used as the other; insomuch that, although the people were styled Romans, their language was denominated Latin. But, when by the arms of the northern nations the Roman empire was divided into ten kingdoms; when, by setting up a spiritual tyrant in the Church, and by lapsing into papal idolatry, it again became a beast; when Rome was governed by her bishops under the wing of a new line of Emperors; and when Greece, formerly her instructor in the arts and sciences, was now become her rival both in imperial and ecclesiastical domination: the old gentile name of Latin was revived, and has ever since been the peculiar distinguishing title of the papal Roman empire both temporal and spiritual. Such, accordingly, is the general appellation which the inhabitants of the West bear in the Eastern parts of the world: the particular names of Spaniards, French, and Italians, are swallowed up in the common title of Latins. Hence Mr. Gibbon, in his account of the crusades, terms, with strict propriety, the people of the western empire Latins and gives us, under this name, the history of the five Latin Emperors of Constantinople *. Hence also, though the Papists are wont absurdly to style themselves Roman catholics, the real name of their community, as contradistinguished from the Greek church, the Armenian church, or the Abyssinian church, is certainly the Latin church. Thus Thevenot, in his account of mount Sinai,

* Hist. of Decline and Fall, vol. ii, p. 243-304.

speaks

speaks of two churches, one for the Greeks, and the other for the Latins: and thus Ricaut, throughout his state of the Greek and Armenian churches, discriminates the Romanists from all other professors of Christianity by the appellation of Latins *. The Papists, as Dr. Henry More aptly expresses it, "latinize in every thing. Mass, prayers, hymns, "litanies, canons, decretals, bulls, are conceived "in Latin. The papal councils speak in Latin. "Women themselves pray in Latin. Nor is the

Scripture read in any other language, under Popery, than Latin. Wherefore the council of "Trent commanded the vulgar Latin to be the only authentic version: nor do their doctors "doubt to prefer it to the Hebrew and Greek

text itself, which was written by the prophets "and apostles. In short, all things are Latin ; "the Pope having communicated his language to "the people under his dominion, as the mark and "character of his empire t."

Here

*Cited by Mr. Granville Sharpe in his appendix to three tracts, p. 126. I am indebted to this gentleman for the idea, that Latinus is the name of that particular man whose appellative contains the same number as the name of the beast.

Mystery of Iniquity. Part 2. B. 1. Chap. 15. and Molinæi Vates. p. 500. cited by Bp. Newton. Hoc nomine (Latinus),

66

66

66

post imperii divisionem et decem reges in provinciis ejus exortos, neque prius, pseudo-propheta Romanus, cum reliquis "Occidentis incolis, discriminis ergô appellatus est. Namque "Græci et reliqui Orientales seipsos solos Romanos dici vo"luere; nos, cum pontifice nostro, et sub eo episcopis, regi

“bus,

Here then we have a name, which completely answers in every respect to the apocalyptic name of the beast. Lateinos is at once the name of a man, the title of an empire, and the distinguishing appellation of every individual in that empire: and, when the sum of its numerical letters is taken in the Greek language, the language in which the Apocalypse is written, and in which therefore the calculation ought apparently to be made, it will amount precisely to 666 †. On these grounds then we have abundant reason to conclude that Latinus, and nothing but Latinus, is the name of the beast; for, in no other word, descriptive of the revived

"bus, dynastis, fatali quodam instinctu Latinos dixere. Et hæc distinctio Græcæ Latinæque ecclesiæ adeo insignis erat, "ut in generalibus conciliis Occidentales patres sive episcopi Latini, reliqui vero Græci discriminatim appellarentur." Pol. Synop. in loc.

→ I cannot but wonder, that any should have thought of seeking the name of the beast in a different language from the Greek. It is scarcely probable that St. John should write in one language, and mean the calculation to be made in ano

"

temporal beast or the Papal Roman empire, can such a fatal concurrence of circumstances be discovered *.

(2.) With regard to the mark of the beast, I think with Sir Isaac Newton that it is the cross. This symbol has been abused by the Papists to the purposes both of the most infernal cruelties, and of the most childish superstition †.

The

* Mr. Wrangham very ingeniously supposes, that the name of the beast is aroolalns, which he finds exactly to contain the number 666 (Appendix to Assize sermon. p. 7.). The objection to this word is, that, although it describes very exactly the nature of the beast and the nature of any individual apostate, it can scarcely be considered as the name either of the beast or of any man. Yet it may be said in its favour, that, since blasphemy means apostasy and since the beast is represented as having upon his heads the name of blasphemy, asoolalns, which is certainly that name, may be the intended name of the beast.

+ When our dissenting brethren censure us for using the sign of the cross in the baptismal ceremony, because it is used likewise by the papists, they ought to consider that the use of it is either innocent or not innocent, exactly according as it is religious or not religious. It was only by a vain and cruel abuse of the sign of the cross, that it became the mark of the beast: had a circle, or a square, been thought by the papists more convenient for their purpose, either of those figures would in that case have been as much the mark of the beast as a cross. If indeed the church of England either proclaimed a crusade against the dissenters, or laid any mysterious weight upon the use of the cross in baptism, she certainly would not in these respects have purified herself from the corruptions of the papal beast; but, concerning all her ceremonies, and therefore the use of the cross in baptism among the rest, nothing can be more moderate

"

The cruelties, that have been perpetrated under its sanction are notorious. I am strongly inclined to believe, that, when St. John beheld the secular beast making war upon the saints, he beheld him. likewise with astonishment bearing the badge of the cross for this was the very symbol worn by all those, who at the instigation of the Pope undertook those diabolical expeditions against pretended heretics, which were thence denominated crusades. In the time of Innocent the third, it was alleged against the unfortunate Waldenses and Albigenses, that they had cast the books of the Gospel into the common sewers in the sight of the bishops and

4

"In

moderate and rational than the language which she uses. "these our doings we condemn no other nations, nor prescribe any thing but to our own people only: for we think it con"venient, that every country should use such ceremonies as they shall think best to the setting forth of God's honour and glory, and to the reducing of the people to a most perfect "and godly living, without error or superstition." Hence it appears, that she only wishes "all things to be done decently "and in order;" and that, if other protestant churches dislike the sign of the cross in baptism, she would by no means impose upon them the use of it, as an indispensable term of spiritual communion in a common Lord. She disapproves indeed of the endless cruciform evolutions of the Papists; but she can discover no reason, why their vain mummeries should make it sinful or superstitious in her ministers to sign a newly baptized child "with the sign of the cross, in token that hereafter he "shall not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified." Hence," to take away all scruple concerning the sign of the "cross in baptism," she refers us for the true explication thereof, and the just reasons for the retaining of it," to the 30th Canon.

priests.