for so the word "King" is used in the parallel place of the prophet Daniel', where the Roman Empire is called a King, and also a Kingdom. The Ten horns are not to be regarded as indefinitely expressing universal dominion, for they are explained to be ten Kings which have not yet received power, but will receive it, as Kings (that is, with the name of Kings, but not with undivided Kingly power), at the same time with the Beast. And the Beast is from 1, that is, proceeds from, the seven heads or forms of Government, and he is himself the Eighth Head.

2

3

The Eighth King, or form of Government, is the Beast. That is, the Eighth Head of the Sevenheaded Beast is himself the Beast. This is a paradox, a seeming impossibility-like many others in

forms, claim to know more of Roman History than Tacitus and Livy, who specify those forms by name. See Tacit. Annal. i. cap. 1, and

Liv. vi. 1.

1 Daniel vii. 17. 23. See also Vitringa, p. 591, who shows that the word (Melek) King is used by the Hebrew writers for any form of Government. Baoiλeîs Tηs yĥs, Kings of the earth, is a phrase used in the Revelation for all the Powers of Earth generally, whether monarchical, or no, especially as opposed to Christ, the King of heaven.

2 λaußávovoi, literally do receive, in the present tense; i. e. prophetically.

3

· ὡς βασιλεῖς,—very descriptive of the divided allegiance which is paid under the Papacy to Kings, who give their power to the Beast. Rev. xvii. 13.-See Heidegger, Myst. Bab. ii. 311, “tanquam reges, adeoque precarii, servientes," vassals of the See of Rome, which, in the person of Pope Innocent III. (Epist. i. 401.) compared the Kingly power to the Moon, and the Papal to the Sun.

4 Rev. xvii. 11.

the Apocalypse, and is designed to show that the Vision is not to be taken literally, and that the Beast revives in the Eighth Head, who absorbs all the power of the Beast into himself and becomes the Beast', just as, in the parallel Vision of the Prophet Daniel, the Little Horn on the Beast absorbs the power of the Beast into himself and becomes the Beast 2.

The Woman who sitteth upon the Beast is THAT GREAT CITY, which hath dominion over the Kings of the Earth 3.

This Vision, being thus explained, as to its main features, by St. John himself, admits of but one interpretation; and, as we shall show more fully hereafter, it has been so clearly fulfilled in the world, and this fulfilment is so wonderful, and so far beyond the reach of all human prescience, that any one who will carefully consider the matter, must confess that the eyes of the writer of the Apocalypse were illumined by the Spirit of God.

There are certain subordinate points in it, on which we shall now say a few words.

The place from which this Beast arises is the SEA. Now, if we revert to the Second Trumpet, we find that it announced the removal of a great burning

1 So Bp. Andrewes, p. 202. "Octavam gubernandi formam, vi capitis illius octavi, vivam jam denuò Bestiam dicat quis non incommode. Johannes enim ipse sic visus est dicere."

? Dan. vii. 8. 11-25.

4 In Lectures VIII. IX. X.

3 Rev. xvii. 18.

Mountain into the Sea'. This word Sea connects the present Vision with that Trumpet.

The Mountain was the Roman Empire, and this Sea was the tumultuous Element of Various States into which the great Mountain of the Roman Empire was plunged, and in which it was, as it were, quenched and liquefied, and from this Sea the Beast arises.

Here you will remember that St. Paul, in his Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, thus writes 2: Ye know what withholdeth, or hindereth (rò KaTEXOV), that the Lawless one (ò avouos) should be revealed in his due season. But (adds the Apostle) it hindereth only (uovor) till he, who now restrains, shall be removed; and then (Kai TÓTε) the Lawless one will be revealed.

The most eminent Ancient Eastern and Western Expositors recognized the Imperial Power of Rome

1 Rev. viii. 8. See" Harmony," § 19 and § 23, and above, Lect. V. p. 134.

2 2 Thess. ii. 3-8. A further exposition of this passage may be seen in the Author's Sermon "on the Man of Sin," printed separately. 3 ὁ κατέχων.

Chrysost. ad loc.; also Theophylact. ad loc.; Jerome on Dan. vii.; and Ep. ad Algas. Qu. 2. See also Tertullian, De Resurr. Carnis, c. 24; Hippolyt. de Antichristo, c. 49; Cyril. Catech, xv. 6. 8; and cp. Bp. Andrewes, c. Bellarmin. c. x. p. 235; Mede's Works, p. 657. Let me here express my opinion, that

1. The BEAST of the Apocalypse, and the " MAN of SIN," described by St. Paul, 2 Thess. ii. 3—13, are identical; and are a spiritual antichristian power, and may be termed an Antichrist.

2. But THE ANTICHRIST mentioned in the First and Second Epistle

P

in the obstacle which letted or restrained the Revelation of the Lawless one spoken of by St. Paul; and they taught that, on the dissolution of the Empire, represented here by the removal of the Mountain, and the casting of it into the Sea, the Lawless one would be revealed.

The seven Heads represent the seven forms of civil Government to which Rome was subject before the Papacy arose. One of these heads is described as wounded and healed'; and we know (to cite the words of Bishop Andrewes 2) that the Imperial power, having been broken by the Goths and Vandals, revived with all its former strength in the Papal. The Beast is said to have been, and not to be, and he will appear: that is, the Papal power pre-existed, in its secular greatness, in the Imperial; although in its other, spiritual, form it had not yet arisen; and the Beast is said to be from the seven heads, and to be himself the eighth, that is, to be a form of Govern

of St. John (1 John ii. 18-22; iv. 3. 2 John 7,) appears to be an infidel power, distinct from the "Beast" and "the Man of Sin." The Word Antichrist is not found in the Apocalypse, nor any other book of Scripture besides the two Epistles of St. John.

1 Rev. xiii. 3.

2 Bp. Andrewes, c. Bellarmin. p. 287. "Romæ Imperium, quod graviter afflictum a Gothis et Vandalis, curatâ tamen plagâ ejus vires pene pristinas post recepit, cum exurgeret de novo et grandesceret in serie Paparum Romanus Antichristus. Ibi caput, ibi plaga capitis, plaga lethalis, ibi plagæ cura."

3 Rev. xvii. 8, where кaì πáρeσтai, and he will appear, is the reading of the best MSS., and is received by Griesbach and Scholz. The sense is obvious.

ment, which will succeed on the disappearance of the seventh Head. In a word, the prophecy declared that the Mountain of the Roman Empire must first be cast into the Sea; and then the Beast would rise from the Waves.

8. An important remark arises here. Your attention has been already drawn to what we may call the catchwords which connect one part of the Apocalypse with another 1.

This observation must be extended further.

The Apocalypse itself is connected, by like catchwords, with the Prophecies of the Old Testament; especially as read in the Greek Septuagint Version.

A remarkable one occurs in the passage before us. The Beast, we read, makes war with the Saints, and has a mouth speaking great things', TOMA

ΛΑΛΟΥΝ ΜΕΓΑΛΑ.

Refer now to Daniel's Prophecy, concerning the horn which rises in the midst of the ten horns of the fourth monarchy, or Roman empire. This horn, we read, makes war with the Saints, and has a mouth speaking great things, ΣΤΟΜΑ ΛΑΛΟΥΝ ΜΕΓΑΛΑ .

Thus St. John knits on his Apocalypse to the book of Daniel; and identifies the Beast of the one with the little Horn of the other *.

1 See above, Lecture IV. pp. 115. 118.

2 Rev. xiii. 5.

3 Such are the words in Dan. vii. 8, in the LXX.; and also in the Version of Theodotion.

4 Similarly St. John joins his own Gospel to that of his predecessors by catchwords. Thus (xx. 1,) he speaks of "the stone," i. e. the