He contemplates, on the holy "mount of the congregation," the "place of their sanctuary," as "a glorious high throne." It is, even its most glorious mansions, in the possession of those, who are exalted from the earth: one reigns indeed before his elders, who is "Lord of all," to whom every knee "doth bow, and every tongue confess;" he appears in the "likeness of the Most High," "the image of the invisible God," but at the same time as "the first-born among many brethren." Not to be less than this, seems to be the aim of Satan: ill brooking it, perhaps, that the "Son of Man" should be "exalted above every name that is named, angels and principalities and powers being made subject unto him" Satan cannot be an avowed atheist, he knows, and has felt too much of the power of the Great Unseen, to disbelieve the existence of the Deity,-although he has taught some few fools upon earth to say in their hearts, "There is no God!" His enmity is against that manifestation of Deity which is made in the mysterious person of the Son-the seed of the woman, who, after all his partially successful opposition, is to bruise his head.-It is the Spirit of ANTICHRIST that has its fountain in his breast!

Unchanged in malice or in desperate hardihood, by his long confinement in the abyss, "he goes out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to the battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea."

Revelation xx. 9, 10. "And they went up on the breadth of the earth, or' land, and compassed the camp, or' station

of the saints about, and the beloved city and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. And the Devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.”

In the great judgment of the vintage, before the Millennium, at the battle of Armageddon, we shall remember, there was a distinction made in the doom of the deceivers, and of the deceived:

Chap. xix. 19. "And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army. And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone. And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which proceeded out of his mouth and all the fowls were filled with their flesh."

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So in this attack, attempted against the Holy City, after the thousand years, the first period of the everlasting reign, are ended, the Devil, the deceiver, is cast into this same "lake of fire that burneth with brimstone." The nations, also, whom he has deceived, are "consumed with fire from heaven;" by the shaft of the lightning, which is the usual meaning of the expression. This, however, is a different judgment; amounting, I should suppose, to no more than temporal death: for their final judgment, they must stand with the "rest of the dead," before the last tribunal of Christ. That, with the devil his angels also lay under the same curse, we may well believe; because "the Judge of quick and dead,”

"at his appearing" to set up his kingdom, when he pronounced the doom of the apostates in the church, called it "the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels."

By "the beast and false prophet," at the first peopling of this horrible pit of Gehennah, I conceive, that not only the members of Antichrist, found upon earth at that time, and who go down "alive" into this lake of fire, are symbolized; but all, in every age, in whose hearts "the mystery of iniquity worked," or at least who were abettors of the same; all who were actuated by "the spirit of Antichrist," and, as far as in them lay, were defilers and destroyers of the temple of the living God.

The kings and counsellors, or legislators of the earth, who, bearing the sword of justice in the name of Christ, have persecuted his faithful servants; or in the exercise of their power and influence, “have stood up and taken counsel against the Lord and against his anointed;" "Let us burst their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us."

All "the ministers of the word" and "stewards of the mysteries of God," who, "in the latter times should depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils," "beguiling" into voluntary humiliation and worshipping of angels"-" not holding the Head," but by feigned words "making merchandise of the people," till in various degrees the only Mediator has been supplanted by other mediators, and tutelary gods, dividing the trust and worship of Christians, and teaching that salvation is not

by grace through faith, but by works of righteousness which they have done."

Lastly-for their full developement, seems to be placed at the last-All Christian teachers and pastors, so calling themselves, who, not knowing the scriptures and the power of God, privily bring in damnable heresies, denying the Lord that bought them, whether in the mystery of his Divine Person, or in the fundamental doctrines of his atonement; or in turning the grace of our Lord into lasciviousness, as well in public principles which they disseminate, as in the incontinency which their private life, notwithstanding their profession, holds forth as an example, and cause of offence to many.

These three great generations of the Spirit of Antichrist, are thus designated, perhaps chronologically, by Jude. "Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core." For, as we know from St. Paul, "them that sleep in Christ, will God bring with him ;" so we know from the prophet Daniel, that "at the time Michael stands up for the children of his people," and "every one found written in the book shall be delivered,"

Daniel xii. 2. "And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt."

So that when "they that are wise" are made to "shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for

ever and ever," at the same time shall "some awake to shame and everlasting contempt," or "abhorrence." It is the same word used in the last verse of Isaiah, "and ye shall go forth and see the corses of the men that transgressed, or rebelled against me; for their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorring to all flesh."

Three times does our blessed Lord, in the ninth chapter of Mark, quote this passage, to show the awful fate of those who "offended," ""enter not into life," "to go into hell," Gehennah, "into the fire that never shall be quenched, where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." And what we remark further on this most awful passage is, that, as the glory of the blessed is in some sort an object discernible to men upon earth,-"They shine as the brightness of the firmament," "as the stars for ever and ever;" so are the first damned—it may be, all the antitypes, in their respective generations, who have corresponded to the types of Pharaoh or Herod, or of Baalam, or of Corah, "The Rephaim,” or giants in iniquity, whom the prophet Isaiah tells us, "the earth" "shall," at that time, "cast from her womb”*—in that pit of "outer darkness," where their worm dieth not, and their fire is not quenched;

-so are they to be, in the eternal pangs of this second death, an object of " abhorrence to all flesh," an object which men, in me sort may "go out and see."