"ble connection of civil and ecclefi" aftical affairs, has compelled and encouraged him to relate the progress, "the perfecutions, the establishment, the " divisions, the final triumph, and the

gradual corruption of christianity.*" Now it is worthy of obfervation, that the two last articles only being transposed, the events this authour has described, accurately correspond, both in order, and in substance, to those which are contained in the prophecies relating to the church. Our blessed Saviour hisfelf when applying to those questions of the twelve I have already mentioned, described the whole space of time, from the hour of his speaking, to the day of his return in glory, under two periods: that which should be closed by the def

1

truction of Jerufalem; and and that in which Jerufalem should be trodden down by the Gentiles. (Luke 21,) The former of these he marked as replete with perfecutions against his disciples, and the appearance of pretenders to his own character: the second as attended with a great overthrow of the ruling powers of the world, and a scene of confufion, trouble, and widely-extended distress.

Now this later period, so generally only described by our Lord, is that to which the revelation vouchsafed to his apostle John relates; and every point of the sketch given by his divine Master is preserved in the extensive picture of events left us by the disciple.

ANOTHER Out line of the same period, we find in the writings of St. Paul, who, when

when he warned the Theffalonians, (Ep. 2, ch. 2) not to be foon fhaken in mind, or troubled, as that the day of Chrift were at hand, added. " 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 " fin be revealed, the son of pedition, "who opposeth and exalteth himself " above all that is called God, or that " is worshipped: fo that he as God fit"teth in the temple of God, shewing " himself that he is God. Remember

ye not that when I was yet with you, I told you these things? And now ye know what withholdeth, that he "might be revealed in his time: " (i.e. till he be revealed in his season.) "For the mystery of iniquity doth al

ready work, only he who now letteth " will let, until he be taken out of the "way. And then shall that wicked

"one

66

66

one be revealed, whom the Lord shall • consume with the spirit of his mouth, " and shall destroy with the brightness " of his coming: even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan, with "all power, and signs, and lying won"ders, and with all the deceivableness " of unrighteousness in them that perish; " because they received not the love of "the truth, that they might be saved"

HERE are distinctly specified two periods as to pass in an inverted order before the coming of the day of Chrift; first the duration of the man of fin, which shall be ended only by the appearance of the Lord; and then, the continuance of him, whose existence did, at the time the apostle wrote, prevent the manifestation of the son of perdition; and who, he says, was known to those to whom he addressed this epiftle.

tle. Whether the first christains obtained this knowledge by an immediate revelation, or by fome inspired interpreter's explanation of an ancient prophecy is not at present known; but the power it. self which was then the obstacle to the rise of the man of fin, is faid to have been the Roman Empire; and this tradition is handed down to us not only by writers of high authority in the church, but particularly by one * of an age, in which it is scarcely in fairness to be supposed, that tradition on points so interesting as this could have perished. While if we look back to the writings of the prophet whom St. Paul does in this passage little less than quote, we shall find, that the rise of " the son of per

* Tertullian, see the passages from his works quoted by Bp. Newton in the 2d. vol. of his Differtations on the Prophecies, p. 413..

" dition,"