Of the Manner of the Ruin of Antichrist
Antichrist shall be brought to ruin gradually — that is, by degrees: a part after a part, here a fenced city and there a high tower, even until she is made to lie even with the ground. The manner of her downfall may be considered with respect to its suddenness, unexpectedness, terribleness, strangeness — and also with respect to the gradualness thereof. As to the suddenness, ’tis said to be in an hour. It is also to be when by her unexpected, for then she saith, “I sit a queen” (Rev. 18:7–8). For the terribleness of it, the nations shall shake at the sound of her fall (Eze. 31:16–17). And for the strangeness, it shall be to the wonder of the world, as when God overthrew Sodom.
The vessels in which God’s wrath is contained are called vials. Now a vial is that which letteth out what is contained in it by degrees, and not all at once. The seven vials are poured out one after another, each one working its effects before another is poured forth — the first upon the antichristian earth, the second upon her sea, the third upon her rivers, the fourth upon her sun, the fifth upon the seat of the beast, the sixth upon her Euphrates, and the seventh into her air (Rev. 16:2–17). It is thus evident that this man of sin is to fall and die by degrees.
A Tenth Part Falls First
This city falls first in a tenth part thereof, even while nine parts remain yet standing. By the city I understand the church of Antichrist in its utmost bounds, divided into ten parts, each put under one of the horns of the beast for protection. The means of the fall of this tenth part is an earthquake — a shaking that unsettleth the foundations of that tenth part where that city stood. In that earthquake were slain seven thousand names of men, and the remnant were affrighted and gave glory to the God of heaven.
The Nine Parts Fall
The next step God taketh will be more sore. The second earthquake is such as never was, “so mighty an earthquake, and so great” (Rev. 16:18), extending as far as the other nine cities had any ground to stand on. This earthquake produced such an eruption as divided the great city into three parts — a three-cornered division that will be the most dreadful to Antichrist that ever was, for they shall set to fighting and tearing one another in pieces until they have consumed all nine parts. As it was with the children of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir, “when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, every one helped to destroy another” (2 Chron. 20:23).
Great Babel Falls
And then “great Babylon came into remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.” This is the wisdom of God concerning her: that she should not be the first to die, but should live to see the destruction of her daughters and pine away under it, until judgment also overtakes herself. As Babylon of old was the last to drink the cup — “Sheshach shall drink after them” (Jer. 25:26) — so the mother, the metropolitan, the lady of kingdoms, shall live to see her daughters executed before her face. After which she shall come into consideration herself, for she must assuredly drink the bottom of the cup, the dregs, the most bitter part.
Of the Signs of the Approach of the Downfall of Antichrist
That she shall fall, there is nothing more certain; and when she is fallen, that she never shall rise again, is also as firmly decreed. For her part, she shall say — even when she stands where she must suddenly fall — “I shall be a lady for ever” (Isa. 47:7–9). I shall not meddle with the times and seasons which the Father hath put in his own power, but shall discourse upon the signs.
First Sign: The Church Driven from All Hiding-Places
The downfall and ruin of Antichrist draws near when the church and people of God are driven from all those hiding-places that God has prepared for them in the wilderness (Rev. 12). The time of the beast’s war with the church, and the time the church shall have a hiding-place in the wilderness, are both of a length — forty-two months on one hand, and one thousand two hundred and threescore days on the other. When therefore we shall see that plots and conspiracies for utter ruin are laid against God’s church all the world over, and none of the kings, princes, or mighty states of the world will give them a city for refuge — then is the ruin of Antichrist at hand. Haman’s plot, the most universal that ever was hatching, did but presage the deliverance and exaltation of the Jews and the hanging of Haman.
Indeed, sense and reason saith it is a fearful thing for the church to be exposed to the rage of her enemy all over the world at once. But so will be the dispensation of God, to the end that deliverance may be the sweeter, the enemy’s fall the more headlong, and the arm of God the more manifest. And in this will that scripture be fulfilled: “And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation — and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book” (Dan. 12:1).
Second Sign: The Nations See Her Baseness
Towards the end of her reign, the nations will be made to see her baseness and to abhor her and her ways. So long as the nations continue in that dead sleep she hath bewitched them into by the wine of her fornication, we have no ground to think her ruin is at the door. But when God shall lay her before kings and shall discover her nakedness to the nations, then be sure her destruction is at hand. “I will discover thy skirts upon thy face, and I will shew the nations thy nakedness, and the kingdoms thy shame” (Nahum 3:5). The preacher kills her soul, and the king kills her body. Therefore the chief wisdom of Antichrist this day is laid out to cover her nakedness and keep it from the eyes of kings and their people. But God has said it shall not avail.
Third Sign: Babylon Becomes the Habitation of Devils
When Babylon is become the habitation of devils, foul spirits, and hateful birds, then the downfall thereof is upon us. The meaning is: when you shall see the church and people of God so forsake her that she is left in a manner to herself and her disciples, then she is to fall quickly. This is the way of the wisdom of God: to bring his people out of a city when he intends the ruin of that place. When God was about to destroy the old world, he put Noah into an ark. When he was about to destroy Sodom, he sent Lot away. And when there shall be a hissing by God for his people, and when they shall hear him and obey and gather to him, then you shall see what will become of this enemy of Christ.
When therefore we shall see men like devils, every foul spirit and hateful bird flock to and take shelter in Babylon — let us not be frighted or dejected, but pluck up our hearts and say, this is one of the signs that the downfall of Babylon is near. “He turneth the shadow of death into the morning” (Amos 5:8), and commands oft-times that the fairest day should succeed the foulest night.
Fourth Sign: The Slaying of the Witnesses
The witnesses are to be slain before the fall of Antichrist, and by the hand of the beast. “And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them” (Rev. 11:7). Their death is not only a forerunner of their deliverance, but a sign that their deliverance is at the door, since the one is but three days and an half before the other.
The witnesses are to be considered not in a carnal or natural, but in a mystical sense. They go under the number of two: not because there were indeed two such men in the world, but because two are a sufficient number to bear witness; and God’s church, in the most furious heat and rage of Antichrist, has been at least of such a number. The witnesses therefore are nothing else but a successive church — the congregation of God abiding for him against Antichrist, by reason of a continual succession of men joined by the special blessing of God unto it.
What death must they die? Not a corporeal one, but that which is mystically such. There will be such ruins brought both upon the spirit of Christianity and the true Christian church-state, before Antichrist is destroyed, that there will for a time scarce be found a Christian spirit or a true visible living church of Christ in the world. As Christ, after his resurrection, was more glorious than before, so the witnesses, after their resurrection, shall be more spiritual, heavenly, and exact in all their ways than they were before they were killed. Resurrections are always attended with new additions of glory.
Fifth Sign: Great Joy Among Her Disciples
Another sign of the approach of the ruin of Antichrist will be the great joy in her and among her disciples when they see that the witnesses are slain: “And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwell on the earth” (Rev. 11:10). They shall rejoice as conquerors used to do, who make the slaughters of their spoiled enemies the trophy of their joy. The devil will so flush up and bewitch the men that wonder after the beast with the victory that they will think the conquest must be lasting. But these conquered, killed, dead men must come to life again — and then what’s become of their joy? “And great fear fell upon them which saw them” (Rev. 11:11).
Thus as to sense and reason, all shall be hush, all shall be quiet and still. But behold! While they thus sing in the windows, death is straddling over the threshold (Zeph. 2:14). While they are crying peace and safety, sudden destruction cometh. They shall hear it proclaimed with sound of trumpet: the witnesses are risen again. “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever” (Rev. 11:15).
Of the Instruments God Will Use to Bring Antichrist to His Ruin
The destruction of the body and flesh of Antichrist shall come by the sword, as managed in the hands of kings, who are God’s ministers for the punishment of evil deeds (Rom. 13). The church, even as a church, shall with her faith and prayers help forward that destruction — but she must use such weapons as are proper to her as such, and the magistrate must use such weapons as are proper to him. Kings must be the men that must down with Antichrist, and they shall down with her in God’s time.
God hath begun to draw the hearts of some of them from her already, and he will set them against her round about. If they do not go so fast as we would have them, let us exercise patience and hope in God. Pray for kings to the God of heaven, who has the hearts of kings in his hand. Pray for the long life of the king. Pray that God would always give wisdom and judgment to the king. Pray that God would discover all plots and conspiracies against his person and government. And wait and believe that God, who has begun his quarrel with Babylon, will in his own time and way bring her down by the means which he has appointed.
Of the Causes of the Ruin of Antichrist
First cause: Antichrist must down because he hath usurped and taken the name and attributes of God upon himself. He hath set in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God, exalting himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped (2 Thess. 2). To prescribe and impose a worship besides and without reverence of that which God has prescribed is to make oneself a God.
Second cause: Antichrist must be destroyed because he hath set himself against the Son of God. He hath endeavoured to take from him his headship over, and his offices for and in, the church. He hath called himself the head of the universal church of God. He hath intruded upon the kingly, priestly, and prophetical offices of Jesus Christ. He hath attempted to wrest his sceptre and kingdom from him, in that he endeavoured to thrust himself into his throne, which is the heart and conscience of his people. He hath called himself high-priest, though God knows no high-priest but one. And he hath intruded upon the prophetical office, pretending to infallibility and imposing unwritten verities and abominable traditions upon the conscience.
Third cause: Antichrist must be destroyed because he hath blasphemed against the Holy Ghost, fathering his unscriptural councils and convocations upon the Holy Ghost; accusing the holy Scriptures of insufficiency; setting up his own church-government, offices, and discipline; concluding that the Holy Ghost without the works of the flesh is not sufficient to govern the hearts of worshippers; wrought lying miracles by the power of Satan; and persisted in his sins against the judgments wherewith God hath punished him.
Fourth cause: Antichrist must be destroyed for the horrid outrage and villainous murders committed upon the bodies of the saints. The poor church of God is a sensible bleeding witness of this for hundreds of years. “And in her,” when God shall come to make inquisition for blood, “will be found the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth” (Rev. 18:24).
Fifth cause: Antichrist must be destroyed because he hath put out of order and confounded the rule and government that God has set up in the world. She hath turned the sword of the magistrate against those that keep God’s law, and made it the ruin of the good and virtuous and a protection to the vile and base.
Sixth cause: Antichrist must be destroyed because of her exceeding covetousness. Religion is the thing pretended to, but the great things of this world are the things really intended. They have got kingdoms, they have got crowns — everything but grace and pardon. Money, money is the sinews of their religion. They have set kingdoms, crowns, principalities, sacraments, pardons, prayers, indulgences, liberty, yea, and souls and bodies of men, women and children, to sale.
Seventh cause: Antichrist must be destroyed because he standeth in the way of the setting up of the kingdom of Christ in the world. He hath overspread the world with that which is directly contrary to Christ, so that Christ cannot set up his kingdom until what is Antichrist’s is tumbled down to the ground. God purposeth to bury Antichrist before he sets glory in the land of the living (Eze. 26:20–21). New wine is not put into old bottles, nor a new piece into an old garment; nor shall any of the old anti-scriptural ordinances, ceremonies, rites, or vessels of the man of sin be made use of or accounted anything worth in the day of the kingdom of Jesus Christ.
Conclusion: Application
Must Antichrist be destroyed? Then a time is coming wherein there shall be no Antichrist to afflict God’s church any more. It is Antichrist that is the cause of the troubles of Christians for being Christians.
Is Antichrist to be destroyed? Then this calls aloud to God’s people to make haste to come out of her. “Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins and that ye receive not of her plagues” (Rev. 18:4). Flesh will hang behind, because it favoureth the things of the flesh. But they that will live after the flesh must die.
Is Antichrist to be destroyed? Then let them that love God, his Son, and his Zion, cry to God that it may be hastened in its time. The world will never be in its right wits until Babylon is destroyed. The kingdom of Christ will never be set up as it ought until Antichrist is destroyed. There will never be peace upon earth until Antichrist is destroyed.
Is Antichrist to be destroyed? Then let us live in the expectation of it, and let this be one of our songs in the house of our pilgrimage. God bids his people, while in Babylon, to let Jerusalem come into their mind (Jer. 51:50). The great and glorious promises that are to be fulfilled on earth are reserved until Antichrist is dead and buried: “I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will plant them in this land assuredly with my whole heart and with my whole soul” (Jer. 32:41).
Must Antichrist be destroyed? Then let us be glad when we see the signs of his fall presenting themselves to our view. Though the signs of his fall are terrible and amazing to behold, the wrinkles that are in their faces threaten not us but them. The church is now at the rising of the year; let then the blasts at present, or to come, be what they will, Antichrist is assuredly drawing towards his downfall. And though the devil, knowing what is to be done to him and to his kingdom, shall fright the godly, we should look through these paper-winkers and espy, in all this, that fear — yea, certain terrible judgments — are following of him at the heels, by which not only the soul, spirit, and life of Antichrist, but the body thereof — yea, body, and soul, and head — are quickly to go down thither from whence they, as such, shall not arise again.