positively whether this was a real woman, or the personification thus of the heretical agency corrupting the church; the result is the same, and the very indefiniteness only makes the application more general and comprehensive. This name is used by our Lord, evidently to identify her character and relations to the true church, with those of that troubler of ancient Israel, the queen of Ahab. That Jezebel had been brought by marriage into Israel from the proud and idolatrous royal house of Tyre, at