Indeed this should make them that are concerned in that anger afraid.  But what terror is there in all this to those for the pleading of whose cause he is so angry with the other?  Nothing whereat the innocent should be afraid.

Cold blasts in November are not received with such gentleness as are colder in March and April; for that these last cold ones are but the farewell notes of a piercing winter; they also bring with them the signs and tokens of a jomfortable summer.  Why, 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 surely drawing towards his downfall.  And though the devil, knowing what is to be done to him and to his kingdom, shall so blind his disciples and fright the godly, and do something like it upon the church of Christ, yet we should look through these paper windows, and espy in all this that fear, yea, certain terrible judgments, are following 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.  Amen.

Hope of antichrist’s destruction.

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; and writes to them that were then in her, to acquaint them that he remembered them still, and would assuredly deliver them from that place and state.  And wherefore doth he thus, but to beget an expectation in them of their salvation and deliverance?  The Lord is so pleased with the faith and expectation of his people as to this, that they seldom are herein concerned as they should, but he steps in with them and warms their hearts.  The reason is, because the faith of God’s people as to the downfall of Babylon, stands upon so sure a foundation as doth the salvation of their souls; and that next to that, God is as much delighted in what he has purposed to do against Babylon, as in any thing else in the earth:  and therefore, if you consider it well, the great and glorious promises that are to be fulfilled on earth, are to be fulfilled when antichrist is dead and buried.  These dainties are too good even for his children to have, so long as this dog is by, lest he should snatch at the crumbs thereof; wherefore they are reserved until he is gone.  Jer. 19:  31, 32.

Effects of antichrist’s destruction.

It shall be done unto antichrist as he hath done to the church of God.  As he hath made women childless, so shall he be made childless; as he has made Zion sit upon the ground, so now must this wicked one come down to sit in the dust; yea, as he has made many churches desolations, so now shall he lie also made a desolation.  Wherefore, whoso will find his body, must look for it in the side of the pit’s mouth; and whoso will find his friends and companions, must look for them there likewise.