yea, excited by the priests. In a note appended to the above, we learn that slaughtering the English was represented by the priests as the most meritorious of religious acts. They exhorted the people with tears in their eyes, to rid the world of these declared enemies to the catholic faith and piety. The murdering of Protestants, they said, would be a good preservative against the pains of purgatory. Nor would they administer the sacrament but on condition that neither man, woman, nor child should be spared. Many of the rebels would say, after bragging of the number of barbarous murders they had committed, that they knew if they should die, their souls would go immediately to heaven. Nay, so much did they plume themselves on the merit of these exploits, that an abbot was heard to say, he would not appeal to the mercy, but to the justice of God, for good success to the undertakings of the Papists in Ireland.' "As the Papal leopard had the "mouth of a lion," so it had also "the feet of a bear!" These are the feet which are described by Daniel as having " nails of brass" which "stamp" on what the "iron teeth have left," which "tread down and break in pieces." These feet denote the friars and monks of the Romish Church, who compose its regular clergy. The four feet answer to the four societies, into which the monks were distributed by Gregory X. The forefeet correspond to the Dominicans and Franciscans, who were the most active emissaries of the Papacy. The hind feet of the Beast are the Carmelites and hermits of St. Augustine. The forefeet were indeed "dread ful and terrible and strong exceedingly." We have seen from Daniel that they were armed with "nails of brass," that is, with inquisitorial power; and, when their nails were fully grown, they mangled and squeezed to death the victims of their cruelty. The multitudes which have perished by the Inquisition with all the refinements of torture and barbarity, are indeed incalculable: they will never be ascertained till that day when "the earth shall disclose her blood, and no more cover her slain." To the Dominicans Gregory IX. transferred the authority of the court of Inquisition from those, who were neither wholly destitute of human feeling, nor blindly subservient to the Papal will.' The command was then given to the Papal, which had before been given to the Persian, BEAR," Arise! devour much flesh!" (Daniel vii. 5.) Nor were the Dominicans backward in fulfilling their commission. Already trained to the chase, and heated by the scent of blood, they eagerly executed the task assigned them. Over the whole surface of the western world they spread themselves in fierce and keen pursuit; and the distant kingdoms of Spain and Portugal were presently inflicted with the same deadly visitation. 'Rome,' the seat of the Beast,' was the centre of persecution: the heart, to which the circulating poison continually returned and whence it derived, as it flowed onwards, a fresh and perennial supply of virulence and malignity. From Italy the pestilence spread rapidly to the island of Sardinia, to Spain, and to Servia.' (Waddington's Hist. of the Church, p. 391, 448.) Such is the wild Beast before us! His "mouth His "feet swift full of cursing and bitterness! " to shed blood!" He has "the mouth of a Lion, the body of a Leopard, and the feet of a Bear!" If it be asked, why God should have permitted his Church to be thus trampled upon and devoured, and this, as we shall see, for no less a period than 1260 years, we reply, that the chastisement has been sent for her want of spirituality. The two great Antichrists are the Pope and Mahomet. In the year 606 the Pope usurped the title of Universal Bishop. About the same time Mahomet first "opened the bottomless pit, and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit." Both these Antichrists were sent as scourges, because of the lukewarm Laodicean spirit of the church. The Pope could never have prevailed, if men had "contended earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints." And Mahomet could never have succeeded in palming his imposture on the world, if the attention of Christians had not been taken up with "questions which do minister strife," the consequence of which was a departure from the simplicity of Scriptural truth, at first, indeed, gradual and almost imperceptible, but at length terminating in total apostacy. The followers of the Arabian impostor were commanded "not to hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which had not the seal of God in their foreheads." And with respect to the Beast before us, God had often threatened by his prophets to send such a Beast. If we look to the fifth chapter of Jeremiah we find the prophet bewailing the perverseness of the Jews. The poor "knew not the way of the Lord, nor the judgment of their God." The great men "had altogether broken the yoke and bent the bonds." And how exact a picture is this of the Christian Church in the seventh century ! Wherefore," says the Almighty, "a Lion out of the forest shall slay them, and a Wolf of the evening shall spoil them; a Leopard shall watch over their cities." How many Popes have assumed the very name of "Lion" (LEO!) How many of these Papal Leopards have assumed the name of " Gregory" (a Watcher !) The present Pope is the sixteenth of that name. He may read his name GREGORY in the words, "A Leopard shall WATCH OVER their cities," which is in the LXX, 66 παρδαλις ΕΓΡΗΓΟΡΗΣΕΝ επι τας πολεις αυτων. It is as true of the Christian, as it was of the Jewish Church, that "their transgressions are many, and their backslidings are increased." Therefore the Almighty has sent "a Leopard to watch over their cities." There is another very remarkable prophecy in the thirteenth chapter of Hosea. "I will be unto them as a Lion. As a Leopard by the way will I observe them. I will meet them as a Bear that is bereaved of her whelps, and will rend the caul of their heart, and there will I devour them like a Lion: the Wild Beast shall tear them." And the reason assigned is, "because they have forgotten me.' This threatening |