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Thus, I may say, on the first day of the week, another Sabbath is approaching; and may use, on Saturday evening, the very same phrase; but the remoteness or nearness of the period would, of course, and most naturally, be determined by the point of time at which I spoke, viewed in relation to the time past. So when Christ and John preached, that the kingdom of Heaven was approaching, they had reference to the period already past, during which the church had been expecting that kingdom. Four thousand years had rolled over the world, while this hope had been cherished by one generation after another. It was therefore just so much nearer in the days of Christ, than when it was first announced. Supposing that the period of his coming to judgment shall be, according to the traditions current in his day, at the commencement of the seventh millenary, at two thousand years from the time of his personal ministry, or sooner, he might, with great truth and important meaning, preach the kingdom of Heaven was approaching ;-two-thirds of the time of expectation having passed away. The word approaching, as Christ and John used it, does not necessarily mean, what our English phrase at hand does, i. e. a very short space, absolutely considered. Its import must be relatively understood. Compared with the period passed, the kingdom of Heaven was then certainly drawing nigh.

*

The word, however, which the apostle uses in this place, and which is translated "is at hand," does not mean approaching-something near, but not yet present. Its import is not relative, like that which Christ and John used (nyyinɛ), but absolute. It denotes actual interposition, establishment, collocation, or

*2 Thess. 2. 2, ¿VεOTNKEV.

presence; * and the idea is that they should not be alarmed, as though that day had begun, was present then, which some were led to fear might be the case, from the fearful prodigies and sights in the heavens, and the horrible fate at that time clustering round Jerusalem.

The apostle cautions them against being deceived, and proceeds to tell them that a fearful apostasy should first take place, and the man of sin be revealed, whom he describes, "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, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, so that he, as God,‡ (as a god,) sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is (a) God.§

This description directs us at once to the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, the little horn which Daniel saw spring up among the ten horns on the head of the beast-the fourth universal or Roman Empire. It concerns us only to state the fact, that the Pope, we mean not any one individual, but the whole series of these ambitious and arrogant prelates, is the man of sin, the son of perdition, titles which the apostle has taken from the 7th, 9th and 10th Psalms, where "the wicked one," "the enemy, "the man of the earth" that oppresseth, and his horrible fate, are clearly described and set forth.

Popery is a fearful apostasy. It is, in fact and form, a system of idolatry which has grown up in the church

* See Rom. 8. 32. OUTε EvεOTWτa-"and neither things present." See also 1 Cor. 3. 22; 7. 26; Gal. 1. 4.-See Robinson's Tr. of Wahl, art. Eviotημi.

† Η αποστασια the apostasy. §'OTI EOTI DEOS.-2 Thess. 2. 3, 4.

† Ως Θεσ

of God, and having entirely transformed the gospel of Jesus Christ, from its being the glad tidings of salvation, into the most oppressive form of despotism-from its being a pure and purifying religion, into a wretched, corrupt, debasing paganism, has baptized it with the name of Christianity.

ISM.

The following brief account of this apostasy is taken from Gibbon. "The Christians of the seventh century had insensibly relapsed into a SEMBLANCE OF PAGANTheir public and private vows were addressed to the relics and images that disgraced the temples of the East. The throne of the Almighty was darkened by a cloud of martyrs and saints and angels, the objects of popular veneration: and the collydrian heretics, who flourished in the fruitful soil of Arabia, invested the virgin Mary with the name and honors of a goddess. The devout Christian prayed before the image of a saint; and the pagan rites of genuflexion, luminaries, and incense, again stole into the Catholic church. The scruples of reason or piety were silenced by the strong evidence of visions and miracles: and the pictures, which speak and move and bleed, must be endowed with a divine energy, and may be considered as the proper object of religious adoration. The use and even the worship of images was firmly established before the end of the sixth century they were fondly cherished by the warm imagination of the Greeks and Asiatics: and the Pantheon and the Vatican were adorned with the emblems of a NEW SUPERSTITION. The worship of images had stolen into the church by insensible degrees: and each petty step was pleasing to the superstitious mind, as productive of comfort and innocent of sin. But in the beginning of the eighth century, in the full magnitude of the abuse, the more timorous Greeks were awakened

by an apprehension, that under the mask of Christianity they had restored the religion of their fathers.*

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One essential branch of paganism was demonology, or the worship of canonised dead men and women, called demons, a sort of subsidiary, subordinate and intercessory deities. The Roman Catholic adoration of saints, who are just the same,mere canonised dead men and women,-is therefore paganism revived. Jupiter or Juno, Osiris or Adonis, Cronos, Astarte or Venus, are not indeed the names of their canonised saints and heroes; but the adoration of Peter, of the Virgin Mary, and of the hosts of later canonised saints, whose names and days are noted in their calendar, as worthy of homage by all Roman Catholics, is in principle and essence the ancient paganism-the predicted apos

tasy.

Another feature of the Man of sin, is his supremacy to the civil magistrate, and in matters of religion. What Paul says is literally true; the Bishop of Rome opposes and exalteth himself against all that is called God or that is worshipped. The word God denotes, not only the true object of adoration in Heaven, the Supreme Being, but also civil rulers,† those in authority who are justly deserving of respect. Now, that the Pope opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God in Heaven, is evident from the fact, that he has published his bulls, and undertaken to suppress the divine Word which God has given to men to make them wise unto salvation. He has set up his own decrees in opposition to the truths of God's revealed will, and insists upon obedience to his counsels and will and traditions, in preference to the revealed will of God. He has denounced Bible Societies, and those who undertake to circulate the Sacred Scriptures; † Psalm 97. 7.

* Gibbon.

and in every way shown, that he accounts his will and canons, as of far more authority and importance to be known and observed, than the Bible which is the will and word of God.

Moreover he has exalted himself above all kings and governors, and those that are called gods on earth; for he has asserted that they derive their power from him, and claimed it as his prerogative to pull them down or set them up,-has excommunicated kings and emperors, and absolved their subjects from allegiance to them. And as to his sitting in the temple of God, and showing himself that he is a God, no clearer proof of this can be desired, than his arrogating to himself the titles of Supreme Pontiff or High Priest, Sanctissimus Dominus, or Most Holy Lord,which belong only to God and to the Lord Jesus Christ, and the language he has held in many of his bulls. In that against Elizabeth, Queen of England, Pius V., speaking of his lordly and godlike power in the church and world, says, "This one he hath constituted prince over all nations, and all kingdoms, that he might pluck up, destroy, dissipate, ruinate, plant and build." The bull against Henry of Navarre and the prince of Condé begins as follows: "The authority given to St. Peter and his successors, by the immense power of the eternal king, excels all the powers of earthly kings and princes. It passes uncontrollable sentence on them all. And if it find any of them resisting God's ordinance, it takes more severe vengeance on them, casting them down from their thrones, though never so puissant, and tumbling them down to the lowest parts of the earth, as the ministers of aspiring Lucifer."*

* Barrow's Treatise on the Pope's Supremacy, p. 5.

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