withstood all the hosts of the enemy. Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; ever dying, and yet ever more truly and vigorously living; she rose after each encounter like a giant refreshed with wine.' From her Martyr-seed sprang forth an ever increasing and still goodlier progeny. The Beast's power tottered to its foundations. He was ever worsted: He was losing heart and strength. At last he was laid low; and appeared, says S. John, ὡς ἐσφαγμένον εἰς θάνατον. His time had come. The very World Power itself became Christian. The Beast qua Beast died. The Church's final conquests now seemed sure: the Kingdom of the world was already becoming the Kingdom of the LORD CHRIST. Aided now by the friendly World-Power, the Church will assuredly carry all before her, subdue to the obedience of CHRIST the remotest tribes of earth, and bring about the times of universal peace.

But stay, let us ascertain what is the precise nature of the change that has come over the Beast. Is he transformed, is he regenerated? It is true that as regards his GOD-opposed, savage, bestial nature he is no more. But has he really become man? Has a man's heart been given to him? Though mortally wounded, powerless, prostrate, has he ceased to be a Beast? No, with emphatic and terrible significance S. John always reminds us that the deadly wound has yet to be healed: that the Beast has yet to reappear in his proper nature, reinforced from the abyss, and with a sevenfold intensity of rabid ferocity that its ten horns have to rise to power1 and to engage in open and infatuated warfare with the LAMB.

1 But are not these ten Kingdoms in power already? For surely, if they represent the several kingdoms of modern Europe, the sprouts from the old Roman head, they are at this time exercising their several independent sovereignties. True: but this is not the particular kind of dominion here signified. The power here specifically referred to, is bestial, open Anti-Christian power. This they have not received as yet. The horns already exist; but they are not crowned: for the Dragon has to crown them.

It must be observed, that when S. John first sees the Beast, he beholds it in its full-blown vigour, and developed proportions, with its horns crowned. But he is subsequently told that this state of things has not hitherto been realized it only 'is to be hereafter.' These several horns, or kingdoms, then, which have already emerged, as predicted, from out of the old broken Roman head, are yet waiting for their bestial life, their Anti-Christian power and kingdom. For that they have not obtained this at present, is manifest from the fact of their being hitherto, outwardly friendly to CHRIST. But their power has to come from the Abyss: and "they are to receive it at one and the same time with the Beast." That is, when the true bestial nature of the World-Power is beginning to revive, and the Seventh Head is springing into being, then shall these kingdoms (at that time ten in number) be animated and possessed with the same diabolic life; the same rabid and open hostility against God and His people. "This shall be their hour and the power of darkness." It is at this particular crisis-while the change is coming over them, and they are being demoniacally energized from beneath, and have begun in savage frenzy "to make war upon the Lamb,"-it is at this crisis that GoD shall use them as His terrible instruments of retributive vengeance against the Harlot. She has "trusted in the strength of Pharaoh : the strength of Pharaoh shall be her ruin." "The ten horns shall hate the Whore, and make her desolate, and burn her with fire." It is not till after the destruction of the Harlot that the Anti-Christian Kingdom is fully

But meanwhile, the Beast is in a state of torpor. He is lying headless and prostrate. He has become Christianized and instead of devouring, gently supports the Woman. He is her harmless and friendly Beast of burden.

This good understanding between the Church and the world is expressed by S. John under another figure in the original picture of the woman in the wilderness, in the twelfth chapter. Let us revert to this chapter for a few moments.

We saw, a little while ago, that the Church had found her a home in the barren wilderness of heathendom; had obtained a secure seat in the very centre of the kingdom of the world. Meanwhile the dragon, furious at her success, casts out of his mouth water as a flood after her that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood." (xii. 15.) What signifies this "flood of water?" It" refers undoubtedly," says our author, "to the streams of the migration of nations." (p. 261.) The Roman empire, once his great stronghold, having deserted his cause and embraced Christianity, he will let loose upon it his unregenerate masses, who shall destroy it, and thus, as he fondly hopes, the Christian religion itself. But once again he is foiled, "the earth helps the woman and swallows up the flood."

"We know that the earth in contradistinction to water, signifies the world as already consolidated and civilized. The cultured Roman world received the wild Germanic masses, subdued and mollified their hostility, and reconciled them to Christianity, which is regarded here, as we see, not so much in its heavenly aspect, as in its earthly, as a power of civilization."

But at this point of the symbolic history a very important distinction arrests us which runs secretly throughout the whole of the Apocalypse; we mean the distinction between the Woman and her Seed; or, as it is here expressed, "the remnant of her seed which keep the commandments of GOD." What is the import of this distinction? With two characteristic notices S. John for a time leaves them. With regard to the woman he says, "The earth helped her;" with regard to the faithful remnant of her seed, he says, "the dragon persecuted them." So that henceforward we are to have two distinct phases of Church history running on side by side, an exoteric and an esoteric. We have the Church, henceforward, regarded in two separate lights (1.) as militant and visible, consisting, like the net, the barn, the field, of good and bad, wheat and chaff, good seed and tares; and (2.) as consisting of the true faithful members of CHRIST alone. In her visible, mundane aspect, consolidated; that, subduing three of his confederate kings, he becomes an eighth ;" and that he sets himself up, openly and deliberately, as the god of the world; claiming, and exacting on pain of death, universal and exclusive worship, as though he were Incarnate Deity, the Image of GOD, instead of the 'vile' impersonation of the Beast-nature-the "image of the Beast."

as the woman, she soon becomes Babylon, confusion; in regard to the Holy Seed she is still Jerusalem the city of GOD.

The Man-Child to whom the woman, or mystical Sion, gave birth (xii. 5,) was CHRIST Himself; hence therefore, the "remnant, or remainder (2010) of her seed" are the complement of CHRIST, His true members; the invisible Church which is now hid and included within the visible. The Woman is the Church as manifested during the present dispensation; her Seed are those alone of her present members which shall be accounted worthy to attain to the glories of the first resurrection; they are the secret election from out of the visible election.

It is they who are hereafter to reign; not the Woman who is to reign now. The distinction is of infinite importance. The attitude of the Woman is to be a suffering, meek, militant one, not a haughty regnant one. When the kingdom comes, it will be set up and established by means wholly supernatural, not by earthly processes. The weapons of the Church's warfare are not carnal. The whole dream of a visible, universal mundane theocracy during the present alwv is an essential and fundamental mistake. The words, "I sit as a queen," are essentially those of the harlot. The duty of the woman is now to bring forth children unto CHRIST ;' in the next dispensation her Seed shall "rule all nations with a rod of iron."

Now of the Church under these her two distinct aspects, as visible and invisible, S. John proceeds to tell us many things.

Of the Seed we read that the devil "went his way to persecute them." For of every true member of the Body Mystical, it ever has been, and ever must be true, that 'in the world they shall have tribulation;' that their reigning with CHRIST' shall be antedated by their 'suffering with Him.' These are the blessed mourners to whom are assured the strong consolations of the everlasting Comforter; "sorrowful, but always rejoicing; poor, but making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing all things." These appear in the Apocalypse as the "Two Witnesses," as keeping the two Testaments, and nurtured by the two great Sacraments. As the Woman comprehends the whole Temple of GOD, so do these constitute but the inner Sanctuary. They are the 'called,' the 'sealed ones;' they re-appear as the Bride. As yet they belong to the Woman. But as of old when Jerusalem became Sodom and Egypt, GOD summoned His Church out of it (“I called My Son out of Egypt"); so when the 'faithful city' has again become a harlot,' and the woman's 'sins have reached to heaven,' the mysterious voice will again be heard: Come out of her, My people, that ye partake not of her plagues.' For their sakes GOD as yet spares the city. But when their secret number has been made up, the last one brought in, the Bride fully prepared, they will, like righteous Lot, be summoned to come out

and separate themselves,' that judgment may take its relentless and inexorable course.

Thus much with regard to the 'Seed.'

On the career of the 'Woman,' the Apostle dwells more at length. Nay, her sad history and miserable doom form the leading feature of the remaining portion of the Apocalypse.

The earth helps her. The Beast receives a deadly wound; becomes gentle and friendly. The kingdom of the world ceases to oppress her from without. But a far more dreadful thing befals her; the essence and spirit of the world penetrates into her own sphere. In influencing the world she suffers herself to be influenced by the world. The world lays aside its enmity; and she her stern virgin purity.

"As the Beast gives up its GOD-opposed character, the Woman gives up her divine one. Both parties meet half way. World and Church make mutual concessions: the Beast carries the harlot. Christianity has become worldly; the world has become Christianized. This is the fundamental type of the Christian era. The gainer in this process is, after all, the World; for the Church whose life comes from the FATHER and the SON, can only be a loser by thus mixing with the world. Hence, though the state of the Christian world may appear satisfactory in the eyes of man; yet in the sight of GOD, the present Christianity of the world is by no means genuine."-P. 299.

II. We have left ourselves very small space to allude to the second Foe of the Woman.

The "Beast from the sea" is not her only antagonist. She has an enemy more plausible, specious, wily, and dangerous: the "Beast from the earth," or false prophet: the official mouth-piece of him who 66 was more subtle than any beast of the field." What is this second Beast?

The first thing that strikes us is this, that he comes in the name, and parades the authority of CHRIST. Its two horns are those of the lamb yet his words are those of the dragon. Notwithstanding the accident of his imposing and Christian exterior he is still a Beast.2

Now as the 'Dragon,' the dread ruler of the kingdom of darkness, is plainly the diabolic counterpart of the everlasting FATHER: As the Beast,' or 'Corpus anti-Christi,' the visible representa

"The deeper the Church penetrated into heathenism, the more she herself became heathenish; she then no longer overcame the world; but suffered the world to overcome her; instead of elevating the world to her divine height, she sunk down to the level of the worldly life. As the heathen masses came into the Church unconverted, so in like manner the heathenish worldly spirit passed over into the Church without passing through the death of the Cross."-Auberlen, pp. 291, 292. 2 We feel convinced that, in our examination of this vision on a former occasion, we missed the particular point and bearing of this symbolic figure, by neglecting to observe the fundamental distinction which holds in this book between the human and the bestial emblems. The harlot, notwithstanding her miserable degradation is essentially 'from above.' Both the beasts are essentially 'from beneath.'

tive of the Dragon, to whom he commits his seat and authority, is of GOD the SON:

So is the Beast from the earth,' or false prophet-the impersonated utterance, and wisdom, and power, of the Dragon and the Beast-of GOD the HOLY GHOST.

He is the representation or embodiment of earthly, sensual, demoniacal wisdom.

"The first Beast," writes our author, "is physical, political; the second Beast is a spiritual power, the power of doctrine and knowledge, of intellectual cultivation. Both are from below: both are beasts. The worldly anti-Christian wisdom stands in the service of worldly antiChristian power.”—P. 306.

And this has ever been the case. The world's wisdom has ever energetically supported its GOD-opposed power. Thus, when Pharaoh represented the 'Beast from the sea,' his wise men' stood to him in the relation of the 'Beast from the earth.' When the king of Babylon succeeded to the dominion of the world, his "magicians, astrologers, and soothsayers," would occupy a corresponding position. But no mention is made by the interpreting Angel of the early career of the False Prophet or 'Beast from the earth,' as is made of the former history of the first Beast. Hence we need not dwell on it. The second Beast does not come into notice at all till after the ascension of CHRIST. His great manifestation is still in the dark womb of the future.

We merely learn that he has ever attended upon, and invisibly and energetically worked for the first Beast. Hence as the latter passes, between the first and second Comings of CHRIST, through three great phases, Heathen, Christian, and Antichristian, so will the False Prophet undergo three corresponding transformations. During Roman times, he would manifest himself through the various forms of heathen philosophy. During the transition period, now passing, of the Christianization of the Beast, he will naturally conform to Christianity: but of this anon. During the final or Antichristian period, after the healing of the deadly wound, with the new Demoniacal power infused into the Beast,' will his potent influences receive a fresh and hellish vitality. Then shall all his "power and signs, and lying wonders and deceivableness of unrighteousness," foretold by our LORD and His Apostles, reach their full height. Then shall the False Prophet' of the 'False CHRIST' be fully manifested. Then shall there be a new Revela

1 The essential difference between ancient and Antichristian heathenism must not be lost sight of. The ancient, as represented by the first heads of the Beast, "was only an apostasy from the general revelation of GoD in nature and conscience (Rom. i. and ii. 14), whereas this heathenism is an apostasy from the full revelation of Divine love in the SON (Cf. Matt. xii, 41, 42); it is refined, intensified heathenism," a heathenism more demonic, more of the nature of the bottomless pit."— (vid. Auberlen. p. 300.)

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