And precious stones.—Symbolizing her claim that she is the sole custodian of the Lord’s precious jewels of truth and character.—1 Cor. 3:12; Mal. 3:17. And pearls.—Symbolizing her claim that she has sole power over all that the Lord bought by His death.—Matt. 13:45, 46. Having a golden cup in her hand.—Symbolizing her claim that she is the repository of all Truth Divine.—Jer. 51:7. Full of abominations and [filthiness] FILTHINESSES of [her] THE fornication OF HER AND OF THE EARTH.—“Babylon hath been a golden cup in the Lord’s hand, that made all the earth drunken; the nations have drunken of her wine; therefore the nations are mad [intoxicated with her errors]. (Jer. 51:7‐9.)”—C. 156; Rev. 18:6; Isa. 65:4. 17:5. And upon her forehead [was a name written].—In plain sight of all the spiritually minded. (And how strange it is that _everybody_ does not see it!) Mystery.—“We have already called attention to the fact that the Church of Christ is called in the Scriptures the ‘Mystery of God,’ because, contrary to expectation, the Church was to be the Messianic _Body_ which, under its Anointed Head, Jesus, shall rule and bless the world. We have also drawn attention to the fact that the Scriptures refer to Babylon as a counterfeit system (mother and daughters—some more and some less corrupt, some better and some poorer counterfeits), and there designated the ‘Mystery of Iniquity.’ We are to remember that it is Satan who in the Scriptures is credited with having ‘deceived the whole world’ on this subject; putting evil for good and good for evil; light for darkness and darkness for light. Satan ‘now worketh in the children of disobedience’ (Isa. 5:20; Eph. 2:2) even as he proffered his cooperation to our Lord Jesus.”—F. 199; 2 Thes. 2:7; Prov. 5:6. Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth.—“Since Papacy, the mother, is not a single individual, but a great religious system, in keeping with the symbol we should expect to see other religious systems answering to the illustration of daughters of similar character. To this description the various Protestant organizations fully correspond. The daughter systems parted from the mother under circumstances of travail, and were born virgins.” (D. 29.) “But some sincere Christians may still be anxiously inquiring,—‘If all Christendom is to be involved in the doom of Babylon, what will become of Protestantism, the result of the Great Reformation?’ This is an important question; but let the reader consider that Protestantism, as it exists today, is not the result of the Great Reformation, but of its decline.”—D. 28; Ezek. 16:44; Hos. 2:2‐5; Isa. 1:21; Rev. 18:9; 19:2.