The Revelation of Jesus Christ - The Herald

Makes the earth and those who dwell therein to worship the first beast
The expression, "All the authority of the first beast [Papacy] he executes in his presence,"
very fittingly applies to Henry VIII, and simply means that in his own territory, he executed
a similar authority to that of Papacy; that is, an authority in both civil and religious
matters, and that he did this in the presence or sight of the Papacy--while Papacy was
ruling. It will be admitted that the expression, "and makes the earth and those who dwell
in it to worship [to respect, to reverence, to honor] the first beast, whose deadly wound
was healed," seems difficult to interpret as applying to the influence Henry VIII exerted
over the people toward the Papal system. The language at first seems to imply that the
two-horned beast acts in sympathy and cooperation with the first beast, Papacy; and this is
one of the chief utterances in the vision that causes commentators so generally to apply the
vision to some phase or aspect of Papacy. It will be noted, however, that a similar
expression is found in the vision of the first beast, where it is said that the people
"worshiped the dragon which gave power unto the beast." This does not mean that the
people under Papacy worshiped, or reverenced, intentionally, knowingly, the imperial
Roman government either in its Pagan or Christianized form, which the dragon
represented, but rather, that they did so by supporting and submitting to the imperial
government's decree, respecting the paganized Christianity that the Papacy established.
Applying this to the words: "and makes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship [to
respect, to reverence, to honor] the first beast," etc., the thought would seem to be that
because of Henry VIII's assumption and usurpation of the same Divine power as Papacy,
not only did the two-horned beast fail to enlighten mankind concerning the erroneous and
indeed blasphemous claims and usurpations of Papacy, and its influence over the people,
but rather it served to encourage, to establish these claims, because it became apparent
that Papacy's power and influence was so much greater and wider that it caused the great
masses of men to hold to that one, which, because of its longevity, seemed to be the one of
Divine origin. Thus it has been truthfully set forth that:
"The Church of England claimed all the powers and authority which Papacy claimed.
[Note Mosheim previously quoted.] It claimed to be the Church; it acknowledged and
repudiated some of the corruptions complained of by the Reformers, such as the sale of
indulgences, transubstantiation [this last not in Henry's day], etc., and abandoned those as
well as the name Roman, for which they substituted the word Holy, calling it the original
'Holy Catholic [universal] Church.' It claims the same governmental authority and the
same veneration for its decrees as Papacy. And by establishing a similar system, devoid of
some of the grosser Papal errors, it attracted attention of all to those errors, as being the
only possible fault of Papacy. And when some of those errors were shortly after discarded
by Papacy, the inference was that both beast systems were right. People of that day, as
now, seemed to think those systems proper and right, if their powers, etc., were properly
exercised; but from God's standpoint the systems are abominations, and wrong from the
very center. The systems are based upon errors, and, like a corrupt tree, 'cannot bring forth
good fruit.'