Page images
PDF
EPUB

which it properly belongs. Thus, the SECOND, or Perfian kingdom, does not take in the nations of Chaldæa and Affyria, which make the body of the first kingdom; nor the THIRD, or Græcian kingdom, the countries of Media and Perfia, being the body of the fecond. In like manner, the FOURTH, or Roman kingdom, does not, in the contemplation of the prophet, compres hend those provinces, which make the body of the third, or Græcian kingdom, but such only as constitute its own body, that is, the provinces on this fide of Greece: where, therefore, we are to look for the eleventh, or Antichriftian kingdom, as being to start up among the ten, into which the Roman kingdom fhould be divided.

We fee, then, that, as Antichrift was to arife within the Roman kingdom, fo his station is farther limited to the European part of that kingdom, or to the western empire, properly fo called.

This obfervation (which is not mine, but Sir Ifaac Newton's) is the better worth making,

making, because, in fact, the papal fovereignty never extended farther than the western provinces; at leaft, could never gain a firm and premanent footing in the countries, which lie eaft of the Mediterranean fea. But, whether you admit this interpretation, or not, it is ftill clear that Antichrift was to arise fomewhere within the limits of the Roman empire. In what part of that empire he was to make his appearance, we certainly gather from

II, A SECOND prophetical note or character of this power, which is, That his feat and throne was to be the city of Rome itSelf.

The prophet Daniel acquaints us only that the power we call Antichriftian, would spring up from among the ruins of the fourth, or Roman kingdom: But St. John, in the Revelations, fixes his refidence in the capital city of that kingdom. For, when, in one of his vifions, he had been fhewn a portentous beast with feven beads and ten borns, and a woman arrayed in purple, riding VOL. II. upon

L

upon him, an Angel is made to interpret, this fymbolic vifion in the following words: -The feven beads are feven mountains on which the woman fitteth-and the ten horns, which thou fawest, are ten kings—and the woman, which thou faweft, is that great. city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth [e].

Words cannot be more determinate, than thefe. The woman, that rides this BEAST, that is, the fourth empire, in its laft ftate of ten horns, or divided into ten kingdoms, is that Antichriftian power, of which we are now inquiring. She is feated on feven bills, nay, fhe is that great city, which reigneth [that is, in St. John's time which reigned over the kingdoms of the earth. Rome, then, is the throne of Antichrift, or is that city, which fhalf one day be Antichriftian. There is no poffibility of evading the force of these terms.

[ocr errors]

It hath been faid, that Conftantinople, too, was fituated on feven hills. It may

be..

[e] Rev. xvii. 3, 4, 9. 12. 18.

fo:

fo: But Conftantinople did not, in the time of this vifion, reign over the kings of the earth. Befides, if its dominion had not been mentioned, the city on seven hills is fo characteristic of Rome, that the name itfelf could not have pointed it out more plainly: As must be evident to all thofe, who recollect, what the Latin writers have faid on this fubject.

[ocr errors]

The feptem domini montes-of one [f] poet is well known; and feems the abridgement of a still more famous line in an other [g]

Septem urbs alta jugis, toto quæ præfidet orbi To which, St. John's idea of a woman, feated on seven hills, and reigning over the kings of the earth, fo exactly correfponds, that one fees no difference between the poet and the prophet; except that the latter perfonifies his idea, as the genius of the prophetic style required.

[f] Martial. 1. iv. ep. 64. [g] Propert. 1. III. ix. 57.

L 2

But

But a paffage in Virgil is so much to our purpose, that it merits a peculiar attention. This poet, in the most finished of his works, had been celebrating the praises of a country life, which he makes the fource and origin of the Roman greatness : Hanc olim veteres vitam coluere Sabini; Hanc Remus et frater: fic fortis Etruria crevit : Scilicet et rerum facta eft pulcherrima Roma [b],

The encomium, we fee, is made with that gradual pomp, which is familiar to Virgil. And the laft line (from its majeftic fimplicity, the nobleft, perhaps, in all his writings) one would naturally expect should close the description. Yet he adds, to the surprise, and, I believe, to the difappointment of most readers,

Septemque una fibi muro circumdedit arces.

Had we found this paffage in any other of the Latin poets, we should have been apt to question the judgement of the writer; and to fufpect, that, in attempting to rife upon himself, he had fallen, unawares, into an evident anti-climax. But the cor

[] Georg. 1. ii. ver. 532.

rect

« PreviousContinue »