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relation marked by more important peculiarities than distinguished either of the forms of rule under the other six heads. Though nominally Christian, yet it is justly exhibited as a dragon head; inasmuch as like its predecessor, it usurped the throne of God, demanding a religious homage of itself, and arrogating the right to dictate the faith and worship of its subjects, and because it continued the worship of false deities and sanctioned it in others. The interruption of the succession of Christian emperors by the elevation of Julian, a zealous and bigoted pagan, who re-established the ancient polytheism, and endeavored to exterminate Christianity, and the speedy restoration of the Christian line in Jovian, were such events as the death wound and recovery of the seventh head were adapted to represent, and were the only events of that nature that marked that dynasty. And finally, this construction is confirmed by the representation in a subsequent verse, that the image which was made to the beast of ten horns, was an image of the beast in that form in which it existed when it received the death wound; as that image, as will be shown, was an ecclesiastical government, or organization of ecclesiastical rulers and teachers in the eight kingdoms, essentially like that established by the papal horn in its own dominion; and the head of the beast accordingly after which it was modelled, was that of Constantine and his successors, by whom the church, was first organized in a similar manner, and raised to a similar relation to the state.

Commentators vary in their views of the kingdoms whose kings are denoted by the ten horns, and the period of the wild beast's emergence from the sea. Its emergence took place doubtless at the moment of the formation of the last of the ten kingdoms, as the horns were seen with their diadems on its egress from the sea; and as was natural and is implied in the order in which they are mentioned, before the heads became visible. It is represented accordingly in the seventeenth chapter, that they received their power the same hour with the beast. The rule of the empire was reconstructed so as to be a counterpart to the wild beast its representative, when the territory being all conquered by the Goths and the Roman rule extinguished, its population was first distributed under ten separate governments. That distribution is assigned by Mr. Mede to the year 456, which is doubtless too early, as it was anterior to the subversion of the western empire by the Ostrogoths. Dr. Allix refers it to the year 486, which is too late, as it was ten years subsequent to the termination of the imperial power, and transition of the whole territory to the Gothic sway.

SECTION XXXII.

CHAPTER XIII. 11-18.

THE TWO-HORNED WILD BEAST AND THE IMAGE.

AND I saw another wild beast ascending from the earth. And it had two horns like a lamb; and it spake as a dragon. And it exercises all the power of the first wild beast in its presence. And it causes the earth, and those who inhabit it, to worship the first wild beast whose death wound was healed. And it works great wonders, so that it can even make fire to descend from heaven to the earth before men; and can deceive those who dwell on the earth, through the wonders which are given to it to work before the wild beast; telling those who dwell on the earth, to make an image to the wild beast which has the wound of the sword and lived. And it was given to it to give breath to the image of the wild beast, that the image of the wild beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the wild beast, should be killed. And it causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free and the enslaved, to give to themselves a mark on their right hand, or on their forehead; and that no one should be able to buy or to sell, except he who has the mark, the name of the wild beast, or the number of its name. Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding compute the number of the wild beast, for it is a number of a man, and its number six hundred sixty-six.

The land or earth when distinguished from the sea, denotes the population of an empire under a settled government, anterior to an invasion or revolution, as in the symbols of the first trumpet and first vial: and when distinguished, as in the second verse of this passage, from those who inhabit it, appears to represent its native population in discrimination from its conquerors. The ascent of this wild beast from the earth therefore, signifies that it drew its origin from the native population of the empire; not from the foreigners who conquered it, and erected the ten kingdoms out of its ruins. It was not the creature of the Gothic nations. It sprung not from their faith, their manners, or their policy. Instead, it was generated by the Latins, whom they conquered, and was the offspring of the corrupt faith, the infatuated superstition, and the impious ambition, with which that people had become infected before the subversion of their empire.

It had two horns, the symbols of a twofold monarchy or rule; and like a lamb's, apparently for ornament merely and defence,

not for aggression. But it spake as a dragon, an aggressive, carnivorous, insatiable, and merciless brute. It exercises all the power of the first wild beast; similar power as a civil ruler and tyrant of its vassals; similar power as an ambitious and lawless warrior; similar power as a usurper of dominion over the rights of God, and the obligations and consciences of its subjects; and it exercises that power in the presence of the tenhorned wild beast; cotemporaneously with it therefore, by its allowance, and with its sanction.

It excites the earth, the native Latin population, and they who inhabit it, the Gothic nations who became their conquerors, to worship the wild beast, whose death wound was healed. The introduction here, and the repetition in a subsequent verse, of this mark of the wild beast, denotes that the rulers of the empire, whom the people were excited to worship, were those who were represented by the head that received the death wound, and implies that their peculiarities were eminently congenial to the principles and passions of this two-horned wild beast, and that it for that reason desired to render them characteristics also of the new monarchies of the empire.

It works great wonders. It exerts acts and produces appearances that seem to be miraculous, and which it pretends are proofs that it enjoys the co-operation and sanction of the Almighty; as the descent of fire from heaven, by which their sacrifices were consumed, was a proof that the ancient prophets acted by his authority. By the pretended miracles which it works in the presence of the rulers of the kingdoms, it deceives the conquering nations into the conviction that it is truly a prophet of God, and possesses the prerogatives which it claims; and through the influence it thus attains, prompts them to make an image to the wild beast which has the wound of a sword and lived. As that beast symbolized a combination and succession of persons who were the legal rulers of the empire, and exercised its government; an image to that official and authoritative organization, must be a resembling organization in some other department of life; and the religious therefore, as that is the only one besides the civil and military, which the wild beast itself represented. An image is not of the same nature as that which it represents. It is only of the same form, and expressive of the same characteristics. This image is an image to the first wild beast under its ten horns. It is its cotemporary and rival therefore under the reign of the horns. The wild beast of which it is the image, is that wild beast under the reign of its seventh head. To prompt

the Gothic conquerors to make an image of that wild beast, under its head that received a death wound, was accordingly to prompt them to erect an ecclesiastical government or hierarchy, coextensive with their territories, and embracing a regular gradation of ranks, like the government of the empire under Constantine and his successors, founded on similar principles, and animated by a similar spirit. That involved an arrogation of dominion over the religion of their subjects, an adoption of the Christian religion as the religion of their states, and the union of their several hierarchies in one, and subjection to a common head; as those were the peculiarities that distinguished the rulers of the ancient empire represented by the seventh head, from those denoted by the sixth. Into the imperial hierarchy which it thus induced the Gothic nations to erect, it infused such power, such zeal, such ambition, and such a unity of purpose, that it acted as one gigantic individual, moved by its own inherent energies, and swayed by a single spirit; claimed an absolute dominion over the religion of those within its territory, and caused that as many as would not sanction its imperious assumptions, and submit to its sway, should be put to death.

And it causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free and the enslaved, to impress on themselves a conspicuous mark in token of their submission to its claims, and that no one can without that mark enjoy the right of property, or opportunity to gain a subsistence. That mark is the name of the wild beast in that form in which it subsisted under the head that received the death wound; or the number of that name. Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding compute the number of that beast, for it is a number of a man, and its number six hundred sixty-six. As the Greeks used their alphabetic letters as representatives of numbers, the letters of every name and word might be taken as signs of arithmetical numbers, as well as of sounds. To compute the number of a name, is therefore to ascertain the sum total of the numbers, which its letters in their arithmetical use represent. That that is the process enjoined, is shown moreover by the expression of the sum of the name, six hundred sixty-six by the letters x. §. 5.-chi, zi, and stigma, or and united. This number of the beast is the number of a man. It is the number of the distinguishing name of a family of men, a race or a nation, as Persian instead of Babylonian, or Greek instead of Roman; and is the name of that family or race, therefore, from which the nation drew its origin which the wild beast under its seventh head ruled; not of any of the con

quering nations over which after its emergence from the sea, the dynasties denoted by its ten horns reigned. It is the name of the beast after whose pattern the new structure is formed. That beast is the wild beast which had the death wound and lived; and that was that wild beast under its seventh head; first, because it is an image not of the ten-horned wild beast, when swayed by the horns, but to it; that is, cotemporary, of an analogous power, and a rival: and next because no other than the seventh head of the wild beast received a death wound and lived. A death wound by a sword, must have been an interception for a space by that instrument, of the imperial sway which that head represented, and institution of an essentially different supreme rule in its place; and under an appearance of permanency; but which soon gave way to a re-establishment of the previous head. But no such interception of the imperial government took place anterior to the elevation of Constantine, and no different form superseded through any considerable period, that which he instituted, or followed it after its final close. The shape into which he moulded the government, was its last, the one which it thereafter bore except during the short reign of Julian; and its seventh therefore.

What then are the great combinations of agents denoted by these three symbols ;-the two-horned wild beast; the wild beast whose seventh head received a death wound; and the image! All the characteristics of the two-horned wild beast are found conspicuously in the hierarchy of the Italian Catholic church within the papal dominions, and in no other succession in the Roman empire or the world.

I. That hierarchy had its origin in the ancient Latin population, not in their barbarian conquerors. Rome, its metropolis, was in Latium, the native seat of the people that founded the Roman empire, and was the capital from which it drew its denomination; and it had subsisted as a nationalized hierarchy one hundred and sixty-three years, at the final conquest of Rome by the Heruli, and full emergence of the ten-horned wild beast from the sea.1

II. It was invested by the kings of France in a subsequent age, with a civil dominion also over Latium and some of its other ecclesiastical territories, and thence became a twofold monarchy, answering to its symbolization by two horns; and the pope its head reigned over its political kingdom as its civil

1 The edict of Constantine, by which the church was nationalized, was issued in 313: the conquest of Rome, and emergence of the wild beast, took place in 476.

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