There is not in the world, nor has ever been, a system in which there is less that recalls Christ, and more that anticipates Antichrist, than the Papal system. And one may say so while acknowledging the debt that all Christians owe to the Romish Church, and while hoping that it may somehow in God's grace repent and reform. It would ill become us, however, to close the study of so serious a subject with the censure of others. The mere discovery that we have here to do with a law of moral development, and with a supreme and final type of evil, should put us rather upon self-scrutiny. The character of our Lord Jesus Christ is the supreme and final type of good; it shows us the end to which the Christian life conducts those who follow it. The character of the man of sin shows the end of those who obey not His gospel. They become, in their resistance to Him, more and more identified with sin; their antagonism to God settles into antipathy, presumption, defiance; they become gods to themselves, and their doom is sealed. This picture is set here for our warning. We cannot of ourselves see the end of evil from the beginning; we cannot tell what selfishness and wilfulness come to, when they have had their perfect work; but God sees, and it is written in this place to startle us, and fright us from sin. "Take heed, brethren, lest haply there shall be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief, in falling away from the living God: but exhort one another day by day, so long as it is called To-day; lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin." [26] There are indications of such a thing in various words of Jesus. "Many false prophets shall arise, and shall lead many astray. And because iniquity shall be multiplied, the love of the many shall wax cold."--Matt. xxiv. 11f. "There shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect."--Matt. xxiv. 24. "When the Son of Man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?"--Luke xviii. 8. What answers to these in St. Paul's writings we see in Acts xx. 29f.; Eph. iv. 14; 1 Tim. iv. 1. But these passages belong to the very latest years in his life, and they are not connected with any such anticipations as are characteristic of the Thessalonian Apocalypse. The history of the Church, as Paul foresaw it, did not include in itself a phenomenon which could be described as ἡ ἀποστασία. [27] A conspectus of the historical interpretations, most of which are really applications, of this passage, is given in most commentaries. The fullest is Lünemann's, which is followed by Alford. Farrar's Appendix is briefer. IV. _THE RESTRAINT AND ITS REMOVAL._