The Revelation of Jesus Christ - The Herald

Papal Empire, with its ten kingdoms, including rulers, people, territory, and dominion,
that is here evidently meant. These that have long supported the harlot church, now turn
and rend her. It is useless to say that by identifying the Papacy with the beast this verse
would compel the conclusion that the Roman Pope finally destroys the Roman Church.
There is a head and a body of the true Church; the Head is called The Christ and the Body is
called The Christ (1 Cor. 12:12); but it does not follow, therefore, that when it is said that
'Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it,' we must conclude that He loved Himself
and gave Himself for Himself; for though Christ and the Church are mystically one, their
actions and offices are separable. So the Papacy, as head of the Roman Empire in its tenkingdomed
condition, is called the beast (Rev. 13:4,5,6); and the empire itself as the body,
is called the beast. (Rev. 17:3.) But though symbolically one, their actions and career are
distinguishable. It is clearly the body of the beast that is figured as carrying and supporting
the harlot--the Roman Empire under the sway of the Roman Church, the empire
supporting the Church, and the Church ruling the empire. But when the consuming
judgments begin, this is changed. Just what was predicted we have lived to see--the
kingdoms once subject to the Papacy snapping their concordats and alliances, till the
woman's bit and bridle are utterly broken; those kingdoms turning upon her, and
stripping her of her endowments, rejecting her authority, and tearing away her territory.
So we have beheld it wonderfully come to pass in these latter days. Events often constitute
an indisputable exegesis. So long ago as AD 1607, Brightman, the commentator, 'searching
what and what manner of time' the Spirit signified by this prophecy, concluded that about
AD 1800, the dismantlement of the Roman Church would begin. In August, 1797, the
French ambassador in Rome wrote to Napoleon: 'Discontent is at its height in the Papal
states; the government will fall to pieces of itself. We are making it consume by a slow fire. It
will soon crumble into dust.' The next year the Papal government was overthrown, and an
infidel democracy reared on its ruins. 'The churches and convents,' says Allison, 'the
palaces of the cardinals and nobility, were laid waste. The spoilation exceeded all that the
Goths and Vandals had effected.'"
The wealth of the Romish Church system in the zenith of its power was immeasurable. It
not only possessed the wealth of the cities and provinces of the ten Italian States, but
through its monks and nuns held possession of a large share of the landed territory in all
the European kingdoms. The dominion of the Popes was supreme in all the Italian States,
and they also exercised a subtle and despotic influence over all the kings of Europe. Their
spiritual influence once extended over a large part of the civilized world--to the king on
the throne, as well as to the peasant that tilled the soil. In fact, it was once even considered
necessary, in order to secure salvation, to be subject to the Roman Pontiff. How
remarkable has been the change from that condition. The territorial possessions of the
Pope have been lost to him, and the immense landed property belonging to the different
orders of monks and nuns in European countries, have been largely confiscated by the
state. The political power of the Popes, once a dread reality in Europe, has departed. The
spiritual influence, although great at the present time, is small compared with past
generations.