to futurity, and to whom all things paft, prefent, and to come, are equally known.

It is to be obferved that all the characters of this antichriftian power are not mentioned in all the prophecies, but fo many of them are mentioned in them all, and these unqueftionably the fame in fenfe though not in words, that there cannot be any doubt but that the fame power was intended in them all. These prophecies are that of the "little horn" in the feventh chapter of Daniel, called in the interpretation" a king, "or kingdom; that of "the king who did according to his will," in the eleventh chapter of Daniel, verse 36; that of the "man of fin," 2 Theff. ii. 3; that of the "two beafts," one of which rofe out of the sea, and the other out of the earth, Rev. xiii, and that of "the woman arrayed in purple and scarlet, "which fat upon a fcarlet-coloured beaft, Rev. xvii. 1.* To these

* After the founding of the fixth trumpet, till which the prophetical history proceeds with great regularity, an angel is introduced as descending from heaven, and exhibiting

these we must add the description that Paul

gives of the "laft days," 1 Tim. iv. 2. and

I

that in my text, and what the apostles Peter and Jude fay to the same purpose.

Thefe

to the apostle a variety of representations, in which the fame things feem to be defcribed, though under a variety of figures. But the angel had previously faid that "when the feventh angel fhould found his trumpet, the mystery of God would be finifhed, as declared to his fervants the prophets," meaning probably that the kingdom fo often announced by the ancient prophets would then be fet up.

Among these representations, which interrupt the account of the trumpets, mention is made of three" beafts," or perfecuting powers, of which one rifes out of the fea, another out of the earth, and a third out of the bottomless pit. The first of these, which has feven heads and ten horns, evidently reprefents the Roman empire, efpecially after its division into ten kingdoms, of which that of the popes refiding in Rome is one. For it is faid, "power was given to this beaft to continue," or rather " to make war forty and two months," which is the duration of the perfecuting power of antichrift.

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The

These prophecies, at least the principal of them, are evidently not copied from one another.

The fecond beast, which rose out of the earth, had "two horns like a lamb, and fpake like a dragon. He exercises all the power of the first beaft before him, he does great wonders, and deceives them that dwell upon the earth." He alfo makes "an image of the former beaft," and makes all men to worship it. His number is 666. This, therefore, can be no other than the pope, at first an ecclefiaftical power, and at length a temporal one; and therefore must coincide in part with the former beaft. His making an image of the former beaft, muft therefore mean his affuming his power, and mode of government, to which he makes all men fubmit.

The third beaft, which rose out of the bottomlefs pit, or the abyfs, which was of "a fcarlet colour, full of names of blafphemy, having feven heads and ten horns," can only fignify the firft beaft, as supporting the corruptions of popery, represented by the woman who fat upon him. Of this beaft it is faid, "that it was, and is not, and yet is, and fhall afcend out of the bottomlefs pit." It, therefore, did not exift, though

other. To appearance they are all equally original, and therefore, leading, as they do,

it was destined to deftruction, at the time that the apostle wrote. The feven heads of this beaft are faid to be feven mountains, which, therefore, muft mean Rome. Thefe heads alfo correfpond to the feven kings, or forms of government, under which Rome fubfifted, while the ten horns are the ten kingdoms which were to have power at the fame time with the beaft. This beaft, which rises out of the bottomless pit, is also said to be" the eighth" of thefe forms of government, and of courfe the papal. Confequently, the figures in thefe different representations are not free from fome degree of intermixture and confufion, and therefore a nice attention to this circumftance is not neceflary in the interpretation of this prophecy.

The term abyss may be fynonymous to fea, but, ftrictly speaking, it rather fignifies a hollow place supposed to be under both the earth and the fea. For in the twentieth chapter of the Revelation an angel is faid to have the key of this abyfs, and in it to fhut up the dragon or Satan, and out of this prifon, as it is called, verfe 7, he is to be Joofed at the end of a thoufand years.

to the fame conclufion, they tend to confirm one another.

1. The first character of this extraordinary antichriftian power is that it is a kingly one, or poffeffed of fovereign authority. This is clearly understood from the prophecies of Daniel, whose fourth beast with ten horns (chap. vii.) I muft here take for granted represents the Roman empire, the fourth in fucceffion from the Babylonian, which is exprefsly faid to have been the first; the ten horns being, as the interpreting angel fays (verse 24), "ten kings," or kingdoms, and that this fhall "rife after them," that it shall be "diverfe from them," and " fubdue three kings." In the eleventh chapter, the fame power is called" a king that doth according to his will, who exalts himfelf, and magnifies himself above every god." And fuch unquestionably is, and long has been, the papal power; the popes being as properly fovereigns, as any princes in the world, though of a very different character.

2. The feat of this power was to be Rome. For in Rev. xvii. 18, the woman feated on the fcarlet-coloured beast is faid to

be