explanatory to St. John (to the symbolic man St. John) of its causes and reasonableness. Such is God's usual method, when about to execute any very notable act of vengeance. He shews his Church its justice beforehand : thereby at once vindicating his own honour, and giving warning to such of his people as may thus far have been deceived by the offending party, to separate from it, and so escape its doom.'-The desert local scene of the symbolization here shewn St. John, and also its mode and author, deserve remark, and will be observed on afterwards. As to the substance of the vision, which represented pictorially before him a gaudily-dressed drunken Harlot, seated on a Beast of monstrous form, with seven heads, and on the seventh (itself growing out of the cicatrice of a former excised seventh2) ten horns, -it has been for the most part fully explained in a preceding chapter of this work. For I have there discussed at large the mystery of this Beast, with his seven, or rather eight heads and ten horns; besides adding passing notices also of the woman his rider. It is to be understood that, as the Beast, in respect of its body, depicted the Papal Empire of the ten Western European kingdoms, and, in respect of its seventh or rather eighth head, the succession of Roman Popes, constituting from after the 6th century that empire's spiritual rulers,-so the woman So in the angel's declaration to Lot, Gen. xix. 12, 13, before the destruction of Sodom; in Jeremiah's prophetic denunciation of the Chaldean Babylon's guilt and fatal overthrow, Jer. li. 6, &c; and in those by Christ, and afterwards by his apostle St. James against the guilty Jerusalem, just before its destruction by the Romans. 2 Apoc. xiii. 3; "And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded unto death, and the deadly wound was healed." 3 Part iv, chap. iv. 4 In further illustration and confirmation of my exposition of this most important point in the Apocalyptic prophecy, let me add from the Romish Arabic version of the Canons of the Nicene Council a Papal comment to the very same effect. "Romæ qui sedem tenet caput est et princeps omnium Patriarcharum; quandoquidem ipse est primus, sicut Petrus :-cui data est potestas in omnes Principes Christianos, et omnes populos eorum, ut qui sit Vicarius Christi Domini nostri, super cunctos populos et universam Ecclesiam Christianam." Hard. i. 469. Thus, first, he who held the Roman See was, as Peter's successor, the chief and head of all Patriarchs, or was in his priestly character the head of the Church so far associated with the city :-the apostate Church's False Prophet being to the last in company and alliance with the Beast. Compare what is said at the close of this chapter of the treading of the vine being without the city; and so too apparently the locality of the war of Armageddon. represented Rome in its character of the Papal See, and Mother Church of the apostate churches of Western Christendom; including doubtless, as part and parcel of herself, the Ecclesiastical state, or Peter's Patrimony, in Italy and the vast domains, convents, churches, and other property appertaining to the Papal Church elsewhere, both in Europe and over the world. Which premised, there seems nothing more needed, in order to the complete exposition of the vision, than the observations following. 1st, that, as in the emblem the Beast's body both upheld, and was subject to, the Woman the rider, so the Empire, as a whole, with the power of its ten secular kingdoms and many peoples, upheld, and was also at the same time ruled by, Papal Rome, the Mother Church of Christendom: (not to add that the Pope too for the time being, or Beast's ruling Head, fully concurred and took part in the same act; sustaining his Church upon the seven hills, even as one married to it,2 to use the phraseology of the Roman Law; and gloryingly up-bearing and exhibiting her, somewhat as the heathen Jove might be represented as carrying, or ridden by, his concubine:)* whole priesthood of Christendom, i. e. of the Apocalyptic False Prophet. But, besides this, he had a different and a higher character, that of CHRIST'S VICAR: (rather Antichrist :)-in which astounding dignity he was above, and ruler of, all people, kings included, throughout all Christendom; that is, the Head of the Apocalyptic antichristian Beast. See Vol. iii. p. 172. 1 Vitringa understands the Great City in its largest sense, and as comprehending its decem-regal empire, both in xi. 13, where a tenth part of the city is said to have fallen, and in xvi. 16, where it is said to have been divided into three parts; but in this xviith chapter he understands it in the strictest sense of the City of Rome exclusively. And so too Daubuz, p. 800. I think it more reasonable however to understand it, as I have done, with a larger latitude: else how could the ten kings generally take their part, at God's set time, in "eating her flesh," &c.—It is observable that both in Jeremiah's Lamentations, Jerusalem personified is spoken of sometimes as Judah; (compare Lam. i. 3. 7, &c, &c :) and that in the medals struck after the Roman capture of Jerusalem, the personified city has the legend Judæa Capta. See Vol. iii. p. 150, Notes 2 and 3.-"The proud Church of Rome," says Bale in fitter phrase, "the paramour of Antichrist."-So, in the medals of ancient Rome, the Roma Dea was sometimes depicted as crowning the Emperor, sometimes crowned by the Emperor. 3 "Necessitas imponit marito mulieris sustentationem sufferre." Ulpian. Digest. 1. 2 tit. 3. leg. 22. 4 Daubuz illustrates from a picture of the rape of Europa, as described by Achilles Tatius, the manner in which we may consider the woman to have sate on the Beast; viz. sideways, as women generally ride in our country. He says Η παρθενος μέσοις επεκαθήτο τοις νωτοις του βοος, ου περιβάδην, αλλα κατα πλευραν επι δεξια συμβασα τω ποδέ. Erot. Lib. i. 3 -2. That as the woman was here depicted before St. John under a double character, viz. as a harlot to the ten kings, and a vintner or tavern-hostess vending wines to the common people,1 (just according to the custom of earlier times in which the harlot and the hostess of a tavern were characters frequently united,2) so the Church of Rome answered to the symbol in either point of view: interchanging mutual favours, such as might suit their respective characters, with the kings of Anti-Christendom; and to the common people dealing out for sale, the wine of the poison of her fornication, her indulgences, relics, transubstantiation-cup, as if the cup of salvation, &c, (see the Pope's own most illustrative medal pointing the application,) therewith drugging, and making them besotted and drunk :-3. that with regard to the portraiture of the woman, "robed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls,"" it is, as applied to the Romish Church, a picture characteristic and from the life; the dress specified being distinctively that of the Romish ecclesiastical dignitaries, and the ornaments those with which it has been bedecked beyond any Under a different kind of figure, the great City of the seven hills is represented elsewhere as the ruling Pope's throne and seat. So Apoc. xiii. 2; "The Dragon gave him up his power and his throne:" that is, on the seven hills; spoken of also xvi. 10. Similarly Zion is at one time represented in scripture as the Lord's throne, at another as his spouse: e. g. Jer. iii. 17, Isa. lxii. 5. 1 Compare Apoc. xvii, 4, "Having a golden cup in her hand, full of abominations and the filthiness of her fornication; xiv. 8, Babylon hath fallen because she hath made all nations to drink of the wine of her fornication; " and xviii. 3, She hath made all the nations to drink of the wine of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her." 2 So Daubuz.-For example, the reader may remember disquisitions in vindication of the character of Rahab, founded on the frequent identity of the wavdoχους and the πόρνη. 3 See Note p. 67. suprà. Mede too thus construes the word Ovus, as Daubuz. First struck just after the commencement of the 6th Vial's outpouring; and exhibited now first to the Protestant world just before the 7th Vial's effusion ;the precise time, if I mistake not, that the vision is to be referred to. Compare this example of allusive contrast with that given Vol. ii. p. 58. In an ancient medal imperial Rome is also figured as a Woman sitting on the seven hills, and with her right hand also extended: but in that case the right hand holds an image of l'ictory, not a cup; and her left a sword, not a cross. (Rasche iv. 1144.) The contrast is striking. The comment of Tichonius is, "Ornatu vario et lapidibus pretiosis; id est omnibus illecebris simulatæ veritatis." (Qu. virtutis ? ) For these colours appertain to the ecclesiastical dignitaries, I believe, of no other church existing ;—e. g. neither of the Greek, Armenian, Coptic, nor English. |