"Children, it is the last time: and as ye leve "heard that Antichrist shall come, even now

are there many Antichrists, whereby we "know that it is the last time." In this extra ordinary assertion are several circumstances deserving particular attention. First, the term Antichrist, which is no where to be found in any other scripture, is here, and again, c. iv. v. 3, mentioned by this writer as a de nomination well known by the Christians of his time to express the fatal object of the chief prophecies of the Gospel, which they had heard should come. Now, since no such word as this is to be met with, either in the prophecies of the Apocalypse or in Paul's predictions of the same event, it is plain that the term Antichrist could not become commonly used and understood by Christians in general, till, being accustomed to reflect, and talk, and write about the Revelation of John, and more especially about Paul's prophecy contained in 2 Thessalonians, chap. ii. they had agreed to call by that peculiar name the sinful human power, or that man of sin, as Paul expresses it, who should oppose his authority to that of God and Christ, and continue in some degree till our Lord's glorious coming; but it is not possible, that this should

have been the case with Christians in general, till those books had been in common use, and been often read and commented upon; which it is in the highest degree improbable ́should happen till long after the death of both Paul and John. Secondly, the writer deems all the heterodox teachers of his own time to be Antichrists, in the sense of these prophecies; though it is manifest from the prophecies themselves, that the opposition to God and Christ, which they describe, is of a very different kind. Thirdly, he declares that the predicted opposer of Christ was then already in the world, though Paul expressly affirms, that he would not appear till after there had been a general apostasy of professed Christians from the true and rational faith of the Gospel; an event which did not take place for above a century after the death of all the Apostles, and which, indeed, Paul tells Timothy, 1 Ep. c. iv. v. 1, would happen at some distant period, saying, it would come to pass in the latter times, or, as it should rather have been translated, in succeeding or future times Lastly, the author of this Epistle affirms the time in which he wrote to be the last time, and says, that by the Antichrists which then existed, he knew it to be the last time; an assertion

which we, who live 1700 years after the death of John, and 1500 years after the appearance of this Epistle, know to be an absolute falsehood, because the last time is not yet come. We know also, that the prophetic author of the Apocalypse could never have uttered such an assertion, because he himself, as well as Paul, hath assured us, that the last time of Christianiy is the time when the spirit and power of Antichrist will be annihilated, and the pure uncorrupted religion of the Gospel prevail amongst mankind, which he repeatedly assures us, will not be accomplished till full 1260 years after the complete establishment of a fabulous, blasphemous superstition in every country of Europe, by means of that predicted anti-chris tian power, which did not begin to shew itse any where before the fourth century of the Christian æra.

I have thus, as concisely as I could, (for to their attainment of truth in such inquiries as these, it is much more necessary to make people think than to make them read,) stated the grounds and reasons of my own rejection of so large a number of those Epistles, which the orthodox and holy Catholic Church hath thought

fit to adopt as genuine, authentic scriptures of the Apostles of Jesus Christ; and of the strength or weakness of my arguments every reader must determine for himself. I have only further to remark, that not one of these Epistles contains in it that necessary internal testimony of the divine authority of the writer, the spirit of prophecy; whilst Paul's Epistles to the Corinthians, Thessalonians, Galatians, and Timothy, have the historic testimony in their favour, strongly corroborated by that and every other internal evidence of authenticity.

VII. It remains for me to explain my reasons for objecting also to the Epistles to the seven Churches of Asia, as a spurious interpolation of the important book of the Apocalypse.

In the introduction to those prophetic visions, John calls them "the Revelation which "God gave unto Jesus Christ, to shew unto "his servants things, which must shortly come "to pass, and which he sent and signified by "his angel unto his servant John." Agreeably to this annunciation of the contents of the book, we find, after the beginning of the

visions in the fourth chapter, that an angel is the constant mystagogue of the Apostle through every scene; but the interposition. of these seven unimportant, and to us scarcely intelligible, Epistles, occasions a most unaccountable inconsistency in the writer, as it makes him, immediately after the above declaration, introduce a vision, in which, not an angel sent by Jesus Christ, but Jesus Christ himself, is represented as the sole personage - of the vision, appearing under a very extraordinary figure, attended with very extraordinary emblems, for no other purpose, that I can discover, than to condemn the heresy of the Nicolaitanes, and those who scrupled not to eat things offered to idols. Now John's original book of the Apocalypse must have been written before Paul wrote his abovementioned genuine Epistles, because in them he several times refers to it; and from them, and that part of his history which is subsequent to his writing some of them, we learn both that he himself spoke of eating things, which had been offered to idols as innocent in itself, and also that he knew nothing of these disciples of Nicolaus, though these seven churches were all of his own planting; and

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