1. How St. John could be said prophetically to behold the rise of that empire, when it had been in existence many ages before he was born. p. 191.

(1.) The Apostle gives us two solutions of this question: by teaching us, that the beast, after his rise from the sea, should prosper during the same period that his little horn should tyrannize, namely 1260 years; and by telling us, that the same beast was, and is not, and 66 yet should be." p. 191.

66

(2) Import of the existence, the non-existence, and the renewed existence, of the beast. As he appears in the Apocalypse, he is the Roman empire in its papally idolatrous state. p. 193.

2. The symbolical import of the seven heads of the beast, especially his last head. p. 196.

(1.) When the beast arose out of the sea, his seven heads and ten horns were not all in existence. This we learn from St. John himself. Five of his heads had fallen when the Apostle wrote; one was then in being; and the last had not at that time arisen. The six first heads are the six first forms of Roman government. p. 193.

(2) The beast ceased to exist, as a beast, under his sixth head, and began to exist afresh under the same sixths head. When the seventh head should arise, it was to be a double head, consisting of the seventh melting into the eighth it was likewise to be the beast that was and is not and was to be so powerful as to be, in a manner, identified with the whole beast. p. 198. The best method of ascertaining what power is intended

by the last head of the beast is to follow the current of history from the days of St. John. The first remarkable event, which he notices in his account of the beast, is that one of his heads was slain by the sword. That head must be the sixth head. The beast was wounded to death in his sixth head, when the empire renounced paganism: his deadly wound was healed, when he relapsed into the idolatry of

corrupt

corrupt Christianity, and set up a spiritual tyrant in the Church. He lay dead therefore from the year 313 to the year 606. The propriety of this interpre tation of the death and revival of the beast established. p. 199.

(1.) Bp. Newton's interpretation of it shewn to be untenable. p. 207.

(2.) The scheme of Mr. Whitaker shewn to be still more objectionable. p. 209.

4. An historical statement of the events, which took place during the time that the beast lay dead, and after his revival. p. 212.

5. An application of those events to prophecy. The last head of the beast consists jointly of his seventh and eighth heads; whence it may be termed his septimooctave head. This head can only be sought for among the following powers: the line of the Western Empcrors after the division of the empire; the three kingdoms of the Heruli, the Ostrogoths, and the Lombards; the Exarchate of Ravenna; the Popedom; and the Carlovingian empire. p. 219.

(1.) It cannot be the line of the Western Emperors and the Papacy, as Mr. Mede supposes, p. 222.

(2.) Neither can it be the three Gothic kingdoms in Italy and the Papacy, as Mr. Sharpe supposes. p. 223.

(3.) Nor can it be the Exarchate of Ravenna and the Papacy, as Bp. Newton supposes. p. 224.

(4) Nor the Papacy considered as existing in a two-fold capacity, as Mr. Brightman, Mr. Mann, and others, have supposed. p. 227.

(5.) But the Patriciate of Rome merging into the Carlovingian Emperorship. While Charlemagne was Patrician of Rome, he was the seventh head: when he became Emperor, he was the eighth head; the seventh and eighth heads being then, in his person, amalgamated, as it were, so as to form one septimo-octave head. p. 232.

6. Three

6. Three objections to this scheme of interpretation answered,

p. 237.

(1.) How a king of France can be a head of the beast, when France itself is one of the beast's ten horns. p. 238. (2.) How the Carlovingian emperors can be esteemed a head of the beast, when their temporal supremacy has no more been acknowledged since the days of Charlemagne than that of the Pope. p. 240.

(3.) That the Carlovingian emperorship is only the Augustan emperorship revived. p. 244.

7. No power has arisen within the limits of the Old Roman empire, which at all answers to the prophetic character of the double or septimo-octave head, except the Carlovingian monarchy alone: because, p. 250.

(1.) The Carlovingian monarchy was the Patriciate merging into the feudal Emperorship; p. 250.

(2.) Was the whole beast, as comprehending the whole Western empire; p. 250.

(3.) And was the beast, that was, and is not, and yet is. p. 250.

8. The ten horns of the beast appeared to the prophet to be growing on the sixth head, and not on the last, as Mr. Mede and Bp. Newton think. p. 251.

III. Various points of resemblance between the beast, and the revived or papal Roman empire. p. 252.

1. How the beast blasphemed the name of God. p. 253. 2. How the world is said to worship the dragon, the beast and his image. p. 254.

3. How power was given to the beast over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. p. 255.

IV. Recapitulation of the preceding scheme of interpretation. p. 257.

1. The beast: his seven heads: his ten horus: his little horn: his three eradicated horns, p. 257.

2. The apocalyptic ten-horned beast is not represented with a little horn, like Daniel's ten-horned beast, because the place of the little horn is occupied in the Revelation by a different symbol, the two-horned beast or false prophet. p. 258.

V. Accomplishment of the last part of the prophecy. p. 258. 1. The secular beast will not be fully punished until the battle of Armageddon at the close of the 1260 years,

p. 258.

2. Yet his punishment seems, in an inchoate manner, to have already commenced. p. 259.

3. The infidel king is nevertheless not allowed to prosper for his own sake. p. 261.

SECT. IV.

Concerning the two horned beast of the earth.

I. OPINIONS respecting the two-horned beast. p. 264. 1. The two-horned beast and the image are not Infidelity and Democratic Tyranny, as Mr. Kett thinks. p. 265, 2. Neither are they the French republic and the prostitute goddess of reason and liberty, as Mr. Galloway thinks. p. 270.

3. Nor is this beast the Roman church as contradistinguished from the Papacy, as Bp. Newton thinks. p. 276. II. Inquiry into his real character. He is the catholic spiritual empire of the Church of Rome, considered as including both the Pope his head, and the regular and secular papal clergy his two horns or distinct eccle siastical kingdoms. This spiritual empire, which at its first rise was only a small spiritual kingdom, is represented by Daniel under the symbol of a little horn springing up among the ten horns of the Roman beast: but, when the saints were given into the hand of the little horn by the Pope being constituted bishop of bishops and supreme head of the universal Church, the little horn became a catholic spiritual empire, and as such is represented by St. John under the symbol of a second beast co-operating with the ten-horned or

secular

secular Roman beast. Points of resemblance between the two-horned beast and the papal empire. p. 277. 1. He springs up out of the earth, and is distinct from the first beast. p. 280.

2. He has two horns like a lamb. p. 283.

(1.) His first horn symbolizes the regular clergy. p. 287. (2.) His second horn symbolizes the secular clergy. p. 290, 3. He speaks like a dragon. p. 298.

4. He exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, p. 300.

5. He causeth all the inhabitants of the earth to worship the first beast. p. 301.

6. He doeth great wonders in order to bring down fire from heaven. p. 303.

7. He causeth an image to be made for the first beast. p. 306.

(1.) The making an image for the beast denotes the setting up an image for his use and worship. p. 307. (2.) This image was set up through the instrumentality of false miracles. p. 308.

(3.) The manner in which the inhabitants of the earth were induced to espouse the cause of image-worship. p. 314.

(4.) The manner in which the second beast gave life to the image. p. 318.

(5.) The image cannot be the Pope, as Bp. Newton supposes. p. 322.

(6.) Neither can it be the Carlovingian empire, or the Inquisition. For the making an image to or for the beast cannot mean the making a representation of him, p. 326.

8. He causeth all to receive a man; and suffers none to buy or sell but those that had the mark or the name of the secular beast or the number of his name p. 327. (1.) The prophetic description of the name of the beast must be carefully attended to, in order to discover what that name is: for it is not sufficient merely to discover a name that comprehends the number 666, and

thence