But there is a great deal more. “There are even kings,” says the Spirit of God: “five are alien; the one is, and other is not yet come.” It is hard to doubt that these heads or kings here brought before us refer to the various forms of power which succeeded each other in Rome. Other beasts were simply said to have one head. The Macedonian might become four heads, and these evidently concurrent, not successive; but in, Rome we hear of seven heads, and these from the language of the interpreter not concurrent but successive.
The figure refers to the complete variety of political power that should characterize that empire. “Five,” it is said, “were fallen.” These were the previous kinds of power in Rome. “One is:” the sixth head was then exercising its rule. Thus the five fallen heads pointed to kings, consuls, decemvirs, military tribunes, dictators, or the like, which had been in Rome before, but had now yielded to the emperor. Although there was a shadow of consuls still kept up, as is notorious, yet the imperial head was universally known to be then in force. This is the one that “now is,” as we are told. But it is added that another was coming. “The other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.”
Here I still stand to what I hold to be an important, though negative principle in looking at the prophetic word: to understand it you do not require history. In general indeed the students of history applied to the interpretation of the prophets least understand prophecy. After all a conjectural opinion as to the meaning of these heads is no such great matter; nor does it really help in the interpretation of the chapter. Supposing the simple Christian believe that the five forms of power fell before the existing imperial one, what of importance can history add? He is not able to explain the details; he knows not the successive forms of power—what has he lost? Supposing he did name them accurately, what has he gained? He is assured on the word of God that there were five, though he may not know what their histories or their characters were. He does know what was of great importance—that a sixth form existed, the imperial line of the Caesars, as they are called and as everybody knew in John's day. Then he knows further that there was to be a seventh. What the seventh head would be is not here described; save that when he came, he must continue a short space. And what should we gather from this? That further minutiae are of no importance to the believer.
Whatever is of real value and for His glory God explains. Whatever is of no account in this point of view God passes by with the slightest notice or none. And so it is with these different heads of power, They are none of them explained. We are told the few words we have seen as to the seventh: no more than this was of consequence; and therefore the Lord gives us this fact alone in the case. “And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven.” Thus there was to be a most curious compound character in the eighth head. He would be, on the one hand, of the seven; on the other, he would be an eighth. This seems, to my thinking, to be explained by what we find in another part of the book: the wounded head of the beast was to live. The imperial power, as it was wounded to death, so it was to appear again. When it revived, it would be an eighth; but it was one of the seven, because there had been such a form of power in Rome once before.
Hence I do not admit that there is in general anything so difficult to understand in these symbols. The information given is plain enough if we are content with the word of God. It is when we leave the simplicity of Scripture that we fall into the by-path of speculation. For indeed we are in a wilderness-world, and where to turn we know not. But God has a way, though the vulture's eye sees it not; and in His word He has been pleased to reveal it, even Christ; and our wisdom is to hold fast to the way which grace has thus given us. Do we not need a way, if we are going through the wilderness? That way God alone can make known to us, or keep us in. But the way for us in Christ He has fully revealed.
As this is of immense importance everywhere, so is it, be assured, even in studying prophecy, just as much as anywhere else. To go from Scripture to history, in order to find the explanation of prophecy, is invariably an error. It may not always work out its worst effects, because he that wanders into history for this purpose may otherwise by faith keep fast hold of the word of God; and so far he will be preserved from evil. But the tendency of looking into man's account of the world to find the explanation of God's mind in prophecy is to abandon light for darkness.
Let me ask a question. How can history explain prophecy? It is evident that before history can be applied to the elucidation of prophecy, you must understand what the prophecy means; and when you know what it means, for what do you want history Is it to ascertain that God knew or spoke the truth? You have already what God gave it for, and ought not, if a believer, to take the ground of an infidel. No doubt what you discover in history, as far as it is true, must exactly fall in with prophecy. And this may be interesting—nothing more; but it must be evident to every one who reflects that, if we wish to be kept from fumbling in the dark, we must understand a prophecy before we can bring it into juxtaposition with the particular event we regard as its fulfillment.
For instance, take the beast before us. Supposing it is the question with me to whom or to what the beast applies here, how can history decide this? Am I to ransack all the annals of all times and all nations first? Or am I not to weigh the prophecy with prayer that I may know of what God is speaking? One man says, perhaps' it is the pope; another affirms Napoleon Bonaparte or his nephew. How am I to decide? First let me seek to understand the Scriptures about the beast with their context, and When I do so by the grace of God in my measure, this is what God meant me to get without going further and faring probably worse.
The truth is, that when God's mind is seized in Scripture, it will be found incomparably larger than question of popery or politics. He is occupied with the glory of Christ in heaven; if on earth, with Israel as the center when the kingdom is established by judgments on the Gentiles who now are allowed to rule exceptionally during the Lo-ammi state of the Jews. Hence what is described here is irreconcilable with men's thoughts. Take once more as an example the pope. The papacy may come in for a certain analogy, but is in no full sense the beast. It is not certainly for me to apologize for the papal power: none can justly insinuate that I sympathize with that monstrous imposture in any way. But the word of God ought to be dearer than all controversial objects; and although some may be keen enough Protestants, nothing justifies one in departing from the word of God, nor can any end consecrate an error.
The endeavour to find out the hardest things that can be found in the Bible, and to apply them blindly towards an object that you justly censure, is serious moral wrong. Whatever then the demerits of the papacy, the apocalyptic beast from the sea is really a quite different evil altogether, being the imperial power of the west in its last phase. It will be hardly disputed that the pope is an extremely diminished power now: is this honestly the lot of the little horn of Dan. 7? Judged by an imperial standard, there is not much resemblance between the two, as in my opinion there never was. The papacy never was anything politically, or at least territorially, but an inconsiderable power; whereas the beast here described is regarded as a commanding empire in the earth, and this of course Roman. But it clearly was when the Roman empire sunk into nonentity, weakened by the Eastern rent and its own corruption, and afterward extinguished by the barbarian hordes, that the papacy sprang up into a temporal authority no less than an universal episcopate. So far is the papacy from really answering to the beast, that it has only tome in during the non-existence of the beast. For the beast that was is not, according to St. John. Such is the true place and time of that strange incubus. Indeed the papacy is far more connected with the whore than with the beast, though I do not deny a sort of partial anticipation also. For I am not disposed to differ from the great and excellent men who, attached the solemn description of Babylon to the see of Rome during the latter part of the middle ages, and at the time of the Reformation. To my mind Luther and others who so used it were justified in the main. They were right in fixing the divine condemnation of Babylon on Rome, and this not merely as “the woman” but as “the whore,” which involves other features of guilt as already pointed out.
But the beast is the imperial power of Rome, and here in its last open apostasy and rebellion against God. The other powers had disappeared as empires. The beast is the only one that will reappear imperially before final judgment, after having passed through these different states. “The beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.” The last holder of that power, the last head, will display, I presume, the resurrection of the empire without and against God by Satanic energy, and in this condition it is doomed to perish forever under the judgment of God.
“And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings.” This is another most material point for understanding the chapter. “And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.” Now if we look back upon ancient and medieval European history, what do we find? First of all the Roman beast unbroken, without any division whatsoever into separate kingdoms. There was a breach that gradually widened after the setting up of Constantinople, as it was overtly occasioned by that rival metropolis. There were sovereigns who divided between them the Roman empire for a season, as we know, when that empire began to decline; but in the days of its comparative solidity and world-wide grandeur (as you are aware, at any rate during the Scriptural account of the Roman empire), it was an unbroken power wielded by an emperor. In the days of the Caesars it was invariably so. There might be a difference, as we know there was in history, between the Augustus and the Caesar; but I am speaking now of the emperor; and I say there was but one emperor during the days of the Users. Such was the earliest state. Passing over the changes or modifications that took place until the barbarians broke up the Roman empire, we find all changed when the empire was gone. “The beast that was” ceased to be, the new condition being briefly told in the words, “and is not.”
What was found then? The various fragments of the Roman empire were gradually settled into separate kingdoms. I am willing now to meet our historical friends as much as possible, and will not raise questions about “ten” by contending for nine or eleven. Let us suppose there were exactly ten in round numbers. If ten, we have ten horns or kings of the middle ages, but no such thing as the empire or the beast; that is, no corporate bond existed for these ten kings—no single power held a suzerainete over them all, so as to direct their united forces, and make them all to be parts of the great Roman empire. Such a state of things had not begun to be. But, mark, in the time which the prophet contemplates there will be this exactly. “The beast that was and is not shall ascend,” that is, the old corporate bond of an emperor to control and lead all that once formed the beast, or properly Roman part of the empire, in short the west or western powers. The east appears not in the beast, as here looked at, for reasons that need not be entered into now. It is the strictly Roman part of the empire. The gold, the silver, and the brass are not spoken of here, but only the iron and clay, if we may speak in the language of Nebuchadnezzar's vision.
[W. K.]
(Continued from page 338)
(To be continued)