p. 124 | To Correspondents

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 4, 1871

To Correspondents.

J. D. HOUGH: Your letter was received too late for any action. Should be happy to hear further in relation to the matter.

E. M. N.: We think it is.

D. T. SHIREMAN: We have not the book.

J. MATTESON: Zedekiah was the last of the Jewish line of kings. After the captivity, the people were governed, first by high priests of the Jews, then by princes of Judea, and finally in the time of the Romans by kings of Judea.

N. P. STEARNS: In your examination of the beast, &c., bear in mind the fact that in the prophecies the same symbol is used at different times to denote different things. Thus, a horn is used generally to denote civil power; yet it is once, at least, used to denote ecclesiastical power, as in Dan. 7: 8, 24, 25. A beast generally symbolizes civil governments, yet in Rev. 13, the same symbol is used to denote an ecclesiastical organization. That the leopard beast of this chapter does denote an ecclesiastical power, is proved by the fact that it can be shown to be absolutely identical with the little horn of Dan. 7, and this horn all agree in applying to the papacy. In Rev. 17, the church is represented by a woman, and the beast upon which she sits is undoubtedly the civil power; but the beast to which the mark pertains is the leopard beast of Rev. 13; and if that beast represents the papacy, as we think is very evident, and you are satisfied as you say, that Sunday-keeping is an institution of Catholicism, it seems to us the conclusion is plain before you, to call that the mark in question.