Revelation 14:8-10

THE FALL OF BABYLON.

"And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. And the third angel followed them, saying with. loud voice, 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, which is poured out without mixture, into the cup of his indignation; and the shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb."--14:8-10.

It is needful to inquire what the term Babylon means. It occurs several times in the New Testament. Here it is spoken of as "that great city," and her fall is doomed "because she had made all nations drunk with the wine of her fornication." In Revelation 17:5,. scarlet harlot is seen sitting upon the seven-headed and ten-horned monster, and upon her forehead is written, Mystery, Babylon the Great. With this woman the kings of the earth are said to have committed fornication. In chapter XVIII. the fall of the great city, Babylon, is detailed at length, and it is again said that all the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her. The harlot, with Babylon stamped upon her brow, and the great city of fornication, styled Babylon, in the fourteenth and eighteenth Chapter s, are one and the same existence.

There is an ancient city of Babylon often mentioned in the Old Testament, but ages before John wrote it had ceased to be inhabited, and the only dwellers among its lonely ruins were howling wild beasts and hissing serpents. It has never been rebuilt to this day and has passed away forever. John refers, therefore, not to old Babylon, but to some power yet unseen, when the was upon the earth, that should be revealed in due time, and of which old Babylon was. symbol. Let us notice some of the features of ancient Babylon:

1. On that site took place the confusion of tongues which divided those who before had been of one speech and one family, into various tribes and schisms at variance with each other and of various tongues. The name Babylon,. memorial of this event, means confusion, and is derived from Babel.

2. Old Babylon persecuted the people of God, and destroyed the temple of God in Jerusalem.

3. It carried the people of God into captivity.

4. It was. mighty, resistless, universal empire.

The antitype, the spiritual Babylon, must correspond. There is. power that exhibits all these characteristics. By apostasy from the truth it originated the schism which has divided the family of God into sects and parties which speak. different spiritual language. It has carried the Church into. long captivity by binding upon it the thraldom of superstition. It has been. constant persecutor of the saints, and has enjoyed an almost universal dominion. That power is the woman that sits upon the seven-headed beast, the seven-hilled city, the false woman, symbolical of. false Church, the great apostate spiritual dominion of ROME.

This passage shows the means by which this dominion shall be overthrown. It will be done by. pure and holy Church, filled with missionary zeal. It is the preaching of the ancient gospel which shall bring Rome to destruction. When this shall be done is not revealed, but. am led to cherish the idea that it is near at hand. The Church is undoubtedly becoming purer. Let him who doubts it contrast the Church of. century ago with the Church of to-day. This reviving Church is preaching the gospel with renewed fervor. It appears as though we were on the eve of. great missionary age. Missionaries dare the dangers of savage lands, pierce the remotest jungles of Africa, knock at the gates of China and Japan, and are traversing every Catholic land. The purer faith preached by Luther, Calvin, Wiclif, Huss, and others, has already shorn Rome of half her power, and to-day the bells of Protestant churches ring out the call to another worship within the walls of the Eternal City. Let the Bride of Christ clothe herself in the white robes of purity; let. true and faithful Church sound forth the Gospel of Life with power, then the mighty fabric of Roman superstition will give way; the, beast will receive. mortal wound that will never be healed, and the impenitent votaries of the beast, those who receive his mark in the forehead and the hand, shall meet the merited doom of their sins. Those who have mocked God shall drink of the wine of his wrath, poured without mixture into the cup of his indignation, and their ultimate fate shall be. part in that dread abode from whence the smoke of their torment shall ascend for ever and ever.

"Here is the (reward of the) patience of the saints. Here (is the day of triumph) for those who keep the commandments of God, and of the faith of Jesus Christ."

After describing this overthrow of the great enemy of the true Church, the apostle sweeps on over the coming ages, over the millennial period described elsewhere in Revelation, and draws the same vivid picture of the end of time presented by the Savior in the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew.. voice is heard to pronounce. blessing upon the dead who have died in the Lord, and then he beholds the coming of the Son of Man, the beginning of the end, the glorious but awful event that shall usher in the day when the shall judge the world.