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supposition would of course be untenable: the eighth head therefore he makes to be the Pope. Hence it is manifest, that, upon his Lordship's scheme, the beast has actually eight heads, instead of having only seven: namely 1. Kings; 2. Consuls; 3. Dictators; 4. Decemvirs; 5. Military Tribunes; 6. Emperors; 7. Exarchs; and 8. Popes. The prophet however explicitly declares, that the eighth head is one of the preceding seven, and that the beast has but seven heads: with which then of his supposed seven predecessors can the Pope be identified! Of this natural objection the Bishop seems to be aware; and accordingly he endeavours to parry it, but in a manner to me at least not at all satisfactory, even allowing (what I am by no means disposed to allow) that the Pope may be justly considered the last head of the secu lar beast in his character of king of kings. "But possibly you may hesitate, whether this," namely the Exarchate of Ravenna, "is properly a new form of government, Rome being still subject to the imperial power, by being subject to the Greek Emperor's deputy the Exarch of Ravenna: and, according as you determine this point, the beast, that was, and is not, (was, while idolatrous; and was not, while not adolatrous), will appear to be the seventh or eighth. If you reckon this a new form of government, the beast that now is is the eighth; if you do not reckon this a new form of government, the beast is of the seven: but, whether he be the seventh or eighth, he is the last form of government, and goeth into perdition." To this statement the answer is sufficiently easy. St. John first enumerates seven distinct heads, and then introduces an eighth, teaching us that the beast has nevertheless no more than seven heads, for the eighth is of the If then the beast has seven distinct heads at the rise of the eighth, and yet notwithstanding the rise of the eighth has no more than seven, that eighth must in some sense be the same as one of the seven. But, upon Bp. Newton's plan it is not the same as any one of the seven: and, in order to get quit of the supposed seventh head the Exarchate, so that the beast by the addition of the Papu

seven.

I have already shewn how entirely unsupported such an opinion is by the testimony of history.

cy may still have no more than seven, he sometimes considers the Exarchate as a head, and sometimes as not a head.*

4. Some commentators, probably aware of the difficulties here enumerated, difficulties which unavoidably arise from the separation of the seventh and eighth heads, have adopted the mode of exposition which I believe to be the true one; namely, that the two heads are one power existing in a two-fold capacity: but unfortunately they have for the most part not attended to the very accurate language in which St. John describes the manner of that existence. It is not sufficient to discover a power existing in a two-fold capacity merely but that power must so exist, that it must cease to be in one capacity, when it begins to be in the other. When the seventh head "cometh, he must continue a short space :" he is not to coexist with the eighth, but he is to give place to him. The two heads therefore must be one power existing in a successive two-fold capacity.

All the commentators, of whom I am now speaking, suppose the Pope to be this double or septimo-octave head. Accordingly some of them fancy, that he is one of the heads in his temporal, and another in his spiritual, capacity; while others conceive, that he is one head as the sovereign of his own dominions, and another as king of the whole worldt-Now, even were such schemes liable to no other objections, it would be sufficient to observe, that these writers seem quite to forget, that the seventh head is represented as preceding the eighth, and as continuing only a short space: whereas both the temporal and the spiritual, both the particular-temporal and the universal-temporal dominion of the Pope, run parallel to each other, and are equally even now in existence, each having continued a long time.‡

Mr. Brightman and Mr. Mann of the Charter-house

Mr. Lowman's interpretation is exactly the same as Bp. Newton's, and is consequently liable to the very same objections.

† See Pol. Synop. in loc.

I speak as adapting myself to the scheme which I am considering. In strictness of language the universal-temporal dominion of the Pope is neither at present in existence, nor ever was in existence. I have already very fully shewn, that such dominion, though often claimed, was never allowed.

certainly manage, with by much the greatest dexterity, the supposition that the Pope is the double or septimo

octave head.

Mr. Brightman thinks, that the Papacy arose in its quality of the seventh head, when Constantine removed the seat of empire from Rome; that this short-lived head continued only about a century from the age of Constantine, when it was overwhelmed by the inundation of the Goths and Vandals; and that the Papacy lastly arose in its quality of the eighth head, which was to be one of the seven, when it was established upon the firm basis of temporal power by the grants of Pipin and Charlemagne. Then was healed the deadly wound which the seventh papal head had received from the Gothic sword; and then did that same head, considered as the eighth papal head, rear itself up again with greater vigour than it had ever possessed*-Independent of the impropriety of at all considering the Pope as a head of the beast, this scheme is in other respects highly objectionable. So far was the Bishop of Rome from becoming a head of the empire, by the secession of Constantine from the ancient capital, that he still continued a mere subject of his sovereign, as much a subject in short as any other bishop: we may therefore safely pronounce, that, during at least a century after the Constantinian age, the period assigned by Mr. Brightman for the continuance of the short-lived seventh head, no new head whatsoever arose. And again so far was this supposed seventh head from being slain by the Gothic sword, and from reviving afterwards in the capacity of the eighth head, that the incursions of the northern barbarians, as Machiavel most justly observes, contributed more than any circumstance whatsoever to advance the power of the Papacy. They did not slay it; but they nourished it, and gradually gave it strength and consistency. Thus it appears, that Mr. Brightman's scheme is wholly unsupported by history.

Mr. Mann, on the other hand, conceives, that the

Brightman's Apoc. Apoc. Fol. 273, 274.

See the citations from Machiavel in the 4th chapter of this Work. See likewise the citation from Sir Isaac Newton.

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Pope became the seventh head when he was constituted supreme head of the Church; and that he afterwards became the eighth head, when he induced the Italians to revolt from the Emperor Leo on the score of imageworship. This scheme however is as little tenable as any of the foregoing ones. The seventh head was to continue but a short space: the ecclesiastical supremacy of the Pope has continued down to the present hour. The seventh head of a secular beast must be a secular power: the ecclesiastical supremacy of the Pope is a purely spiritual power; nor is it possible to conceive how he could become a head of the state or the secular beast by being constituted head of the Church. The eighth head must likewise be a secular power, and one moreover so large that at its first rise it must be (as we are taught by the prophet) commensurate in a manner with the whole beast: the temporal authority of the Pope never extended beyond his own dominions; nor is it easy to imagine, how the sovereign of an Italian principality can be the last secular head of the beast, when his temporal supremacy over the empire was at no time ever acknowledged. But, if the Papacy be not the double head of the beast in its two-fold spiritual and secular capacity, it will be found impossible to point out any other manner in which there is even an appearance of probability that it might be that head. For, supposing the Pope to be intended by the double or septimo-octave head of the beast, where are we to draw the line of distinction between his two characters? At what period did he

Mr. Mann fixes this event to the age of Justinian; whereas it did, not really and permanently take place till the year 606 in the reign of Phocas. His scheme however is improved, instead of being injured, by this remark; because it shortens the interval between the rise of his supposed seventh and eighth heads, thereby making it more consonant with the prophecy.

Mann's M. S. cited by Bp. Newton, Dissert. on Rev. xvii.

Let the reader attentively reperuse the preceding citations from Gibbon relaive to the inauguration of the Carlovingian empire, and let him then declare whether in the presence of Charlemagne the Pope bears any resemblance to a bead of the secu lar Roman beast. At that period, who was the sovereign of Rome and Italy; who, the master of the Western empire? Charlemagne or the Pope? Yet so far will a love of system carry some writers, that Mr. Fleming actually speaks of the Pope becoming at this period the real king of Rome, and represents the Roman Emperorship of Charlemagne as being a mere empty title. (Apoc. Key, p. 35.) The very reverse of this is what we learn from history. Charlemagne was the real sovereign of the western empire: and the Pope held the dukedom of Rome under him as a merè feudal vassal, 15

VOL. II.

cease to be the seventh head, and begin to be the eighth head? Or in what sense can he be said to have "continued a short space" as the seventh head? History will furnish us with no answer to these questions.

As for the other grounds on which the Pope cannot be esteemed the last head of the beast, namely because his claim of temporal supremacy was never allowed, they have already been stated so fully at the beginning of the present chapter, that it is superfluous here to recapitulate them.

5. It remains only, that we inquire how far the Carlovingian empire answers to the prophetic character of the double head of the beast.

The subversion of the kingdom of Lombardy in the year 774 made Charlemagne, already king of France, the undisputed master of Italy under the title of Patrician of Rome. In this capacity, he granted to the Pope the fiefs of a certain part of Lombardy and of the whole state of Rome, confirming at the same time the former grant made by his father Pipin. Here then, in the regular chronological order of prophecy, after the beast had been wounded to death under his sixth head, and after his deadly wound had been healed, we behold the rise of the Curlovingian Patriciate, or the seventh independent temporal head of the beast. This head however, when it came, was to continue only a short space; for it was almost immediately to be absorbed in the eighth head, which (the Apostle informs us) is in reality one of the seven although styled the eighth, and which (I have shewn) can only be identified with the seventh head: consequently we are led to expect, that the two heads are to be so intimately blended with each other, as to form jointly only one septimooctave head. Accordingly we find, that, just 26 years after its rise, the seventh head was for ever lost in the eighth head. In the year 774, the Carlovingian govern

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* I date the rise of the Patrician bead from the conquest of Lombardy, because the mere titular Patriciate of Charles Martel and Pipin then first became a real form of gooernment. Should the reader however be disposed rather to date its rise from the time when the title was conferred upon Charles Martel, the prophecy respecting the shortness of its duration will be no less accomplished. In that case, it will have continued about 50 years instead of 26; either of which periods may justly be termed a short time. As for the Patriciate of the Exarchs, it resembled in name alone the Patriciate of Charlemagne. They bore the title of Patrician as dependent viceroys : be

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