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--"If any man have an ear, let him hear."--The beast is to be treated as he dealt with the victims of his cruelty. He is justly doomed to captivity and death. "The beast was taken and--cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone," (ch. xix. 20.) "Tophet is ordained of old." It was used by the prophets as a figure of hell. (Is. xxx. 33.) To this place, whence there is no redemption, this monstrous beast was to be consigned, as predicted by the prophet Daniel, (vii. 11,)--"The beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame."--In the protracted contest of 1260 years with this imperial power, "the patience and the faith of the saints" were exemplified. Faith and patience would be more severely tried in this case than in any other; as the period of persecution was to be of much longer continuance than any that had preceded since the beginning of the world. (Heb. vi. 12.) 11. And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. V. 11.--John "beheld another beast,"--therefore not the _same_, as many expositors strangely suppose. No one can have an intelligent understanding of this chapter unless he views the beast of the sea and the beast of the earth as _perfectly distinct_. As the former arose out of a revolutionary state of society, and was consequently more clearly marked in history, so the latter grew "up out of the earth" more quietly and gradually, like a spear of grass,--we "know not how." As this second beast of the Apocalypse is to act a prominent part in the scenery afterwards presented in vision to the apostle, and a correspondent part in actual history, and as it is called by different names and appears under different aspects, it is necessary that its character be closely inspected, so that its identity may be clearly ascertained. The description here given is very minute. One thing is very obvious,--that this beast of the earth is the confederate, the ally, and the accomplice of the beast of the sea. They act in concert. They had been thus represented in vision to Daniel. In the seventh chapter of that prophecy we have the beast of the sea, as here, with his "ten horns," (v. 7.) While the prophet narrowly "considered the horns, behold, there came up among them another little horn," (v. 8.) It has been already shown that these horns represent the kingdoms into which the Roman empire was divided, (v. 24.) Among th
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