and exactly. Next, though Rome certainly has been desolated in the most fearful and miserable way, yet it has not exactly suffered from ten parts of its own former empire, but from barbarians who came down upon it from regions external to it; and, in the third place, it still exists as a city, whereas it was to be “desolated, devoured, and burned with fire.” And, fourthly, there is one point in the description of the ungodly city, which has hardly been fulfilled at all in the case of Rome. She had “a golden cup in her hand full of abominations,” and made “the inhabitants of the earth drunk with the wine of her fornication;" expressions which imply surely some seduction or delusion which she was enabled to practise upon the world, and which, I say, has not been fulfilled in the case of that great imperial city upon seven hills of which St. John spake. Let us consider some of these points more at length.
I say, the Roman empire has scarcely yet been divided into ten. The prophet Daniel is conspicuous among the inspired writers for the clearness and exactness of his predictions; so much so, that some infidels, overcome by the truth of them, could only take refuge in the unworthy, and at the same time most unreasonable and untenable supposition, that they were written after the events which they profess to foretell. But we have had no such exact fulfilment in history of the ten kings; therefore we must suppose that it is yet to come. With this accords the ancient notion, that they were to come at the end of the world, and last but a short time, Antichrist coming upon them. There have, indeed, been approximations to the number, yet, I conceive, nothing more. Now observe how the actual state of things corresponds to the prophecy and to the primitive interpretation of it. It is difficult to say whether the Roman empire is gone or not: in one sense, it is, for it is divided into kingdoms; in another sense, it is not, for the date cannot be assigned at which it came to an end, and much might be said in various ways, to show that it might be considered still existing, though in a mutilated and decayed state. But if this be so, and if it is to end in ten vigorous kings, as Daniel says, then it must one day revive. Now observe, I say, how the prophetic description answers to this account of it. “The Beast,” that is, the Roman empire, “the
