ht hand, or on their forehead. And that
no one might buy or sell, but he, who had the mark, the name of
the wild beast, or the number of his name."--Rev. 13:15-18.

This new creation is not another beast, but the image of one. An image is
only the _likeness_ of something. As the beast symbolizes a political
power, its image must symbolize some analogous power of a different
nature; and this likeness can only be found in a religious government.

1. The beast which received its death-wound (v. 14), was the form of
government to which the image was made, _i.e._, the imperial. Of this the
Roman hierarchy was a perfect counterpart. It was an ecclesiastical
government, coextensive in its authority with the political power of the
empire. And, like the officers of the civil, there was a regular gradation
of rank in the subordinates of the religious government. The head of the
former was an emperor, chosen by an electoral college,--the senators of
Rome.(3) The head of the latter was a Pope, chosen in a similar manner by
the college of Cardinals,--the ecclesiastical senators of the religious
empire. Each of those bodies constituted the highest deliberative and
legislative body in its respective government. The empire had its
governors of provinces, appointed by the imperial head; and the spiritual
rule of the church was, in like manner, sustained by diocesan bishops who,
in their respective provinces, were governors in spiritual matters and
creatures of the Pope. Subordinate offices in the state and church, also,
singularly corresponded.

2. The religious customs of the empire, as well as its political, were
likewise imitated by the papacy. Rome deified her heroes; the papacy
canonized her saints. The ghosts of the departed were the gods of the
heathen; and the papists supplicate the dead. The Pagans burned incense to
their gods; the Papists burn incense in their religious ceremonies. The
ancient heathen sprinkled themselves with "holy water;" the Papists use
the same material in a similar manner. Lactantius says of the Pagans, they
"light up candles to God as if he lived in the dark; and do they not
deserve to pass for madmen who offer lamps to the author and giver of
light?" This custom is imitated by the Papists in the use of wax candles
on their altars.

The ancient Romans prostrated themselves before images of wood and stone;
and Jerome tells us that "by idols were to be understood the images of the
dead." In Ca