secular government of France, which revoked the Edict of Nantz, and extirpated or drove into cruel exile the Protestants of that kingdom. It was the secular power of the Empire which slew the Witnesses. Power was given to the Beast over all the nations and kindreds and tongues of the Roman earth; he reigned over them with absolute authority, through his ten regal horns.*

We are next informed that "all that dwell on "the earth shall worship him, whose names are not "written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from "the foundation of the world." To worship a creature of any kind, in the language of the New Testament, means the placing our hearts and affections upon it, more than upon God; and to worship the Beast, therefore, signifies the placing an implicit faith on his dictates in spiritual matters, and obeying them rather than the law of God.

"If any man have an ear, let him hear. He that "leadeth into captivity, shall go into captivity; he

hommes, et que l'on en eût executé aussi un grand nombre en France; cependant en Flandres, comme en France, les affaires s'y trouvoient en plus mauvais etat que jamais; et les deux Rois furent obligéz de chercher de concert quelque remede pour arreter le progrez du mal." Hist. du Concile de Trente, Tom. ii. p. 52, Londres, 1736.

From Brandt's History of the Reformation in the Low Countries, (B. xi. vol. i. p. 40, London, 1720,) I learn that the first Edict of Charles V., against the Reformation, in the Low Countries, was issued in 1521. Thus in a period of only thirty-eight years fifty thousand persons were in that country only, butchered by hanging, beheading, burning and burying alive, by the Roman Beast, for the cause of religion.

*Faber, in loco.

"that killeth with the sword, must be killed with "the sword. Here is the patience and the faith "of the saints."

The emphatic and solemn warning which is given at the beginning of this clause, "If any man "have an ear, let him hear," has relation to what is declared afterwards, that the vengeance of God shall at length overtake this monster, and that he shall go into captivity and perish by the sword, thus coming to an awful end, according to the just law of retaliation. This is to be effected by the seven vials of wrath, the consummation of which will be when the Almighty Word of God shall tread the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God in the awful day of Armageddon. What is added respecting the faith and patience of the saints, seems to be immediately connected with the preceding clause, which declares the manner of the destruction of the Beast; and perhaps it is intended to signify, that though the hour of the destruction of the Beast will be a time of great triumph to the Church of God, yet it will likewise be a season of trial to the faithful, when their faith and patience will in a very particular manner be called into exercise, so as to distinguish those who are true saints from mere professors. In confirmation of which idea, we shall meet with a similar clause in the following chapter of the Apocalypse, relating, as I shall endeavour to show, to the same period; and it may also be observed, that the solemn warning of our Lord himself, immediately before his coming at the great day of Armageddon, "Behold I come as a thief, blessed is he that

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"watcheth and keepeth his garments, lest he walk "naked, and they see his shame," seems to imply that this awful time is to be one of a peculiarly trying nature to true Christians.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE TWO HORNED BEAST OF THE EARTH, AND THE IMAGE.

66

"AND I beheld another beast coming up out of "the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb, and "he spake as a dragon. And he exerciseth all the "power of the first beast before him, and causeth "the earth, and them which dwell therein, to "worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was "healed. And he doeth great wonders, so that he "maketh fire to come down from heaven on the "earth in the sight of men; and deceiveth them "that dwell on the earth, by the means of those "miracles which he had power to do in the sight of "the beast, saying to them that dwell on the earth, "That they should make an image to the beast "which had the wound by a sword, and did live. "And he had power to give life unto the image of "the beast, that the image of the beast should both "speak, and cause that as many as would not worship "the image of the beast should be killed. And he "caused all, both small and great, rich and poor, "free and bond, to receive a mark in their right "hand, or in their foreheads: and that no man

might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or "the name of the beast, or the number of his 66 name. Here is wisdom, let him that hath under"standing count the number of the beast; for it is

"the number of a man, and his number is six "hundred threescore and six."*

The second Beast, coming up out of the earth, is evidently an ecclesiastical character, and he is the same personage as is afterwards called the False Prophet. His lamb-like horns show that he assumes the appearance of a minister of the Lamb of God; but his speech, like a Dragon, discovers him in reality to be a minister of the old serpent. This Beast, as Mede and Mr. Faber rightly judge, is the Papacy, i. e. the Pope and his clergy. This opinion be confirmed by many other authorities. "The former Beast," says Dr. Wall, "represents the secular power of the Roman empire (as it was now in the ten horns), and this, the pontifical."+" The second Beast," says Dr. Cressener, "is a succession of ecclesiastical persons having the supreme power in ecclesiastical affairs."

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The first Beast arises out of the sea, i. e. out of the multitude of the nations of the Roman world in a state of tumult and confusion; for this is sometimes the symbolical signification of the sea. But the second Beast grows up (as it were) silently out of the earth, by degrees and unheeded.

The second Beast exerciseth all the power of the first Beast before him; by which is intended, not the political authority, though that was often also wielded by priests, but the power which the first Beast had to make war with, and overcome the saints.

This

*Rev. xiii. 11.

+ Quoted by the author of Illustrations of Prophecy, p. 66. Demonstration of the Apocalypse, Lib. iii. cap. vi. p. 179.