of his diadem and territories will be the consequence of a similar conduct, in the fulness of time.

"And hast been partaker with the adulterers."-By introducing idolatrous rites and the use of images into the church of Christ, the popes having shewn great zeal in the defence of their MAHUZZIM against emperois, and councils, which strove in vain to cleanse the sanctuary from this spiritual whoredom."Thou givest thy mouth to evil, and thy tongue frameth deceit."-" With all deceivableness of unrighteousness," and "with the hypocrisy of liars, having their conscience seared with a hot iron," says St. Paul. "Thou sittest and

speakest against thy brother, thou hast slander

ed thine own mother's son.

Christ will hear

of no supremacy but God's in the church, one is your Father, even God, and ye are all brethren." But the HOLY FATHER, and head of the church on earth, is of a different opinion, and will launch his excommunications against his Christian brethren with a fiery zeal, which (in cases of spiritual disobedience)

disclaims charity and common humanity to heretics as mortal sin. In the cause of holy church, brother must deliver up the brother to death, and the parent the child, and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death." Matth. x. 21.

“These things hast thou done and I kept silence." The long prospering and practising of the antichristian tyrant was a season of forbearance on God's part, to give opportunity for the display of Christian faith and patience, and to shew the power of true religion when put to the trial. But the senseless persecutor drew a false inference from this silence of God, and he still continues in the same error. "Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself. But I will reprove thee, and set thy deeds in order before thine eyes." He conceived of God as another MOLOCH, delighting in human sacrifices, and pleased with idolatrous altars, &c. but these are the things now held up to his face, that he may read in the nature of his plagues, what were the crimes that drew them upon him.

The prophet concludes with an address to his deluded followers in the apostacy, whom he has deceived with his miracles and his high pretensions, as the successor of St. Peter, nay even as Christ's successor; that they should lay these things to heart, and forsake the dangerous path of delusion before it be too late."Now consider this, YE THAT FORGET GOD."-Who apostatize from Christ, and seek to false mediators and protectors; which if they be any thing better than dumb stocks and stones, are devils, and not spirits of just men made perfect. "When they shall say unto you, seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizzards that peep, and that mutter;" (in unintelligible sounds, or an unknown tongue,) "Should not a people seek unto their God?"-(shall they seek)—" for the living to the dead?" "Consider this, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver."

SECTION XXXIII.

The Roman empire divided, or the origin of the two beasts of St. John, the antichristian idolatrous and persecuting Roman empire, and the church hierarchy and papacy engrafted upon it.—A further division into ten kingdoms in catholic obedi ence to the pope.-The union between them compared to iron mixed with miry clay.—The ill union of the popish errors with the gospel truth.The papal militia.

To return now to the great image in the second chapter of Daniel, which at the time of this digression I had brought down to the LEGS of IRON representing the ROMAN EMPIRE in its original strength; and descending still lower into the latter times, I had come down to the contemplation of its FEET

composed no longer of iron alone, but of a base compound of iron mingled with miry clay, and a partition into TEN TOES of the same materials. This is evidently designed to represent the same Roman empire in a continuation and in its latest period, but with considerable alterations, and such as were by no means to its advantage; and it is probable that from the great variety of important additional circumstances, gained from consulting the three other visions of the same prophet, with the assistance of St. John's explanation of them, (by which the great vacuity left here is filled up,) some idea may be formed of what is meant by the miry clay blended with the remains of the original iron. "And whereas thou sawest the FEET AND TOES, part of potter's clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay. And as the TOES of the FEET were part of iron, and part of clay; so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken," (or brittle).