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the difficulties with which it is hampered, and because

it wholly violates the never-to-be-relinquished principle of homogeneity. p. 5.

III. Neither can the seventh head, running into and identifying itself with the eighth political form, be the Carlovingian Emperorship viewed as a distinct head from the Augustan Emperorship, as I once supposed. P. 7.

1. An objection, from naked matter of fact, urged against such an opinion. p. 8.

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2. If this objection cannot be obviated, the opinion must be relinquished. p. 10.

3. But the objection cannot be obviated. p. 10.
4. Therefore the opinion must be relinquished. p. 12.

SECT. II.

Respecting the rise and full of the seventh apocalyptic form of Roman government. p. 12.

IT is a naked matter of fact, that the Roman head or political form, of which the Austrian Archdukes, as Emperors of the Romans, were latterly the representatives, ceased to exist or (as St. John speaks) fell, when the dignity of Roman Emperor was abdicated on the 7th of August 1806: because, as no other prince assumed the abdicated dignity, it is therefore now no longer in being. p. 12.

I. It may be demonstrated, that the Carlovingian Emperorship, which expired in the August of 1806, was certainly a head of the Roman wild beast. p. 14.

1. This may be proved from its characteristic marks. p. 14. 2. It may also be proved from the very necessity of the thing. p. 16.

II. This point being demonstrated, we have next to inquire,

with which of the seven Roman heads the Carlovingian Emperorship must be identified. p. 17.

1. It cannot be the seventh head: because the characteristic of the seventh head is short continuance. p. 19. 2. Neither can it be the eighth form of Roman government : because the mode of its extinction, which we have recently witnessed, does not correspond with the predicted mode of extinction, which the eighth form is prophetically described as experiencing. p. 19.

3. Therefore, since it plainly cannot be identified with any one of the five earlier heads which had all fallen even in the time of St. John, it must be identified with the sixth head. Hence it will follow, that the Carlovingian Emperorship, like the Constantinian, is a continuation of the Augustan Emperorship of the Romans: so that the Roman Emperorship, whether Augustan or Constantinian or Carlovingian, is, in the eye of prophecy, one and the same sixth head or Roman form of government. p. 20.

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4. This was the opinion of Bp. Newton: and the event has shewn him to be in the right. p. 20.

III. A statement of the predicted characteristic marks of the seventh head. p. 21.

1. In its quality of a Roman head, it must, during some part of its existence, rule over the city of Rome. p. 21.

2. It must be a power of short duration. p. 21.

3. It must bear a title distinct from those of its six predecessors; because, otherwise, it cannot be distinguished from them. p. 22.

4. It must have sprung up, either in, or shortly before, the year 1806; in order that it may regularly succeed the fallen sixth head. p. 22.

IV. By an exact correspondence with all these characteristics, the seventh head is proved to be the Francic Emperorship founded by Napoleon Buonapartè. p. 23.

V. Through the recent violent excision of the seventh head or the Francic Emperorship, the Roman wild beast, which has no more than seven heads, has now become

headless.

headless. But, in the economy of nature, a headless beast must sink into a state of death. Accordingly, St. John, whose hieroglyphic is constructed on the economy of nature, has foretold the present condition of the Roman Empire under the imagery, of the wild beast being slain by a sword which mortally wounds one of his heads, and of his consequent non-existence as a single living political body. p. 25.

VI. Respecting the purport of the phrase death, as used by St. John when speaking of the Roman beast. p. 29.

VII. An inquiry, as to which of the Roman heads was mortally wounded by a sword. p. 31.

1. The head, to be so wounded, may be proved to be the seventh. p. 33.

2. The death, produced by this wound, has been shewn by the event to be not moral but political. p. 37.

VIII. An exposition, drawn from historical facts, of the prophecy, which foretells; that the seventh Roman head should be violently slain by the sword, and that in consequence the now headless beast should lie for a season in a state of death or political non-existence as an Empire. p. 38.

1. The seventh short-lived head or the Francic Emperorship was violently slain by the sword in the June of 1815. p. 39.

2. In consequence of the excision of the seventh and last head, all the six former heads having previously fallen, the beast became headless, and therefore sank into a state of political death or non-existence. In this state, we now, in the present year 1817, may behold him. For, since the fall of the sixth head in 1806 and the violent excision of the seventh head in 1815, no one of the European powers can be deemed the secular head of the Roman Empire. Hence, as an Empire, it is politically dead and exists no longer. p. 41.

SECT.

SECT. III.

Respecting the effusion of the fourth and fifth vials. p. 46.

CONSISTENCY requires, that we should adapt the rise and tyranny and excision of the seventh head to the general current of apocalyptic prophecy. p. 46.

I. In the series of the seven trumpets, the last of them, which introduces the third great woe, comprehends the

series of the seven vials. Hence, if the seventh trumpet has began to sound, the series of the seven vials must have commenced. p. 47.

1. The effusion of the first vial. p. 48.

2. The effusion of the second vial. p. 48.

3. The effusion of the third vial. p. 48.

4. These three vials comprehend and synchronize with the allegorical harvest of God's wrath. p. 49.

II. The fourth and fifth vials, which regularly succeed them, synchronize with and graphically delineate the entire reign of the short-lived seventh Roman head. p. 49. 1. The fourth vial describes the rise and military tyranny of the Francic Emperorship. p. 50.

(1.) A detail of the facts, which illustrate the accomplishment of the prophecy. p. 51.

(2.) The chronological arrangement of the rise of the seventh head. p. 53.

2. The fifth vial describes the decline and fall of the Francic

Emperorship. p. 54.

(1.) A statement of the general ideas, which are conveyed abstractedly and a priori by the terms of the prophecy itself. p. 55.

(2.) A detail of the facts, which illustrate the accomplishment of the prophecy. The fifth vial began to flow in the year 1808, when the decline of the Francic Emperorship commenced: and its stream was at its

height

height in the summer of 1815, when the Francic Emperorship was mortally wounded by the sword. p. 59.

III. A recapitulation of particulars, and an enumeration of the seven heads of the Roman beast which are now all extinct; so that at present the hieroglyphical monster, being headless, is in his predicted state of death or political non-existence. p. 67.

SECT. IV.

Respecting the rise and fall of the eighth form of Roman government. p. 70.

WHEN we have reached a certain point in a chronological prophecy; we are led, from the very necessity of the thing, to form a general idea of what is next to follow. Nor does this at all involve any presumptuous attempt to intrude into the office of a prophet, rather than to rest satisfied with the character of a mere interpreter. For, when it is foretold that such and such events are to happen; we must inevitably anticipate their naked occurrence, though we presume not to specify all the minute particulars of it. p. 70.

I. Now we have seen, that the entire duration of the Roman wild beast is divided into three successive periods : his existence, or the first term of his life; his intermediate non-existence, or the period during which he lies dead; and his reëxistence, or the second term of his life. Of these three periods, the first is past: and the second is now in actual lapse. Hence, without claiming to prophesy, we must needs anticipate the future commencement of the third. p. 72.

II. From such premises we are obliged to conclude (and our conclusion is, in fact, nothing more than the direct

assertion

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