from every quarter of the world, who were associated in their stead with the patriarchs and prophets in the kingdom of heaven.There is at this time, when we are arrived at the end of the first of the prophetic periods, and great events have taken place, and greater are upon the eve of accomplishment, a similar very general and strong expectation in the minds of the protestant witnesses, while they stand by and behold the scourging of the foul adulteress; (92) the prelude to her utter destruction, and to the SECOND EXODUS of the Jews, and the opening of the MILLEN

NIUM.

The Papists seem equally in darkness, while all the world. besides is entering into the true sense of the prophecies of these times. Suffering under "the rod of correction which the Lord hath laid heavily upon them," they see not the peculiarity of their situation; but their kingdom is now overshadowed with a darkness fatal to it, and the victims of delusion are every where pull. ing destruction upon their own heads with their own hands, (92) Ezekiel xvi. 41.

SECTION XLV.

General misapprehension of the true character of the OTHER BEAST :-corrected by the introduction of a new OTHER BEAST.-Fall of the sixth head, or imperial power at Rome.-A living Image of it set up by Justinian.-Coincidence of his character with the apocalyptic other Beast. The Roman Empire a double Beast.-The marks of character peculiar to each Beast.-The bestial character and nature common to both.

FROM the present situation of Europe, as well as the strong and general presentiment of great and speedily approaching revolutions to a much wider extent, there seems to be very just grounds for the learned Mr. Sharp's remark upon my exposition of the apocalyptic beast, and the period from whence his reign is to be dated. That "all the dates hitherto assigned by commentators are wrong, and their mistake is owing to the general mis

apprehension of the true character of the second beast, (93) which is necessary to be otherwise understood than it generally has been, to bring us down to the time in which we have recently seen a final period put to it,” by an imperial decree.

That this expectation is founded in truth, and the reckoning of this first prophetic period really expired, we have evidence in the continued wonders of the last twenty years, and particularly in the dissolution of the holy Roman empire, and end of the reign of the Pope as the image of the beast, and a temporal born, though a little one, in respect of the small extent of his territorial dominions. This exactly corresponds with the plague of darkness, which was poured upon the very "seat of the beast," (94) that had been given up to him by his predecessor the DRAGON, with great authority (in spiritual pretensions), though in

(93) Mr Sharp more properly calls him "the other beast,” as St John does in the original; the propriety of this will be seen when his true character is explained.

(94) exì Tov égovov, upon the throne, the same which had been the throne of the emperors of old Rome.

temporals he was but a little horn. For after this fourth vial, involving his whole kingdom in darkness, we hear no more of him as the living image of the imperial beast, but only as the apostate Pontifex Maximus, or false prophet. In that capacity he still presides at the head of the apostacy, and continues to be the bond of union to the several departments of "the great city," or antichristian heresy. This spiritual community, after his destruction, is split into three dreadful and fierce factions, which will do complete execution upon each other. (95)

The period of time introductory to these events, seems to correspond with the third woe, or "judgment of the great whore," by the pouring out of the seven vials of wrath, upon the unrepenting kingdoms of the beast, which would not hearken to the voices of the three angels warning mankind to flee out of the modern Babylon, lest they be involved along with her in the judgments long before predicted in this prophecy, frequently announced by God's witnesses, and in our time

(95) See note to p. 25. section xli.

actually taking place. Upon the sounding of the seventh trumpet (that is, during the time while it should continue to sound,) the whole mystery of God was to be finished; (96) and upon the expiration of the second woe, (or the ending of the power that had been permitted to the Turkish empire, successfully to prosecute its conquests against the christian name, in the degenerate kingdoms of the apostacy,) (97) it was proclaimed," the second woe is past, and behold the third woe cometh quickly." This intimated, that very shortly thereafter, the natural causes which were to operate to the downfall of the apostate church, would receive power to act, and that the beginning of her ruin might be traced from that time; and that it would proceed from little to more, and advance at last by rapid strides to a perfect consummation. Agreeably to this, it is in another place declared, that she shall have no secure resting place, nor any long cessation from torment, but shall be punished notoriously and visibly,

(96) Rev, x. 7.

(97) Rev. ix, 15,