the marriage
vow. The sin of Israel in departing from the Lord is presented under this
figure; and the wonderful love of God which they thus despised is
touchingly portrayed: "I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with
thee, saith the Lord God, and thou becamest Mine." "And thou wast
exceeding beautiful, and thou didst prosper into a kingdom. And thy renown
went forth among the heathen for thy beauty: for it was perfect through My
comeliness, which I had put upon thee.... But thou didst trust in thine
own beauty, and playedst the harlot because of thy renown." "As a wife
treacherously departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously
with Me, O house of Israel, saith the Lord;" "as a wife that committeth
adultery, which taketh strangers instead of her husband."(627)

In the New Testament, language very similar is addressed to professed
Christians who seek the friendship of the world above the favor of God.
Says the apostle James: "Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that
the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will
be a friend of the world is the enemy of God."

The woman (Babylon) of Revelation 17, is described as "arrayed in purple
and scarlet color, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls,
having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness: ...
and upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon the Great, the
mother of harlots." Says the prophet, "I saw the woman drunken with the
blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus." Babylon
is further declared to be "that great city, which reigneth over the kings
of the earth."(628) The power that for so many centuries maintained
despotic sway over the monarchs of Christendom, is Rome. The purple and
scarlet color, the gold and precious stones and pearls, vividly picture
the magnificence and more than kingly pomp affected by the haughty see of
Rome. And no other power could be so truly declared "drunken with the
blood of the saints" as that church which has so cruelly persecuted the
followers of Christ. Babylon is also charged with the sin of unlawful
connection with "the kings of the earth." It was by departure from the
Lord, and alliance with the heathen, that the Jewish church became a
harlot; and Rome, corrupting herself in like manner by seeking the support
of worldly powers, receives a like condemnation.

Babylon is said to be "the _mother_ of harlots." By he