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13 And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs out of

the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of

the beast, and out of the mouth of the false 14 prophet, (for they are the spirits of devils, working miracles,) go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. 15 (Behold I come as a thief. Blessed is he that

watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he 16 walk naked, and they see his shame.) And they gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon, i. e. the Mount of Mustering, or Musterings, or Meetings, or Congregational Churches.

SECTION VIII.

Seventh Stage of the Session or Republication of the Mystery.

The scattering of the power of the holy people being accomplished by the last war of the Antichristian confederacy on the witnesses of the truth, or, the mystery of God being finished, the last woe is now sent on the

teach: nor is that unclean spirit of active resistance, which any demagogue of radicalism may raise out of the brute passions of an excited multitude, congenial to our holy faith; but the doctrine of the Bible is a sort of PASSIVE resistance, which was exhibited in the conduct of our Blessed Master, who, when he was smitten by an officer of the High Priest, by no means tamely and silently submitted, but said, Why smitest thou me? (John xviii. 23.) And this PASSIVE RESISTANCE arises from a calm conviction of its expediency, and from enlarged views of the general interests of mankind, and not from any hasty and intemperate ebullition of popular feeling, excited by artful and designing demagogues. This doctrine is expressed in the motto which we have affixed to our book.

Empire and Papacy, which undergoes a tremendous revolution. Every state loses its former political existence; and the Empire is divided into three parts. The heads of the Roman nations, who have been hitherto confederated with the Church of Rome and her daughter harlot establishments, persuaded by those worldly-minded agents of the devil, her ambitious and crafty churchmen, that government could not be carried on without her, being now undeceived, pillage her of her endowments and riches, and utterly exterminate her. The great slaughter also now happens without the city for the space of one thousand six hundred furlongs, in which the blood rises up to the horse-bridles, possibly in the contest for the Papal States. The Northern Power also, perhaps taking advantage of the weak state of the Empire, overwhelms it with his numerous armies. A.D. 1843.

17 And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, 18 IT IS DONE. And there were voices, and thunders,

and lightnings: and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great. 19 And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierce20 ness of his wrath. And And every island fled away, 21 and the mountains were not found. And there fell upon the men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent and the men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceedingly great.

TO THE

SECOND, THIRD, AND FOURTH VISIONS

OF

ST. JOHN.

THE JUDGMENT OF THE WOMAN AND THE MYSTERY OF HER AND THE BEAST.

Every member of the church in the Roman Empire originally exercised his rights of kingship and priesthood bequeathed him as his inalienable inheritance by his Lord: his kingship, in having a share in the government of his church, in having a voice in the election of his ministers, whether bishops, or priests, or deacons; his priesthood, in possessing the right of private judgment on the signification of holy Writ, and serving God according to the dictates of his conscience without the interference of other Christians. The church was thus the spouse of Christ and clothed with the sun of righteousness. But when the Beast or Roman Emperor began to interfere in the administration of it, and the rights of the people to be gradually usurped by their ministers under the connivance of the civil magistrate, then the church gave up the principles of her constitution, and broke her mystical union with her Lord. Henceforth the church became the whore of the Beast, or Roman Emperors, and the Mother of the Harlots, or national churches, who adhered to the ten gothic dynasties of kings who have been nearly ever since contemporary with the Roman Emperors. For the first three centuries there was no alliance of Church and State. Christ declared his kingdom was not of this world. But the Em

perors thought otherwise, and they, with the kings, centred all the power within themselves, and the Popes or bishops whose jurisdiction they encouraged, till these latter became too insolent, and some of the kings entirely broke with them and have declared themselves the only supreme heads of the church on earth ever since. The consequence of the alliance of

Church and State is, that one set of Christians consent to surrender those very rights which make them Christians, their liberty of thinking for themselves, and acting for themselves, into the hands of a few, and to suffer those few to buy and sell them as they think proper, in order to enjoy the protection and bonours of the State, while the others, who are faithful and true to their Lord and their principles, are obliged to undergo whatever persecution the more favoured sect may think proper to inflict upon them, in order to make them come over to their party, or deter the more cowardly from joining them. The alliance of religion and politics was no new principle of civil government: it had existed in all states. Under the seven administrations of civil power, the BabylonicAssyrian, Medo-Persian, Greek, Egyptian, Syrian, Roman and Latin, fools or knaves have pursued the same line of policy in enervating the human intellect by leaving the formation and maintenance of religious opinions to the civil magistrate. In the time of St. John the first five had fallen, the Roman then existed, and the Latin had not yet come, and when it came, it continued for the short space of 115 years. The new administration of the civil power called the eighth, with which the Christian church stood in the closest connexion, was but the revival of an old one, one of the seven, that of the Greek or as they styled themselves, Roman Emperors, "which was and is not" in respect of St. John's days, but rose again in full power under Justinian, to whose plan of church rule the ten gothic kings, and their successors, who settled in the Roman Empire, though in other respects they have not cleaved one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay," yet have agreed and given their kingdoms. And this administration, though it went into perdition by the Turks, yet has been continued since in the line of French kings by the sale of the Greek Empire by Andrew Paleologus to Charles VIII. A.D. 1453, "and was and is not, and yet is," ever since: one of whom it seems will lead a confederacy of kings to the mount of mustering to put down the true principles of the church, which declare Christ alone to be king and lord of his kingdom, and will partially succeed in his attempt. But the false church is then to be destroyed by her former adherents, and the Beast and False Prophet with her.

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