mortal wound, or the wound of his death, was inflicted upon his seventh head. Therefore, when his mortal wound is healed, the head, which received that wound, must plainly be healed likewise'. In other words, the slain wild-beast will be restored to life by the healing or political revival of his sword-wounded seventh head.

(2.) Such was the picture-history presented to St. John and analogous to it is the verbal interpretation of the angel.

The seven

The beast, that thou sawest, was, and is not, and shall ascend out of the abyss. The beast was, and is not, and yet shall be. heads 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; and he is also an EIGHTH king (in reference to the beast that was and is not), and he is one of the seven kings.

Here we learn, that the wild-beast, after sinking into a state of non-existence as an Empire upon the violent death of the seventh head or king, will ascend out of the abyss into a new state of reëxistence under an eighth king; who, with reference to

'It is justly and accurately remarked by Bp. Newton: Not only one of his heads was as it were wounded to death; but his deadly wound was healed. The SAME head, which was wounded, must be healed. Dissert. on the Proph. dissert. xxv, vol. iii. p. 211.

The argument is perfectly conclusive, whatever may be the particular head which is slain by the sword.

the beast during the two successive periods of his original existence and his non-existence, will be the same as the slaughtered seventh king, and will therefore be one of the seven kings in a revived or restored condition.

Nothing can be more definite than such language: nor can any thing more perfectly accord with the appearance exhibited by the symbol.

In the symbol, the seventh head is slain by the sword; and the beast, all his heads being now defunct, sinks into a state of death: but, after a certain time, the deadly wound is healed; the slaughtered seventh head revives; and, with it, the dead beast, to the wonder of all the world, revives likewise.

In the verbal interpretation, the seventh king is extinguished, after continuing only a short space; and the Empire, represented by the beast, having no longer any acknowledged paramount form of government, sinks into a state of political non-existence as an Empire: but, after a certain time, the seventh king is restored; the Empire, along with him, ascends to political reëxistence as an Empire; and thus, with reference to that Empire during its two former states of original existence and of nonexistence, the restored seventh king becomes arithmetically an eighth king at the head of the revived Empire, though really he is still only one of the seven kings because he is the seventh king restored or revived.

Thus accurately do the symbol and the verbal interpretation answer to each other.

(3.) The general result of such a comparison is obviously the following one.

If the short-lived and sword-slain seventh head be the Francic Emperorship, we have it foretold with abundant plainness, that the deadly wound of this last form of Roman government shall hereafter be healed, and that, under this same form (viewed, with reference to the two prior conditions of the beast, as an eighth, though truly one of the seven), the now defunct beast shall both revive and ascend out of the abyss and go into final destruction.

This conclusion accords with what we read of the activity of the wild-beast under the sixth vial and of his ultimate overthrow under the seventh vial'. For, agreeably to the prophecy, all the heads of the beast are now dead; and the beast himself, therefore, is defunct. But, under the sixth and seventh vials, he is alive and active. Therefore, since the effusion of at least the seventh vial is manifestly future, he must, in order to accomplish the yet unfulfilled predictions respecting him, hereafter revive under the rule of that eighth king who is declared to be the same as the sword-slain seventh king.

The abyss, from which he ascends into his predicted but yet future state of political reëxistence,

1 Rev. xvi. 12-16. xix. 17-21.

is the sea, out of which Daniel and St. John alike describe him as ascending into his original but now past state of political existence: for the abyss and the sea are synonymous terms, by which the great assemblage of oceanic waters is alike designated. But the sea, according to the invariable use of the word in the figured language of prophecy, denotes a nation or an aggregate of nations in a turbid state of warfare or revolution. As the Roman beast, therefore, like his predecessors in empire the other beasts of Daniel, came up from the stormy sea or (as Bishop Newton rightly understands the term) from the commotions of the world, when, under Romulus, he commenced his first period of existence so will he similarly come up from the abyss or out of some agitated nation or aggregate of nations, when, under the revived Francic Emperorship, he shall commence his second period of existence or his period of reëxistence.

This expectation of the revival of the Francic Emperorship, previous to the wild-beast's going into ultimate destruction, rests, no doubt, upon the propriety of my application of the seventh Roman head. But, whether that application be proper or improper, this at least is certain, that there at present exists not any living head of the Roman Empire whence, so far as I can judge, it must inevitably follow, that the Roman Empire itself is no longer in a state of political existence. If, then, the Roman Empire has now ceased to exist; it is quite clear, that the predictions respecting its yet

future destruction in Palestine cannot receive their accomplishment, unless the extinct Empire shall be restored to life and activity. Now, according to the Apocalypse, this necessary restoration is effected by the healing of the short-lived and sword-slain seventh head. Hence, if the seventh head be the Francic Emperorship, it cannot but follow, from the very terms of the prophecy, that, in the person of some or other successful adventurer, the Francic Emperorship will be revived while the reanimated wild-beast is emerging from the agitated abyss of some tremendous political revolution '.

I have simply stated what appear to myself the necessary hypothetical deductions from the prophecy, quite independently of all political conjectures and speculations. Yet it may not be uninteresting to hear the anticipations of Napoleon Buonaparte himself relative to the future destinies of France: for, whatever may be thought of his moral character, few will doubt his preëminent talents and sagacity.

He conversed upon the probability of a revolution in France. Ere twenty years have elapsed, when I am dead and buried, said he, you will witness another revolution in France. It is impossible, that twenty nine millions of Frenchmen can live contented under the yoke of sovereigns imposed upon them by foreigners, against whom they have fought and bled for nearly thirty years. You are very fond in England of making a comparison between the restoration of Charles the second and that of Louis: but there is not the smallest similitude. Charles was recalled by the mass of the English nation to the throne, which his successor afterward lost for a mass: but, as to the Bourbons, there is not a village in France which has not lost thirty or forty of the flower of its youth in endeavouring to prevent their return. Napoleon in exile, vol. i. p. 272, 273.