and they shall desire no other. Now their liberty will be complete, and their joy perpetual; the land long forfeited shall be restored to them, and they, long wanderers, shall be restored to it, realizing to the full Lev. xxv. 23. "Then shall the children of Zion be joyful in their King;" they shall be a kingdom of priests, a people formed to show forth God's praise. All the sublime odes in their heaven-inspired poets shall be sung in full chorus, and the harp of Judah shall never more be broken, never more slumber in silence. The following passages may be profitably studied. (as regards Israel's future history) in connexion with this type:—Isa. lxiii. 4; xxvii. 13; Zech. ix. 10-14; Ps. cxlix.; Hosea ii. 14-18. The nations also blessed through Israel, and submissive to Israel's King, shall realize a Jubilee of peace and joy. "The desire of all nations shall come;" and all that the nations have desired as regards peace, liberty, knowledge, order, and national stability, shall then be realized; ambition shall have no followers and war no supporters, for the Prince of peace shall reign, and men shall be blessed in Him. (Ps. lxxii. 15.) "Creation also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God." (Rom. viii. 21; Ps. viii.; Isa. xi. 6-9.) The curse shall be abolished; death shall be swallowed up in victory; Satan shall be cast out, and ultimately, after one more brief struggle (Rev. xx. 7-10), evil will be banished from the restored world (Rev. xxi. 1—7): God's original purpose will be realized (Gen. i. 26), and, bending from his throne, He will again pronounce ALL VERY GOOD," and set upon the whole the seal of permanency and eternity, inscribing on this earth the glorious sentence, glistening in letters of light, "A REDEEMED WORLD." Those who well study such passages as Isa. ix. 6, 7; lxvi. 22; Luke i. 32, 33; Dan. vii. 18; Joel iii. 20; Isa. xiv. 11; and especially Rev. xxi., xxii.; must, we think, conclude, that when this world is restored and united again to heaven, God intends that it shall for ever remain a glorious monument of abounding mercy, redeeming grace, and renewing power, to the praise of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Triune God of love.

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While anticipating this glorious period, let us seek grace to set our affections on things above. There is liberty and joy to be realized now, and our heavenly calling is to possess both. Our citizenship is in heaven, let us aim to act in character. Let us be devoted and diligent in the work of the Gospel, ever witnessing for God and warning men. The glorious prospect of the coming Jubilee must not supersede

present duty. And let all who have not yet believed remember, that, as hearers of the Gospel, and as invited to share its blessings, their station through eternity must be the lake of fire or the marriage supper of the Lamb, the everlasting wail or the eternal anthem. And how shall they escape the one or attain the other, if they turn away from Him who speaketh unto them from heaven?

ART. III.-ANTICHRIST AND BABYLON.*

In reading a remarkable passage of Ezek. xxvii. 1—19, it is very difficult not to see that the Spirit of God showed the Man of Sin to the prophet, as he should be in his first estate, [like an angel of light?-TR.] and also, what he should afterwards become by the most strange depravity.

It is easy to see that the prince who is here set forth under traits at once so august and so humiliating is not an Infidel, neither a blind worshipper of idols, for he is full of wisdom and perfection in his ways. He is not even an ordinary king, although wise and religious, for he bears on him the seal of the resemblance of the true God. He is possessed, in virtue of this quality, of an authority to speak, act, and command in his name; to discern who is worthy of his holiness, to proscribe all that is contrary to the glory and the interests of the sovereign Master. His grandeur is of an order more elevated than that of the princes of the earth. His ministry has a more sublime object than the cares of a temporal republic. His authority is exercised over a people belonging to the Lord. He is seated on God's seat; his throne is established on the holy mountain, i.e., the Church, as the Fathers understood it. He is charged to watch over the interests of the sanctuary. He is a cherub, who spread out his wings to cover the ark of the covenant and the Divine mysteries, to protect the mercyseat (where resides the majesty of the Most High) from abuse and profanation; to preserve without alteration and without mixture the sacred truths destined to nourish and sanctify his faithful people. The precious stones with which his vestments shine call to our mind those of the breast-plate and ephod of

* The following article is translated from Père Lambert's work, of which we have been giving some specimens in our "Extracts." It forms two chapters in the original work, and is very striking as coming from a Romanist. It is too long to give at full length. We do not profess accordance with all his interpretations.

the high-priest under the ancient law. They are, together with the holy unction which he has received, the unequivocal symbol of his priesthood.*

Such excellent gifts required from him continual gratitude; such glorious prerogatives could not be kept but by profound humility. But, alas! his heart is unable to bear so much glory. He has been perverted by ingratitude to God and by pride. He has said by his works that which his mouth dared not pronounce, "I am God." His conduct has fulfilled all that these monstrous words signify. He hath set forth his own will for law, his judgment for oracles. He has usurped for himself submission and homage such as is due only to truth itself.

His pride has been punished by the most ignominious abasement. His light is changed into darkness. His ways, at first so excellent and perfect, are filled with iniquity, impurity, and abominations. The mysteries of God, the scheme of salvation, those grand and sublime objects which occupied his mind and heart, have lost in his eyes all their price. Seduced by a sordid avarice, his only taste and desire is to heap up gold and silver into his treasury. (Ezek. xxviii. 16.) All with him will be engaged in commerce. By the most dreadful reversion of natural order, a cherub all glorious with light, a pontiff seated on the throne of God, has become nothing more than an avaricious merchant, whose low and servile heart is unceasingly plunged into earthly care and burns with thirst for the riches that perish!

Such an afflicting revolution in his sentiments and conduct does not take place in a moment, or rather the various characters, marked here by the prophet, could not belong to the same individual. The king of Tyre is here an allegorical personage, the emblem of a train of ministers of the Most High, who succeed one another, but whom the prophet unites and represents as a single moral character passing through different stages. At first, faithful to his ministry, he in the sequel violates all his duties; his iniquity mounts by degrees to its height, and joined to a long impenitence, is finally punished in a most striking manner before the eyes of all nations. Let the least attentive reader draw out for himself the application of this parable. It requires neither effort nor penetration to discover under these images the first throne established by Jesus Christ in the mountain of his Church, the august prerogatives of that eminent seat, the high importance of the ministry confided to him who occupied it, the profound veneration due to him from all the faithful people, the holiness

* I observe that but few commentators apply this prophecy of the Prince of Tyre to Antichrist; nor can I yet see that it does apply.-TR.

and righteousness which then shone forth during several ages, the abuses which have since effaced its beauty and tarnished almost all its glory, the spirit of domination, the indifference to the true interests of the Church, the outrages committed more than once against fundamental truths, the avarice and traffic in holy things which has thrown out such deep roots from the time of St. Bernard (witness his book intituled "Considerations"); finally, the terrible vengeance which must one day strike the guilty profaner of that sublime seat. These different views, full worthy, assuredly, to occupy the attention and the pious thoughts of the faithful, have the double advantage of confounding the insolence of the enemies from without, and of forewarning the true children of the Church against internal seductions. Antichrist will be an impious one, and even an Atheist, at least in desire and perversity of heart, if not by the convictions of his mind. He is announced in Scripture under this fatal character:-" He shall exalt himself against every god, he shall speak great blasphemies against the God of gods, neither shall he regard any god." (Dan. vii. 25; xi. 36.) "He shall exalt himself," says the apostle," against all that is called God:" that is to say, he will neither acknowledge the true God nor any of the divinities adored by Infidel nations.

Power shall be given unto him over all men of every tribe, over people of all languages, and over all nations. Having then succeeded by terror or seduction in drawing all men into his net, he will acknowledge no other God than his strength, "he will sacrifice to his own net, and burn incense to his own drag." (Habak. i. 11-15.) He will believe himself to be the only God, as well as the only master of the world. It is plain that under the images of a drag-net, the prophet means only the address, the prodigious tact, and the grand power that Antichrist will receive from the dragon (Satan), to subdue or seduce the people, and that in the delirium of his pride, Antichrist will only adore his own strength, and will acknowledge no other God than himself.

The Scriptures announce, in express terms, that Antichrist and his false prophet, sustained by all the power of the Devil, shall work with an incredible ardour, and with astonishing success, to seduce the kings of the earth and attach them to their party.

"I saw," says St. John, "three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and that of the beast and the false prophet. These are the spirits of the Devil, which put forth prodigies, and go towards the kings of the earth to assemble them to the battle of the great day of God

Almighty." (Rev. xvi. 13.) This battle will be on the part of the nations, a general conspiracy against Jesus Christ and his religion; on the part of Jesus Christ it will be a severe judgment against those criminal nations, on whom he will heap all sorts of evil, according to the threat pronounced against them by Jeremiah: "Thou art my Battle-axe." (Jer. li. 20-24.) St. John describes this battle of Christ against his principal enemy, and against the nations that are joined with him in the revolt. (Rev. xix. 2-19.) What the holy evangelist here says, (that Jesus was clothed in a robe dipped in blood,) naturally brings to mind a passage in Isaiah, where the prophet represents the Messiah under the same image, and thus speaks of his victory over the nations. (Isa. lxiii. 1-6.) Some interpreters only see in this redoubtable conqueror, Judas Maccabeus, returning from his expedition against Idumea, where he had made a great carnage of the enemies of his people. But how is it that they do not see that the expressions of the prophet are far too noble and too august to be applied to a mere man? Can it be said of Judas Maccabeus, that he is, par excellence, "He who speaketh in righteousness, mighty to save?" Would it not be blasphemy to put into his mouth these words, "the time to redeem my own is come?" Further, Judas Maccabeus had with him in his expedition against Idumea at least 10,000 chosen men. Could he then say with the least truth, that he had vanquished and defeated his enemies all alone; that in looking around him he found no one to help him? There must be an extreme blindness not to see Jesus Christ in this passage of Isaiah. St. Jerome and other commentators apply it to Jesus Christ when he ascended to heaven after his passion. Now, in the first place, Christ, when he ascended into heaven after his passion, did not come from Edom, whether by this term we understand Idumea, or the Gentile Christian Church. In the second place, Jesus had not then trodden the people under foot in his fury, nor broken them in his anger. He had no reason to be astonished that no one had helped him to redeem his own; that is to say, in purifying them from their sins, reconciling them to his Father, delivering them from the power of the Devil, for this was what Jesus Christ had just done by his passion. Who knew better than he that the grand work of redemption belonged to himself alone, and that he could not have in its execution either helper or co-operator? This last interpretation, like the preceding one, openly contradicts the letter of Scripture and the majesty of the prophecy of which it treats; neither