Page images
PDF
EPUB

to bestow it upon his successors. They could not bring themselves to consider a barbarian of the North in the light of an Emperor of the Romans; and they were unwilling to concede that dignity to a king of the Franks, which they had never refused to the short-lived genuine line of Western Emperors, the real successors of Augus tus.* Under Charlemagne in short, Rome became subject to a new head:† for a form of government was then instituted, differing radically and essentially from every one of the previous six forms, represented by the six first heads of the beast.

By way of recapitulation of what has been said, I will

* The imperial dignity of Charlemagne was announced to" the East by the alteration of his style; and, instead of saluting his fathers, the Greek Emperors, he presumed to adopt the more equal and familiar appellation of brother—A treaty of peace and alliance was concluded between the two empires; and the limits of the East and West were defined by the right of present possession. But the Greeks soon forgot this humiliating equality, or remembered it only to hate the Barbarians by whom it was extorted: During the short union of virtue and power, they respectfully saluted the august Charlemagne, with the acclamations of basileus, and Emperor of the Romans. As soon as these qualities were separated in the person of his pious son, the Byzantine letters inscribed, To the king, or, as be styles himself, the Emperor of the Franks and Lombards. When both power and virtue were extinct, they despoiled Louis the second of his hereditary title; and, with the barbarous appellation of Rex or Rega, degraded him among the crowd of Latin princes-The same controversy was revived in the reign of the Othos; and their ambassador describes, in lively colours, the insolence of the Byzantine court. The Greeks affected to despise the poverty and ignorance of the Franks and Saxons; and, in their last decline, they refused to prostitute to the kings of Germany the title of Roman Emperors." Hist. of Decline, Vol. ix. p. 191-195.

Many commentators, though they may not quite positively declare as much, seem to be impressed with a sort of idea, that an actual residence at Rome is a necessary characteristic of a bead of the Roman beast. Hence we are sometimes asked, What other power, except the Papacy, can possibly be the last bead of the beast, inasmuch as Rome since the days of the Cesars has been the seat of no other power? Mere resi dence at Rome however has nothing to do with the character of a bead of the beast; though it seems essential to such a character to have enjoyed, at some period or other of its existence, the sovereignty of Rome. When Constantine removed the seat of government, he did not surely on that account cease to be the representative of the sixth head; any more than the king of Scotland ceased to be the head of Scotland by removing the seat of government to London, or the Emperor of Russia to be thé head of Russia by transferring his residence from Moscow to Petersburgh. Indeed those, who are the foremost in urging the residence of the Pope in Rome, as an argument of his being the last head, scruple not to declare that either the line of the demi-Ge lars, the exarchs of Ravenna, or the Gothic sovereigns of Italy, constitute the short-lived sev enth bead; although none of these, except the first, ever resided in Rome, and they only for about eight years, Rome was as much subject to Charlemagne who resided at Paris, as it was to Constantine who resided at Constantinople. The only difference was this; that Charlemagne granted Rome to the Pope to be held as a fief of the empire, under himself the superior lord, agreeably to the usages of feudalism. Indeed the whole behaviour of Charlemagne shews plainly, that he was as much the real sovereign of Rome as Buonapartè is at present. June 1, 1806.

[ocr errors]

venture to assert, that no power has ever arisen within the limits of the Roman Empire which at all answers to the prophetic character of the septimo-octave 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 head, 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. 1. Now the Carlovingian monarchy was the septimooctave head, as being the Patriciate merging into the feudal Emperorship.

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

3. And it was the beast that was, and is not, and yet is, as comprehending that whole empire, after it had relapsed into the abominations of papal tyranny and idolatry.

Neither the Papacy, nor any other power, except the Carlovingian Patricio-Imperial government, will be found to answer to this prophetic description; whence I doubt not, but that that government is intended by the last head of the beast.

Mr. Mede and Bp. Newton think, that St. John beheld all the ten horns growing together upon the last head. To this opinion however there appear to be insuperable objections, whether the last head be the Papacy or the Gothic Emperorship. The springing up of horns out of a head necessarily implies, that the head was in existence before the horns: whereas both the Papal Empire (as contradistinguished from the primitive Bishopric_of Rome), and the Carlovingian Emperorship, arose after the horns had sprung up; namely, the one in the year 606, and the other in the years 774 and 800.* Hence it is plain, that the ten horns could not have appeared to

Bp. Newton dates the commencement of the 1260 years considerably later than the year 606 hence, according to his plan, it is still more impossible, that the ten borns should appear to St. John growing upon the last bead, if that last bead be the Рарасу.

the prophet as growing upon the last head. To which then of the heads are we to assign the ten horns? Most assuredly to the sixth. In the days of St. John five were fallen and, between the fall of those five and the rise of the last, the ten horns sprung up. It is plain therefore, that they can only have sprung up out of the sixth. Such accordingly we find to be the case. The Roman Empire was divided into ten kingdoms under the sixth head of the beast, previous to his revival under the same sixth head*, and previous to the rise of his last head. It was the sixth head therefore that branched out into ten horns: consequently to the sixth head the ten horns must necessarily belong.

III. In the remaining part of the prophecy respecting the ten-horned beast we are informed, agreeably to the preceding prophecy respecting the war beween the dragon and the woman, that it was the dragon which gave his power and his seat or secular authority to the beast; and that the beast, as his agent, should persecute the saints 42 months or 1260 years. Hence it appears, that the persecution of the dragon and the persecution of the beast is one and the same; and that they are both exactly commensurate with the reign of the little horn. The dragon therefore, as I have already observed, we must consider as the main-spring of the whole Apostacy; the ten-horned beast, as his secular engine of persecution; and the two-horned beast, as the spiritual instrument which he used to stir up the last head and the ten horns of the beast of the sea against the mystic woman. In this sense then

it is, that the whole ten-horned beast, after he had arisen from the sea, "opened his mouth in blasphemy to God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven." He blasphemed the name of God by sanctioning all the blasphemous absurdities of his little horn.† that predicted man of sin who proudly sat in the temple of God, and literally shewed himself that he is

* " I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed-the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live." Rev. xiii. 3, 14.

"Any acts of idolatrous worship," says Mr. Lowman," may well be expressed by blaspheming God and his name, as they deny to the true God his distinguishing honour, and give it to creatures, whether images, saints, or angels." Paraph. in loc.

God by receiving the adoration of his cardinals:* hence it is said by Daniel, that the beast should be destroyed "because of the voice of the great words which the horn spake." And he blasphemed the mystic tabernacle of God, and them that dwell in the symbolical heaven, by upholding and propagating the most foul and injurious calumnies against the witnesses, accusing them of all the crimes which pagan Rome had formerly laid to the charge of the primitive Christians.†

We are moreover informed, that all the world worshipped the dragon and the beast, and wondered after the beast. Respecting this worship we are afterwards taught, that it was the second beast who caused it to be paid to the first; and much light is thrown upon its nature by a phrase which more than once occurs in the Apocalypse: men ure said to worship the beast and his image. Now it is superfluous to observe, that the Papists never literally worshipped the devil; and equally so to remark, that they never literally worshipped the ten-horned beast, or the secular Roman empire: yet this worship is immediately connected with the worship of an image, which the second beast caused to be made to, or for the use of, the first beast. Hence I apprehend, that the worship of the dragon and the beast means the devotion of the whole Roman world to the apostate principles of the beast, such as his idolatrous worship of images, his opposition to the truth, and his persecution of the witnesses. They, that dwelt upon the earth, worshipped the dragon, by lending themselves as tools to advance the infernal domination of the prince of darkness; and they worshipped the beast

* See Bp. Newton's Dissert. on the man of sin.

+ Mrs. Bowdler ingeniously supposes, that the blasphemy here spoken of means epostacy, for which she cites Acts xxvi. 11. Taking the word in this sense, the beast, while pagan, laboured to cause the primitive Christians to blaspheme or apostatise; by requiring them to abjure their faith: and, when afterwards in an apostatical state himself, (2 Thess. ii. 3. 1 Tim. iv. 1.) he was equally zealous in causing the witnesses to blaspheme, not indeed the literal name of Christ, but certainly his religion so far as the spirit of it is concerned, by apostatising to Popery. Mrs. Bowdler however, who wrote in the year 1775, supposes, that a time may come when the ancient pagan blasphemy of the beast will be revived, and when men will be required to abjure the very name of Christ. Her conjecture has certainly been accomplished in at least one of the principal members of the beast. Practical Observ, on the Rev. p. 35–46.

"Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do." John viii. 44.

by 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 resolutely 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.

*« Adoraverunt 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 borns gave their power and strength unto the beast." (Rev. xvii. 13.) The whole Roman world, under all its ten borns, embraced those idolatrous and heretical principles which gave to the Empire its bestial character; and employed its atmost 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 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.

« PreviousContinue »