of fuch amazing wickednefs, when we fee that it is fulfilling the "fure word of Prophecy," and "understand what is to be the end thereof." The general Opinion concerning the SECOND BEAST in the Revelations, confidered to be erroneous. It must be confeffed, that the numerous interpretations concerning the second beast mentioned in the Revelations of St. John, are neither compatible with each other, nor fatisfactory in their application. And this acknowledgment very confiderably strengthens the opinion, that this hieroglyphic creature delineates a Power as diftinct from Popery, as Popery is from Mahometanifm, but which Power had not a vifible existence when moft of thefe interpretations were written. According to the mode of explanation most commonly adopted, there appears a degree of repetition in the Prophecy, and a description of the fame thing in different words, and in different ways, which we do not feem authorized to to conclude is really the truth. For it should be obferved, that to defcribe the fame appearance of a power in various ways, is totally different from defcribing the fame power as appearing under different forms, at different periods of time. "The Pope and his Clergy," for example, is furely only the Papal Power fixed at Romey, "The Greek Church," which was once Sir Ifaac Newton's idea, cannot be a right application, because it separated from Rome before that city became the seat of the Papal Empire, The first beaft is confidered by Daubuz, as denoting the Antichristian civil powers which were to be within the Roman Empire, during the fecond period of the church; and the second beast as denoting the Antichristian ecclefiaftical powers during the fame space of time; and therefore he fuppofes the "two horns" to be the lines of the Bishops of Rome and of Constantinople. Lowman confiders the fecond beaft to be "the Holy Roman Empire" established in Germany. - Vitringa regards it as the Inquifition, and the Dominican and Francifcan orders of Monks.—Bishop Newton, Whiston, Pyle, Bishop Hurd, and Dr. S. Clarke, confider the first as the "fecular beast," or the See Mede, Whifton, Newton, Waple, &c. Civil power of the Papal Empire of Rome, acting not only at Rome, but by its ten horns, or ten kingdoms, which were formed after the first Empire was broken by the northern nations; and they suppose the second beast to be the Ecclefiaftical power of Rome. There are indeed many objections to these interpretations, befides fameness in the beasts, and repetition of reprefentation. The firft 1 beaft of the Revelations, and the little horn of Daniel, are generally allowed to mean the fame power, whatever that power may be.Now if only the civil power be defignated, in what was the Antichriftian horn divers from the other ten horns? Four horns, or heads, arofe out of the Grecian kingdom, two of which foon fubjected the two others.-There is nothing therefore remarkable in the coming up of the little horn; it is either the kind of horn that is extraordinary, or the circumstances under which it arifes. We are told ", " All the world wondered after the" (first, or what is termed by Newton and other Commentators, the fecular) "beaft."-The world was too much accustomed to Afiatic and Roman defpots, to wonder at civil tyranny. It furely 2 Rev. xiii. muft must have been its monftrous coalition with "feated in the temple episcopacy — its being of God, fhewing himself as God, and speaking great things and blafphemies"— profeffing the religion of the Lamb, and yet perfecuting his faithful fervants, which excited fo much astonishment. "The mouth that was given unto this beast, fpeaking blafphemies, and the power to make war with all the faints and to overcome them," defignates the perfecuting fpirit and power of Ecclefiaftical Rome in this first general description; but when the beast appears again, with the woman (or "the great city," as this fymbol is explained by the angel) fitting upon it, these marks of the beast are omitted, and the woman is defcribed as arrayed in purple, and drunken with the blood of the faints and martyrs. And it cannot, I think, be eafily fuppofed, that the woman and the second beast represent the fame power, which by implication they must do according to these interpretations of its mean ing. We fee then the union of the civil and the ecclefiaftical power of the Church of Rome, both in the little horn of Daniel b, and in the first beast of the Revelations. a Rev. xvii. And particularly in the Roman " king.*. VOL. I. We may may obferve too, that the Dragon, the emblem of Pagan Rome, gave his power to this beaft," which I conceive to represent the junction of idolatry with civil and religious tyranny, and this must indeed feem wonderful in a profeffedly Chriftian Church. Another reason for believing the fecond beaft in the Revelations a Power diftinct from the first, is, that there are many paffages in the Apostle's defcription of " the perilous times in the last days," which can hardly be applied to the Papal or the Mahometan Antichrift, and certainly not to Civil tyranny unconnected with religion. It is remarkable, that in the firft Epistle to Timothy, St. Paul's prediction relative to "the latter times,” applies in every particular to the Papal Antichrift-And that in the Second Epiftle he fays, This know alfo, that in the last days perilous times fhall come, for men fhall be, &c." In the application of these words to a later period of time, we are authorized by the opinion of a most profound and fagacious interpreter of Scripture. It is See 2 Tim. iii, and the four firft verfes of the fourth chapter, quoted page 292. obferved 2 |