as
a dragon" signifies the great authority by which his laws are enacted
and enforced upon the people.

"And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from
heaven on the earth in the sight of men, and deceiveth them that dwell
on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in
the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that
they should make an image to the beast." Fire from heaven upon Elijah's
sacrifice was the attestation of God to his divine mission. Bringing
down fire from heaven, then, symbolically describes the claims of this
beast to being a true prophet of the Lord.

At this point we must make a distinction which, being true in the facts
of history, must necessarily be intended in the symbolic representation.
According to the symbols of the preceding chapter the woman, or true
church, "fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of
God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and
threescore days." The time-prophecy is the same and covers the same
period as the reign of the Papal beast; therefore just as an important
change in the Papacy occured at the expiration of the prophetic period,
so also we must expect a radical change with respect to the true church:
it must no longer be completely obscured in the wilderness.

As the Reformation, and Protestantism as a religion, was the means of
ending Rome's universal spiritual supremacy, so also the same movement
must be regarded as possessing sufficient light and truth to again bring
into prominence the work of the Spirit and the true people of God. "Fire
from heaven" may therefore be regarded as describing the divine work of
reformation, the unfolding of truth accompanied by the saving power of
God. Such spiritual work has accompanied the origin of various religious
movements during the Protestant era.

The general description of the two-horned beast, however, brings into
prominence an evil characteristic--the disposition to lead people into
deception by making an image to the beast and then worshiping it. The
evil does not inhere in the work of bringing down "fire from heaven,"
but in image-making and image-worship, for which the Spiritual work
simply furnished an occasion. The Spiritual work of reformation is
therefore to be distinguished from the later work of creed- and
sect-making. And since the beast takes advantage of Spirit
manifestations, in order to deceive men, he be