adopting the idolatry which he upheld no less as a popish than as a pagan empire*. I know not in what manner, except this, it is possible for an empire to be worshipped.

It is further said, that power was given to the ten-horned beast over all kindreds and tongues and nations; insomuch that all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb. These various kindreds, and tongues, and nations are the different papal states of the Roman earth; over all of which the beast reigned, either through his last head, or through his ten horns. For a season they all worshipped the beast, adopting his apostate principles, joining in his adoration of images, applauding his every persecution of the Church, and heartily concurring with him in his most violent measures against the witnesses whose names are written in the book of life: and even now, after the Reformation, only one of the ten horns† has protested against his tyranny, and reso

lutely

* "Bestiam adorare, ex Hebraismi et Orientis usu, nihil "aliud est quam eidem subjici" (Mede in loc.), "Adora"verunt bestiam, i. e. subjecerunt se bestiæ juxta constitutionem

suam religiosam" (Pol. Synop. in loc.). The passage is equivalent to that, wherein it is said, that the ten horns" gave "their power and strength unto the beast" (Rev. xvii. 13.). The whole Roman world, under all its ten horns, embraced those idolatrous and heretical principles which gave to the Empire its bestial character; and employed its utmost power and strength to uphold them. Respecting the worship of the beast's image more will be said hereafter in its proper place.

I use the phrase here in a general and indefinite sense,

as

lutely sheltered the mystic woman and the remnant of her seed from his implacable rage*. The others either still adhere to their ancient abominations, or have embraced the yet more blasphemous tenets of Antichrist. Notwithstanding their recent severe sufferings, they repent not of the works of their hands, their idolatry, their murders, their sorceries, their spiritual fornication, their thefts; or they repent of them only to blaspheme the name of the God of heaven, and to refuse to give him glory. The Roman beast still retains all the characteristics of a beast: and in this state he will at length go into perdition on account of the great words of the little horn.

IV. It will not be improper at the end of this long discussion, to give in one point of view the scheme of interpretation which I have adopted in preference to that of Mr. Mede, Sir Isaac Newton, and Bp. Newton. Whatever may be its other faults, it at least preserves all the members of the seven-headed and ten-horned beast perfectly distinct. The beast then is the secular Roman EmpireHis seven heads (the last being his double or septimo-octave head) are 1. Kings; 2. Consuls; 3. Dictators; 4. Decemvirs; 5. Military Tribunes; 6. Augustan Emperors; 7, 8. Carlovingian Patricio-Emperors-His ten primitive horns are 1. The kingdom

1

as it is used by the prophet himself (Rev. xvii. 16.). Of the ten original horns France alone remained at the era of the Revolution.

* Neither Denmark, Sweden, nor Prussia, are even modern 'horns of the beast, because they never were comprehended within the limits of the old Roman Empire.

kingdom of the Huns; 2. The kingdom of the Ostrogoths; 3. The kingdom of the Visigoths; 4. The kingdom of the Franks; 5. The kingdom of the Vandals; 6. The kingdom of the Sueves and Alans; 7. The kingdom of the Burgundians; 8. The kingdom of the Heruli, Rugii, Scyrri, and other tribes, that composed the Italian kingdom of Odoacer; 9. The kingdom of the Saxons; 10. The kingdom of the Lombards-His little horn, which grew up among his first ten horns, and which was different from them all, is the ecclesiastical kingdom of the Pope; which, small as it originally was, afterwards became a great ecclesiastical empireHis three primary horns, that were plucked up before the little papal horn, are 1. The kingdom of the Heruli; 2. The kingdom of the Ostrogoths; and 3. The kingdom of the Lombards.

The apocalyptic ten-horned beast is not represented, like the same beast in the book of Daniel, with a little horn: because St. John wished to describe the power symbolized by the little horn, as having now, at the revival of the secular beast, become a great spiritual empire by being declared supreme head of the universal Church. Accordingly, the two-horned beast, which is not mentioned by Daniel, occupies the place of the little horn, which is not mentioned by St. John. This twohorned beast, or false prophet, is the same as the great scarlet whore, who rides triumphant upon the secular beast: that is to say, they both equally symbolize the adulterous tyrannical church of

Rome, or the spiritual catholic empire of the Pope.

V. The prophecy awfully concludes with a call to attend to the just judgments of the Lord. "If 66 any man have an ear, let him hear. He that "leadeth into captivity, shall go into captivity: "he that killeth with the sword, must be killed "with the sword. Here is the patience and the "faith of the saints."

Hitherto we have beheld the secular beast triumphant, wearing out the saints, at the instigation of his little horn by leading them into captivity or by mercilessly putting them to death* we are now summoned to attend to the just retribution of a righteous God. The full execution of this sentence, long since pronounced upon the beast, is as yet future: for it will not take place till the last decisive battle of Armageddon after the termination of the 1260 years. Then, we are taught by St. John, that the beast shall go into perdition, being taken along with his associate the false prophet and cast into the lake of fire; and by Daniel, that the beast shall be slain, and his body destroyed and given to the burning flame.

This I apprehend to be the ultimate meaning of the prophecy; nevertheless it seems, in some mea

* Perpetual confinement, or the galleys, was the fate of those French protestants after the revocation of the edict of Nantz, who escaped the stroke of the sword. To the eternal disgrace of Louis the fourteenth, many of the female protestants, even young girls, were transported as slaves to the West-India colonies, merely because they refused to worship idols, and invocate dead saints.

sure,

sure, to have begun already to receive its accomplishment. They that lead into captivity, and they that kill with the sword, is so general and comprehensive an expresson, that it seems necessarily to include, not only the secular instruments of papal persecution, but likewise the ecclesiastical promoters of it: accordingly both Daniel and St. John connect the fate of the beast with that of the little horn or the false prophet. We have beheld then in France the descendant and successor of those, whose memory has been rendered infa mous by the diabolical crusade against the protestants of Provence, by the blood-stained night of St. Bartholemew*, by the perfidious revocation of the edict of Nantz†, himself led into captivity

"The French king gloryeth in his letters to the Pope, that " he had slain 70,000 heretics in a few days." Isaacson's Chron. cited by Sharpe in An Inquiry into the Description of Babylon, p. 33. Bossuet acknowledges the murder of only 30,000.

"Louis peremptorily required the Protestants in France "to sign a declaration of submission and strict obedience to "his royal orders; and that they should promise to attend the " mass, and entirely omit their own religious meetings; for "otherwise they should forfeit, not only their lands and all "other property, but also their personal liberty; the men being "doomed to slavery in the king's galleys for life, and the "women to be shut up for life wherever their enemies should "chose to immure them." It is supposed, that, in the course of this detestable persecution, about a million of protestants saved their lives by quitting their country, and that at least 100,000 were murdered (Sharpe's Inquiry into the Descrip tion of Babylon, p. 35-39.). Among those, who fled from their disgraced country at that dreadful period, was a pious ancestor of my own.

and