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him for xlii. months : moreover that power has continued to the present time. The nearer determination of this point is explained elsewhere.
Obs. 14. The non-being of the beast and the kingdom of Babylon are contemporaneous. — The prophecy plainly fixes each of these to the middle of the three divisions, of which the duration of the beast is made up. The beast raged vehemently after his ascent from the sea, until his kingdom became obscured by the vial of the fifth angel. But still a kingdom, though obscured, is a kingdom : and the beast, having an obscured kingdom, is still the beast. But at length matters came to such a pitch, that there W’as occasion for this saying (xvii. 8) : The beast teas, was the beast, that is, was reigning, and that too unjustly : and is not , is not the beast, does not reign, having lost that standing which it had when it arose from the sea : Why so ? Because the Woman is seated on the beast (xvii. 3), and the beast is subservient to her as a beast of burden; whereas the woman, rejoicing in her rule over the kings of the earth, sits as a queen (xviii. 7). In such a form is she brought forward upon the stage, under the third woe, after the rising of the beast out of the sea (xiii. 1), and of the other beast out of the earth (xiii. 11), after the affairs of the 14th chapter, and therefore after the pouring out of the vials, until the beast arising out of the bottomless pit (xi. 7, xvii. 8), having joined unto him the ten kings, shall suddenly destroy her.
Obs. 15. At that time especially will be brought to light the differ- ence, which there has never ceased to be , between Rome and the Pope. — Vitringa, Anacr. p. 756, has too slightly defined the difference be- tween Iiome and the Pope ; and therefore the Divine of Halle has with greater speciousness concealed the Papacy under Rome. We have shown a more ample difference in the Erkl. Offenb. pref. § ix. and pp. 689, 776, 777, and on the whole of ch. 17, especially p. 845 ; but since those things, which are there noticed in a scattered man- ner, are overlooked by many, we will in this one place explain the matter more distinctly and fully. When Rome is mentioned, even apart from the Pontiff, three things are spoken of, — the city on seven hills , the Church of Rome , and the Roman state. Is. Newton , in his Observ. on Dan., Guil. Suderman being the translator, describes the Roman state with such a meaning, as to interpret the three horns, which were torn up by the little horn, of the reduction of the Exarchate, of the kingdom of the Lombards, and of Rome and its Senate, under the power of the Pope. This opinion, which re-
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