sors of those more ancient men of understanding who laboured to instruct many during the period of heathen persecution, are engaged in the work of purifying their apostate brethren, down to the very time of the end: but it is not said, that they shall continue to fall by the sword, down to the time of the end ; nor is it said, that more than some of them shall thus perish by violence. Such being the case, the period, which we are now considering, will expire, when the flames of persecution are (as it were) with one consent extinguished.

If we consult history, I know not, that any time, to speak in general terms, can be more properly selected for this event, than the close of the seventeenth century.

The latter part of that age was distinguished by a bitter persecution and by a systematic attempt to suppress the Reformation, in almost every region of papal Europe. But, from the beginning of the cighteenth century, though some instances of individual suffering may have occurred subsequent to its commencement; yet, by a gradual revolution of sentiment, in despite of the authoritative decrees of ecumenical and therefore reputedly infallible Councils, the madness and impiety of persecution for conscience sake has been more and more perceived and acknowledged, until at length, in the strict sense of the term, it has vanished from off the face of the Roman Empire. In a word, the seventeenth century was not more marked by a persecuting opposition to the sincere word of God, than the eighteenth century has been

period expired, as there is reason to believe, in the year 1697. Therefore, in the same year 1697, the fourth period must have commenced.

Now the third period expired synchronically with the termination of the second apocalyptic woe. Hence the fourth period, commencing with the expiration of the third period, will synchronise, partly with the short time which elapses between the termination of the second woe and the beginning of the third woe, and partly with that portion of the season occupied by the third woe itself which expires at the commencement of the time of the end'.

Such being the case, this fourth period will largely synchronise with the term, which, in reference to the latter times, is, by the prophets of the New Testament, denominated the last time. For, as the latter times are eminently the times of the two first woes, so the last time is specially the time of the third woe: the short season, which intervenes between the end of the second woe and the beginning of the third woe, being (as it were) the connecting season of preparation, during which the spirit of the two first woes gives place to the spirit of the third woe.

But the spirit of the two first woes, or the spirit of the latter times, is eminently a spirit of apostate superstition : while the spirit of the third woe, or the spirit of the last time, is eminently a spirit

Rev. xi. 14, 15. Dan. xi. 39, 40. * See above book i, chap. 7.5 II.

a god whom his fathers knew not, shall he honour them with gold and silver and precious stones and desireable things. Thus shall he do for the restrainers of the strong military protectors, together with the foreign god whom he shall acknowledge : he shall multiply glory; and he shall cause them to rule over many; and he shall divide the land among them by barter!

The character of the wilful king, here presented to our attention, is so strongly and so unambiguously marked, that a Romish expositor, who flourished early in the seventeenth century, when as yet infidelity was but feebly germinating, remarked, from the general tenor of the prophecy: that this king was that monster, whom, under the name of Antichrist, the Church had expected from the very beginning; and that, when revealed, he would be an avowed atheist, who would not only abolish the worship of idols, but who would stand up against Christ and take away the name and adoration of the true God.

In forming such an estimate of the character of the wilful king, Cornelius a Lapide is, I apprehend, perfectly correct. The great Antichrist had been described by St. John, who is the only one of the

Dan. xi, 36–39. * Ex hoc ergo versu et ex versu præcedente (Dan. xi. 37, 38.) colligitur, Antichristum fore atheum ; cumque, cum pleno potietur imperio, non tantum Christum et idola, sed et veri Dei nomen et cultum, ablaturum. Cornel. a Lapid. Comment. in loc.