IV. The horns of the Roman beast, mentioned by St. John, are of course the same as the horns of the fourth beast described by Daniel: for, since each beast equally symbolises the Roman Empire, and since each beast is equally said to have ten horns; the ten horns of the one must plainly shadow out the same ten primary kingdoms as the ten horns of the other.

1. Respecting the origination of these ten horns, Daniel says, that they are ten kings who shall arise out of the broken or divided Empire of the beast: and St. John says, that they are ten kings, who had not received their kingdom at the time when he wrote; but who, in one hour or synchronically with each other, should receive power as kings, conjointly with the beast'.

The two accounts perfectly harmonise, and perfectly agree with history.

When the Western Roman Empire was broken by the ten nations of the Goths, exactly ten pri-: mary kingdoms arose out of its fragments: and. these may be broadly said to have sprang up synchronically or during the course of the same season, the season, namely, of the direption and spoliation of the Empire; for the first made its appearance upon the Latin platform in the year 406, and the tenth in the year 568, the western branch of the Imperial head having fallen in the person of Augustulus about the year 476 or 479.

1 Dan. vii. 24. Rev. xvii. 12.

The regal horns, however, were to be distinguished, not only by their mutually synchronical rise, but likewise by the remarkable circumstance of their receiving power as kings conjointly with the beast. It might have been imagined, when the fate of the three preceding Empires was considered, that the division of the Roman Empire into ten independent kingdoms by the victorious Goths would effectually have annihilated that Empire: but the prophet assures us, that this would not be the case. Though ten Gothic kingdoms should be erected within the territorial dominions of the Roman beast, those dominions should nevertheless be governed with independent sway, not to the exclusion of the beast, but (what might well have been little anticipated) in conjunction with him. They were to reign and he, under either his first or his seventh head, was also to reign; until, by the violent slaughter of his seventh head, he should sink into a state of allegorical death or of non-existence as an Empire.

Accordingly, we need but turn to history, if we would be satisfied as to the accuracy of this prediction.

The ten primary horns sprang up, when the Roman Empire was divided by the northern warriors and their representatives, the numerous mo narchies of the European Commonwealth, have continued to exist down to the present day. But they have not existed to the exclusion of the beast. On the contrary, the long-lived first head conti

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nued to flourish, conjointly with them, down to the year 1806: and, from that epoch down to the year 1815, they still co-existed with the short-lived seventh head. So that the joint reign of the beast and his ten regal horns did not terminate, until the beast himself, by the slaughter of his seventh and last head, was consigned to his predicted state of death or political non-existence in the quality of an Empire.

2. The character of the ten horns, as delineated by St. John, might seem to involve a contradiction but the event has even already, though hi therto but partially, demonstrated the accuracy of the portrait.

For a season, the ten kings have one mind, and give their power and strength unto the beast: but, afterward, so great a change takes place in their sentiments, that they hate the harlot who rides him, and make her desolate and naked, and eat her. flesh, and burn her with fire. Yet, notwithstanding this extraordinary change, a number of them, sufficiently great to authorise the use of a general or sweeping expression, make war with the Lamb: but the Lamb finally overcomes them.

The harlot, as we shall see in the proper place, is the apostate Latin Church subject to its spiritual head the Roman man of sin and the circumstance of the ten horns giving their strength to the beast plainly enough means the circumstance of the ten Gothic kingdoms unanimously acknowledging the supremacy of the Papacy and their upholding with

all their might the bestial or demonolatrous principles which were established as orthodoxy throughout the whole Roman Empire.

This state of things continued, from the year 604 when for the first time the representatives of all the ten horns were in communion with the Papacy, down to the Reformation which commenced in the year 1517. But, at that epoch, a change of sentiment began to shew itself: for, at that epoch, Daniel's 2300 prophetic days expired, and the longpolluted sanctuary began to be cleansed1. The Saxon horn within the limits of the Empire, and various northern Powers without its limits, then first hated the harlot, and devoured her flesh, and made her desolate, by renouncing all communion with her and by alienating her monastic endowments. This spirit, though on very different principles, acquired an additional impulse with the French Revolution in the year 1789. Since that time, we have beheld the confiscation of the churchlands in France, the loss of Avignon to the Papacy, and the secularisation of the German ecclesiastical electorates and princely bishoprics and with these events we have seen, if not a renunciation of Popery, yet, in that mitigated sense of hatred which so often occurs in Scripture, a marked indifference to the interests of the Roman See and a very general refusal to aid and abet it in its persecuting

maxims.

1

See above book iii. chap. 3. § III. 2.

From the accuracy, therefore, with which the prophecy has hitherto been accomplished, we may anticipate the equal accuracy of its future completion. One only of the Roman horns has renounced communion with the Roman Church. The others are even now labouring to repair the breaches, which its walls have received from the shock of Infidelity; that potent engine, by which in these last days so much damage has been done to the decaying fabric of superstition. Hence, with the solitary exception of the Saxon horn, we may reasonably as well as scripturally anticipate that future war with the Lamb, in which all the horns save one, acting under the influence of the revived beast, will be overcome and destroyed in the final battle of Armageddon '.

V. Having now sufficiently discussed the various members of the Roman beast, I proceed to the consideration of that mysterious name, which the Spirit of God has indeed veiled under an enigma, but of which he has directed us by the aid of certain definite marks to attempt the discovery.

This name, if I mistake not, is mentioned indeed in the present section of the little book: but, from the circumstance of the second beast undertaking with peculiar zeal its advocacy, it is not fully described until the prophet advances into the next section. Since, however, it is the name, not of the second beast, but of the first, I choose, for the sake

1

Compare Rev. xvii. 14, with xvi. 13-16 and xix. 17-21.