grandeur. If the first beast be the secular Roman empire, how can eternal damnation be inflicted on those who worship the beast and his image? How can a merely civil obedience justly incur such a penalty, or offend the Lord to such a degree?

I saw a beast rise up out of the sea. The sea signifies the countries upon the seacoast of the Mediterrancan. See chap. VI, 4. VII, 1. VIII, 7. 8. IX, 3. St. John, in his vision, stood upon the very sand of the seashore, and be held this beast emerging from the water; to indicate that he would arise in a country upon the very banks of. this sea, and extend his power thence over Europe. Now as we are limited by the prophetic chronology of this prophecy, not to date the commencement of its completion prior to the year 1073; every discerning historian will be convinced, that thus confined to the current events of that time, it cannot refer to any other power, than the Catholic empire of the Pope, as then established by Gregory VII, upon a new foundation.

The most ancient Asiatic writers on religious subjects, represent nations, tribes, kingdoms, empires, and even ecclesiastical communities, by the hieroglyphics of certain beasts. In the selection of these beasts, they are guided by a knowledge of their qualities and dispositions, by which they express the most remarkable achievements, and distinguishing characteristics of those nations, tribes, or governments, whom they represent. When this character cannot be fully expressed by the qualities and known dispositions of one beast, the writer forms a compound hieroglyphic, and describes it as performing extraordinary actions, in order to complete all the prominent features of his object. This manner of writing has been adopted by most of the inspired writers of the Old Testament, particularly by Daniel; who drew the contour of the principal parts of different beasts, in order to represent the Babylonian, the Medo-Persian, and the Roman

empires: And the Lord has here adhered to his ancient mode of revelation, in depicting the Romish hierarchy.

As we are now entering upon the investigation of a most important point, I would caution the reader, never to assist in classing the righteous with the wicked. Charity demands that we should distinguish between the Romish Church, and the Papacy. That community is still considered a Christian Church, but the Papal hierarchy is an infernal offspring; and the names of those, who breathe that spirit, are not written in the book of life. There are yet many children of God in that Church, who have not entered into the spirit of the Papacy, nor devoted themselves to its views, whom the Lord will call from thence in due season, Rev. XVIII, 4.

I. His rise from the sea. In order to illustrate this point, it is necessary that I should make a few introductory remarks. During the first century of the Christian era, the bishop of Rome was no more than a common minister of the Gospel ; all ordained pastors of the Church at the head of a congregation, being called bishops at that time. He was even considered inferior in point of reputation, to the bishop of Jerusalem ; she being the mother and pattern of all other Christian Churches, planted by the Saviours own hand, and nursed by the apostles. Even at the close of the third century, he had only the charge of one congregation, to which he was elected by the suffrages of the common people; though he seems to have then enjoyed a pre-eminence of order in synods and provincial councils, on account of age, or respectibility of the Church at Rome. Shortly afterwards the bishops of Rome, Antioch and Alexandria assumed the title of patriarchs, to which the bishop of Constantinople was added A. D. 381. This so incensed the arrogant prelates at Rome, who now met with formidable rivals in the bishops of Constantinople, that these patriarchs opposed each other in their growing authority, by every means in their power, until

they caused a total separation of the Latin and Greek Churches. These ambitious contentions, kindled that Antichristian spirit in the minds of the Roman pontiffs, which caused them to aspire to universal supremacy in the whole Christian Church. Boniface III, was the first among the bishops of Rome, who prevailed with that abominable tyrant Phocas, A. D. 606, to confer on him the title of universal bishop, after he had waded through the blood of the emperor Mauritius and his family, to the imperial throne. This merely nominal title, his successors strove to clothe with actual authority, but made little progress until they were exalted to the rank of temporal monarchs, by the famous donations of Pepin A. D. 755, of Charlemagne, and of Otto the great. But when they had obtained these grants of territories, cities and castles, they soon added force to menaces, and promises to- persuasion, by which they readily silenced all opposition in the Western or Latin Church. The churches in France, England and Africa, resisted these arrogant strides of the Roman pontiffs for a long time, and were with great difficulty induced to acknowledge this pretended supremacy; which had never been sanctioned by any general council of the whole Christian Church. In short, to establish and extend the power and authority of the Roman See; to enlarge its possessions and increase its annuities in every country, has been the predominant propensity of these lordly bishops ever since the commencement of the fourth century, to which every other object was made subservient. There never was a succession of rulers so unanimous, in conspiring to accomplish the same design. No monarch ever knew how to derive so many benefits from the favorable occurrences of the times, as these

pon

*It is an important remark of Bellarmine's iu his Ch ronologia: His temporibus (circ. A. 1020) quibus pontifices Romani a pietate vete. rum degeneraverant, principes seculi sanctitate florebant. Piety passed from the Popes to the emperors.

tiffs did, for the agrandizement of the Roman see above every other ecclesiastical authority.

This was the state and spirit of the Papacy, when Gre gory VII, A. D. 1073, mounted the papal chair. With his reign, this beast began to form itself in the sea, which fifty years after appeared in full vigour upon the theatre of action, and made all Europe tremble at his nod. The actions of Gregory prove him to have been a man of uncommon genius, unbounded ambition, extraordinary penetration, full of craft, stratagems, and invincible perseverance, totally destitute of every pious principle of religion, and beyond the reach of conscience. No sooner was he seated in his throne, than he looked up to the summit of universal empire, and entirely changed the face of the Latin Church. Such is the character which the great Mosheim has portrayed of this Pope, in which he is supported by the learned professor Walch, and many others of his own time. He devoted his whole life to the prosecution of two great designs; first, to establish the spiritual monarchy which he found in the possession of his predecessors, upon a foundation beyond the reach of all the princes and rulers of this world; and secondly, to found a temporal empire of equal extent, power and authority over all Europe, and if possible over all Christendom. The ostensible foundation for this enormous grasp of power, was the doctrine, that the bishops of Rome were the successors of St. Peter, and vicegerants of Christ, who had all power both in heaven and earth; and were in no respect subject to any temporal prince.. Such was the spirit of the times, and corruption of the clergy, that upon his intimation, a hundred thousand tongues preach

*This Gregory VII, was declared unworthy of the Roman chair A. b. 1080, in a convention of 30 bishops at Brixen, and previous to that of another, composed of 19 at Mentz, for the following reasons: Út divinationum de somniorum cultorem, manifestum necromanticum, pytha÷ nico spiritu laborantem, &c. Concil. Tom. 3. Pars 2. p. 404.

ed this preposterous doctrine through all the kingdoms, cities, towns, and villages of Europe, with astonishing effect among the ignorant multitude. But he was not the. character, that could rest satisfied with the mere assent or applause of millions; he would see his prodigious enterprise executed to its full extent; unconcerned, though its conséquences should involve a world in ruin. Accordingly in the year 1074 he assembled a council at Rome, and issued his decrees concerning Simony, and the Celibacy of the Clergy; under pretence of suppressing the enormous prevalence of concubinage, and the buying and selling of ecclesiastical benifices. By the second of these decrees it was enacted, that all sacerdotal orders should abstain from marriage; and those who already had wives, or concubines, should immediately dismiss them, on pains of forfeiting their priestly office. The true intention of this law however was, to disengage the whole body of the clergy from all future connexions and interests with the secular governments, and to subject this numerous, powerful, and influential class of citizens in in every country of Europe, to the sole and immediate direction of the Roman See. Thus this spiritual tyrant dissolved, with a merciless hand, the chastest bonds of matrimony, and involved many thousand virtuous husbands and wives, with their tender offsprings, in disgrace and misery. Those who abandoned their dignities on this occasion, in order to support their families, were by this Pope's mandate punished with indeliable marks of infamy, and the loss of all their substance. Though this criminal measure had already produced innumerable calamities, yet his second decree against Simony, being a more daring and insolent attempt, was fraught with still more important & awful consequences, both to the Church and state. Since the eighth century, all ranks of the clergy, and the monastic orders, had acquired immense wealth in territories, benefices, privileges, annuities and