The different features or characteristics of Babylon which the Spirit of God has distinctly shown us in these chapters, and which are most hateful to Him, we shall find most fully displayed in the history of this pontiff. But both reader and writer have to watch against the spirit of Babylon creeping into our own hearts. We are not to suppose that it is confined to popery, though there it is publicly enthroned and will be publicly dealt with in judgment. Unless we are gathered around the rejected Jesus, and walking with Him in the fellowship of His sufferings and in the hope of His glories, we are in danger of being caught in the snare. Men, christian men, too often connect the present enjoyment of prosperity and pleasure in the world with the name and sanction of Christ. This is the very essence of Babylon—the unhallowed mixture of Christ and the world, of heaven and earth. He who professes faith in a rejected Christ, and yet has his heart in the world that rejected Him, is deeply imbued with the spirit of Babylon. It is like one truly espoused to the Prince of heaven, and yet listening to the flatteries and accepting the favors of the prince of this world. And do we not see, alas! everywhere, the indulgence of worldly desires with the profession of the name of the Lord? This is the inconsistency, the confusion, which is so offensive to God, and which He will judge in so awful a manner. May the Lord keep us from ever seeking to mingle the cross and the heavenly glory of Christ with this present evil world.
The spirit of popery is all for this world with the highest pretensions of being all for Christ. "I sit a queen," she says, "and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow." Dominion has ever been her one desire—dominion over Church and State, over sea and land, over the souls and bodies of men, with power to open and shut the gates of heaven and hell as she pleased. So thought Innocent, and so he acted as we shall now see.
Lothario de'Conti was the original name of Innocent. He was of the house of the Counts of Segni, one of the great Roman families. Under the tuition of his two uncles, the Cardinals of St. Sergius and St. Paul, the great natural abilities of Lothario gave promise of that kind of distinction which his friends and relatives most desired. He afterward acquired great fame for learning in the schools of Rome, Bologna, and Paris; but canon law was his favorite study. At the death of Celestine III. he was duly elected to the vacant chair, and consecrated February 22nd, 1198, at the early age of thirty-seven. The cardinals saluted him by the name of Innocent in testimony of his blameless life.