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

5

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 wavdoxevç and the πορνη.

2 See Note | p. 42 infrà. Mede too had construed the word Ovμov 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.

4 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

HOLDING OUT HER INTOXICATING CUP OF ANTI-CHRISTIAN APOSTACY.

A Papal Medal struck at Rome, on occasion of the last Jubilee

gar authority,' written on the Pope's tiara; and the Apocalyptic title, "Mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth," the very parody, if I may so say, of the title Rome arrogates to herself, "Rome, Mother and Mistress."-4. As to the Harlot's depicted drunkenness with the blood of the saints, the fact of its applicability to the Romish Church, throughout the latter half at least of its patron the Beast's 1260 predicted years of prospering, is written in deep-dyed characters on the page of history; and superabundant evidence thereof given by me in other parts of this book.

In these several points I have embraced, I believe, all the main characteristics of the depicted seven-hilled Harlot's protraiture and history. It would seem from the picture of her here given that whatever injury might have been sustained by the Woman during the time of the preceding Vials, whether from the outpouring of the 5th Vial upon the throne of the Beast, so as we saw it fulfilled in the anti-Romish acts and fury of the French Revolutionists,5 or again from the progress of the Angel with the everlasting Gospel, would have been at the time of the vision, just a little before her final destruction, in appearance repaired.

of certain notorious prostitutes having their names written on a 'label on their foreheads-as Seneca says; "Nomen tuum pependit in fronte; pretium stupri accepisti :” and Juvenal Sat. vi. 122;

Nuda pupillis

Constitit auratis, titulum mentita Lysiscæ.

Vitringa supposes the name to have been thus written;

ΜΥΣΤΗΡΙΟΝ

ΒΑΒΥΛΩΝ Η ΜΕΓΑΛΗ

Η ΜΗΤΗΡ ΤΩΝ ΠΟΡΝΩΝ ΚΑΙ ΤΩΝ ΒΔΕΛΥΓΜΑΤΩΝ

ΤΗΣ ΓΗΣ.

1 Scaliger, on the authority of an informant of the Duke of Montmorency whilst at Rome. And so again Francis Le Moyne and Brocardus, an ocular evidence, they assure us; saying that Julius III removed it. See Daubuz, Vitringa, and Bishop Newton ad loc.

2 So the Tridentine Council; "Romana Ecclesia, quæ omnium Ecclesiarum Mater est et Magistra." Hard. x. 53. Whence the common phrase our Holy Mother the Church. 3 See my Vol. ii. pp. 20, 28, 423-429, &c. The prophecy was one much noted by the early Fathers. "Lege Apocalypsin Joannis, et quid de muliere purpuratâ, et scriptâ in ejus fronte blasphemia, septem montibus, aquis multis, et Babylonis cantetur exitu, contuere. Exite, inquit Dominus, de illa populus meus, &c." So in the Epistle of Paula and Eustochium to Marcella, apud Hieronymi Op. iv. ii. 551. The object of the letter was to urge Marcella to leave Rome for Bethlehem: it being allowed that there was a holy church there; but the ambition and greatness of the city deprecated, as aliene from the spirit of monastic devotion.

See Part v. Chap. v. in my Vol. iii. p. 395, &c.

And so in truth we see it now.1 For Rome's HarlotChurch appears at this present time putting on all her former bravery, and boastings, and charms. Still, as of old, she holds out to the world her cup of abominations; 3 still, as of old, breathes out, and acts out, her spirit of bloodthirstiness against the saints of Christ." As to the ultimate promised victory of the saints persecuted by her," Christ's called, and chosen, and faithful ones," its fulfilment is yet future; but surely, judging from the signs of the times, not so very far off.

Thus much as to the figure in the foreground of the picture now exhibited to St. John. We have next to consider the local scene associated in the picture with it.

"He carried me away in the Spirit to a desert place (or plain); and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet-coloured Beast; &c." "A desert:"—such is the graphic description primarily given of the local habitation of the figured Harlot. And, with a view to its right understanding, it will be important first to notice the absence of the article prefix; for thereby this desert scene is pointedly and at once distinguished from that into which the Woman, the true Church of Apoc. xii., was previously said to have fled and hidden, for her destined 1260 days of obscurity, solitude, and trial: the latter being called epnuos, the desert,

1 So first written in 1844. Yet more did she so appear after the storm of 18481851, on L. Napoleon's inauguration as President, and then Emperor, and courting and patronage of the Romish Church, so long as his policy seemed to require it.

2 Daubuz notably observes, p. 784, that St. John's here wondering (he being a symbolic man) shows that even to the end Babylon will be powerful, and the true worshippers affrighted :-that, having recovered from former judgments and losses, Rome will again appear invested with very great power; and having no apprehension of her future destruction, which is to be very sudden and unexpected, will revive all her former pretensions: whereupon Protestants, who judge according to human wisdom only, may think that what she has done before (in the way of persecution) she may do still; until ministers of God, like the Angel, are made use of as instruments to show their fellow Protestants that the Romish Harlot is just about to be suddenly destroyed.

3 See again the late Papal Jubilean medal.-Earlier examples of nearly the same medal may be seen in Bonanni, ii. 497, 737, &c.

4 So, for example, at Lisbon and Madeira, as Hewitson notices in 1844, Life, pp. 126, 269, &c.; so at Florence, as in the case of the Madiai, &c.

Es εonμov. The absence of the definite article is the rather observable; as it is the only instance, I believe, in the New Testament in which the word occurs as a substantive without it.

See my Vol. iii. pp 65-68.-Mr. Brooks has fallen into the mistake of identi