The most notable illustration of the working of the Frogs in their developing of the unclean spirit from the Mouth of the Dragon, is seen in the semeia, signs, wonders, or events, they originated and worked out, in regard to the “Holy Places of Jerusalem,” as against the rival pretensions of Russia.
The restoration of the Bourbons by foreign bayonets, in 1815, was a heavy blow and great discouragement, but not destructive, of the revolutionary spirit of 1789. A power had organized itself under the title of “the Holy Alliance,” consisting of Russia, Austria, and Prussia, who bound themselves by a treaty at Paris, the real object of which was to maintain despotic and arbitrary power, in church and state, and to support each other against any revolutionary movement among their own subjects.
This is the only place in the Apocalypse where “frogs” are introduced. They are produced here by way of illustrating the character of the spirits that, in the period of the sixth vial, would issue forth from the Dragon, Beast, and False Prophet, governments to all the rulers of the earth and habitable; and in a parallel series with the series of events by which the power of the Euphratean Ottoman empire is drying up.
“Here is wisdom. Let him that hath the understanding compute the number of the beast; for it is a man’s number, and the number of it is, or Six Hundred and Sixty Six.”
“And (causes) that no one be able to buy or sell, save he that hath the sign, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name— (verse 17).
“And he caused all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free and the enslaved, that a sign should be given to them upon their right hand, and upon their foreheads” — Verse 16
“And it was given to it to give spirit to the Image of the Beast, that the Image of the Beast might both speak, and cause as many as would not worship the Image of the Beast, that they should be put to death” — Verse 15.
The reader will remember what has already been stated concerning the relative position of the ecclesiastical and secular powers of the Lamb-Homed Dominion, as established by Otho the First, A.D. 962. It may, however, be as well to remark again in this place, that, when Otho fixed the imperial crown in the name and nation of Germany, he established the two following maxims of public jurisprudence;
“And he deceives the dwellers upon the earth through the wonders which it was given to him to have worked in the presence of the beast; saying to the dwellers upon the earth, to have an Image made to the beast that hath the plague of the sword, and lives. 15. And it was given to him to give spirit to the Image of the beast; that the Image of the Beast should both speak, and, cause that as many as would not worship the Image of the Beast should be put to death. ”
“And he works great wonders, so that he causeth fire also to descend out of the heaven into the earth in the presence of the men” — Verse 13