rect elegance of Virgil's manner, and his fingular talent in working up an image, by juft degrees, to the precife point of perfection, may fatisfy us, that he had his reafon for going on, where we might expect him to ftop; which reafon can be no other, than that the feven bills were neceffary to complete his description of the imperial city [i]. To an antient Roman, the circumftance of its fituation was, of all others, the most auguft and characteristic; and Rome itself was not Rome, till it was contemplated under this idea. There was ground enough, then, faying, "that the name of Rome could not have pointed out the city more plainly.” But I go farther, and take upon me to affert, That the periphrafis is even more precife, and lefs equivocal, than the proper name would have been, if inferted in the prophecy. For Rome, fo called, might have ftood, like Sodom, or Babylon, fimply for an idolatrous City. But the city, feated [] Compare Æn. vi. ver. 776, &c. on feven hills, and reigning over the earth, is the city of Rome itself, and excludes, by the peculiarity of these attributes, any other application. Nor is it any objection to the remark, now made, that this city, whatever it be, is defcribed by another circumstance, not peculiar to Rome, indeed scarce applicable to it, I mean that of its being feated on many waters [k]. For these waters are not given as a mark of Rome's natural, but political fituation as the prophetic ftile might lead one to expect, if the facred writer had not taken care to prevent all miftake by affuring us, in fo many words, That the waters, where the whore fitteth, are PEOPLES, "AND MULTITUDES, AND NATIONS, AND TONGUES [7]. If it be, further, faid, "That the feven bills may, likewife, admit a fimilar conftruction from the frequent ufe of bills, as emblems of power, in hieroglyphic writ ing, and therefore in prophetic defcription," [k]. Rex. xvii. 1. [?] Ibid. ver. 15. the the remark is very juft: but then, unluckily, there is no fuch explanation of the seven bills, as we have of the waters, from the prophet himself; while yet it could not efcape him, that fuch explanation was more than commonly neceffary in this cafe, to prevent the reader from applying the feven bills to the best-known city in the world, then fubfifting in all its glory, and univerfally acknowledged by this diftinctive character of its fituation. Should it, lastly, be alledged, "That the explanation is fubjoined to the figure, for that the prophet adds immediately in the following verfe-and there are feven kingsmeaning, that the feven hills, juft mentioned, were to be taken as emblems only of feven kings;" I reply, that the feven bills, in the figurative fenfe of the term, bills, naturally fuggefted, and elegantly introduce, the feven kings; but that the former, nevertheless, are clearly to be diftinguished from the latter. For it is not faid-and the feven bills are feven kings-as it was before said -the L 4 -the feven beads are feven bills-butAND there are seven kings-plainly advancing a step further in the prophecy, and pointing out a new characteristic distinction of the feven-hilled city, arifing from the different forms of Government, through which it had paffed. The truth is (as Mr. Mede well obferves [m]) the feven beads of the beast, are a DOUBLE TYPE: first, they fignify the seven bills, on which the city is placed; and, then, the feven kings, or governments, to which it had been fubject; but ftill on those seven hills, for which reafon the fame type is made to fignify both: But, if the type had been defigned to carry a single fenfe, and kings had been that fenfe, as explicatory of bills, it had been very prepofterous to give the interpretation of the type, and then to interpret the interpretation, unless the expreffion [m] Septem BESTIE capita, duplex typus: primò, feptem montes feu colles funt, fuper quos urbs Beftic metropolis fita eft; deinde, feptem quoque, idque in : iifdem (quod unitas typi denotat) Collibus, Regum feu Dynaftarum fucceffivorum ordines. Works, p. 524. had had been fo guarded as to convey this purpofe in the most diftinét manner. As it is now put, there are manifeftly Two SENSES, and ONE TYPE [n]. On the whole, there can be no doubt concerning the great city on feven bills. It can be no other, than the city of Rome itfelf: In other words, the antichristian, is a Roman Power. Still, this Roman power, for any thing that hath hitherto appeared, may be a Pagan and Civil power. But III. The prophecies feem very clearly to point it out to us, as an ECCLESIASTICAL and, in name and pretence, at least, a CHRISTIAN power. To begin again with the prophet, Daniel. He tells us, that the Horn which fhall arife [2] The whole paffage in the original stands thus— αἱ ἑπτὰ κεφαλαί, ὄρη εἰσὶν ἑπτὰ, ὅπε ἡ γυνὴ κάθηαι ἐπ' αὐτῶν. καὶ βασιλεῖς ἐπλά εἰσιν — of which the following is the literal tranflation-The SEVEN HEADS are seven bills, where the woman fitteth upon them, AND are seven kings-Every one fees that the connective particle, AND, refers to heads, and not to bills, after, |