19. Speaking Great Things and Blasphemies
“And a mouth was given to him speaking great things and blasphemies”—Ver. 5.
The Mouth given to the Beast of the Sea was like a lion’s mouth; and he delighted to compare himself thereto. His official utterances, or the things affirmed of him, by those who created and worshiped him, far transcended the utterances of the proud and impious rulers of the old Babylonian Lion. The last of these, styled by Isaiah, “Lucifer, son of the morning,” the Belshatzar of history, said, “I will ascend into heaven; I will exalt my throne above the stars of AIL . . . ; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High”—ch. xiv. 13, 14; and on the eve of his being brought down to Sheol, he lifted himself up against the Lord of heaven, and praised the images of silver and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know—Dan. v. 23. These were the speakings of the Mouth of the old Lion of Babylon; but proud and impious as they were, they fell short of the “great things and blasphemies” which roared from the throat, or by the sanction, of the Universal Bishop of the Ten Horned Monster of the Sea. This Babylonian Mouth, which has come down to us from the darkest ages of the clerical apostasy, when it opens its iron-teethed jaws, can give expression to nothing but great things of vanity and falsehood, and things defamatory of the Deity and the Saints. “He opened his mouth unto blasphemy concerning the Deity, to blaspheme his Name, and his Tabernacle, and the dwellers in the heaven.” Jesus Christ, the apostle Peter taught, was the only name given among men whereby p. 276 we must be saved—Acts iv. 12. This name was the Father, whom no man hath seen, nor can see, by his power manifested in the flesh, crucified, and afterwards justified or perfected. This crucified and glorified Name, in the very nature of things, can have no substitute or vicar. The substitute or vicar of such a Name, must be all in reality that is affirmed of the original, who must be set aside necessarily to make room for the Vicar. For a man to be a genuine Vicar of Christ, he must be what Jesus was as the Father’s Vicar, or Mediator: sin must have been condemned in his flesh, and he himself a character “without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing.” Compare this necessity with what the popes really are, who affirm that they are the Only Name in the World, unicum nomen in mundo, and the enormity of their blasphemy of the Deity’s Name will readily be seen.
“Great things” are affirmed of the Mouth, which it sanctions ex officio. A celebrated monk of the time of Hildebrand puts these lying words into the mouth of Jesus Christ, as addressing the pope, and given in the original Latin text by Elliott. “I have delivered into thy hands the keys of my whole universal church, and have placed thee over it as VICAR for me; and, if these be few things, I have also delivered to thee the kingdoms. Yea, the king (or emperor) being removed from the midst, I have granted to thee the right of the whole vacant Roman empire.” The orator of the tenth Session of the fifth Lateran Council thus speaks of Constantine’s removal of his imperial throne to Byzantium, afterwards named Constantinople: “Constantine, breathed upon by divine grace from above, fully ceded the sceptre of the empire of the world and city to the true and proper Lord—to the Deity, and to the man in his own Roman seat, Sylvester, the Pontifex Maximus, in the primeval and natural right of Christ, the eternal priest; and he sought another throne by Apostolical concession, and erected it in Byzantium under the obedience of the Apostolic throne.” It is true that the Dragon granted the Mouth his throne in old Rome, but it was not at the time alleged; the orator, doubtless, referred to “the Decretals of Constantine,” proved to have been forged by the popes.
In the reported Decree of Pius the First, he says, “The people may not accuse a bishop; bishops are to be judged by the Deity, who has chosen them as EYES to himself.” Speaking of the Episcopacy in general, Boniface I. styles it “the watchtower of Episcopacy;” and the Greek emperor, in writing to the Roman Synod, A.D. 681, says, “we show that the priests are the Eyes of the Church.” So Boniface I. speaks of the pope under the name of Peter, saying, “The most blessed apostle Peter looks upon thee as HIS OWN EYES, in p. 277 what way soever thou shall use the office of Chief Ruler. Neither can it not be most suitable for thee, who art constituted perpetual Shepherd of the Lord’s sheep.” Also, Innocent IV., A.D. 1245, in his sentence against the Emperor Frederick, says, “We ought to perceive, in regard to the height of apostolic dignity, that it is for THE EYE of most intimate considering of the faults of all christians.” Hence, tho Universal Bishop is well represented by the “Eyes like the eyes of a man,” in Daniel’s Little Horn.
The symbol of a Lion’s Mouth speaking great things is eulogistically ascribed by Pope Nicolas I., in the ninth century, to Pope Leo, styled “the Great,” the earliest founder of the temporal dominion of the Universal Bishop. He says, “save only the imitator namely of that Lion of whom it is written, ‘the Lion of the Tribe of Judah hath conquered,’ divinely exalted, opening the mouth, makes the whole world, and also the emperors themselves to tremble; as well it calls the mind to piety, it might entirely overthrow the catholic religion.” And so Hincmar, speaking of the same Leo, says, “Leo the Great by the greatest roaring from the city Roma, being the capital namely of the globe, thunders loudly through the whole world.” In the words of Shakespeare’s King John:
“Here’s a large mouth indeed,\ That spits forth death and mountains, rocks and seas.”
In the time of Charlemagne, A. D. 799, a Roman council enacted precisely the same part as that convened by Theodoric. The Pope having been accused, the Council declined to hear his accusers; declaring that he who was judge of all men, was above being judged by any other than himself; and on his coming in, and asserting his innocence, he was considered as acquitted. Thus Urban II., A. D. 1090, “that the divine right of judging concerning every church is of the pope alone; and that he himself is subject to the judgment of none.” Afterwards in the Canon Law, collected and published in the eleventh century, it was said: “It is certain that the Supreme Pontiff was called God by the pious prince Constantine; it is manifest that Deity cannot be judged by men.” Daubuz who quotes this, styles the Canon Law and Decretals the Pope’s Oracle; “the Decretal Epistles are enumerated with the canonical scriptures.” They are the true expression of the papal mind.
This claim that he was irresponsible to any laws, human or divine, by which he identified himself with the ανομος or Lawless One of Paul, continued to be urged in the fifteenth century. So A.D. 1463, on Paul II. dismissing Platina from office after his election, and Platina’s threatening to bring the case before the judges of the Rota, p. 278 Paul fiercely replied, “Thou wilt call us to account before the judges! As if thou wert ignorant that all laws are placed in the coffer of our breast! I am Supreme Pontiff; and I can at the pleasure of my soul both rescind and approve the acts of others.” And again the Roman Council, A. D. 877, declared that “Christ himself willed that the pope be the head of us all, in his stead upon earth.”
No one upon earth called a god, or worshipful individual, could plead exemption from subjection to the power of the keys in the hand of the Universal Bishop. Thus, Gregory the Seventh on excommunicating the emperor Henry IV., said, “I cannot find, that when the Lord confided to Peter the power of the keys, he made any exception in favor of kings.” One of his dictates was “that all princes shall kiss the feet of the Pope alone.” Raynald relates an exemplification which occurred A.D.1515. The arrangement made by Paris, bishop of Pisaurum, Master of Ceremonies to the Pope, who was present on the occasion, was that the French king should kneel thrice on approaching the enthroned Pope; and first kiss his feet, ere he kissed his hand and face.
Among the “great things” of this Mouth is the dogma that all Kingdoms are held of the pope. In support of this, Ducange, from Glaber Rodulphus, A.D. 900, quotes the popes “optimum decretum” following: “No prince shall impudently desire to bear the sceptre of the Roman Empire, or be called Emperor, or wish to be, except he whom by probity of manners the Pope of the Roman See shall convey as fit for the Republic, and to him he will commit the imperial badge.” It has been said, says Elliott, that pope Constantine, A. D. 708, was the first pope that claimed the right of confirming temporal princes in their Kingdoms. His successors claimed to make kings and depose them. An authentic account of the deposition of the race of Clovis by Pope Zachary in the eighth century, affords an instance of this: also, at a subsequent period, the disposal of the emperorship of the Two-Horned Beast of the Earth, as a fief of St. Peter, by Gregory VII.; who deposed Henry, emperor of Germany, and conferred the diadem on Rodulphus in the words:
Petra dedit Petro, Petrus diadema Rodulpho.
In this, Gregory styles the apostle, Petra; and the pope, Petrus: the plain English of which is, Peter gave the German Empire to the Pope; and the Pope gave its crown to Rodulphus; though the apostle did not know that such an empire would ever exist! But, no lying blasphemy is too absurd to issue forth from the Draco-Lion Mouth of the Beast. In A. D. 1303, we have another illustration of this sort of blasphemy in the case of Boniface, who, in his confirmation of Albrecht in the Emperorship, declared that it was by Papal p. 279 authority, as Christ’s Vicar, or personal and official substitute, that the Imperial Diadem had been transferred from the Greek Empire to Charlemagne and his successors, at the crisis, namely, when the healing of the Sixth Head was commenced. “And the Germans attend here,” said Boniface, “because, just as the empire was transferred from others to themselves, so Christ’s Vicar, the successor of Peter, has the power of transferring the empire from the Germans to any others soever, if he will; and this without injury of right”—a declaration humbly submitted to and confessed by Albrecht.
France was declared by Gregory VII., to be tributary to Rome; and England, as also Spain, Saxony, etc., and Naples. The subjection of king John of England, and after his deposition, the redonation to him by Innocent III., of the kingdom as a Papal fief; also his disposal of the German Emperorship in the case of Philip and Otho, are notorious. And Daubuz states from the letters of Pius II., that he proposed to the Turkish Sultan to give him a legal title to the Greek empire he already possessed by right of conquest, if he would assist him against his rebellious children.
There was no blasphemy too gross for papal acceptance. Whatever of this kind was offered to them, they accepted as their due. They claimed sovereignty over the land and sea, known or undiscovered; and the claim was recognized by the Horn Governments. This was exemplified in the Papal grants of the Indies to Spain and Portugal. After the conquest of the latter in the Far East, the king of Portugal sent an embassy to Rome, which arrived there and had an audience of Pope Leo, on March 25, 1514, and acknowledged his right to them. The oration, which was highly commended by the pope himself, is given in full by Roscoe, and quoted by Elliott in these words: “Listen to the orator of the embassy. For a moment he hesitates, as overcome by a sense of the majesty of him he is addressing.” “Fear and trembling,” he exclaims, “have come over me, and a horrible darkness overwhelmed me.” Then, reassured by the Pope’s serene aspect towards him—“that divine countenance, which shining,” he says, “as the sun, had dispersed the mists of his mind”—he proceeds to the objects of his mission: narrates the eastern conquests of the Portuguese arms; addresses the pope as the Supreme Lord of all; and speaks of these conquests as the incipient fulfillment of God’s sure promises. “Thou shalt rule from sea to sea, and from the Tyber River to the world’s end;” “the kings of Arabia and Saba shall bring gifts to thee; yea, all princes shall worship thee, all nations shall serve thee;” and under thy auspices, “there shall be one fold and one Shepherd.” That is, he explains the promised universal latter-day subjection of the world to Christ, p. 280 as meant of its subjection to the Pope and the Portuguese discoveries and victories over the heathen, as signs that that consummation was at hand. And he concludes by a solemn act of adoration to the Pope, as his king’s Lord and Master: “Thee, as the true Vicar of Christ and God, the Ruler of the whole Christian Republic, we recognize, confess, profess obedience to, and adore: in thy name adoring Christ, whose representative thou art.” A letter from the king of Portugal accompanied this oration, and was addressed, “To Our Father and Lord Leo X.”
On the ground, then, that the uttermost parts of the earth were given to the Pope for a possession, as Christ’s Vicar, the king of Portugal prayed the pope to confer on the crown of Portugal a right to all countries inhabited by infidels the Portuguese might hereafter discover; the promise being added that he would spread the catholic religion in them, establish the authority of the Pope, and so augment the flock of the Universal Bishop. This was too good an opportunity to be lost of grandly exercising his alleged prerogative of giving nations and countries to whom he pleased. A bull was forthwith issued granting to the Portuguese all they might discover from Cape Non to India.
In A. D. 1493, after the discovery of America by Columbus, a like application was made by Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain to Pope Alexander VI.; the same pleas and promises accompanying it of extending the dominion of the Pope. The Bull which decreed the grant, enacted that all westward of an imaginary line passing from pole to pole, and one hundred leagues west of the Azores, should belong to the Spaniards, all eastward to the Portuguese. In the judgment of the Horn-Governments, these pontifical grants were regarded as constituting an unimpeachable title, and a guarantee against interference and attack. Under Elizabeth of England, however, the validity of the grant was not admitted. For on the Spanish ambassador’s reclamation against Drake, A. D. 1580, for having navigated seas which were in the dominion of Spain, the British Queen replied, that “the English did not recognize in any manner the property which the king of Spain attributed to himself, nor the pretended gift of a Pope, who had no right to dispose of countries and seas which did not belong to him.”
Even in our own days, and in the time of his deep temporary humiliation under the first Napoleon, who had filled his kingdom with darkness (ch. xvi. 10) the same “extensive jurisdiction” was asserted. “Let them learn,” said Pius VII., in his excommunication of that potentate, June 10, 1809, “that they are subjected by the laws of Jesus Christ to our throne, and to our commandment.” p. 281 This was truly a “great thing,” and in keeping with the arrogance of Celestin III., A. D. 1191, who kicked the secular diadem from the head of Henry VI., in token of his right to assign kingdoms to whom he pleased, and to take them away. The fact is thus described by Roger of Hoveden. “But the Lord Pope sat in the political chair holding the golden imperial crown between his feet; and the emperor bowing his head received the crown, and the empress in the same manner, from the feet of the Lord Pope. But the Lord Pope instantly struck with his foot the emperor’s crown, and cast it upon the ground; signifying that he had the power of deposing him from the empire, if he were undeserving of it. The Cardinals, however, lifted up the crown and placed it on the emperor’s head.” “He hath set me,” said another pope, “even as prince over all nations, to root out, and to pull down, to destroy and to build.” Indeed, there is no end to “the great things and blasphemies” to which this Papal Mouth of the Gentile Beast has given, and continues to give utterance: for as Cardinal Bellarmine says (writing under the sanction of the pope) expressly, “that every title which is in scripture given to Christ, appertains also to the Pope;” and to guard against misapprehension, he gives a copious enumeration of them. This is truly “blasphemy against the Deity, manifested in the Flesh,” and called Christ; the effect of which is to blaspheme his name, and his Tabernacle, and them who tabernacle, camp, tent, or dwell in the heaven; that is to say, Jesus Christ and his brethren the saints. But to notice, or reproduce here, all the blasphemies and great swelling words of this mouth, which, all toothless as it has become, have issued from it, would be to write all the past and current history of the Papacy. Under this section head I have presented the reader with specimens whereby he may be able to identify among “the powers that be” that particular power symbolized by the Mouth and the Name of Blasphemy upon the Seven Heads. This is enough for exposition. I shall therefore pass on from the further consideration of “the great things and blasphemies” of him who in his latest manifestation as Pius IX. styles himself in his address to Mortara, “the Father of all the faithful,” to the brief exposition of
20. The Name and Tabernacle of Deity, and Those Who Dwell in the Heaven
After what I have written concerning THE NAME in Vol. I. pp. 98-114; 275-83; 368-72; and 395-400, I need say very little about it in this section.
In this chapter xiii., we have two Names which are antagonistic—the blaspheming name, “whose number is six hundred three score p. 282 and six,” the number indicative of The Man of Sin-power; and the Name he blasphemes, which is written upon the foreheads of the 144,000—ch. xiv. 1. In ch. xiii. 6, it represents Christ and his Brethren, who, in antagonism to the Papal Blasphemer, constitute the Name of Deity. The phrases “his name,” “his tabernacle,” and “them that dwell in the heaven,” are all synonymous with the phrase in the seventh verse, “the saints,” of whom Christ is “the Head.” The Deity dwells in them, and therefore they are his temple, habitation, or tabernacle; as Paul writes to the saints in Corinth, “Ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their Deity, and they shall be my people”—2 Cor. vii. 16. They are a tabernacle “built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, the foundation corner-stone being Jesus Christ himself: in whom all the building fitly framed together increaseth for a Holy Name in the Lord: in whom ye are builded together for an habitation of the Deity in Spirit”—Eph. ii. 20-22.
But Christ and the Saints are not only the Name and Tabernacle of the Deity, but they are also, “those who dwell in the heaven.” The phrase “in the heaven” is apocalyptically equivalent here to “in the heavenlies in Christ”—εν τοις επουρανιοις εν Χριστῳ—Eph. i. 3. Paul tells the saints in Ephesus, that he with them were “blessed with all spiritual blessings” in these heavenlies; in which they and Christ, though the latter is at the right hand of the Divine Majesty, and they in Ephesus and elsewhere, were regarded as sitting together—Eph. i. 20; ii. 6. A heavenly is a constituted supernal state. It may be divinely constituted, or constituted by human authority. We have these two kinds of heavenlies in Paul’s letter to the saints in Ephesus. In ch. vi. 12, he alludes to the heavenlies constituted by human authority. The Common Version styles them “High Places;” but Paul used the same word to indicate them as that rendered “heavenly places” in ch. i. 3, 20; ii. 6. There is no reason why the translation should not be uniform after the manner of the original. I see that in the Italian Version this uniformity has been observed. In this, in all the places of the epistle where Paul uses en tois epouraniois, the phrase is represented by ne’ luoghi celesti, in places celestial. The French Version is also uniform, rendering it dans les lieux celestes.” The German is less uniform than the English; and in ch. vi. 12, excludes the things mentioned there from heaven altogether, and puts them unter dem Himmel, under the heaven.
It is, however, to be remembered that Paul so expresses himself as not to be misunderstood by the enlightened. He defines the heavenlies in which they “sit together with Christ” as being “in Christ;” p. 283 but he omits the phrase “in Christ” when he speaks of the heavenlies in which “the spirituals of wickedness” are found. Hence, the two kinds of supernal states are characterized by being “in Christ” or not in Christ; which is equivalent to being out of Christ—outside, or not included in the things, of which the manifestation of Deity in the Flesh is the great and glorious centre.
But the Heavenlies in Christ are not luoghi, lieux, or places, but STATES, the foundation of which is laid in Jesus Christ—Deity manifested in the Flesh. “The Man Christ Jesus” is a real man. When on earth he was “holy, harmless, undefiled, and sinless,” as to character; yet imperfect as to his material nature. He is now perfect—a perfect man “justified by spirit,” and therefore incorruptible and immortal—a perfect character or moral nature, developed by divine power, or spirit, into a perfect material nature. But Christ is also an allegorical man, as Hagar and Sarah were two allegorical women; the former representing the Mosaic Covenant; the latter, the New, or Abrahamic, Covenant. From the days of Moses until the Day of Pentecost, A. D. 34, the whole twelve tribes were constitutionally in their mother Hagar, or the Jerusalem system then in existence, and in bondage with her children. But on that celebrated day a new system was initiatorily developed, the Sarah Covenant, styled “the Jerusalem above the Mother of us all.” Isaac was Sarah’s son, and allegorically slain, and allegorically raised. The saints are all in Isaac; for “in Isaac shall thy seed be called.” This seed is Christ; not Jesus only; but that great multitude also which no man can number. This “One Body” of people headed up in Deity is the allegorical or figurative Christ. They are the children of the promise as Isaac was; the free born sons of Sarah the free woman. This is their state, without regard to the place or country of earth or heaven, where they might be supposed to be. But, if there had been no literal or personal Christ, there could have been no such Christ-State for Jews and Gentiles. Jesus of Nazareth was allegorically “a number which no man could number.” He himself taught this, saying, “he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit:” and, “Father, I pray for them who shall believe into me (εις εμε) through the apostles’ word: that they all may be one in us”—John x. 5; xvii. 20, 21. Though few compared with the whole race of man, it is a great company absolutely—a people taken out from all the generations and the nations for the Divine Name. “He shall increase,” said John the Immerser; “but I must decrease.” Jesus increased, or grew, into a divine and “chosen generation;” while John has dwindled down into a mere Baptist Denomination, which is either ignorant of, or opposed to “the truth as it is in Jesus.”
p. 284 The heavenlies in Christ are two states answering to the two places of the tabernacle of Moses. One of these states is not yet manifested on earth; the other is. Hence, one may be said to be visible, and the other invisible; yet the saints, not sinners, who are quickened with him, and raised with him, sit together in both with him, and He with them. Now the solution of this mystery turns wholly upon the meaning of the phrase “in him.” What is it then, to be in him? It is to be where Paul places the saints in Thessalonica, namely, εν Θεῳ πατρι, και Κυριῳ Ιησου Χριστῳ, in Deity the Father, and the Lord Jesus Anointed. The saints are all in this manifestation of Deity. Being in Jesus and the Father, they must be, in a certain sense, where Jesus and the Father are. Alluding to this fact, Paul says in Heb. xii. 23, “We are come to the Deity the Judge of all, and to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant, and so forth. But Paul says that Jesus is at the Father’s own right hand. True; but he also says, that “being justified by faith, we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand.” In other words, we have admission to the Father in heaven by faith; and when a person is permitted access to a place, and avails himself of the permission, he is in some sense certainly there; and when there in this certain sense, he is “dwelling in the heaven” in the presence of “the Judge of all.”
Now the two places of the Mosaic tabernacle were the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place, which were divided the one from the other by the Vail. Even so it is with “the holies, the true tabernacle which the Lord pitches, and not man—Heb. viii. 2. There are the Holy Heavenly State and the Most Holy Heavenly State, divided by the Flesh. The holy must be entered before the Most Holy can be reached; and to pass corporeally from the one into the other, the individual must put on incorruptibility and become immortal; for, so long as he is in mortal flesh he is outside, or rather, an element of the Vail which must be rent; though by faith and constitution in Christ, he is within it.
How, then, does a sinner come to “dwell in the heaven?” By being “transformed in the renewing of his mind” “by knowledge”—Rom. xii. 2; Col. iii. 10; that he may discern and do “that good and acceptable and perfect will of the Deity.” In other words, by believing the gospel of the kingdom and name; and being immersed into and upon that name. In so doing, he enters into the Holy Heavenly State. By faith in “the truth as it is in Jesus,” and obedience, he puts on Christ, and is therefore “in Him;” and being in him, he is constitutionally holy or a saint; and sitting together with him in the Most Holy, not personally, or corporeally rather; but by faith. This is his present adoption through Jesus Christ, by which p. 285 he becomes a son of Deity, of Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac, and a brother of Christ himself—Gal. iii. 26-29; and a “dweller in the heaven.”
But there are heavenlies beyond the pale of the Christ-Body. These are Supernal States in which Paul locates principalities, powers, world-rulers of the darkness of the times of the Gentiles, which he styles “this æon,” and the spirituals of the wickedness enthroned throughout the earth. These heavenlies are constituted providentially or instrumentally by human authority and power after “the course of this world;” and are the tabernacle of “the Prince of the power of the Air, the Spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience”—Eph. ii. 2. This Prince-power and Spirit of the Air is Sin’s Flesh; whose spirit pervades all sublunary human constitutions, styled “thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers,” which Paul specifies as “things in the heaven,” or “the Air”—Col. i. 16. In such an unclean heaven as this, are found the Ten-Horned, and Two-Horned, Beasts, the Name of Blasphemy, the Lion-Mouth, and the Image of the Beast, or False Prophet, the God of the Earth—all things of power, in short, emanating from falsehood and superstition. The dwellers in this Air, or Heaven, are not the Saints. In their days of the apocalyptic prophecy the two witnessing prophets had power to shut this heaven that there should be no rain from it; and as often as they willed during 1260 years, to turn the popular waters into blood, and to smite the earth with all war-plagues—ch. xi. 6. The dwellers in this Aerial are the civil and ecclesiastical orders of society; such as, emperors, kings, diplomatists, nobles spiritual and laical, legislators, magistrates, priests, clergymen, parsons, and all of that class, styled by the apostle “spirituals of the wickedness” which reigns in “the Court of the Gentiles without the temple.” Between this heaven and “the Heavenlies in Christ” there is implacable and uncompromising hostility. No peace can be permanently established in the earth till one or other of these heavens be suppressed or subjugated: and who can doubt which of these heavens shall be shaken, be rolled up as a scroll, and be made to pass away with the great tumult of war? The heavenlies, or high places, of this world are decreed to Yahweh and his Anointed Body; who, by the thunders and lightnings issuing from the throne newly set in the heaven, shall take the dominion under the whole heaven, and possess it during the Olahm and beyond—ch. xi. 15; iv. 1-5; Dan. vii. 18, 22, 27. This is the fiat of Eternal Wisdom and Power. The Seventh Vial, the last blast of the Seventh Trumpet, is to pour out its fury upon the Air, the secular and spiritual constitution of which will thereby be thoroughly and radically changed. The things p. 286 now in the Air will be transferred to “them who dwell in the heaven” in Christ; who, having passed through the Vail of the Flesh which divides the Heavenlies, in the putting on of immortality, will be manifested as the Most Holy Heavenly in Christ; and the Air, filled with their glory, will become the New Heavens, in which righteousness will dwell forever. The Air will then no longer be malarious with the pestiferousness of secular and spiritual demagogues, who “with good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.” The Prince of the Power of the Air will then be the Spirit that works in the children of obedience—the truth incarnated gloriously in Jesus and his Brethren; who, in the highest sense, will be those who dwell in the heaven.”
It was against the Saints, who, in the times of the Gentiles, constitute the Name, the Tabernacle, and them who dwelt in the Heaven in Christ, that the Ten-Horned Beast opens his Leo-Babylonian Mouth in blasphemy; and makes war, till the end of the Forty and Two Months of Years. In blaspheming Jesus and his Brethren, he blasphemes the Deity, on the principle laid down by Christ, that what is done to, for, or against, his brethren, is done to, for, or against him. The Lion-Mouth of the Apocalyptic Babylon spoke evil of them in words of the most acrid bitterness, He denounced them as heretics, accursed, the children of the Devil, the spawn of hell—not a blasphemous epithet was there that the pope and his agents did not heap upon them. The prophetic writings, though set aside for the purposes of truth and edification, were resorted to for names of infamy by which to make them odious to those who worship the beast and his image; and the evil symbols and appellations therein employed by the Spirit to prefigure the Apostasy and its “spirituals of the wickedness,” this Mouth of Blasphemy applied to the Saints. In this it blasphemed the Deity himself. This principle is well illustrated in Ezek. xxxv, where a statement made by Edom concerning Israel and their country is styled blasphemy against the mountains of Israel, because it was false. Edom said, as he also says to this day, “these two nations and these two countries shall be mine, and we will possess it, though Yahweh were there.” Now, He had promised the land to Jacob, and to him he will give it for an everlasting inheritance. Hence, every saying subversive of this purpose is blasphemy against the country, and blasphemy and boasting against the Eternal Spirit: for, if Edom’s purpose of possession could possibly be established, the Deity’s veracity would be destroyed, and his character for faithfulness overthrown. “Thus,” in making false statements concerning the destiny of Israel, Judah, and their country, O Edom, saith Yahweh, “with your mouth ye have boasted against p. 287 Me, and have multiplied your words against Me; I have heard: so that when the whole earth rejoiceth, I will make thee desolate.” By Edom is here represented what John symbolizes by the Beast and his Image, etc. Hence, to blaspheme or speak evil and injuriously of God’s people, and promises, is regarded by him as blasphemy against himself.
21. War with the Saints
“And it was given to him to make war with the Saints, and to vanquish them”—Ver. 7.
This beast that vanquishes the saints is the same that in ch. xi. 7, is referred to as destined to make war against the Two Witnesses. There is, however, this difference of result observable in the beast’s war upon the Saints “who dwell in the heaven;” and his war against the Witnessing Prophets who had power to shut his heaven, that it should not rain in their days of the prophecy—He vanquishes the Saints, but does not “kill them;” but in regard to the Two Prophets, he both vanquishes and kills them. The reason is this: He could not kill the Saints as a body politic, exercising power and authority in the Court of the Gentiles; because, not being politicians and political partisans, they never possessed them: it is therefore stated simply, that they were vanquished or overcome by the war. Hence, we find nothing about the saints rising from death until “the time of the dead” when Christ appears. But, in the case of the Two Witnesses, or politico-ecclesiastical communities opposed to the Horns and their Lion Mouth, they were politically killed, and lay dead and unburied in the platea of the Great City three lunar days and a half of years, and afterwards became the subject of a political resurrection and ascension into the heaven of the beast. The Saints who dwell in the heaven in Christ have never been there yet. A better resurrection and ascension than that of the Two Witnesses is in reserve for them. The reader is referred to my eleventh chapter for particulars about the beast’s war upon the Witnesses. The Saints of the Holy City shared in much of their affliction, and are still trodden under foot; and will continue so to be, until the synchronous termination of the Forty Two months and 1335 years. After what I have written in that chapter of Vol. II, it is unnecessary here to repeat the story of the war. The Saints were killed by thousands in the war because they would not worship the beast’s image. This was the fate of multitudes who did not dwell in the heaven; for the slaughter by the beasts was often indiscriminate, on the principle p. 288 that “the Lord would know his own;” for even catholics dwelling in witnessing communities were not exempted from massacre and flame. History is copious in the narration of the sanguinary persecutions and crusades raised against them by the Pope, who promised forgiveness of sins and eternal salvation to volunteers in his wars with the saints and witnesses, all of whom he blasphemed as “emanating from the pit of the abyss.” These volunteers responded to his incentives with enthusiasm; and in reporting the execution of their mission, would say, “we have spared neither age nor sex; we have smitten every one with the edge of the sword.” Besides being subject to massacre, they were at all times by the canon law deprived of all civil privileges; and it was declared “homicidas non esse qui excommunicatos trucidant,” that they who butcher the excommunicated are not murderers.
22. The Patience and Faith of the Saints
“Here is the patience and the faith of the Saints”—Ver. 10.
When we read in the seventh verse, that “εξουσια, authority, rule, dominion or jurisdiction, was given to the Beast,” and consequently to his Lion Mouth, over every tribe, and tongue and nation, we know that the beast represents the system of government existing in the outcast and unmeasured Court of the Gentiles—ch. xi. 2: that is, over the tribes, tongues, and nations, of those countries, in which the Holy Polity in Christ, the Saints, and the Earth, or Witnesses, helping them, have contended for 1260 years against the Papacy.
The Saints, or true believers, have always known, though sinners, and sceptical professors, their kin, have not, that although their conflict with the secular and ecclesiastical rulers of the world would be proximately disastrous; yet, that finally they would themselves be the victors, and the personal avengers of the atrocious cruelties they had endured. They have always known what the Beast is that is politically “worshiped by all that dwell upon the (Romish) earth;” and by which they have in ages past been vanquished: and being of that class that hath ears, they have heard “what the Spirit saith to the ecclesias.” They have understood what the destiny of “the Powers that be,” which have led them into captivity and killed them by the sword, is decreed by the Eternal Spirit to be. They know that this beast, with all its appendages of heads, horns, mouth, feet, and Name of Blasphemy, aggregately symbolizing the governments of the nations, are themselves to be led captive, or taken violent possession of; and to be destroyed by the judicial two-edged sword in the p. 289 hands of the Saints. They knew that the honor of executing vengeance upon the nations, and punishments upon the people; of binding their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron; and of executing the judgment written, when the Ancient of Days should come, was, in the wisdom and justice of the Deity, assigned to them—Ps. cxlix. 6-9; Dan. vii. 22. By this knowledge, they were energized to endure for the time being the atrocious cruelty inflicted upon them by the great iron teeth of the Lion-Mouth. They endured in hope of this honor, and waited for it in faith. It was their patience and their faith that the time would come, after the lapse of the forty two months, when they would slay Daniel’s Fourth Beast, give his body politic to the burning flame, and deprive the other three beasts of their dominion, which they would possess 1000 years—Dan. vii. 11, 12; Apoc. xx. 4. This has never been “the patience and the faith” of the worshipers of the beast “who dwell upon the earth.” These, who constitute “the Names and Denominations of Christendom,” do not believe that the power leading “heretics,” so-called, into captivity, or, in the language of the Inquisition, “immuring” them, shall itself be “immured” in the binding of its kings and nobles with chains: nor that such a power having killed “heretics” by the million with the sword, shall in like manner be by them destroyed. They of whose names there has been no record (οὐ γεγραπται) from the foundation of the world, in the book of the slain Lamb’s life have no ear to hear such doctrines as this. The waiting for and belief of these things is a characteristic of the true believers, “who dwell in the heaven,” though pilgrims and sojourners upon the earth, and trodden under foot of the Gentiles; for where their treasure is, there is their heart, or affections, also.
This tenth verse of ch. xiii. is parallel with ch. xiv. 8-12. That is, the mission of the Second and Third Angels outlined in this passage is executive of the judgment written against the beast in ch. xiii. 10—εἰ τις, if any, etc., rendered “He that killeth, etc.; the outline shows that the “any” refers to Babylon, the great city, and the worshipers of the beast and his image; and that these are to be “tormented with fire and brimstone,” or “destroyed in war” (ch. xi. 18) “in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb.” The saints are waiting for this. It is the patience of those “who keep the commandments of the Deity and the faith of Jesus;” for so it is written in ch. xiv. 12, to which the reader is referred. Because the Great City, or “Christendom,” has shed the blood of the saints and witnesses of Jesus, blood is to be given it to drink until it shall fall to rise no more. As “a great hail out of the heavens,” the saints are to descend upon Babylon, and to “reward her even as she rewarded p. 290 them, and to double to her according to her works”—ch. xvi. 21; xviii. 6. They are to execute this judgment strengthened by Omnipotence co-working with them—ch. xiv. 13; in the time of the end, after they shall have been raised from the dead, and been commissioned—ch. xviii. 20.
When this patience and faith is satisfied, the saints, living and raised, will no longer be in a waiting position. They will rejoice in victory, and “sing the song of Moses, the servant of the Deity, and the song of the Lamb”—ch. xv. 3. There will then be no systems of government such as now exist. The ten-horned beast, the two-horned beast, the image of the beast, the scarlet-colored beast, and the drunken harlot he carries, will all have been destroyed as “the destroyers of the earth.” Not a trace of them will be left; for they are all to be carried away as the wind sweeps off the chaff of the summer threshing-floors. No place on the earth will be found for them; for the Power that smites them will become as a great mountain filling the whole earth—Dan. ii. 35,44. “Here is the patience and the faith of the saints. Here are they who keep the commandments of the Deity and the faith of Jesus;” all others are simply “the worshipers of the beast and his image,” the mark of whose name is in their foreheads, sealing them to death.
23. Names Written from the Foundation of the World
In the English Version, the eighth verse reads, “and all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him (the Beast) whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” This is generally taken to mean that “the Lamb was slain from the foundation the world”—slain in the typical sacrifices of the Mosaic law. However this may be, the phrase “from the foundation of the world” in this place does not refer to the slaying of the Lamb, but to the writing of certain names in the Book of Life. This is evident from the parallel passage in ch. xvii. 8, “and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder whose names were not written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world.” This is expository of the former on this point. The book of life is essentially that of the Lamb slain; for there is no book registering names for eternal life, that has not been sprinkled with the blood of Jesus. The slain lamb’s book of life is the Book of the Abrahamic Covenant, dedicated with the blood of Jesus, the Mediator of the New Covenant; and in this book their names are not written who are ignorant of the promises, and, therefore, faithless of the gospel preached to Abraham, and afterwards in the name of Jesus Christ. These worshipers p. 291 and wonderers are “alienated from the life of the Deity through the ignorance that is in them”—Eph. iv. 18. The slain Lamb’s book of life, whose first page was written at the foundation of the world in the days of Moses, promises the incorruptible, undefiled, an unfading inheritance reserved in heavens to those, and to such only, “who are kept by the power of Deity (the gospel of the kingdom—Rom. i. 16) through faith, for the salvation ready to be revealed in the last time”—1 Pet. i. 4, 5; or “at the appearing (the apocalypse) of Jesus Christ—ver. 7. The promise is “in thee, Abraham, and in thy Seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed;” and “all the land which thou seest to thee will I give it, and to thy Seed, for ever”—Gen. xii. 3, 7; xiii. 15. This is a promise of eternal life and of an eternal inheritance to Abraham and his Seed; for they must be made incorruptible and immortal to enable them to possess a country “for ever.” Nor can any sane person be in doubt as to what country is promised to Abraham and his Seed for ever; for it is plainly and expressly stated to be the land Abraham saw with his eyes when he was seventy-five years old—the land lying between the Mediterranean and the Euphrates, at present a province of the Draco-Ottoman empire.
Now, Moses and Paul teach that the Seed connected with the father of the faithful in the promise, was to be manifested in the line of Isaac; and that the said Seed was to be the personal and mystical Christ; or the One Body, whose head is Jesus and the Father; in other words, Jesus Christ. “To Abraham and to the Christ,” says Paul, “were the promises made, and confirmed 430 years before the Mosaic law was given.” He then states that when “the faith came;” that is, when the truth was manifested through the slaying of the Lamb of the Deity, men and women became the children of Deity by obedience to it; for the faith was made known to all nations for obedience of faith—Rom. xvi. 26; i. 5. Believers became children of the Deity by this obedience; for, he says, “Ye are all children of Deity in Christ Jesus through the faith.” But, if they were not in Christ, though they might be believers, they were not his children; but mere worshipers of the beast in the times of the beast. Those believers only are “in Christ Jesus” who have entered into that heavenly state “through the faith;” or through the way pointed out in the one faith. This way is indicated in the words of Paul, who tells the believer of the truth by what process he may become a son of Deity; how he may get into Christ, and by consequence, be Christ’s brother; and, therefore, a son of Abraham in the highest sense; an heir of the Deity, a joint-heir with Christ; and thereby entitled to the eternal life and inheritance promised to p. 292 Abraham 430 years “before the foundation of the world.” His words are, “As many as have been immersed into Christ have put on Christ; and if ye be Christ’s, then are ye the Seed of Abraham, and Heirs according to the promise—Gal. iii. 26-29; Rom. viii. 17.
This is the Covenant of Life in Christ confirmed by his blood, and styled apocalyptically, “the Book of the Life of the Lamb slain.” Every one who can prove scripturally that he is in Christ, and, therefore of Abraham’s Seed, thereby demonstrates that his name has been written in that book from the foundation of the world. For, “known unto the Deity are all his works from the beginning of the world”—Acts xv. 13. If any one be a son of Deity he is one of “his works;” for says Paul to the sons of Deity in Ephesus, “we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works”—ch. ii. 10. Then every one of his children was known to him by name when he laid the foundation of the αιων and κοσμος (both rendered world in the English Version) in the Abrahamic Covenant. To deny it, would be to say that the Deity did not know all his works from the beginning. But he did know them; and, therefore, it is said in the verse before us of the dwellers on the earth in contrast with the dwellers in the heaven, of “whom there has not been written from the foundation of the world the names in the book of the life of the Lamb that had been slain.” The sentence resting upon these is “Depart from me, ye cursed that work iniquity; I never knew you”—Matt. vii. 21-23; xxv. 41. Such are the wonderers after the beast of all clerical orders, and names, and denominations of blasphemy, of which his body politic is full—Apoc. xvii. 3. Thus, “whosoever is not found written in the Book of Life is cast into the Lake of Fire, in which the beast and false-prophet powers are to be destroyed by the all-conquering saints—ch. xix. 20; xx. 15; Matt. xxv. 41.
II. The Two-Horned Beast
“And I saw another beast ascending out of the earth, and he had Two Horns like to a Lamb, and he spake as being a Dragon.”—Apoc. xiii. 11.
John saw this while standing on “the sand of the sea.” Would he see the Ten Horn dominions ascending out of the sea, and not see a more remarkable dominion than any of them rising up in the midst of them? He says, “I saw another beast;” so that while he was seeing and standing, he saw two dominions, or systems of government, the one arising from among the peoples inhabiting the countries of the west washed by the Mediterranean, the other from among those of MIDDLE EUROPE, which he styles “the earth.”
“The Earth” is an extensive inland portion of the globe, not p. 293 included in the Roman empire when the Apocalypse was communicated to John in Patmos. In modern times, it is represented by the territory of the Austrian, Prusso-German, and Russian empires. Out of a portion of this region John saw the Two-Horned Beast arise; so that when it had arisen and established itself, there were contemporary with it Seven independent Horns, and its own Two Horns in the midst of the original ten.
Between what John saw, and what Daniel beheld while considering the Horns of the Fourth Beast (ch. vii. 3, 24), there is a remarkable identity. They both saw the rising up of the same dominion, concerning which each of them recorded particulars not specially noticed by the other.
Daniel’s and John’s ten horns represent the same European Powers. Now Daniel says that “while he was considering these horns, there came up among them another Little Horn;” which is equivalent to the information derived from John, that while he stood looking at the ten-horned beast, he saw “another beast coming up out of the earth.” The most notable diversity here between John and Daniel is, that what Daniel styles a Little Horn, John terms a Beast with Two Horns, and speaking as being a Dragon. This diversity is instructive. A horn represents a Dynasty, or succession of potentates. This appears from the two horns of the Ram in Dan. viii., representing the Dynasty of the Medes, and the Dynasty of the Persians; and for two years, both of them contemporary on the same beast. John’s description of the dominion shows that the Beast of the Earth has Two Contemporary Dynasties, both of which are Dragonic, or Imperial. But Daniel shows the same things, only in a different way. For, that his Little Horn is imperial, a dominion ruled by emperors, he affirms in saying, that the power should subdue three of the ten horns that had existence before it. It was to rule over three conquered kingdoms besides its own: and that it was to be a double-headed imperiality; or, a dominion under two contemporary successions of potentates, he represents by the Little Horn, for one succession of secular emperors; and by the Eyes and Mouth for the other succession of pontifical emperors, styled Popes. This constitution of things makes it “diverse from the ten horns.” There were no independent Eyes and Mouth for each of them. If there had been a pair of Eyes and a Mouth for each horn there would have been a Pope for each kingdom; or ten contemporary popes, as well as ten contemporary kings. But this would have been confusion worse confounded than it was. On the contrary, one pope or Papal Dynasty, was deemed sufficient for the whole ecclesiastical requirements of the worshipers of the beast, both of the p. 294 earth and sea. One pope, one emperor, seven independent, and three vassal kingdoms, south and west of the Rhine and Danube, represented by John’s two beasts, is the politico-ecclesiastical and apocalyptical constitution of Modern Europe, from A.D. 800 to A.D. 1793. Revolutions have often seriously disturbed this constitutional order. There have been rival contemporary popes and emperors, and more and fewer kings. At present, everything is subjected to this revolutionary disturbance. But, we have in this place more particularly to do with what John saw while he stood on the sand of the sea, viewing the rising up of this new imperial dominion of the west, which Daniel intimates was not only to arise “among the ten horns,” but “after them.”
This is highly important information, and guards us against the error of searching for the Two-Horn Dominion before the appearance of the Ten Gothic kingdoms, or during the time of their appearing. Nor may we search for it while the Seventh Head occupied Rome. That sovereignty had to pass away before an Imperial Eighth could occupy the Seven Hills. This brings us to the time of the settlement of Italy by Justinian’s Pragmatic Sanction, A. D. 554. But taking our stand upon this settlement, and surveying the western world we can discern nothing answerable to Daniel’s Little Horn with Eyes and Mouth, and John’s Beast of the Earth. We can see Rome reduced in rank among cities, and deprived of all sovereignty: the dominion of Constantinople established in part of Italy; and the Bishop of Rome still devoid of temporal authority, and subject to the Viceroy of the Great Emperor or Dragon, called the Exarch of Ravenna. Two hundred and forty years, however, after this settlement, a great revolution had been developed in the European Body Politic. The Constantinopolitan sovereignty and Exarch were no longer found in Italy; three of the Ten-Horn kingdoms had been subdued by a new power; the Bishop of Rome was exalted into a pontifical potentate with temporal jurisdiction over the so-called Patrimony of St. Peter, or “States of the Church;” and Rome was raised from her degradation and eclipse to imperial sovereignty; and, as Gibbon testifies, was afterwards “revered by the Latins as the Metropolis of the World, and THE THRONE OF THE POPE AND EMPEROR who from the Eternal City derived their title, their honors, and the right or exercise of temporal dominion.”
This New Dominion of the Two Dynasties styled “the Pope and Emperor,” is John’s Two-Horned Beast of the Earth; and Daniel’s Little Horn with Eyes like eyes of a man, and a Mouth speaking very great things, whose look was more stout than any of the Ten. Its rise must be looked for after the Emperor of the East had lost p. 295 his sovereignty in Italy. The Constantinopolitan Exarchate of Ravenna was conquered by the Lombards, A.D. 752, which gave the preponderance in Italy to them; and placed the Bishop of Rome very much at their mercy. It was between this date and A.D. 799 that the Two-Horned Beast arose. This interval was the period in which the Bishop of Rome passed from under the sovereignty of the Emperor of the East into an alliance with the New Imperial Dominion of the West, known in history as “the Holy Roman Empire” of Middle Europe.
24. The Ascending of the Beast out of the Earth
The originating and establishing, which constitute the ascending, rising, or coming up of a dominion, are a work of power, conflict, conquest, and of time. The commencement of such a work is preceded by what is now commonly styled a situation; or concurrence of circumstances and agents, which, when a certain impetus is imparted to them impels them in a certain course to results, neither contemplated nor capable of being controlled. This obtains in regard to the ascending of the Two-Horned Beast out of the earth. The circumstances of the time, the questions agitated, and the ambitions of the leading spirits of the day, acting and reacting upon one another, was the situation which originated and ultimately developed the dominion symbolized by Daniel and John respectively.
The Eighth Century had its Roman Question as well as this so-called “Enlightened Nineteenth;” and Italy, then as now, was the arena of superstition, papal intrigue, political ambitions, and war. Part of it, afterwards absurdly termed “St. Peter’s Patrimony,” was included in the Exarchate of Ravenna, which belonged to the Eastern Roman Dragon of Constantinople, whose emperor Leo Isauricus, was sovereign of Rome, and therefore master of the Bishop of Rome; but by the decree of Phocas, A.D. 607, or 608, the chief of all the bishops, and Head of all the churches of the Apostasy, which was territorially co-extensive with the dominions symbolized by John’s beast of the earth and sea. The rest of Italy was occupied by the kingdom of Lombardy, and the rising Republic of Venice. The Bishop of Rome was as little able to protect himself then against these potentates, as he is now against Victor Emmanuel and the Red Republicans; nor was the Emperor of the East able to protect him, if he had been willing, more efficiently than the Austrian of A. D. 1866. He was in a very uncomfortable position, being liable to a change of masters at very short notice; neither of whom were at all congenial to his mind as the Infallible Judge of heretics, and their, to him, p. 296 perverse abominations. A united Italy, and Rome for its capital, was the cry of the Lombards, or Langebards, (Long Beards) and their warlike kings. These Bearded Revolutionists wanted Rome, but the Eastern emperors did not want to part with it. It was a city of the Dragon dominion, and they intended to keep it; and to preserve it, or rather deliver it from idolatry and the worship of τα δαιμονια και ειδωλα (ch. ix. 20) if they could. They had recovered possession of it when they conquered the Seventh Head therein enthroned; and they had no idea of allowing an Eighth Head to establish itself upon the Seven Hills; much less would they consent, that the Lombard Horn should make it the capital of its dominion. The Bishop of Rome also was opposed to the Long Beards (and he has never liked to see Long Beards about him since, remembering the trouble they gave him in the eighth century; hence, at this day he forbids “his children” to wear beards, inasmuch also as it is the symbol of revolution, and a desire for the possession of Rome to the prejudice of his interests,) as he preferred subjection to a master afar off in Constantinople, than to a prying and troublesome supervisor at hand. He had been in this case under the Gothic kings, when they ruled as the Seventh Head in Rome. But it was by no means to his liking. He would prefer independence of all governments; but as the time had not quite come for that, he would rather be subject to Constantinople, than to the Lombards at the door.
Thus far in this exposition we have seen that Italy, the Heaven of the gods of the Roman system, experienced a variety of fortunes after it lost its ancient masters, and before it fell, as we shall see, into the hands of the founder of the Two-Horned Episcopal dominion. In the sounding of the fourth wind-trumpet it was entirely subdued by the Herulian Goths, who came from the extremity of the Black Sea. They held it for a short time, and were succeeded by the Ostrogoths, or Seventh Head. These acknowledged the Wounded Imperial Head, restricted to the Eastern and Illyrian Thirds, and still reigning in Constantinople, as their superior in rank, but not in jurisdiction. The Seventh Head was at last subdued by Belisarius and Narses, the generals of Justinian, the reigning emperor of the Wounded Sixth Head, who having “plucked up by the roots” the Vandal Horn of the Sea Monster, had the pleasure of uniting Italy and Africa once more to the Eastern Roman, or Greek empire; but not of so healing the Gothic sword-wound as to restore the city Rome to its former imperial rank among the cities of the empire. This pleasure was reserved, as we shall see, for a great conqueror, the influence of whose victories is felt in the constitution of Europe to this p. 297 day. The Western Empire, which took its rise as a separate State on the death of Theodosius, A. D. 395, was wholly subverted by Odoacer, the king of the Heruli; and Rome, its capital, was now in the middle of the eighth century, a second-rate city, the residence of a mere duke, and an ambitious and turbulent prelate, called the Universal Bishop, and subject to the authority of the Eastern emperor’s viceroy, styled the Exarch, whose seat of government was in Ravenna, near the Adriatic, and 117 miles distant from Rome.
Soon after the subversion of the Seventh Ostrogothic Head, great part of Italy was seized by Alboin, king of the Lombards, who made Pavia the seat of government. Autharis, a successor, embraced the catholic superstition about A. D. 586, in its Arian form, which was highly offensive to the Universal Bishop; who could have no more fellowship with him, than Pius IX. with Victor Emmanuel, the modern king of Lombardy, who lies under the Papal ban of excommunication for coveting his neighbor’s goods. Liberty of conscience, so odious to the papal mind, was allowed under all the Lombard kings; and Rotharis was so moderate and indulgent, that during his reign, most cities of Italy had two bishops, one Trinitarian, and the other Arian. But king Grimoald, about A.D. 668, influenced by the bishop of Bergamo, renounced the tenets of Arius. His successors followed his example; so that Arianism was in a short time forsaken by the Lombard nation. Grimoald was succeeded by Luitprand, whose great qualities were in some measure obscured by his unbounded ambition. Not satisfied with the extensive dominions left him by his predecessors, like Victor Emmanuel, he formed the design of making himself sole master of Italy, which, of course, necessitated the conquest of the Exarchate, and the expulsion of the imperial authority from the country.
This project was favored A.D. 726, by the edict of Leo Isauricus, then emperor of Constantinople, where theological disputes had long mingled with affairs of State. He zealously prohibited the worship of images; ordering all the statues to be broken in pieces, and the paintings in the Trinitarian Bazaars of Guardian Saints, whose worship also was forbidden, to be pulled down and burnt. The populace, whose devotion extended no further than such objects, and the monks and secular priests interested in supporting the mummery, were so highly provoked at this innovation, that they publicly revolted in many places; and in Italy swore to live and die in defence of their idols. In these times of extreme ignorance and barbarism the dispute about image and picture worship was a very grave and vital question with both Trinitarians and Arians; the solution of which led to very important and mighty results. In view of these, I have p. 298 thought it would be in place to present the reader, in a condensed form and as a distinct section, what history supplies upon this subject.