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7th, Many of these kingdoms have, long ago, turned their whole force against Papal Rome; and the greatest part of the remainder of them are gradually checking her power over them, both in civil and religious affairs.

8th, From a fhort time after the erection of the Papal government until the Reformation, the city of Rome actually reigned over all the independent kingdoms, which arofe within the an tient boundaries of the Western empire.

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All thefe eight events, great, ftriking, and fomé of them most uncommon, and, before they hap pened, in themselves highly improbable, werė predicted in thefe verfes, by John, above fix hundred years before the rife of the Papal government. They were all previously fixed upon as marks, by which it fhould be known that the beast fignified Papal Rome; and they all happened in the most strict correfpondence to the predictions. Is it therefore poffible to conceive a more full, pointed, and conclufive proof from prophecy, than that which thefe events and the predictions of them afford, that the beaft is Papal Rome? Such a government as that of Papal Rome hath in fact exifted, and hath made a very great uncommon, and diftinguished figure in the world, fince the year 756. Rome claims to be the only true church of Chrift in the world, and her worship to be the only right worship of Chriftians. In this enlightened

Hh

lightened age of the world, there are few men, who seriously believe that the worshipping of ima ges, the invocation of faints, pilgrimages, penances, and the like, are the worship of that God, who is only worshipped when worshipped in fpirit and in truth; or the ordinances, inftituted by Chrift, in that gofpel recorded in the infpired fcriptures of the New Teflament. Was it not, then, very reasonable to expect, that, in a chain of prophe. cies relative to great and important events, from the days of the apoftles to the end of the world, a kingdom and church, fo great, fo lafting, and fo extraordinary, fhould be particularly noticed? What event hath happened in the world, fince the date of this book, fo great in itself, and in which both the civil and religious interefts of mankind have been fo deeply interested, as the rife, progrefs, height, and decline of Papal Rome? When leffer events were made the fubject of prophecy, is it not unreasonable to suppose, that this great and interefting one fhould pafs unnoticed? If it is predicted at all, can it be supposed that fuch a system of error, fuperftition, perfecution, pride, and tyranny, would have been mentioned with approbation by the spirit of God? Can any intelligent and unprejudifed person allow himself to imagine, that the fpirit of God would foretell the church of Rome as the true church of Chrift, Or the Papal hierarchy as the kingdom of God?

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Or can he fuppofe, that the spirit of God would give any other character of that mystery of iniquity, than that which is given of Papal Rome in this book, under the hieroglyphic of the beaft with the feven heads and the ten horns; of the woman who fitteth upon that beaft; and of Babylon the great, the great mother of idolatry and fuperftition in the earth?

VISION

VISION XI.

CHA P. XVIII.

Verses 1ft, 2d, 3d. AND after these things

I faw another angel

come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. And he cried mightily with a ftrong voice, faying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.

This chapter, in point of order and of time, is connected with the end of the 16th chapter. In the end of that chapter, we were informed, that

Papal

Papal Rome or myftical Babylon fhould be totally overthrown, in the end of the year 1999. This chapter gives us a full account of that fall, and of the manner in which it fhall affect the votaries of Rome. The intermediate feventeenth chapter is a kind of explanatory episode by which the narrative is interrupted for a little, but which, not predicting any new events, takes up no additional time. In it an angel is introduced, according to the idiom of prophetic language, to give an infallible explication of the preceding part of the prophecy.

In this chapter, the final overthrow of Papal Rome is predicted and described in terms very fimilar to thofe in which the deftruction of antient Babylon is predicted by the prophets, Isaiah in chap. xlvii. and Jeremiah in chap. 1. and li. These terms are used, because Babylon was a type of Papal Rome; that prediction was one of the final overthrow of Babylon, and this of that of Rome, and that men might thereby be led to compare the predictions by Ifaiah and Jeremiah of the destruction of antient Babylon with the real history of Babylon, and its fituation ever fince fo conformable to these predictions; and from what happen'ed to Babylon, that they might learn beforehand what shall happen to Rome, fince God predicted the overthrow of both; governs the world at both

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