"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."-Before the coming of the day of judgment, which you apprehend to be so near, there shall arise an apostacy* from the faith of the gospel, which shall go to so great a length, that it shall give birth to a mysterious character of a singular boldness of impiety and wickedness, in so much that I cannot find a name more appro→ priate for him, than that of the man of sint * ὅτι ἐὰν μὴ ἔλθη ἡ ἀποςασία πρῶτον,(non) enim (adveniet dies Christi) quin venerit defectio prius. Illa supplenda esse ostendit ipsa constructionis series, says Beza. Our english translation has a peculiar awkwardness here, in copying so closely the greek idiom." That day shall not come except there come first an apostacy:"-the meaning is, it is as sure to come as the day of judgment itself. And that it was a real and great apostacy, in the worst sense of that word, and no falling away of immaterial importance, we soon are informed from the apostle's description of it which follows. † ὁ ἄνθρωπος τῆς ἁμαρτίας,-homo ille peccati. Beza in his note interprets it, "homo ille merum scelus!" and adds, “loquitur autem Paulus de Antichristo, tanquam de uno quopiam homine, quum tamen totum ecclesiasticæ tyrannidis corpus intelligit." Though the apostle speaks of Antichrist as of one man, he means the whole system of the ecclesiastical tyranny. Let those who the son of perdition. To shew that he was an offender of no ordinary description, the 'apostle adds the article to his name, to distinguish him as the chief of sinners, and bestows upon him the benediction of another epithet, peculiarly descriptive of the nature of his wickedness, as a law breaker-he calls him "the lawless one, "-in our translation " that wicked one." And at the same time, he think that a single individual is meant, says he, shew me any such man whose existence has been perpetuated from the days of St Paul, and will continue to the day of judgment. * auos, ex lex ille,-qui legem Dei prorsus et ex professo conculcabit. Beza. "The lawless one,"--"one who tramples under his feet the law of God, by pretending to a superior authority." Beza justly censures the translation of the Vulgate and Erasmus, as he might ours too, for not sufficiently expressing the meaning of the original by " iniquus ille,"—" the wicked one;" whereas the apostle alludes to his lawless deeds, abrogating the worship of the true God, and the laws of the first table, by the idolatrous service of the mass! The pope is frequently called by the canonists "Deus noster papa,”. God the pope !" And Gratian says, that "the pope can dispense against the law of nature, and against any of St Paul's epistles "and Capicianus assigns the reason, "quia papa est major apostolo;" "because the pope is greater than an apostle." It is well known that he hath deserved this epithet of lawless, by his "changing times and seasons," and dispensing 66 our gives us a few of the strong lineaments of his portrait, which fully make good his peculiar title to those names. He specifies in particu cular his pride and arrogancy-his hatred of the truth, and determined hostility to its advocates, his flagrant impiety, and horrible blasphemy, with other similar practices of this holy head of the apostacy. The ancient prophets, from whom St Paul, as an inspired man himself, authoritatively took his description of the man of sin, have with, abolishing, adding to, mutilating, and every way altering the laws of God and nature, and the peculiar institutions of Jesus Christ, whose throne he has usurped, and upon all occasions proved to him i dvrxelper,—an antagonist, or Antichrist, in the most eminent degree; so as to have cast all other Antichrists entirely into the shade. There have been popes adul terers, incestuous, sodomites, poisonous, sorcerers, and pope JOAN a whore. Leo X. the persecutor of Luther, about the year 1520, was an atheist. "Cardinali Bembo quiddam ex evangelica historia proponenti respondit, quantum nobis nostrisque; ea de Christo fabula profuerit, satis omnibus seculis notum.'-Cardinal Bembo once mentioning to him something from the gospel history, aye, replied he, that FABLE OF CHRIST has been a good milch cow to us and our friends, as is well known to all ages,' "-Catal. Test. Veritat. tom. ii. lib. 20. Hist. of Popery. ་ given very much the same account of him particularly Daniel, (vii. 24, 25: viii. 23: xi. 36, 37, 38, 39,) Isaiah, (xiv. 5, &c.) Jeremiah (xxiii. 19: Xxx. 23,) and the Psalmist, (in the xxxvi. and 1. Psalms.) But St John in his apocalypse, written long after the death of St Paul, has in an almost historical series, combined every thing that the prophets bad written in a scattered manner of this great mystery of iniquity, which St Paul observed, had already begun to work, though it could not attain to its full power till the existing obstruction should be removed. St Paul in this place calls him the son of perdition,and St John says of him which goeth into per dition, (Rev. xvii. 8,)-because perdition, by a catastrophe so horrible and amazing, that the word perdition might be applied to it in the highest degree, was the lot ordained for him in the foreknowledge of God; or else, because his origin was from the evil suggestions of the father of perdition, inflaming the insatiable cupidity and ambition of the Pontiffs and lordly churchmen, to the introduction of corruptions tending to the destruction of souls, and the aggrandisement of the power and riches of the church. "Who opposeth"-(Christ and his truth,) -"and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or is worshipped; so that he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God."-It was the impious flattery of the romans in the times of their degeneracy, to give divine titles to their emperors, and build temples and altars to them even while living. But this "son of wickedness' will not be content with the flattery of titles usurped from the heathen gods, which he knows "were no gods," "* but wicked and apostate spirits like himself. He will be called after the "God of Gods," (Dan. xi. 36,) · and exalt his throne far above the gods of this lower world, although they are the greatest kings and emperors. He seats himself in the true temple or church of the true and most high God, and there, even upon the very * 2 Kings xix. 18. † John x. 34. Ps. lxxxii. 6. I said ye are gods."Princes and prophets so called. K K |