plainly no satisfactory answer to those, who, as he himself observes, have argued, that the Pope cannot be Antichrist because he CONFESSES Christ, and that it must necessarily be some entirely OPPOSING person or sect which does not bear the Christian name1. In good truth, I think they argue very rationally and I suspect, that their argument, so long as St. John's character of the Antichrist stands conspicuously recorded in his first Catholic Epistle, will not be very easily overturned.

If then the Pope cannot be consistently deemed the Antichrist delineated by St. John, and yet if the Papacy be most evidently the man of sin or the little Roman horn or the false prophet: it will follow, that the identification of the man of sin or the little Roman horn or the false prophet with the Antichrist, however ancient it may be or however generally it may be admitted, is in reality a great and radical error. Yet it is not difficult to perceive, how the error originated with the early Fathers. A mere cursory inspection of the characters of the man of sin and the little Roman horn and the false prophet, at a time when there was no possibility of applying them to the Power prefigured and intended, might easily lead to the false opinion, that their characters were substantially the same as the character of the Antichrist. For, though it is not explicitly said that they should DENY the Father and

1

Doddridge's Paraph. on 1 John iv. 3. Not more satisfactory to me is Mr. Pyle's gloss. See Preface to 1 John.

the Son, they are severally described, as most impiously claiming and exercising an authority altogether abhorrent from and contradictory to the spirit of sound religion.

2. But, while the Antichrist certainly cannot be the Papacy, and therefore certainly cannot be identified with the man of sin and the little Roman horn and the false prophet; we must assuredly identify him with some character previously foretold and described.

Such a task is imposed upon us by the very peculiar language of the Apostle.

YE HAVE HEARD, that the Antichrist shall come. This is that spirit of the Antichrist, whereof YE HAVE HEARD that it should come.

Now we cannot suppose, that St. John would refer his disciples to a mere idle unauthorised fancy; which had sprung up in the Church nobody knew how and nobody knew when, that, sooner or later, a Power, well denominated the Antichrist, would arise and distinguish itself by a bold denial both of the Father and of the Son. The expression, Ye have heard, has plainly all the force of a direct reference to some written prophecy, with which the primitive Church was familiarly acquainted. Now the first Epistle of St. John is generally allowed to have been written earlier than the Apocalypse: and, though it was written later than St. Paul's second Epistle to the Thessalonians which contains

1 John ii. 18. iv. 3.

the prophecy of the man of sin, yet (as we have seen) the character of the man of sin cannot be identified with the character of the Antichrist. Hence the prophecy, referred to by the expression Ye have heard, can only be one of the prophecies of Daniel. To some one or other, then, of those ancient prophecies we must look for an express prediction of him, whom St. John denominates the Antichrist, and whom (agreeably to his appellation) he describes as denying the Father and the Son.

: This prediction we find in Daniel's last vision : for a king or kingdom is there foretold, which perfectly answers to St. John's description of the Antichrist, and to which therefore he must refer in the expression Ye have heard. As the Antichrist, whenever manifested, might be known by an audacious denial of the Father and the Son: so the king, foretold by Daniel in his last vision, is described, as doing according to his pleasure, as speaking marvellous things above the God of gods, as having no respect unto the gods of his fathers, as treating with studied contempt the Desire of women or (as that divine personage is elsewhere styled) the Desire of all nations, and as proudly magnifying himself above all1.

( The outlines of these two portraits so exactly agree, that they must have been drawn for one and the same character: but, if we had any doubt on the subject, the circumstance of St. John's referring

us for his description of the Antichrist to a more ancient prophecy would effectually remove it.

This reference of the Apostle, when traced as it has been traced, brings out a very important conclusion as to the specific nature of the Antichrist. Daniel does not treat of individuals, but of communities. Hence, in his phraseology, which is built on a continued personification, a king does not denote an individual sovereign, but a kingdom'. Such being the case, if the Antichrist of St. John be the infidel king of Daniel, he will be no single individual, but a kingdom or a community. This kingdom or community, therefore, whenever it shall appear, will be known by the characteristics which are ascribed to the Antichrist or the infidel King. That is to say, the kingdom or community in question will, in the language of St. John, deny both the Father and the Son; or, in the language of Daniel, will speak marvellous things above the God of gods and will have no respect unto the Desire of

women.

3. As the Antichrist is a whole kingdom or community of this description: so the spirit of the Antichrist must plainly be the principle, by which that kingdom or community is animated. Hence, as I have already observed, the subtle spirit may extend far beyond the limits of the tangible kingdom. But, if the characteristic of the Antichrist be a denial of the Father and the Son; it is plain, that

1 Dan. vii. 24. viii. 20-23.

the spirit of the Antichrist can be no other than the spirit of Infidelity.

Now this spirit may be more or less virulent. It may be, either an explicit denial both of the Father and of the Son, which is Atheism: or it may be an implied denial of the Father through an explicit denial of the Son, which is Deism; for the Apostle tells us, in reference to such a modification of the antichristian spirit, that, whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: or it may be a denial, that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh and that the man Jesus is the Christ, which is the Gnosticism so strenuously combated by St. John in his own day 2.

Such, then, being the spirit of the Antichrist, all, who are tainted with infidelity whether more or less virulent, are infected by that spirit; though they may not politically be members of the kingdom or community which is specially denominated the Antichrist or the Infidel King. In the language, therefore, of the Apostle, who tells us that there are many antichrists, every atheist, and every deist who rejects the Messiah as an impostor, and every one who entertains heretical opinions respecting the nature of the Messiah, is an individual antichrist, because he is infected by the spirit of the great corporate Antichrist 3.