term of his non-existence is placed between the term of his first existence and the term of his second erxistence and hence of course it will likewise follow, that he ceased to exist by reason of the extinction of the seventh form.

1

Now the events, which in the angel's interpretation are verbally expressed by the phrase the beast that was, and is NOT, and yet is; are, in the corresponding hieroglyphic, scenically represented by the picture of a wild beast first LIVING, then LYING DEAD in consequence of a mortal wound inflicted upon his reigning head by the stroke of a sword, and lastly COMING AGAIN TO LIFE through the healing of that wound: and we are taught by the same angelic expositor, that the seven heads of the wild beast, while they first geographically shadow out the seven well-known hills which sustain imperial Rome, secondly and historically symbolize seven successive kings or seven successive forms of government. Such being the case, the seventh of these successive forms must of course answer to the seventh of the successive heads: whence it will plainly follow, that whatever is predicated of the seventh form is also predicated of the seventh head, and conversely that whatever is predicated of the seventh head is also predicated of the seventh form. But it is predicated of the seventh form, that it must continue a SHORT space, and that by its extinction the wild beast will drop into his intermediate state of nonexistence: which intermediate state of non-existence is the same as the hieroglyphical wild beast's intermediate

mediate state of death, that occurs between his original term of life and his renewed term of life. Therefore it is also predicated of the seventh head, that it must continue a SHORT SPACE, and that through its violent extinction by the deadly wound of a sword the hieroglyphical wild beast will drop into his intermediate state of death or (as the matter is verbally expressed) of non-existence.

Thus, in a train of regular demonstration carried on step by step from the direct assertion of the interpreting angel, we are finally brought to the important conclusion, that the head, which was to receive a deadly wound by the violent stroke of a sword, is not the sixth head as I once erroneously imagined, but that it is the SEVENTH head. Hence it will follow, that whether the death intended be a moral death or a political death; this predicted death of the wild beast cannot relate to the conversion of the Empire to Christianity because that event took place, not under the seventh head, but under the sixth.

:

2. As I once interpreted the death of the wild beast to denote a moral death, and supposed the slaughtered head to be the sixth head: so Bp. Newton, on the contrary, interprets this same death to denote a political death, still however supposing, like myself, that it was the sixth head which received the deadly wound by the sword; for he conceives, that the sixth or imperial head was wounded to death by the Gothic sword when the western line of Cesars was extinguished in the person of Augustulus, and that the same wounded head was healed when the

extin

extinguished line was revived in the person of Charlemagne *.

In his opinion, that the death of the wild beast denotes a political death, the bishop, as we shall presently see and as the intelligent reader will already suspect, was undoubtedly in the right; while I was no less undoubtedly in the wrong, when I supposed it to denote a moral death. But, though his interpretation of the phrase, as it occurs in the present prophecy, is certainly just; his application of the prophecy itself is assuredly erroneous. For, to omit the glaring defect in his application, which plainly requires and is indeed absolutely built upon the acknowledgment that the sixth head was wounded to death or subverted in the person of Augustulus, while yet (agreeably to the well known constitution of the old Roman Empire) that same sixth head was still flourishing in full vitality at Constantinople: to omit, I say, this glaring defect in his application, we now find it, like my own, to have been radically vicious; for we now find, that the slain head was not the sixth as both the bishop and myself have erroneously imagined, but that it was the SEVENTH.

VIII. The identity of the slain head having now been established, our course is abundantly plain : both in expounding that part of the prophecy, which foretells that the seventh head or form of Roman government should be violently killed by the sword after it had continued only a short space; and in ac

Dissert. xxv. vol. iii. p. 210, 211.

counting,

counting, altogether harmonically with another most extraordinary part of the prophecy, for the present headless and therefore (agreeably to the economy of nature) defunct condition of the hieroglyphical wild beast or of the literal Empire.

1. In the abstract, as we have seen, it is uncertain, whether prophetic death denotes moral death or political death: the mere phrase itself is capable of denoting either. Hence, in the application, it can only be determined positively by the event: but, let the event be ascertained, and the right interpretation of the phrase in that particular case will follow of course; because history itself will then be our guide.

Now it has been demonstrated, that the seventh head is the head which is to be mortally wounded by the sword, and that in consequence of its receiving this mortal wound the beast himself is for a season to lie dead or to sink into his intermediate state of deathlike non-existence. It has moreover been shewn, that the short-lived Napoleonic monarchy is the short-lived seventh head or form of Roman government; existing, while it continued to exist, under the official title of the Emperorship of the French. For the Papacy, under no aspect, can be identified with this seventh head; because the Papacy was never a secular head of the wild beast. Therefore, as the sixth head, which bore the official title of Emperorship of the Romans from first to last, fell in the year 1806: the wild beast will have become prematurely headless, even at the extinc

tion

tion of the sixth head, instead of at the extinction of the seventh head (as the prophecy very definitely teaches us to expect); unless we suppose the Emperorship of the French to be the predicted SHORTLIVED seventh head.

Since then the Napoleonic monarchy is the shortlived seventh head, and since the short-lived seventh head is that which is to be mortally wounded by the sword: we must plainly seek the event, denoted by this mortal wound, in the brief history of the Napoleonic monarchy.

The question therefore is, whether the predicted death of the wild beast, which is the consequence of the mortal wound inflicted by a sword on the seventh head, is to be interpreted morally or politically: for, as we have seen, the now ascertained application of the seventh head must historically determine the question before us.

I need scarcely say, that such an application determines it most fully and most effectually. The seventh or Francic form of Roman government never, during the short time of its continuance, experienced any change from a corrupt to a pure system of theology, which might correspond with the prophetic idea of a moral death therefore a moral death cannot have been intended by the imagery of its receiving a mortal wound from a sword. But, if a moral death cannot have been intended by this imagery, the death intended by it can only have been political death. Accordingly, that identical sort of death was experienced by the seventh or

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