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make war with him 36? When any nation has ftruggled to break its chains afunder, how often has the noble effort been regarded as altogether vain; even criminality has been attached to it; and it has been branded with the epithets of difloyalty and rebellion!

It is the declaration of the prophet, that, on all the heads of this Beaft, names of blafphemy were imprinted. That is, fays Mr. Whifton, all the forms of govern

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ment, under which the empire had been, and was to be, were idolatrous.' And the Ten Kings, he observes, ' under the Chriftian name, fhould yet really and effec'tually promote idolatry still, though in a more covert manner, and by more cunning pretences 37. Of the Secular Beaft it is farther faid, that he opened his mouth in blafphemy against God, to blafpheme his name and his tabernacle. Now, fays Mr. Evanson, to speak blafphemoufly, as far as I am able to understand that expreffion, can only fignify, to fpeak difhonourably of God: 'to speak in derogation of his divine nature and attri'butes. To form a juft judgment then of this part of the prophetic vision, it is neceffary to examine, whether the civil governors of Europe-have propagated ' and established doctrines fairly liable to fuch a charge 3.' But what is to blafpheme the name and

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36 Examples of this, fays Peganius (p. 179), are found in the victo'rious kings of Spain and France.' With respect also to that symbolic beast with many horns, or the combination of kings, now warring against France as it labours to establish its infant liberties, how often have expreffions to this purport fallen from the lips of their admirers!

37 P. 217.

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These names of blafphemy fignify, that the monarchs and powers shall blafpheme God, and oblige their subjects to do the fame,' Daubuz.

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38 Let. to bishop Hurd, p. 45. · Blafphemy,' says Daubuz, p. 571, ' is 'whatsoever tends to the difhonour of God;' and to impofe a new wor'fhip,' he obferves in the following page, or manner of worship, contrary 'to what he hath set already, is to ufurp his power, and consequently to 'belie and blaspheme his name.'

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the tabernacle of God? Bifhop Newton fays on this verfe, that he is convicted of the first of these charges, who affumes to himself the divine titles and honours ; and he blafphemes the tabernacle of God, that is to say, his temple and his church, who calls true Christians, who are the house of God, fchifmatics and heretics, and anathematizes them accordingly 39.' Whether the lofty titles 4° and perfecuting conduct of many among the European potentates can, on this ground, be impeached, I refer to him, who is converfant in the language of courts and the hiftory of kingdoms.

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Though it is the two-horned Beast, who has principally forged fetters for the confcience, though priests and pontiffs are the perfons who have enforced thist antichriftian claim with the most unremitting industry; the princes likewife, who conftitute the ten-horned beaft, have almoft univerfally arrogated the power of ftigmatizing and of punishing men for their religious fentiments, when these have happened not to harmonize with the creed of the court 41. The prophet accordingly declares, that it was given unto him to make war with

39 Vol. III. p. 215.

40 Even the hallowed epithets and ceremonies of religious adoration 'have,' fays an ingenious writer, been impiously preffed into the service ' of indifcriminate flattery, and the kings and nobles of the earth have not fcrupled to encroach upon the majefty of heaven!' Often, as he obferves, is indignation kindled in the mind, when history unfolds the 'genuine characters of these most facred, moft christian, most noble, most 'puissant, high and mighty fovereigns and rulers of the globe.' Cooper's Answer to Mr. Burke's Invective.

41 The celebrated Calvin, fpeaking of the ecclefiaftical power lodged in the hands of Henry VIII. and his fucceffors by the British constitution, fays,," Hoc me femper graviter vulneravit. Erant enim blafphemi quum ' vocarent ipfum fummum caput ecclefiæ fub Chrifto.-Hic morbus fem'per in principibus regnavit, ut vellent inflectere religionem pro fuo arbi'trio ac libidine, et interea etiam pro fuis commodis.' In Amos, c. vii. v. 13.

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the faints, and to overcome them: words which are thus paraphrased by a member of the English hierarchy 42. The worst and most dreadful article of this antichrif⚫tian dominion will be, that of forcing the confciences of men in religious matters, and of persecuting all that 'dare to question or withstand their idolatrous commands.' In the Netherlands alone, on account of religion, more than 100,000 of the subjects of Charles V. 6 are faid to have fuffered by the hand of the executioner; and this extraordinary number is attefted by Grotius, a man of genius and learning, who preferved his mo⚫deration amidst the fury of contending fects, and who compofed the annals of his own age and country, at a ' time when the invention of printing had facilitated the ⚫ means of intelligence, and increased the danger of detection 43. Father Paul, however, it is proper to state, reduces thefe Belgic martyrs to 50,000. The, jesuit • Sanders himself confeffes, that an innumerable multitude of Lollards and Sacramentarians were burnt throughout all Europe, who yet, he says, were not put to death by the pope and bishops, but by the civil magiftrates; which perfectly agrees with this prophecy, for it is faid of the Secular Beaft, that HE fhould make with the faints, and overcome them 44,

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But perhaps these words of the prophet are not to be understood exclusively of religious perfecutions. They may be of more general interpretation. They may refer to those multiplied oppreffions and cruel fufferings, political as well as religious, to which genuine Chriftians, and men of honest and upright minds, have been

42 Mr. Pyle, prebendary of Salisbury.

43 Gibbon's Decl. and Fall of the R. E. vol. II. p. 495. See Grot. Annal. de Rebus Belgicis. l. I. p. 12. Amftel. 1667.

44 Bishop Newton in loc.

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peculiarly exposed during the profligate administration of antichriftian monarchs.

'The kings of the earth,' fays the pious Dr. Owen, have given their power to Antichrift, endeavouring to the utmost to keep the kingdom of Chrift out of the 'world. What, I pray, hath been their main business for seven hundred years and upwards, even almost ever fince the man of fin was enthroned? How have

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they earned the titles, eldest fon of the church, the catholic and moft Chriftian king, defender of the faith, and the like? Hath it not been by the blood of the 'faints 45?'

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And power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. This alfo has been wonderfully verified. And some poffibly may be difpofed to ask, has not the domination of the European monarchies, in conformity to this prediction, been established in every quarter of the globe; and have not they, or the plunderers whom they patronize and protect, extended their devastations and power to the extenfive fhores of Africa and the fouthern continent of America, to the populous plains of Hindoftan and the defencelefs iflands of the Ocean ?

And all that dwell upon him46, whose names are not life. Mr. Whifton, when and of the Ten Kings, fays,

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the earth shall worship written in the book of speaking of this paffage fome few chofen persons

only, whofe names were written in the book of life,

durft oppose them, or refuse fubmiffion to their wicked

45 Complete Col. of his Serm. p. 328.

46 This phrafe Dr. More thus explains: Shall worship him, that is, obey his idolatrous edicts and commands.'

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47 It imports, fays Durham (p. 186), that they are as definitely and diftinctly determined and known,— -as if they were by name and fur' name particularly recorded in a book.'

' and idolatrous commands 48.' Certain indeed it is, that the inhabitants of Europe have paid a fervile homage to the tyrants who have oppreffed them; whilst those virtuous perfons, the favourites of heaven, have been few in number, who have facrificed their interest, and hazarded their fafety, by afferting the inviolability of conscience, or by ftanding forward in defence of the civil liberties of mankind. Such persons will not, however, lose their reward.

48 P. 218.

CHAPTER VI.

THE

ON THE TWO-HORNED BEAST.

HE following is St. John's description of the Second Beaft. And I beheld another Beaft coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he fpake as a dragon. And he exercifeth all the power of the first Beaft before him, and caufeth the earth and them that dwell therein, to worship the first Beast, whose deadly wound was healed. And he doeth great wonders, fo that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the fight of men. And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth, by the means of thofe miracles which he had power to do in the fight of the Beast; faying to them that dwell on the earth, that they fhould make an image to the Beast, which had a wound by a fword and did live. And he had power to give life unto the image of the Beast, that the image of the Beaft fhould both Speak, and caufe that as many as would not worship the image.

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