--"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