By "many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many," is meant the introduction into the Church of false doctrines concerning Him, by which the faith of the people would be led astray. Wars and rumours of wars, denote disagreements and disputes concerning those truths which belong to the Church, from which falsifications will arise and be established. And by nation rising against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, is signified evil contending with evils, and falsehood with falsehoods. In the perverted Church evils are as a spiritual nation, and falsehood as a spiritual kingdom; among these there cannot be any concord, and this is the reason why the Church has been divided, and why so many heresies have existed. Famines, pestilences, and earthquakes, denote the deprivation of truth and goodness, the presence of falsehood, and thereby the disruption of the Church. Hence those particulars are described as the beginning of sorrows. It is also said that the disciples are to be delivered up to be afflicted and be killed. By the disciples are meant all the principles of genuine faith and life which lead a man to acknowledge and follow the Lord; to afflict them is to pervert them, and to kill them is to deny their efficacy and use. The Lord said they should be hated of all nations for my name's sake, because of the aversion and contempt with which spiritual truth and goodness would be treated. For many to be afflicted, to betray one another, and hate one another, denotes the enmities which would exist on account of such perversions of the Word. To be offended, means to turn away from true doctrine concerning the Lord: of this it is expressly written that it would be "for a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel.[1] To betray, denotes the teaching of what is false; and to hate, the manifesta-
