THE TIME OF ITS RISE

We understand verses 10, 11, clearly mark the time. “He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword, must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints. And I beheld another beast coming up.” From the above verses we learn that the time when the two-horned beast first occupies a place in the prophecy, is when the first beast goes into captivity. Then John says, “I beheld another beast coming up.” Then the point of time where we may commence to look for a power to arise and fulfill the specifications of the two-horned beast, is A. D. 1798.TBUS 15.1

Whatever application we make of the two-horned beast, we must be careful to apply it to no power that has commenced its career this side of 1798; but to some power which at that very time was organized, and answered the description given in the prophecy. Here too is an objection to those theories which would apply the two-horned beast to Papacy re-established. They would locate the commencement of the rise of the power four years this side of the point where the deadly wound is given to the first beast; whereas we learn by the prophecy, that when the wound is given to the first beast, the second has already made a start, and is seen coming up.TBUS 15.2

This two-horned beast like all the other governments prophesied of in the Bible, is taken up by the prophet when it commences to be connected in some way with the people of God. To illustrate: the Pagan Rome power, (the dragon,) had its commencement at the building of the city of Rome, B. C. 752, yet it is not noticed definitely by the prophet until it conquers Judea, and establishes itself as a universal kingdom, B. C. 31. By these acts, the people of God were brought under its rule, and at the time of our Saviour’s birth, as we have already shown, it stood ready to devour him. So in the prophecy before us, John has a view of the persecutions of the church by the Papal rule, and is carried down to the point where this persecuting power is overthrown, and then as this two-horned beast begins to have to do with the church of God, it is introduced before us in the prophecy. The second specification of this power we shall notice, isTBUS 15.3