large the mystery of the Beast's seven, or rather eight heads; its eighth head's ten horns; and also its general history and character. So that it is only the Woman, its rider, i. e. Babylon, or Rome personified, (of whom but little comparatively has been said before,) and her connexion with the Beast, that now seems to call for explanation or illustration. And here, first, let me call attention to one point in the Angel's description, (a point some time since very passingly noticed by me,1) which, both as regards the ten horns on the Beast, and as regards the Woman, refer to them, I doubt not, in a state of existence previous to that pictured in the vision of Apoc. xvii.;-I mean his statement about "the ten horns hating the Harlot, and making her desolate, and eating her flesh, and burning her with fire." Now in our present vision the pictured relationship of the Beast and its ten horns to the Woman is that evidently of closest friendship and this seems meant to figure the normal kindly relationship between them, during the 1260 years of the Beast's life under its last head. Moreover, as regards the Woman's final sudden destruction by fire, described in Apoc. xviii, there is plainly figured a judgment from God, like that on Sodom; not a burning by the ten kings indeed the kings of the earth, whatever their number, are depicted as then lamenting over her destruction. How then are we to explain the verse in question, and what it says of the ten horns hating, and desolating, and burning the harlot with fire? Just in this way. It is evident that the Angel, in his explanatory remarks, includes the whole history of both Beast and Woman, from the beginning of their existence; not that alone depicted in the vision before us :-of Rome, as the city reigning over the kings of the earth in St. John's time, (verse 18,) that is, imperial Rome with its sword of conquest; as well as of Rome Papal, with the drugged cup of her superstition, as pictured in the vision of the seven successive earlier ruling heads 1 See my Vol. iii. p. 396, Note 4. Plate. : 2 Compare the very illustrative medals of Rome imperial, and Rome Papal, in my Peter Olivi, a Franciscan monk of the xiiith century, (noticed hereafter in my History of Apocalyptic Interpretation,) thus similarly in his Postils on the Apocalypse, speaks of the two Romes as alike included in the description. "Hæc mulier stat pro Romanâ gente et imperio, tam prout fuit quondam in statu paganismi, quàm of the Beast, five of which had fallen in St. John's time; as well as of the second seventh, i.e. the eighth, under which the revived Beast or Roman empire was again to prosper, bearing on it the ten horns as its constituent kings, and together with them supporting, and fornicating with, the cup-bearing Rome, or Rome Papal. Just so, I conceive, there was indicated by the Angel the prior history of the ten horns, as well as their later history ;-their history as hinted at in Apoc. xii., before they got their diadems, and when Rome was still imperial: and that then they would desolate the Harlot, (a title equally applicable to Rome imperial, as to Rome Papal,') and eat her flesh, and burn her with fire. Now all this, we know, was most strikingly fulfilled by the ten Gothic powers spoiling and desolating and burning imperial Rome in the 5th and 6th centuries; indeed so desolating her campagna as in fact to originate that spnia out of which she rose up again as Papal Rome; and which attached to her ever after, even when the selfsame Gothic powers, in their diademed and second stage of existence, had become unitedly subjected, so as is depicted in our illustrative vision, to her harlotry. This premised, and that the Harlot-Woman, as figured in vision, or Papal Rome, must, as Mother and Mistress of all Churches of the Papacy, be considered to include as part and parcel of herself, not only the ecclesiastical State, or Peter's Patrimony, in Italy; but also the vast domains, convents, churches, and other property appertaining to the Papal Church elsewhere, both in Europe, and over the world, there seems nothing more needed, in order to the prout fuit in fide Christi, multis tamen criminibus cum hoc mundo fornicata. Vocatur ergo Meretrix magna." In either case and character the title of harlot would suit Rome. It is applied to heathen cities, e. g. to Tyre, Is. xxiii. 16; to those in covenant with God, under the old dispensation, both Judah and Israel, Is. i. 21, Jer. iii. 1, 8, Ezek. xvi., xxiii., &c; and, under the gospel, to an unfaithful wife, Matt. v. 32, xix. 9. 2 See p. 36 infrà. 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. 19, where it is said to have been divided into three parts; but in this xviith chapter he seems to understand it in a stricter sense of the City of Rome exclusively. And so too Daubuz, p. 800. I think it more reasonable however to understand it, as elsewhere, with a larger latitude. It is observable that both in Jeremiah's Lamentations, Jerusalem personified is spoken of sometimes as Judah; (compare Lam. i. 1, 3, 7, &c. ;) and that in the medals struck after the Romans' capture of Jerusalem, the personified City has the legend Judæa Capta. complete exposition of this part of the vision, than the observations following.-1st, as in the emblem the Beast's body both upheld, and was subject to, the Woman that sate on it, so the Western Papal 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, as the recognized Mother and Mistress Church of Christendom: the Pope too for the time being, or Beast's ruling head, fully concurring and taking part in the same act; sustaining his Church upon the seven hills, even as one married to her,' 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.3-2ndly, 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,* (just according to the custom of earlier times, in which the harlot and the 1 See Vol. iii. p. 179, Notes 1 and 2.-" The proud Church of Rome," says Bale in fitter phrase," the paramour of Antichrist."-Somewhat similarly in the medals of ancient Rome there was often an association of Rome and Rome's emperor: e. g. Roma Dea was sometimes depicted as crowning the Emperor, sometimes as crowned by the Emperor. See Rasche in verb. Roma, col. 1132, 1144. 2 "Necessitas imponit marito mulieris sustentationem sufferre." Ulpian Digest. 1, 2, tit. 3, leg. 22.--In Martene De Rit. ii. 90 I read, in the prayer on a Pope's consecration, that, as "ei universæ Christianitatis molem superimposuisti," so God will strengthen him that "ecclesiastica universitatis onus dignè ferat." The universa Christianitas and the ecclesiastica universitas are precisely that which Rome Papal, as borne up by the Beast in the vision of Apoc. xvii., figured. In a medal of Julius II, he was in a symbol of yet larger pretensions, but not so correct, figured as Atlas bearing up the whole globe on his shoulders; with the legend, "Immane Pondus, Vires infracta." 3 Daubuz, p. 750, 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; 'H παρθενος μέσοις επεκάθητο τοις νωτοις του βοος, ου περιβάδην, αλλα κατά πλευpav, en déžia ovμßaoa тw Todε. Erot. Lib. i. So on coins of Sidon. Rasche iv. 939, &c. In medals of the middle age I have observed Rome depicted as sitting on a couch, of which the end on either side are heads of Beasts. Under a different kind of figure the great city of the seven hills is represented elsewhere as the ruling Pope's throne, or seat. So Apoc. xiii. 2; "The Dragon gave him up his power, and his throne:" that is, his seat on the seven hills; spoken of also xvi. 10. Similarly Zion is at one time represented in holy Scripture as the Lord's throne, at another as his spouse: e. g. Jer. iii. 17, Isa. lxii. 5. 4 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, "All the nations have drunk of the wine of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her." 2 hostess of a tavern were characters frequently united,1) so, the Church of Rome answered to the symbol in either point of view; interchanging mutual favours, such as might suit their respective circumstances and 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 again the late Pope's most illustrative medal, here given, pointing the application,) 3 therewith .drugging, and making them besotted and drunk.--3. With regard to the portraiture of the Woman, as "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 colouring specified being distinctively that of the Romish ecclesiastical dignitaries, and the ornaments those with which it has been bedecked beyond any church called Christian; nay, beyond any religious body and religion probably that has ever existed in the world:-not to add that even the very name on the harlot's forehead, Mystery, (a name allusive evidently to St. Paul's predicted mystery of iniquity,) was once, if we may repose credit on no vul 6 1 So Daubuz 754.-For example, the reader may remember disquisitions in vindication of the character of Rahab, founded on the frequent identity of the wavdoxevS and the πόρνη, 2 See Note p. 42 infrà. Mede too had construed the word Ovpov to the same effect, before Daubuz. 3 It was first struck just after the commencement of the 6th Vial's outpouring; and exhibited now in a Protestant country just before the 7th Vial's effusion :-the precise time, if I mistake not, that this vision is to be referred to.-Compare this example of allusive contrast with that given Vol. ii. p. 61. The comment of Tichonius is; "ornatu vario et lapidibus pretiosis; id est omnibus illecebris simulatæ veritatis." (Qu. virtutis ?) 5 For these colours appertain to the dress of the ecclesiastical dignitaries of no other church, I believe;―e. g. neither of the Greek, Armenian, or Coptic: of course not to that of the English. 6 Bishop Newton exemplifies from the riches of the chapel of "our Lady" at Loretto: "The riches of whose holy image, and house, and treasury,-the golden angels, the gold and silver lamps, the vast number, variety, and richness of the jewels, of the vestments for the holy image and for the priests, with the prodigious treasures of all sorts, are far beyond the reach of description: and, as Mr. Addison says, as much surpassed my expectation as other sights have generally fallen short of it. Silver can scarce find an admission; and gold itself looks but poorly amongst such an incredible number of precious stones.""This is but a sample. 7 "The mystery of iniquity doth already work only he who now letteth will let until he be taken away and then shall that Wicked One be revealed," &c. 2 Thess. ii. 7, 8. See my Vol. iii. p. 96, &c.-There is a contrast in this to the mystery of godliness, 1 Tim. iii. 16. On which contrast see my Vol. iii. p. 186. Bishop Newton and others observe that there is an allusion here also to the custom |