after a certain period to revive: its deadly wound was to be healed: the vital principle of bestiality, which was for a time extinct, was again to be infused into it: it was once more to become the living head of a beast or an empire in direct opposition to the Gospel and all the world was to go a wondering after the new idolatry of the revived beast, as they had formerly wondered after his old pagan idolatry. Accordingly we learn from history, that the Roman beast was both slain, or ceased to be, under his sixth head; that the empire continued as a Christian state under the same sixth head; and that under the same sixth head likewise it revived, and once more came into existence as a beast. In the year 313 then, when Constantine published his famous edict for the advancement of Christianity, the beast was wounded to death in his sixth head; and, in the year 606, when he delivered the saints into the hand of an idolatrous spiritual tyrant, his deadly wound was healed, he became a living anti-evangelical power, and he completely resumed all the bestial functions of his former pagan character. The space therefore between the year 313 and the year 606 is the space of time, during which the beast was dead, or, as St. John otherwise expresses it, was not.* This interpretation of the death and revival of the Roman beast under his sixth head will be found to be the only one that accords with the general tenor of symbolical language. In Daniel's vision of the four beasts we read, that the Roman beast is to be slaint at the end + I have been informed by a friend who has paid much attention to the subject of prophecy (the Rev. T. White,) that this very interpretation of the death and revival of the beast was given many years ago by Dr. Henry More. He says, that the beast was slain under his sixth bead by ceasing to be idolatrous, and that he revived by relapsing a second time into idolatry. I have never had an opportunity of reading the Mystery of Iniquity, but I feel myself considerably strengthened in my opinion by the sanction of so able a writer. Instead of saying The discrepancy subversion of his * St. John predicts his destruction in somewhat different terms. that be should be slain, he represents him as being cast alive into bell. however is more apparent than real. Daniel briefly describes the power, and intimates that his body should be given to the burning flame: St. John describes at large the manner in which the apostate faction will be overthrown, and the future punishment of those that were members of the beast by receiving his mark and worshipping his image. Though the beast shall begin to be slain when the 1260 days shall have expired, and though a new and happy order of things will succeed of the 1260 years, but that the lives of the other beasts are to be prolonged for a season and a time, though their dominion be taken away. Now, since the triumphant reign of the saints upon earth is to succeed to the death of the Roman beast, I know not what warrant there is for imagining that all government within the precincts of the Roman empire is utterly to be at an end. It seems more reasonable to suppose, that a happy evangelical order of things will succeed to the present distracted Popish state of the Roman world. Such being the case, the death of the beast must evidently mean, not the annihilation of all lawful Christian government, not a Jacobinical subversion of the powers that be upon the lawless principles of the frantic fifth-monarchy men in the sixteenth century; but the utter destruction of those detestable maxims and doctrines which constitute his bestiality, which are his very life, which are interwoven even with his existence as a beast, without the profession of which he would not be a beast. This is yet further manifest from the predicted fate of the other beasts Their lives, or bestial principles, are to be prolonged during the period of the Millennium; though their dominion, or power of injuring the Church is to be taken away: while the Roman beast is to be slain; his principles are to be utterly destroyed, never more to revive; and with the destruction of those principles the dominion of his little horn is to be finally taken away; for all, both governors and governed, will form one congregation of faithful worshippers, one great empire of the saints of the Most High. Accordingly we find, that the beasts whose lives were prolonged, in other words, the nations which shall adhere to the vanities of the Gentiles, make a grand attack at the close of the Millennium upon the Church: but, their dominion being now taken away, they entirely fail of success, and are consigned to the same punishment as those that professed and taught the apos to his destruction, that destruction will not be accomplished without a dreadful slaughter of his adherents; "there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time." Compare Dan. vii. 11, 26. xii. 1. with Rev. xix. 11-21. * Dan. vii. 11, 26. tate principles of the Roman beast-The conclusion to be drawn from the preceding view of Daniel's prophecy is this. Since the final death of the Roman beast, there mentioned, means the destruction of his principles, and since the prolongation of the lives of the other beasts, means the prolonged existence of their principles; the first death of the Roman beast under his sixth head, mentioned by St. John, must mean (arguing at least from analogy) the destruction of his idolatrous tyranny by the sword of the Spirit, while his revival by the healing of his deadly wound must in a similar manner signify the renewed existence of his idolatrous tyranny. This interpretation is yet further confirmed by the declaration, that the beast in his revived or papally-idolatrous state, and under his last head, should go into perdition, or be utterly destroyed. “A beast, in the prophetic style, as we before observed, is a tyrannical idolatrous empire: and the Roman empire was idolatrous under the heathen Emperors; and then ceased to be so for some time under the Christian Emperors; and then became idolatrous again under the Roman Pontiffs, and so hath continued ever since. It is the sume idolatrous power revived again, but only in another form; and all the corrupt part of mankind, whose names are not inrolled as good citizens in the registers of heaven, are pleased at the revival of it: but in this last form it shall go into perdition; it shall not, as it did before, cease for a time, and revive again, but shall be destroyed for ever."* I have made this citation with great pleasure from the writings of Bp. Newton, as containing what I believe to be the true explanation of the existence, the non-existence, and the re-existence, of the Roman beast. All, that his Lordship has said upon this subject, is excellent, and immediately to the purpose: my wonder therefore is, that, after having adopted so judicious and consistent a mode of exposition, he should so completely have departed from it in what he says relative to the death and revival of the beast under his sixth head. In explaining this part of the prophecy, instead of strictly maintaining the anal Rev. xx. 8, 9, 10, VOL. II. ↑ Bp. Newton's Dissert. on Rev. xvii. ........ ogy of symbolical language and adhering to the plan of exposition which he himself lays down, he suddenly adopts an entirely new system, and supposes the death of the beast under his sixth head to mean the subversion of the Western empire, and his revival to mean the rise of the Carlovingian empire. "The sixth head," says he, "was as it were wounded to death, when the Roman empire was overturned by the northern nations, and an end was put to the very name of Emperor in Momyllus Augustulus or rather, as the government of the Gothic kings was much the same as that of the Emperors with only a change of the name, this head was more effectually wounded to death, when Rome was reduced to a poor dukedom, and made tributary to the Exarchate of Ravenna-But not only one of his heads was as it were wounded to death, but his deadly wound was healed. If it was the sixth head which was wounded, that wound could not be healed by the rising of the seventh head as interpreters commonly conceive the same head, which was wounded, must be healed: and this was effected by the Pope and people of Rome revolting from the Exarch of Ravenna, and proclaiming Charles the great Augustus and Emperor of the Romans. Here the wounded imperial head was healed again, and hath subsisted ever since."* This scheme, independent of its manifest violation of that plan of symbolical exposition which the Bishop himself had so justly laid down respecting the existence, the nonexistence, and the revival, of the beast, is certainly unsup ported by history. According to the prophecy, the sixth head, in some sense or another, was to be wounded to death or slain by a sword, and was afterwards to revive again. But, according to the Bishop's explanation, the sixth head was most assuredly not slain in the sense in which he understands the expression. The western branch of the sixth or imperial head was indeed subverted by Odoacer and his mercenaries; but the sixth head itself was not slain, (supposing the phrase wounded to death by a sword to mean political subversion) till many ages after. It still subsisted in the person of the Con * Dissert. on Rev. xiii. stantinopolitan Emperor; and was not finally slain, or wounded to death, (supposing with the Bishop that the phrase means political subversion) till the days of the Turkish horsemen under the second woe. And when at length it was thus finally slain by the arms of the Turks, it has never since revived, nor is it likely to revive. Hence it is manifest, that we must seek for some other mode of explaining the death and revival of the sixth head: and I know not any events in its history, which will satisfactorily explain those circumstances in a manner agreeable both to the language of symbols, and to the collateral prediction that the beast should be, should not be, and should be again, except its dying in the quality of a head of the beast by embracing Christianity, and its reviving in the same quality by its relapsing into an idolatrous tyranny the same in nature though not in name as its former idolatrous tyranny while in a pagan state. The scheme of Mr. Whitaker seems to me to depart yet more widely from symbolical analogy, and to be still less tenable, than that of Bp. Newton. Notwithstanding St. John informs us, that five of the heads were fallen when he wrote, thereby plainly shutting them out from having any connection with the prophecies which he was commissioned to deliver, Mr. Whitaker supposes, that the wounded head was not the imperial but the dictatorial head; that it received its deadly wound by a sword when Julius Cesar was assassinated; that it was healed by the establishment of the papal power, which he conceives to be only the Dictatorship revived; and that thus, computing as in the days of St. John, it had been, was not, and yet shall hereafter be―The arguments, which Mr. Whitaker brings in support of his opinion, I cannot but think perfectly inconclusive-Nothing can be more wild than to pronounce the Papacy to be the same head as the Dictatorship, merely because the power claimed by the Popes bears some resemblance to that actually possessed by the ancient Dictators. Yet this is the only proof of their identity, adduced by Mr. Whitaker*-The wounded Even if the resemblance were perfect, which it is not, for the Popes never possessed, though they might claim, the Dictatorial power; still mere resemblance will not constitute identity. "The Pope," says Bp. Newton, "is the most perfect likeness |