But before the Archangel Michael "invades them with his troops," he remembers that he hath a people in Babylon to deliver, as well as a people to destroy. The people to be delivered are "the Tribes of Jacob, and the preserved of Israel"   "the children of Daniel's people," eight thousand of whom are inhabitants of Rome. Every one knows the degradation of Israelites in the capital of the Great Harlot; and the oppression and contempt they have been subjected to by "the demons, foul spirits, unclean and hated birds", called popes, cardinals, bishops, and priests, who roost in that filthy habitation. This tyranny of the abjectest kind has left its indelible memorial upon the hearts of the denizens of the Ghetto, whose hope is the desolation of Rome, which they look for as the crisis of their own redemption; for Kimchi, one of their rabbis, Says in his comment on Obadiah, "this is the hope of the nation when Rome shall be desolated, then there shall be the redemption of Israel".

The vengeance of Michael is suspended until the safety of all his people of the stock of Abraham, who may be willing, is assured. The vengeance upon Babylon impends, while the first angel is making proclamation that "the Hour of his Judgment hath come" (ch. 14:6,7). Michael, as "the Lamb and the 144,000 with him," having established himself on Mount Zion, is prepared "to give great Babylon the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath" (ch. 16:19), but he is graciously willing to afford escape, not only to Israelites, but to Gentiles of "every nation, kindred, tongue, and people", upon whom the Harlot sits. He therefore sends forth a company of authorized heralds, qualified to authenticate their mission, after the old apostolic example, to announce good to the well disposed; but terrible vengeance upon all "who know not the Deity, and obey not the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ," as proclaimed by the Angel-Company "flying in midheaven;" or executing their mission with great dispatch.

In calling upon the well-disposed to "worship Him who made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters," these Divinely called and sent preachers invite them to "come out of Babylon, that they be not partakers of her sins, and that they receive not of her plagues". This is not addressed to the saints as those referred to in the phrase "my people;" but to those who may become the Lord's people by obeying this "other voice from the heaven:" for this is a period in which, the Spirit saith, "Lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of the Daughter of Zion; and many nations shall be joined to Yahweh in that day, and shall be My' people" (Zech. 2:10,11). The saints cannot partake of her sins, and receive of her plagues; for, before this proclamation they have all been cleared out of Babylon by the gathering unto Christ in Teman; and by it having been given unto them to execute the judgment upon her and the four Beasts of the Sea (Dan. 7:22). They are the constituted avengers, and the avenged; and are then in no position to be addressed in the language of the voice.

"Her sins have followed her until the heaven". This is the reason assigned for her being plagued. The word ekolouthesan, signifies to be a follower. Her sins have been her followers. They have not been fitful, or occasional, attendants; but have been the invariable, and constant, and desperate, ruffians of her train, "until the heaven," achri tou our-apiou: that is, until the time arrived to establish the New Heaven. Had she repented of her deeds fifty-three years ago, when the darkness, or political eclipse, of the Beast's kingdom was removed by the fall of Napoleon the Great,(*) her sins would not have followed her "until the heaven". But her officials "blasphemed the Deity of the heaven, and repented not of their deeds" (ch. 16:11), but continued in the practice of all their abominations until now, and will do until sudden destruction comes upon them from which there will be for them no escape.

The Deity having called to mind her iniquities, the cause of her drunkenness, and abominable idolatries and profligacy: and the time allotted for preaching the Aion-Tidings of good, and their acceptance, fulfilled; the "other voice from the heaven" commands the commencement of hostilities against Babylon, in the words "Render to her as also she has rendered to you, and double to her twofold according to her deeds: in the cup which she has mingled, mingle for her double. How much she hath glorified herself, and lived profligately, so much torment and sorrow give her; for in her heart she saith, 'I sit Queen, and am not a widow, and sorrow I shall not see at all'." If the reader know the history of the Roman Ecclesiastical State, the Great Harlot, in her dealings with what her murderous and adulterous thieves, termed clergy and priests, stigmatize as "Heretics;" he will be aware of the "torment and sorrow" they have inflicted upon the saints, and upon Israel, and upon all the friends of civil and religious liberty, they have been able to shut up in their loathsome dungeons. This torment and sorrow appreciated, if he double it, he will then be enabled to form some feeble idea, far short of reality, of the terrible retribution and vengeance to be poured out upon the Satanic Hierarchy of the Seven Hills.

It is true, that she sitteth upon many waters, or peoples, who acknowledge Mistress Roma as the Queen City of the Ecclesiastical world. She is not without recognition as Queen even in America. But it is not true, that she will never experience the sorrow of widowhood. The widowhood of Jerusalem hath inured for many generations, and been to her a cause of reproach. Shall Rome, then, her fierce and relentless enemy, not become a widow? Jerusalem's Maker was the husband of her youth, from whom she hath been divorced, but only for a time, after which He will have mercy upon her, and adorn her as His bride (Isa. 54:4-8; 61:10). When she becomes the married wife by the law that goes forth from Zion; when the Lord Jesus Christ shall be King in Israel on David's throne, shall Rome and the Roman State be the married wife of the Name of Blasphemy styling himself, and being styled, "the Vicar of Christ," and who undertakes to make Christ, in flesh and blood, by mumbling a few words over a wafer? Rome no widow! Always to have popes for husbands of the church! A strong delusion, which the judicial annihilation of the Harlot can alone dispel.

The following anecdote will throw some light upon the sense in which "I am no widow" is to be understood. It was blasphemously stated in the Tablet, a Romanist Paper, that about a month after Pio IX's accession, the Abbess of Minsk spent a whole night at Rome in prayer for the Catholic Church: and that while so occupied a voice (none other than that of the Saviour) addressed her thus: "Fear not, my daughter! I have not left my church a widow, I have chosen for her a Pontiff after my own heart".