ledges to have received particular assistance; probably that
spirit which attends his false prophet enables him to perform
such extraordinary feats and wonders for promoting Anti-
christ's credit and the worship paid to him. And he shall
increase glory, and shall give them power over many, and
shall divide them the land for nothing. Here the Antichrist-
ian monarch distributes his favours to his partisans. To some
he gives glory, that is, title and pre-eminence; on others he
confers power over many, that is, kingdoms, or governments
of provinces, towns, &c.; and to others he divides the land
for nothing, giving them large possessions or estates, gratis.
Thus, in quality of universal monarch, he disposes of the
earth, of dignities, and riches, at his pleasure.-

As a prelude to his future power of Antichrist, may not the devil have suggested to the Turkish emperors the title, which they now assume by anticipation, of "Bestowers of all earthly crowns?"-See note, p. 239.

But now we must return to consider, that such is the gene-
ral and dreadful calamity of the times we are describing, that,
while Antichrist spreads abroad a flood of desolation and
slaughter by his army, and thus becomes the instrument of
punishment to the wicked, he is to be understood to exercise
at the same time a most sanguinary persecution against the
servants of God. He had begun it with putting to death
144,000 converted Jews. But now the four winds are let
loose, which we saw held by the angels, Apoc. vii. 1, and they
carry with their innate velocity the rage of persecution into
every corner of the globe. Hell and earth combine; the de-
vil, Antichrist, and the false prophet, confederate together to
extirpate Christianity. They set all engines at work, to
abolish all worship of God, and to establish idolatry. St.
Austin, speaking of this dreadful period, says: "This perse-
cution will be the last, it will happen towards the approach
of the last judgment, and it will fall upon the Church in
every part of the world; that is, the whole city of Christ will
be persecuted by the whole city of the devil, as far as both
are extended upon the earth." De. Civ. liv. 20. c. 11. The
barbarous tortures employed in the primitive persecutions,
are revived, and new ones more cruel invented.
The racks,
torches, gridirons, fire, and other instruments of torment, are
reproduced. The Christians are dragged before the statue of
Antichrist, which if they refuse to adore, certain death is
their punishment, Apoc. xiii. 15. We are shocked in read-
ing the account of the barbarities used by Nero, Domitian,

Dioclesian, &c. against the Christians, but these will be much exceeded by the cruelties of this last persecution. Some of those Roman emperors, for their inexpressible violence against religion, were thought by a part of the Christians to be Antichrist; but in the time we are speaking of, the Christians will experience the rage of the real Antichrist, to which nothing in the preceding ages will have been found equal. He is permitted to make war with the saints, and to overcome them, as St. John informs us, Apoc. xiii. 7. He is now in his full career of power, and crushes the saints of the Most High, as Daniel forewarned us, vii. 25. This ferocious monster, as in his war he seemed to imitate the cruel tyrant Nabuchodonosor; so in his hatred to religion he resembles the impious Syrian king, Antiochus Epiphanes, who by the Christian writers has been always marked out as the figure of him. That prince was an avowed enemy to the worship of God, and exercised a most horrible persecution upon the Jews, inasmuch that, having taken the city of Jerusalem by force of arms, he commanded the soldiers to kill, and not to spare any that came in their way, and to go up into the houses to slay.

Thus there was a slaughter of young and old, a destruction of women and children, and killing of virgins and infants. "And there were slain in the space of three whole days four score thousand, forty thousand were made prisoners, and as many sold.

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And when Antiochus had taken away out of the temple a thousand and eight hundred talents, he went back in all haste to Antioch, thinking, through pride, that he might now make the land navigable, and the sea passable on foot: such was the haughtiness of his mind." 2 Mach. v.

Antiochus, though retired out of the country, did not abate in his enmity to the Jews. For he sent Apollonius with an army of twenty-two thousand men, who made another dreadful slaughter of the people in Jerusalem. And,

"Not long after," continues the sacred writer, "the king sent a certain old man of Antioch, to compel the Jews to depart from the laws of their fathers and of God: and to defile the temple that was in Jerusalem, and to call it the temple of Jupiter Olympius.

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And there went out a decree--to oblige them to sacrifice, (to the idol of Jupiter Olympius,) and whosoever would not conform themselves to the ways of the heathens should be put to death." 2 Mach. vi. Let these actions of Antiochus

against the Jews be looked upon as a faint draught of those violences which Antichrist will exercise upon the Christians.

But on account of the weakness of human nature, and to moderate our terror at the sight of such an unexampled persecution, our Saviour himself has also been pleased to give us previous notice of it. "For there shall be then great tribulation," says he, "such as hath not been from the beginning of the world until now, neither shall be. And unless those days had been shortened, no flesh should be saved; for the sake of the elect those days shall be shortened." Matth. xxiv. 21, 22.—Happily, amidst this frightful prospect, there shines a ray of comfort. These extreme difficulties and rigorous trials, this war and slaughter, which, if continued, would sweep away the whole race of mankind, our Saviour informs us, shall be shortened, that is, contracted to the compass of three years and a half, for the sake of the elect, or, out of regard for his faithful and beloved servants, in the same manner as formerly Almighty God offered to spare the wicked city of Sodom, in case ten just men could be found in it. When mankind are brought to so severe a test, what wonder if, in an age of infidelity and irreligion, numbers give up their faith in Christ, and go over to the enemy, the beast, and adore him as a god? And such, we learn from St. John, will be unhappily the case. And all that dwell upon the earth, adored him, whose names are not written in the book of life." Apoc. xiii. 8.

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But besides what we have seen concerning this persecution, as the Almighty has judged extraordinary admonitions necessary for us in proportion to the rigour of the trial, he has vouchsafed to impart to us a further account of it by his prophet Daniel, xii. Î. "At that time," says this prophet, "shall Michael rise up, the great prince, who standeth for the children of thy people: and a time shall come such as never was from the time that nations began even until that time. And at that time shall thy people be saved, every one that shall be found written in the book." Here the angel tells Daniel, that at the time of the terrible persecution of Antichrist, the archangel Michael, who is the patron of the Christian Church, as he was of the Jewish, will rise up to the succour of the Christians, and fight against the powers of hell for them, in the same manner as we saw he did in the first persecutions under the Roman emperors, Apoc. xii. 7; that the persecution will also be such as never was from the time that nations began even until that time; and that those only shall be saved who

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heaven." Matt. xxiv. 29. This is.the voice the Lord has uttered before the face of his army, to strike terror into mankind and bring them to themselves. For his armies are exceeding great," said Joel, "they are strong, and execute his word: For the day of the Lord is great and very terrible: and who can stand it?"Again, the Almighty throws in another energetic exhortation to penance, desirous that the scourge may be taken out of his hand before he strikes:

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V. 12. Now therefore saith the Lord," continues Joel, "be converted to me with all your heart, in fasting, and in weeping, and in mourning.

V. 13. "And rend your hearts, and not your garments, and turn to the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, patient and rich in mercy, and ready to repent of the evil.

V. 14. " Who knows but he will return, and forgive, and leave a blessing behind, sacrifice and libation to the Lord your God?

V. 15. "Blow the trumpet in Sion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly.

V. 16. "Gather together the people, sanctify the Church, assemble the ancients, gather together the little ones, and them that suck at the breasts: let the bridegroom go forth from his bed, and the bride out of her bride-chamber.

V. 17. "Between the porch and the altar the priests, the Lord's ministers, shall weep, and shall say: spare, O Lord, spare thy people; and give not thy inheritance to reproach, that the heathens should rule over them. Why should they say among the nations, where is their God?"

These divine admonitions not prevailing with mankind, who have hardened themselves in iniquity, and carried it to a greater pitch than was ever seen in any former period of the world, the Almighty in his wrath lets loose the reins to Antichrist. This devouring beast and raging tyrant sets out with his army, to ravage and desolate: first, the country of Judæa, then all Christendom, and in fine, to trample under foot all the powers of the earth. The march and progress of this horrible army, with the havoc it makes, is described in most pathetic and lofty strains by. the prophet Joel. The description, indeed, is applied by some commentators to a vast swarm of devouring insects; by others, to the Chaldean troops coming against Jerusalem under Nabuchodonosor; but whoever will attentively view the particulars of the narrative, will see that they do not tally with either of those cases, but

agree

very properly with the army of the Apocalypse. Thus cries out Joel:

Chap. i. 2. "Hear this, ye old men, and give ear all ye inhabitants of the land: did this ever happen in your days, or in the days of your fathers?

V. 3. 66 Tell ye of this to your children, and let your children tell their children, and their children to another generation.

V. 4. "That which the palmer-worm has left, the locust has eaten; and that which the locust has left, the bruchus has eaten; and that which the bruchus has left, the mildew* has destroyed (has eaten.)

V. 5. "Awake, ye that are drunk, and weep, and mourn, all ye that take delight in drinking sweet wine; for it is cut off from your mouth.

V. 6. 26 For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number; his teeth are like the teeth of a lion and his cheek teeth, as of a lion's whelp.

V. 7. "He has laid my vineyard waste, and has pulled off the bark of my fig-tree: he has stripped it bare, and cast it away: the branches thereof are made white."

As

The four insects, palmer-worm, locust, bruchus, and grasshopper, ver. 4, represents the four great nations, which we saw crossing the Euphrates, to form Antichrist's army. they march at present in four separate bodies, it is said that what one leaves, the other eats up, to show that they leave famine behind them wherever they go.

They are strong and without number, v. 6, and as furious lions, they root up all the vineyards and fruit trees, v. 7, after having devoured the fruit.- -Joel goes on:

V. 8. "Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.

V. 9. Sacrifice and libation is cut off from the house of the Lord: the priests, the Lord's ministers, have mourned.

V. 10. "The country is destroyed, the ground hath mourned: for the corn is wasted, the wine is confounded, the oil hath languished.

V. 11. The husbandmen are ashamed, the vine-dressers have howled for the wheat and for the barley, because the harvest of the field is perished.

V. 12. "The vineyard is confounded, and the fig-tree hath languished: the pomegranate-tree, and the palm-tree, and the

* Most interpreters understand the Hebrew word, here rendered by mildew, to mean a species of grasshopper, or other insect.