ceased to exist. Under the yet future sixth vial, an evil spirit is said to come out of his mouth *: and, at the commencement of the Millennium, after the destruction of the beast and the false prophet, he is bound for the space of a thousand years, and cast into the bottomless pit. Nor is this all at the end of the thousand years he is again let loose to deceive the nations, and succeeds in forming the great confederacy of Gog and Magog; after the overthrow of which he is finally cast into the lake of fire and brinstone. It is observable, that in the course of the last prediction relative to him, he is no less than four times styled Satan and the devil: but, even independent of this circumstance, how is it possible that the pagan Roman empire can perform all the actions ascribed to the dragon †? Bp. Newton himself allows him to be the devil at the close of his career. If then he be the devil in one part of the Apocalypse, he must surely be the devil in every other part.-In the third place, his conjecture, that the man-child is Constantine, is equally incongruous with the analogy of scriptural language. The description of this man-child, that he should rule all nations with a rod of iron, is evidently borrowed originally from the second Psalm, where the universal dominion of Christ is predicted. The same mode of expression is twice likewise used in the Apocalypse to describe the power which Christ.

Rev. xvi. 13.

+ Rev. xx. 1-10.

exercises

exercises both in his own person and through the instrumentality of the faithful: hence surely it is very improbable, that it should here be intended to allude to Constantine. Had the prophet meant to have pointed out that prince, he would scarcely have used such very ambiguous phraseology, as must by his readers have been thought prima facie applicable, not to Constantine, but to Christ, -In the fourth place, the prolepsis, of which the Bishop speaks, is no where to be discovered in the plain simple language of the prediction, Nothing is there declared, but merely that the woman, in consequence of the dragon's violence, fled into the wilderness, where she continued 1260 days: that, during her sojourn there, a war took place between Michael and the dragon; the result of which was, that the dragon was cast out of heaven and that afterwards, still during her sojourn there, which the prophet carefully mentions a second time, the dragon vomited a great flood out of his mouth against her, in order that she might be completely carried away by it. In all this, I can perceive nothing like the slightest intimation of any prolepsis, but rather the very reverse: I can only discover a plain account of the woman's persecution during 1260 days; an account, which exactly tallies with the general subject of the little book, with the 1260 days prophesying of the witnesses in the preceding chapter,

and with the 42 months tyranny of the beast in the succeeding chapter. Hence I conclude, that this middle chapter of the little book treats of the same period, that its first and two last chapters treat of. In the fifth place, the scene of the warfare between the woman and the dragon is laid, at least the beginning of it is laid, in heaven, or the Church general. The dragon, the persecutor, was a sign in heaven, no less than the woman, the persecuted. Whence it will follow, that the seven-headed and ten-horned dragon, must have stirred up this persecution against the woman through the instrumentality, not of a pagan, but of a nominally Christian, power! Heaven indeed is the symbol either of temporal or spiritual polity*: little doubt however can be entertained in which sense it is to be taken in the present instance, when we note that both the woman and the dragon were equally signs in this heaven. Where the woman was, there was the dragon also. But, in the days of Paganism, imperial Rome alone occupied the temporal heaven : the Church was utterly excluded from it. The heaven therefore cannot be the temporal heaven. But, if it be not the temporal heaven, it must be the spiritual heaven, or the Church. And if it be the spiritual heaven, or the Church; then the war between the dragon and the woman can have no relation to the persecutions of pagan Rome, what

See Chap. ii. § II. 1

ever the previous labour-pains of the woman may have: for the empire, as pagan, never was in the spiritual heaven; and consequently cannot be the dragon, which the prophet declares to have been in the selfsame heaven with the woman. In no sense therefore, either temporal or spiritual, can the dragon, upon p. Newton's interpretation, be placed in heaven at the same time that the woman was there*.

3. The

* The interpretation, which Mr. Mede and Mr. Whitaker give of this prophecy, is nearly the same as that of Bp. NewThe point in which they vary from each other is the man

ton. child.

An exposition, essentially differing from that of all these writers has been offered by Mr. Bicheno. He supposes the dragon to be the Roman empire from its first rise down to the moment of its present existence in the German empire. While it avas pagan, it was only a great red dragan: but, when it was converted to Christianity, and thus got into the Church, it acquired the additional character of Satan, or the serpent. Michael and his angels are the Goths and other northern nations. The heaven, out of which they cast the dragon, is Italy: the earth, into which he is cast, is the empire without the limits of Italy, or the Roman provinces. After he has been thus ejected from heaven or Italy, he makes his appearance first in France when Charlemagne became Emperor of the Romans, and afterwards in Germany, where he has ever since continued. The wilderness, into which the woman flees, symbolizes Bohemia, Silesia, and Moravia: and the war of the dragon against the woman denotes the persecution of the protestants in those parts by the Emperors of Germany. The seven heads and ten horns of the dragon are the same as the seven heads and ten horns of the beast; which represent the ecclesiastical tyranny of the Pope. The dragon at the close of the Apocalypse is still the German

3. The fact is, this second chapter of the little book, like its fellows preceding and succeeding, relates solely

empire. The beast will be first overthrown; but the dragon will only be bound, or have his power so weakened as to be incapable of any immediate exertions. At the end however of the thousand years, which are no more than a thousand na→ tural weeks, he will be let loose again. That is to say, "after nineteen natural years and a quarter," for to this short period of time Mr. Bicheno reduces the thousand years, "the "imperial monarchy will again exert its power, form exten"sive alliances, and make one grand effort against the Church of God, the liberties of the regenerated nations, and parti"cularly against the Jews, to prevent the re-establishment of "their commonwealth :" but this effort will end only in the destruction of them that make it, for God will magnify himself in their everlasting overthrow. Signs of the Times, Part i. p. 14, 15. Part iii. p. 129, 130.-The destiny of the German empire passim.

The objections, which I have made to Bp. Newton's scheme, might in themselves be sufficient to confute this exposition of Mr. Bicheno: nevertheless I shall add a few remarks on those parts of it, wherein he differs from the Bishop-In his opinion, that heaven means Italy, and the earth the provinces of the Roman empire, to say nothing of his having no scriptural authority for making such an assertion, he is inconsistent even with himself. The great star that falls from heaven under the third trumpet he elsewhere supposes to be Attila. If heaven denote Italy, how did Attila fall out of it? So, in the present prophecy, the woman is said to have been in the same heaven with the dragon. At what period was the Church exclusively confined to Italy? Again: the whole earth is said to worship the ten-horned beast, which according to Mr. Bicheno is the Papacy. Did the propinces of the Roman empire alone venerate the Pope? Was his authority totally disregarded in heaven or Italy?-But the seven heads of the dragon are the same as the seven heads of the beast; and the last head of the beast Mr. Bicheno supposes to be the

Papacy.