head of the Beast, and, that the eighth king or form, for there is no eighth head, was still future. This interpretation was, however, manifestly erroneous, being, for the reasons already given, altogether inconsistent with the order and arrangement of the symbols, which require us to account for the whole of the seven forms, indicated by the heads with diadems, before the diadems were transferred to the horns, which transfer manifestly took place at the period of the overthrow of the Empire by the Gothic nations.*

I now, therefore, rest in the following interpretation, which is the same in substance with that offered by Dr. Henry More :

The sixth head of the Dragon and the Beast I conceive to have represented the Imperial government of Rome in its heathen form until the accession of Constantine, and the consequent establishment of Christianity; and that upon the defeat and dethronement of Licinius, the last of the Pagan emperors, the sixth head fell to rise no more, no notice being taken of the ephemeral reign

well of the Pontifician as the Protestant party, fix the beginning of his reign ab U. C. Anno. 710."

In identifying the imperial power of Augustus, and his successors, with the limited and elective kingly power of Romulus, Mr. Faber stands quite alone, as far as I recollect. Nor does it seem to me that the word Basiλeus, applied to the Emperors by the Greeks, can identify their autocratical power, with that of the former kings.

* It is remarkable, that the interpretation which I have thus abandoned as utterly untenable, has been since embraced by Mr. Faber, in his Sacred Calendar of Prophecy.

of Julian. The seventh head appears to denote the Christian imperial power, from Constantine to Augustulus, in whose person the Western empire was extinguished by the Heruli and Turingi. this event we may recognise the infliction of the

In

It is objected to this interpretation, that the Heathen imperial and the Christian imperial powers, being one and the same in form and name, could not be signified by distinct heads. I myself was of this opinion formerly, but more mature consideration led me to abandon it. Dr. Henry More's observations on this point are well worthy of consideration. He says: "Nor is there the least ground of any cavil against our last subdivision, which is of Emperors into Pagan, purely Christian, and Pagano-Christian, as if there were not a cause fundamental enough of this last distribution; whereas, on the contrary, there is such a strong opposition betwixt the first two members thereof that one outs the other, the seventh king being the wounder and killer of the sixth head. And forasmuch as when a religion is made the religion of a kingdom or empire, it is in a sort the law of that empire; it may be rationally conceived that there is even a political difference betwixt a Christian and a Pagan emperor. And lastly, be that how it will, it is plain to all men, that there is a very eminent and notorious difference betwixt a Christian and a Pagan emperor, and of more concernment to the Church of God, than any political distinction of government. And that which most concerns his Church, we may be assured God takes most notice of, and therefore would be as likely to distinguish the succession of supreme governors by this difference as by any.

"Nay, I think I may safely add, that it is likely that when once the angel had come to the division of the heads, or rather kings, into Christian and Pagano-Christian, he did wholly neglect the consideration of the political differences of forms of government in the empire, that notion being now impertinent to his design, and contented himself with the distinction of them from the account of religion only. But till this he numbered according to the distinction of political form, they all of them

deadly wound on one of the heads of the Beast which was seen by the Apostle as it were wounded unto death.* It was therefore the seventh head which John beheld thus wounded. The duration

:

till now agreeing in pure Paganism. So that the sense of 'the beast that was and is not, his head is the eighth king,' seems to be this that supreme power, be the political frame or title of it what it will, which is over the Beast revived, that is, over the Empire, idolatrizing again, all that succession, pitch upon it where you will, be it Pope, be it Emperor, is looked upon as the eighth king, or last head of the beast."-More's Works, p. 586. London, 1708.

In the above quotation, by Pagano-Christian the reader will understand, that the state of the Empire, when it relapses into idolatry under the name of Christianity, is designed. The passage is one of peculiar value, though I am not sure that I can completely acquiesce in all the observations which it contains.

* Rev. xiii. 3.—In the explanation here offered of the deadly wound of one of the heads of the beast, I have the concurrence of Bishop Newton, Pyle, Gill, and others, with this difference, that they suppose the sixth head to have represented the Christian as well as the Heathen emperors, and that the deadly wound was therefore inflicted on the sixth head. The seventh head is variously interpreted by them, but is most commonly referred to the Gothic kingdoms in Rome and Italy, which succeeded the Roman empire of the West. But these were among the horns, and could not therefore be the seventh head. The eighth king, or form of government, they suppose to be the Papacy; but the Papacy never was the temporal head of the Roman empire, and therefore this opinion is untenable. It may here be asked, why the extinction of the Western empire by the Gothic conquest is alone signified by the figure of one of the heads then receiving a deadly wound, whereas all the former changes of form in the supreme government are described simply by the first five heads being fallen. The answer to this is, that when the regal was succeeded by the consular

of the seventh head is termed in Rev. xvii. 10, a short space, and as it was only 153 years, it was short when compared with that of the Heathen imperial power, and also with the period of the eighth form, which has now continued more than thirteen centuries.

The eighth form of the Beast I have already shown, from the complex symbol of ten horns with diadems (posterior in time to the imperial dominion of all the heads), to be decemregal, or the reign of ten cotemporary Gothic sovereignties. This form is said to be the Beast which was, and is not, and yet is; or, in other words, it is the revived empire of Rome in another shape. This eighth form is said to be of the seven.* It is the Christian imperial power branching off into ten sovereignties. The horns, therefore, all grew on the seventh head.†

When the empire of the West received a deadly wound in its seventh head by the Gothic sword, it

power, it was effected not by external conquest, but by internal revolution. The same remark applies to all the subsequent changes, until we arrive at the time of the Gothic irruptions, when the Western empire fell by a foreign sword. This change, which was different in its nature and origin, might therefore fitly be expressed by a different symbol.

*Rev. xvii. 11.

The analogy of the four horns on Daniel's he-goat, which grew up for, or under, the great horn that was broken, Dan. viii. 8, seems to point out, that we are to look for the ten Gothic horns of the fourth Beast, upon the imperial head that was wounded to death. This to be sure is out of nature, that horns should grow from a head so wounded; but we are to recollect, that the whole circumstances of the Beast are a sort of wonder, or miracle.

appeared to be finally and entirely destroyed, as to its existence as a body politic. But the conquerors gradually identified themselves with the Empire by the following acts of submission:-1st. They received its religion; 2dly. They adopted, as the basis of national jurisprudence, the volume of the civil law; 3dly. They all at length acknowledged the spiritual supremacy of Rome, and bent their necks to its heavy yoke ;* 4thly. They restored, in the person of Charlemagne, the titular empire of the West, and they gave precedence, among the sovereignties of the great European commonwealth, to that regal horn in which was vested the revived title of Emperor of the West and of the Holy Roman Empire; 5thly. By constant intermarriages among the sovereigns of the different kingdoms, they came at length to bear the character of a common family; 6thly. By adopting the Latin tongue as the language

The effects of the dominion of Rome Papal, on the body of the European States are thus described by Villers :-" Il a déjà été dit que les croisades avaient pour la premiere fois accoutumé nos peuples occidentaux à une réunion generale, a une sorte de fraternité Europeene. Le catholicisme produisit constamment ce bon effet. La monarchie pontificale apprit aux princes et aux peuples a se regarder tous comme compatriotes etant tous egalement sujets de Rome. Ce centre d'unité a été durant des siècles un vrai bienfait pour le genre humain.”— Essai sur l'Esprit et l'Enfluence de la Reformation, p. 179. It will not be supposed, that in quoting this passage, I accord with it upon the benefits conferred on mankind by the influence of Papal Rome. I cite it simply as a striking testimony, from a writer whose principles are those of earthly and secular philosophy, of the exact fulfilment of the prophetic word, and also a confirmation, no less striking, of the accuracy of the interpretation which is here offered.