Bookshelf/ Vol.I / Vol. IV. Part VI. Contents. Chapter I. 1. 2. 3. II. 1. 2. 3. III. 1. 2. 3. IV. 1. 2. V. 1. 2. Appendix I. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. II. 1a. 1b. 2a. 2b. 2c. 3. 4. III 1. 2a. 2b.

PERIOD 6. FROM THE END OF THE ĘRA AND CENTURY OF THE

REFORMATION, ABOUT A.D. 1610, TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

The century and ęra of the great Reformation had past: - that Reformation on gospel principles of which Pierre d’Olive had expressed his expectation as a probable final testing to the Romish Church; in order, by her rejection of it, to justify even before men her divinely doomed utter destruction. [1] And so the now separated powers of Protestantism and Popery, in professing Christendom, stood face to face in opposition; with their armory and weapons of argument, as well as of political force, outdrawn, or preparing against each other. Among which of course was the argument from prophetic SS, specially of the Apocalypse, which both parties professed to receive as divinely inspired: and which, according to its own opening words, as well as according to the early Christian Fathers’ acceptation of them, was to be regarded as God’s prefiguration of the things destined after St. John’s time to befall the Church and the world; and consequently as involving his view and judgment respecting them. - Long had this been lost sight of. For 700 or 800 years after the fall of the old Roman empire the Apocalyptic prophecy had been expounded, we have seen, as if little more than a repetition of mere general common-place enunciations respecting the world’s wickedness, the Church’s sufferings, and God’s consequent judgments, under the form of a store-house of figures in which the expositor’s fancy might luxuriate without check or limit: [2] without any definite prediction of coming events, anything of chronological order and succession in the predictions; any possibility of a gathering from them of the lessons of real prophecy; any possibility of a gathering from them of the lessons of real prophecy as to the things which already had been, since St. John’s seeing the visions in Patmos, or the things which were still to be thereafter. [3]

So, I say, it was through seven centuries of the middle age; till at length, about A.D. 1200, Joachim Abbas opened the way, however imperfectly, to its explanation, as a foreshadowing, distinctly and definitely, of the history of the Church and world from Apostolic times to the time then present, and still beyond it: - an opening followed up with more light, both spiritual and intellectual, and better advantage, though still very imperfectly, by the expositors of the ęra, in its foreshadowing's: - I mean, 1st, the glorious sudden light-bearing descent of the covenant-Angel, with the opened gospel in his hand, Apoc. x., just in the deepest and most hopeless state, as prophetically depicted, of Christendom under the 6th Trumpet of the judgment of horsemen from the Euphrates, which they could not but construe very generally of the Euphratean Turks; [4] a vision including the oath that but one more Trumpet remained to be sounded ere the consummation: [5] 2ndly, the predictions concerning the Roman seven-headed Beast, or Papal Antichrist, and Christ’s true Church, and its destined persecutions and sufferings under him: 3rdly, concerning the sackcloth-robed Witnesses raised up to protest against it; all for apparently the same mystic period, however and whencesoever to be measured, of 1260 days, 42 months, or 3 1/2 times. [6] It was just as Tertullian, in the time of the early Christians’ persecution under Pagan Rome, had seized on the true intent of the 5th Seal’s vision of the souls under the altar, with a kind of special instinct, as specially concerning them; [7] and the Constantinian expositors of the 4th century had specially and instinctively seized on the prophecy of the Dragon’s dejection in Apoc. xii., as meant of them and their ęra. [8] And this strongly of course helped to strengthen the conviction in the minds of the Reformers of the whole prophecy being indeed, when rightly understood, a prophecy definitely historical; and, with the master hand of divine philosophy, picturing in it the intermixed fortunes of the Church and the world from St. John’s time to the consummation.

But much beyond this they progressed not. On the fundamental point of the structure of the Apocalypse, and order and relationship of its several parts, they held the most diverse opinions. Did the seven-sealed Book contain in itself the whole of the Apocalyptic predictions, or but a part? Were the Seals, Trumpets, and Vials chronologically continuous, the one set of figurations chronologically following the other in what they prefigured? or were they of range chronologically parallel; each reaching to the consummation? Had the killing and resurrection of the Witnesses been yet fulfilled; or were they events still future? Were the figurations always definite figuring's of the ęra symbolized; or sometimes mystically; and, if so, whether on the year-day principle of measure, or what other; and whence moreover to be measured, and when terminated? Again, finally, what of the 1000 years of Satan’s binding, told of in Apoc. xx.; and, if already fulfilled, or fulfilling, how to be reconciled with the other statements in the prophecy? On all these points opinions the most different had been expressed by the Reformers; the questions remained sub judice (that is, ‘not yet legally decided’), the difficulties unsolved. [9] They were problems, apparently, for the Protestant interpreters of the next age; that of which I am not to speak.

Our 6th Section of the History of Apocalyptic Interpretation opens naturally with Mede in England, Pareus’ immediate successor, and from him passes to Jurieu the French Protestant: then (after brief notice of the anti-Protestant expositors, though themselves Protestant, Hammond and Grotius) to Cressener, Vitringa, and Daubuz, as the next expositors of chief repute among Protestants, and Bossuet among Roman Catholics; then next to Sir Isaac Newton, Whiston, and Bishop Newton; the last-mentioned a summarizer of the most generally received Protestant prophetic views at an epoch immediately prior to the French Revolution.

1 Mede. - It was in 1627 that Mede first published his Clavis Apocalyptica, in 1632 his Commentary; the former laying down from internal evidence (independent of any particular historic system of explanation) the “synchronisms” and mutual relationships of the several parts of the prophecy; the latter his historical explanation, conformably with those synchronisms. The reputation of these works, especially in England, is well known. He was looked on, and written of, as a man almost inspired for the solution of the Apocalyptic mysteries. And certainly of his general discernment and theological learning, as well as of that which he brought to bear on prophecy, there might well be entertained a high opinion. Yet, if it be permitted to express freely my judgment on so great a man, I must say that I think his success was at first over-estimated as an Apocalyptic Expositor. For if on various points he much advanced the science, especially as regards his principle of inferring the structure of the prophecy from its own internal evidence, prior to any historical application, and thence laying down of its synchronisms and the mutual relationship of its several parts, (the place of the millennium of Satan’s binding inclusive,) and last (scarce least) his appending of a Tabular Scheme of the Prophecy, according to his view of arrangement and connection of its parts, - an appendage attached by him to his Commentary first I believe of Apocalyptic Expositors, and without which, in my opinion, no Apocalyptic Commentary can be complete, - while, I say, on these points, and certain historical illustrations also of the prophecy, he advanced the science of Apocalyptic interpretation, on others I conceive him to have caused it very materially to retrograde. So, above all, in regard of his idea, prominently marked in the Tabular Scheme, of the Apocalypse having been divided into two separate Parts, written respectively in two separate Books; viz. 1st, the seven-sealed Book given into the hand of the Lamb to open, (Apoc. v. 7, “ And he came and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne”); 2ndly, the Little Book given opened into the hand of St. John by the Covenant Angel, (Apoc. x. 9-11, “And I went unto the angel, and said unto him, Give me the little book. And he said unto me, Take it, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey. 10: And I took the little book out of the angel's hand, and ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey: and as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter. 11: And he said unto me, Thou must prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings.”), each having a general parallelism of chronology with the other, and each its own proper synchronisms.* On this more as I proceed.

* It may be well to append a list of these his Apocalyptic synchronisms; a notice being added where Mede seems to me to have been in error: -

1. The 3 1/2 times, 42 months, or 1260 days, of the women’s being in the wilderness, the ten-horned resuscitated Beast’s reigning, the outer court of the temple being trod by Gentiles, and Christ’s two witnesses witnessing in sackcloth.

2.The coincident duration  of the ten-horned Beast and the two-horned of Apoc. xiii. (Qu. in Mede‘s sense ?)

3.Ditto of the ten-horned Beast and mystic Babylon.

4.Ditto of the 144,000 of Apoc. vii and xiv. with the above.

5.Of the time of the inner temple-court’s measuring, Apoc. xi., and of the Dragon’s War with the travailing woman, Apoc. xii. (Qu. ?)

6.Of the Seven Vials, and Babylon’s and the Beast’s verging to destruction.

7.Of the 7th Seal, and 7 Trumpets evolving it, with the ten-horned and two horned Beasts of Apoc. xiii. (Qu. ?) Mede dates the rise of the ten-horned Beast too early, I conceive, viz. from the time of Alaric’s capture of Rome, figured in Trumpet 1.

8.Of the measuring of the inner temple Court, (as also, according to synchronism 5, of the Dragon’s war with the travailing Woman,) with the six first Seals. In order to this the Dragon’s war with Michael and the woman must be regarded as extending to the whole two centuries of the war of Christianity and Heathenism in the Roman empire, between St. John’s time and Constantine: not as that of the last crisis of the war.

9.Of the seven vials with Trumpet 6. - A manifest error, I conceive; and in marked inconsistency with Mede’s own view of the 7th Seal as unfolded in the 7 Trumpets; a view which suggests the similar evolution of the 7th Trumpet in the 7 Vials.

10.Of the millennium of Satan’s binding, Christ’s reign, and also the New Jerusalem, and Palmbearers’ ovation, with the 7th Trumpet, after the Beast’s destruction: (Rather with the concluding ęra of the 7th Trumpet.)

11.The speedy sequence of the things figured in the first Seal on, or after, the time of the revelation of the visions to St. John in Patmos. “I will show thee the things which must shortly come to pass.”

The Tabular Scheme of his views copied from his own Book on my next page, (itself, as I said, the first of its kind, and so of the more especial value,) combined and compared with the observations on them scattered through the Horę, will do away with the necessity of entering into them so much in detail as might otherwise have been desirable. In general he considered the 6 first Seals to be a figuration of the successive fortunes of heathen Rome, after St. John down to the overthrow of heathenism in it by Constantine; then the Trumpets to be the unfolding of the 7th Seal, and figuring of the subsequent history of the Roman world and Christian Church to the consummation: a most important, and I doubt not true, view of the structure of that part of the prophecy. More particularly the 1st Seal is supposed by him to depict the early gospel victories; the 2nd, the wars of Trajan and Hadrian; the 3rd, the severe justice, and procurations of corn, notable in the reigns of the two Severi; the 4th, the famine pestilence and murderous wars of the ęra of Gallienus; the 5th, Diocletian’s persecution; the 6th, the overthrow of Paganism and its empire by Constantine. - Again of the Trumpets, the 1st is explained of Alaric; the 2nd of the Gothic and Vandal desolations of the Empire, that followed, down to Genseric; the 3rd of the extinction of the Hesperus, or Western Empire, by Odoacer; the 4th, of the ravages of Totilas, whereby imperial Rome received its last desolations; the 5th, of the Saracens; the 6th, of the Turks. - In most of which particulars I conceive Mede to have made advances to the true interpretation: adjusting the 5th and 6th Seals, as he did, to the times respectively of Diocletian and Constantine, not of Claudius and Diocletian like Brightman; while following Brightman mainly in the exposition (the heathen Rome-referring exposition ) of the four Seals previous: [10] also in the four earlier Trumpets, instead of Brightman’s “contention, ambition, heresy, and war,” his applying the emblems to prefigure the successive epochs in the Goth’s desolations and overthrow of the Western Empire. In the evolution, however, of the particular details he seems to me unsuccessful: the one third of the four first Trumpets having no definite explanation; and the land, sea, and rivers being expounded loosely and figuratively, so as I have stated in my Vol. i. pp. 354, 355. The two prophetic periods in the fifth and sixth Trumpets are explained by him, as are all the other prophetic periods, consistently on the year-day principle: - the locusts’ 150 days of the ravages of the Saracens on the Italian coast from A.D. 830-980: (a solution certainly anything but happy; forasmuch as all the main strength of the Saracens had in 830 past away: [11] ) the Euphratean horsemen’s hour day month and year, more happily, of the 396 years’ interval, from the Turkman’s investiture with the sword by the Caliph at Bagdad, A.D. 1057, to the destruction of Constantinople, A.D. 1453. [12] In his reference of the smoke and sulphur of the sixth Trumpet to the Turkish cannon, he well, in my judgment, follows Brightman: explaining the figures definitely, and according to the analogy of Scripture prophecies, from visible appearances: and he adds too, as confirmative of the meaning of the emblem in the fifth Trumpet, a notice from Pliny of the flowing hair of the Saracens, on the same interpretative principle; [13] a principle often greatly helpful towards the discovery and confirmation of the truth.

But now comes what seems to me, as before observed, to have been a most unfortunate step of retrogradation in Mede’s Commentary; [14] viz. his explanation of the little book in Apoc. x., not as the gospel book opened to the world, in the times, when somewhat advanced, of the Euphratean or Turkish Woe, so as, according to the earlier reforming Fathers, at the Reformation, but as a book of (somewhat as by Brightman before him) new and distinct prophecy from that of the seven-sealed book: the Covenant-Angel’s descent and lion-like cry, the seven answering thunders, the Angel’s oath, and the giving John the book to eat, being acts merely introductory to, and the ushering in of, this new prophecy. “The former prophecy,” says Mede, “was of the fates of the Roman Empire; this, by far nobler, of the fates of religion and the Church.” Hence, besides a departure from all simplicity of Apocalyptic arrangement, [15] the setting aside of that which had been the most striking as well as most true feature in the Protestant Commentaries of the preceding ęra; viz. the application of the vision of the Covenant-Angel’s descent, with John’s prophesying again, and his measuring of the temple, more or less to the great Protestant Reformation. Reasons Mede gives none; except that the charge, “Thou must prophesy again,” indicated a new prophecy: that which assuredly the word prophesy need not indicate: [16] and which involves too the setting aside of the representative character of St. John; a view so early taken, so long cherished, and so excellently applied by the Reformers on this particular passage, though never indeed fully carried out. Unfounded, however, as was Mede’s view of this vision, and of the little book, it has been repeated and perpetuated by Apocalyptic Expositors, to the great obscuration of the Apocalypse, even to the present day. [17] - The fact was, I little doubt, that Mede saw the need of some Book or Chart, separate from that on which the series of Seals and Trumpets were outstretched, on which to have visibly written the evidently chronological parallel term (in his view) of the 1260 years’ visions; and, seeing nothing else in the prophecy that could by any possibility be turned to his purpose, seized on the Little Book of Apoc. x. for it. How was it that he did not see that the very fact of its being given to St. John opened, not to open, precluded the idea of its being a prophecy to be unfolded in the chapters subsequent; and that to the Lamb alone belonged the honor of unfolding the events of the coming future? - I might add, how was it that he overlooked the simple obvious fact of the Apocalyptic prophecy being said to be written without, as well as within; so offering the exact thing that he wanted. See my own Apocalyptic Chart of the writing within and without prefixt to this Commentary. But, very strangely, the thought of this seems never to have occurred to any one but myself. The prophecy of the little Book thus introduced, Mede begins its development by the very singular interpretations, first of John’s measuring of the inner court and temple, then of his casting out of the outer-court and not measuring it, as indicating two chronologically successive states of the Church of lengths proportional, [18] the first the more primitive Church of the first three or four centuries, (answering chronologically to the period of the six first seals,) which was conformed to the rule of God’s word; the second that which succeeded, and was in character gentilized and apostate. With which latter coincide, according to him the 1260 days, or years, of Christ’s two Witnesses’ prophesying in sackcloth; the two signifying many,  or sufficient at least to keep up a valid testimony.- So Mede comes to the clause, Apoc. xi. 7, “When they shall have completed,” or, as he renders it, “when they shall be about finishing, their testimony, the Beast shall kill them,” &c.: a passage which he construes as predicting what was still in his time future; and that which would immediately precede the fall of Papal Rome. For the tenth part of the city, whose fall is mentioned immediately after the Witnesses’ resurrection and ascension, (ascent to political eminence, says Mede,) is made by him to mean the whole city of modern Rome, as being in size but the tenth part of ancient Rome. A curious notion; and which he illustrates by an ichnographical plate, exhibiting the comparative local extent of the two cities.

In Apoc. xii. the vision of the Woman and Dragon is explained (I doubt not truly explained retrogressively) of Constantine’s war with, and overthrow of, the Roman Pagan Emperors and Paganism. - In Apoc. xiii. and xvii. the first Beast is the Papal Secular Empire, or Decem-regal Body of Western Christendom, [19] under the Pope, as the Beast’s last ruling head: [20] the five heads of the old Roman Empire, that had fallen in St. John’s time, being Kings, Consuls, Dictators, Decembirs, and military Tribunes, so as they had been interpreted by Fulke, Foxe, and others; the 6th, or head reigning when St. John saw the vision, the Imperial Cęsars; (Caesars then Pagan, but destined in time to be changed into Christian Cęsars, which last might be reckoned a new head to the Beast, says Mede, or might not; [21] ) the seventh the Popes; the Beast’s deadly wound having remained unhealed in passing from the sixth to the seventh or last head. [22] As to the Beast’s destined duration, it was that of 1260 days, or 1260 years, measured from the Gothic desolations of ancient Rome. The second Beast was the Pope patriarchally viewed, and Papal clergy: [23] the image of the Beast the first Beast itself, or secular decem-regal Empire; as being (if I rightly understand Mede) but the shadow and revived ghost of the old imperial Roman Empire, or Beast under its sixth head. [24] The Beast’s name and number is Aateinov.- In Apoc. xiv. the first flying Angel Mede makes to be Vigilantius and the early iconoclastic Emperors; the second, the Waldenses; the third, Luther. - In Apoc. xvi. the Vials, which he considers to figure the destruction of Antichrist, are, 1st, the wound given to the Popedom by the Waldenses, Wicliffites, and Hussites; 2nd, Luther’s secession and protest; 3rd, Queen Elizabeth’s secession and protest; these three Vials being past, the rest future. Of which last the fourth, on the sun, would be on the German Emperor, as chief luminary in the Papal Imperial system; and, while I write, says Mede, news is brought of a Prince from the north (meaning Gustavus Adolphus) gaining victories over the Emperor, in defense of the afflicted German Protestants: the 5th Vial, that on the seat of the Beast, meaning one on Rome; the 6th, that of the drying up of the Euphratean flood, the exhaustion of the Turkish Empire; [25] by the which the way of the Jews from the East would be prepared: the 7th and last, on the air, being one on Satan’s power, as the Prince of the power of the air.

Finally, as all know, the millennium is construed by Mede, like as by the oldest patristic expositors, Irenęus, Justin Martyr, &c., as a binding of Satan on Christ’s second coming: - a mighty step of change this from the long long-continued explanation of the symbol as meant of his 1000 years’ binding from Christ’s time, or Constantine’s: [26] the first resurrection being the literal resurrection of the saints, fulfilled also on Christ’s coming and Antichrist’s destruction before it. As to the New Jerusalem, Mede regards it as of millennial chronology; at least in its commencement. [27]

2. Jurieu.

It was in 1685, just after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, that Jurieu, who was one of the exiled French Calvinists ministers, published his work on the Apocalypse: [28] a work mainly based on Mede’s views; but with various new particular applications to his own time and country. [29] A brief notice of these will suffice.

In the Seals Jurieu only differs from Mede by expounding the first Seal not of Christ, but of a Roman subject, and Roman emperors; [30] (viz. of Vespasian’s and Titus’s victories and general prosperity;) this consisting well with Mede’s explanation, which Jurieu adopts, of the horses and horsemen of the three next Seals, as having reference to the times of the Roman emperors Hadrian, Severus, and Gallienus, respectively. The 5th and 6th Seals are explained by him of the times of Diocletian and Constantine.

In the Trumpets, while otherwise following Mede, Jurieu improves on him by expounding the fallen star in the 3rd Trumpet that made bitter the third part of the rivers, not of the extinction of the Western Empire by Odoacer, but of a certain part of the Gothic ravages of Western Christendom: (viz. of those in the provinces, which were like the empire’s rivers; Rome and Italy being as the sea:) the extinction of the Western Emperors being symbolized by the darkening of the heavenly lights in the 4th Trumpet. [31] The 5th and 6th Trumpets he explains, after Mede, of the Saracens and Turks.

The little book, in the hand of the iris-crowned Angel, Apoc. x., he interprets with Mede as a new prophecy: and adopts the idea too thrown out by our English expositor, that as the unmeasured state of the court, or Church, was to be for 3 1/2 times, i.e. 1260 years, so the proportion of the Jewish temple proper to the court indicated the Church’s previous better and measured state to be about 360 years; an indication agreeable with fact. [32] The Beast moreover he explains like Mede: making its 7th head to be Papal Antichrist; and the possible two-fold division of the 6th or imperial head into Pagan and Christian emperors, to be the solution of the enigma of the last being both the 8th and the 7th.

In his 12th Chapter, on the Witnesses, Jurieu expresses his opinion that the last persecution of Christ’s people had commenced in the year 1655, “when the Duke of Savoy undertook to destroy the faithful of the valleys of Piedmont;” and which had, when he wrote, “already lasted 30 years.” This was followed in 1671 by “the persecution of the Churches of Silesia, Moravia, Hungary;” and then, in 1685, by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. In which last act he considers the death of the two Apocalyptic Witnesses to have begun at least to have fulfillment: their prefigured resurrection being anticipated by him either in 3 1/2 years from that date, or 3 1/2 years from some further act of the same persecution, as extended perhaps to the Waldenses, or other Protestant Christians: [33] an act such as might furnish a kind of extended commencing date to the 3 1/2 mystic days of the Witnesses lying dead in the street of the great Papal city, or empire; i.e. as he judged, in France. [34] which would fall from the Popedom by embracing the Reformation. After this, some time might probably elapse in order to the full effect of the exposure of Antichrist: and thus the epoch of the fall of the Popedom might probably occur about A.D. 1710 or 1715; this being the end of the 1260 years, as computed from A.D. 450 or 455. [35]

In the details of the Vials Jurieu altogether deserts Mede and other expositors; though agreeing with Mede in placing them mainly under the 6th Trumpet. [36] “I am persuaded,” he adds, “that God hath heard and answered the very ardent desire which I have had to pierce, penetrate, into these profound mysteries; to the end that I might descry, (that is, to discover by observation and investigation of) the deliverance of his Church.” [37] So, the Vials generally being regarded by him as “the steps by which the Babylonish (or Papal) empire passes to come to its ruin,” [38] the 1st Vial is explained by him as the gross corruption of Popery, and the sudden, violent eruption of its sores, in the 10th century: Vials 2 and 3 figured the bloodshedding in the earlier and later crusades: Vial.4 was the intolerable scorching of the Papal despotism, from the 11th to the 14th century: Vial 5, on the seat of the Beast, was the transference of the Pope’s residence from Rome to Avignon: Vial 6 was the drying up, as it were, of the Bosphorus, before the Turks, and their consequent overthrow of Constantinople and Eastern Christendom which Bosphorus had been previously the Eastern barrier to Greek Christendom, so as had been the Euphrates in old times to the Roman Empire: Vial 7 was the earthquake of the Reformation; the great City, or Papal Christendom, being after it divided into the three divisions of Papists, Lutherans, and Reformed; for as to the English Church, since it was in communion with the Reformed, it could not be considered a fourth division. [39] - As to the time remaining after this, before the final judgment on Babylon, it could not, added Jurieu, be long. “The 7th Vial hath already lasted longer than any of the rest; and it is probably that it must last about 200 years [i.e. from 1517.] But the reason of this is that this 7th period is itself divided into three other periods, the harvest, the vintage, and the time that is betwixt the harvest and the vintage. The harvest is already past; [40] the time betwixt the harvest and the vintage is almost expired. We are approaching the vintage; and at this day ought to say, Come, Lord Jesus, Come.” [41]

On the millennium Jurieu, like Mede, shows that it never yet had had fulfillment; and anticipated from it a reign of the saints on earth, the Jews’ restoration, and fulfillment concurrently of the prophecies of the blessedness of the latter day in the Old Testament. He also decidedly inclines to think that the first resurrection is a literal resurrection of the departed saints; then at length to take part in the glory of the manifested kingdom of Christ.

3. I turn to Jurieu’s English contemporary, Dr. Cressner.

During the reigns of Charles the 2nd and James the 2nd, now just ended, a mighty change had come over the spirit of the dream, at least among the ministers and adherents of the established Church of England, from that which had rested on the minds, and dictated the acts, of the founders and chief ornaments of that Church in the century of the Reformation. The religion of Rome had become not only fashionable at court, but the religion covertly or avowedly of the reigning kings themselves. Moreover, the sufferings of the episcopal clergy during the 15 years’ ascendancy of Cromwell and the Puritans had tended to make them look on the latter as their nearest and principal enemy; and, by a consequence not unnatural, to regard Popery with less of disfavor, and sometimes even with the thought and desire for friendly approximation and union. This feeling could not have its effect on the current view of the prophecies in Daniel and the Apocalypse, which had been hitherto by the Reformers, like German, Swiss, and English, applied undoubtedly to the Roman Popedom. By the celebrated Dutch scholar and politician Grotius, and by our English Dr. Hammond, a pręterist view was adopted of the Apocalyptic prophecy about the Beast and his great city Babylon, very like Alcasar’s; [42] referring it all to the old Pagan Roman city and empire. Dr. Cressener himself, writing in the year 1690, strongly speaks of the change: (I subjoin the passage, [43] as well worth perusal:) and tells moreover how the very study of those prophecies had in consequence fallen into disfavor. [44]

His own Book, which was first published in 1690, and is dedicated to the Queen Mary, then reigning with her consort William of Orange, is entitled “A Demonstration of the first Principles of the Protestant Applications of the Apocalypse,” and well answers to its title. Its one grand subject is the Apocalyptic Beast of Apoc. xiii. and xvii. And in a series of connected propositions he incontrovertibly establishes, against Alcasar and Bellarmine, that the Apocalyptic Babylon is not Rome Pagan, as it existed under the old Pagan Emperors; nor Rome Paganised at the end of the world, as Ribera and Malvenda would have it to be; but Rome Papal, as existing from the 6th century. For, he argues, it is Rome idolatrous and antichristian, as connected with the Beast or Roman Empire in its last form, and under its last head; [45] which last head is the seventh head revived, after its deadly wound with a sword: with and under which the Beast exists all through the time of the old empire into ten kingdoms, until Christ’s second coming to take the kingdom The 6th, or imperial head ruling in St. John’s time, must, he argues, have fallen at the latest at the time of Herulian chief Odoacer, and Ostrogothic king Theodoric, reigning in the 5th century. [46] And he concludes (though here, I conceive, exception might be taken against him) that the 7th head was the Herulian and Ostrogothic, which continued but a short time: the 8th being the revived secular imperial, confederated with a Roman ecclesiastical head, somewhat as under the old emperors; [47] i.e. the secular Western emperors combined with the Popes. And he suggests Justinian’s ęra as that of the commencement of the last head. [48] The image of the Beast he makes to be the Roman Church, the name Aareinov. [49] The death of the two Witnesses, caused by the Beast, he explains, after Jurieu, as probably occurring at the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and the nearly contemporary expulsion of the Waldenses. [50]

Altogether Cressener’s book must be regarded as an important accession to the Protestant cause, and Protestant argument, against the Romanists.

4. Bossuet.

The Apocalyptic Comment of this Roman Catholic Prelate deserves the more attention from us, as being written by one who is, I believe, confessedly the ablest as well as the most eloquent of controversialists on the Papal side; and written by him, deliberately and avowedly, in order to wrest out of the hands of Protestants a weapon used so often and so powerfully by them against his Church. And when in 1685, just after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, M. Jurieu, one of the exiled French Calvinist Ministers, had published that work on the Apocalyptic prophecy, of which I have just given an abstract, the Bishop of Meaux thought it well to take up the matter; and to apply his great talents to the drawing up of an Exposition, such as might be conformable with the dogmas and requirements of the Romish faith, and sufficiently strong and solid (so he expected) to withstand the criticism of Protestants. [51] - I now proceed to give a sketch of it. It is framed very much more on Alcasar’s plan, and that of Grotius and Hammond who had followed Alcasar; not Ribera’s i.e. [52] on that of the pręterists, not of the futurists. The grand subject of the prophecy he conceives to be the triumph of Christianity over Judaism and Paganism: - i.e. over Paganism as established by the Roman empire; and, in the Jewish part, with reference only to the later calamities of the Jews, not to the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus. For as Bossuet judged the Apocalypse to have been written under Domitian, that destruction by Titus had happened, in his opinion, before the giving of the Apocalypse. - The details are as follows.

The six first Seals exhibit the subject in the general. There is 1st Christ’s moving forth as a conqueror; then, in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Seals, his judgments of war, famine, and pestilence, on the enemies of Christianity; then, in the 5th Seal, persecutions of Christians, and the reason of God’s delay of judgments, viz. till the number of his martyrs be completed and his elect taken out from the infidels, wherever they might be hid: further, in the 6th, a picture of political convulsion and revolution; applicable, first, to the overthrow of the Jewish people; secondly, to that of the Roman empire; thirdly, to what the others might be considered in a manner typical of, that is, the general judgment.

Then to particulars. - After an illustration in the 7th chapter of what was said to Seal 5 of the cause of the delay of God’s judgments, by a representation of the sealing of such as were elect unto salvation among the Jews, and also of the salvation of Gentile martyrs innumerable, from out of the empire of Pagan Rome, [53] the first four Trumpets, according to Bossuet, thus depicted the progress of God’s judgments against the Jews. Trumpet 1 showed the primary victory over the Jews by Trajan; Trumpet 2, the victories over them by Adrian; Trumpet 3, and its following star, the impostor Barchochebas, (“son of a star,”) declaring himself the Messiah, and so stirring up his countrymen to the war; Trumpet 4, the obscuration of the Scriptures, especially of the prophetic Scriptures, (which were as luminaries to the Jews,) by the compilation of their Talmud: the subjects particularly obscured being Christ who is the sun, and the Church the moon. In all which Trumpets the third part, spoken of as affected, meant that not all the Jews would be killed, not all the light extinguished, &c. - Then the subject passed from the Jews; the 5th Trumpet being one of transition from the Jews to Jewish heresies and errors. For in Trumpet 5 the scorpion-locusts were Judaizing heresies introduced into the Christian Church about 196 A.D., soon after Adrian’s destruction of the Jews by Theodotus of Byzantium, and continued onwards to Artemon and Paul of Samosata; heresies concerning the Trinity and Christ’s Divinity: the commission not to kill, but only to torment, showing that this plague was not one of invading warrior-foes. [54] About A.D. 260 or 270 this woe passed away; the Council of Antioch A.D. 264 ending it. Then, just at that time, Trumpet 6 exhibited the woe of an invading enemy of horsemen from the Euphrates: viz. the Persians; who after a while overthrew, and took captive, the emperor Valerian.

In Apoc x., Bossuet, like Mede, makes the little book a prophecy; but only as the remainder of that of the seven-sealed Book, after the 6th Trumpet: the contents being developed in the chapters following. - Thus in Apoc. xi., after the measuring of the temple, or Church, by St. John, indicating that whatever the violence of persecution, there was a temple they could not destroy, - we have then first a general view of Christ’s witnesses and martyrs, during the persecutions of Pagan Rome; some (for example that of the emperor Valerian) lasting about 3 1/2 years: [55] though that particular term of time, or its equivalent 42 months, was used rather by borrowing from the history of the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes, or the drought under Elias; besides signifying a certain limit of time, ordained by God to one and all of them. Next, and when the Witnesses should have finished their testimony under Pagan Rome, there is the prophecy of Diocletian’s persecution of them, (Diocletian the Beast from the abyss,) and temporary suppression of the Christian worship, in the great city of Rome and the Roman empire; [56] followed, however, quickly by a figuration of the revival under Constantine: - the tenth of the great city falling, and 7000 slain, figurative of the overthrow of the Pagan emperors and forces; and the song in heaven, on the 7th Trumpet’s sounding, “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our God and of his Christ,” having reference to the establishment of Christianity then effected in the Roman empire. A more particular figuration of which, and of its consequences, followed in the next chapter. For the male-child of the travailing Woman, or Church, was Constantine and other Christian emperors succeeding him: the war of the Dragon against the Woman before her child-birth being that of the Diocletianic persecution; the war in heaven, immediately afterwards, that which ended in the fall of Paganism under Galerius and Maxentius; the floods cast out of the Dragon’s mouth, when the Woman was fleeing to the desert, that of Maximin; and the Dragon’s next war against the remnant of the Woman’s seed that of Licinius against Constantine. Then, in Apoc. xiii., came the figuring of the revival as it were of Diocletian (the Beast that had killed the Witnesses) in the apostate Julian; [57] though the 6th head wounded to death was Macimin; the second Beast, with two lamb-like horns, figuring Julian’s Pagan priests and philosophers, pretending to miracles and moral maxims like those of Christianity; the image of the Beast, images of Pagan gods made to speak oracles, &c., by the Pagan priesthood: while the Beast’s name and number (here, we see, Bossuet refers to the original, not the revived Beast) was Diocles Augustus.

Then in Apoc xiv. the prophecy proceeds to announce the fall of Rome and of the Roman empire, through the Gothic invasion. The harvest-judgment is that by Alaric; the vintage that by Attila.- The Vials trace out the same subject more particularly, and as beginning from an earlier date. The elkov of the 1st Vial was the great plague in the time of Valerian and Gallienus; the 2nd Vial figured the bleeding empire, as if dead; the 3rd, the civil wars and thirty tyrants; the 4th, the drought and famine of that period, commemorated by Cyprian; the 5th, Valerian’s defeat by the Persians; the 6th, the drying up of the Euphratean barrier, and opening of a passage into the empire to the kings from the East, i.e. the Persians; the frogs, the magicians, &c., who urged on Valerian to his fated Armageddon, i.e. the field of battle where he was captured by the Persians; the 7th, on the air, with its earthquake and hail, the capture of Rome by Alaric.

Yet again, Apoc. xvii. reveals other important points in this subject, more in detail. The Beast’s seven heads were Diocletian, Galerius, Maximian, Constantius, Chlorus, the four emperors in those joint names the first Edict of persecution went forth; together with Maxentius, Maximin, and Licinius, three persecuting emperors afterwards added. At the precise time to which the vision related, A.D. 312, five of these had fallen, viz. the first-mentioned four and Maxentius: one was, viz. Maximin: Licinius, the seventh, had not yet come; i.e. as a persecuting emperor. It was further said, “the eighth king is of the seven, and goes into perdition, This was Maximian; who was of the original four, but had abdicated; and then become emperor again. - (Julian is not here brought forward by Bossuet.) Further, in this chapter, (Apoc. xvii, 16, 17, “And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire. 17: For God hath put in their hearts to fulfill his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled.”), there was the very striking prophecy about the  

ten horns on the Beast. They were to give their power to the Beast till the words of God were fulfilled; yet to hate the Harlot, and tear her. So were the Goths, Vandals, &c., long admitted as soldiers into the Roman armies, and as allies into the Roman territory: (does not Bossuet here make the Beast to be Rome?) yet did they afterwards tear and desolate the Woman; i.e. ravage Rome and its empire. [58] - The millennium Bossuet explains as the period of the Church’s supremacy [59] until Antichrist’s short reign, on Satan’s loosing, near the end of the world: [60] the new heavens, new earth, and new Jerusalem, as figures of the saints’ heavenly glory. [61]

3. Vitringa is the next Apocalyptic Expositor that calls for our notice. He was Theological Professor in the Academy of Franeker for many years, till his death in 1722: and from that petty Dutch town, near the mouth of the Zuyder Zee, sent forth those masterly and learned works on Isaiah and the Apocalypse, which have always been regarded as placing him on a high rank among Biblical expositors. His Apocalyptic Commentary, under the title of Anakrisiv Apocalypseos, was first published at Franeker, A.D. 1705. My notices of it in the body of my work are frequent. Hence the less need of any extended sketch.

Alike the seven Epistles, seven Seals, and seven Trumpets, (though not the seven Vials,) were deemed by him to be representations of the successive states and fortunes of the Christian Church, from St. John’s time to the consummation: with reference however not to the same, but to very different ęras, in the respective septenaries. The Scheme above will best exhibit to the eye the mutual relations, in time and subject. [62] It will be seen that though the main subject of the Seals is made by him the external state of the Church, that of the Trumpets the fortunes of the Roman world, connected with the Church, yet they sometimes essentially infringe, so as might have been anticipated, on each other. The third Seal, the example, has the Arian heresy for one main part of its subject; and so also the third Trumpet. The fourth Seal refers to the desolations of Greek Christendom by the Saracens and Turks; and so the sixth Trumpet. - Having elsewhere referred to his Epistles and Seals, [63] let me here only add an observation or two on his Trumpets. It seems to me than, 1st, that his Gothic reference of the 5th Trumpet was that which very much fixed his general scheme of the Trumpets. Mede’s chronological application of the five months, or 150 years’ period of the emblematical locusts, to designate the Saracens’ latest and feeblest ravages, [64] justly appeared to Vitringa untenable: nor moreover had any satisfactory solution of the locusts’ not touching the grass and trees appeared in Mede’s Saracenic view. But the Gothic ravages, from Alaric to Totilas, did not last nearly 150 years. And, if the grass and trees were figuratively construed to mean Christians, (professing Christians,) then Alaric’s sparing the Christian Churches at Rome, and those who took refuge in them, might be supposed, Vitringa thought, a sufficient and obvious explanation, on the Gothic view, of that clause also. Which being so, he evidently rests with much confidence on this solution of the 5th Trumpet; more so than on almost any other part of his Trumpet Scheme. [65] And, this point settled, what preceded the Gothic invasion must of course be ascribed to the Trumpets previous; what followed to those subsequent. So the Saracens, as well as Turks, were crowded necessarily into the sixth Trumpet. Yet not without obvious difficulties and inconsistency. For example, in this Gothic application of the 5th Trumpet Vitringa explains the locusts’ hair being like women’s hair, with reference to the personal appearance of the Goth’s yellow hair; (though certainly this was no feminine characteristic among Jews, Greeks, or Romans;) but “the faces as of men,” he felt unable to explain of personal appearance; and so fell back on the moral characteristic, (one surely scarce applicable to the Goths,) of humanity. [66] - 2ndly, as regards, “the third part,” six or seven times noted in the first four Trumpets, he suggests that it might perhaps be intended of one of the three continents of the Roman empire, and so explains it of the Eastern or Asiatic third in some of the Trumpets: yet in the 4th Trumpet of the Western region, and sometimes too rather as meaning some notable part: [67] moreover, after throwing out an idea in the first Trumpet, that the “land” might be meant distinctly of the Roman empire, the “sea” of the barbarians, construes land, sea, and rivers all alike of Roman Christendom; mainly in a figurative sense, sometimes like Mede. [68]

In Apoc. x. Vitringa so far follows Mede as to make the little book opened a Prophetic Section: not (so as the earlier Reformers) the opened Bible, or New Testament. The special subject however of the new prophecy (herein differing from Mede) being part, he thinks, of the seven-sealed book, he expounds of the increased corruptions of the Church, and the rise, power, and persecuting acts of the Beast in Western Christendom, contemporarily with the Turkish woe of the 6th Trumpet: [69] - the seven thunders being significant of the seven Crusades; the charge, Thou must prophesy again,” of the prophetic knowledge imparted to, and taught by, Christian ministers under the sixth Trumpet; the Witnesses prophesying in sackcloth, (one grand part of the new prophecy,) of the antipapal testimony from Peter Valdes to the Reformation; their 42 months or 3 1/2 years, being perhaps, so as Scaliger had suggested, on the scale of a year for a century. [70] As to Witnesses’ prefigured death and resurrection, it had been already partially fulfilled in the four cases following: - viz. 1. in the death of Huss and Jerome, and their revival in the Hussites immediately afterwards, about the time of the 3 1/2 years session of the Council of Constance: [71] 2 in the massacre of the Waldensic remnant in the Valleys of Cabrieres and Merindol, A.D. 1545: 3. in the anti-protestant Interim of Charles Vth, and Prince Maurice’s quickly-following victory and consequent treaty of Passau: [72] 4. in the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and the Edict of Toleration obtained from Henry III within four years after. [73] Vitringa notices Jurieu’s views also; [74] calculating the slaughter of the Witnesses from the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, or some other persecuting act following it up: which view, however, had not so far been verified by any such rising of the Witnesses, or Protestant revolution in France, as Jurieu had expected. And, on the whole, Vitringa inclined to look to the prophecy as being one up to his own time still mainly unfulfilled. - I may observe that he considered that the tenth part of the great city, which fell concurrently with the two witnesses’ ascent, ought to be construed to mean one of the ten kingdoms of Papal Christendom. Which being so, how was it that the fall of Papal England did not fix itself more deeply in his mind, as an indication of the intent of the whole prophecy? [75] After this, and the Witnesses’ political ascent, Vitringa expected that the 6th Trumpet’s or Turkish woe (in the which all about the rainbow-crowned angel’s descent, and witnesses’ death and resurrection, had been included) would cease; [76] and the sounding of the 7th Trumpet introduce God’s judgment on the enemies of the Church, and the blessed times predicted by all the prophets.

In Apoc. xii. the vision of the Dragon and Woman is expounded, 1. of Diocletian’s persecution, followed by Constantine’s establishment of Christianity; the Dragon’s seven heads, (like those of the Beast) symbolizing both Rome’s seven hills, and the seven persecuting emperors of that period, Diocletian, &c.: (such is his view of the allusion in the clause, “and they are seven kings:”) 2. of the Arian persecutions of orthodox Christians after the fall of Paganism: - both explanations very much as in my Horę. But the wilderness, into which the Woman then fled, Vitringa makes otherwise to mean the barbarous nations of the West; [77] and the waters cast by the Dragon after the Woman, the Saracen inundation, swallowed up in France on occasion of the victory of Charles Martel. - In Apoc. xiii., after a somewhat elaborate notice and refutation of Bossuet’s explanation of the first Beast, agreeably with certain Protestants, as meaning Rome Pagan, Vitringa interprets it of Rome Papal: its seven heads however not including heads of the old Roman empire as well as of Rome Papal, so as had been generally thought by Protestants: but only heads of it in its last Papal form. So he makes the five first to be five most eminent Popes before the Reformation: (the Reformation ęra being the point of time to which the Angel’s words, “five have fallen,” is to be referred;) viz. Gregory VII, Alexander III, (wounded to death by Fred Barbarossa, but soon revived,) Innocent III, Boniface VIII, (the Beast’s middle head,) and John XXII: [78] the sixth and seventh being two Popes after the Reformation, viz. Paul III and Paul V; while the eighth and last was the one that would be ruling at Rome at the time, yet future, of the last persecution. The second Beast Vitringa explains, after many of the old as well as the then more recent expositors, to signify Papal preachers and doctors, especially the Franciscans and Dominicans: the Beast’s image as the tribunals of the Inquisition. [79] Of the Beast’s name and number Aateinov was deemed by him almost too simple a solution; and he proposes some strange far-fetched Hebrew phrases from Scripture, which it is not worth while to repeat. [80]

I pass to Apoc. xiv. Here the 144,000 are explained of the Waldenses and Albigenses: the harpers, next noted as sympathizing with the 144,000, of the Wicliffites and Hussites: the first flying Angel, that had the everlasting Gospel, of Luther, Zuingle, and the other Fathers of the Reformation: the second, of the Reformers’ voice of triumph over the Popedom at the time of the Treaty of Passau, in the second period of the Reformation, and the disruption of the English Church from Rome: [81] the third, of the Protestant doctors in the third period of the Reformation; at a time of affliction to Christ’s Church, such as even then partially existed, especially with reference to France and the French Reformed Churches. - In entering on the Vials in Apoc. xvi., Vitringa acknowledges the plausibility of Launeus’ opinion, that these Vials were all contained in, and the development of, the 7th Trumpet: Launeus having noted, 1. that these were the last plagues, and the 7th Trumpet the last and finishing woe; 2. the fact of the temple (the heavenly temple, says Launeus, in the same sense of heavenly as when applied to the heavenly Jerusalem) appearing opened introductorily to their effusion, just as it was described in (Apoc. xi. 19, “And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail.”), as appearing at the sounding of the 7th Trumpet; 3. their answering, on the view, to the type of the seven compassings of Jericho on the 7th day; besides that, 4thly, Launeus thought the 5th Vial on the seat of the Beast looked very much like the blow on the Papacy at the Reformation. [82] But Vitringa could not make up his mind to suppose all these Vials, if not six, as already fulfilled in certain judgments on the Popedom. Thus the 1st, that of the grievous sore’s appearing, he traces in the Waldensian exposure of the deep corruption of the Papacy; the 2nd, that of the sea-becoming blood, in the bloody wars between the Emperors and Popes, more especially from the times of Frederic II and Lewis of Bavaria; [83] the 3rd, that of the rivers of blood, in the Hussite and Bohemian wars under Zisea, &c.; the 4th, on the sun, (the regal emblem,) in the great heat with which the two French kings Charles VIII and Louis XII had scorched Italy; the 5th, on the seal of the Beast, in the darkening of the Popedom by the Reformation, and taking and sack of Rome by the constable Bourbon. In the 6th Vial Vitringa curiously explains the Euphrates’ drying up of the exhaustion of the power of France, as the chief bulwark of the Papal Roman empire; [84] an event perhaps even then begun, by the banishment of its multitude of industrious Protestant citizens at the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The three frogs, issuing forth contemporaneously, he supposes to mean the Jesuits: and expounds the 7th Vial, on the air, as typifying the dissolution of both the political and the ecclesiastical Papal empire. [85]

On the Apocalyptic millennium Vitringa adopts the view that had just before for the first time been propounded by his contemporary Whitby, to whom indeed he refers; [86] an alternative view to the two between which opinions had been hitherto divided, of the greatest importance; viz. the old chiliastic of the earliest Fathers, and the Augustinian: - a view which regarded it as a spiritual millennium, yet future; one in which the world would be thoroughly evangelized; and the Church, the bride, assume a character over the whole earth answering to the description of the New Jerusalem.

On the whole, Vitringa seems to me by no means to have contributed directly to the solution of the many previously remaining difficulties of the Apocalypse, so much as from his ability and various learning one might have anticipated. Indeed, his explanations are often singularly arbitrary and unsatisfactory. Indirectly however the value of his Commentary has doubtless been considerable: illustrating each subject handled, as he does, by a wide-ranging erudition, alike in secular and ecclesiastical, Hebraic and Greek literature; and often applying a just and acute criticism to show the untenableness of opinion, more or less plausible, adopted by expositors of note before him

4. And it is chiefly in this indirect way also, if I mistake not, that Daubuz’s almost contemporary, and yet more copious, Comment, contributed to the advancement of the Apocalyptic science. For it is a Commentary quite redundant with multifarious research and learning. [87] - It is to be understood that Daubuz was by birth a French Protestant; found refuge in England on the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes; there took orders in the Anglican Church; and, while Vicar of Brotherton near Ferrybridge in Yorkshire, wrote his “Perpetual Commentary on the Apocalypse,” which was first published in a solid folio, A.D. 1720. The following may serve as an abstract in brief of his opinions. The reader of my Horę must already have formed a measure of acquaintance with him.

The seven Epistles then he explains, not like Vitringa as prophetical; but in the natural way, as depicting the actual state of the seven Asiatic Churches respectively: albeit with application to the Church Universal, in its earthly suffering state, to the end of time.

In the Seals Daubuz, though admitting A.D. 95 or 96 to be the year of the Revelation’s having been given to St. John, yet antedates the subject of the 1st Seal; and makes its white horse and rider depict the victorious progress of Christ gospel, even from his ascension. Thus he is enabled to explain the red horse in the 2nd Seal of the wars by which Jerusalem and the Jews were destroyed, from A.D. 66 to A.D. 135; including as well the Jewish wars of Vespasion and Titus, as those of Trajan and Adrian. The 3rd Seal, beginning A.D. 202, he expounds of scarcities begun in the reign and ęra of Severus, [88] much as Brightman before him; the 4th (like Brightman also) of the Decian and Valerian ęra of war, famine, and pestilence; the 5th (as Mede, &c.) of the Diocletian persecution; the 6th of the Constantinian Revolution, and fall of Paganism from its supremacy in the Roman empire. - Then comes the first considerable peculiarity in Daubuz’s Commentary. He explains both the Sealing Vision and the Palm-bearing Vision of the happy constitution of the Church under God’s sealing Angel, Constantine: a Church including both many converted Israelites, and multitudes innumerable of Gentiles; now alike admitted, from out of times of great tribulation, to the peaceful enjoyment of Church-privileges: - a peace and liberty this further indicated by the half-hour’s silence, or stillness from hostility, at the opening of the 7th Seal; and its accompanying representation of an act of peaceful public worship.

The Trumpets, which Daubuz supposes to mark a new period, following on, not contained in, the 7th Seal, [89] are explained by him mainly as by Mede and Jurieu, of the desolations and fall, first of the Western empire, then the Eastern; under the assaults successively of the Goths, Saracens, and Turks. More particularly he thus divides the four first: - 1. Alaric’s ravages from A.D. 395 to 409: 2. Alarie’s capture of Rome, A.D. 410, and the ravages of Gaul and Spain by the Goths and Vandals: 3. Attila’s ravages, 442-452, A.D.: 4. the fall of the Western Empire under Genseric and Odoacer, from 454 to 476. - In the 5th Trumpet he made an important step of advance, as I conceive, in true Apocalyptic interpretation, by explaining the locusts’ five months, or 150 days, of the 150 years from Mahomet’s public opening of his mission, A.D. 612, to the Saracen Caliph’s removal to Bagdad, “the City of Peace,” A.D. 762. On the other hand, he seems to me to have retrograded by not adopting Mede’s definite chronological view of the hour, day, month, and year, predicted of the Euphratean horsemen; but explaining it, like some before him, as if only meaning that the four angels were all ready at one and the same hour, or time.

The Vision in Apoc. x. he applies, even more distinctly than the early Reforming Expositors themselves, to the great Lutheran Reformation: with the particular notion added of its figured Angel signifying Luther, as the Angel of the sealing vision had figured Constantine; and the seven answering thunders to his voice being those of the seven States that received and established Protestantism within them: viz. 1. the German Protestant States; 2. the Swiss Cantons; 3. Sweden; 4. Denmark; 5. England; 6 Scotland; 7 the Dutch Netherlands: John’s sealing up the thunders intimating a stop to the progress of the Reformation, soon after the times of Luther, and the first sounding of those thunders. - “Thou must prophecy again,” was a charge given to Protestants as the time of the Reformation, as represented by St. John. And so too the meaning of the temple: [90] the outer court given to the Gentiles indicating that there would still exist paganized Christians, to tread the holy city: and “both the reformed and the corrupted Christians keeping to their own lots (separately), till the term of the 42 months is lapsed since the Gentiles began.” [91] The clause otan teleswsin, &c., “when they shall have finished, or completed their testimony,” Daubuz construes, “whilst they shall perform it:” and so the 3 1/2 days of their apparent death as equivalent to the 1260 days, or whole period of their prophesying in sackcloth. He cites in Illustration Rom. viii. 36; “For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” But the Greek of the original forbids the translation. Construing the passage as he does there is no special historical explanation needed, or offered by him, so as by Foxe, Brightman, or Jurieu, of the Witnesses’ death and resurrection. - “And the same hour there was a great earthquake, &c.,” he interprets to mean the same hour as that of the measuring the temple; in other words, that of the Lutheran Reformation. And the predicted fall of a tenth of the great city in it is explained to be the fall of the Greek State under the Ottoman Turks; this having been a part of the old Roman empire for some centuries, and one of the Beast’s ten horns in Daubuz’ view afterwards: [92] a fall begun indeed A.D. 1453, but advancing to completion by the Turks’ subjugation of Rhodes and Cyprus in the years 1522, 1570; not to note that of Candia much later, A.D. 1669. The 7th Trumpet, yet future, Daubuz explains as the signal trumpet of the resurrection of the just; that same that is spoken of by Paul in (1 Cor. xv. 51, “Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,”): - that too which would introduce a time when God’s Church would be freed from all idolatry and oppression, and a full accomplishment of all his designs made manifest; the one being symbolized by the opening of the temple in heaven; the other by the ark of the covenant appearing. [93] All evidently with reference to the times of the millennium.

In Apoc. xii. he interprets the vision of the travailing Woman and Dragon, much as others before him; with reference to the crisis of the Diocletian persecution, and Constantine’s immediately following elevation to a Christian throne, and casting down of Paganism from its supremacy in the Roman empire. [94] Only of the Dragon’s seven heads he offers a peculiar solution. These were the subjugated kingdoms, or rather their capital cities, which then constituted the Roman empire: the metropoles of Italy, of the Carthaginian empire, of the kingdom of Greece, of that of Methridates, of that of Gaul and Britain, of Egypt, and finally Thrace; this last Byzantium, or Constantinople. - The flood out of the Dragon’s mouth he explains to be the Goths; the two eagle’s wings helping the Woman, the Roman Christianized Easter and Western empires. Then in Apoc. xiii. the first Beast is the decem-regal Republic of Western Christendom, [95] under Rome as its head; Rome the earliest head of the Dragon, excised by the Gothic invaders, but revived under the Popes. The Beast’s 42 months of supremacy Daubuz reckons from the fall of the Western Emperor, A.D. 476, and consequently as to the end in 1736. [96] The second Beast is the Beast Ecclesiastical, or False Prophet; its two horns being the Roman Popes, and the Constantinopolian Patriarchs. The Pope himself is the Beast’s image, [97] as representing the Beast’s power; the name and number T‘‘mwr, in the feminine; i.e. the Roman Church. [98]

In Apoc. xiv., as in Apoc. vii., Daubuz interprets its primary vision of the 144,000 to mean the Constantinian Church, especially as gathered together at Nice in Council: its bishops there gathered being to the exact number of 318, the number answering to IHT, the abbreviation for Jesus Christ crucified, or mark of the Lamb on the foreheads of the 144,000 in vision. [99] Further he explains the 1st flying Angel of Vigilantius’ and Augustine’s warnings against the increasing superstitions and coming judgments; [100] the 2nd of the cry on the actual destruction of old Rome (here meant by Babylon) by the Goths; the 3rd of warnings against the Beast, whose empire was now about to be established, especially that by Gregory I: [101] also the harvest as meaning the reformation of the Church, which had separated the good corn from the earth; and the vintage, of the wars and victories in Queen Anne’s time over the Papists. [102] - Then in the Vials there was, he thought, a retrogression again to early times. The plague of Vial 1 was the noisome sore of outbreaking superstition in the image-worship that more and more established itself, from the seventh to the tenth century; Vail 2 the earlier crusades; Vial 3 the later; Vial 4 the wars of Popes and Emperors; Vial 5 the taking of Constantinople by the Latins, and the Popes’ removal from Rome to Avignon; Vial 6 the drying up of the power of the Eastern or Greek empire, which was, as it were, the Euphratean barrier to Christendom; and thereby a preparation for the kings of the East, or Turks. The three frogs, issuing forth coincidently, are explained of the secular Papal clergy, the monks, and the religious orders of knights of the time. Vial 7 on the air, or power of the Devil, depicted the Reformation by Luther: the great city being tripartited about this time into the Greeks, the Latin Papists, and the Protestants. [103]

Finally, in Apoc. xix. Daubuz interprets the hallelujahs and thunderings heard on the fall of Babylon, (i.e. here of Papal Rome,) to indicate the conversion of the Jews, and incoming of the fullness of the Gentiles: explains the first resurrection in Apoc. xx. literally, of the saints and martyrs rising from the dead, and millennial reign with Christ: also the New Jerusalem as the habitation and state of the Church after the resurrection of the saints, both during the millennium and afterwards; the Church being in the saints’ moral state betrothed to Christ; but after the resurrection his gunh, or wife. [104]

5. Sir I. Newton’s brief Apocalyptic Comment, appended to his Treatise on Daniel, was not published, I believe, till the year 1733; six years after his death. It seem, however, to have been written some considerable time before; his thoughts having been seriously directed to these prophecies as early as 1691. [105] Brief as is the comment, being of not much more than seventy pages, it yet contains much valuable matter, and exhibits much careful and original thought; so as might have been expected from such an author. Alike on the Seals and Trumpets he expresses his general agreement with Mede. But certain differences occur. 1st, as regards the Seals, he expounds the rider in the first seal, as well as in the three next, not of Christ, but of Roman emperors: [106] (I presume with reference to the triumphs of Vespasian and Titus, as I shall have to observe again presently:) also he makes the limits of the 4th Seal to range from Decius to Diocletian’s accession. He agrees with Mede in making the sealing of the 144,000 synchronize with the visions that followed on opening the 7th Seal. Again, in regard of Mede’s view of the seventh Seal, as comprehending the seven Trumpets, Sir Isaac adds, and also the half-hour’s previous stillness from the threatened four winds of heaven: (the same that were let loose afterwards under the four first Trumpets:) which stillness he explains historically of the respite during Theodosius’s reign, from 380 A.D. to 395: [107] an important approximation, I conceive to the true meaning. [108] - 2. Dissatisfied with Mede’s particular and somewhat fanciful distribution of the Gothic ravages over the four first Trumpets, he makes the distinction of the four winds the principle of distinction in them; 1st, as figuring Alaric’s ravages on the Greek provinces East of Rome; 2nd, as the Visigoths’ and Vandals’ on the Western Gallic and Spanish provinces; 3rd, as the desolations of Southern Africa by the Vandal wars, from Genseric down to Belisarius; 4th, as the Ostrogothic and Lombard wars in Northern Italy. [109] - 3. In the 5th Trumpet he thinks the double mention of the locusts’ quinquemensal period of tormenting, in verses 5 and 10 of Apoc. ix., may be meant to signify two periods of 150 years each, as the times of the Saracens. [110] - 4. The Turks’ hour, day, month, and year he calculates as 390 years; not 396, as Mede: viz. from Alp Arslan’s first conquering on the Euphrates, A.D. 1063, to the fall of Constantinople, in 1453. [111]

In Apoc. xii. and xiii. Sir. I. Newton generally agrees with Mede; explaining Apoc. xii. of the times of Diocletian and Constantine, [112] Apoc. xiii. of those of the Latin Papal empire: the first Beast being this Latin Papal decem-regal empire; its name and number Aateinov; [113] the second Beast however (a singular explanation!) the Greek Church. [114] - And then he intimates peculiar structural views on the seven Epistles, seven Vials, and little Book.  The  Epistles he adjusts to the states and times of the Church indicated in the figurations of the Seals that followed: the particulars being as stated below. [115] The Vials ought, he judges, to have been made synchronal with, and explanatory of, the Trumpets. The little Book he considers, like Mede, to be a new prophecy; the Angel-Vision of Apoc. x. being an introduction to it: but that, as being sweet when first tasted, and afterwards bitter, its commencement should be considered as agreeing with Apoc. xii., and the glorious prefiguration there given of the fall of Paganism in the Roman empire; the sequel of it being the bitter times of the Beast’s 1260 years, and the Witnesses’ prophesying in sackcloth. [116]

Besides all which, I wish to direct particular attention to two characteristic and important points in this Comment of Sir I. Newton; the one regarding the distant past, the other the then quickly coming future. 1. He, first of Expositors, if I mistake not, instituted a careful and critical investigation into the evidence external and internal of the date of the Apocalypse; [117] inferring it thence to be coincident with Nero’s persecution, not Domitian’s: incorrectly, however, as I think I have proved. [118] Which being supposed, a Roman explanation was obvious of the 1st Seal, in harmony with Mede’s Roman explanation of the 2nd; this latter having reference to the wars of Trajan and Adrian. - 2. He insists, with regard to the so far evident imperfection of the understanding of the Apocalypse and of some of Daniel’s prophecies, that it was itself a thing foreseen and predicted; Daniel having been directed to seal up his last prophecy till the time of the end. And he adds that this time of the end was Apocalyptically marked as that of the 7th Trumpet, at whose sounding the mystery of God should be finished: (the preaching of the everlasting Gospel to all nations being further marked, both in the Apocalypse and in Christ’s prophecy, as a preliminary sign accompanying it:) and that the measure of success, albeit imperfect, that had crowned the prophetic researches of the immediately preceding age, seemed to him an evidence that the last “main revolution” predicted, when all would be explained was “near at hand.” [119] - I must add, not from his own published Comment, but from Whiston’s the further remarkable fact, that Sir Isaac expressed a strong persuasion, - with reference of course to the expected “main revolution” of the seventh Trumpet, wherein “they were to be destroyed that destroyed or corrupted the earth,” - that the antichristian or persecuting power of the Popedom, which had so long corrupted Christianity, must be put a stop to, and broken to pieces, by the prevalence of infidelity, for some time before primitive Christianity could be restored. [120] Which anticipation, fulfilled as it was soon after in the facts and character of the expected great Revolution, when it actually broke out, must surely be deemed not a little remarkable.

6. The Apocalyptic “Essay” by Whiston (Newton’s successor in the Mathematical Professorship of Cambridge) was first published, as appears from the date appended to Whiston’s original Preface, in the year 1706: a second Edition followed in 1744, under Whiston’s own eye, improved and corrected. [121] - The following points in it appear to me deserving of notice. While strongly contending for the Domitianic date of the Apocalypse, he yet explains the 1st Seal retrospectively of Christ’s triumphing in Vespasian and Titus’ overthrow of Jerusalem; the other Seals as Mede, Jurieu, and Newton. - In the Trumpets, dissatisfied like Newton with Mede’s vague principle of distribution, he takes another, and I think better plan, for giving definiteness and precision to the several shares of the several Trumpets in the Gothic ravages: his principle being drawn from the third part said to be affected; which he construes as the European part of the empire, (in contrast with the African and Asiatic,) and the land, sea, and rivers, literally taken, that are specified in it. Thus the subjects of Trumpets 1, 2, and 3 are made respectively to be the ravages of Alaric and Rhadagaisus in the landward interior, those of the Vandals and Goths on the maritime European parts, and those of Attila on the European rivers: (the last a real advance, as I conceive, to the truth; [122] ) the quenching of the third part of the sun, i.e. imperial sun, &c., being that of Odoacer. - In the 5th Trumpet, after other previously given solutions of the locusts’ five months, he at length concludes on the reading being faulty, and St. John having written ie mhnav, not e; i.e. 15, not 5: 450 years measuring the whole duration of the Saracens, till their entire super-session by the Turks. [123] (Whiston does not seem to have been acquainted with Daubuz’ simple and satisfactory solution of these five months.) [124] - In his exposition of the Turks’ “hour, day, month, and year,” the exactness of the astronomer appears. Asserting that Othman could not be properly recognized as Sultan till the Hutbe prayers had been put up for him in the mosques, and that this was first done for Othman May 19, 1301, he calculates the prophetic period of an hour, day, month, and year, or 396 years 106 days, as reaching to Sept. 1, 1697, O.S.: the very date of Prince Eugene’s great victory over the Turks, which was followed by the peace of Carlowitz. [125] - On the Beast of Apoc. xiii. Whiston, after suggesting that the 7th head, which was to continue for but a short time, might be the five emperors noted by Lactantius as reigning over the Roman world just before Constantine’s victories, (another approximation, I conceive, towards the truth,) makes the 8th head to be that of the ten kings of the revived Romano-Gothic Empire; these ten kings being as it were a revival of the old decemviral head: [126] - an original idea this, that I have not seen elsewhere. [127] - The Papal supremacy he dates distinctly (and quotes Archbishop Laud affirming the same) from Phocas’s Decree A.D. 606. [128] - Besides all which points what I deem particularly to be noted in Whiston is his strong stand against Mede’s classification of the Vials: and assertion that on every principle of consistency and congruity of things, as the seven Trumpets are reckoned to be contained in, and the evolution of, the seventh Seal, - so the seven Vials ought to be deemed contained in, and the evolution of, the seventh Trumpet. A very important and surely most obvious step of progress. [129]

7. And so we advance nearer and nearer to the epoch of the great French Revolution. - I do not purpose stopping at the names of Bengel and Bishop Newton, Whiston’s immediate Protestant successors, who, publishing about the middle of the xviiith century, [130] served as connecting links in Germany and England, between the generation of Apocalyptic expositors just described, and those on whom the French Revolution broke; that epoch of a new ęra. Bengel’s most characteristic principle, viz. of expounding the prophetic periods in the Apocalypse on the scale of a prophetic day to 15 years, [131] is so totally and plainly arbitrary and groundless, that no one can now think of attaching weight to it; highly valued though Bengel himself must be for learning and piety. And, as for Bishop Newton’s Treatise, it is too universally known to need description; besides that, however valuable as a compendium, (and I deem it eminently so,) it does yet scarcely put forth any original thoughts on the subject handled. - Nor again with the Roman Catholic Comment of Bishop Walmsley, that soon after followed, need any more to detain us; it being already pretty much forgotten by Romanists themselves. [132] - But it does need, I think, that I call attention to the German Pręterist School that was about this time rising more and more into notice and influence: a School characterized by considerable mental acuteness, research, and philological learning; and at the same time by much of the hardihood and rashness of religious skepticism. I therefore at once proceed to it.

8. As early then as Bengel’s time, the celebrated Genevese writer, Pirmin Abauzit, [133] their precursor and harbinger, had published a work entitled Discours Historique sur l’Apocalypse, written to show that the canonical authority of the Apocalypse was doubtful. On reading Dr. Twells’ reply to it, [134] however, he was satisfied; and honorably wrote (though in vain) to stop the reprinting of his work in Holland. But soon after the middle of the century the skeptical spirit broke out more freely. A work by Oeder, which Semler published after Oeder’s death, about the year 1765, entitled “A Free Investigation into the so-called Revelation by John, “denied not only its apostolicity, but even its literary beauty; charged it with all the extravagances of its wildest expositors, and maintained that its real author was the heretic Cerinthus. So began what has been called the Semlerian controversy. Semler was replied to, and opposed, by Reuss of Tubingen, A.D. 1767, 1772, Schmidt of Wittenberg, in his “Vindicatio Canonis,” A.D. 1775, and Knittel of Wolfenbuttel, A.D. 1773; to which works he and his friends made vigorous answer. The controversy lasted to the year 1785. [135] The celebrated Michaelis was so far influenced by what had been written by Abauzit and Semler’s partisans on the canonical question, that he concluded with Eusebius on reckoning the Apocalypse not among the undisputed canonical books, but among the antilegomena. The work of Herder, published 1779, vindicated with great earnestness and ability the literary merits and beauty of the Apocalypse; indeed, with such ability and enthusiasm as to act strongly on the literary German mind; yet vindicated it only as Herder might have vindicated a neglected beautiful Poem of classic origin; not as a work of divine inspiration. [136] In 1786 Hernnschneider published his Comment on the Apocalypse; explaining it as a Poem describing the three things following; - viz. the overthrow of Judaism, the overthrow of Heathenism, and the final universal triumph of the Christian Church. This was the model, in respect of general plan, of the more celebrated work of Eichhorn, published shortly after, viz. A.D. 1791; a work of which Professor M. Stuart, to whom I am indebted for this rapid sketch of the German Apocalyptic Expositors of the last half of the last century, thus reports; - that although not equal to Herder’s in respect of the perception or the development of ęsthetic beauties, it is yet, in regard of philology, and real explanation of words and phrases, far Herder’s superior: adding, moreover, that it is substantially correct in its exegesis, i.e. in its view of the general tenor and meaning of the Apocalyptic Book; a statement meaning that it is substantially in agreement with Professor Stuart’s own views. As this scheme had not only then preponderance in Germany, but is one of the grand rival schemes that still claim acceptance, I think I cannot better conclude the present Section of my Sketch of Apocalyptic interpretation, than by placing it before the readers eye, as drawn up by Professor Hug, professedly from Hernnschneider and Eichhorn: its characteristic view being this, that the two cities, Rome and Jerusalem, whose fate (as they would have it) constitutes the most considerable part of the Apocalypse, are only symbols of two religions whose fall is foretold; and that the third, which appears at the end, viz. the heavenly Jerusalem, signifies Christ’s religion and kingdom.

The Pręterist Scheme of Hernnschneider and Eichhorn, as sketched by Prof. Hug.

“There are three cities in this book, on account of which all the terrible preparations above, and here below, and all the commotions of the early and heavenly powers, take place. One of them is Sodom, called also Egypt; the other is Babylon; and the third is the New Jerusalem, descending from heaven.

“The whole affair of the seven Angels with the seven Trumpets, viii. - xii., refers to Sodom. But we soon see that this city, long since destroyed, only lends its name to denote another. For in this Sodom our Lord was crucified; opou o kuriov hmwn estaurwqh (xi. 8, “And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.”) In this Sodom is the Temple; the outer court of which is said to be abandoned to the Gentiles. Thus it is the Holy City itself, poliv agia, of which foreign nations will take possession; (xi. 1, “And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein.”.) As two martyrs have perished in it, its destruction is decided; (xii. 1, “And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:”.) (Josephus the Jew likewise compared Jerusalem to Sodom at the same epoch. Bell Jud. v. 10.)

“After a long episode, in which a matron appears in the pains of child-birth, persecuted by a monster, and after the description of two more monsters, which torment the adherents of this distinguished woman, Apoc. xii., xiii., xiv., the destruction of Babylon also is decided in heaven, (xiv. 8, “And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.”.)

“The seven Angels with the seven Vials of wrath are appointed to execute the decision, xvi. 17-19, “And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done. 18: And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great. 19: And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.”;) although indeed Babylon had stood for centuries before desert, and amidst but half-distinguishable remains of its magnificence. But this Babylon is built upon seven hills; opou oph eisin epta (xvii. 9-18, “And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth. 10: And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space. 11: And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition. 12: And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast. 13: These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast. 14: These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful. 15: And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues. 16: And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire. 17: For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled. 18: And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.”). It is an urbs septicollis; a mark of distinction renowned throughout the world, which renders it easy for us to guess the city which is peculiarly intended. But the other criterion that it possesses, the imperium orbis terrarum, basileia epi twn basilewn thv ghv, perfectly assures us, (xvii. 18, “And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.”,) that this Babylon on the Euphrates is Rome on the Tiber.

Consequently Jerusalem and Rome are the two cities whose destruction is here seen in the Spirit. These cities, however, do not exist in reality as cities, in the poetical composition; but they are images of other ideas. Rome, or Babylon in particular, is by the author conceived to be opposed to the everlasting gospel, euaggelion aiwnion, (xiv. 6-8, “And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, 7: Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters. 8: And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.”.) In this opposition to Christianity it could hardly signify anything but Heathenism; to represent which the capital of the heathen world is most eminently peculiarly qualified. Hence John further also describes it with such phrases as were used by the Prophets to denote false gods and their worship. It is the habitation of dęmons; the seducer to infidelity from the true God, i.e. porneia: from the cup of whose fornication all nations and kings of the earth drink; (xviii. 2, 3, “ And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. 3: For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.”; xvii. 1, 2, “ And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: 2: With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.” 5, “And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.”.

“If the capital of the heathen world symbolizes the religion of the heathens, we shall easily ascertain what the capital of the Jews represented. What else but the Jewish religion? Therefore Heathenism and Judaism, the two prevailing religions of the ancient world were destined to perish.

“And what should now succeed to them? A New Jerusalem, the kingdom of the blessed, after this life (xxi. xxii. 6.)? - The New Jerusalem is certainly so described: and such is usually considered to be its meaning. But if these cities be religious, and Rome and Jerusalem represent Heathenism and Judaism, the new Sion can only be Christianity; which has an endless dominion, and blesses mankind. This the unity of the whole demands; nor would it be consistent, if the idea of it was compounded of such an unequal representation of its parts, as Heathenism, Judaism, and Eternal Blessedness.

“For what purpose should this kingdom of the blessed afterwards forsake that long-beloved abode in the higher spheres, and in heaven; and descend among men, unless it were an earthly institution? (xxi. 23, “And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.”) It could only descend upon earth as a religion; for the sake of supplying the place of the two former religious.

“The previous openings of the graves, and the return of the dead, is here only one of those awfully terrible images, which the prophets sometimes used to represent a total change of things; the revival of the national state, and of the religious constitution of the Jews. (Ezek. xxxvii; Isa. xxvi. 19, “Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise.  Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.”)

“And, if a last judgment also be connected with it, we well know that such also is figuratively convoked by the prophets, for the purpose of executing the punishment of those who have oppressed and ill-treated the people of God; or for the purpose of expressing Jehovah’s designs of introducing a new epoch of glory for his religion and his people. (Joel iii. 2, “I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.”; Zeph. iii. 8, “Therefore wait ye upon me, saith the LORD, until the day that I rise up to the prey: for my determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce anger: for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy.”) This being admitted, the whole passage of the seven Seals is only an introduction to the three principal descriptions: - to the dissolution of Judaism, to the abolition of Heathenism, and the occupation of the dominion of the world by the doctrines of Jesus. (v. -vii. 2) For a prophecy, according to the ancient prophetical language, is a sealed book (Isa. xxix. 11, “And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed:”): of which the mysteries can only be developed by the Lamb, who is on the throne of God; the co-Regent with Jehovah, in whose hands the events are. Terrible plagues, famine, pestilence, war, and an entire revolution of states are impending; from which those however are exempted who belong to the chosen of the Lamb.

“But the Epistles, which are preludes to the whole as far as chap. iv., are Dedications or Addresses to those communities which were particularly connected with the author in the district of his ministry.

“Then the Episode (xii., xiii.), which follows the judicial punishment of Jerusalem, the Episode relating to that noble Woman who struggles in the agonies of labor, and who is persecuted by the Dragon, (Isaiah’s ancient metaphor of idolatry,) exhibits to us Judaism, which is still in the act of bringing forth Christianity: so as all the circumstances, and the individual traits in the description, prove. But the other monsters which ascend from land and sea, and which are in the service of the Dragon, signify, according to very recognizable criteria, the Roman land and sea forces which protect the dominion of Paganism (xiii. 1- xiv. 6).

“Opposed to this, after the punishment is executed on Rome (xvii. 1 - xviii.), another Woman appears on a scarlet Beast. The former Woman, after her new-born child, had been taken up to the throne of God, henceforth repaired to the deserts and pathless regions; which is an excellent metaphor of wandering Judaism. But the fate of the latter Woman is not so mild. Her destruction is soon after celebrated in jubilees and triumphant songs. That this typifies idolatry, as the former the Jewish religion, is evident from the representation.”


[1]   See p. 207 suprą.

[2]   Compare Apoc. iv. 1, “ After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter.”

[3]   Let my readers refer back to Tichonius, Primasius, Ambrose Ansbert, &c., in illustration.

[4] So Bullinger, Chytręus, Foxe, very decidedly; also, though less definitely, Brightman, Pareus. See pp. 214, 215 suprą.

[5] See the extracts in my Vol. ii. p. 145.

[6] The year-day measures of the 1260 days being most generally taken; but the terminus ą quo doubtfully suggested as either the date of Constantine’s triumph, that Aleric’s destruction of Rome, or (what has always seemed to me a remarkable choice for Protestant expositors of a time, considering that it necessarily made the ending date as late as 1866) that of the Decree of Phocas.

[7] See my Vol. i. p. 232.

[8] See my Vol. iii. p. 34.

[9] On all these points it will be useful for the Reader to refer to the sketches of the Reformers’ Apocalyptic explanations given in the Section preceding.

[10] On the third Seal, I should observe, Mede, though explaining it to refer to the times of Severus, yet makes it signify, not as Brightman, a scarcity then occurring, but the justice and procurations of corn by the Emperor.

[11] So I have shown in my Chapter on the subject.

[12] See my Vol. i. p. 528, Note 2.

[13] A principle which I have expanded, and copiously illustrated, in justification of my application of the fifth Trumpet to the Saracens.

[14] By the old expositors Victorinus and Andreas, &c., the symbol was explained to indicate St. John’s personal prophesying again, after his temporary exile in Patmos, by the publications of his Gospel and Book of Revelation on returning to Ephesus.

See pp. 143, 144, 166 suprą. This was quite a different thing.

[15] E.g. mark how the 6th Trumpet, which belongs to the seven-sealed book, and occupies from Apoc. ix. 13 to xi. 14, is, on this system, cut in two by the prophecies of the little book. See the Tabular Scheme on p. 237.

[16] See my Vol. ii. p. 149, &c.

[17] Alike Jurieu, Vitringa, Bishop Newton, and in our own days Faber, Frere, &c., have more or less followed Mede in this view of the little book.

[18] See the Tubular Scheme p. 237.

[19] “Bestia decem-cornupeta, scu Secularis, est Universitas Illa decem plus minus regnorum in unam denuo Rempublicam Romanam, redintegratą Draconis impletate, coalescentium.” He adds that all the horns were on the 7th or last head, Pp. 498, 499.

[20] “Decem illa regna, Pseudoprophetę capitis sui auspiciis, cum Agno pugnabunt.” So on Apoc. xvii. 16, “And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.”.

[21] See my Vol. iii. p. 120.

[22] “In transitu ą sexte capite ad novissimum Bestia lethali vulnere occubuit.” P. 501.

[23] “Bestia Bicornis, seu Pseudo-Propheta, Pontifex Romanus cłm suo Clero.” P. 505

[24] “Bestia Romana capitia novissimi est image Bestię sexto capite mactatę” P. 560. And again, p. 505; “Qui (viz. the Pseudo-Propheta, or Second Beast) “co sensim reges, ex dissipato Cęsarum Imperio numper in orbe Romano natos, induxit, ut sibi, cassęque jam alioquin imperio Romę, colla unanimiter submittentes, pristini jamque demoliti Imperii ethici emaginem induereut.” - See my Vol. iii. p. 220.

[25] In the local application of the 4th, 5th, and 6th Vials, Mede seems to me to have been correct; though antedating the times of their historical fulfillment.

[26] When first Mede applied himself to the study of the Apocalypse he came, as he told a friend of his, with a mind rather prejudiced against it: (i.e. the old Chiliastic view of the 1000 years:) and tried all ways imaginable to place the millennium elsewhere; and, if it were possible, to begin the 1000 years, like Brightman and others, (as a period of the past,) at the reign of Constantine. But after all his strivings he was forced, as he confessed, to yield to the light and evidence of this (the Chilliastic) hypothesis. He was forced to it by the irresistible law of synchronisms, according to which the millennium could not possibly be placed otherwise than it is by him . . . Besides that the great deceiving of the world by Mahommedism (a most vile and yet prevailing imposture) began before less than half of the millennium from Constantine was run out, and strangely prospered in the world for 600 years within the millennium: and not this only, but Antichristian idolatry and cruelty against the faithful servants of Christ fell out within the same millennium: wherein the Devil was so far from being chained and shut up, that he never deceived the world more grossly nor raged more furiously; and consequently was never more loose, and at liberty to do mischief. - So the Life prefixed to his Works by Dr. Worthington, p. 10.

[27] In reference to the New Jerusalem Mede notices with approbation Potter’s argument, showing the equal circuit of the Apocalyptic city with Ezekiel’s city, described by Ezekiel: (Ezek. xlviii. 16, “And these shall be the measures thereof; the north side four thousand and five hundred, and the south side four thousand and five hundred, and on the east side four thousand and five hundred, and the west side four thousand and five hundred.”.) Of the latter “the north side, we read, was 4500 measures, the south 4500, the east 4500, and the west 4500, “in all 18,000. And these measures appear to be cubits from (Ezek, xliii. 13, “And these are the measures of the altar after the cubits: The cubit is a cubit and an hand breadth; even the bottom shall be a cubit, and the breadth a cubit, and the border thereof by the edge thereof round about shall be a span: and this shall be the higher place of the altar.”); where the cubit is also described as one larger than the common cubit, it being “a cubit and a hand-breadth:” which common cubit Potter, and Villalpandus, makes to be 2 1/2. feet. This admitted, and that the proportion of the large cubit to the common is as5 to 4, then the length of each side of Ezekiel’s city will be

 4500 x 5 x 2 1/2 feet = 112 x 5 x 5, or 14,012 feet.

         4                            2                                  On the other hand, as St. John’s 12,000 furlongs are  considered as giving the cubit dimensions of the Apocalyptic New Jerusalem, “its length and breadth and height being equal,” therefore the cubic root of 12,000, which is 23 nearly, (for 23 x 23 x 23 = 12,167,) gives the length of one of the sides: which 23 furlongs being 23 x 625 = 14,375 feet, this measure will only by a very little exceed the length of one of the sides of the Apocalypitc City.

The coincidence, as thus drawn out, is remarkable. It is noted by Dabubuz, p. 990. But there is this objection, that the assumed size of the Jewish common cubit is by no means certain; it being generally deemed of much smaller dimensions. So Calmet; who computes it at 1 1/2 feet intead of 2 1/2.

[28] Jurieu’s date is given at Vol. ii. p. 254 of my English edition: (London, 1687:) at the latter page as the year of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.

[29] Jurieu avowedly takes Mede as his master in Apocalyptic interpretation; except in the parts of latest application.

[30] P. 45. On this point Jurieu has the following just and important observations. “I can’t be of that opinion (viz. that the horsemen of the 1st Seal is the Lord Jesus), 1st, because the equipage of this horseman is not magnificent enough to represent Jesus Christ. . . In all the places where the prophet makes Jesus Christ to appear, (Apoc. x. 1, “And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire:”; xiv. 14, “And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle.”; xix. 11, “And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.”,) he is extraordinarily magnificent: clothed with fire, with the light, with the sun, with the rainbow, riding on the clouds, having not one simple crown but many diadems, and his eyes casting out flames. Here there is nothing more plain and average or mean: ’tis a man sitting on a horse, with a bow and crown. That which hath deceived interpreters is the color of the horse, white, which they have taken for an emblem of holiness. But white is the emblem of prosperity as well as holiness.” - Compare Foxe: 461 suprą; also my own objections as drawn out Vol. i. p. 124, Note 2.

[31] The third part he makes the Roman Empire; as mainly in Europe, the 3rd continent.

[32] i. 78, 87.

[33] Connected with this is an interesting extract in Evelyn’s Memoirs. In June 18, 1690, Mr. E. mentions a visit paid by him to the then Bishop of St. Assaph - Lloyd. Speaking of the death and resurrection of the Apocalyptic Witnesses, the Bishop mentioned how he had persuaded two exiled Vaudois ministers to return home, when there was no apparent ground of hope for them, giving them £20 towards the expenses, and which return was wonderfully accomplished.

[34] ii. 245 - 250, 254 - 257.

[35] This subject occupies ch. 13 in Jurieu’s 2nd volume. See pp. 200-267, 276.

[36] i. 92.

[37] ii. 67.

[38] i. 92.

[39] ii. 220. The Vials occupy the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th chapters, in Jurieu’s 2nd volume.

[40] Jurieu explains the harvest of the partial destruction of the Papal Empire at the Reformation. “Divide [the Beast’s] 1260 into seven parts, and each 7th part is exactly 180 years. If now you reckon these 180 years from A.D.1517, this brings us to A.D. 1697.” So 1690 is about the time that I judge must be the beginning of the vintage.” ii. 229.

[41] ii. 223, 224.

[42] So Bossuet traces the parentage of this view: - “Le savant Jesuite Louis d’Alcasur, qui a fait un grand commentaire sur I’Apocalypse, oł Grotius a pris beaucoup de ses idees.” He speaks also of its being the view of the learned Romanist Genebrard, A.D.1580, (in his Chronography, 5 Sęc. Ann. 415,) as well as of Grotius and Hammond. Pref. sur l’Apoc. § 11, 13.

[43] After speaking of Grotius, Hammond, and some other “great names of late among ourselves, who have excused the Church of Rome from any concern in the judgments of this (Apocalyptic prophecy,” and the shifts they had been obliged to resort to, such “that the most skillful of the Romish interpreters themselves had cried out against them” he notes it as the result of a foregone determination so to interpret the prophecy as to set aside the old Protestant views. “Their expedient for Catholic union of all Christian Churches by the compliance of the Roman, their assurance of the conveyance of a right succession and ordination by a Church that was not formally idolatrous, &c., were altogether inconsistent with the Protestant sense of the Apocalypse.” And then Dr. Cressener goes on to say; “’The present age is so generally prepossest with the interpretations of these learned men, that it is necessary to remind (the approvers) that these are great novelties in the doctrine of the Church of England. . . It is manifest by the Homilies approved of in our Articles as the faith of our Church of England: * and it continued to be the currect judgment of all the best learned members of it till the end of the reign of King James the 1st.” Indeed, “in his time it was believed to be so clear and important a part of the faith, that both the Church and the Court did applaud the King in his public defense of it.” But, adds Cressener, “after that time this doctrine of the Homilies came to be more out of fashion: either to be civil to the marriages of the succeeding reigns, or to take away all the advantage that the Separatists might have from thence against the necessity of an uninterrupted succession and ordination in every lawfully-constituted Church.” Pref. pp. ii. - 14.

* In the Homilies he refers to the 3rd Part of the Sermon against Isolatry, and 6th Part of the Sermon against Rebellion. Of other writers he specifies Bishop Jewel, p. 373; Bishop Abbot, Antichristi Demonstratio; Archbishop Whitgift, Tract. 8; Bishop Andrewes, Tortura torti; Bishop Bilson, p. 527; Bishop Morton; and Hooker’s Treatise on Justification, § 10, 57

[44] “The enquiry into these matters is so out of fashion, and lies under so general a prejudice, that I found the Press everywhere affrighted from undertaking the charge of this publication.” Epist. Dedicatory to Queen Mary.

[45] This involves the entire identity, as is stated in his argument, p. 59, of the Beast in Apoc. xiii. and Beast in Apoc. xvii.

[46] p. 160.

[47] The Emperor being Pontifex as well as Imperator.

[48] p. 192.

[49] p. 274, 275.

[50] Epistle Dedicatory, and Pref. p. xvii.

[51] Bossuet’s exposition was first published in 1690.

[52] The date of Grotius Treatise about Antichrist was A.D. 1640: that of Hammond’s on the New Testament, 1653-1656.

[53] The incense-angel of (Apoc. viii. 3, “And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne.”), I should observe, Bossuet makes to mean a created angel; and speaks of the idea of its meaning Christ as a mere Protestant interpretation. “Les Protestans, offensés de voir Pintercession angelique si clairement établie dans ce passage, voudraient que cet ange fūt Jesus Christ mźme:” and he says that there is nothing of the majesty that distinguishes Jesus Christ in the visions. (How then, we ask, make the rider of the 1st Seal’s white horse to be Christ; though surely of no distinguished majesty?) Now how little the interpretation he objects to can be called a mere Protestant interpretation will appear from my remark. Please see p.170 suprą. Bossuet, who frequently refers to Tichonius and Primasius, can hardly but have known that it was the almost universally received interpretation for above 1000 years before the Reformation. In order to discriminate where Christ is meant by an Angel, we must, I think, either look for marks of higher dignity than in a created angel; or else for his having some function assigned him, such as is expressly assigned to Christ, and Christ alone, in Scripture. So here: since Jesus Christ is declared in the Hebrew to be the one great High Priest, of offer our offerings before God. And observe it is “the prayers of all saints” that the Apocalyptic Angel offers; not that of one particular saint, or one particular people: whereas all the functions assigned to created angels are definite and limited.

[54] In Illustration of the scorpion-sting of the heretics he mentions Tertullian’s entitling of his work against heretics Scorpiace.

[55] “Precisement trois ans et demi.” So, he says, Eusebius.

[56] “C’est Rome, et l’empire Romain.” So Bossuet on (Apoc. xi. 8, “And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.”). Elsewhere, in a notice of Jurieu in his Preface to the Apocalyptic Comment, he strongly insists on this point. The Protestant expositors, says he, “ont bien vu que cela me se pouvoit dire:” i.e. that Jerusalem could not be called the great city. And then he thus insists on the point; “Pour dire quelque chose de plus fort, la grande cité est partout dans l’Apocalypse l’empire Romain.” § 8. I beg my readers to mark this. Christ, he adds, on Apoc. xi. 8, was literally crucified in the Roman empire, and by Roman authority: and he was also spiritually crucified in his persecuted members, during the Roman Pagan persecutions

[57] Bossuet, on verse 5, says that the Church is not stated to have now retired into the desert, so as in former persecutions; “parceque du tems de Julien il n’y eut. aucune interruption daus son service public.”

[58] Bossuet hints his opinion that Jerome, in naming ten Gothic invading peoples, had Apoc. xvii. 16 in his eyes. Pref. to Apoc. § 22. See pp. 158, 159 suprą.

[59] On the difference of this from Augustine’ theory. See p.72 suprą.

[60] I must transcribe Bossuet’s short ideal sketch of the future Antichrist: “On doit attendre sous l’Antichrist les signes lcs plus trompeurs qu’on ait jamais vus; avec la malice la plus cachée, l’hypocrisie la plus fine, et la peau de loup la mieux converte de celle des brebis.” (On Apoc. xx. 14, “And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.”.) How different from the Futurists’ idea of a supposed future professedly infidel Antichrist?

[61] In his Abrogé, or Brief Summary, appended to the Comment, Bossuet divides the Apocalyptic historic chronology into 3 periods: - 1. that of the Church’s beginning, and early trials, from Jews and Gentiles: from Apoc. vi to Apoc. xx.: - 2ndly, that of the Church’s reign on earth, being the millennial period of Apoc. xx.: - 3rdly, that of Satan’s loosing, and the future Antichrist. - Thus Bossuet, like Alcasar, makes the Apocalyptic Beast quite a different power from the Antichrist of prophecy. Only in some certain manner, he intimates in his Preface, § 15, the whole Apocalypse might possibly have some secondary and mystical reference to the times of Antichrist.

[62] In the Epistles it is to be observed that Vitringa explains the “ten days” tribulation,” predicted to the Church of Smyrna, to mean the ten years of the Diocletian persecution. - In the Seals, the 3rd Seal’s subject must be understood to run 100 years and more into the chronology of the 4th; though I could not represent this in the Scheme.

[63] On the Epistles in my Vol. i. p. 77; on the Seals in the Appendix to my Vol. i. pp. 549-553.

[64] See p 234 suprą

[65] So at p. 485 Vitringa argues from the undoubted application of the 5th Trumpet, to the right meaning of the 4th: “Gothos enim esse illas locustas quę sequentis tubicinii vise depinguntur, si Deo placet, clarissimč evincemus.” And so previously, p. 455.

[66] Vitr. pp. 526, 525. - Compare Jerome’s statement on this point, quoted in my Vol. i. p. 436, Note 1.

[67] Vitr. pp. 456, 463, 476, 487, 550.

[68] See my Vol. i. p. 355: a passage referred to also by me at p. 234 suprą.

[69] p. 568.

[70] “Quąm hoc doetč et pič cogitatum!” exclaims Vitringa, at p. 620, in reporting this explanation of the 1260 days of the Witnesses prophesying in sackcloth, suggested by Sealiger. He adds, however, that he cannot think of any scriptural justification of it; unless what is said in Gen. xv. 10-13, “And he took unto him all these, and divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one against another: but the birds divided he not. 11: And when the fowls came down upon the carcases, Abram drove them away. 12: And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him. 13: And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;” - might be deemed such: where, the sacrifices having been divided into four parts to the four winds, the time prophesied of is stated to be 400 years.- Vitringa seems not to have been aware of Tichonius’ similar idea. See 162 suprą.

[71] p. 652. So Foxe. Please See p.223 suprą. Vitringa, p. 657, notices Cocceius as having taken this view; and, in connection, explaining the tenth of the city falling of France under Henry IV.; (when however, as Vitringa justly observes, Papal Gaul did not fall, but Henry became a Papist;) and the 7000 slain of the 7 Belgian states and bishopricks: the latter like myself. See my Vol. ii. p. 481, Note 3.

[72] Like Brightman. See p. 225 suprą.

[73] p. 664.

[74] p. 668. See pp.237, 238 suprą.

[75] Vitringa, p. 647. The opinion is thus exprest. “Quid commodius quąm per to dekaton thv polewv hic intelligere regnum aliquod illustre, quod inter decem regna Europęa, religioinis causą Romę subjecta, excellebat, ejusque hactenus superstitiioni fuerat patrocinstum? Id hic casurum dicitur mystico sensu, quando per majores illos motus quibus concutiendom erat, avelleretur ą corpore Imperii Antichristiani. Caderet sic corum respectu in quorum gratiam hactenus steterat et floruerat.”

I quote this, because, as Vitringa believed the event still future, it gives his unbiassed opinion on the real meaning of this prophetic clause: and strikingly confirms my application of it to the fall of Papal England at the Reformation. So too Jurieu, pp.237, 238 suprą.

[76] p. 649.

[77] p. 745. The 1260 days, or 3 1/2 times, of the persecuted Woman’s destined seclusion there he does not attempt to explain on Scaliger’s measure, previously praised by him, of one time = 100 years; but only as a period borrowed from the 3 1/2 years of Antiochus Epiphanius’ profanation of the temple.

[78] pp. 794, 805.

[79] p. 833.

[80] p. 848.

[81] p. 876.

[82] pp. 936-938.

[83] p. 946. Frederic II. made emperor A.D. 1212; Lewis 1314.

[84] p. 973.

[85] See Vitringa’s opinion on this point quoted at p.13 of the present Volume.

[86] “Observavi aliunde cłm voluptate numpr hoc argumentum accuratč esse pertractatum ab crudito quodam viro, (sc. Daniele Whitby,) cujus sententię ą nostria nihil dissident.” Vitringa, p. 1141.

[87] There has been published an abridgement of Daubuz, I think, by a writer named Lancaster: but it can give no idea of the research and learning of the original.

[88] Kai to elaion kai ton oinon mh adikhsthv he renders, like Mede, Heinrichs, and myself, “Thou shalt not do wrong about the oil and wine.”

[89] p. 347

[90] p. 496.

[91] p. 501

[92] pp. 537, 538.

[93] p. 554.

[94] p. 520 on Apoc. xii. (N.B. on Apoc. xii. a wrong paging commences in Daubuz; the first being 481, instead of 565.)

[95] Here, p. 556, Daubuz notes Whiston’s list of the ten kings, as one that had preceded his.

[96] p. 620.

[97] p.592.

[98] p. 611.

[99] pp. 624, 325. A very curious application of the isoyhfia! On which see my Vol. iii. p. 243.

[100] p. 630.

[101] p. 637.

[102] pp. 646, 664.

[103] p. 733.

[104] p. 967.

[105] In the biographical Notice of Sir I. Newton in the British Cyclopędia, a letter of his is given, dated Cambidge, Feb 7, 1690-1, containing the following extract: “I should be glad to have your judgment on some of my mystical fancies. The Son of Man, Dan. vii., I take to be the same with the Word of God upon the white horse in heaven, Apoc. xix.; for both are to rule the nations with a rod of iron. But whence [or from what source] are you certain that the Ancient of Days is Christ?”

[106] He says indeed at p. 278 of Edit. 1733); “The four horsemen, at the opening of the four first seals, have been well explained by Mr. Mede:” who made, we have seen, the first horseman to be Christ. But this was a mere lapse of the pen. For Sir I, expressly elsewhere give to the first Seal, as well as to the other three, a Roman solution. So p. 256; “The visions at the opening of these (the first four) Seals relate only to the civil affairs of the heathen Roman empire.” At p. 274 he speaks of “the wars of the Roman empire, during the reign of the four horsemen that appeared on the opening the first four Seals:” and at p. 277; The Dragon’s heads are seven successive kings; for of them being the four horsemen, which appeared at the opening of the four first seals.” So too p. 278. (I cite from the Reprint in the Investigator.)

[107] “These wars [at the beginning of which Valens perished] were not fully stopped on all sides till the beginning of the reign of Theodosius, A.D. 379, 380; but henceforward the empire remained quiet from foreign enemies, till his death A.D.395. So long the four winds were held; and so long there was silence in heaven.” He adds; “And the 7th Seal was opened when the silence began.” Pp. 294, 295.

[108] Till my present abstracting of Sir. I. Newton’s Treatise, I had not been aware of the near resemblance of my own views on the holding of the winds and the half-hour’s silence to Sr. I. Newton‘s. See my Vol. i. pp. 258, 321, 325. Only I judge the time of silence intended to have begun at Theodorius’ death, not his accession. pp. 296 - 302.

[109] Sir I. Newton, pp. 296-302.

[110] “About five months,” he says, “at Damascus, and five at Bagdad;” altogether 300 years, from A.D. 637 to 936 inclusive. Ib. 305.

[111] p. 307.

[112] p. 279-281.

[113] Pp. 282-284. - Sir I. Newton gives us in his connected Treatise on Daniel historical abstracts illustrating the division of the ten kingdoms, and progress of the Papal power in respect of imperial law and historic fact, so careful and valuable, that no Apocalyptic student should be without them. I have referred to them in my Vol. iii. at pp. 141, 160, and elsewhere.

[114] “The second Beast, which rose up out of the earth, was the Church of the Greek empire.” P. 283. In the distinction of earth and sea, he elsewhere makes the earth the Greek empire. So p. 281.

[115] The Epistle to Ephesus Sir I. Newton makes to depict the state of the Church previous to the fifth Seal, and before Diocletian’s persecution; when the only “somewhat” of charge against it was, “Thou hast left thy first love:” - that to Smyrna, with its ten days’ tribulation, had reference to Diocletian’s persecution, depicted in the 5th Seal: - those to Pergamos, Thyatira, and Sardis, wherein mention is made of the heresies and evils of Balaam and the woman Jezebel, and of the Church’s works not having been found perfect before God, figured the gradual apostasy under Constantine and Constantius: - that to Philadelphia, the faithful under Julian’s persecution:- that to Laodicea, the Church’s subsequent lukewarmness, so increased as that God would spew it out of his mouth; a state answering to the development of the apostasy soon after the opening of the 7th Seal, or at the end of the 4th century.

[116] Pp. 271, 272.

[117] At the beginning of his Apocalyptic Treatise, pp. 236-246. Grotious, if I remember right, took Epiphanius’ Claudian date simply on Epiphanius’ authority. Alcasar had taken the Domitianic.

[118] Viz. in my opening Treatise on the Date of the Apocalypse, Vol. i. p. 34, and the additional notice on it, p. 533, in the Appendix to that Volume.

[119] “The time is not yet come for understanding the old prophets, (which he that would understand must begin with the Apocalypse,) because the main revolution predicted in them is not yet come to pass. In the days of the voice of the seventh Angel the mystery of God shall be finished. . . Among the interpreters of the last age there is scarce one of note who hath not made some discovery worth knowing; whence I seem to gather that God is about opening these mysteries.” Pp. 252, 253.

[120] “Sir I. Newton had a very sagacious conjecture, which he told Dr. Clark, from whom I received it, that the overbearing tyranny and persecuting power of the Antichristian party, which hath so long corrupted Christianity, and enslaved the Christian world, must be put a stop to, and broken to pieces, by the prevalence of infidelity, for some time before primitive Christianity could be restored:” - which, adds, Whiston, writing A.D. 1744, “seems to be the very means that is now working in Europe for the same good and great end of Providence.” (2nd Ed. p. 321.)

[121] Whiston died A.D. 1752. - The title-page of his Essay’s 2nd Edition bears date, London 1744; Whiston’s own conclusion of its 3rd Part, at p. 324, Jan. 20, 1743-4. A little before his death he drew up a brief Addendum to his Second Edition, occupying in my copy of that Edition from p. 325 to 332; and bearing date at the end, May 7, 1750.

[122] This view has been followed in the main by Bicheno and Keith. I have also myself mainly adopted it.

[123] P. 196.

[124] Whiston’s 1st Edition, being published in 1706, was before Daubuz.

[125] All this has been closely followed by Mr. Faber in his Sacred Calendar. See his Vol. ii. p. 293-301.

[126] Compare Mr. Cuninghame’s View, noticed in my Vol. iii. p. 121.

[127] P. 126.

[128] Pp. 275-277. Prof. M. Stuart (i. 469) is thus incorrect in saying that Whiston assigned the year 1766 as that of Christ’s second coming.

[129] So Launęus. See p. 245 suprą; also pp. 235, 236.

[130] Bengel, A.D. 1740: (died 1752:) Bishop Newton, A.D. 1754.

[131] His fundamental principle, one altogether conjectural, was that the Beast’s number 666, construed of years, must equal the Beast’s numeral period 42 months; in other words, that one prophetic month = 666 = 15 6 years.

                                                                          42          7

Hence, after various calculations, he inferred that the year 1836 would be the year of the final and great crisis; an expectation, I need not observe, never realized.

[132] It was published under the fictitious name of Signor Pastorini in the year 1771: was in 1778 translated into French by a Benedictine of St. Maur, and into Latin and German soon after. Its principle is, that the Seals, Trumpets, and Vials all relate to the same seven ages of the Church: 1. the first 300 years of the Christian ęra, to Constantine, the age of Christian purity: 2. the next 100 years, marked by the Arian heresy; 3. from 406 to 620 A.D., marked by God’s judgments on ancient Rome and the Western Empire; 4. from 620 to 1520 marked by three great events, - viz. the rise of Mahomet and Mohammedanism, the schism of the Greek Church, and the consequent judgments on it in the fall of Constantinople; whereon, however, the spared Greek remnant “did not penance to give God glory,” but perished in their schism; 5. that began A.D. 1520 in the Lutheran Reformation, which is to last “till the pouring out of the 6th Vial, twice 5 months, or about 300 years:” of which 300 years 250, says Pastorini, are now elapsed; so that the pouring out of that vial seems soon approaching, and the cry heard, “Come out of her, my people.” The 6th age is the last of the Church militant on earth; probably till the end of the world’s 6000 years: 7. the 7th age, that of eternity.

[133] He was originally French, but became a refugee in Geneva on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. He was in earlier life a friend of Sir I. Newton; in later life the subject of the eulogies of both Voltaire and Rousseau. His Apocalyptic Discourse was first published about 1730.

[134] An Answer approved and translated into Latin by Wolf, and inserted in his “Curę Philologicę.”

[135] Professor Stuart Particularizes Corrodi and Markel on Semler’s side, against the genuineness and apostolicity of the Apocalypse; Storr and Hartwig in defense of it.

[136] “Entitled “Maran Atha, or Book of the Coming of the Lord.” Professor Stuart almost warms into enthusiasm in speaking of this book; (i. 471;) and at the end of his Second Volume gives a large specimen of it. It seems to me calculated to excite feelings of a very different kind in the devout Christian, for the reason stated above.