1917_The_Finished_Mystery_Text

machinery and contrivances of doctrine andpractice of Papal Rome, the triumphant successorto their scheme, who now, after centuries ofcunning and skill, has its power so intrenchedthat even today, when its power is outwardlybroken and it is shorn of civil dominion, it rulesthe world and controls kingdoms secretly, undercover, more thoroughly than the Romanemperors ever ruled the kings subordinate tothem."— B288.And his seat.— His place in the city of Rome,by transferring his own headquarters toByzantium, "New Rome."— Rev. 12:4.And great authority.— At the hands of theRoman Emperor Justinian, in A. D. 539.— Rev.12:3-5.Revelation 13:3And I saw one of his heads.— One of thedragon's heads— Papacy.As it were wounded to death.— Whenever theScriptures use the expression "as it were" (as inRev. 9:7, 9) what seems or appears is notactually the case.And his deadly wound was healed.— "At theDiet of Augsburg, in 1555, the Religious Peacewas concluded. Every prince was to be allowedto choose between the Catholic religion and theAugsburg Confession [of the Reformers]; andthe religion of the prince was to be that of theland over which he reigned: that is, eachgovernment was to choose the creed for itssubjects."In fact, the political circumstances of the time,combined with the fact that even the leaders ofthe reform were only beginning to get awake tosome of the moral and a few of the doctrinalerrors of Papacy, lead us to wonder at the rapidstrides taken toward the right, rather than toharshly condemn them for not making thecleansing more thorough. But when theProtestant churches