“five are fallen, one is” (I take this from the ninth verse, to be a direct present explication to the apostle), “the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.” This made the seven. One brief-lived head of the beast was to arise before the last, after the apostle’s days. The Spirit of God has not thought it material to give a special designation of this or the previous heads, as not in the present scene affecting the church or purposes of God, but merely identifying the beast, and not suffering the Church to be led astray. But there is that which is more distinctly noted, after all this is completed, and all that properly formed the beast is full:—an eighth head[1] (which is the beast itself—as arising directly from Satan’s power and influence) arises, which is yet of the seven, which is connected with and takes its place among the other heads and forms of the Roman Empire, but is also a distinct, definite power,
- ↑ I feel that probably this has passed—if we take the protracted course, in Charlemagne; if the closing scene, in Buonaparte, because the Roman Empire had been destroyed in its full character before Charlemagne; and his was a renewal of what was not: nominally it continued until Buonaparte, who, as the agent of the French Republic, broke it to pieces and renewed the Imperial power for a little season.
