1. We may easily say in general, that the ten horns are ten kingdoms into which the Western Roman Empire was divided : but it is not quite so easy to identify those ten kingdoms. Yet, unless they be ascertained on some fixed and rational principle, we cannot hope to give any satisfactory account of that part of the prophecy, which declares that three out of the ten horns should be eradicated before an eleventh smaller horn.

(1.) Various are the lists, which have been exhibited, of the ten kingdoms in question : and the very circumstance of this variety shews plainly enough, that they have been drawn out.on no fixed and definite principle.

In fact, so far as I am acquainted with the writings of our numerous expositors, these lists have been framed, either wholly at hazard, or (what is still worse) for the evident purpose of sustaining a preconceived hypothesis relative to the predicted eradication of the three horns. Hence the ten kingdoms have been indifferently sought both in the East and in the West : hence some of them have been formed out of the invaders of the Empire, while others of them have been formed out of those who never invaded it: hence the ruling head of the Empire has incongruously been identified with one of its ten horns : and hence a mere dependent viceroyalty has been placed on the same footing, and has been inserted in the same catalogue, with independent kingdoms.

Thus Mr. Mede supposes the ten kingdoms to

be: 1. The Britons; 2. The Saxons in Britain; 3. The Franks; 4. The Burgundians in France; 5. The Visigoths in France and Spain; 6. The Sueves and Alans in Gallicia and Portugal; 7. The Vandals in Africa; 8. The Alemanes in Germany; 9. The Ostrogoths succeeded by the Lombards; and 10. The Greeks in the rest of the Empire: and, having now laid down the imagined ten kingdoms, he next supposes the three eradicated kingdoms to be the Lombards, the Greeks, and the Franks'.

But to this arrangement it will readily be objected, that the Greeks or Eastern Empire cannot be a horn of the wild-beast, because its reigning sovereign (as we shall hereafter see) was the representative of the head which was flourishing in the days of St. John; and zöological propriety is altogether violated, if we make the same power in the same capacity and under the same aspect to be at once both a head and a horn 2. Nor is this the only objection. Three of the ten horns are said to be eradicated before an eleventh little horn. But neither the Eastern Empire, nor the kingdom of the Franks, was ever eradicated under such circum

stances.

Thus Sir Isaac Newton reckons up the ten kingdoms to be: 1. The Vandals and Alans in Spain and Africa; 2. The Suevi in Spain; 3. The Visi

goths; 4. The Alans in Gallia ; 5. The Burgundians; 6. The Franks; 7. The Britons ; 8. The Huns ; 9. The Lombards; and 10. The Greeks as limited to the Exarchate of Ravenna : and, having so laid them down, he pronounces the three eradicated kingdoms to be the Exarchate of Ravenna, the kingdom of the Lombards, and the state of Rome.

But, in answer to such an hypothesis, it will naturally be said, that the Exarchate of Ravenna, which was a mere dependent province of the Eastern Empire, can no more be esteemed a horn or independent kingdom, than the province of Egypt or the province of Syria : and, as for the state of Rome which he makes to be one of the three eradicated horns, it no where appears in the list which he himself has given us of the ten supposed kingdoms.

Thus again Bishop Newton, very reasonably dissatisfied with a catalogue of the ten kingdoms which does not comprehend all the three eradicated kingdoms, pronounces the ten horns to be: 1. The State of Rome; 2. The Exarchate of Ravenna ; 3. The Lombards in Lombardy ; 4. The Huns in Hungary; 5. The Alemanes in Germany ; 6. The Franks in France ; 7. The Burgundians in Burgundy; 8. The Goths in Spain ; 9. The Britons in Britain; and 10. The Saxons in Britain : and, having so defined them, he determines with Sir Isaac Newton the three eradicated kingdoms to be,

Sir Isaac Newton's Observ. on Dan. chap. vi, vii.

of a fixed and regular principle in the formation of them; nor, I am persuaded, can any satisfactory list be drawn out, unless some such principle be previously laid down.

What, then, is the principle, on which the present investigation must be founded ?

So far as I am able to judge, the only principle, on which the ten kingdoms antitypical to the ten horns can be solidly ascertained, is set forth and comprehended in the following rules.

GEOGRAPHICALLY, all the ten horns must be sought within the limits of the Western or proper Roman Empire ; that is to say, in those provinces of Europe and Africa, which lie to the west of Greece.

DISTINCTIVELY, the ten horns must be ten kingdoms founded by those ten distinct nations of the great Gothic family, which acquired permanent settlements upon the platform of the Western Empire.

CHRONOLOGICALLY, the ten horns must be the ten kingdoms, which were first respectively founded 'by the ten Gothic nations.

HOMOGENEOUSLY, the ten horns must be ten kingdoms of a jointly similar description : that is to say, if one kingdom be an independent sovereignty, no mere dependent viceregal province can be allowed to constitute another kingdom.

The first of these rules is built upon the mechanical construction of the symbol.

The ten horns of Daniel's fourth bcast are indis