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'Yv^LIE«¥]MPTiI^SinrY-

^QQ?r

A CANDID EXAMINATION

OF THE QUESTION

18Et)etf)er ti)e lope of Eome

IS THE

<etttat %ntkf^u^t of J>ci:igtut:e.

BY THE LATE RT. REV.
JOHN HENRY HOPKINS, D. D., LL. D.,
BISHOP OF VERMONT.

NEW YORK:
PUBLISHED BY HURD AND HOUGHTON,
459 Broome Street.
1868.

Entered accordio^ to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by
John Henky Hopeiks, Jr., M. A.,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York.

M

r ^38
rrns

RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDQE :
STEREOTYPKD -AND PRINTED BT
H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY.

(e&itor*^ preface.

This little Treatise was begun in the Spring of the
year 1866, immediately after "The Law of Ritualism"
was finished ; but was not completed until the beginning
of the year 1867. It never received the last corrections
of the Author, who intended, before publishing his own
conclusions, to include a carefhl analysis of what has
been said both by Dr. Dollinger and Archdeacon Words
worth on the subject. But though not quite so full a
discussion as he might have made it, had his life been
spared, it will still be received kindly by his many friends.
It will be found useful in aiding Churchmen to carry on
our inevitable controversy with Rome with less of that
abusive rancor, so dear to some Protestants — a rancor
couched in Scripture phrases, which must first be per
verted from their true meaning, before they can be pros
tituted for the maintenance of a bitterness unworthy of
Christians. J. H. H., Jr,
BoKLEiGTON, Vermont,
Feast of Si. Bartftolomew, 1868.

Cable of Content?!.

^jntrobuttion.
St. Augustine^s Example in his " Retractations " — Error in
" The End of Contro'versy Controverted " — Acknoiuledgment —
Respectable Grounds for the Error — The Reformed Church of
England not responsible for the Error  Pp. j — 4
fhrjeft Cfjagtec.
Groiuing Degeneracy of Mankind — The Great Antichrist —
The Prophecy of Daniel— Rule of Interpretation — The " Times "
are Natural Tears — Groundlessness of the Protestant Interpreta
tion — The Reign of Antichrist to be Short — Reasons 'why the Pope
cannot be the Subject of Daniel's Prophecy — Similar '.'easons
bearing on the Latter Part of that Prophecy  Pp. 5 — 17
^econb Cf)agter,
The Prophecy of St. Paul — Reasons ivhy the Protestant Interpre
tation of this is Untenable — The Church of Rome not Apostate —
The Pope does not shoiu himself that he is God — The " Temple of
God" referred to is the Temple at Jerusalem — Meaning of "he
ivho no'w letteth 'will let " — This does not refer to the Western
Empire — The Pope does not iiiork Miracles  Pp. 18 — 31
€l[)irti Ctja^tor.
Principles of the Di'vine Administration — Lo've is the Highest
Duty — Love must be Free — Hence the liability to Sin could not

vi Table of Contents.
be wvoided — The Character of our Happiness depends on the
Character of our Lo've — Self-Love — Satan affd his Angels —
The luhole Uni'verse interested in the Contest — The Incarnation
and Redemption the highest possible motives to Lo've — The Uni
verse to see the Difference befween the Government of God and
the Government by Demons — Man's Submission to Satan is volun
tary — Early Tradition of the Duration of the World — Our
World the Scene of the Settlement of the greatest of all Controver
sies — Reason •why Satan and his Angels 'were not Annihilated — :
Reasons of Satan's Triumph in Antichrist — The Language of the
Apostle cannot apply to the Pope  Pp. 32 — 45
f ourtl) Ciiagtec*
Ihe First Beast — Reasons 'why this is not the Roman Empire —
Continuation of the Prophecy of St. John — The Second Beast —
The Protestant Interpretation of this is inconsistent 'with other
Prophecies — The Number of the Beast — It is the Number of " a
Man," not of a long succession of Men — Interpretation of St.
Iremeus not fairly quoted by Protestants — The Prophecy cannot
apply to the Pope  Pp. 46 — 54
f iftf) CJjajtcr.
Babylon the Great — Difficulties of the Protestant Interpretation
— Reasons 'why it cannot be Correct  Pp. 55 — 65
^ixt^ <Jtt)a3jter.
Bafylon not yet Destroyed — Its total Destruction to be "when
Israel is Restored — Repeated Declarations to this effect — Babylon
to arise into Greatness once more — British Survey of the Eu
phrates and Tigris — Hillah, a to-wn of 10,000 Inhabitants,
among the Ruins of Babylon — Letter of W. Ains'worth, Esq. —
Opinion of Dr. Layard — Probable Greatness of Babylon 'when
rebuilt  Pp. 66 — 75

Table of Contents. vii
, i§»ctent!j Cljagtec.
Babylon the Great is not Rome — Letter embodying personal Ob
servation — The Decay of Babylon gradual, not sudden — Its Site
still numerously inhabited — The Time of its total Destruction not
yet come — Babylon to be rebuilt — The Description of her Great
ness and her Ruin in the Revelation — Babylon a great Commer
cial Emporium- — -Commerce the leading Principle of modern Civ-
'lization — Summary of Reasonf •why these Prophecies cannot apply
n Rome  Pp. 76 — 82
The Defeat of Antichrist — The Nineteenth Chapter of the Rev.
elation — The Second Advent — The Binding of Satan — His
Unloosing — His last effort, and Destruction — The Reign of
Christ.  P/>. 83 — 8 j
l^intf) Cfjagtcr.
Opinions of the Fathers — St. Iremeus — St. Jerome — St. Atha
nasius — St. Ambrose — St. Augustine — St. Cyril of Jerusa
lem — Lactantius — St. Isidore of Seville — St. Chrysostom — St.
Gregory the Great  Pp. 86 — 1 1 1
€entf) €|)agter.
Weight of the Testimony of the Fathers — That 'which is first is
True — Jerome the only one 'who gives the name of Babylon to Rome
— His Motive for sodoing — Substantial Agreement of all — They
are entirely opposed to the Protestant Interpretation — Excuses for
the Protestant Error — Heretics frequently called "Antichrists"
— The Protestant Error very natural, under the Circumstances —
Our Standards of Doctrine perfectly free from any inculcation of
the Error  P/>. 1 1 2 — 1 1 7
<!EklJcnt!) Cfiaj^tctr.
Present Position of the Church — Retrospect since the Reforma
tion — Continental Reformers reject Episcopacy and a Liturgy,

viii Table of Contents.
the Apostolic Rule of Government and Worship — The Church of
England preserved both — The Continental Plan has already pro
duced more than a hundred different Sects — Mormonism, Spiritu
alism, and Infidelity — Growth of the C.hurch of Home in this
Country — The Reason of these Facts — The practical Administra
tion of the Roman System is in the hands of her Bishops — Ours the
only Reformed Church — Both Catholic and Protestant — Stands on
the Ancient Foundations — Her Unity and Order — Yet she puts
no Restraint on Human Liberty — Her Charity and Stability — The
Charge that the Pope is the Great' Antichrist 'withdra'wn — Other
Points of Controversy remain the same as before — Mutual Expla
nations cannot bring about Reunion 'with Rome — Sympathy 'with
the desire for Reunion — Our Lord's Prayer for Unity — Unity
preserved for eight hundred years — The Papacy caused the great
Schism between the East and the West — The Reformation caused
by the grooving Corruptions of Rome — Our more perfect Conformity
'with the Primitive Church  Pp. 1 1 8 — i ; 6

€torifti) €|)ajptcr.
Thoughts on the Reunion of Christendom — Our Lord's Prediction
of the Degeneracy of the Last Days — The Signs of the Times cor
respond — Religious Condition of New York City - — Truth not to be
sacrificed for Expediency — Yet Reunion is to be desired and prayed
for — The sublime Consummation certain, in God's o'wn Time —
The Primitive Tradition of Six Thousand Years from the Fall
to the Restoration  Pp. 127 — 130

€ijirteent|) C^a^ter.
Our Relations 'with the other Apostolic Churches — Our o'wn
Church 'Worthy of entire Confidence — Errors of the Oriental Church
— Bond of Spiritual Affection and Affinity — Errors of the Church
of Rome — Yet she has the 'whole circle of Revealed Truth —
Charity for the Church of Rome — Great practical Changes in the
Church of Rome herself — Candor and Justice due to the Church of
Rome in this Country — Possibility of further Reforms among Ro
manists  Pp, 131 — 13^

Table of Contents. ix
f ourtcenti) Cfjagtcr.
Our Relations 'with the Protestant Sects — They reject the Apos
tolic Government of the Church, and Liturgical Worship — The
Continental Reformers 'wilfully rejected Episcopacy — Their Min
istry cannot be ackno'wledged as Valid — Ackno'wledgment of their
good Points — Their Enmity against the Church — Puritan Perse
cution in Massachusetts — A Lesson of Charity — Charity for the
Protestant Sects  Pp. 136 — 140

f iftccntl) Cfjagta*.
No Scheme of Reunion to be thought of, but the Principles of the
Undivided Primitive Church — This 'was the Position of the
English Reformers — Not likely to be follo'wed either by Rome or
the Sects — Our duty is to preserve our o'wn Unity — The Angli
can Communion is a Church of La'w and Order — Our Isolation
— The Essential Points of Agreement — All Children of the same
Father,, by virtue of Faith, sealed in Baptism — Love for
All  Pp. 141 — 144

€j:tractsf from tl)e ipomtiie^.
With Notes and Observations  145 — 150

SlntroDnction.
The famous St. Augustine, who is justly styled the Prince
of the Fathers, set an admirable example of candor in his
" Retractations," where he frankly acknowledged that on sev
eral subjects treated in his former works, his mind had
afterwards adopted a different conclusion. If so eminent a
Master in Israel had occasion for such an avowal, how little
hesitation should be felt by a modern author like myself,
whose name, in comparison, is so utterly insignificant, when
an erroneous opinion, published long ago, is discovered to
be a mistake, calling for correction.
Nearly thirteen years have elapsed since the issue of " The
End of Controversy Controverted," — a work devoted to a
thorough discussion of the innovations which the Church
of Rome had brought in upon the primitive faith, as they
were set forth, with great ingenuity and address, in the well-
known book of Dr. Milner, called, " The End of Contro
versy." In revising and correcting those volumes for a fourth
edition,^ I found it necessary to omit a chapter, which I had
written in defence of the popular idea amongst Protestants,
that the Pope is the great Antichrist of Scripture. I had
adopted this opinion mainly from the Treatise on the Proph
ecies by Bishop Newton, and had no doubt, at the time, that
it was the correct view of the question. But on a subsequent
and full examination of the point, I became convinced that
I was mistaken. And I considered it a plain duty to with-
1 It is hoped that this Fourth Edition of The End of Controversy
Controverted — which contains many other alterations and corrections
besides the one here specified — may be issued within a year. —
, Editor. 1

2 Introduction.
draw, so far as my humble name was concerned, a charge
which I was no longer able, conscientiously, to sustain.
I am quite ready to confess, indeed, that this duty is not
agreeable to the natural love of consistency, which every
author, however unimportant he may be, would desire to
cherish. But in a writer on religious subjects, above all
men, the honest adherence to truth should be the great
principle of action, for he has a special account to render
before that divine Redeemer who is the Truth itself. No
man need feel ashamed because he once adopted a popular
mistake, and had occasion to change his opinion after a
thorough investigation. He ought only to be ashamed if
his pride of character should be allowed to prevent the
frank acknowledgment of error.
Notwithstanding, however, my matured judgment repudi
ates my former opinion that the Pope of Rome is the great
Antichrist of Scripture, it is but an act of justice to the
numerous writers on the other side that we should remem
ber the current of respectable authority in their favor.
Thus Gregory, surnamed the Great, as early as the sixth
century, opposing the ambitious claims of John the Patri
arch of Constantinople, expressly saith, "I assert confi
dently that whoever calls himself the universal bishop, or
desires to be so called, is the forerunner of Antichrist in
his pride, because he exalts himself proudly above others."
In the tenth century, Arnulphus, the Bishop of Orleans,
when sitting as the President of a Council, applied the term
Antichrist to the Pope of Rome. Fluentius, the Bishop
of Florence, in the twelfth century, taught publicly that
Antichrist was come into the world. Joachim, the famous
Abbot of Calabria, asserted the same fact, and added, that
Antichrist would be exalted to the Popedom. The term
was used currently in the Church of Rome itself, whenever
kings or cardinals were roused to resist the papal despotism.
And among the Waldenses, the notion that the Pope was
Antichrist became an established doctrine. It was no in-

Introduction. 3
vention, therefore, of Luther and the other Reformers, nor
of the Protestant authors who succeeded them. On the
contrary, the same application of this odious word was made
currently for many ages before their time ; and few mis
takes on any religious question could claim a larger num
ber of adherents, or be sustained by a more plausible course
of prophetic and historical interpretation.
But the admirable men who, under Providence, con
ducted the English Reformation, wisely abstained from
placing this charge among our standards of doctrine. "We
have questions enough of controversy with the Church of
Rome, independently of this ; and the interests of truth and
righteousness cannot derive any real advantage from an
addition which is incapable of a satisfactory demonstration.
I consider myself, therefore, as not only fulfilling my duty
to the truth, in the correction of an unconscious error on
my own part, but also as justifying the Church of England
in her omission of this topic, notwithstanding the provoca
tion received from the papal sovereigns, in the sixteenth
century, under every form of assault, whether religious or
political. In this duty, however, of correcting my own unconscious
error, the assignment of my reasons is properly included.
And therefore T have undertaken a considerable amount
of labor in preparing the present work, in order to show
why I have felt obliged to abandon my former opinion. My
attention was called to the subject by a little book which
was kindly given to me by one of my brethren, containing
" Eight Lectures on Prophecy," delivered in London, and
displaying much vigor and ability. In this, which is quite
a recent publication, and evidentiy from the Evangelical
School, I was surprised to find a clear denial that the Pope
is the great Antichrist. The common opinion was treated
as an absolute mistake, and as I had formerly adopted it, I
began at once a thorough examination of the question, the
result of which is here placed before the reader. As in all

4 Introduction.
other matters of controversy among Christian churches, my
appeal will be made first to the Scriptures, and secondly, to
the Fathers, concluding with a consideration of certain in
congruities which are necessarily involved in the contrary
hypothesis. And I trust that my friends, who have taken
so kind an interest in my reply to the work of Dr. Milner,
will not only be gratified to find the former error rectified
in the fourth and revised edition, but will also read with
satisfaction this essay on a subject which has not, for many
years, received any serious attention.

fim Cl^apter.
The Prophecy of Daniel.
It is a fundamental article of faith, among all Christians,
that the Almighty Redeemer of the world, who came to
suffer and to die for our rebellious race, and to inaugurate
His Church as His kingdom upon earth, will come again to
execute His final judgment, and banish all iniquity, and
reign forever over His saints, in the full felicity of immortal
life and joy. But this glorious consummation is not to be
accomplished until Satan has been permitted to display all
the resources of his subtle art and power ; and mankind,
misled by his delusions, have fully learned the awful char
acter of his terrible dominion, in order that the whole in
telligent universe may understand, through one experience,
the inevitable results of sin, and thus be protected, through
out eternity, from the recurrence of the same tremendous
rebellion against the gracious government of the blessed
Creator — their only true and rightful Sovereign.
The sacred Scriptures clearly predict, therefore, not, as
many suppose, a constantly increasing enlargement of the
Church, until it extends over the whole earth, before His
second advent ; but, on the contrary, a growing degeneracy
even amongst His professed subjects themselves, during
which the work of Satan will go on successfully, and pro
duce a general apostasy fi-om all real faith, and then culmi
nate in the appearance of that great Antichrist, who shall
assume to himself the title of God, claiming the highest
honors of divine worship, and inflicting the most severe

6 The Prophecy of Daniel.
and dreadful misery and wretchedness, far exceeding all
that had been ever knowrf before. This, however, will be
the last triumph of Satan, for the Lord will come — the
glorious Deliverer — and cast down the diabolical usurper,
and judge the world ; and thus establish His everlasting
kingdom of peace and righteousness, which sin and sorrow
shall invade no more.
Such being the general outline of the truth which these
pages are designed to prove from the only sure testimony
of the Bible, I shall proceed to the examination of that
testimony in its regular order.
There are many allusions to the reign of the great Anti
christ among the old prophets of Israel ; but the first clear
and well-defined prediction on the subject occurs in the
Book of Daniel, to whom the Lord himself gave so strong
an attestation, saying, " When ye therefore shall see the
abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet,
stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him under
stand:) then let them which be in Judaea flee into the
mountains." ¦*
The predictions recorded by this eminent prophet were
delivered to him after a remarkable vision, and an angel
was appointed to give an explanation of it, the first part
of which, so far as our present subject is concerned, reads
as follows : —
" Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth king
dom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms,
and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down,
and break it in pieces. And the ten horns out of this
kingdom are ten kings that shall arise : and another shall
rise after them ; and he shall he diverse from the first, and he
shall subdue three kings. And he shall speak great words
against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the
Most High, and think to change times and laws : and they
shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the
1 St. Matthew xxiv. 15, 16.

The Prophecy of Daniel. 7
dividing of time. But the judgment shall sit, and they shall
take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto
the end. And the kingdom and dominion, and the great
ness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be
given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose
kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall
serve and obey him." ^
That this is a prediction of the great Antichrist is ad
mitted by all expositors without exception. But Protes
tant writers generally assume that it refers not to an indi
vidual king, but to the long succession of the Popes ; and
that the phraseology of " a time and times and the dividing
of time " signifies 1260 years, during which the papal des
potism should continue. For either of these assumptions,
I am unable to perceive how the words of the prophet can
yield any real authority.
No rule of construction is more imperative than this,
namely, that where the same document repeats the same
phrase in different places, we are bound to give it the same
meaning in them all. Now the prophet Daniel employs
the word time to signify one year, and no more, in three
places, where the subject is the vision of Nebuchadnezzar,
the king of Babylon. The divine decree of insanity, in
punishment of the monarch's pride and impiety, was thus
expressed by the angel in his dream : " Let his heart be
changed from man's, and let a beast's heart be given unto
him ; and let seven times pass over him." And Daniel, in
terpreting the dream, repeats the phrase, and saith to the
king : " They shall drive thee from men, and thy dwelling
shall be with the beasts of the 'field, and they shall make
thee to eat grass as oxen, and they shall wet thee with the
dew of heaven, and seven times shall pass over thee, till
thou know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of
men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will." ^ That seven
times in these three places signify seven years, neither more
1 Daniel vii. 23-27. ^ Daniel iv. 16, 25.

8 The Prophecy of Daniel.
nor less, is doubted by no one. And therefore, when the
angel employs the very same language, in the time, times,
and the dividing of time, it is granted on all sides that we
are to understand one year, two years, and half a year.
Thus far there is no confiict among interpreters. But it
is evident that three years and six months would never suit
the notion that the Pope is the great Antichrist. And
therefore the advocates of this hypothesis understand them
to mean prophetic years, in which each day counts one year ;
and thus they extend the three years and a half to 1260
years, which began with the rise of the Papacy, and ended,
as they generally suppose, about a. d. 1792, at which time
the French Revolution gave a deadly blow to its authority.
For this, however, I cannot see that the sacred text fur
nishes any warrant. That a day is given for a year in many
parts of the prophetic writings is true. And seven days
(or a week) may properly bear the same signification. But
I am not aware of any passage in which a year is put for
360 years. Certainly when Daniel speaks of the Lord's
determination to " accomplish seventy years in the desola
tions of Jerusalem," ^ no one ever supposed that any other
period than seventy years was intended. Certain also it is
that the thousand years stated by St. John for the Millen
nium have always been understood literally, as the very
name Millennium., universally adopted, shows most plainly.
Equally certain it is that the seven " times," decreed for the
insanity of Nebuchadnezzar, were seven years, since no one
ever doubted it. Yet all these were cases of prophecy.
The result, therefore, to my mind appears very manifest ;
namely, that we have no scriptural authority in the Book
of Daniel for this favorite assumption. The " time and
times and the dividing of time," signify three years and a
• half: no more. We shall see, by and by, that this was the
universal interpretation of the Christian Fathers. The
great and final climax of wickedness and misery was, in
1 Chapter ix. 2.

The Prophecy of Daniel. 9
their judgment, associated with the reign of Antichrist.
But they held that the period would be short, in accordance
with the language of the Saviour : " Then shall be great
tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the
world, to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except
those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be
saved : but for the elect's sake those days shall be short
ened." ^
The same truth is intimated by St. John, in the Book of
the Revelation : " Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and
of the sea ! for the devil is come down unto you, having
great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short
time." 2
The prophecy of our Lord, I am aware, is usually under
stood to refer to the destruction of Jerusalem by the array
of Titus. Butit is allowed, by the best writers, that many
prophecies have more than one accomplishment, embrac
ing €vents that are remote, as well as events that are near,
when they resemble each other in their general character.
And it is hardly to be denied that the Saviour's prediction
may be justly taken in connection with the time of the fu
ture Antichrist, because He unites it in the same discourse,
with the period of His second advent : . " As the lightning
cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west ; so
shall also the coming of the Son of man be." ^
Seeing, then, that this is the only passage in the Bible
that fixes the duration of the reign of Antichrist ; that this
duration, in full accordance with the words of our Lord and
the Apostle, will be a short time, preceding the second
advent of the blessed Redeemer ; and that the phrase
adopted by the Angel and Daniel cannot be justly supposed
to signify more than three years and six months : it results
incontrovertibly, according to my humble judgment, that
the Pope is not the great Antichrist of Scripture. I am
1 St. Matthew xxiv. 21, 22. . ^ Rev. xii. 12.
5 St. Matt. xxiv. 27.

lo The Prophecy of Daniel.
as much opposed as any man to the usurpation, the corrup
tions, and the superstitious dogmas, of the Papacy ; yet I
cannot see how the Pope can be the subject of Daniel's
prophecy, not only for this, but for many other reasons : —
1. Because it would be absurd to assign three years and
a half to the dominion of Popery, which has already lasted
for more than 1260 years, and still retains its hold over half
the Christian world.
2. Because the prophet describes Antichrist as a hing,
which is the name appropriate to a 'political sovereign.
Whereas the dominion of the Pope is religious and priestly.
His own territory has never been called a kingdom, nor is
he ever addressed by the title of a king.
3. Because the prophet speaks of an individual, whose
reign should be terrible but brief. While the dominion
of Popery has had a succession of hundreds, continued
through centuries, and likely to continue, for aught we
know, for a long time to come.
4. Because Daniel saith, that the " horn " (which is ad
mitted to be the Antichrist) " made wax with the saints,
and prevailed against them ; until ihe Ancient of days
came." ^ But the wars of the Pope, whether they were
against saints or sinners, have certainly ceased for more
than two centuries ; and if we even admit that the word
" saints *' refers to the Protestants, it cannot be truly said
that " he prevailed against them." The result of the con
fiict was certainly, thank God ! quite the contrary.
5. Because the prophet declares that Antichrist " shall
speak great words against the Most High." ^ But the Pope
has always professed his faith in the old Catholic Creeds ;
and, however I must oppose the perilous additions brought
in under his sanction upon the pure system of the Primitive
Church, I have yet to learn at what time " great words
against the Most High " were characteristic of the Papacy.
The remaining portion of this eminent prophet's testi-
1 Chap. vii. 21, 22. 2 /^jy_ ^.gi-gg 25.

The Prophecy of Daniel. 1 1
mony is recorded in his eleventh chapter, and there we
read that " the King shall do according to his will ; and he
shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god,
and shall speak marvelous things against the God of gods,
and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished 
Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the
desire of women, nor' regard any god ; for he shall magnify
himself above all. But in his estate shall he honor the
God of forces : and a god whom his fathers knew not shall
he honor with gold, and silver, and with precious stones,
and pleasant things. Thus shall he do in the most strong
holds with a strange god, whom he shall acknowledge and
increase with glory  But tidings out of the east and out
of the north shall trouble him : therefore he sliall go forth
with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many.
And he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between
the seas in the glorious holy mountain ; yet he shall come
to his end, and none shall help him. And at that time
shall Michael stand up, the great Prince which standeth for
the children of thy people : and there shall be a time of
trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to
that same time : and at that time thy people shall be de
livered, every one that shall be found written in the book." ^
Here we have the conclusion of Daniel's prophecy about
the great Antichrist, and I proceed to the reasons why, as
it seems to me, it cannot be fairly applied to the Papacy.
1. Because the whole description sets before the mind
the picture of a royal warrior, " going forth with great fury
to destroy," and no allusion whatever is made to the re
ligious and sacerdotal character which properly belongs to
the papal jurisdiction.
2. Because the great Antichrist " shall exalt himself and
magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvel
ous things against the God of gods," which the Popes of
Rome have never done, and could not do with any consis-
1 Daniel xi. 36 to xii. i, inclusive.

1 2 The Prophecy of Daniel.
tency. For they derive their ofiicial powers from what they
hold to be the meaning of our Lord's decree in favor
of St. Peter, and their false tradition that this Apostle was
the first Bishop of Rome. This doctrine I hold to be a
great and grievous error, yet I have no right to suppose
that they have any doubt of its truth. I repudiate, most
strenuously, the whole figment of papal supremacy, and
every other portion of the modern creed of Pope Pius
IV., as likewise their last extravagance in decreeing the
immaculate conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. I
maintain, with entire conviction, the Articles laid down in
the standard book of our reformed Church, and I have not
the slightest sympathy with any Romish corruption.- But
all this does not warrant me to declare that the Pope, in
the language of the prophet, " exalts himself, and magnifies
himself above every god, and speaks marvelous things against
the God of gods." On the contrary, he rests his claims upon
the supposed ground of Scripture and tradition, and follows
his delusion in the persuasion that he is obeying the will of
the Almighty Redeemer.
Suppose the servant of an earthly king to be deceived
by a false document which he accepts as genuine, and to
commit many grievous errors, contrary to his sovereign's
will, while he thinks that he is faithfully endeavoring to
discharge his oflSce in accordance with the instructions of
his master : shall he be charged with exalting himself abov^
the king, and speaking marvelous words against him, when,
in fact, he constantly proclaims his allegiance to the mon
arch, and his duty of subjection, in the most open manner ;
and his worst faults may all be reduced to his reliance on a
forgery, which had no real warrant from the throne ?
For my own mind, this imaginary case affords a fair
analogy to the position of the Pope. He is deceived by the
false idea that the written Word of God, in connection
with tradition, sustains his assumption of authority. He
supposes, moreover, that tradition, of itself, should be taken

The Prophecy of Daniel. 13
as the " unwritten Word of God," and that the decisions of
the Church of Rome are as infallible as the Scriptures.
Under the influence of these enormous errors, he may go
awfully astray, as I am very sure he has done, and yet be
entirely guiltless of any intention to set himself above the
glorious Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, whom he con
stantly professes to adore. And in this view of the case, I
do not see how the prophet's description of Antichrist could
be justly applied to him.
There is no tenet of the papal system more revolting
to the enlightened Christian mind than the rule which
makes a duty of persecution. And yet our blessed Lord
saith to his Apostles : " The time cometh, that whosoever
kUleth you will think that he doeth God service." ^
And surely no mind can conceive a sin more awful than
that of the Jews, who condemned to the Cross the Lord of
life and glory. And yet, though nailed in agony on the
accursed tree, He made a merciful allowance for the delu
sion which Satan had cast upon their minds, and prayed
for them, saying, — " Father, forgive them ; they know not
what they do." ^
No one, I presume, will assert that the erroneous and
corrupt doctrines of Romanism can be compared to the
guilt of these wretched Jews ; and yet it is clear that the
dying prayer of our Lord was granted in favor of many
amongst them on the day of Pentecost, when three thousand
were converted. Now we cannot deny that the Church of
Rome may possibly be reformed, since we know that mil
lions of those who once belonged to her have been reformed
already. And if we have the mind and spirit of Christ, as
we must have or we cannot be true Christians, should we
not be willing to pray on their behalf in hope and charity,
— " Father, forgive them," since, through their blind con
fidence in their sadly erroneous system, they likewise are
acting under a delusion, and " know not what they do " ?
1 St. Jbhn xvi. 2. "^ St. Luke xxiiii 34.

14 The Prophecy of Daniel.
3. Another difficulty in the common Protestant hypoth
esis is presented by the manifest fact that the prophecy
connects the desolating work of Antichrist with the period
when the Jews shall be restored. For we read expressly,
that " he shall come to his end, and none shall help him,"
" and at that time shall Michael stand up, the great Prince
which standeth for the children of thy people." But that
time has certainly not arrived, and therefore the reign of
Antichrist is still future.
4. Our Protestant writers usually consider the state
ment of Daniel, that Antichrist " shall not regard the desire
of women," as being quite applicable to the Pope, because
the priests of the Roman Church are bound by a vow of
celibacy. But I do not perceive the force of this argument.
For if we understand the great Antichrist to be a diabolical
tyrant, devoted to war and blood, and spreading ruin around
him during three years and a half before the second advent
of the Saviour, it is surely a reasonable supposition that
he should have no time nor inclination to indulge "the
desire for women.'* An incarnate demon, exalting himself
as a god, uttering blasphemy against the Most High, " go
ing forth in great fury to destroy," could hardly be expected
to take pleasure in a dalliance with females. The language
of the prophet, therefore, only indicates another trait of
his savage and ferocious character, and certainly does not
express the habits of many among the Popes, if we are to
credit the statements of their own historians. For those
statements prove that men may renounce marriage, and yet
indulge, to a fearful extent, in the " desire of women.''
5. We come next to the declaration of Daniel, that " in
his estate shall he honor the God of forces : and a god whom
his fathers knew not shall he honor with gold and silver, and
with precious stones, and with pleasant things. Thus shall
he do in the most strong holds with a strange god, whom he
shall acknowledge and increase with glory." This passage
is interpreted by many Protestant writers as applicable to

The Prophecy of Daniel. 15
the multitude of Saints, especially the Virgin Mary, whom
the Pope worships, and whose shrines he adorns with gold
and jewels.
But I do not see how the text can be fairly understood
to warrant such a commentary. For the prophet speaks
only of a god, in the singular number, whereas, if he re
ferred to the Virgin and the Saints, he should have given
the plural, suited to very many. Moreover, we must inter
pret these words so as not to interfere with his other state
ments, namely, " that the king shall exalt himself, and
magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvelous
things against the God of gods, .... neither shall he re
gard the God of his fathers, .... nor regard any god : for
he shall magnify himself above all." When, therefore, the
prophet speaks of his honoring " the God of forces, a god
whom his fathers knew not, a strange god whom he shall
increase with glory," what other god should it be besides
HIMSELF ? Hence we read, " In his estate he shall honor
the God of forces," meaning, as I suppose, that the god so
honored was identified in his own exalted place and person,
— the god of forces, having an invincible army at his com
mand, — the master of the world, — seated in supreme
majesty, — a strange god indeed whom his fathers knew
not but exalted above all, — regarding no other god, and
speaking marvelous things against the Most High, —
adorned with gold and silver, and precious stones, and in
creased with all imaginable glory !
This appears to me the only consistent meaning, es
pecially when we take into view the language of St. Paul,
who describes the great Antichrist as "that man of
sin, .... the son of perdition ; who opposeth and ex-
alteth himself above all that is called God, or that is
worshipped ; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God,
showing himself that he is God." ^ Understanding the words
of Daniel, " in his estate," to refer what follows to Anti-
1 2 Thess. ii. 3, 4.

1 6 The Prophecy of Daniel.
Christ himself, the whole passage is clear of difficulty:
while the ordinary commentary presents a contradiction;
the previous verse declaring that he should not regard any
other god, while the next verse saith that he should honor
the God of forces, etc.
Here, again, however, I can pbrceive nothing applicable
to the Papacy. The Pope does not claim to be a god.
Neither does he call the Blessed Virgin Mary a god or a
goddess. Neither does he give to the Saints the honor due
to Deity. I hold the worship rendered by him to the Virgin
and the Saints in utter reprobation. I doubt not that his as
sumed power is a stupendous imposition, and I have shown
at large, elsewhere,^ the fallacy of its pretensions, and the
numerous evils which for so many centuries attended its
administration. But awfully corrupt as the papal system
may be, and much as it called for the duty of reformation,
I cannot see that the prophecy of Daniel is justly applied
to the Pope, as the great Antichrist, notwithstanding that
men, eminent for their talents and their zeal, have advo
cated that favorite Protestant opinion with so much inge
nuity and learning.
4. There yet remains a branch of this famous prediction
that ought to be noticed, before I close the chapter. For
the prophet declares that Antichrist " shall plant the taber
nacles of His palace between the seas in the glorious holy
mountain." This language admits of but one interpreta
tion. The glorious holy mountain can only be Mount
Moriah, on which the Temple of the living God had been
erected at His own command. There, between the Dead
Sea and the Mediterranean, Antichrist should plant the
tabernacle of his palace. From this we may fairly infer
what we shall find, in due time, to have been the interpre
tation of the Fathers ; namely, that the great Antichrist
should be a Jew, and that the seat of his empire should be
1 See T/ie End of Controversy Controverted.

The Prophecy of Daniel. 1 7
in the east, at Jerusalem. But both of these facts concur
in proving that the Pope is not the Antichrist. For the
Popes have all been not Jews but Gentiles ; and their great
" tabernacle " is not the Temple at Jerusalem, but St.
Peter's at Rome.

^econn Cl^apter.
The Prophecy of St. Paul.
The next prediction in the Scriptures, which clearly fore
tells the coming and the character of Antichrist, occurs
in St. Paul's Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, where
we read as follows : —
" Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our
Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto
him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled,
neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as
that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you
by any means : for that day shall not come, except there
come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed)
the son of perdition ; who opposeth and exalteth himself
above all that is called God, or that is worshipped ; so that
he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself
that he is God. Remember ye not, that, when I was yet
with you, 1 told you these things ? And now ye know
what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time.
For the mystery of iniquity doth already work : only he
who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.
And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord
shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall
destroy with the brightness of his coming : even him,
whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power
and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness
of unrighteousness in them that perish ; because they re
ceived not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.

The Prophecy of St. Paul. ig
And for this cause God shall send them strong delu
sion, that they should believe a lie : that they all might be
damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in
unrighteousness." *
That these solemn and awful words refer to the great
Antichrist, has never been doubted ; and I proceed to show
why I cannot accept the Protestant interpretation, which
applies them to the Pope of Rome. '
1. The inspired Apostle declares, that the day of our
Lord's advent will not arrive until there be a falling axvay
first. The original word here translated a falling away, is
dirooTao-ta, or apostasy. Parkhurst defines the Greek word
by its English derivative, which has precisely the same
meaning, saving only that the profane writers of antiquity
employed it to signify a local departure, as well as a depart
ure from a previous profession. The verb occurs in Acts
xxi. 21, where it is translated, " to forsake " Moses ; and
also in 1 Tim. iv. 1, where we read, that "in the latter
times some shall depart from the faith : " in both of which,
the meaning is precisely equivalent to that of our English
word apostatize.
When we turn to Webster's dictionary, we find that apos
tasy is defined to be " an abandonment of what one has pro
fessed, a total desertion or departure from, one's faith or relig
ion." Ajid an apostate, in like manner, is defined to be
" one who has forsaken the church, sect, profession, or party,
to which he before adhered."
Applying this unquestionable meaning to the language
of St. Paul, I consider it perfectly manifest, that the period
of the Papacy could not have been intended. ¦ For the
appellate power of the Pope was conferred on him by
the Emperor Valentinian in the fourth century, and his
title of Universal Bishop was conceded by the Emperor
Phocas in the seventh century; and at neither of these
times, nor, indeed, before or since, has there been any
1 2 Thess. ii. 1-12.

20 The Prophecy of St., Paul.
apostasy from the faith expressed in the CathoHc Creeds,
as it was held from the beginning, and is still held gener
ally throughout Christendom, in our own day.
That terrible event, therefore, the great apostasy, falling
away, abandonment, or departure from the faith, which is
predicted by the Apostle as the introduction to " the man
of sin," the Antichrist, is still in the future. And it seems
to me utterly preposterous to place it in the eighth century,
when the Second Council of Nicsea was deluded to give its
sanction to the worship of images. For this, however
wrong, was not a. falling away from the Church or the faith
of Christ, but a superstitious and erroneous addition to
what was held before, and what continued to be held with
out any consciousness of inconsistency. If a man contracts
a new and strange disease which produces an enormous
wen upon his neck, while, nevertheless, his frame continues
to exercise its proper functions, would any one presume to
say that he had abandoned his manhood ? If an American
citizen accepts a title of nobility from a foreign govern
ment, although the Constitution forbids' it, would that make
him an apostate from his country ? Or if a householder, in
habiting a complete and admirable dwelling, should choose
to dig in the midst a dangerous pit, and erect over it a
showy superstructure, would this authorize us to conclude
that he had departed from his home ?
The faith in Christ is divine, and is the only foundation
of the Church, as it is the only warrant of salvation. Every
human addition to it is superstitious and unlawful, and
therefore should be dreaded and conscientiously avoided
by the true believer. But such addition does not necessa
rily imply any apostasy from the faith itself, which may still
remain, as in the Church of Rome it does remain, in its
own divine authority. The Pope has never renounced a
single article of the Apostles' Creed. Neither has he ever
denied the inspiration of the Scriptures. His error has
been to add, by slow degrees, new articles of what he calls

The Prophecy of St. Paul. 2 1
faith, and thus to produce a dangerous compound, of which
the old apostolic truth is still a part, maintained in its
primitive integrity, while the rest is a corrupt result of hu
man delusion. But so long as the Church retains the faith
that is really divine, there can be no apostasy, because
there is no abandonment and no departure. The difference
is like that between disease and death. Superstition weak
ens and deforms the Church, but apostasy destroys it.
The great importance of this aspect of the case is obvious,
when we reflect on the fiindamental principle of the Ref
ormation. For the object of that vast work was not to
organize a new Church, but to cleanse and purify the old
and Apostolic Church, which had been planted in the be
ginning by saints and martyrs, but had become sadly de
filed by human error and corruption. The whole mass
of superstitious innovation, therefore, was carefully cleared
away, while all that was of divine authority was preserved
inviolate. The Reformers took for their model the Primi
tive Church, which was the true Catholic Church several
ages before the usurpation of the Papacy by which the great
schism between the East and the West was consummated.
The Church of Rome, so far as she had retained her orig
inal character, was regarded by our Reformers with due
respect. Her Liturgical worship, in large measure, was
continued. Her ordinations were esteemed valid ; and no
one denied that there were multitudes within her pale who
might be the heirs of salvation, not by virtue of the false
doctrines which she had unhappily adopted, but through the
blessing promised to the divine faith which she had never
cast away.
But all this was utterly inconsistent with the notion that
the Church of Rome had become apostate, and was the
seat of Antichrist. ' If the Reformers had really believed
this, they could not have relied on their episcopal succes
sion, nor have regarded the Pope as a true bishop, or his
clergy as true priests. Neither could they, with any pro-

2 2 The Prophecy of St. Paul.
priety, have called their work a reform, for the Church of
Christ cannot be a living body without the faith in Christ,
who is its Head. And to undertake the reformation of a
dead body would be a manifest absurdity.
2. I proceed, next, to the statement of St. Paul, that
after the great apostasy, " that man of sin " shall " be re
vealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth
himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped ;
so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing
himself that he is God."
I have already, in the previous chapter, set forth the
reasons why this description is utterly inapplicable to the
Pope. For Antichrist could not possibly show himself
to be God, while he repeated the Creed, which the Pope
has always professed. Morever, in his public documents
he calls himself " the servant of the servants of God," and
his highest title is that of "the Vicar of Christ" and the
" successor of St. Peter." True, indeed, it is, that he most
erroneously claims, by virtue of these titles, a certain su
premacy or paramount lordship over all other bishops,
and even over the whole world ; and in this he opposes
himself against their rights and privileges. But this is a
very different matter from opposing himself against God,
and exalting himself above all that is called God, and showing
himself that he is God. The " son of perdition," that dia
bolical Antichrist who shall do all this, is yet to come.
3. The temple of God, in which this demoniac enemy
is to sit, is supposed, by many Protestant writers, to be the
Church of Rome. But for this notion I can find no au
thority. The temple of God, according to the Scriptures,
signifies the building erected by divine command on Mount
Moriah, in Jerusalem. It was destroyed, indeed, by the
King of Babylon, rebuilt under the decree of Cyrus, and
again ruined by the army of Titus. Its site is now occu
pied by the Mosque of Omar. But it will be erected a
third time, when the prophecies are fulfilled which foretell

The Prophecy of St. Paul. 23
the return of the dispersed people of Israel. It is true,
however, that the word " temple " is applied to the Church in
a spiritual sense, and also to individual believers. Ye " are
built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets,"
saith St. Paul, •¦ Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner
stone ; in whom all the building fitly framed together
groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord" 1 And again
he uses similar language to the Corinthians : " Know ye
not that ye are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God
dwelleth in you ? If any man defile the temple of God,
him shall God destroy ; for the temple of God is holy,
which temple ye are." ^ The word " temple " is also applied
with reference to the Sacred Body of Christ, where He saith :
" Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."
For St. John saith that he spake of the temple of his body.'
And lastly, we read, in the Revelation, of the temple opened
in heaven.*
But it is evident that none of these could possibly be
the temple of God in which Antichrist is to have his seat,
and arrogate to himself the worship due only to the Al
mighty. It is absurd to suppose that he could astablish
his throne in the holy temple fbrmed by the souls of the
faithful ; and it would be blasphemy to say that he could
occupy the Body of Christ, or hold his state as God in the
temple of heaven. But these are the whole of the texts
in which the word occurs in any other sense than that
vrhich belongs to the temple on Mount Moriah. There
Antichrist shall have his seat, as many wicked ones have
had before him. There a wretched crowd, who have re
jected Christ, will bow down in abject idolatry at his feet,
as a present deity. Not in Rome, but in Jerusalem, will
be consummated this climax of audacious rebellion against
the Most High. And hence, we have here another demon
stration that this prediction cannot justly be understood as
applicable to the Papacy.
1 Eph. ii. 20, 21. 2 I Cor. iii. i6, 17.
' St. John ii. 19-21. * Rev. xi. 19.

24 The Prophecy of St. Paul.
4. The next portion of St. Paul's revelation sets forth
the intervening period before the appearing of Antichrist :
" Te know" saith he to the Thessalonians, " what with
holdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery
of iniquity doth already work : only he who now letteth will
let, until he be taken out of the way."
Our Protestant interpreters usually suppose, that this
refers to the imperial power of Rome, which stood in the
way of the Papacy until the destruction of the western
part of the empire by the inroads of the Barbarians. For it
was after this event that the Pope acquired his title of
Universal Bishop, and his secular dominion over that part
of Italy which formed the Papal States. And no small
amount of ingenuity and learning has been displayed in
the enumeration of the ten kings or kingdoms, into which
(as the ten toes of the image seen in the dream of Nebu
chadnezzar, related by the prophet Daniel) the Western
Empire was divided.
This is certainly an ingenious hypothesis ; yet I am un
able to perceive its proper bearing on the power of the
Papacy, If that power claimed to be a temporal dominion,
the imperial government of Rome might, indeed,- stand in
its way ; but that was not the fact. The empire had ceased
to be heathen, and had become Christian, three centuries
before the rise of Popery. The authority of the Bishop of
Rome was fully acknowledged by all the emperors of the
East, and the title of Universal Bishop, against which
Gregory the Great opposed himself so strongly as the
•' forerunner of Antichrist," was actually assumed by the
Patriarch of Constantinople, under the very wing of the
imperial power. This, of itself, proves that the downfall
of the Western Empire could not have been necessary to
the rise of the papal supremacy. On the contrary, the
real origin of the Pope's superiority lay in his connection
with the great city of Rome, which was the old metropolis
of the Empire, and the head of secular government, for
many ages. The dignity of the imperial throne was re-

The Prophecy of St. Paul. 25
fleeted on the chief ruler of the Church, and if Rome had
not been the seat of imperial power, it never would have
been the seat of Popery.
This is further evident from the fact that the Pope
extended his sway throughout Europe without any serious
obstacle from the power of kings, emperors, or princes.
Instead of being his enemies, they were his friends and
supporters for eight centuries together. And this is easily
understood, when we remember that there is no necessary
conflict between the powers of Church and State, when the
rights of each are correctly defined and fairly exercised.
There is only one aspect of the case which can be
assigned as a ground for the notion that the downfall of
the Western Empire was required for the rise of the papal
power. And this only concerns the possession of Rome,
and the petty States which belonged to the Pope's tem
poral dominion. It is true, doubtless, that the conquest of
Italy by the barbarian tribes, opened the way for the grant
of the papal territory, by the expulsion of the Lombards,
through the military force of Pepin, king of France. The
Pope had given his sanction to the usurpation of the throne
by Pepin, who had previously been the mayor of the palace ;
and the usurper repaid the debt by the gift of this temporal
sovereignty. But this has no necessary connection with the
assumed rights of the Papacy. And quite as little do
those rights rest on the supposed donation of the Emperor
Constantine. For no one can be ignorant that the Pope
founds his imaginary power to be the ecclesiastical ruler
of the world, on what he maintains to be the express word
of our Lord Jesus Christ to the Apostle Peter ; that this
Apostle is said to have been the first Bishop of Rome ;
and therefore, that every Pope, being the successor of St.
Peter, possesses the right to govern not only the Church
of Rome, but the whole earth, as the sole vicar of the
Divine Redeemer. This claim, however, was of a relig
ious and ecclesiastical character, and involved no secular

26 The Prophecy of St. Paul.
dominion. The Romanists do not pretend that any tem
poral authority was attached to it before the supposed
donation of the Emperor Constantine. All the proper pre
rogatives of the Pope exist, therefore, according to their
theory, by divine right, independently of his temporal lord
ship over the Papal States ; and they hold that the loss
of these, however it might be lamented on the score of
expediency, would have no effect whatever on the magni
tude and importance of his official and divine power.
The whole basis of this common Protestant hypothesis,
namely, that the fall of the Western Roman empire was
necessary to the claims of the Pope, is thus seen to be a
pure misapprehension. From the time of the conversion
of Constantine, Christianity became the established relig
ion of the West as well as of the East, and the growing
aggrandizement of the Bishop of Rome was so far from
being " let " or hindered by the imperial power, that it was
encouraged and aided by emperors, kings, and princes, as
a general rule, with few exceptions, until the sixteenth cen
tury ; and it is still an object of the most earnest solicitude
among all the monarchs who profess to belong to his com
munion, how to maintain the Pope in his ancient dignity :
so that he is one of the most important centres of political
interest even at this day.
Dismissing, therefore, as clearly untenable, this common
Protestant interpretation, let us try whether a very dif
ferent sense may not be found, which agrees with scrip
tural truth, and is in perfect harmony with the other
clauses in the Apostle's prediction.
And here, we must first rectify the translation, which
does not fairly express the language of St. Paul. The
original Greek is as fbllows : — To yap i^vaT^piov ^Sij h/ep-
•ytiTai Tqs avofuas, ft,ovov 6 Ka.Ti)(<x>v apn e<DS Ik fiicrov yevTjrau
The literal version of these words would be- this, namely,
" For the mystery of iniquity doth already work, only he is
now hindering until he becomes from the midst." It is

The Prophecy of St. Paul. 27
quite manifest that something must be supplied here, in
order to give the latter part of the text any meaning.
And therefore, our English version fills up the void thus :
" For the mystery of iniquity doth already work, only he
that now letteth (j. e. hindereth) will let until he be taken
out of the way."
It may be interesting to my scholastic readers to see
some specimens of this obscure text in other versions.
Thus the Latin Vulgate reads as follows : " Nam myste-
rium jam operatur iniquitatis : tantum ut qui tenet nunc
teneat, donee de medio fiat." The version of the learned
Arias Montanus is stUl closer to the original : " Nam
mysterium jam operatur iniquitatis, solum tenens nunc
donee e medio fiat."
The German comes near to the English version :
" Denn es reget sich schon bereits die Bosheit heimlich,
ohne dasz, der es jetzt aufhalt, musz hinweg gethan wer-
den." The Italian reads thus : — " Percioche gik fino ad ora
opera il misterio dell' iniquity : aspettando solo che colui
che lo ritiene al presente sia tolto di mezzo."
The Spanish : " Porque ya esta obrando el misterio de
la iniquidad : solo que el que esta firme ahora, mantengase,
hasta que sea quitado de en medio."
And the French goes farther than any from the sense
of the original : " Car le mystere d'iniquit^ se forme
dejk ; il faut seulement que celui qui lui fait obstacle pr^-
sentement, soit d^truit.''
The fairest of these versions is that of Arias Montanus,
and the Latin Vulgate stands next. All the rest give a
meaning to the Greek word •ycVryrat which it cannot bear.
It never signifies taking away. And the French version,
in rendering it by the word detruit, "destroyed," is the
worst among them all. But since it is evident that the
last clause of the text requires something to fill up the
ellipsis, I would suggest the following, as in better accord-

28 The Prophecy of St. Paul.
ance with the subject of the prophecy, so that we might
read it thus : " For the mystery of iniquity doth already
work, only he is now hindering until he becomes estranged
from the midst." And I presume that the " He " of whom
the Apostie speaks is the Holy Spirit, whose powerful in
fluence, in the beginning of the Gospel dispensation, effec
tually " hindered," or restrained " the mystery of iniquity,"
or the working of Satan, until the Church was successfully
established ; but towards the end, when even within the
bounds of Christendom there will be multitudes who
"receive not the love of the truth that they might be
saved," — when there will be a wide "falling away," or
" apostasy,'' — when, according to the declaration of our
Lord Himself, the condition of mankind will be like that
in the days of Noah, and faith shall hardly be found upon
earth, — then the Holy Spirit, grieved and resisted, will
become estranged from the midst of these apostate nations
who once believed, and, withdrawing His gracious influ
ence from the rebellious hosts, and no longer "hindering"
the work of Satan, will permit the terrible culmination
of demoniac power in the person of the great Antichrist,
for the predicted period, preparatory to the glorious ad
vent of the Lord, to close the present dispensation, and
destroy the power of our fearful adversary by " the bright
ness of His coming."
This interpretation appears to me perfectly consistent
with all the other statements in the Word of God, and
liable to no fair objection. And it accords not only with
the language of the blessed Redeemer, but also with the
.description given by St. Paul elsewhere, in his Epistle to
Timothy : " Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in
the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving
heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils ; speaking
lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a
hot iron." ' And again, saith the same Apostle : " This
^ I Tim. iv. 1, 2.

The Prophecy of St. Paul. 29
know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous,
boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, un
thankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers,
false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that
are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures
more than lovers of God ; having a form of godliness, but
denying the power thereof." ¦'
These awful words prove the " apostasy '' in the Church,
since it will appear in those who will still retain a " form
of godliness,'' though they " deny the power thereof." And
alas ! there is much in the " signs of the time " to warn the
truly faithful that we are in the beginning, at least, of the
period, and drawing near to the consummation of wicked
ness when Antichrist shall be revealed.
5. The next portion of St. Paul's prediction on the subject
before us, sets forth the characteristic manner of Anti
christ's appearance. His coming is to be " after the' work
ing of Satan, with all power and signs, and lying wonders."
And here our Protestant writers appeal with great confi
dence to the immense mass of miracles related in the lives
of the Romish saints, and alleged to be still wrought by
their relics. And truly it forms a sad evidence of fraud,
deceit, and superstition, working with melancholy success
on human credulity. But the argument of those respected
writers does not meet the case. The Apostle saith, that
the " coming " of Antichrist " is after the working- of
Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders."
This, assuredly, cannot be said of the Pope. We do not
read that the rise or coming of the Papacy was attended
by " all power and signs and lying wonders ; " nor was there
anything connected with it that looked wonderful at all.
It was a matter of mere human policy that gave the Pope
his first step towards appellate power through the edict of
the Emperor Valentinian in the fourth century. The title
1 2 Tim. iii. 1-5.

30 The Prophecy of St. Paul.
of Universal Bishop was not conferred until the seventh
century. And neither of these events was marked with
any " signs and lying wonders," nor with the slightest
manifestation of supernatural agency.
I am quite as unable to perceive the historical connec
tion of false miracles with the Popes subsequently ; for I
do not see that any of them pretended to claim miraculous
power. So far from it, indeed, that we have an express
disclaimer of miracles in the Church, after its full estab
lishment had rendered them no longer necessary. Thus,
for example, Isidore, the eminent Bishop of Seville, in
the sixth century, saith : " The reason why the Church
does not perform the miracles which she performed under
the Apostles, is, that then it was fitting that the world
should believe through miracles ; but now it is fitting that
the world, already believing, should shine in good works.
.... Whoever, therefore, now requires miracles, seeks
only vain glory, that he may be praised." ^ And Gregory
the Great, himself the Bishop of Rome, speaks with equal
decision : " The Holy Church despises heretics, even if
they do miracles, because she does not acknowledge them, to be
a proof of sanctity!' ^
While it is true, therefore, that the modern writers of the
Church of Rome maintain the continuance of miracles, and
even absurdly insist upon them as one of the proofs of
sanctity, in opposition to one of their best Popes, it is cer
tainly untrue that the power of working miracles has ever
been claimed by any of the Popes themselves. It was not
by them, but by the monks, that the legends of their won
der-working saints were concocted ; and although the Popes
allowed those statements, and accepted them as the basis
of their most audacious assumption in their acts of canoni
zation, yet this by no means warrants the notion that the
Pope is Antichrist. For the prophecy declares that " his
' Isidor. Hispal., Sententiaruni, lib. 3, p. 424.
2 S. Greg. Mag., Moral., lib. 20, c. xxx.

The Prophecy of St. Paul. 31
coming is after the working of Satan." The " signs and
lying wonders " stand connected with his person, in the
statement of St. Paul. And the difference is manifest on
the slightest reflection. A judge in an earthly court may
admit false testimony that a murder was committed, and on
the strength of that testimony, may pronounce a very erro
neous sentence upon the supposed criminal. But no one
would'say that this could make him responsible for the per
jury, or accessory to the crime. And in like raanner the
Pope may admit an abundance of false testimony that mir
acles were performed by others, and pronounce a most
erroneous sentence of canonization, while no man of clear
judgment would contend that he had therefore any agency
in the lies of the witnesses, or in the performance of the
alleged acts. Strange indeed, it now seems to me, that a
distinction so plain could have been overlooked by learned
theolpgians. Strange, how any writer of intelligence could
fail to see that a belief in miracles is one thing, and the
actual doing of them is quite another. And yet I adopted
the fallacy myself, under the influence of approved authors ;
nor was I satisfied of my mistake until I examined care
fully, clause by clause, the language of the Bible, and com
pared it with the whole course of the papal history.
6. The concluding words of the Apostle place before us,
clearly, the reason why the Lord predicted, and would in
due time permit, the awful reign of this Satanic Antichrist.
It was " because they " {i. e. the world at large) " received
not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for
this cause God shall send them strong delusion that they
should believe a lie : that they all might be damned who
believed not the truth, but, had pleasure in unrighteousness."
To understand this aright, it may be well to take a wider
survey than ordinary of what we may reverently regard as
the great principles of the divine administration. And to
this I shall devote the following chapter.

Ci^irti Chapter.
Principles of the Divine Administration.
That God is the perfect essence of life, and of all con
ceivable power, knowledge, justice, benevolence, and truth, is
doubted by no one who believes in a creation. But amongst
His sublime attributes. Love holds the highest place, and
all the rest are governed by its controlling influence.
For love is essentially an active principle, and cannot
rest without an object. From this, therefore, we may de
rive the vast work of creation — worlds on worlds, peopled
with every variety of life or being ; suns, stars, planets,
light, heat, electricity, magnetism, water, air, with aU the
lower forms of matter ; rising upwards to the animated
tribes — insects, reptiles, fish, birds, and animals ; and then
going onward to the spiritual element in human nature,
till we come to the angelic hierarchy, and the Cherubim and
Seraphim who surround the throne of GOD, the won
drous and adorable Creator of the whole !
But the Scriptures declare that the Almighty made all
things for His glory. And this is most true. I do not
perceive, however, that it militates in the slightest degree
with the proposition that His boundless love was the great
impelling motive. For I conceive that the glory of God
consists preeminently in the manifestation of His love, by
the diffusion of happiness amongst the countless myriads
who were the products of His wisdom and His power, on
whom He might lavish the beneficence of His providential
care, and to whom, in the spiritual nature of men and

Principles of the Divine Administration. 33
angels. He should give the image of His own divine attri
butes, making them capable of knowing and loving Him,
and thus sharing in His infinite felicity.
The stupendous work of creation we may reverently
believe to have gone on throughout eternity ; for the uni
verse contains innumerable worlds, the sum of which no
human science can estimate. The discoveries of astronomy
only exhibit more and more multitudes of stars, with each
improvement of the telescope. It is therefore to be assumed
as most reasonable, that the Almighty has been adding to
them from the beginning ; and our earth is, perhaps, the
youngest of the whole. Some of these worlds must have
been first, and some last, in the order of creation ; and I am
unable to see any ground for the fanciful conjectures of
modern philosophers on the vast age of our globe, put
forth, as they have too often been, in opposition to the only
reliable evidence furnished by the Word of God.
But as the glorious Creator is essential love, and made in
His own image the angels and all other beings possessing a
spiritual nature, it was a necessary result that love must be
the great law of their existence, since in no other way could
they render a fit return for the wondrous love of God, who
had given them life, and all their faculties and powers, fitted
for felicity. Love to God, therefore, became their first and
highest duty ; and the next duty, derived from that, was to
love each other as themselves. And the violation of these
laws was sin, and the indulgence of the sin, sooner or later,
must lead to rebellion.
Here lay the inherent difficulty, as I suppose, which ren
dered it impossible for Omnipotence itself to prevent the
inroad of transgression. For love must be free, or it is
not entitled to the name. It is a contradiction in terms to
talk of loving by compulsion. And therefore, while we
cannot doubt that the blessed Creator foresaw that some
of His creatures would depart from the law of love and
incur the guilt and terrible consequences of rebellion, yet
3

34 Principles of the Divine Administration.
no act of mere power could avoid the evil without a total
destruction of their spiritual nature.
Hence, as we may reasonably conceive, arose the neces
sity of permitting Satan and his associates to violate the law
of Heaven, when, by withdrawing their love from God and
concentrating it upon self, they severed the bond of faithful
allegiance to their Maker. The Lord might have cut them
off in their iniquity ; but this would not have been an ef
fectual lesson to the angelic host, nor would it have guarded
them from the same transgression. And therefore the wis
dom of the Most High allowed the defection to go on, until
the fruits of self-love should be manifested in the natural
result of envy, pride, and discontent, ending in open rebel
lion. And then the apostate angels were cast down out of
heaven, and Satan was suffered to deceive our first parents
by falsehood ; in order to prove, to the whole Universe, the
misery inseparable from sin, and to show by the wondrous
mercy of Redemption that God is love, and governs, in
perfect love, His whole boundless dominion.
That this is in entire harmony with enlightened reason,
may be seen on a little 'reflection. For we all know that
love is the controlling element of our nature, and that the
pursuit and enjoyment of what we love, are the strongest
stimulants to effort, and determine the prevailing character
of our life. We all know, likewise, that this element of
love is free, and cannot be made subject to compulsion —
nay, that the attempt to compel it is worse than vain, since
it commonly increases the spirit of resistance. Love may
be won by love ; but to drive or force it is simply impos
sible. It is further certain, that the quality of our love deter
mines the quality of our happiness. If our warmest love is
given to what is brutish, we can only enjoy the happiness
of the brute. If we love what is pure and elevated, our
happiness rises to the same level. Hence the character of
our happiness depends on the character of our love ; and

Principles of the Divine Administration. 35
therefore it is that the love of God can alone enable us to
enjoy the happiness of heaven.
And there is yet another fact in which all minds concur,
namely, that self-love, when it obtains the mastery, is the
lowest form of its manifestation, and the most generally
regarded with dislike and aversion. For while it is true
that the Creator has implanted an allowable degree of self-
love to be a constant stimulus and preservative of human
life, and has made it the standard of affection towards our
neighbor, yet it is no less true that an undue indulgence
of it is condemned by all mankind. Thus excessive self-
love is well known to be the parent of vanity, pride,
envy, hatred, and malice. It is sordid, craving, covetous,
and base. It is callous and unfeeling to the wants of
others, regardless of every right which does not minister
to its own gratification, and ready to commit any crime
when it is relieved from the fear of detection. In a word,
self-love, when it reaches the point which men call selfish
ness, is universally detested and despised. It is the irrecon
cilable foe to every generous and noble object. It is insen
sible to the common claims of human sympathy. And
hence, while the unselfish man, who lives to promote the
happiness of all around him, is followed by the love and
admiration of the community, the selfish wretch is sure to
be regarded with contempt, and no rank or riches can
secure for him the slightest tribute of cordial esteem or
affection. These familiar truths may aid in proving the perfect
reasonableness of the Divine law which made the highest
duty and the real felicity of angels and of men consist in
the love of God and the love of our neighbor. Satan
and his associates violated this essential law. Their rebel
lion was marked by the blackest ingratitude towards their
Creator, to whose goodness they were indebted for their
being, and for the glorious rank which they enjoyed as a
part of the Celestial Hierarchy. They spurned all their

36 Principles of the Divine Administration.
highest obligations, and in their false and absurd desire of
independence, concentrated their love upon themselves,
became traitors against the government of the Almighty,
and were cast down from their high estate, without hope
of mercy. For they sinned in heaven, without tempter or
temptation. In their case, there was no possible plea to
palliate or extenuate the crime. And the wisdom of God
resolved to make them His instruments to teach the whole
universe, what had hitherto been unknown, namely, the
wondrous extent of His love, and the awful consequences
of rebellion.
To this sublime end, Satan, with his host of inferior
spirits — once angels, but now demons — was cast down to
our earth, where he was permitted to deceive our first pa
rents, Adam and Eve, and involve them in his foul rebellion.
But there was this great difference between the transgress
ors — that they were tempted and deluded by his subtlety and
art, while he rebelled without temptation, and was, there
fore, the original author of iniquity. This, though it could
by no means excuse, may be justly regarded as a palliation
of, their sin ; and the infinite love of the glorious Creator
could therefore be displayed in their behalf by the gracious
plan which should provide for the redemption of themselves
and their posterity, through the Atonement and Mediation
of the Saviour.
I see no reason to doubt that the rebellion of the angels,
and the subsequent fall of man, were made known forthwith
throughout the whole universe ; for every part of the Al
mighty Sovereign's dominions was equally interested in the
facts, and equally solicitous to know how the love and the
justice of God would deal with this stupendous invasion
of His government. We know that His angels are sent to
communicate His will to man. And it is most reasonable
to suppose that they are also His messengers to all the
other worlds, over each one of which we may well conceive
that He has set an Archangel to preside, and with all of
which He maintains a constant intercourse.

Principles of the Divine Administration. 37
For all the host of heaven, and all the inhabitants of
these innumerable worlds, were under the same obligation
of supreme love to God, and fraternal love to their fellow-
subjects. They were all likewise liable to the same sin, by
withdrawing this love and concentrating their affections on
themselves. For love, being of necessity /ree, could not be
compelled by the mere exercise of power. And therefore
other angels might rebel, as Satan had done ; and other
races might fall, as man had fallen ; and hence the whole
universe was concerned in the warning of their fate, and in
the mode by which the government of Heaven would guard
its rights, and punish transgression.
In this way, it is easy to perceive that the sublime and
gracious purposes of God, in sending His only-begotten
Son to be the Saviour of the world, were not confined to
the race of fallen man, but extended their blessed influence
throughout the universe. And hence the plan adopted by
the Almighty provided for the following objects, namely : —
First and mainly, it displayed the marvelous love of the
great Creator, in a form and to an extent that no mind
save that of the Most High could have conceived possible.
That the Divine Son of God — One in essence with the
Eternal Father — should stoop to be united to man's
nature, to suffer, and to give Himself as an atoning Sacri
fice in the agony of the Cross for a guilty world : this was a
proof of love which must have amazed the angelic host and
the whole universe. The love of God was indeed mani
fested in all His works, and the exalted privfleges which
He had bestowed on His intelligent creatures were more
than enough to make their adoring love to Him their high
est and most sacred duty. But the sacrifice of Christ ex
ceeded them all. For the work of Creation demanded no
abasement and no suffering. Six commands, on six succes
sive days, made our earth, and adorned it with life and
beauty. The Lord had but to speak, and it was done.
While Redemption, on the contrary, required the humilia-

38 Principles of the Divine Administration.
tion of the Son of God, for thirty-three years of human
toil and sorrow, closed by hatred, and persecution, and a
torturing death. No mortal thought can do justice to that
astounding sacrifice of celestial love. And the spirit that
refuses to be won by it, must indeed be utterly irreclaim
able. In the second place, this divine plan seems designed to
enlighten the universe with respect to the character of re
bellion and the inevitable results of sin, in relation to which
the lessons of experience had become necessary, since the
defection of Satan and his host in heaven, and the fall of
man on earth. To make these consequences manifest, the
Almighty permitted the Adversary to set up his kingdom
and become the god of this world, in order, as we may
reverently suppose, that the whole intelligent creation
might be taught the difference between the government of
God and the government of demons. And it is not diffi
cult to imagine the horror and disgust with which the
angelic hierarchy and the universe at large must have
been affected, when they learned the terrible history of self
ish ambition, of hatred and strife, of proud oppression, of
lust and robbery, of cruelty and blood, of misery and
wretchedness in a thousand forms, which the kingdom of
Satan has exhibited for so many ages, and shall yet exhibit
in a still more fearful shape, before the period allotted to
his awful empire is closed by the second advent of the
glorious Redeemer.
Yet the goodness of God at no time left mankind with
out the warning of His truth, the invitations of His love,
and the care of His protection. At no time since the Fall
has He failed to send His commissioned messengers, to ad
monish our deluded race of their guilt and danger, and
to assure them of forgiveness if they would repent and re
turn. His own direct Word proclaimed His divine law to
Israel, and by the most stupendous miracles, the most
severe inflictions, and the most gracious acts of kindness,

Principles of the Divine Administration. 39
He made the chosen nation a teacher to the world. 'And
after the consummation of the marvelous Sacrifice which ex
hibited the love of God in the person of the Divine Re
deemer, with a power of demonstration so transcendent and
sublime, the Church has been made His witness. The
kingdom of Christ proclaims the glory of the Most High in
opposition to the kingdom of Satan. The power of the
Holy Spirit is pledged, through Christ, to all who desire to
escape from the thraldom of the Evil One. The strength
of celestial grace is promised to overcome the proclivity of
our fallen and depraved nature. And thus it is that our
earth is made the grand theatre, in the eyes of the universe,
for the full display of the working of rebellion on the one
hand, and the infinite love and pity of our true Sovereign
and Almighty Lord upon the other, in accordance with the
Apostle's declaration, " that now unto the principalities and
powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church
the manifold wisdom of God." ¦*
The compassion of our glorious Creator and Redeemer,
however, has not permitted Satan to exercise his tyranny
over mankind any farther than their own will was disposed
to obey him. The alternative has always been exhibited
before them. And hence, their final doom will be the
result of their obstinate rejection of the pardon purchased
for them, by the wondrous sacrifice of the Divine Saviour.
For " this," saith St. John, " is the condemnation, that light
is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather
than light, because their deeds were evil." '^ The Adversary
has succeeded in deluding his votaries by the attractions
of worldly wealth, and power, and sensual pleasure. Yet
still he is under the government of God, which has curbed
his malice within certain bounds, for the sake of the faith-
fiil few who repented of their rebellion and gladly em
braced the offered pardon of the gracious Redeemer. But
at the end of the allotted period, when the increasing
1 Eph. iii. 10. ^ St. John iii. 19.

40 Principles of the Divine Administration.
wickedness of mankind shall have reached its climax, the
foul usurper will be allowed to triumph in the person of
the great Antichrist reigning as the open and declared
God of the world, with all the cruelty and atrocious hatred
of his demoniac nature, in order to furnish the last terrible
proof of his true character, and the quality of that tremen
dous despotism of misery and woe, which must be borne by
all that reject the love and mercy of the Saviour.
Three years and a half were allotted to the earthly min
istry of Christ, marked by daily miracles of pity and com
passion, and constant instruction in celestial truth, closed
by His wondrous sacrifice of propitiation for the sins of the
world, His resurrection, and ascension into Heaven.
Three years and a half will also be allotted to the reign
of Antichrist, marked by subtle falsehood, by the constant
work of violence, atrocious cruelty, carnage, and blood, with
all the attendant forms of human suffering and wretched
ness ; but closed at the second advent of the Lord, in
majesty and glory, by the utter overthrow of the audacious
usurper, and his imprisonment in hell.
It was a very ancient doctrine, held by the pious Jews,
and currently accepted by the Christian Church during the
early centuries, that the Lord had allotted six thousand
years from the creation of our globe, during which the
rebel angels should be allowed to extend their empire over
mankind, while the Son of God should endeavor to reclaim
them by the manifestation of His marvelous love. That
the conflict between the "kingdom of Satan and the king
dom of the Messiah should be followed towards the end
by the triumph of the EvU Spirit during three years and a
half, according to the prophecy of Daniel ; and then he
should be finally condemned to the bottomless abyss, and
another thousand years should succeed as the great Sab
bath of our world, in peace and righteousness and joy,
under the reign of the glorious Redeemer.
In this hypothesis, the analogy of a week was adopted,

Principles of the Divine Administration. 41
each day being reckoned for a thousand years, according to
the declaration of St. Peter, that " one day is with the Lord
as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." *
And as, in a week, six days were allotted to work, before
the holy Sabbath, so six thousand years should be permitted
to the working of evil against good : and then should come
the Sabbatic thousand, or the Millennium, so clearly set forth
in the Revelation of St. John, to be followed by the gen
eral Judgment, the utter condemnation of all rebellion, and
the eternal establishment of the government of God, on
the true foundation of love. For the marvelous sacrifice
of Christ wUl then have demonstrated to the whole uni
verse that God is Love, in its purest and most sublime form ;
and the safety and happiness of His creatures will be seen
to depend on the exercise of supreme love to Him, and
equal love to each other : while self-love will be understood
as the original sin of Satan, and all the orders of spiritual
intelligence will detest it, as the certain road to wretched
ness and ruin.
This view of our world would give it the most important
rank as the appointed region for the final settlement of the
greatest of all controversies, in which every other part of
the vast universe was directly concerned. For this con
troversy involved the right which Satan claimed, to with
draw his allegiance from his Creator, and concentrate his
love upon himself; together with the consequences which
must ensue, even when he was allowed a full opportunity
and the most ample field for working out his atrocious
scheme of rebellion. God, who is essential Love, had made
angels and men in His own image and likeness ; and their
true happiness consisted in their highest love to Him, and
their fraternal love to each other. Satan originated the
notion that greater happiness could be attained by casting
off this divine principle of the celestial government, and
making self the idol of each individual's devotion. The
1 2 Pet. iii. 8.

42 Principles of the Divine Administration.
whole universe was interested in the result, because, love
being of necessity free, it was always possible that the sin
of Satan might arise in any quarter; and hence we may
perceive the wisdom of the Almighty in allowing the orig
inal rebels to try their wicked experiment, in a long contin
ued conflict with His love, in order to furnish to the whole
of His boundless dominion the plain and practical evidence
that His law of love was the only safeguard of their hap
piness, while the self-love of Satan must lead to misery and
wretchedness. And thus we may perceive why the awful
rebellion was suffered to proceed, and why so long a period
was required to perfect the demonstration. For the uni
verse at large needed the same lesson of instruction. The
history of Satan's work in our world has been, as I pre
sume, constantly communicated by the angelic messengers
of God to every other planet in the boundless flrmament.
Our earth has thus become the object of intense interest, in
the eyes of all the Thrones, Dominions, Principalities, and
Powers, under the government of the glorious Creator.
And when the judgment which has been so long suspended
shall at length descend, after the wonders of Divine Love
have been exhibited in such a transcendent form by the
Incarnation of the Son of God and His stupendous sacri
fice for man's redemption, the celestial decree will be
hailed as most necessary and most just, by the acclamations
of the universe. The lesson of experience thus exhibited
will guard the whole from any repetition of such awful evil,
throughout eternity ; while our globe, accursed for so many
ages by the tyranny of Satan over the souls of deluded men,
will be restored to its first pure beauty, in the new heaven
and the new earth wherein shall dwell righteousness ; and
the Throne of Christ, the Divine Deliverer, shall be estab
lished with the assenting homage of all Creation, in ever
lasting love and joy.
But this blessed result could not have been secured if
God had annihilated Satan and his rebel host immediately

Principles of the Divine Administration. 43
on the commission of their sin. That the great Creator
might have done so with perfect justice, is evident enough.
Yet the Allwise Ruler of the Universe, in love for the
whole of His vast dominion, saw that this could never pre
serve them from a recurrence of the same sin, after Satan
had set the example. The immediate sentence of the
transgressor might have struck terror to their hearts for a
time. But the government of God was designed to rest
on love to Him, as a tender Father, and not on slavish fear,
as if He were a tyrant. Love, in itself, was necessarily /ree,
and must he won by a new manifestation of the love of God
in Christ, accompanied by the experience which Satan him
self should be allowed to furnish, when all should be con
vinced that his renunciation of allegiance through the love
of self,- could only lead to wretchedness and ruin. And
thus we may vindicate the wisdom and the goodness of the
Most High, in making our world serve as the great instruc
tor of the universe : teaching them to fear and detest the
Satanic love of self; securing, forever, their adoring grati
tude for the sublime manifestation of the love of God, in
the sacrifice of His only-begotten Son ; and binding every
intelligent creature to his Creator, by the willing homage
of the heart, in the gracious chain of love and happiness,
which should never more be broken.
This general view of the divine dispensation is not in
anywise essential, either to the fixed points of a saving
faith, or to the exposition of St. Paul's prediction. But I
present it to the reader because it appears to me useful in
showing that the whole of what is revealed is in perfect
harmony with reason. And I think it may aid the Chris
tian to form a loftier estimate of the Saviour's work of love,
when it is regarded not only as it respects our world, but
as it stands connected with the security of the universe.
I have already, at considerable length, explained what
seems to me the most reasonable hypothesis in accounting
for the fact, that the Almighty cast Satan and his associates

44 Principles of the Divine Admimstration,
down to earth, and permitted the temptation of our first
parents, the sad result of which brought sin and death into
our world. And in the last days, when the great Adver
sary, inAhe person of Antichrist, shall assume the power of
the Deity, "sitting in the temple of God, and showing
himself that he is God," the vast majority of mankind will
doubtless consist of those who have " received not the love
of the truth that they might be saved." The wondrous mani
festation of the love of God, in the sacrifice of the Blessed
Redeemer, will be scorned in the reckless pride of infidel
ity. Their consciences will be dead to every sense of relig
ious duty. Their lives will be systematically given to sin,
so that they will only "have pleasure in unrighteousness."
And then, when the climax of impiety is reached, and
Antichrist appears to claim their worship as the Supreme
Divinity, they will be ready to acknowledge him : first, be
cause they will have no religious faith to stand in the way
of his pretensions; secondly, because his coming will be
" after the working of Satan, with all power and signs and
lying wonders," and as they had long before rejected the
Bible, they will have no warning from the Word of God to
protect them from his arts ; thirdly, because they had
abandoned the Lord, and, therefore, He will abandon them
to their real master, Satan. By this He is. said to " send
them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie." For
all men since the Fall, being subject to Satan through sin,
and having only one way of deliverance, through the aton
ing sacrifice and loving-kindness of the Saviour, must
accept the offered pardon, or be given up to their delusion
by the divine decree. If they will not receive mercy by
repentance and faith, they must receive justice of necessity.
And God sends them strong delusion only because they
despise His truth, and choose to serve under the false
authority of Antichrist, taking their only "pleasure in un
righteousness." This part of the prophecy, however, has no particular

Principles of the Divine Administration. 45
bearing upon the question, whether the Pope is the great
Antichrist. The language of the Apostle throughout
would indeed seem applicable only to an individual, — " the
man of sin," " the son of perdition,'' — and appears to be
entirely inconsistent with a succession of individuals
amounting to hundreds, some of whom were blameless in
their lives, though many were evil. But the other reasons
which I have stated are quite enough, and leave no room
in my own mind for any doubt upon the subject.

fourt]^ Cl^aptet*
The First and the Second Beast.
Proceeding to the next strongly marked prediction of
Antichrist, we read, in the thirteenth chapter of the Revela
tion, that St. John saw a vision of a beast ascending from
the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his
heads the name of blasphemy ; that " all the world won
dered after the beast. And they worshipped the dragon
which gave power unto the beast : and they worshipped the
beast, saying. Who is like unto the beast ? Who is able
to make war with him ? And there was given unto him a
mouth speaking great things and blasphemies ; and power
was given unto him to continue forty and two months.
And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to
blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that
dwell in heaven. And it was given unto him to make war
with the saints, and to overcome them : and power was given
him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. And aU
that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are
not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the
foundation of the world."
The ordinary exiplanation of these verses is, that they
represent, symbolically, the Roman Empire. But there are
difficulties in the way of this exposition which I am not
able to overcome. For —
1. The visions of St. John should be understood as re
spects the future. The Revelation is expressly stated to be
" of things which must shortly come to pass." ^ But the Eo-
' Chap, i. I.

The First and the Second Beast. 47
man Empire had existed long before, and the Apostie could
hardly see it " rise up out of the sea," when it had already
risen and had attained its most extensive dominion. That
it may be properly considered as still subsisting, though
divided into several kingdoms, may be admitted. But if so,
the time for its rising again to its ancient unity and power
must be yet in the future.
2. It is said that power was given to the beast to con
tinue forty and two months, which make three years and
a half, the time which we have already seen allotted to the
reign of Ajitichrist. I do not understand how this period can
be made to synchronize with the power of the old Roman
Empire ; for even if it be supposed that each day should be
counted for a year, it will still be found impossible to adjust
the time to the facts of history. This yields another proof
that the event is still future.
3. The prophet saith that it was given to the beast " to
make war upon the saints, and to overcome them." Now it
is true that under the laws of the old Roman Empire, and
the edicts of certain emperors, the early Christians were
grievously persecuted. This, however, was not by war,
since the work was entirely performed by civil process, the
Christians being brought as individuals before the tribunal
of the magistrate, and condemned by a judicial sentence.
And the remainder of the passage seems still less applica
ble, for the Roman Empire was so far from overcoming the
saints, that the saints overcatne the idolatry of the Empire.
The conversion of Constantine, the Roman Emperor, in
A. D. 312, established the Church ; and, therefore, we have
here another proof that the fulfillment of this also must be
still in the future.
4. St. John states, that power was given unto the beast
over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations ; which certainly
cannot be applied to the old Roman Empire, since that,
although it was the most extensive ever known, did not
embrace more than one third of the globe.

48 The First and the Second Beast.
5. Lastly, it is stated that " all who dwell upon the earth
shall worship " the beast : the only exception being those
whose names are " written in the Lamb's book of life." But
this is equally inapplicable to the old Roman Empire : first,
because two thirds of the earth's inhabitants were not sub
ject to Rome ; and secondly, because, although there was
an established worship paid to the Emperor, yet the Mmpire
itself was not an object of worship at all. For all these
reasons, I am of opinion that the prediction has not been
fulfilled in the past, and must, therefore, be referred to the
future. We arrive next, at the portion of this famous prophecy
which is universally understood to refer to Antichrist. " I
beheld," saith St. John, " another beast coming up out of
the earth ; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake
as a dragon. And he exerciseth all the power of the first
beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which
dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound
was healed. And he doeth great wonders, so that he
maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the
sight of men, and deceiveth them that dwell on the earth
by the means of those miracles which he had power to do
in the sight of the beast ; saying to them that dwell on the
earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which
had the wound by a sword, and did live. And he had
power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the
image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as
many as would not worship the image of the beast should
be killed. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich
and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right
hand, or in their foreheads : and that no man might buy or
sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast,
or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him
that hath understanding count the number of the beast : for
it is the number of a man ; and his number is Six hundred
threescore and six.''

The First attd the Second Beast. 49
Now in this prophetic statement, it has been common
amongst our writers to suppose that the character of the
Pope was plainly indicated. But a fair examination, as it
seems to me, will show that this interpretation cannot be
consistently maintained.
1. They think the Pope may be well said to have " horns
like a lamb," while he " spake as a dragon," because his
profession as a Christian bishop caused him to wear the
semblance of lamb-like gentleness, while his acts were those
of a dragon, in persecution, cruelty, and blood. But how
ever true the facts might be, in some parts of the Papal
history, yet I cannot perceive that the words of the proph
ecy can be properly taken to warrant their conclusion. For
it is not said that this beast looked like a lamb, but that
he had " two horns like a lamb ; " that is, small horns,
which are by no means indicative of gentleness. The young
ram has small horns ; but as soon as they begin to grow,
he is very apt to use them. And therefore, the horn, in
prophecy, is the symbol of warlike power, which may be
small at first, but rapidly grows dangerous. Thus, in the
book of Daniel, the Antichrist is described as " a littie horn,
before whom there were three of the first horns plucked
up by the roots : and, behold, in this horn were eyes like
the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things.^ ...
And I beheld, and the same horn made war with the
saints, and prevailed against them ; until the Ancient of
days came." ^ The same prophet, in the following chapter,
describes the kings of Media and Persia under the symbol
of " a ram which had two horns ; " and the figure occurs in
many other parts of Scripture.
Here, therefore, we have nothing indicative of gentleness.
For St. John saw "another beast" (in the Greek, 6rjpiov,
a wild beast,) rise up with " two horns like a lamb," namely,
like a young ram's horns, "and he spake like a dragon." I
do not see how this can symbolize the Pope ; but it agrees
1 Dan. vii. 8. ^ /bid. 21.

50 The First and the Second Beast.
perfectly with the true idea of Antichrist, as a ferocious
warrior king, whose power will be small at the beginning,
but will grow rapidly in his career of cruel despotism.
2. The prophet proceeds to say that this beast exerciseth
all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth all
that are in the earth to worship the first beast whose deadly
wound was healed, etc. And here it is ingeniously con
tended that the first beast, being the symbol of old heathen
Rome, was substantially made an object of worship by the
introduction of the Virgin and the saints, under the Papacy ;
that the great wonders performed by the beast signified the
miracles claimed for the saints by the Church of Rome ;
that the image made to the first beast represented the
image worship of Popery ; and that this image, being
caused to live and speak, presented a fair emblem of the
Romish images, which are reported to wink and move their
heads, and sometimes to utter words, by priestly manage
ment, etc.
This is certainly plausible enough, but quite inconsistent
with the other prophecies on the same subject, and not
really in accordance with the words of St. John.
1. First, because we have seen that Antichrist was not
to come until the time of the great falling away, or the
apostasy. But the sin of Popery is not in falling away from
the original faith, because that has never been abandoned.
It consists rather in the contrary, that Popery has presumed
to add to the faith what is false in itself, and entirely desti
tute of any real authority. This is indeed an awful as
sumption, and yet it is no apostasy. Therefore, the time
for Antichrist has not arrived, and hence it is not possible
that the Pope should be the Antichrist.
2. Secondly, because the beast is said to have all the
¦power of the other beast, who is expressly stated to have
caused men to worship the dragon, or Satan, and also him
self Here, then, we have three objects of worship : the
dragon, the first beast, and the second beast, which Anti-

The First and the Second Beast. 51
christ will unite most probably in a rivalry to the true
Christian Trinity, claiming for himself the highest power.
But this is a very different thing from the idol worship of
the old heathen, and certainly there is nothing which corre
sponds to it in the Papal system.
3. Because the prophet saith that Antichrist will have
" power to give life to the image of the first beast, that it
should both speak and cause that as many as would not
worship the image of the beast should be killed." Here is
one beast, and one image, with real life, which is no proper
symbol of a multitude of images having no life at all, but
only made to imitate life by machinery. Moreover, this
living image causes the faithful to be killed, a work of
barbarity to which the Romish images have never been
devoted. 4. Because St. John here states that the beast " doeth
great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from
heaven on the earth in the sight of men." But no one will
pretend that the Pope has ever done or undertaken to do
either this or any other public miracle.
The next clause in this prophecy of Antichrist sets forth
his power as causing " all, both small and great, rich and
poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand,
or in their foreheads : and that no man might buy or sell,
save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the
number of his name." And here, again, we have a clear
proof that the Pope cannot be Antichrist, for it is impos
sible to find any act corresponding to this, in the whole
Papal history.
The concluding verse, however, is thought to be quite
applicable ; when St. John saith, " Here is wisdom. Let
him that hath understanding count the number of the beast:
for it is the number of a man ; and his number is Six hun
dred threescore and six.''
The ancients, as is well known, used the letters of their
alphabet for numbers, and the Greek letters which express

52 The First and the Second Beast.
this number, 666, are found in the word Lateinos, the
Greek form for the word Latinus, or Latin. This was first
suggested by the martyr Irenaeus, who was the Bishop of
Lyons in the second century. And our Protestant writers
accept the statement as a good proof that the Pope is
Antichrist ; because the Popes are Latins in nation, in
race, in habits, and in language, and no term could be em
ployed which describes them better.
But here again is an argument which indeed looks
plausible enough at first sight, while, nevertheless, it will
be found altogether worthless in the hght of fair examina
tion, even if we set aside, for a moment, the counter evi
dence which renders the conclusion so utterly inadmissible.
1. For, in the first place, we must remember that the
prophet presents this number 666 as the number of a man,
— not signifjdng the title of a long succession of men, as in
the case of the Papacy, nor expressing the name of a na
tion, or of a race, or of a language, or of an office, but giv
ing the name of a single individual — "a man." Therefore,
this word Latinus, in order to make it agree with the proph
ecy, should at least have been the customary name of the
Popes, as Pharaoh was the name assumed by the kings of
ancient Egypt, and Caesar was the name of all the emperors
of Rome. But so far is this from any accordance with the
truth of history, that the name Latinus does not once
appear in the long succession of the Popes, nor has it ever
belonged, either personally or officially, to a single individ
ual amongst them.
2. In the next place, it is not candid to quote the ven
erable authority of Irenaeus in favor of this word Latinus,
without honestly stating the fact, which I shall prove by and
by when we come to the testimony of the Fathers, namely,
that this eminent bishop and martyr did not confine his sug
gestion to that name, nor did he even recommend it as the
best key to open the mystery. On the contrary, he tells us
that he had found three names which corresponded to the

The First and the Second Beast. 53
number 666. The first was Euanthes, which he did not
adopt, probably because its signification was too good for
the character of Antichrist. The second was Lateinos.
But the third, which he altogether preferred, was Titan.
And he gives his reasons for preferring" it, namely, because
the name Titan was expressive of gigantic power, kingly
majesty, and inordinate ambition ; all of which would be
long to Antichrist in their most atrocious forms of action.
Now this reasoning of Irenaeus ought to have been set
forth by our Protestant writers, if they meant to avail
themselves of his authority. For it is manifestly just. The
Titans were well known, in the accepted fables of antiquity,
as the giants who made war against Jupiter, the idol whom
the heathen Greeks and Romans worshipped, believing him
to be the Supreme Deity. But Jupiter overcame them by
his superior power. And here we have an example of what
often occurs in the systems of paganism, where an impor
tant truth was distorted into a false tradition. For the re
bellion of Satan and his host against the true God, and His
casting them down to earth, was doubtless the foundation
of the whole Titanic history. And hence we may readily
understand why Irenaeus would be impressed with the apt
ness of the name to Antichrist, who should rise at the
latter day, in the most audacious rebellion against the
Almighty, and be signally condemned to ruin. And thus,
when the eminent Bishop of Lyons discovered that the
name corresponded so perfectly with the number 6 6 6,, he
could hardly avoid giving it the decided preference, as
being so completely fitted to the fulfillment of the prophecy.
On the whole survey, therefore, of this portion of the
Apocalyptic vision, I think it must be obvious that it can
not apply to the Pope. The beast was a man, and not a
succession of men. The beast caused the dragon, and the
other beast which preceded him, to be worshipped along
with himself. The beast performed miracles, causing fire
to descend from heaven. The beast set a mark on the

54 The First and the Second Beast.
hands and foreheads of his subjects, without which no man
could buy or sell. The beast gave life to the image of the
first beast, and killed all who refused to adore it. And the
name of the beast was indicated by the number 666. Not
one of those statements, in my humble opinion, can be fairly
made to indicate the Papacy. They will all be manifested
at the appointed time, beyond question, for the prophets of
the Lord have been inspired to reveal them. But that
time is still future ; and the learned ingenuity which has
been so largely exhibited in the effort to find them in the
history of the past, is only one of the many proofs that the
best men may be led by theological zeal to adopt an erro
neous conclusion.

fift]^ Cl^apter.
Babylon the Crreat.
The next remarkable chapter on this subject, which is
claimed as a very decisive evidence in the opinion of our
Protestant writers, is the seventeenth of the Revehition,
which it may be best to transcribe in full : —
" And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven
vials, and talked with me, saying unto me. Come hither; I will
show unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon
many waters ; with whom the kings of the earth have committed
fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made
drunk with the wine of her fornication. So he carried me away
in the spirit into the wilderness : and I saw a woman sit upon a
scarlet colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven
heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and
scarlet-color, and decked with gold and precious stones and
pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations
and filthiness of her fornication : And upon her forehead was a
name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE
MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF
THE EARTH. And I saw the woman drunken with the
blood of the saints, and -with the blood of the martyrs of .Jesus :
and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration. And the
angel said unto me. Wherefore didst thou marvel ? I will tell
thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her,
which hath the seven heads and ten horns. The beast that thou
sawest was, and is not ; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and
go into perdition : and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder
(whose names were not written in the book of life from the founda
tion of the world), when they behold the beast that was, and is not.

56 Babylon the Great.
and yet is. And here is the mind that hath wisdom. The seven
heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth. And there
are seven kings : five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet
come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space. And
the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the
seven, and goeth into perdition. And the ten horns which thou
sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet;
but receive power as kings one hour with the beast. These have
one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast-
These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall over
come them : for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings : and they
that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful. And he
saith unto me. The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sit
teth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues. And
the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate ihe
whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her
flesh, and burn her with fire. For God hath put in their hearts to
fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast,
until the words of God shall be fulfilled. And the woman which thou
sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth."
The usual Protestant explanation of this remarkable
prophecy is very ingenious and plausible. The beast that
carries the woman is supposed to be the secular empire of
Rome, which was, and is not, because it has disappeared,
and " yet is," because it survives in the kingdoms which
arose out of its ruins.
The woman seated on the beast is the city of the Pope,
sustained by this secular power, and governing it, in all the
pomp of outward splendor and magnificence.
This woman is said to be seated upon the seven heads
of the beast, which are "seven mountains," and she is
declared to be "that great city which reigneth over the
kings of the earth." In both of these passages, Rome, the
special centre of Popery, is plainly indicated, because that
is, of old, the " seven hilled " city, and has, for many centu
ries, reigned over the kingdoms of Europe. But the time
shall come when those kingdoms shall be united against
Rome; and the beast, or the secular power, shall arise

Babylon the Great. 57
again in its old imperial strength, and the ten kingdoms
shall give their power to it, and destroy Rome and Popery,
and consign them to utter ruin.
This exposition is apparently quite satisfactory. But
nevertheless, it seems to me encumbered with difficulties
which I, at least, am unable to reconcile.
1. For the beast with the seven heads and ten horns is
clearly the same which we have already seen in the thir
teenth chapter ; and the other beast, with two horns like a
lamb but speaking like a dragon, is admitted, on all sides,
to be the Antichrist. But he is represented as entirely
united to the first beast, and causing all men to worship
him and his living image, under peril of death. Now if
the Pope be Antichrist, and Rome is to be destroyed by
the beast to whom the ten kings give their power, because
it is the seat of Antichrist, while yet the beast and Anti
christ are represented as being in perfect union, there
seems to be a strange incongruity. For the dragon (i. e.,
Satan) " gave his seat and his power to the first beast." ^
And the second beast (the Antichrist) " exerciseth all the
power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth
and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast." ^
How then shall he be the destroyer of Rome and Popery,
if the Pope be the Antichrist ? Would it not be destroying
himself? Certainly it cannot lae denied that God could
compel him to commit this act of suicide ; but does it seem
to be in harmony with the other prophecies, especially that
of St. Paul, who saith that the Lord shall consume that son
of perdition with the spirit of his mouth, and destroy him
with the brightness of his coming ? °
2. But there are serious difficulties in the way of the
common opinion that the woman sitting upon the beast is
the symbol of the city of Rome at all. For first, she is
called " Babylon the Great." And this name is so promi
nent in the Old Testament as the head of the old Assyrian
1 Chap. xiii. 2. ^ Verse 12. ' 2 Thess. ii. 8.

58 Babylon the Great.
empire, where Satan was so long and so victoriously
supreme for centuries, that it cannot be transferred to any
other without the clearest evidence. Rome was indeed the
mistress city at the time when St. John beheld the vision,
and Babylon was in ruins. But Jerusalem was also in
ruins ; yet we know that it shall arise again, to far more
than its former greatness. And Babylon may also arise
again, before that day, and hold a larger preeminence than
ever, until she shall be finally destroyed after Antichrist ^ is
overcome by the power of the Redeemer. ,
3. The woman is further called " Mystery, the Mother of
Harlots and Abominations of the earth." But this would
surely apply with much more propriety to Babylon than to
Rome under the Papacy. The term " Mother," of course,
implies parentage. And the harlots and abominations of
the earth must be understood to refer to idolatry. But
Babylon was the oldest patron of idolatry, and from her
imperial power it spread throughout the world ; whereas
the Pope never held authority over more than a sixth part
of the earth's inhabitants, and that authority arose in the
seventh century of the Christian era. Moreover, the idol
atry of Rome, however false and evil we may deem it, was
in subordination to the worship of the true God ; whereas
the idolatry of Babylon was absolute and overwhelming, as
we see clearly from the statements of the sacred writers of
the Old Testament, especially the Book of Daniel, with
which the evidence of all profane histories entirely agrees.
4. And the word " Mystery," given to this mother of
harlots, is in harmony with the name of Babylon, because
the old heathen had made it an established element in
their Satanic systems from the earliest times. Thus we
know that " The Mysteries " were secret religious assem
blies, which, long before the days of St. John, had been
imported into the empire, and were protected and encour-
1 See on this subject the very interesting work, called Briefs on
Prophetic Themes, by a Member of the Boston Bar.

Babylon the Great. 59
aged by legal authority. It is certain that they had the
" Eleusinian Mysteries ; " the " Samothracian Mysteries," in
honor of Jupiter ; the " Dionysian Mysteries," in honor of
Bacchus ; the " Orphic Mysteries," supposed to be the origin
of the Eleusinian. And besides these, they had the " Mys
teries of Isis," derived from Egypt, and very popular in
heathen Rome.
All these " Mysteries " were secret societies, and the
members were bound, by solemn oath, not to divulge their
proceedings. They were established institutions in the
old heathen idolatry, and the very word used by St. John
was their well-known appellation. But the system of the
Pope has nothing corresponding to them, and never had at
any time. On the contrary, it is notorious that secret soci
eties are expressly disowned and discouraged by the Papal
Church. Of course I admit that Mystery, in a general
sense, belongs to their system, as it also belongs to our
own. The Bible contains a vast amount of truth which
may be well said to involve mystery too deep and too high
for any human mind to explain. But our controversy with
the Pope has nothing to do with mystery. We do not
reject any of the errors of Rome because they are myste
ries. Our ground of objection is, that those errors are un
authorized and dangerous additions to the true faith of the
inspired Apostles, unknown to the Primitive Church, and
hostile to her celestial system in doctrine, in worship, and in
government. And this is surely reason enough for the
Reformation, which, under God, swept them all away.
5. It is plausibly urged, however, that the Papal power
must be intended by the prophecy, because " the seven
heads of the beast " are said to be " seven mountains on
which the woman sitteth," and that the woman "is that
great city which reigneth over the kings of the earth."
This is plausible, undoubtedly, and deserves examination.
That the city of Rome was built originally on seven hills
is admitted, and hence it was called the seven-hilled city.

6o Babylon the Great.
But the prophecy speaks of seven mountains, and that term
has never been applied to the trifiing elevations in ancient
Rome, nor can it be thus applied without an evident absurd
ity. I doubt, moreover, whether the seven heads of the
beast which carried the woman should be explained in so
narrow and topographical a style as this. The beast had
seven heads and ten horns, and the dragon, i. e. Satan
himself, gave him his seat and his power, so that he was an
object of universal worship — the very embodiment of
blasphemy and the foulest idolatry in all the world. This
is perfectly clear, from the description of the same beast in
the thirteenth chapter. But the heads of the beast were
the parts which held the organs of speech, and from them
he was to utter his false and Satanic doctrines. Therefore
when the woman is said to sit upon, or be supported by
these seven heads, it seems to me far more reasonable to
understand that she is sustained by the demoniac principles
and blasphemous falsehoods of idolatry. The awful mag
nitude of these, is intimated by the word mountains. For
they had involved the world for ages in the most gigantic
manifestation of entire apostasy from the true God, and
would be ultimately followed by that great Antichrist who
should " sit in the Temple of God, showing himself that he
is God."
6. It is a fact which favors this exposition that ther§ have
been seven well-marked systems of heathen idolatry, prev
alent on the globe : the old Assyrian, which was the mother
of them all ; the Egyptian, the Greek and Roman, the
Hindoo, the idolatry of Buddha, of the Grand Llama, and
the Scandinavian or Northern idolatry. And the imme
diate precursor of the great Antichrist, with his seven heads,
will supersede them all, when he claims over the whole his
own Satanic mastery. These, then, I apprehend, will be
the support of the woman, when old Babylon the Great
shall rise again, " the mother of harlots and abominations
of the earth." And hence I cannot see any probable

Babylon the Great. 6i
ground for sinking these mountains of diabolic idolatry
down to the small notion that they only symbolize seven
petty hills of earth, under the city of Rome.
7. There is still, however, another incongruity in the
common interpretation. The beast is represented as having
seven heads and ten horns. I suppose the horns are to be
understood as standing on the heads, which is certainly the
natural place for them. But these horns are said to belong
to the beast, and the angel . explains them in the prophecy
of Daniel to be ten kings or kingdoms,-' three of which are
to be subdued by the Antichrist. Hence^ in the chapter of
the Revelation which is now under review, the beast comes
forth as at first with ten horns ; yet the angel ^ adverts to
the prophecy of Daniel, where he speaks of seven, of which
" five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come ;
and when he cometh, he must continue a short space. And
the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is
of the seven, and goeth into perdition." This doubtless
refers to the great Antichrist, who will be a destroying war
rior king, an incarnate demon. The five kings who had
fallen were probably five heathen kings who had been sub
jugated. The one who remained I presume to be the
emperor at the time when St. John saw the vision. The
beast that was, and is not, who had not yet come, was to be
the eighth, and was of the seven. That is to say, the im
perial power of old Rome should cease, as it has long done ;
but this was a heathen power, until the establishment of
Christianity. Then came the wound in one of the seven
heads of the beast, spoken of in the thirteenth chapter,
because the Greek and Roman idolatry was banished by
the Gospel and appeared no more. But the beast still
continued through the rest of the heathen world ; and in
the end, when the great apostasy shall arrive, he will have
that " deadly wound healed," and will display seven heads
and ten horns, prepared for the final onslaught of Anti-
1 Daniel vii. 24. ^ Rev. xvii. 10.

62 Babylon the Great.
christ, with greater power than ever : though, thanks be to
God, it will be only " for a short time.''
8. In reference to this, therefore, the Angel proceeds to
say: "The ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings,
which have received no kingdom as yet ; but receive power
as kings one hour with the beast." And here, as it seems
to me, is a complete proof that the seven heads of the beast
cannot be fairly understood to mean the seven hills of
Rome, according to the Protestant interpretation. For the
ten horns are ten kings. And the horns must be presumed
to stand on the seven heads. But how should ten kings
have their future kingdoms on the seven little hills which
lie under one city ?
9. This notion, therefore, seems to me to degrade the
whole dignity and importance of the prophecy. To my
mind it seems far more reasonable to understand the seven
heads to be the seven vast systems of idolatry, towering
like mountains in the earth, on which Great Babylon shall
be seated in the pomp and pride of her old abominations,
as the mother of all the spiritual harlotry of the world ;
that the ten kings, professedly heathen but really indifferent
to all religion, shall give their power to the beast, willing to-
maintain the old idolatry until the coming of Antichrist ;
and that he will abolish all other worship besides his own,
and being- resisted by Babylon, will turn the power of the
ten kings against her, and burn her with fire. By this the
whole prediction appears to me consistent, and free from
any serious difficulty .'-
^ It may seem, at first sight, that the explanation of those seven
mountains as signifying seven systems of idolatry, is not to be sus
tained by any authority. But under the head of " mountains " in
Cruden's Concordance, the reader will find four significations given,
which justify, the figure, namely : i. " The idolatrous inhabitants of
the mountains ; " 2. " Such powerful obstacles as hinder the progress
of the Gospel ; " 3. " Idols that were worshipped in mountains or
high places ; " and 4. " The most lofty and powerful enemies." The
language of metaphor, which is so frequent in the prophecies, is the

Babylon the Great. 63
10. But I have yet to notice the last verse of the chap
ter, which our Protestant writers usually consider quite
conclusive to prove that Babylon the great is the city of
Rome, and the centre of the Papacy. The Angel saith to
St. John, " The woman which thou sawest is that great city,
which reigneth over the kings of the earth." And it is
taken for granted that as Rome was then the mistress city
of the mighty empire, the woman must be Rome, which the
prophet called " Babylon," in order to avoid exciting the in
dignation of the government.
Now the fact is true, doubtless, that Rome was then the
mistress city of that greatest of empires ; but it is not true
that " she reigned over the kings of the earth," for the very
plain reason that two thirds of the earth were not under
her dominion. Neither can I understand that St. John

universal language of mankind. That this is the language of the
Angel in saying that the woman sits upon the seven heads, and that
these are seven mountains, is very certain. For literally, no woman
can be conceived of as sitting upon seven mountains. Neither is the
case rendered more plain, when the woman is afterwards explained by
a great city, for no city was ever built on seven mountains.
But the metaphor of a mountain is sustained by many examples, as
expressive of any great system, as when the prophet Daniel (ii. 35)
saith that " the stone that smote the image became a great mountain
and filled the whole earth," we know that he referred to the final tri
umph of the Gospel. So Christ Himself, in His divine nature, is
called a Rock. So Isaiah (xl. 4) saith, " Every mountain shall be made
low," meaning that every great obstacle to religious truth shall be
laid prostrate. So Zechariah (iv. 7) saith, " Who art thou, O great
mountain .' Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain," applying
the word to the towering system of idolatry, sustained by the great
powers of the earth, under the guidance of Satan. So Isaiah (xii. 15)
saith, " Thou [the Lord] shalt thresh the mountains," meaning that
God would destroy idolatry, though it towered like mountains in all
the earth.
And such is still the language of poetry: — Oceans of trouble, storms
ai calamity, clouds oi sorrow, mountains of difficulty, rocks of defence,
the sun of prosperity, the light of truth, the darkness of error, ikitfire
of jealousy, the thunder of wrath, etc.

64 Babylon the Great.
could have given her the name of Babylon, in order to
avoid exciting the indignation of the government, because
that name was not imposed by St. John, but was written on
the forehead of the woman. And the statement of the Angel,
that the woman is that great city which reigneth over the
kings of the earth, might have been translated more accu
rately by saying : " that great city having dominion over the
kings of the earth ; " for the Greek original is, i) ttoAis rj
p,eyakq r/ e.xovaa ySacriAetav. And this more literal version
would at once remove the apparent difficulty, since the
great city would not necessarily refer to Rome, but rather
to some other city having universal dominion, which Rome
certainly had not. I grant, indeed, that the Pope claims
the right to universal dominion, as the sole vicar of our
Lord Jesus Christ ; but this is a spiritual dominion, and it
is notorious that he never had the power to enforce even
that. So far from it, indeed, that this very assumption pro
duced the great schism between the East and the West in
the Church itself, and the Pope has at no period, however
prosperous, had more than one sixth of mankind subject to
his priestly authority, while his secular power was always a
very limited one, — the most insignificant in Europe.
12. The argument drawn by our Protestant writers from
the scarlet color of the beast, and the purple, scarlet, gold,
precious stones and pearls which adorned the woman, will
hardly serve the purpose of a serious application to Popery.
But as some gOod men have attached importance to it, I
shall merely suggest that those same colors and splendid
jewelry and gold may be found directed by the Almighty
for the tabernacle, the garments of the high priest and the
temple, under the divine system laid down by Himself, for
His chosen Israel. The Oriental Churches of Greece and
Russia also have quite as much of this magnificence as Rome.
And the New Jerusalem is described, in this same book of
the Revelation, with still greater marks of splendor. In
the face of all this, it is rather unwise, in my humble opin-

Babylon the Great. 65
ion, to insist that because the Pope exhibits the same sort
of outward adornment, he must needs be the great Anti
christ. The outward display of glory and beauty, in itself,
is no test of truth or error, and we must have a very
different standard of judgment from this, in order to decide
between them.

Babylon not yet Destroyed.
The view which I have here set forth, namely, that the
city which shall be destroyed by the beast and the ten
kings is Babylon the Great, and not Rome, will doubtless
be thought sufficiently refuted by the common opinion that
Babylon is destroyed already. And this I believe to be
another error, entirely unwarranted by Scripture. Baby
lon, it is true, has disappeared ages ago as an empire.
Babylon has also been laid in ruins, as a city. And yet
it is demonstrable, from the clear language of prophecy,
that Babylon is not yet destroyed in accordance with
the declarations of the Word of God.
For thus saith Isaiah : " Babylon, the glory of king
doms, the beauty of the Ghaldees' excellency, shall be as
when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never
be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation
to generation : neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there ;
neither shall the shepherds make their fold there." ^
" Thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of
Babylon, and say, .... How art thou fallen from
heaven, 0 Lucifer, son of the morning ! how art thou cut
down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations ! For
thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I
will exalt my throne above the stars of God : .... I will
ascend above the heights of the clouds ; I will be like the
Most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to
1 Is. xiii. 19, 20.

Babylon not yet destroyed 67
the sides of the pit  For I will rise up against
them, saith the Lord of hosts, and cut off from Babylon
the name, and remnant  I will also make it a posses
sion for the bittern, and pools of water : and I will sweep it
with the besom of destruction, saith the Lord of hosts." -^
The time fixed for this destruction of Babylon is ex
pressly stated by the prophet Jeremiah to be when Israel
shall be restored ; and this is conclusive proof that it will
be in the last days, the days of Antichrist, immediately be
fore the second advent of the Saviour. For thus we read :
"The word that the Lord spake against Babylon and
against the land of the Chaldeans by Jeremiah the prophet.
Declare ye among the nations, and publish, and set up a
standard ; publish, and conceal not : say, Babylon is taken,
Bel is confounded, Merodach is broken in pieces  For
out of the north there cometh up a nation against her,
which shall make her land desolate, and none shall dwell
therein : they shall remove, they shall depart, both man and
beast. In those days, and in that time, saith the Lord, the
children of Israel shall come, they and the children of
Judah together, going and weeping : they shall go and seek
the Lord their God. They shall ask the way to Zion with
their faces thitherward,. saying, Come, and let us join our
selves to the Lord in a perpetual covenant that shall not
be forgotten." ^
This passage is to be especially noted, because it fixes
the destruction of Babylon in those days and in that time
when Israel and Judah shall be restored to their own land,
and seek the Lord in penitence and faith. And here we
have a very plain demonstration that as this event is cer
tainly future, so likewise must be the great and final fall of
Babylon. But this important truth is not left to a single declaration.
For thus we read : " Therefore, thus saith the Lord of
hosts, the God of Israel ; Behold, I will punish the king
1 Is. xiv. 4, 12-15, 22, 23. ^ Jer. 1. 1-5.

68 Babylon not yet destroyed.
of Babylon and his land, as I have punished the king of
Assyria. And I will bring Israel again to his habitation,
and he shall feed on Carmel and Bashan, and his soul shall
be satisfied upon Mount Ephraim and Gilead. In those
days and in that time, saith the Lord, the iniquity of
Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none ; and
the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found : for I will
pardon them whom I reserve." ^ This close connection
between the fall of Babylon and the deliverance of Israel,
runs throughout the whole chapter : " Thus saith the Lord
of hosts ; The children of Israel and the children of Judah
were oppressed together : and all that took them captives
held them fast ; they refused to let them go. Their Re
deemer is strong ; the Lord of hosts is his name : he shall
throughly plead their cause, that he may give rest to the
land, and disquiet the inhabitants of Babylon. A sword is
upon the Chaldeans, saith the Lord, and upon the inhabi
tants of Babylon, and upon her princes, and upon her wise
men  for it is the land of graven images, and they
are mad upon their idols. Therefore the wild beasts of the
desert with the wild beasts of the islands shall dwell there,
and the owls shall dwell therein : and it shall be no more
inhabited for ever ; neither shall it be dwelt in from genera
tion to generation. As God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah
and the neighbor cities thereof, saith the Lord ; so shall no
man abide there, neither shall any son of man dwell therein.
.... At the noise of the taking of Babylon the earth is
moved, and the cry is heard among the nations." ^
And yet again in the next chapter, we read : " For Is
rael hath not been forsakeuj nor Judah of his Grod, of
the Lord of hosts ; though their land was filled with sin
against the Holy One of Israel. Flee out of the midst of
Babylon, and deliver every, man his soul : be not cut off in
her iniquity ; for this is the time of the Lord's vengeance ;
he will render unto her a recompense. Babylon hath been
1 Jer. 1. 18-20. 2 7^/^. 23-35, 38-40, 46.

¦H

Babylon not yet destroyed. 69
a golden cup in the Lord's hand, that made all the earth
drunken : the nations have drunken of her wine ; therefore
the nations are mad. Babylon is suddenly fallen and de
stroyed : . . . .for her judgment reacheth unto heaven,
and is lifted up even to the skies. The Lord hath
brought forth our righteousness : Come, and let us declare
in Zion the work of the Lord our God." ' " And I will
render unto Babylon and to all the inhabitants of Chaldea
all their evil that they have done in Zion in your sight,
saith the Lord. Behold, I am against thee, 0 destroying
mountain, saith the Lord, which destroyest all the earth : . . .
and they shall not take of thee a stone for a corner, nor a stone
for foundations ; but thou shalt be desolate for ever, saith
the Lord  And Babylon shall become heaps, a
dwelling-place for dragons, an astonishment, and an hissing,
without an inhabitant  The sea is come up upon
Babylon : she is covered with the multitude of the leaves
thereof. Her cities are a desolation and a wilderness, a land
wherein no man dwelleth, neither doth any son of man pass
thereby." ^
These repeated declarations, which so plainly connect the
deliverance of the chosen people with the ultimate fall of
Babylon, — the old Babylon in Chaldea, the real mother
of idolatry and all the abominations of the earth, and the
constant enemy of Israel, — are of the first importance to a
proper understanding of the seventeenth chapter of the
Revelation of St. John. For we have the same connection
intimated in that wonderful book. The fifteenth chapter of
it presents the seven angels having the seven last plagues,
in which is filled up the wrath of God. Then the prophet
beholds in vision " them that had gotten the victory
over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark,
and over the number of his name .... and they sing
the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of
the Lamb." The next chapter gives a fearful picture
' Jer. IL s-io. ^ y^/^, 24-26, 37, 42, 43.

70 Babylon not yet destroyed.
of the divine judgments upon the seat of the beast,
and the way of the kings of the East (the ten kings) is
prepared by a special drying up of the great river Euphra
tes.^ Then we read of the device of Satan, the dragon
sending forth the spirits of devils to work miracles, and
rouse the kings of the earth to a final struggle ; then the
final judgment in the great battle of God Almighty, when
the coming of Christ is plainly declared.^ Then the ter
rific earthquake, and the ruin of Babylon, whose character
as the mother of harlots and abominations, her old reign
and her destruction by fire, are set forth symbolically, and
explained by the angel, in the seventeenth chapter.
Now we cannot possibly bring these prophetic state
ments into harmony, without understanding that Babylon
shall ascend again, to be the seat of the beast whom St.
John saw rising out of the earth, as stated in the thirteenth
chapter. And hence it results that Babylon, though long
in ruins, is not destroyed. And this is intimated by the
prophet Daniel in the seventh chapter,' where we read :
" As concerning the rest of the beasts " (one of which, as
all admit, was the old Assyrian empire, having Babylon for •
the chief city), " they had their dominion taken away, yet
their lives were prolonged for a season and time." And
such is manifestly the fact with respect to the others.
The Greek and the Roman empires have lost their domin
ion, yet they live ; and the old Assyrian and Babylonian
empires also live, in the power of the Turkish empire, under
the false prophet. Nay, even the very locality of the an
cient city is so far from having undergone the tremendous
destruction so clearly predicted in the prophecies, that it is
inhabited, and carries on a considerable amount of com
merce at this day.
In proof of this I shall take the liberty of making some
extracts from the very interesting work of Mr. Lord, enti
tled, " Briefs on Prophetic Themes, by a member of the Bos-
1 Verse 12. ^ Verse 13. ^ Verse 12.

Babylon not yet destroyed. 7 1
ton Bar," pubhshed in Boston, a. d. 1864, by Dutton & Co.
And it gives me pleasure to acknowledge my obligations to
the author, for turning rny attention to the subject, to which
I frankly confess that I had previously devoted but very
littie labor or reflection.
The first extract is from the book of Colonel Chesney,
who was the commander of the expedition for the survey of
the rivers Euphrates and Tigris carried on by order of the
British Government in the years 1835, 1836, and 1837,
published by Longmans, in 1850 : —
" The river {i. e. the Euphrates) rises," saith this author,
" at no great distance from the shores of the Euxine, and
in its course to the Indian Ocean, almost skirts those of the
Mediterranean  The Euphrates at one time formed
the principal link connecting Europe commercially with the
East. Its historical celebrity has excited in its favor an in
terest superior to that which has been felt for any other
river : and it may be reasonably expected that when its
advantages shall be fuUy known, and duly appreciated, it
will rise to a high degree of political and commercial im
portance. " In a range of more than 1780 miles from its eastern
source, this river may be said to unite three great and impor
tant seas, which, without it, would be destitute of any water
communication with each other, while the varied produc
tions of the intervening territory would, in a great measure,
be lost to the rest of the world.
" Bir is one of the mo.st frequented of all the passages
into Mesopotamia, and about sixteen large passage-boats
are kept .... for the use of the caravans, which occa
sionally number 5000 camels.
" This great river proceeds through the date-groves,
across a bare country onwards to Hillah. ITiis town is built
on a part of Babylon, and chiefly with materials obtained
from its ruins. It contained in 1831, the time of my first
visit, about 10,000 inhabitants, whose dwellings are princi-

72 Babylon not yet destroyed.
pally on the right bank ; the line of houses forming an ob
tuse angle, almost midway between the Mujellebe and the
still more celebrated Birs Nimroud."
One of the officers belonging to the expedition writes as
follows, namely : —
" The noble and interesting river Euphrates is far too
celebrated to require from me more than a fair view of the
prospect it offers for establishing an economical and more
rapid communication between Great Britain and her Indian
possessions, than has hitherto been attained. The brilliant
prospects of a new channel being opened to our enterpris
ing mercantile world through a steam establishment on the
Euphrates, ought to awaken our best energies."
We may next notice* this extract from the letter of W.
Ainsworth, Esq., Surgeon and Geologist to the expedi
tion : —
" The river Euphrates is a navigable stream. I am ac
quainted with it ... . from the Taurus, to its embouchure in
the Persian Gulf, a distance of upwards of 1200 miles. In
a commercial point of view, the close communication estab
lished with so great an emporium of trade as Bagdad is of
the very first importance ; . . . . but there are also on the
river between Kurnah and Felujah, large towns, as Sheikh-
el-Shuyakh and ZTi'Zfo^" (Babylon), " and powerful tribes,
as the Mountejik Arabs, who have long been actuated by
the spirit of commercial enterprise 
" The advantages which are presented by the opening of
the navigation of the river Euphrates, belong to the uni
versal civilization, as well as to the increase, of national
power. The waters of this great river flow past the habita
tions of four millions of human beings  The intel
lectual powers of the descendants from the most noble
stocks of the human race are not extinct in their present
fallen representatives, and it would be difficult to say to
what extent civilization might flourish, when revived in its
most antique home.''

Babylon not yet destroyed. 73
" The national importance of this navigation is of the
most comprehensive character. All acquainted with the his
tory of the communication of nations which, as Montesquieu
has ably pointed out, is the history of commerce, must be
aware that those circumstances which led to the annihila
tion of the commerce of the East, would be revolutionized
by the opening now proposed to be effected ; and that
while civihzation might be confidently expected to return
to its almost primeval seat, it would do so under a very dif
ferent aspect, and with vastly improved means."
Dr. Layard, writing on the same subject to an eminent
English merchant in 1843, makes the following remarks,
namely : —
" The establishment of this navigation would probably
lead to that of English mercantile houses at all the chief
places of trade on the Euphrates, etc.
" The wheat and the barley are particularly fine, nor is it
very uncommon to have three successive crops of grain in
some places. The gardens yield grapes in abundance, also
oranges, peaches, nectarines, figs, apples, pomegranates, and
other fruits  The scenery is at once beautiful and
strikingly grand : the mountains are seen rising abruptly
from the sea to an elevation of four or five thousand feet,
their sides being covered with dense forests, composed of
gigantic chestnut, beech, walnut, alder, poplar, vrillow, ash,
maple, and box trees, with firs towards their summits, and
a magnificent underwood of rhododendron, bay, and hazel,
etc. The less elevated grounds produce cotton, hemp, to
bacco, and raw silk in abundance ; besides precious stones,
such as the turquoise, beryl, crystal, and ruby. Besides
the more valuable metals, gold and silver, Armenia abounds
in copper, lead, iron, saltpetre, sulphur, bitumen, quarries
of coal, marble, and jasper, with several mineral springs
which have been celebrated for many ages.
" The numerous towns along the Euphrates, and the ex
tensive population, partly permanent and party nomadic.

74 Babylon not yet destroyed.
on the banks of that river, will ultimately require several
stations ; but for the present, one should be at Hillah
(Babylon), and another at Anah, and a third at Beles.
" Though the subject has only been considered relatively
to the people in their present state, it should not be forgotten
that Mesopotamia possesses as many advantages as, or per
haps more than, any other country in the world. Although
greatly changed by the neglect of man, those portions which
are still cultivated, as the country about Hillah (Babylon),
show that the region has all the fertility ascribed to it by
Herodotus, who considered its productions as equal to one
third of those furnished by all Asia. Being equal, and in
many respects even superior, to Egypt, with regard to its
position and its capabilities, the time need not be distant
when the date-groves of the Euphrates may be interspersed
with flourishing towns, surrounded with fields of the finest
wheat, and the most productive plantations of indigo, cot- '
ton, and sugar-cane."
These copious extracts are ample enough to prove that
Babylon, though the ancient city is in ruins, is not yet de
stroyed. The fiourishing town of Hillah, with 10,000 in
habitants, stands on a part of the old foundations. The
descendants of the former race are still there. And the
commercial enterprise of Great Britain looks upon the
region with admiring eyes, and contemplates the establish
ment of a system which, once commenced, may be fairly
expected to produce a restoration to more than its long
past greatness.
Erected again by Mammon, the ruling spirit of our
world, and opening so tempting a channel for the craving
impulse of cupidity in trade and manufactures, who shall
say that the immense advantages of its natural position
may not raise it to a towering rank among the nations of
the earth ? And when the time draws near for the return
of the Jews to their own land, and the rebuilding of their
temple, why may not the great Antichrist make Babylon

Babylon not yet destroyed. 75
his chosen seat of empire, preeminent as it will be in
wealth, in luxury, in power, in pride, in wickedness, and
sunk into the rankest infidelity towards the authority of
Heaven ? Then while a portion of Israel, warned by their
own prophets and oppressed by the tyrant, will flee from
her corruption, and seek Zion in penitence, and sorrow, the
recorded judgment will descend, in all the tremendous forms
of infliction set forth in the divine oracles. Antichrist, in
his pride, will abolish all other idolatry, in order to concen
trate it upon himself. Opposed by Babylon, he will pro
ceed, with his ten confederate kings, and burn it with fire ;
and the wrath of the Lord will sink it into total ruin. Then
Antichrist will seize upon Jerusalem ; and bring his blas
phemous usurpation to its utmost climax, by seating him
self in the temple, and claiming to be God. The glorious
Redeemer will appear with His heavenly host, and strike
down the demoniac usurper. And the Satanic beast whose
nature it is to revel in human misery, after raging through
the earth in cruelty and blood, wUl be cast into the abyss
of fiame, and the kingdom of the saints will be established
in peace and righteousness.
Such would seem to be the nearest approach which can
be attained to the interpretation of the prophecy, because
it is in harmony with the language of inspiration. But the
whole of this mysterious subject, so far as it touches the
future, is open to the varieties of individual opinion, and
no certainty can be claimed for any human judgment,
beyond the plain teaching of the Word of God.

^tuntf^ Cl^apter,
Babylon the Great is not Rome.
Let me next present to my reader's attention the letter
of a gentleman who had long resided in India, and whose
convictions were formed from his personal observation of
facts : —
" A fair view of the prophecies against Babylon, as given
in Isaiah and Jeremiah, will show that they have not been
fully and finally accomplisihed. Much has been done in
demonstration of judgment against her, but the last and
complete ruin is yet to come. A stone was bound to a
book, and cast into the Euphrates, and it was said, ' Thus
shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise from the evil that I
will bring upon her.' -^ This speaks clearly of one final and
irrecoverable ruin ; but Babylon rose repeatedly from the
ruin that at first assailed her. Keith's book on prophecy
shows that she was several hundred years being brought
to desolation, and that her end was not sudden but most
gradual. Cyrus took her more than five hundred years
before Christ. Alexander took and attempted to rebuild
her, two hundred years after Cyrus. In that interval her
walls were reduced, and she was much shorn of her power
:and wealth. She was finally brought to desolation by the
building of Seleucia and Ctesiphon in her neighborhood,
iby the successors of Alexander, who thereby succeeded in
drawing away the inhabitants from Babylon. She did not
fall once and for all — suddenly — never to rise, like a
•stone cast into the waters. 1 Jer. li. 63, 64.

Babylon the Great is not Rome. 77
" It is said that ' they shall not take of thee a stone for a
corner, nor a stone for a foundation.' "- But the ruin of the
buildings at Babylon has been mainly accelerated by the
removal of the materials with which she was built, for the
construction of other towns in the neighborhood.
" It is said that this land of Babylon ' shall be a desolation
without an inhabitant ; ' ^ but there is now the modern Arab
town of Hillah, and two villages besides, together with sev
eral gardens and date plantations, within the limits of the
ruins. " It is said that she shall be ' a land where no man dwell
eth, neither doth any son of man pass thereby.' Now,
besides myriads of Asiatics, many Europeans have passed
thereby and thoroughly examined the place.
" It is said that ' the Arabian shall not pitch his tent
there.'' In 1835, when I was there, I saw marks of an
Arab encampment which must have halted there for sev
eral weeks.
" I believe then that Babylon will be rebuilt, and rise to
the splendor described in the book of Revelation, and that
she will then suddenly and finally be brought to ruin.
There are facilities in that country for bringing about such
prosperity in a wonderfully short time. The soil is all
mould and clay, without a single stone, and productive if
watered. Formerly, there were canals in all directions, fed
by the Tigris and the Euphrates. It is only necessary to
repair the banks, of these to make Babylon the most fertile
land on the globe. Wealth is so easily attained that in a
few years the Pasha of Bagdad, fifty miles from Babylon, by
withholding tribute from the Sultan, was enabled to have
a court rivaling that of Erzerpum."
Here, then, we see that other minds have formed the
same conclusion as Mr. Lord, and, so far as I can see, with-
perfect - correctness. Indeed, I am unable to imagine how
a firm faith in the prophecies can lead to any other, when
1 Jer; li. 26. 2 xi)iij_ 29. ' Isaiah xiii. 20.

78 Babylon the Great is not Rome.
the subject is fully examined. For the question stands
thus : — The prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah declare, in
repeated statements of the most explicit kind, that Baby
lon — the Babylon of Chaldea — shall be destroyed as
Sodom and Gomorrah, suddenly, totally ; that it shall be a
desolation ; that no man shall dwell therein ; that the sea shall
cover it, etc. The passages have been set forth in full,
and it is not necessary to repeat them.
But the present condition of Babylon proves incontest-
ably that these prophecies have not been fulfilled. She
sunk gradually into ruin ; not suddenly, nor like Sodom and
Gomorrah. The land is not a desolation ; men have all
along inhabited it ; a flourishing town, Hillah, with 10,000
inhabitants, and two villages besides, stand within the limits
of the ruins. In a word, so manifest is the contrast, that
the common notion of these prophecies having been already
fulfilled, seems to my mind entirely indefensible.
Moreover, we have seen the express connection of the
period appointed for the fall of Babylon, with that which
is fixed for the return of the Jews: "In those days and at
that time," saith the prophet, and in not one but several
places, clearly referring both events to the times of the
great Antichrist.
These prophecies are in perfect accordance with the book
of the Revelation, where we read of the total ruin of Baby
lon the Great. They have not been accomplished, but they
will be, because they are " the Word of the Lord " which
cannot " pass away till all be fulfilled." And therefore, in
order that they may be fulfilled, Babylon will be rebuilt,
and become, as she was in former days, " the beauty of the
Chaldeans," the great centre of commercial wealth and
splendor. We have seen the dawning of that day in the
enterprise contemplated by the government of Great Brit
ain. And it may require another century or more to attain
the full result, when she shall be ripe for her final destruc
tion. Yet it shall all come to pass in its appointed season.
Not one of those celestial predictions shall fail.

Babylon the Great is not Rome. 79
And in perfect harmony with this is the description of
the fall of Babylon the Great, which fills the eighteenth
chapter of the Revelation, a description which is little
suited to Rome, but completely corresponds with the wealth
and power of a vast commercial supremacy. For thus the
angel proclaims with a strong voice, saying, " Babylon the
Great is fallen, is fallen, .... for all nations have drunk
of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings
of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the
merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abun
dance of her delicacies  Come out of her, my peo
ple, that ye be not partakers of her sins. . • . . . For her
sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered
her iniquities  Therefore shall her plagues come in
one day, .... and she shall be utterly burned with fire :
for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her  And the
merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her ; for
no man buyeth their merchandise any more : the merchan
dise of gold and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls,
and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all
thyine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all man
ner vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron,
and marble, and cinnamon, and odors, and ointments, and
frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat,
and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves,
and souls of men  The merchants of these things,
which were made rich by her, shall stand afar off, for the
fear of her torment, weeping and wailing, and saying, Alas,
alas, that great city, that was clothed in flne linen, and
purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious
stones, and pearls 1 For in one hour so great riches is
come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the com
pany in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood
afar off, and cried when they saiw the smoke of her burning,
saying. What city is like unto this great city ! And they cast
dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying.

8p Babylon the Great is not Rome.
Alas, alas, that great city, wherein were made rich all that
had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness ! for in one,
hour is she made desolate  And a mighty angef
took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the
sea, saying. Thus with violence shall that great city Baby
lon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all 
for thy merchants were the great, men of the earth; for by
thy sorceries were all nations deceived."
Here we see that the leading character of the restored
Babylon will be the corruption and wickedness of a colossal
commercial emporium, devoted, to the worship of Mammon,
the most subtle, potent, and successful of all the devils who
have governed mankind since the world began. The re
peated mention of the merchants who were 'made rich by
her, the enumeration of the articles of commerce, the lam
entation of the ship-owners and the sailors, who brought all
foreign products to her port, saying, " What city is like
unto this great city!" — all this, so little descriptive of
Rome, and so : much more adapted to London, marks the
future ascendancy of Babylon, in just accordance with
what she was in past ages, and what she will be again, in
the time to come, when, she stands once more preeminent
in pride, in luxury, in licentiousness, and in rebellious infi
delity as the Queen city of the world.
Commerce, in itself, when guarded by the laws of Chris
tian probity, is undoubtedly a fair and just occupation for
man. But " the love of money is the root of all evil," saith
the Apostle. And the Saviour Himself declares that "it
is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than
for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." ^ And
hence arises the universal and most powerful empire
which commerce holds amongst mankind, namely, that it
approaches in the guise of what, in itself, is right and
beneficial, but is sure, with the vast majority, to advance
with an increasing influence, until the lust of gain absorbs
1 St. Matt. xix. 24.

Babylon the Great is not Rome. Bi
the soul, and exerts a perfect mastery over every opposing
principle. But this lust of gain is the active motive of commerce ;
and commerce affords its most tempting field of operation.
The merchant princes are, even now, the great rulers of
the world ; and the interests of commerce are the strong
est bonds which unite the nations in peace, and the surest
incentives to war when it is supposed that those interests
are in danger. No power on earth, therefore, is so exact
ing as commercial power. No power attempts such mighty
works, and overcomes such gigantic difficulties. No spirit
is so craving in its demands, and none so impatient of
rivalry. And hence it is that Mammon is the ruling demon
amongst the great nations of the earth ; and, throughout
the whole extent of Christendom, covetousness, which St.
Paul expressly calls Idolatry, is the favorite and most
absolute sin of human nature.
I have thus shown, I trust plainly, from the clear state
ments of the prophets, compared with her present condi
tion, that Babylon has not been destroyed, though she
certainly will be ; that her destruction will not take place
until the return of the Jews ; that when the time arrives,
she will be a vast commercial city, full of wealth and
wickedness and idolatry — the idolatry of Mammon. I have
also shown that the measures for her future greatness have
already attracted the attention of the British Parliament ;
that the river Euphrates, on which she stood, and still
stands, will become again the main channel of intercourse
with the East; while her position is so commanding, and
her advantages in all respects so superior, that no reason
can be imagined why she should not become the proudest
emporium of the world.
It has also been shown that these prophecies cannot be
applied to Rome : —
1. Because the Babylon which is to be destroyed is ex-

82 Babylon the Great is not Rome.
pressly called the Babylon of Chaldea. For this is the
language of the prophets : —
" Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chal-
dees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom
and Gomorrah ; " ^ "A sword is upon the Chaldeans, saith
the Lord, and upon the inhabitants of Babylon ; '-' 2 " I will
render unto Babylon and to all the inhabitants of Chaldea,
all their evil that they have done in Zion in your sight,
saith the Lord." ' I do not see how it is possible to inter
pret these words as being applicable to Rome, in Italy.
They belong to the Babylon of Chaldea, and to no other
city: in precise accordance with the name, written on the
forehead of the mystic woman : " Mystery, Babylon the
Great." 2. It is further shown by her title as the " mother of
harlots and abominations of the earth," a title to which
Rome has no claim whatever, because she could not be the
mother of the idolatry that had its origin in Babylon and
had overspread the earth more than 2,000 years before
Papal Rome was in existence.
3. And lastly, the description of the great Babylon, as
a vast commercial emporium, corresponds precisely with
what Babylon was once, and may become again ; while it
is totally unlike Rome, which never was, and never can be,
a city of commanding influence with the merchant princes
of the world.
1 Isaiah xiii. 19. ^ Jer. 1. ^5. ' Ibid. li. 24.

cBtgl^tl^ Cl^apter-
The Defeat of Antichrist.
The nineteenth chapter of the Revelation of St. John
presents the sublime thanksgiving for the fall of Babylon,
followed by the marriage of the Lamb of God ; after which
we read as follows : " I saw heaven opened, and behold a
white horse, and he that sat upon him was called Faithful
and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make
war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head
were many crowns ; and he had a name written, that no
man knew, but he himself. And he was clothed with a
vesture dipped in blood : and his name is called the Word
of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed
him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and
clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that
with it he should smite the nations : and he shall rule them
with a rod of iron : and he treadeth the winepress of the
fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on his
vesture and On his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS,
AND LORD OF LORDS  And I saw the beast, and
the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together
to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against
his army. And the beast was taken, and with him the
false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which
he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast,
and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast
alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone. And the
remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the

84 The Defeat of Antichrist.
horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth : and all the
fowls were filled with their flesh.''
Here we see the advent of the Divine Redeemer, the
" Word of God," the " King of kings and Lord of lords,"
to execute judgment upon Antichrist, the beast, and the
false prophet. His sword " proceedeth out of his mouth,"
to represent the almighty power of His will : for •' He speaks,
and it is doiie ; He commandeth," and all created things
obey Him. His vesture, dipped in blood, refers to his
stupendous sacrifice upon the Cross. The " armies of
heaven " are the angelic host, in precise accordance with
His own prediction that He would come " in the glory of His
Father with the holy angels." ^ And His triumph over Anti
christ, the beast, and the false prophet, is therefore imme
diate and complete, notwithstanding the " kings of the
earth and their armies," in the madness of desperation, are
gathered against Him.
The next chapter sets forth the binding of Satan, the
" old Dragon," for a thousand years, and the resurrection
of the saints, to live and reign with Christ ; during which
happy period the dominion of the Lord will extend through
out the earth, and all shall know Him, " from the least to
the greatest."
But while all will then profess their allegiance to His
throne, there will be many who secretly cling to the service
of idolatry. And therefore, as we may well believe,,in order
to separate the faithful from the ungodly, and to make
manifest the hypocrisy of the false pretenders to holiness,
the Lord will unloose Satan at the end of the Millennium,
and permit him once more to exert his subtle art in deceiv
ing the nations. And he will succeed again, in mustering
a mighty host, to besiege the holy city of Jerusalem ; and
" fire " shall come " down from God out of heaven " and
devour them. Satan will then be finally " cast into the
lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false
1 St. Mark viii. 38.

The Defeat of Antichrist. 85
prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever
and ever." The general resurrection of all the dead, the
entire renovation of the heaven and the earth, and the final
judgment, will take place, in strict fulfillment of the proph
ecies. The throne of the Almighty will be set up in
the New Jerusalem ; sin and death will be driven away ;
and the love of God will be supreme throughout the uni
verse, in all its blessed fruits of everlasting purity and
joy- . _
Having now gone over The testimony of the Scriptures
on the subject of the great Antichrist, and shown, as I trust
sufficiently, that he cannot, with any consistency, be con
founded with the Pope of Rome, I shall proceed to the
declarations of the Christian Fathers, which, on every topic
involving the interpretation of the Word of God, are en
titled to our most respectful attention.

Binti) CJ^apter.
opinions of the Fathers.
The famous Irenaeus, who was the Bishop of Lyons, and
signalized his faith by martyrdom in the fifth persecution
under Septimus Severus (a. d. 202), wrote a valuable
work. Against Heresies, which has come down to our day,
partly in the original Greek, and more completely in an
ancient Latin version. He was noted for his learning and
his zeal ; and as he flourished within seventy years after
the death of the Apostle St. John, his testimony furnishes
the best evidence of the opinions held at that early day by
the Primitive Christians.
In order that my scholastic readers may have the evi
dence fairly before them, I shall transcribe the words of
this and the other Fathers in the Latin version, only noting
the substance of each paragraph as we pass along.
From St. Irentsus.
. . . . per ea quae erunt sub Antichristo, ostenditur, quoniam
exsistens apostata et latro, quasi Deus vult adorari ; et quum sit
servus, Regem se vult prEeconari  Super hsec autem
manifestavit et illud, quod a nobis per multa ostensum est, quo
niam in Hierosolymis Templum dispositione veri Dei factum est.
Ipse enim Apostolus- ex sua persona diffinitive Templum illud
dixit Dei.i
Here we find that Irenaeus declares Antichrist to be an
apostate and a robber ; that he should seek to be adored as
1 S. Irenaei Contra Hareses, lib. v. cap. xxv. p. 322.

opinions of St. Irenceus. 87
God, and proclaim himself to be a hing ; and that this he
should do in the Temple at Jerusalem.
Commenting on the prophecy of Daniel which assigns
to Antichrist " a time, times, and the dividing of time,"
Irenaeus is very clear : —
Usque ad tempus temporum et dimidium tempus ; hoc est, per
triennium et sex menses, in quibus veniens regnabit super terram.
. . . . Et Dominus autem hoc item non credentibus sibi di-
cebat : Ego veni in nomine Patris met, et non recepistis me .' quum
alius venerit in nomine suo, ilium recipietis ; alium dicens Anti-
christum, qui alienus est a Domino  Quod et faciet in
tempore regni sui : transferet regnum in eam [terrenam Hierusa-
lem] et in templo Dei sedet, seducens eos qui adorant eum, quasi
ipse sit Christus.l
By this we see that our author calls the time, times, and
half a time three years and six months, during which Anti
christ will reign upon the earth. He also repeats his
statement that Antichrist will transfer his kingdom to
Jerusalem, and will sit in the Temple of God, deluding those
who adore him into believing that he is Christ.
Many Protestant writers have quoted against the Pope
the declaration of Irenaeus, that the number of Antichrist,
666, given in the Apocalypse, corresponds with the Greek
word Lateinos, or Latin. But I have already stated that
Irenaeus mentions three names which agree with this mystic
number, and the one which he prefers is not Lateinos, but
Titan. These are his words : —
Quoniam autem non propter inopiam nominum habentium
numerum nominis ejus dicimus hsec, sed propter timorem erga
Deum et zelum veritatis : ETAN0AS enim nomen habet numerum
de quo quseritur: sed nihil de eo affirmamus. Sed et AATEINOS
nomen habet sexcentorum sexaginta sex numerum : et valde ve-
risimile est, quoniam novissimum Kegnum hoc habet vocabulum.
Latini enim sunt qui nunc regnant: sed non in hoc nos gloriabi-
mur. Sed et TEITAN, prima syllaba per duas Grsecas vocales
1 S. Irensei Contra Hareses, lib. v. cap. xxv. p. 323.

88 St. ferome.
£¦ et I scripta, omnium nominum qum apud nos inveniuntur, magis
fide dignum est. Etenim praadictum numerum habet in se, et
litterarura est sex, singulis syllabis ex ternis litteris constantibus,
et vetus, et semotum ; neque enim eorum Regum, qui secundum
nos sunt, aliquis vocatus est Titan ; neque eorum, quse publice
adorantur, idolorum apud Grsecos et barbaros habet vocabulum
hoc: et divinum putatur apud multos esse hoc nomen, ut etiamsol
Titan vocetur ab his qui nunc tenent : . . . . Et alias autem
et antiquum, et fide dignum, et regale, magis autem et tyrannicum
nomen  Quum autem vastaverit Antichristus hie
omnia in hoc mundo, regnans annis tribus et mensibus sex, et
sederit in Templo Hierosolymis ; tunc veniet Dominus de coelis in
nubibus, in gloria Patris, ilium quidem et obedientes ei in stagnum
ignis mittens ; addueens autem justis Regni tempora, hoc est,
requietionem, septimam diem sanotificatam ; et restituens Abrahae
promissionem hereditatis : in quo Regno ait Dominus, multos ab
Oriente et Occldente venientes, recumbere cum Abraham, Isaac,
et Jacob.lHere Irenaeus clearly commends the name Titan as
most worthy of confidence, and gives his reasons at large.
And then he proceeds to say, that after Antichrist shall
have reigned three years and a half, carrying desolation
through the world, and shall sit in the Temple at Jerusalem,
the Lord will come in clouds from heaven, with the glory
of the Father, and consign him and all that obey, him to
the lake of fire, giving the kingdom to the just, which is the
rest of the Holy Sabbath, and restoring to Abraham the
promised inheritance ; in which kingdom, saith the Lord,
many shall come from the East and the West, and sit
down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

From St. Jerome.
I proceed, next, to the opinions of the celebrated Jerome,
which will be sufficiently manifest from the following ex
tracts. Thus, in his commentary on Daniel xi., opposing
1 S. Irenaei Contra Hareses, lib. v. cap. xxx. pp. 329, 330.

St. ferome. 89
the hypothesis of Porphyry, who applied this prophecy to
Antiochus Epiphanes, Jerome saith : —
Nostri autem secundum superiorem sensum interpretantur
omnia de Antichristo, qui nasciturus est de populo Judceorum, et
de Babylone venturus.l
Quod autem Antichristus veniat usque ad summitatem montis
sancti'et inclyli, et ibi pereat : Esaias plenius loquitur: Prsecipi-
tabit Dominus in monte sancto faciem dominatoris tenebrarum
super omnes gentes, et eum qui dominatur cunctis populis.2
Et revelatus fuerit homo peccati. Diabolus scilicet. Filius
perditionis. Quia eum quasi sibi natum, servitio possidebit, qui
secundum Esaiam conturbare dicitur gentes. Qui adversatur et
extoUilur, supra omne quod dicitur Deus, aut quod colitur, etc.
Supra omnem potentiam et aeternitatem se jactabit, ut Sacramenta
culturae corrigere vel augere se dicat, et templum Hierusalem reficere
ientabil : omnesque legis ceremonias restaurare, tantum ut veri
tatis Christi Evangelium solvat, quos res Judceis eum pro Christo
siiscipere suadebit, in suo non Dei nomine venientem.3
In fine mundi hcec sitfacturus Antichristus, qui consnrgerehahet
de modica gente, id est de populo Judaeorum, et tarn humilis erit
et despectus, ut ei non detur honor regius, et per insidias et fi'aud-
ulentiam obtineat principatum, etc.*
Quia igitur consummate Antichristo et parente ejus diabolo, qui
conculcabat unioersam terram, etc.*
Hand dubium quin Antichristus sit, qui in consummatione
mundi dicitur esse venturus, etc,^
These extracts show that Jerome thought Antichrist
would be born of the Jewish people, and would come from
Babylon ; that he would perish on the summit of the holy
mountain (Moriah) ; that he would be a devil, and would
rebuild the Temple at Jerusalem ; that he would restore all
the ceremonies of the law, and thus persuade the Jews to
' S. Hieron. Com. in Daniel., cap. xi. torn. 5, p. 509.
2 Ibid. p. 511.
' S. Hieron. Com. inposteriorem epist. ad Thess., cap. ii. torn. 9, p. 309.
* S. Hieron. Com. in Daniel., cap. xi. tom. 5, p. 508.
° S. Hieron. Com. in Esaiam, cap. xvi. tom. 5, p. 73.
^ S. Hieron. Com. in Zachariam, cap. xi. tom. 6, p. 220.

90 St. Athanasius.
receive him as the Christ ; that this should be at the end of
the world ; that his parent would be Satan, and that he
would trample upon the whole earth.
And with respect to the " time, times and a half," Jerome
agrees with the rest : " Tempus, et tempora, et dimidium
temporis, tres et semis annos interpretatur Porphyrius,
quod et nos juxta Scripturarum sanctarum idioma non
negamus." He then proceeds to justify this interpretation
from the fact that the duration of King Nebuchadnezzar's
insanity is stated in the same book to be " seven times,
which no one doubts to have signified seven years." ^
From St. Athanasius.
It will not he without interest that we should hear the
opinions of the famous Athanasius, given in answer to cer
tain questions, as Jfollows : —
Qrr^STio cvii.
Quale signum tenere debet homo, ne seducatur et recipiat Anti-
christum, putans videlicet, ipsum esse Deum V
Respostsio.
Hoc ipsum, quod Dominus tradidit nobis, dicens : Quod quem-
admodum fulgur exit ab Orientali plaga mundi, ei in Occidentem
usque lucet, sic etiamfilii hominis secundus erit adventus. Docemur
inde, quod omnis Christi sese nomine venditans, si non veniat ex
improvise, nee in toto conspicuus, sed reperiatur tantum in una
regione vel civitate, quod talis sine dubio sit Antichristus.
QtriESTio cviii.
An vero ex Mgy^io egreditur Antichristus, et quod signum in
raanu una, ut et oculo uno, prae se fert ?
Responsio.
Haeo omnia aniles sunt fabulae. Antichristus enim nullum tale
signum prae se fert : sed etiam ex Galilaea, unde Christus exiit,
veniet, sicut ait Scriptura: Catulus leonis Dan, et exiliet ex Basan :
quae est Scythopolis.1 S. Hieron. Com. in Daniel., tom. 5, p. 512, F.

St. Athanasius. 91
In these answers, we see how Athanasius refers to the
glory which shall mark the coming of our Lord, as a com
plete preservative against the danger of being deceived by
Antichrist. He also adopted the same view, which appears
to have been the prevalent one, namely, that Antichrist
would be one of the Jewish race, and should assume the
name of the true Messiah. In both of these the contrast is
direct between his doctrine and that of our modern inter
preters ; for the Pope is a Gentile, and not a Jew. And
he has never called himself the Christ, but only the Vicar
of Christ. The following extracts will show this contrast
yet more plainly ; — Qu^STIO cix.
Asserunt quidam, possibile non fore, ut Antichristus exsuscitet a
mortuis hominem, etiamsi reliqua faciat omnia.
Responsio.
Quod Apostolus de Antichristo dicit, eum sese exhibiturum in
omnibus siguis et virtutibus mendacii, liquet, quod etiam mortuum
a se excitatum ostentabit, id autem non vere, sed tantum ex
phantasia.l Antichristus transformata specie asserlt, se Christum esse, ac de
futura consummatione iustituit loqui, quo audientes in errorem
abduoat : 2 etc.
Here we see that Athanasius attributes to Antichrist the
working of all miracles, even to the raising of the dead :
but all these will be lying miracles — not real, but ficti
tious. It is certain, however, that the Pope has never
claimed any such power, ijtie has given credit to the
miraculous powers of others, and yet has at no time pre
tended to exercise -such powers himself
We see also, in the last sentence quoted, that Antichrist,
changing liis appearance, will assert that he is Christ, and
will talk of the future consummation predicted by the old
prophets, by which he will deceive his hearers. But
nothing like this can be found in the history of the Popes.
' S. Athanasii op. tom. 2, p.i 373-74- Ed. 1686, Colonic.
2 JUd. tom. I, p. 500, C.

92 St. Ambrose.
The next of those ancient witnesses is Ambrose, the
eminent Bishop of Milan, whose opinions will be sufficiently
manifest from the following extracts : —
From St. Jmbrose.
Fuit autem et SamSou de Tribu Dan, et judicavit Israel viginti
annis. Sed non hunc prophetia significat, at Antichristum qui
futurus est ex Tribu Dan, saevus judex, et tyrannus immanis,! etc.
Nam et bestia ilia Antichristus ex abj'sso adscendit, ut adversus
Eliam atque Enoch atque Johannem, qui propter testimonium
domini Jesu terris sunt redditi, praeliaretur : ut legimus in
Johannis Apocalypsi : cui datum est os loquendi magna, ut ad
versus Deum plena furoris convicia et sacrilegii personaret.'-
Et ideo ait : In nomine Patris veni, et non me suscepistis : si alius
venerit in nomine suo, ilium suscipielis ; significans Judaeosin Anti
christum credituros, qui in Christum credere noluerunt.3
This testimony is clear, that Antichrist would be a Jew of
the tribe of Dan, a cruel and inhuman tyrant ; that he would
oppose Elias, Enoch, and John, who, as Ambrose supposed,
would return to the earth and bear witness to Jesus ; and
that the Jews, who rejected Christ coming in the name of
His Father, would receive Antichrist coming in his own
name. But the Pope does not come in his own name ;
neither has he opposed Elias, Enoch, or St. John ; nor has
he ever been received by the Jews as their Messiah ; nor
does he claim to be of the tribe of Dan. On the contrary,
he has never shown the Jews any favor, nor is there any
portion of the Christian Ch^ch which the Jews hate as
much as the Church of Rome.
We come next to the testimony of St. Augustine, whose
authority amongst the Fathers is acknowledged to be of
the highest estimation : —
From St. y^ugustlne,
Peracto quippe judicio tunc esse desinet hoc coelum et hsec terra,
1 S. Ambrosii op. tom. i, p. 523, A.
2 Ibid. p. 930, C. 3 ji,i^_ p. gg6_ D.

St. Augustine. 93
quando incipiet esse coelum novum et terra nova. Mutatione
namque rerum, non omni mode interitu, transibit hie mundus.
Unde et Apostolus ait: Prceterit enimfigura hujus mundi, volo
vos sine soUicitudine esse. Figura ergo prasterit, non natura.1
After quoting in full St. Paul's words in 2d Thess. ii., St.
Augustine saith : —
NuUi dubium est, eum de Antichristo ista dixisse ; diemque
judicii (hunc enim appellat diem Domini) non esse venturum,
nisi ille prior venerit, quem refugam vocat, utique a Domino Deo.
Quod si de omnibus impiis meritb dici potest, quanto magis de isto ?
Sed in quo templo Dei sit sessurus, incertum est: utrum in ilia
ruina templi, quod a Salomone rege constructum est, an vero in
Ecclesia.^ Antichristi tamen adversus Ecclesiam saevissimum regnum, licet
exiguo spatio temporis sustinendum, donee Dei ultimo judicio
regnum sancti accipiant sempiternum, qui vel dormitans haec legit,
dubitare non sinitur. Tempus quippe et tempora et dimidium-
temporis, annum unum esse, et duos, et dimidium, ac per hoc tres
annos et semissem, etiam numero dierumposterius posito dilucescit,
aliquando in Scripturis et mensium numero declaratur.3
The first of these extracts shows the judgment of St.
Augustine on the new heaven and the new earth. He
saith that the world will pass away, not by the destruction
of all things, but by a change. Hence the Apostle saith
that the figure of this world will pass away. Therefore the
form, and not the nature, will disappear.
Next we find that Augustine connects the coming of
A.ntichrist with the Day of Judgment. For the Apostle
saith that the day of the Lord will not come until he shall
first come whom he calls an Apostate from the Lord God.
For if this name may be justly applied to all impious men,
how much more to Antichrist ? But in what temple of
God he shall sit as God, whether in the ruins of the
^ S. Augustini De Civ. Dei, lib. xx. cap. xiv.
2 Ibid. cap. xix. ^ Ibid. cap. xxiii.

94 S/f. Cyril of Jerusalem.
Temple erected by Solomon or in the Church, Augjistine
deemed to be uncertain.
Lastly this eminent Father is clear that the kingdom of
Antichrist will be most cruel towards the Church, although
it will be only /or a short period before the final judgrrient
of God shall establish the kingdom of the Saints forever.
For he who reads, however drowsily, cannot doubt of this :
— that the time, times, and the dividing of time signify one
year, two years, and a half, and therefore three years and a
half, which is plain from the number of the months (forty-
two), and even of the days (twelve hundred and sixty)
elsewhere mentioned in the Scriptures.
I pass on next to the catechetical discourses of St. Cyril,
the Bishop of Jerusalem, whose commentary on the subject
of Antichrist is very copious, and highly interesting. It
will occupy several pages ; but it will be found well deserv
ing of the reader's attention, if he desires to have a large
interpretation of the prophecies, as they were understood
.by the best minds in the purest ages of Primitive Christ
ianity : — From St. Cyril of ferusalem.
" . . . .Cum verus Christus secund6 venturus erit, simplicium,
«et circumoisorum praesertim, exspectationem Adversarius in occa-
-sionem sumens, producet quemdam hominem magum, ac fallacis
-veneficiorum incantationumque perversas artis peritissimum ; qui
let Romani imperii dominationem usurpabit, et falso se Christum
appellaturus est, et per hanc Christi appellatlonem Judaeos qui
!Unctum£sive Messiam ac Christum] exspectant, decipiet,,^Grenti-
desque magicis praestigiis ac dolis pertrahet.
XII. Veniet porro praefatus iste Antichristus, cum Romani
limperii completa fuerint tempora, jamjamque mundi finis proxi-
imus erit. Decern simul Romanorum reges exsurgent, in (Jiversis
iforte locis, uno tamen eodemque tempore regnantes. Post hos vero
lUndecimus erit Antichristus, magicse artis adminiculo Romanum
imperium usurpans. Tres eorum qui ante se regnaverint, humi-
liabit, septem vero reliquos sua ditionii subjectos habens. Ac pri-
mum quidem veluti eruditus ac prudens quispiam clementiam,

St. Cyril of Jerusalem. 95
temperantiam, humanitatemque simulabit: at Jud^is per signa,
falsaque ex magicis fraudibus prodigia, quasi ille expectatus
Christus esset, deceptis ; omnibus deinceps crudelitatis et sceleris
inscribetur notis, ita ut omnes injustos et impios qui ipsum prae-
cessere, improbitate superet : sanguinarium, praefractae duritiae, im-
miserioordem et versipellem, cum adversus omnes, tum vero max-
ime contra nos Christianos, animum gerens. Postquam vero tres
annos et menses sex duntaxat talia designaverit, ab secundo
unigeniti Eilii Dei domini et Salvatoris nostri Jesu, veri Christi,
glorioso de coelis adventu abolebitur : qui Spiritu oris sui Anti
christum interficiens, ilium igni tradet sempiterno.
XIII. Haec autem docemus, non comminiscentes, sed ex divinis
quas legit Ecclesia Scripturis, et maxime ex recens lecta Danielis
prophetia, edocti : sicut et Gabriel archangelus interpretatus est
his verbis : Quarta bestia, quartum erit regnum in terra, quod
omnia regno supereminebit. Hoc autem Romanum esse ecclesias
tic! auctores tradiderunt. Cum enim primum quod illustre fuerit,
sit Assyriorum imperium : alteram, Medorum simul et Persarum ;
et tertium post hsBc, Macedonum ; quartum imperium est praesens
Romanorum. Tum in consequentibus Gabriel interpretando ait ;
Decern cornua ipsius, decern reges exsurgent ; et post ipsos exsurget
rex alter, qui omnes se anteriores malis superabit : non solum illos
decem dicit, sed et omnes quotquot prascessere. Et tres reges humil-
iabit ; "ex illis decem prioribus, ut planum est : ex illis vero decem tres
humilians, prorsus ipse octavus regnabit. Et verba, inquit, contra
Altissimum loquetur : blasphemus vir et legum contemtor, qui non a
patribus regnum acceperit, sed magicis artibus principatum rapuerit.
XIV. Quis autem iste est, aut cujusmodi ad operationem
pertinet ? Interpres esto, Paule. Cujus est, inquit, adventus
secundum operationem Satanoe, in omni potestate et signis et pro-
digiis mendacii. Hoc innuens, Satanam eo tamquam instrumento
usurum, in propria persona per ipsum operantem. Gnarus enim
nuUam de caetero moram suo judicio fore, jam non per ministros
sues ex more, sed per seipsum deinceps apertius bellum geret. In
omnibus vero signis et prodigiis mendacii. Qui enim mendacii
pater est, mendacii opera fictis speciebus ostentabit, ita ut plebes
resuscitatum mortuum se -videre putent, qui tamen non resuscitetur ;
et claudos ambulantes, et caecos visum recipientes, cum nulla
hujiismodi fiat sanatio.
XV. Rursumque ait : Qui adversatur, et exiollitur super omnem

96 St. Cyril of Jerusalem.
qui dicitur Deus aut numen : (supra omnem Deum : idola quippe
odio habiturus est Antichristus.) Ita ut ipse in templo Dei sedeat.
Quale autem templum ? eversum intelligit illud Judsorum. Absit
enim, ut istud in quo sumus dicat. Cur autem hoc dicimus? ne
nobis ipsis gratificari videamur. Si enim ad Juda30s tamquam
Christus venturus est, et a Judaeis adorari volet ; ut ipsos magis
decipiat, templi stadium maximum ostentabit ; suspioionem spar-
gens se eum esse ex genere Davidis, qui templ'um a Salomone
constructum reparaturus sit. Veniet autem Antichristus tunc,
cum in templo Judaeorum lapis super lapidem non manebit, juxta
Salvatoris denunciationem. Quando enim vel vetustate collapsi,
vel aedificationis praetextu dejecti, vel quamcumque ob aliam
causam eversi fuerint lapides omnes ; non exterioris dico ambitus,
sed interioris aedis ubi Cherubim erant : tunc veniet ille in omni
bus signis et portentis mendacii; adversus idola omnia se efferens :
et initiis quidem humanitatem simulans, postea vero feritatem
maxime adversum Sanctos Dei demonstrans. Dicit enim [Daniel] :
Videiam, et cornu illud bellum gerebat cum Sanctis. Et rursus
alio in loco : Erit tempus afflictionis : afflictio qualis non fuit ex
quo gens exstitit super terram, usque ad tempus illud. Terribilis
est fera, draco magnus hominibus insuperabilis, paratus ad devo-
randum ; de quo tametsi plura ex divinis Scripturis dicenda
habeamus, modum tamen tenentes his interim contenti erimus.
XVI. Idcirco adversarii hujus vim pernoscens Dominus, piis
veniam concedit aiens : Tunc qui in Judea erunt, fugiant in,.
mantes. Si quis vero sibi firmitatis maximte conscius sit, ut adver
sus Satanam repugnet, persistat (non enim robur et nervos
EcclesiaB desperates habeo) ; et dicat : Quis nos separabit a chari-
tate Christi? etc. Verum qui timidi sumus, nos in tuto ponamus;
qui vero fiducise pleni, ad pugnam perstemus. Erit enim tunc af
flictio magna, qualis non fuit ab initio creaturoe usque ad hoc tempus,
neque deinceps erit. Attamen Deo sit gratia, qui afHictionis magni-
tudinem paucis diebus circumscripsit. Dicit enim: Sed propter elec-
tos decurtahuntur dies illi. Regnabit vero Antichristus tres annos
et dimidium duntaxat. Quod non ex apooryphis dicimus, sed ex
Daniele. Ait namque : Et dabitur in manu ejus usque ad tempus,
et tempora, et dimidium temporis. Tempus est annus unus, in quo
sensim augmentum capiet ejus adventus : tempora, vero, duo reliqui
impietatis anni ; quas in summam coUecta annos tres conficiunt: et
dimidium temporis, sunt sex menses.l
1 S. Cyril. Cat. XV. §§ 11 -16, pp. 229-232.

St. Cyril of Jerusalem. 97
In this long extract from the celebrated Cyril of Jerusa
lem, we find the following statements ; —
When Christ is about to come the second time, the
Adversary (Satan) will send forth a magician, most skillful
in his perverse art, who shall usurp the dominion of the
Roman Empire, and falsely call himself the Christ, deceiv
ing the Jews by this pretense that he is their Messiah, and
deluding the Gentiles by his magical wonders.
This Antichrist will come when the times of the Roman
Empire are filled up, for then the end of the world will be
nigh. Ten kings will rise up together in different places,
reigning at the same time. The eleventh after these will
be Antichrist, usurping the Roman Empire by his magical
arts. Three of those who had reigned before him he will
abase, and make the other seven subject to his government.
At first he will appear to be erudite and prudent, clement
and humane. As soon, however, as he shall have succeeded
in deceiving the Jews by his magical arts into the persua
sion that he is their Messiah, he will exceed in ferocious
cruelty all that have lived upon the earth, raging especially
against the Church. But after he has held his destructive
reign during three years and six months, he shall be thrust
down by the glorious advent of our Lord and Saviour, the
only begotten Son of God, and the true Christ, descending
from heaven, who will destroy Antichrist with the Spirit of
His mouth, and cast him into everlasting fire.
' Cyril then proceeds to prove his statement from the
prophecy of Daniel, and passes on to the prediction of
St. Paul. Here he maintains that the Apostle speaks of
Satan using Antichrist as his instrument, and working in
proper person through him. For knowing that there would
be no further delay of his own judgment, he will not be
satisfied to carry on his warfare by his servants as before,
but will battle openly by himself As he is the father of
lies, he will exhibit all false signs and prodigies, so that the
multitude shall think that the dead are brought to life
7

98 St. Cyril of Jerusalem.
again, that the lame walk, and the blind see ; while the
whole will be not real, but only a Satanical delusion.
Cyril proceeds to comment on the words of St. Paul, that
Antichrist will " exalt himself above all that is called God,
or that is worshipped ; so that he as God shall sit in the
temple of God." This our author understands as signify
ing that Antichrist will hold idolatry in abhorrence, (Jbubt-
less because he could not otherwise maintain his author
ity with the Jews, nor concentrate their worship on himself
as their Messiah and their Deity. He then discusses the
question : In what temple shall he be seated ? Cyril, being
the Archbishop of Jerusalem, delivered his admirable dis
courses in the magnificent church there, which was not
a Jewish, but a Gentile church, erected by the Empress
Helena long after the destruction of the old Temple by the
Romans and the expulsion of the Jews. Therefore he
¦saith : " God forbid that Antichrist should sit in the temple
where we are now assembled. But if Antichrist shall come
to the Jews, as if he were the Christ, and desires to be
adored by them, he will show the greatest zeal for their
Temple, in order the better to deceive them, spreading the
idea around that he is the king who should come of the
¦seed of David, and should restore the Temple which was
built by Solomon. But Antichrist will come when one
stone shall not be left upon another in that Temple, accord
ing to the denunciation of the Saviour, especially in the
interior where the Cherubim were placed, though of the
outer walls something may remain. And then, he will dis
play all lying prodigies, and condemn all idols ; and though
in the beginning he will pretend to mildness and humanity>
•yet afterwards he will rage against the Saints of God.
'For it is written that the little horn shall make war against
=the Saints, and that there should be a time of such affliction
as was never known upon the earth, caused by that terrible
and ferocious dragon, invincible by men, and ready to
devour.

St. Cyril of Jerusalem. 99
" The Lord, therefore, well knowing the power of the great
adversary, grants this grace to the faithful, saying, ' Then,
let those who are in Judea, flee to the mountains.' Yet if
any are conscious of sufficient firmness to contend against
Satan, let him remain — for I would not (saith Cyril) despair
of the strength and resolution of the Church: and the
faithful may say, ' Who shall separate us from the love of
Christ,' etc. But thanks be to God, who puts a limit to
the greatness of the affliction. Therefore the Lord saith :
' For the elect's sake, those days shall be shortened.'
Antichrist will reign for three years and a half only. And
this we say, not from any Apocryphal writings, but from
Daniel, who declares expressly, that the kingdom shall be
given into his hand until a time, times, and the dividing
of time. A time is one year, times are the two other years
of impiety, and the dividing of time is half a year," etc.
In this long extract from the famous work of Cyril, we
have his concurrence with the other witnesses in all the
important points of the question. Antichrist will come
near the end of the present dispensation. He will be the
special instrument of Satan, who will work in person
through him. He will claim to be the Christ; and will
deceive the Jews by this, by his denunciation of idolatry,
and by demoniac art in producing false miracles. He
will assume the right to divine worship, as God. He will
claim his descent from David, as the Messiah. He will
reestablish the Temple at Jerusalem, and sit therein as the
Deity. He will rage against the saints, and cause the most
unexampled extremes of suffering and tribulation. But
his reign will be short, extending only to three years and
six months, when the Lord shall destroy him by the bright
ness of His coming.
The next witness to the opinions which prevailed in the
Primitive Church is Lactantius, an eloquent writer of the
fourth century. His statements are as follows : —

I oo Lactantius.
From Iiactantius.
. . . . Propinquante igitur hujus seculi termino, huma-
narum rerum statum commutari necesse est, . . . . et imperium
in Asiam revertetur ; ac rursus oriens dominabitur, atque occi-
dens serviet  Tunc discordiae civiles in perpetuum
serentur; nee ulla requies bellis exitialibus erit, donee reges
decem pariter existant, qui orbem terrae, non ad regendum, sed
ad consumendum patiantur. Hi exercitibus in immensum coac-
tis, et agrorum cultibus destitutis, quod est principium eversionis
ct cladis, disperdent omnia, et comminuent, et vorabunt. Tum
repente adversus eos hostis potentissimus ab extremis finibus
plagae septentrionalis orietur ; qui tribus ex numero deletis, qui
tunc Asiam obtinebunt, assumetur in societatem a caeteris, ac
princeps omnium constituetur. Hie insustentabili dominatione i
vexabit orbem ; divina et humana miscebit ; infanda diotu, et
execrabilia molietur ; nova consilia in peotore suo volutabit, ut
proprium sibi constituat imperium ; leges commutabit, suas san-
ciet ; contaminabit, diripiet, spoliabit, occidet. Denique immu-
tato nomine, atque imperii sede translata, confusio ac perturbatio
humani generis consequetur.l
Sed planius, quomodo id eveniat, exponam. Imminente jam
temporum conclusione, propheta magnus mittetur a Deo, qui con-
vertat homines ad Dei agnitionem, et accipiat potestatem mirabilia
faciendi. Ubicunque non audierint eum homines, cludet ccelum ;
et abstinebit imbres ; et aquam convertet in sanguinem, et crucia-
bit illos siti, ac fame, et quicunque conabitur eum laedere, pro-
cedet ignis de ore ejus, atque comburet ilium. His prodigiis, atque
virtutibus, convertet multos ad Dei cultum ; peractisque operibus
ipsius, alter Rex orietur ex Syria malo spiritu genitus, eversor, ac
perditor generis humani, qui reliquias illius prioris mali cum ipso
simul deleat. Hie pugnabit adversus prophetam Dei; et vincet, et
interficiet eum, et insepultum jacere patietur. Sed post diem
tertium reviviseet ; atque inspectantibus et mirantibus cunctis ra-
pietur in coelum. Rex vero ille teterrimus erit quidem et ipse, sed
mendaciorum, propheta ; et seipsum constituet ac voeabit Deum ;
et se coli jubebit ut Dei filium : et dabitur ei potestas, ut faciat
signa et prodigia ; quibus visis irretiat homines, ut adorent eum.
Jubebit ignem descendere de coelo, et solem a suis cursibus stare,
^ Lactantii Divinarum Instit-utionum, lib. vii. §§ 15, 16, pp. 490-93.

Lactantius. loi
et imaginem loqui, et fient hac sub verbo ejus, quibus miraculis
etiam sapientium plurimi allicientur ab eo. Tunc eruere templum
Dei conabitur; etjustum populum persequetur : et erit pressura,
et contritio, qualis nunquam fuit a principio mundi. Quicunque
crediderint, atque accesserint ei, signabuntur ab eo tanquain pecu-
des : qui autem recusaverint notam ejus, aut in montes fugient ;
aut, comprehensi, exquisitis cruciatibus necabuntur. Idemjuslos
homines obvolvet libris prophetarum ; atque ita cremabit, et
dabitur ei desolare orbem terrae mensibus quadraginta duobus. Id
erit tempus, quo justitia projicietur, et innocentia odio erit; quo
mali bonos hostiliter pr^dabuntur; non lex, aut niilitiae disciplina
servabitur; non canos quisquam reverebitur, non officium pietatis
agnoscet; non sexus aut infantiae miserebitur. Confundentur
omnia, et miscebuntur contra fas, contra jura naturae. Ita quasi
uno communique latrocinio, terra universa vastabitur. Cum haec
facta erunt, tum justi et sectatores veritatis segregabunt se a
malis, et fugient in solitudines. Quo audito, impius rex inflamma-
tus ira veniet cum exercitu magno, et admotis omnibus copiis cir-
cundabit montem in quo justi morabuntur, ut eos comprehendat.
Illi vero, ubi se clauses undique atque obsesses viderint, exolama-
bunt ad Deum voce magna, et auxilium coeleste implorabunt ; et
exaudiet eos Deus ; et emittet regem magnum de ccelo, qui eos
eripiat, ac liberet, omnesque impios ferro ignique disperdat.
.... Tunc aperietur coelum medium intempesta et tenebrosa
nocte : ut in orbe toto lumen descendentis Dei tanquam fulgur ap-
pareat. . . . Hie est enim liberator, et judex, et ultor, et rex, et
Deus, quem nos Christum vecamus ; qui priusquam desoendat,
hoc signum dabit. Cadet repente gladius e coele ; ut sciant justi
ducem sanctae militiae descensurum ; et descendet comitantibus
angelis in medium terrae; et antecedet eum fiamma inextinguibilis,
et virtus angelorum tradet in manus justorum mulitudinem illam
quae montem cireunsederit; et concidetur ab hora tertia usque ad
vesperum; et fluet sanguis more torrentis ; deletisque omnibus
copiis, impius solus effugiet; et peribit ab eo virtus sua. Hie est
autem, qui appellatur Antichristus; sed seipse Christum menlietur;
et centra verum dimicabit; et victus effugiet; et bellum saepe
renovabit; et saepe vincetur ; donee quarto praelio confectis omni
bus impiis, debellatus, et captus, tandem sceleruni auorum luat
pcenas. Sed et caeteri principes ac tyranni, qui contriverunt
orbem, simul cum eo vincti adducentur ad regem; et increpabit

I02 Lactantius.
eos, et coarguet ; et exprobrabit his facinora ipsorum ; et damnabit
eos, ac meritis cruciatibus tradet.i
The substance of the foregoing extracts is this : That
Lactantius places the events connected with Antichrist at
the time when the end of this dispensation draws near.
The condition of human affairs will then be changed. The
seat of empire will be restored to Asia, and again the
East will have the dominion, and the West will be in sub
jection. Civil discords will prevail, and there will be no
rest from destructive wars. Ten kings will reign, who
shall consume rather than govern the world. A powerful
enemy will suddenly arise who shall destroy three, and be
come the Prince over the others. He will oppress the
earth with intolerable tyranny, spreading wickedness, con
tamination, and misery in every quarter. God will send
forth a great prophet who shall convert men to the truth,
by the miracles which he shall have power to perform.
But another king shall arise in Syria, the offspring of
Satan, the destroyer of the human race, who shall cooper
ate with the first in the work of evil. He shall slay the
prophet, and leave his body unburied ; and after three days
the prophet shall rise again, and he taken up into heaven.
This demoniacal king will also be a prophet, but only of
lies ; and he will call himself God, and will command men
to worship him as the Son of God ; and power will be given
to him to do wonders and prodigies, which will induce the
beholders to adore him. For he shall order fire to descend
from heaven, and the sun to stand still, and an image to
speak, and it shall be done at his word ; by which
miracles many even of the wise shall be enticed by him.
Then he will endeavor to build up the Temple of God, and
he will persecute the righteous people, and there will be
such oppression and affliction as never were since the
beginning of the world.
Those who believe in him shall be marked like cattle ;
1 Lactantii Zi/». Instit, lib. vii. §§ 17-19, pp. 494-99.

Lactantius. 103
and those who refuse to acknowledge him shall either flee
to the mountains, or be killed with exquisite torments, and
it will be given to him to desolate the world for forty and
two months (three years and a half). This will be the time
when justice shall be cast out, and innocence will be hated ;
when the wicked shall make a prey of the good, neither
law nor military discipline will be observed, no reverence
will be shown to the aged, no offlce of piety will be ac
knowledged, no pity will be shown to women or infants ; all
things will be thrown into confusion, against right, and even
against the laws of nature. When these atrocities shall
come to pass, the just and the followers of truth will with
draw themselves from the wicked, and will fiee into the
wilderness. And the impious king, infiamed with rage,
will come with a great army, and surround the mountain
where they will have sought refuge. But they, finding
themselves besieged on every side, will cry to God with a
loud voice, imploring help from heaven. And God will
hear them, and will send the great King, who will deliver
them, and disperse the wicked host with fire and sword.
. . . . Then will heaven open, and the glory of the
descending God will appear like lightning in all the world.
. . . . For he is the Deliverer, the Judge, and the
Avenger, and the King, and God, whom we call Christ.
.Suddenly the sword will fall from heaven, and the just
will recognize the Leader of the Holy Army, who will
descend with the angelic host in the midst of the earth ;
while flames of flre shall go before him, and the angels
will deliver into the hands of the just the multitude
who surround the mountain, and a torrent of blood will
flow ; and, all his army being destroyed, the Wicked One
will escape alone. This is he who is called the Antichrist,
who will war against the true Christ, and being conquered
will fly, until, in the fourth battle, all his forces being slain,
he will be taken, and with all the princes and tyrants who
aided him, will be condemned, and delivered to the tor
ments which they have deserved.

I04 St. Isidore of Seville.
The reader will see, in these statements of Lactantius,
a substantial agreement with the rest. And while, in some
of his views, he is less precise, and his description is more
loose and rhetorical, yet we recognize without difficulty the
main features of the interpretation current in his day.
Our next witness is St. Isidore, the Bishop of Hispala,
or Seville, and greatly esteemed for erudition. The fol
lowing extracts will show his opinions fairly : —
From St. Isidore of Seville.
Antichristus appellatur, quod contra Christum venturus est.
. . . . Christum enim se mentietur dum venerit, et centra
eum dimicabit, et adversabitur sacramentis Christi, ut veritatis ejus
evangelium solvat. Nam et templum Hierosolymis reparare, et
omnes veteris legis ceremonias restaurare, tentabit.l
Dum in Martyres Diabolus jam exercuerit crudelitatem mag-
nam etiam ligatus, crudelior erit tamen Antichristi temperibus,
quando etiam erit solvendus 
Quanto propinquius finem mundi Diabolus videt, tanto crudelius
persecutienes exercet : ut quia se continue damnandum conspicit,
socios sibi multiplicet, cum quibus gehennae ignibus addicatur.
Quanto brevius tempus videt sibi restare Diabolus, ut damnetur :
tanto in magna persecutionis ira mevetur, divina justitia permit-
^ente: ut glorificentur electi, sordidentur iniqui, et ut Diabole
durior crescat damnationis sententia.^
Tempus, juxta Hebraeos, integer annus est, secundum illud in
Daniele : Ternpus, et tempora, et dimidium. Per tempus, annum
significat, per tempora duos, et per dimidium, menses sex.3
Isidore here states that Antichrist is so called because
he will oppose Christ. He will falsely declare himself to
be the Messiah, and will make war against the Saviour and
be hostile to the Sacraments of the Church, that he may
break down the Gospel pf truth. With this view he will
1 S. Isidori Hispal. Originum, lib. viii. cap. xi. p. 70, A. Edit
Colonise, 1617.
'^slbid. Sententiarum, lib. iii. cap. xxviii. p. 424, G.
' Ibid. De Natura Rerum, cap. vii. p. 248, H.

St. Chrysostom. 105
set himself to repair the Temple of Jerusalem, and to
restore all the ceremonies of the Old Law.
Again, saith this writer : " Since the devil has already
exercised such great cruelty against the martyrs, although
bound, how much more cruel will he be in the times of
Antichrist when he will be unloosed ?
" The nearer the devil sees the end of the world to be,
the more cruel will be his persecution, for as he beholds
his own condemnation continually, he will multiply com
panions to himself, with whom he may share the flames of
Gehenna." Again, saith Isidore : " The shorter the time which Sa
tan knows to be remaining before his condemnation, the
greater will be the wrath which stimulates his persecution ;
divine justice permitting it, that the elect may be glorifled,
that the wicked may be defiled, and that the sentence of
the final judgment upon the devil may be more severe."
And in the last paragraph, Isidore gives his plain inter
pretation of the period during which the reign of Anti
christ shall continue. " A time,'' saith he, " is a single
year, according to what we read in Daniel : A time, times
and an half. By a time, he signifies a year ; by times, two
years ; and by the half, six months."
We turn next to the celebrated Chrysostom, who thus
speaks of the reign of Antichrist : —
From St. Chrysostom.
Tunc vere talis erit tribulatie, qualis nunquam fuit. Tunc
dicent homines, Aperiat se terra, et glutiat nos. Usque tunc
enim omnis ira quae fit a Deo, idee fit, ut fideles quidem tentet,
infideles autem emendet : cum autem Antichristus venerit, talis
veniet ira, ut et infideles omnino pereant, et fideles plenius core-
nentur. Cum enim multi Christianorum credentes Antichristo,
signum' nominis ejus in manu dextera, et in fi-onte susceperint ;
tunc exibunt angeli cum igneis curribus volantes per aera : et
invisibili manu signabunt omnes fideles, in quibus tamen inventum
non fuerit signum Antichristi. Ex illo jam plagae, quae venturae

io6 St. Chrysostom.
sunt super terram, in quibus et finiendus est mundus, jam non
tangent fideles qui signati sunt, sed illos percutient super quos
Antichristi inventum fuerit signum. Erit enim tribulatie magna,
qualis nunquam fuit.l
Here St. Chrysostom saith that in the times of Anti
christ there will be such tribulation as was never known
before. Men shall wish that the earth might open and
swallow them  When Antichrist shall come,
his fury shall be so controlled that all the unfaithful shall
perish, and the faithful be more fully exalted. Many pro
fessing Christians will believe in him, and receive his mark
in their right hand and in the forehead. And the angels
will go forth in chariots of fire through the air, and with an
invisible hand will sign all the faithful in whom the mark
of Antichrist is not found. Then will come the plagues
upon the earth, during which the world will come to an end:
but they will not touch the faithful ; and those only shall
perish on whom the mark of Antichrist appears.
With reference to the " falling away,'' of which St. Paul
speaks in 2 Thes. ii., St. Chrysostom saith : —
Quid est quod defectienem hie vocat ? Antichristum ipsum
vocat defectienem, tanquam plurimos perditurum et abducturum.
. . . . Et hominem peccati ilium vocat. Innumera quippe
mala perpetrabit  Filium autem perditionis dicit,
prepterea quod et ipse perdetur. Quis vero is est ? An Satanas ?
Nequaquam : Sed homo quispiam omnem Satanse energiam
adeptus. Est enim home, qui extoUetur super omnem qui dicitur
Deus aut Numen  Jubebitque seipsum pre Deo coli
ac venerari, et in templum Dei collocari, non Hieresolymitanum
solum, sed et in ecclesias. Ostentans, inquit, seipsum esse Deum.
Non dixit, Dicens seipsum esse Deum ; sed ostentare tentans.
Magnifica siquidem opera faciet, et signa patrabit admiranda.2
The substance of the foregoing extract is as follows : —
1 S. Chrysostomi op. Latin., tom. 2, p. 958, Homil. xlix. Edit.
Paris, 1570.
2 Ibid. tom. 4, p. 1265, B, C, Comment, in 2 Thess.

St. Gregory the Great. 107
What is it, saith St. Chrysostom, that the Apostle calls " a
falling away ? " He applies it to Antichrist himself, be
cause many will be drawn away and perish through him.
He also calls him the " Man of Sin," for he will perpetrate
innumerable evils. He is likewise the " Son of Perdition,"
because he will go into perdition. But who is he ? Satan ?
By no means ; but he is a certain man having the energy
of Satan. For he it is who shall exalt himself above every
god, and be called God and Deity  And he
will command that he shall be worshipped and adored, and
be seated not only in the Temple of Jerusalem, but also in
the churches, showing himself that he is God. The Apostle
does not say calling himself, but trying to show himself,
God. For he will perform marvelous works, and exhibit
signs that will be wonderful."
The period of Antichrist's reign is plainly stated by
Chrysostom to be three years and a half: —
Quoniam autem tribus annis et sex mensibus protendendum est
Antichristi regnum, multse Scripturae significant.!
The last witness from the earlier writers of the Church,
which I shall quote, is Gregory the Great, the Bishop of
Rome in the sixth century, before the rise of Popery : —
From St. Gregory the Great.
Qui [Antichristus] veniens, diem Sabbatum atque Dominicum
ab omni faciet opere custodiri. Quia enim mori se et resurgere
simulat, haberi in veneratione vult diem Dominicum: et quia
judaizare populum cempellit, ut extenerem ritum Legis revocet,
et sibi Judaeorum perfidiam subdat, coli vult Sabbatum.2
Caput quippe iniquerum diabolus est. Ipse quippe in ultimis
temperibus illud vas perditionis ingressus, Antichristus vocabitur.3
Nam sicut incarnata Veritas in prasdicatione sua pauperes idietaB
et simplices elegit : sic e contrario damnatus ille homo, quem in
! S. Chrysost. op. Latin., tom. 2, Homil. xlix. p. 951, D.
2 S. Gregor. op. tom. 2, p. 1213, B. Epist. lib. xiii. 1. Edit.
Paris, 1705.
^ S. Greg. Mag. tom i, p. 445, B. Moralium, lib. xiv. 25.

io8 St. Gregory the Great.
fine mundi apostata angelus assumet, ad praedicandam falsitatem
suam, astutos ac duplices, atque hujus mundi scientiam habentes,
electurus est.i
NennuUi enim de tribu Dan venire Antichristum ferunt 
De que et per Prophetam dicitur : A Dan est fremitus equorum
ejus (Jer. viii. 16). Qui non solum coluber, sed etiam cerastes
vecatur. Kipma enim Graecfe cornua Latinfe dicuutur ; serpensque
hic cornutus esse perhibetur, per quem digne Antichristi adventus
asseritur : quia centra fidelium vitam cum morsu pestiferae prae-
dicationis, armatur etiam cernibus petestatis.2
Unde bene eumdem Antichristum Psalmista descripsit, dicens :
Sub lingua ejus labor et dolor, sedet in insidiis cum divitibus in
occultis. Propter enim perversa dogmata sub lingua ejus, labor
et dolor est ; propter miraculerum ver6 speciem sedet in insidiis ;
propter seoularis autem potestatis gloriam, cum divitibus in
occultis. Quia enim simul et miraculorum fraude et terrena
potestate utitur, et in occultis et cum divitibus sedere perhibetur.3
Antichristi tempore ab eis Geiitibus quae in infidelitate reman-
serint, plebs conversa Judaeorum duris persecutionibus angusfatur.
Unde scriptum est : Atrium autem quod est extra templum, ejice
floras, et ne metiaris illud, quoniam datum est Gentibus, et civilatem
sanctam calcabunt mensibus quadraginta duobus  Quia
in extremis, cum Judaea crediderit, gravissimas Antichristi tem
pore persecutienes sentit, ita ut praedicationes ejus ministri iniqui
tatis non recipiant, sed resistende has vinculis dolorum premantur.
Erunt etenim tunc multi ex Judaeis infidelibus, qui eosdem ipsos
qui ex Judaeis crediderint, persequentur.*
Sicut enim cedrus arbusta cetera in altum crescendo deserit, ita
tunc Antichristus mundi gloriam temperaliter obtinens, mensuras
heminum et honoris culmine et signorum potestate transcendet.
Spirifus quippe in illo est, qui in sublimibus conditus, potentiam
naturae suae non perdidit vel dejectus  Quem quamvis
saevitia ad crudelitatem dilatet, superna tamen misericordia dierum
brevitate coangustat. Hinc enim Veritas per semetipsam dicit :
Erit tunc tribulatio magna, qualis non fuit ab initio mundi usque
modo, neque fiet. Hinc rursum ait : Nisi breviati fuissent dies Uli,
1 S. Greg. Mag. Moralium, lib. xiii. 13, p. 422, B.
2 Ibid. lib. xxxi. 43, tom. I, p. 1015, D, E.
' Ibid. lib. xxxiii. 48, p. 1105, A.
* Ibid. In Ezech., lib. i.. Hem. xii. 6, 7 ; op. tom. i, p. 1295, A, B.

St. Gregory the Great. 109
nonfieret salva omnis caro. Quia enim et superbos nos et iu-
firmos Dominus conspicit, dies quos singulariter males intulit,
misericorditer breviatos dicit : prefectd et ut superbiam terreat de
adversitate temporis, et infirmitatem refoveat de brevitate dierum.i
In the first of these seven extracts, Gregory saith that
when Antichrist comes, he will enforce the keeping of the
Jewish Sabbath as well as the Lord's day. For as he will
pretend to die and rise again, he will have the Lord's day
venerated ; and as he will compel the people to Judaize,
that he may call back the outward rites of the Law and
subdue to himself the perfidy of the Jews, he will have their
Sabbath to be honored also.
In the second and third extracts Gregory proceeds to
say : " The head of all the wicked is the devil. And when,
in the last times, he shall enter into that vessel of perdition,
he will be called Antichrist. And as the Incarnate Truth
chose unlearned and simple men to preach His Gospel,
so, on the contrary, that accursed man, whose person will
be assumed by the apostate angel at the end of the world,
will appoint to preach his falsehood men of subtle crafti
ness, skilled in all the science of this world."
The fourth extract reads as follows : " It is said by
some that Antichrist will come from the tribe of Dan, ....
relying on that passage in the prophet : From Dan is the
neighing of his horses.^ And he is called not only a serpent,
but a horned serpent (Cerastes). And by this is justly
asserted the coming of Antichrist, because he will not only
assail the life of the faithful by the venomous biting of his
pestiferous preaching, but he will also be armed with the
horns of power."
Gregory presents a further commentary in the fifth ex
tract, namely : " The Psalmist well describes Antichrist in
saying, ' His tongue is labor and sorrow. He sits in
1 S. Greg. Moral., lib. xxxii. 22, 23 ; op. tom. i, p. 1059, A, C.
^ In our authorized version, this text reads : " The snorting of his
horses was heard from Dan." Jer. -viii. 16.

no St. Gregory the Great.
snares, and with the rich in secret places.' For labor and
sorrow proceed from the perverse dogmata of his tongue.
By reason of his apparent miracles he is said to be seated
in snares. And by the glory of secular power, he is with
the rich in secret places. For he uses both the fraud of
pretended miracles, and the force of earthly power ; and
in secret places and with the rich he sits in honor.''
The last two extracts read thus : " In the time of
Antichrist, the converted people of the .Jews will be
grievously persecuted by the infidel Gentiles. Whence it
is written: '¦The court which is without the temple do thou
leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gen
tiles : and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and
two months.^ .... For at the end, when Judea shall be
lieve, it will suffer the heaviest persecutions in the time
of Antichrist, because they [the converted Jews] will not
receive the preaching of his ministers of iniquity, and in
their resistance they will be pressed with the chains of suf
ferings  But there will be many unbelieving Jews,
who will also persecute their believing brethren."
Gregory furnishes us with another statement in the last
of our extracts, which is as follows : " As the cedar,
growing aloft, deserts the other trees, even so will Anti
christ, obtaining for a while the glory of this world, tran
scend the measure of men in the height of honor, and the
power of his pretended miracles. For in him is that Spirit,
who, being once among the highest, does not lose the
power of his nature, though cast down  But while
he dilates in his rage and cruelty, the divine mercy will
restrain him. For the Truth itself declares: 'Then will
be great tribulation, such as never was since the beginning of
the world unto this time.' And again he saith : ' Unless those
days be shortened, no flesh should be saved.' For because
the Lord beholds us proud, but weak. He saith that those
days which He marked as so eminently evil, should be
1 Rev. xi. 2.

St. Gregory the Great. 1 1 1
mercifully shortened, in order that while He should subdue
our pride by the suffering of the time. He might comfort
our weakness by its brevity."
These quotations frorn the early Christian writers are
sufficient to show the interpretation which prevailed in the
Primitive Church ; and I shall present some remarks upon
their autiiority in the ensuing chapter.

The Testimony of the Fathers.
The reader has now before him the opinions of ten
ancient writers, representing all the then known continents
in which Christianity had gained its establishment : Ire-
nasus in Lyons, Jerome in Bethlehem, Athanasius in Alex
andria, Ambrose in Milan, Augustine in Hippo, Cyril in
Jerusalem, Lactantius in Nicomedia, Isidore in Seville,
Chrysostom in Constantinople, and Gregory in Rome.
The Church is thus set forth in Europe, Asia, and Africa,
not by obscure and ordinary minds, but by eight men of
the greatest authority, who were bishops and archbishops,
— the other two, Jerome and Lactantius, being presbyters
held in the highest esteem : while all of them were dis
tinguished by the veneration with which their works were
preserved, and handed down in reputation and honor, from
age to age, as the most reliable witnesses to primitive
Catholic doctrine. For they lived in those times when the
Church was ONE, before the usurpation of the Papacy
had driven away the East from the West ; or the subtlety
of Satan, acting on the superstition of the human heart,
had engrafted new and false dogmas upon the pure faith
of the Gospel.
The rule of authority among these writers was well ex
pressed by Tertullian, where he saith : " That which is first
is true." The oldest Fathers lived nearest to the Apostles,
and therefore they were more likely to retain the sense of
the Apostles in their interpretations of the Scriptures. The

The Testimony of the Fathers. 113
same rule is the established maxim of the courts ; for the
earliest judgments on the construction of law are always
esteemed most highly, on the reasonable ground that the
judges were in a better condition to apprehend the mean
ing of the legislature.
According to this rule, Irenteus, the eminent martyr and
Bishop of Lyons, claims the first place in our esteem, for
he flourished within seventy years from the death of the
Apostle John, and had a far superior opportunity of know
ing the true sense of the book of Revelation.
Of all these witnesses, Jerome is the only one who gives
the name of Babylon to Rome. And in this he was probably
influenced by personal feeling. He had been the secretary
of the Bishop of Rome, Damasus, for a considerable time,
when he became enamored of the new institution of Mo-
nasticism, which had been successfully established in Pales
tine. His own tastes and habits were all inclined to
asceticism; and as he found that his favorite system was
denounced and ridiculed at Rome, he was naturally led to
regard with strong disgust the prevailing luxury which
formed so total a contrast to the simple life and labor of
his monastic brethren. There are passages in his letters
in which he inveighs with vehement eloquence against the
fashions of Christians in the imperial city, urging his friends
to flee from it, and describing, in glowing language, the
piety and order of Monachism. And he set the example
by throwing up his office as the secretary of the Bishop,
after three years, and betaking himself, with a company of
proselytes, to the Holy Land, where he died in a. d. -422,
at an advanced age, after he had long been the superior of
a monastery in Bethlehem.
Yet St. Jerome agrees with the rest in his interpretation
concerning the great Antichrist of Scripture. And the
whole ten witnesses concur generally in the statement, that
Antichrist will be an individual man ; an incarnation of
Satan, or his immediate offspring ; that he will be of the

114 ^-^^ Testimony of the Fathers.
Jewish race ; that he will appear at the close of the present
dispensation ; that his reign will be limited to three years
and a half, or forty-two months ; that he will seat himself
as God in the Temple at Jerusalem ; that he will ingratiate
himself with the unbelieving Jews by restoring -the old
law ; that he will perform miraculous works in appearance ;
and that, when his power is established, he will rage in
fury against Christ and the Church, and be the author of
the most terrible misery and tribidation, until he is de
stroyed by the glorious advent of the Divine Redeemer.
This, in the main, is the statement of those primitive
writers. And therefore it is indisputable that they stand
entirely opposed to our modern interpreters, who have
labored so ingeniously to make Antichrist correspond to
the Pope of Rome. But here we must ask. Who were
the best qualified to understand the prophecies ? Those
eminent Fathers who lived nearest to the Apostolic times,
and searched the Scriptures without any interest or preju
dice to warp their judgment ? Or those men of modern
days, doubtless equally honest and sincere, but who formed
stheir opinions under the powerful bias produced by the
struggles of the Reformation, when there was so strong
an inducement to associate the domineering and perse
cuting spirit of Popery with the predictions concerning the
Man of Sin and the Son of Perdition ?
Assuredly it ought not to be regarded as a matter of
wonder or reproach, that the odious name of Antichrist
should have been attached to the Roman Pontiff, at such
a time and under such peculiar circumstances. For we
iknow that from a very early period of the Church, this
name was liberally applied to all the teachers of false doc
trine. Thus the famous Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, and
a martyr about the middle of the third century, at the close
of the Third Council of Carthage, and with the concurrence
of eighty-seven bishops, uses the following language : " I
have fully expressed my sentence in the letter written to

The Testimony of the Fathers. 1 1 5
my colleague Jubianus that those who, according to the
evangelical and Apostolical testimony, are called adversaries
of Christ and antichrists, when they come to the Church,
are to be baptized by the only baptism of the Church,
that they may become friends instead of being enemies,
and Christians instead of being antichrists." ^
This specimen may suffice as an example of the early
practice to brand all heretics with the name of Antichrist.
And it may be justified by the declaration of the Apostle
John, where he saith : " Little children, it is the last time :
and as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come, even now
are there many antichrists ; whereby we know that it is the
last time." ^ Yet in the 22d verse of the same chapter, St.
John saith : " He is Antichrist, that denieth the Father and the
Son. Whoso denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father."
Our translators have here unfortunately left out the definite
article. " He is the Antichrist," would have been a more
correct version.
Now it is very certain that there were many heresies in
the early centuries of the Church, which did not corre
spond with this definition, to say nothing of the heresy
about the resurrection mentioned by St. Paul, or of the
Gnostic heresies which St. John found so active. We
have the Pelagian heresy, which consisted in maintaining
that men could arrive at repentance and faith by the use
of their natural powers, without the praevenient grace of
the Holy Spirit ; while, notwithstanding this serious error,
the Pelagians were perfectly orthodox in the doctrines of
the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Atonement, and could
^ Meam sententiam plenissime exprimit epistola quae ad Jubaianum
collegam nostram scripta est ; haereticos secundiim evangelicam et
Apostolicam contestationem adversaries Christi et Antichristos appel-
latos, quando ad Ecclesiam venerint, unico Ecclesiae baptismo bap-
tizandos esse, ut possint fieri de adversariis amici, et de Antichristis
Christiani. — S. Cypriani Op., Ed. Paris., 1649, p. 364 : Sentent. Epis.
Condi. Carthag.
2 I St. John ii. 18.

1 1 6 The Testimony of the Fathers.
not be accused of denying the Father and the Son with any
propriety. The heresies imputed to the writings of the
famous Origen, also, amounted to no more than his notions
about the preexistence of souls, and the possibility that
Satan and the rebel angels might be saved at the last, while
his belief in all the Articles of the Creed was unimpeach
able. And there are many other heresies in the list of
eighty-eight given by St. Augustine, to which the same dis
tinction is applicable.
We must, therefore, understand St. John, in my humble
judgment, as referring to heresies in the largest sense,
where he speaks of there being already " many antichrists ; "
while his definition that " He is the Antichrist that denieth
the Father and the Son," should be applied to the great
Antichrist — the " man of sin " and " son of perdition,"
who should indeed deny the Father and the Son by exalt
ing himself " above every god," sitting " in the temple of
God, and showing himself that he is God : " — an act of
bold and amazing wickedness, of which none but an incar
nate demon could be supposed capable.
The Reformers in Germany are thus seen to have had
good authority for applying the term Antichrist to heretics
in general. And as they were perfectly persuaded that the
corrupt doctrines of Popery, united as they were with the
fiercest and most cruel persecution, were more dangerous
than any other existing form of error, they were easily led
to confound the less with the greater, in their zeal for the
truth of the Gospel. Hence they strained the language of
the prophets to accommodate the temper of the times, and
in their hatred of Papal falsehood and despotism, departed
not only from the literal sense of Scripture, but from the
old initerpretation of the Fathers, in order to fasten on the
Roman Pontiff the name of Antichrist, in its most odious
sense. And since their day, as their views of the question
were highly acceptable to every Protestant community,
and none were disposed to contradict them, it was natural

The Testimony of the Fathers. 1 1 7
that subsequent authors, inheriting their antipathy to
Popery, should continue to pursue the same track, in de
spite of its inconsistency with the letter of the Word, and
the unanimous comments of the most eminent writers in
the purest ages of Christian antiquity.
But while we may and ought to make allowance for this
mistake on the part of many good and sincere men, who,
in our Mother Church of England, and in our own, have
been misled into the modern interpretation, it is certainly
a fact for which we should be devoutly thankful, that our
standards of doctrine are perfectly free from any inculca
tion of the error. Our controversy with Rome involves
enough, and more than enough, to justify the British Ref
ormation, without Including a charge which cannot be fairly
proved ; and the cause of truth can gain nothing by perse
vering in the maintenance of an untenable accusation.

cBleijentl^ Cl^aptet;.
Present Position of the Church.
The task proposed is now accomplished ; but before I
close my humble treatise, it may be well to add a few chap
ters on the position of the Church and the state of the
religious world, in the much boasted intelligence of the
nineteenth century.
A little more than three hundred years have passed
away since the Reformation, in several parts of Europe,
broke down the despotism and false doctrines of Popery,
and brought back the written Word of God to be the
standard of the faith, instead of the delusive guidance of
tradition. That great Reformation succeeded first in Germany, and
then extended into France, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden,
and Holland, until it became finally established in England
and Scotland, with a partial influence on Ireland. Its
great leaders on the Continent were Luther, Calvin, and
Zuinglius. The Baptists made a beginning under the
name of Anabaptists, and the Socinians raised their stand
ard in Poland ; but Luther and Calvin especially, held the
main influence.
All of these, however, having no bishops among them,
cast aside, of necessity, the primitive and Apostolic system
of government ; and along with that, introduced the novel
plan of extemporaneous worship, instead of the original
mode modeled after the Liturgy of the Jewish Synagogue,
which dated back as far as the Babylonish Captivity, and

The Protestant Sects. 1 1 9
had then been arranged by the prophet Ezra. This litur
gical worship was sanctioned by our Lord and His Apostles.
And hence it presented the pattern on which the churches
of Christ grew into their established order. Thus we read
the direction of St. Paul to Timothy, the first Bishop of
Ephesus : " Hold fast," saith the great Apostle, " the form
of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and
love which is in Christ Jesus." ^ And in effect, we know
that every Church had its " form of sound words,'' or its
Liturgy, as plainly appeared when their various forms were
published in the fifth century.
But it was only in England that the Reformation, by the
special favor of God, was enabled to perform its work in
accordance with the primitive and Apostolic system. The
Episcopal government established by the inspired Apos
tles, and along with it the original form of liturgical wor
ship, was preserved faithfully, cleansed from every stain of
Papal superstition, and conformed to the true plan which
had the sanction of divine wisdom ; while the Bible, divided
into sections, was a regular part of the instructions in all
the assemblies of the Church, and was firmly established
as the standard of faith, according to the Fathers, the Coun
cils, and the Creeds, of the first four centuries.
And now, what do we behold, after the experience of
these three hundred years ? Those branches of the Prot
estant Reformation which had lost the primitive guards of
truth in government and worship, have become divided and
subdivided into more than a hundred sects.^ In our own
days we have seen many new varieties springing up
amongst Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, and Congre-
gationalists. These last have been broken into the three
branches, of the Orthodox, the Unitarians, and the Univer-
1 2 Tim. i. 13.
^ Mr. De Bow, in the preface to the Supplement of the XJ. S. Census
of 1850, states that he had received statistical returns .from more than
too denominations

I20 Growth of the Roman Church.
salists. The Christians, as they call themselves by emi
nence, unite the Unitarian with the Baptist plan. The
Second Advent men, who are so fond of calculating the pre
cise time of the Saviour's coming (though He Himself
declared that the appointed season was not known by the
angels of God, but by the Father only), form another sub
division of very modern growth. And a new sect, founded
upon the notion that the wicked will not be raised to judg
ment at the last day, but be entirely annihilated, has come
into being within a few years, with a reasonable promise of
popularity. While all of them have been more or less
divided again by the strife of Abolitionism, seduced into the
attractive but dangerotis mistake of placing politics as a
guard to stand sentinel over religion.
In addition to all this, we have seen Mormonism rise
up, and occupy a Territory, which may soon become a
State. And Spiritualism, which claims to do far more
miracles than Popery, has swept over the land, and been
embraced by a deluded multitude who had been, for the
most part, entirely indifferent to the call of the Gospel.
Above them all, the demon of infidelity has been, and is,
most successful, keeping the majority of the men in bond
age to their business, their passions, their pleasures, or their
ambition, without any care or thought of eternity, turning
the Lord's day into a season of worldly amusement, and
leaving religion to the zeal and devotion of the women, —
as if the stronger sex, who call themselves " the lords of
the creation," had no souls to be saved !
Amidst all this sectarian division and confusion ; amidst
the delusions of Spiritualism and infidelity ; amidst the
speculations of philosophic Pantheism, and a constant war
fare kept up against the Word of God : we see the Church
of Rome steadily advancing in numbers and in infiuence
throughout every land where the principles of the Reform
ation were supposed to have abolished her forever. Her
claims to universal dominion are still the same, but her

The Secret of Roman Strength. 121
power to enforce them has passed away ; and mankind at
large, no longer feeling the yoke or seeing her deeds of
persecution, have either forgotten the facts of history,
though they were written in blood, or imagine that they are
not chargeable to her as a Church, but were only the results
of political necessity. And thus she grows more and more
into favor, with her cardinal, archbishop, and bishops in
England itself; with her priests, monasteries, and nunneries
reestablished where they were all overthrown three hun
dred years ago ; with an increasing body of the laity, noble
and simple, to support her ; and with all her fascinations of
outward pomp and imposing ceremonial.
And so it is in these United States. * The Church of Rome
is, beyond dispute, the strongest, the most imposing and in
creasing, religious body in the land : having under her
control the largest share in ti:aining the rising generation ;
erecting thus far the only spacious and splendid cathedrals ;
commanding the services of the most devoted classes of
men and women ; displaying the utmost attractiveness in
her public ritual ; and skillfully governed by the guidance of
bishops and priests, who unite great talents with consum
mate prudence and sagacity, and possess a thorough knowl
edge of human nature.
These are the facts. Let the thoughtful reader ponder
them, and ask himself. What is the reason of this vast
difference between the steadfast growth and comparative
unity of the Church of Rome, and the fragmentary divis
ions, the multipUed and still multiplying sects, of Protes
tant Christianity ?
The reason, I apprehend, is to be found in this : namely,
that the Church of Rome, notwithstanding her corrupt in
novations in faith, in government, and in worship, has re
tained those original principles of law and order which
were given at first to the Church of God in ancient Israel,
and were afterwards embodied in the Church of Christ,
under the inspired dictation of the Aposties. The govern-

122 The Anglican Communion.
ment which the Pope claims over the whole Church, as the
sole vicar of the Divine Redeemer, is indeed a gross impo
sition, to which no intelligent mind can conscientiously sub
mit. But the practical administration of Rome is still
vested in her bishops, according to the Apostolic system.
So her worship has been defiled by the introduction of
prayers to the Virgin and the saints : but still the main
body of her Liturgy is derived from the ancient sources.
Her ritual is substantially taken from that of the Old Tes
tament, where the Almighty Himself commanded the seven-
branched candlestick, the incense, the holy oil, and the
priestly garments which are expressly said to be for " glory
and for beauty." In the Psalms we are exhorted to " wor
ship the Lord in the beauty of holiness ; " and surely, when
the Deity condescended to make these ritual observances
a standing part of His public service, it seems a strange
way of reverencing the Word of God. to abuse them,
merely because they have been retained in the Church of
Rome. Now the only reformed Church in Great Britain and
America whose system is in accordance with these great
features of Scriptural and Apostolic Catholicity is the
Church of England, and her offspring — the Protestant
Episcopal Church in the United States. And therefore
it is the only Church which is both Catholic and Protes
tant : Catholic in all that belonged to the Primitive Church,
when the term Catholic truly described its character ; and
Protestant in respect to all the dangerous and unauthor
ized innovations which the Church of Rome unhappily
brought in, during the dark ages of ignorance and super
stition. It is the only reformed Church which retains
the Apostolic government, in union with the ancient wor
ship, and takes the early Fathers, bishops, and martyrs
as the safest interpreters of the Word of God. And it is
the only reformed Church which adopts the Bible as the
rule of faith in so practical a form, that the reading of the

The Anglican Position. 123
Scriptures, according to a fixed calendar, is made the im
perative duty of all her ministers on every occasion of
public devotion.
For these reasons we may easily understand why this is
the only reformed Church which has enjoyed the blessing
of stability, and presents at this day a spectacle of unity
and order, which we may look for amongst the sects in
vain. Not only is she, preeminently, the Church of the
Bible, and the firm opponent of all the dangerous innova
tions brought in by the Church of Rome, but she is guarded
and defended by the system of government and worship
inherited fVom the first pure ages of Christianity, under the
sanction of the inspired Apostles, who had the sole author
ity to plant the earthly Kingdom of the Saviour in that form
which may be properly considered divine. And hence, the
Church of England is no mother of Sectarianism, although
she abhors the Romish tenet of persecution, and tolerates
a variety of religious sentiment which she cannot approve.
For while she stands firmly on the primitive foundation,
she puts no restraint on human liberty. Though she can
not herself be " blown about by every wind of doctrine,"
yet she looks, not with indignant wrath, but with kind com
miseration, on the strifes and divisions of all around her.
Faithful to the precept of the Apostle, " Bless, and curse
not," she fulminates no anathemas against any,-' but on
the contrary, offers her constant and humble supplications
" for all sorts and conditions of men," and " more espe
cially " for the " Holy Church Universal ; that it may be so
guided and governed by the Holy Spirit, that aE who pro
fess and eaU themselves Christians may be led into the way
of .truth, and hold the faith in unity of spirit, in the bond
of peace, and in righteousness of life.'' And thus she pur
sues her celestial path, claiming for herself no infallibility
save what she derives from the primitive Creeds, founded
on the unerring Word of God ; pronouncing no judgment
1 Except against the Liberalism condemned in Article XVIII.

1 24 The Term Antichrist withdrawn.
on the final state of those who differ ; immovable by the
storms of political commotion, the bitter temper of bigotry,
or the wild excesses of fanaticism; and only intent on
the fulfillment of her divine Master's will, in charity and
peace. And hence this Church, though strongly and unalterably
opposed to the usurpation of the Pope, and to all the false
doctrines of Romanism, is ready to acknowledge that the
Creeds of the ancient faith still remain in that corrupted
communion. While Rome curses England as heretical,
England prays for Rome that she may be " led into the
way of truth." And while Rome will not permit a single
congregation of England to hold public worship within her
walls, England permits Rome to establish her hierarchy in
every quarter without restraint, and carries to the widest
extent the rule of religious freedom.
In accordance, therefore, as I humbly trust, with the
spirit of that highly privileged Church to which it is my
happiness to belong, I have withdrawn my former charge
that the Pope is the great Antichrist of Scripture. It is a
charge for which the Church has given me no authority
whatever, in her standards of doctrine ; and I retract it
vifillingly, as a duty to justice and to truth.
But this does not bring me any nearer to the Church of
Rome, because it leaves untouched all the real grounds
of the British Reformation. In every point that properly
belongs to our controversy with Rome, I stand precisely
where I have always stood, and have no idea that I shall
ever see any occasion to change my judgment. I hold ex
animo the doctrine of our Thirty-nine Articles, and have
devoted the best years of my life to a thorough examination
of the Fathers, the Councils, and the history of the Church,
as they are given to us by the writers of Rome herself.
And no future study can alter the conclusions defended in
my former publications, because none of them were taken
on trust, but were the results of long and laborious investi
gation.

Mutual Explanation impracticable. 1 2 5
And hence, I am quite unable to regard, with the slight
est confidence, the notion of some learned and excellent
men, who think that the Chfirch of England may be re
united with the Church of Rome, by the means of mutual
explanation. The course adopted, with this view, more
than twenty years ago, in the famous Tract No. 90, was one
which I could not then, .and cannot now, reconcile with any
rule of reasonable consistency. Nor am I able to perceive
the smallest sign of change in the Church of Rome, either
of principle or practice, to indicate an abandonment of her
false and perilous innovations upon her own original creed ;
although it must be by this abandonment alone that our
reunion with her could possibly be justified.
Yet I sympathize, as every Christian heart must sympa-i
thize, in the desire for the reunion of Christendom. I offer,
in its most comprehensive sense, the admirable prayer
of our Liturgy, " that aU, who profess and call themselves
Christians, may be led into the way of truth, and hold the
faith in unity of spirit, in the bond of peace, and in right
eousness of life." The Divine Redeemer prayed for the
unity of the Church, on the night before His Crucifixion.
St. Paul rebuked the divisions amongst the Corinthians, and
charged them to be of the same mind and the same judg
ment. Unity was preserved, in the main, for eight hundred
years, and the rending of that unity by an act of schism
was held to be a sin which should be classed with the re
bellious act of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.
But Satan succeeded in deluding the minds of Chris
tians, and brought in by degrees many corruptions in
doctrine, discipline, and worship, until at last the great
schism between the East and the West was completed by
the assumption of the Papacy. And after that time, the
Church of Rome added more and more to her mournful
list of errors, until in the sixteenth century, the mercy of
God awakened the Reformers to a sense of their duty to
His truth, and the right was claimed to purify the Church,

126 The Anglican Church truly Catholic.
by casting off the accumulated mass of novel supersti
tions and priestly despotism, and restoring the BiWe to its
proper place, as the only divine rule of faith and prac
tice. This act of reformation, as it was conducted in the
Church of England, did indeed separate her from her out
ward union with the Church of Rome. But it gave her a
far more perfect conformity with the Primitive Church,
which was truly Catholic ; and it made her what she is at
this day, — both in herself and her offspring in the United
States, — the best representative of the original Catholic
Church throughout the world.

Thoughts on the Reunion of Christendom.
That the author of evil continued to practise on his suc
cessful maxim, " Divide and conquer," amongst the Re
formed, is unhappily but too apparent in the present state
of Christendom. The primitive system of government
and worship was lost amongst the sects, and the Calvinistic
division especially, adopted by the Continental Reformers,
has multiplied to more than a hundred varieties. Yet still,
through the overruling power of the Almighty, the funda
mental principle of the Gospel — faith in Christ, and rever
ence for the Bible as the Word of God — has remained at
least among the orthodox, even where the Apostolic order
of its original administration has passed away.
Union, under these circumstances, though it must always
be an object of desire and prayer with the Christian heart,
seems to be utterly unattainable, until the Lord Himself
shall appear again in the majesty of His glory. We are in
the last days, when perilous times have come. And the
language of the Divine Redeemer gives us no hope of any
great improvement, before the final consummation. For
has He not said, " When the Son of man cometh, shall he
find faith on the earth ?" ^ Did He not declare that, "As
it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days
of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they mar
ried wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that
Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed
1 St. Luke xviii. 8.

128 The Signs of the Times.
them all. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot ; they
did eat, they drank,, they bought, they sold, they planted,
they builded ; but the same day that Lot went out of
Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and de
stroyed them all. Fken thus shall it be in the day when the
Son of man is revealed." ^ Such is the sad picture of the
last days, set before us by Him who alone seeth the end
from the beginning. And it agrees most thoroughly with
the views of the Fathers, which we have quoted concerning
the prophecies on the subject of the great Antichrist,
whose coming will be preceded by a general decline of
all true faith, and an awful increase of immorality and
wickedness. And assuredly the " signs of the times " are not calcu
lated to encourage any brighter hopes of the world's condi
tion, at the close of the present dispensation. For what
government in Christendom is guided by the Word of God ?
What nation exists, that is not ready to go to war in defense
of its commercial profits ? What people can be found, the
majority of whom are consistent followers of the Divine
Redeemer ? And how few there are amongst those that call
themselves Christians, whose lives can bear a comparison
with the zeal and devotion of the Church in the early ages
of the Gospel ?
It is reported by those who have examined into the re
ligious condition of New York, that all the houses of wor
ship in that great city, including every denomination, do
not afford seats enough for more than one fourth part of
the inhabitants ! Yet they are probably never seen all
filled at once ; and it is very certain that if they were, the
men v/ho are actual professors of religion would form a
small minority in almost every congregation. Now the
city of New York is the wealthiest in the land, and yields
the palm to no other, either in Christian enterprise, or in
generous liberality. But does her piety keep pace with
1 St. Luke xvii. 26-30.

Motives for Reunion. 129
her progress ? Does zeal towards God bear any propor
tion to zeal for politics, zeal for business, zeal for extrav
agant display, zeal for amusement, and zeal for indulgence
in all the lower appetites of human nature ? How does the
scale incline, when we look for the purity of legislation ?
How stands the question with regard to the increase of
crime ? How much of religious principle is found in her
systems of education ? How much of practical faith and
godliness is seen in the circles of private life ? Alas ! the
answers to these and questions like these, must be in
mournful accordance with the picture of Christian degen
eracy in the last days, which is set before us in the pages
of Inspiration !
But these very facts are doubtless thought to furnish the
strongest motive for the union of Christendom. In union
is strength ; and division is weakness. The maxim is true
enough, as a general proposition, in theory. In practice,
however, it amounts to nothing with respect to religious
unity, because it is impossible jbr the Church to expect a
blessing from God, if she sacrifices any portion of His truth
to the mere dictates of expediency. And it is quite un-
Ukely that the sects would abandon their distinctive prin
ciples, so as to form any union which deserves the name.
The only real union among Christians must be the fruits
of faith, in which both the heart and the head can act in
concord ; for, in the language of Scripture, " How can two
walk together unless they be agreed ? " The notion of
some good men, therefore, that a Christian union can be
formed, in which all may walk together while they continue
to disagree in their respective sentiments as much as ever,
seems to my mind an amiable delusion, which, if seriously
reduced to action, will make new divisions amongst those
who were once agreed, and be foimd in the end to involve
an utter absurdity.
Yet the desire for union amongst all the beUevers in the
Divine Redeemer may still be cherished, and our prayer for
9

130 The Time uncertain.
them all may still be offered, as it should be, in the spirit
of faith and love, because it is the desire and prayer of our
Lord Himself, which will be fulfilled after the tribulation
and misery predicted in the times of Antichrist shall have
passed away, and the Almighty Conqueror shall have
destroyed the kingdom of Satan by the brightness of His
coming. Then, but not till then, all discord and strife will
be banished forever. Then, Israel will be gathered from
their dispersion throughout the earth, and bend, in peni
tence and faith, before the throne of their celestial King.
Then, the Gentiles of every clime and nation will unite in
the chorus of adoring praise to Him who washed them
from their sins in His own precious blood. And then the
prayer of hope and charity will be granted by the perfect
union of every mind and heart, in the full light of heavenly
truth, and the bliss of everlasting glory !
How far we are still removed from that sublime consum
mation, no man can tell. For myself, I confess that I have
more respect for the old tradition adopted by the Fathers
in the Primitive Church, than I am able to feel for any
modern theory. Six thousand years were then believed to
have been allotted from the Fall of Adam to the restoration
-of the world under the Lord Jesus Christ. If the ordinary
chronology be correct, we should now be one hundred and
twenty-nine years from the period of His second coming.
But there is no certainty in that system of chronology,
which can authorize a precise calculation. And as the im
possibility of predicting the day of our own death is a
powerful argument to make the Christian always ready, so
the doubtfulness of all the periods assigned to the end of
the present dispensation should guard us against the danger
of being wise in our own conceit, and remind us of the
duty and the privilege of living in the exercise of that pure
and child-like faith, which commits this and every other
event to the wisdom and love of our Divine Redeemer.

Our Relations with the other Apostolic Churches.
It should • be at all times, but especially now that I am
drawing so near to the end of my earthly course, a most
important question. How ought I to regard my Christian
brethren, whether they belong to the Churches of the East,
or the Church of Russia, or the Church of Rome, or to the
numerous and respected congregations of Protestants, with
whom I do not hold communion ?
I am fully persuaded that the Church to which I belong
hag been truly reformed, according to the Scriptures, and
the pattern of the first pure Church founded by Apostolic
inspiration, and is therefore worthy of entire confidence.
And of course I cannot enter into union with those errors
of faith, government, or worship which she rejects. But in
what spirit shall I apply the principle ? Beginning, for
example, with the Oriental Churches, may I shut my eyes
to the fact that the Church of Greece and the Church of
Russia hold the same original Creed, and the same litur
gical worship, and the same Episcopal government, which I
also hold ? If the Oriental Churches have unhappily added
to the pure primitive system the great error of praying to
the Virgin, and insist on the advantage of monastic vows,
and confine their bishops to the state of celibacy, and pay
a certain reverence to the pictures of the saints, and admin
ister the Eucharist with a spoon, containing the consecrated
bread and wine together, instead of the distinct reception
of the Cup instituted by our Lord, must I take it for

132 The East and the West.
granted that, by reason of these abuses, they have no faith in
Christ, and have forfeited the promise of Salvation ? Surely
not. These are indeed grievous errors, in which I cannot
conscientiously partake ; but I desire, notwithstanding, to
think of them and pray for them as brethren in Christ, not
because I am indifferent to their errors, which I repudiate,
but by reason of the truth which they still retain. For j
faith in Christ is the only requirement for salvation whichj
is strictly essential. Sfi-j55gL.|£ this remains, thire^ is a'
bon3~of spirituaTaffection and affinity,jvhich_no_errqr.Jfl
minpx. joatters. can jd^troy. And therefore, while I am
forbidden to have fellowship with error, I can honor the
truth, and regard them, for the truth's sake, with all kindly
feeling. And the same argument applies even to the Church of
Rome, though she far exceeds the Oriental Churches in
the sad corruptions of her system. For there is the mon
strous usurpation of the Pope, claiming to be the sole vicar
of Christ, and denying salvation to all who refuse to obey
him. There is the worship, though in an inferior sense, of
the Virgin and the Saints, going quite beyond the Eastern
Churches. There is the prohibition of marriage, not con
fined to the Bishops, but including also the priests, the
deacons, and the sub-deacons, besides the monks and the
nuns. There is not only the doctrine of transubstantiation,
but the shameful taking away of the Cup from the laity,
and from all except the officiating priest. There is the
enforced practice of the secret Confessional, to which every
soul is obliged to submit before he is allowed to receive the
Sacrament. There is the imaginary power of Indulgences,
by which the Pontiff undertakes to pardon the temporal
punishment of all sins, even before they have been com
mitted. There is the invention of Purgatory, from the fire
of which the Pope and the priests are supposed to give
relief to the souls of the departed. There is the doctrine of
persecution professed as a duty, and practised for ages in its

Charity for the Church of Rome. 133
most awful forms of blood and slaughter, the dungeon and
the stake. There is a yearly anathema pronounced against
all heretics, in which they include every individual that does
•not belong to their own communion. And there is the claim
of infallibility, which ties them fast to all these corruptions,
and sets the dogmas of their faith practically above the Word
of God. In fine, so numerous and so grave are the mourn
ful abuses of the Church of Rome, that the notion of being
reunited to her before she has abandoned her grievous
errors, has always seemed to me a marvelous solecism, on
the part of any member of the Reformed Church of Eng
land ; and I have regarded the efforts, made in that direc
tion, by some eminently learned and good men, as a mys
tery, far too deep for my humble understanding.
Yet all is not error, even in the Church of Rome. For
she still retains tiie ancient Catholic Creeds ; the Apostolic
government of Bishops ; and the original form of liturgical
worship derived from the divine system of the chosen
people ; she still holds all the articles of the faith ; the in
spiration of the Scriptures ; the Fall of man by the tempta
tion of the devil ; the doctrine of the Trinity ; the Incar
nation of the Son of God ; His obedience and atoning sacri
fice upon the Cross for the sins of the world ; the mission
of the Holy Spirit, and His work of grace in changing and
sanctifying the heart, and guiding the Apostles in their
vast labor of planting the Church — the kingdom of Christ
— throughout the earth ; the resurrection of the dead ; the
fiiture judgment, the condemnation of the wicked, and the
eternal felicity of the redeemed : — in a word, the whole
• circle of revealed truth is still to be found in the Church
of Rome, as it is with ourselves : and therefore, notwith
standing all her subsequent and perilous corruptions, super
stitions, usurpations, and persecutions, the members of that
Church are still our brethren in Christ by virtue of the
common faith, though we cannot have any religious fellow
ship -with them until they renounce their errors.

134 Changes in the Church of Rome.
It may seem, to many Protestant minds, a hard thing to
look on Romanism with any charity. But surely we are
as much bound to acknowledge the good as to condemn
the evil. The Church of Rome is a compound of the
primitive truths which she received from the Apostles, with
the subsequent falsehoods brought in by the subtlety of
Satan and the superstitious weakness of the human heart.
We can have no union with her while those falsehoods are
retained ; and yet we can and ought to acknowledge, with
candor, the pure and Scriptural doctrines which she still
maintains with constancy. I grant that she regards us as
heretics, and brands us with her anathema. What then ?
The Saviour commands us to love our enemies, to bless
those that curse us, and to pray for those who despitefully
use us and persecute us : * and He set us a glorious example,
when, on the Cross, He interceded even fOr His own mur
derers, saying, " Father, forgive them ; they know not what
they do." How much more may we pray for those whose
errors, however gross, are at least held along with the
adoration due to His divine Majesty, and a firm faith in
His mercy as the Redeemer of the world.
And this is the more easy for us, when we remember the
change which the aspect of the Church of Rome presents
at the present day. Her professed principles, indeed, are
the same that they have been since the thirteenth century ;
and she cannot renounce them so long as she clings to her
false assumption of infallibility. But the manifestation of
those principles is largely modified by the force of circum
stances. The old system of persecution has practically
passed away. The Pope carries on no war for his religion.
The Inquisition tortures its unhappy victims no longer ; and
heretics are not burned, as formerly, at the stake. Indeed,
the great mass of the Roman Catholics are so profoundly
ignorant of their own Church History, that when they are
told of the doings of past ages, they reject the statement as
utterly false, and regard it as a Protestant calumny.
1 St. Matt. V. 44.

Prayer for the Church of Rome. 1 35
And hence, we see how this change of circumstances has
produced a correspondent change of feeling. England now
deems it safe to repeal her former laws against them, to ad
mit them to her Parliament, to maintain their Irish College
at Maynooth, and to grant them the widest field of encour
agement and toleration. And in this land of religious free
dom, where there never was any thing like persecution
since the time of the stern old Puritans in Massachusetts,
we should be quite inexcusable if we failed to regard the
Church of Rome in a spirit of candor and of justice, ready
to acknowledge in her all that is good, while we condemn
and carefully abstain from all that is evil.
Thus, then, I hold that our charity and our prayers
should include the Church of Rome, when we repeat the
beautiful supplication of our own Liturgy for the " Church
Universal, and for all conditions of men." We know not
how far it may please God to answer that prayer even in
our own day. We do know, however, that a multitude of
Romanists became reformed in Europe, three centuries
ago, and it is at least a possible thing that multitudes more
may yet follow the example. But be this as it may, I can
not doubt that the prayers of Christian charity and hope
must always be profitable, if not to the souls of others, yet
to our own ; since, in the offering of such prayers, we are
at least endeavoring to imitate the perfect pattern of our
Lord and Saviour.

fomtzzntl) Cl^apter.
Our Relations with the Protestant Sects.
The argument of the previous chapter may be applied
with much less difficulty to the various sects of our
orthodox Protestant brethren, whose errors are those of
defect and not those of superstition, being in the opposite
direction from the system of Romanism, and presenting no
serious antagonism to the Creed which we profess, although
they are not in the habit of repeating it.
But the difficulty which renders it impossible to unite
with them consists in this, namely, that they reject the gov
ernment laid down for the Church of Christ by the inspired
Apostles, and also the primitive system of liturgical wor
ship, under the erroneous idea that both of these, being
found in the Church of Rome, should therefore be classed
among the corruptions of Popery.
And this, truly, is a strange mistake to be made by
Christian men, with the open Bible in their hands. For
they cannot be ignorant that the same Almighty Being
who was the God of the Jews, is also the God of the Gen
tiles ; that Christ, in His human nature, was a Jew; that
His Apostles were all Jews ; that the first Christian Church
was formed by the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem on the Day of
Pentecost, and consisted entirely of Jews. And how can
they doubt that the system then adopted should naturally
be expected to conform, in as many respects as possible, to
what the same God had already given to His chosen people
Israel ?
Hence we read that our divine Redeemer worshipped in

The Sects Reject Episcopacy. 137
the Synagogue and in the Temple, and gave to His own
disciples a form of prayer, which He commanded them to
use. Hence we see that the threefold order of the Minis
try in the Church of Israel, consisting of the High Priest,
the Priests, and the Levites, was followed substantially
under the Gospel dispensation, being, as we may reverently
believe, established in honor of the divine Trinity. For
the Saviour Himself, the great High Priest, appointed the
Twelve Apostles and the Seventy Disciples ; and when He
departed into Heaven, the Apostles occupied the highest
position in the Church on earth, the presbyters or elders
taking the second place, and the deacons being soon added
in the third. Before St. Paul's departure, we see him ap
pointing Timothy at Ephesus, and Titus in Crete, to exer
cise the Apostolic functions in governing, ordaining, and
judging the presbyters or elders ; and the ancient note at
the end of the Second Epistle to Timothy states that this
Timothy was the Bishop of Ephesus ; while a similar note
to the Epistle to Titus calls him the Bishop of the Cretans.
It is certain, from the testimony of the early Fathers, that
what St. Paul did in this respect was done by the other
Apostles ; so that at their decease the Church was every
where under the government of bishops, with their priests
and deacons. And so it continued to the Reformation in
the sixteenth century, and still continues in every Apostolic
Church, precisely as we have it in our own.
But the Continental Reformers, not having any bishops
on their side, were compelled to go on without them, and
devise a new form of government, which, of course, was
destitute of any Scriptural authority, and therefore merely
human ; whereas the primitive system is divine, because
the Apostles, being the commissioned agents of the Lord,
had the Holy Spirit to direct them. If those Reformers
had made this arrangement merely as a provisional one,
until bishops could be obtained, it would have been ex
cusable on the principle of necessity. But, unfortunately.

138 That Rejection wilful.
it was left in such a shape that their successors fell into the
mistake of thinking it an improvement, and even began to
oppose Episcopacy as a Popish abuse, because they saw
it in the Church of Rome. Nay, although their most
learned authors admitted that it was universal in the Primi
tive Church in the third century, four hundred years before
the time of Popery, yet they did not hesitate to call it a
usurpation, against all the evidence of the Scriptures and
of the Christian writers of that early day.
Thus it was, that when the bishops of the Reformed
Church of England had both the power and the will to
give the true system of Apostolic government to their
brethren on the Continent, the followers of Calvin and the
rest were in no humor to receive it : preferring, willfully, to
reject the only authorized plan established by the Holy
Spirit, and insisting on their own views of order, in open
hostility to that which was really the Divine Constitution.
Here, therefore, we have the main cause for their multi
plied divisions and their lack of stability. Here we may
perceive why a new sect can be so easily formed among
them, by any man who possesses sufficient boldness, tact,
and popular eloquence to undertake it. And here, also,
we see why we cannot consistently unite with these seced
ing brethren, nor acknowledge them as lawfully authorized
to act in the sacred ministry of the Church. For we all
know the consequences of seceding from an earthly govern
ment. We all admit the duty and even necessity of sup
porting the settled Constitution of the land. How much
more, as the members of the Church of Christ, must we be
bound to sustain the government of His earthly kingdom,
and guard that Constitution which we know to be divine !
But this unhappy departure of the Protestant sects from
the, system of Apostolic government, though sorely to be
lamented, does not prevent my acknowledging that they
have done a large amount of good in preaching the truth
of the everlasting Gospel. Their zeal, their talents, their

Persecutions by the Puritans. 139
self-devotion, and their success, I am always ready to admit,
notwithstanding the fact that they are still so hostile. Their
enmity against the Church was exhibited very sadly in Old
England, when, under the protectorate of Oliver Cromwell,
they banished her Bishops, Priests, and Liturgy, as they
supposed, forever. The same enmity was manifested in
New England, in the golden age of Puritanism, when the
Episcopalians, though belonging to the Established Church
in the mother country, were denied all their own religious
privileges, and obliged to pay a fine if they presumed
to absent themselves from the Congregational meeting.
Those zealous men, indeed, at that day, proved themselves
quite willing to adopt the Popish rule of persecution. For
they made it a law of the Colony of Massachusetts to ex
clude the priests of Rome, to whip the Baptists at the carts'
tail, to banish the Quaker preachers, and to hang them if
they dared to return. And under that law, four were
actually hung in Boston, some of whom were women.
Poor Roger Williams, though acknowledged to be a man
of sterling piety, was exiled in the dead of winter, and
would have perished if he had not been protected by his
Indian friends, who, savages as they were, exhibited more
feeling than his Christian brethren could display. And so
severe was the spirit of these pious Pilgrim Fathers, that
Charles the Second was compelled to interfere, and enforce,
for the future, some fair degree of religious toleration.^
All this, however, belongs to the spirit of a bygone age,
and should only be remembered as a wholesome proof that
even those whom many supposed to be the saints of the
earth, were ready to persecute, even unto death, as the
Church of Rome had done before them. And therefore
we should learn from such examples a lesson of charity
towards the weakness of poor human nature, under the
subtle temptations of that evil spirit who taught the
Romanists to burn heretics " for the glory of God," and
1 See Neal's History of the Puritans.

140 Charity for the Protestant Sects.
led the Puritans to banish the Baptists and hang the
Quakers for the same reason. Alas 1 how often is the
student of history obhged to mark, with wonder and with
grief, the acts of cruelty and blood, perpetrated in the sup
posed service of the merciful Redeemer ? How often must
he reflect in amazement on the subtlety of Satan, who can
persuade even Christians to accept his blackest counsels,
as if he were an angel of light !
But yet these melancholy facts, with much more of the
same character, should never be allowed to chill our kindly
regard towards any portion of the great family of Christ. I
cannot unite, indeed, with the various sects, who have
seceded from the only authorized Constitution of the
Church, and who condemn that which, as being the work
of the inspired Apostles, they ought to follow. But I can
admire their zeal, their active energy, and the exquisite tact
which they exhibit in the management of popular feeling.
I can honor their virtues, and acknowledge that their per
sonal piety, for aught I know, may be far superior to my
own. I can praise the genius and the learning of their
authors. I can cordially include them in the constant
prayer of the Church, that " all who profess and call them
selves Christians may hold the faith in unity of spirit, in
the bond of peace, and in righteousness of life." And in
my private supplications, I can implore the Divine Re
deemer to guide and prosper all who love and serve Him
in sincerity and truth, whatever their ignorance, their preju
dices, or their errors may be, in 'minor points of duty.

fifteent]^ Cl^apter*
Conclusion.
I HATE now stated frankly my own views with respect
to the unity of Christendom. Perfectly persuaded as I am,
after a long and laborious examination, that the system of
the Church to which it is my highest privilege to belong,
presents, on the whole, the most truthfid copy of the Primi
tive and Apostolic Church of the early and the purest ages,
I cannot unite with any other which makes unauthorized
and corrupt additions to the faith, or refuses to acknowledge
the ancient Creeds, or rejects the Apostolic forms of gov
ernment and worship, or denies the authority of the sacred
Scriptures as the standard of doctrine. And I am equally
persuaded that there is no scheme of unity worthy of the
slightest confidence, but that which shall honestly go back
to the principles of the Primitive Church, when she was
united, three hundred years before Popery began its per
ilous innovations ; since that is the true source from which
we can alone derive the^great and leading rules of the
Gospel dispensation. •
For what other standard can those modern denomina
tions regard with equal reverence ? If the Church in that
early day was united, ¦ — which no one can dispute, — and
if it is now split up into more than a hundred divisions,
how is it possible that it can be united again except by
returning to its original condition, before the work of
division began ? That was the course laid down by the
Reformers in England. And if all the rest had adopted

142 Unity among Ourselves.
the same, the whole of the Reformed would have presented
a grand and consolidated host, powerful enough to conquer
Popery, and put infidehty to shame, and infiuence the
hearts of millions who have been kept aloof by Christian
dissension and strife, and bring them to acknowledge the
grace, the concord, and the love which should still mark, as
they did in the beginning, the disciples of the blessed Re
deemer. But this only true course will not be taken, save by
thoughtful and intelligent individuals, who will continue to
come, as many thousands have come already, to share our
privileges. Rome and the various sects will doubtless go
on as they have done ; and instead of seeing the old
divisions disappear, it is far more likely that new ones will
start into activity, until the enemy has succeeded in diffus
ing a general indifference, or rather an infidel disgust, to all
religion, and in thus producing the great apostasy, which
is to precede the coming of Antichrist. The " signs of
the times " assuredly seem to point in that direction.
That fearful result, however, may still be distant for some
generations. A multitude of souls may still remain to be
gathered into the Redeemer's fold, before " the times
of the Gentiles are fulfilled." And meanwhile it is our
duty to labor in our appropriate field, and do, with
persevering zeal, all that can be done, with the blessing of
God, to lighten the gloom and stay the progress of degen
eracy. While I cannot look forward to any closer union with
corrupted Churches, or with the hundred Christian sects, I
trust that our Church, the only one in the land reformed
on Apostolic and primitive authority, will be enabled to
preserve her own unity, which is the duty especially com
mitted to us, in the providence of our Almighty Redeemer.
True it is, that she allows a large amount of indulgence to
the varieties of sentiment and feeling. True it is, that of
this variety we have quite enough ; and I cannot deny that

No Excuse for Unfairness. 143
it is displayed with a recklessness, at times, which is cer
tainly no proof of individual charity or wisdom. But these
extravagances only serve to prove the substantial strength
of our fundamental principles. No party has yet appeared,
— and I do not dread that any will ever appear, — who
would give up the Bible, the Prayer-Book, or the Episcopate,
in die wild attempt to restore the lost unity of'Christendom.
The Church of England and her American daughter are
firmly wedded to Law and Order ; and however a few
well--meaning but wrong-headed enthusiasts may desire to
draw them into an entangling alliance with Popery on the
one hand, or sectarianism upon the other, the main body
of our clergy and laity will always be found loyal to the
controlling rules of Scriptural faith and primitive Catholic
ity, by which the special favor of Heaven guided the
British Reformation.
And if, under these circumstances, the Church must con
tinue to stand alone, why should we complain ? The
Church of Israel stood alone for fifteen centuries. Was it
any the less the Church of God ? The Church of Christ
in Jerusalem stood alone, yet the Lord added to it " daily
such as should be saved ; " and in the course of two hun
dred years from the death of St. John, the doctrine of that
'Church conquered the heathenism of the Roman Empire.
But the impossibility of restoring union to Christendom,
and the necessity of guarding against all invasion of what
we know to be the truth, yield no argument for the slightest
injustice, unfairness, or lack of benevolent feeling towards
our Christian brethren. If we are forced to remember the
points in which we differ, we are also bound to remember
the far more essential points in which we agree. And
while it is our duty to maintain and defend the form with
which the first pure Church of the Redeemer was invested,
it is none the less our duty to do so without bigotry or
bitterness, in the spirit of charity and kindness, in constant
prayer for the whole Israel of God, and in the confident

144 Brotherhood of Christians.
hope that all true believers, who love the Lord Jesus Christ
in sincerity, however they may now be divided on earth,
will be united at last in heaven.
For, notwithstanding the errors, the corruptions, the war
fare, and the strifes which the subtlety of Satan has brought
into the fold of the Redeemer, the living faith in Christ
constitutes a bond of spiritual brotherhood, which neither
the malice of our great enemy nor the folly or wickedness
of men can destroy. Thus, in the relations of this life, we
know that the children of the same father may quarrel and
separate ; they may misinterpret his will, and deny its plain
provisions, and contend in bitterness and hatred about their
supposed rights ; and yet, in despite of all this, their rela
tionship as brethren remains, and cannot be denied without
an evident absurdity.
How much more shall Christians acknowledge that, since
a true and living faith in the Divine Redeemer, sealed in
our baptism, makes us the adopted sons and daughters of
the Almighty Creator, we must be brethren by virtue of that
spiritual relation ! And therefore, although we may not ex
pect, in these last degenerate and evil days, that outward
union will be restored before the end of this dispensation,
yet we may and ought to remember that the same Saviour
died for us all ; that the same God, for His sake, regards us
as His children ; and that even in our strongest denuncia
tions of error, the spirit which animates our hearts should
be in harmony with the wondrous pity and love of our Lord,
when He uttered on the Cross that gracious supplication :
" Father, forgive them ; they know not what they do."

[The following " Extracts " occur, in the original manu
script, immediately after the close of the treatise on Anti
christ. There is sufficient connection to make their insertion
proper here, though the " notes " and " observations " are
specially valuable as indicating the freedom of criticism
which is allowable in the case of the Homilies. — Editor.]
dBjctractgi from tl^e ipomtltegi,
WITH NOTES -AND OBSERVATIONS.
[The Edition of the Homilies referred to is that printed
at Baltunore in 1823.]
The following passage from the Homily Against the Peril
of Idolatry is worthy of attention : —
You will say, peradventure, these things pertain to the Jews.
What have we to do with them ? Indeed, they pertain no less to
us Christians than to them. For if we be the people of God,
how can the Word and Law of God net appertain unto us? St.
Paul, alleging one text out of the Old Testament, concludeth
generally for other Scriptures of the Old Testament as well as
that, saying. Whatsoever is written before — meaning in the Old
Testament — is written for our instruction ; which sentence is
most specially true of such writings of the Old Testament as con
tain the immutable law and ordinances of God, in no age or time
to be altered, nor of any persons of any nations or age to be dis-
obeyed.i In the Third Part of this Homily,'' there is a strong
1 Homily Against Peril of Idolatry, p. 167. ''¦ Ibid. p. 211.
10

146 Notes on the Homilies.
censure against the lighting of candles before the images
of the Saints. But the Preface, published in 15^2 by
Queen Elizabeth's authority, is sufficient proof that this
passage could not have been understood as applying to
candles lighted on the Altar as a symbol of Christ's being
the Light of the world, because it is certain that the Queen
had this usage in her Royal Chapel kept up constantly.
The same limitation appears on page 213, in the burning
of incense, " which is forbidden strictly by God's Word to
be given to images.'' Incense burned in honor of God
is right ; but burned in honor of any other it is idolatry.
The same argument is strongly put on page 221, where
the worship of images is denounced as " damnable idolatry."

The Third Part of the Homily Against Peril of Idola
try^ displays a rich vein of puritanical feeling against
the sumptuousness of churches, vestments, etc., treating
the Mosaic system as " allowed of the Lord " (whereas it
was commanded expressly), and treating it only as a figure,
etc. This, however, is a quotation from Jerome, the advo
cate of monasticism, but evidently is quite in accordance
with the mind of the Homilist. On page 238, the writer
calls Rome a " harlot," and compares her sumptuousness
to that of " the great strumpet of all strumpets, the Mother
of Whoredom," in the Revelation. Yet he does not say
that Rome is that Mother, but only that she resembles her.
And in the following page he recurs to the decking of im
ages as " a token of Antichrist's kingdom," according to
Daniel ; and inveighs against the priests, in gorgeous at
tire, falling down before them and offering incense to them.
And he concludes as follows : —
True religion then, and pleasing of God, standeth not in mak
ing, setting up, painting, gilding, clothing, and decking of dumb
1 Homily Against Peril of Idolatry, pp. 235-239.

Notes on the Homilies. 147
and dead images, — which be but great puppets and babies for old
feels, in dotage and wicked idolatry, to dally and play with, —
nor in kissing of them, capping, kneeling, offering to them, in
censing of them, setting up of candles, hanging up of legs, arms,
or whole bodies of wax before them, er praying and asking of
them er of saints, things belonging only to God to givp. But all
these things be vain and abominable, and most damnable before
God  Let us have ne strange gods, but one only God,
who made us when we were nothing, the Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ, who redeemed us when we were lost, and with His
Holy Spirit doth sanctify us  Let us honor and worship
for religion's sake none but Him ; and Him let us worship and
honor as He will Himself, and hath declared by His Word, that He
will be honored and worshipped ; not in nor by images or idols,
which He hath most strictly forbidden ; neither in kneeling, light
ing of candles, burning of incense, offering up of gifts, unto images
or idols, to believe that we shall please Him — for all these be
abomination before God; but let us honor and worship God in
spirit and in truth, fearing and loving Him above all things 
And such worshippers were Abraham, Moses, David, Elias, Peter,
Paul, John, and all other the holy Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles,
Martyrs, and all true Saints of God ; who all, as the true friends
of God, were enemies and destroyers of images and idols, as the
enemies of God and his true religion.l

In the next Homily, for Repairing and keeping Clean and
comely Adorning of Churches, we read that, —
As touching the other point, that Solomon's Temple was a
figure of Christ ; we know that now, in the time of the clear light
of Christ Jesus, the Son of God, all shadows, figures, and signifi
cations are utterly gone, all vain and unprofitable ceremonies,
both Jewish and Heathenish, fully abolished. And therefore, our
Churches are not set up for figures and significations of Messias
and Christ to come ; but for ether godly and necessary purposes;
that is to say, that like as every man hath his own house to abide
in, to refresh himself in, to rest in, with such like commodities ; so
Almighty God will have His house and place whither the whole
parish and congregation shall resort ; etc. 2 . . . . The fountain
¦¦ Homily Against Peril of Idolatry, pp. 245-247.
2 Homily For Repairing, etc.. Churches, p. 250.

148 Notes on the Homilies.
of our regenerafion is there presented unto us; the partaking of
the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ is there offered unto us ;
and shall we not esteem the place where se heavenly things are
handled ? 1

I should like to see the man who should be bold enough
to read aloud in church pages 289 and 290, being part of
the Homily Against Excess of Apparel.^

Rightly opposing prayers addressed to the departed
Saints, the Homilist admits that they do pray for us of their
own accord : or at least, he will not deny it.^

The Homily Of the Place and Time of Prayer, argues
very inconclusively about the state of the departed, and
does not state St. Augustine's opinions fairly.*
So on the times of prayer, he denies that the first Chris
tians kept the Jewish Sabbath ; whereas there is proof that
for some time that was kept, as also the Lord's day, and
there is no reason to doubt that the Sabbath was strictly
retained by the Jewish Christians.^

Liberal teaching on the Sacraments, but not correct on
1 HomiXy For Pepairing, etc., Churches, p. 251.
2 For instance, such a passage as this : " What else dost thou, but
settest out thy pride, and makest of the undecent apparel of thy body,
the devil's net, to catch the souls of them which behold thee ? O thou
woman, not a Christian, but worse than a paynim, thou minister of the
devil ! why pamperest thou that carrion flesh so high, which some
time doth stink and rot on the earth as thou goest .' Howsoever thou
perfumest thyself, yet cannot thy beastliness be hidden, or overcome
with thy smells and savors, which do rather deform and misshape
thee, than beautify thee ; " etc.
" Homily Concerning Prayer, p. 303.
* Homily Of the Place and Time of Prayer, pp. 310, 312.
' Ibid. p. 315.

Notes on the Homilies. 149
the point of the laying on of hands in absolution, which
the Homilist says is the visible sign.*

Erroneous teaching on the plurality of wives permitted
to the fathers of the Old Testament, which the Homihst
calls a " special prerogative." He also says that Pharaoh,
king of Kgypt, gave Hagar to be the bondmaid of Sarah.^

Before Christ's coming into the world, all men universally were
nothing else but a wicked and crooked generation, rotten and
corrupt trees, stony ground, full of brambles and briers, lost sheep,
prodigal sons, naughty and unprofitable servants, unrighteous
stewards, workers of iniquity, the brood of adders, blind guides,
sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death ; to be short, noth
ing else but children of perdition, and inheritors of hell-fire.^
The Homilist seems to have forgotten all the eminent
saints of the Old Testament.

While Christ was yet hanging on the Cross, and yielding up the
ghost, the Scripture witnesseth that .... the graves did open,
and the dead bodies rise." *
A mistake ; for this resurrection was not till after Christ
Himself had risen.

God " would not be pacified, but only with the blood of
His own Son." * And again, sin " did violently, as it were,
pluck God out of heaven, to make Him feel the horrors and
pains of death." Both of these are very strange expres
sions.^

^ Homily Of Common Prayer and Sacraments, pp. 328, 329.
^ Homily Of the Information of Certain Places of the Scripture, p. 345.
' Homily Of the Nativity, p. 379.
* Homily Of the Passion, p. 396.
6 Ibid. " Ibid. p. 397.

1 50 Notes on the Homilies.
How stands the Homily Against wilful Rebellion with the
War of the Revolution ? *

The Pope, in the same Homily, is called " the Babylon-
ical beast of Rome." ^ This is the last of the Homihes,
yet nowhere is the Pope called the great Antichrist.
' Homily Against Wilful Rebellion, etc., pp. 518, etc., 524, 525, 535,
536, 537. 546, 547-
^ Ibid. p. 560.

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