among ecclesiastical writers, de- notes a great adversary of Christianity, who is to appear upon the earth towards the end of the world.

We have demonstrations, disputations, and proofs, in great order and number, both that the pope is, and that he is not, Antichrist.

F. Calmet is very large in describing the father and mother of Antichrist, his tribe and pedigree, his wars and conquests, his achievements against Gog, Magog, &c.

Some place his capital at Constantinople, others at Jerusalem, others at Moscow, and some few at London; but the generality at Rome, though these last are di- vided Antichrist vided. Grotius and some others suppose Rome Pagan to have been the seat of Antichrist: most of the Lutheran and reformed doctors contend earnestly for Rome Christian under the papal hierarchy. In fact, the point having been maturely debated at the council of Gap, held in 1633, a resolution was taken thereupon, to insert an article in the Confession of Faith, whereby the pope is formally declared to be Antichrist.—Pope Clement VIII. was stung to the quick with this decision; and even King Henry IV. of France was not a little mortified, to be thus declared, as he said, an imp of Antichrist.

M. le Clerc holds, that the rebel Jews and their leader Simon, whose history is given by Josephus, are to be reputed as the true Antichrist. Lightfoot and Vanderhart rather apply this character to the Jewish Sanhedrim. Hippolitus and others held that the devil himself was the true Antichrist; that he was to be incarnate, and make his appearance in human shape before the consummation of all things. Others among the ancients held that Antichrist was to be born of a virgin by some prolific power imparted to her by the devil. A modern writer* of the female sex, whom many hold for a saint, has improved on this sentiment; maintaining that Antichrist is to be begotten by the devil on the body of a witch by means of the semen of a man caught in the commission of a certain crime, and conveyed, &c.

Hunnius and some others, to secure Antichrist to the pope (notwithstanding that this latter seemed excluded by not being of the tribe of Dan), have broke in upon the unity of Antichrist, and assert that there is to be both an eastern and a western Antichrist.

Father Malvenda, a Jesuit, hath published a large work entitled Antichristi, in which this subject is amply discussed. It consists of thirteen books. In the first he relates all the opinions of the fathers with regard to Antichrist. In the second, he speaks of the times when he shall appear; and shows, that all the fathers who supposed Antichrist to be near at hand, judged the world was near its period. In the third, he discourses of his origin and nation; and shows that he is to be a Jew, of the tribe of Dan: this he founds on the authority of the fathers; on the passage in Genesis xlii. 17, Dan shall be a serpent by the way, &c.; on that of Jeremiah viii. 16, where it is said, The armies of Dan shall devour the earth; and on Rev. vii. where St John, enumerating all the tribes of Israel, makes no mention of that of Dan. In the fourth and fifth books he treats of the signs of Antichrist. In the sixth, of his reign and wars. In the seventh, of his vices. In the eighth, of his doctrine and miracles. In the ninth, of his persecutions: and in the rest, of the coming of Enoch and Elias, the conversion of the Jews, the reign of Jesus Christ, and the death of Antichrist, after he has reigned three years and a half. See also Lowman on the Revelation.

How endless are conjectures! Some of the Jews, we are told, actually took Cromwell for the Christ; while some others have laboured to prove him Antichrist himself. Pfaffius affirms us he saw a folio book in the Bodleian library, written on purpose to demonstrate this latter position.

Upon the whole, the Antichrist mentioned by the apostle John, i Ep. ii. 18, and more particularly described in the book of Revelation, seems evidently to be the same with the Man of Sin, &c. characterized by St Paul in his Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, ch. ii.

And the entire description literally applies to the excesses of papal power. Had the right of private judgment, says an excellent writer, been always adopted and maintained, Antichrist could never have been; and when that sacred right comes to be universally asserted, and men follow the voice of their own reason and consciences, Antichrist can be no more.