, and to honor its authority, would be a reception of its mark. And
all persons were compelled to do this, and give evidence of submission to
its authority on the peril of their lives.

7. Those who should refuse the mark of the beast, were to be prohibited
from buying and selling. The Lateran Council under Pope Alexander II.,
passed an act forbidding any to harbor heretics in their houses or to
trade with them. The Synod of Tours passed a law that no one should assist
them, "no, not so much as to exercise commerce with them in _selling_ or
_buying_."(5)--_Elliott._ In 1179, the third Lateran Council sentenced
certain heretics, "their defenders and harborers, to an anathema, and
forbid, under an anathema, that any should presume to keep them in their
house, or on their lands, sustain them, or transact any business with
them."--_Lord._ "It was just the same fearful penalty of interdict from
buying and selling, traffic and intercourse, that had been inculcated long
before by the Pagan Dragon's representative Diocletian, against the early
Christians."--_Elliott._

So exact a correspondence between the wild beast and the Western kingdoms,
the two-horned beast and the Eastern empire, and the image to the wild
beast and the Roman Hierarchy, makes the symbolization of this chapter
very intelligible. These three agencies will severally continue till the
end of the world. The latter will be destroyed by the brightness of
Christ's coming (2 Thess. 2:8), and the two former will then be taken and
"cast alive into the lake of fire," 19:20.

The vision would have been defective without a representation of the end
of those who refuse to worship the beast, or its image, or to receive
their mark, and who, although warred against and overcome by the beast,
should maintain their integrity to Christ. Accordingly the revelator has a
view of:

The Redeemed on Mount Zion.

"And I looked, and behold a lamb stood on the mount Zion, and with
him a hundred and forty-four thousand, having his name and the
name of his Father written on their foreheads. And I heard a voice
from heaven, like the voice of many waters, and like the voice of
loud thunder: and the voice which I heard was like that of harpers
playing with their harps: and they sung as it were a new song
before the throne, and before the four living beings, and the
elders: and no one could learn the song except the hundred and
forty-four tho