half a time, or 1260 years: all which three characteristics are characteristics also of the eighth or ruling Head of the Apocalyptic Wild Beast from the abyss and sea. 5. To the which I must add also their similar final destiny; viz. to be destroyed by fire from God.1

Thus there can be no reasonable doubt as to the identity of this decem-regal Wild Beast of Daniel with the decem-regal Apocalyptic Wild Beast from the abyss and sea; and of the Little Horn of the one with the eighth and last Head of the other.2-The difference between the two figurations seems to have arisen hence; viz., that as the revelation made to Daniel respecting this last form of the fourth or Roman empire, then all future, was to be less full and circumstantial, it allowed of the revelation being depicted to him under the symbol of the one Head of one symbolic Beast: whereas the revelation to be made to St. John being more full and circumstantial, as of that of which the history was then already far advanced, and the plot that involved it thickening, needed, in order to this full development, the exhibition of the seven heads in the ten-horned Wild Beast from the sea; and besides this, of the further symbols of the attendant two-horned lamb-like Wild Beast, and the Image of the Beast.3-It is remarkable however that there is one important characteristic noticed in Daniel's description beyond what is found in the Apocalyptic; namely that of three of the original ten horns of the Wild Beast being subdued and plucked up before the Little Horn. And there is also this additional explanatory intimation given in Daniel, of which use may perhaps be made to the illustration of the Apocalyptic vision;-viz. that whereas the fourth or Roman Wild Beast, on final deprivation of power, was to be burned with fire and utterly destroyed, such would not be the case with those three other Wild Beasts that prefigured the three previous great empires of the world:-that, on the contrary, though the supremacy

1 Dan. vii. 11, Apoc. xix. 20.

2 So the four heads of Dan. vii. 6 seem equivalent to the four horns of Dan. viii. 8. 3 So the symbolic image of Daniel's first vision is expanded into the quadruple exhibition of the four Wild Beasts in a vision subsequent.

was taken from them, their lives would be prolonged for a season and a time.-On each of these points I shall have to remark afterwards.

II. I am to shew the identity of these Wild Beasts of Daniel and the Apocalypse, or rather of the last ruling Head or Horn of one and the other, with the Antichristian Power described in St. Paul's famous prophecy in the Epistle to the Thessalonians.-The prophecy is one to which I have already more than once made reference:1 but a fuller sketch of it on the present occasion, though somewhat recapitulative, will be both interesting and

necessary.

It appears then that partly in consequence of the un

authorized assertions of other members of the Thessalonian Church, partly of what the Apostle himself had said in his first Epistle to it, respecting Christ's coming

3

6.

"Now we beseech you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together unto Him, 2. That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. 3. Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come except there come the apostacy+ first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition: 4. 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, shewing himself that he is God. 5. Remember ye not that when I was yet with you I told you these things? And now ye know what withholdeth || that he might be revealed in his time. 7. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work; only he who now letteth ¶ will let until he be taken out of the way. 8. And then shall that lawless one** be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming. 9. Even him whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all powers, and signs, and lying wonders: 10. And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved. 11. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie: 12. That they all may be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." 2 Thess. ii. 1-12. 3 Tertullian paraphrases the passsage; "Ne turbemini neque per spritum, neque per sermonem, scil. pseudoprophetarum, neque per epistolam, scil. pseudapostolorum, ac si per nostram : And Jerom, Epist. ad Algas. Quæst. xi. thus

"

Tep; in the sense of repi, quod attinet ad. So Rosenmuller, Schleusner, Macknight, Whitby, &c. For examples I may mention Rom. ix. 27; Hoaιas κράζει ύπερ τ8 Ισραηλ where our authorised version is concerning ; and also 2 Cor. v. 12, vii. 4, viii. 23, ix. 3, Phil. i. 7, 2 Thess. i. 4, &c. Whitby quotes the ancient Phavorinus, saying that the word is used duoiws TW WEPI. And I observe the old expositor Berengaud so construing it here, "de adventu."

I doubt indeed whether rep ever bears the abjurative sense here given it. Schleusner gives none such to the word.

+ ή αποφασία.

ξ σεβασμα.

* δ ανθρωπος της αμαρτίας, - δ ύιος της απώλειας. | το κατεχον. ** δ' ανομος.

{ ὁ κατέχων.

again to gather to Himself his saints both quick and dead, and more especially of his use of the first person in speaking of the former,'-I mean of those that would be alive at the coming of the Lord,-the impression had arisen, and with no little excitement of feeling attending it, that Christ's second advent was imminent; insomuch that some of the then existing generation would live to see it. In answer to this he here tells the Thessalonian Christians that it was not so immediately at hand as they supposed and, while not attempting to unveil to them. the times and the seasons, which he himself indeed knew not, and which the Father kept in his own power,2 he yet, under dictation of the Spirit, declared to them that before that great and blessed consummation, there was to be developed in the Church one particular and most extraordinary phenomenon of apostacy; in effect the 3 apostacy from the true faith specially predicted by the

observes on it: 'Thessalonicensium animos vel occasio non intellectæ espistolæ, vel ficta revelatio, quæ per somnium deceperat dormientes, vel aliquorum conjectura, Isaiæ Danielis Evangeliorumque verba de Antichristo prænunciantia in illud tempus interpretantium, moverat atque turbaverat."

On this force of the definite article, prefixed to añosaσia, see Macknight and Bishop Middleton, ad loc. Our authorized translation unhappily quite overlooks it in its rendering, "a falling away."

4 The word anоsaσia, with its cognate nouns and verbs, as used in the Septuagint and Greek Testament, signifies (besides its primitive meaning of a local departure or secession) either a political secession and revolt, or a religious one, as from God and the true faith. The following examples will illustrate the two

senses.

1. Political defection. So añosnyaι Gen. xiv. 4, 2 Chron. xiii. 6, Ezek. xvii. 15, of the revolts of the king of Sodom from Chedorlaomer, of Jeroboam from Rehoboam, and of Zedekiah from the king of Babylon; also Acts v. 37 of that of Judas the Galilean in the time of the taxing. So again añosurew, Neh. ii. 19, vi. 6; and aжоsaris, Ezra iv. 12, 15.

2. Religious apostacy. So añosaσia, 2 Chron. xxix. 19 of Ahaz' apostacy, 1 Macc. ii. 15, of the Jews', seduced by Antiochus: añosaσis, 2 Chron. xxxiii. 19, of Manasses' apostacy: años arns, Numb. xiv. 9, Josh. xxii. 19, Isa. xxx. 1, 2 Macc. v.8.-And in the New Testament arosaoia, as in Acts xxi. 21, Amosaσɩav διδάσκεις απο Μωυσέως and αφιςημι, as in 1 Tim. iv. 1, Αποςήσονται τινες της πίςεως, and Heb. iii. 12, Εν τῷ αποςηναι απο Θε8 ζωντος.

Thus political revolt and religious apostacy are alike admissible per se by the phrase in the text. But stated as it is without specification to a Christian Church, we may surely most naturally construe it of a defection from Christ's Church and faith. Moreover the mention of the mystery of iniquity in the context, as associated with the apostacy spoken of, and also of the man of sin as its head, seems to fix the latter sense as the one intended.-Among the Fathers some construed the word one way, some the other: Tertullian and Jerom of a supposed secession of the Roman Empire itself into a new form of ten kingdoms; or of a defection of ten kings or nations from the Roman Empire: (a view very forced evidently;

Spirit :-an apostacy which, traced from its earliest infant origin, would in fact span the interval from the time then present to the Lord's second coming; and which would

1

as the thing predicted was no defection of the Roman Empire, but a change of it into a new form with ten kings or kingdoms:) Cyril, Ambrose, Augustine, &c, of a religious apostacy from the Christian faith and good works. See my Vol. i. pp. 204-208, 364-366.*

It is important to observe that in the example from Acts xxi. 21 the phrase is applied by the Jews to designate St. Paul's christian doctrine as a defection or apostacy from Moses; though the apostle asserted that it was no defection from him. (Acts xxvi. 22, &c.) So that the open avowal and profession of apostacy from the Christian faith is not necessary to satisfy the conditions of the text.-A point this well applicable to the objection against all Papal application of the prophecy made in his Rule of Faith, p. 11, by Archdeacon Manning. "The mystery of iniquity," he says, after a reference to Chrysostom, Cyril, and Theodoret, as authorities for its probably meaning either the Nero-like spirit of heathen persecution, or else religious heresies, "was working without and around the Church, and within it only as undiscovered." And he quotes in support of his view St. John, "They went out from us; for, if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; " adding, that if they did not spontaneously go out, they were thrust out as heretics.-If however the Archdeacon had further stated as to St. John, that by the word us he did not mean the corporate body of a professing church, but Christ's true spiritual disciples distinctively, even such as "had an unction from the Holy One," (who during the apostle's life and superintendence constituted no doubt the chief body, and exercised a paramount influence in the Ephesian Church,)—and, as to the Fathers, that it was the declared opinion of one of those referred to, I mean Cyril, that heresies, and a spirit of hatred, emulation, and disregard to the truth were then working in the Church so as to be preparing for the Antichrist, and of the two others, viz. Chrysostom and Theodoret, that the temple in which the Man of Sin, or Antichrist, would sit, was the Christian Church or Churches,-it would, I think, not have failed to strike him how little either the Evangelist or the Fathers helped his argument.†

It seems to me much to be lamented that with so weak a case such a man as Archdeacon Manning should have built so much on it: and yet more that he should at the same time have almost vilified those that hold to our own great Anglican Reformers' view of the prophecy; as if little better than friends to the Socinian and the Deist.

1 So Justin Martyr spoke of Christ's coming in glory as only deferred till after the manifestation and reign of the man of the apostacy: (see Vol. i. p. 204 :) and Augustine C. D. xx. 19; "To no one is it doubtful that the apostle speaks of the day of judgment (for so he means by the day of the Lord) as not to come, unless he come first whom he calls an apostate, viz. from the Lord God." "Nulli dubium

It is observable that Irenæus uses the word of man's apostacy from God at the full, Lib. iii. "Qui redemit nos de apostasia sanguine suo." For there can be no doubt that the original Greek was αποστασία.

+ Mr. Govett, who is one of the same prophetic school of the futurists as Archdeacon Manning, has a sentence in the Introduction to his Commentary on the Apocalypse, (p. iv) which seems to me quite illustrative of the subject. "My attachment to the principles of Protestantism is not lessened by the recession both from the principles and the name, which is taking place amongst a large body in our (Protestant) Church." He is alluding evidently to the Oxford Tractarians within the Church of England.-Just so within the professedly Christian Church a recession or apostacy from the principles of Christ and his Gospel began early to work: an apostacy which soon included a large body; and at length had attached to it the great majority of profest Christians, though still called the Christian Church.

in due course issue in, and develope as its head,' a certain antichristian person, succession, or power, whom he designates as the man of sin, the lawless one, and son of perdition;2-the man of sin as pre-eminently sin's off

est eum de Antichristo ista dixisse, diemque judicii (hunc enim appellat diem Domini) non esse venturum, nisi," &c. And so too the other Fathers. For the idea of any other day or coming of Christ, such as has been broached by certain anti-premillennarians in support of their theory, never I believe entered the minds of the early Christians.

And as the Fathers so most of the more eminent moderns. E. g. Rosenmuller, simply on critical grounds, says of the appearing meant; "H Tаpovoia тov Xpisov. adventus Christi ad judicium extremum;" though he adds that St. Paul might perhaps, from ignorance on the subject, have been thinking of the destruction of Jerusalem and of the gathering; “ Hæc επισυναγωγη προς αυτον conjuncta erit isti adventui; nec est diversa ab eâ quæ est Matt. xxv. 32."-Indeed this notice of the gathering of the saints to Christ fixes the reference to 1 Thess. iv. 14: on which point compare further John xi. 52, xvii. 23, Psalm 1. 2.

1 That the Wicked One or Antichrist, spoken of, was to be the head, as well as offspring of the apostacy, appears clearly from what follows; it being said that his development would result in that of the whole deceivableness of unrighteousness; in other words, of the apostatic system in its completeness. Justin Martyr well expresses this his double relation to the apostacy by calling the Antichrist the man of the apostacy δ ανθρωπος της αποςασιας. See my Vol. i. p. 204. And so too Cyril speaks of the amosaria as the #podpoμos of Antichrist. Ib. 365. 2 δ ανθρωπος της αμαρτίας, δ ύιος της απωλειας. The emphasis of the article and singular number is here again to be noted; as also in the d avoμos of verse 8. I must observe that Bellarmine and other Romanists, followed in these latter days by certain Protestants, contend that this use of the singular masculine precludes the latitude of interpretation I have given to the words, as signifying either a person, succession, or power, and necessarily restricts the meaning to one individual person. But, as Bishop Newton, Macknight, Bishop Middleton, and others have observed, it is the frequent Scripture custom to designate a class or succession by an individual. In symbolic prophecies this is notorious. In the Apocalypse we have already met abundance of examples, as also in Daniel. And even in unsymbolic passages the same occurs. So of the class or succession of Jewish priests in Lev. xxi. 10-15 and Numb. xxxv. 25, 28; of that of Jewish kings, Deut. xvii. 14, 1 Sam. viii. 11, &c : and again of the succession of Christian ministers 2 Tim. iii. 17, under the designation of the man of God. Let me add, as another and different example, Psalm lxxxix. 22, “The son of wickedness shall not afflict him :" Sept. vios avoμas the individual for the class. Above all, and not further to multiply examples, there is the notable one in this very prophecy of d KaTeXWV, "he that letteth," in the masculine singular, used synonymously with TO KATEXOV in the neuter, as of a power; and generally understood by the Fathers, as will be soon observed, of the then existing line, succession, or government of the Roman Emperors. I pray the reader's particular attention to this. It annihilates the arguments of those who would contend on the ground of this phraseology for a personal individual Antichrist.

Mr. Govett adds, in his argument against any Papal application of this prophecy, that if the phrase man of sin indicate a class connected together by official succession, so as those other phrases that I have compared it with, the man of God, the high-priest, &c, and the Popes of Rome were the line intended, then the phrase ought to include the whole Papal succession, even from its commencement in Linus and Anacletus. But I am surprised at so intelligent a writer thus arguing. The Papal succession in their official character and pretensions, (if that be the thing meant, a question which is the subject of our coming inquiry,) would be only included from and after the time of the Popes' development as the man of sin; obviously not before.