among ecclesiastical writers, denotes a great adversary of Christianity, who is to appear upon the earth towards the end of the world. 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 divided. 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 1603, 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. Leclerc 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.

Hunnius and some others assert that there is to be both an eastern and a western Antichrist. Father Mavenda, a Jesuit, published a large work entitled Antichristo, in which this subject is amply discussed.

Upon the whole, the Antichrist mentioned by the apostle John in his First Epistle, 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, chap. 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 conscience, Antichrist can be no more.