to some editions, is in the present tense, une. The delusion sent is not something in addition to the mystery of iniquity, but it is that mystery itself. Men are prone to prefer a dependence upon their own merits: to show them their folly in this respect, therefore, this delusion is allowed to work for a certain period. The word translated delusion is the same substantive, and in the same case, as that translated of error, 1 John iv. 6; and the word rendered by the adjective strong, is the same substantive which, in this chapter, and in every other passage of the New Testament, is rendered by the term working, except only Col. ii. 12, where it is translated operation. The verb oreo, commonly rendered believe, signifies primarily and preeminently a trusting to or relying upon the object of belief; and the verb zpívo, rendered damned, is that rendered uniformly elsewhere judged, or condemned. It has not even the intensive xará prefixed to the verb, where it more particularly expresses condemnation. The term damned occurs but in two other places of the Scriptures, according to our common version, and in both of these it is a translation of the verb everywhere else rendered condemn or condemned.

The distinction is the more important because we commonly associate with the term damned a state of hopeless irremediable punishment, whereas a culprit condemned is still supposed to be an object of mercy. We think the purport of the passage under consideration teaches us that the mystery of error is allowed to work, and is even sent to work, to render the state of condemnation of the unbeliever manifest; but not to cause his final perdition, as an addition to some other cause. He that believeth not, it is said, (John iii. 18,) is condemned already, ("8ŋ xéxqırαı,) because he hath not believed in (relied upon) the name of the only begotten Son of God. So long as the sinner remains in unbelief, he must remain in the state of condemnation the working of the mystery of error does not add to the condemnation, but it renders it manifest; as the proof that one has pleasure in a dependence upon his own righteousness is equally a demonstration that he does not believe on, or rely upon, the merits of the Son of God, and consequently he must be, as it is said, condemned already.

Such we believe to be the purport of the sketch given by Paul of the character and working of the man of sin; a sketch in every particular corresponding, we think, with what is related in the Apocalypse of the ten-horned beast, except that the latter is a more minute and detailed account than the former. Like the beast, the man of sin is something existing and reigning in the human heart. Like the beast, the man of sin usurps the place of God in the mind of his subjects or deluded votaries. Like the beast, the man of sin owes his predominance to the power of the legal accuser; and like the beast, the man of sin is the opponent of God's plan of salvation, the

enemy of the righteousness of faith, and the adversary of the cross of Christ. Both make themselves objects of worship; both virtually speak blasphemy, and both are at last consumed by the fire of revealed truth; the one destroyed by the breath of the mouth of the Lord, scripturally spoken of as a stream of brimstone, and as a fiery flame, and the other is doomed to the lake of fire and brimstone-an everlasting burning.

THE END.