called adultery; and what, then, can we call an idolatrous church if not by the name given it both in the Old and New Testament Scriptures? The true Church is also called the Holy City. Babylon was noted for its idolatry and wickedness, and for enmity to the people of God. The Romish Church sustains the same character, and holds a similar relation to the true; it is therefore with great propriety denominated BABYLON THE GREAT. It is also called MYSTERY from the hidden depths of its iniquity, and in contrast to the clear light of pure Christianity. So far there is an obvious natural comparison between the true and the idolatrous church. But the moment the latter is called a beast the antithesis is lost, the gender is changed, and the whole becomes obscure.

II. A beast is the symbol of the Gentile nations, and of the open enemies of the Church. It is never used to denote a corrupt Church. It is of the opposite sex, and cannot be called a harlot or lewd woman. On the other hand, the open enemies of the Church are never called by the latter appellation, though they are represented as taking the place of her Head when she has become corrupt, as in the alliance of papal Babylon with "the beast and kings of the earth."

III. There is a want of unity in the description of the beasts of the thirteenth chapter and the Roman beast of the seventeenth. They agree, it

is true, in the number of their heads and horns, which are also the same with those of the dragon; but these are indefinite scriptural numbers, so that their agreement in this respect by no means proves them to be the same. In the description of the Roman beast, the heads are said to be "seven mountains on which the woman sitteth;" in the other, "one of the heads was wounded to death,” which could not be affirmed of one of the mountains. In the former the horns were all crowned when the beast arose out of the sea; in the Roman beast they are represented as "kings who had received no kingdom as yet." The one is full of names of blasphemy; the other has them only on his heads. One is scarlet-coloured; the other made up of the leopard, bear, and lion. The Roman beast derives his chief importance from his servile connexion with the "scarlet woman;" the other is of himself a most wonderful, warlike, and powerful animal, and so far from being second in consequence to the beast with two horns (which has been supposed to be identical with the woman), the latter labours to subserve the interests of the former. Of these, the first beast makes war with the saints. In the other case, it is the woman, and not the beast, who is "drunken with the blood of saints and martyrs" (ch. xvii., 6). "In her," not in him, "was found the blood of prophets," &c. (ch. xviii., 24.)

Before dismissing this subject, we must beg leave to introduce one more proof that the beast of the 13th chapter and Mohammedanism are the same. The evidence is found in a comparison of the seven trumpets and the seven vials (ch. viii., ix., and xvi.). The angels commissioned with the seven last plagues "pour out the vials of the wrath of God" upon the same places and objects that were affected by the blast of the seven trumpets, and in the same order: the first upon the earth; the second upon the sea; the third upon the rivers and fountains of water; the fourth the sun; upon the sixth upon the river Euphrates; the seventh into the air. So far there can be no doubt of the identity of the localities; and where six out of seven in the same order correspond, it is quite obvious that there was unity of design throughout.

**

By general consent it is admitted that the fifth trumpet introduced Mohammedanism (ch. ix., 1). The fifth vial was poured out upon the seat of the beast (ch. xvi., 10); and hence we infer that the Mohammedan power and the beast are the same.

But let us put the conclusion to a farther test by a brief examination of the events of the fifth and sixth vials (ch. xvi., 10-14). Perhaps no country in the world will answer to the events represented under the fifth vial so fully as Turkey. Regarding the imperial city as the more immediate seat of the beast, I need only point to the scenes of anarchy and G G

blood which disgraced that great metropolis anterior to the destruction of the Janizaries, and during the dark and stormy night in which they were swept from the earth. But there is another of their plagues which is mentioned in very remarkable language: "their sores."-Rev., xvi., 11. The term is introduced under the first of the seven vials: "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." It will be remembered that these vials are denominated "the seven plagues" (ch. xv., 1, 8). Now it is a very remarkable fact, in this connexion, that a disease of peculiar type prevails in the Mohammedan countries (and is confined almost exclusively to them), so grievous and destructive that it is emphatically called THE PLAGUE. Its beginning, and progress, and termination are chiefly characterized by its "sores."

"Their noisome and grievous sore” is the first distinctive symptom of plague, and often follows the unhappy sufferer long after the general disease has passed by. Search the records of all the ills that flesh is heir to, and this dreadful malady will be found pre-eminent for its mortality. Year after year it sends the voice of wailing among the hapless subjects of the Mohammedan beast, and its victims must be estimated by millions.

But while the Moslems charge it all upon God,

or to resistless Fate, and " gnaw their tongues for pain," they "repent not of their deeds." From these judgments poured out upon "the seat of the beast," we infer the identity of the Mohammedan power, which arose under the fifth trumpet, with "the beast" of the fifth vial. And this we cannot doubt is the same as the beast of the thirteenth chapter.

"And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates, and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the East might be prepared." As "the Euphratean horsemen of the sixth trumpet are universally allowed to symbolize the rise and progress of the Ottoman empire," so also the drying up of the Euphrates under the sixth vial is no less commonly believed to represent its decline and fall. There exists the same relation between this and the preceding vial that there is between the fifth and sixth trumpets. The scene is the same, and the same beast is concerned in the events of both of these vials. Now

it is an old maxim, that " a man is known by the company he keeps," and we here find the beast making his appearance in the same company which attended him in the height of his power. Of the identity of "the dragon," that " old serpent called the devil," who had such confidence in the efficient co-operation of the beast as to "give him

* Bush on the Millennium, p. 214.