under the despotism of the Greeks, we again inquire into the fate of Rome, which had reached, about the close of the sixth century, the lowest period of her depression. By the removal of the seat of empire, and the successive losses of the provinces, the sources of public and private opulence were exhausted; the lofty tree, under whose shade the nations of the earth had reposed, was deprived of its leaves and branches, and the sapless trunk was left to wither in the ground; the ministers of command, and messengers of victory, no longer met on the Appian or Flaminian way, the hostile approach of the Lombards was often felt, and continually feared. The inhabitants of a potent and peaceful capital, who visit without an anxious thought, the garden of the surrounding country, will faintly picture to their fancy the distress of the Romans. They shut or opened their gates with a trembling hand; beheld, from their walls, the flames of their houses, and heard the lamentations of their brethren, who were coupled together like dogs, and dragged away into distant slavery, beyond the sea and the mountains. Like Thebes, or Babylon, or Carthage, the name of Rome might have been erased from the earth, if the city had not been animated by a vital principle which again restored her to honor and dominion." This, to a reader of scripture prophecy, must always have appeared extraordinary language; and it is curious to read the infidel historian's account of this revival of the vital principle in "the beast which was, and is not, and yet is." He proceeds, "A vague tradition was embraced, that two Jewish teachers, a tentmaker and a fisherman, had formerly been executed in the circus of Nero; and, at the end of five hundred years, their genuine or fictitious relics were adored as the palladium of Christian Rome. The pilgrims of the east and west resorted to the holy threshold; but the shrines of the apostles were guarded by miracles and invisible terrors; and it was not without fear that the pious Catholic approached the object of his worship. It was fatal to touch, it was dangerous to behold, the bodies of the saints; and those, who, from the purest motives, presumed to disturb the repose of the sanctuary, were affrighted by visions, or punished with sudden death."* Rome evidently about this time becomes an object of an idolatrous attachment to the nations of the earth; in prophetic language, "all the world wondered after the beast." Confining our view to the "fate of the great city that ruleth over the kings of the earth," "seated on her seven hills," may not the date› we have been guided to, have given the beginning of her particular cycle * Sec Second Advent, Vol. II. p. 400. of twelve hundred and sixty years, from 584 to 1844 ? and may not this termination thereof be referred to that judgment symbolized in Rev. xiv. 8. And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication?" This is evidently a distinct judgment from that symbolized in the three following verses, which falls upon "them that worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark on their forehead or in their hand." The immediate instruments of the two judgments are different; of the former, John is told, Rev. xvii. 16, “ and the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire;" but of the latter-Babylon the great, in its extended sense, as including the apostate empire-the executor of the judgment is shown to be, HE that cometh as the WORD OF GOD, on the "white horse," "who treadeth the wine-press of the fierceness of the wrath of Almighty God." Rev. xix. What distance these two judgments are apart, we cannot say, but may conjecture, from the opening of the last mentioned chapter, that they are in immediate, or in no very remote, sequence. We find among the victims of this eternal judgment, not indeed, the woman that sitteth upon the beast, nor the image of the beast, -as explained above, the idolatrous city and the sacerdotal monarch of the Latin earth; but we still find with the beast, in the character of the false prophet, him that made the image of the beast and gave it vitality; for the false prophet that goes down alive with the beast into the pit of destruction, is identified in xix. 20, with the second two-horned beast that procured worship for the first beast, and made "for him" or "of him an image;" which second lamb-like beast, has been interpreted of the ecclesiastical state, now in a state of apostacy from the truth of the gospel, in their transactions with the Barbarian powers, and in their erecting the metropolis of the Latin Church into a spiritual monarchy. 66 It was in the reign of Justinian, as we have intimated, that the imperial authority of the Roman Cæsars was restored to Rome-"the wound by the sword,” as it were unto death," which the beast had received on one of its heads, was healed." In the struggle, on this occasion, and in the oppression that followed, the city of Rome was brought to that last debasement of desolation, the account of which has been transcribed from the historian. The reign of Justinian, in general history, certainly forms a new era in the destinies of the Roman world; especially on account of his legislative enactments and his new modelling the constitution of the empire, which afterwards supplied a precedent and a pat tern for the regulation both of the civil and ecclesiastical states, in the divided sovereignties of the Latin empire. The restored and new regulated government of Justinian afforded, in an especial manner, a model for the future spiritual monarchy of Papal Rome. In this point of view, among the crowned horns, the canonical government of the Court of Rome, was an image of the civil or temporal sovereignty of the restored empire, under its last crowned heads, before the kingdom was divided. This constitution coming into operation in the latter part of the sixth century, and continuing its sway among the Roman Catholic nations till towards the close of the eighteenth centuary, when it begins with violence to be exchanged for new principles of legislation and government, has marked a cycle of twelve hundred and sixty years, which, since its determination in the French Revolution, has escaped the attention of few commentators of the scripture prophecies.* It is very evident that Great Britain never belonged to the revived Latin kingdom, as a temporal state; and, therefore, I should conclude, that her monarchy ought not to be reckoned among the crowned horns which were in the head of the first beast from the sea. The traces of the second beast, we see but too plainly in her history, and most devoutly did she worship the image of the first beast. Long ago given up by the Romans, the Barbarians, that seized upon her, according to the common fate of the Continent, did not divide her as a part and parcel of the Roman empire. Neither the headship of Justinian, or of Charlemagne, or of his nominal successors, was ever once acknowledged in England; the civil law of the former was always strenuously opposed, and even the canon law was overruled by the common law and customs of the realm. Lastly, England is not numbered among those nations who speak, in their several dialects, the Latin tongue. I would willingly catch at the hope that Great Britain may not be involved in the general doom of Babylon, or of the fourth empire. But we must approach the fiery trial with very considerable apprehensions, as a nation!-The true believer in the Lord Jesus should have no apprehensions for himself; even if he is found in the midst of Babylon, a voice will be heard," Come out of her, my people."-But I speak as to the national doom of this great country, when the body of the fourth beast is given to the burning fire. Some nations, with their territories, as marked upon the present surface of the globe, we discern in prophecy, do come out of "the great tribulation,”-its " days" being "shortened" in mercy, -and we read of "ships of Tarshish," who are among the first to obey the mandate of the King of Zion, to gather what remains of his dispersed people. In prospect of the scenes so soon to be displayed, of what momentous interest is it to watch the public policy which nations will adopt! Three contemptible agencies-they are symbolized by frogs, marked as coming from the old sources, "the dragon," "the beast," and "the false prophet," we learn, are to go forth to the potentates of the earth to arrange them in opposition to the rising interest of the Son of man. These three "unclean spirits," "spirits of devilsworking miracles"-or shewing great wonders, shall they prevail with Great Britain, to join with the kings of the earth and of the whole world, in making war against the Lamb? What these three last delusions are, which derived severally from the dragon, the beast and the false prophet, are to influence the policy of nations, is now become pretty manifest on the transactions of public life, which are before us. Will Great Britain as a nation, listen to those counsellors whose clamorous voice is already heard in her public assemblies, demanding the exclusion of all consideration of revealed religion in her institutions of government, or in her public measures: revilers of all the public ordinances of divine worship, mockers of the Christian's hope,-breathing forth envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness, on the slightest occasions," self willed," "despising government," fond of bringing "railing accusations""they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities!"-and are there "many" among the professors Of the beast, whose deadly wound was healed, which "rose up out of the sea," as described in Rev. xiii. it is said, " power was given him to continue forty and two months;" if we date this period from the final triumph of Justinian's arms over the Goths, whose sword it was that had wounded the head of the beast "as it were unto death," chronology assigns for this event A. D. 553. The cycle of twelve hundred and sixty completed from this date, brings us to A. D. 1813. This year, and the following, we shall observe with astonishment, points to the fall of Buonaparte, and the failure of the greatest combination of the military powers of the western or Latin empire, perhaps ever witnessed. He had seized the nominal dignity of Emperor, but his real power was the infiuence which he had won over the crowned horns of the beast, which were in his head. This was, indeed, an important epocha. This we suppose to be the pouring out of the fifth vial. We know not where, now, to point out distinctly the Holy Roman Empire and its nominal head, with its crowned horns, though it is “near at hand.” And from what follows, it is particularly to be noted that this cycle of the civil authorities of the Roman earth, dated from the healing of its sixth head, or the rising of the first beast out of the sea, and terminating in the year 1814, is thirty years before that grand epocha A. D. 1844. The importance of this period of thirty years arises from this, that in of religion who already begin "to follow their pernicious ways, by reason of whom the way of truth is evil spoken of?" Will Great Britain listen to those counsellors, who would have her government conducted on antichristian principles, like that of the "heads and horns" of the Roman beast,-patronizing the corruptions of religion for the sake of temporal conveniency, bartering in holy things, and "robbing God,"-" sacrificing unto the Lord a corrupt thing"-nor caring for the spiritual welfare of the poor of Christ's flock, who in their earthly pilgrimage are placed under their fostering care, exalting and magnifying the civil power, in whatever form existing, "above every god:"-refusing to withdraw the foot from the profanation of the sacred day,-making the plainest dictates of the word of God to give place to the political interest of the moment, or some scheme of commercial profit or national aggrandizement? I cannot but tremble at some things dropped by the Spirit of prophecy, when he pronounces the doom of ancient Tyre, and her splendid monarch, lest there should be something typical of the judgment of the great commercial nation of these latter days: who, too, as well as Rome, has been "a crowning city;" and "whose merchants have been princes, and her traffickers the honorable of the earth!" Will Great Britain, lastly, suffer herself to be again beguiled by that false prophet, who formerly taught her, by his lying wonders, so devoutly to worship the image he had made for the beast? He has not now a sacerdotal monarchy, supplanting the promised kingdom of Christ, to present to her as the object of her adoration,- these times, it may be, are passed bybut the same idolatrous religion remains unaltered, in all its anti-christian forms, and he can "sit lurking in the thievish corners of the street."-" He can fall down and humble himself," "that he may ravish the poor when he getteth them into his net;"-" that the congregation of the poor may fall in the hands of his captains." And there are many anti-christians who seem to combine in one spirit, though in varied schemes of doctrine, against the dignity or the office of the only Mediator, or making of no effect the most gracious revelation of his everlasting covenant! the last oracle, delivered to Daniel, after it had been told him, chapter xii. 7-sanctioned with an oath by "Him that liveth for ever and ever,” “that it shall be for a time, times, and an half; and when he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished;" he is again told, ver. 11, “and from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination of desolation set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days. Blessed is he that waiteth and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days.” If we may understand “the taking away the daily sacrifice and setting up the abomination of desolation," as applicable to the restoration of the supreme authority of the Christian or rather antichristian emperor Justinian; "the imperial Pope," as Gibbon calls him, and consider it parallel with Rev. xiii. 2, "and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat and great authority," it is singular to observe that the arms of the same desolator, on this hypothesis, who, in the year seventy of the Christian era, placed “the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet," in the holy place of Jerusalem, now, after a period of four hundred and eighty-three years, by his military occupation of Rome, sets up his banners for tokens of a more systematic abomination, blasphemy, and apostacy, in Rome, once faithful with the saints, but now giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons. A cause of desolation to that ancient metropolis, was this event, indeed. Five times in the struggle of his armies was Rome taken and retaken; famine, and pestilence, and earthquake, in a most uncommon manner, assisted the work of the sword ;* the weak protection afforded to "The triple scourge of war, pestilence, and famine," Mr. Gibbon observes, "afflicted the subjects of Justinian, and his reign is disgraced by a visible decrease of the human species which has never been repaired in some of the fairest countries of the globe.”—He thinks, in regard to the number exterminated, "one hundred millions, not wholly inadmissible." “Earthquakes,” the historian notices, "raged with uncommon violence during the reign of Justinian. Each year is marked by the repetition of earthquakes, of such duration, that Constantinople has been shaken above forty days; of such extent, that the shock has been communicated to the whole surface of the globe, or at least of the Roman empire. An impulsive and vibratory motion was felt: enormous chasms were opened, huge and heavy bodies were discharged into the air, the sea alternately advanced and retreated beyond its ordinary bounds," &c. At Antioch two hundred and fifty thousand are said to have perished. From A. D. 542 till 594, a most dreadful pestilence is recorded: "such was the universal corruption of the air, that the pestilence which burst forth in the fifteenth year of Justinian was not checked or alleviated by any differences of seasons. In time its first malignity was abated and dispersed ; but it was not till the end of a calamitous period of fifty-two years, that mankind recovered their health, or the air resumed its pure and salubrious quality. No facts have been preserved to sustain an account, or even a conjecture, of the numbers that perished in this extraordinary mortality. I only find, that during three months, five, and at length ten, thousand persons died each day at Constantinople; that many cities of the east were left vacant, and that in several districts of Italy the harvest and the vintage withered on the ground." It is somewhat singular, that the infidel historian chooses this occasion to introduce a philosophical disquisition (chapter xliii.) on comets. There were "signs," it should seem, "in the heavens above," as well as " on the earth beneath," on this change of the times and seasons! |