rth, and things under the
earth. He claims power over the souls of all men on earth and even after
their departure from earth. If this is not blasphemy against God, his
tabernacle, or church, and "them that dwell in heaven," then I am wholly
unable to imagine what would fulfil the prediction. Among the
blasphemous titles assumed are these: Lord God the Pope, King of the
World, Holy Father, King of kings, and Lord of lords, Vicegerent of the
Son of God. He claims infallibility (which was backed up by the
Ecumenical council of 1870) and has for ages. Further, he claims power
to dispense with God's laws, to forgive sins, to release from purgatory,
to damn, and to save.

All the inhabitants of the earth were to worship him, except those whose
names were in the book of life. Thank God that even during the dark age
of Romanism a people existed who were owned by the Lord and who refused
to render idolatrous worship to this tyrannical beast. For further
information regarding these medieval Christians, see remarks on chapter
11:3. But these saints who opposed the Papal assumptions were made the
object of fearful persecutions, until Rome glutted herself upon the
blood of millions of God's holy saints. This will be more fully
described in chapter 17, where this apostate church appears under
another symbol, "drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the
blood of the martyrs of Jesus." In all their severe trials, however,
they were comforted with the knowledge that Justice would not always
sleep, but that a time would come when her retributive hand would be
stretched forth to lead into captivity their persecuting enemies and
break their world-wide reign of tyranny and usurpation. "Here is the
patience and the faith of the saints." To a number of people God gave
special foresight of the coming reformation of the sixteenth century, in
which the universal spiritual supremacy of the Papacy ended. A few of
the many examples will be profitable.

Says D'Aubigne: "John Huss preached in Bohemia a century before Luther
preached in Saxony. He seems to have penetrated deeper than his
predecessors into the essence of Christian truth. He prayed to Christ
for grace to glory only in his cross, and in the inestimable humiliation
of his sufferings.... He was, if we may be allowed the expression, the
John Baptist of the reformation. The flames of his pile kindled a fire
in the church that cast a brilliant light into the surrounding darkness,
an