“And after these things I saw an angel descending out of the heaven having great authority; and the earth was illuminated with his glory”.

“Great Babylon came in remembrance before the Deity to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath” — ch. 16:19.                                                                v

“The Beast which thou sawest, was, and isnot; but is hereafter to ascend out of the abyss, and to go away into perdition.

“All the nations have drunk of the wine of the raging of her for­nication, ” contained in “the Golden Cup, full of its abominations and filthiness”.

The goblet presented to the lips of the people by their spiritual cup­bearers contains the following intoxicating ingredients, styled by an apostle “Damnable Heresies”.

The most disgusting of womankind is chosen by the Spirit, as repre­sentative of the Ecclesiastical System in doctrine, institutions, and prac­tice, approved and cherished by the peoples of Europe. It is compared to a drunken murderess and prostitute intoxicated with the blood of the holy and the faithful; whom she has destroyed by thousands ahd tens of thousands, for what she blasphemously styles “Heresy”.

Hence, in a vision, John was conducted away into a wilderness. The angel invited him to “come along,” and he went. They travelled to­gether, so to speak, until they came into a wilderness — into what was a wilderness in his day, inhabited by wild and ferocious peoples, not at that time included within the limits of the Roman Habitable. It is no longer an untamed forest, peopled by roving savages; but a highly culti­vated region, abounding in cities, towns, and villages, full of riches, and people of education and polish.

“And there came one of the seven angels having the seven vials, and talked with me”.

TRANSLATION OF CHAPTER 17

[1] Sirach was the father of the author of Ecclesiasticus, a book of the apocrypha which is also refer­red to by the name “Sirach”. The author is said to have been Jesus, son of Sirach of Jerusalem, who flourished about two hundred years before Christ. He originally wrote in Hebrew and the work was translated into Greek by his grandson. The passages to which reference is made is contained in Ch.