rnings, to bewail and
lament for her, 18:9. The former passage indicates their agency in her
impoverishment, and has been fulfilled in the confiscation of her property
in France and England, the spoliation of churches and religious houses,
wherever the arms of Napoleon extended; the dethronement of the Pope, by
Gen. Berthier, in 1798; the refusal of some of the powers to permit her to
nominate, within their limits, the candidates for ecclesiastical
preferment, &c. She is thus made to feel her widowhood,--her divorce from
the secular arm,--and has mourned the loss of her most devoted children,
who have forsaken her communion.

Her final destruction is, however, to be _entire_. She is totally to
disappear, like the sinking of a millstone in the sea. She is to be
_utterly_ burned with fire; but the lamentation of the kings over her
burning, indicates that her destruction is to be completed by other
instrumentality than theirs. Probably the multitude are to be incensed
against her, and will so manifest their hatred that the governments will
neither join in it, nor attempt to resist it, for fear that the same
torment will be inflicted on them, 18:10. But her existence is terminated
by the brightness of Christ's coming, 2 Thess. 2:8. Her destruction
precedes that of the kings of the earth, who mourn her end. The merchants
of the earth, the captains, sailors, &c., symbolize those who bear a
relation to the hierarchy, analogous to that sustained by such to a great
commercial emporium. They are those who have the control of her
preferments, benefices and revenues,--who traffic in her indulgences, and
thereby become themselves enriched. And these articles of traffic are
symbolized by the merchandise which, after her destruction, no man would
buy.

The commerce of this ecclesiastical city, has been immense,--particularly
in indulgences. The sale of these was reduced to a system, says D'Aubigne,
by "the celebrated and scandalous Tariff of Indulgences," which went
through more than forty editions. The least delicate ears would be
offended by an enumeration of all the horrors it contains. Incest, if not
detected, was to cost five groats; and six, if it was known. There was a
stated price for murder, infanticide, adultery, perjury, burglary, &c.
Polygamy cost six ducats; sacrilege and perjury, nine; murder, eight; and
witchcraft, two ducats.

The penances of various kinds which were imposed as a punishment for sin,
might also be co