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THE considerations already adduced, are of themselves sufficient to demonstrate, that the slaying of the witnesses cannot be already past. But an examination of the character of the beast destined to slay them, will, if I mistake not, throw additional light on that subject. That beast did not exist at the period of the Reformation. What is the beast in question? It is the beast from the bottomless pit, ver. 7, "When they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that asceudeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them and kill them."
To arrive at clear views as to the precise power here indicated, it is necessary to make a comparison of three distinct visions, which the Apostle had in Chap. 12:3, after describing the true church of Christ, as represented to him in symbol, he tells us, "there appeared another wonder in heaven, and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads, and ten horns, and seven crowns upon its heads." In chap. 13:1, 2, another object is presented to his eyes, "And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon its horns ten crowns, and upon its heads, a name of blasphemy." The last vision with which we are at present concerned, is in chap. 17:3, where, being carried away in spirit into a wilderness, John saw "a woman sit upon a scarlet-coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns." Now the beast of all these three visions, obviously has a substantial identity.
In all alike, it is the beast with seven heads and ten horns, in other words, the secular empire of Rome. But yet with this substantial oneness, there is very considerable circumstantial diversity, indicating that it is the same empire indeed, but under different forms, and in different states of its progress. The caterpillar is the same insect, under all its different transmutations, from the worm to the chrysalis, and from the chrysalis to the butterfly; but its form and characteristics are very different under these different metamorphoses. And so with the Roman empire, while remaining substantially the same, these three different visions show, that it was to appear under three very different phases. In which of these three forms was it to appear, when it should slay the witnesses, and suppress all public testimony for Christ? It was in the last, as "the scarlet-coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy," for that according to the angel, chap.17: 8, is "the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit." Not a few commentators have confounded the beast from the bottomless pit, with the beast of the second vision mentioned above the beast from the sea. The term in the original for the bottomless pit, is, "the abyss," and "the abyss" they maintain is only another name for the sea.
But the use of the term, both in this book, and in other parts of the New Testament, is directly opposed to any such identification. In Luke 8:31, we find the devils, who had entered into the unhappy man named "Legion," beseeching our Lord that he would not command them to go out into the abyss, but permit them to enter into the herd of swine that were feeding in the neighbourhood. Our Lord granted their request; and what was the results The account, as given both by Matthew and Mark, shows that the unclean spirits, who were so afraid of being sent into "the abyss," had no objections at all to going into the sea. No sooner had they got permission to enter into the swine, than the "whole herd," under their instigation, ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters. It may possibly be said, that "the abyss," of which they were so much afraid, was the Mediterranean or "Great Sea," and that they had not the same fear of the little sea, or "Sea of Tiberias." But this is mere trifling.
The term "abyss," occurs in diffqent places in the Apocalypse, in such a connection as plainly excludes the idea of its being synonymous with the "sea." Take, for instance, the statement at the commencement of the 20th chapter: "And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of `the abyss,and a great chain in his hand, and he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent which is the devil and Satan, and bound him a thouand years, and cast him into the abyss, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him."
Does any one believe that it is into the sea, that the devil is to be cast before the millennium? No. It is into Hell, or the "bottomless pit," as our translators have most correctly rendered it. Now, it is from the same "bottomless pit," that the angel tells John, that the "scarlet-coloured beast," or third form of the Roman empire, is to ascend. The Holy Spirit having varied the symbol, representing the one beast as "ascending out of the sea," and the other, as "ascending out of the bottomless pit," would seem to shut us upto the conclusion, that these two beasts cannot be in all respects the same, but that they differ in very important respects. The ten-horned beast from the sea, as admitted by all commentators, represents the Roman empire, as appearing at first in its divided form, at the begining of the seventh century, after the barbarian hordes from the north had broken the ancient empire to pieces. Then society had been in a state of dissolution, tossed about and agitated (as represented in the symbol of the sea), by the irruption of one savage conqueror after another. That dissolution, however, and agitation, was not the result of any premeditated design against God and religion. It, was the effect only of ill-regulated ambition, and turbulent human passions.
When the "beast from the bottomless pit" appears, society will doubtless again be in a state of dissolution; but the overthrow of established government then is not the consequence merely of the ordinary passions of men, but of principles that bear upon their the very stamp of hell, and are direct emanations from the bottomless pit. So much seems plainly to be implied by the change of the svmbol. That it is near the end of the Roman empire's existence that that empire appears as "the beast from the abyss," may be inferred from several distinct considerations. It is shortly before "the judgment of the great whore," that the angel represents the scarlet-coloured beast as making its appearance. "Come hither," says the angel to John, "I will show thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth on many waters." John looks at the vision before him; and when he sees the woman upon that beast, "drunken with the blood of the saints," "he wonders with great admiration." John had already before this seen much persecution. He had seen the dragon persecuting the woman, and making war with the remnant of her seed: he had seen the beast from the sea waging war with the saints, and prevailing against them: he had seen the beast from the earth, with two horns like a lamb, and the glozing tongue of a serpent,(See Note D) persuading them that dwell on the earth to set up a power, to which all that refused to do homage were unsparingly to be killed. But a sight like that which now met his eyes, when the woman riding on the scarlet beast appeared he had not yet seen. The angel seeing the excess of his astonishment, thus addresses him, "Where fore didst thou marvel? I will shew thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast which carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns. The beast which thou sawest was and is not, and is about to ascend out of the bottomless pit, and to go into perdition."
The angel has been very generally understood, in these words, as speaking of the time that then was, when, in Patmos, under the reign of Domitian, John had the apocalyptic vision made to pass before him It may be that, from the 9th verse, where he begins to explain the mystery, this is the case; but the language which he uses here, when he states the mystery of the beast, can by no means be reconciled with any such supposition. The Roman empire could not, in Domitian's days, be spoken of as "the beast that had been and was not." Its continuity was then unbroken; its character unchanged; its power as great as ever it had been. The lanbuage then points to a quite different period from that of the reign of Domitian. And what period can that be? The only other period, which the rise of the beast from "the abyss" can with any propriety be dated, is the time just before that judgment which John was imvited to see. By that time the beast from the sea has disappeared; the power of the old papal empire is, to all appearance, shaken to pieces; and those who see the greatness of the overthrow, suppose it to be crone for ever. Then it is "the beast which was, but is not." But says the angel, that same beast shall he restored, and restored by agency from the bottomless pit, "and all that dwell on the earth, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, shall wonder when they shall sec the beast that was, and is not, and yet is."
The restoration, however, is to be for only a brief period for the language of the angel strictly implies that the beast is not only "about to ascend out of the bottomless pit," but "about to go into perdition." And this most exactly agrees, too, with the position in which John finds the great harlot, the woman which sitteth on the seven hills, when carried away by the angel to see her. "The angel, "says he, "carried me away in the Spirit into A DESERT, and there, in that desert," did he see the woman seated in all her pomp and glory. Now, remarkable it is that no word, no form of expression, could so graphically depict, as if by a stroke of the pencil, the aspect of the country all round and round in every direction, in the midst of which (at this day,) home is situated, as this very word "desert." It was not so in the days when John saw the vision. Then the now desolate Campagna di Roma was not only distinguished for its beauty and fertility, but filled with a teeming population. It was not so when the ten Gothic kingdoms first submitted to the papal yoke; for the ruins found amid its deserted solitudes bear marks of Gothic greatness, as well as of imperial grandeur. It is thus described by Rae Wilson, the author of Rome in the Nineteenth Century: "Far as the eye can reach, the dreary solitude of the Campagna stretches about twenty miles in every direction. To the west, a wild sullen flat extends to the sea. A profusion of bushy thickets, and a few solitary trees, were scattered over the broken surface of this unenclosed and houseless plain, for a plain it is, since, at the distance of sixteen miles, we distinctly saw Rome. Over this wild waste, no rural dwelling, nor scattered hamlet, nor fields, nor gardens, such as usually mark the approach to a populous city, were to be seen. All was ruin. Fallen monuments of Roman days, grey towers of Gothic times, abandoned habitations of modern years, alone met the eye. No trace of man appeared, except in the lonely tomb, which told us he had been. Rome herself was all that we beheld. She stood alone in the wilderness, as in the world, surrounded by a desert of her own creating." Now, it was in reference to the time when Rome should stand in the midst of a dreary "desert," that the angel spoke of the approaching ascent of that beast front the bottomless pit that was to raise her for a short time to unexampled power and splendour, and then go along with her into final "perdition."
We have considered the origin of the Beast that slays the witnesses, and the time about which it may be expected to appear; let us now examine the specific characteristics which the Spirit of God attributes to it. And,
It is destitute of "crowns." There are no crowns either on the heads or horns of the beast. Is there no meaning in this? The iposition of the crowns on the beast, in its two former appearances, was fraught with significance. "The great red dragon" standing before the woman, ready to devour her child as soon as it is born, represents pagan imperial Rome. The character of the child brought forth by the woman or, in other words, by the church of God, demonstrates this: Chap.3:5, "And she brought forth a man-child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron, and her child was caught up to God and to his throne." This could be none other than Christ. Now, when Christ was born, pagan Rome was in the very zenith of its power; and therefore, in exact accordance with the history, its seven heads are encircled with seven crowns; while the ten horns that appear on the dragon, to shew the substantial identity of pagan and papal Rome, are destitute of crowns. In the beast from the sea, again, the crowns have shifted their position front the heads to the horns. The ten horns wear ten crowns, while the seven heads have none. This also was strictly verified in the history of the period to which the vision referred. The imperial power was removed front the city of the seven hills, and ten independent sovereignties started up, in the western empires, sharing among them the power once concentrated in the secular Emperor of Rome. Now, if we find the position of the crowns so significant in regard to the history of the past, the conclusion seems inevitable, that the entire absence of crowns on the beast that is yet to come, is significant too. The beast from the bottomless pit, then, represents the Roman empire as about to appear under the form of ten confederated republics. It may be thought to militate against this view of the matter, that when Babylon falls, there are "kings of the earth" who are represeated as weeping and wailing over her downfall. But this really has very little weight.
The term "king" does not necessarily imply the possession of sovereeign or independent power: In scriptural usage, it is applied to any kind of ruler, whether his power be inherent or delegated; and may as well be applied to the president of a great republic as to the occupant of a throne. Thus Herod and Pontius Pilate, the one was only a tetrarch or governor of the fourth part of a province, and the other was simply procurator of Judea, are; according to the interpretation of Peter, prophesied of in the second Psalm, when it is said, "the kings of the earth stood up, the rulers took counsel togeather." Besides, whatever may be the character of the kings that shall weep over the fall of Babylon, it cannot easily be supposed that they are European kings, for (chap. 17:16,) it seems to be distinctly intimated, that the ten horns, or ten kings of the Roman empire, shall themselves be actively concerned in her overthrow.
When the purposes of God are fulfilled, then, it is said, "they shall hate the whore, and strip her naked and desolate, and eat her flesh, and burn her with fire." The kings, then, that lament for Babylon, cannot be within the bounds of Europe; we must look for them elsewhere. And let it be borne in mind that, before the final ruin of Rome, there are three unclean spirits like frogs represented as going forth out of tile "mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet, to the kings of the earth, and the whole world, to gather them together to the battle of the great day of God A1mighty." Moreover, it is said, just but before the judgment of Babylon, that "all nations have drunk of the of the raging wine of her fornication;" and that "by her sorcerics all nations haye been deceived," langauage a great deal too strong to refer only to the ten kingdoms of modern Europe. The Western empire, in which these ten kingdoms are situated, constituted only a "third part" of the original Roman world. Now, though there be no kings at all in Europe at the time referred to, there may nevertheless be kings enough in other quarters of the world in league with the apostate church of Rome, to sympathize very deeply with her tremendous and unlooked-for destruction. And the very language employed in reference to those kings, would seem to indicate that they are themselves beyond the bounds of the Western empire. They are represented as "standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas! alas! that great city Babylon, that mighty city, for in one hour is thy judgment come." There is nothing here, then, to militate against the idea that the last form of the Roman empire, as represented by "the beast from the abyss," is essentially republican. The position of the crowns, first on the "heads" of the dragon, and then on the "horns" of the beast from the sea, (which accords so exactly with historical fact,) renders it impossible to believe that the entire absence of all crowns from both heads and horns of the beast from the pit, is a mere accident, a thing withont significance.
It is represented as "full of names of blasphemy." In this we see another very marked distinction between it and the beast from "the sea." The beast from the sea had on its heads the name of blasphemy; and accordingly, that beast "opened its mouth in blasphemy against God." But in the beast before us, the blasphemy is not confined to "the heads." The Roman empire being remodelled by agency immediately from hell, bears on all its members the evidence of its origin; its whole body is covered with blasphemous names. And this is, exactly what we might expect, from other parts of the word of God. The apostle Paul speaks of two distinct apostacies that should come during the Christian dispensation, the last being of a much more malignant nature than the first. Of both he speaks in his epistle to Timothy, representing the one as taking place "in the latter times," the other in "the last days." That these are not two different expressions for one and the same period, is clear, both from the way in which he speaks of the apostacy of the last days, and from the peculiar language of Peter, referring to the same apostacy, as distinctly predicted by Paul. Paul, although he had informed Timothy, in his first epistle, of the apostacy of "the latter times"; when he speaks, in his second epistle, of the apostacy of "the last days," does not speak of that apostacy as of a thing already known to Timothy, but as a piece of information altogether new.
"This know also," says he, "that in the last days perilous times shall come." Peter, again, when stirring up the pure minds of those to whom he wrote, by way of remembrance, of what they had heard on this very subject from his beloved brother Paul, as well as himself, uses a form of expression which distinctly carries us down to near the conclusion of the well known 1260 days. "Knowing this first," says he, "that there shall come at the extremity of the days scoffers walking after their own lusts." "The latter tines," then, and the "last days" of Paul, are entirely distinct; and the distinguishing characteristics of these two apostacies are also clearly marked. With regard to the first, "the Spirit speaketh expressly," says he, "that some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines concerning demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their consciences seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats." These are the leading characters of the apostacy as developed under the reign of the beast from the sea. These features of apostacy, we have every reason to believe, will continue to the end; but they will be aggravated and fearfully increased in malignity by the apostacy at the end of the days, which Paul thus describes: "This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come, when men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, BLASPHEMERS, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural aflection, truce breakers, false accusers, intemperate, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God." Here, then, according to the combined testimony of Paul and Peter, "scoffing" and "blasphemy," along with a dreadful train of kindred abominations, shall predominate before the fall of the Roman empire.
It is now not merely the supreme power of the empire that opens his mouth in blasphemy against God, but "men," mankind in general, are infected with the same outrageously "blasphemous" spirit. There is a fearful significance, then, in the symbol, when the beast from the bottomless pit is represented as "full of names of blasphemy."
The beast is represented as a "scarletcoloured beast." This is the first time that the beast appears in this colour. The great dragon is "red". The symbol of the dragon, though specially descriptive of the pagan empire, is so framed, as to include also the papal power, for it is said, that "its tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth." The "stars of heaven" are the ministers of Christ, and the casting of "the third part" of them to the earth, implies the apostacy of such of them as were in the western empire, "the third part" of the Roman world. This apostacy was not occasioned by pagan but by papal Rome. Now the dragon, so far as it represents both pagan and papal Rome, is represented merely as "red." The beast from "the abyss" on the other hand, is "scarlet-coloured." The scarlet of the ancients was "crimson," and was "twice dyed;" and this, there can be no doubt, points at the pre-eminent ferocity and blood-thirsty character of the beast in its last form. Pagan Rome persecuted with great cruelty the saints of the Most High. Papal Rome, under the beast from the sea, persecuted more fiercely still. But Rome under the beast from the bottomless pit, instinct in every part with the malice of hell, will outdo all its predecessors in deeds of blood. Even during the dark ages, the kings of the Roman world, inspired by natural feeling often cast their shield over their godly subjects, and screened them from the rage of the harlot. The Waldenses frequently enjoyed seasons of peace and tranquillity from this cause. But when secular power is, according to Paul's description, in the hands of men universally "without natural affection, intemperate, fierce, despisers of those that are good," no such compunctious visitings will be felt. Emnity against the truth will make their "feet swift to shed blood;" and to obey the behests of her who guides and controls their movements, and who will then give herself up to frantic excesses, such as the world has not yet seen.
Here, then, we have the three leading characteristics of the beast from "the abyss," or Roman empire in its last form. Its ten horns are discrowned; its whole body is pervaded with blasphemous names; it is "double dyed" with blood. To this conclusion we are led by a patient induction of particulars, comparing spiritual things with spiritual, from a mere consideration of the symbols of the prophetic page, with notllhlg before us but the history of the past, as reflecting light on the representations of God's inspired word. When we turn our eyes to the events of the present, now passing on the stage of time, do we see anything that gives confirmation to our anticipations, anything that answers to the prophetic description of the beast from the bottomless pit? We do. What is that monster form, which, within the last year, over wide Europe, in Paris, in Vienna, in Berlin, has been rais iDg its portentous head, perplexing monarchs, breaking society into pieces, and filling men's hearts with alarm It is the RED REPUBLIC.
The history, the character of the new power, that is beginning to glare in the eyes of the world, show that it exactly fulfils the conditions required by the prophetic symbols. 1st, it aims avowedly at the subversion of every throne, and the establishment of liberty, equality, and fraternity on their ruins. 2nd, It has its, origin directly from the bottomless pit. It is the offspring of those blasphemous principles of socialism and communism, with which the masses of Europe are infected to the core. The spirit that it breathes, bears distinct testimony to tile source whence it has sprung. "In this year 1848," says the Morning Post, "there are orgies of the 'red' people in France, in which they drink toasts to hell, and seem to long for that running riot in delirious sin, which wild imagination attributes to the damned." The doings of the same party throughout Germany, are marked by the same satanic spirit. The pantheistic philosophy, that had so long been taught in the schools and colleges of the Germans, has passed from the higher to the lower classes, and behold the result. "The usual bonds of social life," say the distinguished divines, who met at the recent great Witteniberg Assembly, the "usual bonds of social life are broken, law has become powerless, love is converted into hate. Exasperation prevails among the German races so nearly related to each other, property is insecure, and the poor, without labour and without bread, are left an easy prey to seducers and revolutionist's. The great cities are an arena of party feuds and reckless factions, of ingratitude, perfidy, and even assassination. It is as if the spirits of the abyss had ascended to seduce and betray us."1
One grand means of spreading the atheistic leaven among the mass of the people, is stated to be the HerbPrge, or tradesmen's house of call, established in all the cities where the corporation system is maintained, to which the travelling journeymen "who wander about in hundreds of thousands" from place to place, resort as to their rightful house of entertainment. The Herberge in its original institution, was useful and benevolent; but for long it has been a hot-bed of immorality. "What scenes are enacted within the Herberge," said Mr Wichern of Hamburg, at the meeting just referred to, "may not be rehearsed before a mixed assembly." Suffice it to say, that the most fearful orgies of the ancient heathens have therein been surpassed. From the days of Charles v., to the present time, efforts have been evade by successive governments, to stop or to lessen the evil; but though here and there checked, it has never been mastered.
These Herberges are the cradle of all political machinations. In them the A B C of democracy is taught, and many advance in the political catechism, systematically gone through, until the top stone is laid in red republicanism, and avowed atheism.2 In many of the cities of Germany, men trained in such schools through the newly given universal suffrage, have most of the political power in their hands, and of course, those whom they choose to represent them, reflect their views. In Hamburg, the man who has received the largest number of votes, as the representative of his townsmen in their new parliament, is William Marr, who has raised himself to a "bad eminence," by his heaven-daring blasphemies, and his unwearied promulgation of atheism. Let the reader peruse the following extracts from his book entitled "Young Germany," and he will see how lost and degraded must be the people who put him forth as the man whom they delight to honour. "I maintain," says he, "that the belief in a personal Deity, is the chief ground and originating cause of our present worm-eaten social system, and that so long as mankind clings, with the slenderest fibre, to the idea of a heaven, there is no hope of true happiness on earth." "Christianity," he says again, "and the existing order of things, which is built upon it, are the real cancerous sores of human society." And to crown all, thus daringly does he deity human nature: "Man by himself, man is the religion of the coming age. GOD STANDS IN NEED OF MAN (as his worshipper), BUT MAN HAS NO NEED OF GOD!"
Let such views spread, as they are but too likely, to do, and what a commentary do they afford upon the language of the Apostle, that in "the last days," not popes, not prelates or priests only, but "men," mankind in general shall be "blasphemers." And should "such men through the progress of democracy, only come to have the destinies of Europe in their hands," how strikingly will the state of the Roman empire correspond to the apocalyptic description ` of the "beast from the bottomless pit, full of names of blasphemy?" These sentiments of Marr are daring and blasphemous in the extreme, but there are many already in the "Reformed Legislative Assemblies," of the German fatherland, avowing precisely the same. "Similar to these," says the German correspondent of Evangelical Christendom, are the sentiments of Itzstein, Hecker, Simon of Treves, Vogt of Giessen, Held of Berlin, Jacobi of Konigsberg, and the larger portion of the extreme left, in the Frankfort parliament. Such were the sentiments of that wretched man, Robert Blum, who, after being by turns Jesuit, German catholic, and infidel, has expiated his sins against human law by a violent death. And such are the sentiments held by the aggregate of his sorrowing admirers throughout Germany, as may easily be inferred from the heathen honours paid to him, under the name of funeral obsequies.
3. As the new power is esscentially irreligious, so the very name and ensign which it displays, serve to identify it with the "scarlet-coloured beast." The Red flag, from which the Red Republic derives its name, was hoisted in opposition to the tricolor, as the avowed emblem of the guillotine, as the pledge of the determination of its partizans to reenact the "Reign of Terror," and to consolidate the communist republic they wished to erect, with the blood of all who opposed it, or who stood in its way. The three days of last June, when ten thousand men were slain in the streets of Paris, in the rebellion they excited, show the excesses to which they are prepared to go, to carry out their views. It is well known, that on that occasion, in spite of all the energy and military skill of Cavaignac, the city was within a hair's breadth of falling into their hands. They have avenged themselves on Cavaignac now, for the defeat they sustained from him than, by swelling the majority that have seated his rival in the presidential chair of the French Republic. The avowed advocates of the socialist republic have carried but few votes in comparison at the recent election. But is that to be held, as some would fain believe, as a proof of the feebleness of their cause? No they knew well what they were about, when they, bent all their energies, in the first place, to get their grand enemy out of the way. Cavaignac ruled them with a rod of iron; Cavaignac saved Paris from their bloody regime. That Louis Napoleon will be able for any length of time, to hold them in check, and rule them with as firm a hand as his predecessor, may well be doubted.
Wherever the partizans of the Red Republic appear, blasphemy and blood are their insepatable characteristics. Even amongst ourselves the same foul spirit lives and breathes. In the late chartist trials, this has been abundantly shown. Take a single specimen Charles Bowker, a man of genteel appearance, was convicted the other day, at Liverpool, for sedition and blasphemy; and sentenced to two years' imprisonment. From the evidence it appeared, that on Sunday morning, the 13th of August, the prisoner addressed a large meeting of chartists in the market place at Heywood. After reading a hynin from a Wesleyan hymn book, he proceeded to denounce all sects of religionists, and charged them with prearohing blasphemy, if they preached according to their Bibles and Prayer books. "I come here," said he, "to do good as Christ did good; and why should we not shed blood for the good of others? . . . If God was pleased with the shedding of Christ's blood, let them shed blood to redeem his people from under the oppressing hand of wicked men, such as Lord John Russell, Sir Robert Peel, and all the rest of the aristocratic murderers. I would wish to gain the rights of the people without the shedding of blood, or destroying of property; but if they cannot be gained without, let us at once unanimously agree, and assemble together to fight manfully for our rights; to destroy our enemies and oppressors, and to take, and, devour every thing before us: This is the will of God concerning those that oppress his children." The Men who cherish and avow such sentiments, have in the mean- time been put down by the strong arm of power; but there are thousands, and tens of thousands, among the depraved masses of our large towns, who have drunk deep of the same spirit, and who only wait an opportunity to display themselves.
But perhaps some may be inclined to say: How shall the reckless and blasphemous atheism of the Red Republicans ever harmonize with the abject and drivelling superstition of Rome? Is it not much more likely that if ever they gain the power at which they aspire, they will immediately skew their hatred to the whore by stripping her naked, and making her desolate, and burning her with fire? If there mere no other enemy to hate, no other adversary to oppose, this, in all likelihood, would be the case. When the witnesses shall at last be slain, when all testimony for Christ shall be suppressed, then shall the antipathy between atheism and superstition have scope to develop itself. But so long as infidelity and popery alike shall feel thenselves confronted by a living-Protestantism, so long. as they shall find in Christ's witnesses a common and a formidable enemy, that will meet them at every turn, and allow them no peace in their ungodly career; an offensive and defensive union may easily be cemented between these two seemingly repulsive and antagonist powers. When Christ was to be crucified, Herod and Pilate, though at enmity before, found it no difficult matter to be reconciled. To those who look only on the surface of things and who have seen the masses recently expelling the Jesuits from one quarter of continental Europe after another; it might seem a thing incredible, that Rome should ever again acquire that ascendant over these same masses, as is represented by the vision where the harlot is seen riding on the scarlet coloured beast. But those who have more deeply scrutinized the workings of the Roman Apostacy, will never venture to affirm beforehand what seemingly invincible obstacles the power of the Man of sin may not overcome. The mystery of iniquity, like the mystery of godliness, is unfathomable. "There is a power in Popery," says Adolphe Monod, "which God knows, and which the devil knows, but which I do not know." That power is felt at this hour in Great Britain, as a power which our most sharp-witted statesmen cannot cope with; and the queen of the nations, after three hundred years defiance of Rome, is now preparing to give up the contest in despair, and meekly to bow down and lick the very dust of her feet. That power is making large and rapid strides in republican America, and bids fair, at no distant period, to have the liberties of that boasted land of freedom entirely in her keeping. Already has the American congress been compelled to do homage to her claims, by calling Dr Hughes, the Popish bishop of New York, to preach before the assembled senators in the capitol. That power is rising rapidly in infidel and republican France. It is but two years since the chambers decreed the expulsion of the jesuits. And yet, When Pius IX., avowedly under jesuit influence, comes into distress for the breach of his pledges to his own subjects, the French National Assembly resolves, by a majority of about six to one, to come to his aid. Let no one then say, that Rome cannot tame the blaspheming atheists of the Red Republic, and render them obedient to her will. She can pander to every passion. She can suit herself to every taste. She can lead democrats and aristocrats alike in triumph at her chariot wheels. The union therefore may be easily effected: and when it is, then shall the grand crisis come. Then shall persecution be waged in the name of Liberty and Equality: Then shall the Woman calling herself the bride--the lamb's wife, be seen drunken, as she never yet has been, with "the blood of the saints and of the martyrs of Jesus."
I have said, "the union may easily be formed;" but while I write, there is not wanting evidence that would go far to show, that steps are being already taken to bring about that union. The socialists of France at least, seem disposed to meet the Church of Rome half way. Retaining all their atheism and licentiousness, they show a 'desire to sanctify them, by borrowing some of the forms of the Roman Catholic church. The following extract from the Morning Chronicle, as casting light upon the alliance, which the prophetic word leads us to expect between the "woman" and the "beast from the bottomless pit," is worthy of an attentive perusal. "The astounding presumption-the reckless ignorance, the audacious impiety of the socialist theorists, we have long looked at and listened to from a far. They have been in our ears so continually since February [1848], that we have almost begun to consider them as permanent phases of human aberration. But the present development-it strikes us that this is the proper expression of French socialism, is strikingly novel. It has on a sudden transformed itself into a direct conscious parody of Christianity. The approach of Christmas appears to have recalled to its leaders the hint contained in the well-known speech of poor Camille Desmoulins before the revolutionary tribunal. He in a random bravado, made the Founder of our faith the type of sans culottism.
These worthies seek to turn to socialist account the solemnities, the traditions of Roman Catholic Christianity. The scriptural narratives of the nativity, the passion, the crucifixion, and the ascension, are expounded in a new and monstrous sense. The holy teaching of the sacred volume, is made to communicate the doctrinal impurities of Leroux. The one great figure which fills the scene depicted in these pages, has its place usurped, and its preeminence overshadowed, by the pretensions of Raspail and Lagrange. Names the most awful are mingled in the invocations addressed to the foul deities embraced in the Republican Hagiology. Let us drink, says the speaker, to Jesus Christ, to Couthon, to St Just, and to Robespierre. The language in which the ordinances of this precious dispensation are conveyed, is no less curious than its subjects. Scriptural phrases are of course largely intermixed; and altogether, we venture to say, that mysticism never spoke in a tongue so admirably calculated to bewilder the weak, and turn the stomach of the wary. Were it constantly adopted, we have no doubt, but that as the authors of this movement desire; attention would be effectually diverted from the real projects of the banqueters, the real source of their inspiration, and their real plan of action.
Such is the statement of the Morning Chronicle. The Parisian correspondent of Evangelical, Christendom, also refers to it at great length, as one of the most startlina phenomena henomena of the day. "I have to call your attention," says he, "to a new invention of the socialists: their banquets in honour of Jesus Christ; banquets for all the festivals of the Church. The neophytes of socialism have a mania for being called Christians. In vain do pious men of all denominations tell them that they have no right to that sacred title; in vain do their own writings prove that they deny the fundamental doctrines of the gospel; their part is taken, their opinion decided; christians they will be, in spite of every body." After alluding to two other banquets of this description, the same writer describes a third got up by socialist females: "The first address," says he, "delivered by a socialist democrat female, was entitled Sermon on the Mount. Another lady proposed a toast to the Virgin Mary, St Simon, Fourier, &c." " Women," said she, in her enthusiasm, "if we desire to transform a society, let us take the divine Mary as a model. Let her name be blessed among women . . . . . Glory to St Simon! glory to Fourier! glory to all peoples! May they be united among themselves! Glory to all the suffering exiles! To the fraternity then: it will put God on our side." Another proposed the following toast: "To the living Christ, to the French people!" And she sought to prove that there was a complete analogy between Jesus Christ and the French people.3 It is stated by Paul, that though the "heady, high-minded blasphemers" of the last apostacy had "cast of the power of godliness," still they desired to retain "the form" of it. And here we find the socialists, after repudiating "a personal Deity," without which religion is an empty name, still determined to have something in the form of a religion.
This new phase of socialism will not escape the piercing eye of Rome; and if she finds it necessary, or for her interest, to pay court to the men of the Red Republic, she will not hesitate for a moment what to do. Popery, in its first phase, was "baptised Paganism;" in its last, it seems destined to appear as "baptised atheism."
Now, if the Red Republic be indeed what is prefigured by the symbols before us; who would not admire the wisdom and goodness of God in causing the adoption of the red flag, and the currency of the very name, at the precise period when it most concerns his people that they should be aware of the perilous times which are at hand, and be preparing accordingly. This is altogether in accordance with the established usages of prophecy. The Lord does not merely give symbols that are significant of ideas; but symbols that shall have their visible counterpart in the history of the world, and thus be the more likely to attract the attention of men. The sight of the triple crown, with which the papal head has been so long encircled, has helped the people of God in all ages, to see in the Pope "the little horn whose look was more stout than his fellows, and before whom three kings fell." When the Christians saw Jerusalem encompassed with armies, and the silver eagles of the Roman legions glittering the sun, how emphatically would they recall to their mind the saying of the Lord, "Wheresoever the carcase is, there shall the eagles be gathered together." And so, in like manner, when near the close of the predicted 1260 days, we see all of a sudden, the red flag of the Red Republic beginning to gleam throughout Europe, ought not that to inspire the inquiry, if the new power be not indeed the scarlet beast, with its ten discrowned horns, that, shortly before the judgment on Babylon, was to ascend from the bottomless pit, and make war on the witnesses and kill them?
Nay, the very shock that has recently been given to the temporal power of the papacy, gives the strongest possible confirmation to the view I have been endeavouring to establish; that a time of trouble for the saints is approaching, and that, in that crisis, Rome is to direct the onslaught that is to be made upon them. Many are disposed to think, that if the temporal sovereignty of the Pope were gone, of which there is now every prospect, Popery can persecute no longer. But let it not be forgotten, how it was with Jerusalem, the type, of which Rome is the antitype. It was after the sceptre had departed from Judah, and a lawgiver from between his feet, after the chief priests were constrained to say, "It is not lawful for us to put any man to death;" that she consummated her guilt by crucifying Christ, and persecuting the saints most cruelly. Though Jerusalem had then no temporal power of her own, yet she found means to employ the civil power of Caesar to work her bloody will.
And does not the very symbol by which the Romish Church is represented, when she appears in conjunction with the "scarlet-coloured beast," indicate this very thing? In league, with the beast from the sea, the church of Rome is represented as a "beast with two horns" 4--as possessed in itself of both temporal and spiritual power. In league with the beast from the bottomless pit, it is a "woman" arrayed with every thing imposing and attractive. This is the first time that the apostate chutch in the Apocalypse appears as a "woman." Now we have seen already, that the change of symbol in regard to the secular empire, implies the appearance of that empire in a new and altered please. By parity of reasoning, we may expect, that a change in the symbol representing the church, must be significant of some transformation there also.
At all times, the Papal church, as an apostate and idolatrous church, might without impropriety be characterized as the "mother of harlots." But it is now only, as coming events cast their shadows before, that the symbol in question begins to stand out in its full force and propriety, in bold and beautiful relief. What is the idea, that the "woman," as contra distinguished from the "two-horned beast," is fitted to convey? Is it not plainly intended to represent the Roman church as destitute of all physical power in itself, and relying only for its sway over men's minds, upon its spiritual charms and fascinations. Let the classical reader call to mind the well known ode of Anacreon, in regard to the power of woman. "Nature," says the Greek bard, "gave horns to bulls, swiftness of foot to hares, yawning teeth to lions, fins to fishes, wings to birds, wisdom to man. What did she give to woman? Beauty, which is instead of all shields and all spears, and enables her who possesses it, to vanquish both fire and sword." Compare this with the description of the beautiful "harlot," as given in the opening verses of the 17th chapter of the Apocalypse where she is represented as seducing all the inhabitants of the earth, both rulers and subjects, by the witchery of her fascinations; and doubt, if it be possible, that the image points to that very new phase of the Romish Church on which she is now manifestly entering. If the ten horns of the Roman empire are destined to lose their crowns, beyond all question the Pope's triple crown must go along with them. And striking it is to see, that just as the Red Republic appears above the horizon, that movement begins at Rome which, there can be no doubt, will in due time extinguish the temporal sovereignty of the Roman Pontiff.5
If I have been correct ininterpreting the symbols of the "scarlet-coloured beast," and the "woman," then it inevitably follows, that the jubilation of those who have seen in the recent events at Rome, the immediate precursors of the downfall of Antichrist, and the advent of the millennium, must be premature. These interpreters of Providence and prophecy fondly imagine that the subversion of the Pope's temporal throne gives a death-blow also to his spiritual dominion. But far-seeing men at Rome, who have a deep interest in the subject, look upon the events now in progress in a very different light. "In our own times," says Father Prout, the Roman correspondent of the Daily News, writing in December last, "in our own times the Papacy has relapsed into its mere spiritual essence twice, under the two popedoms of Pius VI. and VII.; but these occurrences were from without, by external pressure, and accidental combinations. The Popedom had a recuperative energy within the Roman states, but now the disconnecting agency is from within; and for the first time, the Romans have declared that no priest shall hold king's authority in Rome. The effects of this extraordinary revolution by far the greatest that has marked the current year, are not dreamed of by parties engaged in its accomplishment, nor perhaps by the superficial reader of a newspaper. Far from being fatal to the great Western church, called Catholic, (and by accident Roman), it is the harbinger of a new vitality; and by the destruction of the mere Italian exclusiveness, which has been a corroding ulcer for ages, that church will really become what it scarcely has been of late--universal, and instead of being under the narrow management of an Italian club, will seek for intellect, virtue, and sagacity throughout the range of Christendom, and recruit its staff no longer from the petty boundaries of a very ignorant territory, but from the whole domain of civilized Europe and America." In confirmation of this view, the author makes a statement which is not unworthy of notice. "There are now," says he, "sixty cardinals, and out of that whole number of dignitaries, in whom there is supposed to reside some undefined and nebulous claim to regulate the church of God, only seven belong to Europe and the world, the rest belonging to his peninsula, including Sicily and Sardinia." Now while the "princes of the church" are thus taken almost exclusively from the Italian soil, the church of Rome cannot stand on so broad or firm a foundation, as if the college of cardinals were thrown open to the world. If the abolition of the pope's temporal sovereignty have, as it is almost sure to have, the effect of reversing the present system, then it is not difficult to see how it may only be the means of consolidating the apostate church, and putting her in a better position than ever to receive the homage of "the peoples, and kindreds, and nations, and tongues" of "the earth, and the whole world."
1"Call to Repentance" in Evangelical Christendom, November 1848.
2Evengelical Christiandom Jan. 1849
3Evangelical Christendom Feb. 1849
4The two swords carried before the Pope, fit his coronation, form the best comment of this.
5While this is passing through the press, that which is spoken of above as a probibility, has become a fact. The Pope, "a temporal prince, has ceased to rein. On the 8th February, the Roman constituents, while carefully guarding his spiritual supremacy, decreed by an overwhelming majority - l36 to 8, that "Papacy has fallen, de facto and de jure, from the temporal throne of the Roman state."