...........

the prophet as growing upon the last head. To which then of the heads are we to assign the ten horns? Most assuredly to the sixth. In the days of St. John five were fallen and, between the fall of those five and the rise of the last, the ten horns sprung up. It is plain therefore, that they can only have sprung up out of the sixth. Such accordingly we find to be the case. The Roman Empire was divided into ten kingdoms under the sixth head of the beast, previous to his revival under the same sixth head*, and previous to the rise of his last head. It was the sixth head therefore that branched out into ten horns: consequently to the sixth head the ten horns must necessarily belong.

III. In the remaining part of the prophecy respecting the ten-horned beast we are informed, agreeably to the preceding prophecy respecting the war beween the dragon and the woman, that it was the dragon which gave his power and his seat or secular authority to the beast; and that the beast, as his agent, should persecute the saints 42 months or 1260 years. Hence it appears, that the persecution of the dragon and the persecution of the beast is one and the same; and that they are both exactly commensurate with the reign of the little horn. The dragon therefore, as I have already observed, we must consider as the main-spring of the whole Apostacy; the ten-horned beast, as his secular engine of persecution; and the two-horned beast, as the spiritual instrument which he used to stir up the last head and the ten horns of the beast of the sea against the mystic woman. In this sense then it is, that the whole ten-horned beast, after he had arisen from the sea," opened his mouth in blasphemy to God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven." He blasphemed the name of God by sanctioning all the blasphemous absurdities of his little horn, that predicted man of sin who proudly sat in the temple of God, and literally shewed himself that he is

*« I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed—the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live." Rev. xiii, 3, 14.

+"Any acts of idolatrous worship," says Mr. Lowman," may well be expressed by blaspheming God and his name, as they deny to the true God his distinguishing honour, and give it to creatures, whether images, saints, or angels." Paraph, in loc.

God by receiving the adoration of his cardinals:* hence it is said by Daniel, that the beast should be destroyed "because of the voice of the great words which the horn spake." And he blasphemed the mystic tabernacle of God, and them that dwell in the symbolical heaven, by upholding and propagating the most foul and injurious calumnies against the witnesses, accusing them of all the crimes which pagan Rome had formerly laid to the charge of the primitive Christians.†

We are moreover informed, that all the world worshipped the dragon and the beast, and wondered after the beast. Respecting this worship we are afterwards taught, that it was the second beast who caused it to be paid to the first; and much light is thrown upon its nature by phrase which more than once occurs in the Apocalypse: men are said to worship the beast and his image. Now it is superfluous to observe, that the Papists never literally worshipped the devil; and equally so to remark, that they never literally worshipped the ten-horned beast, or the secular Roman empire: yet this worship is immediately connected with the worship of an image, which the second beast caused to be made to, or for the use of, the first beast. Hence I apprehend, that the worship of the dragon and the beast means the devotion of the whole Roman world to the apostate principles of the beast, such as his idolatrous worship of images, his opposition to the truth, and his persecution of the witnesses. They, that dwelt upon the earth, worshipped the dragon, by lending themselves as tools to advance the infernal domination of the prince of darkness; and they worshipped the beast

* See Bp. Newton's Dissert. on the man of sin.

↑ Mrs. Bowdler ingeniously supposes, that the blasphemy here spoken of means #postacy, for which she cites Acts xxvi. 11. Taking the word in this sense, the beast, while pagan, laboured to cause the primitive Christians to blaspheme or apostatise; by requiring them to abjure their faith: and, when afterwards in an apostatical state himself, (2 Thess. ii. 3. 1 Tim. iv. 1.) he was equally zealous in causing the witnesses to blaspheme, not indeed the literal name of Christ, but certainly his religion so far as the spirit of it is concerned, by apostatising to Popery. Mrs. Bowdler however, who wrote in the year 1775, supposes, that a time may come when the ancient pagan Blasphemy of the beast will be revived, and when men will be required to abjure the very name of Christ. Her conjecture has certainly been accomplished in at least one of the principal members of the beast. Practical Observ. on the Rev. p. 35—46.

"Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do." John viii. 44.

by adopting the idolatry which he upheld no less as a Popish than as a pagan empire.* I know not in what manner, except this, it is possible for an empire to be worshipped.

It is further said, that power was given to the ten-horn-` ed beast over all kindreds and tongues and nations; insomuch that all that dwell upon the earth shall worship. him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb. These various kindreds, and tongues, and nations, are the different papal states of the Roman earth; over all of which the beast reigned, either through his last head, or through his ten horns. For a season, they all worshipped the beast, adopting his apostate principles, joining in his adoration of images, applauding his every persecution of the Church, and heartily concurring with him in his most violent measures against the witnesses whose pames are written in the book of life: and even now, after the Reformation, only one of the ten horns† has protested against his tyranny, and resolutely sheltered the mystic woman and the remnant of her seed from his implacable rage. The others either still adhere to their ancient abominations, or have embraced the yet more blasphemous tenets of Antichrist. Notwithstanding their recent severe sufferings, they repent not of the works of' their hands, their idolatry, their murders, their sorceries, their spiritual fornication, their thefts; or they repent of them, only to blaspheme the name of the God of heaven, and to refuse to give him glory. The Roman beast still retains all the characteristics of a beast: and in this state he will at length go into perdition on account of the great words of the little horn.

* “ Adoraverunt bestiam, i. e. subjecerunt se bestiæ juxta constitutionem suam religiosam." (Pol. Synop. in loc.) The passage is equivalent to that, wherein it is said, that the ten horns “ gave their power and strength unto the beast." (Rev. xvii. 19.) The whole Roman world, under all its ten borns, embraced those idolatrous and heretical principles which gave to the Empire its bestial character; and employed its utmost power and strength to uphold them. Respecting the worship of the beast's image more will be said hereafter in its proper place.

I use the phrase here in a general and indefinite sense, as it is used by the prophet himself. (Rev. xvii. 16.) Of the ten original borns France alone remained at the era of the Revolution.

Neither Denmark, Sweden, nor Prussia, are even modern horns of the beast, because they never were comprehended within the limits of the old Roman Empire.

IV. It will not be improper at the end of this long discussion to give in one point of view the scheme of interpretation which I have adopted in preference to that of Bp. Newton. Whatever may be its other faults, it at least preserves all the members of the seven-headed and ten-horned beast perfectly distinct.

The beast then is the secular Roman Empire-His seven heads (the last being his double or septimo-octave head) are 1. Kings; 2. Consuls; 3. Dictators; 4. Decemvirs; 5. Military Tribunes; 6. Augustan Emperors; 7, 8. Carlovingian Patricio-Emperors-His ten primitive horns are 1. The kingdom of the Huns; 2. The kingdom of the Ostrogoths; 3. The kingdom of the Visigoths; 4. The kingdom of the Franks; 5. The kingdom of the Vandals; 6. The kingdom of the Sueves and Alans; 7. The kingdom of the Burgundians; S. The kingdom of the Heruli, Rugii, Scyrri, and other tribes, that composed the Italian kingdom of Odoacer; 9. The kingdom of the Saxons; 10. The kingdom of the Lombards-His little horn, which grew up among his first ten horns, and which was different from them all, is the ecclesiastical kingdom of the Pope; which, small as it originally was, afterwards became a great ecclesiastical empire-His three primary horns, that were plucked up before the little papal horn, are 1. The kingdom of the Heruli; 2. The kingdom of the Ostrogoths; and 3. The kingdom of the Lombards.

The Apocalyptic ten-horned beast is not represented, like the same beast in the book of Daniel, with a little horn because St. John wished to describe the power symbolized by the little horn, as having now, at the revival of the secular beast, become a great spiritual empire by being declared supreme head of the universal Church. Accordingly the two-horned beast, which is not mentioned by Daniel, occupies the place of the little horn, which is not mentioned by St. John. This two-horned beast, or false prophet, is the same as the great scarlet whore, who rides triumphant upon the secular beast that is to say, they both equally symbolize the adulterous tyrannical church of Rome, or the spiritual catholic empire of the Pope.

66

V. The prophecy awfully concludes with a call to attend to the just judgments of the Lord. If any man have an ear, let him hear. He, that leadeth into captivity, shall go into captivity: he, that killeth with the sword, must be killed with the sword. Here is the pa

tience and the faith of the saints."

Hitherto we have beheld the secular beast triumphant, wearing out the saints at the instigation of his little horn by leading them into captivity or by mercilessly putting them to death:* we are now summoned to attend to the just retribution of a righteous God. The full execution of this sentence, long since pronounced upon the beast, is as yet future: for it will not take place till the last decisive battle of Armageddon after the termination of the 1260 years. Then, we are taught by St. John, that the beast shall go into perdition, being taken along with his associate the false prophet and cast into the lake of fire; and by Daniel, that the beast shall be slain, and his body destroyed and given to the burning flame.

This I apprehend to be the ultimate meaning of the prophecy; nevertheless it. seems, in some measure, to have begun already to receive its accomplishment. They that lead into captivity, and they that kill with the sword, is so general and comprehensive an expression, that it seems necessarily to include, not only the secular instruments of papal persecution, but likewise the ecclesiastical promoters of it: accordingly both Daniel and St. John connect the fate of the beast with that of the little horn or the false prophet. We have beheld then in France the descendant and successor of those, whose memory has been rendered infamous by the diabolical crusade against the protestants of Provence, by the blood-stained

Perpetual confinement, or the galleys, was the fate of those French protestants after the revocation of the edict of Nantz, who escaped the stroke of the sword. To the eter nal disgrace of Louis the fourteenth, many of the female protestants, even young girls, were transported as slaves to the West-India colonies, merely because they refused to worship idols, and invocate dead saints. Would that protestant England was as little stained with the atrocities of the African slave-trade as with religious persecution!

There is reason to hope from a late decision of the British parliament, that ere long that infamous traffic will be abolished. Till a complete end be put to it, I see not how we can expect that the protection of a God of justice will be extended to June 21, 1806.

us.