it is now full time to haften to the last point of character in the beast, his tyranny.

In proof of this, the general atteftation of the hiftorian given in his forty-fifth chapter, the Roman Bishops, who "deluged Europe and Afia with blood,' might be deemed fufficient; but the following obfervations are too well adapted to the prefent purpose to be omitted. In his fifty-fourth chapter we read of the church of Rome; "her ava"rice was oppreffive, her defpotifm odi"ous: lefs degenenerate perhaps than

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the Greeks in the worship of Saints and Images, her innovations were more rapid and fcandalous: fhe had rigorously defined and impofed the "doctrine of transubstantiation; the lives "of the Latin clergy were more corrupt, "and the Eaftern Bifhops might pafs "for the fucceffors of the apoftles, if

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they were compared with the Lordly prelates'

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prelates, who wielded by turns the "crofier, the fceptre, and the fword." And in the fifty-ninth chapter is the following paffage fully defcriptive of the fact predicted."-Innocent the third. ¢ Under that young and ambitious prieft, the fucceffors of St. Peter at"tained the full meridian of their great"nefs; and in a reign of eighteen years "he exercised a defpotic command over "the Emperors and Kings, whom he "raised and depofed; over the nations, whom an interdi&t of months or years deprived, for the offence of their "rulers, of the exercife of Chriftian

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worship. In the council of the "Lateran he acted as the ecclefiaftical "almoft as the temporal fovereign of "the Eaft and Weft. It was at the feet "of his legate that John of England furrendered his crown, and Innocent "may boaft of the two moft fignal triumphs over fenfe and humanity,

"the

the establishment of Tranfubftantiation, "and the origin of the Inquifition." Such are the words of the hiftorian; now peruse again thofe of the prophet,

and it was given unto him to make war with the faints, and to overcome

them, and power was given unto him over all kindreds, and tongues, and. "nations."

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By what means a fway fo extraor dinary fhould be established, the prophecy of St. Paul before cited had in general declared, by defcribing the coming of this wicked one as to be attended" with power and figns, and lying "wonders." But the particular conducter of these miracles is spoken of by St. John with an accuracy moft worthy of our admiration." And fays he, I "beheld another beaft, coming up out "of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he fpake as a Dra66 gon,

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gon. And he exercifeth all the power of the first beast before him, "and caufeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the firft beast, whofe deadly wound "healed. And he doth great wonders,

was

fo that he maketh fire come down " from heaven on the earth in the fight "of men, and deceiveth them that

dwell on the earth by the means of "these miracles which he had power to "to do in the fight of the beaft." Will hiftory then furnifh us with any body politic bearing these marks? The reader perhaps already anticipates my anfwer to this queftion by replying, "we know that the great fupport of the

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Papal power has confifted in the mo

"naftick orders; and that by the mem*bers of these, miracles and figns have "been pretended to be wrought, to fecure "that obedience to the See of Rome

which.

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which they have ever preached.'. Let us therefore more clofely investigate that fimilarity which from their very rife the Monks have borne to this prophetick defcription.

"I beheld another beast come up out

of the earth." As on account of its fituation with regard to the Mediterranean the inhabitants of Judœa were wont to confider the phrafe toward the fea as equivalent to Weftward, the Apostle's prediction of the former beast rising from the sea or the Weft, was in this acceptation literally accomplished. So likewife if we here confider the land. as expreffing the oppofite point, will the words be found accomplished in the monaftick life having arifen from the Eaft. And as one of the calamities which raised the influence of their Bishop Gregory the firft over the Romans, was the flood which spread over the lower parts.

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