water of jealousy_" did its office: if not, the woman remained imprisoned. Against the superhuman evidence, afforded by the purifying process here in question, no quantity of human evidence was to be available. In like manner, to warrant this poisoning process, not any the smallest particle of human evidence was necessary: the case in which it is to be performed, is "_if there be no witness against her, neither she be taken_," says the text, _Numbers_ 5. 13. Verily, verily, not without sufficient cause, did Jesus, from first to last, take every occasion, to weaken the attachment of the people, to a system of law, of which those institutions afford two, among so many samples. Yet, while in the very act of depreciating it, is he represented as declaring his purpose to be the _fulfilling it_: Matt. 5. 17. for, such was the verbal veil, which the prejudices he had to encounter, rendered it necessary to him at the moment, to throw over the tendency of his endeavors. Fulfill the very law he was preaching against? Yes: but in one sense only: namely, by fulfilling--not the real purpose of it,--the establishment of the corrupt despotism of the priesthood,--but the professed purpose of it, the good of the community: in regard to the law, fulfilling, in a word, whatever there was that was good in it, whatever there was that deserved to be fulfilled. Jesus, in whose opinion death was too severe a punishment, for a wife, in the case of a breach, on _her_ part, of a contract, the breach of which was by the _other_ contending party practised with impunity--Jesus, who accordingly, in saving the offender, exposed to merited disgrace the sanguinary law--was doubtless still further from approving, that parish priests, in unlimited numbers, should poison innocent women for the accommodation of their husbands, or sell licenses to commit every imaginable wrong by perjury.
_Vow_ is _oath_: this is not the only occasion, in which the self-constituted Apostle, if his historiographer is to be believed, took the benefit, whatever it was, of this ceremony. In Acts 18:16, he "_shaved his head_," it is said, at Cenchrea:--why?--"for he had a vow upon him." What the vow was, we are not told; this, however, we know, as well from Acts 21:26, as from Numbers 6, he could not have got anything by it, had the parson of the parish of Cenchrea been otherwise than satisfied with the "_offering_" that was made.
[IV.] In the bargain between vow-maker and vow-sanctifier, the following list of fees, provided for sanctifier, by _Excellent Church_ of that country, in those days whatever they were,--may serve to show the use of it to one of the contracting parties. To complete our conception of the nature and effects of the arrangement, nothing is wanting, but that which so unhappily must for ever remain wanting--a history of the _purposes_, to which from the commencement of the government to the dissolution of it, the solemnity had been applied on the vow-maker's side. Of these purposes, we must content ourselves as well as we can with the sample, for which we are here indebted to the author of the Acts. The table of fees is as follows: It is extracted from the Book of Numbers, chapter 6:1 to 21.
Fees to be paid in all cases: fees liquidated in quantity, and thence in value.
{ 1. He lamb of the first year, one.
I. { 2. Ewe-lamb of the first year, one.
{ 3. Ram without blemish, one.
Fees, not liquidated in quantity, and thus left to be liquidated in quantity, and thence in value, by the will of the priest. { 4. Basket of unleavened bread, one.
{ 5. Parcel of cakes of fine flour mingled with oil.
II. { 6. Parcel of wafers of unleavened bread anointed with oil, one.
{ 8. Drink-offerings--numbers and respective quantities not liquidated.
Fees payable, on a contingency: a contingency not describable without more time and labour, than would be paid for by the result.
III. { 9. Turtle-doves or pigeons, two.
{ 10. Lamb of the first year, one.
IV. Mysterious addition, the liquidation of which must be left to the Hebrew scholar. Ver. 21. "Besides _that_ that his hand shall get:" (whose hand? priest's or vow-maker's?) "according to the vow which he vowed, so he must do after the law of his separation:"--probable meaning, according to the purpose, for which he performed the ceremony--the advantage which he looked for from it.
Moreover, by any one whose curiosity will carry him through the inquiry, causes of _nullity_ may be seen as sedulously and copiously provided, as if by the _astutia_ of an English judge, or pair of judges, to whose profit the fees were to be received: effect of the nullity, of course, repetition; necessity of repeating the process, as in case of _new trial_ or _arrest of judgment_, with the fees.
Religion was thus no less aptly served at Jerusalem, under Mosaic institutions,--than Justice is to this day, under matchless constitution and English institutions, at Westminster.
18.
"And after five days Ananias the high priest descended with the elders, and with a certain orator named Tertullus, who informed the governor against Paul.--And when he was called forth, Tertullus began to accuse him,--Saying, We have found this man a pestilent fellow, and a mover of sedition among all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes:--Who also hath _gone about to profane the temple_; whom we took, and would have judged according to our law.--And the Jews also assented, saying, that these things were so.--Then Paul, after that the governor had beckoned unto him to speak, answered,--Thou mayest understand, that they are yet but twelve days since I went up to Jerusalem for to worship.--Whereupon certain Jews from Asia _found me purified in the temple_, neither with multitude nor with tumult." [57] Paul before Festus alone, A.D. 60. Acts 25:7, 8.
"And when he was come, the Jews which came down from Jerusalem stood round about, and laid many and grievous complaints against Paul, which they could not prove:--While he answered for himself, Neither against the law of the Jews, neither against the temple, nor yet against Caesar, have I offended anything at all."
7, 20, 21.
"Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Thou art permitted to speak for thyself.
Then Paul stretched forth the hand, and answered for himself:--I think myself happy, King Agrippa, because I shall answer for myself this day before thee, touching all the things whereof I am accused of the Jews;--Especially because I know thee to be expert in all customs and questions which are among the Jews; wherefore I beseech thee to hear me patiently.--My manner of life from my youth, which was at the first among mine own nation at Jerusalem, know all the Jews;--Which knew me from the beginning, if they would testify, that after the most straightest sect of our religion, I lived a Pharisee.--And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers:--Unto which promise our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hope to come. For which hope's sake, King Agrippa, I am accused of the Jews.--20. But showed first unto them of Damascus and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance.--For these causes, the Jews _caught me in the temple_, and went about to kill me."
[59] "And when the seven days were almost ended," says Acts 21:27, "_the Jews which were of Asia_, when they saw him in the temple, stirred up all the people, and laid hands on him."
[60] A cheap enough rate this, at which salvation is thus put up. Of what use then morality? Of what use is abstinence from mischievous acts, in what degree so ever mischievous? "Oh! but," says somebody, "though Paul said this, he meant no such thing:" and then comes something--anything--which it may suit the defender's purpose to make Paul say.
[61] Another receipt for making salvation still cheaper than as above.
Not so Jesus. Matt. 7:21: "_Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven_; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven."
[62] Behold here the degree of importance attached by Paul to _sabbaths_.
CHAPTER XII.
More Falsehoods.--Resurrection Witnesses multiplied.--World's End predicted.--To save credit, Antichrist invented.
RESURRECTION-WITNESSES MULTIPLIED.
After what has been seen of the seven days' course of perjury, proofs of simple falsehood will be apt to appear superfluous. To make certainty more sure, two preeminent ones shall, however, be brought to view. They may have their use, were it only as examples of the palpableness, of those falsehoods, which, for so many hundreds of years, and through so many generations of commentators, are, under favourable circumstances, capable of remaining undetected. The extravagance of the addition, made by the audacious stranger, to the number of the Resurrection-witnesses, as given by themselves:--the predicted end of the world in the prophet's own lifetime,--and the creation of Antichrist for the purpose of putting off that catastrophe,--may even be not altogether unamusing, by the picture they will give, of that mixture of rashness and craftiness, which constitutes not the least remarkable, of the ingredients in the composition of this extraordinary character. Moreover, Antichrist being in the number of the bug-bears, by the images of which many an enfeebled mind has not yet ceased to be tormented;--putting an extinguisher upon this hobgoblin may have the serious good effect, of calming a mass of disquietude, which how completely soever groundless, is not the less afflicting, to the minds into which it has found entrance.
First, as to the resurrection-witnesses. In relation to a fact of such cardinal importance, the accounts which have reached us from the four biographers of Jesus are not, it must be confessed, altogether so clear as could have been wished. But, on so ample a subject, howsoever tempting the occasion, anything that could here be offered, with any promise of usefulness, would occupy far too much space, and be by much too wide a digression from the design of the present work.[63] Sufficient to the present purpose will be the observation, that nothing can be more palpably or irreconcileably inconsistent with every one of them, than the amply and round number, thus added by the effrontery of this uninformed stranger, to the most ample that can be deduced from any of the accounts, thus stated as given by the only description of persons, whose situation would give to their testimony the character of the best evidence.
Behold now the account of the number and of the persons in Paul's own words. It is in the fifteenth chapter of the first of his two letters to his Corinthians. "Moreover, brethren," ver. 1, "I declare unto you the Gospel, the good news, which I _preached_ unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand.--By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you unless ye have believed in vain.--For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures:--And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day, according to the Scriptures:--And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve:--After that, he was seen of _above five hundred brethren at once_; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep.--After that he was seen of James, then of all the Apostles.--And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.--For I am the least of the Apostles, which am not meet to be called as Apostle, because I persecuted the church of God."[64] As to the five hundred brethren at once, with the additions _in petto_, the more closely the Gospel accounts are looked into, the more entire will be a Man's conviction of the extravagance of this account. In addition to the eleven Apostles that remained after the death of the traitor Judas, it may be matter of question, whether so much as a single individual can be found, who, in any one of the Gospels, is stated as having, after the death of Jesus, received from the testimony of sense, the demonstration of his presence. Of the percipient witnesses in question, not to waste space and time in needless discussions, taking a round number, and including both sexes taken together, no number approaching to twenty can be made out from any one of the four Gospel accounts, nor from all of them taken together. To what end then substitute, to less than twenty, more than five hundred? To what, but to supply by falsehood the deficiency left by truth. The thing to be done was the coming up to the expectations, whatever they might be, of his Corinthians. Number twenty,--said he to himself,--may perhaps fall short: well then, strike out the twenty, and set down five hundred. Thus did the self-constituted Apostle take a leaf out of the book of the unjust steward. Luke 16:1-20.
Now then as to mutually contradictory numbers--that given by the four Evangelists, and that given by this one stranger,--to which shall we give credence? As to the Evangelists,--whether, in the situation in which they were, and writing for the purposes for which they wrote,--these most intimate of the associates of the departed Jesus, and percipient witnesses of the several facts in question,--all of them spoken of in the same narration, all of them so fully apprised of the whole real number--could have been disposed, any one of them, to get down a number _short_ of the truth,--may be left to anyone to imagine.
But, according to Paul's calculation, the truth would not come up to his purpose:--to his particular purpose: a number, such as could not fail of doing so, was therefore to be substituted.
_Five hundred_ was as easily written as _twenty_. Had Jerusalem, or any place in its neighbourhood, been the place, to which this letter of his was to be addressed, some caution might have been necessary. But Corinth--a place so remote from the scene of action--being the abode of the disciples, to whom this letter of his was addressed,--and the letters themselves, not destined to be seen by any other than devoted eyes,--Invention found herself at ease.
Meantime, while Jesus was thus magnified, Paul was not to be forgotten.
Insufficient still would be the cloud of witnesses, unless himself were added to it. "Last of all," says he, 1 Cor. 15:8, "he," Jesus, "was seen of me also." Seen by him Paul? at what place? at what time? At the time of his conversion, when hearing a voice and seeing light, but nothing else? But the whole constellation of his visions will here be crowding to the reader's view, and any more particular reference to them would be useless: suffice it to observe, that on no other occasion, either does Paul himself, or his historiographer for him, take upon himself to say, that he had ever seen Jesus any otherwise than in a _vision_, whatsoever may have been meant by this so convenient term. On no occasion is it so much as pretended, either by him or for him, that _in the flesh_ Jesus was ever seen by him. By no fingers of his murder-abetting hand, had ever been so much as pretended to have been probed, the wounds of Jesus. Yet, what are the terms employed, by him, in speaking of the _sight_, he pretended to have had of Jesus? exactly the same, as those employed by him, when speaking of the evidence, vouchsafed to the Apostles.
FALSE PROPHECY,--THAT THE WORLD WOULD END IN THE LIFETIME OF PERSONS THEN LIVING.
The unsatiableness of Paul's ambition meets the eye at every page: the fertility of his invention is no less conspicuous. So long as, between this and the other world, the grave stood interposed,--the strongest impression capable of being made by pictures of futurity, even when drawn by so bold a hand, was not yet sufficient for stocking it with the power it grasped at. This barrier, at whatever hazard, he accordingly determined to remove. The future world being thus brought at both ends into immediate contact with the present,--the obedient, for whom the joys of heaven were provided, would behold the troubles of _the middle passage_ saved to them, while the disobedient would see the jaws of hell opened for their reception, without any such halting-place, as might otherwise seem to be offered by the grave. In particular, by a nearer as well as smoother road than that rugged one, he would make his way to heaven: nor would they, whose obedience gave them a just claim to so high a favour, be left behind.
His Thessalonians were the disciples, chosen by him for the trial of this experiment. Addressed to them we have two of his Epistles. In these curious and instructive documents, the general purport--not only of what had been said to the persons in question on a former occasion, but likewise of the observation of which on _their_ part it had been productive,--is rendered sufficiently manifest, by what we shall find him saying in the first of them. "Good," said they, "as to _some_ of us, whoever they may be: but, how is it to be with _the rest_? in particular, with those who have actually died already: not to speak of those others who will have been dying off in the meantime: for you do not go so far as to promise, that we shall, all of us, be so sure of escaping death as you yourself are." "Make yourselves easy," we shall find him saying to them: "sooner or later, take my word for it, we shall, all of us, mount up together in a body: those who are dead, those who are to die, and those who are not to die--all of us at once, and by the same conveyance: up, in the air, and through the clouds, we shall go. The Lord will come down and meet us, and show us the way:--music, vocal and instrumental, will come with him, and a rare noise altogether there will be! Those who died first will have risen first; what little differences there may be are not worth thinking about. Comfort yourselves," concludes he, "with these words." Assuredly not easily could more comfortable ones have been found:--always supposing them followed by belief, as it appears they were. But it is time we should see more particularly what they were.
1 Thess. 4:10 to 18.--"And indeed ye do it," viz. love one another, ver.
9, "toward all the brethren which are in all Macedonia: but we beseech you, brethren, that ye increase more and more;--And that ye study to be _quiet_, and to do _your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you_;--That ye may walk honestly toward them that are without, and that ye may have lack of nothing.--But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are _asleep_, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.--For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so _them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him_.--For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that _we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep_.--For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and _the dead in Christ shall rise first.--Then we which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds_, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.--Wherefore comfort one another with these words." Hereupon, without any intervening matter, follows that of the next chapter. The division into chapters,--though, for the purpose of reference, not merely a useful, but an altogether necessary one,--is universally acknowledged to have been a comparatively modern one.
1 Thess. 5:1-11. "But _of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you_.--For yourselves know perfectly, that _the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night_.--For when they shall say, Peace and safety, then _sudden destruction cometh upon them_, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.--_But ye, brethren, are not in darkness_, that that day should overtake you as a thief.--Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.--Therefore _let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober_.--For they that sleep, sleep in the night; and they that be drunken, are drunken in the night.--But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of _faith_ and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.--For _God hath not appointed us to wrath_, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.--Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.--Wherefore _comfort yourselves_ together, and edify one another, even as also ye do."
An ingenious game was the one thus played by Paul, if ever there was one. Of this prophecy,[65] what when once mentioned, is plainly enough visible, is--this is of the number of those predictions, by which profit is put in for, and no loss risked: for such is the shape given to it. So long as the predictor lived, it would remain good and undisfulfilled: at the end of a certain time--namely, at the end of the life of the longest liver of the aggregate number of individuals in existence at that time,--the disfulfillment would indeed take place. But if, by that time, the predictor had made his exit,--as, in this case, being already of a certain age, it is tolerably certain he would,--the reproach of false prophecy would not have reached him: and, even, supposing it to have reached him, as it would do if he survived the last of them, still the speculation would not be a very bad one. His _prophecy_, his _purposes_ would have been fulfilled.
Not altogether without claim to observation, is the manner, in which, by the adroitness of the soothsayer, the anxiety of questioners is evaded.
That he himself does not know, nor ever expects to know,--that is what his prudence forbids his telling them. "The day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night:" this is what, in answer to former importunities, he had at _that_ time told them. "For you yourselves," says he, "know this perfectly;" that is, in so far as they could know from _his telling_: this being, in this instance, the only source,--of that _delusion_, to which he gave the name of _knowledge_. This he had told them _then_: and more, he takes care not to tell them _now_. "Of the times and seasons, brethren," says he, "ye have no need that I write unto you." Meantime, their hopes and fears, and therewith their dependence upon his good pleasure, are kept still alive: in the first place, the hope--that, knowing already more than he as yet desires to disclose, he may by ulterior obsequiousness be prevailed upon to disclose it: in the next place, the hope--that, though not as yet possessed of the information, he may at some future period be able to obtain it, and in that case give them the benefit of it.
To a speculation of this sort,--in how particular a degree favourable the mode of communication by letter was, is sufficiently visible.
Writing, was an operation not quite so prompt, in those days as in these. Between Thessalonica and Athens,--from whence, as they tell us, these Epistles were written,--there was not, it may be affirmed without much danger of error, any established letter-post: and, even if there was,--to this or that question, which a man sees in a letter, he makes or does not make answer, as he finds convenient. Not exactly so, when the questioner is at his elbow.
DISORDER AND MISCHIEF PRODUCED BY THIS PREDICTION.
We have seen the prophecy: let us now see the effects of it. They were such as might have been expected. They were such as had been expected: expected, as may have been observed, at a very early period. But there was rather _more_ in them than had been expected.
Of the confusion, which, by an expectation of this sort, in a state of society, so much inferior, in the scale of moral conduct, to any, of which in this our age and country we have experience, was capable of being produced,--it can scarcely, at this time of day, be in any man's power, to frame to himself anything approaching to an adequate conception. So far as regards peaceable idleness, of the general nature of it, some faint conception may under modern manners be formed, from the accounts of the effects produced by a similar prediction, delivered first in France, then in England, about the time of Queen Anne:--so far as regards a mixture of idleness and positive mischief in a time of terror, under ancient manners,--from the accounts, given by Thucydides, of the effects produced at Athens, by the near approach of death, on the occasion of the plague;--and, from that given by Josephus, of the effects produced by the like cause, on the occasion of the siege, which, under his eye, terminated in the final destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans.
According to each man's cast of mind, and the colour of the expectations that had been imbibed by it,--terror and self-mortification, or confidence and mischievous self-indulgence, would be the natural result: terror and self-mortification, if apprehensions grounded on the retrospect of past misconduct predominated--mischievous indulgence, if, by the alleged or supposed all-sufficiency of faith,--of faith, of which the preacher was the object--the importance of morality had, even in the imagination of the disciple, been thrown into the back-ground: confabulation without end, in the case of terror; cessation from work, in both cases.
Had he been somewhat less positive on the head of _time_,--the purposes of those announcements of his might have been completely, and without any deduction, fulfilled. The terror he infused could not be unfavourable to those purposes, so long as it made no deduction, from the value of the produce of their industry! It was his interest, that they should "_walk honestly_," lest they should be punished for walking otherwise:--punished, capitally or not capitally--and, in either case, bring his teaching into disgrace. It was his interest, that they should _work_, in such sort, as to earn each of them the expense of his maintenance; lest, by abstaining from work, they should, any one of them, impose a burthen upon the charity of the others, or be seen to walk dishonestly, to the prejudice of the common cause, as above. It was his interest, that they should, each of them, gain as much as could be gained without reproach or danger; because, the greater the surplus to the spiritual master, under whose command they had put themselves.
Thus far his interest and theirs were in agreement. But, it was his interest, that, while working to these ends, their minds, at the expense of whatever torment to themselves, should be kept in a state of constant ferment, between the passions of hope and fear; because, the stronger the influence of the two allied passions in their breasts, the more abundant would be the contributions, of which, to the extent of each man's ability, they might reasonably be expected to be productive. Here it was, that his interest acted in a direction opposite to theirs: and it was by too ardent a pursuit of this his separate interest, that so much injury, as we shall see, was done to all those other interests.
Of the disease which we shall see described, the description, such as it is, is presented, by the matter furnished by the practitioner himself, by whose prescription the disease was produced. This matter we must be content to take, in that state of disorder, which constitutes one of the most striking features of the issue of his brain. In speaking of the symptoms,--addressed as his discourse is to nobody but the patients themselves by whom these symptoms had been experienced,--only in the way of allusion, and thence in very general terms, could they naturally have been, as they will actually be seen to be, presented to view. As to details,--from them to him, not from him to them, was, it will readily be acknowledged, the only natural course.
In the same Epistle,--namely in the second, which is the last, but, in a passage which does not come till after the announcement, which, as will be seen under the next head, was to operate as a remedy,--stands the principal part of the matter from whence we have been enabled to collect the nature of the disease. The chapter is the third and concluding one:--the words that add nothing to the information, are here and there omitted.
1. "Finally, brethren, pray for us...--that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men; for all men have not faith.--And we have confidence in the Lord touching you, that ye both do and will do the things which we _command_ you.--And the Lord direct your hearts...into the _patient waiting for Christ_.--Now we _command_ you, brethren...that ye _withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly_, and not after the tradition which he received of us.--For yourselves know how ye ought to follow _us_: for we _behaved not ourselves disorderly among you:--Neither did we eat any man's bread for nought_: but wrought with labour and travail night and day, that we might not be chargeable to any of you.--_Not because we have not power_, but to make ourselves an example unto you to follow us.--for _even when we were with you_, this we _commanded_ you, that _if any would not work, neither should he eat_.--For we hear that _there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies_.--Now them that are such, _we command_ and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ, _that with quietness they work, and eat their own bread_.--But ye brethren, _be not weary in well-doing_.--And if any man obey not our word by this Epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed."
By anything we have as yet seen, the symptoms of the disease, it may be thought, are not painted in any very strong colours. But, of the virulence of it there is no want of evidence. It may be seen, in the drastic nature of the remedy:--a remedy, for the invention of which, we shall, in the next section, see the ingenuity of the practitioner put to so extraordinary a stretch.
PAUL'S REMEDY FOR THE DISORDER, AND SALVO FOR HIMSELF.--ANTICHRIST MUST FIRST COME. We have seen the disorder: we had before that seen the causes of it. We now come to the remedy--the remedy provided by the practitioner for a disease of his own creating. Of the shape given to this remedy, the ingenuity will be seen to be truly worthy of the author of the disease.
It consists in the announcement made, of an intermediate state of things, of the commencement of which, any more than of the termination, nothing is said: except that it was to take place, antecedently to that originally announced state of things, by the expectation of which the disorder had been produced. Of the _time_ of its commencement, no: except as above, on that point no information is given. But of its _duration_, though no determinate information, yet such a description is given, as suffices for giving his disciples to understand, that in the nature of things, it could not be a short one: and that thus, before the _principal_ state of things took place, there would be a proportionate quantity of time for _preparation_. Satisfied of this, they would see the necessity of conforming themselves to those reiterated "_commands_," with which his prediction had from the first been accomplished; and to which he had so erroneously trusted, when he regarded them as composing a sufficient antidote to the poison he had infused. That the warning thus provided for them would be a very short one, he left them, it will be seen, no great reason to apprehend. A sort of spiritual monster,--a sort of an ape of _Satan_, a rival to the Almighty,--and _that_ by no means a contemptible one--was to enter upon the stage.
What with force and what with fraud, such would be his power,--that the fate of the Almighty would have appeared too precarious, had not the spirits of his partisans been kept up, by the assurance, that when all was over, the Almighty would remain master of the field.
The time, originally fixed, by him for the aerial voyage, was too _near_. By the hourly expectation of it, had been produced all those disastrous effects which had ensued. After what had been said, an _adjournment_ presented the only possible remedy. But this adjournment, after what had been said, by what imaginable means could it be produced?
One only means was left by the nature of the case.
2 Thess. 2:1-12. "Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him,--That ye _be not_ soon shaken in mind, or be _troubled_, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor _by letter as from us,[66] as that the day of Christ is at hand_.--Let no man deceive you by any means; for _that day shall not come, except_[67] there come a falling away first, and _that man of sin be revealed_, the son of perdition;--_Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God_[68]--Remember ye not, that when I was yet with you, I told you _these things_[69]--And now ye know what withholdeth, that he might be revealed in his time.--For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.--And _then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord_ shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and _shall destroy with the brightness of his coming_.[70]--Even _him, whose coming is after the working of Satan,[71] with all power and signs and lying wonders_[72]--And with all _deceivableness of unrighteousness_ in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.--And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:[73]--That they all might be _damned, who believed not the truth_,[74] but had pleasure in unrighteousness."
To this rival of his God--God and rival--both of them of his own creation, the creator has not, we see, given any name. By this omission, he has, perhaps, as perhaps he thought to do, rendered the bugbear but the more terrible. The deficiency, such as it is, the Church of England translators of the English official translation of the Bible, have filled up: they have taken it in hand--this bantling of Paul's--and christened it _Antichrist_. "He," Paul, "showeth," say they, "a discovery of _Antichrist_, before the day of the Lord come." Such is the discovery, communicated in the _heading_, prefixed to the second chapter of the second of the two Epistles: and, of the readers of this so abundantly and gratuitously distributed Bible, how few are there, by whom any such distinction as that between the headings and the text is borne in mind! The right reverend divines in question,--were they the