Dean Woodhouse, feeling the difficulty, conceives the fifth trumpet to have designated the Gnostic heresy, and the sixth, the Mahometan Invasion. But there is nothing in those predictions to justify our conceiving one of them to mean a religious controversy, and the other an open war. All the former chronological difficulties, too, lie equally against this conjecture. Pastorini, in his zeal for Popery, determined of course, that Lutheranism is the offspring of the bottomless pit, and that the "woe" was a denunciation of the Reformed. He even hazarded the calculation, founded on the double period of five months, or 300 years, that Protestantism would end in "fifty or fiftyfive years from the time of his writing," A. D. 1771; a calculation which lately revived his memory and his book, among those who could feel a pious interest in Protestant massacre in the year 1825. Time, the great interpreter, has shown the emptiness of the bishop's interpretation; and the remainder of his volume is valuable only as showing the absurdities into which an acute mind, for Dr. Walmsley enjoyed some mathematical reputation, may be betrayed by the rankness and blindness of Popery. The general misconception has arisen from the mention of the Euphrates. Not suspecting the typical application of that name, and of every other ancient name, in the prophecy; the commentators followed the example of Mede, in whose day the Turks were still the bugbear of Europe; who, of course, looked for them in the prophecies; and like every man who can be satisfied with a mere unconnected similitude, found the similitude he sought for. Note p. 138. The usual interpretation of the seven heads of the dragon, or Paganism, is, the successive forms of government in ancient Rome. But this is insufficient; for Livy's enumeration of kings, consuls, dictators, decemvirs, and consular tribunes, reaches down no further than to the capture by the Gauls, A. D. 364, thus omitting the Triumvirate, which yet was one of the most remarkable forms of the government. Tacitust names six-kings, consuls, dictators, decemvirs, consular tribunes, and triumvirs. By this reckoning the Roman emperors would form the seventh head; while the prophecy evidently marks the seventh as one existing at a remote period, and transmitting its authority directly into the hands of the Pope. But other difficulties occur. The heads in the prophecy are all crowned; where were the crowns of the republican governors of Rome? their possession of authority in the commonwealth is not enough to satisfy a symbol so peculiar. The heads all symbolise persecutors: where were the persecutions of the Republic? But a still stronger evidence is to be found in the language of the prophecy itself. The heads are distinctly. referred to the prophetic "wild beasts," the leopard, the bear, and the lion. The Apostle sees Paganism in its imperial Roman state, which is pronounced its sixth; and he is referred to the emblems of Paganism in the Jewish days for its five previous states. In all those states it wore a crown. Assyria, Persia, &c. were kingly. Its last head was also kingly, and the crown was laid on Charlemagne in Rome. The conjectural extravagancies on the number of the beast would make a long and erudite treatise. The mystical notions annexed by the Jews and Greeks to letters and numbers excited this fruitless ingenuity; and one of the most extraordinary circumstances in the subject is the variety of words which numerically * "Quæ a condita urbe Roma ad captam eandem." L. vi. c. 1. † Annal. I. i. correspond to the 666; O Nexnens, the conqueror, Antichrist, Favoεpixos, Genseric, the Vandal invader, &c. St. Jerome finds it in Evas, a serpent finder. It is in Bavadintos, the name of several Popes. Grotius finds it in Ovarios, a name of Trajan. It has been tried upon Luther's name, and found in the fabricated word Λούθερανα. And also in aĝovelos a Saxon, in allusion to his birth. Bishop Walmsley finds it in Maoueris, Mahomet. Mr. Wrangham in Axostatns, an Apostate; and among the latest conjectures is Βοννεπαρτη. The Latin names are still more numerous and equally useless. "Vicarius filii Dei."—"Ludovicus."—"Silvester secundus."-" Linus secundus."—“ D. F. Julianus Cæsar Atheus," &c. SeeClarke on the Dragon, Beast, and False Prophet. The Popish interpretations of the Apocalypse by Bellarmin and others have not been adverted to in this volume, for they are occupied in the hopeless labour of fixing on Pagan Rome all the descriptions and denunciations that belong to the Popedom. Boundless perplexity must be the consequence of so essential an error in principle; and the few Popish works on the subject seem to be unread even by their own communion. Note p. 161. The reader will observe the additional force which the system adopted in the present volume derives from the close connexion of the three epochs on which it is founded. The "1260 years" include the three: viz. the beginning of the Papal supremacy in 533, the end of its power of persecution in 1793, and the birth of the Inquisition in 1198, the 666th year from the beginning of the 1260. Each depends on its separate proof; yet if one of the three be proved, the whole are established. Note p. 283. The opinions of intelligent men at the time generally attributed the French Revolution to religious decay. "In short, to the errors and defects of Popery we cannot but impute in a great degree the origin of that revolutionary spirit which has gone so far towards the subversion of the ancient establishments of religion and civil government. The maintenance of opinions, unfounded on the authority of the Gospel and inconsistent with its purity, has given occasion to minds perhaps naturally averse to religion to reject the most valuable evidences of Christianity. By the abuses of religion such minds have been led into all the extravagancies of deism and atheism, of revolution and anarchy. They had not the discernment or candour to distinguish between Christianity and its corruptions. The conspiracy against the religion of Christ, which originated in those delusions, burst on the devoted monarchy of France.' (Bishop of Durham's Charge, 1801, p. 2, 3.) "When I myself was in France in 1774," says Dr. Priestly, "I saw sufficient reason to believe, that hardly any person of eminence in Church or state, and especially in a great degree eminent in philosophy or literature, whose opinions in all countries are sooner or later adopted, were believers in Christianity. And no person will suppose that there has been any change in favour of Christianity in the last twenty years. [He writes in 1794.] A person, I believe, now living, and one of the best informed men in the country, assured me very gravely that, (paying me a compliment,) I was the first person he had ever met with, of whose understanding he had any opinion, who pretended to believe Christianity. To this all the company assented. And not only were the philoso |
