racter denominated the man of sin had been revealed.

Now I beseech you, brethren, in regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our ga thering 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 the apostasy first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, he that opposeth and exalteth himself above every one called a god or an imperial object of civil worship; so that he sits as a god in the very temple of God, shewing himself that he is a god. Remember ye not, that, while I was yet with you, I told you these things? And now ye know WHAT WITHHOLDETH, in order that he might be revealed in his own appointed time. For the mystery of lawlessness doth already work, only that there is ONE WHICH WITHHOLDETH until he be removed from the midst. And then shall that lawless one be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth and shall destroy with the manifestation of his coming: whose coming is according to the energy of Satan, with all power and signs and

' Gr. oéßaoμá, a word plainly allusive to Zéßarros or Augustus, the standing title of the Roman Emperors.

lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they receive not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send upon them the energy of error, so that they shall believe the lye: in order that they might all be judged, who believe not the truth, but who have pleasure in unrighteousness'.

1. On the principle of interpretation which I have already laid down, expositors of all ages and denominations have rightly agreed, that the character, styled by St. Paul the man of sin, is evidently the same as the character described by Daniel under the symbol of a little horn springing up from the fourth or Roman wild-beast. What ever may be their several opinions as to the parti cular Power intended, both the Papists and the Protestants and the early Fathers before them are unanimous in maintaining, that the man of sin and the little horn of the fourth wild-beast shadow out one and the same Power: nor can there, I think, be any reasonable doubt as to the propriety of this unanimous identification.

-There is exactly the same unanimity in identifying the man of sin with the two-horned beast and the false prophet and the mystic harlot of the Apocalypse. Let commentators of different communions differ as they may in regard to specific historical application, they all follow the ancient Fathers in the abstract principle of identifying

the prophetic symbols or persons. Long before the rise of any dispute between the Papists and the Protestants as to the right application of those symbols or persons, the early Fathers, who by common consent certainly flourished before the revelation of the extraordinary Power foretold by Daniel and Paul and John, distinctly saw and constantly maintained, that the man of sin was the same as the little persecuting horn of the Roman beast, and that the little persecuting horn of the Roman beast was the same as the false prophet and the mystic harlot and the second beast of the Apocalypse and so just, in the abstract, was their proposed sorting and harmonising of the several predictions which relate to the single Power thus variously described, that both Papists and Protestants, widely as they differ in point of specific application, have unanimously agreed to build upon the principle of identification laid down with so much wisdom and propriety by the ancient Fathers.

Hence we may say, that this long established and universally admitted identification is nothing less than a prophetic axiom. The point, wherein Papists and Protestants differ, is not respecting the identity of the man of sin and the little horn of Daniel's fourth beast and the apocalyptic false prophet and harlot and second beast; but respecting the proper application of the single character, which they fully agree to be thus variously described. They equally build upon the foundation

laid by the early Fathers: they equally acknowledge, that that foundation has been wisely laid: but they certainly rear very different superstructures upon the foundation itself.

The Protestants readily admit, that the Fathers, by the mere aid of rational comparative criticism, were as competent as any other persons abstractedly to sort and harmonise the prophecies; because such an operation is wholly distinct from the applicatory exposition of them, and may be performed just as well before as after their actual accomplishment: but they maintain, and (as they think) reasonably maintain, that, since the Fathers were no more inspired than themselves, any attempt on their part to explain and apply those prophecies, confessedly before their accomplishment, cannot have the least weight except so far as it rests upon the strict declarations of the prophecies

themselves.

The Papists, on the contrary, not satisfied with claiming for the Fathers the praise of having in the abstract judiciously sorted and harmonised the prophecies, contend, that their applicatory expositions of them ought also to be unreservedly received; notwithstanding, as being uninspired interpreters, they were of all men the least fitted to be erected into masters, for this very plain reason: they confessedly lived before the accomplishment of the prophecies in question. Thus, having rightly identified the man of sin and the little Roman horn, and having rightly stated that the

man of sin would be an eleventh king who would appear synchronically with ten other kings among whom the Roman Empire was destined to be partitioned, the Fathers, rashly venturing upon the sea of unfulfilled prophecy, pronounced, that he would be a single individual of consummate wickedness born of the tribe of Dan, and that he would be revealed immediately before the end of the world. The whole of this interpretation, with various other unauthorised figments, we are bound, say the doctors of the Vatican, implicitly to receive. Do we ask the reason of this alleged necessity? No answer is given, save the Ipse dixit of the old philosophical school. The interpretation is the interpretation of the Fathers, who were uninspired men, and who enjoyed the singular advantage of living before the accomplishment of the prophecies which they undertook to expound and apply. THEREFORE; such is the marvellous logic of the Romish school: THEREFORE their interpretation must undoubtedly be the only true one, and ought to be had and received of all the faithful accordingly'.

Bishop Walmesley has ventured so far to differ from the standard interpretation of the Fathers, as to make the ten horns of the Roman beast those ten Gothic kingdoms which were erected upon the Latin platform in the fifth and sixth centuries, instead of ten yet future kingdoms which are to appear immediately before the end of the world.

He is perfectly right in thus adopting the protestant exposition but it may be doubted, whether he is equally prudent,