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SUPPLEMENTARY DISSERTATIONS.

VOL. III.

B

DISSERTATION I.

Respecting the rise and fall of the seventh and eighth apocalyptic forms of Roman government and the effusion of the fourth and fifth vials.

SECTION I.

Preliminary Observations.

IN the Apocalypse, as all commentators agree, the Roman Empire, from first to last and under each of its various forms of government, is symbolized by the hieroglyphic of a wild beast having seven heads and ten horns. These seven heads are declared by the interpreting angel to represent seven kings or seven modes of political administration: and he asserts, that, at the time when St. John beheld the vision, five were fallen, the sixth was then in actual existence, and the seventh was future *. Now the form of Roman government, which existed when

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St. John beheld the vision, was the Imperial. Hence it will plainly follow, that the Imperial form is the sixth head of the symbolical wild beast: and hence it will likewise follow, that its five predecessors, namely Kings, Consuls, Dictators, Decemvirs, and Consular Tribunes, as they are enumerated by the Roman historians themselves, are those five heads which had previously fallen *.

I. Six heads then of the wild beast are identified with perfect facility; but it is not equally easy to ascertain the last; for, since it was future, when the apostle wrote, there may be a danger of mistaking for it a power with which in reality it has no connection; nor of course can it be certainly known, until it has actually arisen.

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The difficulty is increased by a very remarkable peculiarity, which St. John ascribes to it. When the seventh head shall arise, it must continue but a short time and, after it has disappeared, an eighth form of government is to spring up, which yet is to be the same as one of the preceding seven forms; so that the wild beast shall in reality have no more than seven heads, though, so far as chronological succession is concerned, the Roman Empire shall be under the domination of eight forms of govern

ment.

While the last of these reigns paramount, the hieroglyphical wild beast, we are told, "goeth into "perdition:" and his utter destruction, as we are

Liv. Hist. Rom. lib. vi. c. 1. Tacit. Annal. lib. i. in init.

after

afterwards taught, is effected in the great battle of Armageddon; when he sinks to rise no more, fighting at the head of a powerful confederacy of vassal sovereigns *.

II. Justly indignant at the tyranny exercised by the Roman pontiff, and perceiving that his seat was no other than the imperial city itself, protestant commentators long agreed in pronouncing, that the Papacy was that last head of the wild beast which was future at the time when the prophecy was delivered. They differed indeed as to the arrangement of the short-lived seventh form, but they were unanimous in determining the eighth to be the Papacy.

This interpretation however is radically faulty even in its very principle, to say nothing of the necessary incongruities which it produces in the arrangement of the seventh form. The wild beast represents a secular empire: and its six first heads all represent secular forms of government. Analogy therefore requires, that the last head should also represent a secular form of government; otherwise the homogeneity of the symbol is plainly violated †. But,

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* Rev. xvii. 10, 11. Compare xvi. 13—16. and xix. 11–21. The necessity of our strict adherence to homogeneity, in the interpretation of the seventh and eighth forms of Roman government, strongly appears from the language of Daniel respecting the eleventh horn of his fourth beast; which, like the seven-headed beast of the Apocalypse, undoubtedly represents the Roman Empire.

St. John

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