their unanimous belief. "The monks of the seventeenth century," says Mosheim, "held up the pope to the veneration of the people as God."

"Saying to them that dwell in the earth, that they should make an image to the beast." This subject was one which has been the occasion of much difficulty; but Mr. Elliott, I think, has solved the difficulty by showing on, I think, sufficient evidence, that the image of the beast which they had power to make, is the SYNODS and GENERAL COUNCILS of the Romish Church; and that this is not a mere fanciful interpretation, I think will be plain from the following evidence :-Tertullian, a Latin father, calls councils the ipsa representatio, or very representation of the church. The word representatio means the likeness of a party who is absent, but as true as if the party were present. After the Reform Bill was passed in the parliament of England, a very celebrated speaker in the midst of that assembly said, "This house is now the real and express image"—the very word that is here used in the Apocalypse" and representation of the country." The original word cizov, which is in this place translated image, has been frequently used as the proper and appropriate expression for a General Council.

"To give life to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak," &c. (ver. 15.) When a council met, the laity were present, but the priests alone could vote; and when the council had issued its decision, it was by a majority of the clergy. Thus it may truly be said that it was the clergy in a council that gave breath to the image of the beast, by embodying its mind. Though councils assume to be free, the pope inspired the clergy, and they originated all their conclusions. In the fourth Lateran, at which one thousand bishops were present, seventy canons were dictated by the pope, and received by the council. The pope's powers were ultimately more restrained; but his power of suspending, revoking, or dissolving a council gave him practically the power of swaying it. Hence the pope and his tools, the clergy, were substantially the council. And the decrees of the Council of Trent were not the conclusions of all the bishops in Christendom, but the collected sentiments of the pope's own creatures, and of these only.

Next, the second beast was to cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. The great end of councils-and the priests were really the councils-was the extirpation of heretics. The third Lateran decrees the extermination of heretics. The fourth Lateran decrees the confiscation of their goods. All history, with its thousand tongues, and Scripture, with its one emphatic voice, declare, that when Rome had the power, that power displayed itself in deeds of blood; and from the snow-clad Alps, that have been trodden by the feet of roving barbarians, to the sacred heights of Calvary itself, there is no spot which has not been drenched with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus, and from which that blood does not cry to heaven for vengeance on the persecutor of the saints.

In conclusion, let me draw your attention to the last distinction which identifies, and, like a clasp, binds together the whole, viz. the number of the beast: that number is declared to be 666. In our English language, we use what are called Arabic numerals, 1, 2, 3, 4, &c., quite separate and distinct from the letters of the alphabet; but in the Greek language there are no numerals distinct from the letters; hence the letters of the alphabet are employed instead of numerals. In ancient times, all slaves, soldiers, and devotees to a god had their characteristic stigmata; and so the wild beast from the abyss has its characteristic stigma: that is, the whole Church of Rome has some grand, apparent, characteristic stigma-something that marks distinctly that corporation. from all other churches and bodies in the world. Let us endeavour to ascertain what that is. I will take the number 666 according to the Greek notation: ' is 30, a' is 1, 7' is 300, e' is 5, ' is 10,

is 50, o' is 70, s' is 200. Adding together these numbers, they make exactly 666; and, putting all the letters together, they form the word latevos, (Latinus,) or Latin man. His prayers are Latin; his canons Latin; his missal Latin; his breviary Latin; the decrees of his councils, his bulls, are all Latin; he worships in Latin; he blesses in Latin; he curses in Latin; all is Latin.

I have thus described the wild beast as faithfully and as succinctly as I could; and I trust that in so doing I have not violated the laws of charity, or the claims of love. It is not from hatred to the men, but from faithfulness to God that I have made these statements. And if this be true, and I am in no manner of doubt that it is so, is it not a blessed thing to have the great foe clearly set before us? to have no doubt whatever about the character of the enemy with whom we have to contend? I believe that all the conflicts that have befallen our churches are but preparatory skirmishes-all our quarrels between churchmen and dissenters are but child's play in comparison of what comes. The great conflict already looms in the horizon; it gathers strength and approaches with greater speed every day-the conflict between God's truth and man's tradition-between the breviary of the priest and the Bible of the living God-between Christ, the Head, the King, the Priest, the Saviour, and Antichrist, the great usurper, and the head of the Apostasy. Let us all, then, churchmen and dissenters, of every name, merge the microscopic points. on which we differ, or melt them in the majestic points on which we agree, which are glorious, eternal, and infinite! What we agree in is worthy of being embalmed for ever: what we differ in is, in comparison, worthy of being buried. Let us love as brethren--let us labour as the followers of the Lamb; and when the great conflict comes, let us stand, differing in uniform, but agreeing in principle, in object, in aim, in hope; and, “if God be for us, who can be against us?”

313

LECTURE XVII.

THE FIRST VIAL.

"The second wo is past; and, behold, the third wo cometh quickly.

"And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.

"And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God,

'Saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned.

"And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they shonld be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.

"And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament; and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail.”—Revelation xi. 14–19.

"And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth.

"And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image."-Revelation xvi. 1, 2.

THE two first woes have passed away. A third was pronounced from the firmamental heavens, and roused an echo like each of the other woes, commensurate to its force from the earth. The first evidence of its responsive echo is found in the expressions of infidels during the years immediately preceding the French Revolution, when the very oracles of Satan became unconsciously the organs of truth. Voltaire thus writes in 1764 :"Every thing is preparing the way for a great revolution. It will undoubtedly take place, though I shall not be so fortunate as to see it. Light has been diffusing itself, and on the very first opportunity the French nation will break out, and the

uproar will be glorious. Happy those who are young, for they will behold most extraordinary things!"

Christian men saw, too, the approach of the coming wo. The Protestant churches, they felt, had lost sight of their main duty to witness to the word: they had become salt without savour, and, in the words of Bishop Horsley, "the clergy substituted for the great doctrines of the gospel a system little better than heathen ethics."

Cowper, writing of the era of the French Revolution, says

"The world appears

To toll the death-knell of its own decease;

And by the voice of all its elements,

To preach the general doom-when were the winds
Let loose with such a warrant to destroy.

-the old

And crazy earth has had her shaking fit
More frequent, and foregone her usual rest;
And nature seems, with dim and sickly eye,
To wait the close of all."

"Already," said Burke, in 1790, "in many parts of Europe. there is a hollow murmuring under ground-a confused movement that threatens a general earthquake of the political world.” There were also physical intimations of the coming wo. In fact, almost every prediction of Scripture has not only a moral and ultimate fulfilment, but a symbolical and literal fulfilment also. Thus, the ancient prophecy, "a star shall come out of Jacob," was not only morally fulfilled by the advent of Christ, but literally also, inasmuch as a literal meteor star guided the magi to the manger; and the overthrow of Jerusalem was predicted by our Lord, as accompanied with earthquakes and eclipses, which had not only their symbolical, but their literal fulfilment also. We may, therefore, fairly presume that those earthquakes and hail-storms, which were to be the precursors of the coming wo, had their symbolico-literal fulfilment likewise. Thus, a tremendous hurricane ravaged the whole West Indies in 1783, and Vesuvius burst forth with terrific fury. Sir William Hamilton gives an account of an earthquake lasting from 1783 to 1786, and