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supposition as this does in fact make Daniel's fourth beast precisely the same as his own little horn; a supposition to the full as unwarrantable, as to conclude that he is the same as any one of his other ten horns. Yet does Bishop Newton, not regarding this manifest violation of symbolical analogy and figurative propriety, adopt the inconsistent scheme of typifying the Papacy, both by the eleventh horn of a beast, and by the identical beast himself to whom that eleventh horn belongs.

"The seven-headed and ten-horned apocalyptic beast then is the same as the fourth and ten-horned beast of Daniel: in other words, he is the Roman empire; which, according to the sure declaration of prophesy, is the last universal empire with which the church shall be concerned. Daniel does not mention the seven heads of this beast, nor does he specially define his form; he only observes, that he was dreadful, terrible, and strong, and that he was diverse from all the beasts that were before him: but St. John amply supplies this deficiency, by informing us, that he had not only the ten horns noticed by Daniel, but likewise seven heads; and that his shape was compounded of all the three beasts which preceded him, the Babylonian lion, the Medo-Persian bear, and the Macedonian leopard.

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"I. This general position being established with the full original consent even of Bishop Newton himself, the first point to be considered is, in what sense St. John could be said prophetically to behold the rise of the Roman empire, when it had already been in existence many ages before he was born, and when even he himself unequivocally declares such to be the case.

*

"The apostle affords us two distinct solutions of this important question: first by teaching us that the beast, after his rise from the sea, should have power given him to continue forty-two months or 1260 years,

* See Rev. xvii. 10.

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the very period during which his little horn was to carry on its persecutions against the saints; and af terwards by telling us, that this same beast was, and is not, and yet is." Hence it appears, that, in some sense or another, the Roman beast was to possess a wonderful peculiarity which should most essentially distinguish him from his three predecessors in universal empire: he was first to exist; afterwards he was to cease to exist; and lastly, he was again to come into existence.

"The mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns. The beast, that thou sawest, was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they, that dwell on the earth, shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast, that was, and is not, and yet is."

"From comparing this passage with St. John's assertion, that he saw the beast rise out of the sea, and that having thus arisen he was to possess power forty-two months; it will be manifest, that the second period of the beast's existence begins with, terminates with, and is theeefore exac,ly commensurate with the 1260 years of the great Apostacy consequently, that it precisely coincides with the tyrannical reign of his own little horn during a time, times, and half a time; with the treading of the holy city under foot during forty-two months; with the prophesying of the two witnesses during 1260 days; and with the flight of the woman into the wilderness, from the face of the dragon, during the same period.

"The near alliance of the Apostacy and the beast will lead us to the right understanding of what is meant by his having been, his not being, and his renewed existence. "A beast," as Bishop Newton most truly observes, and as I have already very fully stated in a preceding chapter, "A beast, in the prophetic style, is a tyrannical idolatrous empire: the kingdom of God and of Christ is never represented

So

under the image of a beast." This being the case, an empire is said to continue in existence as a beast, so long as it is a tyranically idolatrous empire : when it puts away its idolatry and tyranny and turns to the God of heaven, the beast, or those qualities whereby the empire was a beast, ceases to exist, though the empire itself may still remain: and, when it resumes its idolatry and tyranny, though they may not perhaps bear precisely the same names as its old idolatry and tyranny, it then once more recommences its existence in its original character of a beast. singular a circumstance as this never happened either to the Babylonian beast, the Medo-Persian beast, or the Macedonian beast. Whatever may have been the sentiments of Nebuchadnezzar, Darius the Mede, and his nephew Cyrus; whatever decrees they may have promulgated in favour of true religion throughout their widely extended dominions; whatever privileges they may have granted to the ancient people of God: the voice of history bears ample testimony that their subjects, as a body, never ceased to be idolatrous. But this singular circumstance has happened to the Roman beast, and to the Roman beast alone. That empire was originally a beast, by its profession of paganism, and by its persecution of the first set of men of understanding mentioned by Daniel: it ceased to be a beast under Constantine the Great when it embraced Christianity, and became the protector of the church: and it again relapsed into its bestial state, when it set up the tyrannical supremacy of the Pope, adapted to the worship of saints and martyrs, and bitterly persecuted the second set of men of understanding. Now the beast erected the spiritual dominion of the Pope in the year 606, by conferring upon him the prerogatives of universal episcopacy. Consequently then it was that the beast arose out of the sea, or out of the turbulent times of Gothic invasion, in his third or revived state: and he may be considered as having firmly taken his station upon the shore, when in the year 607 idolatry was openly

In this

re-established in the old heathen Pantheon. state, the dragon, or satan, is said to have given him "his power, and his seat, and great authority;" in the same manner as he has given them to him before, when the resolute advocate of paganism.

"The next point to be considered is the symbolical import of the seven heads of the beast, and especially of his last head."

I would here remark, that I find it impossible within the proposed limits of this work, to give Mr. Faber's remarks entire at full length, or the remaining part of the contents of the little book, as I at first contemplated; I shall therefore give extracts from his book in his own words, and endeavour to let the reader have an abridgement of his commentary on these subjects, by taking the liberty to give the import of some of his ideas which he has argued at great length in opposition to the opinions of others, in a more concise form in my own language. And to proceed

66 Here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth. They are also seven Kings (or forms of government:) five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and, when he cometh, he must continue a short space. And the beast, that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition." "

"From this passage we learn, that the seven heads have a two-fold mystical signification; alluding both to the seven hills upon which the city of Rome was 'founded, and to seven different forms of government which either had arisen or should rise in the Roman empire. At the time when St. John wrote, five of these forms had already fallen, and the sixth was then in actual existence: there is no difficulty, therefore, and consequently no dispute, in settling what is meant by the first six heads of the beast. Two Roman historians have indeed satisfactorily decided this point for us, by teaching us that, previous to the sixth

or imperial form under which St. John lived, their country had been subject to exactly five others, namely, Kings, Consuls, Dictators, Decemvirs, and Military Tribunes with consular authority. The only point, then, liable to dispute, is, what form of Roman government is intended by the last head: and here, I think, there cannot be much dispute, if we only compare prophecy and history together."

After a long discussion on this point respecting the last head of the beast, in which he notices at length the opinions of others who differ from him,* Mr. Faber comes to the following conclusion:

"By way of recapitulation of what has been said, I will venture to assert, that no power has ever arisen within the limits of the Roman empire which at all auswers to the prophetic character of the septimooctave head, except the Carlovingian monarchy alone. Three things concur in this character: the last head of the beast was to be at once both the seventh and the eighth heads, the seventh continuing only a short time, and then being swallowed up in the eighth; it was at its first rise to be the whole beast; and it was to be the beast that was, and is not, and yet is, that is to say, it was to be the revived beast, or the beast while in his papally idolatrous state.

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1. Now the Carlovingian monarchy was the septimo-octave head, as being the Patriciate merging into the jeudal Emperorship.

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"2. It was the whole beast, as comprehending the whole Western empire either by actual sovereignty, or by the homage of acknowledged superiority.

* Mr. Faber has the following remarks with a regard unto the deadly wound of the beast. "In the year 313 then, when Constantine published his famous edict for the advancement of Christianity the beast was wounded to death in his sixth bead; and, in the year 606, when he delivered the saints into the hand of an idolatrous spiritual tyrant, his deadly wound was healed, he became a living anti-evangelical power, and he completely resumed all the bestial functions of his former pagan characThe space therefore between the year 313 and the year 606 is the space of time, during which the beast was dead, or, as St. John otherwise expresses it, was not."

ter.

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