the circumstances and limits of the ancient kingdoms of these names-as in Isa. vii. 22; x. 20; lxiii. 1; Jer. xxv. 15-38: Ezek. xxxv. 14: and, secondly, reference is sometimes distinctly or exclusively made, where mentioned, to a yet future time as in Micah v. 5.

Finally we may say that Babylon in the Apocalypse means, first, the locality of Christendom; secondly, the corrupt church, or, in the widest sense, all corruption of Christianity. It is specially applied to the tract of the old Roman empire in Europe, which became divided into ten kingdoms; because in that tract, with its dependencies, was the light of Christianity to be mainly concentrated in the world. It is within the range of that light that the culpability particularly lies of the rejection of the Gospel, and on which, therefore, must most especially fall the consequent judgments.

Further a part of the symbolical representation of Babylon in the Apocalypse is the seven heads of the beast. These are explained (Rev. xvii. 9) to be seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth; sufficiently clearly again identifying the beast with the city of Rome, from its situation: and, ver. 3, she sits upon the beast: so that the seven mountains and the beast are the same, and therefore the locality of the abominations. In ver. 10 it is added; " And there are seven kings; five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh he must continue a short space. The reader is probably aware of the usual interpretation, that the five kings which had fallen at the time the Apostle wrote were the several previous forms of government in Rome-kings, consuls, consular tribunes, decemvirs, dictators-and the sixth, which then existed, was that of emperors; while the seventh was future, and has been applied to Napoleon Bonaparte, who in 1806 took upon him the title; the Emperor of Austria, who with his ancestors had heretofore held it, ceding it to him. His son, too, was entitled King of Rome, and is expected to be the eighth head named in ver. 11: "The beast that was and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition."

In Rev. xii. 3, the seven heads wear crowns; that passage signifying Rome Pagan. In chap. xiii. 1, it is not the seven heads, but the ten horns, which wear the crowns; that being the period of Rome Papal. In chap. xvii. the crowns are not named, either on the seven heads or on the ten horns: there are no crowned authorities; the whole of Europe, probably, in the last stage becoming republican. It would seem that when the seven heads wear the crowns, the supreme secular power resides in Rome; but when the secular power is not residing in Rome, as during the Papal possession of that capital and its local domination, then the crowns are borne by the horns.

Thus, during the first six heads, and the continuance of the sixth at Rome, the whole of Western Europe is subject to Rome Imperial; the several monarchs holding their crowns at the disposition of the capital, in feudal dependence. When Rome becomes the seat of an ecclesiastical authority, the kings hold their crowns independently. When the seventh head arises in Napoleon, the kings of the Western Roman Empire (with the exception of England) were successively deprived of their crowns, were deposed, or held them at his will; but upon his fall they resumed their crowns. In like manner, upon the rise of the eighth head, who is expected to make Rome (Rev. xvii. 9) the capital and seat of his government, the crowns again disappear, as is stated vers. 13, 17: the ten horns now willingly give their authority to the eighth head.

The transition from Rome Pagan to Rome Papal has been witnessed by the Christian world; but that which is about to take place is the change from Papal to Infidel. It is this change which we propose to endeavour, in the first place, to

trace out.

The dealings of God with a nation falling into the sin of idolatry are (1 Pet. iv. 17), to punish first the leaders, the house of God,the priests or ecclesiastical power; and the people are afterwards visited in their substance, lands, and persons. This is the method which appears pointed out in the prophetical Scriptures in the judgments upon Babylon. First, The ecclesiastical authority is to be put down, spoiled, and destroyed by the Infidel spirit. Secondly, This Infidel power is to reign. Thirdly, The Infidel power is to be destroyed. In this order we shall proceed to detail those events which are now arising in Europe, and which comprehend the fall of Babylon.

The Fall of Babylon Ecclesiastical.

We are told by Daniel, chap. vii., and repeatedly in the Apocalypse, that in the Roman Empire should arise a corrupt power, which should continue 1260 days, meaning years. This has been witnessed in the nature of the domination of the papal over the secular authority, or their union, and the events attending the same, and need not be enlarged upon: they are matter of history sufficiently known, and our subject is specially the dissolution of the connection.

The beast with seven heads and ten horns with crowns (Rev. xiii.) is the Roman Empire, and represents the secular power assisting the papal in her iniquity, for the space (ver. 5) of fortytwo months, that is, 1260 years. But at the expiration of that time (chap. xvii. 16) they shall change their internal policy; and the ten horns, no longer assisting, shall then make desolate, the flesh, and burn with fire, or destroy, the ecclesiastical power.

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This is set forth in Rev. xvii. which opens with "one of the seven angels which had the seven vials "probably the sixthwho comes in order to explain the changes incident on the fall of the apostasy, personified under the form of a woman, a harlot; and the substitution of the power of the eighth, the Infidel head. In chap. xviii. another angel appears, and repeats the notice of the fall of Babylon, the apostate; and a voice from heaven follows, entering upon a more detailed account of the wickedness and pomp of this spiritual order fornicating with the powerfulthat is, imbued with matters of the world, indulging in all sensual delicacies, and corrupting all partakers. Chap xviii. vers. 1-20, are a continuation of chap. xvii. 16, the eating of the flesh of the harlot, the deprivation and deposition of the Papal heresy and domination;-and thus end the Papal and general church corruption, desolated by an Infidel usurpation. In chap. xviii. 21 another angel is named, implying a new matter; which is, a prediction of the subsequent literal ruin of the territory and its population, the overwhelming of the very instruments (the infidels) of vengeance upon the apostate, the unbelieving upon the corrupt.

There is an evident distinction made in Rev. xvii. between the civil and ecclesiastical power. The civil is shewn forth by the beast and ten concurrent states or horns; the ecclesiastical is represented by the woman, called (ver. 5)" the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth;" and the former are in opposition and hostility (ver. 16) to the latter, and spoil her of her possessions. After this spoiling, the civil power of Babylon becomes infidel, in consequence of the removal of the ecclesiastical, and is in plenitude of strength until the time of its destruc-' tion arrives, described in the last verses of the xixth chapter. It is obvious that in the xviith chapter it is merely ecclesiastical Babylon which is wasted and destroyed; still leaving Babylon, in its civil state, a peopled, active, productive, and powerful empire, over which the infidel authority is to prevail, and in which it is to fix the seat of its government, profiting of all its resources; for this power is described as great, in the contests which, according to Daniel xi. 40 to the end, are to follow with the kings of the north and the south, and in the Holy Land.

It is announced (Rev. xvii. 16) that the ten horns, or kingdoms, which compose the western Roman empire, shall hate the whore, Babylon, and "shall make her desolate, and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire." But this can merely be an ecclesiastical spoliation: for this Babylon is to be the seat of the infidel power, subsequently to reign in the last days; and how reign, if literally and territorially made desolate, and naked, and burned with fire? The utter destruction is much later; it is probably to succeed the battle of Armageddon; and

is described Rev. xviii. 21, when the great city "shall be thrown down, and be found no more at all;" and (ver. 22) there shall be "no voice of music or craftsman, nor sound of a millstone, nor the light of a candle, nor voice of bridegroom or bride."

But in Rev. xvii. there is no mention of the physical destruction of Babylon; and the spoliation and deposition of the church corruptions are expressly declared to be the work of the ten horns, with people and multitudes. The same is stated in Dan. vii. 26-namely, that they, the ten horns, shall take away the dominion of the little horn speaking great words against the Most High: and, Dan. vii. 24, the ten horns out of this fourth kingdom upon earth are explained to be ten kings, that shall arise prior to the little horn, which shall subdue three of them. This agency of the ten horns is decisive that the overthrow of the apostasy is not to be a spiritual conversion, as some maintain, but the act of a political and corrupt power.

The destruction of the head of the infidel power, with the false prophet, takes place out of the territory of Babylon," without the city," at Armageddon (Rev. xix. 21): and (Rev. xiv. 20), the wine-press is trodden without the city, meaning Armageddon: therefore it cannot be the ecclesiastical destruction of Babylon, which must necessarily be within. This distinction serves to separate what belongs to the literal from what belongs to the ecclesiastical destruction.

Whatever be the exact limits of Babylon, or of the ten states directly adhering to her, the territory of the Roman beast, the ecclesiastical spoliation will be wider; for it is said, Rev. xvii. 15, "The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues and the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire:" that is, every people, the most remote over which the corruption extends. "O thou that dwellest upon many waters, thine end is come" (Jer. li. 13). Therefore the dissevering of Popery from the state, with her rejection and spoliation in the countries which have been subject to her, will not be confined to Europe, but it will be a work extending to the remotest parts of the world where the Pope has been acknowledged as a head and ecclesiastical corruption has prevailed; and this receives some countenance already from proceedings in South America, whose governments are all republican, and are gradually shaking off priestly domination.

In Rev. xvii. 12, the ten horns are described as kings without kingdoms then-that is, when the Apostle had these revelations made to him-but they "receive power as kings" here; alluding to the last period of the Gentile dispensation, in contra-distinction

to the previous period described (chap. xiii.), when the ten horns had crowns; but at this time (chap. xvii. 3) they are without crowns. The verse runs, "they receive power as kings one hour with the beast;" which is in some versions rendered "at the same time," or " in the same hour, as the beast: " and the words μar wpar may be translated either one or same hour indifferently, in most passages.

The import of this is, that ten states shall arise, popular governments, or republics, at the same time as the eighth head of the beast, who shall concur in doing his will (verses 13 and 17). It is therefore to be inferred that the kingly governments, which have been the form of the reign of the beast heretofore, will become democratical, and that during this period of change the convulsions will probably be solely internal, and little or not at all intermixed with national wars; for (chap. xvii. 17)" God hath put in their hearts to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled;" and, consequently, they are not to be constrained, as by conquest in foreign war. When all these previous revolutions and alliances are effected, then may be looked for the full manifestation of wickedness, the persecutions, the abandoned impiety of this infidel power; and then, and not before, to commence the wars noted by Daniel, xi. 40 to the end, and in them will the Jews (Dan. xii. 1) be delivered in Palestine, and an unprecedented time of trouble arise. According to this view, although rumours of wars may prevail, actual warfare is not to be expected until the ecclesiastical power be generally overthrown.

It may be said the spoliation of Popery began with the Reformation; and that the measures of Henry the Eighth in England were an instance in strict accordance with the passage Rev. xvii. 16. The peculiarity, however, of the present subversion of Papal and other church corruptions is, that it is to be done by Infidelity. At the time of the Reformation, the Papacy gave way before a reformed and pure faith in these last days, it is not spirituality, but unbelief and atheism, which will overcome and sweep away the apostasy: they are the ten horns, and multitudes, and nations, which are to despoil and consume the harlot. The judgments of God are mostly executed through the instrumentality of unrighteous hands: such were the agents designated by the trumpets (Rev. viii. and ix.), the Goths, Saracens, and Turks. And (Rom. ix. 17) the Scripture saith unto Pharaoh, "Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up." And Isaiah says (chap. x. 12), "The Lord will perform his whole work upon Mount Zion and on Jerusalem;" and then he "will punish the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks." Habakkuk, i. 13, speaking of the judgments upon Judea effected by the iniquitous Babylonians, makes this pathetic appeal to