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SECTION III.

The Autocratical Decarchy or Heptarchy of the CESARS OF THE ROMANS, in the ancient territories of the Roman Empire, over the Church of Christ.

The same power, which has ever intermeddled with the affairs of religion, in the Babylonic-Assyrian, MedoPersian, Greek, Egyptian, Syrian, Roman, Latin, and, in fact, in all Empires, now rises again under a Greek head on Justinian, the Greek Emperor's conquest of Italy by his famous generals, Belisarius and Narses, when the Latin Empire, destroyed by the Herulic and Ostrogothic kings, recovers again under his combined sway, who, together with the heads of the ten Gothic nations which invade the Empire, sets himself up in the church of Christ, dictator of the faith, as all the Pagan governments had done before him in their establishments. The consequence of this diabolical arrogance in the civil power is, that it casts down the truth to the ground, and it practises, and prospers. How much innocent blood for innocent opinions has not been shed by this cruel and rapacious monster in all ages of the church! and how many who have only consulted their own sordid interests, their lusts, their avarice, their ambition, have not succumbed to his omnipotent influence! The authority, the power, the titles, the attributes of the Deity have been usurped by this Anti-god; and to Protestant as well as Catholic establishments Cæsar has been all in all. At the expiration of nine hundred years we have seen the Cæsars of the Romans fall by the Turkish sword; at the expiration of the 1260 we have seen the last of the autocrats sent captive to Elba and St. Helena. France gave

*As three of the ten horns or kingdoms were eradicated before the Papal power, the confederacy of the remaining seven will produce the heptarchy, to which the seven Electorates of the Image will answer.

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to the saints the charter of Louis the Desired, 1814; England rescinded two of her intolerant acts, 1813; the Netherlands granted equal power and protection to all religions, 1815; Spain abolished the Inquisition, 1820; the march of intellect has checked the efforts of despotism in other portions of the decarchy since the organization of the Holy Alliance; and the Spirit of Christ, the God of Liberty, still broods over the political abyss. A.D. 553-1813.

XIII. 1. And I stood upon the sand of the sea,

and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads names of blas2 phemy. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his 3 seat, and great authority. And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered 4 after the beast. And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast; and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him? 5 And there was given unto him a mouth speaking

great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to prosper forty and two months. 6 And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, 7 and them that dwell in heaven. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them; and power was given him over

8 all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. 9 If any man have an ear, let him hear. He that 10 leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.

SECTION IV.

The Spiritual Despotism of His HOLINESS OF ROME in the Two Præfectures of the Gauls and Italy.

With the mixed despotism of Cæsar arose the autocracy of the Pope, who, pretending a spiritual jurisdiction over the two Præfectures of the Gauls and Italy, endeavoured to exercise a temporal one as well. He enjoyed all the authority of the civil power in his presence, and leagued himself with it, whenever it did not thwart his own arbitrary purposes, to tyrannize over the rights and consciences of the people, so that the ministry of Christ instead of serving as a check upon its encroachments by preserving their own independence, and instead of inspiring it with the simplicity which characterised the popular institutions founded by their master, became not only useless but pernicious, imitating it in the "authority" and the "dominion" by their numerous gradations of rank, breaking up the simple distinction which once existed between the pastor and the flock, viz. the minister or "servant of all," into its Gentile divisions, thus defeating one of the main designs of Christianity, the promotion of civil and religious liberty, and substituting institutions instead, which were meet

only for the gratification of pride, ambition, or covetousness. By the fire of excommunication which this power darted from the Vatican through its hierarchy, princes, kings, and emperors were deposed; and whenever the interests of the church and the state were the same, it practised, through policy, its lying craft of miracles, with the latter's consent and approbation.

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And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth: and he had two horns like a lamb, 12 and he spake as a dragon. And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound 13 was healed. And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on 14 the earth in the sight of the men, and deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast.

SECTION V.

The Autocratical Decarchy or Heptarchy of the German CESARS OF THE ROMANS, in the Holy Roman Empire, over the Church of Christ.

The Roman Empire had not existed more than two hundred and fifty years under a Latino-Greek dynasty, than the Popes created a new line of the Emperors of the Romans in the persons of the Emperors of Germany, who for a long time, viz. till 1508, received from them the Imperial Crown, so that there were now two dynasties of Emperors, calling themselves Emperors of the

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Romans. The first of the German Emperors was Charlemagne, created A.D. 800. He, and Charles V. possessed nearly the whole of the territories which once composed the Roman Empire; and the Emperors in their proper dominions of Germany at the head of seven or ten Electors, who in rank and title were equal to kings, presented no slight resemblance to their contemporaries the Greek Emperors of the Romans, or their successors the Monarchs of France, at the head of their septemvirate or decemvirate of the Empire properly Roman. "The emperors," says Koch, in his History of the Revolutions of Europe, "may be regarded as true monarchs, dispensing, at their pleasure, all dignities, civil and ecclesiastical-possessing very large domains in all parts of the Empire and exercising, individually, various branches of the sovereign power;-only in affairs of great importance, asking the advice or consent of the grandees. This greatness of the German emperors gave rise to a system of polity which the Popes took great care to support with all their credit and authority. According to this system, the whole of Christendom composed, as it were, a single and individual republic, of which the Pope was the spiritual head, and the Emperor the secular. The duty of the latter, as head and patron of the church, was to take cognizance that nothing should be done contrary to the general welfare of Christianity. It was his part to protect the Catholic church, to be the guardian of its preservation, to convocate its general councils, and exercise such rights as the nature of his office and the interest of Christianity seemed to demand. It was in virtue of this ideal system that the emperors enjoyed a precedency over other monarchs, with the exclusive right of electing kings; and that they had bestowed on them the title of masters of the world and sovereign of sovereigns." "The oracle of the civil law, the learned Bartolus," says Gibbon, "was a pensioner of Charles the fourth; and his school resounded with the doctrine, that the Roman Emperor was the rightful sovereign of the earth, from the rising to the setting sun. The contrary opinion was condemned, not as an error, but as an heresy, since even the gospel had pronounced, And there went forth a decree from Cæsar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.'

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