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and most contemptible of all. For she has the presumption and arrogance to say, I am the queen of all the kingdoms, churches and cities of the world; I hold St. Peters chair, and the keys to heaven and hell, and beyond my pales there is no salvation; I shall never be a widow, for Christ my spouse is an immortal husband; I shall see no sorrow, for Rome is deam urbem æternam, a goddess, an eternal city, and the chair of the Pope will be permanent, Isa. xLvil, 5.7. 8.

At this period mystic Babylon seems to consider her. self in perfect security, and in the possession of her dominions, power and grandeur ; but her fall will be the greater, and her destruction the more unexpected. Mourning, famine, conflagration and death will overwhelm her in one day, i. e. in a short time, like a thief in the night, and crush her for ever. For strong as she may presume herself to be her power is nothing in the balance of omnipot ence; all nations and cities are to him as a drop in the bucket, counted as the small dust of the balance; when his patience ceases, then are his judgments terrible.

Verse 9. And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornica

tion, and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of ber burning.

10. 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.

11. And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her for no man buyeth their merchandise any more.

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Here the holy prophet beheld Rome on fire-the whole city involved in one general flame-a conflagration more dreadful than that of Moscow, for the manner in which it is set on fire, and the alarming appearnce of its raging streams. It is not unlikely that the ten kings may set it on fire during the siege; but this prophecy seems more particularly to indicate, that also nature herself will join

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them on this occasion to effect her utter destruction, so ás even to make it a desolation to the end of time. ific travellers have informed us, that the country about Rome, is a kind of Bitumen, or pitchy substance, which makes it a storehouse of fire. In the year 80 of the Christian era, a fire burst out from the earth in the middle of the city, which consumed four of the principal Heathen temples, with the sacred buildings of the capital, before it could be extinguished. We are all acquainted with the burning mountains Vesuvius, Etna and others, whose subterraneous fires have been raging, and undermining the bowels of the earth in those parts, for many centuries; which might soon by natural process be converted into means to execute the vengeance of God on this devoted city. Indeed it would appear from its occuring so sudden ly, in one day ver. 8, and in one hour ver. 10, that this judgment shall not be executed by ordinary means.

Her smoke rises up like the smoke of a furnace, and upon this terrible sight, three classes of men begin a great and bitter lamentation, and bewail her dreadful fate. They are the kings, the merchants, and the masters of ships; all of whom had formerly been in her interest, and derived temporal benefits from her connexion. The kings of the earth are those, who in times past had been guilty of fornication with her, and had lived sumptuously at her table of spiritual delicacies; among whom there may even be some of the ten kings, but mostly others who were not concerned. Now, since the beast has been nurtured to full growth by their neglect and political jealousies, they can do no more than mourn; had they stifled him while young, just as he ascended out of the abyss, they might have prevailed against him, and would not at this time move, or tremble at his nod. They are too weak to draw near and attempt any thing; they remain at a distance. and lament her destruction, The great city! the mighty

city! This is the judgment of the great whore, which the angel, chap. XVII, 1. invited St. John to behold.

In this lamentation the kings are joined by the merchants, who cannot be understood to be temporal merchants in a literal sense; for the loss of ten such cities would not be matter of such great grief to them. They would not say, that now no man would buy their merchandise any more; because if they cannot trade to one city, they go to another, and find the whole world open to traffick. But these merchants are all the higher and inferior orders of ecclesiastics in the Romish Church, such as cardinals, archbishops, bishops, deans, canons and priests, &c. who have carried on the Babylonian traffick for many centuries.

Verse 12. The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner of vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron. and marble.

13. And cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men.

14. And the fruits that thy soul lusted after are departed from thee, and all things which were dainty and goodly are departed from thee, and thou shalt find them no more at all. 15. The merchants of these things, which were made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing,

16. And saying, Alas, alas! that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls! For in one hour so great riches is come to nought.

+Even these epithets, the great city-the strong and mighty city. are descriptive of Rome; for they are used indiscriminately by the ancient Greek and Latin writers, of Rome, by way of distinction, when they do not name the city. Tertull. de cultu foem. c. XII. Pan, robur. Antiquiores Valentiam dixerant: advenæ græci Romam. Bengelius.

This part of the prophetic elegy contains the different articles of merchandise, in which the Babylonian merchants have been trafficking for ages, enriching themselves and the coffers of the Pope. They are all precious things of great value, manufactured or prepared in different parts of the globe, and used by the Romish Church in celebrating divine worship, according to their numerous ceremonies and adopted customs, unauthorized in the New Testament; or on days of public parade, canonizations of saints, installations of popes, dedications of churches and images, ordinations of the higher order of ecclesiastics, or on days of solemn festivals. But these things, no doubt, have a mystical signification, and her being deprived of them thus forcibly, may design that upon the destruction of Rome, that Church will undergo a total reformation, by which all these corruptions, simony and human inventions will be superseded, and she again reduced to a state of primitive simplicity, wherein this abominable traffick will be totally abolished. To investigate more minutely the spiritual meaning of all these articles specifically, is not my object here, and would perhaps not terminate in a sufficient degree of certainty and correctness; I will therefore only make observations on a few.

Is it not worthy of particular remark, that St. John here inserts the Latin word Peda vel gedn, Rheda, in the midst of his Greek, which signifies a vehicle of pleasure running with four wheels, and was totally unknown in all the East, so that the Grecians had not even a word for it in their language. This is a proof that Rome is here intended; for the Italians only had such chariots.

The original και ςωμάτων, και ψυχας ανθρωπων which our version renders slaves, should be translated bodies, or corpses,* and souls of men, as referring to that profita

*For this signification of the original see Math. xiv, 12. Luke xvii, 37.

ble traffick in relics, or parts of the dead carcases of pretended saints, sold and exhibited for money in that church. The Romish clergy for many centuries also traded in souls of men, by pretending to release them from purgatory for a certain sum of money, or opening the doors of heaven by indulgences, or canonizing them for saints of the Church.

All the merchants of these things, who now see their profitable traffick ruined for ever, and their articles on hand without value, stand afar off and mourn, that they are irrecoverably reduced to indigence, and for fear of being implicated in her punishment, as associates in cri minality. They remind themselves particularly, of all the magnificence and grandeur of that great city, and the luxury of her inhabitants, and seem astonished at her sudden destruction.

Verse 17. And every ship-master, and all the company in ships, and` sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off,

18. And cried, when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, What city is like unto this great city!

19. And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and

wailing, saying, Alas, slas! that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.

This whole chapter has a great resemblance with chap. XXVII. in the prophecies of Ezekiel. We there meet with the same classes of mourners, nearly all the same articles of merchandise, and so many of the same expressions, that we cannot but notice the manifest reference. Ezekiel bewails the destruction of Tyre, and the apostle the final doom of Rome.

In the above portion, also the owners of ships, mariners and seafaring men unite their lamentation to that of the kings and merchants, and bemoan in woful complaints, the destruction of that great city, and their own loss of trade. The preceding class of mourners are termed

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