res ingentibus malis Romanum orbem implevit. Mittet itaque in earn rem proce- rum quosdam ac magistratuum. Erant ilh Algiri Ducisque filii et Sudales. Hi ahos in crucem agebant, alios gladio caedebant, alios marl profundo mergebant. Sublati ad centum millia ejusce generis suppliciis ; pubhcata substantia ac fisco illata. Pagi Crit. in Bar. anno 845, no. iv. 280 THE TEMPLE AND WITNESSES. ihem none by so vast a trial, it is absurd to ascribe their persist- ing in it, to a hope thereby of escaping torture^and death. As they had only to abandon their own sect and join the Greek church to escape destruction, as is seen from his own narrative, if they had chosen to consult their safety by falsehood, they would most surely have selected that course, which was a compliance with the laws of their persecutors, not a violation of them, and was at- tended with security and rewards, not dishonor and punishment. Their persistence in the profession of the gospel, and rejection alike of Manicheism and the superstitions and idolatries of the na- tionalized church, are explicable, therefore, on no other supposi- tion, than that they were ingenuous and faithful witnesses of Christ. But why, if they were not Manicheans, were they thus accused by prelates and princes of holding that infamous system, and put to death on that ground in vast multitudes through a long suc- cession of ages ? The answer is at once a sublime vindication of their innocence, and a stupendous proof of the ruthless false- hood and malignity of their persecutors. It was because by the laws of the empire, to hold the doctrines of Manes was a capital offence, and was punished by infamy, confiscation, exile, and death .^ They were falsely accused, because no just ground ex- isted of accusation against them. They were accused of Man- icheism, because that was in every relation the most infamous of heresies, had been capitally punished from the days of Theo- dosius, swept their goods into the treasury, intercepted them from spreading their doctrines, gratified the pride, tyranny, and malice of the prelates whose power was endangered by their teachings, and was adapted to deter others from following their example. That such was the real and sole reason of the impu- tation, is manifest from the whole history of the persecution, and is confirmed by the fact that wherever the Theodosian and Jus- tinian codes became a part of the civil and ecclesiastical law, the same imputation continued often in the ages that followed to the dawn of the Reformation, to be cast on such as dissented from the nationalized church, however scriptural were their doctrines, however virtuous their lives, and however notorious the false- hood of the accusation. It was on that ground that the Albigen- ses, the Poor Men of Lyons, the Cathari, the Publicani and others, were through four centuries swept to the grave by thousands and myriads. Nor was the false accusation, and wanton slaughter of the faith- 'Photii contra Manich. lib. i.pp. 63, 64. Cod. Theod. lib. xvi. tit. v. 1. 9. THE TEMPLE AND WITNESSES. 281 ful witnesses of God, in violation in any degree of the principles of the nationalized church, but was in conformity with its system of usurpation and tyranny, and made obligatory by its canons. The early councils sentenced all dissentients from the national- ized church to excommunication and infamy, and those of a later age enjoined it on all as a duty to assail, harass, and persecute them. To calumniate, abuse, rob, outrage, and even wantonly murder them, without the forms of law, was accordingly consid- ered a positive virtue, and became a fashionable mode of display- ing an ardent zeal for the church.^ After a long period of persecution in Armenia, a colony of the Paulicians was transplanted by the emperor in 755 into Thrace. Another body followed in the tenth century ; and they soon passed from Thrace into Bulgaria, Illyria, Italy, Germany, and France, propagated their doctrines through those countries, and contin- ued to fulfil the office of witnesses amidst the fires of persecution, through all the ages that followed to the fifteenth century .- There were in the west also, in the valleys of Piedmont and the south of Gaul, bodies of dissentients from the apostate church, that fulfilled that office still more conspicuously, and suffered sim- ilar persecution. They seem in France to have first attracted the attention of the Catholic hierarchy and civil government, at the beginning of the eleventh centuiy. Glaber, an annalist of the period, relates that in the year 1017, a strange sect was discov- ered at Orleans, which had long grown in secret, and drawn many into its toils, not only of the weak and simple, but of the more learned also of the clergy, among whom were two distinguished for birth and intelligence, and in high esteem at the court. On their dissent from the Catholic faith becoming known, an inquisition was instituted by the king, the nobles, and the clergy, and ten ecclesiastics, and three laics avowing their rejection of the doctrines and rites of the Catholic church which were without authority from the Scriptures, and refu- sing to recant, were committed to the flames. Others of the same faith were at the same period detected and put to death at Toulouse and many other places in the west.^ They are admitted by their enemies to have dissented from the doctrines of the Catholic church, on the ground that they were not the doctrines of revelation ; and to have rejected the homage or superstitious regard of the cross, the invocation of » Labbei Concil. torn, xxiii. pp. 715-724. « Mosheim, Hist. Church, vol. ii. pp. 66-72 and 223-228. Gibbon's Hist. c. liv. » Baronii Annal. an. 1017, No. 3. Natalis Alexandri Hist. Eccl. torn. vi. p. 475. 36 THE TEMPLE AND WITNESSES. saints, the doctrine of llic transubstantiation of the eucharist and of regeneration by baptism, and the theory which Catholics held of the church. It is acknowledged also liiat they had existed for a long time, had spread through a large part of France, and were very ninnerous. Tiicy must undoubtedly, therefore, have sub- sisted for several generations, and there is nothing in the narra- tive inconsistent with the supposition that they were descendants of those in that part of Gaul, in the fifth, sixth, and seventh cen- turies, who are known from the examples of Vigilantius, Sere- nus, and others, to have rejected the homage of images, relics, and saints. In 1025, another parly was detected at Cambray in Belgic Gaul, who denied the Roman Catholic doctrine of baptismal re- generation, transubstantiation, and purgatory, rejected the sacra- ments of penance and ordination, the invocation of martyrs, the homage of the cross, and the veneration of images, of temples, and ahars ; while, on the other hand, they held the Scriptural doc- trine, there is reason to believe, of justification by faith. They were seized and tried by a synod, and are said to have at length assented to the doctrine of the church as expounded by the bish- op, a portion of which respecting the necessity of renovation by the Holy Spirit is evangelical.^ Through a large part of the eleventh century, Berenger as- sailed the doctrine of transubstantiation, and denounced the Cath- olic church as apostate, and induced great numbers throughout Italy, France, and England to embrace his views ;^ and in 1 126, Peter de Bruis, a distinguished teacher of the Albigenses, com- menced a laborious and successful ministry of near twenty years, during which he assailed the errors of the church of Rome, and taught the gospel to great numbers throughout Gascony, Lan- guedoc, Provence, and Dauphiny, and for his evangelical testi- mony was in 1147 consigned to the flames. He denied the doc- trine of baptismal regeneration, the transubstantiation of the eu- charistic elements, and the necessity of temples, cimrches, and other places consecrated by superstitious riles, in order to an ac- ceptable worship, denounced the adoration of the cross, and re- jected masses, prayers, and alms for the dcad.^ The third canon of the council of Toulouse in 1219, against those who reject- ed the peculiar doctrines and riles of the Catholics, shows that ' Labbci Concil. torn. xix. pp. 423-459. " Baronii Annal. an. 1004, 1059, 1079. Fabcr'a ancient Vallenses and Allri- genses, p. 158. * Baronii Annal. in an. 112G, No. 14, 15, 16. THE TEMPLE AND WITNESSES. 283 there were many at tliat period in the south of France who con- tinued to fulfil the office of witnesses.* Peter de Bruis was followed by Henry, whose numerous dis- ciples were from him denominated Henricians, and whose doc- trine in respect to the eucharist, Baronius acknowledges was the same as that adopted by the Sacramentarians of the sixteenth century.^ Bernard represents them as rejecting the dogma of the mass and baptismal regeneration.^ Near the same period, about thirty persons entertaining those views emigrated from Gascony to England for the purpose of teaching their doctrines, and being seized, condemned, and deliv- ered to the magistrates for punishment, were branded, scourged, and driven out without shelter to perish with the cold.* In 1176, a number of the Albigenses denominated good men, were arraigned before a council of bishops and princes at Lom- bers, in the province of Toulouse, in which it is reported there were many of the sect. They made an evangehcal confession, and were condemned as heretics.^ At the instance of the pope, others again were arraigned in 1178, and condemned.^ A cru- sade was excited against them by the pontiff in 1204, and a war waged against them by princes and inquisitors for fifty years, du- ring which multitudes of both sexes were slain by the French troops, and great numbers consigned to the flames, their cities and villages burned, their properly seized, and the remnant driv- en into the neiffhborinff countries.''' These persecuted dissentients were undoubtedly true witness- es of Christ. They were indeed denounced by those who arraign- ed and put them to death as Manicheans, and the charge has been repeated by moderns, but it is unsupported by any credible testimony, and is refuted by their accusers themselves. In the first place, it is admitted by the authors of that charge, that they were not accustomed openly to avow the doctrine of Manes, and asserted that they disguised and concealed their faith in it, and propagated it only by stealth. There was by their own acknowl- edgment, therefore, no public evidence that they held that doc- trine. Secondly, it is admitted that when accused as the disci- ples of Manes, they promptly and solemnly repelled the charge as a wanton calumny. Thirdly, it is acknowledged that they pro- • Labbei Concil. torn. xxi. pp. 226, 227. " Baronii Annal. an. 1 147, No. xviii. ' Bernard! Epist. 241, torn. i. p. 237. * Lingard's Hist. Engl. vol. ii. chap. v. pp.420, 421. ' Baronii Annal. an. 1176, No. iii.-xiv. * Ibid. 1178, No. xvii.-xxxvii. '' Raynaldi Annal. an. 1204, No. 58-65. Thuani Hist. Prsef. torn. i. p. 7, lib. vi. pp. 185-187. 284 THE TEMPLE AND WITNESSES, fessed doctrines of the gospel, and were addicted to customs which arc wholly irreconcilable with Manicheisai. And finally, it is admitted that multitudes maintained this confession under tortures and the threat of a cruel death, and sealed it with their blood. By the concession of their accusers, therefore, there is all the evidence from the Albigenses themselves, that we could naturally have, that the imputation was wholly false. No stronger facts can be conceived, than that they never openly taught Man- icheism, that they never owned it as their faith, that they sol- emnly disowned it, and finally that they professed the doctrines of the gospel which arc most formally opposed to it, and contra- dicted its discipline by their daily and settled practice. On the other hand, there is all the evidence that could natu- rally exist, that their persecutors charged them with Maniche- ism with a perfect consciousness that the imputation was false, and for the purpose of rendering them objects of detestation to the people and princes, and procuring their death. That was, in the first place, in accordance with their principles. All who were condemned as heretics were expressly sentenced by the councils and popes to infamy, and Catholics were required to treat them as detestable, without virtue, without decency, the vassals of Satan, and ministers of impiety and profligacy.^ It was thence in their judgment not only lawful, but a virtue, to ca- lumniate and abuse dissenters from the national church, by every imputation that could display their zeal or gratify their malice. To have acknowledged that those who rejected their religion as apostate, and whom they condemned as heretics, were yet be- lievers of all that God teaches in his word, and adorned with all the virtues, — sobriety, justice, goodness, truth, purity, piety — that ever distinguish the worshippers of God, had been to con- demn themselves. It being thus in accordance with their principles to impute to the Albigenses whatever doctrines and vices would render them odious, the reason that they charged them with Manicheism rather than any other heretical doctrine was, as in respect to the Paulicians in the Greek empire, that by the Theodosian and Jus- tinian codes, which as far as they relate to religion were adopted by the princes of France and the church at large as a part of the ' Those wlio were called heretics were prohibited by the Council of Laodicea from entcrinjj chnrches, excluded from all religious asKemblies, and debarred from marriage willi Catiiolics. l?y the Council of Antioch the excomnnmiciitcd also were excluded from all religious assemblies ; and it soon became customary formally to sentence them to infamy. Labbei Coucil. torn. ii. pp. 5G5, 1310. THE TEMPLE AND WITNESSES. 285 canon law, tlie belief of that system was made a capital offence, and had for ages been punished by confiscation, deprivation of the right of bequeathing and inheriting property, exile, and in some cases death ;^ and that it was the only false system that had been uniformly visited with those extreme penalties. To condemn the Albigenses as Manicheans, therefore, was to pre- pare the way, on the one hand, not only for the confiscation of their property, but the destruction of their lives ; and on the other, to place the princes under a necessity, by their own laws, of inflicting those punishments. Had they refused to execute the mandates of the bishops, they would thereby have rendered themselves obnoxious to discipline, excommunication, accusation as heretics, deposition from office, and extermination by fire and sword. This is not mere conjecture, but indisputable truth. The enactments of the Theodosian and Justinian codes were expressly alleged by the third council of Lateran in 1179, as the reason of their delivering the Albigenses and others to the civil power for punishment f and the fourth Lateran, in 1215, threat- ened all princes who refused to exterminate them, with excom- munication, and unless they gave satisfaction to the church with- in a year, with deprivation of authority and the loss of their es- tates.^ » Codicis Theod. torn. vi. lib. xvi. tit. v. 1. 3, 7, 9, 18, 35, 38, 40, 41, 64, 65. ^ " Althougli tlie church in its discipline is contented with a sacerdotal sentence, and does not inflict a bloody vengeance, yet it has the aid of the laws of the Cath- olic princes, so that men, often from the fear of corporeal punishment, seek the saving remedy" — of reconciliation. Sicut ait beatus Leo, licet ecclesiastica dis- ciplina sacerdotali contenta judicio, cruentas non efficiat ultiones ; Catholiconmi tamen principum constitutionibus adjuvatur, ut saepe quterant homines salutare reme- dium, dum corporali super se metuunt evenire supplicium. They therefore subject the Cathari, Patarini, Publicani, and all others of their sentiments residing in Al- bigense, Toulouse, Gascony, and other places to an anathema, and prohibit their being received into houses, retained as tenants, or admitted to any commercial tran- sactions. Labbei Coucil. tom. xxii. p. 232. It is so indisputable that it was on the statutes of those codes against the Manicheans that the church proceeded in that bloody crusade against the Albigenses, that it is admitted even by their great ca- lumniator Bossuet. " If any ask what kind of edicts those were of the princes by which the third Lateran Council professes the church was assisted, we answer, the edicts of the ancient emperors against heretics, contained in the codes of Theodosius and Justinian," and especially the fourth and iifth laws 'under the title heretics in the Justinian code, which constitute Manicheism a capital crime, and consign those who embrace it to persecution. Defens. Decl. Cler. Gall. pr. i. lib. iv. c. 3, p. 333. And that it was the settled policy of the prelates thus to accuse those who denounced their usurpations and idolatries, is seen from the fact that Manicheism was imputed to classes of widely differing dissentients for many ages, and made the ground of consigning them to death. * Si vero dominus temporalis rcquisitus et monitus ab ecclesia, terram suam pur- gare neglexerit ab liac hoeretica fceditate, per metropolitanum et ceteros comprovin- ciales episcopos excommuuicationis vinculo iimodetur. Et si satisfacere coutempserit 886 THE TEMPLE AND WITNESSES. It was thus in perfect consistency with the avowed principles of the Cathohcs that they falsely accused the Albigenses, and that they chose to defame them by the imputation of Maniche- ism, rather than any other heretical doctrine. Their imputation to them, therefore, of that monstrous system, constitutes no evi- dence whatever that they entertained it. But the Waldenses residing in the Alpine valleys of Piedmont, were a still more important body of witnesses. They appear first to have drawn the attention of the papal court in the latter part of the twelfth century, at the commencement of the violent persecution of the Albigenses, but are admitted by Catholic wri- ters to have subsisted there from a much earlier age. Thus Reinerius, an inquisitor, who wrote about the year 1254, and had once belonged to the Catharist church, denominating them Leonists, represents their sect as of greater age than any other, its origin being referred by some to the times of the apostles ; and as more generally diffused than any other, being found in almost every country.^ Pilichdorf, a writer near the close of the next century, represents them as affirming that they had sub- sisted from the time of pope Sylvester, in the fourth century.^ Claude Scyssel, archbishop of Turin, who wrote about the begin- ning of the sixteenth century, also states that their origin was re- ferred by some of their writers to the same period ^^ and such is the representation of all the principal Waldensians, who have since written their history. They are the church, undoubtedly, symbolized by the woman who fled into the desert to be nourished there through twelve hundred and sixty days ; and began their retreat thither soon after the nationalization of the church by Constantino and his succes- sors, and attempt to compel the pure worshippers to acquiesce in their usurpations and idolatries, and remained in seclusion un- contaminated by the superstition and profligacy which debased the churches of Italy, Africa, the north of Gaul, Germany, England, and Spain, during the long period from the conversion of the (iothic nations till near the completion of the image or subjugation of the Catholic church out of the Italian patriarchate to the dominion of the papacy in the eleventh century, and com- mencement of the war of that tyrannical and bloody power on infra annum, si^ificetur hoc surnmo pontifice, ut extunc ipse vassallos ab ejusfideli- tate deniinciet absolutes, et terram exponat Catholicis occupandam, qui earn exler- minatis haeroticis sine uila contradictione poseideant Labbei Concil. torn. xxii. p. 987. ' Faber'fl Aucient Vallenscs, p. 273. » Ibid. p. 275. ' Ibid. p. 276. THE TEMPLE AND WITNESSES. 287 the witnesses of Jesus wherever they were found throughout the western empire. How early they began to send out missionaries to propagate their doctrines is not known. There were, from 1050 to 1250, gi'eat numbers of Pauhcians, Pubhcani, Albigenses, and other dissentient preachers of the gospel throughout Lombardy, France, and Germany, and not improbably many bearing those names were Waldenses. In 1179 several of the disciples of Peter Waldo, of Lyons, a Waldensian emigrant, applied to pope Alexander III. to license their preachers in the missions in which they were already engaged, and in which they probably met ob- structions from prelates and princes. They desired a license, doubtless, simply as a protection from persecution, not because they regarded themselves as unauthorized to preach without the pope's permission. From that period they and their converts at Lyons sent missionaries in great numbers throughout Italy, France, and Germany, and soon drew the notice of the papal court ; were persecuted through near four hundred years, and fulfilled the office of witnesses with a fidelity and constancy worthy of the disciples of Jesus. Several of their works which still survive, that were undoubtedly written as early as the twelfth or thirteenth century, present the most decisive evidence on the one hand that they held the great truths of the gospel, and on the other, rejected the false system of the Catholic church. In their treatise of Antichrist, written probably in the thirteenth century, they exhibit the errors and idolatries of the papacy as the great characteristics of that apostate. His first work they say is, that the homage which is due only to God, he perverts to himself, to departed saints, their images and relics, and to the eucharist, which he worships equally with God and Christ. His next work is that he robs Christ of his merits, and imputes regeneration, sanctification, and remission to his own authority. His third work is that he ascribes regenera- tion which is wrought by the Holy Spirit to the mere rite of baptism. His fourth, that he resolves the whole of religion into the mass. His fifth is avarice and ambition. His sixth an offi- cial allowance and license of sin. His seventh the employment of the secular power to compel a reception of his apostate doc- trines and idolatrous rites ; and his eighth, that he hates and per- secutes the disciples of Christ.^ This testimony against the false doctrines, idolatrous worship, and impious tyranny of the nationalized church, they uttered ' Faber's Ancient Vallenses, pp. 379-384. 288 THE TEMPLE AND WITNESSES. Still more emphatically in the thirteenth century. They are represented by Pilichdorf as teaching that God alone should be praised and invoked, as holding that the saints do not intercede for us nor acquire a title to blessings except for themselves, as rejecting the imaginary sanctity of churches and cemeteries con- secrated by superstitious rites and the presence of relics, and discarding indulgences, pilgrimages, the mass, purgatory, the worship of images, and the veneration of the cross, and de- nouncing the pope as the head of apostates.^ These doctrines they continued to maintain through the ages that followed. Claude Scyssel represents that they regarded the Scriptures as the only rule of faith, denied the right of synods to legislate over the divine laws, and thence ascribed no authority to the decrees and sentences of prelates ; that they placed their sole reliance on Christ for salvation, denounced the Romish church as the great harlot and mistress of all errors, denied the power of the priest to forgive sins, and rejected the mass, the worship of saints and images, the homage of relics, transubstan- liation, purgatory, and the consecration of places by pagan and idolatrous rites.^ Such is the testimony also of Thuanus.^ By the confession thus of their enemies, their testimony against the errors and idolatries of the antichristian church was for several centuries before the Reformation as clear and em- phatic as that which was at that period uttered by the Protest- ants themselves ; and they have continued to adhere to the truth without variation through every subsequent age, while the Lu- theran and Reformed churches on the continent have either apostatized to a false faith, or turned to infidelity. A similar testimony to the truth was uttered by the Wicklif- ites, Lollards, and Bohemians in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It was as characteristic almost of those dissentients, as it was of Luther, Zuinglius, Calvin, and their followers, that they held the Scriptures to be the only rule of faith, and relied on the sacrifice of Christ for salvation in contradistinction from rites and works, denounced the pope as the man of sin, and the Roman church as apostate, condemned the homage of saints, images, and relics, and rejected the mass. Tiiereisthus satisfactory evidence that apart from thePaulicians during the period in which they fulfilled their ofiice in the east- ern empire, there have been two lines of teachers and recipients of the word of God who have maintained its truth in opposition > Fabcr's Ancient Vallenses, pp. 415-420. " Ibid. pp. 424-431. • Thuani Hiist. lib. vi. torn. i. pp. 185-189, lib. xxvii. torn. ii. pp. 13, 14, 15. THE TEMPLE AND WITNESSES. 289 to antichrist, and in great numbers sealed their testimony with their blood ; — the Waldenses in Piedmont, and the Albigenses in France, until their dispersion in the thirteenth century, and sub- sequently their disciples and successors, the Wickhfites, Lol- lards, Bohemians, and Protestants. It is no proof that these dissentients from the apostate church were not the witnesses of God, that they fulfilled their office but inadequately, that their views on the subjects of their testimony were often imperfect, and that they fell on others into errors. It was not necessary in order to their being witnesses, that they should understand and proclaim all truth, or be wholly free from imperfections. Such qualifications no uninspired teacher ever possessed. It was enough to constitute them witnesses, that they understood in a good degree and proclaimed the great truths which indisputably formed the peculiar subjects of their teach- ings, and that they denounced the opposite errors of the apostate worshippers. And finally, the civil and ecclesiastical rulers whom they thus denounced, endeavored to injure and destroy them, assailed them with obloquy, trampled them down with oppression, subjected them to the most cruel torture, and put myriads and millions of them to death in the most ignominious and horrible forms. The Greek emperors and bishops united in the persecution of those of them who uttered their testimony in the east. They commenced the work of false accusation, imprisonment, confis- cation, and slaughter, almost immediately after their existence became known ; and continued it in Armenia through one hun- dred and fifty years, during which, vast numbers were decapi- tated, crucified, consigned to the flames, and plunged into rivers ; and their villages and dwellings burned, their property seized, and the lives of the survivors harassed with every species of oppres- sion and outrage. Those of them who were transported from their native land and colonized in Thrace and Bulgaria, continued to suifcr perse- cution from the Greek emperors through several ages, and sub- sequently, as they migrated into the western empire, from the princes of Germany, Italy, and France, down to the sixteenth century. In like manner the rulers and prelates of the west united in the persecution of those within their dominions. It was by the instigation of the pope and the subordinate prelates, that the princes of France, Savoy, Germany, and Italy, were led to make war on them. They commenced it against Claude of Turin, 37 290 THE TEMPLE AND WITNESSES. renewed it against the Paulicians immediately on their entrance into Germany, Italy, and Gaul, and continued it through five hundred years against the Albigcnses, Waldenses, Wicklifites, and Bohemians, during wliich great multitudes were swept to the grave by the sword and the fagot. The war of violence and outrage was commenced against the Protestants also within a few years after the proclamation of the gospel by them, and con- tinued on a vast scale for two centuries in Italy, Spain, France, Germany, and the British isles, never wholly ceased except dur- ing a short period after the commencement of the French revo- lution, and has within a few years been renewed in Italy, Swit- zerland, Germany, France, and Spain. Not one of the classes through that long period, who fulfilled the office of witnesses for God, escaped the vengeance of tliose antichristian powers. Great numbers of these witnesses have relied solely on their testimony for defence against their enemies, contenting them- selves with the profession of their faith, and vindication of the rights of God, and the proclamation of his threatcnings of ven- geance on antichrist ; and then, without resorting to arms for the protection of their persons or maintenance of their liberties, calmly submitting to obloquy, torture, and martyrdom, for the sake of Christ. This was as generally and conspicuously characteristic of those of them who were seized by their enemies, torn on the rack, and consigned to the flames, as was their profession of the truths of the gospel, and denunciation of the errors and idolatries of their persecutors. It was so eminent in the vast crowd of the Albigcnses who were led to the stake, as to excite the won- der of their enemies, and raise the conviction that they were sus- tained by supernatural aids. Bernard, who had exerted himself to induce the magistrates to exterminate them with fire and sword, admitted that they met death with fortitude and cheerful- ness, but had the folly and malice to ascribe it to diabolical in- fluence.* Fortitude, meekness, and joy, were displayed in an equal degree by the martyrs at Orleans, Lombers, and other places in Gaul, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and the Waldenses in the thirteenth and fourteenth. Those who were butchered in Calabria are related to have died with a cheerfulness and constancy worthy of the disciples of Jesus. A Catholic ' MiranUir aliqui, quod non modo patienter, sed et lacli ut vidcbatur, duceren- tur ad morlpm ; tcen not only after the first persecutions by Nero and Domitian, but doubtless after the first violences of that by J^ioclctian also, which were pe- culiarly directed against the teachers of the church, and drove many of them to exile, reduced many to silence by imprisonment, and templed some to apostasy. There arc no indications that the Christians entertained a hope of a revolution of the government in favor of ('hrislianity, until the time of J)ioclelian ; nor any evidence of such an apostasy of the nominal church at large, that the people of God retired into seclu- sion, until after the elevation of Constantino. And finally, there is no more propriety in exhibiting her endeavor to bear, as ex- tending through near three hundred years, than in ascribing an equal period to the dejection of the stars, or the assumption of her son. Mr. JJrighlman, Dean Woodhouse, and some others, regard the dragon as representing the devil, and on the ground that Satan is in a subsecpicnl vision denominated the dragon. That dragon, how- ever, as will be shown in the comment on that passage, was not an animal, but the great fallen spirit himself, named the serpent from his assumption of that brute in Eden, and a wholly dilfer- ent being, therefore, from this ideal monster, and representing a wholly different class of agents. If this dragon be the symbol of the devil, and be employed as such because the devil assumed a serpent in his tem])talion of J'iVe, why was it not formed after the pattern of that serj)cnt ? Why was it invested with seven heads, seven diadems, and ten horns, — j)cculiarilies which there is not the slightest ground to believe belonged to the ser])ent of Eden ? Why is it represented as giving its throne and power, and great authority to the seven-headed wild beast, on the emergence of that monster from the sea ? Did the devil abdicate his throne on that occasion, transfer his power to that great agent, and retire into seclusion ? But the supj)osition is against analogy also, a bodied being having no adaj)tation to symbolize a mere sj)irit. Its animal nature, therefore, its peculiarity of form, and its suiTen- der of its power, show, indul)itably, that it is not a symbol of the devil, who is not a corporeal being, and who will never cease from his malignant endeavors, until bound and cast into the bot- tomless pit ; but is a representative of the rulers of the same em- pire at an earlier period, as are symbolized after the conquest of the western half, by the seven-headed wild beast. Its heads, like THE WOMAN AND DRAOON. 333 the heads of that monster, denote its seven species of cliicf mag- istrates, and its horna liie kings of the ten kingdoms into which, after its subversion tlie western was divided. Mr. Busli regards the dragon as symbohzing paganism in the twofold character of a despotic government, and a false religion. Agents, however, are symbols only of agents, not of mere species of opinion or modes of agency, lie exiiibits the symbol also as denoting the pagan despotic powers of all preceding time, espe- cially those of i'igypt. Babylonia, Persia, Greece, and Rome ; and the purpose and action of the dragon in relation to the woman, as denoting the agency of those powers in all former ages towards the people of God. But that is so far to take from its agency its prophetic character,' and treat it as merely historical. Though five of its heads, like those of the ten-horned wildljeast, denote ru- lers of the Roman empire anterior to the vision, and are, there- fore, merely historical, yet the agency of the dragon is indisputa- bly significant of actions only that were future. To assume that the actions of symbolic agents are representative of the past as well as the future, is to deny to the visions the office sole- ly of a prophecy, and render their meaning wholly uncertain. If a part of the agency denoted by the symbolic actions of this vis- ion were already passed, what certainty is there that tlie whole was not a mere historical symbolization? But as the seven heads of this monster denote undoubtedly the same agents as the seven heads of Daniel's fourth wild beast, to make them representative of the dynasties of Babylonia, Persia, and Greece, is so far to make that fourth beast the representative of the same dynasties as were symbolized by the three former, which is indisputably incorrect. The interpretation given by the angel, shows that the four beasts were symbols of the rulers of four different nations. The heads of the fourth must accordingly be taken to denote .seven different heads of the body of rulers which that monster sym- bolizes. The interpretation of the heads also given by the angel, im- plies that they were successive, not cotemporaneous ; five are fallen ; one is, and one is not yet come ; and thence cannot be representative of the dynasties of Babylonia, Egypt, Media, and Greece, as well as Italy, as the nations of all those countries ex- isted colcmporaneously and independently of each other, anterior to Daniel's vision. Dean Woodhousc and Mr. Bush regard the woman as denoting the succession of true believers from the beginning to the incar- nation, and the man child as Christ. But that is also to take from the symbol its prophetic office, and make it retrospective. 334 THE WOMAN AND DRAGON. It is erroneous, moreo\;er, to exhibit the incarnation of the Re- deemer as in any manner the result of the endeavors of the an- cient church. Mr. Cuninghame exhibits the cry and endeavors of the woman, as denoting tlie exertions of the church in her first and purest age for the conversion of the gentiles, and the man-child as symboli- zing the whole body of true converts within the Roman empire at the time of the nationalization of the church. But that is to ex- hibit the woman and man-child as representing the same class of persons, differing only in their period, which is incongruous. It is in contradiction to the symbols also, which not only exhibit the woman and manchild as cotemporaneous, as parent and offspring must be for at least a period, but represents the woman as survi- ving through m'Sny ages in the seclusion into which she was driv- en. But it was not the church in her first and purest age that retreated into the desert, and was there nourished through the dangers of twelve hundred and sixty years. It is to contradict an- alogy also. There is a resemblance between a Avoman's giving birth to a man-child, who may himself become a parent and trans- mit a long succession of descendants, and a community of Chris- tians presenting to a great empire a race of Christian monarchs, either directly, by promoting the elevation of one of their own pro- fession to the tlirone, or by their great influence in the state, in- ducing a candidate for the throne to make a profession of Chris- tianity. But there is no resemblance between a woman's giving birth to a child, and the reception into itself by a church of a great body of converts from idolatry. The processes are the reverse of each other. Sir Isaac Newton exhibits the woman as the symbol of the true primitive church, the period of her cry the persecution by Diocle- tian, the man-child a Christian empire, his assumption to heaven the elevation of Constantino to supreme power by his victory over Licinius, and the dragon as the Roman pagan empire. But nei- ther the man-child nor the dragon represents an empire, hving agents being representative only of living agents, never of inani- mate objects ; nor is an elevation to supreme civil power, the symbol of an assumption to the throne of God. It is an arroga- tion of his rights, that.Js employed to represent that assump- tion. Mr. Mcde exhibits the woman as the primitive church, the pe- riod of her cry the whole season of persecution by the pagan em- perors, the man-child as the new converts to Christianity, and his assumption to heaven the elevation of the Christian party to po- THE WOMAN AND DRAGON. 335 litical power under Constantine, — errors that are sufficiently re- futed by what has ah'eady been said. Mr. Faber regards heaven as a symbol of the visible church of the western Roman empire, the woman as representing the faithful members of that church, the dragon as a symbol of its unfaithful members, and the manchild as denoting the Vallenses and Albigenses as sequestered from the pure worshippers gener- ally. The first assumption, however, is not only without authority, but implies that heaven is the same as the woman, the man-child, and the dragon, which is to confound the agents with the scene of their agency. It implies that the dejection of the stars by the dragon, is their excommunication from the visible church, in place, as he represents, of their seduction to apostasy. It implies, ac- cording to his construction of that symbol, that-the dejection. of Satan and his angels from heaven to the earth, was an excommu- nication from the visible church. It implies that the woman, too, when descending from heaven to the earth and flying to the des- ert, was either cast out of the visible church, or else voluntarily withdrew from it ; and thence, that after Satan's fall and her flight, no visible church remained except that of the Vallenses and Albigenses. It implies that the agent symbolized by the sun on which the fourth vial was poured, was stationed in the visible church, yet he interprets that symbol of the French emperor Na- poleon, whom he exhibits as an infidel, not a Christian ruler. His interpretation of the dragon as a symbol of the unfaithful members of the visible church during the twelve hundred and sixty years, is equally untenable. He exhibits its first six heads as denoting the first six species of the supreme rulers of the Roman empire. But were they members of the Christian church ? He exhibits it moreover, and the wild beast often horns, as symbols of the Roman empire geographically considered. But how, if a symbol of the mere territory, can it represent the unfaithful part of the visible church also ? If it denote all apos- tate members of the visible church, how can its drawing one third of the stars and casting them to the earth be interpreted of its drawing one third of the ministers of the church to apostasy ? Those already apostate do not require to be drawn to apostasy. Did it draw a portion of those to apostasy whom itself repre- sents ? That were to make it both the agent and the object of its agency ; both the seducer and the seduced. Did it lead a portion of those into apostasy whom the woman symbolizes, or the man-child ? That is as palpably in contradiction to the repre- sentation of the vision. 336 THE WOMAN AND DRAGON. His views of the birlh and the man-child, are equally unsatis- factory. If the woman denote all the faithful worshippers during the twelve hundred and sixty years, and the man-child a large part of those same worshippers, then the woman and her off- spring are to that extent the same, as well after as before the birth, which is incongruous. There is no analogy whatever be- tween a birth and the preservation or continuance of worshippers in the valleys of the Alps through a succession of ages, while all other communities of pure worshippers were dispersed, and none but isolated individuals allowed to survive. A birth is a commencement of life, their preservation is but their continuance as a community. The other cotemporaneous pure worshippers were no more the parent of the churches of the Alpine valleys, than the churches of those valleys were the parent of the other pure worshippers with whom they were cotemporary. The sudden removal of the man-child from the dragon's pres- ence and elevation to the throne of God, are thought by Vitringa to denote, not merely Constantine's extrication from the plots of the pagan emperors, but that he peculiarly enjoyed the approba- tion of God in the nationalization of the church, and reigned in an important sense as his representative. But Constantino and his successors are themselves symbolized by the seventh head of the dragon, and cannot therefore have been the objects of God's approbation, nor acted as his representative in their ad- ministration over the church. Not one of them, so far as there are now any means of judging, gave any evidence of piety. All of them, without exception, were persecutors ; most of them were stained by the most enormous vices; and the visible church, in place of deriving any advantage from their course to- wards it, became, under their influence, so corrupted in doctrine and manners as to lose the character of a true church, and drive the true people of God into seclusion. The import of that ex- altation of the man-child to the throne of God, is undoubtedly precisely the reverse of that which Vitringa ascribed to it, and denotes, on the one hand, his becoming an object of idolatrous homage, and on the other, his arrogation of the right, which be- longs only to God, of appointing the faith and worship of his '^subjects, and exertion of that usurped power to corrupt religion, and oppress and persecute the j)eople of God, — crimes of which Conslarilinc and his successors were indisputably guilty, which were the reason that the woman fled into the desert, and which rendered it proper that they should be exhibited as a head of the dragon. THE WAR OF MICHAEL. 337 SECTION XXIX. CHAPTER XII. 7-12. THE WAR OF MICHAEL. And there was war in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting with the dragon, and the dragon fought also and his angels, and pre- vailed not, nor w^as their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast down ; the old serpent, vi^ho is called devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world, was cast down to the earth, and his angels were cast down with him. And I heard a great voice in heaven saying. Now is the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Anointed, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, is cast down. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony ; and they loved not their life unto death. Wherefore rejoice ye heavens, and ye who dwell in them. Woe to the land and to the sea ; for the devil is gone down to you having great wrath, knowing that he has but a short time. This serpent is obviously a wholly different being from the great red dragon which endeavored to devour the man-child. There is no indication that he is an animal. There is no ascrip- tion to him of seven heads, seven diadems, ten horns, a tail that swept the stars, nor an appetite for flesh. Instead, and to dis- tinguish him from that dragon, he is defined as the ancient ser- pent, who is called devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world ; titles which belong only to that great apostate spirit who seduced our first mother, and an agency that is exerted alone by him. He is a serpent, too, having subordinates of a similar na- ture, that fight under his standard. But the seven-headed dragon had no troops of a nature like his own. That, in short, was a fictitious monster ; this dragon and his angels are real existences. This is apparent also from the scene of the contest. It were in- congruous to exhibit a dragon, an inhabitant of water, as elevated to the atmosphere, and contending there with an angelic being, as though in its natural element. When the woman was exhib- ited in the sky, she was represented as having the moon as a support under her feet. This is confirmed finally by the nature of his opponents, and the actions ascribed to them. They are Michael, an archangel, and his subordinate angels, and they 43 338 THE WAR OF MICHAEL. make war. As the armies are thus of the same species, and ex- ert the same species of acts, their chiefs are doubtless also of the same nature. Here, then, an obedient archangel and his subordinates, on the one hand, and the great apostate angel Satan, and his subordinate spirits on the other, are exhibited as waging a war with one an- other, in which Satan, unable to maintain his ground, is at length driven from heaven, and dejected with his angels to the earth. And they are representatives of men, manifestly from the song of those in heaven which follows, in which the conquerors are ex- hibited as not loving their life unto death, which is predicable only of men and of martyrs, not of angels ; and as overcoming their adversaries by the blood of the Lamb and by their testi- mony, which is predicable only of witnesses for God and be- lievers in Christ. Michael and his angels, then, are symbols of believers in Christ, who gain a victory by faith in his blood, by proclaiming his word, and by submitting to martyrdom, rather than swerve from fidelity to him. And the victory is deemed to indicate the approach of the kingdom of God, and the triumphant reign of Christ. Satan and his angels, on the other hand, sym- bolize antagonists of believers, who endeavor by contradiction to countervail, or persecution to prevent their testimony, and main- tain the supremacy of idolatry. It is shown also by the repre- sentation, that Satan accused their brethren before God, that the question between them was one of religion, not of political power. The kingdom of God chanted by the voice from heaven, the scene of the war, as at hand, is the kingdom that is to be estab- lished at the final overthrow of antichrist, in which the Messiah is visibly to reign. That chant was uttered by the victors, and indicates that the church was to regard its growth to a majority, and the change in public feeling, by which its persecution had be- come unpopular even with multitudes of the pagans, as insur- ing the speedy advent of Christ, and commencement of his mil- lennial reign. The heavens sunniioned to rejoice, are the new heavens, the symbol of the risen and glorified saints, who are to descend witii the Redeemer, and reign with him as kings. They who dwell in those heavens, are the sanctified nations who are to live under their sway. On the other hand, the land and the sea, contradistinguished from the new heavens and they who dwell in them, denote the nations at rest and in agitation, anterior to the establishment of that millennial kingdom. That the dejec- tion of Satan and his angels was to be a woe to the earth and llie sea, indicates that the decline of tlie pagan parly into a mi- THE WAR OF MICHAEL. 339 nority, was to exasperate its priests and rulers, and lead them to more violent methods to overwhelm their antagonists, and rein- state themselves in authority. From the persecution of the wo- man, and attempt by the seven-headed dragon to destroy her during her flight to the desert, which are exhibited in the vision that follows, it is seen that the period of this contest was ante- rior to her retreat into seclusion, and the commenceme'^.t of the twelve hundred and sixty years. This angel war, then, it is apparent from these characteristics, was symbolic of the struggle of the faithful teachers, confes- sors, and martyrs of the gospel on the one hand, to spread and give supremacy to Christianity, and of the pagan priests and iheir active abettors, the persecuting rulers especially on the other, to maintain the dominion of idolatry. It was not a strife for political power, manifestly from the means by which the vic- tory was gained. They overcame the dragon, not by the sword, but by the blood of the Lamb, and by their testimony. It were against the law of symbohzation also, to interpret it as a literal war. As the symbol war was one of force, analogy requires that that which it symbohzes should be one of authority and per- suasion. The victory of Michael was such a success of the Christian army as to turn the current of public belief and feel- ing in their favor, and produce at length a revolution in the civil government, by which, instead as before, of accusation as apos- tates, they were formally recognised as true worshippers of God, tolerated in their faith and worship, and inspired with the expec- tation that the commencement of Christ's millennial reign was at hand. The period of this war was the period therefore of the persecutions by Diocletian, Galerius, Maxentius, Maximin, and Licinius ; and the victory, that change of public feeling wrought by the testimony and faith of the teachers of the gos- pel, and sufferings and constancy of the confessors and martyrs, that rendered persecution and paganism itself unpopular, prompt- ed Constantino to espouse the cause of the Christians, and finally led to the rejection of paganism as the religion of the state. I. The persecution by Diocletian and Galerius, instead of weak- ening the church, and adding strength to the pagans, produced the opposite effect. The horrible evils inflicted on the unoffend- ing and virtuous Christians, touched multitudes of the idolaters with sympathy and sorrow ; while their invincible constancy, and the joy and exultation with which they met the most ignominious and hideous death, impressed them with wonder, begat the feel- ing that they were supported by a supernatural power, and thus 340, THE WAR OF MICHAEL. gave birth to the wish that they should be freed from persecu- tion, and allowed the profession of their religion in peace. On the other hand, the merciless oppression by those tyrants of the whole body of their subjects, pagan as well as Christian, excited a general terror and disgust of such nilers, and desire for the elevation to power of just and tolerant princes, hke Constantius Chlorus. Thus Lactantius : — " Another reason that the people of God are permitted to be persecuted is, that they may be mul- tiplied. Nor is it difficult to show why or how that takes place. Many are repelled from the worship of the gods by a dislike of their cruelty ; for who does not regard their sacrifices with hor- ror ? Some approve of virtue and the faith. Some are led to sus- pect that it is not without cause that the worship of the gods is regarded as wrong by so many, who prefer to die rather than do that which others do that they may live. Some feel a desire to know what that good is which is adhered to even to death, which is preferred to all that is pleasing and dear in life, from which neither the loss of goods nor of light, neither pains of body nor tortures of the heart can deter. Such considerations have great influence, but the causes that have chiefly augmented our num- ber are these : — The crowd standing around, hear the martyrs say in the midst of their torments, that they sacrifice not to statues made by the hands of man, but to the living God, who is in heaven. Many perceive and feel that this is true. Then, as is usual in regard to things that are not understood, in asking one another what the cause can be of that perseverance, many things that pertain to reHgion are introduced, investigated, and learned, which, from their excellence, necessarily give pleasure. More- over, persecution itself, as always happens, strongly impels to belief. Nor is it a slight cause that of the multitudes whom the impious spirits of demons enter, all who are healed by their ex- pulsion adhere to the religion whose power they have experien- ced. These numerous causes united, have drawn a great mul- titude in a wonderful manner to God."^ As the persecution of the Christians thus multiplied their number, so the insupportable tyranny of their persecutors, led the population generally, pagan as well as Christian, to wish for their destruction, and to hail Constantino's victory as a deliver- ance. Constantino iiimself represents the population at large as murmuring under the cruel oppressions and wanton slaughters to which they were subjected by Diocletian, Galerius, Maxcn- tius, Maximin, and Licinius, and as cherishing their love of free- ' Lactautii lust. lib. v. de Just. c. 22. THE WAR OF MICHA.EL, 341 dom, and invoking God to deliver them. " The issue of their tyrannical course was predicted by the intelligent, for they were neither silent, nor concealed their lamentations at those outrages, but openly and publicly, without reserve, said to one another, * What madness ! what insolence of power in men to dare to make war on God, to delight to insult a most holy and righteous religion, and without provocation plot the destruction of such a multitude of just men !' " " At length divine providence took vengeance of their impious deeds, not, however, without the in- jury of the public ; for the slaughters that have been perpetra- ted, had they been slaughters of the barbarians, would be enough to ensure an eternal peace ; for the whole army of Diocletian being subjected to the power of the rude man who seized the government of the empire by force, after God had liberated the capital, was wasted in numerous wars. But how do the cries to God of those who were oppressed, and desired their natural liberty, and after the removal of those evils, the offerings of thanks to him for the restoration of freedom and justice, bespeak his care and love towards men."^ Accordingly on Constantine's entering Rome after the defeat and death of Maxentius, " the whole senate, all the superior or- ders, and the people with their wives and children, received him with glad countenances, shouts, and exultation, as their liberator, saviour, and benefactor."^ II. The question which of their religions was genuine and to prevail, was considered by both parties as on trial in the contest of that period, and to be determined by its issue. Such were the views of Constantine : " The whole body of foot and horse was assembled by him, and at their head was borne the cross, the symbol of a good hope in God, Moreover, aware that then if ever he needed prayers, he took the priests of God with him, regarding their continual presence as a protection of his life, Licinius naturally, on learning that Constantine made his preparation for victory over his enemies, as though it were to be gained only through God's co-operation, that the priests whom I have mentioned were continually present and communicating with him, and the standard of the cross always borne before him and his troops, thought it ridiculous, and mocked and traduced him. He, however, collected around him- self Egyptian seers and diviners, enchanters, jugglers, and the priests and prophets of those whom he regarded as gods, and ' Const. Orat. ad Sanct. Coet. c. 25. * Eiisebii Hist. Eccl. lib, ix. c. 9. 342 THE WAR OF MICHAEL. having propitiated his deities with the sacrifices wliich he thought requisite, then inquired what was to be the issue to him of the war ; and they unanimously rephed that he was undoubtedly to prove the strongest in the contest, and be victorious ; and that in long and elegant songs the oracles everywhere promised. The interpreters also announced that success was indicated by the flight of birds, and the priests asserted that similar things were denoted by the motion of the entrails. Elated by these deceitful promises, he advanced to the camp with great confidence, and arranged his troops, as far as he was able, for the battle. And when he was about to begin the contest, he summoned the most trusty and honored of his attendants and friends to one of the places which they regard as sacred, a consecrated grove, spa- cious and irrigated, in which were erected all kinds of sculptured statues of those whom he esteemed gods, and having lighted wax tapers, and offered the accustomed victims to them, he is said to have uttered the following address. " ' Friends and fellow-warriors, these are the gods of our fa- thers, whom, received from our earliest ancestors as objects of worship, we honor ; but he who commands the army that is drawn up against us, having adopted an atheistic opinion, vio- lates the customs of the fathers, venerating a god from abroad, I know not whence, and disgraces his troops with his ignominious standard, trusting in which he arms not so much against us as against the gods whom he offends. This occasion therefore will show which of us errs in his belief, and decide between the gods who are honored by us and by the other party : for either by show- ing us victors, it will show our gods arc most justly regarded as auxiharies and saviours ; or if the God of Constanline, come from 1 know not where, shall prevail over ours, who are many, let no one thereafter doubt what God ought to be worshipped, but go to the strongest and present to him the reward of the vic- tory. If the foreign God, whom we now deride, should appear the mightiest, we must acknowledge and honor him, and bid adieu to those to whom wc have vainly lit wax tapers. But if ours prevail, which is not to be doubted, then after the victory we must proceed to a war against the atheists.' '" The victory was accordingly regarded by Constantino, the church, and the people at large, as the victory of the true God over the false, of Christianity over idolatry. " When the whole was by the power of God the Saviour subjected to him, he made known to all the giver of his prosperity, and testified that God, ' Euscbii do Vita Const, lib. ii. c. 3, 4, 5 THE WAR OF MICHAEL. 343 not he, was the author of his victories."^ And on the release of the confessors from the mines and prisons by the edict of Gale- rius and Maximin, " All the unbelieving were struck with as- tonishment and admiration at the extraordinary change, and ex- claimed, ' Great and alone true is the God of the Christians.' "^ III. The legal recognition of the Christian religion by Con- stantine, and patronage of its teachers and professors, inspired a general persuasion that the happy period denoted by the kingdom of God, and triumphant reign of Christ on earth, was at hand. " On the fall of Licinius, the great conqueror Constantine and his son Crispus the Caesar received the east as theirs, established one government as formerly over the Romans, and swayed the whole in peace from east to west, and from north to south. The people therefore being freed from all fear of the court with which they had before been overwhelmed, held festal days with great splendor. There were everywhere illuminations. They who were before dejected, looked on one another with joyful aspects and smiles, and with choirs and hymns through the cities and country, gave honor first to God the supreme ruler of all as they were taught, and then to the pious emperor and his children. The miseries and impiety of the past were forgotten ; joy and exultation prevailed at the blessings now promised, and happy anticipations of the future. Philanthropic edicts were every- where published by the emperor, and laws that displayed his mu- nificence and piety."^ Lactantius also : " Let us celebrate the triumph of God with gladness ; let us commemorate his victory with praise ; let us make mention in our prayers day and night of the peace, which after ten years of persecution, he has conferred on his people."* IV. The voice uttered from heaven the scene of the victor}^ " Now is the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Anointed," had a signal counter- part in the congratulations and exultation of the church at that period. Eusebius represents the victors at the precipitation of Maxen- tius and his attendants into the Tyber, as saying like Moses at the overthrow of the Egyptians in the Red Sea, " Let us sing to the Lord, for he is signally glorified. Horse and rider he has thrown into the sea. The Lord my helper and defender was ' Eusebii de Vita Const, lib. ii. c. 23. Constantini Orat. ad Saiict. Coet. c. 22. Eusebii Orat. de laud. Const, c. G, 7, 9. ^ Eusebii Hist. Eccl. lib. ix. c. 1. Orat. de laud. Const, c. 9, pp. 518, 519. » Eusebii Hist. Eccl. lib. x. c. 9. De Vita Const, lib. ii. c. 19. * Lactantii de Mort. Persecut. c. 52. 344 THE WAR OF MICHAEL. with me unto salvation. Who, O Lord, is like to thee among gods ? Who is like to thee, glorified by the holy, admirable in praise, doing wonders ? Constantino entered Rome in triumph, hymning these and similar passages to God the author of the victory."* And on the fall of Licinius, he represents the church as uniting in thanksgiving for the deliverance, and congratula- tions at the overthrow of idolatry, and establishment of Christ's kingdom ; and devotes the tenth book of his history to the edicts of the emperor by which the church was nationalized and en- dowed, and to the restoration of the temples, and the public re- joicings at their dedication. " Let thanks be given by all to the Almighty Ruler of the universe, and to Jesus Christ our Sa- viour and Redeemer, through whom we pray that peace from external foes may be uninterruptedly preserved to us, and tran- quillity of mind." " Let us sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done wonderful things. His right hand has saved him, and his holy arm. The Lord has made known his salvation ; he has revealed his righteousness in the presence of the nations. We may now appropriately respond to the inspired command to sing a new song, inasmuch as after such direful spectacles and narra- tions, we now have the happiness to see and celebrate, what many holy men before us and the martyrs for God, desired to see on earth, and did not see, and to hear and have not heard. But advancing more rapidly, they attained far superior gifts in heaven, being caught up to the paradise of celestial joy ; while we acknowledge the gifts we enjoy are greater than we deserve, and contemplate with wonder the largeness of the divine bounty. Admiring and adoring with all our souls, we testify to the truth of the prophet's words, ' Come and see the works of the Lord, what wonders he has wrought in the earth, abolishing wars to the ends of the world. The bow he has broken, he has dashed the arms, the shield he has burned in the fire.' Rejoicing at the manifest fulfilment of these predictions to us, we go on with our history." He goes on accordingly to represent the whole popu- lation, freed from the domination of the tyrants, and relieved from oppression, as acknowledging the only true God and pro- tector of the pious, and those especially who had placed their hope in Christ, as filled with inexpressible joy ; the ministers everywhere delivering commemorative addresses, and the whole multitude offering praises and thanksgiving to God.^ V. The predictions of a woe to the land and the sea from the overthrow of the idolatrous parly, had a signal fulfilment in the ' Eusebii Hist. Eccl. lib. ix. c. 9. ' Ibid. lib. x. c. 1, 2, 3. THE WAR OF MICHAEL. 345 exasperation and violence of the pagan chiefs towards their sub- jects generally, as well as the church, from the defeat of Maxen- tius to the final fall of paganism. Maximin, the emperor of Asia Minorj Syria, and Egypt, suspended the persecution on the fall of Maxentius, and the grant of toleration to the church by Con- stanline and Licinius, but soon renewed it with far greater vio- lence, and an avowed purpose of exterminating the church from liis dominions. Persons of distinction were appointed to the pa- gan priesthood in all the cities, the rites renewed with pomp and zeal, and the magistrates and people given to understand that they could do nothing more acceptable to the prince, than to as- sail and slaughter the Christians. They accordingly plotted against them in extraordinary ways, suborning the most profligate accusers, and traducing them by the most infamous imputations, by which the magistrates of all the provinces were induced to assail and persecute them with greater fury than at any former period.^ Licinius, who succeeded him in the empire of the east, in 319 renewed the war on them, and continued it with the utmost viru- lence till his fall in 323. He began by encouraging false accu- sations against the bishops ; then enacted arbitrary laws prohib- iting them from assembling in synods, entering each other's churches, or communicating with one another, in order that he might generate pretexts for putting them to death. He banished all who held the Christian faith from the palace, and from his retinue, and drove them into exile ; and threatened death to all who should thereafter profess Christianity. He prohibited men from assembling with women in churches for worship, and the bishops from giving religious instruction to any but their own sex, ordered that their assemblies should be held only without the gates of the cities, and in the open air ; and forbade their supplying those with food who were imprisoned, and left without any provision by the magistrates :^ and at length proceeded to open and direct war on the ministers and members of the churches, subjecting them to the most horrible tortures, slaughtering them in great numbers, and endeavoring to exterminate them from his dominions. Multitudes fled from the cities to the country, to deserts, and to mountains. Some escaped to the western em- pire, and the whole would have soon shrunk from sight, or been devoured, had not Constantine interposed and extricated them from his power, ^ ' Eusebii Hist. Eccl. lib. ix. c. 4, 5, 6. Pagi Crit. in Baron, an. 314, no. vi.-x. » Eusebii de Vita Const, lib. i. c. 51-56. » Ibid. lib. ii. c. 1, 2. 44 346 THE WAR OP MICHAEL. Mr. Brightman, Mr. Daubuz, Mr. Elliott, and others, regard the war symbolized by the strife of the angels, as the war be- tween Constantine and Maxentius, Maximin and Licinius for po- litical power. But that is against analogy. It is to make the symbolic act, and that which it represents, of the same species. As all the subordinates of Michael were good angels, it assumes that all the subordinates of Constantine were Christians and wit- nesses for God, which is notoriously unauthorized. There is not the slightest reason to suppose that his army was essentially less heathen, than was that of Maxentius, Maximin, or Licinius. His attempts at a subsequent period to christianize his soldiers, show that they were at least generally idolaters.^ The supposition that it was a struggle for political power, is inconsistent with the means by which the triumph was gained, the blood of the Lamb, and their testimony, and with the nature of the victory, which was not an elevation of the conqueror to po- litical power, but the dejection of the vanquished, and preclusion from a further accusation of tiie witnesses. Exemption from per- secution, and freedom of faith and worship, were the blessings which believers attained, and which were the ground of their ex- pectation, that the gospel would thereafter prevail without obstruc- tion, and the reign of Christ soon commence, when the whole world should become subject to his dominion. Dean Woodhouse regards the war as a strife in heaven be- tween good and evil angels, at the period of Satan's expulsion from his primeval seat. But that is to disregard the symbolic nature of the vision, and treat it as history, instead of prophecy. If the prophetic meaning may be excluded from this passage, what reason can be given that it may not from every other ? Vitringa regards Michael as symbolizing Christ. But that is against the law of analogy, no creature, liowever exalted, having any adequacy to represent him. It is in contradiction also to the representation, that the victors overcame their enemies by the blood of the Lamb. How can Christ be said to overcome in the same manner as the witnesses through faith in his blood ? The supposition of Cocceius that Michael is Christ himself, is equally obnoxious to this objection. Mr. Faber regards the war as a strife between the teachers of the Latin church, and pure and Protestant teachers, during the twelve hundred and sixty years. But that interpretation is found- ed on the assumption that lieaven, in which the symbol war was exhibited, denotes the visible church, which is not only without * Eusebii de Vita Conet. lib. iv. c. 19, 20, 21. THE FLIGHT OF THE WOMAN. 347 authority, but implies that heaven and tlie warriors, so far as the latter constitute the visible church, are the same, which is to con- found the mere scene of the conflict with the agents. It implies, also, that the ejection of Satan and liis angels from heaven, de- notes an excommunication of all the priests whom they repre- sent, from the visible church. But no such universal excommu- nication of priests from the Catholic church has taken place, or can. As in that communion the power of excommunication is held exclusively by the priests themselves, it is not possible that by any process conformable with their canons, an excommuni- cation should be pronounced on every individual of their order. It is in contradiction also to the prophecy, to exhibit the period of the war as the same as the twelve hundred and sixty years of the woman's residence in seclusion, as the ejection of Satan and his angels from heaven is expressly represented as anterior to her flight into the desert. SECTION XXX. CHAPTER XII. 13-17. THE FLIGHT OF THE V^^OMAN. And when the dragon saw that he was cast down to the earth, he followed after the woman who brought forth the male child. And two wings of the great eagle were given to the woman, that she should fly into the desert, into her place, where she is nourished there a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent. And the serpent cast from its mouth, after the woman, Avater as a river, that it might cause her to be carried away. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and drank the river which the dragon cast out of its mouth. And the dragon was angry with the woman and went on to make war with the rest of her seed, who keep the commandments of God, and hold the testimony of Jesus. The dragon who followed the woman, symbolizes the pagan priests and their abettors, who had been defeated in their attempt to maintain their idol-worship, and fallen into the minority. Their following after her, denotes their attempt to join her society by a profession of Christianity. 348 THE FLIGHT OF THE WOMAN. The serpent that cast from its mouth water, was not the devil who fought with Michael, the symbol of the pagan party, but the monster dragon of seven heads, as is apparent from that act, which is appropriate to an inhabitant of water, but not to an angelic being. It represents the rulers of the Roman empire, therefore, from the elevation of Constanline to the fall of the western dy- nasty, and thence, the eastern dynasty to its extinction by the Turks. The gift to the woman of the wings of an eagle, denotes that aids were granted her in her flight, that were supernatural, and peculiarly suited to bear her above the dangers with which she was threatened by the intrusion of pagans into the church. As the wings were an addition to her body, and became apart of her nature, they denote not an exterior instrument, but a gift that formed a part of herself, and an intellectual and spiritual gift, therefore, knowledge, faith, wisdom, constancy, love, by which she was borne above the torrent of false doctrines, superstitious rites and idolatries, in which the dragon endeavored to ingulf her. As it is appropriate to a monster dragon, which may be sup- posed, like behemoth, to draw up Jordan into its mouth, to repre- sent it as ejecting water as a river to bear away the woman, so the means employed by the rulers of the Roman empire, symbol- ized by the dragon, to destroy the true people of God, must be supposed to be such as were appropriate to their peculiar charac- ter as usurpers of his rights, and patrons of superstition and idol- atry. And they were doubtless the flood of false doctrines, and superstitious and impious rites, introduced by Constantine and his successors. The earth which absorbed that flood, denotes the people gen- erally of the empire, who eagerly embraced the religion thus adul- terated to their taste, and by their conspicuous and exulting re- ception of it, occupied the attention of the rulers, and allowed the small body of dissentients to escape from their sight. Her retreat into her place from the face of the serpent, denotes that the scene of her residence was unknown to the rulers. The anger of the serpent indicates their continued disposition to de- stroy her, if in their power ; while its going on to make war with such of her seed as had not retreated to the desert, denotes that they continued, after her disaj)j)earance, to persecute the isolated individuals that from time to time dissented from the corrupt church, and professed the pure faith. The time, times, and half a time, the period of the woman's THE FLIGHT OF THE WOMAN. 349 residence in the desert, denotes twelve hundred and sixty years, a time being a year or three hundred and sixty days, times two years or seven hundred and twenty days, and half a time one hun- dred and eighty, which united are twelve hundred and sixty. These symbols then indicate, that on the usurpation by Con- stantine and his successors of authority over the church, the pure worshippers began to dissent, withdraw from the public assem- blies, and worship apart ; that on the nationalization of the church, a crowd of pagans soon entered it ; that a vast torrent of corrupt doctrines and rites, was introduced into its faith and worship by the emperors and their subordinates, that threatened to bear away the true people of God, from the impulse of which they were sig- nally protected ; that a body of them retired from the observation of the rulers, into a place where they were sustained through a long period ; and that the rulers continued to wreak their malice on the individuals, who rose from time to time in the empire, and dissented from the popular faith. These symbolizations had a signal fulfilment in the dissentients from the nationalized church, and the conduct of the rulers to- wards them, from Constanline through a long succession of ages. I. On the nationalization of the church by that emperor, a vast body of pagans entered it, and verified the prediction that after being cast to the earth they should follow the woman. Eusebius asserts, " That two great evils distinguished the reign of Constantine, the violence of profligate and insatiable men, who harassed every condition of life ; and the indescriba- ble hypocrisy of those who entered the church, and deceitfully assumed the Christian name." And he represents their promis- cuous assumption of the new religion, as occasioned in a large degree, by the emperor's treating the mere profession as a satis- factory proof of a genuine conversion.^ It was natural that crowds of the worldly should be drawn to the church, when Christianity became the religion of the court, and a profession of it a passport to office and honor. As he employed it, as he openly avowed, as a means of strengthening the state, and for that reason required all denominations to con- form to the establishment, he was naturally inclined to encourage the profession, although no indications appeared of a sincere con- viction of its truth. He offered it as a reason in his letter to Alexander, bishop of Alexandria, and to Arius, of his urging them to lay aside their differences, and return to peace, that the two great objects at which he aimed in his administration were, ' Eusebii de Vita Const, lib. iv. c. 54. 350 THE FLIGHT OF THE WOMAN. first, to unite all nations in the profession of the same religion ; and next, to relieve the empire from the evils with which it was oppressed as with a disease ; that the first he endeavored to ac- complish by persuasion, the other by arms ; knowing that if he could produce a unanimity of all the worshippers of God accord- ing to his wishes, the administration of the government would then generate changes conformable to their harmonious and pious designs ;^ and he asserted that the barbarous nations, who had been turned from idols to the faith by his instrumentality, "paid their worship to God through fear of him."^ II. Constantine and his successors introduced a flood of false doctrines, superstitions, and idolatries, into the church, which were incompatible with a pure worship, and swept all who yield- ed to their impulse, to the gulf of apostasy. Such were the ven- eration of the cross, and ascription to it of miraculous powers, the homage of relics, the invocation of saints, the conversion of religion into gorgeous ceremonies, the encouragement of celiba- cy, and the arrogation of the throne and prerogatives of God by civil and ecclesiastical rulers. These falsehoods, follies, and im- pieties, introduced or adopted by the emperors, encouraged bj their example, sanctioned by their laws, and enforced by the penalties of excommunication, imprisonment, the forfeiture of civil rights, banishment, and death, came armed with an over- powering force to all who were not fortified against them by the special aids of the divine Spirit, and like a resistless torrent, bore away the great mass of the church. III. There were in tiie latter part of the fourth century, and in the ages that followed, many who disapproved of the interfer- ence of the civil rulers with the church, and rejected the errors, superstitions, and idolatries, with which they debased its doctrines and worship. Even Hosius of Corduba, who had not only approved of the arrogation of authority over the church by Constantine, and coun- selled him, it is represented, in all the great measures of his administration over it, — in giving it a civil establishment, in summoning the synod of Nicaia, in enforcing its decrees, in tlie deposition and banishment of tiie Arian bishops, — and who still regarded the emperor as having the right to assemble councils, and as bound to execute the canons of the orthodox ; yet when that power was turned by Constantius against him and his fel- low-bishops, who held the faith of Nicaea, and in favor of the ' Eusebii do Vita Const, lib. ii. c. 65. ' Sozomeni Hist. Eccl. lib. ii. c. 28. THE FLIGHT OF THE WOMAN. 351 unprincipled and plotting Arians, remonstrated against it as a most unjustifiable usurpation, and dangerous encroaciiment on the prerogatives of the hierarchy. When solicited to subscribe the sentence denounced against Athanasius by the synod of Mi- lan, and threatened like all who should refuse to unite in his condemnation with disgrace, chains, exile, and confiscation of goods, he wrote to Constantius : " I became a confessor first in the persecution by your grandfather Maximian, and if you per- secute me, am now ready to endure any thing, rather than shed innocent blood, and betray the truth. I do not approve of your writing and threatening such things. Refrain from it. Do not cherish the doctrines of Arius. Do not listen to the eastern bish- ops, nor trust the partisans of Ursacius and Valens ; for what they say they utter not so much out of disapprobation of Atha- nasius, as to advance their ow^n party." " Why do you still lis- ten to those detractors, Valens and Ursacius, who have confessed, by penance and in writing, that they were guilty of a calumny?" " But if they complain of violence, and acknowledge it to be un- justifiable, and it is disapproved by you, then refrain from com- pulsion, and neither write, nor send officers, but release those who are exiled, that that party may not, while you are com- plaining of violence, commit still greater outrages. For what of that kind was done by Constans ? What bishop was exiled ? Who interfered with ecclesiastical decisions ? What courtier of his compelled subscription to an accusation of any one, that the adherents of Valens should talk thus ? Refrain then, I beseech you, and remember that you are a mortal ; fear the day of judg- ment ; keep yourself pure in order to it. Do not intrude yourself into ecclesiastical affairs, nor counsel us in regard to them ; but rather learn them from us. God has intrusted to you the empire. He has committed the affairs of the church to us ; and as he who usurps your government contravenes the ordi- nance of God, so beware lest you become obnoxious to a heavier accusation by grasping a jurisdiction over the church."^ But his remonstrances were unsuccessful. Though dismissed on that occasion, he was soon recalled from Spain, held in exile a year, and at length at the council of Sirmium in 357, when near his hundredth year, scourged until overcome, he reluctantly assented to the Arian creed .^ Similar sentiments were uttered on the same occasion by Eu- sebius, bishop of Vercelli, who denounced the emperor to his face as a false Christian, and the bishops of his party as Anti- ' Labbei Concil. torn. iii. pp. 243-246. ' Labbei Concil. torn. iii. p. 255. 352 THE FLIGHT OF THE WOMAN. christs, and had a like experience of the power which the hier- archy had assisted the emperors in assuming. Dragged from the synod by tlic Arians, he was first cruelly beaten, next drawn up and down a stone stairway, until the steps were wet with his blood, then scourged again to the verge of death, and at length dispatched into exile. The attempts of the emperor to compel Liberius, bishop of Rome, to unite in condemning Athanasius without a trial, were resisted by him likewise, and his obstinacy rewarded by deposition and banishment.* Hilary of Poictiers also addressed to him similar entreaties and remonstrances. " Your beneficent nature, happy Augustus, is in harmony with a benign will. We are confident therefore that we shall easily obtain what we sohcit. We implore not merely with words, but with tears, that the Catholic churches may no longer be sub- jected to the most cruel injuries, and overwhelmed with insults and persecution by our brethren. Let your clemency provide by an edict, that the judges to whom the administration of the provinces is intrusted, to whom the care of civil affairs alone should belong, should abstain from the supervision of religion, and not presume to usurp the cognizance of the causes of the clergy, and harass and crush the innocent with threats, violence, terrors, and every species of injury. Your wisdom is aware that it is not becoming, it is not right, by force to compel the un- wilhng and reluctant to submit and addict themselves to those who are perpetually scattering the corrupt seeds of false doc- trine. Wherefore as you endeavor to sway the empire by wise counsels, watch and provide that all whom you rule may enjoy the sweets of liberty. The agitated can never be tranquillized, the alienated can never be united in harmony, unless every one is freed from servile subjection, and allowed to enjoy perfect liberty. Assuredly the voice ought to be heard by your clem- ency, of those who cry, ' I am a Catholic, I am unwilling to be a heretic, I am a Christian, not an Arian ; and it is better for me to die in this world, than contaminate the pure virginity of the truth through the tyrannical power of any individual.' It should be equally apparent to your sanctity, august monarch, that they who fear God and his judgment, ought not to be contaminated by execrable blasphemies, but have power to follow their bish- ops and superiors, who preserve the laws of love inviolate, and desire sincere and perpetual peace. It is not reasonable, it is not possible, that elements that arc repugnant should concur, that things that are unlike should unite, true and false intermin- ' Labbei Concil. toin. iii. p. 250. THE FLIGHT OF THE WOMAN. 353 gle, light and darkness become confounded. If, therefore, as we confidently hope and believe, these considerations move your innate goodness, order that the prefects of the provinces should not yield countenance nor aid to these tyrannical heretics. Let your lenity allow the people to hear those teachers whom they desire, to celebrate the sacraments, and offer prayers for your safety and happiness, with whomsoever they approve and choose."^ It is apparent that these complaints and entreaties, were ex- pressive, not merely of his own sentiments, but those of a great body of the clergy and people. But he, like his associates, found the despot inexorable, and was driven into exile, and becoming alarmed and exasperated by the outrages to which the orthodox were subjected, soon resorted to reproaches and denunciations, instead of intreaties and flattery, and endeavored by public and violent appeals, to arouse the church to a sense of its danger from such a remorseless tyranny.^ This terrible experience of the lawlessness of the power, which these bishops had sanctioned Constantino in assuming, and exercising over dissentients from the Catholic church, was adapted to open their eyes to its inter- ference with the rights of God, and the danger with which it threatened the truth, and lead them to a realization of the infinite distance between the incommunicable prerogatives of the Al- mighty, and the legitimate claims of human rulers. And it un- doubtedly gave birth to a similar conviction in multitudes. In like manner, during the reign of Valens, Basil and a great crowd of the orthodox clergy and people throughout the east, re- sisted the mandates, and remonstrated against the persecutions of that tyrant.^ But the tyranny of the emperors was not the only cause of dissatisfaction and remonstrance. It is apparent from the canons of the councils, and the imperial laws prohibiting religious as- semblies separately from the nationalized church, that there were many dissentients from the established faith and worship. Thus the fifth canon of the council of Antioch, held in 341, by which presbyters and deacons were forbidden to secede from the church, hold separate assemblies, and disregard the commands of the bishops, indicates that there were persons of those orders who dissented from the established hierarchy, threw off allegi- ance to it, and held assemblies by themselves.^ The acts of the ' Hilarii Lib. adv. Constant, pp. 1218, 1219, 1220. * Hilarii Lib. contra Constant, pp. 1237-1260. » Theodoriti Hist. Eccl. lib. iv. c. 16-19. Basilii Epist. 308, torn. iii. p. 300. * Labbei Concil. torn. ii. p. 1310. 45 354 THE FLIGHT OF THE WOMAN. council of Gangra, licld some twelve or fifteen years later, show that the superstitions and idolatries of the church, were among the causes of those secessions. The bishops allege that tliey assembled and enacted their canons, in order to arrest secessions that were taking place from the house of God and from the church ; and represent that by many the church and its services were disapproved, that separate assemblies were held, other dis- courses delivered, and different doctrines taught, new customs introduced in respect to dress, fasting, and celibacy, the basilicas of martyrs denounced, and their worshippers and worship re- proached, and that all who rejected the authority of the church usurped the right of private judgment, and formed a system of their own. They therefore assembled to condemn and excom- municate all such ; and by their fifth canon denounced an anath- ema on whoever should teach that the house of God and the assemblies in it were to be despised ; by their sixth, on whoever should hold a religious assembly apart from the church, and cel- ebrate religious services separately, without the presence of a presbyter according to the order of the bishop ; and by their twentieth, on whoever should censure the assemblies in the tem- ples of the martyrs, and the services celebrated in them in their commemoration.^ The edicts of the emperors present similar indications that there were many who dissented from the Catholic church soon after its nationalization. Thus Gratian in 378 : " In order that heretical assemblies might be discontinued, we on a former oc- casion," prebably in 376, " ordained that the places, whether in the city or country, in which religious assemblies are held, and altars erected under a false pretence of religion, separately from the church with which we commune, should be confiscated ; so that should they be allowed either through the connivance of the judges, or the audacity of the ungodly, it shall in either case be at their peril. "^ The edicts of the like nature issued by Theodosius the Great, many of which are seen in the Theodosian code, are represented by Arcadius in a law of 396 as very numerous. " Let no one of the heretics, who have heretofore been embraced in the innu- merable laws of our august sire, dare to gather a forbidden as- sembly, and contaminate the mysteries of the Almighty with a profane mind, neither in public nor in private, neiiiier secretly nor openly. Let no one venture to appropriate to himself the ' Labbei Concil. torn ii. pp. 1098-1102. ^ Codicis Theod. lib. xvi. tit. v. I. 4. THE FLIGHT OF THE WOMAN. 355 title of bishop or the ecclesiastical order, and use tlieir holy- names witli polluted lips."^ Who were denoted by the term heretics, was defined in an- other edict of the same year. " They are included under the term heretics, and ought to be subjected to the laws enacted against them, who are convicted of deviating from the doctrine and practice of the church for a light reason."^ Of the sixty-six laws of the fifth title of the sixteenth book, issued within one hundred and ten years of the council of Nicaea, a great portion are thus directed against dissentients from the Catholic church ; prohibiting their assemblies, debarring them from the ordination of ministers, confiscating their houses of worship, exiling them from the cities, and threatening them with death ; and present the most indubitable evidence that many in every part of the empire, who could not be branded with the op- probrious names of Manicheans, Montanists, Donatists, Euno^ mians, or even Novatians, withdrew from the establishment from disapprobation of its doctrines and rites, and worshipped apart. But a public protest, that drew the attention of the clergy throughout the empire against the superstitions and idolatries with which the church had become debased, was made towards the close of the fourth century, by Vigilantius, a native of Lyons, in Gaul, and a presbyter at first at Barcelona, Spain, and subse- quently in Italy, in the vicinity of the Cottian Alps. In his preaching, and in a volume, he assailed the celibacy of the clergy, monkery, excessive fasting, and pilgrimages to Jerusalem, as vices instead of virtues ; rebuked the debasement of the worship of the church by the introduction of pagan rites, and denounced the veneration of relics and the invocation of saints as idolatrous. Jerome represents him as denying that the sepulchres of the martyrs should be venerated, condemning vigils at their graves, pronouncing celibacy a heresy and school of licentiousness, and charging the worshippers of the martyrs with idolatry, and quotes the following from the volume of Vigilantius as his proof. " What need is there, not only to honor with such respect, but even to adore, I know not what, which carrying in a little box you worship ? Why do you in adoration kiss dust covered with a linen cloth 1 We see a rite, almost pagan, introduced into the ' Codicis Theod. lib. xvi. tit. v. 1. 26. ' Codicis Theod. lib. xvi. tit. v. 1. 28. HoBreticorum vocabulo continentur, et latis adversus eos sanctiouibus debent subcumbere qui vel levi argumento a judicio Cath- olicae religionis et tramite detecti fuerint deviare. 356 THE FLIGHT OF THE WOMAN. church under the pretence of rcHgion, While the sun slIU shines, a muhitude of wax tapers are hghted, and wherever there is a httle fine dust, I know not what, in a small vase covered with fine linen, they kiss in adoration. Men oifer great homage of this kind to the blessed martyrs, and imagine that they are illustrated by cheap tapers, whom the Lamb, who is in the midst of the throne, irradiates with the full splendor of his majesty. Do th3 souls of the martyrs delight in their own ashes, and al- ways hover over them, lest, if absent, they might be unable to hear when a sinner approaches to invoke their aid ?"' And these sentiments, it is apparent from Jerome's representations, were neither peculiar to Vigilantius, nor had their origin with him, but were common to many in that part of Italy, and had long pre- vailed. He saj^s it is reported that he had bishops as his coad- jutors, if they could be called bishops, who would not ordain deacons unless they were already married ; having no faiih in the chastity of celibates, and ostentatiously sliowing how holily their clergy lived, whom the people universally would suspect of vice, and regard as unfit to administer the sacraments, if they were not seen to have wives and children.^ That marriage was thus made a requisite to admission to the sacred office, indicates that the practice had long prevailed, and implies, therefore, that it was not originated by Vigilantius, who had then resided in that region but a short period. His reprobation of the homage of relics, and the invocation of saints, was, doubtless, likewise ex- pressive of views long entertained by large numbers in that part of Italy, and in Gaul and Spain, rather than introduced by him- self. It is known that the clergy of Spain and the south of Gaul disapproved of the homage of pictures and images in the beginning of the fourth centur}', from the canon of the council of Eliberis prohibiting their exhibition in churches, lest they should be made objects of adoration.^ And aversion to them is known to have continued, both in the south of France and the west of Italy, at the foot of the Alps, for several ages, from the removal of the images from the church of Marseilles, by Serenus, towards the close of the sixth century ; from the denunciation of their worship by the clergy of the kingdom, after the second council of Nicffia in 787 ; and from their condemnation by Claude, of Turin, in the following age. These facts indicate that there was in that part of Europe a continued succession of teachers and worshippers, who publicly disapproved of those er- ' Hieronymi Episl. 59, 60, adv. Vigilant * Ibid. 60. • Labboi Concil. torn. ii. c. 36, p. 11. THE FLIGHT OF THE WOMAN. 357 tors and idolatries from the period of their introduction into the church through a long succession of ages. IV. The rulers endeavored to tempt and compel all dissen- tients to submit to their usurped authority, and concur in the na- tionalized faith and worship. Constantine adopted the church as an auxiliary to the state ; endeavored through the whole of his administration to bring all who assumed the Christian name to enter the establishment, un- der the persuasion that it would contribute to the strength and permanence of the government ; and enjoined that policy on his sons. Sozomen relates that when near the close of life, he ad- vised Constantius to assemble a council for the purpose of recon- ciling the Arians and orthodox, under the conviction that the em- pire would have no prosperity unless God was worshipped in the same manner by all.^ And it was, undoubtedly, from the adop- tion of that theory as politicians, and not from any religious mo- tives, that Constantius and Valens especially, and probably, in a large degree, Gratian and Theodosius the Great, strove by edicts and penalties to force all who adopted the Christian name to conform to the nationalized church. It was with that view that Constantius summoned the councils of Rimini, Sirmium, Ser- dica, Seleucia, and others ; Theodosius that of Constantinople, and other emperors those that followed.^ They accordingly, for a long series of ages, employed every species of influence in their power, to allure or drive the whole population into the Catholic communion. Constantine gave peculiar privileges to the churches of the establishment, restoring their edifices and other property, protecting them in their worship, contributing to their funds from the national treasury, and allowing them to re- ceive bequests from the dying. He conferred important immu- nities and powers on the nationahzed clergy, exempting them from the burthens of civil offices, releasing their property from taxation, and constituting them judges in the civil as well as ec- clesiastical causes in which they were interested, incorporating their canons with the civil laws of the empire, and causing them to be enforced by the magistrates and soldiers ; while, on the other hand, he discouraged and obstructed all dissentients, by de- barring them from the immunities granted to the Catholics, con- fiscating their churches, prohibiting their assemblies, and driving the intractable into exile. Those laws were continued by Con- stantius and Valens, and enforced on a vast scale throughout the ' Sozomeni Hist. Ecel. lib. iii. c. 19. Eusebii Hist. Eccl. lib. x. c. 5, p. 320. ' Socratis Hist. Eccl. lib. ii. c. 37. Sozomeni Hist. Eccl. lib. vii. c. 12. 358 THE FLIGHT OF THE WOMAN. empire ; many of tlie orthodox bishops were deposed and ban- ished ; the inferior clergy driven in crowds from their churches, and great numbers of both sexes, who refused to conform to the Arian faith, put to the torture.* That pohcy was continued by Gratian, Theodosius, Arcadius, and Honorius, in favor of the orthodox. By an edict issued in 380, the toleration which had before been granted to pagans was withdrawn, and the whole population of the empire required to embrace the Catholic faith. " We will that all people who live under our sway, practise the religion which was communicated by the holy apostle Peter to the Romans, which it is known is followed by the pontiff Damasus, and Peter, the bishop of Alex- andria, a man of apostolic sanctity ; 'that we should believe ac- cording to the apostolic rule and evangelical doctrine, in the one deity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, of equal majes- ty, and in a holy Trinity.' Following this law we command all to embrace the name of Catholic Christians, but condemn all others as delirious, to bear the infamy of an heretical doctrine ; iheir assemblies are not to be denominated churches, and they are to be punished, first by the divine vengeance, and then by inflictions by us, which we undertake at God's command."^ They ordered all the churches to be delivered to the bishops who held that doctrine. "We order all the churches to be im- mediately delivered to the bishops who confess the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, of one majesty and power, of the same excellence and glory, making not a dissonance by a sacrilegious division, but a trinity in order, an assertion of persons, and a one- ness of deity. Who they are, will be determined by their com- munion with the bishops of Constantinople, Alexandria, Laodi- cea, Tarsus, Iconium, Antioch, Caesarea, Mitilene, Nyssa, Scy- ihia, and Marcionopolis. They must be permitted to obtain the Catholic churches who are of the communion and fellowship of approved priests. But all who dissent from their faith who are liere enumerated, are to be expelled from the churches as mani- fest heretics, nor is any power hereafter to be allowed them of obtaining the pontifical churches, that the priesthood of the Ni- cene faith may continue pure. Nor after the plain expressions of this edict shall any place be allowed to malignant craft."^ In other edicts they prohibited heretics from holding separate assemblies, confiscated their houses of worship, forbid their en- tertaining opinions differing from those of the Catholic church, * Socratis Hist. Eccl. lib. ii. c. 27. Sozomeni Hist. Eccl. lib. iv. e. 8. * Codicis Theod. lib. xvi. tit. i. 1. 3. ' Ibid. 1 3. THE FLIGHT OF THE WOMAN. 359 denied them the liberty of ordaining ministers of their churches, debarred some classes from the right of inheriting and bequeath- ing property, banished them from the cities, excluded them from communion with the Catholics and the society of the reputable, and endeavored by rewards on the one hand, and on the other by disabilities, dishonors, obloquy, confiscation, exile, torture, and all the enginery of a despotic and cruel government, through a long tract of ages, to force the whole population to submit to their assumption of authority over religion, and unite in their idolatries. Every class of objectors was mercilessly crushed, and all liberty of worship and freedom of opinion extinguished. V. As it was by spiritual aids that the true worshippers were enabled to resist the temptations and force by which the rulers endeavored to constrain them to apostasy, and to fly to the desert, no specific record of those aids is to be sought on the page of his- tory. The only evidence that we can ask or possess, that they were conferred, is presented in the fact that a body of dissentients from the corrupt church were in a later age found in a secluded scene, who had survived the endeavors of the rulers of the fourth, fifth, sixth, and following centuries, to compel all their subjects to conformity, and who have continued to maintain a separate exist- ence, and ofl'er an unidolatrous worship to the present time. And such a body were the Waldenses inhabiting the eastern valleys of the Cottian Alps. They are known from the testimony of cotemporary Catholics and their own authors to have existed there as early as the eleventh century. It was then, and is now, claimed by them.selves, and admitted by their enemies, that they had subsisted there from a much earlier age. They were a Christian church, having the Scriptures of the Old and New Tes- tament, regarding them as a revelation from God, and making them the rule of their fahh ; having a ministry of their own, holding religious assemblids, professing and teaching the doc- trines of the gospel, and celebrating the sacraments. They were dissentients from the Catholic church, rejecting its usurping priesthood, its superstitious rites, its false doctrines, and its idolatrous worship. They were distinguished for the simplicity and purity of their lives. It was asserted by them, and repeated by the Catholics, that they were induced to retreat to the secluded valleys which they inhabit, to escape the despotism of the rulers and the cor- ruptions and tyranny of the church, soon after its nationalization by Constantine. They have continued to subsist there to the present time, as a separate and evangelical church. 360 THE FLIGHT OF THE WOMAN. They liavc been preserved ihcrc and nourished by extra- ordinary means. Of the dangers and necessities to which they were exposed, during the first five hundred years of their seclusion, we have Httle knowledge. Their preservation, howev- er, through such a period, while the whole church without re- lapsed into idolatry, and the civil and ecclesiastical rulers were exhausting every art to drive dissentients from existence, is itself httle less tiian a miracle. It could have been only by the pecu- liar care of providence, that they were not overwhelmed by their implacable foes. It was by the special gifts of the divine Spirit, that a succession of pious and faithful teachers and believers was continued through so many ages. But after they drew the attention of the persecuting civil and ecclesiastical rulers, the care of God was very conspicuous in their preservation. Great num- bers were, from age to age, seized, imprisoned, and put to death as martyrs. They were repeatedly threatened with extermina- tion by the sword, and reduced by slaughter, famine, and the suf- ferings incident to persecution and war, to a small body. They were obstructed by the intrusion of Catholics en their lands, and compelled to migrate to other countries. Both insidious and vio- lent endeavors were mide for several centuries, to draw them to apostasy. Their children were often stolen, and borne away to be educated in the Catholic faith. They were driven from their valleys in 1686, and scattered through Germany, Switzerland, and France, and kept in banishment several years. Yet against all these enemies, and through all these dangers, while all other nations and churches underwent the greatest vicissitudes and rev- olutions, they continued the same people and the same church, holding the same faith, offering the same worship, maintaining the same simplicity and purity of manners, and uttering the same tes- timony against the nationalized and apostate hierarchies. They were succored by the pious of France, Switzerland, and Ger- many, through a long tract of dark and stormy ages ; at later pe- riods the Protestant princes repeatedly interposed with their per- secutors in their behalf, and the benevolent of Great Britain and other countries have often sent them liberal contributions to re- lieve their necessities, and aid them in educating their children, and supporting their pastors. VI. The population at large, received the corrupt religion dic- tated by the emperors, with the utmost eagerness, and by their conspicuous and exulting acquiescence, which seemed to be uni- versal, may naturally have rendered it easier for remote churches and obscure individuals who dissented, to escape the notice of THE FLIGHT OF THE WOMAN. 361 the rulers, and retire into unfrequented regions like the valleys of the Alps, where, shielded from observation, they might for ages maintain a pure worship without obstruction. That the assumptions of authority by Constantine, and the false doctrines and idolatrous rites introduced under his patronage, were approved by the great body of the bishops and church, is indisputable from the universal exultation at his triumph over Maxentius and Licinius, and the legalization of Christianity. Not a single conspicuous prelate appears to have objected to that measure. They attended the s3aiods which he assembled ; they received their canons and decrees, and accommodated themselves in their organization under patriarchs, exaichs, and metropolitans, and in their discipline, to the civil government as remodelled by him, assumed the civil offices to which he appointed them, ac- cepted the provisions he made for their support, and availed them- selves of thcvcivil magistrate to enforce their discipline. Not a mvu-mur of dissent from his arrogations was pubhcly heard, till the power they had sanctioned him in assuming was turned against themselves ; and though, as corruptions were introduced into the church during the fourth century, many became dissat- isfied, withdrew, and formed separate assemblies, yet nearly the whole church eagerly embraced, and zealously sustained the na- tional establishment in all its errors of doctrine and debasement of worship, as is clearly indicated by the canons of the councils and laws of the emperors against dissentients, and demonstrated by the representations of the ecclesiastical writers of the period. Thus Jerome treats Vigilantius and his coadjutors as singular in their disapprobation of the homage of relics and invocation of saints, and as thereby condemning the whole eastern and western church. " He regrets that the relics of the martyrs are covered with a precious ved, and not tied up in rags or hair cloth, or thrown to a dung-hill, that the drunken Vigilantius alone might adore them. Are we, therefore, guilty of sacrilege when we en- ter the basihcas of the apostles ? Was the emperor Constantius sacrilegious, who transferred the sacred relics of Andrew, Luke, and Timothy to Constantinople, at which the demons roared, and those possessing Vigilantius confessed that they were conscious of their presence ? Is the present emperor Arcadius to be called sacrilegious, who transferred the bones of the blessed Samuel, long after his death, from Judea to Thrace ? Are all the bishops to be regarded not only as sacrilegious, but as besotted, who carry about light dust and loose ashes in silk and a golden vase ? Are the people of all the churches fools, who hastened to meet 46 362 THE FLIGHT OF THE WOMAN. the sacred relics with as great joy as though they saw the pro- phet present and living, so liiat crowds swarmed along the whole way from Palestine to Chalcedon, and resounded the praises of Christ with one voice ?" " Did the bishop of Rome do wrong, who offered sacrifices over those dead men, Peter and Paul according to us — according to you, a little vile dust ; and regarded their tombs as Christ's al- tars ? And do the bishops not only of one city, but of the whole world err, who, despising the huckster Vigilantius, enter the ba- silicas of the dead, in which vile dust and ashes, I know not what, lie wrapped in fine linen, so polluted that they taint every thing, and are like tiie sepulchres of the Pharisees that were whitened without, while within they were defiled with ashes and all impu- rities ?"^ It is apparent from these representations, that the great body of the clergy and church, embraced the debasing superstitions and idolatries introduced and patronized by the emperors, with an ea- gerness and passion conformable to the representation that the earth opened a vast chasm and swallowed the flood cast from the mouth of the dragon. VII. The existence in the valleys of the Alps, of a body of dis- senters from the Catholic church, appears to have been unknown for several ages, to the persecuting civil and ecclesiastical ru- lers. The earliest persecution to death in their vicinity, of dissen- tients holding their doctrines, of which the writers of the middle ages give us any notice, was at Orleans in France, in 1017, and they are represented by Glaber as then recently detected, although he admits that they had existed for a long period. Olliers were soon discovered in that part of Gaul, in Lombardy, and in Pied- mont, and many ere the close of the century put to death. In tiie following age the Waldenses seem first to have attracted tiie no- tice of prelates and princes; Peter Waldo, who in 1160 began to teach their doctrines at Lyons, and spread them over the whole of Catholic Europe, being a Waldensian by birth as well as in faith ; but it was not till the opening of the next century that they became the objects of an exterminating persecution. They are spoken of by all the writers of the period, as then recently discov- ered. From these representations, and from their not having been as- sailed at an earlier period, there is reason to believe that from their extreme seclusion, from the wars with which Italy was oc- ' Hieronymi EpLst. 59, 60, adv. Vigilant. ' Baronii Annul, anno 1017. THE FLIGHT OF THE WOMAN, 363 cupied, and from the incessant strifes with which the cliurch it- self was rent, they for a succession of ages escaped the notice both of the popes and the secular princes. VIII. And finally, after the retreat of the woman into the des- ert, the usurping civil rulers, for a series of ages, persecuted such individuals as ihcy found rejecting the errors of the nationalized church, and maintaining an evangelical faith and worship. The edicts of the emperors against dissentients from the na- tionalized church, from Constantine to the commencement of the twelve hundred and sixty years, were continued by their succes- sors, and other laws enacted for the purpose of repressing seces- sion, and forcing the alienated back into the Catholic communion ; and on the public withdrawment of the Paulicians in Armenia, organization as a separate church, and formal testimony against the false doctrines and idolatrous rites of the Catholics, a merci- less war on them was commenced, and continued at intervals in Armenia, Thrace, Bulgaria, Bohemia, and Germany, for more than five hundred years, during which great numbers were put to death. And on their migration in the beginning of the elev- enth century, into Italy and Gaul, they, with the Albigenses and other rejectors of the Catholic system, were, at the instance of the bishops, assailed by the civil rulers, and persecuted in every part of Italy, in Gaul, in Spain, in the Netherlands, in Germany, in Bohemia, in Hungary, and in England, with few intermissions, through the ages that followed to the close of the eighteenth cen- tury. Not a single body of evangelical believers withdrew from the nationalized church, or rejected its false doctrines, professed a scriptural faith, offered a pure worship, and testified against the errors of the apostate communions, that was not assailed by the wild beast, and forced to seal their witness to the truth with their blood. Mr. Brightman, Mr. Daubuz, Mr. Elliott, and others, regard the dragon that cast water from its mouth, not as the seven-head- ed dragon, but as the apostate angel who fought with Michael. But that is to disregard the ascription to it of an action appropri- ate only to a monster animal like a dragon inhabiting water. That error led to a misapplication also of the other parts of the symbol. Thus Mr. Daubuz and Mr. Elliott exhibit the two wings that were given to the woman, as denoting the eastern and western empires. But as the dragon represents the rulers of the empire, the empire itself cannot be the wings by which she escaped from their presence. It is against analogy. There is no resemblance between two divisions of an empire which are immovable, and 364 THE FLIGHT OF THE WOMAN. wings which are the instruments of motion from one part of it to another. An empire sustains no such relation to a person resi- ding in it, as wings would to one to whom they were so united as to constitute a part of himself. The fancy is preposterous in oth- er relations also, as well as in contradiction to the symbol. If the two divisions of the empire were the wings, whither was the woman borne ? Did the empires convey her out of their territo- ries ? How is the supposition that the empires were the wings, to be reconciled with the representation, that the earth opened its mouth, and drank the river cast forth by the dragon ? Did the wings swallow the torrent, as well as bear the woman above it ? Mr. Mode's exposition, who regarded the eagle as the empire, and the wings as emperors of the eastern and western divisions, is similarly objectionable. Mr. Brightman, Mr. Daubuz, Mr. Elliott, and others, exhibit the water which the dragon cast from its mouth, as the Gothic nations by which the western empire was devastated and con- quered. But those nations were not cast from the mouth of the rulers of the empire. They entered the empire against the wish- es, and with few exceptions, the strenuous exertions of both the emperors, and army, and the people. Their objects were plunder and conquest, not the seduction or compulsion of pure worship- pers of God to apostasy. Their invasions were represented by the symbols of the first four trumpets, and exhibited as commis- sioned to devastate and overthrow the western Roman empire, not to force pure worshippers and faithful witnesses to conform to the idolatrous nationalized church. Vitringa's exposition, who regarded the waters as symbolizing the Saracens, is open to similar objections. They were not cast from the mouth of the Roman rulers. They are represented by the locusts of the fifth trumpet, and as commissioned to chastise an apostate church, not to draw pure worshippers to apos- tasy. Mr. Faber exhibits the water, as the European infidels of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. But that is in contradic- tion to his assumption that the seven-headed dragon, that cast them from its mouth, is the symbol of all the unfaithful members of the visible church. It was not the apostate church, that cast on the world the vast host of infidels and atheists of the seven- teenth and eighteenth centuries. As multitudes of those infidels were members of the visible church, the supposition that they were cast forth from it, implies that all infidels of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, were excommunicated from the visible THE TEN-HORNED WILD BEAST. 365 church. But no such excommunication of infidels has taken place. It was during the flight of the woman, moreover, that the water was cast after her, not near the close of her residence of twelve hundred and sixty years in the desert. SECTION XXXI. CHAPTERS XII. 18, XIII. 1-10. THE TEN-HORNED WILD BEAST. And I stood on the shore of the sea. And I saw a wild beast as- cending from the sea, having ten horns and seven heads, and on its horns ten diadems, and on its heads names of blasphemy. And the v^ild beast which I saw was like a panther, and its feet as of a bear, and its mouth as the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave it its power, and its throne, and great authority. And I saw one of its heads was, as it were, wounded to death ; and its death-wound was healed. And the whole earth wondered after the wild beast. And they worshipped the dragon because it gave authority to the wild beast. And they worshipped the wild beast, saying, Who is like to the wild beast ? and. Who is able to war with it ? And a mouth was given to it speaking great things and blasphemies ; and power was given to it to do [it] forty-two months. And it opened its mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and those who dwell in heaven. And it was given to it to make war with the saints, and to vanquish them. And authority was given to it over every tribe, and people, and tongue, and nation. And all will worship it who dwell on the earth, whose name is not written in the book of life of the Lamb, who was slain from the foundation of the world. If any one has an ear, let him hear. If any one leads into captivity, into captivity he goes. If any one slays with the sword, by the sword he must be slain. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints. This wild beast is a symbol of rulers, manifestly, from the badges of royalty ascribed to it, crowns, a throne, and great au- thority ; and a symbol of a body of cotemporaneous rulers, obvi- ously^ from its ten horns with their diadems, which are represen- tative of separate dynasties ; and from its authority over every tribe, and people, and tongue, and nation on the earth, which had been subject to the throne surrendered to it by the dragon. It is the representative of a combination of dynasties, that succeed to 366 THE TEN-HORNED WILD BEAST. a dominion formerly exercised by the dragon, as is seen from its receiving from it its power, and its throne, and great authority. Tliat is indicated also by the seven heads, w^hich are representa- tives of the same species of supreme rulers that are symboHzed by the heads of the dragon. The disappearance of the diadems from the heads, and elevation to the horns, denote that those or- ders of supreme rulers which the heads represented, are no longer in authority, but are succeeded by the new dynasties denoted by the horns. Its body was like a panther's, its feet like a bear's, and its mouth like a lion's ; a union of the utmost agility with the greatest strength to grasp and appetite to devour, indicating a combination of aggressive, bloody, cruel, and insatiable tyrants. That one of its heads was wounded to death with a sword, and its death-wound healed, denotes that one of the successions of ru- lers symbolized by its heads, was cut off by the sword and su- perseded by one of the others for a time, but subsequently re- stored. That the whole earth wondered after it, indicates that the whole population of the ten kingdoms regarded the monarchs whom it represents, with admiration and awe, and eulogized the heroism of their exploits, and the wisdom of their rule. That they worshipped the dragon because it gave it authority, implies that they regarded important rights which their monarchs exer- cised as derived from the dragon, and as legitimately assumed by them, because they had been arrogated and exercised by that an- cient rule. ' That their ascriptions to the dragon and the wild beast of that authority as legitimate was a worslhp, denotes that the assumption of that authority was an arrogation of the prerog- atives of God, and their assent to it, therefore, the ascription to them of a homage that is due only to him. That arrogation of his rights is denoted also by the names of blasphemy on the heads of the°dragon, and by the detraction of his name, which the wild beast is represented as uttering. His name is descriptive of what he is in his relations to his creatures, and is the symbol thence of his peculiar attributes and prerogatives, as is seen in the an- inmcialion of Christ in the first vision, his proclamation of his at- tributes, and their celebration by the living creatures and elders, as the ground of his right to reign. The wild beast's blasphemy of his name, therefore, is its denial to him of his peculiar prerog- atives, and arrogation of them as its own. The tabernacle was the tent or edifice erected by the command of God, as the place of offering the worship which he enjoined ; the inner sanctuary symbolizing the heaven in which he mani- fests himself, and receives the homage of the spirits ot the just THE TEN-HORNED WILD BEAST. 367 made perfect and the angelic hosts ; the main sanctuary in which worship was oifered by the priests and Levites, symbohzing the places in which the ministers of the Christian church offer ac- ceptable worship. To calumniate his tabernacle, therefore, was to ascribe to it something inconsistent with its office, and detract- ing from his prerogatives, such as the representation of the heavens as the residence of other beings besides him, who are en- titled to worship, and the exhibition of edifices in which idols are placed, and an homage paid to other beings and objects besides God, as the proper places of the worship which the church on earth is to offer him. To blaspheme those who dwell in heaven, was, in like manner, to calumniate them by representing them as arrogating the attributes and prerogatives of God, by desiring and receiving a religious homage that is due only to him. That it was given to it to make war with the saints and to vanquish them, denotes that it persecuted the pure worshippers who re- fused submission to its sacrilegious usurpations, and inflicted on them what evils it pleased. .That it had authority over every tribe, and people, and tongue, and nation, and was worshipped by all except the true people of God, signifies that all the nations over which the monarchies which it represents reigned, submit- ted to their arrogations of the rights of God, and tbat none dis- sented, and acknowledged, and vindicated the prerogatives of the Almighty, but those whose names were written in the Lamb's book of life. That he that led into captivity was himself to become a cap» live, and he that slew with the sword must himself be slain, indi- cates that those who should attempt to defend themselves by force from the religious tyranny of those usurping monarchies, would be defeated in their endeavors, and involve themselves in the very evils they attempted to escape. That here is the faith and the patience of the saints, denotes that the true witnesses of God were not, in fulfilling their office, to resort to violence for deliverance from those persecuting tyrants, and the maintenance or acquisi- tion of religious freedom, but in meekness and faith content them- selves with uttering their testimony for God, which he has prom- ised to make a devouring fire to their enemies. The period of the wild beast's triumphant authority, like that of the woman in the desert, and the witnesses, was to be forty-two months, the symbol of twelve hundred and sixty years. All these characteristics meet most conspicuously in the Gothic rulers, who established governments in the western Roman em- 368 THE TEN-HORNED WILD BEAST. pire during the fifth century, and their successors and subjects to the present lime. The emergence of the wild beast from the sea is not to be re- garded as having been accomphshed in a moment, or a brief space, but as having occupied such a period as would naturally be re- quired for the invasion of the empire by many separate tribes mi- grating from vast distances, engaging in numerous wars, and final- ly, after victory, establishing new and independent governments. Nor are the chiefs who ruled them after the conquest of parts of the empire, to be considered as having assumed that relation in which they are symbolized by the horns, while they remained, as in France for a long period, in subordination to Rome. They emerged from the sea as dynasties, when, by concession or victo- ry, they became rulers of portions of the empire in independence of that power. The institution of the horns, therefore, took place at diff'erent periods, and they were those that subsisted when the conquest of the empire was completed, and the imperial power extinguished. I. On the conquest of Italy and termination of the imperial rule by the deposition of Augustulus in 476, the barbarians held possession of the whole western empire, with the exception of a part of Britain and Gaul, and were distributed under ten kingly governments. 1. The Vandals who entered Gaul in 406, soon passed into Spain, and after occupying a part of that province for near twen- ty years, in 427 invaded Africa, wrested it from the Romans, in- stituted an independent kingdom, and ruled it until the year 533.1 2. The Suevi, who at the same period passed through Gaul, conquered Gallicia in Spain, and maintained a kingdom till 585, a space of one hundred and seventy-seven years.^ 3. The Visigoths in 408 passed from Italy into the south of France, and maintained a kingdom there till the year 506, when being driven by the Franks into Spain, they wrested a part of it from the Suevi, and in 585 extended their sway over the whole peninsula.^ 4. Of the Alans who entered Gaul in 407, a part advanced in- to Spain, and after sustaining a separate government eight or nine years, were conquered by the Vandals and Suevi, and passed ■ Procopii Hist. Vandal, lib. i. pp. 10-14, Edit. Grot. Jornaiulis de Reb. Get. c. 31, 33, pp. G.'i.'i-G.'-)?, Edit. Grot. Isidor. Chron. pp. 716, 732-737, Edit. Grot » Jornaiid. do licb. Get. c. 44, p. 67.'). Isidor. pp. 716, 731, 737-740. » Isidor. Chron. pp. 716, 719, 731, 732. THE TEN-HORNED WILD BEAST, 369 with the former into Africa. Another body settled on the Rhine, and in 440 in Valencia. They repulsed Attila from Orleans, their capital, on his invasion of Gaul in 451, and were stationed in the centre of the army by which he was defeated at the battle of Chalons.^ On his invasion of their territory in 453, they were supported by the Goths, and gained another victory.^ In 464 they invaded Italy, and laid waste Liguria,^ Clovis extended his conquests over their territory, as far as the Liger in 485,* but they continued to subsist as a separate people till 507, and perhaps a few years later, when they were conquered by the Franks.^ 5. The Burgundians established themselves in Belgic Gaul in 407. After a few^ years they obtained possession of Savoy, and subsequently of Gaul on the Rhone, and maintained a separate kingdom till 524, when they were conquered by the Franks. On the division of the French kingdom, it again became a separate state, and continued such most of the time for several centu- ries.^ 6. The Franks also entered Gaul in 407, and within a few years established a kingdom on the Rhine, which they continued to maintain and advance, until in the sixth century it extended over the- whole territory embraced in modern France.'' 7. Britain revolted from the Romans in the year 407 or 408, and was never recovered by them.^ The Saxons invaded the island in 44S, and soon after established a kingdom which grad- ually extended over the whole of the territory which had been held by the Romans, and subsisted through several centu- ries.^ 8. The Ostrogoths who were under the dominion of Attila, on the dissolution of his empire settled in Pannonia,^*' and contin- ued to hold their share of that province and a part of Illyria, till their invasion of Italy, and conquest of the Heruli in 493.^ ' Joniand.c. 31, p. 655. Isidor. Chron. pp. 716, 731, 733. ' Joriiand. de Reb. Get. c. 31, p. 655, c. 37, p. 665, c. 43, p. 674. Isidor. pp. 731, 732, 737. ^ Sigonii Hist, de Occid. Imp. lib. xiv. * Ibid. lib. xv. ' Gibbon's Hist. chap, xxxviii. ' Ibid. ' Agathiae Hist. lib. i. p. 530-532, Edit. Grot. * Procopii Hist. Vandal, lib. i. pp. 8, 9. ' Gibbon's Hist. chap, xxxviii. Lingard's Hist. Engl. vol. i. chap. ii. Sigonii da Occid. Imp. lib. xiii. anno 449. "> Jornand. de Reb. Get. c. 38. p. 666, c. 50-55, pp. 685-694. Sigonii de Oc- cid. Imp. lib. xiii. an. 455. " Jornand. de Reb. Get. c. 52, p. 689. Sigonii de Occident. Imper. lib. xiii. anno 455, lib. XV. anno 493. 47 370 THE TEN-HORNED WILD BEAST. 9. The Lombards, who were a branch of the Gepidae, were also under the sway of Attila at the period of his invasion of Gaul and Italy ; and on the dissolution of his empire in 455, assumed a portion of Pannonia,* which they continued to retain till the reign of Justinian, when they conquered the Gepidae, whose seats were within the eastern empire, chiefly, and on the north of the Danube.^ They subsequently extended their conquests towards the west to Bavaria.^ In 568 they invaded and conquered Italy, where they maintained their empire till near the close of the eighth century.* 10. The Heruli, who had also been under the sway of Attila, in 476 crossed the Danube into Noricum, and advancing into It- aly, conquered the Romans, dethroned Augustulus, proclaimed Odoacer their leader king of Italy, and maintained their empire till conquered by the Ostrogoths in 493.^ These separate dynasties are with propriety united in a single symbol, and exhibited as one great combination of usurping ty- rants, from the similarity of their arrogations, policy, and rulers. They were all feudatory monarchies. They all adopted, in a large degree, the laws of the ancient empire as their common law,^ They united in the same usurpation of the divine rights, in imposing the same false religion on their subjects, and in a similar hostili- ty to the true people of God. They all nationalized the church, and all persecuted dissenters. 11. They were to their subjects in strength, ferocity, and blood ' Grotius, in his Prolegomena to the history of the Goths, quotes a passage from Paul Waruefrid's Miscellany, expressly asserting that the Gepidae, of whom the Lombards were a branch, passed the Danube in the reigns of Arcadius and Honorius, and set- tled around Singidunum and Sirrnium. Sed addendus est Pauli illius notissimis locis alius minus cognitus ex Miscella ejus historia. Nanique ubi ad Theodosii fili- orum pervenit tempora, sic ait, ipse ut dixi Longobardus. ' Eodem tempore erant Gothi et aliiE gentes multte et maximiE trans Danubium habitantes : ex qui- bus rationabiliores quatuor sunt, Gothi scilicet, Iluisigothi, Gepides, et Vandali, et nomen tantum, et nihil aliud mutantes . . . Isti sub Arcadio et Honorio Danubium transeuntcs, locati sunt in terra Romanorum, et Gepides quidem ex quibus poetea divisi sunt Longobardi et Avares, villas qua? sunt circa Singidunum et Sirrnium hab- itavere.' — Proleg. ad Hist. Goth. p. 27. So also Procopius, Hist. Vand. lib. i. pp. 5, 6. Grotius represents them, on the death of Attila, as taking possession of that part of Pannonia which had before been occupied by the ilunns. Postremo Marcia- no imperante pulsis Ilunnis, Gepida3 in Pannonim ])artc6 Ilunnis quondam insessas, euccessere. Ab his Gepidis orti sunt illi Longobardi. — Proleg. p. 53. ' Procopii Hist. Vand. lib. i. pp. 5, 6. Post Gcpidcc, circa Singidunum et Sirrnium et ad utranuiue Danubii ripam agros adepti sunt, quos et nunc tcnent. Also lib. iii. pp. 387-394, lib. iv. p. 488. ' Pauli Warnefridi de Gest. Longobard. lib. i. c. 19, 20, 21, 22, pp. 757-761. ♦ Sigonii de Reg. Ital. lib. i. an. 567-570. ' Sigonii de Occid. Imp. lib. xiv. anno 476. • Gibbon's Hist. chap, xxxviii. and xxxix. Labbei Coucil. torn. ix. p. 761. THE TEN-HORNED WILD BEAST. 371 iness, what an animal would be to its victim, that united in itself the agility of the panther, the strength of the bear, and the mer- cilessness and voracity of the lion.'^ III. One of the successions of the dragon rule denoted by its heads, was cut off for a period by the sword, the sceptre as- sumed by one of the order denoted by the head that preceded it, and at length the interrupted succession restored again. The head receiving the death-wound, was the last, representing Con- stantino and his successors professing Christianity, and making the Christian religion the religion of the state. The death-wound was the interruption of that succession by the slaughter of all the heirs to the throne who professed the Christian faith, and acces- sion of Julian, an open and zealous pagan, who re-established polytheism, and endeavored to suppress Christianity. The re- covery of the head from the wound, was the restoration of the Christian succession in Jovian. The prediction that the Chris- tian succession was to receive a deadly wound by a sword, had a signal fulfilment, on the one hand, in the slaughter of the impe- rial family by Constantine himself and his son Constantius, and on the other, in their fall in battle and by conspiracy. Crispus, the eldest son of Constantine, Faustina, the mother of his other sons, and Licinius, the son of his sister Flavia, were put to death by Constantine himself.^ His two brothers, Julius Constantius, and Dalmatius the censor, Optatus, the husband of one of his sisters, Julius Dalmatius Caesar and Hannibalianus, sons of Dalmatius the censor, and five other cousins, were massacred by the order or concurrence of Constantius immediately on his accession.^ Of the sons of Constantine who survived him, Constantine the el- dest was slain in the year 340 in a civil war with his brother Con- stans ;* Constans was assassinated in the year 350 by Magnen- tius f soon after Nepotianus, a cousin, who usurped the purple at Rome, was put to death f and in 354, Gallus the brother of Julian ; when, on the death of Constantius in the year 361,' Ju- ' Nemo hujus tantas belluae immanitatem potest pro merito describere ; quae in uno loco recubans, tamen per totum orbem dentibus ferreis saevit, et non tantum ar- tus hominum diseipat, sed et ossa ipsa comminuit, et in cineres furit, nequis extet se- pulturae locus. — Lactantii Instit. lib. v. c. 11. " Philostorgii Hist. Eccl. lib. ii. c. 4. Zosimi Hist. lib. ii. c. 29. Eutropii Hist, lib^ X. c. 6. ' Juliani Epist. ad Athen. Zosimi Hist. lib. ii. c. 39, 40. Theodoriti Eccl Hist. lib. iii. c. 2. Socratis Eccl. Hist. lib. iii. c. 25. ♦ Philost. Hist. Eccl. lib. iii. c. 1. ' Eutropii Hist. lib. x. c. 9. Gibbon's Hist. Decl. and Fall, chap, xviii. • Socratis Eccl. Hist. lib. ii. c. 25. Sozomeni Eccl. Hist. lib. iv. c. 1. ' Socratis Eccl. Hist. lib. ii. c. 34. 372 THE TEN-HORNED WILD BEAST. lian, the apostate, being the only surviving male of the family en- titled to the sceptre, and having already been made Cjcsar by Constantiiis, and declared Augustus by the army of the west, suc- ceeded to the throne without obstruction,^ It was thus by the sword that all those of the family were cut off who might natu- rally have continued the succession of Christian emperors, and the sceptre devolved, from the want of any other ehgible candi- date,'^ to Julian, who had relapsed to paganism, and immediately after his accession, publicly disavowed Christianity, re-establish- ed the worship of idols, and endeavored to render it again the popular and national religion.^ But his purpose was intercepted by his death in the year 363, after a reign of about eighteen months,* and the death-wound of the seventh head healed by the elevation to the throne of Jovian a Christian, and the continuance thereafter of a line of Christian emperors till the supreme power passed from the Romans to the Goths in the west, and to the Turks at Constantinople. IV. The population of the empire regarded their rulers with awe and admiration. The serfs and common people sunk for ages to the most degraded vassalage, revered the monarchs, the various ranks of nobles, and their armed followers, as a superior race, while poets and historians celebrated their warlike exploits, and philosophers and priests justified their usurpations, and eulo- gized the wisdom and benignity of their rule. V. The population of the Gothic kingdoms regarded their monarchs as having derived important rights from the rulers of the ancient empire, symbolized by the heads of the dragon, and as authorized by their example to arrogate whatever powers had been assumed by them, either in relation to their subjects, or in respect to God. They regarded their kings as having acquired with the terri- tory, which they wrenched from the Romans, the right of exer- cising over it a similar dominion, and acquiesced in their assump- tion of the prerogatives which had been arrogated by the empe- rors. Thus they approved of the adoption by them of the laws of the empire in respect to ecclesiastical affairs, and justified their usurpation of authority over the church and persecution of dis- sentients, by the example of the emperors. The church had from ' Rocralis Eccl. Hist. lib. iii. c. 1. ' ProcopiuB, ii relative of Julian, who a.spired to the throne during the reign of Va- lentiniiin and Valons, and was put to death by Uie latter, was a pagan. — PhiJostorgii Eccl. Hist. lib. ix. c. .'i, (». (iibbon's Hist. chap. xxv. * Socratis Eecl. Hist. lib. iii. c. 1. * AmmiaQi Marcelliui Hist. lib. xxv. c. 3. Socratis lib. iii. c. 21. THE TEN-HORNED WILD BEAST. 37,^ the period of its nationalization used the imperial edicts in its ju- dicial decisions. The bishops of Gaul followed the Theodosian code ;^ and Burchard, Ivo, and Gratian introduced into their col- lections of the canons, many enactments and decisions from the code, Novella?, and digests, and formally united the civil and ec- clesiastical law. The principal laws of the Theodosian code that relate to the church, are those that gave it a civil establishment, provided for it revenues, enforced conformity to its faith and wor- ship, invested the bishops with an ecclesiastical and civil jurisdic- tion, and enjoined the execution of their decrees by the civil mag- istrates. The endeavors of the Christian emperors to support and give efficiency to the Catholic church by this legislation, were alleged by the eccles'astics and civilians of the modern kingdoms, as proofs that the.r princes had authority, and were under obligation to support their nationalized churches by a similar legislation. Thus Gregory the Great, in a letter to Ethelbert of England : " The Almighty exalts the good to the government of the nations, that he may through them communicate the blessings of Chris- tianity to their subjects, which we learn has taken place in Eng- land, over which you were intrusted with authority, that you might impart the gospel to those under your sway. Guard, there- fore, with care, illustrious son, the gift which you have received. Haste to spread the Christian faith among your people. Increase your zeal for their conversion, oppose the worship of idols, over- turn the fanes. Raise the manners of your subjects to purity, by exhorting, terrifying, alluring, chastening, and exhibiting a good example, that you may find him a rewarder in heaven, whose name and word you diffuse on the earth ; for he whose honor you seek and maintain among the nations, will render your name, al- ready distinguished, still more glorious with posterity ; for thus formerly the emperor Conslantine, so illustrious for piety, recall- ed the Roman empire from the homage of idols, converted it to the Redeemer, and by that means acquired far higher praise than the ancient princes, and surpassed his predecessors in fame as much as in achievements."^ Bellarmine alleges their example to show that princes have the right to legislate over religion, and compel their subjects to con- ' Utebatur quidcm olim ecclesia imperatoriis legibus ad judicia ordinanda, et Gal- liarum episcopi codicem Theodosianuin sequebantur. — Petri de Marca de Concord. Sacerd. et Imp. torn. ii. lib. iii. c. vi. p. 46. Capit. Caroli. Mag. lib. vi. c. 366, pp. 985, 986. Van Espen. Jus. Eccl. pr. i. tit. xiii. c. 3. * Gregorii Epist. 66, lib. xi. lud. iv. p. 1164. 374 THE TEN-HORNED WILD BEAST. form to the nationalized church. " It is proved by the testimo- ny of the pontiffs. Leo the Great, addressing Leo the emperor, said, ' I use the freedom of the Calhohc faith with the most Christian prince, who is to be numbered with honor among the preachers of Christ, and exhort you to the fellowship of the apos- tles and prophets ; that you would resolutely contemn and repel those who disown the Christian name, and not suffer those im- pious parricides to treat of the faith, who, it is apparent, wish on- ly to subvert it. For as God has conferred on your clemency such illumination, you ought immediately to exert the regal pow- er which is intrusted to you, not merely for the government of the world, but chiefly for the protection of the church, that by re- pressing those nefarious endeavors, you may maintain what is es- tablished, and restore what is disturbed to order.' The pious em- perors held the same opinion, for Theodosius the Great, plucked up by the roots that liberty of believing which some princes had permitted, and commanded all to adopt the faith which the Ro- man pontiff taught was obligatory. Ambrose commended the younger Valentinian that he resolutely resisted Rome, asking the liberty she had formerly enjoyed of sacrificing to the gods. Mar- cian in like manner, not only severely prohibited all public dis- putation respecting the decrees of the councils, but forbid the pri- vate examination of them by individuals."^ He alleged the example not only of the Christian, but even of the pagan emperors, as justifying the princes of the modern king- doms in persecuting heretics. " Respecting the punishment which, after sentence by the church, civil princes can and ought to inflict on heretics, we shall begin with their books, and show that they may of right interdict and burn them ; and it may be proved from the ancient and perpetual custom, not only of Chris- tians, but of pagans." And he quotes the narrative in Valerius Maximus, of the burning by order of the Roman senate, of cer- tain books that were unfriendly to religion ; and the relation by Cicero of the banishment of Protagoras by the Athenians for the same reason, and destruction of his books. " The Nicene council adjudged the books of Arius to the flames, and Constantino or- dered the execution of the sentence, and threatened death to who- ever should be found clandestinely reading his works." " When the heresy of Ncstorius was condemned by the council of Eph- esus, his books also were interdicted, and ordered by the empe- ror Theodosius to be burned."^ •' We will show that incorrigible heretics, and especially the • ' Bellarmini de Laicis, lib. iii. c. 18. ' Ibid. c. 20. THE TEN-HORNED WILD BEAST. 375 relapsed, may and ought to be excommunicated by the church and punished by the secular powers, both with temporal penalties, and with death." " It is proved by the decrees and laws of the emperors, which the church has always approved. Conslantine the Great, at the request of the synod of Nicaea, sent Arius and his associates into exile. He inflicted punishments on the Dona- tists also, and many excellent emperors enacted the severest laws against heretics. Afterwards Theodosius, Valentinian, Marcian, and others distinguished for their piety, issued edicts against them, by which they subjected them sometimes to fines, some- times to the confiscation of their goods, sometimes to scourging and exile, and sometimes to death.'" Bossuet says, " Whoever carefully examines the laws of the Theodosian and Justinian codes against heretics, will see that they are the source of the decrees against them which the church, aided by the edicts of princes, enacted in the third and fourth Lateran councils ; for it is apparent at once, why they are re- garded as infamous, why they are held to be incapable of inherit- ing and bequeathing property, why they are deprived of their possessions ; and although those penalties were especially directed against Manicheans and Donatists, they were not improperly ex- tended to other heretics, especially the Albigenses, whom the learned know were a branch of the Manicheans, and who were deserved- ly coerced by the same punishments, because they had imitated the infuriate Donatists in devastating the provinces. It is not strange that they who by the laws had forfeited their lives, should be confined in prison, reduced to slavery, and assailed with war. To the laws of the ancient emperors, subsequent princes added such as were suited to the exigencies of the times, and permitted many things to the ecclesiastics against heretics, in order that the reverence due to the clergy might be more fully enforced against the contemptuous."^ The same views were maintained by Petrus de Marca, and the examples of the emperors quoted to sustain them : " Although to dictate laws in regard to ecclesiastical and spiritual things, does not fall within the hmits of the royal prerogative, yet princes are bound to sustain canonical decrees by their laws." " If we ad- mit this in respect to pagan princes, how much more must we hold that the duty of defending and advancing religion is express- ly devolved on Christian monarchs, who are imbued with the true faith, and advanced by the aids of grace to extraordinary knowl- ' Bellarmini de Laicis lib. iii. c. 21, pp. 548, 549. * Bossuetii Defeiis. Declar. Cleri. Gall. pr. i. lib. iv. c. 3. 376 THE TEN-HORNED WILD BEAST. edge."^ And lie alleges the examples of Theodosius, Marcian, and others, to prove the right and duty of princes to sustain the church ; and their example has been appealed to as authority for the usurpations and tyranny of liie rulers of the modern kingdoms, by the great body of the writers who have treated of the subject. from the days of Gregory the Great to the present time. VI. The ancient Roman rulers and the Gothic monarchs, were accordingly guilty of blasphemy against God, in their usurpations of authority over his rights and laws. Their arrogations implied that his rights as a lawgiver, were subordinate to theirs ; that it was in their power to rescind his legislation, and exempt their subjects from responsibility to him ; and thence that his whole government, which professes to be founded on rights that are pe- culiar to him, not on their will, is a usurpation. How clearly their assumptions wei"e fraught with that claim of superiority to God, denial of his prerogatives, and accusation of his rule, is apparent from their actually asserting a dominion over his laws and his people in their peculiar relations to him, through the legislation of fifteen hundred years ; rescinding his commands and institutions ; introducing a different code ; instituting new religious rites ; constituting creatures, images, and relics, objects of worship ; ap- pointing new mediators, and methods of sanctificalion and par- don ; and treating those who refused submission to their will, and paid a religious homage to God only, as apostates ; pursu- ing them with fire and sword, and hunting them from existence as the most atrocious malefactors. No actions can be imagined which could embody a more formal and emphatic assumption of authority over his laws, and ascription to him, therefore, of inii- nite ursurpation in the institution and exercise of his govern- ment. VII. The rulers symbolized by the wild beast, traduced the tabernacle of God. They caluminatcd the heavens, the place in which he visibly manifests himself, and receives the homage of the spirits of the just made perfect and the angelic hosts, by ex- hibiting them as the residence of innumerable other beings that are entitled to divine worship. They regarded the saints and angels whom they invoked, as residing in the divine presence,^ and in sanctioning their invoca- tion, deified them by the ascription to them of the attributes and prerogatives of God, and thereby traduced the iieavens, by rep- resenting them as the abode not merely of the Self-existent, Eter- * Petri de Marca Conoortl. Sacerd. et. Imp. lib. ii. c. 10, torn. i. pp. 244-248. ' fienedicti xii. bull. iii. up. BuHar. Mug. turn. i. p. 217. THE TEN-HORNED WILD BEAST. 377 nal, and Almighty, who alone is God and has a right to the hom- age of his creatures, but of countless other deities also of similar prerogatives and title to worship. Tiiat homage of creatures was countenanced by Constantino and his sons ; was specifically sanctioned by Theodosius and his immediate successors, by ratifying the faith of the bishop of Rome and enforcing it on all their subjects ; and was formally legalized by Constantine V. and Irene by confirming the decrees of the sec- ond council of Nicaea approving the invocation of saints as well as the homage of images, and by their successors through all the ages that followed to the fall of the eastern empire. It was still more expressly sanctioned by the kings of the mod- ern empire. Their invocation, according to Bellarmine, is deno- ted by the litanies which were appointed by the first council of Orleans, the fifth and sixth of Toledo, and several others, to be re- cited annually for three days anterior to the anniversary of Christ's birth or ascension. Those councils were called, and their canons ratified, by the Spanish and Frank princes.^ But they sanctioned their worship not only by legalizing the Catholic church which was addicted to their homage, and by their example, but by soliciting the canonization by the pope of saints who had lived in their dominions. Thus it was at the in- stance of Henry of England, that King Edward was canonized in 1163 and Thomas a Becket in 1173.^ It was at the desire of the king and nobles that Richard, bishop of Chester, was canonized in 1261 f and of PhiHp of France, that St. Ivo was canonized in 1346. " We make known to your regal excellence in respect to the canonization of the pure confessor of Christ, Ivo, formerly a presbyter, for which your sublimity has earnestly solicited us, that after the long and careful examination which the arduousness of the question demands, we have, with the con- currence of our brethren, canonized him to the glory of God, and the consolation of the faithful, especially of your kingdom, which is known to have been the place of his birth, and ordered that he should be inscribed in the catalogue of the saints, and hereafter venerated as a saint by the churcii."'* It was at the request of Alphonsus, King of Spain, that St. Bernard was canonized in 1450 f and at the solicitation of Fred- erick, emperor of Germany, that St. Catherine was canonized in 1461.® The emperor of Germany, kings of France, Hungary, ' Bellarniini De Sanct. Beat. lib. i. c. 19. ' BuUar. Mag. torn. i. pp. 40, 41. ' Ibid. torn. i. p. 125. * Ibid. torn. i. p. 257. » Ibid. torn. i. pp. 359, 360. " Ibid. torn. i. p. 371. 48 378 THE TEN-IIORNED WILD BEAST. Sicily, several of the princes of Italy, and many others united in urging the canonization of Bonavcntura in 1482. "Our sons beloved in Christ, Frederick, emperor of the Romans, Louis, king of France, Ferdinand of Sicily, Matthias of Hungary ; our dear and noble sons also Alphonsus, Duke of Calabria, and John of Venice, John of Milan, and John Burbon, illustrious dukes ; moreover the cities Florence, Sens, Lyons, Perusia, and Bal- neoregium, have solicited his canonization by us, with such zeal and perseverance, that we should regard it as severe and impious to resist tiiem in a request so pious, and to which they seem to have been prompted by God."^ Of the impious forms and ex- pressions often employed in the act of canonization, the follow- ing are examples : " We therefore, following the suggestion and will of God, and considering that it is just and fit that we should praise and glorify those on earth with a religious homage, whom God honors in heaven, inasmuch as it is he rather who is praised and glorified in them, we decreed that the day of his canonization should be celebrated in the basilica of the prince of the apostles, where a vast multitude of every order assembled, and all the other rites having been legitimately performed, the procurator of the order of minors, standing up, pronounced the words of the Apostle John, There are three that bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Spirit ; and proved by the documents which had been recited, that the persons of the Trinity had tes- tified that the blessed Bonaventura was in heaven ; the Father by the power of his miracles, the Son by the wisdom of his doc- trine, the Holy Spirit by the excellence of his life ; and that it is required therefore imperatively, not only by those who have en- treated this canonization, but by the indivisible Trinity, the Fa- ther, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, that we vouchsafe to pro- nounce the blessed Bonaventura a saint. Trusting then that God would not permit us to err in this canonization, and having fulfilled and caused all things most accurately to be observed, that are in any manner requisite to it, with the mature counsel and unanimous consent of our brethren, the cardinals of the holy Roman church, and all the prelates of the Roman court, relying on the authority of Almighty God and his blessed apostles Peter and Paul, we decree that Bonaventura of happy memory, profes- sor of Christianity and cardinal, ought to be confidently and firmly held to be a saint, and inscribed in the catalogue of the other saints of God, and we hereby solemnly enroll him in the ' Bullar. Mag. torn. i. p. 424. THE TEN-HORNED WILD BEAST. 379 company of the holy confessors, pontiffs, and doctors, whom the holy church of God worships."^ They thus blasphemed the Almighty, not only by representing him as on a level with his creatures in prerogatives and titles to homage, but by exhibiting him as concurring in their deification of apostate men, and sanctioning princes, prelates, and people, in that audacious impiety. The bull of canonization then pro- ceeds to promise indulgence to those who should visit the church in which his body was interred, to exhort the clergy and people to pray that God, propitiated by the intercessions of the saint, would protect the Catholic church from the assaults of pagans and heretics, and to denounce the vengeance of the Almighty on whoever should venture to contravene the decree.^ VIII. They traduced the appropriate places for the worship which the church on earth is required to offer him, by represent- ing them to be only such structures as were consecrated by su- perstitious rites, made the temples of images, and devoted to the worship of saints, of angels, of relics, and of inanimate or ima- ginary existences. They uttered this calumny not only by legalizing and support- ing the Catholic church, which enjoined the consecration of sacred edifices by ridiculous and impious rites, and the deposite of relics and images, and by adopting the decrees of councils which enjoined it, but also by ratifying similar canons of their own synods. By the canon law, which was the law of each of their kingdoms, worship was not allowed to be offered, except in edifices consecrated to that use f and that was expressly sanc- tioned by Charlemagne ;* nor were edifices allowed to be con- secrated except by the celebration of the mass.^ The seventh canon of the second council of Nicaea, required a deposite to be made of relics at the consecration of churches f and the fourth Lateran council, and the council of Trent, whose decrees were received by all Catholic princes, sanctioned the introduc- tion and homage of pictures and images in the temples. The cathedrals, chapels, and oratories, accordingly, in which the kings and nobles offered worship, from the age of Gregory the Great to the Reformation, were desecrated by rehcs and images, and were the scene of an idolatrous worship ; and such still are the edifices in which the Cathohc princes offer their homage. ^ BuUar. Mag. torn. i. p. 425. ' Ibid. torn. i. p. 425. * Gratiani Decret. de Consecrat. dist. i. c. i. * Capit. Reg. Franc, anno 769, c. 14. torn. i. p. 192. Gratiani Dec. de Consecrat. dist. i. c. iii. * Labbei Concil. torn. xiii. p. 751. 380 THE TEN-HORNED WILD BEAST. IX. They caluminaled tliose who dwell in heaven, by repre- senting the spirits of the just and the angelic orders, as arroga- ting the rights of God, and seeking and receiving a homage from men, that is due only to him. In worshipping and legalizing the worship of those beings, they proceeded on the assumption that they acquiesced in it, as appropriate to their nature and station ; and accused them therefore of usurping the throne and preroga- tives of God, and demanding a homage as deities ; which is to ascribe to them the greatest impiety of which creatures can be guilty. X. The rulers symbolized by the wild beast, persecuted the true people of God, and inflicted on them the most wanton and atrocious cruelties. In legalizing the Catholic church, and adopting the canons of the councils, and edicts of the Theodosian and Justinian codes against heretics, as laws of their kingdoms, they formally under- took to execute the decrees and judicial decisions of their synods and bishops against dissentients ; and the popes and bishops were accustomed in every age, to devolve on them the infliction of their sentences to imprisonment, confiscation, exile, and death. Thus it was the civil powers that burned the martyrs at Orleans and other cities in the south of France in 1017. It was the kings of France and dukes of Savoy, that slaughtered the Albi- genses in the twelfth and the Waldenses in the following centu- ries ; the kings of England that persecuted the Wicklifites and Lollards ; and of Hungary that made war on the Bohemians. It was the emperor of Germany that consigned Huss and Jerome to the flames ; and the civil rulers that put to death the vast crowd of martyrs in England, France, Spain, Portugal, the Neth- erlands, Germany, and Sicily, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They assumed the right moreover, independently of the com- mand of the church, to dictate the faith and worship of their sub- jects, passed laws prohibiting dissent from the nationalized reli- gion, and pun'ishcd those who refused submission to their tyran- ny, with forfeitures, exile, tortures, and death. Thus Louis of France : " Louis, by the grace of God king of the French, to all the citizens of Narbonne and other subjects residing in that dio- cese, health and favor. Wishing in the first years of our life and reign to serve him from whom we derive our kingdom and sta- tion, we desire in order to his honor, that the church in your province, which has long been agitated with innumerable trials, should under our sway be honored and ha])pily ruled. Where- THE TEN-HORNED WILD BEAST. 381 fore with the concurrence of the great and wise we decree, that the churches and ecclesiastics in the aforesaid district, use the liberties and immunities which the Galhcan church uses, and enjoy them fully according to the custom of that church ; and inasmuch as heretics have for a long time disseminated their venom in your parts, defiling in many forms our mother church, we ordain in order to their extirpation, that heretics who deviate from the Catholic faith, by whatever name they are called, after they have been convicted of heresy by the bishop of the place, or other ecclesiastical person who has the power, shall be imme- diately punished with a becoming infliction. We ordain like- wise and strictly enjoin, that no one presume in any manner to harbor or shield heretics, or in any other way favor or trust them. Should any one dare to violate the foregoing injunction, he shall neither be admissible as a witness, eligible to any honor, nor capable of making a will, nor inheriting property by succession. All his goods, moveable and immoveable, which shall be forfeited by his heresy itself, we decree shall never be restored either to him or his posterity. We hkewise command the barons of the provinces and our magistrates and other subjects, to be solicitous now and hereafter and zealous to clear the country of heretics and heretical defilement ; and enjoin that they diligently endea- vor to detect them, and when they have found them, present them without delay to the aforementioned ecclesiastics ; and that on their being publicly convicted of error and heresy, disregarding all prejudices, entreaties, bribes, fear, and favor, they do in re- spect to them what they ought. But as they who should exer- cise their dihgence in the detection and seizure of heretics, are to be honored and stimulated by rewards, we ordain and com- mand that our magistrates in whose districts heretics may be seized, pay to the captor for each heretic, after he has been con- victed of heresy, two marks for the space of two years, and after two years, one. As peace-breakers are accustomed to waste the country and disturb the quiet of the church and ecclesiastics, we ordain that they be wholly driven off, and peace maintained in the land, and that all exert themselves to preserve it. More- over, as the keys of the church are contemned in that region, we order that the excommunicated be avoided according to the ca- nonical injunctions ; and if any perversely continue under excom- munication a year, that they then be compelled by civil force to return to union with the church, that at least external punish- ment may constrain those whom the fear of God does not recall from evil. We therefore enjoin our magistrates, after a year, to 382 THE TEN-HORNED WILD BEAST. seize all goods moveable and immoveable of such excommuni- cated persons, and not to restore them in any manner until the aforesaid persons have made satisfaction to the church, and been absolved ; nor then even unless at our special command. The tithes of which the church has long been defrauded by the malice of the people, we order to be restored. Let not the laics here- after retain them, but allow the church to take them freely. " We order these decrees to be inviolably observed, and that the barons, vassals, and good villagers, swear to observe them, and depute our magistrates to execute them ; who, within a month of their appointment, shall swear in a public place, and on a public day, to observe them, and cause them to be observed by all in good faith ; which should they not do, they may expect the forfeiture of all their goods, and corporal punishment. Know ye also, that such is our will that these statutes should be ob- served, that even when our brother shall have possession of that territory, he shall swear to observe them, and cause them to be observed by his subjects. That these enactments may continue established and unaltered, we have caused them to be confirmed by our seal. Done at Paris, in April, in the year of grace, 1228."^ In like manner Frederick II. of Germany. " Frederick, by the grace of God, emperor of the Romans, and king of Jerusa- lem and Sicily, to all his princes, venerable archbishops, and other prelates, dukes, marquises, counts, barons, and all in au- thority in his empire, grace. The task of government, and the imperial dignity with which we are intrusted by God, require that the material sword which we wield, in distinction from that of the priesthood, should be used against the enemies of the faith, and in the extermination of heretical pravity. " We enact, therefore, that the heretical, to whatever class they are referred, and in whatever part of the empire they have been condemned by the church and assigned to the civil power, shall be punished with a due infliction. " Should any of them, however, after they have been seized, choose, from fear of death, to return to the unity of the faith, they shall be consigned to perpetual imprisonment, in order to the performance of penance according to the penal canons. " Moreover, when heretics shall be found in cities, towns, or other places in the empire, by inquisitors commissioned by the apostolic seat, and other zealots of the orthodox faith, they who have jurisdiction there are required, at the suggestion of inquisi- tors and other Catholics, to seize and guard them strictly until, ' Petri de Marca. Concord. S. and Imp. lib. iii. c. i. torn. ii. pp. 13, 14. THE TEN-HORNED WILD BEAST. 383 being condemned by an ecclesiastical sentence, they who re- proached the sacraments of faith and life can be consigned to a reproachful death. We ordain that the advocates and unlawful defenders, whom the artful enemy raises up or prepares to favor the error of heretics, shall be subjected to the same punishment, inasmuch as it reduces those whom it pollutes to the same level, unless on being admonished they consult their safety and desist. "Those, moreover, who, being convicted of heresy in one place, remove to other places, that they may more warily multiply con- verts, we condemn to due punishment. " We decree also that those heretics who, having been brought to judgment, and from the peril of life abjured their heresy, shall afterwards be found to have sworn falsely and relapsed to their former error, shall be subjected to death, that their falsehood may meet a proper retribution. " We withhold, moreover, from heretics and their harborers and favorers, all benefit of objection and appeal, desiring that the germs of heresy should be wholly extirpated from the empire, in which the true faith should always exist. " Moreover, as we are angry at those who contemn our name, and condemn those who are guilty of treason, both in their own persons and by disinheritance in their offspring, much more vio- lently and justly are we provoked at the blasphemers of God's name and detractors of the Catholic faith, and by our imperial authority deprive the heirs and offspring of such heretics, their harborers, favorers, and advocates, to the second generation, of all temporal advancements, public offices, and honors, that they may waste away in continual grief because of the crimes of their ancestors, and know experimentally that God is jealous, and avenges the sins of parents on their offspring. We do not, how- ever, mean that they are to be wholly debarred from compassion. They who do not adopt the heresy of their fathers, but inform against them, are not to be involved in the penalties with which their parents' guilt is punished. " Furthermore, we direct it to be made known to the brethren of the order of preachers, who are sent into the empire for the care of the faith against heretics, and others whom they may summon to judge heretics, unless they be persons who have been outlawed, that we wish them to be received in going, tarrying, and returning, as under our imperial protection, and by the ap- proval and aid of the faithful of the empire, kept unharmed ; and command all of you among whom they may come, to receive them kindly, and employ all your wisdom, authority, and power, 384 THE TEN-HORNED WILD BEAST. in the work so acceptable to God, of preserving them harmless from the assaults of the heretics who plot against them. " Heretics also, and those who inform against them, in your jurisdiction, are to be seized and retained in custody until the ac- cused can be ecclesiastically condemned and subjected to the punishment which they merit. " Know that in the performance of this business you will render an obedience most grateful to God, and acceptable to us, if you exert yourselves, together with those brethren, effectually in expelling from the empire this new infamy of heresy ; and that if any one shall hereafter be remiss and unserviceable, he must, deservedly, appear culpable both before God and in our sight. Dated, Padua, February 22d, 1243."' Similar statutes were enacted by the princes of the other king- doms. XI. The prediction that he who led into captivity should him- self become a captive, and he that slew with the sword be him- self slain, had a signal fulfilment in the slaughter and vassalage of all those who attempted to deliver themselves by force from tlie religious tyranny of the European monarchs. The Albigenses were nearly exterminated by the cruel armies against which they attempted to defend themselves, and the small number that remained after the devastation of their fields, the conflagration of their cities, and the promiscuous slaughters to which they were subjected, were either forced to conform to the Catholic church, or driven into other lands. The Walden- ses perished in far greater numbers by the sword, in their struggles for preservation and freedom, than by the fires of mar- tyrdom ; and sunk, after their contests, to a still more hopeless vassalage to their persecutors. The resort to the sword by the Bohemians and the Huguenots of France, to defend their re- ligious freedom, resulted, after vast slaughters, in their defeat and helpless subjection to the tyranny from which they endeavored to extricate themselves. And the Protestants of Switzerland, Germany, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, and Great Britain, who succeeded in delivering themselves from the dominion of their ancient tyrants, instead of securing thereby their religious liberty, only placed themselves, by the nationalization of tlieir churches, under the tyranny of Protestant rulers in place of Catholics. XH. The witnesses of God exhibited their patience and faith by meekly enduring the cruelties inflicted on them by their per- ' Bullar. Mag. torn. i. p. 83. THE TEN-HORNED WILD BEAST. 385' secutors, and contenting themselves with the utterance of their testimony for him. No characteristics of any body of persons were ever more in- dubitable, conspicuous, and universal, than were the patience, meekness, fidelity, and constancy of those who were martyred by the rulers of the European kingdoms for their profession of the faith of Christ, and rejection of the false doctrines and idol- atrous worship of the Catholic church. Of the many thousands and hundreds of thousands who were called through twelve cen- turies to maintain their allegiance to God at the peril of their lives, and assailed with every treacherous art, lacerated by the m.ost cruel tortures, subjected to indignities from which delicacy revolts, and at length delivered to the flames, the number who yielded, or faltered, was comparatively small ; and of those who, under the insupportable agonies and distraction of the scourge and the rack, recanted, or promised a recantation, a large pro- portion, immediately on being released from the sufferings which had overcome them, abjured their retractions, reprofessed with redoubled energy the faith of Christ, and met without fal- tering the hideous death to which they were immediately hur- ried. Such is their uniform history in whatever age they fell, or to whatever nation or rank they belonged. In multitudes of instances the young, the delicate, the beautiful, the cultured, who had been nurtured in tenderness and refinement, submitted to be torn from the bosoms of their parents and friends, endured the most repulsive and shameful tortures, and welcomed the gib- bet, the axe, and the flames, with a sublimity of calmness, for- titude, and trust in God, and benignity to their murderers, worthy of the disciples of Jesus, and presenting a resistless demonstra- tion that they were animated by his Spirit, and sustained by his power. Such were acknowledged by Bernard and others of that age, to be the characteristics of the Albigenses. Such, it was admitted by the Catholic historians, was the character of the Waldenses, the Wicklifites, the Lollards, and the Bohemians. It was most conspicuously a trait of the martyrs of Eng- land, not only under Henry VIII. and Mary, but in an equal degree of the long succession of Puritans, who were imprisoned, mutilated, tortured, and put to death, by Elizabeth and the Stuarts. And it was illustriously the character of the vast crowd of the faithful, who were stretched on the wheel and consigned to the flames during the long reign of the Inquisition in Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Prussia, 49 386 THE TEN-IIORNED WILD BEAST. Denmark, Poland, Sweden, and Hungary, The dreadful en- gines of torture erected by that bloody tribunal, are themselves, indeed, a stupendous proof of the inflexible fidelity and constancy of their victims ; (or they were contrived and employed to wrench from them, by agonies immeasurably more dreadful than death, concessions and retractions which could not be induced by argu- ments or persuasions, nor extorted by threats. Acknowledgments from the whole succession of persecutors could not have testi- fied with so emphatic a voice the unconquerable fidelity of the witnesses for God, as it is proclaimed by the erection and use of those infernal instruments to force them to apostasy. XIII. The triumphant career of the wild beast as a blas- phemer has continued through nearly twelve hundred and sixty years. Its agency as a religious tyrant is not to be regarded as having commenced at its emergence from the sea, but at its full as- sumption of authority over religion, nationalization of the Catho- lic church, and concurrence with the pope in enforcing the false doctrines and superstitions of that apostate on its subjects, and persecuting the witnesses of Jesus for their dissent ; as it is in that relation that it has acted as a blasphemer of God, his taber- nacle, and his saints. And on that it did not enter until a long period after its emergence from the sea. The first princes of each of the ten kingdoms, and their barbarian subjects, being either pagans or Arians, were hostile to the native Christians ; and for a century in Africa, for more than one hundred years in Italy, and for a considerable period in Spain, France, Germany, and England, were persecutors of the Catholics. Baronius acknowledges that in the year 499 there was not a single Catholic prince within the limits of the church. " Before I lead you any farther, saddened by the mournful narrative, pause a moment and contemplate the state of the church at this time, in which not a single thorough Catholic Christian prince could be found in the whole circuit of the earth ; for, even the emperor Anastasius, who had lurked for some time under a veil of Ca- tholicism, having now become openly known as a heretic and an- tagonist of the Catholic faith, richly deserved the excommunica- tion with which he was struck by the Roman pontiff, although he raged still more violently on receiving the wound. Who, considering this, would not have been depressed with the expecta- tion that the spark of orthodoxy was to be extinguished by so many winds, bursting with infuriate violence from the gates of hell !"* ' Barouii Aiinal. anno 499, No. xiv. THE TEN-HORNED WILD BEAST. 387 111 that year, however, Clovis, king of the Franks, with his nobles and people, embraced the Catholic faith, and nationalized the church by restoring to it the property which had been wrest- ed from it, conferring on it large possessions, countenancing its false doctrines and impious rites, and at length fighting to propa- gate its faith. " The king himself, and the princes, on being baptized with the whole nation, gave a great number of estates, in the different provinces, to St. Remigius, which he distributed to the different churches."^ " He not only restored to all the churches of his kingdom what had been taken from thcni, but also enriched a great number of them by his own bounty."^ He alleged it as a reason of his war in 507, on the Goths of the south of France, that they were Arians. " It annoys me ex- tremely that these Arians hold a part of Gaul : let us go, and with the help of God, conquer them, and subject their country to my dominion."^ About the middle of the sixth century, the princes of France began to summon the councils of the bishops, to legislate and sanction their legislation over the church, and to receive their concurrence in that assumption of authority. Childebert summoned the council of Orleans in 549, for the pur- pose of legalizing the ancient, and enacting new canons for the government of the church, " It is to be ascribed to the grace of God, when the will of princes concurs with the wishes of the bishops that a pontifical council should be held, and the ancient canons be constituted by re-adoption a rule of life, or new laws enacted in harmony with them, as place and time demand. Ac- cordingly, the most clement prince, king Childebert, justly, be- cause of his virtues, entitled invincible, has, out of regard to the holy faith and the state of religion, assembled the priests of the Lord in the city of Orleans, that he may hear from the lips of the fathers what is holy, and that that which is proposed by them for the government of the church, may become a law to ourselves and those who come after us."* The synod according- ly adopted the canons of the ancient councils, and enacted others to correct the peculiar evils of their time. Guntram also sum- moned several synods, ratified by an edict the canons enacted by the second council of Mascon in 585, and enjoined the magis- trates to unite with the bishops in enforcing obedience to them, and to subdue by civil penalties those who were not won by persuasion." Theodomir, king of the Suevi in Gallicia, embraced the ' Baronii Annal. an. 499, No. xxx. " Ibid. No. xxxiii. ^ Ibid. an. 507, No. xiii. * Labbei Concil. torn. ix. p. 128. ' Ibid. 963. 388 THE TEN-HORNED WILD BEAST. Catholic faith, and summoned a council in 569 to legalize it, di- vide his kingdom into provinces, and organize a more adequate hierarchy.' In 589, Reccared, king of Spain, renouncing Arianism and em- bracing the Catholic faith, assembled a synod at Toledo ; ordered the princes and bishops, who generally had before been Arians, to adopt it ; constituted it the national religion, and assumed the right of legislating over it. " After the subscription by the bish- ops and elders of the whole Gothic nation to the canons of the synod, and the decrees of the first general councils, our most glo- rious lord king Reccared, in order to the renovation and confirm- ation of the laws of ecclesiastical discipline, addressed the prelates thus : ' Our royal care ought to be extended to the cognizance of truth and knowledge ; for the more gloriously eminent the regal power is in human affairs, the greater should be its atten- tion to the well-being of the subject. And now, blessed pre- lates, we apply our thoughts, not to those things alone by which the people placed under our sway may live and be ruled peace- fully, but as an auxiliary of Christ extend them to those also which are celestial, and study what may make our people Chris- tians.' "2 The decrees accordingly by which all decisions and canons of the early councils were adopted, the letters of the bishops of Rome incorporated among their ecclesiastical laws, the church invested with the right of property, celibacy and monkery sanc- tioned, and the bishops and magistrates required to persecute idolaters, were ratified by him, and enforced by the penalties of excommunication, the forfeiture of goods, and exile. "All these ecclesiastical constitutions, we invest with perpetual authority. If any one refuses obedience to them, if a clergyman, whether bishop, presbyter, or deacon, let him be excommunicated ; if a laic, and of a respectable rank, let him forfeit half of his goods 10 the treasury ; if a person of inferior station, let him be amerced uf his property, and dispatched into exile."-^ The Heruli, Ostrogoths, and Lombards, were either pagans or Arians, and persecutors of the Catholics. It was not until the year 591, twenty-three years after the subjugation of Italy by the latter, that Agilulf, their king, embraced the faith of Pope Gregory, adopted tlic Catholic church, endowed it with wealth, and raised its bishops to their former honors. " Through queen Theudelinda, tlie church of God obtained many benefits, for the ' Labbci Concil. torn. ix. p. 815. ' Ibid. torn. i.x. p. 989. ' Ibid. toin. ix. p. lUOO. THE TEN-HORNED WILD BEAST. 389 Lombards while still pagans had seized almost all its estates ; but the king moved by her entreaty adopted the Catholic faith, be- stowed many possessions on the church, and restored the bish- ops, who were depressed and discouraged, to their accustomed dignity."^ " After a reign of twenty-five years king Agilulf died in 615, leaving his kingdom to his young son Adaloald, with his mother Theudelinda, under whom the churches were restored, and the sacred places enriched with many donations."^ Tlie monks sent by pope Gregory for the purpose of convert- ing the pagans of England, reached that island in 596, and being allowed by Elhelbert, king of Kent and bretwalda, or head of the heptarchy, to preach in his dominions, they in the following year induced him and a large body of his subjects to embrace Christianity, and he proceeded, within a few years, to organize a hierarchy and endow the church. Augustine was made arch- bishop of Canterbury, and one of his associates of York, and twelve diocesans were instituted in each of those provinces. In 604, the king of Essex also received baptism, and instituted a bishop of his capital. " In 605, king Ethelbert being confirmed in the Catholic faith, celebrated Christmas at Canterbury, with Bertha the queen, their son Eadbald, the reverend prelate Au- gustine, and other primates, and assembling a council of the clergy and people, with their approbation and consent, gave the monastery of Peter and Paul with its endowments, through Au- gustine, to God, and the monks who were to serve him in it ; enriched it with many estates and other ample gifts ; put a com- pany of monks in possession of it, and appointed Peter to be the abbot, expressing himself thus : ' In the name of our Lord Je- sus Christ, be it known to all, now and hereafter, that I, Ethel- bert, by the grace of God king of the English, having been converted from idol-worship to Christianity by my spiritual fa- ther Augustine, have given to God through his priests, a certain part of my land along the east wall of the city of Canterbury, where I have erected a monastery in honor of the great apostles Peter and Paul, and granted the land, and every thing that per- tains to the monastery, perpetual independence ; so that it shall not be lawful either for me or any successor to my kingdom, or any person, whether secular or ecclesiastical, to usurp any thing from it ; but all are to be by absolute gift the possession of its abbots : and should any one detract any thing from this our do- nation, or attempt to make it void, let him by the authority of God, our blessed pope Gregory, and our apostle Augustine, and * P. Wamefridi de Gest. Longobard. lib. iv. c. 6. ^ Ibid. lib. iv. c. 43. 390 THE TEN-HORNED WILD BEAST. , also by our malediction, be separated from the communion of the holy church, and in the day of judgment from the society of the elect.' "' When the king of the Lombards and the bretwalda of the An- glo-Saxons, thus embraced the faith of the pope, the heads of all the conquering tribes then reigning in the western empire, were Catholics, and united in assuming the peculiar relations of the wild beast, by the arrogation of legislative and judicial au- thority over religion, and the nationalization of their churches ; and the commencement of their agency as blasphemers, is prob- ably to be dated at that period ; although the station of bretwalda was afterwards held a few years by Edwin king of Northumbria, before his conversion in 626.^ They began at about that period to act in conjunction with the pope, solicit his counsel, and ac- knowledge his claims to authority. The bishop of London vis- ited Rome in 610, to consult with Boniface IV., in behalf of his king probably, and of Ethclbert, in respect to the churches and monasteries in their dominions ; and on his return carried letters from the pope to Ethelbert, in which he assumes authority over that prince and his prelates, and threatens them with excommu- nication should they violate his decrees. " We willingly concede what you have solicited of the apostolic seat by our fellow-bishop Mellitus, that your benignity should appoint the residence of all regularly living monks in the monastery, instead of the city of Dover, which your holy teacher Augustine, the disciple of pope Gregory, consecrated to the name of the divine Saviour, and over which our brother Laurentius now presides, decreeing by apostolic authority, that the preaching monks may associate with themselves a company of monks, and adorn their life with holy manners ; which decree should any king of your successors, any bishop, clergyman, or laic, attempt to make void, he shall lay under the bond of an anathema by Peter the prince of the apos- tles, and all his successors, as long as he persists in his pre- sumptuous attempt, and shall undergo such penance as shall })ropitiate God, and thoroughly remedy the disturbance."^ Clotaire, king of the Franks, in 615 summoned a council to renew the canons of the ancient councils, and enact others : and ratified their decrees by which ecclesiastics were exempted from the jurisdiction of the civil judges, the churches confirmed in their right of receiving and holding property, and the whole sys- ' Labboi Cnncil. torn. x. p. 498. ' Lingard's Hist. England, vol. i. pp. 116-125. * Labbci Coucil. torn. x. pp. 505, 306. THE TEN-HORNED WILD BEAST. 391 tern of ecclesiastical discipline enforced.^ By the fourth canon of the council of Rheims, held about 630, the pastors of the churciies in Gaul were required to examine those who were sus- pected of heresy in that kingdom, and if they were found to be truly such, to recall them to the Catholic faith.^ In like manner the king of Spain assembled a synod in 633, in order to enforce the faith and discipline of the Catholic church, and the kings of the several nations continued in that manner, through the ages that followed, to arrogate authority over the lavirs and people of God, and sanction the assumptions, false doc- trines, and idolatrous worship of the apostate church. The popes assumed at the same period, a vast authority over the church and religion, and required submission to their will from ecclesiastics and princes. Gregory, in his letter to Theo- deric, king of the Franks, in 601, representing that prince as having expressed a readiness to follow his counsels, exhorted him to use his authority to promote respect for the church and pre- lates, by assembling a synod, and correcting the faults of the clergy. " Since you have signified that you are pleased with our exhortations, that you should carefully ordain whatever you know is requisite to the service of God, the reverence of the church, and the honor of the priests, and wish should be uniformly ob- served ; we repeat our suggestions, and for your good chief!}', and urge you to order a synod to be assembled, and by a sen- tence of all the bishops, condemn the sensuality of the clergy and simony, and cause them to be extirpated from your king- dom."^ He addressed similar letters to the French kings Theo- debert and Clotaire,'* and also to Elhelbert of England, exhort- ing him to exert his authority to suppress idolatry, and spread the Christian faith among his people ; sent the pall to Augus- tine ; and gave him authority to ordain twelve bishops within the province of Canterbury, who were to be under his jurisdiction ; and to institute whoever he pleased archbishop of York, with authority to ordain the same number of diocesans in that prov- ince.* And if the eighth and ninth letters ascribed to him of the year 604 be genuine, he arrogated the power of divesting princes and prelates who disregarded his decrees, of authority, and sub- jecting them to the divine vengeance, " If any king, priest, judge, or secular person, knowing this to be our decree, shall dare to ' Labbei Concil. torn. x. pp. 539-544. " Ibid. torn. x. p. 594. * Gregorii Epist. 59, lib. xi. Iiid. iv. p. 1145. * Ibid. Epist. 60, 61, lib. xi. lud. iv. pp. 1146, 1147. » Ibid. Epist. 65, CG, lib. xi. Ind. iv. pp. 1163, 1164. 392 THE TEN-HORNED WILD BEAST. violate it, let him lose his aulliority and honor, and know that he is obnoxious to divine judgment; and unless he restore what he has taken away, or undergo a suitable penance, let him be de- barred from the body and blood of the Redeemer, and subjected to eternal vengeance. But the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with all who appropriately observe it, so that they may re- ceive fruit here of their good conduct, and obtain from the rigor- ous judge the reward of eternal rest.'" The popes who followed Gregory assumed still more conspicuously the relation of law- givers to the church, and the monarchs in the western empire co-operated still more openly and efficiently in supporting their usurpations and idolatries, and enforcing them on their subjects. Whether, then, the agency of the wild beast as a blasphemer, is to be regarded as having commenced with the arrogation of power over the church by Ethelbert in 597, or at a somewhat later period, it has indisputably acted in that character through nearly twelve hundred and sixty years. It is a sufficient refutation of the absurd exposition given by Grotius, Dr. Hammond, and Rosenmuller, who exhibit the wild beast as representing idolatry, that it is against the law of sym- bolization, living agents never being used as symbols of mere modes of agency, and having no analogy that can fit them to be their representative. The assumption of Mr. Mede, Dr. Cressner, Sir Isaac New- ton, Dr. More, Mr. Whiston, Vitringa, Bishop Newton, Dean Woodhouse, Mr. Faber, Mr. Cuninghame, Mr. Elliott, and in- deed, excepting the followers of Grotius, nearly the wdiolc suc- cession of commentators, that the wild beast is the symbol of an empire, is equally erroneous ; whether it be used, as by Mr. Faber, to denote the territory, or, as by Cocceius, the population of an empire. The first is against analogy ; the other, irrecon- cilable with the representations of tiie passage. There is the clearest discrimination between the wild beast and the popula- tion over whom it tyrannizes. It is worshipped by all who dwell on the earth, whose name is not written in the book of life of the Lamb. It cannot be a representative of those worshippers therefore. That were to make it both the adorer, and the object of its adoration. Authority is given to it over every tribe and people, and tongue and nation. It cannot be the representative then of those classes. That were to make it both monarch, and the subjects of its monarchy. The saints moreover who do not worship it, and whom it persecutes, arc inhabitants of its terri- ' Gregorii Episl. 9, lib. xiii. lad. vi. p. 1225. THE TEN-HORNED WILD BEAST. 393 tory. To suppose it to represent the whole population of an empire therefore, were to exhibit it as a representative of those who are wholly opposite to it in character, who disown it3 usurped authority, and whom it destroys as enemies of its sway; which were solecistical. It is the symbol then of the rulers of an empire, not of an empire itself, or its population. As the head of an animal, the seat of perception, sensibility, and volition, presides over all its other members, and directs their movements ; so the heads of this monster symbolize the chiefs of that combination of rulers, of which it is at large the representative, during the period of the diadems on the heads. The seven heads, it is said, chap. xvii. 10, are seven kings ; and as a symbol when a representative of men, is universally a rep- resentative of a combination or succession of persons, and as no ground but a diversity of kind can be supposed for their discrimination, each of the seven heads must be regarded as denoting both a peculiar kind of supreme magistrates, and a succession or dynasty of its own kind ; and dynasties, not that are cotemporaneous, but that follow each other, — as five, it is said at the period of the visions, are fallen, one is, and one is not yet come. The horns also are kings, and representatives of the successions of monarchs or chiefs of the body of rulers, of which the beast at large is the symbol, during the period of the diadems on the horns; as is apparent from the considerations already mentioned, and from their continuance through the pe- riod of twelve hundred and sixty years. These characteristics refute, therefore, all those expositors who, like Mr. Daubuz, ex- hibit the heads as symbols of cities, or, like Mr. Keith, of suc- cessive kingdoms. The empire, of whose rulers the wild beast is the symbol, is manifestly, from many considerations, the Roman. It is an empire that was subsisting when the Apostle beheld the visions, which had already flourished through a long period, which was to continue under its dragon rule a considerable space longer, and was then to be subjected to this wild beast's dominion under the direction of the horns, and subsist under that sway through twelve hundred and sixty years. Five of its heads were already fallen, one then was, and the other had not yet come. But there is no other than the Roman empire of which those pecu- liarities can be affirmed ; — a subsistence at that period, and un- der a sixth form of government — a continuance under that sixth and a seventh form, through a still further period — a division tlien into ten kingdoms, and subsistence under at least eight co- 50 394 THE TEN-HORNED WILD BEAST. temporary dynasties, twelve hundred and sixty years ; with such resemblances of laws, religion, manners, and policy, as to entitle them to be represented as still one empire — and finally, uniting in such an agency towards God and towards his worshippers, as that which is ascribed to them in this delineation. An express de- signation by its name, could not have rendered it more certain that it is the Roman empire. No other ever subsisted, in which, disregarding all others, the two great peculiarities denoted by the heads and the horns were united. It is the empire which embraced the apocalyptic earth, the scene of the actors and agencies denoted by the symbols ; for it embraced the regions in which the worshippers of God then subsisted, and were to continue to subsist and suffer persecution through a long tract of ages, and in which the great body of the church was to apostatize to superstition and idolatry, become new modelled under civil and ecclesiastical rulers, and exist through many centuries in intimate connection with a combina- tion of usurping, tyrannical, and bloody monarchies ; — and is, therefore, the Roman empire ; as it was in that that the churches were situated to which the Apocalypse was addressed ; and in that empire alone, that churches subsisted from that period with- out interruption through a long succession of centuries ; and that the visible church became nationalized, apostatized to idols, and existed in intimate relations with the rulers symbolized by the ten- horned wild beasrt. No other empire can present the slightest pretences to be the scene of those peculiar actors and agencies. It is, finally, the fourth empire of Daniel, manifestly from the similarity of the symbols and their agency, and is therefore the Roman ; as the Roman was that fourth empire, indisputably from its following and conquering the third — from its coinciding in all its characteristics with the peculiarities of that empire's symbol — from its being the only empire that presents any such resemblances — and from its destiny, like that, to destruction immediately before the establishment of the kingdom of the saints. The commentators who regard the wild beast as symbolizing the Roman empire, unite generally in exhibiting the forms ot government which its first six heads denote as the kingly, con- sular, dictatorial, decemviral, tribunitial, and imperial; but differ in respect to the seventh. Some have assigned that station to tlic popes. But their dynasty was never the civil head of the Roman empire, either before or after its fall ; and cannot, therefore, be the class of rulers denoted by its seventh head. THE TEN-HORNED WILD BEAST. 395 They did not become civil rulers of any part of that empire until after its subversion, and the emergence from its ruins of the ten kingdoms. They are exhibited in the vision of Daniel as springing up after the ten horns, and that is the representation also universally of the historians of their origin as political rulers. The eleventh horn, by which they are symbolized in that vision, is represented as small in comparison with the other horns, and thence cannot be the same with that which symbol- izes the rulers of the whole empire. They are symbolized by the two-horned wild beast of the Apocalypse, which is cotem- porary with the ten-horned wild beast, sustains towards it im- portant relations, and exerts towards it and its subjects important agencies ; and cannot, therefore, be one of its heads. And finally, the seventh head was to continue but a short time, but the papal rule has subsisted through a longer period than that of the first six heads united. Dr. Cressner and some others, regarded the Gothic kings who reigned at Rome a short period after the abdication of Augus- tulus, as the seventh head. But they were never the head of the Roman empire in any sense — first, as their reign was sub- sequent to its subversion ; and next, as they reigned by the former laws of the empire so far as they made them their guide, not by any conditions of their office, but only as they chose to adopt them. Mr. Mede regarded the Latin emperors, after the division of the empire into the eastern and western, as the seventh head. But that is to exhibit the sixth and seventh heads as cotempora- neous, which is solecistical, and contradictory to the representa- tion in the seventeenth chapter, that those heads were succes- sive. Cocceius regarded the beast as the symbol of the Roman people as falsely professing Christianity ; the seven heads as representing the five ecclesiastical patriarchs of Alexandria, Je- rusalem, Antioch, Constantinople, and Rome, and the synods of Gaul and Spain ; and the ten horns as denoting kings of the ten European kingdoms. But that exposition of the heads con- tradicts the text, by making the beast the symbol of those who worship it — by representing the first five heads that had fallen at the period of the visions as still future — and finally, by making the fifth, sixth, and seventh heads, symbols of persons who are represented by the two-horned wild beast and the image. Mr. Faber regards Bonaparte, the head of the French empire, as the seventh head. But that is to exhibit the seventh head as 396 , THE TEN-HORNED WILD BEAST. the same as one of the ten horns, which is irreconcilable with the symbol. It is to exhibit the seventh head as ruling the em- pire, in the same sense, during the sway of the ten horns, as it was ruled by the previous heads anterior to the rise of the horns ; which is inconsistent with the symbol. It is to exhibit the period of the seventh head's rule as wholly after the diadems on the heads had been superseded by diadems on the horns, which is also to contradict the symbol. Mr. ElHott regards the seventh head as constituted from the sixth, by the adoption or creation of a second or associate Au- gustus by. Diocletian. But that did not essentially alter the na- ture of the rule. The mode of appointment to the station of Augustus and Caesar, continued the same as before ; the ground and extent of the imperial authority, the laws and the mode of enacting them ; and it is refuted by the implication which it presents, that the seventh head, instead of but a single, received several death-wounds. If the union of two Augusti constituted the seventh head, then the fall of one and the return of the im- perial rule to the hands of an individual, must have been its death. But there were several periods after the abdication of Diocletian, when the sceptre was held by a single Augustus. Constantino himself had no such associate after the fall of 'Li- cinius ; nor had Constantius, after the death of his brotliers ; nor Jovian, Valentinian,Valcns, Gratian, or Theodosius the Great, during a portion of their reigns. That author, indeed, exhibits paganism, as the seventh head that was wounded to death. But that is to contradict his exposition of the beast as a symbol of the Roman empire, and of its heads as representing its forms of government. It is inconsistent with analogy also ; paganism being, not a combination of successive agents, but a mere mode of agency, or system of false faith and worship, and cannot therefore be symbolized by a living agent, which is a represen- tative of living agents only, not of mere modes of faith or action. But the ciiaracteristics of the seventh head are found only in Constantino and his successors. He introduced, by the recogni- tion and adoption of the Christian religion, a new principle into the government, placed his own authority in a degree, and many of tlic riglits of the people on new grounds, and changed the re- lations of the throne to every one of his subjects. Idolatry had before been tiie religion of the state ; but he made Christianity an clement of tiic constitution and a basis of power, and wrought thereby at length a revolution in the laws and administration of the empire. It was pre-eminently a political change, and in thai THE TEN-HORNED WILD BEAST. 397 relation marked by more important peculiarities than distinguish- ed either of the forms of rule under the other six heads. Though nominally Christian, yet it is justly exhibited as a dragon head ; inasmuch as like its predecessor, it usurped the throne of God, demanding a religious homage of itself, and arrogating the right to dictate the faith and worship of its subjects, and because it continued the worship of false deities and sanctioned it in others. The interruption of the succession of Christian emperors by the elevation of Julian, a zealous and bigoted pagan, who re-estab- lished the ancient polytheism, and endeavored to exterminate Christianity, and the speedy restoration of the Christian line in Jovian, were such events as the death wound and recovery of the seventh head were adapted to represent, and were the only events of that nature that marked that dynasty. And finally, this construction is confirmed by the representation in a subse- quent verse, that the image which was made to the beast of ten horns, was an image of the beast in that form in which it existed when it received the death wound ; as that image, as will be shown, was an ecclesiastical government, or organization of ec- clesiastical rulers and teachers in the eight kingdoms, essentially like that established by the papal horn in its own dominion ; and the head of the beast accordingly after which it was modelled, was that of Constantino and his successors, by whom the church was first organized in a similar manner, and raised to a similar relation to the state. Commentators vary in their views of the kingdoms whose kings are denoted by the ten horns, and the period of the wild beast's emergence from the sea. Its emergence took place doubtless at the moment of the formation of the last of the ten kingdoms, as the horns were seen with their diadems on its egress from the sea ; and as was natural and is implied in the order in which they are mentioned, before the heads became visible. It is represented accordingly in the seventeenth chapter, that they received their power the same hour with the beast. The rule of the empire was reconstructed so as to be a counterpart to the wild beast its representative, when the territory being all conquered by the Goths and the Roman rule extinguished, its population was first distributed under ten separate governments. That distribu- tion is assigned by Mr. Mede to the year 456, which is doubtless too early, as it was anterior to the subversion of the western empire by the Ostrogoths. Dr. Allix refers it to the year 486, which is too late, as it was ten years subsequentto the termination of the imperial power, and transition of the whole territory to the Gothic sway. 398 THE TWO-HORNED WILD BEAST SECTION XXXII. CHAPTER XIII. 11-18. THE TWO-HORNED WILD BEAST AND THE IMAGE. And I saw another wild beast ascending from the earth. And it had two horns like a lamb ; and it spake as a dragon. And it exer- cises all the power of the first wild beast in its presence. And it causes the earth, and those who inhabit it, to worship the first wild beast whose death wound was healed. And it works great wonders, so that it can even make fire to descend from heaven to the earth before men ; and can deceive those who dwell on the earth, through the wonders which are given to it to work before the wild beast ; telling those who dwell on the earth, to make an image to the wild beast which has the wound of the sword and lived. And it was given to it to give breath to the image of the wild beast, that the im- age of the wild beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the wild beast, should be killed. And it causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free and the enslaved, to give to themselves a mark on their right hand, or on their forehead ; and that no one should be able to buy or to sell, e.vcept he who has the mark, the name of the wild beast, or the number of its name. Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding compute the numiier of the wild beast, for it is a number of a man, and its number six hundred sixty-six. The land or carlli when distinguished from the sea, denotes the population of an em})ire under a settled government, anterior to an invasion or revolution, as in the symbols of the first trum- pet and first vial : and when distinguished, as in the second verse of this passage, from those wlio inhabit it, appears to represent its native population in discrimination from its conquerors. The ascent of this wild beast from the earth therefore, signifies that it drew its origin from the native population of the empire ; not from tlie foreigners who conquered it, and erected the ten king- doms out of its ruins. It was not the creature of the Gotiiic na- tions. It sprung not from their faith, their manners, or their policy. Instead, it was generated by the Latins, whom they conquered, and was the offspring of tlic corrupt faith, the infat- uated superstition, and the impious ambition, with vviiich that people had become infected before the subversion of their empire. It had two iiorns, the symbols of a twofold monarchy or rule ; and like a lamb's, apparently for ornament merely and defence, AND THE IMAGE. • 399 not for aggression. But it spake as a dragon, an aggressive, car- nivorous, insatiable, and merciless brute. It exercises all the power of the first wild beast ; similar power as a civil ruler and tyrant of its vassals ; similar power as an ambitious and lawless warrior ; similar power as a usurper of dominion over the rights of God, and the obligations and consciences of its sub- jects ; and it exercises that power in the presence of the ten- horned wild beast ; cotemporaneously with it therefore, by its allowance, and with its sanction. It excites the earth, the native Latin population, and they who inhabit it, the Gothic nations who became their conquerors, to worship the wild beast, whose death wound was healed. The introduction here, and the repetition in a subsequent verse, of this mark of the wild beast, denotes that the rulers of the empire, whom the people were excited to worship, were those who were represented by the head that received the death wound, and im- plies that their peculiarities were eminently congenial to the principles and passions of this two-horned wild beast, and that it for that reason desired to render them characteristics also of the new monarchies of the empire. It works great wonders. It exerts acts and produces ap- pearances that seem to be miraculous, and which it pretends are proofs that it enjoys the co-operation and sanction of the Al- mighty ; as the descent of fire from heaven, by which their sacri- fices were consumed, was a proof that the ancient prophets acted by his authority. By the pretended miracles which it works in the presence of the rulers of the kingdoms, it deceives the con- quering nations into the conviction that it is truly a prophet of God, and possesses the prerogatives which it claims ; and through the influence it thus attains, prompts them to make an image to the wild beast which has the wound of a sword and lived. As that beast symbolized a combination and succession of persons who were the legal rulers of the empire, and exercised its gov- ernment ; an image to that official and authoritative organization, must be a resembling organization in some other department of life ; and the religious therefore, as that is the only one besides the civil and military, which the wild beast itself represented. An image is not of the same nature as that which it represents. It is only of the same form, and expressive of the same charac- teristics. This image is an image to the first wild beast under its ten horns. It is its cotemporary and rival therefore under the reign of the horns. The wild beast of which it is the image, is that wild beast under the reign of its seventh head. To prompt 400 THE TWO-HORNED WILD BEAST the Gothic conquerors to make an image of that wild beast, un- der its head that received a death wound, was accordingly to prompt them to erect an ecclesiastical government or hierarchy, coextensive with their territories, and embracing a regular gra- dation of ranks, like the government of the empire under Con- stantino and his successors, founded on similar principles, and animated by a similar spirit. That involved an arrogation of do- minion over the religion of their subjects, an adoption of the Christian religion as the religion of their stales, and the union of their several hierarchies in one, and subjection to a conuTion head ; as those were the peculiarities that distinguished the ru- lers of the ancient empire represented by the seventh head, from those d(3notcd by the sixth. Into the imperial hierarchy which it thus induced the Gothic nations to erect, it infused such pow- er, such zeal, such ambition, and such a unity of purpose, that it acted as one gigantic individual, moved by its own inherent energies, and swayed by a single spirit ; claimed an absolute dominion over the religion of those within its territory, and caused that as many as would not sanction its imperious assump- tions, and submit to its sway, should be put to death. And it causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free and the enslaved, to impress on themselves a conspicuous mark in token of their submission to its claims, and that no one can without that mark enjoy the right of property, or opportunity to gain a subsistence. That mark is the name of the wild beast in that form in which it subsisted under the head that received the death wound; or the number of that name. Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding compute the number of that beast, for it is a number of a man, and its num-. ber six hundred sixty-six. As the Greeks used their alpha- betic letters as representatives of numbers, the letters of every name and word might be taken as signs of arithmetical numbers, as well as of sounds. To compute the number of a name, is there- fore to ascertain the sum total of the numbers, which its letters in their arithmetical use represent. That that is the process enjoined, is shown moreover by the expression of the sum of the name, six hundred sixty-six by the letters x- ^- S"- — chi, zi, and stigma, or tf and r united. This number of the beast is the num- ber of a man. It is the number of the distinguishing name of a family of men, a race or a nation, as Persian instead of Babylo- nian, or Greek instead of Roman ; and is the name of that family or race, therefore, from which the nation drew its origin which the wild beast under its seventh head ruled ; not of any of the con- AND THE IMAGE. 401 quering nations over which after its emergence from the sea, the dynasties denoted by its ten horns reigned. It is the name of the beast after whose pattern the new structure is formed. That beast is the wild beast which had the death wound and hved ; and that was that wild beast under its seventh head ; first, be- cause it is an image not of the ten-horned wild beast, when swayed by the horns, but to it ; that is, cotemporary, of an ana- logous power, and a rival : and next because no other than the seventh head of the wild beast received a death wound and lived. A death wound by a sword, must have been an interception for a space by that instrument, of the imperial sway which that head represented, and institution of an essentially different supreme rule in its place ; and under an appearance of permanency ; but which soon gave way to a re-establishment of the previous head. But no such interception of the imperial government took place anterior to the elevation of Constantine, and no different form superseded through any considerable period, that which he insti- tuted, or followed it after its final close. The shape into which he moulded the government, was its last, the one which it there- after bore except during the short reign of Julian ; and its seventh therefore. What then are the great combinations of agents denoted by these three symbols ; — the two-horned wild beast ; the wild beast whose seventh head received a death wound ; and the image ? All the characteristics of the two-horned wild beast are found conspicuously in the hierarchy of the Italian Catholic church within the papal dominions, and in no other succession in the Roman empire or the world. I. That hierarchy had its origin in the ancient Latin popula- tion, not in their barbarian conquerors. Rome, its metropolis, was in Latium, the native seat of the people that founded the Roman empire, and was the capital from which it drew its denom- ination ; and it had subsisted as a nationalized hierarchy one hun- dred and sixty-three years, at the final conquest of Rome by the Heruli, and full emergence of the ten-horned wild beast from the sea.^ II. It was invested by the kings of France in a subsequent age, with a civil dominion also over Latium and some of its other ecclesiastical territories, and thence became a twofold monarchy, answering to its symbolization by two horns ; and the pope its head reigned over its political kingdom as its civil ' The edict of Constantino, by which the church was nationalized, was issued ia 313 : the conquest of Rome, and emergence of the wild beast, took plage in 476. 5] 402 THE TWO-HORNED WILD BEAST and military chief, in the same manner as the monarchs denoted by the horns of the first wild beast reigned over theirs. Tiie attempt of the emperor Leo the Isaurian, in 727, to enforce his decree against the worship of images on iiis Italian subjects, excited them under the guidance of Pope Gregory II. to revolt, and transfer their allegiance from the empire to the apostolic seat. " Exasperated against the emperor, they resolutely re- jected his tyrannical sway, and pledged themselves by a solemn oath to defend the life and station of the pontiff, and yield obedi- ence in all things to his authority."^ The Lombards united with Venice, Ravenna, and the cities of the Exarchate and Peiitapolis in the support of the pope, but subsequently proceeding to conquer the territory of the empire, seize the estates of the church, and threaten the subjugation of Rome,^ pope Stephen III. in 754 solicited protection from Pepin of France, who on the consent of his court and army to accede to the wishes of the pontiff, promised if God enabled him to conquer the Lombards, to give, in order to the remission of his sins, the Exarchate and Penta- polis to the blessed Peter and his successors as a perpetual pos- session ;^ and defeating Aistulf, forced him to promise the surrender of those and all the other territories which he had con- quered from the Greeks, to the pope.'* On his declining to fulfil the engagement, Pepin in 755 again crossed the Alps, and re- ducing the Lombards to submission, put the bishop of Rome in possession of those cities, and constituted him thereby a civil prince, though in dependence on the French crown.^ Desiderius, king of the Lombards, invading the territory of the church, and threatening Rome in 773, at the pontiff's solicitation, Charlemagne advanced into Italy for his relief, conquered the Lombards, and causing himself in the following year to be proclaimed their king, confirmed the donation of the Exarchate and Pentapolis to the pope, and enlarged his domains by the gift of several other cities and provinces.'' And those territories, with the exception of several short periods, have continued under the civil dominion of the popes, through all the ages that have followed. The popes, accordmgly, represent themselves as exercising a twofold monarchy. Boniface VIII., in his bull Unam Sanctam, said : " We are taught by the gospel that there are two swords in the pontiff's hands, the spiritual and the temporal. For when the apostle said, behold here are two swords, that is in the church, ' Sigonii do Regno Ital. lib, iii. auno 727. * Ibid. lib. iii. anno 752. » Ibid. lib. iii. anno 753, 754. * Ibid. bb. iii. anno 754. • Ibid. lib. iii. anno 755. • Ibid. bb. iii. anno 773. AND THE IMAGE. 403 the Lord did not reply, they are too many, but enough. As- suredly he who denies that the temporal sword was in the power of Peter, notices very inadequately the Lord's answer, — put thy sword into the sheath. Each sword, therefore, the spiritual and the material, is in the power of the church."^ in. Its horns were Hke a lamb's, indicating a harmless spirit ; but it spoke with a dragon voice. The popes have professed to exert their civil as well as their ecclesiastical rule, as ministers of religion and successors of the apostles : but have been distinguished beyond any other dynasty of monarchs, for imperiousness, tyranny, and a brutal delight in the blood of their subjects. They have maintained their sway through the long period of near eleven centuries, not by the methods of a just and wise government, not by studying the cul- tivation of their people, securing their liberties, fostering their wealth, or promoting their happiness ; but solely by the engines of a remorseless despotism, the gibbet, the stake, the sword, and. the still more cruel terrors of a debasing superstition. They have claimed at every period the most abject submission to their will, and not only visited slight political transgressions with a bloody retribution, but exalted a dissent from their opinions, even on questions of philosophy and science, into the rank of capital offences, and avenged them with a severity, which, in other empires, is assigned only to the most flagitious crimes. No other monarchy in Europe has been so jealous of its preroga- tives ; so quick and unappeasable in resentment ; nor so devoid of pity towards its victims. No other has made its subjects in such a degree the mere instruments of its insatiable appetites ; debarred them to such an extent from the culture, prosperity, and enjoyment, of which they were capable ; crushed them with such oppression ; or consigned them in such vast crowds, not merely for crimes, but for virtues, to chains, to torture, and to death. Its history is the history of a ferocious brute, spreading terror, by its imperious voice, into every scene into which it penetrates, and perpetually preying on the blood of the unoffend- ing and helpless. IV. It exercised the same power as the first wild beast, and cotemporaneously with it. It was a civil and military power, as were the monarchies around it. Like them it arrogated abso- lute authority over the property, persons, and lives of its sub- jects ; issued and executed decrees, and levied taxes ; and like ' Decret Extravagan. lib. i. tit. viii. c. 1. 404 THE TWO-HORNED WILD BEAST them it raised armies, made war on its neighbors, fought battles, and conquered territories. V. It prompted the earth, the native population of the empire, and those who inhabit it, the Gothic conquerors, to worship the first wild beast whose death wound was healed. The first wild beast whose death wound was healed, was the ten-homed wild beast when under the sway of its seventh head, the symbol of the succession of Christian emperors from Constantino to Au- gustulus. The worship which the native and barbarian popula- tion of the empire were induced to offer to those emperors, was involved in the ascription to them of the rights of God, and treatment of their arrogation of authority over his laws and his people in their relations to him as creator, and moral governor, as legitimate. The two-horned wild beast induced them, in the most direct and formal manner, to offer that homage, by per- suading them that the forged edict ascribed to Constantino was the work of that emperor, and that he had the absolute authority over the laws and the church of God, which that document ex- hibits him as assuming. " In the name of the holy and indivisi- ble Trinity, the emperor Caesar Flavius Constanline to the holy and blessed father of fathers, Sylvester, bishop and pope of the city of Rome, and all his successors, who shall sit in the chair of the blessed Peter to the end of the world, and to all prelates and Catholic bishops throughout the world, now and hereafter made subject by this edict to him, grace and peace." " We, together with all our prefects, the senate, all men of rank, and the whole population of the empire, have judged it useful, that, as the holy Peter is seen to have been constituted the vicar of the Son of God on earth, the pontiffs also, who are successors of that prince of the apostles, should obtain by concession from us and our empire, the power of a princely rule more ample than our imperial serenity possesses, electing that prince of tiie apostles and his successors assured intercessors for us with God; and we decree that the holy Roman church shall be reverently honored like our imperial power, and the sacred chair of the blessed Peter more exalted than our earthly imperial throne ; ascribing to it an imperial power, dignity, strength, and merit of honor ; and ordaining that it shall have dominion as well over the principal seats, Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Constanti- nople, as over all the church of God throughout the world ; and he who is for the time pontiff of the holy Roman church, shall be superior and prince to all the priests of the world ; and what- ever shall be ordained in order to the honor of God and the sta- AND THE IMAGE. 40^ bility of the faith of Christians, shall be disposed by his judg- ment."^ In this edict Constantine is exhibited as assuming absolute au- thority over all the churches of God, and by virtue of it investing the pope of Rome with supreme dominion over them, and power to ordain laws in regard to their faith and worship ; rendering his canons and decrees as obligatory, on all bishops and churches, as the imperial edicts were on the subjects of the civil empire ; and granting him a title equal to that of the emperors to awe, submission, and honor. But that was to exhibit him as arroga- ting an absolute dominion over the rights and laws of God. If he could in that manner create a monarch of the church at his pleasure, endow him with power to legislate as he pleased re- specting the worship of God and the faith of his people, and make his will as obligatory on the churches as the imperial laws were on the civil subjects, so that its violation was constituted a crime meriting condign punishment, like flagitious offences against the imperial authority ; then his power obviously was under no subordination to the divine rights, but was absolute, and as adequate to set aside the laws of God as to impose obli- gations on men. The popes used this edict to induce the princes and people to yield them the territory and authority which it exliibited Con- stantine as having conferred on them. It was thus employed by Hadrian I. to induce Charlemagne to restore to the church the estates and territory wrested from the papacy by the Lombards. " We implore you, illustrious king, for the love of God and his keybearer of the kingdom of heaven, who condescended to be- stow on you the throne of your father's kingdom, that, according to the promise which you made to that apostle of God for the benefit of your soul and the stability of your kingdom, you would order all to be fulfilled in our times ; that the church of Almighty God, that is of the blessed Peter the apostle, to whom the keys of the kingdom of heaven, the power of loosing and binding liabihty for the commission of all crimes was given, may in all things be more and more exalted, and that all things may be fulfilled according to your promise, and then a recompense will be assigned to you in the celestial court, and a good reputa- tion throughout the world. And as in the times of the blessed Roman pontiff Sylvester, by the donation of the most pious em- peror Constantine the Great, of holy memory, the holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic church of God was advanced, exalted, ' Labbei Concil. torn. ii. pp. 603-607. 406 THE TWO-HORNED WILD BEAST and dignified, by a gift of power over these parts of the west ; so also in these most felicitous limes of ours, the holy church of God, that is of the blessed Peter the apostle, may flourish, and rejoice, and become still more exalted, so that all nations that hear it may say, Lord, give the king safety, and hear us when we invoke thee ; for behold the modern, most Christian emperor, Conslantine, has risen in these times, through whom God has deigned to bestow all things on his holy church of Peter the prince of the blessed apostles. But all others also which have been granted to the blessed apostle Peter and the holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic church of God by different emperors, patricians also, and others who feared God, for the benefit of their souls and forgiveness of their sins, in Tuscany, Spoleto, Benevento, in Corsica also, and the Sabine patrimony, and which have been usurped and taken away by the nefarious Lombards, should be restored in your times. We have from those places many deeds of gift deposited in our archives in the Lateran, and, for the satisfaction of your most Christian empire, we have di- rected that they be shown to you. And we therefore pray your excellence to order this patrimony to be wholly restored to the blessed Peter and us, that, while the holy church of God re- ceives all through your appropriate appointment, the prince him- self of the apostles, the blessed Peter, may, before the tribunal, invoke the clemency of the Almighty for your safety and long life, and the exaltation of your powerful kingdom."^ The edict of Constantino was doubtless among the deeds of gift which were shown to Charlemagne on that occasion. It was appealed to in like manner by Leo IX. in his attempt to convince Michael the patriarch of Constantinople, of the supreme authori- ty of the Roman see.^ It was incorporated by Isidore in his col- lection of the canons, and subsequently by Gralian, and made a part of the ecclesiastical law ; was quoted by the advocates of the church in the council summoned by Henry of Germany in 1062,^ and an acknowledgment of it exacted by Gregory VII. from the princes of Germany, and an oath on their induction in- to office, to maintain the church in the possessions and preroga- tives which it professed to confer. " We show by the annexed oath, what the holy Roman church exacts from him, who is to be chosen king in the place of Rudolph. ' I will, from this hour, be faithful, with a true allegiance, to the blessed Peter the apostle, and his vicar pope Gregory, who now lives, and whatever the ' Labbci Concil. lom.xii. pp. 820, 821. ' Ibid. torn. xix. p. 641. ' Baronii Annal. anno 1062, No. xxviu. AND THE IMAGE. 407 pope commands me, under the words — by a true obedience — I will, as becomes a Christian, faithfully observe. And in regard to the administration of the churches and the lands, or revenues which the emperor Constantine or Charles gave to the holy Pe- ter, and in respect to all churches and estates that have been pre- sented or conceded to the apostohc seat by any man or woman at any time, and are or shall be at my disposal, I will so confer with the pope, as not to incur the danger of sacrilege and perdition of my soul."^ The popes accordingly, in treating that edict as authentic, as conveying to them the power which it professes to confer, and as obligatory on the princes, churches, and people of the empire, treated Constantine as truly possessing the peculiar rights and prerogatives of the Deity, and entitled to a homage that is due only to him. And in persuading princes and people to regard and honor the emperor as possessing that supreme authority, they persuaded them to impute to him prerogatives, and pay to him a homage, that belong only to God. VI. It wrought great wonders, so as to deceive the Gothic na- tions into the belief that it enjoyed in its doctrines and preten- sions the sanction of God. The popes and their subordinates have professed to enjoy mi- raculous powers through every age, from the period of the con- version of the Gothic kings to their faith, and have employed the innumerable wonders which they represent as having been wrought in connection with their agency, to convince the rulers and people of their divine mission. Thus miracles are asserted to have been wrought at the conversion, baptism, and coronation of Clovis, to confirm him and his people in the Christian faith, and inspire them with confidence in the doctrines of St. Vedas- tus and St. Remigius.^ Miracles are related to have been wrought * Labbei Concil. torn. xx. p. 343. ' " The gospel relates that the Lord Jesus going to Jericho, in order to confirm the people who were present in their belief of his deity, restored sight to the eyes of a blind man who called to him, so that by the gift of sight to the body of one who was blind, the minds of many were spiritually enlightened. And so also St. Ve- dastus, by the aid of Christ, through the illuminationof a blind man, miraculously confirmed the king in the faith which he had preached : for his excellency, trav- elling with a suitable attendance and a great multitude of people, came to a ham- let near the villa Reguliaca, on the flowery banks of the Aisne, where, as he passed the head of the stream, a blind man met him, who had long been deprived of sight, perhaps not by his own fault, but that the works of God might be manifested la him, and by his restoration to sight, the hearts of many be spiritually enlightened ; who when he understood from those who were passing that St. Vedastus the ser- vant of Christ was in the train, cried, O holy Vedastus, and chosen of God, liav» mercy on me, and earnestly invoke the divine power to relieve my misery. I ask 408 THE TWO-HORNED WILD BEAST at the conversion of Ellielbert of England.' The works of Greg- ory the Great abound with stories of prodigies granted, as he rep resents, for the vindication of the Catholic church, the support of the papacy, and the refutation of heretics. The ecclesiastical annals of Baronius and Raynald ascribe thousands of miracles to the popes, prelates, monks, and other members of the Romish hierarchy, wrought in demonstration of the legitimacy of their claims to divine authority, and the truth of their doctrines ; and the decrees of canonization allege the possession of miraculous powers as a mark of the saintship of those who are canonized, and proof of their title to that honor. Gregory VII. also, the prin- cipal instigator of the erection of the image, made pretensions to miraculous powers. " Anastasius asserts it as undoubted in his lime, that Gregory was famous for miracles, not only during his life, but after his death ; for as the Acts relate that aprons and handkerchiefs from Paul were used by believers to remove ill- nesses and expel demons, so the articles worn by Gregor}' were endowed by God with the same power, as you may see from the following narrative by an author of that age, in the life of St. An- selm : ' Gregory sent his mitre to Anselm as a badge of the pow- er of binding and loosing, and as, I believe, of working miracles also ; for we all know not long after, through his counsel and not gold nor silver, but that sight may be restored to me through your holiness's prayers. The holy man, therefore, conscious that divine power was present with him, not only in order to the cure of the blind man, but still more for the salvation of the people who were present, poured out his heart in holy prayer, confiding in the divine grace, and placed his right hand with the sign of the cross over the blind man's eyes, saying. Lord Jesus, who art the true light, who didst open the eyes of the blind man who cried to thee, open the eyes of this man that the people who are present may discern that thou art God alone, who dost wondrous things in heaven and earth. Immediately the blind man went his way, rejoicing in the recovery of his sight. A church was afterwards built on the place by pious men in memory of the miracle, and divine gifts are bestowed to this day on those who pray in it in faith. " Therefore, the king having been well instructed by the man of God in the evan- gelical discipline, and confirmed in the faith by this miracle, made no delay, but proceeded with the utmost alacrity to see the holy pontiff Remigius, that by his hal- lowed ministry and the co-operation of the Holy Spirit, he might be washed in the living fountain of Catholic baptism in order to the remission of sins, and the liopo of eternal life." — Baronii Annal. an. 499, no. 23, 24, 25. Pope Ilormisdas in like manner, if the letter to Remigius ascribed to him be gen- uine, represents that saint as having converted tlie king through miracles equal in number and greatness to those of the apostolic age. " We hereby constitute you our vicar — saving the privileges which antiquity ascril)es to metropolitans — through the whole kingdom of our blessed and spiritual son Ciovis, whom, through the aids of divine grace and numerous miracles, equalling the wonders of apostolic times, which have aeronipanii'd your preaching, you have lately converted with the wholft nation, and consecrati'd by baplisin." — Baronii Annal. an. 499, no. 27. 1 Gregorii Mag. Epist. 28, lib. xi. Ind. iv. p. 1110. AND THE IMAGE, 401& great failli, God wrought illustrious miracles by that mitre ; for among others, the reverend bishop of Mantua, Ubaldus, who had suffered severely many years with the spleen, and become cov- ered with ulcers so that he could scarcely stand, sit, walk, or re- cline, and had spent much on physicians without any benefit ; put on that mitre during a paroxysm of pain, and was instantly restored to health. The great and happy master Gregory thus wrought many miracles both living and dead ; the good disciple Anselm did also."^ VII. It prompted the Gothic rulers to make an image to the wild beast which received the death-wound and lived, by the union of their several national churches into a single hierarchy, and subjection of them to the pope as their supreme legislative and judicial head, after the model of the ancient civil empire un- der Constantine and his successors, who are symbolized by the head which was wounded and lived. For near two centuries from the conversion of the Gothic kings, and the commencement of their co-operation with the popes in enforcing the Catholic religion on their subjects, those prelates neither exerted nor claimed any absolute jurisdiction over the churches out of their own patriarchate. They were acknowl- edged as successors to Peter, and the first bishops of the church, respected as of high authority in doctrine and discipline, and con- sulted by princes and prelates on questions of importance ; but their decisions were advisory, not legislative and judicial, and be- came obligatory on the church only by adoption and ratification by princes and councils.^ The pastors of churches until the eighth or ninth century were elected either by their congregations, or appointed by the bishops of the diocese in which they were installed. The bish- ops were elected by their clergy, with the consent, after the sev- enth and eighth centuries, of the princes to whom they owed allegiance ; and the metropolitans by their bishops.^ All ques- tions between the bishops were settled by provincial or national aynods, or if appeals were made to Rome, they were voluntary and from motives of expediency, not of necessity.^ Soon, however, after the erection of the papacy by Pepin and Charlemagne into a civil kingdom, the popes began openly to ' Baronii Annal. an. 1085, no. xiii. ' Bossuetii Defen. Decl. Prsev. Diss. c. 61. ' Van Espen, Jus. Canon, pr. i. tit. xiii. c. i. * Petri de Marca, Concord. Sacerd. ct Imp., lib. vii. c. 13. Febronii de Stat« £cci. c. iii. s. 7. 52 410 THE TWO-IIORNED WILD BEAST aspire to an ccclesiaslical dominion over the churches of the other kingdoms. They represented their decrees as of universal authority, they interfered in appointments to benefices, they claimed tiie right of determining ecclesiastical questions ; and to support their pretences, procured the fabrication of a vast body of letters in the names of the earher popes, and other documents, wliich exhibited them as exerting legislative and judicial authority over tlie whole church, and representing princes, prelates, and churches as acknowledging that jurisdiction, inserted them among the canons, and constituted them a part of the ecclesiastical law. Thus those forged letters exhibited the Roman church as in- vested with supreme power over all other churches. "The other patriarchal churches of which we send you a catalogue, received their primates from the holy Apostle and the blessed Clemens, or from us ; but this holy Roman and apostolic church obtained the primacy, not from the apostles, but from the Lord himself our Saviour, and acquired supreme power over all churches, and the whole flock of Christian nations." — " Paul also was associated with Peter in the city of Rome, and crowned at the same lime with a glorious death under Nero ; and they together consecrated the holy Roman church, and exalted it by their presence and triumph over all other cities in the world." — " By the divine beneficence, therefore, the first seat is that of the holy Roman church, which Peter and Paul consecrated by their martyrdom."' They claimed the power of giving authority to ecclesiastical laws. " We give validity to the laws of the Church by apostoli- cal authority — and set aside foreign or secular judgments."^ They represented the violation of their canons as a crime that consigned the perpetrator to destruction. " We do not wish to destroy any one, but he destroys himself who deliberately violates the decrees of the apostles, and this holy seat.""* Tliey claimed the right of determining all ecclesiastical causes that were referred to tlicm by appeal, and assigned to all litigants the right of appeal to their tribunal. " But if difi^icult causes arise among you, refer them to this seat as the head, that they may be terminated by an apostolic judgment ; for so tiie Lord wills, and so he ordained, as has been shown ; for this apostoli- cal seat was constituted the hinge and head of all churches by him, and not any one else, and as a door is governed by the hinge, ' Anacleti Epist. iii. Labbei Concil. torn. i. pp. 616, 617. ' Auaclcti EpiBt. i. I.abbi^i Concil. toni. i. p. 605. * Sixti Epist. ii. Lubbei Concil. torn. i. p. 65 1. AND THE IMAGE. 411 SO by the Lord's appointment all churches are governed by the authority of this holy seat."^ They represented it as the office of the pontiffs to ratify the decisions of metropolitans and other bishops, and render them authoritative. " In regard to the accusations of clergymen re- specting which you ask advice, as it is difficult to refer all such causes to the apostolic seat, let the final decisions of the bishops only be referred here, that they may be finished by the authority of this holy seat, as has been decreed by the apostles and their successors, with the concurrence of many bishops."^ " It is reported to this apostolic seat that you judge the cause of bishops, which it is not lawful for you to decide without our authority, for it has been a rule from the time of the apostles, that a bishop accused or judged in any cause by the bishops of his province, might freely appeal and come to the pontiff of this seat, who of himself or through his vicars may re-examine his cause."'' These forgeries were incorporated by Isidore in his collection of the canons ; a part of them was introduced by Agilramnus in 785 into his, and by Reginon, into his in the tenth century * and were the grounds on which the pontiffs founded their claims to a jurisdiction over the whole church, and the most efficient means of persuading princes, prelates, and people, to acquiesce in them. They received the public sanction of the popes, were quoted by them in vindication of their usurpations, and enforced by them as far as in their power on the churches, and gained in a brief period a general reception and vast influence. " The ancient code was comprised in a single volume of mod- erate size, and consisted of the canons of early councils and de- cisions of some of the Roman pontiffs. That book the church used down to the age of Charlemagne. But then when the monarchies were changed, as by a fatal necessity, the ecclesi- astical law also was changed, and to the ancient one which had prevailed through more than seven hundred years, succeeded a new code made up of forged letters of Roman pontiffs, produced by the impudent Isidore, and new decrees of the popes who filled the apostolic seat after the age of Charlemagne. That code had to struggle against a strong opposition. The fortune of the Ro- mans however as usual prevailed, so that after those times nothing * Anacleti Epist. iii. c. iv. Labbei Concil. torn. i. p. 618 ; also Sixti Epist. ii. torn. L pp. 653, 654. '■' Eleutherii Epist. i. Labbei Concil. torn. i. p. 695. ' Victoris i. Epist. i. Labbei Concil. torn. i. p. 70L * Van Espeii, de Collect. Can. pr. iv. v. pp. 100-110. 412 THE TWO-HORNED WILD BEAST rung more frequently in the ears of Christians, than the authority and allegation of these new epistles ; especially when attempts were made against ancient customs and usages, that had long pre- vailed in the provinces. " The age of Charlemagne, in which the new code was intro- duced, was favorable, on account of the extreme confusion which ihe wretched and astonishing ignorance of the bishops and their clergy, and inacquaintance with the ancient canons, occasioned in the government of the church. Produced in France at that period of perturbation by Riculf, archbishop of Mentz, those letters ascribed to the early Roman bishops struck the minds of all, because of the names of the holy pontiffs which they bore, and the new views they exiiibited of antiquity. Thence a feeling rose that it was not lawful to doubt their authority ; and from that time the venerated canons of the early councils and the authentic decrees of the early pontiffs of the apostolic seat, which had been of the highest authority through so many years, grad- ually sunk into contempt, while the new were held in high honor."* The principal doctrines of this new code were soon embodied by the pontiffs in new decrees, and enforced on the ecclesiastics beyond the Alps. Thus Nicolas I., who held the papal throne from 858 to 867 : " The Roman church instituted all others, whether of patriarchal or metropolitan rank, the seats of bishops, or other grades of dignity." — " By the princely hand of the blessed Peter and Paul we have power and right not only over monks, but over all the clergy of whatever rank of every diocese." — " It is clear that the sentence of the apostolic seat is not to be super- seded by any one ; nor is it lawful for any one to judge its deci- sions."^ A formal acknowledgment of the supremacy of the pope by a profession of faith, and solicitation and reception from him of the pall, was made a condition of admission to the higher offices of the church. Thus it was decreed by the synod of Ravenna un- der John VIII. in 877, " that any metropolitan who did not within three months of his consecration send a profession of his faith, and receive the pall from the apostolic seat, unless una- voidably prevented, should lose his office, and be divested of authority to consecrate, as long as he disregarded the ancient usage of making a profession of faith and soliciting the pall."^ The popes were accustomed to refuse the pall to those whose ' S. Baluzii PriBf. ad Dial. Ant. Augustini de Emend. Gratiani, pp. 7, 8. * Nicolai i. dccret. Labbei Concil. torn. xv. p. 436. ' Labbei Concil. torn. xvii. p. 337. AND THE IMAGE. 413 faith was not satisfactory to them, or who declined to acknowl- edge the authority of the pontifical decrees. Thus the same pontiff: "We cannot now bestow on you the pall which you desire, because wc find the statement of your faith is less full than it ought to be, for you make no mention in it, as is custom- ary, either of the ancient general councils, which contain the symbol of our faith, nor of the decretal constitutions of the Ro- man pontiffs ; nor have you confinned it by your signature, nor sent any one who can verify it by oath."^ And they denounced an anathema on all who disregarded their decrees. Thus Nico- las I. : " If any one shall contemn the dogmas, mandates, inter- dicts, canons, or decrees, promulged by the pontiffs of the apos- tolic seat in favor of the Catholic faith, or discipline of the church, in order to the correction of present or future evils, let him be accursed."^ By these extraordinary means the pontiffs soon made great accessions to their power. They were far, however, from being wholly successful, especially with some of the prelates of France, who detected their forgeries, disowned their authority, and con- tinued to maintain in a large degree their independence : and they met still greater obstruction from several of the monarchs. As they held their temporal dominions as a dependence, first, of the kings of France, and subsequently of the emperors of Ger- many, and the assent of those princes at each election was requi- site in order to the investiture of the pope, the appointment of the pontiffs was in effect transferred from the church itself to them, and thence made a check to their ambition, and a means of their vassalage. The office was bestowed on favorites of the court, and made the reward of past, or condition of future sub- serviency. But those princes were not long content with the disposal of the first office of the church. They began also to usurp the appointment of all subordinate bishops, and other ec- clesiastics of rank, to set vacant offices to sale, and make the reception from them of the badge of investiture, a requisite in order to consecration.^ Their example was followed by the ' Joannis viii. Epist. Frag. Labbei Concil. torn. xvii. p. 242. ' Labbei Concil. torn. xv. p. 437. ' " To these evils Henry the emperor added another, which confirmed such as had prevailed before, and gave birth to those which rose afterwards; for he appoint- ed bishops, not for their merits, according to the requirement of the canons, but for the payment of the largest sum of money, or the most forward adulation of his crimes ; and after having given the episcopal office to a person, if another offered a higher price or louder flattery, he caused the former to be deposed for simony, and the other to be consecrated as a saint in his place." — N. Alexand. Hast. Eccl. sec. xii. torn. vi. p. C76. See also Van Espen, Jus. Canon, pr. i. p. 69. 414 THE TWO-HORNED WILD BEAST monarchs of the other kingdoms, and the hierarchy of each re- duced in that relation to an abject subjection to them. To extri- cate the papacy and other liierarchies from this thraldom, and gratify his boundless ambition and avarice, Gregory VII. formed, and in a large degree accomplished, the stupendous design of grasping with his own hands the vast power thus usurped by the princes, exalting the pontiff, not only to an independence of the emperors, but dominion over all civil rulers, and reducing the hierarchies to that subordination to the papacy for which the way had been prepared by the fabrications of Isidore. The first step in this process was the investiture of the cardi- nals with the right of electing the pope, and the authorization of the pope to enter on his office, without waiting for the sanction of the emperor. It was decreed by a council assembled at Rome under Nicolas II. in 1059, " That the election of the Roman pon- tiff should be vested in the cardinal bishops, so that if any one were enthroned in the apostolical seat, without having first been harmoniously and canonically elected by them, and then ap- E roved by the subordinate religious orders, the clergy, and laics, e should not be regarded as pope or apostolical, but an apos- tate."* And Nicolas confirmed that canon. " We decree by the apostolic authority, that should any one be enthroned in the apos- tolic seat for money, through fear, or by a popular or military tumult, without a harmonious and canonical election and bene- diction by the cardinal bishops, and then the concurrence of the subordinate religious orders, he shall not be held to be pope, or apostolical, but an apostate, and it shall be lawful for the cardi- nals, with the religious who fear God, the clergy and laity, to expel the intruder from the apostolic seat, even with an anathe- ma, and by force, and with zeal, and to appoint whom they shall judge worthy ; and if they arc unable to do it within the city, assembling by our apostolic authority without the city in what- ever place they please, they may choose whoever they deem " VVido, by divine grace archbishop of the church of Milan, to all the faithful in Christ, clergy and people of that church, eternal salvation. Your devotion, beloved brethren and children, is not ignorant how the reprobate and detestable practice of simony, condemned by all the canons, formerly prevailed in this church, and con- taminated the souls of the innocent with its pestiierous leprosy ; so that whoever entered the clerical order, by a settled rule, paid for a subdeaconship ten piecee, for a dcaconship eighteen, and for the ofiico of a presbyter twenty-four ; so that in this way Simon Mngus converted tliis holy Ambrosian church, as it were, into a shop of ilia perversity. That coiner and money-changer of iniquity had a bellows, ham- mers, and an anvil, and fabricated nothing else than the common peril of souls." — Labbei Concil. torn. xix. p. bUl. ' Labbei Concil. torn. xix. p. 897. AND THE IMAGE. 415 the worthiest, and most advantageous for the apostolic seat, and give him authority to rule and direct affairs for the benefit of the holy Roman church, as seems best to him according to circum- stances, as though he were already enthroned." " As the apos- tolic scat presides over all the churches of the world, and there- fore cannot have a metropolitan over it, the cardinal bishops are without doubt to discharge the office of metropolitans, and mduct the elect bishop into the apostolic seat. Let him, however, be chosen from the bosom of this church, if a suitable one be found. If no one be found in it, let him be taken from another, observing the honor, however, and reverence that are due to our beloved son Henry, who is now held to be king of the Romans, and is expected by divine permission hereafter to be emperor, as we have already conceded to him and to his successors, who may personally exact that right of the apostolic seat. Should unjust and evil men prevail to such a degree, that a pure, true, and free election cannot be made in the city, the cardinal bishops, with the religious, clergy, and Catholic laics, although few, shall have legitimate power to choose a pontiif wherever they may think proper to assemble ; and after an election shall have been made, if a storm of war, or the malicious endeavors of men shall ob- struct him who has been elected, so that he cannot be enthroned according to custom in the apostolic seat, the elect shall, never- theless, have authority as the true pope, to govern the Roman church, and administer all its affairs. " Should any one chosen against this decree, either through sedition, presumption, or any device, be ordained or enthroned, let him with his favorers and followers be separated by the au- thority of God and the holy apostles Peter and Paul from the threshold of God's holy church, and rejected as antichrist, an intruder, and a destroyer of Christianity ; nor any hearing be reserved to him in respect to it, but let him be deprived, without a recall, of every ecclesiastical rank he before enjoyed, and let whoever adheres to him, or pays him any reverence whatever as a pontiff, or ventures in any respect to defend him, be bound by a like sentence."* By this provision, on the one hand, no one could be inducted into the papal chair by the mere will of the emperor or a fac- tion ; and on the other, whoever was elected by the cardinals and subordinate clergy, was authorized to assume the office, not only though exiled from the city, and prevented from being enthroned, * Labbei Concil. torn. xix. pp. 899, 903, 904. 416 THE TWO-HORNED WILD BEAST but without the sanction of the emperor, unless he should per- sonally demand that formality. Next, as successor to St. Peter, the pontiff arrogated an ab- solute authority over all other bishops, and asserted that they drew their office from him, and were under obligation to render implicit obedience to his will. Thus Gregory VII. through the first synod of Rome, in 1074 : " Perhaps some one may be so delirious as to say that the sub- jects of a bishop can be condemned by him only, not by the Roman pontiff. But that is contradicted by the gospel, in which the prerogative is conferred on the blessed Peter as a prince among the apostles, in the promise whatsoever you bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven ; for he who subjects all generally to the apostolic power, in no way excepts the subject of any bishop. Whence the same apostle exacted obedience generally from the elders of his time, that is the presbyters or bishops, and from their subjects, inasmuch as in his epistles he addressed rules of hfe alike to inferiors and superiors, and to women as well as men, which had been idle had not all owed obedience to his in- junctions. The blessed Anicletus, also ordained a presbyter by the prince of the apostles himself, testifies in his decrees,^ ' The holy and apostolic Roman church obtained the primacy, not from the apostles, but from the Lord himself, inasmuch as he said to the blessed Peter, thou art Peter. Therefore this apos- tolical seat is constituted the hinge and head of all the churches by the Lord, and not by any one else ; and as a door is regula- ted by the hinge, so, by the Lord's appointment, all churches are governed by the authority of this holy seat.' The apostolic doctor, Gelasius, likewise :^ ' The whole church, throughout the world, knows that the holy Roman church has the right of judging eveiy other church, and that no one has authority to judge the Roman church, inasmuch as appeals are to be made to it from every part of the world, and no liberty is allowed of appeal from it. Moreover, the apostolical seat has the power, without the concurrence of a synod, of releasing whoever an unjust synod has condemned, and of condemning, without a synod, whoever it thinks proper ; and this, doubtless, by the sovereignty which Peter held by the word of the Lord, and al- ways will hold. With these also concur the holy fathers, Callis- tus, Fabian, Sixtus, Sylvester, Julius,^ and many others, who were so attached to the trulii that they would have preferred to ' Thoy are forgeries. ' A forgery. ' The decrees hero referred to are all forgeries. AND THE IMAGE. 417 die rather than utter a falsehood. By virtue of this prerogative, accordingly, pope Simplicius entirely released Gregory, bishop of Modcna, suffragan of the archbishop of Ravenna, from the dominion of that prelate, and because the archbishop had en- throned him against his will in the church of Modena. In like manner St. Gregory reduced Honoratus, archdeacon of Solona, who had then advanced from the archdeaconship to the rank of presbyter, to his former grade, against the will of the bishop, and deprived him also whom the bishop of Solona had ordained in his place. They, therefore, manifestly err, render themselves obnoxious to the authority of the apostle, and rashly judge against his power, when they imagine that the subjects of any bishop cannot be bound or loosed by the Roman pontiff, but only by their own priest. " Moreover, the popes Leo, Vigil, and Gregory, each emi- nent in authority, testify in their decrees almost in the same lan- guage, that the holy Roman church bestows their office on other churches, so that they are called to a part in the care, but not to a plenitude of power ; which shows clearly that no bishop has as great power given him over his own flock as the apostolical pon- tiff, who, although he distributes his care to the individual bishops, yet by no means divests himself of his universal and sovereign power ; just as a king does not diminish his regal power by di- viding his kingdom among different dukes, counts, or judges. As then the apostolical lord has such a sovereign power over every church, that even against the will of the bishop he may direct any thing in it according to the canons, who can deny that he can condemn everywhere throughout the nations, both the subjects of bishops and bishops themselves, who contemn the apostolical command ? " It is shown by these considerations, also, that the parishioner of a bishop ought to obey his apostolical lord rather than his own bishop, since the authority of his own is by no means ade- quate to release him from an apostolical condemnation if he is disobedient to the apostolical commands ; while, on the other hand, the apostolical lord, if he obey him, can, with the utmost ease, protect him from all injury by his bishop, either by wholly releasing the parishioner from his dominion, or by restraining the bishop from injustice through a rebuke or condemnation by apostolical authority. The subject of a bishop should, indeed, take care not to obey his own bishop in any respect contrary to the apostolical commands, since St. Gregory deprived the arch- deacon of Solona, appointed in the place of Honoratus, because he 53 418 THE TWO-HORNED WILD BEAST obeyed his own bishop in being ordained in liis place after a pro- hibition by the apostolic seat. Hence, also, it is seen how mani- festly they err who say that the subjects of a bishop ought not by any means to obey the apostolic seat if they would obey their own priest ; since he was degraded, and deservedly, by St. Gregory, who was shown, by obedience to his own bishop, to have been opposed to the apostolic seat. Indeed, no one can show a due obedience to his own bishop who does not endeavor primarily to obey the apostolic seat. For, every one who de- sires to be a bishop, should especially teach his people that they should, without contradiction, obey the canons of the holy fathers, which, as has already been said, enjoin on all a supreme obedience to the apostolic seat. Whoever then would render an appropriate obedience to his own legitimate pastor, must also study to render a supreme obedience to the apostolic lord."^ Gregory VII., in like manner, in his dictates, asserts that the Roman pontiff might of right be called universal, that he could, without the concurrence of a synod, depose bishops and recon- cile them, and that he had authority to institute new laws ac- cording to the exigency of the limes.^ He thus claimed the most absolute supremacy over the church, as monarch, lawgiver, and judge. He taught that all other bishops and clergy drew their authority from him, held their of- fice by his will, and might be deprived, suspended, or deposed at his pleasure. He held that they had no authority over their people except in subordination to him, that their parishioners owed them no obedience except in subjection to him, and that they were under the highest obligation to disobey them, when their commands were at variance with his dictates ; and finally, he denied that he was under any responsibility to the church for the manner in which he exercised his power. Thirdly. He asserted the right of the church to elect and in- stitute its pastors and bishops, independently of the civil rulers ; and accused the emperors and other monarchs of violating its liberties, in usurping the appointment and introduction of bishops and other ecclesiastics into their offices. He accordingly induced a Roman synod to decree, " that as often as the pastor of a church died, and another was to be insti- tuted in his place, at the direction of the visiting bishop sent to it from the apostolical or metropolitan seat, the clergy and peo- ple, setting all worldly ambition, fear, and favor aside, should, with tlie consent of the pope or the metropolitan of the church, ' Labbei Concil. torn. xx. pp. 429-436. ' Ibid. 168, 169. AND THE IMAGE. 419 elect a pastor for itself according to God ; and that if it should presume to do otherwise, it should derive no benefit from the election wrongly made, nor have authority to make another, but the whole power of election should be at the disposal of the apostolic seat, or the metropolitan."* He prohibited the reception of investiture from princes and laymen. " If any one hereafter receive the episcopate or abbot- ship from the hand of any laic, he shall not be held to be a bish- op or abbot. We, moreover, debar him from the favor of the blessed Peter, and from entering the church to serve in the place which he obtained by ambition and disobedience, which is idolatry. We ordain the same also in regard to inferior ecclesi- astical offices. Also if any emperor, duke, marquis, count, or any other secular officer or person, ventures to give an investi- ture of the episcopate or any other ecclesiastical dignity, let him know that he is bound by the bond of the same sentence."^ He prohibited likewise the purchase and sale of ecclesiastical offices. " If any one shall sell prebends, archdeaconships, or any ecclesiastical offices, or ordain in any other manner than the statutes of the holy fathers direct, let him be suspended from his office."' " Ordinations which are made for money, because of solicita- tion, or through subservience to any one, or which are not made with the concurrence of the clergy and people according to the canons, and the approbation of those to whom the consecration belongs, we adjudge to be invalid and without authority."^ Fourthly. He enforced these decrees, and all other canons on ecclesiastics and laics of every rank throughout the empire, by the penalties of deposition and excommunication. " Sigefrid, archbishop of Mentz, who attempted to separate archbishops and abbots of Germany from their spiritual mother the holy Roman church, we, by the judgment of the Holy Spirit, and the authority of the apostles Peter and Paul, suspend from the episcopal ofiice, and debar from the communion of the body and blood of the Lord, unless the peril of death intervenes and he repent. Others also, who have voluntarily united in his schism, and persist in that wickedness, we suspend in like man- ner from the episcopal office. " The bishops of Lombardy, who, contemning the canonicfl and apostolical authority, have conspired against the blessed Peter the prince of the Apostles, we, by the authority of Peter, ' Rom. Concil. vii. can. vi. Labbei Concil. torn. xx. p. 533. '' Labbei Concil. torn. xx. pp. 431, 509, 517. « Ibid. 509. 420 THE TWO-IIORNED WILD BEAST suspend wholly from the episcopal office, and separate from the communion of the holy church. We excommunicate Beren- ger, bishop of Agde, because he communicated with the bishop of Narbonne when under excommunication, and performed epis- copal offices for iiim. We excommunicate Heriman, bishop of Vienne, justly deposed for simony, perjury, sacrilege, and apos- tasy, because he persists in harassing the church of Vienne, and we prohibit divine service in the churches of Romans and St. Irenaeus of Lyons as long as he has possession of them."^ Fifthly. He summoned ecclesiastics, princes, and persons of all ranks, from every part of the empire to Rome, to answer to him for their violations of his decrees, and submit their contests Avith one another to his decision ; assumed the right of judging their causes ; and punished them, if they refused submission to his dictates, with excommunication and anathemas. " Philip, king of France, being strongly attached to you, has urgently requested us both by letters and ambassadors to ab- solve you, which we saw wc could not consistently do, as we know, according to the canons, you ought to be far more se- verely censured. However, postponing in apostolical compas- sion the avenging sentence which is your due, we hereby com- mand you by all means to present yourself before us at the approaching festival of All Saints, that we may determine justly the complaints so often repeated against you of the church of Chalons, and admonish you in the mean time not to render your- self by contempt or disobedience still more obnoxious to the sentence already pronounced. If you disobey us in respect to these commands, and artfully excusing yourself, fail to appear before us within the appointed time, you need not doubt any further that you will be condemned, and irrevocably deposed."^ Sixthly. He usurped the investiture of the superior prelates, by denying them the right of entering on their office, though ca- nonically chosen and constituted, until he had bestowed on them the pall. " To William, archbishop of Rouen. The letters you have sent to us pretend a sufficient regard, but there is no evidence whatever of its sincerity, since were it real, you would not, like your suffragans, for so long a time have attached little import- imce to visiting the threshold of the apostles ; for we do not rec- ollect to have seen any one of you from the lime that the divine condescension advanced us, though unworthy, to the care of this * Labbei Concil. torn. xx. pp. 467, 468. ' Gregorii VII. Epiat. 56. lib. i. Labbei Concil. torn. xx. pp. 104, 105. AND THE IMAGE. 421 seat; which, however, was not much to be expected, as you have taken little pains to visit our legates who are near you. But what labor, what extraordinary difficulty, has induced you for such a period to neglect the blessed Peter, when from the ends of the world, nations newly converted to the faith endeavor, women as well as men, annually to visit him ? Unless apostolic mildness withholds us, you will find it still more seriously cen- sured in you, that you have hitherto put off obtaining from the apostolic seat, according to custom, the most honorable badge of your dignity, the pall. For we presume you are not ignorant how strictly the rule of the holy fathers ordains that they shall be condemned, who for three months from their consecration, neglect to obtain the pall which belongs to their office. As therefore you have slighted the canon of the holy fathers, we command you by the apostolic authority, not to venture here- after to ordain a bishop or priest, or consecrate churches, until you have obtained from this seat that which is lacking to your honor, the pall. We admonish you and your suffi'agans anew that you take care forthwith to remedy the aforesaid defect, lest if you continue negligent as hitherto, you experience for the contempt the power of the blessed Peter through us, with a severity greater in proportion to the delay ."^ Seventhly. But beyond these assumptions of authority over ecclesiastics, he claimed, as the vicar of Christ, a supremacy also over all princes, and power to excommunicate them, de- prive them of their crowns, absolve their subjects from alle- giance, and bestow their kingdoms on whoever he pleased ; a claim which Catholics themselves acknowledge had never been advanced by any other pope. " If the holy apostolical seat, divinely invested with sovereign power, judges spiritual things, why not also secular ? But, per- haps it may be thought that the regal dignity is superior to the episcopal. How much they differ may be seen from their ori- gin. The pride of men invented the regal ; the episcopal was instituted by the divine benignity. That incessantly grasps at vain-glory ; this aspires continually to the heavenly life. If you compare the episcopal honor and sublimity, to the splendor of kings and the diadem of princes, the latter are as inferior as lead to goId."2 " Who doubts that the priests of Christ are the fathers and masters of kings, princes, and all believers ? And would it not * Gregorii VII. Epist. i. lib. ix. Labbei Concil. torn. xx. p. 339. ' Gregorii VII. Epist. ii. lib. iv. Labbei Concil. torn. xx. p. 209. 422 THE TWO-HORNED WILD BEAST be acknowledged as a wretched insanity, if a son should attempt to subjugate a father to himself, or a disciple a master, and sub- ject him to his power by unjust obligations, by whom it is be- lieved he may be bound, and bound not only on earth but in heaven ?"' " The holy fathers, receiving with great veneration and preserv- ing this prerogative, sovereignly conferred on the blessed Peter the prince of the apostles by a heavenly decree, in their general councils and other writings and acts, denominated the holy Ro- man church the Universal Mother, and received evidences of it in doctrinal decrees for the confirmation of the faith and judicial decisions, agreeing in this with one voice, that all great affairs, and especially the judgment of all ecclesiastical causes, should be referred to it as the mother and head, and that no one should or can appeal from it, nor reverse or reconsider its decisions."^ " 0 blessed Peter, prince of the apostles, incline, I pray, your gracious ears, and hear me thy servant, whom thou hast nour- ished from infancy, and freed thus far from the hands of the wicked who have hated and hate me for my fidelity to thee. Thou art my witness, and my queen the mother of God, and the blessed Paul thy brother, and all thy saints, that thy holy Roman church drew me reluctant to its government, and I did not regard it robbery to ascend thy seat, and would rather finish my life in a pilgrimage than usurp thy place in a secular spirit for worldly glory. And therefore I believe it pleases and has pleased thee of thy grace, and not of my works, that the Christian people specially committed to thee should obey me, and that to me especially in thy stead is intrusted the power given by God of binding and loosing in heaven and earth. Relying therefore on this conviction for the honor and defence of thy church, in behalf of the omnipotent God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and by thy power and authority, I divest King Henry, son of Henry the emperor, who has risen against thy church with un- exampled pride, of the government of the kingdoms of Germany and Italy ; and absolve all Christians from the obligation of the oath which they have sworn, or shall swear to him ; and com- mand that no one should serve him as king : for it is right that he who studies to lessen the honor of the church, should him- self lose the honors which he possesses. And inasmuch as he disdained obedience as a Christian, and did not return to the Lord whom he had forsaken, but participated with the excom- ' Grcgorii VII. Epist. xxi. lib. viii. Labbei Concil. torn. xx. p. 333. ' Gregorii VII. Epist. xxi. lib. iv. Labboi Concil. torn. xx. p. 332. AND THE IMAGE. 423 municated, contrary to the command which I sent to him, thou art a witness, for his salvation, and endeavored to rend thy church by separating himself from it ; as thy vicar, I bind him in the bond of an anathema, that the nations may know and con- fess that thou art Peter, and that on thy rock the Son of the living God has built the church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."^ He prohibited the bishops from releasing him from this excom- munication, except with the concurrence of the pontiff. " We command that no one of you presume to absolve him from this excommunication, until you have apprized the apostolic seat of his reformation, and received its consent."^ He directed the bishops, dukes, counts, and other princes of rank, to elect another emperor in his place, should it prove neces- sary. " If he should not heartily turn to God, we enjoin that one be selected for the government of the kingdom, who will give sat- isfactory pledges that he will observe the conditions which I have mentioned, and such others as are requisite to the safety of the church and the empire ; and should that be necessary, in order that we may confirm the election and ratify the new institution, make the transaction known to us as soon as possible, the person and his manners, that proceeding with a holy and beneficent pur- pose, you may merit through divine grace the favor of the apos- tolic seat, and the benediction, in all respects, of the blessed Pe- ter, the prince of the apostles."^ He again deposed him in 1076, and conferred the empire on Rodulph, who had been chosen in his stead. " Again, in the be- half of the omnipotent God and the blessed Peter, interdicting to him the kingdoms of Germany and Italy, I divest him of all regal power and dignity, forbid that any Christian should obey him as king, absolve all who have sworn allegiance to him from their oaths, and ordain that he and his favorers shall have no power in battle, nor victory in this life. Moreover, that Rodulph, whom the Germans have chosen as their king, may sway and defend the German empire in fidelity to you, I, on your behalf, give and grant absolution from all their sins to all who faithfully adhere to him, and your benediction in this life and that which is to come ; for as Henry is justly divested of the imperial dignity because of his pride, rebellion, and treachery, so the power and dignity of the empire are bestowed on Rodulph for his humility, obedience, and truth."* ' Labbei Concil. torn. xx. pp. 468, 469. " Bullar. Mag. torn. i. p. 27. ' Ibid. torn. i. p. 27. * Ibid. torn. i. p. 29. 424 THE TWO-IIORNED WILD BEAST He and his successors deposed several other kings also and princes. In addition to these assumptions of authority over prin- ces, he claimed that emperors and kings were vassals of his throne, bound to acknowledge him as their superior, swear to him alle- giance, and hold their dominions in dependence on him. " To Al- phonsus, king of Arragon : We give thanks to the Almighty, who sheds splendor over your glory by the grace of his presence, uni- ting you by faith and devotion to the blessed Peter, the prince of the apostles, to whom he subjected all the principalities and pow- ers of the world, by giving him the right of binding and loosing in heaven and on earlh."^ He accordingly claimed Hungary as a dependence of the Ro- mish church. " To Geusa, duke of Hungary : We believe it is known to you that the kingdom of Hungary ought, like other no- ble kingdoms, to be free, and subject to no kingof another kingdom, but only to the holy universal mother, tlie Roman church, which regards subjects, not as servants, but receives all as sons. But the divine displeasure has obstructed the dominion of it, I be- lieve, because your relative obtained it by usurpation from the emperor of Germany, not from the Roman pontiffs. Since, how- ever, it is in your hands, we expect you to take care of the church- es, to show a supreme concern for religion, and to render such obedience to the legates of the holy Roman church when they come to you, as may aid you, through the intercessions of the blessed Peter, to glory and honor in this life and that which is to come."' " We are anxious to procure peace, if possible, between you and your relative king Solomon, so that justice may be maintain- ed, tiiat each may be satisfied with what is his, and not pass tlie bounds of rectitude and good usage, and that thence the king- dom, which has hitherto flourished chiefly by your means, may become such, that its king shall not be a secondary monarch. For when the sovereignty of the blessed Peter, prince of the apos- tles, was contemned, whose kingdom it is, we believe your pru- dence is aware, the king subjected himself to the German empe- ror, and obtained the title of vice-king. But the Lord providing against the injury done to his prince, by his fiat transferred the control of the kingdom to you. And so if he had before any right to the kingdom, he deprived himself of it by that sacrilegious usurpation."^ ' Gregorii vii. Epist. vi. lib. vii. Tiubbci Concil. torn. xx. p. 292. • CJrt'ijorii vii. Kpist. Ixiii. lib. ii. Labbei Concil. toin. x.\. ji. 174. • Gregorii vii. Epist. lx.\. lib. il. Labbei Concil. torn. xx. p. 180. * AND THE IMAGE. 425 He professed to bestow the throne of Russia on the heir to that monarchy. " To Demetrius king of Russia : Your son visiting the threshold of the apostles, came to us, desiring to receive your kingdom by the gift of St. Peter through our hands ; and promising due fidelity to the blessed Peter the prince of the apos- tles, earnestly solicited it, affirming that v^^ilhout doubt his re- quest would be ratified and confirmed by you, if it were granted by the grace and authority of the apostolic seat. And as his vows and requests seemed reasonable, both from your consent and his earnestness, we have at length assented to them, and delivered to him, in behalf of St. Peter, the government of your king- dom."^ He claimed Spain also as a dependence of St. Peter. " To the king, counts, and other princes of Spain : We trust your wisdom is not ignorant that the holy and apostolical seat is the head and universal mother of all churches and nations, which the divine clemency foreordained to come to the knowledge of his name by the faith of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, through the evan- gelic and apostolical doctrine." " Moreover, we wish it to be made known to you, — which in- deed it is not agreeable to us to do, but is highly necessary to you, not only for your future, but your present glory, — that the kingdom of Spain was by ancient treaties made over in right and propriety, to the blessed Peter and the holy Roman church."^ He made similar claims on other princes, and drew several of them to an acknowledgment of subordination to him, and exact- ed from them an oath of allegiance. He extorted the following pledge of subservience from the emperor of Germany : " I will from this hour be true, by a genuine fidelity, to the apostle Peter and his vicar pope Gregory, and whatever the pope commands me in the words, — by a true obedience, — I will as becomes a Christian faithfully observe.""^ He induced Bertrannus, count of Provence, to surrender to him his dominions, and swear to him allegiance : " I, Bertran- nus, by the grace of God count of Provence, for the remission of my sins and those of my parents, present, give, and grant, my whole prerogative, as far as it pertains to me by the right of my parents, to Almighty God, to the holy apostles Peter and Paul, and to ray lord Gregory VH. the pope, and all his successors, so that whatever hereafter pleases the lord pope Gregory respecting me * Gregorii vii. Epist. Ixxiv. lib. ii. Labbei Concil. torn. xx. p. 183. ' Gregorii vii. Epist. xxviii. lib. iv. Labbei Concil. torn. xx. pp. 234,235. * Gregorii vii. Epist. iii. lib. ix. Labbei Coacil. torn. xx. p. 343. 54 426 THE TWO-HORNED WILD BEAST and my prerogative, I will, without contradiction, do. All the churciies which are in my possession, I will yield wholly to my lord Gregory the pope aforesaid, and all his successors, and will aid, as far as I am able, in governing them justly, and according to the divine will." " I, Bcrlrannus, by the grace of God count of Provence, will from this lime be faithful to you my lord pope Gregory, and all your successors who shall be chosen through the superior cardi- nals of the holy Roman church, and nothing which you intrust to me will I knowingly reveal to your injury. So may God help me, and these holy gospels,"' The structure, in the erection of which his predecessors had labored nearly three centuries, and which he had suddenly ad- vanced to such a towering height, was soon completed by those who followed him, by procuring the surrendry by the emperors of the right of investiture to the pontiff, the usurpation from the clergy and people of the appointment of bishops and other eccle- siastics, the transference by appeal of all ecclesiastical causes to Rome for decision, and the formal submission of the church to all these arrogations of authority. The emperor, in 1 122, relinquished all investitures to the pope : " I, Henry, emperor of the Romans, for the love of God, the holy Roman church, and lord pope Calistus, and for the help of my soul, reserve to (xod and to his holy apostles Peter and Paul and the holy Catholic church, all investitures by the ring and crosier, and grant that in all the churches which are in my kingdom and empire, a canonical election may be made, and a free consecra- tion. The possessions and regalia of the blessed Peter which I have, that have been usurped from the commencement of this quarrel to the present time, whether during my father's reign or mine, I will restore to the holy Roman church, and will aid in the restoration of those which are not in my hands. The posses- sions also of all other churches and princes, and others, whether ecclesiastics or laics, which I hold, I will restore according to the judgment of the princes, and to justice, and will faithfully as- sist in the restoration of those which I do not hold."^ The election of bishops began in the twelfth century to be withdrawn from the clergy of the dioceses, and assumed by those of the cathedrals ;^ but the pontiffs soon usurped their ap- pointment, and at length reserved to themselves the disposition of * Grogorii vii. Epist. xii. lib. ix. Labbei Concil. torn. xx. p. 350. ' Labbei (Joncil. torn. xxi. ])p. 213, 274. • Van Espeii J us. Cuuoii. pr. i. til. xiii. p. 65. Fcbronii de Statu Eccl. c. vii. s. iv. I AND THE IMAGE. 427 all lucrative ecclesiastical offices throughout the empire. Alex- ander III., who held the papal sceptre from 1159 to 1181, "in fulfilment of the apostolic office which required him to provide for those ecclesiastics who had no benefices," ordered the abbot and chapter of St. Remigius to bestow a satisfactory one on the bearer of his letter.^ Many such commands were issued by the pontiffs that followed, till, in 1295, Boniface VIII. reserved the appropriation of all vacant benefices to the apostolic seat. " We are obliged in our pious solicitude to take care that dignities, preb- ends, and all other ecclesiastical benefices, with or without care, which are known at the apostolic seat to be vacant, should be be- stowed on competent persons, by whom the obedience that is due may be rendered in them, and the divine service conducted with care. All dignities, therefore, of that kind, prebends, churches, and otiier ecclesiastical benefices, which at this seat shall be cited in court, within one month from this date and thereafter, we re- serve by apostolic authority to be filled by this seat, and decree that whatever shall hereafter be otherwise attempted by any one, whoever he may be, either by a prelate or any other authority, shall be invalid."^ In like manner, Clement V. in 1305 : " Moved by this con- sideration, the church especially of Bordeaux, and monastery of the holy cross of that city, also, vacant by the death of the abbot, and generally patriarchal, archiepiscopal, episcopal churches, monasteries, priories, and all ranks, dignities, or offices, of what- ever order or condition they are, and also canonries, prebends, churches, with or without care, and all other ecclesiastical ben- efices, by whatever name they are called, which are known at the apostohc seat to be vacant, and which shall become vacant during our pontificate, we reserve by apostolic authority to be appropriated and filled by our appointment."^ Appeals to the court of Rome, which through the arts of the pontiffs had become frequent as early as the ninth century,^ they in the twelfth succeeded in rendering general, not only in great causes, but those of little importance. Thus pope Alexander III. to the archbishop of Rheims : " As the holy Roman church is by the divine disposal constituted the head and mistress of all churches, and consultations and causes are referred to it from different parts of the world, we are pleased that you ask counsel in ' Alexandri Epist. xliii. append, i. Labbei Concil. torn. xxi. p. 951. ' Decret. Extravag. lib. iii. tit. ii. c. i. p. 1170. ' Ibid. c. iii. p. 1171. * Ijabbei Concil. torn. xv. pp. 436-440. Febrooii de Statu EccL c. uL s. 7. 428 THE TWO-HORNED WILD BEAST respect to various questions of right, and commend your pru- dence."^ " In regard to appeals in inferior causes, we wish you to hold that they are to be carried in whatever causes they are made, however shght tliey may be, not less than when made in the greater."^ By this means the interests of all ecclesiastical litigants throughout the empire were placed at the disposal of the court of Rome, and all the motives of poverty and wealth, degradation and honor, fear and hope, to which men are accessible who are struggling with each other for property, office, and rank, employed to reduce all classes to a servile submission to the Roman see. And finall}'-, this supremacy of the pontiff over the whole church, was formally admitted and asserted by the church itself, and an acknowledgment of his assumed authority, and a promise of obedience to him, made conditions of admission to ecclesias- tical offices. The doctrine of his supremacy was introduced into the canons by a forged letter of Calixlus I. " It does not become the mem- bers to depart from the head. Instead, according to the Scrip- tures, all the members should follow the head. But there is no doubt that the apostolic church is the mother of all churches, from whose laws you can by no means with propriety deviate. Even as the Son of God came to do the will of the Father, so you also should fulfil the will of your mother, which is the church, the head of which is the Roman church. Nothing, therefore, can be regarded as legitimate, that is done contrary to her dis- cipline."^ The fourth Lateran council also, under Innocent III. in 1215 : " Ratifying the ancient prerogatives of tlie patriarchal scats, with the approbation of this holy universal synod, we ordain that after the Roman church, which by divine appointment as the mother and mistress of all tlie faithful of Christ, holds supreme authority over all others ; the Constanlinopolitan church shall obtain the first, the Alexandrian tlie second, that of Antioch the third, and that of Jerusalem tiie fourth place ; its proper dignity being preserved to each, so that after their prelates shall liave received from the Roman pontiff the pall, which is the badge of the plenitude of pontifical power, and sworn to him fidelity and obedience, they may lawfully give the pall to their suflragans, ' Labljei Concil. torn. xxi. p. 1079. Decret. Gregorii ix. lib. ii. tit. xxviii. c. 5. ' Decret. (iregorii ix. lib. ii. tit. xxviii. c. 11. * Decret. Gratiani Dist. xii. c. i. AND THE IMAGE. 429 receiving from them, on his behalf, a profession conformable to the canons, and promise of obedience to the Roman church."' So also the councils of Basle and Florence. " We likewise declare that the holy apostolic seat and the Roman pontiff, have the primacy over the whole world ; and the Roman pontiff is the successor of the blessed Peter, the prince of the apostles, and the true vicar of Christ, the head of the whole church, and the father and teacher of all Christians ; and that full power was given him by our Lord Jesus Christ in the blessed Peter, of binding, ruling, and governing the universal church."^ And at length, by the bull of Pius IV., all who were intro- duced into the sacred office, were required to acknowledge " the holy Catholic and apostolic Roman church, as the mother and mistress of all churches, and promise a true obedience to the Roman pontiff, the successor of the blessed Peter, the prince of the apostles, and vicar of Jesus Christ."^ He has thus been owned as the supreme head of the whole Catholic church for more than six hundred years, and the ac- knowledgment of him in that relation has been made the great test in that communion of orthodoxy. They who ventured dur- ing that period to deny his authority over all the hierarchies, and reject his decrees as a usurpation, rendered themselves more obnoxious than by any other act to the pontifical anathema, and the forfeitures, tortures, and death, which were for ages inflicted on all who resisted his claims. " That no one may venture to deny that the pontiff has those prerogatives, they excite a fear of the crime of sacrilege, saying, ' It is sacrilege to dispute the power of the pope, for the pope is the cause of causes. No in- quiry therefore is to be made in regard to his power, as there can be no cause of the first cause.' Can a higher earthly sover- eignty be conceived than that of the pope, as falsely represented by these authors. Scarce a politician can be found, who ascribes greater power to the most absolute despotism."'* Thus by these successive steps, after a struggle of more than four centuries, the ecclesiastics of all the hierarchies in the em- pire, were united in one vast organization, with the pontiff as their supreme legislative and judicial head, and a single ecclesi- astical government established over the whole Roman church, after the model of the civil government of the ancient empire under Constantino and his successors. It is, accordingly, de- ' Labbei Concil. torn. xxii. pp. 990, 991. * Ibid. torn. xxxi. p. 1031. * Concil. Trident, edit. Lips. 1839, p. Ill, Febronii de Stat. Eccl. c. ii. Bel- larmini de Rom, Pont, lib, ii. c, xiii. p. 63. * Febronii de Statu Eccl. prefat. 430 THE TWO-HORNED WILD BEAST nominated by Catholics themselves a monarchy. " All Catholic doctors agree in this, that the ecclesiastical government com- mitted to men by (Jod is a monarchy."^ Bellarmine devotes his first book " of the Pontiff," to prove that such is and ought to be its government. " If the monarchical is the best form of government, as we have shown, and it is certain that the church of God instituted by Christ its head, who is supremely wise, ought to be governed in the best manner, who can deny that its rule ought to be monarchical ?"^ The canonists are accustomed accordingly to denominate the pope a king. " The pope may be called a king. He is the prince of princes, and lord of lords. He is as it were a God on earlii. He is above right, superior to law, superior to the canons. He can do all things against right, and without right. He is greater than all the saints except Peter. Some say he is greater than an apostle, and not bound by the commands either of Peter or Paul. His sentence prevails against the judgment of the whole world. His sole will is instead of reason in the bestowment of ecclesiastical offices. He does not commit simony in selling benefices. He may deprive any one of his office, without any cause. He is able to free from obligation in matters of positive right, without any cause, and they who are so released are safe in respect to God. He can take away a possession from one church, and give it to another, even without a cause ; and no one can say to him, Why doest thou so ? He is not bound by treaties. The pope and Christ make one consistory. He can make justice of injustice. He can change the substance of things, and make a thing out of nothing. He can change squares into circles.'"^ The pontiffs were as absolutely the legislative and judicial head of this ecclesiastical kingdom, as the emperors from Con- stantine to Augustulus were of the civil empire, and imposed whatever laws they pleased on subordinate ecclesiastics and on the church by decrees, in the same manner as those emperors enacted laws by edicts. The decrees, bulls of canonization, sentences, charters, and other legislative and judicial acts of the pontiffs, from Gregory VH. in 1073, to Benedict XIV. in 1757, collected in the Bullarium Magnum, fill nineteen foHos. Many others are contained in the decretals and councils. They appointed to all ecclesiastical offices throughout the em- pire, as the Christian emperors appointed to all civil and military offices in their dominions. ' Bellarmini de Rom. Pont. lib. i. c. v. " Ibid. lib. i. c. ix. p. 527. * Febronii do Statu Eccl. prief. AND THE IMAGE. 431 " The canonists held, that ' the bishops are not the immediate vi- cars of Christ, but only of the pope. All ecclesiastical jurisdiction resides alone in the pope, in the same manner as the whole civil power resides in the emperors who now reign as absolute mon- archs. All bishops, archbishops, and patriarchs, are his mere officials. The pope fills the lowest offices through the plebeians and other inferiors, the intermediate through the bishops, and the highest himself. Bishops are not necessary to individual churches. All offices may be filled by prelates invested with a quasi epis- copal jurisdiction. The sacrament of confirmation may every- where be delegated by the supreme pontiff to simple pi'iests, for whose ordination it is sufficient sometimes that any bishop comes from abroad. If that is done, the divine law will be satisfied' — And the doctrine results naturally from the monarchy ascribed to the pope, and universal pontificate, having the whole world as a diocese, as defined by the courtiers."^ They exacted oaths of fidelity from all whom they advanced to important offices ; as the emperors exacted engagements of fidelity from their civil magistrates. Archbishops and other pre- lates swore fidelity in the following terms. " I will from this hour, above all, be faithful to the blessed Peter and pope Grego- ry VII. and their successors, who are elected by the superior cardinals. I will not do any thing by counsel or act to deprive them of life, limb, or the papacy, or that they may be caught at a disadvantage. The synod to which they shall call me, either by messengers or letters, I will attend and canonically obey ; or if not able, will send my representative. I will give my aid to retain and defend the Roman papacy, and the regal insignia and prerogatives of St. Peter, as far as is consistent with the main- tenance of my own rank and rights. The counsels which they intrust to me, either themselves or through their legates or letters, I will not reveal to any one knowingly to their injury. I will treat the Roman legate in coming and going with honor, and aid in his necessities. I will not communicate knowingly with those whom they excommunicate by name. I will faithfully aid the Roman church with secular troops when I shall be requested. All these I will observe, except so far as exempted by their ex- press license."^ They established courts in which all violations of their laws were tried, and a tribunal at the capital for the decision of ap- peals. There were gradations of rank in the hierarchy, like those of the magistrates of the civil empire. The hierarchies, as na- ' Febronii de Statu Eccl. prsef. ' Labbei Concil. torn. xx. pp. 525, 526. 432 THE TWO-IIORNED WILD BEAST tionalized by Constantino, were formed in each patriarchate, after the model of the civil government in the provinces. The hierar- chy of the western kingdoms under the pope, was formed after that pattern ; having archbishops or metropolitans at the head of the clergy of each nation, or large district, and bishops, abbots, and a lono- catalogue of subordinate ranks, under each metro- politan. They levied taxes for their support on ecclesiastics and laics. An annual tril^ite, under the name of Peter-pence, was paid by the English for several centuries.^ A similar tax was demanded by Gregory VII. of France, but not paid. " Let all Gaul be in- formed that every family should pay at least one penny annually to the blessed Peter, and acknowledge him as their father and master in the ancient manner."^ They reserved to themselves a year's income of all vacant benefices, extorted vast sums from the superior prelates for the pall, exacted a price for all ecclesiastical offices in their gift, and drew immense revenues from the igno- rant and superstitious, by the sale of indulgences and masses, and the promise of forgiveness to those who presented offerings at the shrines of martyrs, and visited the churches of the capital with gifts at the jubilees. They inflicted ecclesiastical penalties on the violators of their laws ; — exclusion from communion, suspension from office, depo- sition, excommunication, and a sentence to eternal death. This vast hierarchy was thus, in all its great features, a coun- terpart to the imperial rule under the Christian emperors, and is most appropriately denominated an image of the wild beast thai received the death-wound and lived. Its authors, the influences by which they were prompted, and the period of its erection, were also in conformity with the rep- resentation of the vision. It was erected subsequently to the gift to the pope of a civil dominion, and after he became invested with his second horn. The edict of Constantino conferring a civil dominion on the pontiff, which was one of the forged docu- ments employed to induce the inhabitants of the earth to erect the image, was fabricated between the repulse of the Lombards by Pepin in 755, and the gift of their territory to the pope by Charlemagne in 773 ; as from the representation of Hadrian I., it is apparent that it was used on that occasion to induce the French monarch to yield to the claims of the pontiff, and. con- ' Liiigard's Hist. England, vol. ii. chap. 1, p. 105. * Gregorii VII. Epist. 23, lib. viii. Labbei Coucil. torn. xx. p. 338. Moslieim, Hifit. Ch. cent. .\i. p. ii. c. 2. AND THE IMAGE. 433 firm him in the possession of his territories as a civil prince.^ It is probable that the whole series of false letters, ascribed by Isi- dore to the early pontiffs, which were the great instrument by which the princes and bishops of the nations were induced to yield the prerogatives arrogated by the pontiff, were forged du- ring that period. They were first published during the reign of Charlemagne, became extensively known before the middle of the ninth c^entury, and ere the close of that age, were generally received as authentic, and treated as part of the canon law.^ VIII. It was at the instigation and demand of the pontiffs that the princes, clergy, and people out of the papal territory, sub- mitted their hierarchies, which had before been independent, to the jurisdiction of the pope, and exalted him to the power of an ecclesiastical monarch over them. The scheme was originated by the pontiffs, and pursued and accomplished by their arts, against a powerful opposition, not only from the emperors of Germany, and kings of England and France, but also from many of their great prelates. IX. And finally, the image was erected by the inhabitants of the earth, the princes, ecclesiastics, and people of the kingdoms exterior to the papal territory, not by the pontiffs themselves. They had no power by their mere will to alter the constitution of the hierarchies of those kingdoms. It was not till they had become invested with the prerogatives of an ecclesiastical des- potism, that they could exert that power. They derived it from the official acts of the princes and prelates, and the assent of the people. The monarchs surrendered to them the right of invest- iture, the prelates sanctioned that gift, they acquiesced in their reservation to themselves of vacant benefices and other arroga- tions, and enforced on their subjects, by civil penalties, the de- crees, canons, and judicial sentences of the pontiffs, as the head of the Catholic church. X. The popes thus exalted to supreme power over the church of the ten kingdoms, caused that as many as would not worship the hierarchy of which they were the head, should be put to death. Dissent from the faith and worship of the Catholic church, and a denial of the right of the pontiff to legislate over the laws of God, were made by the popes and councils capital offences, and all who were convicted of them were delivered to the civil ma- gistrates, and punished, if incorrigible, with death. " We shall * Labbei Concil. torn. ii. p. 607 ; torn. xii. pp. 820, 821. ^ S. Baluzii Praef. ad Dial. Ant. August, de Emend. Grat. — Petri de Marca, Con- cord. Sacerd. et Imp. lib. iii. c. v. ; lib. vii. c. xx. 55 434 THE TWO-HORNED WILD BEAST show," says Bcllarmine, " that incorrigible heretics, and espe- cially the relapsed, may and ought to be rejected by the church, and punished by the secular powers with temporal penalties, and also with death."^ Lucius III. and Innocent III., by formal de- crees, required them to be seized, condemned, and delivered by the bishops to the civil magistrates, to be capitally punished, and enjoined the princes and magistrates to execute on them the sen- tences denounced by the canon and civil laws. " Supported by the presence and energy of our beloved son Frederick, the illus- trious emperor of the Romans, by the council of our brethren, other patriarchs, archbishops also, and numerous princes, who have assembled from different parts of the world, we rise by this decree against all heretics, and by apostolical authority condemn every sect, by whatever name it is designated. " In the first place, therefore, we subject the Cathari, the Pa- tarini, the Poor Men of Lyons, the Passagini, and the Arnaldists, to a perpetual anathema ; and as some claim authority to preach, although the apostle says, ' How can they preach except they be sent V all who venture to preach, either publicly or privately, without authority from the apostolic seat, or the bishop of the place ; and all who dare to think and teach otherwise in respect to the sacrament of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, or baptism, or the remission of sins, or matrimony, or the other sacraments of the church, than the holy Roman church preaches and practices ; and generally, all whom the Roman church, or individual bishops in their dioceses, or the clergy themselves, when the seat is vacant, with the concurrence, if necessary, of the neighboring bishops, shall judge to be heretics, shall be bound with the same bond of a perpetual anathema. All their harbor- ers, and defenders, and all who yield them any patronage or favor, we consign to the same sentence. " And as it sometimes happens that the severity of ecclesias- tical disciphne is condemned by those who do not understand its virtue, we ordain that clergymen who are clearly convicted of the aforesaid errors, shall be divested of the prerogatives of their order, deprived of their benefices, and delivered to the secular power to be appropriately punished, unless, immediately on the detection of their error, they voluntarily return to the Catholic faith, and consent publicly, at the will of the bishop of the dio- cese, to abjure tlieir heresy, and make a proper satisfaction. But a laic, who is infected witii that pest, unless abjuring the heresy and making satisfaction, he instantly flics to the orthodox faith, ' Bellarmini de Laicis, torn. ii. p. 548 AND THj: IMAGE. 435 is to be left to the will of the secular power to suffer a vengeance in correspondence with his crime. They moreover who shall be found marked by the mere suspicion of the church, unless they demonstrate their innocence in a manner suited to the nature of the suspicion, and to their rank, shall be subjected to the same sentence. But they who after having abjured their error, or cleared themselves in a trial by their bishop, shall be convicted of relapsing to the heresy they have abjured, we order to be left to the severest sentence without any further hearing, and their goods appropriated to the churches which they served, according to the canons. " We add, moreover, by the advice of the bishops, and at the suggestion of the emperor and his princes, that each archbishop and bishop shall himself, or by his archdeacon, or other honest and suitable persons, once or twice a year, go through the parish in which it is reported that heretics reside, and compel three or more men there of good reputation, or the whole population if it seem expedient, to swear that should any one know persons who are heretics, or any who hold secret assemblies, or differ in hfe or manners from the usage of the faithful, he will endeavor to point them out to the bishop or archdeacon. And the bishop or archdeacon shall call the accused before him, and, unless they clear themselves to his satisfaction, or should they, after having cleared themselves, relapse to their former heresy, they are to be punished according to his judgment. " If, from a superstitious objection to oaths, any of them should refuse to swear, they are on that account to be adjudged here- tics, and smitten with the punishment which has been mentioned. " We enact, moreover, that counts, barons, prefects, and con- suls of cities and other places, at the admonition of the archbish- ops and bishops, promise under oath, that whenever they shall be required by them, they will boldly and efficiently aid the church against heretics and their accomplices, and study in good faith, according to their duty and power, to execute in the cases of which we have spoken, the ecclesiastical in the same manner as the imperial laws. And should they refuse to observe their oath, they shall be divested of the offices which they enjoy and become ineligible to others. They shall, moreover, be excom- municated, and their lands put under an interdict of the church. A city that excites resistance to these decrees, or neglects at the admonition of the bishop to punish those who resist, shall be deprived of the commerce of other cities, and divested of its episcopal rank. 436 THE TWO-HORNED WILD BEAST " All favorers also of heretics, as condemned to perpetual in- famy, we order to be debarred from the office of advocates, from giving testimony, and from all civil employments. If they arc persons who are exempt from the jurisdiction of bishops, and subject only to the power of the apostolic seat, they are never- theless to be subject, in respect to these statutes against heretics, to the judgment of the archbishops and bishops, and notwith- standing their prerogatives, are to obey them as the delegates of the apostolic seat."* Similar canons were enacted by the fourth Lateran council under Innocent III., in 1215. " We excommunicate and anathe- matize every sect that exalts itself against the holy orthodox Catholic faith which we have set forth above, and condemn all heretics under whatever name they are reckoned ; and, on being condemned, they are to be resigned to the secular powers of their place, to be punished with proper inflictions ; the clergy being first degraded from their order. The goods of the con- demned, if laics, are to be confiscated ; if clergymen, to be ap- propriated to the churches from which they drew their salaries. " The magistrates also, whatever may be the offices they fill, should be admonished, and, if necessary, compelled by an eccle- siastical censure to pledge themselves by a public oath to en- deavor, in good faith, as far as they arc able, to exterminate from the lands under their jurisdiction all heretics who are condemned by the church, so that hereafter whenever any one is inducted into office, whether ecclesiastical or civil, he may be required to swear that he will execute this canon. " And should a civil lord, on being required and admonished by the church, neglect to clear his territory of this heretical nuisance, let him be bound by the metropolitan and other bish- ops of the province with the bond of excommunication : and should he refuse to make satisfaction within a year, let it be sig- nified to the supreme pontiff, that he may declare his vassals to be freed from allegiance to him, expose his land to be seized by Catholics, who, exterminating the heretics, may possess it with- out opposition, and preserve it in the purity of the faith. " Catholics who, assuming the sign of the cross, shall gird themselves to the extermination of the heretics, shall enjoy the indulgence, and be fortified by the sacred privilege, which are conceded to those who go to the relief of the holy land."^ These enactments were incorporated in the decretals of Greg- ' Labbei Concil. torn. xxii. pp. 476-478. ' Labbci Concil. torn. xxii. pp. DbG, 987 ; also pp. 710, 778, 779, 785, 938. AND THE IMAGE. 43T ory IX., and became the law of the church.^ Thus the Latin hierarchy caused them to be put to death who dissented from its faith, and refused to pay it the homage which it required. Besides these endeavors to excite the magistrates to slaughter dissenters, Catholics who were not magistrates were encouraged by impunity and approbation to destroy them. Thus Urban II. : " In conformity with the custom of the Roman church, with which you are acquainted, impose on the murderers of excom- municated persons a measure of penance that accords with the institution. For we are not to regard them as homicides be- cause, burning with the zeal of the Cathohc mother against the excommunicated, they happen to slay some of them. Lest, how- ever, the disciphne of mother church should fall into disuse, ac- cording to the practice we have mentioned, impose on them a suitable penance, in order that they may conciliate the eyes of divine truth, if it chance that through human frailty they have been guilty of duplicity in that violence."^ XI. The image caused all, the small and the great, the rich and the poor, and the free and the enslaved, to impress the name of the wild beast or the number of its name on their right hand, ■ or on their forehead, as the worshippers of idols were accustom- ed to inscribe on themselves conspicuously the names of their deities, or such letters as, in their arithmetical use, were equiva- lent to the numbers represented by their names. The name of the ten-horned wild beast is the name of the race that founded the empire over which it reigned under its seventh head, and whose language is the language of its population and rulers, and is Aarslvos therefore. The mark is the three letters, X- 1. r., which express the number of that name. To mark them- selves with that name or character, in a manner analogous to an inscription or brand, was therefore formally and conspicuously to assume it, or show by open and decisive acts that they were the worshippers of the Latin hierarchy, formed after the model of that wild beast, and bearing its name. Such acts were, a union with the Latin or Roman Catholic church, adoption and profes- sion of its faith, reception of its sacraments, and obedience to its laws. Those who submitted to its rites, offered its worship, and honored its authority, gave as public and ample proof that they were worshippers of its hierarchy as though they had testified it by branding its name or mark on their foreheads or hands. And all were compelled, as is seen from the decrees of Lucius III. ^ Decret. Gregorii IX. lib. v. tit. vii. c. 9, 13. * Labbei Concil. torn. xx. p. 713. 438 THE TWO-HORNED WILD BEAST and Innocent III., to give that public proof of their submission to its authority, or forfeit their hves. XII. And finally, the two-horned wild beast caused that no one should be able to buy or to sell, except he who had the mark, the name of the wild beast, or the number of its name. All union in acts of religion with the excommunicated, was prohibited by the false canons ascribed to the apostles.^ The prohibition was extended, by the forged letters of Isidore, to all social acts. " Those who have been excommunicated by the priests, let no one receive before a fair examination by each par- ty, nor join them in prayer, eating, drinking, or a kiss, nor bid them hail ; for whoever knowingly communicates with them in these or other forbidden acts, subjects himself to a like excom- munication."^ And this was held by Hadrian II., who ascended the pontifical throne in 867, as the law, and enjoined on Hinc- mar, archbishop of Rheims, in respect to Charles, king of France. " If he choose to persist in his obstinacy rather than reform ac- cording to our commands, withdraw yourself from communion and intercourse with him, not bidding him hail, but wholly avoid- ing his presence, if you wish to have ecclesiastical intercourse with us."^ Though that command was resisted by Hincmar and his fellow bishops, as uncanonical, it appears to have become the law soon after of the church, and to have been extended to all commercial transactions ; as Gregory VII., in 1078, repre- sents himself as induced to mitigate it out of compassion to the multitudes who were debarred from the means of life by the pro- hibition. " As we see many daily perish on account of excom- munication, partly from ignorance, scrupulousness, fear, or ne- cessity ; overcome by pity, we for the time soften the sentence of excommunication as far as we can. We therefore, by apos- tohc authority, release from anathema wives, children, servants, captive women, or slaves, rustics, and all others who are not the ^ninisters of the excommunicated in such a relation as to be the ex- ecutors of their wicked designs ; and those also who unknowingly communicate with the excommunicated, or with those who com- municate with the excommunicated. To the stranger or travel- ler who passes into the territory of the excommunicated, where he cannot buy, or has not the means of buying, we give liberty to receive from the excommunicated. And should any one de- ' Can. Apostol. c. x. Labbei Concil. torn. i. p. 31. ' Callieti E])ist. ii. Labbei Concil. torn. i. p. 741. ' Iladriaiu Epist. xxv. Labbei torn. xv. p. 847. Bossuetii Defens. Decl torn. L pp. 166, 167. AND THE IMAGE. 439 sire to give to the excoramunicated for sustenance, not out of pride, but from humanity, we do not prohibit it."* The prohibition was, however, renewed, and enforced with the utmost barbarity, by the council of Tours, under Alexander III., in 1163. " A damnable sect rose some time ago in the district of Toulouse, which, gradually spreading itself, like a cancer, through the neighboring regions, has now infected Gascony, and many other provinces. While it hid itself by its serpentine movements, it was destructive to the Lord's vine in proportion to the secrecy of its motion. Wherefore we command the bish- ops and all the Lord's priests residing in those parts, to watch against it, and enjoin, under the threat of an anathema, that no one, wherever the followers of that sect are found, should ven- ture to yield them a retreat on his lands, give them succor, or have any communion whatever with them, by purchase or sale ; so that, having lost all human aid', they may be compelled to re- turn from the error of their way. Let whoever shall dare to contravene this command, be struck with an anathema, as a par- taker of their iniquity."^ Li like manner the third Lateran council in 1179 : " Liasmuch as in Gascony, Albigese, the province of Toulouse, and other places, the damnable perversity of the heretics by some called Cathari, by others Patarini, by others Publicani, and by others still other names, so that they now no longer exercise their de- pravity secretly as some do, but publicly show their error, and draw the simple and weak to unite with them ; we sentence them, and their defenders and harborers, to an anathema, and forbid under an anathema that any should presume to keep them in their houses, or on their lands, sustain them, or transact any business with them."^ The agencies of the wild beasts, the image, and the people, thus corresponded in all respects with the representations of the prophecy. The views which expositors have given of this passage are very dissimilar, inconsistent with the characteristics of the sym- bols, and at war with analogy. Grotius interprets the two- horned beast as denoting magic, which is to make a living being the symbol of a mere art, or deceptive agency, and is therefore against analogy, Mr. Daubuz exhibits it as representing the two patriarchal lines of Rome and Constantinople. But a wild beast is a syra- ' Labbei Concil. torn. xx. p. 506. ' Ibid. torn. xxi. p. 1177, * Ibid. torn. xxii. p. 232. 440 THE TWO-HORNED WILD BEAST bol, not merely of a line of persons of the same rank, but of a vast combination and succession of persons of various grades, who together fill tiie offices, and exert the various powers of a gov- ernment. It represents the intermediate and lower ranks, there- fore, as truly as the higher ; and its chief is denoted by its head, not by its whole body. It is the symbol also of an aggressive, cruel, and bloody combination of rulers ; and of a civil and mil- itary power therefore, not merely an ecclesiastical. But the bishops of Constantinople have no civil or military power : nor have those of Rome simply as bishops. Their power as civil monarchs is founded by them on the gift of princes, or the right of conquest, not deduced from the apostles ; and was acquired long after they had raised the fabric of their ecclesiastical hi- erarchy to a vast height. The peculiar actions moreover ascribed to this beast have no counterpart in the agency of the bishops of Constantinople. They never caused the Gothic nations of the western empire to worship the first wild beast, by the ascription to Constantino and his successors of the rights of God which they impiously arrogated ; nor induced them to subject their na- tional hierarchies to the supremacy of the pope. So far from it, they were rivals of the Roman patriarchs, and struggled for ages to obstruct their power. The agencies ascribed to this wild beast towards the Gothic conquerors, it is notorious, were exerted by the Latin hierarchy, not by the Greek. The assumption by Vitringa, that the two-horned beast sym- bolizes the two orders of friars, the Dominican and Franciscan of the Catholic church, is equally exceptionable. They did not constitute a civil and military, nor even an ecclesiastical govern- ment ; but were merely two among the numerous orders em- braced in the Catholic hierarchy. Nor did they belong wholly or chiefly to the hierarchy of the papal territory. A vast propor- tion of them were civil subjects of the kings represented by the horns of the first wild beast, and exerted their agency in their dominions. But the two-horned wild beast symbolizes the ru- lers only, civil and ecclesiastical, of the papal, in contradistinction from tiic other kingdoms. Mr. Faber exhibits the two-horned wild beast as the symbol of the spiritual empire of the papacy, which, whether he means, as he doubtless does, mere territory, or population, is erroneous and absurd. If it be the mere territory, it is the territory of the western Roman empire, and the same so far therefore, according to his representation, as the ten-horned wild beast symbolizes. That construction is against analogy also, as living beings are AND THE IMAGE. 441 symbols only of living beings, never of inanimate objects. If it be the population instead of territory, who then are they whom this beast persuades to make an image to the ten-horned wild beast ? And who are the inhabitants of the earth that admire and worship that monster ? Mr. Elhotl's exposition of this symbol, as denoting the Ro- mish clergy of all orders beneath the pope, is obnoxious to sim- ilar objections. By far the greatest part of them neither belonged to the hierarchy of the papal territory, nor were subjects of the papal civil kingdom, but had their birth within the dominions, and exerted their agency under the jurisdiction of the other kings. Mr. Mede interpreted the symbol of the pope and his clergy, without consideration whether the latter were within the papal territory, or of the other kingdoms ; which is to confound those who are symbolized by the image, with those whom the two- horned wild beast represents. Dean Woodhouse regards the two horns as denoting the pa- pists and Mahometans. But who then does the beast itself de- note ? Not the false prophet, as he represents. That were to make that which the beast denotes less than that which is sym- bohzed by its horns, inasmuch as the false teachers who are rep- resented by the false prophet are less in number than the whole body of papists whom they teach. And who on that exposition are the subjects of the horns ? As they are symbols of a suc- cession of persons exercising a government, they must have sub- jects and a territory. If the whole body of papists and Mahom- etans, then, are dynasties or governments, whom do they rule, and where are their dominions ? But neither the whole body of the papists, nor the Mahometans, are rulers. They are not the bodies therefore denoted by the horns. Nor have the Mahome- tans, or their rulers, ever exerted the agency ascribed to the wild beast. They never caused the nations of the western empire to worship the first wild beast, nor led them to adopt the Christian religion as the religion of the state, and place their national churches under the jurisdiction of the pope. Mr. Faber's and Mr. Elliott's supposition, that the Romish regular and secular clergy are symbolized by the horns, is equally exceptionable. They are not kingly heads of a government, either civil or ecclesiastical. Mr. Daubuz regarded the image as the same as the two-horned wild beast, which causes the nations to make and worship it. But that is to exhibit it as existing and acting before it was made, and contriving and prompting its own production, which is absurd. 56 442 THE TWO-HORNED WILD BEAST Mr. Whiston exhibits the image as the empire of Charlemagne. But that is to represent it as a territory with its population, in- stead of an organized body sustaining a resemblance to a civil and militaiy government, and therefore of a different order. It is also to make it the same as a large part of the empire over which the ten-horned wild beast reigned ; which is inconsistent with the representation, and fraught with absurdity. How can the Gothic nations be said to have made that territory or its pop- ulation as subjects of the Frank or German empire ? The chief part of that population became the vassals of Charlemagne by conquest, not by their own volition, or the will of the Gothic nations at large. How can it be said that the whole population of the ten kingdoms were constrained to worship that empire ; or that those refusing to worship it, were put to death ? Did those dwelling in it worship themselves, or their territory ? Did those dwelling without its limits worship it or its inhabitants ? Vitringa regarded the tribunal of the Inquisition as the image ; Bishop Newton the pope ; but their want of correspondence with the symbol is sufficiently apparent. Mr. Cuninghame regards the image as the symbol of the cor- rupt visible church, clergy as well as people. He proceeds, how- ever, on the assumption that it is denominated an image to the wild beast, not because it is a resembling authoritative organiza- tion, but because it was an object of idolatrous veneration to the people of the Roman empire ; which is wholly to mistake the ana- logy. An image is a structure resembling in form and expression that which it represents. An ecclesiastical organization, to re- semble that combination of rulers, which exercised the govern- ment of the Roman empire after the accession of Constantine, must therefore be a hierarchy of a similar gradation of ranks, united under a single head. He assumes also that it was an image of the beast, because of a likeness of character as impious, idolatrous, and persecuting, Avhich is equally to misjudge of the analogy. It is the office of a person's image to represent his bodily form and expressions of countenance, not the mere char- acteristics of his agency. Besides, inasmuch as, except those who refused to worship the image, the whole population, small and great, rich and poor, free and enslaved, belonged to the visi- ble church, if the visible church were the image, who were the worshippers ? Mr. Mede exhibits the image as a symbol of the Roman em- pire, and as denominated an image of it, under its sixth head, because seduced again by the false prophet to idolatry ; but that AND THE IMAGE. 443 is to misinterpret the wild beast as well as the image. The wild beast of two horns is a symbol of rulers, not of an empire manifestly from the crown, the throne, and the great authority ascribed to it. The image therefore must represent an analo- gous combination of rulers, not a mere territory or population. It is to make the image moreover that identically which it de- notes, which is incongruous. Mr. Faber exhibits the image as a mere idol, which the ten- horned wild beast worshipped. But that is to regard it as of the same species as that which it represents, and is therefore against analogy. It is absurd also if the ten-horned wild beast be as he interprets it, a symbol of the Roman empire geographically con- sidered. What on that assumption can be meant by its wor- shipping the image ? Can a territory exert an act of religious homage ? Mr. Elliott regards the general councils of the church of west- ern Europe as the image ; but they exhibit none of the requisite resemblances to the rulers of the Reman empire under its sev- enth head. They were not a single body, continued by succes- sion and transmitting their powers from one generation to another, but were wholly separate, of distant periods, and independent of each other for existence and authority. They embraced but a part of the rulers of the church of the ten kingdoms of those sev- eral periods, not the whole ; and were in that respect unlike that vast combination of persons, from the lowest to the highest, ex- ercising office in the Roman empire, symbolized by the ten-horned wild beast under its head that received the death-wound. They had not the prerogatives of a complete government, but were merely legislative and judicial, not executive, and were subject to both an ecclesiastical and a civil head exterior to themselves. Dr. Cressner, regarding the ten-horned wild beast as the sym- bol of the Roman empire, exhibits the image as the Roman Catholic church with the pope as its head, and deems its like- ness to the wild beast to consist in its having a supreme head like the imperial government, and occupying the same territory as the empire, or embracing the same population. But that is to confound the teachers and rulers of the church which the image represents, with the unofficial members who are their wor- shippers. The solutions which expositors have presented of the name and number of the beast, are extremely various, and exhibit gen- erally a singular inattention to the conditions of the symbol. They seem neither to have considered that the rulers of the an- 444 THE TWO-HORNED WILD BEAST cient empire under its last head, were those whom the Latin and Gothic population of the new were induced to worship, or in- quired into the reason of that homage ; nor to have suspected that it was after the dragon under that seventh head that the image was modelled, or that any reason existed for the selection of the name of the race from which the rulers symbolized by that head sprung, rather than the name of the rulers and races of tiie modern empire. They have generally indeed neglected to dis- criminate between an empire and its rulers, and treated alike the ten-horned wild beast, the wild beast of two horns, and the dra- gon, as a symbol of a territory and its population, not of a combi- nation and succession of persons exercising the government of a people or community of nations : and have accordingly presented names of persons, of cities, of empires, and even of classes of agents, as the counterpart of the symbol, on the mere ground that they are significant, and represent, or are associated with the requisite number. Thus Vitringa offers Adonikam, the name in Hebrew of one who returned from the Babylonian captivity be- cause of its meaning, the Lord has risen, and the number of his family, six hundred sixty-six. Ezra chap. ii. 13. Mr. Faber pre- sents the Greek words BXa(T'(p?],aog and 'A^oraTv]?, merely denoting agents of certain characters, never appellatives of a nation or its rulers. Others have suggested the title in Greek of the Latin empire, 'H Aanvr) BatfiXsi'a : but that is a title of the empire, not of the race by whom it was founded, and from whom its rulers de- rived their designation, and is not in accordance therefore with the conditions of the symbol. There is no one that meets all those conditions except karsms which was first suggested by Irenaeus toward the close of the second century, and has been more gen- erally deemed the true one than any other, though with but very inadequate views of the reasons which demonstrate it to be that which the Spirit of God designed, or the grounds on which it was chosen in preference to other designations. It is notorious that the Catholic church of the papal territory in Italy, was denominated immediately after the rise of those king- doms, the Latin church, in contradistinction from the Greek, the Syrian, and the Alexandrian, and has borne that appellative through every subsequent age to the present ; and that the Latin language is the sole vehicle of its worship, its rites, its instructions, its laws, its correspondence, and the acts also of its civil govern- ment. Whoever therefore entered that church and received its baptism, united in its worship, or became the subject as a mem- ber, of any of its official agency, assumed and became dislin- AND THE IMAGK. 445 guislied by that appellative as conspicuously and as necessarily, as those became marked by it, who drew their birth from the ancient Latins ; and as the offspring of other nations derive their national appellative from their parentage. And as the Latin church extended its jurisdiction over the hierarchies of the other Euro- pean kingdoms, that appellative was applied to them all. The other ancient churches were also distinguished in like manner by an appellative drawn from their race, their country, or their capital, as the Greek, the Syrian, the Judean, the Egyptian, or Alexandrian. On the other hand, the churches within the west- ern empire, dissenting from the Latin or Catholic, were univer- sally distinguished by different names, drawn generally from their founders, the people of whom they were formed, or some pecuHar characteristic ; and their worship was as universally conducted in a different language ; as those of the Albigenses, the Waldenses, the Wicklifites, the Lollards, the Bohemian, the Lutheran, the Reformed, the Genevan, the English, and the Scotch. Those who joined the Latin church, in receiving that name, received the patronymic, or appellative of the race from which the rulers of the ancient empire descended, who first adopted Christianity as the religion of the state, gave the church a na- tional establishment, organized its teachers and rulers into a hierarchy, and forced their subjects to become its members, or subjected them to persecution and death ; and were thence guilty of usurping the rights of God. And these important resem- blances of its principles and agency, as well as that its shape was modelled after that civil power, were reasons undoubt- edly that the nationalized Catholic hierarchies of the ten king- doms, in their union as one under the pope, are denominated its image. And the reason that Aarsivos was chosen as the name, which those who enter that apostate church are said to receive, is that that appellative, which they receive by their union to that church and that alone, is common to it with that ancient dragon rule, and suggests its resemblance to it under its seventh head, in form, in principle, and in agency. 446 THE HUNDRED FORTY-FOUR THOUSAND SECTION XXXIII. CHAPTER XIV. 1-5. THE HUNDRED FORTY-FOUR THOUSAND ON MOUNT ZION. And I looked, and behold the Lamb stood on the Mount Zion, and with him a hundred forty-four thousand, having his name and the name of his Father written on their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven, as a voice of many waters, and as a voice of loud thun- der. And the voice which I heard, [was] as of harpers harping on their harps. And they sing as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four living creatures and the elders. And no one was able to learn the song, except the hundred forty-fouj thousand who were redeemed from the earth. They are they who have not been defiled with women ; for they are pure. They are they who follow the Lamb wherever he may go. They have been redeemed from men, a first offering to God, and to the Lamb ; and in their mouth no falsehood was found, for they are spotless. The position from which the apostle saw this spectacle, was probably that from which he had beheld the emergence and agency of the wild beast, and therefore on the earth. The Mount Zion, on which the hundred forty-four thousand stood, was that of the heavenly tabernacle, and their station was doubt- less on the glassy sea, or part answering to the court in which the worshippers stood. The song accordingly which he heard from heaven, was their song ; not the song of the other re- deemed, or of angels. This is apparent from the representation that it was sung before the living creatures and elders, and that no one was able to learn it, but the hundred forty-four thousand. To suppose it to have been sung by others, is to suppose they had already learned it. That it is a new song denotes that it is uttered on a new and peculiar occasion, and for new and peculiar gifts. • The pecu- liarity of the occasion is that it is the commencement of Christ's reign in his new relation as king of tiic earth, by the resurrection of a portion of his people from death in glory, and exaltation to the stations in his presence which ihcy are thenceforth to fill ; while the reason of their first resurrection and assumption to his presence is, that they are not defiled with idolatry. They have not belonged to the apostate church, nor sanctioned the blasphe- mous usurpations of the wild beast ; but are pure worshippers ON MOUNT ZION. 447 of God, without falsehood and without spot. Therefore they are redeemed from the earth, a first offering to God and to the Lamb, and are thereafter to follow him wherever he goes, the attendants of his throne, and spectators of all his great acts in judging his foes, and redeeming his saints. They have the name of the Lamb and of his Father written on their foreheads, and are distinguished by that also from the worshippers of the image, and are the same as the hundred forty-four thousand sealed, whose numbers were heard by the apostle in the vision of the seventh chapter. To have the name of God and of the Lamb written on the forehead, is to be brought to a pubhc and decisive manifestation of allegiance to the Most High, and him alone, as of title to re- ligious homage, and right to impose rehgious laws ; and of faith alone in Christ as Redeemer : in contradistinction from those who sanction the impious assumptions of civil rulers and apostate prophets, that claim dominion over the rights and laws of God ; make themselves, and demons, and idols, objects of homage ; and supersede the Redeemer by other mediators and other grounds of reliance. As the worshippers of the image of the wild beast impress on themselves its mark and number, by en- tering the society of that apostate hierarchy, submitting to its rites, offering its idolatrous worship, and obeying its sway ; so the worshippers of God become impressed with his name and the name of the Lamb, by refusing to join that idolatrous train, and pubhcly asserting the sole right of God to institute the laws of religion and receive a religious homage, paying to him alone the worship he demands, and placing in Christ exclusively the trust he requires as Redeemer. In the vision of the sealing in the seventh chapter, the agents by whom this great movement is to be excited, are symbolized by the angel ascending from the sun-rising, — an emblem of a new day, or the commencement of a new era, — bearing the seal of God; and the result of their agency on the servants of God, is denoted by the impress of the seal on their foreheads. Li the second vision of that chapter, a great multitude of every nation, and tribes, and peoples, and tongues, was exhibited to the apos- tle as standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palms, and uttering like these with a loud voice the song : The salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb ; and the Lamb is represented as thenceforth dwell- ing with them and leading them to the fountains of the waters of life. That spectacle, as was shown in its exposition, exhibits the 448 THE HUNDRED FORTY-FOUR THOUSAND whole of the redeemed at the advent of Christ, raised from death, presented to the Father, adopted as sons and heirs, and assigned to the stations of kings and priests in the everlasting empire which is then to be established on the earth. This exhibits the sealed as first crowned with that salvation. They are a first-offering to God, and are the witnesses who in the eleventh chapter are rep- resented as slain, and after three years and a half, raised from death and assumed to heaven, anterior to the seventh trumpet. The larger multitude are to be raised at the advent of Christ, sub- sequently to that trumpet. Mr. Daubuz supposes the hundred forty-four thousand to rep- resent the church in the time of Constantine ; and their song to symbolize its celebration at that period of its deliverance from persecution, and its legal establishment. But that is disproved by many considerations. It assumes that the Mount Zion, on which the Lamb stood with the hundred forty-four thousand, was on earth, and thence implies that the Lamb was personally and vis- ibly present with the church in its celebration of its adoption and nationalization by Constantine. As the Lamb symbolizes him- self as truly as the hundred forty-four thousand symbohze those whom they represent, so his visibility in the vision as truly sym- bolizes his visibility in the scene which it foreshadows, as their visibility in it foreshows the visibility, in the symbolized scene, of those whom they represent. To reject this great law, is to deny to the visions all certainty of meaning. If a visible pres- ence do not symbohze a visible presence, then an agent may not represent an agent, nor an agency an agency, and all possibility is at once extinguished of demonstrative interpretation. But no visible advent of Christ took place at the celebration by the church of its adoption by Constantine. The vision cannot represent that celebration therefore. The character of the church under that monarch, was precise- ly the reverse of that ascribed to the hundred forty-four thousand. So far from having the name of God written on their foreheads, the Christians of that period as a body, paid a religious homage to Constantine and his associates, who were the first or dragon wild beast under its seventh head, by acquiescing in his usurpation of dominion over the rights of God, his erection of them into a civil community, his making his will the law of their duty to God, and enforcing obedience to it by the penalties of confiscation, impris- onment, exile, and death ; an arrogation of the divine preroga- tives the most stupendous of which creatures have ever been guil- ty, and on account of which that prince and his successors, though ON MOUNT ZION. 449 nominally Christian, are exhibited by the Spirit of God under the symbol of the seventh head of the dragon. Yet, so far as appears, not a voice of objection was raised against it by any of the con- spicuous bishops at that period. Those of the people of God vv^ho refused that homage, are represented in the twelfth chapter, as flying into the desert, there to be nourished in seclusion and sor- row twelve hundred and sixty years. They cannot, therefore, be those who in this vision are exhibited as assembled on Mount Zion in the presence of the Lamb, and singing a new song which no one else was able to learn. The hundred forty-four thousand who have the name of God on their foreheads, are most clearly exhibited as cotemporaneous with apostates who bear the mark of the beast, and are long sub- sequent, therefore, to the period of Constantine and his succes- sors, as they are subsequent at least to the rise of the ten king- doms, the acquisition by the Italian hierarchy of a civil domin- ion, and the erection of the image. And finally, it is manifest from the representations of the seventh chapter, that the period of the sealing is subsequent to the opening of the sixth seal ; after, therefore, the series of judgments that are immediately to precede the advent of the Redeemer has commenced, and thence between the first vial and the seventh trumpet ; and more than fifteen cen- turies, therefore, after the reign of Constantine. Mr. Mede, Mr. Whiston, Vitringa, Bishop Newton, Dean Woodhouse, Mr. Faber, regard the hundred forty-four thousand as representing the pure worshippers during the long triumph of the wild beast and false prophet, and especially the Waldenses, the Wickhfites, the Bohemians, and the Protestants. But the sealing itself is exhibited in the seventh chapter, as accomplished after the opening of the sixth seal, and when, therefore, the tri- umph of the wild beast has at least nearly closed, and its judg- ment begun. It is represented also as accomplished within a brief period before the winds of political violence and revolution are excited to injure the earth, the sea, and the trees. It cannot be a period, therefore, of general persecution of the pure worship- pers ; nor a period of twelve hundred and sixty years, as no such season of calm has ever been witnessed in the politics of the ten kingdoms. The distinguishing characteristic of the sealed, is a full and emphatic denial and resistance of the assumed right of civil ru- lers and legalized hierarchies to legislate in the place of God, make their will the ground of obligation and rule of faith and wor- ship, and treat a dissent from it as a crime against them and 57 450 THE HUNDRED FORTY-FOUR THOUSAND against the Almighty. But that attitude was never fully as- sumcd by the Waldenses, the Wicklifites, the Bohemians, nor in any degree by the Protestants as a body. No formal objection was ever made by them generally against the assumption by ru- lers of that power over their subjects. They only protested against their exerting it in the patronage of an apostate faith and worship, in place of the true. The Bohemians, the Lutherans, and the Reformed more especially, openly asserted the right and duty of rulers to nationalize the true church, and enforce its doc- trines and rites on their subjects. Those bodies, therefore, em- inent as multitudes of them were for piety, illustrious as thou- sands and myriads of them were as martyrs, were yet without that peculiarity which is to distinguish the sealed, and thence cannot be the host symbohzed by the hundred forty-four thou- sand. The believers of the period during which the persecuting pow- ers prevail, are exhibited under the symbols of the woman nour- ished in the desert, and the witnesses in sackcloth, conditions the reverse of a station on Mount Zion in the presence of the Lamb, and denoting persons of a wholly different period and relation both to God and to men. And finally, the hundred forty-four thousand are exhibited as a first-fruit to God and the Lamb, while the harvest is represent- ed as afterwards gathered. They are of the same age, therefore, doubtless as those who constitute the harvest, as the first-fruits are first in relation only to others later gathered, of the same season, not of other years. They are the first who are wholly to reject the usurped dominion of men over the worship and worshippers of God, and yield him the rights and the honor which are his due ; and are to sustain that relation of a first-offering to God towards the myriads of a later period, who are to be led to a perception of the errors of the usurping rulers and apostate ecclesiastics, re- nunciation of their authority, and avoidance of their communion. They are a first-offering also, as they are first redeemed from death under the reign of Christ over the earth as its visible king, and presented to the Father for acceptance. Mr. Elliott's assumption that the hundred forty-four thousand are the Protestants, is open to the same objections. He like Mr. Mede, Mr. Daubuz, Mr. Whiston, Vitringa, and Dean Wood- house, regards them as stationed on the earth. But that renders the supposition that they represent the believers of liie age of Conslantine, the Waldenses, the Wicklifites, the Bohemians, or the Reformers, and their successors, still more irreconcilable with ON MOUNT ZION. 451 the symbol. If their station be on the earth, then manifestly they are not the utterers of the song, inasmuch as that descended from heaven, and was chanted before the throne, and before or exte- rior to the Hving creatures and elders. But if they are not the singers, they are not exhibited as exerting any agency, which were unlike all other living symbols, and without any conceiva- ble reason. Besides, to suppose they are on earth, and yet en- joy the visible presence of the Lamb, and hear and understand the songs of heaven, is to suppose that their faculties are raised to a supernatural strength, or that they enjoy miraculous means of knowledge. Their standing in the presence of the Lamb, and if they are the hearers, hearing the song from heaven, cannot be interpreted of their attaining a knowledge of the doctrines re- specting Christ and the heavenly world, that are taught in the Scriptures. The song is a new one, prompted by a new and pe- culiar occasion, and was never before sung, therefore, in heaven or on earth. If then they hear it, it is indisputably by a miracle, like that by which the apostle heard it. If they see the Lamb, as he saw him, hear the heavenly chant, know like him from whom it proceeds, and understand its import, then they manifest- ly are prophets in the same sense as he was. To suppose it oth- erwise,— to regard the representation as indicating nothing more than the illumination believers of the age of Constantine, of the Waldenses, the Bohemians, the Reformers, or their followers of the present day enjoy, were to degrade the symbol and empty it of all its significance. But none of those bodies have given any indications of such a supernatural knowledge, and cannot, there- fore, were the supposition allowable that they were on the earth, be those whom the symbol represents. Mr. Cuninghame likewise supposes their station to have been on the earth, but regards them as representing the living saints who are to be transfigured at the advent of the Redeemer, and caught up to him in the air. But as, if they are to be on the earth, they are to be raised to a peculiarity of relation to Christ, an elevation of faculties, and a grandeur of knowledge immea- surably transcending the highest gifts of ordinary believers, and nothing less than the supernatural sight and sense of prophetic ecstasy ; the symbol must indicate, not that they are to be trans- figured, but that they are to exercise the prophetic oflace on earth, and imply that the prophecy of Joel is yet to be fulfilled before the descent of the Redeemer. " It shall come to pass in the last days, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream 452 THE HUNDRED FORTY-FOUR THOUSAND dreams, )''our young men shall sec visions." Such, objectionable as it would be, would be a far more plausible construction of the vision, were they exhibited as on the earth, than any of the ex- positions offered by commentators : but, as they were in heaven, as is indisputable from the representation, on the one hand, that they only were able to learn the song, and on the other, that the song was heard from heaven, the event which it denotes is not of that kind, nor is it to take place in our world, but in the presence of God in heaven, and is to be of the nature I have suggested. It undoubtedly represents, therefore, the assumption of the wit- nesses after their resurrection and elevation to the stations in the presence of the Redeemer, which they are ever thereafter to fill. This accords in all respects with the representations of the pas- sage. It accounts for the descent of the song from heaven, while yet it was not uttered either by the living creatures nor the elders. It accounts for its being a new and peculiar song, such as no others of the redeemed had had occasion, or could ever have occasion to chant. It accounts for their enjoying the visi- ble presence of the Lamb anterior to his advent. But the sup- position that they arc merely to behold him in ecstatic vision, is not in accordance with the law of symbolization. It were to make the vision of the Lamb by the hundred forty-four thousand, the symbol of a mere vision of him by those whom they represent, not of his personal presence with them, which is against analogy. The counterpart of a symbolic presence is a real one. Other- wise none of the symbols are of any certainty representatives of real agents and agencies. Their whole fulfilment may be vision- ary, and thence they may have had their accomplishment, and their whole accomplishment in the ecstatic thoughts of some prophet cotemporary with the apostle, or of ages long since passed. Their sight of the Lamb then is to be a real sight, their station with him is to be a station in his real presence, and there- fore, as it is to be anterior to his advent, is to be at the heavenly sanctuary. It accords with the representation in the eleventh chapter, that the witnesses are to be literally raised from the dead, and assumed to heaven immediately anterior to the seventh trumpet, and the descent of the Redeemer ; and finally, the agency ascribed to the hundred forty-four thousand accords with that of the innumerable multitudes who are exhibited as standing before the throne of God and the Lamb. Like them they sing a song, though different in its theme, and like them they are thereafter to follow the Lamb wherever he may go, and dwell forever in his presence. ON MOUNT ZION. 453 But may not the hundred forty-four thousand on Mount Zion, who are thus clearly to be not on earth, but raised to glory, de- note the saints who are to be transfigured at the advent of Christ, rather than the witnesses who are to be raised from death ? That supposition, though consistent with several of the peculiarities ascribed to them, as that they are to be a first-offering to God, and to sing a new song, in which no other can join, has yet noth- ing decisive to support it ; while the proofs are irresistible that the hundred forty-four thousand and the witnesses are the same. The period of the sealed is obviously the same as that of the witnesses. The hundred forty-four thousand are represented as receiving the name of God on their foreheads under the sixth seal, immediately before the tempest which is to devastate the earth is let loose, and in preparation for that whirlwind. Ye may not injure the earth, nor the sea, nor the trees, till we can seal the servants of our God on their foreheads ; — implying that when his servants are sealed, the angels having power over the winds may commence their work of ruin ; and that work, ob- viously from the flight of all ranks to the caverns and rocks to escape the presence of the Lamb, is immediately to precede his advent. But the witnesses are to be slain also and raised from death immediately before the seventh trumpet, which is to be the signal of his advent. They are undoubtedly therefore of the same period. Their character also is as obviously the same. The sealed are those who have the name of God written on their foreheads, in contradistinction from those who have the mark of the wild beast. They are true worshippers, who acknowledge God's exclusive right to homage, and refuse the idolatrous sub- mission to civil rulers, and nationalized hierarchies which they require ; and that is also the peculiar characteristic of the wit- nesses. They refuse submission to the usurpations of the wild beast and the idolatries of the great city Babylon ; and it is for that reason that they are to be put to death. They are of the same character therefore as the sealed. But the sealed, doubt- less, embrace all true worshippers who refuse subjection to the usurpers of the rights of God, and are free from the stain of idolatry. As then they are of the same period, of the same faith, and of the same agency, and as the sealed must be sup- posed to include all of their character, they and the witnesses are undoubtedly the same. The witnesses are not to be consti- tuted witnesses by their being martyred, but are to be martyred because they are witnesses ; and as all the witnesses are repre- 454 THE ANGEL HAVING THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL. senled as slain, and they who are slain are undoubtedly sealed, all the sealed are therefore to be slain. The representation that they have not been guilty of idolatry, indicates that they are to consist of those who have never sanc- tioned the civil rulers, nor apostate hierarchies in their usurpa- tions. They arc probably, therefore, to arise after the questions to be raised by the angel from the sun-rising have begun to be discussed, and the people of God become furnished with large means of understanding the principles on which the claims of the antichristian powers are founded, and discerning the idolatry which an assent to them involves. SECTION XXXIV. CHAPTER XIV. 6-7. THE ANGEL HAVING THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL. And I saw another angel flying in mid-heaven, having the ever- lasting gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and tribe, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear ye God, and give him glory, for the hour of his judg- ment is come ; and worship ye him who made the heaven, and the earth, and sea, and fountains of waters. The gospel is everlasting, as it is the gospel unchanged which Christ and the apostles preached, and which is to remain un- changed, and be preached to successive generations through eternal years, — not the new and antichristian gospel invented and proclaimed by the false prophet ; as it relates to the ever- lasting government of God, and reveals the principles on which it is forever to be conducted ; and as it proffers everlasting life lo men. The angel, like others, is the representative of a body and succession of men. His flight in mid-heaven, denotes the conspicuity of their mission. Those who dwell on the earth, are the inhabitants of the ten kingdoms, as distinguished from whom every nation, and tribe, and tongue, and people, are the other nations of the world. His first summons is to Icar God, and give him glory. To fear him, is to regard him with the su- preme awe that is due to his infinite greatness and station. To give him glory, is to manifest that awe by a public acknowlcdg- THE ANGEL HAVING THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL. 455 ment and celebration of his being, perfections, and works, as creator and ruler, a recognition of his rights, and submission to his will. The reason offered for that summons is, that the hour of his judgment is come ; the period in which he is to reclaim the rights which men have usurped, vindicate the prerogatives they have denied, and punish both those who arrogate his throne, and those who pay them the homage that is due only to him. His next injunction is, to worship Him who made the heaven, and the earth, and sea, and fountains of waters. The heaven, earth, and sea, when thus distinguished from each other, denote the world of men, in their relations as rulers and sub- jects ; the sun symbolizing the rulers of a nation, or community of nations ; the earth, a people under a settled form of govern- ment ; a sea, the multitude of a great nation in the commotions of war, or a revolution ; and fountains, remoter tribes and communities intimately related to a great central people. The command implies therefore that the nations of the earth are worshipping their rulers, or making their customs under a set- tled constitution the law of conscience, or giving that honor to the usages and opinions of other communities, or yielding it to the principles and passions of an excited and lawless multitude ; and is a summons to withdraw their homage from creatures, and yield it only to the creator. This symbol then represents a body and succession of men, who are to bear the everlasting gospel both to the nations of the ten kingdoms, and to all other tribes and languages of the earth, and to summon them to fear God and glorify him by a just ac- knowledgment and h( mage ; to warn them that the hour of his judg- ment is come, in which he is to punish those who usurp his throne and arrogate his rights ; and enjoin them to worship, not rulers or subjects, but him only, their creator. This office has, doubtless, already been fulfilled in part by those who, during the last half century, have employed themselves in presenting the word of God translated into their several languages, to the nations of the earth, and in proclaiming its glad tidings of salvation. That great movement commenced, as will be shown hereafter, co- temporaneously with the commencement of the judgment by the effusion of the first vial. The warning that the hour of the judgment of usurping rulers and apostate priests is come, is as yet but very partially uttered ; or the summons to worship the creator, not creatures, whatever may be their station, their pre- tensions, or their number. The great obstacles which the her- alds of the gospel have everywhere, within and without the ten 456 THE FALL OF BABYLON. kingdoms, to encounlcr, arc noloriously those which this sum- mons iniphes ; — the authority of aiilichristian rulers, apostate priests, estabhshed constitutions, hereditary opinions, prejudices, and passions ; and the first step towards the conversion of the nations to Cod, is their extrication from an abject vassalage to man. Sucii is eminently the condition, not only of the numerous millions of India, Hindostan, Burmah, and China, of all Mahom- etan and Catholic nations, of the Greek, the Armenian, and the Syrian communions, but of the Protestant established churches also. Mr. Daubuz refers this symbol to the age of Constantino ; Mr. Mode, chiefly to the contest in respect to images in the eighth and ninth centuries ; Mr. Brightman, to the fourteenth century ; and Mr. Whiston, Vitringa, and Dean Woodhouse, to the sixteenth : but the events of those periods answer to it but in a very inadequate degree. The gospel was not then conveyed to every nation, and tribe, and tongue, and people, nor had the hour come of God's judgment on the wild beast and false prophet. Mr. Cuninghame, Mr. Elliott, and the late English expositors generally, refer it to the translation and distribution of the Scrip- tures, and evangelical missions of the present century. But it is obviously to embrace not only the gift of the Scriptures to all tribes, and languages, and peoples, but a warning also that the hour of judgment on the antichristian powers has come, and a summons of all nations, Christian as well as heathen, to aban- don the homage of creatures, virtual as well as open, ascribe the attributes, the prerogatives, and the honors of the deity to God only, and pay him alone their worship. SECTION XXXV. CHAPTER XIV. 8. THE FALL OF BABYLON. And another, a second angel followed, saying. She has fallen, great Babylon has fallen, which made the nations drink of the in- furiating wine of her fornication. Great Babylon is the aggregate of the nationalized hier- archies of the ten kingdoms, whatever be their names ; as is THE FALL OF BABYLON. 457 shown in the seventeenth and eighteenth chapters. She sym- bohzes the teachers and rulers of the churches, with whom the kings of the earth join in the institution, practice, and dissemi- nation of a false religion ; uniting with her in the usurpation of the rights of God as lawgiver, upholding her in her pretence to his authority for her impious assumptions, offering the wor- ship she enjoins and because of her appointing it, and imposing and enforcing it on their subjects. Her difference accordingly from the image to the wild beast is, that she embraces the Pro- testant hierarchies of the ten kingdoms, as well as the Papal and Catholic, which constitute that image : — the vast structure of nationalized ecclesiastical rulers and teachers, who usurp the rights of God, whatever may be their divisions or names, hold a faith essentially false, offer an unauthorized worship, and act with the antichristian civil powers in their usurpations and perse- cutions. The image to the wild beast, on the other hand, de- notes only the array of Catholic rulers and teachers within and without the papal territories, which the princes and people erect- ed into one vast hierarchy with the pope as its head, and invested with a sway over the church, analogous to that which the civil rulers exert over their political empire. The fall of the city is accordingly her dejection from that station as a legal establish- ment, the creature and organ of the civil governments, deriving her revenues from their treasuries, and supporting her usurped dominion by their power. This is apparent from her continued existence after her fall has taken place, as is shown by the sum- mons of the people of God, by the angel in the eighteenth chap- ter, to come out of her, after having announced that she had fallen. As she is to subsist after her dejection, her fall cannot be her dissolution as a community ; nor can it be the dissolution of her government or hierarchy, inasmuch as the image also is to continue to subsist after her fall, as is seen from the command not to worship the image, which is uttered by the third angel immediately after the annunciation of her fall. Her fall is there- fore her severance from the civil governments, and dejection from her station and power as a combination of national estab- lishments. The angel here simply announces her fall. In the eighteenth chapter, he adds the reasons of her dejection, and the character of her subsequent vassals. This symbol then foreshows that the usurping hierarchies de- noted by great Babylon, are to be thrown down from their sta- tions as national establishments. As the angel announcing her fall, follows the angel bearing the everlasting gospel, her fall is 58 458 THE FALL OF BABYLON. to take place not only after those represented by the latter have commenced their work, but undoubtedly after they have fulfilled it. This angel, like that, is the representative of a body of men ; his flight in mid-heaven denotes their publicity and conspicuity ; and his annunciation, that there is to be a public and exulting celebration of her overthrow. Grotius, Bcllarmine, Dr. Hammond, Rosenmuller, and Mr. Daubuz, regard great Babylon as pagan Rome. But that is to assume that the symbol is of the same species as the thing symbolized, which is against analogy. Ancient Babylon is a symbol, not of a literal city, but of an apostate and idolatrous hierarchy. Mr. Brightman, Mr. Mede, and Bishop Newton, exhibit the Romish church as great Babylon, and the denunciation of her idolatries by the Albigenses, Waldenses, Wicklifites, and others of that period, as the annunciation of her fall. But that was a proclamation of her apostasy to idol-worship simply, not of her dejection from her station as a nationalized hierarchy. She did not then fall from her civil establishment by the nations, nor had those symbolized by the angel bearing the everlasting gospel, then fulfilled their office. Cocceius and Vitringa interpret her fall of the secession of the Protestant nations from the Catholic communion in the sixteenth century, and establishment of the Reformed churches in her place. But, on the one hand, there was no total severance at that period of the Catholic hierarchies from the civil govern- ments ; and on the other, the Protestant churches, so far from going out of great Babylon, continued in her community by still acting on her principles, arrogating the same dominion over the laws of God, and uniting in the same manner with the civil powers in imposing their creeds and rites on others, and perse- cuting dissentients. That assumption of the prerogatives of God is the great and fundamental crime of the antichristian church, from which her other unauthorized arrogations and her idolatrous worship spring. It is because of that, that she pre- tends that her agency is essential to salvation ; that she denies the legitimacy of any other rites, and the acceptableness to God of any other worship than hers ; and that she claims submission to her authority as an act of allegiance to him. It is because of that, that she perverts the ordinances of the gospel, institutes a superstitious worship, and enjoins the homage of idols. The Protestant nationalized churches, therefore, great as was the sum of her false doctrines which they rejected, inasmuch as they THE THIRD ANGEL. 459 thus imitated her in an arrogation of the throne of God, and ele- vation of their authority above his rights and will, still continued to belong to great Babylon, and are to share in her fall. SECTION XXXVI. CHAPTER XIV. 9-13. THE THIRD ANGEL DENOUNCING WRATH ON THE WORSHIPPERS OF THE WILD BEAST AND ITS IMAGE. And another, a third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If anyone worship the wild beast, and its image, and receive a mark on his forehead, or on his hand, he shall even drink of the wine of the wrath of God poured an unmixed wine into the cup of his indig- nation, and shall be tormented in fire and brimstone before the holy angels, and before the I^amb. And the smoke of their torment as- cends forever and ever. And they have no rest day and night who worship the wild beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name. Here is the patience of the saints, who keep the com- mandments of God and the faith of Jesus. And I heard a voice from heaven saying, Write, Blessed are the dead who hereafter die in the Lord ; yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their toils, and their works follow with them. As this angel follows the others, the agents whom he repre- sents are to be of a later period than those whom they symbol- ize. His warning implies, that notwithstanding great Babylon has fallen from her station as a national establishment, men are still worshipping the wild beast and its image, and receiving its mark ; and that the wild beast therefore and the Catholic hi- erarchies of the fallen city denoted by the image, still continue their usurpation of the rights of God, and domineer over the church, although no longer in the same relations to each other. Those Romish hierarchies are still to subsist therefore after their fall, and acknowledge the pope as their head. The tremendous punishment threatened to whoever continues to worship those antichristian powers, and unite in their idola- tries, implies that their assumptions are a virtual usurpation of the throne of God, and arrogation of his essential prerogatives, and that whoever accordingly submits to their claims, and ren- 460 THE THIRD ANGEL. ders them the allegiance they exact, exalts them to the station of the Almighty, yields them the homage that is due only to him, and must necessarily thence be treated as a deliberate and in- corrigible apostate. It indicates therefore that at that period, the principles on which those arrogations and that worship pro- ceed, are to be so fully discussed and developed, that all shall be able to discern and appreciate their relations to the rights of God and the obligations of creatures. The representation that at that crisis the saints who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, are to display their patience ; and that they who thereafter die in the Lord are bless- ed, because of the release they are to obta|fc from their toils, and the rewards to which they are to be exalted ; foreshows that the antichristian powers are to carry their endeavors to domineer over believers, and force them to apostatize, to the extreme of a bloody persecution ; as the saints are in the thirteenth chapter exhibited as displaying their patience in enduring the war made on them by the wild beast. To die in the Lord, is to die for his sake as a witness to his truth ; as to be a prisoner in the Lord, is to be a prisoner as his minister. That their works are to follow with them, denotes doubtless that they are immediately to be raised from death, and as kings and priests in Christ's kingdom on earth, to resume their work towards the nations, and exert an important instrumentality in converting them to the homage of God. This persecution is obviously to be of a later period than that in which the witnesses are to be slain ; as this is to follow the fall of great Babylon, and take place at the summons and final wilhdrawment of the people of God from connection with the apostate hierarchies ; but that is to precede her fall, as the resurrection of the witnesses is to be the occasion of the earth- quake by which a tenth of her is to be overthrown. This symbol, then, foreshows, that after great Babylon has fallen from her station as a combination of nationahzed hi- erarchies, numerous teachers are to arise, who, publicly and strenuously asserting the exclusive right of God to enjoin the faith and institute the worship of the church, and pointing out the error and impiousness of the principles on which civil and ec- clesiastical rulers proceed, who usurp dominion over his law, and demand supreme homage to their authority, shall denounce his avenging judgments on all who thereafter yield submission to those antichristian powers ; and that the wild beast will obstruct them and endeavor by persecution to compel them to apostatize, THE THIRD ANGEL. 461 and put them to death ; but that they will sustain the conflict with a patience and fidelity worthy of prophets, and receive for their steadfastness, a speedy resurrection and elevation to the station of kings and priests, and participation in the momentous agencies on which the glorified saints are immediately thereafter to enter with Christ at the establishment of his kingdom on the earth. The great principles on which the pure and the apostate church proceed, are thus immediately before the advent of the Redeemer, to be brought into the most open and violent antago- nism ; the worshippers, of God are to give the most public and perfect demonstration of the truth and inflexibleness of their al- legiance, by resigning their lives, rather than apostatize ; and the antichristian powers and their vassals are to give the most resistless proof of their deliberate and incorrigible apostasy, by continuing their rebellion amidst the threatenings of avenging judgments ; and thus demonstrate the propriety of the discrim- ination the Son of God is immediately to make between them, in raising his slaughtered people from death and exalting them to the rewards of his kingdom, and in condemning the apostates and consigning them to everlasting punishment. Mr. Daubuz regarded this angel as symbolizing the witnesses who testify against the corruptions of the church, through the whole period of the wild beast and false prophet ; and the judg- ments that are threatened to the worshippers of the wild beast and its image, as the temporal calamities with which, during the same period, the antichristian nations were to be scourged. But the gospel had not at the commencement of the twelve hundred and sixty years, been preached to every nation, nor had great Babylon fallen. The period is therefore wrong. Nor are eternal pun- ishments ever made the symbols of temporal. It were against analogy. The punishments therefore threatened to the worship- pers of the wild beast, arc not calamities of this life. Mr. Brightman and Bishop Newton regarded this angel as a representative of Luther and his associate Reformers. But Bab- ylon had not then fallen, nor had the gospel been made known to all nations, nor has either of them yet taken place. Nothing is clearer than that the period denoted by the vision is yet future. Mr. Daubuz, Bishop Newton, and others, are perplexed, on their views of the symbol, to determine the nature or reason of the blessedness promised to those who thereafter die in the Lord. But that promise is raised to a significance worthy of an express annunciation from heaven, when it is seen that those 462 THE ANGEL LIKE THE SON OF MAN. to whom it is addressed arc the martyrs who are to be slain in the last war of antichrist, and immediately to be raised from death, and exahcd, because of their fidelity, to eminent stations in the everlasting kingdom of Christ. SECTION XXXVII. CHAPTER XIV. 14-16. THE ANGEL LIKE THE SON OF MAN. And I looked, and behold a white cloud ; and on the cloud one sat like the Son of Man, having on his head a golden crown, and ii» his hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the tem- ple crying with a loud voice to him who sat on the cloud. Thrust thy sickle and reap, for the hour to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is ripe. And he who sat on the cloud thrust his sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped. He who sat on the cloud, like the other principal agents in the visions, except the Son of God, is a symbol of a class and mul- titude. He is like the Son of Man. He represents human be- ings therefore indisputably, and human beings doubtless raised from the dead in glory, like the human form of Christ in his ex- altation. He obviously is not the representative of angels. The likeness which he bore was given him undoubtedly, and men- tioned by the apostle to denote the species of beings whom he symbolizes. There is, indeed, no such analogy between men generally and angels, as to render the former a lit symbol of the latter, were there any occasion for their symbolization. They are not of sufficient strength and dignity, are imperfect in knowl- edge, and are sinful. Angels, on the other hand, are employed to symbolize, not men generally, but those who are exalted to stations of extraordinary power, and exert vast influences ; and there is an obvious propriety in that symbolization ; as there is an analogy between that higher order of beings and men who are raised to a great elevation above tiie race generally, in office and agency. When angels are exhibited as exerting an agency in the events symbolized on the earth, they appear in their own persons, as in the next vision, and in the binding of Satan in the twentieth chapter. And finally, the symbolization THE ANGEL LIKE THE SON OF MAN. 463 of the saints raised from death in glory by one like the Son of Man in his glorified body, was requisite to avoid the violation of analogy. Any other representation would naturally have implied, that the beings symbolized were cither of a different order, or human beings unglorified and mortal. If the phrase, like the Son of Man, be translated like a son of man, it still supports the same conclusion. What reason can be conceived for the sym- bolic agent's being endowed with tiiat likeness, except that he is the representative of human beings ; or for his being said to be like one of the human race, not a mortal man, except that he is a representative of human beings changed from their mortal and unglorified life, to a superior form ? As he is the representative, then, of human beings raised from death, in a beauty and splen- dor of form like that of the glorified body of the Redeemer, the golden crown on his head denotes that they had already been presented to the Father, adopted as sons and joint-heirs with Christ, and assigned to stations as kings and priests in ins king- dom. The period of this agency is after the revivification of the witnesses therefore, and doubtless also from the vast numbers requisite to such an office, after the visible advent of Christ and resurrection of the holy dead of all ages. They who are harvested by him are also human beings on the earth, and living therefore and mortal, and are doubtless the saints. In their symbolization by inanimate objects, they are exhibited as passive subjects of the event foreshown, not its efficient agents. As crops are harvested for the purpose of pre- servation and appropriation to the uses for which they are raised ; so the reaping of the subjects of this harvest denotes their being gathered for preservation, and appropriation to the ends for which they are sanctified. That an angel came forth from the temple, and apprized the reaper when to thrust his sickle, denotes that a messenger from heaven is to announce to those whom he symbolizes the moment when they are to enter on their work ; and is in accordance with the representation of Christ, that it is with the voice of a great trum[)el that he is to send his angels to gather together his elect. This beautiful symbol thus foreshows that ere the final destruc- tion of the vassals of antichrist, the living saints are to be gath- ered together for preservation, and probably for the judgment and acceptance which are symbolized by the parable of the separa- tion of the sheep from the goats ; that that event is to take place certainly after the witnesses, and doubtless after the holy dead universally have been raised, accepted, and invested with crowns ; 464 THE ANGEL LIKE THE SON OF MAN. that they are to be the angels who are to gather together the elect, and that they are previously to descend to the clouds, await the approacii of the great moment, and receive a signal from heaven when to enter on their work. Mr. Mode, Mr. Lowman, Mr. Cuninghame, and Mr. Elliott, exhibit tiie form seated on the cloud as the Son of God. But that is forbidden by the manner in which he is designated. It was natural anterior to the incarnation of the eternal Word, in representing him as in the vision of Daniel, vii. 13, as invested after his incarnation and exaltation with the dominion of the earth, to describe him as like a son of man, or one of the human race. That delineation, and his investiture with the empire of the earth, define him as the incarnate and glorified Word. But after his incarnation, resurrection in glory, and exaltation to the throne, to represent him as like a son of man, were but to resemble him to himself. The comparison would add nothing to our previous knowledge. On the other hand, if the incarnate and glorified Redeemer be the being to whom the symbolic agent is resem- bled, then the comparison is natural, and conveys the most im- portant information, as it denotes that that agent is a saint raised from death, in a splendor of form and aspect hke that of the glorified Redeemer. In all the instances moreover in which the Son of God appears in the visions, he is designated by titles and characteristics that distinguish him from all other beings, and show indisputably that he is the incarnate Word. And finally, it is inconsistent with his dignity and supremacy, to suppose him to be notified by an angel when to harvest the earth. Angels are his ministers, not his directors. Vilringa and some others regard the reaping as symbolizing a punishment and destruction of men by judgments. But that is to interpret the term by its metaphorical use in other passages of Scripture, and to violate the law which requires a limitation of the import ascribed to symbols, to that which properly belongs to them and the terms with which they are associated, independ- ently of their use in other passages. There is nothing in a har- vest or vintage, which necessarily impUcs, that when used as symbols, those who arc the subjects of them are to be destroyed. They arc not necessarily processes of destruction, nor in order to the destruction of what would otherwise continue to subsist unchanged ; but rather of collection and preservation, in order to appropriation to some subsequent use. Whether, therefore, they are used as symbols of a gathering for destruction or not, is to be determined, not by themselves, but by adventitious terms, and THE ANGEL LIKE THE SON OF MAN. 465 representations connected with them. Thus the vintage is shown to be in order to destruction, by the representation that the clus- ters are thrown into the great wine-press of God's wrath. But as no such representation is made in respect to the harvest, there is no ground in the symbol itself for the ascription to it of such a meaning. Instead, that omission implies that the end for which the subjects of the harvest are gathered, is different from that for which those who are symbolized by the grapes are reaped ; and that they are saints therefore ; and this is corroborated by Christ's representation that he is to send forth his messengers to gather together his elect from the four winds, from the one end of heaven to the other ; and by the parable of the judgment in which he exhibits the sheep as separated from the goats. Mr. Daubuz regarded the harvest as symbolizing the Reforma- tion ; the being seated on the cloud as representing Luther ; and the angel who addressed him as denoting the princes by whom he was aided. But that is wholly to misrepresent the Reforma- tion and the agency of its authors. Luther was a sower of the seed, not a reaper of the harvest. The supposition that the form throned on the cloud symbolizes him, is inconsistent with the re- presentation that he was like one of the human race ; as that comparison implies that he differed in some important respect from man as he exists on earth. The princes who aided Luther by their swords, and the usurpation of dominion over the faith and worship of their subjects, were of the body symbolized by the ten-horned wild beast, not an angel coming out of the temple of God in heaven. The harvest and vintage are founded on the mature and fixed character of their subjects, but the Reformation was a change of principles and practice. And finally, there was no such separation of the good and evil at the Reformation, as is denoted by the harvest and vintage. The Protestants and pa- pists continued as before to live together promiscuously, under the same laws, sustaining similar relations to the civil rulers, rendering them the same service, and concurring still in the zeal- ous maintenance of many most pernicious errors. Mr. Cuninghame regards the subjects of the harvest as the innumerable multitude of the seventh chapter, having palms in their hands ; and the reaping as representing their being gathered together and transfigured, in order to deliverance from the de- struction which is to descend on the idolatrous in the papal em- pire, and the worshippers of false gods in other nations. But he founds that construction on the erroneous assumption that the personage seated on the cloud, is the Son of God. The language 59 466 THE VINTAGE. moreover, in which the gathering together of the elect is foretold, Matthevir xxiv, 30, is not fraught with any indication that it is in order to their transfiguration, and assumption to heaven ; nor is there any intimation that those w^ho are to be transfigured, are to be gathered together in order to that change. Instead, the repre- sentation in Matthew xiii. 30, 41-43, imphes that it is after the destruction of the enemies of God, that the righteous are to be raised to glory ; and it is probably at a much later period. SECTION XXXVIII. CHAPTER XIV. 17-20. THE VINTAGE. And another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle. And another angel went from the altar, having power over the fire, and he cried with a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle, saying. Thrust thy sharp sickle and gath- er the clusters of the vine of the earth, for her grapes are ripe. And the angel thrust his sickle to the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast into the great wine-press of the wrath of God. And the wine-press was trodden without the city. And blood went out of the wine-press up to the horses' bridles for a thousand six hun- dred furlongs. The scene presented to the apostle in this vision, — probably the same as in the former, — was the city by which the apostate hierarchies are rejJresented, surrounded by the symbolic earth covered with harvest-fields and vineyards. The harvest had been reaped and gathered into storehouses, the grapes had become ripe and ready for the vintage. The procedure of the angel with the sickle from the temple in heaven, and descent to the earth, signifies that those whom he represents are to go from the divine presence, and are, therefore, angels. The fire of the altar by which the sacrificial victims were consumed, is a symbol of the instruments of avenging justice. The injunction by the angel having power over the fire, to gath- er the vine of the earth, implies, therefore, that those whom the clusters represent, are to be gathered for vengeance, and thence are the worshippers of the wild beast and its image. That the THE VINTAGE. 467 grapes of the earth and the harvest were ripe, denotes that the principles of the two classes which they represent, are fully de- veloped and defined, and their character settled and made con- spicuous as worshippers of God, or apostates, so that it is mani- fest that his dispensations towards them, are in conformity with their dispositions and conduct. The dejection of the vine into the great wine-press of the wrath of God, signifies that those whom the vine symbolizes are to be crushed by the vengeance of the Almighty. The treading of the wine-press outside of the city, the symbol of the nationalized hierarchies, denotes that the grapes are from their vineyards, and represent those, therefore, who have been subject to their control and devoted to their use. The river of blood flowing from the press, indicates the visibility and the vastness of the destruction. This symbol, then, foreshows that angels are to descend from the divine presence, and gather together the incorrigible enemies of God, who have been devoted to the apostate hierarchies, in order to their destruction. It is a different gathering, therefore, from that at Armageddon, where the wild beast and false pro- phet are to be taken ; as that is to be prompted by the unclean spirits, this by angels. That, moreover, is to precede the sev- enth trumpet, this is undoubtedly to follow it. That is to be vol- untary, this by compulsion. It is the gathering, therefore, prob- ably foreshown in the parable of the goats, in which those who have evinced their want of a proper disposition towards Christ, by refusing to succor his brethren when persecuted by the wild beast and false prophet, are to be judged and destroyed ; and is to embrace those only, as the parable implies, who have acted in that relation, dwelt within the territory of the great city, owned her jurisdiction, furnished her with her resources, and supported her in her tyrannies. The dejection of the vine into the press, is a different work from the treading. The former is the act of the reapers. The latter, we are shown in the nineteenth chapter, is to be the work of the Son of God. The period is to be after the fall of the city and the destruction of the wild beast and false prophet, as it is to fol- low the harvest, of which the risen and glorified saints are to be the reapers, and, therefore, is to be after the visible advent of the Son of God. The wild beast and false prophet are first to be ta- ken alive and cast into the lake of fire. Their armies, the whole organized array of their supporters, are next to be slain. Then as a shepherd, Christ is to gather and judge the nations who have act- ed in an immediate relation to him as Messiah, and assign the true 468 THE VINTAGE. worshippers to everlasting life, and tread the apostates in the wine-press of wrath. Mr. Brightman regarded the vintage as symbolizing the sup- pression of the monastic institutions of England by Henry VIIL, and confiscation of their property ; the angel from the temple as Cromwell, the king's vicegerent in ecclesiastical affairs ; the an- gel having power over the fire of the altar, as archbishop Cran- mer. But the grapes are the symbols of human beings, not of the relations of such beings, their lands, houses, and other wealth. Henry VHI. was the head of one of the dynasties represented by the horns of the wild beast, not the treader of this wine-press. Cromwell belonged to the body of that wild beast, and Cranmer was of the hierarchy of the national church, and thence of the body denoted by great Babylon. They were not angels of the divine presence, therefore. And finally, the dispersion of the monks and nuns, and confiscation of their property, took place three hundred years and more before the close of the wild beast's reign ; but the period assigned to the vintage is to be after its judgment and destruction. The supposition of Mr. Daubuz, that the vintage foreshows a war on the Cathohc church by Protestant states prompted by Reformed ministers, is equally erroneous. He founds it on the assumption that the temple in heaven in which the Almighty was throned, is a sym- bol of the state of the church on earth, as estabhshed and protected by a civil government. He thence regards the angel with the sickle coming out of the temple, as a prince coming out of a Protestant state ; and the angel at the altar, as a symbol of Reformed ministers, exciting him to war. But that is to make the angels of the temple in heaven, symbols of the antichristian rulers and apostate teachers represented in the Apocalypse by the ten-horned wild beast, the wild beast of two horns, and the image. All princes, who, since the rise of the ten kingdoms, tyrannize over the church, and em- bark in religious wars, and all nationalized ecclesiastics who prompt such wars, belong indisputably to the array represented by those symbols. The witnesses of God do not resort to the sword for aggression or defence. They destroy their enemies only by the fire that proceeds out of their mouth. To relinquish or distrust that weapon and become warriors and persecutors, were to forfeit their oflSce as witnesses. Nor is the temple in heaven a symbol of a state of the church on earth established by civil governments, or in any relation to political powers. Visible objects are never symbols of mere relations. There is no anal- ogy between them. Nor is the temple in heaven, in which the THE VICTORS ON THE GLASSY SEA. 469 Almighty is throned and receives the homage of the angchc hosts, a symbol of the relations of a nationalized church to its civil government. They are not only without resemblance and absolutely dissimilar, but the supposition is the most monstrous that can be conceived ; as it implies that the throne also is on earth, and the being who occupies it; that he is also a visible, and thence a human agent ; and as he is the object of religious homage, the head, therefore, of the apostate church, the usurper of the empire, and the rival of the Almighty. Mr. Mede and Mr. Cuninghame exhibit the vintage as the same as the gathering and destruction of the kings of the earth and their armies, at the battle of Armageddon. But that is to be instigated by the unclean spirits, and is to be voluntary ; this is to be caused by angels, and is to be by compulsion. That is to be in order to a battle ; this in order to a judgment and de- struction. SECTION XXXIX. CHAPTER XV. 1-4. THE VICTORS ON THE GLASSY SEA. And I saw another sign in heaven, great and wonderful : seven angels having the last seven plagues, because in them the wrath of God is finished. And I saw as it were a glassy sea mingled with fire ; and they who were victorious from the wild beast, and from its image, and from the number of its name, stationed on the glassy sea, having harps of God. And they sing the song of Moses, the ser- vant of God, and the song of the Lamb ; saying, Great and wonder- ful thy works, O Lord God Almighty ; just and true thy ways, King of the nations. Who shall not fear, O Lord, and glorify thy name as alone holy ; for all the nations shall come and worship before thee, because thy judgments have been made manifest. The whole of this spectacle was in heaven. The sea, as is seen from chap, iv, 6, was a space in front of the throne, and ex- terior therefore to the elders. It resembled, from its transparent pavement interspangled with gems, a smooth, watery expanse, refracting the red glow of sunset, or the crimson tints of the sky. Its comparison to a sea indicates an extent far too great for the 470 THE VICTORS ON THE GLASSY SEA. interior of tlie temple. It was doubtless a vast area extending from its front, and implies a corresponding greatness of the host stationed on it. They are the victorious from the conflict with the wild beast, and with its image, and with the number of its name ; — tiie vast crowd of witnesses who have held the testimo- ny of Jesus, and refused submission to those antichristian pow- ers, through the long period of their triumph ; neither having sanctioned the civil rulers in their usurpation of the prerogatives of God, obeyed the apostate hierarchies as of the authority which they claim, nor, through fear of persecution, suppressed their dissent, and yielded a nominal submission to their sway, which is the victory over its name doubtless, in distinction from the vic- tory over the wild beast and its image. That they thus chant the wisdom and rectitude of the Almighty when about to judge those usurping and persecuting powers, indicates a vast intelli- gence of the reasons of that great measure of his administration, a realization of its necessity to his vindication, and an under- standing of the salutary impressions it is to make on the universe. They have harps of God, given by him, and devoted to his praise ; and they sing the song of Moses, as it is like his a celebration of tlie greatness, wonderfulness, and justice of the divine ways ; and the song of the Lamb, as he is the Lord the God Almighty, who has exercised the government of the universe during the triumph of the wild beast, and the King of the nations who is now to judge that usurper, take possession of the earth, and bring all its tribes to obedience. Their song. Great and wonderful thy works, O Lord the God Almighty, just and true thy ways. King of the nations, is an adoring acknowledgment that it was in boundless wisdom that he had through so many ages allowed the triumph of the wild beast, and persecution and slaughter of his witnesses, and that spotless rectitude and truth had marked all his dispen- sations towards them in their conflict with that usurping power, and were now to mark the avenging judgments by which he was to destroy it. The question, Who shall not fear, O Lord, and glorify thy name as alone holy, implies that the grounds on which he proceeds are to be so fully made known, and the greatness and wisdom of the results of his administration, that none can resist the demonstration of his benevolence and skill, or escape the conviction that he alone is adequate to conduct the govern- ment of his empire, all-knowing, all-wise, all-good, almighty ; that all the objections of his enemies are groundless, and all the doubts, the fears, the perplexities of his people without founda- tion ; while the prophecy, All nations shall come and worship THE SEVEN ANGELS WITH THE SEVEN VIALS. 471 before thee, because thy judgments have been made manifest, impHes that the terrific inflictions by which he is to destroy his great antagonists, are to be seen by the nations to be a vindica- tion of himself, and be the means of awakening them from un- behef, convincing them of his being, perfections, rights, and dominion, and bringing them to yield him acknowledgment and homage. How sublime the ascriptions of this song from those who had endured the most cruel persecution for his sake ; and whom to human eyes he often seemed to have deserted, and left without pity to the malice of their enemies ! Not one of that long train of witnesses and martyrs but joins in the strain. What a sense it bespeaks of the rightfulness of his sovereignty ! What an acquaintance with the reasons of his procedure ! What a com- prehension of the results that are to spring from the manifesta- tion that men are allowed to make of their hostility to him, and from the exhibition of his righteousness towards them ! What a knowledge and realization that his ways, which have seemed most inscrutable, are to become invested at length in the eyes of all his children with dazzhng light and beauty, contribute to the resistless energy of his government, subserve the conversion of the nations, and add forever to the grandeur and blessedness of his empire ! Mr. Brightman and Vitringa regarded the harpers as symboli- zing behevers on earth. But that is to make the temple in heaven the representative of a temple or place of worship on earth, the Deity a symbol of some visible being worshipped in it, and the homage therefore of the victors over the beast, the symbol of an idolatrous homage. SECTION XL. CHAPTER XV. 5-8. THE SEVEN ANGELS WITH THE SEVEN VIALS. And after these I looked, and the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened. And the seven angels who held the seven plagues came out of the temple clothed in pure resplen- dent linen, and bound with golden girdles around the breasts. And one of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven 472 THE SEVEN ANGELS WITH THE SEVEN VIALS. golden vials filled with the wrath of God who lives forever and ever. And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from his power : And no one was able to enter into the temple until the seven plagues of the seven angels should be finished. The temple of the tabernacle which was opened, was the inner temple, in which was the throne of the Almighty, as is shown by the apostle's witnessing the delivery to the angels of the vials by one of the four living creatures, whose station was in the inner tem- ple. The angels stood in the outer sanctuary, obviously from their being seen by the apostle before the inner temple was opened. Their white robes and golden girdles denote their rectitude and dignity. The delivery to them of the vials by one of the living creatures, indicates that the august attendants in the presence of God whom they represent, are cognizant of his avenging judg- ments. The smoke from his glory and from his power, with which the temple was filled during the effusion of the vials, so that no one could enter it, denotes that the awful displays of his justice and sovereignty, which the destruction of his enemies is to form, are to strike the heavenly hosts with the profoundest sense of their infinite distance from him, the inflexibleness of his rectitude, and the helplessness of his enemies, and fill them with awe and submission. They imply also that no incense symbolic of supplications by the saints on earth for the salvation of his antichristian foes, or the suspension of his judgments, is to be offered, during that period ; and that they are to be felt therefore by the church on earth, as well as the redeemed in heaven, and the angelic hosts, to be indispensable to his vindication, and the great measures of grace that are to follow. Mr. Whiston and Mr. Cuninghame, exhibit the opening of the temple after the song of the victors, as the same as its opening at the sound of the seventh trumpet ; and as denoting therefore the coincidence in time of that trumpet and the first vial. But that assumption is erroneous. That the inner temple was opened more than once, is indisputable from the consideration that it must have been open, whenever the throne, the living creatures, and the elders were visible to the apostle, as in the visions of the fourth and fifth chapters, the opening of the seals, and the innumerable multitude having palms. That it was closed after the opening of the seventh seal, and remained shut during the first six trumpets is probable ; as there is no indication of its being open in the following visions until that of the scaled in the fourteenth cha])tcr, who are exhibited as singing a new song before the throne and before the living creatures and elders. THE FIRST VIAL. 473 But their resurrection and assumption to heaven, it is expressly represented in the eleventh chapter, are to precede the seventh trumpet. It is indisputably certain, therefore, that the temple is to be opened before the seventh trumpet. But as it was to be opened also before the effusion of the first vial, and as neither the resurrection nor sealing of the witnesses has yet taken place, although that vial was long since poured, it is certain also that it is to be opened before the resurrection of the witnesses. But the supposition that the first vial and last trumpet com- mence at the same period, is wholly irreconcilable in other rela- tions with the representations of the prophecy. The last vial and last trumpet are cotemporaneous doubtless, from the simi- larity of the announcement, and the events that follow them. The assumption therefore that the first vial is cotemporaneous with that trumpet, involves the assumption that it is cotempora- neous with the last vial. Mr. Cuninghame, accordingly, repre- sents the seven as poured at the same moment. But that is as irreconcilable with the symbols, as a similar supposition would be in respect to the seals, or the trumpets. They are as clearly exhibited as successive, as the seals and trumpets are. The symbols which follow them, differ as widely from each other, as those which follow the trumpets. If they are poured at the same moment, and the events which follow take place in the same scene, as they must spring from what must appear to be a com- plex cause, not from causes independent and dissimilar, no rea- son can be conceived for their symbolization under seven vials in place of one. And finally, the events of the French revolution of which Mr. Cuninghame regards the first five as symbols, did not commence at the same moment, but were as clearly distin- guished by a difference of period as of nature. SECTION XLI. CHAPTER XVI. 1-2. THK FIRST VIAL. And I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, Go and pour the seven vials of the vi^rath of God on the earth. And the first w^ent and poured his vial on the land ; and an evil and noxious ulcer came on the men who have the mark of the wild beast, and who worship its image. 60 474 THE FIRST VIAL. The office of the seven angels, is simply to assist the revela- tion, by designating the commencement of the seven judgments, and distinguishing them as inflictions of divine wrath ; not to symbolize the agents on earth by whom they are caused. Their direction by a voice from the temple to pour out their vials, indi- cates that the appointment by the Most High of the great judg- ments which were symbolized by the phenomena following their effusion, was to be pubhcly announced in heaven. The land or earth, when distinguished from the sea, rivers, fountains, and heaven, denotes the population of an empire under a settled government, anterior to the commencement of a politi- cal agitation. The men on whom this vial fell, were those who have the mark of the wild beast. They live under and support the governments therefore that are symbolized by that monster, and are inhabitants accordingly of the ten kingdoms. They worship its image also, and either live therefore under the do- minion of the nationalized Catholic hierarchies, or acknowledge their authority, and otFer their worship. The shower from the vial excited on those on whom it fell, a malignant and infectious ulcer, irritating to them, and dangerous to those who came within their influence. The ulcer is symbolic, and denotes an analogous disease of the mind ; a restlessness and rancor of passion exasperated by agitating and noxious principles and opinions, that fill it with a sense of obstruction, degradation, and misery, resembling the torture of an ulcerated body. This vial is referred by most recent English commentators to the first step in the French revolution. And no symbol can be conceived more suited to represent the restlessness under injury, the ardor of resentment, hate, and revenge, the noxiousness and contagion of false principles and opinions, that marked the com- mencement of the political disquiets and agitations of the Euro- pean states, toward the close of the last century. The eruption of the ulcer on the vassals of the wild beast and worshippers of its image, indicates that the mental disease which it symbolizes, was to be felt in their relations to those civil and ecclesiastical powers ; and it was from them that the exasperation sprung which led the French nation to overthrow their ancient govern- ment, and prompted similar revolutionary movements in all the neighboring kingdoms. The middle and lower classes univer- sally in France, were suddenly seized with an insupportable sense of their oppression by the monarchy, of their degradation to the condition of dependants and serfs by the nobles, of the THE FIRST V1A.L. 475 extortions, robberies, and violences to which they were wantonly subjected by every class of superiors, of the deceptions and ty- ranny practised on them by the church, and of their hopeless obstruction from the improvement of which they were capable, and denial in every form of the happiness to which they were entitled. This torturing realization which sprung irresistibly from the consideration of their relations to the government, to which they were called by its embarrassments, a"nd the prospect of new burdens in order to remedy and support its extravagance, was roused to a tenfold energy and made the means of inflaming their hatred and revenge to exasperation, and ambition and hope to madness, by the opinion to which it gave birth, that the power of the monarch, the princes, the nobility, and the ecclesiastics, was a sheer usurpation, a stupendous violation of their rights, and an atrocious crime therefore demanding instant resistance and condign punishment.^ With this denial of the title of the king, the nobles, and the ecclesiastics, to their rank, and authority, and assertion of the absolute equality of all in right and political power, were min- gled new, false, and fanatical theories of Hberty, property, gov- ernment, religion, end national glory, which raised the most extravagant dreams of the possibility of happiness under a demo- cratic rule, and inflamed ambition to a phrensy by the prospect to individuals of power, conspicuity, and grandeur. These principles and sentiments flashed instantaneously like the gleam of a meteor over the whole kingdom, roused that excitable and passionate people universally to the utmost fervor of impatience under the real and imaginary burden of the superior ranks, and kindled a fanatic desire to disencumber themselves of the weight, and emerge to freedom and independence. Awakened thus to a full sense of their oppressions, deluded into false views of the proper remedy, and inflamed with extravagant hope, they were tortured by their relations to the monarchy, aristocracy, and church, with a violence of misery, hke men whom some noxious element has touched, and covered with a burning eruption. But the exasperating vial fell not alone on that kingdom. France received its first and its largest tempest. But the angel, scattering a shower on Belgium, Holland, and the valley of the Rhine, crossed the Alps, steeping height and recess in the bitter flood, drenched the vales and plains of Italy, swept around over the German empire and the British isles, and finally, dashed the vengeance dregs on the peninsula of Portugal and Spain, and * Alison's Hist. vol. i. chap. 2. 476 THE FIRST VIAL. the distant southern shores of this continent. The whole cir- cuit of the ten kingdoms tlius became the scene, in a degree, of a similar dissatisfaction with the established governments, fa- natical theories of liberty and equality, and wild and desperate projects of demagogueism and revolution. The commencement of the effusion may with probability be dated as early as 1786, when the convocation of the French No- tables to remedy the financial embarrassments of the govern- ment, drew the eyes of the whole people to the extravagances of the monarchy, and arbitrary domination of the nobles and ec- clesiastics. The approach of new exactions and prospect of interminable oppression, roused them to the expression of their sentiments, and gave scope to the democratic speculations which, in 1789, produced the assembly of the states-general. Grotius and Dr. Hammond, in their usual manner, regard the symbol as denoting a literal plague, or pestilence. But that is to make the representative and thing represented of the same species. Mr. Brightman interprets it of the malice and envy of the pope, the bishops, and other chief ecclesiastics, princes, and nobles, excited by the ejection of the papists in England from office, and elevation of the Protestants to power, during the reign of Elizabeth. But that is to exhibit the vial as poured on the two wild beasts and tiie hierarchies, in place of those who have the mark of the beast, and worship its image. Mr. Mode interprets it of the chagrin and exasperation of the Catliolics, at the exposure and denunciation of their errors by the Waldenses, Albigenses, Wicklifites, Hussites, and others. But that is to exhibit the vial as poured on the apostates as vassals of the false prophet only, not also, as the prophecy rep- resents, as worshippers of the wild beast. It was in their civil relations in a higher degree than in their ecclesiastical, that they felt the influence of the vial. The exposition by Cocceius, who refers it to the dissensions and divisions of the Catholics through a long succession of ages, is open to similar objections. Mr. Daubuz, Mr. Jurieu, and Vitringa, regard it as denoting the extreme corruption of the apostate church, and refer it to the middle ages, when superstition and idolatry reached their heiglit. But the ulcer is not an element of the corruption of the church, or one of its settled characteristics, but a peculiar infliction because of its depravity. It is a plague too that falls on men who are the vassals of the civil governments and nation- ahzcd hierarchies, not on kings, princes, nobles, and ecclesias- THE SECOND VIAL. 477 tical dignitaries ; and is not common therefore to the corrupt church at large, rulers as well as ruled, as are its false doctrines, superstitions, and idolatries. It is, moreover, a torture in regard to which, as in a corporeal disease, they are in a large degree passive ; and not, therefore, a mere depravity of principles and practice, in which they are voluntary. Mr. Cuninghame interprets it of the spirit of atheism, anarchy, and insubordination, which marked the French revolution ; Mr. Faber and Mr. Keith, of the infidelity ; and Mr. Elliott, of " the outbreak of democratic fury, atheism, and vice, which charac- terized that event." But atheism, infidelity, lawlessness, and vice, were common to the nobles and ecclesiastics, as well as •the philosophers, demagogues, and rabble ; while the torturing eruption was limited to those who have the mark of the wild beast and worship its image ; and thence denotes an evil that was peculiar to the subjects of the civil governments and nation- alized Catholic hierarchies, in distinction from those bodies, and that sprung therefore from their relations to their political and ecclesiastical superiors ; and was that torturing sense of oppres- sion undoubtedly to which I have referred it, antagonism of prin- ciples, wishes, and designs, and exasperation of hate, which were the first and most violent surges of that terrible social tem- pest. That eruption of rancorous passion exhibits all the cha- racteristics of the symbol. The middle and lower orders were its subjects, in contradistinction from the superior. It was di- rected against the civil and ecclesiastical rulers ; it was in a large degree involuntary, it was torturing, it was contagious and deadly. SECTION XLII. CHAPTER XVI. 3. THE SECOND VIAL. And the second angel poured his vial on the sea ; and it became blood as of one dead ; and every creature of life died in the sea. The sea denotes the population of a central or principal king- dom, in violent commotion. Wherever the drops, showered from the vase, fell on the waters, they became gore, as though 478 THE SECOND VIAL. one had bled there to death. The expanse became spotted with blood, like a vast battle-field, over which thousands recently slaughtered are strown ; and all orders of animals to which the waters had before been congenial and the source of suste- nance, were destroyed by them. The blood-spots on the waves, denote both that their blood whom the waters represent was to be shed, and that they were to shed the blood of others, sustain- ing a relation to them like that of fish to the waters which they inhabit, and besmear themselves with slaughter. This is im- plied in the color of the waves independently of the death of the creatures, and in their causing their death ; and is shown in the representation under the third vial, that those who are symbol- ized by the rivers and fountains, are compelled to make blood their drink, or maintain their own life by the slaughter of others. The sea is to the animals that live in it, and derive from it their nourishment, what a people is to the monarch, nobles, eccle- siastical dignitaries, and other influential orders, who owe to them their station and support. The bloodiness of the water therefore, through which all creatures inhabiting it died, indicates that those slaughterers of one another, whom the waves represent, are also to destroy all orders of their superiors. This symbol denotes the second great act in the tragedy of the French revolution, in which the people slaughtered one another in feuds, insurrections, and civil wars ; and exterminated with the dagger, the bayonet, and the guillotine, all the influen- tial ranks — king and queen, nobles and prelates, civil magistrates and. priests, military commanders and soldiers, persons of illus- trious descent, of distinguished reputation, of talents and wealth ; and demagogues, politicians, and chiefs, who rose to conspicuity and influence by their acts as revolutionists. The slaughter commenced in the attack on the Bastille on the 14th of July, 1789. Similar violences were soon after perpetrated in every part of the kingdom. The people of the rural districts rose generally in insurrection and slaughtered the nobles, their fami- lies, and their supporters. The Parisian mob in October, at- tacked the palace at Versailles, and killed several soldiers, and on the 10th of August of the following year, slaughtered the king's guards, and drove him from the throne. In August, 1792, the revolutionary tribunal was established ; and the extermina- tion of the influential ranks commenced on a vast scale, and continued till not only the king, the queen, the princes, the no- bles, the prelates, and thousands of their conspicuous supporters, were destroyed, but a great part of the leaders also of the rev- THE SECOND VIAL. 479 olution. In the civil war of La Vendee alone, a million of persons of all ranks and ages, are said to have perished.^ Mr. Brightman expounds the sea of the council of Trent, and its bloodiness of their doctrinal errors. But the sea is the sym- bol of a people in their political relations, not of an ecclesiastical council ; and blood is indicative of a death by violence, not by disease. Mr. Mede interprets the sea of the Catholic church, and the blood, of its laceration and dismemberment by the secession of multitudes and nations at the Reformation. But the sea is the symbol of a nation in its civil relations, not in its ecclesiastical. It is as w^orshippers of the beast, not as vassals of the false prophet, that those whom the waves denote are stained with blood ; and the blood denotes their slaughter of one another, not their conversion to the true faith. Mr. Jurieu interprets the slaughter of the crusades. But that is not in conformity with the symbol. It is to represent the waters as removed to a distance in order to be tinged with blood, instead of receiving the coloring element in their usual position. Mr. Daubuz regards the animals that died as symbolizing the crusaders, but that is to assume that they died by leaving the sea, instead of being killed by the agency of the waters. Vitringa refers the symbol to the wars of the Ghibelines and Guelphs. But they were struggles between the emperor and pope and their respective parties for political supremacy. There was no extermination by the people of all their civil and ecclesiastical superiors. Mr. Faber refers it to the reign of terror during the French revolution. Mr. Cuninghame regards it as denoting the slaughter of the French nation, without any consideration of their rank, not only by their own hands, but by those with whom they em- barked in war, from the commencement of the revolution to the overthrow of the empire. But that is to overlook the distinction between the sea, which represents the tumultuary multitude and the animals supported in it, which symbolize the superior orders. It is to disregard the representation also, that it was by the agency of the bloody water that all creatures of life were de- stroyed, not in any degree by their migration to the streams and fountains. The sea denotes only the destroying multitude : the animals destroyed, those of a different rank or relation whom they put to death, as the princes, nobles, priests, legislators, magistrates, mihtary commanders, soldiers, demagogues, and * Alison's Hist., vol. i. chap. 6 ; vol. ii. chap. 10. 14, 15, 17. 480 THE THIRD VIAL. whoever assumed the attitude of resistance to their will, or be- came the objects of their envy or dread. Those domestic slaughters are said to have amounted, ere the close of 1795, to two millions. Mr. Keith regards the symbol as foreshowing the maritime wars that followed the French revolution ; Mr. Elliott as indica- ting not only the destruction of fleets and merchant ships, but also the revolutions and slaughters in the French, Spanish, and Portuguese colonies. But that is to exhibit the symbolic sea and that which it denotes as of the same species ; which is against analogy. It implies, also, that the creatures destroyed by the waters were literally those that inhabit them, and over- throws therefore his own exposition. It is to represent them, also, as killing one another in place of being destroyed by the crimsoned waters, which is to contradict the representation of the symbol. It is also to assume that actions of the same kinds, and of the same agents, and exerted at the same periods, are discriminated from each other, and represented by different and successive symbols, simply because some of them are exert- ed on water, or in its vicinity, and the others on land, which is wholly without authority, and a total misrepresentation of the reason for which different symbols are used. The diversity of symbols is in order to a representation of the diversity of agents and events which they foreshow ; not of their geographical scene. They are exhibited in succession, not simultaneously, because the agents which they denote commence their agency at different periods, not cotemporaneously. To assume that the di- versity of symbolic agents and actions is no indication of a dif- ference of the agents and events represented, but only of the scene in which they are to appear, is to divest them of all their peculiar character, and reduce them to insignificance. SECTION XLIII. CHAPTER XVI. 4-7. THE THIRD VIAL. And the third poured his vial into the rivers and into the fountains of waters ; and they became blo'od. And I heard the angel of the waters say, Righteous art thou who art and who wast, the holy, that THE THIRD VIAL. 481 thou hast adjudged these things : for they have shed the blood of saints and prophets ; and thou hast given them blood to drink. They are worthy. And I heard another at the altar say, Yea, O Lord, the God Almighty, true and just are thy judgments. Rivers and fountains are to a sea what sntialler exterior com- munilies and nations are to a great central people. As the French nation was the sea, the rivers and fountains are the smaller communities and remote nations of the other apocalyptic kingdoms. The blood with which the rivers and fountains ran wherever the shower of the vial fell, denotes that their blood whom the waters symbolize was to be shed, and that they also were to shed the blood of others, as is shown by the representa- tion that blood was to be made their drink, — a means by which they should gratify their passions, and be nourished, and continue to subsist, and the blood therefore of foreigners drawn in repress- ing their invasions. The exclamation of the angel who poured the vial on the waters, and the response of the angel at the altar, show that the rivers and fountains symbolize nations ; that the nations who were to suffer and inflict the slaughters indicated by the blood, had persecuted the saints and witnesses of God, and shed their blood ; and that the destruction to which they were doomed was to be in retribution of their crimes as persecutors, and was righteous, and was to be regarded and celebrated as such by the heavenly hosts. This symbol denotes the vast bloodshed in the other apoca- lyptic kingdoms, in the insurrections and wars that sprung out of the French revolution. That destructive contest was commenced by the French with Austria on the 20th of April, 1792, and soon extended to Holland, Sardinia, Russia, Italy, Spain, England, Prussia, Switzerland, Denmark, and Portugal, and continued with little intermission for more than twenty years, in which the blood of millions of the French was poured out on the soil of the other kingdoms ; millions of the other nations slain in resisting their aggressions ; and vast multitudes of the unarmed of both sexes put to death in the violences of revolution, the siege and sack of cities, and the repression of insurrections. All those nations had been persecutors of the saints and prophets, and blood was given them to drink. War became their trade, and the means by which they maintained their national existence. Mr. Mede interpreted tiie rivers and fountains of the active agents of the beast and false prophet, as the Spanish soldiers in Belgium and the Jesuits in England, and deemed the symboliza- lion fulfilled in their obstruction and slaughter in the sixteenth 61 482 THE FOURTH VIAL. century. But that is to contradict the symbol. Streams and fountains are not agents of tiie sea sent forth into other lands. Their current is towards the sea, not in the opposite direction. Mr. Faber and Mr. Cuninghame interpret the symbol of the wars generally of the French revolution ; Mr. Keith and Mr. Elliott of the battles of those wars that look place on the rivers and at their sources. SECTION XLIV. CHAPTER XVI. 8,9. THE FOURTH VIAL. And the fourth poured his vial on the sun ; and it was given to it to scorch the men with fire. And the men were scorched with great heat. And they blasphemed the name of God, who has power over these plagues, and changed not to give him glory. Those who exercise the government of a kingdom, are to the people whom they rule, what the sun is to the land and sea. Their office is to subserve the well-being of their subjects, by protecting their persons, securing to them the fruits of their in- dustry, maintaining their rights, and aiding them to the cultiva- tion and happiness for which they are formed ; as the office of the sun is to yield tliat measure of light and heat which is most favorable to vegetable and animal life. But when they usurp or acquire extraordinary power, and employ it in the violent oppres- sion of their people, robbing them of their property, obstructing their industry, depriving them of freedom, and overwhelming them with the miseries of violence, poverty, and servitude, they become to the victims of their tyranny, what the sun would be to men, were its rays raised to a scorching heat. The symbol denotes, therefore, that the rulers of the people on whom the judgments foreshown by the former vials cliiefly fell, were to be- come armed with extraordinary and destructive powers, and em- ploy them in the most violent and insupportable oppression ; and that the victims of their tyranny would blaspheme the name of God, who appoints those sufi'crings in punishment of their crimes against him, and not change to give him glory. The extraordinary powers with which the revolutionary rulers THE FOURTH VIAL. 483 of France became armed, and the oppressions with which they scorched and devoured that people through a period of more than twenty years, present a signal counterpart to the symbol. Im- mediately after the declaration of war in 1792, they assumed and began to exercise the most absolute and despotic sway over the persons and property of the people. The whole of the males ca- pable of bearing arms, of the ages from twenty to forty-five, were rendered subject to military conscription, and many hundreds of thousands forced into the army. A host of commissioners ap- pointed to collect materials for the war, provisions, and revenue, were invested with authority to seize whatever property they pleased for the public service, and exercised their power in the most wanton and oppressive manner. They who were thus robbed of their money, their merchandise, their catlle, their grain, their fur- niture, and every description of effects, were compelled to accept for payment, the paper currency of the government at par, though Avholly irredeemable, and much of the time worth but fifteen, ten, five, and even a lower per cent. A maximum, or extreme of prices for all kinds of produce and merchandise was fixed by law, and all parties constrained under penalty of death, to sell at thosp rates for the depreciated national paper. That currency was made a legal tender in all transactions between citizens, and between the treasury and those in the public service, by which creditors were defrauded of their dues, laborers of their wages, and the officers and soldiers of their stipends. A war of plunder, con- fiscation, and slaughter was waged against the rich from mere envy and avarice, and thousands of families reduced from afflu- ence to beggary.^ Extra loans and contributions were exacted from the wealthy w^ilhout any equivalent, and the creditors of the government at length, by law^s compelling them to surrender a portion of their claims, and by the national bankruptcy, defraud- ed wholly of their dues, amounting to several thousands of mil- lions of dollars. A vast array of spies and cut-throats was or- ganized throughout the kingdom, whose oflSce was to watch, in- timidate, rob, accuse, and guillotine whoever was obnoxious, and the property, person, and life of every individual subjected to the caprice of millions of demons inflamed with an infuriate ambition to plunder, to torture, and to destroy whoever was su- perior to themselves. This vast system of oppression reduced the whole nation to the most abject wretchedness. All commer- cial pursuits were interrupted, and all branches of industry em- barrassed. The poor left without occupation by the destruction ' Alison's Hist. vol. ii. chap. 9. 484 THE FOURTH VIAL. of iheir wealthy employers, were reduced to beggary. The ag- riculturists, without assurance of a remuneration for their la- bor, ceased to raise the requisite supply for the national suste- nance. Vast crowds were thence reduced lo the misery of scar- city and the danger of starvation. A large proportion of the pop- ulation of Paris was for years fed from the public magazines, and suffered all the horrors of famine.^ No one knew when he rose in the morning, that he should not become the victim of the as- sassin, the mob, or the guillotine, before night. No one at night knew but he should be robbed of his property, his family, or iiis friends, before morning. Every species of misery willi which the wicked are ever scourged by aii avenging providence, was thus inflicted on the nation by their rulers, and in an extreme degree. No oppressions of a whole people the world has ever witnessed, approach this in severity. The condition, generally, of even the helots of Greece, the captives and bondmen of Rome, the serfs of the feudal barons, the slaves of the West Indies, was one of freedom, safety, and happiness, compared to that of the French, thus robbed of their property, deprived of the power of earning a subsistence, reduced lo starvation, and subjected absolutely in person and life, to the will of millions of tyrants, whose aim was by oppression, outrage, slaughter, and terror, to stifle every ef- fort at extrication from their power, and quench every spark of liberty and independence. Every country, also, which they conquered or invaded, was de- vastated by a similar sway, public and private property of every de- scription grasped with insatiable rapacity, the conquered compelled to support and enrich the conquering armies, their cities sacked, their villages destroyed, their cottages burned, their fields strown with desolation, and their families outraged and slaughtered. And though its devouring heat of oppression was mitigated under the consular and imperial rule, the government continued a giant des- potism to the fall of the empire, and crushed the people with an iron sway. Yet they blasphemed God who scourged them with those plagues, and ciiangcd not to give him glory. So far from being reclaimed from atlieism and idolatry, they continued after the example of the national legislature in the early years of the revolution, to deny his existence, disown all responsibility to him, or claim his sanction of their crimes. Not the slightest indica- tion of a change of principles appeared, however scorched by mis- cry, no deprecation of the wrath of God was uttered, no acknowl- edgment ot his righteousness, no recognition of his sway ; and ' Alison's Hist. vol. ii. chap. 15. THE FIFTH VIAL. 485 they are still a nation of infidels and apostates. Thus the sym- bol met, in every respect, in rulers and people, a terrific fulfil- ment. Mr. Jurieu regarded the sun as the symbol of the antichristian empire, and its scorching heat as denoting the exorbitant author- ity and oppressive sway of the papacy, from the eleventh to the fourteenth century. But that is to confound the ecclesiastical with the civil world. The sun is the symbol of the chief rulers of the political empire, and the agency which its scorching men symbolizes, affects them in their relations as vassals of the beast, not as followers of the false prophet. Cocceius exhibits the sun as the Scriptures, the increase of its heat as the clearer manifestation of their teachings, and the tor- ture it occasioned as the sense of guilt and desperation which the truth awakens in the impenitent ; and regards it as denoting the irritation of the Catholics under the proclamation of the gospel by the Waldenses. But that is not in accordance with the symbol. The word of God was not to the Catholics of that age, what the sun is to the natural world ; nor is the sun the symbol of the Scriptures, but of the supreme civil powers in an empire. Mr. Cuninghame, Mr. Keith, and many recent writers, inter- pret the symbol of the oppressions that sprung from the French revolution ; Mr. Faber of those only of Bonaparte after his ele- vation to the throne as emperor. SECTION XLV. CHAPTER XVI. 10,11. THE FIFTH VIAL. And the fifth poured his vial on the throne of the wild beast, and its kingdom was darkened. And they gnawed their tongues for pain, and blasphemed the God of heaven for their pains and for their ul- cers, and changed not from their works. The ascription of a throne and a kingdom to the wild beast, shows that that monster is the symbol of the rulers of an empire. The effect of the vial on the throne is not depicted, but only its consequence to the kingdom. It was its subversion however, doubtless, and thence the darkening of the kingdom, by the hu- miliation of its power, the obscuration of its glory, and the ex- 486 THE FIFTH VIAL. linclion of its hopes. The action of the survivors is such as might naturally spring from the disappointment, the chagrin, the despair, and the rage excited by such a catastrophe. They gnawed their tongues for pain, and continued to blaspheme God by refusing to acknowledge his hand in their overthrow, and de- nying his existence. That they blasphemed him for their pains, denotes their denial of the justice of the retributions with which their crimes were requited, and denunciation of them as a violation of their rights. That they blasphemed for the ulcers excited by the first vial, denotes both that they were the people on whom that vial chiefly fell, and that against their wishes they were now again to be subjected to the dynasty, to a sense of whose tortu- ring oppressions they were then aroused. They are the French therefore, and the event indicated by the symbol, is the subversion of the imperial throne and re-establish- ment of the Bourbon dynasty in 1814 and 1815. All the con- ditions of the symbol were fulfilled in the conquest of France at that period by the allied armies, expulsion of Bonaparte, and restoration of the ancient line of kings. The kingdom was felt to be shrouded in darkness, its power remedilessly broken, its glory eclipsed, its prospects of greatness extinguished. The new nobility, the officers of government, the soldiers, the people generally, were devoured with chagrin, and blasphemed God with an atheist impiety, by the continued disavowal of his do- minion, justification and boast of their crimes, and denial of their merit of such retribution. The Bourbon dynasty was again forced on ihem by the conquering powers, and revived the tor- turing sense of their degradation, the violent detestation of that line, and the infuriate passion for unrestrained liberty, denoted by the ulcers, with which they had been smitten under the first vial. And they changed from none of their works. The same law- lessness, the same rapacity, the same thirst of blood, the same ambition of conquest, the same spirit of tyranny, the same auda- cious atheism, as had marked them through the whole career of the revolution and the wars to which it gave birth, characterized them still. Mr. Jurieu interprets the throne of the wild beast of Rome, and the darkening of its kingdom, of the removal of the popes from that city to Avignon in the fourteenth century. But that is to confound the head of the two-horned beast and of the image, with the wild beast of ten horns ; and make the apostate Roman hierarchy the object of the judgment, in place of the supreme civil and military power of the empire. THE FIFTH VIAL. 487 Cocceius exhibits the throne of the wild beast as the throne of the pope, and regards the symbol as denoting the rejection of his authority and denunciation of him as antichrist by the Prot- estants in the sixteenth century, which is open to similar objec- tions. Mr. Cuninghame regards the throne as a symbol, not of the station of a monarch, the chief of the great combination denoted by the wild beast, but of the power, authority, and councils of an empire, and interprets the darkening of the kingdoms chiefly of the false policy of the French, Austrian, and English rulers, by which they and their people became involved in the calamities that marked and followed the wars that sprung from the French revolution. But that is not in harmony with the symbol. It is to make the throne the representative of agencies, instead of the station of an agent, and is therefore against analogy, as agencies alone can symbolize agencies. As the sun is the symbol of the supreme rulers of the empire, as under the fourth vial, a change in them by which the empire becomes darkened, must be their expulsion from their station, or the discontinuance of their office ; as a change in the sun by which the earth should at mid-day become darkened, would be a discontinuance of its rays, not their receiving a wrong direction. The overthrow accordingly of the official station of an agent, presents an apt symbolizatiou of the annihilation of his office, and dissolution of the form of government of which he was the head, but exhibits no analogy to his using his power by misjudgment to the injury of himself or his subjects. Mr. Elliott interprets the symbol of the spoliation of the pro- perty of the Catholic church by the French, Germans, Spaniards, and Portuguese, during the wars of the revolution and temporary abolition by Bonaparte of the papal civil power. But that is to confound both the two-horned wild beast and the image, with the wild beast of seven heads and ten horns. The wild beast on whose throne the vial was poured, and whose kingdom was darkened, is the symbol of the civil rulers of the empire, not of the Catholic hierarchies, nor the false prophet. Mr. Faber interprets the symbol of the dethronement of the French emperor. 488 THE SIXTH VIAL. SECTION XLVI. CHAPTER XVI. 12. THE SIXTH VIAL. And the sixth poured his vial on the great river Euphrates. And its water was dried, lliat the way might be prepared of the kings who are from the sun's rising. It was by a diversion of the water of the Euphrates from its channel, that the way was prepared for the entrance beneath the walls of Babylon of the leaders of the Medes and Persians who were from the east, and the subversion of her empire. The river is here used as a symbol in an analogous relation. It is by the diversion or exhaustion of something having a likeness of Eu- phrates to Babylon, that the way is to be prepared for the assault and overthrow of some resembling kingdom. But great Babylon, the city of which the literal Babylon is the symbol, is the body of rulers and teachers of the churches of the ten kingdoms erected into hierarchies, and nationalized by their governments. Her fall is to be a dejection from her station as civilly established, deprivation of peculiar privileges, and subjection to the condition of a vassal of those governments. The evaporation of her river is doubtless therefore to be the alienation and withdrawment from her of her supporters, by the dissipation of their faith in her pretensions, awe of her authority, and approbation of her rule, by which they have been kept in subjection. The kings from the sun's rising are they who, after having produced that alienation of her sup- porters, are to assail and precipitate her from her nationalization. This symbol indicates then, that agencies are to be exerted by which vast crowds of the supporters of the nationalized hierar- chies are to be withdrawn from them ; the reasons for their sup- port in that relation by the civil government, whether they lie in the faith of the people, or the policy of the rulers, to be removed ; and the general mind prepared for their discontinuance as estab- lishments. This vial has undoubtedly already begun to be poured, and the agents who are to exhaust the great Euphrates of the apostate Babylon commenced their office. The withdrawment of a large body of ministers and members from the Scottish national church, the secession from the Catholic churches of Cermany, and the re- signation of their office by a portion of the ministers of the Can- THE SIXTH VIAL. 489 ton de Vaud in Switzerland, are events that accord with the symbohzation, and the commencement of movements probably that are at length to reduce the mighty current that has hitherto run beneath the walls of the great city, to a shallow stream or stagnant pool, as Euphrates became by the diversion of its waters into other channels. The views of those seceders, and the attitude they assume towards the nationalized churches from which they have with- drawn, are wholly unlike those that are to distinguish the scaled. The Scotch withdrew not from a disapprobation of the nationali- zation of the church, but merely from dislike of the manner in which the civil government exercised its control of the establish- ment. It was for a similar reason that the Swiss resigned their stations ; and the German seceders withdrew not from any dis- satisfaction with the relation of the church to the civil govern-, ment, but from a disapproval of the superstitions, idolatries, and tyranny of the hierarchies themselves. Mr. Brightman interprets the symbol of the removal of impedi- ments to the restoration of the Jews. But that is in contradic- tion to the symbol. As the drying of Euphrates by Cyrus was in order to the conquest of Babylon, so the exertion of an analo- gous agency on the Jews, would be in order to their subjection to greater calamities, not to their restoration to their ancient land, and re-establishment under a national government. The great obstacle moreover to their restoration, is their own unbelief ; not the power of a hostile people. But what analogy is there be- tween unbelief and a river which is a source of sustenance and means of defence to a besieged city ? There is no indication in the Scriptures that they are to regain their ancient land by war and conquest, nor by the subversion of mystical Babylon. They are not the agents who are to cause the fall of that combination of hierarchies. Mr. Mede, Mr. Faber, Mr. Cuninghame, Mr. Elliott, and oth- ers, regard the dr>nng of Euphrates as denoting the gradual de- cay of the Turkish empire in population, wealth, and power. But that is equally without analogy. That empire sustains no relation to the nationalized churches of Europe, hke that of Eu- phrates to ancient Babylon. It neither is, nor ever has been the means of supporting them in their station as civil establishments. It is not conceivable that its decay should necessarily involve their dejection from that station. Its relations with professors of Christianity are not with those hierarchies, but with the Greek, the Armenian, the Maronite, and other eastern churches. 62 490 THE UNCLEAN SPIRITS. Cocceius expounds Babylon of tlie civil empire, and regards the drying of Euphrates as fuliilled in the exliaustion of the Span- ish and French in their wars with eacii other, and with the Prot- estants in the sixteenth century. But that is to make the repre- sentative and thing represented of the same species. Babylon is not the symbol of a civil power, like that of wliich it was the seat, but of a combination of nationalized hierarchies. SECTION XLVII. CHAPTER XVI. 13-16. THE UNCLEAN SPIRITS. And I saw from the mouth of the dragon, and from the mouth of the wild beast, and from the mouth of the false prophet, three un- clean spirits as frogs ; for they are spirits of demons working won- ders, that go to the kings of the whole world to gather tliem to the batde of that great day of God Almighty. Behold I come as a thief. Blessed is he who watches, and keeps his garments, that he may not walk naked, and they may see his shame. And they gathered them in the place which is called in Hebrew Armageddon. Unclean demon spirits are demons or devils, which enter into human beings, and excite them to lawless appetite and passion. But these spirits were clothed in forms, as appears from their being compared to frogs ; — hideous, grovelling, noisy, and am- phibious. The dragon is also a bodied shape, as appears from the ascription to it of a mouth, and procedure from it of a ma- terial form. It is the symbol therefore of the rulers of the east- ern Roman empire supporting an apostate church, and arrogating the right of dictating the religion of their subjects ; and implies that at the period of this event, a government is to subsist in Thrace or that vicinity, that shall nationalize the religion of that empire, as under its last imperial head. The wild beast is the symbol of the civil rulers of the kingdoms of the western Ro- man emj)ire, and the false prophet of the ecclesiastic and civil hierarchy of the papal stales. The spirits work wonders, as the false prophet professes to work miracles. They are to be eccle- siastics, ihcrefore, and to claim a divine sanction to their mission. They go to the kings of the whole world to gather them to the THE UNCLEAN SPIRITS. 491 battle of that great day of God Almighty. That great day is the day when the Son of God shall visibly descend and cast the wild beast and false prophet into the lake of fire, and destroy the kings and their armies. As the kings of the world are distinguished from the wild beast, which is the symbol of the civil rulers of the western Roman empire, they are the kings or chiefs of other nations and empires, in which there are worshippers of God, as of the north and east of Europe, Asia, Africa, America. The gathering of the antichristian powers to the battle of that day, is to be their last gathering to oppose the kingdom of the ' Re- deemer. As the spirits symbolize men and ecclesiastics, and go from the mouth of the three great antichristian powers, they denote men who are to be prompted by the principles and passions that distinguish those usurping and apostate combinations, are to be sent forth by them, and to go to excite in the rulers of the other kingdoms, the same hostility to the kingdom of Christ as reigns in the breast of the dragon, the wild beast, and the false prophet. They are to induce the kings of the whole world to unite in a war to prevent the establishment of Christ's kingdom, and to as- semble them at the place which is in Hebrew called Armaged- don ; a name which, whether drawn, as some assume, from Me- geddo, the plain at the foot of Carmel, on which Barak conquered Sisera and his army, or given to the scene from the victory which the Redeemer is there to gain over them, denotes the place of their destruction. As it is not to be supposed that they are to assemble with a purpose of contending directly with the Al- mighty Avenger at his advent, and there is no intimation that the true worshippers are to unite and attempt a defence of them- selves by violence, nor is such a supposition compatible with the character of witnesses who assail their enemies only with the fire of their testimony, the aim probably of the kings is to be to refute the faith of believers in an indirect manner, as by the conquest of Jerusalem, or some other act, which shall be deemed to demonstrate that their expectation of the advent of Christ is ill-founded. As this conspiracy is immediately to precede his advent, it is to be subsequent to the drying of Euphrates, the slaughter and resurrection of the witnesses, and the fall of great Babylon ; and is to be at the period doubtless of that last persecution of the saints, which is to follow the final denuncia- tion of vengeance on the worshippers of the wild beast and its image, chap. xiv. 9-14. Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he who watches, and keeps his garments, that he may not walk 492 THE SEVENTH VIAL. naked, and llicy may see liis sliamc ; an intimation lliat the peo- ple of God will be expecting his advent, but the world at large taken by surprise ; and that all who arc not watching and ready for the dread event, will be exposed by his appearing to public disgrace. Mr. Cuninghame regards the three spirits as the spirit of athe- ism, despotism, and popery ; and Mr. Elliott as the spirit of infidelity, popery, and " ultra high churchism." But that is to exhibit them as characteristics of actors, not as agents, and is therefore against the law of symbolizalion. The spirits arc bodied beings, like frogs; and the symbols therefore of men, not of. their principles or aims. Each of those writers assumes also that they are to employ themselves in the propagation of athe- ism, or infidelity, anarchy, and popery. The representation, however, of the prophecy is, that they go to the kings to gather them together to battle with the Son of God, and those who de- scend with him from heaven ; which implies that they are to unite in a formal endeavor to prevent the establishment of liis throne on the earth, and perhaps by the occupation of Judea, or some other act, that shall be deemed to involve a refutation of the prophecy of his millennial reign. SECTION XLVIII. CHAPTER XVI. 17-21. THE SEVENTH VIAL. And the seventh poured his vial into the air, and a great voice came from the temple, from the throne, saying, It is done. And there were lightnings, and voices, and thunders, and there was a great earthquake. The like had not been since men were on the earth, such an earthquake, so great. And the great city went into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. And great Babylon was remembered before God, to give to her the cup of the wine of the vehemence of liis indignation. And every island Hed, and moun- tains were not found. And hail great in weight as talents descend- ed from heaven on the men. And the men blasphemed God for the stroke of the hail, for its stroke was very great. The other vials were poured on different parts of the symbolic world — the land, the sea, the rivers, the sun, the throne of the THE SEVENTH VIAL. 493 wild beast, the Eiiplirat.es, and the effect of each limited to its peculiar scene. That this is to be poured into the air w^hich envelops the globe, indicates that the great changes which fol- low it are not to be circumscril^ed within the western Roman empire, but to extend to all the kingdoms of the earth. Liglit- nings, voices, and thunders, are symbols of the vehement thoughts and passionate expressions of multitudes, occasioned by the sudden discovery of momentous truth. An earthquake denotes a civil revolution, in which the whole surface of society is tlirown into commotion and disorder, and ancient political institutions shaken down. This convulsion, which is to transcend in vio- lence all that had preceded it, is doubtless the same as that which is symbolized under the sixth seal, and is to extend to all the governments of the earth. Great Babylon, which had previously fallen, is then to separate into three parts. The apostate hierarchies are not only to survive their disjunction as establishments from the civil governments, but those govern- ments themselves, and to divide into three parties — not geo- gtaphically, which were not in accordance with analogy — but in respect to leaders, principle, or policy. The cities of the na- tions, in contradistinction from the great city, are the hierarchies of the nations without the ten kingdoms, as the Russian, the Greek, the Armenian, the Syrian. They also are then to fall. God is then to pour on great Babylon that storm of wrath by which she is to be utterly destroyed. Every smaller combina- tion of men symbolized by the islands, is to be dissolved, and mighty governments, denoted by mountains, vanish from exist- ence. A hail-storm is a symbol of sudden and resistless strokes, by which, in a violent political revolution, men are smitten down from dignity, independence, and happiness, to helplessness, vas- salage, and ruin ; as such a storm strips the leaves and fruits from the trees, and dashes down the crops of grass and grain. Such a devastating tempest is to beat on the men who belong to the train of antichrist, and they are to blaspheme God because of the greatness of their calamities. The revolutions and con- tests indicated by these symbols, are doubtless to follow the advent of the Son of God to raise the saints from death, to pre- cede the vintage, and perhaps the harvest, and to occupy a con- siderable period. 494 THE WOMAN, THE GREAT BABYLON, SECTION XLIX. CHAPTER XVII. 1-18. THE WOMAN, THE GREAT BABYLON, THE TEN-HORNED WILD BEAST, AND THE KINGS. And one of the seven angels who held the seven vials, came and talked with me, saying. Come, I will show thee the judgment of the great harlot, who sits on the many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication, and they who dwell on the earth have been drunk with the wine of her fornication. And he led me in Spirit into a desert ; and I saw a woman seated on a scarlet wild beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was robed in purple and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stone, and pearls ; having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and the impurities of her fornication, and on her forehead a name written ; — Mystery, the great Babylon, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth. And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus. And I wondered, seeing her, with great wonder. And the angel said to me, Why dost thou wonder ? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the wild beast that bears her, which has the seven heads and ten horns. The wild beast which thou didst see, was, and is not, and is about to ascend from the abyss, and go to perdition. And they who dwell on the earth, whose names are not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, shall wonder, seeing the wild beast, that it was, and is not, and yet is. Here is the mind that has wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains where the woman sits on them, and are seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come, and when it has come it must continue a short time. And the wild beast, which was and is not, is itself also an eighth, and is of the seven, and goes to perdition. And the ten horns which thou didst see are ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but receive power as kings in one hour with the wild beast. They have one mind, and give their power and authority to the wild beast. They shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them, for he is Lord of lords and King of kings, and they who are vvith him are called, and chosen, and faith- ful. And he said to me. The waters which thou didst see where the harlot sits, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues. THE TEN-HORNED WILD BEAST, AND THE KINGS. 495 And the ten horns which thou didst see and the wild beast, they shall hate the harlot, and make her desolate, and naked, and eat her flesh, and burn her with fire : For God has put into their hearts to do his will, and to pursue one counsel, and to give their kingdom to the wild beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled. And the woman whom thou didst see, is the great city which has empire over the kings of the earth. It is apparent from the representation, that the woman had already been beheld by the apostle sitting where there were seven mountains and many waters ; that she was exhibited in that scene in a vision which is not recorded, and for the reason, doubtless, that her agency with the kings, who were exhibited in connection with her, was unsuitable for description. The scene was the site of Rome. The seven heights were the seven hills of that city, and they were symbols of the seven kinds of rulers who exercised the government of the ancient empire, as is shown by the angel's interpretation, who exhibits them as the same as the seven heads of the wild beast. The hills were surrounded by many waters, which are symbols of the peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues of the Roman empire, after the emergence of the ten kingdoms, as is shown by their cotemporaneousness with the woman, during the agency as- cribed to her, which she exerted subsequently to the establish- ment of those kingdoms. The woman seated where the hills were and the waters, symbolized the great Babylon, the national- ized hierarchies of the apostate church, and actions are ascribed to her which render it apparent that the kings of the earth were also exhibited as uniting with her in her idolatry. The spectacle, therefore, like the wild beast on which she is now exhibited, rep- resented the ancient rulers of the empire as well as its kings in its last form ; and in addition, by the waters, symbolized their subjects in their relations to the harlot ; and its object was to represent her in her union with the kings in promoting idolatry, and her agency in seducing the people to join in their worship. Her relation to the kings and people, and her character as an idolatress, having thus already been exhibited to the apostle, the angel now called him to another spectacle, in which she is rep- resented in her relations to the rulers, first as her supporters, and finally as her destroyers. The wild beast, on which she is borne, was, and is not, and yet is. It was, as the successions of rulers of the ancient empire, which its heads symbolize, had been, but were not, at the period indicated by the vision, when the supreme authority had passed from the heads to the horns. 496 THE WOMAN, THE GREAT BABYLON, It is not, as a government of a head is no longer exercised over the empire as anterior to its fall ; and yet it still is in an eighth form, inasmuch as the cotemporaneous kings who now reign over the kingdoms into which it is divided, exert a sway essen- tially the same ; maintaining the laws of the ancient empire in a lai-gc degree ; uniting in supporting the same religion, as that which the rulers denoted by the seventh head supported ; and, like those rulers, usurping the prerogatives of God, nationalizing the church, and assuming to determine by their will the religious duties of their subjects. That it is in this relation that they are still the wild beast, is shown in the representation, that it is in their having one counsel that they give their power and author- ity to the wild beast. They become a combination of rulers, and render their several governments one, by exercising their power and authority on the same principles and for the same purposes, for which the supreme power was exercised by the seventh head ; and in that respect they arc an eighth, formed of the seven, and appropriately sym.bolized by the same monster under the horns, because of the similarity of their assumptions, religion, laws, and conduct towards God and his people. it is covered with the names of blasphemy in symbolization of its arrogation of the rights of God, and assumption of author- ity over his legislation. It is not a blasphemer by its conquests, its blood-shedding, and tyranny. Names of blaspliemy have no adaptation to symbolize such agencies, which have not God, but fellow-creatures, for their object. Its bloodiness and cruelty moreover are denoted by its form as a ferocious wild beast. But it blasphemes by setting itself in the place of God, arro- gating his prerogatives, and exacting a homage that is due only to him. That it does in assuming the right to dictate the faith and worship of its subjects, legislatmg over the laws he imposes on them, making its will the reason that they arc to offer a wor- ship, treating dissent from its creed and a refusal to unite in the rites it enjoins, as a crime meriting the same punishment as re- volt from God, exalting the authority of ecclesiastical teachers and rulers above that of the Almighty, and all other acts in which it asserts a dominion over men in their relations to the creator ; — as in all those acts it treats their relations to him as subordinate to their relations to itself, and thence treats him also as subordinate in right and authority to itself; and accordingly in effect denies his deity, his title to the homage which he demands, and thence the rectitude of his law, and exhibits iiim as an usurper. Of these tremendous blasphemies the rulers of the THE TEN-HORNED WILD BEAST, AND THE KINGS. 497 en kingdoms, as well as of the ancient empire, especially those denoted by the seventh head, have been notoriously guilty. The abyss out of which the wild beast was about to ascend, was the sea of many waters by which the peoples, multitudes, nations, and tongues of the empire, after the fall of the imperial rule, were symbolized. The seven heads, like the seven moun- tains in the vision of the woman and the waters, denoted seven kinds of supreme rulers of the empire, five of whom had already fallen, one then was, and the other had not yet come. The head which then was, was the pagan imperial ; those which had fallen, the kingly, the consular, the dictatorial, the decemviral, the tribunitial.^ That which had not yet come, and was to continue a short time, was the false Christian imperial, commencing with Constantine in the year 312, and falling at the subversion of the western empire in 476. The ten horns denoted the dynasties of kings who had not received a kingdom at the period of the vis- ion, and were not to receive one until the emergence of the wild beast from the abyss of waters, after the overthrow of the impe- rial government, but were to receive it at that period, and to per- petuate the beast itself in an eighth form, by uniting with one counsel to exercise a rule like that of the head which preceded them. The wild beast is in this eighth form to go to perdition ; for the kings are to make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb is to conquer them, because he is King of kings and Lord of lords, and they who are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful. The question between them, therefore, is to be, as has already been shown, one of prerogatives and supremacy. The Lamb is to conquer and destroy his antagonists, because he is under no such subordination to them as they blasphemously assume, in their attempt to exalt their authority above his ; but has an ab- solute and exclusive right of dominion over lords and kings as well as subjects. It is also a question between them who are the true worshippers ; they who acknowledge and honor God as the only legitimate object of homage, and only rightful religious lawgiver ; or they who worship the wild beast, by assenting to its blasphemous usurpations ; and the Lamb is to conquer, be- cause they who are with him have paid the homage that accords with his rights, and are the worshippers whom he calls, whom he chooses, and who by their fidehty give proof of their meet- ness for his acceptance. The woman seated on the wild beast is the symbol of the * Livii Hist. lib. vi. c. 1. Taciti Annal. lib. i. c. 1. 63 498 THE WOMAN, THE GREAT BABYLON, great Babylon, llie mother of liarlots, the great city which has empire over the kings of the earth. That empire is necessarily of a different nature from that of the kings themselves over their kingdoms ; and is thence eccle- siastical, not civil ; and is exercised by ecclesiastical hierarchies, as they alone exert or claim an authoritative sway over those un- der their jurisdiction. The station of the woman on the wild beast denotes that the combination of hierarchies which she symbolizes, is supported by the rulers whom that monster rep- resents, and exhibits those hierarchies therefore as nationalized and established by the civil rulers. There is no other agency of the wild beast towards the woman, which her being borne by it, can symbolize. It does not denote the worship by the kings of her idols. It has no adaptation to represent such an agency, and that idolatry is symbolized by their fornication with her. It does not denote a submission to her as of supreme civil authority over them. It has no adaptation to express that submission, and they are nowhere exhibited as yielding it to her. The sway she ex- erts over them she is represented as exerting as a harlot and false prophet by enticements and miracles, not as a monarch over sub- jects. The wild beast is exhibited as the supreme civil power. She accordingly works wonders before it as such, and causes the inhabitants of the earth to worship it. There is no relation to the wild beast therefore which her station can denote, but her relation as a combination of nationalized hierarchies ; invested with the exclusive authority which she arrogates to teach and worship, supplied with revenues, and armed with power to en- force her will on her vassals, and to persecute her opposers ; and it has an obvious adaptation to indicate that relation. Her purple and scarlet, her gold and gems, denote her wealth, luxury, and pomp ; her name and cup, her idolatry and artful agency in seducing the nations to apostasy ; her intoxication with the blood of the saints, the infuriate joy she derives from the slaughter of the witnesses of Jesus. When, however, she has nearly run her career, the kings are to hate her, to rob her of her wealth, divest her of her ornaments, make her naked, devour her flesh, and burn her with fire ; for God has put into their hearts to fulfil his will, and act the part which is ascribed to them as they are symbohzed by the horns of the wild beast, until his words are accomplished. The con- version of the kings to hatred and disarray of the great idola- tress, devouring her flesh and burning her with fire, has already in a degree taken place, in the disallowance and scorn of her THE TEN-HORNED WILD BEAST, AND THE KINGS. 499 imperious claims in most of the European stales, the confis- cation of her property in France and slaughter of many of her priests, the robbery of the churches, monasteries, and ecclesias- tics, of their wealth, wherever the French armies penetrated du- ring the wars of the revolution, the conquest of the papal states, and dejection of the pope from his throne by Bonaparte, the secularization of many of the ecclesiastical territories in Germa- ny, the dissolution of the religious houses and confiscation of ecclesiastical property in Spain and Portugal during the revolu- tions in those countries, the resumption by the civil rulers of Austria and other kingdoms of the nomination to bishoprics and other rights which had been conceded to her on the erection of the image in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and in the abro- gation in Great Britain of the monopoly of civil offices by the members of the establishment ; and these retributive judgments, are doubtless to be continued and carried to a greater severity. Commentators have universally interpreted the expression, the seven heads are seven mountains, as denoting that the heads are symbols of mountains. But that is against analogy, living beings having no adaptation to symbolize inanimate objects ; nor agents objects incapable of an agency. The meaning undoubtedly is, that the heads are like the mountains which had been exhibited to the prophet in a different vision, symbols of seven kinds of rulers ; and the reason of the comparison is, that in another vision, which is not fully related, the mountains had been em- ployed as symbols of the seven species of supreme rulers of the ancient empire, with the waters as symbols of the population, while the woman was exhibited as seated there in the presence of the kings, to represent her in the exertion of the agency by which she induced them to idolatry. How, if the heads are the symbols of the seven hills of Rome, is the representation to be explained that five are fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come ; and when it is come, it must continue a short time ? If the heads are symbols of the hills, the succession of the heads must denote a succession of the hills to one another, as much as of the kings. Commentators have also generally interpreted the expression, the woman is the great city which has empire over the kings of the earth, as denoting that she is a symbol of Rome. But that is against analogy, as it is to make a living agent the representa- tive of an inanimate object. To suppose her, on the other hand, to be a symbol of Rome as a community, is to suppose her to be a symbol of her as a civil community, which is not only without 500 THE FALL AND DESTRUCTION any authority from the prophecy, but is irreconcilable with the representation in the next chapter, that the material city, which is used to symbolize the great ecclesiastical Babylon, is a city of commerce. As that symbol city, which represents the same ecclesiastical structure as the woman is employed to symbolize, is a city of commerce, and therefore a civil community, the city w!4iich they represent must be one of a different nature. The material city employed to represent the spiritual is ancient Babylon therefore indisputably, not Rome. That is apparent also from the name, which is used literally, not as a metaphor ; and from the sixth vial, in which the Euphrates is used to repre- sent the subjects of the spiritual Babylon, and Darius and Cyrus, the kings of the east, who dried up that river, to personate those who are to exert an analogous agency on the ecclesiastical Baby- lon, and by the alienation from her of her subjects prepare the way for her being overthrown. SECTION L. CHAPTER XVIII. 1-24. THE FALL AND DESTRUCTION OF THE GREAT BABYLON. And after these I saw another angel descending from heaven, having great power, and the earth was lighted by his glory. And he cried with a strong voice saying, She has fallen, has fallen, great Babylon, and become a habitation of demons, and a station of every unclean spirit, and a station of every unclean and hated bird ; be- cause all the nations have drunk of the inflaming wine of her forni- cation ; and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her ; and the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the strength of her luxury. And I heard another voice from heaven saying. Come out of her my people, that ye partake not of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues ; for her sins have accumulated to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. Give to her as she also gave ; and double to her double according to her works. Into the cup into which she has poured, pour to her double. As much as she has glorified herself and lived luxuriously, so much torment give her and sorrow. Because in her heart she says, I sit a queen, and am not a widow, and I cannot see sorrow ; therefore in one day her plagues shall come, death and sorrow and famine, and she shall be burned OF THE GREAT BABYLON. 501 with fire ; for mighty is the Lord God who has judged her. And the kings of the earth who have committed fornication and lived luxuri- ously with her, when standing afar for fear of her torment, they may see the smoke of her burning, shall lament and mourn for her saying, Alas, alas, the great city Babylon, the mighty city ; for in one hour has thy judgment come. And the merchants of the earth weep and lament for her, because no one buys their merchandise any more ; merchandise of gold and silver, and precious stone, and pearl, and linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and every fragrant wood, and every ivory vessel, and every vessel of most precious wood, and of brass, and of iron, and of marble, and cinnamon and spice^ and odors and ointment, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and cattle, and sheep, and of horses, and of chariots, and of bodies and souls of men. And the ripe fruits of thy soul's desire have gone from thee, and all thy dainty and splendid things have perished from thee, and thou shalt not find them any more. The merchants of those things who have grown rich by her, shall stand afar for fear of her torment, Aveeping and lamenting, say- ing, Alas, alas, the great city which was clothed in linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stone, and pearls ; for in one hour so great riches are destroyed. And every pilot, and every one who sails by the place, and sailors, and whoever worked at the sea, stood at a distance and cried, looking at the smoke of her burning, saying, What was like that great city 1 And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas, the great city by which all who have vessels in the sea were en- riched by her wealth ; for in one hour is she destroyed. Rejoice over her, 0 heavens, and the saints, and the apostles, and the prophets, because God has condemned yoyr condemnation by her. And a mighty angel took a stone, as a great millstone, and cast into the sea, saying. Thus with violence shall the great city Babylon be cast down, and shall not be found any more. And the voice of harpers, and musicians, and pipers, and trumpeters, shall not be heard any more in thee ; and no artist of any art shall be found any more in thee ; and the sound of a millstone shall not any more be heard in thee ; and the light of a lamp shall not shine any more in thee j and the voice of bridegroom and bride shall not be heard any more in thee : — because thy merchants were the great men of the earth ; because by thy sorceries all nations were seduced. And in her the blood of prophets and of saints was found, and of all who had been slain on the earth. The angel descending from heaven and proclaiming the fall of Babylon is doubtless, like other symbolic agents, the representa- tive of a body of men. The effulgence which he flashes over 502 THE FALL AND DESTRUCTION the earth, denotes the resistless Hght in which they are to unveil the apostate character of Babylon, and the dazzling splendor in which they are to set the rectitude and wisdom of God in her punishment. The vehemence with which he proclaims her fall indicates that they are to regard it as an event of the greatest significance. Her fall is to be her dejection from her station as nationalized by the civil governments, and is to be produced by violence, as a city is overthrown only by a violent cause, as an earthquake, and as the millstone was hurled by the angel with violence into the sea ; and it is to be the work of the multitude in place of the rulers, as is shown by the regrets of the kings and nobility at her destruction. As ancient Babylon, after her overthrow, became the habita- tion of wild beasts, her desolate houses were filled with doleful creatures ; owls, and satyrs, and dragons, cried in her pleasant palaces ; so this analogous Babylon is to become the resort after her fall of the most vile and detestable beings. Those who there- after unite themselves to her, are to be as much more depraved and savage than her former adherents, as dragons, owls, and satyrs, are more hideous and hateful than the cultivated popula- tion of a wealthy and powerful city. They are to throw off their disguises, and exhibit their hostility to God in all its impiousness. All these representations indicate that her denationalization is to be a most momentous change to her, to the people of God, and to the world. Her overthrow, like that of ancient Babylon, is to be in conse- quence of her idolatry, because all nations have drunk of her wine, and the kings have united with her in the practice and pro- pagation of idol-worship. This representation is in accordance with the different agency which she has exerted towards them. The multitude have been seduced to her false worship by her arts ; while the kings needed no such seduction, but have ever been as ready to usurp the rights of God and exalt their authority above his, as she. They have been prompted by the same prin- ciples and passions in their co-operation with her in the imposi- tion on their subjects of her apostate doctrines and worship. After this proclamation of her fall, the prophet, as in the vision of the fourteenth chapter, heard another voice, and doubtless as then, of another angel, summoning the people of God to come out of her, lest they partake of her sins, and receive of her plagues. This angel, like the former, is to be regarded as the symbol of a body of men, and his cry shows, tiiat after her fall, some of the people of God are still to linger within her commu- OF THE GREAT BABYLON. 503 nion ; and .that after they who proclaim her dejection have ful- filled their office, others are to arise and summon all true wor- shippers to withdraw from her, lest by continuing under her jurisdiction they sanction her sins, and expose themselves to her punishment. The discrimination of the city from its inhabitants, verifies the interpretation I have given of it, as the hierarchies of the church in distinction from their members ; not the church at large as many regard it. What the walls and dwellings of a material city are to the people whom they protect and shelter, the hierar- chy of a church is to the members who place themselves under its authority. Her punishment is to be a wholly different event from her fall, is speedily to follow that catastrophe, and is to be inflicted by the hand of men. Give to her as she gave. Double to her double, according to her treatment of others. Into the cup into which she poured, pour to her double. These retribu- tions are to overtake her suddenly. In a day her plagues shall come, death, and mourning, and famine, and slie shall be burned with fire. The kings of the earth who had united with her in her idola- tries, are to witness her punishment and lament it. They are not to be its authors therefore, nor are they to attempt to hinder it. They are to stand at a distance, and leave the executors of the divine wrath, who are doubtless to be the multitude, to fulfil their office without obstruction. The survivance of the kings, shows that her fall is to take place before the great battle in which they are to be destroyed. Her merchants who are the great ones of the earth, symbolize the nobles doubtless and dignitaries that held the patronage of her benefices. They also, and others who have grown rich by her luxury, are like the kings, to witness her overthrow, without attempting to intercept it ; and are to lament it, and they alone. Heaven, by which as it is dis- tinguished from the redeemed, is doubtless meant the angehc hosts, is summoned to rejoice over her, and the saints, and the apostles, and the prophets, because God has by his judgments condemned her condemnation of them. And her destruction is to be entire. As a millstone when thrown into the depths of the sea, sinks forever from the sight of men ; so she is to be swept from the earth and leave not a trace of her greatness or mischievous dominion ; and because she is a sorceress whose whole agency has been to seduce men from God ; and a murderess who has shed the blood of prophets and saints, and of all who have been slain in the empire for the word 504 FALL AND DESTRUCTION OF THE GREAT BABYLON. of God during her sway : which is another mark that she sym- bohzes tlie nationahzed hierarchies, as tiiey have been the insti- gators of all the persecutions of the witnesses of God from the commencement of their testimony. What a tremendous doom tiius awaits those apostate powers ! What a demonstration it is to form that God rejects them ! W^hat d refutation of their impious pretences that they are liis minis- ters, that they are exclusively invested with authority to leach his will, and that they enjoy his sanction in their usurpations, their idolatries, their blasphemies, their persecution of his wor- shippers ! And what an illustrious vindication of the witnesses and martyrs who resisted alike their seduction, and their ven- geance,>