singular circumstance has happened to the Roman beast, and to the Roman beast alone. That empire was originally a beast, by its profession of paganism, and by its persecution of the first set of men of understanding mentioned by Daniel :* it ceased to be a beast under Constantine the great, when it embraced Christianity, and became the protector of the church: and it again relapsed into its bestial state, when it set up the tyrannical supremacy of the Pope, adopted the worship of saints and martyrs, and bitterly persecuted the second set of men of understanding. Now the beast erected the spiritual domination of the Pope in the year 606, by conferring upon him the prerogatives of universal episcopacy. Consequently then it was that the beast arose out of the sea, or out of the turbulent times of Gothic invasion, in his third or revived state: and he may be considered as having firmly taken his station upon the shore, when in the year 607 idolatry was openly re-established in the old heathen Pantheon. In this state,the dragon, or Satan, is said to have given him "his power, and his seat, and great authority;" in the same manner as he had given them to him before, when the resolute advocate of paganism.+

fessed iconoclasts; yet, notwithstanding Dr. Hyde's laborious attempt to prove the contrary, I cannot but think it sufficiently evident, that they worshipped, possibly not altogether excluding the true God, the Sun, the Moon, and the Host of Heaven, in conjunction with their diluvian ancestors.

It is in this same third or papally idolatrous state that the beast" shall go into perdition," or be utterly destroyed, as St. John in perfect harmony with Daniel specially informs us. (Rev. xvii. 11.—Dan. vii. 11.) After his division into ten kingdoms, and "because of the voice of the great words which the born spake;" that is to say, when he has again become a beast by upholding the papal superstition, as he was before a beast by supporting the abominations of paganism: in this last state he goeth into perdition." He shall not, as he did before, cease for a time, and revive again; but shall be destroyed for ever." (Bp. Newton's Dissert. on Rev. xvii.) Hence we may conclude, that, since the beast is to be destroyed on account of bis little born, he will continue firmly leagued with his little born to the very time of the end. Accord ingly, as Daniel describes the beast and his little born as perishing together, so St. Joha teaches us that the same beast and the false prophet shall be involved in one common ruin fighting against the Word of God. (Rev. xix. 20.) The necessary result of this statement is, that we must not expect any further reformation; but, on the contrary, that the followers of the Pope will become hardened in their false doctrines, and judicially blind to the clear denunciations of Scripture, so that like the Jews of old they shall unwittingly accomplish the oracles of God. As blindness in part hath happened unto Israel; so, because the Papists received not the love of truth that they might be saved, God hath sent them strong delusion that they should believe a lie. (See 2 Thess. ii. 10, 11.) Mr. Whitaker, to whom the thanks of every Protest

II. The next point to be considered is the symbolical import of the seven heads of the beast, and especially of his last head.

It is to be observed, that, although the seven-headed and ten-horned beast arose out of the sea in the year wherein the Apostacy commenced, we are not on that account to suppose, either that all his seven heads were then in existence, or all his ten original horns.* The symbol of an Empire must be so constructed as to take in the whole history of that Empire: whence, if we contemplate it at any given period previous to its final dissolution, some members of the symbol will unavoidably relate to past events, some to present events, and others to future events. This, we are specially informed by St. John, is the case with the present symbol.

Here is the mind, which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth, They are also seven kings (or forms of government:) five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and, when he cometh, he must continue a short space. And the beast, that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition."

From this passage we learn, that the seven heads have a two-fold mystical signification; alluding both to the seven hills upon which the city of Rome was founded, and to seven different forms of government which either had arisen or should rise in the Roman empire. At the time when St. John wrote, five of these forms had already fallen, and the sixth was then in actual existence: there

ant, particularly at the present juncture, are due for his well-timed and masterly statement of the abominations of Popery, observes, that "above a century ago Puffendorff expressed an opinion, that for the future, in all probability, the Pope would by degrees gain ground on the protestants, and stated what makes any real reformation in the doctrine of his followers impossible: that, if it should once be granted, that the Pope has hitherto maintained but one single erroneous point, his infallibility would then fall to the ground; and, if that were removed, the whole superstructure of his ecclesiastical sovereignty, which is founded on it, must fall too." (Comment. p. 460.) Ought not this consideration to put protestants upon their guard how they give any encouragement to the encroaching spirit of Popery?

* Two of the three borns, which were to be plucked up before the little born, namely the kingdom of the Heruli, and the kingdom of the Ostrogoths, were fallen previous to the year 606; as were likewise five out of the seven beads, or forms of government. Sir Isaac Newton justly remarks, that," whatever was their number afterwards, they (the ten borns) are still called the ten kings from their first number."

is no difficulty therefore, and consequently no dispute, in settling what is meant by the first six heads of the beast. Two Roman historians indeed have satisfactorily decided this point for us, by teaching us, that, previous to the sixth or imperial form under which St. John lived, their country had been subject to exactly five others; namely kings, consuls, dictators, decemvirs, and military tribunes with consular authority.* The only point then, liable to dispute, is, what form of Roman government is intended by the last head: and here, I think, there cannot be much dispute, if we only compare prophecy and history together.

I have stated, that the beast arose out of the sea in the year 606, when he delivered the saints into the hand of his little horn by conferring upon the Pope the right of universal supremacy. Then it was, that he relapsed into his bestial state; and consequently then it was, that he began to exist afresh. Hence, since five of his heads had fallen in the days of St. John; and since the same imperial sixth head, that was originally an idolatrous head, and afterwards ceased to be so, constituted the Bishop of Rome a tyrant over the Church: hence, I say, it appears, that the beast began to exist afresh under his sixth : that is to say, the beast both was, is not, and began again to be, under one and the same sixth head: consequently, in point of chronolgy, when the beast revived, his last head had not arisen. In the symbol however it was necessary that he should be represented complete in all his members, though some of those members, as I have just observed, unavoidably relate to past events, some to present events, and some to future events. Accordingly the beast, when he emerged from the sea, appeared to St. John complete with all his seven heads, notwithstanding five of those heads were already fallen, and notwithstanding the last head was not as yet in existence. In order to assist us in our inquiries after this last head, the prophet observes, that, whenever it did come, it should be a double head, consisting of the seventh head melting, as it were, into the eighth head; and that it

* Liv. Hist. L. 6. C. 1.-Tacit. Annal. L. 1. in initio. cited by Bp. Newton.

should likewise be the beast that was, and is not: it should, in some sense or another, be the beast that was and is not, although the beast revived under his sixth head; and it should moreover be so powerful at its first rise, that it should in a manner be identified with the whole beast himself, notwithstanding his ten horns, and his additional little horn mentioned by Daniel.

I know not any better method of ascertaining what power is intended by the last head of the beast, or the last form of Roman government, than simply to follow the current of history from the days of St. John. The sixth or imperial head was flourishing in the height of its glory when the Apostle wrote; and we know, that the last head had not then arisen, both from the testimony of history, and from the unequivocal declaration thatit was "not yet come." Now the first remarkable event, that St. John notices in the history of the sixth head, is, that it was wounded to death or slain by the stroke of a sword.* Before any attempt can be made to explain this part of the prophecy, we must endeavour to acquire a clear idea in the abstract of what is meant in the language of symbols by a beast's being slain; for, till this idea be acquired, it will be a vain labour to seek for what we may perhaps fancy to be a corresponding

event.

A beast is a tyrannical idolatrous empire. The life of a beast therefore, or the vital principle whereby he is a beast, must necessarily mean his tyranny and idolatry. Consequently the death of a beast must be the very reverse of his life: that is to say, a beast is slain, not when a temporal empire is subverted, but when he ceases to be a beast by abjuring his indolatry and tyranny. So again : as the death of a beast is his abjuration of tyranny and idolatry, the revival of a beast is his relapsing a second time into tyranny and idolatry. In short, the symbolical imagery of a beast being slain, of his continuing dead for a certain space, and of his afterwards coming to life again, is precisely equivalent to the literal prediction respecting the Roman beast, that, as he had been, so he

Rev. xiii. 3, 14.

should cease to be, and afterwards should again be.* This being the case, the ten-horned beast received his deadly wound, and ceased to be (for these 'two phrases are only different modes of expressing the same thing,) at the period when Constantine embraced Christianity, and became the protector of the Church: and his deadly wound was healed, and he begun again to be (for these two phrases in a similar manner are only different modes of expressing the same thing,) when Phocas set up a spiritual tyrant to wear out the saints, and when the empire relapsed into idolatry. It is specially said, that the sixth head was slain, and that the self-sume sixth head revived in other words, the beast both received his deadly wound, and had that deadly wound healed so that he "did live," under one and the same sixth head. The five preceding heads simply fell: they died, as it were, natural deaths, and continued pagan from their first rise to their final fall. But the sixth head was to be slain: it was, like its five predecessors, to be pagan at its first rise, but it was not to continue so: it was to cease to exist as the head of a beast, and was to die a violent death in the height of its strength, its life or bestial principle being taken away from it by the powerful preaching of the word, that sword of the Spirit which is twice in the Apocalypse represented as issuing from the mouth of the Messiah. Not that all temporal authority was to be annihilated throughout its dominions; but simply its life, or the principle whereby it was the head of a tyrannical idolatrous empire, was to be taken away. Yet, notwithstanding its being thus slain, it was

* Vide supra Chap. 2. I shall here once more cite Mr. Mede's excellent definition of figurative death. "Mori ea notione dicitur qui in quocunque statu constitutus, sive politico sive ecclesiastico, seu quovis alio, desinit esse quod fuit ; unde et occidit qui tali morte quemquam afficit." When the beast then was wounded to death, he ceased to be what he had been before: but a beast is a tyrannical idolatrous empire: therefore the Romar. beast, when slain by the sword, did not experience political subversion (as Bp. Newton supposes,) but simply ceased to be what he had been before, namely, a tyrannical idolatrous empire. Mr. Lowman very justly thinks, that the life, the death, and the revival of the beast mean the very same as his being, bis ceasing to be, and bis being again: but he seems to me greatly to mistake the import of the two sets of phrases, in supposing that they denote the overthrow of the Roman empire by the Geths, and the revival of it by the rise of the Papacy. In fact, the Roman empire under its sixth bead was not overthrown by the Goths; but still continued to subsist under that same bead at Constantinople, whither the seat of government had been transferred long before the loss of the western provinces.