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 co-exist 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 septimooctave head. Accordingly, some of them imagine, 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 world*-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 †

*See Pol. Synop. in loc.

Mr.

+ I speak as adapting myself to the scheme which I am considering. In strictness of language the universal-temporal domi- ́

VOL. II.

R

nion

Mr. Brightman and Mr. Mann of the Charterhouse 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

nion 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.

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

therefore

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 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 image-worship-This scheme however is as little tenable as any of the foregoing

* See the citations from Machiavel and Sir Isaac Newton in Chap. iv. § II. 5. III. 3.

+ Mr. Maun fixes this event in 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 MS. cited by Bp. Newton Dissert. on Rev. xvii.

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

Let the reader attentively reperuse the preceding citations from Gibbon relative 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 head of the secular 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 savereign of the western empire: and the Pope held the dukedom of Rome under him as a mere feudal vassal. "That Charlemagne,

pacy be not the double head of the beast in its twofold 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 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 can not 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 su-: perfluous here to recapitulate them.

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

"in effect, preserved entire his supreme authority over the city of Rome and its adjacent territory, gave law to the "citizens by judges of his own appointment, punished male"factors, enjoyed the prerogatives and exercised all the func

tions of royalty, has been demonstrated by several of the "learned in the most ample and satisfactory manner, by the "most unexceptionable and authentic testimonies. To be con "vinced of this, it will be sufficient to consult Muratori's Droits "de l'Empire sur l'Etat ecclesiastique. Cap. vi. p. 77." Mosheim's Ecclesiast. Hist. vol. ii. p. 237.