head of Rome, and yet was one of the seven. This beast was popery. Popery was the eighth and last head of Rome. It is the same secular beast as seen in Rev. 13: 1-11. "But," says one, "how was it one of the original seven?" Let us see. The sixth head of the empire was the imperial under the heathen Cæsars. This imperial power was the persecuting power of Rome against the early Christians. Imperial Rome ruled the world. Thus "it was." But the time came when the hordes of savages from the North swept the empire and wounded the imperial head to death. The imperial government was overthrown. It remained about fifty-one years, during which the patriciate ruled the empire. Thus "it was not." But a little later this same imperial power revived under a Christian garb. The same power that ruled under the Cæsars in heathen garb, though wounded to death for about fifty-one years, revived and ruled under the priests and popes in Christian garb. Thus this beast "was, and is not, and yet is," and now constitutes the eighth head of Rome. The identical power that ruled under Cæsar ruled under popery-imperial Rome-first in heathen garb, next in Christian garb; but it was the same persecuting power in Christian garb that it had been in heathen garb. As early as A. D. 270 the devil manufactured an apostate church. This apostate institution is what the woman, the great whore, represented. When the old persecuting imperial power revived, it entered this apostate institution and gave it its life under the popes and priests. It became the power that ruled this apostate church. Thus the woman sat upon this scarlet-colored beast. This beast was imperial Rome under popes and priests, hence popery. This makes clear how the horns of imperial Rome, under pagan rule, served as the horns of papal Rome. It was the same power clothed in a different garb. These ten horns, as already seen in this chapter, signify the ten divided kingdoms of Rome. These were to "give their power and strength unto the beast." Thus they became his horns, just as they had served as the horns of the dragon. The time was to come when these kings would 'hate the whore, and should make her desolate and naked, and should eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.' This no doubt was fulfilled when the very nations that had once supported popery and constituted her horns turned against her and sheared her of all temporal power. Among others, England and Germany effected this, and became the horns, or powers, which supported Protestantism. This beast ascended "out of the bottomless pit," was of hellish origin. Such is the whole system of popery. It emanated from hell, and "shall go into perdition." This very beast will finally be "cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone" (Rev. 19:20). "And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth." Rev. 17:18. This is Babylon the Great-the Roman Catholic sect. She is the great whore. She is guilty of "the blood of the saints, and the martyrs of Jesus." History states that she glutted herself with the blood of nearly fifty million saints. The bride of Christ was clothed with the sun; she wore the robes of righteousness. But this woman "was arrayed in purple and scarlet color." This apostate woman Christ never acknowledged as his bride. Daniel foretold the downfall of popery in the following words: "But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to con sume and to destroy it unto the end." Dan. 7:26. This judgment began in the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, and today is being executed with divine authority. The result is that the beast-power is diminishing, and it will continue so "till the end." |