are held by most protestant writers on prophecy in the present day. The three points of difference are these:(1.) As to the NATURE of the Apostasy.

The Early Church conceived of it as an actual departure from Christianity. Not merely a falling off from the purity of the Christian faith by professed Christians; but as a renunciation of that faith, and a falling away from all profession of it, into open, blasphemous, and persecuting idolatry.

The Protestant Church understands the Apostasy to mean the impure Christianity of a corrupt part of the Christian Church; or a hypocritical profession of Christianity, by a body falsely pretending to be a Christian church.

(2.) As to the DURATION of the Apostasy.

The Early Church expected that the Apostasy would not take place until a few years before the Advent of our Lord to judgment; and that the persecution arising out of the apostasy would not last more than three years and a half.

The Protestant Church maintains that the Apostasy has long since taken place; and has already existed during many centuries.

(3.) As to the LEADER or head of the Apostasy.

The Early Church expected an individual Antichrist, who should be an infidel blasphemer, giving honour to no God, suffering no religious worship to be paid to any but himself, and requiring that worship from all men on pain of death.

The Protestant Church supposes a succession of indi

viduals, or bodies of men, each forming the Antichrist of its own period, being an integral part of an Antichrist to be composed of, and completed in, the whole series; and that the individual (when that is the hypothesis) or leader (when a church is supposed) has been, and is, a Christian bishop, professing to be the Vicar of Christ on earth, and to act in his name and for his glory.

It is needless to say that these opinions are widely different; but it is worth while to enquire which are right. Without repeating what I have elsewhere said on the absurdity of attempting to apply the predictions concerning Antichrist to the Pope, I will at once say, that the doctrine of the Early Church, so far as I have here stated it, appears to me to be correct and scriptural.

Subjects of Prophecy.

I believe that much of the obscurity which rests on the predictions of Daniel and St. John has arisen from their having been treated as "chronological" prophecies; that is, prophecies giving an anticipatory history of events which were to take place in the Church, from the time when they were delivered until the consummation of all things.

This I conceive to have been an error. It appears to me that these predictions relate to things which are still future, and that their principal subject (speaking with reference to the space which it occupies) is the HISTORY OF ANTICHRIST-his rise, progress, and de

struction. I have no faith therefore in the applications of prophecy to the ten Gothic Kingdoms, or the delusions of Mahomet, the overthrow of the French Monarchy, or the Turkish Empire. I believe that the Scripture prophecies do not (unless it may be incidentally) throw any light on the state of things either in the church or the world, before the breaking out, or to say the utmost, the introductory circumstances, of the Apostasy. The main subject is, I believe, the great and final conflict between the God of Heaven and the God of this world-between the Redeemer and the Destroyer of man-between Christ and Antichrist.

There is, no doubt, much revealed respecting Antichrist in other prophecies, especially in the Apocalypse. His history, and proceedings, form one great subjector rather perhaps are intimately connected with that which does form the great subject-of that Revelation; but the prediction of Antichrist, his rise, progress, and destruction, appears to be the chief object and subject of the book of Daniel. The triumph of Messiah is, of course, plainly but more briefly and less circumstantially, stated by that Prophet.

It appears to me that the visions recorded in the book of Daniel, which we may distinguish as those of (1.) The IMAGE, ch. ii.-(2.) The FOUR BEASTs, ch. vii.

(3.) The HE-GOAT, ch. viii. and (4.) The INFIDEL KING, ch. xi. were intended to afford successive developments of the History of Antichrist. To illustrate (I do not venture to say prove) this opinion, I proceed to offer a few remarks on each of these visions.

I.

THE VISION OF THE IMAGE.

Daniel, chap. ii. 31-45.

It is expressly stated that this Vision was given to King Nebuchadnezzar, to make known unto him what should be "in the latter days." v. 28.

It is explained that the King himself was symbolized by the head of gold (v. 38), and that the other parts of the Image prefigured three other Kingdoms, not then in existence, but to arise successively in future time.

There is therefore, I believe, no dispute that the first of the four Empires was the BABYLONIAN; but whether the other three were, as is commonly supposed, the MEDO-PERSIAN, the GRECIAN, and the ROMAN may be questioned. For myself, I do not know how to answer the arguments of Lacunza on this point. They may perhaps be briefly stated thus;

(1.) The Babylonian Empire was not destroyed, or essentially altered, by the fact that Darius the Mede and Cyrus the Persian, shook off the yoke of Belshazzar, and obtained possession of the capital. Daniel says "In that night was Belshazzar the King of the Chaldæans slain, and Darius the Mede took the Kingdom." Lacunza suggests that when Charles II. King of Spain of the House of Austria died, Philip V. of France of the House of Bourbon, succeeded him in the kingdom; and he asks, in what Kingdom? none other than that same Kingdom of Spain. And as Philip V.

coming to the throne of Spain, founded no new Kingdom, but only ruled that of his predecessor, so Darius, coming to the throne of the Kingdom of Babylon, ruled that empire which had been ruled by Belshazzar'. The same may be said of the Kingdom of France under Corsican sway, and even more strongly of our own country. William the Conqueror did not sit on the throne of a Norman Kingdom, nor James of a Scotch one, nor William of a Dutch one; but all and each sat on the throne, and ruled the continuous Kingdom, of England. In like manner Darius, taking the Kingdom, became King of the Chaldæans as Belshazzar had been; and so Daniel actually calls him—“ Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, which was made King over the realm of the Chaldæans." (ch. ix. 1.)

Babylon was not destroyed or degraded: on the contrary, Darius, Cyrus, and their successors, continued it as the seat of government. Even an hundred years after the death of Cyrus, Nehemiah was cup-bearer to one of his successors whom he simply designates "the King of Babylon 2." The Babylonian empire therefore still existed; and even the subsequent removal of the seat of government to Persia, which was one of its provinces, did not destroy its existence, or its identity.

(2.) If we make the second empire that of Persia beginning with Cyrus, it did not in fact answer the terms of the prediction, which announced that the second Kingdom should be inferior to the first. This