ation.
The worship of the beast and his image, and the reception of his mark,
must be something that involves the greatest offense that can be
committed against God, to call down so severe a denunciation of wrath
against it. This is a work, as was shown in chapter 4, which takes place
in the last days; and as God has given us in his word most abundant
evidence to show when we are in the last days, so that no one need to be
overtaken by the day of the Lord as by a thief, so likewise it must be
that he has given us the means whereby we may determine what this great
latter-day sin is which he has so strongly condemned, that we may avoid
the fearful penalty so sure to follow its commission. God does not so
trifle with human hopes and human destinies as to denounce a most
fearful doom against a certain sin, and then place it out of our power
to understand what that sin is, so that we have no means of guarding
against it.
That we are now living in the last days, the volumes both of revelation
and nature bear ample and harmonious testimony. Evidence on this point
we need not here stop to introduce; for the testimony already presented
in the foregoing chapters of this series, showing that the two-horned
beast is now on the stage of action, is in itself conclusive proof of
this great fact, inasmuch as the power exists and performs its work in
the very closing period of human history. All these things tell us that
the time has now come for the proclamation of the third message of Rev.
14, to be given, and for men to understand the terms which it uses, and
the warning it gives.
We therefore now call attention to the very important inquiry, What
constitutes the mark of the beast? The figure of a mark is borrowed from
an ancient custom. Says Bp. Newton (Dissert on Proph., vol. iii, p.
241):--
"It was customary among the ancients for servants to receive the
mark of their master, and soldiers of their general, and those who
were devoted to any particular deity, of the particular deity to
whom they were devoted. These marks were usually impressed on their
right hand, or on their foreheads, and consisted of some
hieroglyphic character, or of the name expressed in vulgar
letters, or of the name disguised in numerical letters according to
the fancy of the imposer."
Prideaux says that Ptolemy Philopater ordered all the Jews who applied
to be enrolled as citizens of Alexandria to have the f
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