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If an intelligent mind consider what principles of civil and religious power are overturned by it, I mean despotism and superstition; how long these had endured, how strong they were supported, and how dangerous it was to oppose them, they will be clearly convinced, as it is said, that the like never happened before in any country.
In the 19th verse, the great city is said to be divided into three parts. The great city here spoken of, appears to me to be no other than the whole established Roman church, as the true church is often compared to a city, and the metaphor is very expressive, as the learned have observed, and a false church in this has the same metaphor of the true, as the church of Rome in this book it is often called, a city appearing in all its establifhed extent, as supported and confirmed by law.
Before the French revolution, popery appears in the connection of the countries where it was first established by law, as an united body or city. View in the map of Europe, the connection of the popish countries, from the borders of Russia and Turkey
