Christ, that this should be "life from the dead to the Gentiles," and that "the fulness of the Gentiles" should so come into the great gospel kingdom. (2) That there is no place for this conversion of the nations after the final coming of Christ in the terrible blaze of his glory to destroy "the man of sin" and his apostate hordes. Therefore, in Paul's programme, as in that of John, the millennium precedes this great apostasy and the development and destruction of "the man of sin." Therefore, in both these prophetic passages the points made belong to the "last things" of our world's history. In both we have the final conflict on earth between the great antagonist forces of Christ and of Satan. In both, Satan's hosts are specially mustered and headed by some one man, his embodiment and representative. In both, this human incarnation of Satan perishes, and with him his followers. And finally, in both, this destruction is by a fearful deluge of fire--the blast of the breath of the mighty Conqueror the blaze of his fiery brightness in his last appearing. And this outburst of judgment on the marshalled hosts of sin heralds in the final consummation.

Concluding Suggestions.

1. The case of "the man of sin" and his destruction in nowise interferes (as some have supposed) with the millennium. The great gospel work of the ages finds all the time it needs before his development, and before his final doom.

2. The ultimate purpose of God in permitting sin to enter our world being to allow to Satan and sin a very large range for development in order to reveal to the moral universe their essential malignity and terrible mischiefs, we may see the wisdom of this remarkable variation in the general programme, introduced in the last two phases of the conflict between Christ and Satan, viz. in the millennial period, and in the period next ensuing and prior to the final judgment. In the former period, long and glorious, " Satan is bound"; his personal agencies are withdrawn from the field of battle; and then the truth of God pervades the nations; "The

knowledge of the Lord fills the earth as the waters cover the seas." This phase of the great conflict having transpired, another and contrasted arrangement ensues: "Satan is "loosed for a little season"; the "withholding" power, as Paul terms it, "is taken out of the way," [becomes èx μéσov, out of the midst; out of the fight; out of Satan's way]; the restraining force previously exerted upon Satan is taken off; and then "that great apostasy comes on; "the man of sin" appears, and runs his short but, alas, too successful career; and then cometh the end. This contrast between a world with Satan "bound," and, again, a world with Satan "loosed," Christ and his truth having unimpeded range in the former; Satan unrestrained and putting forth his utmost energies in the latter this wonderful variation in the conditions of the great sin-problem of our world in its relation to outside agencies is startling, most impressive, and in its moral bearings immensely instructive. As said in my "Notes on the Revelation of John" (p. 227), "It is obvious that one part of God's design in permitting this last development of Satan in our world may have been to exhibit his agency before our race, and before the moral universe, with far more distinctness and prominence than ever before. After the long ages of Christ's peaceful and triumphant reign, the very name of Satan, and much more his pernicious agencies, may have been almost forgotten from the human mind, not to say from angelic minds as well. One more exhibition of satanic hate and revenge and power will not be amiss for the moral instruction of the universe. Coming at this stage, in the strongest possible contrast with the beneficent reign of the great Messiah, it will stand out most signally before the universe as the moral ground of his eternal doom. Who can then fail to see that he is indeed a devil and a Satan, infinitely deserving his destiny' of torment in the lake of fire and brimstone forever and ever!"

3. We see why Paul should speak of this as "the apostasy"—the great, the signal, the ever memorable apostasy. Nothing else on such a scale stands on the pages of human

history. Nothing so great could occur before the millennium. It is only after the nations have been brought to Christ, and long ages have rolled away in the peace and fruition of Christ's reign, and when it might begin to seem that Satan must be dead, and that sin has mostly lost its power, then, all suddenly, Satan is loosed; and lo, the change astonishes the moral universe! Such an apostasy! Who could have believed it?

4. I cannot forbear to notice the incidental, and therefore the more remarkable, coincidence between John and Paul on the point of the duration of this apostasy. John says: "Satan is loosed a little season" [μкpòv xрovóv, xx. 3]. In symbol, it is the time of one great military expedition, a single campaign; his hosts sweeping up from the ends of the earth, and besieging the saints in their camp, the beloved city; and then the end. Entirely in harmony with this is Paul's view of the time-brought within the life-work and life-period of one man. One man heads it; it ends with his death. Let us praise God that this great apostasy is so short!

5. This wonderful variation in the divine scheme will serve to bring out the mutual relations between Satan and our sinning race in a way to show not only how great his power, unrestrained, may become, but how fearful are the exposures and liabilities of man left defenceless before his temptations. What a chapter of revelation on these points stands in the history of this one "man of sin." Oh, how should it warn the sinners of our world against his satanic "devices!" And how fearful the light it throws upon the malignity, the moral hardihood, the dire infatuation, the perfectly satanic nature of all sin! Sin in man and sin in Satan are in essence and nature only the same thing — mad rebellion against God. Let us not omit to notice, at this point, the thoughts which these same facts suggested and impressed upon the mind and heart of Paul, as we may read in the immediate context of our passage-words of appalling significance: "Even him whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders, 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: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness" (2 Thess. ii. 9-12). Here we see compacted into one sentence the terrible energies of Satan in the line of lying, deception, delusion; these energies taking effect upon the souls of "them that perish"; taking effect upon them, because they will not admit to their heart so much as "the love of the truth, that they might be saved," but cherish the love of Satan's lies the rather, and so come under "strong delusion," and reap its natural and necessary fruit- damnation.

6. If there were any need to vindicate the justice and wisdom of the great Judge in consigning Satan at the last day to the prison-house" prepared for the devil and his angels," to go no more out forever, here it is. Close upon this last and direst development of his malign spirit and of his mighty hand, God hurls him down to his fiery doom; and all the holy will say, "Amen!" A sense of relief will come over them; they breathe freely, and pour out their grateful hearts in trustful adoration : "Just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints!"

7. It is quite in this line of thought to say that Satan's being "loosed" from the pit is a case in point, bearing upon the safety, and therefore the wisdom, of a future restoration of the wicked. It is the fondly indulged hope of some, perhaps, rather, of many, that somewhere in the long future of the lost ones of our race [and, by parity of reasoning, of the lost angelic race as well], the prison doors will be thrown open and the prisoners be "loosed." As to this fond hope, let it suffice to say that the Lord will have made one experiment of the sort already enough to satisfy all the truth-loving throughout the moral universe.

8. Finally, perhaps one object sought in this last scene may be to develop the Messiah's infinite control over the

material universe, to show that he can wield at will all the fearful enginery of fire and flame for the destruction of the wicked, in combinations unknown before. The conflict long waged with the spiritual weapons of truth and love takes on a new type; material forces of all-consuming power flash. out before all worlds, and testify that Jesus is indeed King of the universe, with all power given him in heaven, earth, and hell. Before such forms of power, the great, gigantic, representative sinner of our race," the man of sin," becomes most emphatically "the son of perdition." Before such power, the prince of darkness and his fellows, who "kept not their first estate," having had large range for developing the malignity of their souls, and having had their public trial in the judgment of the great day, are swept away to their final, everlasting doom.

ARTICLE IV.

REVELATION AND INSPIRATION.

BY REV. E. P. BARROWS, D.D., LATELY PROFESSOR OF HEBREW LITERATURE
IN ANDOVER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY.

No. XI.

INSPIRATION CONSIDERED IN ITS SPHERE.

THE sphere of inspiration is that which the wisdom of the Infinite Spirit has prescribed to himself, taking counsel of no created intelligence. It was never his plan to give indiscriminately, in all the departments of human activity, that special illumination and guidance, called inspiration, which, as we have seen, raised its possessors above error, and invested their words with divine authority. This heavenly gift was ever rigidly restricted to the supernatural revelations connected with the plan of redemption through Jesus Christ. We acknowledge, indeed, with devout reverence, the providential guidance of God in all the affairs of human history. It was not without his appointment, for example, that our