SECTION XII.

Popery as blind now to her judgment, as in time past she has been to her sin, which drew it down.-Deceitful appearance of that religion in the sight of protestants.-The ferocity of her ancient spirit dormant, but not dead.-Christ's commandment of love, opposed to Antichrist's of cruelty and destruction.-Union with popery fatal to the peace of mankind in both worlds.—A shelter prepared for the servants of Christ, when be desolates the antichristian world by the predestinated sword.

THAT so monstrous an excrescence as the man of sin, in all his pomp and pageantry of impiety, should have grown upon the face of the christian church, with so weak and ineffectual an opposition, and distinguished as he has been in point of absolute fact, by all those circumstances with which his coming and long

reign was to be so notoriously marked, should nevertheless not have been known by the people to whom (in punishment of their sins) he is sent is a thing that must affect every reflecting mind with great astonishment, as it did that of St John. (Rev. xvii. 6.) It is a mystery to which there is nothing comparable, except the similar fact of our blessed Lord sustaining the office and character of the Messias amongst his own people, with all those signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds, ascribed to him in prophecy; and yet rejected by the very people who were eye and ear-witnesses to the indisputable facts.* And surely both these instances of an incredible blindness and infatuation, are as full proofs as can be required of the actual existence of that strong delusion that they should believe a lie, which is sent upon sinners who will not pay a proper attention to the evidences of the truth that are vouchsafed to them. It is both the natural consequence and, at the same time, the welldeserved punishment of their unbelief.

*Mat. xiii. 17.

Yet although Antichrist has actually so come, "as it was written of him," and that so many centuries ago, that the term of duration assigned to him is now well nigh run out, and the measure of his iniquities almost filled up ;-though he has "sat in scorners chair,”—and " in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God," by bearing the appropriate ensigns of the Deity, claiming his attributes, and his names, and usurping his headship over all, and exercising an authority superior to his yet the blindness upon his worshippers is such, that, like the jews, they cling to their error for better for worse, in prosperity and in adversity; and with as bigotted a zeal in the day of his judgment, as in that of his uncontrollable pride and power.

Their future fidelity to this god of their idolatry is however now about to be put to the test, and as Christ hath had his martyrs, so Antichrist hath had, and must still have his; and a severe retaliation of blood for blood, and persecution for persecution, is at hand. "He that leadeth into captivity, must

SS

go into captivity; he that killeth with the sword, must be killed with the sword." (Rev. xiii. 10.) This "day of recompences for the controversy of Zion," which St Paul calls the brightness of Christ's coming to the destruction of the man of sin, is fully come; if we can form any correct judgment from the prophetic calculation of the hour of the night,* or can truly "discern the signs of the times." "Wrath is gone forth from the Lord, the plague is begun," and the dreadful and sanguinary conflict betwixt Christ and the monster Antichrist, (the usurper of his throne and destroyer of his kingdom,) which is to shake the civilized world to its foundations,† is actually commenced, and far advanced in its fiery progress. The overthrow of the kingdoms of the antichristian empire, by revolutionary commotions of an unusual extent and formidable aspect, are but the beginning of sorrows," and the preliminary steps by which the deeply struck roots of popery are to be drawn out, and that great and unwieldy

Isaiah xxi. 11.

+ Isaiah xxiv. 20.

stumbling block taken up out of the way of God's people, and preparation made for the great sabbath of God, or seventh and glorious millenary age of the world.

This is that second figurative advent, or coming of the Lord, to avenge the quarrel of his church upon the antichristians; as his first was in judgment upon the jews. To this St Paul directs the faith and expectation of the true believers, by his prophecy of the man of sin, "whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and destroy with the brightness of his coming." "He gave them a king in his anger, and will take him away in his wrath."-" He will arise (on that occasion) to shake terribly the earth "will come out of his place to make inquisition for blood;" and the very earth itself shall rise up in judgment against the relentless persecutors of the innocent, she "shall disclose her blood, and no more cover her slain."* For what christian land is there in the world,

*Isaiah xxvi. 21.