heathen idolater gloried in his devotion to his imaginary god; as the ivy leaf was the token of the worshippers of Bacchus:  soldiers bore the initials of the names of their commanders; and slaves, of their masters.  These characters were impressed on the foreheads or other part of the persons of individuals.  The general idea suggested by the “mark” was subjection or property.  In short, the mark of the beast signifies open and avowed allegiance to antichristian or immoral civil power, when in the “forehead;” and active co-operation with the same, when in the “hand.”  It is at once a pitiable and culpable error, to suppose, as many preposterously do, that this “mark of the beast” is popery!  And as the “mark” is the recognised badge of loyalty to civil rule, of course the prohibition to “buy or sell,” must signify civil disabilities,—­disfranchisement.  Men who suffer, necessarily feel.  Christ’s witnesses, as they only have the scriptural conception of the rights of man, have long been familiar with the deprivation of their rights, both civil and ecclesiastical.  The moral evils incorporated in the constitutions of church and state, throughout all the streets of mystic Babylon, have effectually excluded the two witnesses, and left them in the “wilderness.”  Here is their destined “place,” and here they are to be “nourished from the face of the serpent” for 1260 years.  Christ’s promise,—­“I will not leave you comfortless,” (orphans,) is all along verified in their soul-satisfying experience.—­This will appear in the next chapter.

18.  Here is wisdom.  Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast; for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred threescore and six.

V. 18.—­“The name of the beast,” since the time of Ireneus, the disciple of Polycarp, who was cotemporary with the apostle John, is understood to be Lateinos, or Lateinus; for it is well known to scholars, that classical usage justifies the orthography of this word.  However learned men may indulge their fancy, and sport with this mystic and sacred name and number, no other word fills up all the conditions required by the inspired writer. Latinus is the proper name of the “first beast,” the Latin empire:  it is the name common to the whole population of the empire, the Latins:  it is the name of the founder of the empire, Latinus; and it contains the number, 666.  The probability that this word contains the requisite name and number, amounts almost to a certainty.  The unlearned reader may be easily taught to understand how to “count the number of the beast.”  Of course, the apostle John accommodated his expressions to the custom of his own age.  Well, even children soon learn to number or count by the use of Roman letters of the alphabet.  They know that the letter I, stands for one; V. for five, etc.  Now, in the apostolic age, the Jews, Greeks and Romans, were accustomed to express numbers by the use of the letters of their respective alphabets.  This we suppose to be the only rational and probable method of solving the mystery.