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ditions we laid down: First, that he was to arise after, or behind, and amongst, the other horns: Secondly, that he was to be diverse from them, by his eyes and mouththat is, that he was to add to the temporal power of the horn, the ecclesiastical character of the eye, and the prophetical or ministerial character of the mouth: Thirdly, that his political actions were to be, first, supremacy, or dominion over the other horns; and, secondly, plucking up by the roots three of them: while his spiritual actings were to be, first, blasphemies against God; and, secondly, warfare against the saints. In all these respects having tried and proved the identity of the little horn with the pope, we then proceeded to try this question by the Fourth and last condition, which is, the period of his dominion over the saints, expressed thus: " They shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time." In the examination of which point we have shewn, first, what is meant by the saints being given into his hand, to be worn out, and to be made war upon; and, secondly, what is meant by "time, times, and the dividing of time.” Now, with respect to the former of these points, which is the giving of the saints into his hand, two opinions have been taken up by commentators, which we considered as by no means to be approved: the first, that the time is to be dated from the pope's attaining a temporal sovereignty, in the time of Charlemagne or his father; the second, that it is to be dated from the time of his being created universal bishop, in the reign of Phocas, the Emperor of the East. At the same time, while we rejected these two hypotheses, as not fulfilling the conditions of the question, we have brought forward, and justified from all objections, the period of Justinian's famous decrees, passed in the year 533, in order to give all the churches of the Western empire into the hands of the pope of Rome, without any appeal. From which time,

reckoning onward 1260 years, or "a time, times, and half a time," during which the saints were given into the hands of the little horn - always bearing in mind, that in the Scriptures, and indeed all over the earth unto this day, they always include, in any number of days or years, that day or year which is running--we come to the year 1792: at the end of which-that is, six months of the 1260th

year being run-we arrive at the famous era of the French Revolution. And from this time we should expect to find the saints delivered out of the hand of the Papacy, under which they had been so long oppressed : for it is manifest, from the 21st and 22d verses, that there is no interval of time between the domination of the little horn and the beginning of his judgments; and that he is stopped and interrupted in his oppression of the saints by a judgment coming upon him: "I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them; until the Antient of Days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the Most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom.'

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It remains now to the completeness of this interpretation. of the fifth seal, that we shew forth in order the succession of MARTYRS, which were slain by the pope and by the ten kings whom he had reduced under his dominion. The beginning of the papal power over the saints is, as we have said above, properly fixed at the time when Justinian the emperor set forth his armament under Belisarius against the Africans, to put an end to the Arian persecutions there: but it was a good while before the little horn or pope attained to such authority over the ten-horned beast, or Western empire, as that he might dare to use the kings for his own wicked ends against the light of truth and the life of their own subjects. the Roman wickedness was of too proud and heaven-mocking a character to descend to execute her own spiritual censures, but used the kings of the earth as her tools and servants for such work. And therein consisted the copartnery of kings with her guilt, that they preferred to execute her bloody mandates, rather than to be the fathers and righteous judges of their people: and for this obsequious listening to the priest of Rome, one of the subjects, and not one of the rulers, they are judged along with him, "because of the words which the little horn spake," and which they, in the progress of darkness and delusion, were fain to carry into effect.

The description of the second glorious army of martyrs, is contained in various parts of this book (xii. 17, xiv. 11, xv. 2, xx. 4); and in the last cited passage it stands in distinction from that of the first army, who are named

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they that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God;" while the second are designated thus, they which had not worshipped the beast neither his image, neither had received his mark in their foreheads or in their hands." This style hath its origin from the symbols of the xiiith chapter, and to understand it, some brief exposition of that chapter is indispensible. That chapter, together with the xiith and the xvii th, contains the mystery of the fourth beast of Daniel in her actings against the saints, under her threefold spirits,-(1) of Paganism, (2) Popery, and (3) Infidelity: (1) with the crowns upon the heads, and not upon the horns; (2) with the crowns upon the horns and blasphemy on the heads; (3) with crowns neither upon the heads nor horns, and names of blasphemy over the whole body; (1) great red dragon, whose name is the devil and satan; (2) beast from the sea, of monstrous form; (3) beast from the bottomless pit, scarlet coloured. Yet, in all of these the identity of the beast, his embodied form, his heads and his horns, and his disposition of enmity to the saints, is one and the same. But under these different spirits, he enacteth three different actions; of which the first (ch. xii.) is to destroy the woman's seed, the manchild, the body of the primitive martyred ones, who inflict upon him a sore disgrace and loss of dignity; the second is to make war with the remnant of her seed, who have still their pilgrimage to accomplish; and the third action is with his ten kings, to levy direct war against the Lamb and those that are with him. To the second of these actions, the action of the xiii th chapter, the fifth seal hath respect, and from it the style of the second company of martyrs is derived. Let us explain that chapter in as few words as are sufficient to explain the designation of the second class of martyrs, "which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark in their foreheads or in their hands."

The beast which obtaineth the worship, is that beast which arose out of the sea, and to which the " dragon gave his power and his seat and great authority;" for it is written (xiii. 4), "And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?" But the cause of this worship is another beast which ariseth out of the earth, of whom it is

said (ver. 12), that he "causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed." This same agent and promoter of false worship doth also obtain no mean portion to himself; by making an image to the form which he hath power to quicken into life, and to make his own use of as is expressed in the following words, which give origin to the style or designation of the second martyr band: "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 name (xiii. 15-17). These very remarkable notices give us to know that the power, and the honour, and the government, and the religion, are divided during this long period of forty-and-two months, between two powers, which are linked together, and work into one another's hands, to the end of obtaining a most absolute sway over the lives and liberties and homage and worship of mankind, at least of that portion of mankind within the bounds of the earth. These two powers are contemporaneous beyond all question, forasmuch as the one is said to obtain worship for the other, and to exercise all his power before him or in his presence (ver. 12), and to do miracles in his sight (ver. 14): and not only contemporaneous but conjunct in all their power and actings. Furthermore, it is manifest that the latter which comes out of the earth, over which the other rules, is as it were his issue or offspring, his image, his agent of deception, his promoter of worship, his prophet (the false prophet who did miracles before him, xix. 20); and finally, that though two in subsistence they are but one in substance, having one name of which the number is according to the number of a man, six hundred threescore and six. It requires very little theological sagacity to discern that the mystery thus set forth in mockery and mummery of Satan, is the mystery of the Father and the Son; two persons and one substance, power or name; the one the Image and the Prophet of the other, his issue and his offspring. This, which is the

mystery of godliness, being set up in mimicry and mockery on the earth, is the mystery of iniquity, let and hindered by the Pagan empire, and not able to form itself till Paganism was subverted (2 Thess. ii.); which being accomplished in the four seals, its action is straightway exhibited in the fifth. Now, though, as we have shewn above, the pope, or little horn of Daniel, received his power by the solemn act of Justinian transferring the Western churches into his hand, in the year of our Lord 532, from which time he began to act, yet did it require many centuries. before he was able to perfect that wonderful system of delusion, which is represented in the xiiith chapter of this book. He came up out of the earth that very year, when the earth helped the woman against the poisoned waters of the Arian nations, which Satan cast out of his mouth, with the view of carrying her away as with a flood. The same edicts which went forth against the Vandals of Africa and the Goths of Italy, gave birth to the papal power as an authority separate from the state, constituting the bishop of Rome the head of all the Western churches. But it required more than two centuries to disengage his feeble power from the fierce and fearless nations who overrun Italy, and possessed it, holding neither him nor the emperor of the East in any reverence. And not till the year 800 was the wounded head healed again, and the emperors of the West reconstituted in the person of Charlemagne. From which time forth there were two powers, the political and the ecclesiastical, existing in the same region; a beast out of the earth, and a beast out of the sea; under the head which had been wounded, but now is healed again. And it is remarkable how, at this time also, they worked to each other's hands; Charlemagne constituting him the feudal sovereign of large territories, and he constituting Charlemagne the emperor of the West. But still he had not constituted in himself any likeness or image to the imperial power, and though in the right of exclusive jurisdiction over the clergy, claimed and acted upon in the time of the First Gregory (A. D. 600), this was already begun, it was not perfected till the time of the Seventh Gregory (A. D. 1050), who was the first to exercise the power of interdicting the emperors and kings, which came afterwards to be exercised with such frequency in all the kingdoms of the empire. Now, however

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