in a figure through that exaltation; but the wisdom of Jehovah has chosen their delusion; and the popish mass is a most instructive lesson, teaching the effect which is produced on every one who worships the beast; they cut themselves off from the fellowship and communion of the Holy Spirit, and become wells without water, ungodly men, turning the grace of God into lasciviousness, and denying the Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ; filthy dreamers, defiling the flesh, despising dominion, and speaking evil of dignities, and what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves. Christ's appointment, the breaking of bread, prefigures the manner in which believers shall be prepared for glory, even by the possession and searching of the Scriptures. Satan's counterfeit prefigures the manner in which self-willed spirits become meet for the blackness of darkness for ever. They put away the Scriptures; they do it of their own accord; the external prohibition of the circulation of the word of God by the church of Rome, is but a sign of the inward act of every worshipper of the beast; he despises the truth. When God called, he did not answer; when God spake, he did not hear: the gospel is hid to them that are lost, because they have wilfully shut their eyes. Why does a worshipper of the beast in a protestant country not read his bible? because the church tells him not to do it. Why does the church obtain power to tell him not to read his Bible? because he hath said in his heart to God, he will not do it. No man, be he priest or pope, can actually control another man's will; but impenitent men are so grossly inconsistent, that while they oppose and exalt themselves against what they know to be God's will, they complete the mystery of iniquity

by pretending (for it is not a reality) submission to a man's will; in other words, they wilfully and knowingly disobey God, who searches the heart and tries the reins of the children of men; and in their hardness of heart they imagine that if they pretend obedience to the church externally, they may riot in every species of iniquity, and wallow in the mire of moral pollution. In them the works of the flesh are manifest, and they delight in them, and have no fear of God before their eyes; they are one body with an harlot; and the fruits are, "Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law." (Gal. v. 19—23.) Be not deceived, all are not Israel that are of Israel; many say they are christians, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. There are many who have not bowed the knee to Baal among the adherents of the church of Rome; and there are many worshippers of the beast among those who profess the true religion. Let every man examine himself; the evidence is within him. Know ye not that ye are Christ's except ye be reprobates, except ye despise the mercy of God in Christ. Each worshipper of the beast receives a wafer, which he believes to be verily the divinity and humanity of the great Redeemer; which he eats in this belief. There is neither the breaking of bread nor the drinking of the cup in Satan's synagogue.

God has chosen their delusion, and has made it illustrative of their great wickedness in forsaking the fountain of living waters, and hewing out to themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water. Every worshipper of the beast refuses submission to the will of God, and opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that He is God. God is known both as sovereign and submissive in His will; for He humbled Himself, and became obedient even unto death. The worshipper of the beast is a rebellious will; and through disobedience opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God. All such are clouds without water, carried about of winds, which are wicked spirits; raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever. They have changed the truth of God into a lie. Satan in tempting our first parents was caught in his own snare, and what he said, knowing it to be a lie, God changed into a truth. God revealed that truth under a threefold figure, and that truth Satan has again changed into a lie. His first falsehood was, that man could make himself as God. Jehovah changed that lie into a truth, and taught men how that by being fellow-workers with God they would really become partakers of the Divine nature. Satan comes again; for falsehood is a monster, and he is not ashamed, when he reappears under the gospel, to say the very opposite of what he said in paradise; for he now finds his lie was God's truth, and because it is so, he must, if he can, change it again into a lie. Having caused the first death of every man by the first lie; he causes the second death of every man who chooses his delusion,

by the second lie. By the first lie, every man's spirit became a disobedient spirit, and by the belief of the second lie, man exalts himself above all that is called God, and is taught under a figure, by the blasphemy of transubstantiation, that he needs no mercy, and that the offer of salvation is an insult to his noble and dignified nature. It is as if Satan had said, you are already as God, knowing good and evil; besides yourself there is no God, and this the fool saith in his heart. Did you really think that the one offering of Christ on Calvary, in which you took no part, could save? No such thing: you must kill the Lamb of God for yourself, with your own hands: and as you seem to have some idea that all is not right with you, just take this wafer, believe it is your God, for it really is God; it has been transubstantiated; what was a corn of wheat, ground and mixed with water, has been changed, and you now hold in your hand that very Redeemer, God and man, Christ Jesus, in whom you pretend to believe, eat it up, and thus you will crucify afresh the Lord of glory, and put Him to an open shame; but in doing so you will obtain all the salvation and life which you need or desire. The worshippers discredit their senses, and why? "because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause, God has sent them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie; that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." (2 Thess. ii. 10-12.) In paradise Satan said, believe me, and you shall make yourselves gods. In the mass, Satan says, you are as gods, believe me; and you shall be able each of you to make this wafer the eternal God; and all who receive every such wafer, receives the eternal Redeemer, living,

This is the woman,

but again sacrificed in the mass. "having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication, full of names of blasphemy. And upon her forehead was a name written, (and he that runs may read it,) MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH." (Rev. xvii. 4, 5.)

The two apocalyptic beasts represent all men to whom God's will is made known in their conscience. The origin of all is the same, they are the lineal descendants of Adam. Their present history is diverse, and their future destiny is as widely asunder as the east is distant from the west. There was no external influence brought to bear upon any one of them, that could have constrained him in opposition to his own will; and there was enough done for each one of them to render him wholly inexcusable, if he refused obedience to God's revealed will. There is the objective knowledge of God's will, coming to the man from without himself, and appealing to his intellect and understanding. The belief or disbelief of truth presented in this form, neither regenerates nor reprobates the man. Peter and John, believing what they saw at the sepulchre, was the belief of objective truth. The case of Zacharias, the father of John the baptist, when he believed not the statement of the angel who announced to him the answer to his prayers, and the birth of a son, was the disbelief of objective truth. Had an angel appeared to Peter and John, and told them that the Lord was risen, they would not have believed either, because although Christ had told them before His death, that He would rise again, they believed not the saying. Zacharias