Christ is in truth, but such as the superstitious veneration of poor deluded Christians have magnified Paul's "man of sin" to be. The other term denotes "fraudulent cunning.". The character which it designates seems to be that of "the crafty politician," who governs mankind, not in justice and judgment, but by fraud and artifice; and yet, from a deluded people, is loaded with titles of liberal, generous, and munificent: too much the character of that civil or imperial power in "Chittim," that has upheld the apostate; and, as we shall see hereafter, stands forth at last in his own avowed character of the wicked rebel, that makes war with the Lamb. The chicanery, too, which, so cruelly for the poor and defenceless, has been suffered to mingle itself in the administration of the law in modern Europe, seems to be fixed as a stigma on its civil government. We must bear in mind, as we proceed to subsequent prophecies, the two characters here contrasted with the RIGHTEOUS KING. The career of the APOSTATE is marked: he broaches his pernicious errors, and great is the deceivableness of iniquity." His scheme, in fact, embraces the profanation of what was sacred, and the corruption of what was true; as the original will fairly bear, the introduction of heathenism and idolatry. Now this, we have already learned, was to be the character of a great opponent of the Messiah in the latter day. He is represented as famishing and causing to perish with hunger and thirst the poor and humble. This is doubtless "a famine, not of bread and water, but of the knowledge of the Lord." "The CRAFTY POLITICIAN," too, is engaged in the same warfare against the saints of the Most High; for they are ever designated by the terms "meek," "humble," " poor," " oppressed," among men. Besides the corruption of truth and idolatry, therefore, we have to fear the machinations of circumventing policy, and the perversion of the institutions of the civil authority, or, perhaps, of the decisions of enlightened reason, "falsely so called," against the professors of the holy Gospel. But the true "Benefactor" will at length arise; the Dispenser of no feigned indulgences; the real depository of grace and holiness for man—the righteous King, who shall execute true justice and judgment in the earth. He shall arise; and having destroyed all the corrupters and oppressors of his church, from his sacred person shall flow, in rich, exuberant, and spontaneous effusion, every blessing upon the children of men. "In his days shall the righteous flourish, and abundance of peace, so long as the moon endureth."1 It is very remarkable, to find in this connexion an address to luxurious females, living in a state of high security, especially when we compare it with what is elsewhere said on the same subject: 9. Ye voluptuous women, arise, hear my voice; Ye careless daughters, attend to my words. 10. Year after year shall ye be distressed, ye careless' ones;' For the crop hath failed, the gathering will not come. 11. Tremble, ye voluptuous, grieve, ye careless, Strip, make ye bare, and gird sackcloth on your loins; 12. For the desired field, for the fruitful vine. 1 Bishop Horsley seems to have taken a view of this passage "The vile not very dissimilar: :person, the liberal, the churl, the bountiful, are mystic characters of the patrons of scepticism and atheism on the one hand, and the champions of truth on the other," &c. What shall we say of this? Is it a prediction of the state of society in that part of the world where "the apostate" and "the crafty one" should reign, and where the last confederacy should be formed against the cause of Christ and his people? Does it mark, in the age predicted, a people distinguished from other races and ages, in the view of the prophetic spirit, by the gay luxuriancy and commanding influence of the females? The exaltation of the female character was, in its origin, the gift of Christianity; but, in a state of apostacy, this exaltation is only a prominency of the display of the splendour of wealth, and in the vain enjoyments and amusements of nations become "lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God." Might not this form a characteristic of the luxury of modern European nations, in the eye of Him who views together the past, and the present, and the future, when contrasted with the luxury of Babylon, or of Persia, or of ancient Rome? I suspect this to be the case: and how awful is the judgment predicted of these careless arbitrators of the elegancies and enjoyments of fashionable life! Compare chapter the fifth, where, as we suspected, the same judgment was predicted to await the same luxuriant world, in the same distant age. In that prophecy, this state of things was contrasted with the state of the desolated vineyard of Canaan, and the solitary abode of its once favoured people in the midst of the world. A reference, too, is very remarkably made to the state of the Holy Land, in the verse that immediately follows: 13. Over the land of my people the thorn and the brier come up, Ay, over all the joyful houses of the exulting city. 14. For the palace is forsaken, the busy hum of the town is no more, The mound and the tower are for dens until the everlasting age: A joy of wild asses is' the pasture of the flocks, : "The land of my people" can hardly, in the scriptural phraseology, signify any thing but the chosen portion of Israel and we are born late enough in time, to see the connexion between the state of things described above, among the nations possessing the privileges of revealed religion, and the desolate state of the ancient country of the Israelites, that future seat of the more glorious kingdom of the Messiah: and this desolation, we are told, will not terminate till the everlasting age, the period of Messiah's kingdom from on high-not till the Spirit is poured upon that people. But after this event, a remarkable alteration takes place in the respective situations of the two contrasted parties: 15. And then the wilderness shall become a fruitful land, 16. And judgment shall dwell in the wilderness, 17. And the work of this righteousness shall be peace, 18. And my people shall dwell in a peaceful habitation, And in secure dwellings, and in delightful rests. 19. But the hail shall fall upon the forest, And the city shall be levelled with the plain. 20. Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters, Who send forth the foot of the ox and of the ass. After this event, the situation of things is changed in the visible church. The wilderness, that is, God's vineyard, which he had planted in the land of Canaan, after having long lain desolate, is again restored, and becomes his fruitful garden. At the same period, that part of the world which during the fall of Israel had been the seat of the most flourishing churches, becomes in comparison of it a desert. In connexion with the restoration of Israel, is the appearing of Christ's kingdom: the felicities of those times are described. In the same forest, that is, the once fruitful land now in comparison of the Holy Land become a forest, is the seat of an awful judgment, symbolized by hail;" and some celebrated city falls to the ground. What city can this be but the city of the last enemy, the mystic Babylon? And while the desolated land of the enemy is the scene of this judgment, righteousness inhabits the fruitful field," that is, God's vindication of his people, in their destined and purchased rights, establishes them in the Holy Land, as it follows, in uninterrupted and eternal prosperity. Whom, then, it will be asked, awaits the blessing of the last verse? Who are those persons who are so singularly described as sending out beside all waters the feet of the ox and of the ass? The symbol employed is evidently the industrious husbandman of the tropical East, who seeks out for cultivation every possible spot where water can be supplied to vegetate his seed. I therefore indulge the thought,-whom can this symbolize so probably as that nation, or those individuals, who, at the period of the mystic Babylon's ruin, had been found active in disseminating, in every place where the least opportunity offered, the precious seed of the everlasting Gospel. Gladly, therefore, do I hail the auspices under which the present missionary schemes of Great Britain |