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"ble connection of civil and ecclefi"aftical affairs, has compelled and en"couraged him to relate the progress, "the perfecutions, the establishment, the "divifions, the final triumph, and the "gradual corruption of chriftianity.*" Now it is worthy of obfervation, that the two laft articles only being transpofed, the events this authour has defcribed, accurately correfpond, both in order, and in fubftance, to those which are contained in the prophecies relating to the church. Our bleffed Saviour hisfelf when applying to thofe queftions of the twelve I have already mentioned, described the whole fpace of time, from the hour of his fpeaking, to the day of his return in glory, under two periods: that which should be closed by the def

* Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

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

Now this later period, fo generally

only described by our Lord, is that to which the revelation vouchfafed to his apostle John relates; and every point of the sketch given by his divine Mafter is preferved in the extenfive picture of events left us by the difciple.

ANOTHER Out line of the fame period, we find in the wiitings 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 fhall not come. except there come

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a falling away firft, and that man of "fin be revealed, the fon of pe: dition, "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, fhewing "himself that he is God. Remember

ye not that when I was yet with you, "I told you these things? And now ༩༦. ye know what withholdeth, that he might be revealed in his time:

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(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

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"one be revealed, whom the Lord fhall .confume with the spirit of his mouth, "and fhall deftroy with the brightness "of his coming: even him, whose com

66.

ing is after the working of Satan, with "all power, and figns, and lying won"ders, and with all the deceivableness

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of unrighteousness in them that perish; "because they received not the love of "the truth, that they might be faved".

HERE are diftin&tly specified two periods as to pafs in an inverted order before the coming of the day of Chrift; firft the duration of the man of fin, which fhall be ended only by the appearance of the Lord; and then, the continuance of him, whofe existence did, at the time the apostle wrote, prevent the manifestation of the son of perdition; and who, he fays, was known to those to whom he addressed this epis

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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 felf which was then the obftacle to the rife 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 fcarcely in fairness to be fup-. pofed, that tradition on points fo inte refting as this could have perished. While if we look back to the writings of the prophet whom St. Paul does in this paffage little lefs than quote, we shall find, that the rife of "the fon of per

*

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

66 dition,"

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