ON THE SIGNS THAT ARE TO PRECEDE THE LAST JUDGMENT.
TWENTY-SIXTH SERMON.
ON THE COMING AND THE CRUELTY OF ANTICHRIST.
Subject.
First, who shall Antichrist be, and what is he to do in the world? Secondly, what should our thoughts now be regarding this? Preached on the twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost.
Text.
Statim autem post tribulationem dierum illorum, sol obscuralitur, et luna non dabit lumen suum.—Matt. xxiv. 29.
“And immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light.”
Introduction.
Terrible are the signs of which to-day’s Gospel speaks as forerunners of the day of general judgment, the last day of the world. There shall be many such signs, some of which are to appear a long time beforehand, while others shall immediately precede the final catastrophe. Of the former class are those we have already known and experienced; such as the destruction of the Jewish nation: a people now without faith or king or commonwealth; the conversion of the heathens to the true religion, which has been already preached and accepted in all parts of the globe; the persecution of the Church by so many heretics as precursors of Antichrist; and besides these we have seen wars, famines, pestilences, earthquakes, the increase of wickedness and sin, men growing cold in the love of God, the want of rever-
