And, he spake as a dragon.—“ ‘He spake like a dragon.’ Notice, it is not said he spake like _the_ dragon, but like _a_ dragon. We understand this to mean that its utterances resembled those of a purely civil (dragon) power, and that in its words there would be little to denote that it is an ecclesiastical government.” (Z. ’80‐1‐2.) England’s conduct in forcing opium into China is evidence enough of its Satanic character. “China realizes that opium is her great curse; she has passed laws against the growth of the poppy and the manufacture of opium. But she finds that the imports of opium amount to 5,000,000 pounds per year. She cries out again, as in the past, that this Great Kingdom of Christ (?) (Great Britain) will have mercy upon her and cease to insist on this curse being introduced to blight China morally and physically. The young men of heathen China have started a monster petition for the cessation of opium importation. The text of this appeal appeared in the _New York Herald_, February 17. It recounts that a previous appeal, of similar character, was made without avail to the King’s royal grandmother in 1858, when she was the representative of this branch of Christ’s Kingdom (?).” (Z. ’11‐115.) “The False Prophet who causes the dwellers on earth to worship the Beast symbolizes the deification of the world and of the world power, throughout the conflict between the church and Antichrist.”—Cook.
13:12. And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him.—“And the authority of the first Wild Beast—the whole of that authority—he exercises in his presence, and he causes the earth and its inhabitants to worship the first Wild Beast.” (Weym.) “This shows that the second does not take the place of the first beast, but that they exist contemporaneously.” (Z. ’80‐1‐2.) It also shows that the sufferings of the last members of the Body of Christ, under the combination of governments dominated by Great Britain, may be expected to be as great as in Papacy’s palmiest days.
And causeth the earth and them which dwell therein.—“We make a distinction between the earth and those who dwell on it. As the earth symbolizes those obedient to and supporting the Beast, so ‘those dwelling on the earth,’ we understand to mean independent Christians who do not support either of these systems.”—Z. ’80‐1‐2.