from heaven upon earth; or, in other words, that none might dispute his right and power of excommunication. I know not any better comment upon this part of the prophecy than the use which was made of the miracles said to have been wrought at the shrine of Archbishop Becket. During the schism in the church of Rome, that turbulent prelate had espoused the cause of Pope Alexander against bis competitor; and after his death he became a wonder-working saint. Such being the case, the litigated point was soon decided. "Whereas many,' says John of Salisbury, "doubted whether Alexander was the true Pope or not, the miracles of Becket decided that question in his favour, as they could not have been done by one engaged in a schism." Thus was Alexander confirmed by miracles in his full right and title to anathematize his rival, and to hurl the thunder-bolts of the church at all his opponents. Nor has this claim to

supernatural gifts been made solely during the thick darkness of the middle ages: an anonymous Popish writer even of the last century, cited by Mr. Whitaker, insists upon the miraculous powers of the church of Rome down to the then present time, and enumerates many miracles which he avers to have been performed since the era of the Reformation. At the conclusion of his catalogue of saints endowed with such powers, he observes, that "all the persons so conspicuous for these supernatural gifts were zealous members of the catholic church;† meaning doubtless to intimate, that, if the catholic church (so the Papists think proper to denominate the church of Rome) were not the only true church, its members would not have possessed those gifts. Here then we have another instance of the manner in which the church of Rome proved itself to be the only true church by lying wonders. When that point was once established; when the strong faith of a determined Papist once admitted the reality of those miracles; and when once he drew from them the desired conclusion, that, since none but members of the true church could perform them, the church of Rome whose members did perform

* Whitaker's Comment. p. 391, 392.

Ibid. p. 395-399.

them must doubtless be the only true church: the rest would follow of course: no salvation can be had out of the true church; therefore the church of Rome possesses an undoubted power to anathematize and excommunicate all heretics.

7. He deceiveth them that dwell on the earth, by means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image for the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live. And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed-Before the import of this passage can be determined, its literal meaning must be ascertained. The expression the image of the beast, and the expression the beast and his image which elsewhere occurs, are both ambiguous; inasmuch as they may signify either the image, in the sense of the effigies of the beast, or the image, which belongs to the beast. Thus the image of Cesar upon the Roman coin means doubtless the effigies of Cesar; whereas the image of Micah certainly means the image which belonged to Micah, the image which he had made for himself to be his god. Had no other expressions then occurred in the Apocalypse except the image of the beast and the beast and his image, we should have been unable positively to determine what precise idea we ought to annex to this image; but all ambiguity seems to be removed by the manner in which the Apostle introduces his account of it. It is said, the second beast so deceived the inhabitants of the earth by his false miracles, that he induced them to make an image to or for the first beast. Now it is surely putting a very great force upon language to suppose that the making an image for the beast can signify the making a representation of him. The prohibition in the decalogue relative to idolatry is couched in the following terms: "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image."+ Here it is manifest, that the making an image to a person's self means the making an image

for his own use and worship: it is only natural therefore to suppose, that the making an image to the beast means the making an image for the use and worship of the beast; and consequently that the image of the beast imports, not the effigies of the beast, but the image which

the beast adored.

That such is the proper interpretation of the expression will yet further appear, if we consider the context of the whole passage. It was by false miracles that the

ecclesiastical beast induced the inhabitants of the earth to set up this image for the secular beast. Accordingly, as we are informed by Bp. Newton, "miracles are thought so necessary and essential, that they are reckoned among the notes of the catholic church; and they are alledged principally in support of purgatory, prayers for the dead, the worship of saints images and relics, and the like (as they are called) catholic doctrines."*

The difficulty consists, not so much in proving this point, as in selecting some out of the many proofs which offer themselves to our attention. "The first introduction," says Mr. Gibbon, "of a symbolic worship was in the veneration of the cross and of relics. The saints and martyrs, whose intercession was implored, were seated on the right hand of God; but the gracious, and often supernatural favours, which, in the popular belief, were showered around their tomb, conveyed an unquestionable sanction of the devout pilgrims, who visited, and touched, and kissed, these lifeless remains, the memorials of their merits and sufferings-The scruples of reason or piety were silenced by the strong evidence of visions and miracles; and the pictures, which speak, and move, and bleed, must be endowed with a divine energy, may be considered as the proper objects of religious adoration-Before the end of the sixth century, images, made without hands (in Greek it is a single word), were propagated in the camps and cities of the eastern empire they were the objects of worship and the instruments of miracles; and, in the hour of danger or túmult, their venerable presence could revive the hope, rekindle

and

Bp. Newton's Dissert. on Rev. xiii.

66

the courage, or repress the fury, of the Roman legions."* One of the grand idols of the Romanists, as it is well known, is the Virgin Mary. They beg of her," says Jurieu, "in express terms whatever is desired from God; heaven, pardon of sin, grace, repentance, victory of the devil. It is not enough to pray to the virgin, you must adore her every knee must bow to her, adoring her as sovereign queen of men and angels. And this adoration is not to be mere external adoration, but internal-On account of her holiness, men owe dulia to her; on account of her maternal relation, they owe her hyperdulia; and, because she touched our Saviour, the adoration of latria is due to her. Those, who well perform these services, though never so negligent of their duty towards God, though villains, robbers, debauchees; they cannot be damned, because they have been clients of the virgin. This they prove by innumerable examples of those, whom the virgin hath by strange miracles brought back, as it were, from the gates of hell, because they had been her votaries. And, as an evidence how pleasing this adoration is to the virgin, she hath wrought more miracles within these last seven or eight hundred years, than God hath wrought since the creation, by Moses and the prophets, by Jesus Christ and his apostles, and by all the saints together. Her images have spoken, they have sung, they have resisted the fire and the hammer, they have soared in the air like birds, they have sweat blood, and oil and milk have run from them. Some of

History of Decline and Fall, Vol. ix. p. 114-120. Mr. Gibbon observes, that before the end of the sixth century images were in very general use. This may be thought to contradict what I have said relative to the proper date of the great Apos tacy. I then however observed, and I may here observe again, that superstition had for some time been gradually creeping into the Church previous to the years 606 and 607; but it is necessary to date a prophetic series of years from a fixed and determinate era when some overt act has been committed. This overt act is declared by the prophet to be the establishment of the Pope's supremacy, or the delivering up of the saints into his hand. Now it is observable, that, whatever approaches there might be to image-worship in the course of the sixth century, idolatry was not openly established by the authority of the Roman pontiff till the year 607; the very year after that in which the saints had been delivered into the hand of the little born, and consequently from which the 1260 years are to be dated. Accordingly Mr. Gibbon very truly observes respecting the period of which he is speaking," as the worship of images had never been established by any general or positive law, its progress in the Eastern empire had been retarded or accelerated, by the differences of men and manners, the local degrees of refinement, and the personal characters of the bishops." Ibid. p. 122.

them have been turned into flesh; they have wept, lamented, groaned; they have made the lame to walk, the blind to see, the deaf to hear. They have cured all kinds of diseases, and wrought all sorts of prodigies. For these reasons, people will go to the end of the world to visit these consecrated images. They kiss,* fall down before them, and render them an external worship, accompanied with a most fervent internal devotion. They rub their chaplets or beads, and their handkerchiefs, upon these images ; and wear about them these chaplets and cloths, which have touched the images of the virgin; and believe, that they are relics which have a virtue to preserve from all evils. That, which we have discoursed concerning the Virgin, may be applied to saints proportionably. There is no folly or extravagance that we have now related, but every order of monks say such like of their founder and author: the Cordeliers and Capuchins, of their St. Francis; the Jacopins, of their St. Dominic; and, in general of all the pretended saints of their orders, they are more holy than seraphim; they raise the dead; they heal all diseases; the whole creation is subject to them."+ Another of the Popish idols is the consecrated wafer or sacramental bread, the worship of which naturally followed the monstrous doctrine of transubstantiation. This likewise hath been honoured by its own proper miracles. A saint, named Malachy, was employed by the Pope to convert the Irish to the discipline and canons of the church

"Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him." (1 Kings xix. 18.) "And now they sin more and more, and have made them molten images of their silver, and idols according to their own understanding, all of it the work of the craftsmen: they say of them, let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves:" that is the statues of Moloch and Baal. (Hos. xiii. 2.) The excuse, which Papists are wont to make for their idolatry, effectually proves them to be idolaters. They deny that they worship the images; asserting, that they only kiss them, and bow down before them, in token (as the council of Trent expresses it) of their "worshipping the saints, whose likeness images do bear." What is this but explicitly acknowledging, that they worship dead men through the medium of certain fanciful representations of them? So perfectly does the idolatry of the revived papal beast resemble the idolatry of the old pagan beast that was wounded to death by the sword of the Spirit, that the ancient heathens gave precisely the same reason for worshipping their images, that the modern Papists do for worshipping theirs. Their language was, as we learn from Arnobius, "Not that brass, gold, silver, and the like materials of statues are gods; but that through them the invisible gods are honoured and worshipped."

Cited by Whitaker, p. 341.