When God came from Egypt with his people to set up his kingdom in Canaan, he cast out the heathen before them, in order thereunto: "Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt; thou hast cast out the heathen and planted it." Wherefore antichrist must be removed and destroyed for this; for antichrist is in flat opposition to Christ, as Tibni was to Omri; wherefore antichrist must die. The reason is, because Christ's kingdom shall be peaceable, without molestation, and glorious without the fumes and fogs of antichristian darkness. Because also, as the world has seen the manner of the reign of antichrist, and how tyrannical and outrageous a kingdom his is; so they shall see the reign of Christ by his word and Spirit in his people, how peaceable, how fruitful in blessedness and prosperity his kingdom is. And hence it is, that God purposes to bury antichrist before he sets glory in the land of the living; as also you read in the book of Revelation, for there you find the kingdom of antichrist was destroyed before the new Jerusalem was set up. When men intend to build a new house, if in the place where the old one stood, they first pull down the old one and raze the foundation, and then they begin their new. Now God, as I said, will have his primitive church-state set up in this world, even where antichrist has set up; wherefore, in order to this, antichrist must be pulled down, stick and stone; and then they that live to see it, will behold the new Jerusalem come down from heaven, as a bride adorned for her husband. TIME OF ANTICHRIST'S DESTRUCTION. The time of her fall is not certainly known by the saints, nor at all believed by her; wherefore her plagues must come unlooked for by her. And as to the saints, their guesses as to the time of her ruin must needs be conjectural and uncertain. For her part, she shall say, and that when she stands where she must suddenly fall, "I shall be a lady for ever." Nor have I been without thought but that this mistake of the godly may become a snare to antichrist, and a trap to her upholders. For what can be a greater judgment, or more effectually harden the hearts of the wicked, than for them to behold that the predictions, prophecies, expectations, and hopes of their enemies as to their ruin, should quite, as to the time, be frustrate and made void?