manifest and bloody scourge of God now passing through the bestial kingdoms, penetrating the most secret hiding places, breaking down the refuge of lies, setting at naught the covenant with death, overthrowing the papal thrones, and breaking in pieces the image which the other beast had set up, all unitedly tend to bear Mr. Sharp out, to the full extent of his decis ve anathema against the hypotheses of former commentators. (101) Yet such is the darkness and difficulty, industriously circumfused around the prophecies connected with the computation of time, that probably further time must elapse, and events of still greater alarm come to pass, before his own system can be put upon the indisputable authority of a universal consent of the protest

(101) Remark of Mr Sharp upon p. 254, of vol. i "The character of the OTHER BEAST has been misunderstood by all commentators. St. John does not describe the man of sin that was to arise (after the imperial power which let, or hindered his rising, was taken out of the way,) as having two horns like a lamb;' for this mark relates to a very different character, viz. the setter up of the man of sin, on the throne of the dragon, viz, the OTHER BEAST. The Pope had not two horns, but only one horn, and that a little one. The true character of the other beast with two horns, has been much misunderstood by all commentators."

ant world, which is the voice from heaven, crying, yeyove," It is done."

It is no time now, however, for the idle servant to say as heretofore," my Lord delayeth his coming," for his coming in the figurative sense, is not only at the doors, but actually now present, and he hath vested himself already in the blood dyed garments in which he was prophetically seen coming from Edom, and treading the wine press alone in his anger, and trampling down his enemies in his fury. (102) "For he put on righteousness as a breast plate, and an helmet of salvation upon his head; and he put on the garments of vengeance for cloathing, and was clad with zeal as a cloak. According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay, fury to his adver saries, recompence to his enemies. To the Islands he will pay recompence, (103) so shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun." (104)

(102) Isaiah Ixiii. 1.

(103) Isaiah lix. 17.

(104) This seems not to have escaped St. John's notice, for in Rev. xvi. 20, in consequence of the seventh trumpe

The ingenious exposition Mr. Sharp gives of this prophecy of the 1260 years reign of the beast, rests upon a new idea of the other beast, which he substitutes in the room of that formerly adopted pretty generally; that by the other beast was meant the ecclesiastical hierarchy of the church of Rome, as by the first beast had been generally understood the imperial government. His opinion may be stated thus:-The Roman empire, by Constantine's removal of the seat of government from old Rome to BYZANTIUM, called new Rome, and afterwards (from the new founder himself) CONSTANTINOPLE, became divided into two branches, the eastern empire, and the - western. (105) Here then were two co-existing beasts, or despotic, tyrannical, and corrupt governments, so named figuratively in prophecy. The first beast, of course, was the western empire, whose seat of govern

sounding, the popish kingdom is rent by three factions, and the cup of the fierceness of God's wrath is given to Babylon and the Islands fled away, and had no more place in the popish sea.

(105) Mr Sharp says, the eastern empire was rendered another beast, by its separation from Rome during the wars of the Goths and Vandals,

ment continued at old Rome, and his characteristic ensigns answer to the city and people of Rome at that time, as described Rev. xiii. I, 2. He is particularly distinguished by his receiving from the original imperial dragon, (by reason of the decay and fall of that form of goverment in Rome,) his seat, (Tov egovov QUT8) his throne, and power, and a great (spiritual) authority, which naturally followed the metropolitan See of the empire, and so was the gift of the political dragon, but it was afterwards industriously wrought up to an incredible pitch of arrogance and blasphemy, by the wicked suggestions of the spiritual dragon. A still more remarkable distinction of the first beast is, that one of his heads (or governments) was wounded as it were unto death. This, as it is pretty generally agreed, was the extinction of the imperial government by the invasion and conquests of the Goths, MOMYLLUS AUGUSTULUS, the last of the imperial name, being expelled by ODUACER the Gothic conqueror. (106)

(106) Gibbon remarks it as a singular coincidence, "that this last of the western emperors of Rome, should have born the names of ROMULUS and AUGUSTUS, (in contempt nicknamed

It was also another circumstance, sufficient to clear the character of the first beast from all possibility of mistake, that bis deadly wound was healed, and both he, and the fountain of his authority, the dragon, were worshipped with wonder and adoration, and omnipotence was attributed to them. This is equally true, whether we consider the dragon here to represent Rome, (little less a goddess under the papal, than she had been under the pagan sovereignty,) or the old serpent, who was worshipped as truly at the shrines. of the popish saints, as ever he had anciently been adored at the altars of Jupiter or Apollo,

Momyllus and Augustulus). The appellations of the two great founders of the city, and of the monarchy, were thus strangely united in the last of their successors."

The hand of providence seems to have been in this, though apparently a trivial circumstance, the more particularly to mark this as the true ara in prophecy, when the beast received a wound unto death by a sword, that is, by the foreign power of the GOTHS. Many similar circumstances, individually of small importance, have thus been added to the most important prophecies, to give verification and notoriety to them.

"The vulgar æra of this event, A. D. 476, seems to have the sanction of authentic chronicles, though others say 479; the precise year in which the western empire was extinguished,