the principle of confederate will, but the corruption not the exercise of royal secular power as of God though it might, by seduction, rule and govern this power, and thus separate it from its Divine source, and actually set aside and hinder the unqualified assertion of its supremacy, as of God over all. This, as we have seen, is distinct from the direct apostasy of power, which is founded on the hatred and consumption of the whore, and has its place in the beast. Power was given to Nebuchadnezzar, and he built Babylon: but here we have the woman in the exercise of her own will corrupting and ruling, uniting the characters of Israel towards God (save, that she was a harlot not an adulteress, for she had been but espoused as a chaste virgin to Christ), and Tyre towards the world. When in exercise we have always the ecclesiastical taking the lead in evil, as in Kore and the chief priests: so here this mysterious’ woman sits on the beast and many waters. When the kings begin to act, and are going to give their power by their will, they begin by her destruction or consumption at any rate. And note the act of Christ’s power is on the feet and toes themselves. God judges Babylon as a great moral system denying his supremacy, not in open hostility to Christ’s power.
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