am introducing authorities with a needless profusion; since the prophet himself has communicated to us direct information on the point, not only telling us, that this emblematic Beast had Ten Horns, and upon his Horns" Ten Crowns, but that the Ten Horns are Ten Kings. It deserves also to be noted, that the dragon is expressly said to have given to the ten-horned Beast his power. Now' a dragon, as bishop Hurd observes, when speaking of this passage, is the known symbol of the old Roman government in its pagan, persecuting state".' And who succeeded the Roman emperors in their power, but the Ten Kings, among whom the provinces of the empire was distribu..

ted?

The symbolic import of sea2, from which the ten-horned Beast is said to have risen, perfectly harmonises with these observations. 'The sea,' says Daubuz, signifies a multitude of men in commotion or war23. Therefore in Daniel's visions we find the four winds striving upon the great sea, and out of it four great beasts arising24, to signify that four great monarchies should arise out of the wars; which should happen in the world; one of which

known marks and signals of the Roman empire,' and allude not only to the seven mountains, but also to the seven forms of government which successively prevailed there.' Vol. III. p. 207. Secondly, it also in some degree marks out the period of the Ten Horns; for it may be inferred, and in particular from v. 10 and 12 of c. xvii. that they should not appear till after the sixth head had fallen; that is, that the Ten Horns should not arise till after the imperial government was dissolved.

19 These horns have Ten Crowns upon them: i. e. they denote so many kings or crowned heads, over so many distinct provinces or kingdoms.' Whiston, p. 217.

20 Rev. xvii. 12.

21 Vol. II. p. 161.

22 In ch. xvii. a kindred symbol occurs. The Babylonish woman having appeared to St. John (v. 1), sitting upon many waters; the angelic interpreter said unto him (v. 15), the waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.

23 The resemblance between the noise of an enraged sea and the noise of an army or multitude in commotion is obvious, and frequently taken notice of by the prophets.' Dr. Lancaster's Dict.

24 VII. 2, 3.

bears the characters of this beast.' In the same manner, in the passage under consideration (I am now transcribing from Dr. Lancaster's abridgement of Daubuz) the ascending of the wild Beast, here described, from the sea denotes, that the tyrannical power represented has its origin from wars and commotions. And forasmuch as this wild Beast has seven heads and ten horns, as well as the dragon, hereby is denoted that he is possessed of the same empire as the dragon was; and consequently that the wars and commotions, from whence this beast had his rise, were such as had happened in the Roman empire, by the irruptions of the barbarous nations.'

The Secular Beast is likened to the bear, the leopard, and the lion. These, says Mr. Lowman, are famous for strength and rapaciousness in seizing and devouring their prey.' They are therefore admirably expressive of the formidable power and the plundering policy of the antichristian monarchies of Europe. It is, remarks an early commentator, 'said to be like a leopard, full of spots, swift and cruel; to have the feet of a bear, which grasps both with the hindermost and foremost legs and claws; and to have the mouth of a lion, to tear and devour. government which this nature doth affect is absolute, to have all in subjection in its will without any other rule or law25.' The epithet of scarlet-colored" is fastened upon this Beast, observe bishop Newton and Mr. Pyle, to denote his cruelty27.'

The

And the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority. The word here translated seat, should rather have been translated throne, as it is by Wakefield, Doddridge, and Daubuz. This,' says Daubuz, ‘is an induction of particulars to shew, that the dragon surren

25 Clavis Apocalyptica, 1651, p. 48 of the Pref.

26 Rev. xvii. 3.

27 That red doth emblematise bloody cruelty and barbarous persecution is so obvious to conceive, that it seems needless to have noted it.' More's Prophetic Alphabet.

dered up to the Beast all its royalties, or the several parts of his power. Avvapus is often taken for the armies 28, the throne is the imperial seat, or power of government, and his authority is the jurisdiction over all the subjects. The terms are easily understood; and that this signifies, that the Beast succeeded in the same power as the dragon; that is, that the Roman empire was divided into the Ten Monarchies of the Beast. There is one thing more to be observed, that the dragon is said to give his power to the Beast; whereas it appears, that the barbarians, who dismembered the empire, did enter it by force: but this is not material, for a surrender of power is the giving up of that power. But besides that, the Romans did not barely surrender their power, but gave it for the most part by treaty to those barbarians under the name of alliance.'

To facilitate our inquiries into the import of the next verse (v. 3), it will be requisite previously to explain a passage in ch. xvii. After mentioning the seven heads29 in v. 9, the angelic interpreter says in v. 10, And they3° are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space. The subsequent explanation is from bishop NewAnd they are seven kings, or kingdoms, or forms

ton.

28 Mede (in loc. p. 621) alleges passages in proof of this. EŻ૪૮, says Dr. More, which is here translated authority, shews that dovaus signifies military forces, or else it were a needless tautology.' Ans. to Rem. p. 89.

29 In all the figures of beasts in the prophecy of Daniel,' says the learned Dr. Cressener, are signified by the horns and heads of a beast the several kinds of supreme government in' the nation spoken of. • If they be described to come after one another, they signify so many successive kinds of settled government over the same kingdom. But if they be decribed to be in rule all at the same time, they signify so many distinct sovereignties, or kingdoms.' Now it is admitted by all, says Dr. Cressener, that St. John has borrowed all these symbols from the book of Daniel. Dem. of the Prot. App!. of the Apoc. p. 93.

30 In the common version it is, and there are seven kings. But bishop Newton, Wakefield, Doddridge, Lowman, Pyle, and Daubuz, are unanimous in introducing they into the translation.

of government, as the word imports, and hath been shewn to import in former instances. Five are fallen, five of these forms of government are already passed; and one is, the sixth is now subsisting. The five fallen are kings, and consuls, and dictators, and decemvirs, and military tribunes with consular authority; as they are enumerated and distinguished by those who should best know, the two greatest Roman historians, Livy and Tacitus. The sixth is the power of the Cæsars or emperors, which was subsisting at the time of the vision.' With respect to the seventh head, which in St. John's time was not yet come, and was to continue a short space, I shall quote from Mr. Evanson; previously observing, that the prophet says in v. 11, ch. xvii, that the Beast itself is the eighth, i. e. may be regarded as an eighth head. 'There cannot remain a doubt,' that the Beast having seven heads and ten horns is a prophetic type of the civil power of the Roman empire, considered in this prophecy of the New Testament, first, as subsisting under its sixth or imperial form of government; then, as being for a short space of time only semiimperial; and lastly, as consisting of that pollarchy, into which the semi-empire was broken by the incursions of 'the northern nations31."

I shall now return to ch. xiii. And I saw one of his heads, as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world3 wondered after33 the Beast. This head, according to the quotation recently alleged, was the semi-imperial government, which was wounded even unto death by the hostile invasions of, the barbarians from the east and from the north. By Mr. Pyle, who, the

31 Let. to bishop Hurd, p. 39.

32The word rendered world,' says Johnston of Holywood (in loc.), 'ought to have been translated earth. It is y in the original, the proper signification of which is earth, and which is uniformly in this book translated earth.' The earth, in his opinion, is to be regarded as the symbol of the Roman empire.

33 Oavuna is here taken as in Jude, 16:-Davale is to make courtship to, fawn, flatter, and submit to. Daubuz.

reader will perceive, does not distinguish between the imperial and semi-imperial power, this verse is thus paraphrased. One of these forms of government, or one head of this empire, received, methought, a fatal blow, i. e. the imperial power, under the Cæsars, was destroyed by the barbarous nations. But, though this one head was destroyed, the Beast itself still lived; the power, the persecuting power, still remained, though got into several hands, and the Ten Kings exercised the same cruel and arbitrary dominion over their Christian subjects as ever the heathen emperors had done. Thus the deadly wound was healed, to the pleasing astonishment of all the corrupted part of. the Christian world.' The similar statement that follows is from an ingenious writer of the last century. The deadly wound of one of the heads of the Beast' signifies the ruin of the empire by the incursion of the barbarous nations, and the extinguishing of the western emperors in Augustulus. He lived again, when the like politic body or civil state of affairs in the empire was re-established by the ten-horned Beast, by the barbarous nations settling into a subjection to, or a compliance with, the Roman laws 34,"

And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the Beast; and they worshipped the Beast, saying, Who is like unto the Beast35? Who is able to make war with him? Dazzled with the lustre of the imperial throne, mankind in general had formerly reverenced the power and the persons of the Cæsars; and had supported them in their exactions, and their despotism. Thus also has it happened to the ten-horned Beast, who has since laid waste the ancient dominions of the dragon. The mass of mankind, since the establishment of the tyrannic governments of

34 This anonymous writer, whose signature is S. E. is quoted by Dr. More in his Ans. to Remarks, p. 90, 98.

35 This says Daubuz, may be limited to civil submission and adoration, as the word signifies sometimes.' In proof of this, he refers to many

passages.