ESSAY FIRST. THE SECOND BEAST. "And I beheld ANOTHER Beast coming up out of the earth." IT has been the custom of most commentators on the Book of Revelation, but especially of such as have been members of the Church of England themselves, so to interpret all the prophecies relating to Babylon, and to the two Beasts in that book, as if they belonged exclusively to the Church of Rome, or to the Pope, who is the head of that Church, and could not, by possibility, have any other application. *This, it must be confessed, is a most summary method, at the least, to get rid of them altogether, as having any reference to ourselves. The Church of Rome is as convenient a scape-goat here in England, as the Church of England, or any other professedly Protestant Church, can be at Rome; and the charge of idolatry, probably, as levelled exclusively c'est don. * Voilà le Pape c'est B le Wape encore -jours le Pape, are the words of the cloquent Bossuet - His line of Angue. in his Freative on the Apocalypse. -ment for exculpating Christian Frome, by making Pagan Prome his common Scapegoat, in order to against Roman Catholics, sits as lightly upon them as that of heresy does upon us. We, each of us, think that there must be some mistake in this matter; and, indeed, upon examination, I apprehend it will be found, that, as Protestants are not the only heretics, so Papists are not the only persons chargeable with idolatry, or with image-worship, in the world. We read, for instance, of certain persons in the Book of Revelation, who were persuaded, at the instance of the second Beast, to set up an image to the first one ; and though I am well aware that it has been the practice of most commentators, as I said before, to refer both these Beasts to the Church of Rome, yet I now come prepared to show cause why judgment should not pass upon her on both counts in this indictment, but why she should, at least, be acquitted of one. It may Le necessary for me, perhaps, to premise, that I have no particular partiality for the Roman Catholic Church; but that, on the contrary, as a church, I hate and abhor it, however much I may respect and esteem many individual members of it, as members of society at large. Nevertheless, I am unwilling to let my antipathies run, as many people do, into acts of flagrant injustice, by charging one church with all the sins of all the churches in Christendom, as if there were no other corrupt churches now in existence beside the Church of Rome, or as if the Roman Catholic Church had not sins enough of her own to answer for, both in the sight of God and of man, without making her responsible also for the transgressions of others. For my own part, I freely save his own Church, is therefore doing the same, thing for the Romanists, as he condemns in the Pro-se stands. (J.W.) confess, that I much prefer gross and palpable Popery to Popery in disguise; and cannot but consider that many Roman Catholics, like the woman taken in adultery, in the very act, are much nearer the kingdom of heaven, as being more open to conviction, than their hypocritical accusers. * Having premised thus much, with a view to acquit myself of any supposed predilection for Popery, I shall proceed at once with my reasons for thinking, that the second Beast, described in the latter part of the 13th chapter of the Book of Revelation, does not apply to the Church of Rome, nor yet to the Pope, who is the head of that Church. The first reason in order, though not in importance perhaps, is this: that this second Beast is described as another Beast; and that it is another, is abundantly manifest, both from its different origin (the one springing out of the sea, and the other rising out of the earth), as well as from its diverse description throughout. If, therefore, we suppose the first Beast to relate to the Church of Rome, which I see no reason whatever to question, and which I do not mean at all to doubt, we can hardly in fairness charge that same church with being the second Beast also. Otherwise it would not, in fact, be another, but one and the same Beast throughout; the Church of Rome never having changed her character so far as to entitle her to another, and an entirely different, description; nor, as far as I know, having ever made an image to herself. She was herself the one grand original, from which all these copies were taken. * " And I be held another Beart coming up out of the Earth". My next reason for thinking that the description in question does not apply to the Roman Catholic Church (and it is a reason to which I attach more weight), is founded on this remarkable fact, that this second Beast was not to arise till after the first Beast had received a wound, and did live; that is to say, till after the time of the Reformation, when the Roman Catholic Church received a deadly wound indeed by the sword of the Spirit, but survived it, notwithstanding, through the doctrines of devils again usurping the place of the pure word of God, as preached at that period. This second Beast, therefore, must be one of the nominally reformed churches, and it only remains for us to ascertain to which of them the description of it, as detailed in the passage already alluded to, best applies. Now this, I trust, in the following pages will be made most fully to appear, if not to the satisfaction of such as are interested against the discovery, to the conviction, at least, of all unprejudiced persons. * This brings me to my third and last reason, for supposing that this description of the second Beast does not belong either to the Church of Rome, or to the Pope; namely, that it attaches, with infinitely more propriety of application, in all its parts, to another Church, and to another head of that Church, much nearer home; insomuch that, if any one were going to write a history of the Church of England, from its very commencement in the reign of King Henry VIII., to its consummation in that of the second Charles; from its infancy, in the arms of this our first Reformer, to its * Our author seems to have been anticipated in his interpretation of this Second Beast, by a Puritan of Eliza12th's Reign; who dared to sell archbishop Whitgift, that he was a monster, Persecutor, a Compound of he knew not what, neither Ecclesiastical non Civil, like the Second Brash spoken of in the Revelations ? Neal; Part 1. ch. 8. ESSAY FIRST. J.W.) 5 maturity under the nursing care of that most religious king, if any one, I say, were going to write such a history, he could not do better, I conceive, than take this description of the second Beast in the Book of Revelation for a basis. So striking is the resemblance betwixt the two, that we may trace it in every feature. Let us look at a few of the most prominent particulars. The first thing that is said of this beast is, that it shall come up out of the earth, or a temporal power, as the first Beast sprang out of the sea, or a jurisdiction of a spiritual nature. Now this was manifestly the case with the ecclesiastical authority of King Henry VIII., who assumed the supremacy, by virtue of his temporal crown, in the same way as his predecessor, the Pope, had asserted it in his own pretended spiritual right, or as the successor of St. Peter. In this assumption of the supremacy, moreover, the king was mainly assisted by the two Universities, giving judgment for him in the matter of the divorce, as well as declaring for him in that of the supremacy itself. These, therefore, are called his two horns, and are likened to the horns of a lamb, because they professed the peaceful occupation of learning only, though they assisted this imperious monarch in arrogating an authority to which he was no better entitled than the person from whom he had wrested it. He is said to speak like a dragon, because in all his proclamations, issued as head of the Church, he adopted the language of persecution in its bitterest form. This he did, indeed, to all parties alike -to Papists and Protestants-to Roman Catholics and |