elesiastical and temporal. He feigns himself the representative of the Lamb, and the vicar of Christ; but his bulls and excommunications are thundered forth with all the terror which formerly accompanied the cruel edicts of the dragon.

But such marks as these, though they coins cide with the general tenor of the prophecies, and point out plainly the person meant, yet they decide nothing with respect to the time of his appearance, which yet is, doubtless, determinately fixed; because it is said to be bis own time, or the season appointed for him. Thus the coming of the Messias is spoken of in the same manner, to have been in the end of the world, (or Mosaic dispensation,) and in the fullness of time; which amounts to the same as ἐν τῷ ἑαυτῶ καιρῷ· suo præstituto tempore-in the time afore ordained for his coming. And we know that that time was precisely fixed, even to the very year, by Daniel, in his prophecy of the seventy weeks. But as that prophecy was by divine wisdom so contrived, that it should not be fully understood until

explained by the event; so there is the same necessity for a like uncertainty, as to the exact date in this. When our blessed Lord foretold the destruction of Jerusalem, he spoke of it, for the same reason, in terms equally undefin ed, and by dropping general hints and signs of the time approaching; and declared that "of that day and hour knoweth no man, no not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father." (Mark xiii. 32.)* So Saint Paul might know nothing more of the precise time of the rise of antichrist, than that the decline and fall of the empire was to prepare the way for it, and as St James, when he said that the ruin of Jerusalem, or coming of the Lord, was at hand, might have gathered his intelligence from the twenty-fourth chapter of Saint Matthew's gospel, and traditional opinion.

* Our divine Lord sometimes speaks of himself as the man Christ Jesus, and what he delivers at such times is not to be applied to his divine, but human nature. In his state of humili ation his knowledge was susceptible of increase, (Luke ii. 52,) and liable (as here declared) to limitation. But as God he knew all things, (John xvi. 30: xvi, 15.)-things unutterable, and not fit to be revealed,

For the mystery of iniquity doth already work, only be who letteth, will let, until he be taken out of the way."-There were even at that time, symptoms of those corruptions in the church, by the pride of pre-eminence in the episcopal dignity, and a false humility in worshipping of angels, which were in after ages to be carried to their greatest height, when the obstructing cause being removed, Antichrist should start from the canvass in his. proper form. In the very days of the apostles many detestable heresies were broached, of which the great apostacy of the man of sin, in his own time, would embrace the greater part; and establish them by decrees of councils, and edicts from the infallible chair; the scriptures being then of very inferior authority, and generally unknown, and the fathers, and other ancient evidences for Christ, having been by pious frauds and seasonable interpolations, taught to speak as good catholics,

The apostle here calls it a mystery, as well he might. Christ has his mysteries, for "great is the mystery of godliness," (1 Tim

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iii. 16,) and it is made up of many mysteries, which all surpass our present comprehension.* Antichrist also has his, a mystery of iniquity! So wonderful a mystery, that St John, when he had it represented before him in prophetic vision, though he had seen many wonders before, was now above measure astonished to behold the church of Christ in such a garb! ἐθαύμασα, ἰδὼν αὐτὴν, θαῦμα μέγα (Rev. xvii. 6,)-miratus sum, quum viderem illam, admiratione magna! I wondered with a great astonishment!"

Our wonder in these days is greatly abated, even though the thing itself still exists, of which St John only saw the type. Long acquaintance with things wears off the astonishment of a first impression. And besides, after so much acrimonious discussion as the

* Ephes. v. 32.-The union of Christ and the church.1 Cor. xv. 51,-Of the great change-union of the divine and human nature in Christ-Doctrine of the Trinity, &c. Ephes. iii. 4 vi. 19. 1 Cor. iv. 1. Matt. iii. 11, &c.

† 2 Thess. ii. 7. Rev. xvii. 5. The mass, and popery in the lump, all a mystery.

subject has undergone since the reformation, the chief mysteries of popery are prudently (in protestant countries) kept out of sight, and its hard and prominent features softened down, and the paint and patches raked off in so great a degree, that the good old woman Jezebel looks no more like the portrait drawn for her in the prophecies, than pope Joan was like a christian bishop, when she was taken in labour in the public streets of Rome, in pontificalibus, and in the middle of a holy procession."

* The prophecies, in many instances, have wonderfully received even a literal as well as a figurative accomplishment. The history of POPE JOAN is established upon the testimony of so many authors of undoubted credit, many hundred years before LUTHER, that the fact cannot be doubted. This was pope John VIII. the immediate successor of Leo IV. and before Benedict III. and was afterwards called Joan. Her name was Gilberta, born at Mentz in Germany. By dissembling her sex, and making great proficiency in learning, she got into the infallible chair about the year of our Lord 854. She fell in travail in a solemn procession to the Lateran, in the open street, between the theatre Colosseum and St Clement's church; and was there delivered, having been pope, above two years. In detestation of this disgraceful accident, the popes ever afterwards declined to pass that way; and, to prevent being so cheated any more, when a pope is elected and seated in Saint Peter's chair, there is a hole made in the bottom, through which the