BEASTLY CHARACTER IN PROPHECY
This man rule in a province to which God alone has rightful claim (for indeed it exercises the prerogative of God when it presumes to direct God's work and people) has characterized all Protestant sectism just as it did Roman Catholicism, only in milder aspect. Man rule is represented in prophetic symbols by beastly character, whether it applies to political or ecclesiastical government. Thus in the 7th chapter of Daniel we have the symbols of four great beasts, representing in their respective order four universal kingdoms, as follows: Babylonia, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. These were temporal powers that ruled the world. When a mere temporal power is indicated the prophetic symbol used is a dumb beast. If a beast or any part of such symbol is represented as speaking or exercising human propensities, then the thing indicated is also an ecclesiastical power. Thus the fourth beast in Daniel 7, which represents the Roman Empire, exercises first as a dumb animal; but directly a particular horn appears among the horns of this beast, and is given eyes to see and a mouth to speak great things, which indicates ecclesiastical exercise, so that we have here Rome first as a heathen power, and then as a so-called Christian power speaking great things, making war against the saints, etc.
In Revelation 13 we find this same Roman Catholic power represented by a beast to whom was given "a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies" and power "to make war with the saints and to overcome them." These anthropomorphic qualities given to a beast indicate man rule in ecclesiastical matters, a thing which is at once blasphemy in God's sight, utterly obnoxious and foreign to him.