The beast represented in the Revelation with seven heads and ten horns has generally been considered as an emblem of nations. These ten horns, or powers, are to hate the great harlot of Babylon; to eat her flesh and burn her with fire; and though they destroy the greatest enemy of the church, and in this way are ministers of good to her, yet they receive their power and their seat and their authority from the old serpent, the dragon. And a magistrate or king may be a minister of good to the church and an avenger to execute wrath, and still be very wicked in the deed and use very unlawful means to accomplish the end. While he fulfills the decree of Heaven, he acts not in obedience to the command of God, but to the dictates of his own lusts and passions. _Objection fourteenth._ The passages of Scripture which have been quoted against retaliation and which inculcate love to enemies and the returning of good for evil have reference to individuals in their conduct towards each other, but have no relation to civil government and are not intended as a rule of duty for one nation towards another; they therefore have no bearing on the subject of war. _Answer._ Those precepts of the gospel appear to be binding universally without any limitation, and men have no right to limit that which God has not limited. If the commands of the gospel are binding upon every one in his individual capacity, then they must be binding upon every one in any collective body, so that whatever is morally wrong for every individual must be equally wrong for a collective body; and a nation is only a large number of individuals united so as to act collectively as one person. Therefore, if it is criminal for an individual to lie, steal, quarrel, and fight, it is also criminal for nations to lie, steal, quarrel, and fight. If it is the duty of an individual to be kind and tender-hearted and to have a forgiving and merciful disposition, it is likewise the duty of nations to be kind, forgiving, and merciful. If it is the duty of an individual to return good for evil, then it is the duty of nations to return good for evil. It is self-evident that individuals cannot delegate power to communities which they do not possess themselves. Therefore, if every individual is bound to obey the precepts of the gospel and cannot as an individual be released from the obligation, then individuals have no power to release any collective body from that obligation. To say that God has given to nations a right to return evil for evil is begging the question, for it does not appear and cannot be shown that God has restricted the precepts of the gospel to individuals, or that he has given any precepts to nations as such, or to any other community than his own covenant people or church. This objection makes government an abstraction according with the common saying, "Government is without a soul."