And there came one of the seven angels
which had the seven vials, and talked with me,
saying unto me, Come hither; I will show unto
thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon
many waters:
2. With whom the kings
of the earth have committed fornication,
and the inhabitants of the
earth have been made drunk with the
wine of her fornication.
3. So he carried me away
in the spirit into the wilderness: and
I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet
colored beast, full of names of
blasphemy, having seven heads
and ten horns.
4. And the woman was arrayed in
purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold
and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup
in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of
her fornication:
5. And upon her forehead
was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON
THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS
AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
6. And I saw the woman
drunken with the blood of the saints, and
with the blood of the martyrs
of Jesus: and when I saw her, I
wondered with great admiration.
Here again the narrative returns to
take up another series of the history. A number
of times we have been taken over the same ground.
It is this feature of the Apocalypse more than any
other that has misled and perplexed commentators.
Attempting to explain it as one continuous narrative
from beginning to end, they have been compelled to
consider numerous passages as “digressions,”
“parentheses,” or “episodes,”
etc. As already observed, however, the prophecy
is not arranged after the ordinary plan of histories,
narrating all the contemporaneous events in a given
period, whether civil, religious, literary, scientific,
or biographical, thus finishing up the history of
that period; but it consists of a number of distinct
themes running over the same ground.
In this chapter a more particular
description of the church of Rome, “that great
city which reigneth over the kings of the earth”
(verse 18), is given under the symbol of a drunken
harlot. With this vile prostitute “the
kings of the earth have committed fornication” they
have encouraged her in her corruption and idolâtries “and
the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk
with the wine of her fornication.” This
latter symbol is doubtless taken from the cup of drugged
wine with which lewd women were accustomed to inflame
their lovers. So had this apostate church made
“the inhabitants of the earth” of
the ten kingdoms drunken with her wine-cup
and thus rendered them willing partakers in her abominable
idolâtries. She is described in two positions first,
as “sitting upon many waters,” which the
angel informs us “are peoples, and multitudes,
and nations, and tongues” (verse 15); and second,
“upon a scarlet-colored beast, full of names
of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.”
The first position denotes her wide supremacy in the
world over distant peoples and nations; the second,
the close relationship that she sustained to the civil
power. That beast carried her in royal state.
The civil powers of Europe have usually lent themselves
as a caparisoned hack for this great whore to ride
upon and have considered themselves highly honored
thereby. This beast was full of the names of
blasphemy, which were the same as the blasphemous
assumptions of the Papacy, as explained in chapter
XIII, showing that he agreed perfectly with this apostate
church in her impious claims and supported her in
them, making himself equally guilty and deserving of
the same name. What is intended exactly by his
scarlet color I do not know. The same power under
its Pagan form was represented as a red dragon.
The appearance of this woman was that
of the most splendid character, nor are we to suppose
the contrary because she was such an infamous prostitute.
She may have been, and according to the description
was, all that, but still her appearance was such as
to bewitch her admirers and votaries. Robes of
purple and scarlet, with the most costly profusion
of gold and diamonds, were superb adorning, even regal
splendor. All that skill and wealth could do
in magnificence of attire was bestowed upon her to
set forth her charms. The “golden cup in
her hand” was as to richness in harmony with
her dress, while as to contents it set forth her character,
for it was “full of abominations and filthiness
of her fornication.” This cup was an appropriate
symbol of her atrocious wickedness and idolâtries.
This woman had also a name written
on her forehead. It was not, indeed, placed there
by herself nor by her admirers; but He who drew this
symbolic picture placed it there that all might know
her true character. “MYSTERY, BABYLON THE
GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE
EARTH.” Although this apostate church was
only in embryo in the apostles’ day, yet the
apostle who gave us a careful delineation of its terrible
characteristics declared that it was then developing
and denominated it a mystery. “The
mystery of iniquity doth already work.” 2 Thes
2:7. The same apostle regarded as an unquestionable
fact that godliness was a mystery (1 Tim 3:16);
but he who peruses the history of the Papacy will
be forced to declare with emphasis, “Without
controversy great is the mystery of Romanism.”
She is also styled Babylon the Great. This name
is derived from ancient Babylon. This city was
the center of the earth’s idolatry and stood
first of all as the direct enemy of God’s people.
So, likewise, this church is the center of earth’s
spiritual idolatry. There are other harlots, or
corrupt churches, in the world beside her; but she
is the mother of them all. They are all
children by her side. Some of them greatly honor
her and in deep veneration call her “our
holy mother church;” but God brands her
as the “mother of harlots and abominations of
the earth.”
But the statement that she was a harlot
merely, does not entirely describe her character.
She was a drunken harlot. Drunken with
what wine? No indeed; that were a very
small sin for her. She was “drunken with
the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the
martyrs of Jesus.” Romanists positively
declare that their church never persecutes; but with
the picture of this drunken prostitute before our
eyes, we shall be hard to convince. To illustrate
this point fully would be to write a book of martyrs
much larger than the present work; so, for lack of
space only, we shall have to content ourselves with
merely bringing forward a few of many historical proofs
showing that they themselves claim the right
to exterminate heretics.
Innumerable provincial and national
councils have issued the most cruel and bloody laws
for the extermination of the Waldenses and other so-called
heretics; such as the Councils of Oxford, Toledo, Avignon,
Tours, Lavaur, Albi, Narbonne, Beziers, Tolosa, etc.
Since Papists will assert that these had no authority
to establish a doctrine of the church (although they
clearly reflect its spirit), I remind the reader that
some of their General Councils have by their
decrees pronounced the punishment of death for heresy.
At least six of these highest judicial assemblies
of the Romish church, with the Pope at their head,
have authoritatively enjoined the persecution and
extermination of heretics. Extracts from the
Acts of these Councils could be given if space permitte. The second General Council of Lateran (1139),
in its twenty-third cano. The third General
Council of Lateran (1179), under Pope Alexander II. The fourth General Council of Lateran (1215),
under the inhuman Pope Innocent III., which exceeded
in ferocity all similar decrees that had preceded
i. The sixteenth General Council, held at
Constance in 1414. This Council, with Pope Martin
present in person, condemned the reformers Huss and
Jerome to be burned at the stake and then prevailed
on the emperor Sigismund to violate the safe-conduct
that he had given Huss, signed by his own hand, in
which he guaranteed the reformer a safe return to
Bohemia; and the inhuman sentence was carried out,
with the haughty prelates standing by to satiate their
eyes on the sight of human agony. This council
also condemned the writings of Wickliffe and ordered
his bones to be dug up and burnt, which savage
sentence was afterwards carried into effect; and after
lying in their grave for forty years, the remains of
this first translator of the English Bible were reduced
to ashes and thrown into the brook Swift. Well
has the historian Fuller said, in reference to this
subject, “The brook Swift did convey his ashes
into Avon, the Avon into Severn, the Severn into the
narrow seas, and they into the main ocean. And
thus the ashes of Wickliffe are the emblem of his
doctrie, which is now dispersed all over the world.”
5. The Council of Sienna (1423), which was afterwards
continued at Basi. The fifth General Council
of the Lateran (1514). The laws enacted in each
succeeding Council were generally marked, if possible,
with augmented barbarity.
Says the learned Edgar, in his Variations
of Popery: “The principle of persecution,
being sanctioned not only by theologians, Popes and
provincial synods but also by General Councils, is
a necessary and integral part of Romanism.
The Romish communion has, by its representatives,
declared its right to compel men to renounce heterodoxy
and embrace Catholicism, and to consign the obstinate
to the civil power to be banished, tortured, or killed.”
St. Aquinas, whom Romanists call the “angelic
Doctor,” says, “Heretics are to be compelled
by corporeal punishments, that they may adhere to
the faith.” Again, “Heretics may
not only be excommunicated, but justly killed.”
He says that “the church consigns such to the
secular judges to be exterminated from the world
by death.”
Cardinal Bellarmine is the great champion
of Romanism and expounder of its doctrines. He
was the nephew of Pope Marcellus, and he is acknowledged
to be a standard writer with Romanists. In the
twenty-first and twenty-second chapters of the third
book of his work entitled De Laicis, he enters
into a regular argument to prove that the church has
the right, and should exercise it, of punishing heretics
with death. The heading is his, together with
what follows.
“Chapter XXI. That heretics,
condemned by the church, may be punished with temporal
penalties and even death. We will briefly show
that the church has the power and ought to
cast off incorrigible heretics, especially those who
have elapsed, and that the secular power ought to
inflict on such temporal punishments and even death
itsel. This may be proved from the Scriptur. It is proved from the opinions and laws of
the emperors, which the church has always approved.
3. It is proved by the laws of the church ... experience
proves that there is no other remedy; for the
church has tried step by step all remedies first
excommunication alone; then pecuniary penalties; afterward
banishment; and lastly has been forced to put them
to death; to send them to their own place....
There are three grounds on which reason shows that
heretics should be put to death: the first is,
Lest the wicked should injure the righteous; second,
That by the punishment of a few many may be reformed.
For many who were made torpid by impunity, are roused
by the fear of punishment; AND THIS WE DAILY SEE
IS THE RESULT WHERE THE INQUISITION FLOURISHES,”
etc.
“Chapter XXII. Objections
answered. It remains to answer the objections
of Luther and other heretics. Argument 1.
From the history of the church at large. ‘The
church,’ says Luther, ’from the beginning
even to this time, has never burned a heretic.
Therefore it does not seem to be the mind of the Holy
Spirit that they should be burnt!’ [He surely
misunderstood Luther.] I reply that this argument proves
not the sentiment, but the ignorance, or impudence
of Luther; FOR AS ALMOST AN INFINITE NUMBER WERE EITHER
BURNED OR OTHERWISE PUT TO DEATH, Luther either did
not know it, and was therefore ignorant; or if he knew
it, he is convicted of impudence and falsehood, for
that heretics were often burnt BY THE CHURCH
may be proved by adducing a few from many examples.
Argument 2. ‘Experience shows that terror
is not useful.’ I reply EXPERIENCE PROVES
THE CONTRARY for the Donatists, Manicheans,
and Albigenses WERE ROUTED AND ANNIHILATED BY ARMS,”
etc.
So this high dignitary of the Catholic
church, a cardinal, a nephew of one Pope and the special
favorite of others, freely admits the charge so often
laid to Popery by creditable historians the
butchering of an “infinite number” of
people that differed from them and here
labors hard to uphold it as a principle of righteousness.
Their bloody crusades against the innocent, unoffending
Waldenses, Albigenses, and other peoples, in which
thousands, and in the aggregate millions, were
slaughtered like venomous reptiles, stand out on the
page of history with a prominence that can not be
mistaken; and they themselves can not deny it.
Dowling has well said that their “history is
written in lines of blood. Compared with the
butcheries of holy men and women by the Papal Antichrist,
the persecutions of the Pagan emperors of the first three centuries sink
into comparative insignificance. For not a tithe of the blood of martyrs was
shed by Paganism, that has been poured forth by Popery; and the persecutors of
Pagan Rome never dreamed of the thousand ingenious contrivances of torture which
the malignity of Popish inquisitors succeeded in inventing.
If any of my readers suppose that
the character of Popery has changed with the lapse
of ages, I must tell you that such is not the ease.
Popery is unchangeable and this her ablest advocates
declare. Chas. Butler, in the work he wrote in
reply to Southey’s book of the church, says,
“It is most true that the Roman Catholics believe
the doctrines of their church to be unchangeable;
and that it is a tenet of their creed, that what their
faith ever has been, such it was from the beginning,
such it is now, and SUCH IT EVER WILL BE.”
A copy of the eleventh edition of The Faith of Our
Fathers, published in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1883,
lies before me. It was written by Archbishop (now
Cardinal) James Gibbons, the highest authority of
the Roman Catholic church in this country. In
page 95 he says: “It is a marvelous fact,
worthy of record, that in the whole history of the
church, from the nineteenth century to the first,
no solitary example can be adduced to show that any
Pope or General Council ever revoked a decree of faith
or morals enacted by any preceding pontiff or council.
Her record in the past ought to be a sufficient warrant
that she will tolerate no doctrinal variations
in the future.” So the doctrine of her
inherent right to persecute and slay every one who
disagrees with her, which has been enacted by Pontiffs
and General Councils and so carried out in the past,
is still in vogue and would now be enforced were it
in her power to do so.
While this statement of Gibbons’
shows the unchangeable spirit of Popery, still it
is the basest presumption upon the historical knowledge
of the reader. The facts are that the official
acts of some of their Popes and General Councils have
been so far wrong that Romanists themselves have been
compelled to admit it. Thus the sixth General
Council, which was held at Constantinople in 680, and
which every Catholic accepts as Ecumenical, condemned,
in the strongest terms, Pope Honorius as a Monothelite
heretic. Let them attempt to deny it, and
we will bring forward our proof. Romish authors
themselves admit it, the well-known Dupin with the
rest, as appears by the following extract from his
writings: “The Council had as much reason
to censure him as Sergius, Paulus, Peter, and the
other Patriarchs oL Constantinople.” He
adds in language yet more emphatic, “This will
stand for certain, then, that Honorius was condemned,
AND JUSTLY TOO, AS A HERETIC, by the sixth General
Council.”
The Decretals of Isodore furnish another
example of Papal infallibility. For ages
these documents were the chief instrument of the Popes
in extending their power and the proof of the righteousness
of their assumptions to excessive temporal authority.
Wickliffe declared them false and apocryphal.
For this he was condemned by the sixteenth General
Council, held at Constance in 1414, and his bones
ordered dug up and burnt because of his daring impudence.
The spurious character of these false decretals have
since been proved beyond the shadow of a doubt; and
since it is impossible to deny it longer, it is admitted
even by Romanists. So, after all, this infallible
Council was wrong, the Papists themselves being the
judges.
Pope Benedict IX. was guilty of such
flagitious crimes that he became an object of public
abhorrence, and he finally sold the Popedom.
One of his infallible successors in the Papal
chair, Pope Victor III., pronounced this infallible profligate a person “abandoned to all manner
of vice. A successor of SIMON THE SORCERER,
and NOT OF SIMON THE APOSTLE.” I do not
question the truth of this assertion, but what becomes
of their boasted uninterrupted apostolical succession?
Baronius, the Popish annalist, confesses that Pope
Sergius III. was “the slave of every vice, and
the most wicked of men.” Among other horrid
acts Platina relates that he rescinded the acts
of Pope Formosus, compelled those whom he had
ordained to be re-ordained, dragged his dead body from
the sepulchre, beheaded him as though he were alive,
and then threw him into the Tiber! This Pope
cohabited with an infamous prostitute named Marozia
and by her had a son named John, who afterwards ascended
the Papal throne, through the influence of his licentious
mother, under the name of John XI. So the unlawful
amours of Sergius produced this infallible, necessary
link in the holy chain of uninterrupted apostolical
succession! It must be remembered, also, that
the Popes have for ages laid claim themselves to infallibility;
and in the last General Council of that body, held
at the Vatican in 1870, it was declared a dogma of
the church. Romanists will tell us that this decree
refers only to his official acts, and not to his personal
character; but official acts have been the main thing
under consideration in the case of Sergius, Honorius,
and Benedict. But if such monsters of vice can
produce good, holy, infallible acts, as Papists declare,
then Jesus Christ is mistaken; for he declared positively
that “a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil
fruit ... neither can a corrupt tree bring forth
good fruit.” Mat 7:17, 18. “God
forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a
liar.” Rom 3:4. During these dark
ages thousands of priests, who were by the laws of
the church denied their Scriptural right of possessing
a wife (1 Cor 7:9, etc.), lived openly
with concubines; and the Council of Toledo decreed
that they should not be condemned therefor, provided
they were content with one.
But the devil produced his master-piece
of iniquity in the person of Roderic Borgia, who ascended
the Papal throne in 1492 under the name of Alexander
VI. The utmost limits assigned to Papal depravity
were realized in him, so that the very name Borgia
has come to be used as a designation of any person
unusually wicked. Says Waddington: “The
ecclesiastical records of fifteen centuries ... contain
no name so loathsome, no crimes so foul as his....
Not one among the many zealous annalists of the Roman
church has breathed a whisper in his praise....
He publicly cohabited with a Roman matron named Vanozia,
by whom he had five acknowledged children. Neither
in his manners nor in his language did he affect any
regard for morality or decency; and one of the earliest
acts of his pontificate was, to celebrate, with scandalous
magnificence, in his own palace, the marriage of his
daughter Lucretia. On one occasion this prodigy
of vice gave a splendid entertainment, within the
walls of the Vatican, to no less than fifty public
prostitutes at once, and that in the presence of his
daughter Lucretia, at which entertainment deeds of
darkness were done, over which decency must throw
a veil; and yet this monster of vice was, according
to Papist ... the vicar of God upon earth, and was
addressed by the title of HIS HOLINESS!!” But
why stir this cesspool of filth any longer? Is
not that church of which Alexander VI. was for eleven
years the crowned and anointed head a necessary
link in the boasted chain of holy apostolical
succession, the pretended vicar of Christ upon earth is
it not, I ask, fitly described by the pen of inspiration
“MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH,”
as she reeled onward in the career of ages, “drunken
with the blood of the saints”?
7. And the angel said
unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I
will tell thee the mystery
of the woman, and of the beast that
carriest her, which hath the
seven heads and ten horns.
8. The beast that thou sawest was,
and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless
pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell
on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written
in the book of life from the foundation of the
world, when they behold the beast that was, and
is not, and yet is.
9. And here is the mind
which hath wisdom. The seven heads are
seven mountains, on which
the woman sitteth.
10. And there are seven
kings; five are fallen, and one is, and
the other is not yet come;
and when he cometh, he must continue
a short space.
11. And the beast that
was, and is not, even he is the eighth,
and is of the seven, and goeth
into perdition.
12. And the ten horns
which thou sawest are ten kings, which
have received no kingdom as
yet; but receive power as kings one
hour with the beast.
13. These have one mind,
and shall give their power and strength
unto the beast.
14. These shall make
war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall
overcome them: for he
is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and
they that are with him are
called, and chosen, and faithful.
The angel promises to explain “the
mystery of the woman and of the beast that carried
her.” The beast is the same as the secular
beast with seven heads and ten horns, described in
chapter 13. An explanation of its heads and horns
has already been given. The expression “the
seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman
sitteth, and there are seven kings,” requires
further explanation. Many have understood the
mountains to signify the seven mountains on which
the city of Rome is said to be built; but that is
adopting the literal mode of interpretation, and is
contrary to the laws of symbolic language. The
more obvious meaning is that the seven heads represent
seven mountains and also seven kings; but this probably
is not the idea intended. The heads of a beast
are not the proper symbol of mountains. The fact,
too, that the woman is represented as sitting upon
these mountains, shows that they are to be taken as
a symbol, as well as the woman, and not the object
symbolized. They are, then, the same as the heads
and denote the seven kings or seven forms of government
under which the Roman empire subsisted.
The seventh and last head has not
yet been identified. Before considering it, however,
I wish to call attention to another point that has
already been referred to. The beast that John
here saw, with the seven heads and ten horns, was
Rome under the Papal power. Did new Rome in reality
have the seven heads? No. The dragon John
saw in chapter 12 is represented as having seven heads
and ten horns, and signified Rome under the Pagan
power. Did old Rome really possess the ten horns?
No. According to verse 12 in this chapter, they
were to arise future of John’s time. But
notice carefully that the seven heads, which according
to this description, belonged to the beast sustaining
the Papal power in after years, are here explained
by the angel as signifying the very forms of government
by which Pagan Rome subsisted. “Five
are fallen [a past event], one is [exists
at this present time], and the other is not yet
come.” So according to divine interpretation,
the same heads and horns serve for both the dragon
and the beast. This could not possibly be a true
representation unless they were both in reality the
same beast, they being represented as two only
for the purpose of describing the two phases of Roman
history Pagan and Papal.
With this point established, that
these two forms of Roman history are the same beast,
we are now prepared to understand the statement that
the beast “was and is not, and yet is.”
This is equivalent to saying that the beast existed,
it ceased to exist, and then it came into existence
again. This was exactly the history of Rome.
Its downfall under the Pagan form was described under
the fourth trumpet as an eclipse of the sun, moon
and stars, so that they shone not for a third part
of the day and night. For a time it seemed not
to exist. A little later the eclipse is lifted;
the beast exists again under the Papal form. In
this is set forth clearly the wounding and the healing
of the beast. The wound was inflicted on its
sixth, or Imperial, head (for the first five had already
fallen, according to the historical facts just related),
being accomplished by the hordes of Northern barbarians
overturning the empire of the West. It appeared
for a time that the beast was indeed wounded unto
death; but not so: to the surprise of all, he
survived under the form of the seventh head.
At this point the question is sure to be asked, How
could the beast continue to live if its seventh head
was to continue but “a short space”?
This is accounted for by the fact that there was what
might be appropriately called an eighth head, but which
was in reality of the seven. “And the beast
that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is
of the seven.” Verse 11.
The identification of the seventh
head will now make the matter complete. The facts
all meet in the Carlovingian empire, or the empire
of Charlemagne. In the year 774 Charlemagne completed
the work begun by Pepin twenty years before and overthrew
the kingdom of the Lombards in Italy, which was the
last of the three horns plucked up before the little
horn of Daniel. By this victory he became complete
master of Italy, and he received the title Patrician
of Rome. This was not merely an honorary title,
such as had for ages been conferred upon certain individuals;
but it was a distinct form of civil government and
supreme, taking the same rank with that of the Consular,
the Decemvirate, the Triumvirate, etc., in the
earlier history of the nation. It lasted, however,
only “a short space,” or twenty-six years,
when Charlemagne, having extended his conquests over
all the western part of Europe, assumed the Imperial
title and thus revived the empire of Rome in the West
under its Gothic form. In his Decline and Fall
of the Roman Empire, Gibbon says: “In the
twenty-six years that elapsed between the conquest
of Lombardy and his Imperial coronation, Rome, which
had been delivered by the sword, was subject, as his
own, to the scepter, of Charlemagne. The people
swore allegiance to his person and family; in his name,
money was coined, and justice was administered, and
the election of Popes was examined and confirmed by
his authority except an original and self-inherent
claim of sovereignity, there was not any prerogative
remaining which the title of emperor could add to the
Patrician of Rome.” This decisive testimony
by the highest authority on the subject shows conclusively
that all the power of sovereignty resided in Charlemagne
as the Patrician of Rome, and that this, therefore,
is a proper head to be ranked with the other six that
preceded it.
This head, however, continued only
“a short space”; and an eighth arose on
Christmas, the first day of the year 800 (as time was
then reckoned), when Charlemagne was crowned emperor
of Rome, and thus revived the empire of the West.
This eighth head, however, was “of the seven”;
for it was the same as the sixth, both being Imperial the
first being in the Augustan line, and the other in
the Carlovingian, and separated from each other by
the seventh, or Patriciate. Considered one way,
there were eight heads, but two of them were alike,
hence only seven; for the eighth was of the seven.
According to verse 11 it was under the eighth head
that the beast subsisted at the time he was carrying
the woman of this chapter, which exactly accords with
the historical facts in the case; and the same was
continued in a line of emperors reaching down to the
time of the French Revolution.
The ten horns had “received
no kingdom as yet.” This signifies that
at the time when the Revelation was given they had
not yet arisen. When they did come into existence
they were to receive power as kings with the beast
and were to give to it their power and strength.
It is a singular fact that a distinct head should
continue to exist after these horns had arisen and
developed into powerful kingdoms; but herein the remarkable
accuracy of prophecy is clearly shown. It is said
that they should make war with the Lamb and that the
Lamb should overcome them. Some think that this
has reference to the persecution of the saints during
the Dark Ages; but it seems to me that it would have
been stated differently if such were its meaning.
It may be a prophetical reference to the battle of
Armageddon, which will be terminated by the coming
of the Son of God himself to overthrow completely
all the powers of wickedness.
15. And he saith unto
me, The waters which thou sawest, where
the whore sitteth, are peoples,
and multitudes, and nations, and
tongues.
16. And the ten horns
which thou sawest upon the beast, these
shall hate the whore, and
shall make her desolate and naked, and
shall eat her flesh, and burn
her with fire.
17. For God hath put
in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to
agree, and give their kingdom
unto the beast, until the words of
God shall be fulfilled.
18. And the woman which
thou sawest is that great city, which
reigneth over the kings of
the earth.
The special thoughts contained in
these verses have been so far explained already that
it is unnecessary to go over the same ground again.
Already the civil powers of Europe are beginning to
cast this woman aside as an old, wrinkled, haggard
prostitute is cast off by her lovers. Already
they have deprived her of all temporal authority such
as she possessed in guiding this beast of chapter
17, as explained under the fifth plague in the preceding
chapter. Whether they are destined to become
a still greater enemy to her, the future will determine.