Editor’s Prefatory Remarks
This important treatise was prepared for the press, and left by the author, at his decease, to the care of his surviving friend for publication. It first appeared in a collection of his works in folio, 1692; and although a subject of universal interest, most admirably elucidated, no edition has been published in a separate form.
Antichrist has agitated the Christian world from the earliest ages; and his craft has been to mislead the thoughtless, by fixing upon the humble followers of the Lamb his own opprobrious proper name. To imbibe every principle from investigation and conviction of the holy oracles — to refuse submission to any authority in the spiritual kingdom of God, except it is to Christ, the supreme head and only lawgiver in his church — to refuse obedience to human laws in the great concern of salvation and of worship, brought down denunciations upon them, and they were called antichristian. But alas! the sincere disciples of Jesus have ever known and felt who and what is Antichrist. They have been robbed — incarcerated in dungeons — racked and tormented — transported — drowned — hung or burned. These cruelties are thy cursed deeds, O Antichrist! The Great God has decreed thy downfall and ruin — “That wicked — whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth” (2 Thess. 2:8).
On the contrary, the kingdom of Christ is love, meekness, forbearance, persuasion, conviction, and holy faith. Come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord.
— George Offor, Editor
A Premonition to the Reader
After that God had delivered Babylon and her king into the hands of the kings of the Medes and Persians, then began the liberty of the Jews from their long and tedious captivity. The letter of Artaxerxes to Ezra the priest is instructive: it forced none, but left every Jew to his own choice whether he would go to Jerusalem or forbear; it imposed no law, no priest, no people upon the Jews; and it added no law of its own to prescribe or enforce worship. The threatening at its conclusion was grounded not upon religious non-conformity, but upon civil disobedience — those officers who refused to supply the king’s appointed gifts for God’s house were the ones threatened.
And if all kings would but give such liberty — that God’s people should be directed in their temple-building and temple-worship as they find it in the law of their God, without the additions of man’s inventions — we would never complain. Let us be punished by the law of God, as we are his servants, and by the law of the king, as we are his subjects.
I conclude with a word of counsel and a word of caution. First, let us mend our pace in the way of reformation — that is the way to hasten the downfall of Antichrist. Ministers need reforming, particular congregations need reforming. This twenty years we have been degenerating, both as to principles and as to practice. Second, take heed of over-looking your own guilt: “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper.” And take heed in laying the cause of your troubles in the badness of the temper of governors; God has the hearts of all men in his hand. The sins or repentances of his people are that which makes the church either happy or miserable upon earth.
Of Antichrist
Antichrist is the adversary of Christ; an adversary really, a friend pretendedly. Against him in deed; for him in word, and contrary to him in practice. Antichrist is so proud as to go before Christ; so humble as to pretend to come after him, and so audacious as to say that himself is he. Antichrist will cry up Christ; Antichrist will cry down Christ: Antichrist will proclaim that himself is one above Christ. Antichrist is the man of sin, the son of perdition; a beast that hath two horns like a lamb, but speaks as a dragon (Rev. 13:11).
Christ is the Son of God; Antichrist is the son of Hell. Christ is holy, meek, and forbearing: Antichrist is wicked, outrageous, and exacting. Christ seeketh the good of the soul: Antichrist seeks his own avarice and revenge. Christ is content to rule by his word: Antichrist saith, the word is not sufficient. Christ preferreth his Father’s will above heaven and earth: Antichrist preferreth himself and his traditions above all that is written, or that is called God, or worshiped.
Antichrist may be considered either more particularly or more generally. More particularly, there are many Antichrists (1 John 2:18). More generally, the many maketh but one great Antichrist, one man of sin, one enemy, one great whore, one son of perdition (2 Thess. 2:3; Rev. 19:2).
A Particular Description of Antichrist
Three things go to the making up of Antichrist: the head, body, and soul. The devil is the head; the synagogue of Satan is the body; that wicked spirit of iniquity is the soul. Christ is the head of his church; the devil is the head of Antichrist. The elect are the body of Christ; the reprobate professors are the body of Antichrist. The Holy Ghost is the spirit of life that actuateth Christ’s body; that wicked spirit of iniquity actuateth the body of Antichrist. The reason why Christ came into the world was that he might destroy all the works of the head of Antichrist (1 John 3:8). And the reason why Antichrist came into the world was that the church — the body of Christ — might be tried and made white by suffering under his tyranny, and by bearing witness against his falsehoods.
Where Antichrist First Appeared
The devil made use of the church of God to midwife this monster into the world, as the Apostle plainly shews: there he first sat, shewing himself (2 Thess. 2:4). He came with plums in his dragon’s mouth, promising to do for Christ and his church that which he never meant to perform. He shewed himself that he was God, and in appearance set his heart to do as the heart of God (Eze. 28:2–6). And when he came out of the bottomless pit, there came such a smoke with him that had the church been upon their watch they could not have perceived him from another man. Besides, there came with him so many locusts to usher him in (Rev. 9:2–3), that with good words and fair speeches, by their crafty sleights whereby they lay in wait to deceive, they got him in and set him up, and made him a great one, even the chief, before they were aware.
Of the Ruin of Antichrist
Antichrist had a time to come into the world, and so must have a time to go out again. Nor can all the fallen angels, with all the members and limbs of Antichrist, cause that this their brat should abide so much as one day longer than God’s prefixed time. The Holy Ghost saith, “Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time” (Rev. 12:12). Besides, the text says plainly, the Lord shall destroy him (2 Thess. 2:8), and that he goeth into perdition (Rev. 17:11; 19:26).
The Soul of Antichrist Destroyed, and How
As to the soul or spirit of error that governs Antichrist in all his works of mischief, this must be consumed by the spirit of Christ’s mouth, and be destroyed by the brightness of his coming. “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” (2 Thess. 2:7–8).
By the spirit of his mouth, I understand his holy word, which is called “the word and breath of his lips” (Isa. 11:4), and also “the sword of his mouth” (Rev. 2:16). By “the brightness of his coming,” I understand not only his presence, but an increase of light by his presence — not only to help Christians begin to bear witness against some parts and pieces of the errors of Antichrist, but until the whole is rooted out of the world. Christ will not do this by himself immediately, but by his spirit and word in his church, which he will so manage that they shall not rest till he has brought this beast to his grave.
Do but look back and compare Antichrist four or five hundred years ago with Antichrist as he is now, and you shall see what work the Lord Jesus has begun to make with him — confounding and blasting his spirit, forcing him to dishonourable retreats, making him give up not only his superstitious and diabolical rites and ceremonies, but many a goodly truth which he had taken from Christ’s church. And this is the plague wherewith the Lord shall plague the people that have fought against Jerusalem: “Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth” (Zech. 14:12).
The body of Antichrist may be destroyed by other instruments, but spirits cannot be killed but by spirits. The temporal sword then may kill the body, but after that it hath no more that it can do. Therefore the other must be dealt with by another kind of weapon: the spirit of Christ against that wicked spirit of Antichrist.
The Ordinances of Antichrist
Now therefore will the beauty of Antichrist fade like a flower, and fall as doth a leaf when the sap of the tree has left it. It is the spirit of Antichrist that puts life into his body and lustre into his ordinances. When the spirit of Antichrist is slain, those trinkets, those rites, ceremonies, and ordinances of this man of sin shall be left as carrion upon the face of the earth, and shall stink in the noses of men as doth the corrupted blood of a dead man.
As concerning his masses, prayers for the dead, images, pilgrimages, monkish vows, sinful fasts, and the beastly single life of their priests — though when the spirit of Antichrist was in them they did bear some sway in the world; yet now, of what esteem are they? They are now blown together under hedges as the dry leaves, for the mice and frogs to harbour in. The ordinances of Antichrist are not able to bear up themselves in the world as the ordinances of the Lord Jesus are, for even the ordinances of Christ, where the spirit of Christ is not, are yet in some esteem with men. But these, when the spirit of delusion has left them, are abhorred, both skin and bones.
By ordinances of Antichrist I do not intend only matters of worship, but also those civil laws that impose and enforce that worship with pains and penalties. As long as there is life in them, ’tis because the spirit of that man of sin yet remaineth in them. When kings shall be enlightened to see the abominable filthiness of antichristian worship, they will say, let it be decreed that this prop of Antichrist be taken down. Nor can any sword reach the life of Antichrist that is in these laws, but the sword of Christ’s mouth, working in some of his people as magistrates.
The Body of Antichrist Destroyed, and How
The body of Antichrist — that church or synagogue in which the spirit of Antichrist dwells — must be destroyed also. It is to be destroyed, either as a body mystical, or under the more gross consideration.
As she is a body mystical, she is to be destroyed absolutely, by Christ, the spirit of his mouth, and the brightness of his coming. By which means her witchcrafts, spiritual whoredoms, spiritual murders, thefts, and blasphemies shall be so detected and made manifest that the nations shall abhor her, flee from her, and buy her merchandise no more (Rev. 18:11).
As she must be considered as a body of men, against whom the wrath of God will burn if repentance prevent not, those who have been seduced by this spirit of Antichrist, and made use of to do all the mischiefs done both to true religion and to the professors of it for this many hundred years, must not escape. Therefore the angel that standeth in the sun makes a proclamation to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, to gather themselves to the supper of the great God, that they may eat the flesh of the several sorts of men that have been the lovers, the countenancers, the upholders and defenders of her antichristian state, worship, and falsehoods (Rev. 19:17–18). And ultimately: “And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the Dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years” (Rev. 20:1–3).
Brave Days When Antichrist Is Dead
Now there will be nothing of Antichrist to be seen throughout the nations but ruinous heaps and desolate places. Whoso will find his body must look for it in the side of the pit’s mouth. The people that shall be born, that shall live to serve God in these happy days, they shall see Antichrist only in its ruins. They shall, like the sparrows, the little robins, and the wren, sit and sing and chirrup one to another while their eyes behold this dead hawk.
There will be a strange alteration when Antichrist is dead. The church and its members shall wear the name of their God in their foreheads; it shall be their glory to be godly, and carnal men shall praise them for it. Then there shall no more be a Canaanite in the house of the Lord. The ransomed of the Lord shall walk there. Oh! now shall the church walk in the light of the Lord, and sit every man under his vine and under his fig-tree, and none shall make him afraid!