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After having adopted the erroneous opinion, that the beast from the sea, signifies the Roman empire, and the twohorned beast the spiritual empire of the Papacy; he is put to the sad necessity, in order to disentangle himself, to assert, that the two-horned beast and the mystic harlot are the same. But the mystic harlot is evidently distinguished from the second beast; which now exists and acts in the character of false prophet, as it has already been termed under the sixth vial. How then can she be the false prophet, and the scarlet whore at the same time? Moreover, this opinion is totally irreconcilable with the prophetic chronology, and internal order of this prophecy; by which we are constrained, to consider the first rise of the ten-horned beast as limited to the first blast of the seventh trumpet, and consequently, that of the twohorned beast a considerable time posterior to that event. But surely, the harlot is of a more ancient date than either of them chap. 11, 20. and has existed together with them, during the whole time of their continuance. For there can be no regal authority and power exercised, without a kingdom; and this was the precise state of relation between this woman and the ten-horned beast, during his five first heads. She was then the kingdom of the beast in which he exercised his authority. But here during the reign of the sixth head, St. John saw the former order of this spiritual monarchy wholly reversed; the ruling power of the papal hierarchy was now degraded to a mere hackney of this great harlot, who rode him in triumph, and managed him at her pleasure. Faber has not made the necessary distinction between the Papal hierarchy and the Romish Church. A beast may typify the Papacy, or the Roman hierarchy ; but a beast never represents a Church, nor a woman regal government.

Verse 2. With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication. The kings of the earth, are the kings of the Latin Church in ancient and modern times, chap. XVIII,

9. Idolatry and false worship are termed fornication in the writings of the ancient prophets, for two reasons. First, because the Pagans worshipped their deities Astarti and Venus, by committing this crime with lewd women, consecrated to the service of those idols; and also connected the perpetration of this detestable vice, with all their idolatry. They even served up particular dishes at the feasts, instituted in honour of their Gods, which excited to sensual pleasures.* But secondly, the principal reason seems to be, because the true worship of God, in spirit and in truth, has the nature and merit of a spiritual union with the Lord, II Cor. x1, 2; hence idolatry, or a false worship, is termed fornication and adultery. The kings of the earth are charged with this crime at the bar of heaven, because they have forsaken the true Church, and established, practised and protected this false worship in their kingdoms.

And the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk. These are the common multitude of earthly-minded men, who live as if this world was their only state of existence and are careless about their eternal interest. These, and these only are intoxicated by her wine of superstition, and incensed by a burning zeal for her defence and propagation.

Verse 3. So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness. The mind of the holy Seer of heavenly visions, was now again fixed in a state of excessive elevation, or extacy, and it appeared as if the angel moved him forward through the air to a considerable distance epnuov, into a wilderness. The prophet Isaiah calls the Land of Palestine a wilderness, at the time of John the Baptists preaching, on account of the corrupted uncultivated and wretched state of the Church of God among the Jews of that period, where there was a great want

*See Bochart, and Clerk, and Michaelis on Bibl. Hebr. Lev. xv11, 7.

of spiritual nourishment. Isa. XL, 3. In this sense. of the word, St. John terms the whole see of the Papacy, and particularly Italy and Rome a spiritual wilderness, where the former garden of the Lord, again brought forth wild productions, such as image-worship, Pagan rites and ceremonies, sin and errour, but on the coutrary little sustenance for immortal souls. For John here uses the word wilderness without the definite article, by which he indicates, that he took it in a somewhat different sense from that in chapter xn, to which otherwise, it would have had a full reference.

I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet-coloured beast. Some authors have considered this a different beast, from that described in the xuth chapter. I myself was of this opinion, before I entered into the marrow of the subject; but a more minute investigation dispersed the cloud for ever. I can now assert with confidence, that this chapter is a continuation and elucidation of the prophetic history of the beast from the sea, and immediately connects itself with the 8th verse of the xuth chapter. In that chapter the beast is described in its rise and first state of Existence, while he rules and rages alone in prosperity; and here he is represented in his state, of Non-existence, where he has lost his former personal power and authority, and merely continues a beast for the accomodation of the har lot. To this state of degradation he has been reduced, by the pouring out of the vials of wrath; and the great harlot, the city of Rome in connexion with the nations which are members of the Romish Church, has now mounted, bridled and managed him at pleasure, since the year 1798. This beast was (in power) and now is in a state of non-existence. Surely thus far this prophecy is accomplished beyond contradiction. He will soon rise again from the bottomless pit, and fill a slumbering world with terrible apprehensions and awe. When he firstarose, he was spotted like a leopard, but now he appear

ed to St. John of a scarlet-colour; indicating the sanguinary tyranny of his former reign, and the present resemblance of the political schemes of that court, to those of the red dragon, chap. x11, in order again to rid himself of the whore, and reach his long sought object of universal dominion at last. His names of blasphemy have been explained chap. xi, and the heads and horns will be resu med at the 9th verse.

Verse 4. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour; 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.

The Revelation delights in the figurative style of the ancient Asiatics. I could produce abundance of testimony from the writings of the prophets, the Zend-Avesta, &c. that it was a customary figure in the religious language of the Orientals, to express the moral state of a soul, Church, or religious society, by raiments of different value and colours. Thus Holy garments signify holiness of heart; robes, the righteousness of Christ, Isa. LXI, 10; holy armour, the exercise of vital religion, Ephes. vi, 11; filthy garments, vice and iniquity, Isa. LXIV, 6. Zech. 111, 4; fine and soft raiment, effeminacy and pollution, Math. x1, 8. Thus as to the different colours, White is a figure of holiness, righteousness and justice, Rev. xx, 11. XIX, 14. vi, 14; scarlet and crimson, indicates a state of great corruption, or crimes of a deep die, Isa. 1, 18.

Zend-Avesta T. III. p. 616. Kosti 713. ra oλa rov Owros, ngbes of light, see Rom. xii, 12. oλisas apud Homerum est appara: re, instruere, ornare.

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According to this explanation, the actual garment of this harlot may represent her state of great corruption. For purple anciently was a deep red, and scarlet a more bright red colour; and thus the whore has more of the red colour, than even the beast during his state of non-existence. If this is not the true meaning, it must signify her boasting pretensions to pre-eminence, as being the most ancient, the only catholic, the only infallible, and exclusively the only Church of Christ in the world, beyond the pales of which there is no salvation.†

Decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls. This does not denote her female attire itself, but refers to the ornaments with which she had adorned and embellished it, in order to captivate her lovers, and engage their affection. They are objects of rare, intrinsic worth and value, and may refer to the holy scriptures, the traditions of the fathers and the religious writings of former ages, of which she pretends to have possessed the only archives; to the holy relics of antiquity, which she has preserved; and to her exorbitant pretensions of holding the general treasury of all good works of supererogation in the Church of Christ on earth, I Cor. 111, 12. Isa. LX, 17. Math. vii, 45. II Tim. 11, 20. With these things she was gilded, though inwardly a corrupt prostitute, sold to infamy and wickedness in the sight of the Lord.

A golden cup. The precious metal of this cup refers to the great riches of the Romish Church, the costly decorations of her temples, images and pompous ceremonies, and to her whole external splendour in worship, by which she has deluded the weak and the ignorant into a compliance. The cup however, was full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication, which, as an allusion to Jer.

†n wogQvga, purpura, per métonymiam est flos purpuræ, ut & color inde factus. Deinde pannus purpureus, & toga pretexta, tum magistratus, quia imperatorum & regum insigne erat apud Romanos.

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