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3. Bp. Newton thinks, that the Exarchate of Ravenna is the seventh head, and that the Papacy is the eighth head*.

This supposition is in some respects even more objectionable than the two preceding ones.-In the first place, it does not consist with his Lordship's own sentiments respecting the Roman beast. In a former dissertation he had maintained (erroneously indeed I am persuaded), that the Exarchate was one of the ten horns of the beast: now he represents it, as his seventh head. But the self-same power cannot, in the self-same capacity, be esteemed at once both a horn and a head of the same beast-In the second place, no modification of language will warrant us in admitting, that, while the independent Roman Emperor of Constantinople is the sixth head, his mere dependant lieutenant, the Exarch of Ravenna, is the seventh head: for this would be to place, upon the very same footing, a sovereign and his viceroy, the fountain of authority and the commissioned governor of a province†-In the third place, the seventh head, whatever it be, must be the same as the eighth head; the two forming jointly one double septimo-octave head: for, unless this be the case, the beast will really have eight heads, instead of only seven; the very contrary of which is ex

* Dissert. on Rev. xvii.

+"the Exarchs of Ravenna, the representatives in peace " and war of the Emperor of the Romans." Hist. of Decline and Fall, vol. vii. p. 398.

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pressly

pressly asserted by the prophet, who, in order to shew us how the beast has only seven heads, declares that the eighth is one of the preceding seven. But the Bishop never supposes the Exarch of Ravenna to be the eighth head, for that supposition would of course be untenable: the eighth head therefore he makes to be the Pope. Hence it is manifest, that, upon his Lordship's scheme, the beast has actually eight heads, instead of having only seven namely 1. Kings; 2. Consuls; 3. Dictators'; 4. Decemvirs; 5. Military Tribunes; 6. Emperors; 7. Exarchs; and 8. Popes. The prophet however explicitly declares, that the eighth head is one of the preceding seven, and that the beast has but seven heads: with which then of his supposed seven predecessors can the Pope be identified? Of this natural objection the Bishop seems to be aware; and accordingly he endeavours to parry it, but in a manner to me at least not at all satisfactory, even allowing (what I am by no means disposed to allow) that the Pope may be justly considered the last head of the secular beast in his character of king of kings*. "But "possibly you may hesitate, whether this," namely the Exarchate of Ravenna," is properly a new "form of government, Rome being still subject "to the imperial power, by being subject to the "Greek Emperor's deputy the Exarch of Ra-`

* I have already shewn how entirely unsupported such an opinion is by the testimony of history.

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point, the beast, that was, and is not (was, "while idolatrous; and was not, while not idola"trous), will appear to be the seventh or eighth. "If you reckon this a new form of government, "the beast that now is is the eighth; if you do "not reckon this a new form of government, the "beast is of the seven: but, whether he be the "seventh or eighth, he is the last form of govern"ment, and goeth into perdition." To this statement the answer is sufficiently easy. St. John first enumerates seven distinct heads, and then introduces an eighth, teaching us that the beast has nevertheless no more than seven heads, for the eighth is of the seven. If then the beast has seven distinct heads at the rise of the eighth, and yet notwithstanding the rise of the eighth has no more than seven, that eighth must in some sense be the same as one of the seven. But, upon Bp. Newton's plan it is not the same as any one of the seven : and, in order to get quit of the supposed seventh head the Exarchate, so that the beast by the addition of the Papacy may still have no more than seven, he sometimes considers the Exarchate as a head, and sometimes as not a head*.

4. Some commentators, probably aware of the difficulties here enumerated, difficulties which unavoidably arise from the separation of the seventh

* Mr. Lowman's interpretation is exactly the same as Bp. Newton's, and is consequently liable to the very same objections.

and

and eighth heads, have adopted the mode of exposition which I believe to be the true one; namely, that the two heads are one power existing in a twofold capacity: but unfortunately they have, for the 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

*See Pol. Synop, in loc.

dominion

dominion of the Pope, run parallel to each other, and are equally even now in existence, each having continued a long time*.

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 a considering the Pope as a head of the beast, this scheme is in other respects highly objectionable.

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

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