Of course, with Mr. Elliott and Dr. Cumming, Babylon is Rome Papal. As I observed, there are some points of real coincidence here, and it is not at all improbable that such should be the case. Rome is now the legitimate scope of this prediction; and Rome, whether of the age of Nero or of Pio Nono, must always resemble Rome. I mean, that, owing to the peculiarity of her dominant position, whether civil or spiritual, there would always exist a similarity of feature in any portrait drawn of the eternal city, whether that portrait was sketched in the days of Titus or Napoleon III.

But the grand point is, Rome has not fallen. Alaric and the Bourbon have thundered at her gates-French soldiers still occupy her palaces, but she does not fall. Her spiritual and temporal prince has been an exile and a fugitive, but her magnificence and her glory are still the same. Jerusalem "is fallen, is fallen;" as the city of God she fell then, never to rise again-as the city of God she is utterly prostrate now, and has remained so, in spite of every effort to the contrary, for nearly 2000 years.

This is a difficulty which cannot be got over. Indeed to say that Rome is yet to fall and to be burnt with literal fire, is too childish for the weakest mind. Such a supposition is contrary to the immediate aim and design of the Apocalypse--is contrary to the analogy of all previous prophecy-is an event too improbable to be defended for an instant, except by fanaticism or insanity, and which owes its merciful origin, not to anything which the Word of God declares, but to the wild speculations of this unhallowed tampering with Holy Scripture. I freely confess that I lose patience with these absurd views. They afford a strong argument to the infidel that no consistent interpretation can be found for a very important part of God's Holy Word. They close the Book of Revelation against the biblical student, who is too well informed to give credit to such absurdities, and yet has no better system to substitute in their place. They cause serious and well-disposed persons to look upon the Apocalypse as a mysterious subject which they had better not meddle with. They rejoice the heart of the Romanist, for he has discretion enough to see that such fallacies will ere long be unable to abide the test of close investigation, and he knows that an unsuccessful attack is to him a victory. In our day, if a theological book is to go down with the public,

it must be all Rome! Rome! No matter how deficient in argument or how monstrous in assumption-no matter how ridiculous in theory, or how false in interpretation, it will go down with a certain class, if it is a crusade against Rome. The insane cry of "No Popery" is as grateful to some ears, especially to those who know least about it, as it was in the days of the Gordon riots. It is the hubbub of this absurd clamour which makes men's ears deaf against the truth—it is the dust of this ridiculous whirlwind which blinds men's eyes from judging fairly and impartially. Little sympathy have I with the errors of the Romish Church. The very effort of this investigation is a sufficient guarantee of the Protestantism of these views. And yet I hesitate not to say, that if Rome can only be combated with weapons drawn from the Apocalypse, she must be victorious. There is not a syllable respecting Rome Papal in the Apocalypse, from the beginning to the end, and this is what I shall proceed to prove.

I suppose it is almost needless to observe that the woman who is called Babylon, and is seated on the beast with seven heads and ten horns, does not prefigure the older and literal Babylon. "The inscription on the woman's forehead is Mystery,' indicating a spiritual meaning; besides which, Babylon had long ceased to be a reigning city when St. John wrote and the word Mystery' plainly intimates that, as the real Babylon was overthrown according to the prophecies of Isaiah and others in the Old Testament, so the mystical Babylon would be reduced to ruins, according to the prediction of St. John in the New." 1

So far I agree perfectly with the above explanation of the spiritual meaning of the word Babylon. It must refer to some city existing in the time when St. John wrote, for the elder Babylon had perished.

But now comes the point at issue.

Babylon, says Dr. Wordsworth, must be Rome, because it is called by St. John "a great city."

In the Apocalypse Jerusalem is called "a great city. "That great city, spiritually called Sodom and Egypt;" and as if this was not enough to designate it sufficiently, St. John

1 Wordsworth's Babylon,

adds, "where also our Lord was crucified.” 1 mean Jerusalem.

This can only

The writers of that day called Jerusalem by this very name, "a great city: "--" And where now is that great city, the metropolis of the Jewish nation, which was fortified by so many walls round about, and had so many ten thousands of men to fight for it." 2

Our position is very unassailable, when we affirm that the title of "a great city" belongs equally to Jerusalem as well as to Rome, for in the writings of that day and age it is spoken of under this name.3

But Babylon must be Rome, because its destruction is represented in the Apocalypse as "followed by events which no one can say have yet taken place." This I will not answer here, as one of the main objects of this book is to show that, as our Lord said, the destruction of Babylon, or Jerusalem, was immediately followed by his coming.

Babylon must be Rome, because it is that great city which reigneth over the kings of the earth, “ ἡ ἔχουσα βασιλείαν ἐπὶ τῶν βασιλέων τῆς γῆς, i. e., the city which had dominion over the princes of Palestine.4

1 Rev. xi. 8.

2 Bell. Jud. lib. vii. cap. 8.

3 Jerome says: "Jerusalem is not only in the middle of Palestine, but in the centre of the habitable world." "In medio igitur gentium posita est." -Quaresmius, Elucidatio Terræ Sanctæ, ii. 436.

4 The definition given of this great city, as "the great city which reigneth over the kings of the earth" (Judæa); "the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth" (Judæa), "with whom the kings of the earth (Judæa) have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth (Judæa) have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication," over whom "the merchants of the earth (Judæa) weep and mourn," determines the question of the Babylon of the Apocalypse. If "they that dwell on the earth" so continually put in apposition to "every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation," can only mean the dwellers in Judæa; if "the kings of the earth" put in apposition to "the kings of the east and of the whole world," can only mean the princes of Palestine; if "the merchants of the earth" put in apposition to "the nations" (0vn), can only mean the merchants of Judæa, then the "great city which reigneth over the kings of the earth ;' ""the mother of harlots and of abominations of the earth," with whom "the kings of the earth have committed fornication," must be Jerusalem.

Add to this, the king of Jericho is called "the king of the earth,” —“¿ Baoiλevs Tñs yñs." (Clement, Epist. i. 12.) The kings of the Gentiles are properly called, “ οἱ βασιλεῖς τῶν ἐθνῶν,” and not " οἱ βασιλεῖς τῆς γῆς.”

Fortunately for our exposition, the word of God tells us who are meant by the " kings of the earth." The "kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ," for "against thy holy child Jesus whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles . were gathered together." Here the rulers of the Jewish nation, specified as Herod and Pontius Pilate, are called the "kings of the earth."

Under the Fifth Seal, the "kings of the earth," John and Simon, the rulers of Jerusalem, hide themselves in the dens and rocks of the mountains, and call upon the mountains and rocks to fall on them and cover them, in the very words which our Lord said should be spoken at that miserable time.

Added to this, Josephus describes Jerusalem as reigning over the rest of Palestine.

1

"Nor indeed is Judæa destitute of such delights as come from the sea, since its maritime places extend as far as Ptolemais: it was parted into eleven portions, of which the royal city Jerusalem was the supreme, and presided over all the neighbouring country as the head does over the body." He elsewhere calls it "the metropolis of the Jewish nation."? Tacitus says, "A great part of Judæa is composed of scattered villages; it also has larger towns. Jerusalem is the capital city of the whole nation."

Scripture explains the meaning of "the kings of the earth;" and the writers of the day say, that Jerusalem was "the royal city "the supreme ""the metropolis"-"the capital city"-which "presided over all the neighbouring country as the head does over the body."

--

But Babylon must be Rome, because she is described as sitting upon seven mountains. "Here is the mind which hath wisdom (words which appear to predict, that, however plain they may be, they would be made by some to bear meanings which have not wisdom :') the seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth."

(Luke, xxii. 25.) And Herod and Pontius Pilate are called "the kings of the earth.""Principes Palæstinæ.". - Acts, iv. 26.

An imperfect translation of the words inì rns yns, on the earth, i. e. THE LAND OF Judæa, is the cause of much of the mystery of the Apocalypse. 2 Bell. Jud. lib. vii. cap. 8.

1 Bell. Jud. lib. iii. cap. 3.

There is no doubt whatever but that "the seven mountains" represent Rome - the seven-hilled city, the city continually described by this well-known epithet by every poet and historian of the day-but it is not so clear that the woman sitting on the seven mountains can be Rome.

1. The seven mountains represent the seven heads of the beast, and "The beast," or "The many waters 1," is defined to mean "peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues,' i. e., heathen Rome. Now, the woman is said to sit upon the beast. This would be to make Rome sit upon Rome, and the woman to be the same as the beast on which she rides.

2. In the definition which is given of "The woman" and "The many waters" (and I consider this of great importance, because nothing is more common in the Apocalypse than an explanation given by the writer of the symbols employed.2 "The waters are said to be "peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues," i. e., heathen nations; and "The woman" is defined to mean "That great city which reigneth over the kings of the earth" (Judæa). Here is a contrast evident to the simplest comprehension (a contrast everywhere observable in the Apocalypse) between the heathen nations and the people of Judæa. The woman, then, cannot be Rome, unless we come to the conclusion that Jerusalem was the metropolis which presided over the heathen world.

3. Added to this, it will be clearly seen that a marked distinction is kept up between "The beast" (Rome) and “The woman carried by the beast" (Jerusalem).

"I saw a woman" (Jerusalem) "sit upon a scarlet coloured beast" (Rome).3

"I will tell thee the mystery of the woman" (Jerusalem), "and the beast" (Rome) "that carrieth her." 4

1 Compare Rev. xvii. 1. with Rev. xvii. 3.

2 The seven stars . . . . are the angels of the seven churches.” (Rev. i. 20.) "The seven candlesticks are the seven churches." (Rev. i. 20.) "The great city, spiritually called Sodom and Egypt where also our Lord was crucified." (Rev. xi. 8.) "The great dragon... that old serpent called the Devil or Satan." (Rev. xii. 9.) "The waters... are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues." (Rev. xvii. 15.) "The woman is that great

city which reigneth over the kings of the earth.".

- Rev. xvii. 18.