dent that he is verily a great emperor returned to life again; let him show the intelligence, the energy, the invincible power, and whatever else has made and marked the glory of the mighty, and let there come with him a great prophet to exercise all this power in the one direction of a new universal religion, advising and urging with eloquence and miracle, in the name of the absolute Wisdom, the worship and adoration of that man, as the only right worship in the universe; and what is there in humanity to withstand the appeal! As surely as man is man, the same that he has hitherto been, it will and must be a grand success. As certain fact, the Saviour so anticipated, and says, that if it were possible to break Jehovah's promises, the very elect would be deceived.

There is, then, to be a new religion for our world, as scientists and reformers already claim and proclaim. It will also be a powerful and universal religion. It will ground itself in pretensions to the profoundest wisdom, intelligence, reason, truth, and progress. It will sway the earth, and carry with it all who are not written in the Lamb's book of life. It will be the final coronation of the progressivism of human perfectibility. But it will be a religion whose God is Antichrist, and whose sacraments are the seals of damnation, inevitable and eternal. God save us from unfaithfulness to His Gospel, that the "strong delusion" which leaves no hope may never touch any one who hears this warning of what is to come!

LECTURE THIRTY-THIRD.

THE FALSE PROPHET CONTINUED THE CONDITION OF THINGS WHEN HE COMES-HOW HE IMPOSES ON THE WORLD-MIRACLES TRUE AND FALSE-MAKING FIRE COME DOWN FROM HEAVEN-HIS ARGUMENT FROM THE SUPERNATURAL CHARACTER OF THE BEAST-THE IMAGE OF THE BEAST-ARGUMENTS FOR IT-THE CAUSING OF IT TO SPEAK THE ADMINISTRATION COMPLETE THE BLOODY TYRANNY-THE MARKING-THE HELPLESSNESS AND HOPELESSNESS OF MEN UNDER THE BEAST-WISDOM CONCERNING HIS NAME.

REV. 13:14-18.

(Revised Text.) And he doeth great miracles, so that he even maketh fire come down from the heaven to the earth in the presence of men, and he deceiveth those that dwell on the earth by reason of the signs which it was given him to work in the presence of the beast, saying to those who dwell on the earth they should make an image to the beast, which had the stroke of the sword, and lived,

And it was given him to give spirit to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should even speak, and should cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.

And he causeth all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free and the bond to receive a mark [xúpayμœ, stamp or brand] on their right hand, or on their forehead, that no one shall be able to buy or sell except he who has the mark, the name of the beast or the number of his name.

Here is the wisdom. Let him who hath understanding reckon the number of the beast; for it is a number of a man, and the number of him is 666.

IN

N the last Lecture we were engaged in considering the Beast from the earth, the False Prophet, the consociate and prime minister of the final An

tichrist. We then saw something of his origin, his character, the sphere of his operations, the nature of his pretensions, and his success in introducing a new universal worship, or religion. But we did not then get through with him. It remains to be considered how he imposes on the world, and what oppressive and murderous use he makes of his power. The Lord help us to understand the matter truly!

Before proceeding directly to the subject it may be well to glance first at the antecedent state of things, by which the way is paved for his operations. No great movements or revolutions in human affairs ever come without preparative conditions and causes, some preliminary plantings which gradually mature until they ripen into the great ultimate results. It was so with the reformation wrought by Christ. It was so in the reformation which culminated in connection with the labors of Martin Luther. It has been so in science and philosophy. It has been so in every great political revolution. And when such gigantic changes and disasters come as foreshown in this chapter, they necessarily have had their roots in something which has gone before, of which they are the fruits, and which the nature of the times has served to favor and develop. Nor have the Scriptures failed to indicate various preliminary conditions and forerunners which serve to introduce the final false Christ and his abominations.

Speaking of the Man of Sin and his doings, Paul writes that that day shall not come, "except

there come a falling away first." There is then to be a general sinking from the true faith, and the substitution of human conceits, philosophies, and "science falsely so called," in the place of the divine verities, eating away the substance of true religion, and dissolving its hold on the hearts and minds of men. Such a terrible deceit could not be unless all society were first thoroughly corrupted. And so it will be. The Apostle says: "Know this, that in the last days perilous times shall come; for men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof;"-times "when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts shall heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables." (2 Tim. 3: 1-6; 4: 3, 4.) Among the active causes of all this we are forewarned of a certain boastful and blatant scientism and naturalism which does not hesitate dogmatically to negative the doctrines of faith, and likewise of a demonic spiritualism, which denies that Jesus Christ has come, or is to come, in any literal sense, and sets up quite other revelations as the hope and dependence of the world. In so many words, it is affirmed "there shall come in the last days scoffers,

walking after their own lusts, and saying [as à matter of doctrine and science], Where is the promise of His coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation;" and furthermore, "that in the latter times some [certain men] shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and teachings of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats." (2 Pet. 3: 3, 4; 1 Tim. 4: 1-3.) As a necessary concomitant and result, we are further told of a perturbed, restless, and disabled condition in political affairs, a weakening of the laws, an unmanageableness of things of state and social order, making all the old formulæ and codes of none effect, and engulfing the whole world in a quagmire of confusion, from which there is no retreat, and whence the only prospect is of worse disaster ahead. The Saviour assures us that as before the flood "the earth was corrupt before God, and was filled with violence," justice and law having been supplanted by the base will of the corrupt multitude, so it shall be when the present world nears its end. (Matt. 24: 37-39.) Besides, it is a time when the patience of God is about wearied out with the perverseness and inventions of the wicked,-when judgment has commenced,-when the One who hinders the revelation of the Man of Sin is taken away,-when the Holy Ghost, so long grieved and insulted, begins to withdraw from the world then approaching its doom,-when the holiest and best of earth's popu