"took leaven and hid it in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened." Is not this the commencement of the evil? the first introduction into the unleavened mass, of those corrupting principles, of the existence and working of which in apostolic times we have seen such ample and varied proof? It was then "the mystery of iniquity" began to work. Then we have "that woman Jezebel" in Rev. ii. 20; symbolic, as we have seen, of Romanism as a system, established and bearing children amid that which had once been the church of God. Jezebel was not a daughter of Israel, but a Zidonian princess, in marrying whom Ahab, king of Israel, disobeyed the law of God; and it was for her sake that he went and served Baal, and made a grove, and did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him, and, in short, "sold himself to work evil in the sight of the Lord." Jezebel was the instigator of all this, and the ruthless, heartless persecutor of God's people. Still, she could use God's name, and proclaim a fast, and pretend great horror of blasphemy, and this even at the very time when, by treachery and false witness, she was perpetrating the murder of Naboth of Jezreel. Such is the divinely selected symbol of Popery! Reader, is not the awful picture drawn to the life?

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But there is a third mystic woman, who is introduced to our attention in Rev. xvii, and who is described as "the great whore who sitteth upon many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication," and with the wine of whose fornication the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk. The apostle sees her as 66 a woman sitting upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns." woman is "arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornications." "And upon her forehead," says the apostle, was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. And I saw

the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus; and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration." Such is the last view scripture affords us of corrupt christianity-papal, no doubt, as to that which mainly fills the scene, but not exclusive of anything under other names, which shares the papal spirit and character. This woman is not a harlot merely, but the mother of harlots, and abominations of the

earth! Jezebel may symbolize her as a corruptress and mother of children within: but to set forth her seduction of the nations, and the pomp and magnificence of her rule, she is shown to us as here, seated on the beast, arrayed in gorgeous apparel, with her golden wine cup in her hand, with which she makes the earth's kings and inhabitants drunk. And she is in the height of her glory, when the vengeful stroke descends. "How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her."

One difficulty as to this interpretation must not be passed over. Babylon the great, forms the subject of two chapters in the Apocalypse. It is from ch. xvii, we have chiefly quoted, and if it stood alone there could be no difficulty in recognising ecclesiastical corruption, of which Rome is the head and centre, in the woman there described. "Drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus," would of itself establish this interpretation. But in ch. xviii, when the fall of Babylon has been declared, we find all the merchants, and shipmasters, and sailors, bemoaning her downfall; and the entire description in ch. xviii, suggests the idea of a vast maritime, commercial power. This, as is well known, Rome is not, and here is the difficulty to which we refer. But we have only to suppose the extension of Rome's influence over those regions in which she once reigned paramount, and the difficulty vanishes at once. We say not that this will be accomplished; but our sad abuse of the light and blessings of the Reformation on the one hand, and the present aspect of religious society in these countries on the other, make this solution of the difficulty very far from being improbable.

Into the details of Babylon's overthrow we cannot now enter. They connect our present subject with the past and future history of the fourth Gentile monarchy. This again will be found to link itself with the prophetic history of the Jews' return to their own land and re-establishment there. The antichrist, the man of sin, will be found connected with corrupt christianity as having paved the way for him and prepared men's hearts to receive him. has always been so. Religious corruption sears the con-sciences of those who are its agents or its dupes; while,

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by its manifest hollowness and hypocrisy it outrages the natural conscience of the spectators, and provokes them to discard religion altogether. If one might borrow an illustration from profane history, where could a more striking one be found than has been furnished in modern times, by the first French Revolution. Popery had ruled there with an iron hand for centuries, immolating its ten thousand victims, and loosening, by means of its absurd superstitions and immoral practices, all the bonds of moral and religious obligation among the masses of the people. It was thus they were prepared for the infidelity of the Encyclopedists, and for the unmeasured horrors of the Revolution. Terrible specimen, on a somewhat contracted scale, of what is yet to transpire throughout the western professing world! The mystery of iniquity, the apostacy, and Babylon the great, prepare men's souls to "worship the beast" when his deadly wound has once been healed, and "the dragon" has conferred upon him "his power, and his seat, and great authority.' The antichrist will be connected thus with the last of the four Gentile monarchies in its final form, as revived and energized by Satanic power. The Jews, having returned to their own land in unbelief, will be found (with the exception of a godly remnant) in league with this last great enemy of God, and will suffer under his iron rod. The epiphany of Christ's coming will destroy "the man of sin," and overwhelm his guilty and infatuated adherents with utter, desolating judgments. The remnant of Jews spared through these troubles, will, with the spared nations, form the germ of the population of the millennial earth. Over these Christ and his glorified saints will reign. But we again remind our christian readers, that it is for the descent of the Lord Jesus into the air, and our gathering to him there, that we wait. This first stage of the Lord's coming is dependant on none of those things we have been considering. It may be at any hour, at any moment. All else may occur between it, and the epiphany of his coming, by which the man of sin is to be destroyed.

The Lord keep us waiting for himself, in holy separateness from all that leads onwards to that whirlpool of destruction in which the wicked shall then be overwhelmed.

LONDON: PARTRIDGE AND OAKEY, Paternoster-Row.
DUBLIN: ROBERTSON, Grafton-Street.

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No. 14.] Plain Papers on Prophetic [Feb. 1854. and other Subjects.

THE LAST DAYS OF GENTILE SUPREMACY.

Many of our readers are no doubt aware that the words generally translated "Gentiles," whether in the Old Testament or in the New, simply denote "nations." Any distinctive use of these words must therefore have commenced when God had selected one nation, Israel, from among the rest, to be peculiarly his own. Israel thus became the onə nation, owned, protected, and blest of the Lord; while all others began to be designated "the nations" or Gentiles," as distinct from the one thus favoured and chosen of God.

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"Gentile supremacy" commenced with Nebuchadnezzar. Until his times Israel had been the centre, and Jerusalem the seat, of God's government of the surrounding nations. The kings of David's line were the last responsible agents of this divine government: but this government, so far from being confined to Israel, extended to all the nations which were in any way connected therewith. It is not meant by this, that these nations were under the law, or possessed of any of Israel's distinctive blessings, as God's peculiar people. But when the conduct of God's people or of their kings was such as to be approved by him, he subjected all the surrounding nations to their sway. When, on the other hand, they walked disobediently, he used the surrounding nations to chastise them. Still, his throne was at Jerusalem; and it was not until the defection of Judah and its kings from their allegiance to God had become complete, that Jerusalem was given up to be utterly destroyed. The princes and nobles of the land were carried into captivity, the city was overthrown, and Ezekiel, prophesying among those captives who had first been removed, beheld in vision the glory of the Lord depart first "from off the threshold of the house" (ch. x, 18,) and then "from the midst of the city." (ch. xi, 23.) The symbol of the divine presence, which, from their redemption out of Egypt

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had never, (save for a little season in Samuel's day) forsaken them, thus entirely departed, and Jerusalem ceased to be the place of Jehovah's throne. The whole order of things consequent on his dwelling at Jerusalem was set aside, and universal supremacy was conferred on Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, and first great chief of the Gentiles. It was with him that "the times of the Gentiles" began.

"Gentile supremacy," from its commencement to its termination by the just judgment of God at the coming of the Son of man, is the subject of Daniel's prophecy. Chapters ii, and vii, span the whole period from Nebuchadnezzar to the coming of Christ in judgment; while the other chapters fill up the outline, by presenting either the moral features which characterize the Gentile powers, or the prophetic detail of their actings, and of God's dealings with them in judgment at the close. It is to Daniel and the Revelation we have specially to look for instruction as to our present subject. The difference is, that Revelation treats of the "last days of Gentile supremacy" as linked with and following upon the long course of corruption in the present dispensation, and the utter apostacy of christendom; while Daniel treats of the same period in connexion with the destinies of his own beloved nation, the Jews. The Lord grant to us becoming solemnity of spirit in examining the testimony of both.

In Dan. ii, the divine communication is to Nebuchadnezzar himself; but to him in such sort, that it is of no avail to him, till recalled to his memory and interpreted by the prophet. God thus makes manifest that the knowledge of his secrets is with his people, the godly but poor and despised remnant of Israel, while he puts the Gentile monarch under the full responsibility of knowing at whose hands he has received the power and authority of which he is possessed. The substance of the communication made to the king and interpreted by the prophet, is so well known and so generally understood, that it needs no comment here. Three of the Gentile powers represented by the image are declared in this and other chs. of Daniel to be Babylon, Medo-Persia, and Greece; while Rome is demonstrated to be the fourth by a passage of the New Testament, which speaks of a decree of the Roman emperor "that all the world should be taxed." Luke ii, 1. Now as there were to be but four universal empires, and as the first three are specified in the book of Daniel itself, it is evident that the