or DEATH OF HEADLESS NON-EXISTENCE. But the wonderfully minute prophet not only describes the political condition of the Roman Empire subsequent to the excision of the seventh head, precisely as we may now behold it with our own eyes: he perfectly represents also, with a single stroke of his pen, the irritated feelings of those who had battened and gorged themselves under the vulture banner of the Francico-Imperial king. According to every account which we have received relative to the state of the public mind in France, whether from the friends or from the enemies of the Bourbons, the extreme rage of the soldiery, which in fact may almost be deemed the entire adult male population of the country, at finding their favourite chief violently expelled by the sword to make room for a proverbially non-equestrian prince, cannot be more accurately depicted than in the emphatic language of prophecy: THEY GNAWED THEIR TONGUES FOR PAIN *.

* A very conceited and ill-principled modern work, entitled France, after making every due deduction for the temper of a fanatical partizan, will at least serve to shew, in no equivocal light, the present very general feelings which pervade the country under discussion. The burden of a favourite anti-Bourbon song, which, according to the author, "was given with infinite "humour and received with rapturous plaudits," may alone speak volumes. While the general subject is the imposed yoke of the old dynasty and the unwise confession of the king that he owed his crown to the English, the exhilarating burden at the end of each stanza is Ça ne tiendra pas: and, agreeably to the old proverb of Ex pede Herculem, the same refreshing motto is prefixed as the appropriate title of the song itself.

Nor

Nor has the last part of the prediction been less minutely accomplished: "they blasphemed the God " of heaven because of their pains and their sores, " and repented not of their deeds." The infatuated Capets, pertinaciously adhering to the unscriptural superstitions of Popery in which the name of God is blasphemed by the idolatrous worship of images and dead men, are labouring with lubbard force to roll, up this stone of Sisyphus to its ancient situation: while thefr reluctant subjects, overawed indeed by the presence of foreign armies, but plunged (as I am credibly informed) in the very grossest practical abominations, despise the theological mummeries and baby processions of their restored princes, not as enlightened scriptural protestants, but as determined infidels or athiests, but as avowed members of the great predicted Antichrist of the last ages.

III. It has now been shewn, by a careful comparison of prophecy with history, that we have lived to witness the extinction of the short-lived seventh head by the sword of foreign violence, and that the predicted period of the wild beast's political non-existence (described by the interpreting angel in the phrase the wild beast is NOT) has now actually commenced.

It has further also been shewn, that the fourth and fifth vials exhibit the origin, the rise, the military character, the vast power, the decline, and the final excision, of that seventh Roman head; which is depicted, as continuing only a SHORT space, and as being ultimately SLAIN BY THE Sword.

Lastly it has been shewn, that the fifth vial not only foretells the violent overthrow of the seventh head; but that, extending beyond that overthrow, it comprehends the whole of that intermediate prophetic period, which stretches between the original life of the wild beast and his second term of vital existence subsequent to his announced resurrection from the dead. The wild beast was, and IS NOT, and yet is OT SHALL BE. Of these three consecutive periods, the term, expressed by the phrase the wild beast was, is past and gone: the term, expressed by the phrase the wild beast IS NOT, is at present in actual lapse; having commenced at the time, when the seventh head was lopped by the sword of England: but the term, expressed by the phrase the wild beast is or SHALL BE, is as yet future; though it will immediately succeed the present term of the wild beast's political death or non-entity.

Thus it appears, that we are now living, under the influence of the fifth vial, and in the intermediate prophetic period during which the wild beast Is NOT *. It further appears too from the far evolved roll of history, that ALL the seven heads of the Roman wild beast have successively risen and fallen : so that we need only look upon what is actually passing before our eyes, to be fully satisfied that he is now for the first time HEADLESS and therefore DEAD. Five had fallen, when the apostle wrote: the sixth was then in existence: the seventh was not

* I write in the year 1817.

yet

But we have seen the extinction of the

yet come. sixth we have witnessed both the rise and the fall of the seventh. At present therefore, we may, with perfect facility, give an exact enumeration of ALL the seven heads: and such an enumeration will usefully prepare the way for some notice of the third yet future period, or the period described by the phrase the wild beast is or SHALL BE.

The seven heads then of the wild beast, or the seven successive forms of Roman government (for all commentators, whether ancient or modern, whether Protestant or Popish, are agreed, that the wild beast is a symbol of the Roman Empire from its commencement to its termination): these seven heads, or seven political forms, may now be enumerated in the following order.

1. THE KINGSHIP. 2. THE CONSULATE. 3. THE DICTATORSHIP. 4. THE DECEMVIRATE. 5. THE CONSULAR TRIBUNATE*. 6. THE ROMAN EMPE

RORSHIP. 7. THE FRANCIC EMPERORSHIP‡ These several heads are all distinct from each other but they agree in what must plainly be a necessary and essential characteristic of a ROMAN head. Each, at one period or other of its rule, obtained and enjoyed the sovereignty of the metropolitan city ROME,

*These five were fallen, when St. John wrote.

This sixth was in actual existence at the time, when the prophecy was delivered.

This seventh was future or not yet come in the days of the apostle.

SECTION

SECTION IV.

Respecting the rise and fall of the eighth form of Roman government.

THOUGH the interpretation of prophecy has no concern with futurity: yet, if we confine ourselves to the strict letter of what has been revealed, we may undoubtedly pronounce, in general terms, what will be hereafter.

Nor does this at all militate against the sound and judicious remark of Sir Isaac Newton, that it is "the folly of interpreters to foretell times and things

by the Apocalypse, as if God designed to make "them prophets." Such a remark can only, in the very nature of things, relate to a minute expository pre-application: it obviously can have no concern with our confidently declaring, in the words of Scripture, that this or that event will assuredly

occur.

In fact, if we thus extend the observation beyond what its illustrious author ever meant it to be extended, we do but betray our own gross ignorance, both of the evident purpose of his remark, and of the radically inherent nature of prophecy itself. This assertion will be best both established and understood by the adduction of examples.

* Observ. on the Apoc. p. 251,

Long