bondman, and every freedman, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of mountains." Apoc. vi. 14, 15.

V. 21." And I will call in," continues Ezechiel," the sword against him in all my mountains, saith the Lord God: every man's sword shall be pointed against his brother.

V. 22. " And I will judge him with pestilence, and with blood, and with violent rain, and vast hailstones: I will rain fire and brimstone upon him and upon his army, and upon the many nations that are with him." Here we see in what manner the Almighty will destroy Gog with all his army in the mountains of Judæa, by turning every man's sword against his brother, by pestilence, by violent rain, and vast hailstones; and in fine, he will rain fire and brimstone upon them. Το the same the royal psalmist seems to allude, saying: “The Lord shall rain snares upon sinners: fire and brimstone and storms of wind shall be the portion of their cup." Psalm x. 7. St. John also gives us their destruction in few words, but to the same purpose: And there came down fire from God out of heaven," says he, "and devoured them." Apoc. xv. 9. And thus is fulfilled what God had promised by his prophet Zachary: "I will be to Jerusalem, saith the Lord, a wall of fire round about,” ii. 5. The Almighty again, speaking by his prophet Isaiah, after proclaiming his future vengeance upon the Anti-christian Babylon, proceeds to announce also his judgments upon Gog in the same terrible language, styling that prince the Assyrian, on account of his reigning over the country formerly called Assyria: "So shall it fall out," says God, "that I will destroy the Assyrian in my land, and upon my mountains tread him under foot and his yoke shall be taken away from them, and his burthen shall be taken off their shoulders." Isaiah xv. 25. And again: "And the Lord shall make the glory of his voice to be heard, and shall show the terror of his arm, in the threatening of wrath, and the flame of devouring fire; he shall crush to pieces with whirlwind and hailstones. For at the voice of the Lord the Assyrian shall fear being struck with the rod." Isa. xxx. 30, 31.

Ezechiel having described the fate of Gog by anticipation, is told to return to the historical account of him:

Chap. xxxix. 1. And thou, Son of man, prophecy against Gog, and say: thus saith the Lord God: behold I come against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Mosoch and Thubal. V. 2. And I will turn thee round, and will lead thee out, and will make thee go up from the northern parts, and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel.

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V. 3. "And I will break thy bow in thy left hand, and I will cause thy arrows to fall out of thy right hand.

V. 4. "Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands, and thy nations that are with thee: I have given thee to the wild beasts, to the birds, and to every fowl, and to the beasts of the earth to be devoured.

V. 5. "Thou shalt fall upon the face of the field: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God." With this account coincides what the Almighty promises the Jews by the prophet Joel: "I will remove far off from you," says he, "the northern enemy: and I will drive him into a land unpassable, and desert, with his face towards the east sea, and his hinder part towards the utmost sea and his stink shall ascend, and his rottenness shall go up, because he has done proudly," ii.

20.

Here the northern enemy points out Gog, who, according to Ezechiel, comes from the northern parts, v. 2. He is driven into a land unpassable, that is, into the mountains of Israel, v. 2, where he is placed between the east or Dead sea, and the utmost or Mediterranean sea. In these mountains, after that fire from heaven has slain him and his people, their carcasses shall lie to infect the air with stench and rottenness. -The Lord continues to speak by Ezechiel:

V. 6. "And I will send a fire on Magog, and on them that dwell confidently in the islands; and they shall know that I am the Lord." Does not this perhaps mean, that at the time that Gog perishes, fire will also be sent to make destruction in Magog, his own country, and in the islands that are confederated with him?

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V. 7. And I will make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel; and my holy name shall be profaned no more: and the Gentiles shall know that I am the Lord, the holy one of Israel.

V. 8.

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Behold it cometh, and it is done, saith the Lord God: this is the day whereof I have spoken.

V. 9. "And the inhabitants shall go forth of the cities of Israel, and shall set on fire and burn the weapons, the shields, and the spears, the bows and the arrows, and the hand staves, and the pikes: and they shall burn them with fire seven years.

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V. 10. And they shall not bring wood out of the countries, nor cut down out of the forests: for they shall burn the weapons with fire, and shall make a prey of them to whom they had been a prey, and they shall rob those that robbed them, saith the Lord God.

V. 11. "And it shall come to pass in that day that I will give Gog a noted place for a sepulchre in Israel: the valley of the passengers on the east of the sea, which shall cause astonishment in them that pass by: and there shall they bury Gog, and all his multitude, and it shall be called the valley of the multitude of Gog.

V. 12. “And the house of Israel shall bury them for seven months to cleanse the land.

V. 13. “And the people of the land shall bury him, and it shall be unto them a noted day, wherein I was glorified, saith the Lord God.

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V. 14. And they shall appoint men to go continually about the land, to bury and to seek out them that were remaining upon the face of the earth, that they may cleanse it: and after seven months they shall begin to seek.

V. 15. "And they shall go about passing through the land · and when they shall see the bone of a man, they shall set up a sign by it, till the buriers bury it in the valley of the multitude of Gog.

4.

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16. And the name of the city shall be Amona,* and they shall cleanse the land.

V. 17. "And thou, O son of man, saith the Lord God, say to every fowl, and to all the birds, and to all the beasts of the field: Assemble yourselves, make haste, come together from every side to my victim, which I slay for you, a great victim upon the mountains of Israel; to eat flesh, and drink blood.

V. 18. "You shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and you shall drink the blood of the princes of the earth: of rams, and of lambs, and of he-goats, and bullocks, and of all that are well fed and fat.

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V. 19. And you shall eat the fat till you be full, and shall drink blood till you be drunk, of the victim which I shall slay

for you.

V. 20. “And you shall be filled at my table with horses. and mighty horsemen, and all the men of war, saith the Lord God.

V. 21. "And I will set my glory among the nations: and all nations shall see my judgment that I have executed, and my hand that I have laid upon them."

Thus is Gog and his whole army exterminated. They are not allowed to reach Jerusalem, but are stopped by the divine hand at a distance in the mountains of Judæa, where by fire

* Multitude.

from heaven and other terrible judgments, they all perish. And thus ends that impious enterprise of Gog, of which we have been reading in Ezechiel a full history rather than a prophecy.

Satan is here again defeated; nor is he now allowed to make further attempts. He has done immense mischief, by seducing mankind into idolatry, and raising up a most hor. rible persecution against the faithful servants of God. He has by his agents desolated countries, and destroyed a prodigious multitude of the human race: "for he was a murderer from the beginning." John viii. 44. But, though he has acted by the suggestion of his own malice and hatred against God and man, yet it has not been done without the Almighty's permission, and it all serves the unfathomable purposes of divine wisdom. But now the period of the releasement of Satan is elapsed, in consequence of which St. John informs us:

Chap. xx. 9. " And the devil who seduced them, was cast into the pool of fire and brimstone,

V. 10. “Where* both the beast and the false prophet shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever." Here the prince of the infernal regions is cast down again into his prison, there to be closed up; and is plunged into the lake of hell-fire, there to be tormented for evermore with Antichrist and the false prophet. One may suppose that the greatest part of his hellish crew are banished along with him, to undergo the same fate. Some determinate number of them may perhaps be permitted to remain upon earth to tempt mankind: as seemed to be the case when Satan was bound up in the abyss after the persecutions of the first Christian ages: but the power of these fiends will be circumscribed within much narrower bounds than it was before.

One cannot but here take notice, that our incomparable prophet opens to us a particular piece of history, which we were little acquainted with, namely, that of Satan, the prince of the apostate angels. In chapter xii. we see him falling down from heaven with his proud associates. We see his character described, and among other names there given him, he is styled the old serpent, that is, the very serpent which deceived Eve, and by her seduction ruined all mankind. After having done that mischief, he proceeded by crafty insinuation to work upon mankind, and prevailed upon the greatest part

* In the Greek, "where the beast and false prophet are. And they shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever."

of them to abandon the worship of their Creator, and to substitute idolatry in its place; that is, in reality, the worship of Satan himself, and thus he seduced the whole world. At the rise of Christianity, we see him exerting his utmost efforts to crush it in its birth: for which purpose he stimulated the Roman emperors, and others, to oppose with all their might the propagation of the Christian religion. Christ, with his superior power, frustrated all these attempts; and expelled Satan from the face of the earth, and confined him in the infernal dungeon, Apoc. ch. xx.; where he is to remain for an appointed period of time, after the expiration of which he will be released for a short while. His employment will then be to reestablish idolatry, and to persecute the Christian religion. Antichrist will be his great instrument for these purposes. But after the extermination of that son of perdition, and the destruction of Gog, Satan himself will then be remanded back to his infernal prison, never more to go forth from it.—Now to resume the thread of our history:

The expulsion of Satan from the earth, who was the author of idolatry, and the extermination of Antichrist, who was its supporter, are followed by the extirpation of idolatry itself. For such seems to be the language of the prophets : The loftiness of men shall be bowed down," says Isaiah, “and the haughtiness of men shall be humbled, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. And idols shall be utterly destroyed," ii. 17, 18. Thus also speaks the prophet Sophonias: "The Lord shall be terrible upon them, and shall consume all the gods of the earth," ii. 11. In like manner we see the same work of the divine hand announced to us by the prophet Zachary: "And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord of Hosts, that I will destroy the names of idols out of the earth, and they shall be remembered no more,” xiii. 2. It is fit the offspring should follow the parent, and that idolatry should disappear with Satan.

And now we seem to be arrived at the glorious epocha of the triumph of the Church over all her enemies. The tyrants, that domineered over her, are crushed; the boisterous winds of persecution are ceased; and the anger of God, before inflamed by the excessive wickedness of mankind, is now appeased and gives way to mercy. Idolatry is vanished, and the Cross of Christ is the sole standard that is acknowledged and resorted to. Christ has suppressed all adverse powers, both earthly and infernal, and now extends his dominion from one extremity of the earth to the other. People and kings