o secure such a union, the discussion of
subjects upon which all were not agreed--however important they might be
from a Bible standpoint--must necessarily be waived.

Charles Beecher, in a sermon in the year 1846, declared that the ministry
of "the evangelical Protestant denominations" is "not only formed all the
way up under a tremendous pressure of merely human fear, but they live,
and move, and breathe in a state of things radically corrupt, and
appealing every hour to every baser element of their nature to hush up the
truth, and bow the knee to the power of apostasy. Was not this the way
things went with Rome? Are we not living her life over again? And what do
we see just ahead? Another general council! A world's convention!
Evangelical alliance, and universal creed!"(748) When this shall be
gained, then, in the effort to secure complete uniformity, it will be only
a step to the resort to force.

When the leading churches of the United States, uniting upon such points
of doctrine as are held by them in common, shall influence the state to
enforce their decrees and to sustain their institutions, then Protestant
America will have formed an image of the Roman hierarchy, and the
infliction of civil penalties upon dissenters will inevitably result.

The beast with two horns "causeth [commands] all, both small and great,
rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in
their foreheads: and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the
mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name."(749) The third
angel's warning is, "If any man worship the beast and his image, and
receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of
the wine of the wrath of God." "The beast" mentioned in this message,
whose worship is enforced by the two-horned beast, is the first, or
leopard-like beast of Revelation 13,--the papacy. The "image to the beast"
represents that form of apostate Protestantism which will be developed
when the Protestant churches shall seek the aid of the civil power for the
enforcement of their dogmas. The "mark of the beast" still remains to be
defined.

After the warning against the worship of the beast and his image, the
prophecy declares, "Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and
the faith of Jesus." Since those who keep God's commandments are thus
placed in contrast with those that worship the beast and his image and
receive his mark, it follo