We should also remark that there is a vast difference between the destinies of Egypt and those of Babylon. The nineteenth of Isaiah sets before us the blessings that are in store for Egypt. It concludes thus: "And the Lord shall smite Egypt; He shall smite and heal it; and they shall return even to the Lord, and He shall be entreated of them, and shall heal them.... In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land; whom the Lord of Hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel Mine inheritance." (Ver. 22-25.) Very different is the close of Babylon's history, whether viewed as a literal city or a spiritual system.--"I will also make it a possession for the bittern, and pools of water; and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith the Lord of Hosts." (Isaiah xiv. 23.) "It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation." (Isaiah xiii. 20.) So much for Babylon literally; and looking at it from a mystic or spiritual point of view, we read its destiny in Rev. xviii. The entire chapter is a description of Babylon, and it concludes thus: "A strong angel took up a stone, like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, 'Thus, with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.'" (Ver. 21.) With what immense solemnity should those words fall upon the ears of all who are in any wise connected with Babylon--that is to say, with the false, professing church,--"Come out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues"! (Rev. xviii. 5.) The "power" of the Holy Ghost will necessarily produce, or express itself in, a certain "form," and the enemy's aim has ever been to rob the professing church of the power, while he leads her to cling to and perpetuate the form--to stereotype the form when all the spirit and life has passed away. Thus he builds the spiritual Babylon. The stones of which this city is built are lifeless professors; and the slime or mortar which binds these stones together is "a form of godliness without the power." Oh! my beloved reader, let us see to it that we fully, clearly, and influentially understand these things.