The supposition, therefore, that the Protestant church is to furnish the material for the image, involves no violation of the symbolic harmony of this prophecy.
Let us look a moment at the fitness of the material.

We are not unmindful of the noble service the Protestant churches have rendered to the world, to humanity, and to religion, by introducing and defending, so far as they have, the great principles of Protestantism.

But they have made a fatal mistake in stereotyping their doctrines into creeds, and thus taking the first steps backward toward the spiritual tyranny of Rome.

Thus the good promise they gave of a free religion and an unfettered conscience is already broken.

For, if the right of private judgment is allowed by the Protestant church, why are men condemned and expelled from that church for ncwother crime than honestly attempting to obey the word of God, in some particulars not in accordance with her creed?
This is the beginning of apostasy.