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This is sufficient evidence to show that the names of blasphemy were peculiarly appropriate to the wild beast rising from the sea in the day of the Apocalypse, and that no pope ever assumed the title of Deity, or compelled religious homage, to the same extent as the deified emperors of Rome.

Another feature in the character of the beast rising from the sea is his persecution of the Christian Church :—

"And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them."

"These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them."

Was this wild beast rising from the sea a furious persecutor of the Christian Church? Did he make war with the saints, and with the Lamb? The Apocalypse is written under the fires of this terrible persecution; and it is most remarkable that this persecution is the first systematic and organised persecution of Christianity. Orosius says, "Nero first persecuted the Christians by torture and death; and he commanded that in all the provinces they should be tormented with the like persecution."1 Tertullian-"Examine your records; there you will find that Nero was the first who persecuted this doctrine, when, after subduing all the east, he exercised his cruelty against all at Rome. Such is the man of whom we boast as the leader in our punishment."2 Eusebius--"Nero began to take up arms against that very religion which acknowledges the one supreme God he was the first of the emperors that displayed himself an enemy of piety towards the Deity." Sulpicius Severus says of Nero's reign, "The (Christian) religion was forbidden by the enactment of laws; and by edicts published, it was lawful for no one openly to be a Christian." 4

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Tacitus tells us in the well-known passage, that "Nero, in order to stifle the rumour of having set Rome on fire, ascribed

epistolam, sic cœpit — Dominus et Deus noster hoc fieri jubet.... statuas sibi in Capitolio non nisi aureas et argenteas poni permisit et ponderis certi." Suetonius, Domit. 13.

"Diocletianus. . . . adorari se jussit."— Eutropius, lib. ix. 26.

1 Historiæ, vii. 7.

3 Eccles. Hist. ii. 25.

2 Apol. 5.

4 Hist. Sac. ii. 28.

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it to those people who were hated for their wicked practices, and called Christians. These he punished exquisitely; nay, they made a mock of them as they perished, and destroyed them by putting them into the skins of wild beasts, and setting dogs on them to tear them to pieces. Some were nailed to crosses, and others flamed to death, and used as torches to illuminate the night. Nero offered his own gardens for this spectacle." 1 Suetonius, Juvenal, and Martial add their testimony to the same point; and the sacred writings themselves, especially the later epistles, abounding as they do with warnings against apostasy and consolations under trials, show that the times of Nero-the last days of the Jewish dispensationwere marked by the most severe and terrible persecution.

Let us pass on to consider the extraordinary prediction of Nero's violent death, which is recorded in the Apocalypse. St. John invites attention to it in the same way as our Lord used to call attention to any circumstance which he wished to impress particularly: "If any man have an ear, let him hear!"

"He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity; he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword." Here is an evident allusion to his own exile into Patmos, to the slaughter of the Christian Church, and to the retribution coming upon the tyrant himself.

Did this happen? We are told that human nature grew weary of bearing her persecutor, and the whole world seemed to rouse, as if by common consent, to rid the earth of a monster. Servius Galba, at that time governor of Spain, marches against Rome. Nero at once gave himself up to despair. He called, first, to a woman named Locusta, famous for poisoning, to furnish him with the means of death; he then desired one of his favourite gladiators to despatch himno one would obey; he then rushed to plunge himself headlong into the Tiber, but his courage failed. In this distress, one of his servants offered to conceal him in his country house, about four miles distant from Rome. He sets out with four servants; an earthquake gives him the first alarm, then the lightning from heaven flashes in his face. A traveller meeting him, cries out, "These men are in pursuit of Nero." His horse

1 Tacit. Ann, xv. 44.

taking fright at the terrific storm, he dropped the handkerchief with which he had concealed his face, when a soldier addressed him by name. During this interval the senate had condemned him to die, by being fixed in a pillory, and scourged to death. He was so terrified at this, that he set a dagger to his throat, and gave himself a mortal wound. He was not quite dead when the soldiers, who had been sent in pursuit of him, entered the house, and one of them pretending that he came to his relief, endeavoured to stop the blood with his cloak; but Nero, regarding him with a stern countenance, said, "Is this your fidelity?" upon which, with his eyes fixed, and staring frightfully, he expired. Such was the fulfilment of the prediction of the Apocalypse; "He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity; he that killeth with the sword shall be killed with the sword."1

Such are some of the historical confirmations of the characteristics of the beast rising out of the sea. There does not appear to be any necessity for having recourse to popes, canons, or councils, in order to present a solution of this portion of the Apocalypse. There is no occasion to say a word about the Inquisition, or Smithfield, or St. Bartholomew's day, or the massacre of the Waldenses and Albigenses. There is no imperative cause why a civil power, such as the beast rising from the sea evidently is, should be converted into an ecclesiastical power like the Church of Rome; neither can any reason be given,-beyond the gratification of that odium theologicum, in conformity with which the service for the 5th of November continues to be read in some churches, as the softest way, I suppose, of healing an old sore,-why the predictions of this book should be referred to the Papacy at all. But not to insist on this, I cannot help saying, that in no part of the Apocalypse have commentators of this school appeared to come so near the truth as in referring

"The immediate precursor of Antichrist, according to Lactantius, was Nero, and in this I believe Lactantius was right, and I have no doubt such was the general belief of the Church in his day. According to St. Paul, some one who then let or stood in the way was to be removed before the general persecutions commenced; and we know that Nero ruled when Paul wrote this...... Nero, too, was literally taken out of the way in an extraordinary manner, for he disappeared, no one knowing how or why.” — Lee on Prophecy, 237.

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these statements to Papal Rome. And there is this obvious reason why they must be nearer now than before, because Rome is now the legitimate scope of this prophecy. But when the question arises, Is it Rome of our day, or Rome of hundreds of years ago? Is it Rome of the time of Popes and Autos-da-fé, or is it Rome of the days of heathen persecution? Is it the Rome of Nero Cæsar, or the Rome of Pio Nono? Is it Rome Pagan, or Rome Papal? -That question is for ever settled by the aim and scope of the Apocalypse itself. Then and there (within the short limits which this system of interpretation allows) did a wild beast rise from the sea;- Then and there did he manifest his names and assumptions of blasphemy ; — Then and there did he, "as God, sit in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God; "- Then and there did he claim divine honours, and was publicly adored; — Then and there did this wild beast with his iron teeth break and devour all nations, till the whole habitable earth was under his power;

Then and there did this same beast commence the first furious persecution against Christianity, then did he punish exquisitely the followers of the Lamb, then did he make war with them, and earned, by many a deed of darkness and of cruelty, the unenviable distinction of "being the leader in their punishment; "Then and there did common report fix upon him the extraordinary rumour of being dead and alive, of being wounded with a sword and yet living, of having pierced himself, and of having recovered from his wound (I do not see to what else this can possibly be referred; and no thanks appear to be too great to him who has given so probable a solution of so great a difficulty); - Then and there did this wild beast who had driven so many into captivity, himself go into captivity, and he who killed with the sword was killed with the sword. I am not afraid of saying, this is simple, easy, and natural, and, what is more, it is suited to the age and date of the Apocalypse. It is a part of that interpretation which at the commencement I said should be found in a very brief interval of time, and which I have been able to present before you within that interval. I have endeavoured not to swerve from this principle. I have had no retrogressions, and no metamorphoses. I have not taken violent liberties with popes and emperors, and I do not possess a magic wand. Strange it is that when an inter

pretation can be found in every way suitable to those times, that commentators should travel so far out of their road for an interpretation reaching far away into distant centuries, and should introduce names and events which occupy a place in modern history as names and events in which the first readers of the Apocalypse would be likely to be interested. What possible interest could a Christian, living under the fiery persecution of Nero or Domitian, take in the Tractarian heresy? What comfort would it be to those cast to wild beasts at Ephesus to know that the Turks would batter down Constantinople? I do not think that even the prediction of the celebrated hail-storm which injured parts of France, on Sunday, July 13, 1788, would afford much satisfaction; or that they would fear the roaring of Leo X. against Luther half so much as the roaring of the caged monsters ready to devour them.

These things will not bear examination. The interpretation we require is one suited to those times, and to no other. If in the exposition now given there should be thought to be less similitude to Rome Pagan than to Rome Papal, I would still say, the exposition nearest to that day is the true one, and the one farthest from that day is the false one. With the secondary sense in which all this may be applied to Rome Papal I have nothing at present to do; I am only concerned with the first and obvious sense of these predictions; and I do most unhesitatingly assert, that if a contemporaneous interpretation can be found agreeing with the events predicted, such interpretation must, from the very nature of things, be the true one, and that all other can only be the mirage of the imagination, and the phantasy of the brain.

In the same vision in which St. John sees the beast, which we have explained to mean Pagan Rome, rising up out of "the sea1," he also sees "Another beast coming up out of the earth"

The sea is a figure constantly used in Scripture to represent the Gentile world. "The sea is come up upon Babylon" (Jeremiahı, li. 42.), explained in ver. 27.-" Prepare the nations against her."-"The abundance of the sea shall be converted to thee," illustrated by the Hebrew parallelism— "The forces of the Gentiles shall come to thee." (Isaiah lx. 5.) So Rev. xvii. 15. "The waters" are said to be "peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues," i. e. heathen nations. So "The sea (the heathen world) "gave up the dead that were in it." (Rev. xx. 13.) which is the same idea as

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