kings;' i. e. kingdoms, the uniform sense of the term 'kings' in the style of the prophets.

The drift of the hierophantic angel is to inform the Seer, that heads' and 'mountains' were equivalent symbols, both denoting 'kingdoms.' By the woman's sitting on seven mountains, therefore, we are to understand that the Roman Empire, in its ecclesiastical form embraced within its limits all those ancient sovereignties which had constituted the heads of the Dragon in former ages, and which had successively yielded to the Roman arms, and been merged into constituent parts of its imperial integrity. As, however, the city of Rome itself was seated upon seven hills, there is in the image a simultaneous secondary allusion to that far-famed centre of supremacy. At the same time we do not hesitate to affirm, that the plentitude of the symbol is far from being exhausted by its application to the Capitoline, Viminal, Quirinal, and other hills, which constituted the site of the 'eternal city.' "We must not here forget," says the writer above-cited, "as a secondary event or coincidence of this prophecy, that the capital city of the Dragon's dominions was placed upon seven heads or hills. The Roman authors are full of that notion; and as if that circumstance were fatal, not only Rome was so built, but also Constantinople of the New Rome, sister to the former, was built on seven hills. This, I confess, is a kind of fatal coincidence; but yet the first intention of the Holy Ghost was not to express that, but that the empire of the Dragon should, in its whole extent and duration, as also the Beast his successor, consist of seven capital cities or monarchies; which is the true meaning of the seven heads, mountains, or kings. We may not imagine that the Holy Ghost would dwell upon so narrow a conceit as that circumstance of the building of the city, and neglect that remarkable one of the extent of the dominions; besides, that the exposition of seven

:

kingdoms destroys so trifling a notion of the seven mountains. There goes about another account of these seven heads, said to be found out by King James the First:that the seven heads were the seven kinds of government which have been in Rome from its foundation under the kings to the emperors and popes. This is mightily applauded by Du Moulin, followed by Mede, Jurieu, and who not. But we cannot acquiesce therein, both upon the account of the true signification of head or mountain, as we have explained and fully proved it; and more especially for the following reason:-that the Holy Ghost doth not use to call any government by any other name but that of kingdom, and so takes no notice of what changes might be made in the lodging of the supreme power in different hands, provided it remains in the hands of the same nation. It is still the same head though it should run through many more sorts of government. A king signifies the possessor of the supreme power, let it be lodged in one person, two, ten or more; and a head or capital city is still the same head, though its power be executed by a king, consuls, decemvirs or senate. For we must argue about the political body as about the animal. The changes that happen in the animal through the various nourishment it takes, or the different ages it goes through, are not wont to make us describe him with different bodies, heads or faces, (merely) because the appearance of these hath sometimes changed; so it is in the political body. Many revolutions may happen therein from within itself, but as long as the same polity is preserved in the same city, people and laws, without making any thorough or partial change of nation, occasioned by the force of foreign armies, it is the same political body, and the same head too, whilst it is held in the same place, and the laws of the government are issued from it. Thus we see that the changes of the ministry make no alteration of the head; and by

consequence that every such change makes not a new and different head."*

We have proceeded thus far in our explication of the symbol of the Dragon without appealing, in confirmation of its justness, to any express passage of holy writ. It will be proper, therefore, to ascertain how far the usage of the sacred writers in respect to this remarkable hieroglyphic, goes to authenticate the interpretation now given. In the seventy-fourth Psalm we meet with a plaintive lament of the Psalmist over the desolation and havoc which the enemies of Zion had wrought within the limits of the holy land, and even within the precincts of the sanctuary, the dwelling place of the name of the Lord of hosts. This is followed by an earnest prayer for the divine interposition, grounded upon the recollection of what God had wrought in behalf of his people in former days, of which the suppliant says, v. 12-14, 'For God is my king of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth. Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength: thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters. Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness.' This is an evident allusion to the overthrow of the Egyptian power when the Israelites were brought out and delivered from their hand. In the highly figured diction of the prophets the Egyptians are denominated dragons, and Pharaoh himself, their prince, styled Leviathan, the master-monster of the deep. cordingly the Chaldee Targum renders the passage, ‘Tu confregisti capita fortium Pharaonis,'-thou hast broken the heads of the mighty men of Pharaoh. The Leviathan is the great Dragon, as we find by Ps. 104: 26, 'There is that leviathan whom thou hast made to play therein,' where 4púxov-dragon is the rendering employed by the

Ac

Seventy. The term is in fact applied to any huge monster of the serpent kind, whether aquatic or terrestrial, as even the original Hebrew word for whale' is in some

cases rendered by the Greek term for dragon. As to the expression- gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness'—this is to be understood symbolically; for in that character flesh is used to denote spoils or riches ; so that the language points to the circumstance of the Israelites carrying with them into the wilderness the treasures of gold and silver of which they had despoiled their oppressors, both at the time of their departure from Egypt, and when their dead bodies lay scattered upon the shores of the Red Sea. Again, Is. 51: 9, 'Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon? Art thou not it which hath dried up the sea?' Here Rahab is Egypt, as has been clearly proved by Bochart,* and the Dragon is Pharaoh King of Egypt; strikingly parallel to which is Ezek. 29: 3, 'Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh King of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers.' From his being said to be an inhabitant of 'rivers,' and from the mention, v. 4, of his 'scales,' it is not without reason supposed that the dragon here alluded to was the Egyptian crocodile, and Bochart has remarked that the Arabians call the crocodile by the name of Pharaoh.† This circumstance however does not affect its symbolical import. In Ezek. 32: 2, the prophet resumes his comparison, saying, 'Son of man, take up a lamentation for Pharaoh King of Egypt, and say unto him, Thou art like a young lion of the nations, and thou art as a whale (Gr. os doáxov-as a dra

t Scheuchzer on this passage observes, that among the ancients the crocodile was the symbol of Egypt, and appears so on Roman coins. And to what could a king of Egypt be more properly compared than to a crocodile?

gon) in the seas.' If, however, we take the word to signify any large creature whatever of the serpent species, it amounts to the same thing. It still denotes a tyrannical persecuting power. In Is. 27: 1, it is remarkable that the same symbol is presented under a striking diversity of titles. In that day the Lord with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.'

Here we have one and the same thing denominated the Leviathan or Crocodile, the Serpent, and the Dragon. These,' says Lowth, are used allegorically, without doubt, for great potentates, enemies and persecutors of the people of God.' -The passage is thus paraphrased by the Targumist:-'In that time the Lord will visit with his great and strong and mighty sword upon the king who is magnified, as Pharaoh the first king, and upon the king who is elevated, as Sennacherib the second king, and shall slay the king who is potent, as the dragon in the sea.' These kings are called Dragons and Serpents, because enemies to Israel. Ps. 91: 13, 'Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder; the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet;' i. e. thou shalt bring thy bitterest enemies into subjection.

From all that has now been adduced in relation to the subject we infer, that the symbolical import of the Dragon throughout the Scriptures is that of a vast system of civil and religious oppression, perpetuated through a long course of ages, and which at the time of this vision, was embodied in the existing Roman Empire, the last in that series of despotic and Pagan powers which went to form the completeness of the draconic dominion. But at the period of the vouchsafement of these visions to John, the Roman Empire embraced within its limits nearly the whole of the then known world, as is evident from the words of the Evangelist, Luke 2: 1, 'There went out