Apocalipse 17:10

10. Seven kings The mountains have a double import; physical, representing the hills on which Rome is founded, and political, representing kings, or, as in the words of Daniel’s prophecy, on which this is based, kingdoms. “These great beasts, which are four, are four kings,” that is, as the context shows, kingdoms. In the despotic East the King was the State. And a beast is never a king except as one with his kingdom.

Five are fallen To ascertain which these fallen kingdoms are, we note that the present beast, as stated in Revelation 13:2, comprised in himself leopard, bear, and lion, which are the beasts of Daniel, (Daniel 7:4-6,) traced in backward order. The present is, therefore, the “fourth beast, dreadful and terrible;” and Daniel’s four beasts, as explained in that chapter, given in his order, are Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. And this is the order of the same kingdoms as presented in Nebuchadnezzar’s image, in Daniel 2:0. And, previous to these, there were but two antichristic monarchies Egypt and Assyria.

One is The five fallen being EGYPT, ASSYRIA, BABYLON, PERSIA, and GREECE; the one that now is, is imperial ROME.

Not yet come Pontifical Rome. Hence, comparing ver.

8, the beast that was and is not, is imperial Rome, which expired with the last emperor, Augustulus, A.D. 475.

Is not yet come To imperial Rome succeeds papal Rome. The universal emperor ceased, and revived in the universal bishop. When, in the fifth century, the Roman empire succumbed to the flood of the northern barbarians, and the emperor no longer existed, Rome was left with little or no civil government. Then was the period when the imperial beast was and is not. After this the pope came into supremacy, and in due time became the substitute for the imperial Cesar. And that stupendous spiritual Roman empire, in far greater extent than the first secular empire, stands to the present hour.

On the subject of the revival of the dead imperial in the pontifical head, Elliott quotes from Vitringa two pertinent statements from papal writers of the papal era. The first is from Augustin Steuchus, librarian to the pope, who says: “The empire having been overthrown, unless God had raised up the pontificate, Rome, resuscitated and restored by none, would have become uninhabitable, and have become a most foul habitation thenceforward of cattle. But in the pontificate it revived as with a second birth; its empire not, indeed, equal to the old empire, but its form not very dissimilar; because all nations, from east and from west, venerate the pope not otherwise than they before obeyed the emperors.”

The second statement is from Flavius Blondus, a celebrated papal antiquarian writer in the sixteenth century, who says: “The princes of the world now adore and worship as perpetual dictator the successor, not of Cesar, but of the fisherman, Peter: that is, the supreme pontiff, the substitute of the aforesaid emperor.”

And hereby was fulfilled the ancient prediction that the “man of sin,” the antichrist in the temple of God, would not be revealed until the Roman emperor disappeared. See note on 2 Thessalonians 2:6.

The tiara, or triple crown worn by the pope, is a claim that he is emperor as well as pontiff. “It was,” says Baronius, “a mitre intertwined with a crown.” Pope Alexander III. first added the crown to the mitre; Boniface VIII. added a second crown in 1303; and Urban V. a third in 1362. Innocent III. wrote, in A.D. 1200, “In token of spiritual things is conferred upon me the mitre; in token of temporal things, the crown; the mitre for the priesthood, the crown for the royalty.” Again, “The mitre he uses always and every where; the crown not every where nor always, because The pontifical authority is both prior and worthier than the imperial.” This claim to the CESARSHIP exists and is asserted to the present day. To the Roman professors who refused to officiate under the king Victor Emmanuel, Pope Pius gave each a medal of himself, saying, “Receive in reward the image of that CESAR who stands before your eyes.”

Let it not be for one moment supposed that in these modern days, and in our own country, the popedom has in the least degree abated its claim to being God’s vicegerent on earth, entitled as such to the absolute obedience of every human being, and of all human governments, with the right of inflicting force and bodily punishment for disobedience. Though the name of God is less frequently applied to the pope, the attributes and authority of God were never more explicitly ascribed to him than at the present day. Whatever he judges, the Vatican decree declares, “It is not lawful for any one to judge concerning his judgment.” That decree declares that all are bound to obedience to him in all things, “not only that pertain to faith and morals, but in those things which pertain to the discipline and government of the Church diffused throughout the world.” Besides faith and morals, whatever the pope pleases to include under the head of church-government thereby becomes subjected to his absolute authority, the decisions of which, man must not question. Romish doctors may give opinions beforehand they may ingeniously interpret away, and, as it called “minimize” these claims but their statements are of no value, since it is the pope alone who has authority to pronounce upon their extent, and when he pronounces all doctors must be silent. And this authority rules men who are rulers, whether kings or presidents, even over their official action. If the pope make it the duty of the American president, as matter pertaining to “the government of the Church,” to execute all heretics, the president disobeys to the loss of his salvation, and under just law of being deposed from his office, and handed over to death.

Cardinal Manning expressly declared, in 1874, “The spiritual power knows, with divine certainty, the limits of its own jurisdiction, and it knows, therefore, the limits and the competence of the civil power. It is thereby, in matters of conscience and religion supreme.” “And power which is independent, and can alone fix the limits of its jurisdiction, and can thereby fix the limits of all other jurisdiction, is, ipso facto, supreme. But the Church of Christ, within the sphere of revelation, of faith and morals, is all this or is nothing, or worse than nothing an imposture and a usurpation that is, it is Christ or antichrist.” And as it is the pope that decides, above all questioning, what “faith,” “morals,” and “the government of the Church” include, so the pope is absolute over every thing over which he decides himself to be absolute. No allegiance to any sovereign can be more absolute; and when a Romanist in America swears, as he must in his oath of allegiance to our government, to renounce all foreign allegiance whatsoever, his oath is, by strictest logic, a perjury.

Hereby we see why it is that Rome determines to have absolute control of the education of the young wherever she can. It is to shape their minds to a complete subjection to the absolute authority of a foreign potentate, and render them ready executioners of the pope’s decisions. Such schools are therefore schools of treason. So far from making provision for their existence, they should be held as hostile to the existence of our free American government.

That in America the Romish doctrine is that the pope is entitled to control legislation, is declared in the Catholic World for July, 1870, a periodical published in New York, endorsed by the pope. “All legislation in harmony with the organic law is theocratic and divine. Since justice and our honour and dignity require that we should obey God and not man, we are compelled to ascertain his will. The finger of the pope, like the needle in the compass, invariably points to the pole of eternal truth, and the mind of the sovereign pontiff is as certain to reflect the mind and will of God as the mirror at one end of the submarine cable to indicate the electric signal made at the other.” That is, all legislation is to be subjected to the will of the pope as to the will of God.

And what Romanism includes under education is thus declared in the same article. “The supremacy asserted for the Church in matters of education implies the additional and cognate function of the censorship of ideas, and the right to examine and approve or disapprove all books, publications, writings, and utterances intended for public instruction, enlightenment, or entertainment, and the supervision of places of amusement. This is the principle upon which the Church has acted in handing over to the civil authority for punishment criminals IN THE ORDER OF IDEAS. It is the principle upon which every civilized government acts in emergencies, and it was asserted vigorously and unsparingly North and South during the recent revolution.” That is, the pope has the same, or even better, right to execute, or cause to be executed, a man for rebellion against himself, than the civil government for treason against itself. See Methodist Quarterly Review for 1870, p. 633.

He must continue a short space Or, a little while. As Alford well observes, the emphasis must be read upon continue, and the meaning be that of permanence. The others will have past, but he will stay awhile. The space must be measured by the scale of national history. Rationalistic commentators find in these seven kings the first seven Roman emperors. But, 1. John, after Daniel’s model, uses the word kings for kingdoms. See our note on Revelation 13:2 This beast expressly embodies the last three beasts of Daniel 7:0, and so the last three kingdoms of Daniel’s image. 2.

In order to explain the king that is, these commentators are obliged to falsify history, and make the Apocalypse be written in the reign of Nero. And this is followed by the further outrage of making John base his imageries on a whimsical superstition of the pagan populace. 3. Under this interpretation the Apocalypse no longer roundly and majestically closes the New Testament, as the standard prophecy, covering the new dispensation, it shrivels into insignificance, and is shaded with suspicions of imposture. It simply raises the old question of the reality of the supernatural.