outstrip in his impiety the other enemies of the Gospel, and whom the Lord may altogether destroy with the breath of His mouth.” See Zanch Misc. Theol. pp. 1, 18, 21, 44, 48. And in no other way, on this subject at least, Jo. Brent replied in the same year to Jo. Marpach : u I should be unwilling odiously to contend about Antichrist ; we know that the Papacy is antichristianity. But it may perhaps happen, that among the Popes there may arise one, who may surpass all the rest in impietjq craft, deceits, cruelty, and tyranny, and may give occasion to the Son of God to hasten His coming for the complete destruction of the Papacy, and the judgment of the quick and dead. The Lord will take care concern- ing this matter : we will perform our own duty, and will wait for the coming of the Lord.” Compare the Epistle of Lud. Crocius , inserted among those of Yoss ; Heding. on 2 Thess. ii. 3 ; Weismcinri s Inst, p. 1121, lin. 5, 6; the Patmos of II. Horehius , p. 70; C. B. Mi - chaelis on Dan. pp. 247, 248. u What if we should concede to the Papists,” says Bailly, 66 and in this the orthodox are not obsti- nate, that in the long series of Bomish antichrists there should at the end of the world arise one more wicked than his brethren, though they are most wicked, by a kind of [pre-eminence] of
wickedness, — one who should closely resemble the days of An- tiochus : they themselves would gain nothing by this concession.” — Op. Hist, et Chron. f. 244. Yitringa says appropriately to this passage : That the beast itself is also the eighth king , according to the order of his predecessors. Thus it can without any difficulty be imagined, that after these kings of mystic Babylon one is still to be expected just before the close of the power of Antichrist, who shall slay the witnesses of Christ , and rage against the Church above all others; and of him the Spirit had especially prophesied under the name of the Beast : ch. 11. 7. And all at the present day, who take the prophetic times, and among these the 42 months of the beast, in their ordinary signification, agree, namely, in ascribing so short a power to the one king. I am not accustomed to rely on testimonies of human authority : the truth has no need of them ; but when there is a possibility of its being supposed that any doctrine is paradoxical, it is expedient to collect the anticipations of the truth which lie concealed in the minds of men. This one, last king, will differ most widely from all his predecessors, as in malignity, so in the manner of his destruction. They for the most part die by a natural death ; he shall be given alive to eternal torment : ch. xix. 20 ; 2 Thess. ii. 8. — ex ruv sktu, of the seven) Primasius admirably says, Lest you