of this awful picture.
Then follow "sorceries," plainly pointing out pretended revelations,
false miracles, etc. To these are to be added "fornications," corporeal
and spiritual, in a mass of superstitions added to, or supplanting
divine ordinances; together with vows of celibacy, monkeries and
nunneries,--followed by public license of brothels. And
finally,--"thefts." By these are to be understood the illegal exactions
and oppressive impositions, by which the nations of Christendom have
been plundered of their revenues to enrich the lordly hierarchy of
apostate Christendom. This state of things still continuing after the
sixth angel sounds his trumpet, and no evidence of repentance; who can
doubt that the same community is yet to be visited with the "third woe?"
Surely the Lord may justly still say,--"For three transgressions, and
for four, (of Antichrist,) I will not turn away the punishment thereof."
The eastern church, in which the first corruptions prevailed, was
punished by the _first woe_ of the Saracens; and this not producing
repentance, her ruin was completed by the _second wo_ of the Ottomans.
So, when God judges, he will overcome; therefore the western church,
still persisting in her abominations, without repentance, shall be
destroyed by the _third woe_. Let not the pious reader suppose that by
these penal inflictions on churches, the church of Christ is to perish.
No, no. But, on the contrary, their overthrow is subservient to her
preservation. This also will appear with increasing evidence as we
proceed with our meditations on this instructive book.

In the mean time it may be well to remark here, at the close of those
_woes_ which developed the rise and progress of Mahometanism, that the
creed of this religious sect is substantially the same as that of those
Christians called Socinians. Both presumptuously and arrogantly claim to
be the worshippers of _the one God_,--commonly called _Unitarians_. This
is one of the "depths of Satan." All who worship, as well as believe in,
three co-equal Divine Persons, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, believe in,
and worship _one God_, and in this sense are Unitarians.--_the only
scriptural Unitarians_. "Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not
the Father." (John ii. 23.) And the same is true of such who "have not
so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost." (Acts xix. 2.) "He is
Antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son,"--a deceiver and an
Antichrist. It is