Imparting life to the image of the beast simply signifies the complete organization of the ecclesiastical institutions so that they are capable of self-government and their decrees possess authority. Every living body is animated by a spirit. The sectarian spirit that animates the Methodist body will lead people into that body, etc.; but the one Spirit of God will, if permitted, baptize us all into the one body of Christ, where we can all "drink into one Spirit." 1 Cor. 12:13. "And he spake as a dragon" signifies the great authority by which his laws are enacted and enforced upon the people. "And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, and deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast." Fire from heaven upon Elijah's sacrifice was the attestation of God to his divine mission. Bringing down fire from heaven, then, symbolically describes the claims of this beast to being a true prophet of the Lord. At this point we must make a distinction which, being true in the facts of history, must necessarily be intended in the symbolic representation. According to the symbols of the preceding chapter the woman, or true church, "fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days." The time-prophecy is the same and covers the same period as the reign of the Papal beast; therefore just as an important change in the Papacy occured at the expiration of the prophetic period, so also we must expect a radical change with respect to the true church: it must no longer be completely obscured in the wilderness. As the Reformation, and Protestantism as a religion, was the means of ending Rome's universal spiritual supremacy, so also the same movement must be regarded as possessing sufficient light and truth to again bring into prominence the work of the Spirit and the true people of God. "Fire from heaven" may therefore be regarded as describing the divine work of reformation, the unfolding of truth accompanied by the saving power of God. Such spiritual work has accompanied the origin of various religious movements during the Protestant era.