We have received several communications upon the subject of the last week. Some of our correspondents do not sufficiently distinguish between the Antichrist and “the prince that shall come” (Dan. 9:2626And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. (Daniel 9:26)). They are not the same, though fora time closely leagued together in their iniquitous policy. We would refer our readers to a pamphlet by the late J. N. Darby, entitled “An Inquiry into the Antichrist of Prophecy.” The author, who, we suppose, was chiefly instrumental in bringing these deeply interesting and important subjects afresh before the minds of the Lord’s people in all their bearings, at first took them to be the same individual; but his more matured judgment was that they were not. As this point does not seem clear to some, we might suggest it as a further subject of Scripture research, and should be glad to hear from others briefly on the matter.
We are not prepared to endorse all that our correspondent F. M. H. says as to the seventh head (Rev. 17.). We have always considered that to be past, possibly Napoleon Bonaparte. We leave this, however, to the spiritual judgment of our readers.
Nor do we think that the abomination of desolation is set up in confederacy with the Assyrian. This latter is rather the rod of Jehovah’s anger for the chastisement of the Jewish nation in consequence of the terrible idolatry introduced by-and-by through the instrumentality of the Antichrist in league with the Roman prince. All three are alluded to in the last verse of Daniel 9., which may be rendered as follows: “And he (i.e., the Roman prince) shall confirm a covenant with the many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and on account of the overspreading of abominations (i.e., the idolatry introduced by Antichrist), there shall be a desolator (i.e., the Assyrian), even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate (i.e., Jerusalem).
A fourth personage who will appear upon the scene at the end has been perhaps somewhat lost sight of viz., the king of the south (Egypt).