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.

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CHAPTER II.

EXAMINATION OF THE FUTURISTS’ APOCALYPTIC SCHEME.

The Futurists’ is the second, or rather third, grand anti-Protestant Apocalyptic Scheme. I might perhaps have thought it sufficient to refer to Mr. Birks’ masterly Work in refutation of it, ^[1] but for the consideration that my own Work would be incomplete without some such examination of this futurist Scheme, as of the Schemes preceding: moreover that on more than one point (chiefly as regards the 6th Seal and the Apocalyptic Beast) Mr. Birks’ own views of some of which I have spoken elsewhere, ^[2] must necessarily, in my mind, have prevented his doing full justice to the argument. - Besides which, there is otherwise abundantly sufficient difference between us to prevent all appearance of my trenching on his ground. ^[3]

The futurist Scheme, as I have elsewhere stated, ^[4] was first, or nearly first, propounded about the year 1585 by the Jesuit Ribera; as the fittest one whereby to turn aside the Protestant application of the Apocalyptic prophecy from the Church of Rome. In England and Ireland of late years it has been brought into vogue chiefly by Mr. (now Dr.) S. R. Maitland and Mr. Burgh; followed by the writer of four of the Oxford Tracts on Antichrist. ^[5] Its general characteristic is to view the whole Apocalypse, at least from after the Epistles to the Seven Churches, as a representation of the events of the consummation and second advent, all still future: the Israel depicted in it being the literal Israel; the temple, Apoc. xi., a literal rebuilt Jewish temple at Jerusalem; and the Antichrist, or Apocalyptic Beast under his last head, a personal infidel Antichrist, ^[6] fated to reign and triumph over the saints for 3 1/2 years, (the days in the chronological periods being all literal days,) until Christ’s coming shall destroy him. Of which advent of Christ, and events immediately precursive to it, the symbols of the six first Seals are supposed to exhibit a prefiguration singularly like what is given in Matt. xxiv.; and therefore strongly corroborative of the futurist view of the Seals and the Apocalypse. - Thus, while agreeing fully with the Præterists on the day-day principle, and partly with them as to the literal Israel’s place in the prophecy, they are the direct antipodes of the Præterists in their view of the time to which the main part of the Apocalypse relates, and the person or power answering to the symbol of the Apocalyptic Beast: the one assigning all to the long distant past, the other to the yet distant future. And here is in fact a great advantage that they have over the Præterists, that, instead of being in any measure chained down by the facts of history, they can draw on the unlimited powers of fancy, wherewith to devise in the dreamy future whatever may seem to them to fit the sacred prophecy.

Notwithstanding this we shall, I doubt not, find abundantly sufficient evidence in the sacred prophecy to repel and refute the crude theory; whether in its more direct and simple form, or in any such modified form as some writers of late have preferred to advocate. The consideration of the latter I reserve for another Section. That of the former will be the subject of the Section on which we are now entering.

§ 1. ORIGINAL UNMODIFIED FUTURIST SCHEME.

I purpose to discuss it with reference separately to each of the four points just noticed as its most marked characteristics: - viz. the supposed instant plunge of the prophecy into the far distant future of Christ’s coming and the consummation; - the supposed parallelism of the subjects of the Apocalyptic Seals with the successive signs specified by Christ in his prophecy on Mount Olivet as what would precede and usher in the Apocalyptic prophecy; - and the supposed time, place, and character of its intended Antichrist.

1. THE SUPPOSED INSTANT PLUNGE OF THE APOCALYPTIC PROPHECY INTO THE DISTANT FUTURE OF THE CONSUMMATION.

Now, to begin, there seems here in the very idea of the thing a something so directly contrary to all God’s previous dealings with his people, and to all that He has himself led us to expect of Him, as to make it all but incredible, unless some clear and direct evidence be producible in proof of it. We read in (Amos iii. 7), “Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.” And of this God’s principle of action all Scripture history is but a continued exemplification: his mode having been to give the grand facts of prophecy in the first instance, and then, as time went on, to furnish more and more of particulars and detail: so, gradually but slowly, filling up prophetically that part of the original prophetic outline in which the Church for the time being might have a special interest; but always with the grand main point kept also in view. Thus to Adam, after the fall, there was revealed God’s mighty purpose of the redemption of our fallen world through the seed of the woman: to Noah, together with declaration that this original covenanted promise was renewed to him, the prediction of the coming judgment of the flood: to Abraham, together with similar renewal of the grand covenant respecting Him in whom all the families of the earth should be blessed, the more particular prediction and promise, also, as to his natural seed becoming a nation; and occupying Canaan: to Moses, when leading Abraham’s family, now become a nation, from Egypt, together with reminiscence of the great Prophet like him, that was to come, sundry predictions also about the several tribes; and further, respecting Israel nationally, the prediction of its apostasy from God in the course of time, and consequent temporary casting off, captivity, and return. So too again, long after, when the time of their first captivity drew near, together with repetition of the same great promise, which in the interim had been ever more and more particularly dwelt on, e.g. especially by David and Isaiah, - I say as the time of Israel’s first captivity drew near, then there was predicted by Jeremiah its appointed term, 70 years; and then again, just at the close of the 70 years of that captivity, Daniel’s memorable prophecy of there being appointed yet 70 weeks, or 490 years, until Messiah should come, and be cut off though not for himself, and the Jewish city and sanctuary be destroyed by a Prince that should arise: a prophecy this last which Christ himself, after coming at the time so defined, expanded, when speaking to his disciples on Mount Olivet, into the full and detailed prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem. Such, I say, had been the method pursued by God for above 4000 years, in the prophetic communications to his people, through all the Old Testament history. And now then when the prophetic Spirit spoke again, and for the last time, by the mouth of his apostles, more especially of the apostle St. John, what do the Futurists contend for, but that God’s whole system is to be supposed reversed; that in regard, not of smaller events, or events in which the Church was but slightly concerned, but of events in which it was essentially and most intimately concerned, and of magnitude such as to blazon the page of each history of Christendom, the whole 1800 years that have passed subsequently are to be viewed as a blank in prophecy; the period having been purposely skipped over by the Divine Spirit, in order at once to plunge the reader into the events and times of the consummation.

The case is made stronger against them by comparing more particularly the nearest existing parallels to the Apocalyptic prophecy in respect of orderly arrangement, I mean the prophecies of Daniel. For we see that they, one and all, prefigured events that were to commence immediately, or very nearly, from the date of the vision. So in that of the symbolic image, Dan. ii.; which began its figurations with the head of gold, or Nebuchadnezzar. So in that of the four Beasts, Dan. vii.; which also began the Babylonian Empire then regnant. So in that of the ram and the goat, Dan. viii., which began from the Persian Empire’s greatness; the vision having been given just immediately before the establishment of the Persian kingdom in power. So, once more, in Dan. xi.: where the commencement is made so regularly from the Persian Prince “Darius the Mede,” then reigning, that it is said, “There shall stand up yet three kings in Persia; and the fourth shall be richer than they all, and shall stir up all against Greece;” i.e. Xerxes. Strange indeed were there in the Apocalypse such a contrast and contrariety, as the Futurists suppose, to all these Danielic precedents! - Moreover, the fact of its following those precedents seems expressly declared by the revealing Angel, at the opening of the vision in Apoc. iv., “Come up, and I will (now) show thee what must happen meta tauta, after these things.” A statement evidently referring to Christ’s own original division of the subjects of the revelation into “the things which St. John had first seen,” (in the primary vision,) “the things that then were,” (viz. the then existing state of the seven Churches,) and “the things which were to happen after them.” - Thus our inference as to the speedy sequence of the future first figured in the Apocalypse upon the time when the Apocalypse was actually exhibited, seems to me not only natural, and accordant with all the nearest Scripture precedents, but necessary. And it both agrees with, and is confirmed by, the other divine declarations, made alike at the first commencement and final close of the Apocalypse; to the effect that the things predicted were quickly to come to pass, the time of their fulfillment near at hand. ^[7]

And what then the Futurists’ escape from such arguments? What the authority for their unnatural Apocalyptic hypothesis? On the argument from the analogy of Scripture, and specially of Daniel, no answer that I know of has been given. ^[8] With regard however to those statements, “To show to his servants what must shortly come to pass,” and again, “Seal not the sayings of this Book, for the time is at hand,” Dr. S. R. Maitland replies that, since Christ’s coming is often aid in Scripture to be quickly, ^[9] and the day of the Lord to be at hand,” ^[10] albeit very far distant, we may similarly suppose the whole subject of the Apocalyptic predictions to be distant, though prophesied of as “shortly to come to pass.” ^[11] An answer little satisfactory, as it seems to me. For the principle it goes on seems to be this; - that because two particular cognate predicate phrases have the word quickly, or its tantamount, attached to them, to each of which phrases a double meaning attaches, - a lesser and a greater, - a nearer and a more distant, ^[12] - the former typical perhaps of the latter, and this latter avowedly veiled in mystery, in order to its being over looked for by the Church, - that because these have the word quickly attached in dubious sense to them, therefore events of a quite different character, and that are altogether most distant in time, nay and a long concatenated or chain of events too, may be also so spoken of: - a principle this on which all direct meaning of such words as quickly, or at hand, in sacred Scripture might, I conceive, be gainsayed, denied or disputed. - Nor indeed is it from these adverbial expressions, insulated and alone, that the whole difficulty arises. For we have further to observe that the events Apocalyptically prefigured to St. John as first and next to happen in the coming future, are connected and linked on in a very marked manner with the then actually existing state of the seven Asiatic Churches, as the terminus à quo of all that was to follow: it being said by the Angel, forthwith after the long and detailed description of them in Christ’s seven dictated Epistles, to the Churches, “Come up, and I will show thee what events are to happen after these things;” a dei genesqai meta tauta - just like the defined present terminus à quo in Dan. xi. 2, “There shall stand up yet three kings in Persia.”

But stop! Are we quite sure of our terminus? Behold the futurist critic and expositor, as if by sleight of hand, shifts the scene itself on the seven Asiatic Churches, which I spoke of as constituting the terminus à quo of all that followed in the prophecy, some two thousand years, or nearly so, forward in the world’s history. “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day” (Apoc. i. 10), he explains to mean, “I was rapt by the Spirit into the great day of the Lord.” ^[13] And so, instead of merely contesting the direct sequence of what was prefigured in the Apocalyptic visions of the future, beginning Apoc. iv. 1, from the definite commencing epoch of St. John and his seven Asiatic Churches, - instead of this, I say, he takes the bolder ground of making the great day of Christ’s coming to judgment to be the avowed subject of all that followed St. John’s announcement of being in the Spirit; including first and foremost, of course, the description in the seven Epistles of the seven Churches; so as to leave open the idea of their being Churches non-existent until the supposed prefigured time of the end? Assuredly not. The Apostle’s salutation is presented to them in Apoc. i. 4, five verses prior to his announcement of being in the Spirit, in terms just like St. Paul’s to the then existing Churches in Thessalonica or Philippi; “John to the seven Churches in Asia, Grace be unto you!” - Besides which who can help being struck with the violence done by Dr. M. to the Greek original, in construing its simple verb substantive, with the preposition in and ablative following, “I was in the Spirit on (or in) the Lord’s day,” ^[14] as if it were a verb of motion, with into and an accusative following? ^[15] - Dr. Maitland argues indeed, as “a sufficient reason” in favor of so rendering the clause, that the Sunday, or Christian sabbath, was not in St. John’s time, or till two centuries afterwards, called the Lord’s day, h Kuriakh hmera. ^[16] But this will be found on examination to be a statement altogether incorrect. ^[17] Rather it will appear that the great day of the Lord, or judgment day, to which Dr. M. would apply it, has never, either in the Septuagint or the New Testament, the peculiar appellation Kuriakh attached to it in the adjectival form; nor, I believe, in the early Greek Fathers. ^[18] - Thus the verbal argument too is against, not for, Dr. Maitland. The sleight of hand by which he shifts the seven Churches, and Epistles addressed to them, into a distant future, proves to be one that sets the sense of language, as well as the requirements of grammar and context, at defiance. And the difficulty remains, as it was, a millstone round the neck of the Futurist principle of interpretation.

II. THE FUTURISTS’ IDENTIFICATION OF THE SUBJECTS OF THE APOCALYPTIC SEALS WITH THE GOSPEL-PREACHING, WARS, FAMINES, PESTILENCES, PERSECUTIONS, AND REVOLUTION NOTED IN CHRIST’S PROPHECY, Matt xxiv., as the precursive, they say, of his second coming.

To the subject I have already briefly alluded in my Vol. i. ^[19] And as may be remembered, it was there shown that, while there was scarce a point on which the asserted accordance could be made out, there was at least one on which irreconcilable discordance could be demonstrated; and this one so interlacing with the rest as to involve in its failure the whole theory of parallelism. For while, as regards the 1st Seal, it appeared that there was nothing in its symbols to identify the rider with Christ, or the rider’s progress on the white horse with that of gospel-preaching, - and, as regards the 2nd Seal, the difference suggested itself between its civil wars and the wars of nation against nation in St. Matthew, - as regards the 3rd Seal the utter impossibility was shown of its symbols ever figuring famine; seeing that 5 lbs. of barley was defined in it as procurable for a man’s daily wage of a denarius, and with wine and oil in abundance. - Moreover, even supposing that the earlier Seals’ symbols were capable of identification with the signs in Matthew, it would remain for the Futurists to prove that the gospel-preaching, wars, famines, pestilences, and persecutions that Christ spoke of were meant as signs immediately precursive of his personal second Advent; and not rather of the destruction of Jerusalem: - a point this difficult indeed of proof: and of the furnishing of which by any of the School, in contravention of the other more natural interpretation, so given by the best expositors, I must confess myself wholly incredulous.

But, at any rate, they insist on the 6th Seal prefiguring the consummation; as what may help (though certainly, unless the previous Seals have that reference too, with most insufficient help) ^[20] the Futurist view. Says Dr. S. R. Maitland; “Can any unbiased reader doubt that this passage refers to the day of judgment?” ^[21] And Mr. Burgh: “This Seal so obviously refers to the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, . . . that I must say there is no room for difference of opinion.” ^[22] So again R. D. in the Dublin Christian Examiner, for December, 1844; (a writer of whom more in my next Section;) “If there be a day yet future, it is the day of the wrath of the Lamb, [i.e. as in the 6th Seal,] when he shall be revealed from heaven in flaming fire:” with declaration added of the impossibility of rightly expounding the imagery of the 6th Seal, where his wrath is spoken of, except with reference to that day. And so too Dr. Todd, ^[23] and most other Expositors of the School. - Now, in order to understand here the real value of the Futurists’ argument, it is essential to inquire at once, very distinctly, whether by Christ’s coming they really mean his personal visible coming to judgment; and, if so, on what construction of the imagery of the 6th Seal, literal or figurative? R. D., we saw, declares plainly that it is indeed his personal coming, “when he shall be revealed from heaven in flaming fire.” And I presume he would have the elemental convulsions of the Seal construed literally, as that which is to attend it. But, if so, does it not seem passing strange that we should have no representation whatsoever of the flaming fire that is to accompany Christ’s second coming; nothing shown, or said, even of his own glorious epiphany; nothing of the rapture of the saints to meet him? So as to the evidence from omission. Besides which may we not say that there seems to be that stated which absolutely forbids the supposition of any literal construction of the figures? For were the stars literally to fall to the earth, so as in the Apocalyptic vision they appeared to do, then the earth would not only reel to and fro like a drunkard, but be struck from its orbit into fragments: ^[24] whereas from the Sealing vision in the second part of the same 6th Seal, next following, and which depicts the Angels of the four winds as preparing to blow upon it, it appears that the earth still existed afterwards, and with men still inhabiting it, just as before. What then remains (unless, with Dr. Todd, we boldly eject the Sealing vision from its place in the Apocalyptic Book) ^[25] but to construe the symbols figuratively: and with this, and the consequent reference in them only to some mighty revolution, religious or political, to abandon all argument for the Seal’s signifying Christ’s personal coming to judgment? - Indeed by some of the best-known advocates of the School (contradictorily to R. D.) this seems to me pretty much admitted. As Dr. Maitland has maintained silence on the point inquired into, we cannot do better, I think, than to look for explanation to Mr. Burgh, the next most popular writer probably on the same side. And, strange as it may seem to my readers, they will find that if the passage quoted a little while since in part from him be completed, and the hiatus represented by the dots filled up, it will read thus: - “This Seal so obviously refers to the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, containing as it does the very signs and omens of his coming, ^[26] . that there is no room for difference of opinion.” Does Mr. Burgh then mean, after all, that instead of depicting Christ’s coming itself, this Seal merely depicted certain signs and omens showing that it was near? Such is indeed the case. So at p. 150; “When these several signs of Christ‘s coming shall have been developed, [viz. in the Seals preceding,] then the sixth Seal opens with the day itself of his coming, OR [ I pray the reader to mark this significant little word, OR] with the signs by which it is more immediately announced!!” And what then, we next ask, as to the precise signs thus immediately announcing the advent; - the sun be coming black as sackcloth, the moon like blood, the stars of heaven falling to the earth, and heaven itself removing like a scroll rolled up? Is the description to be taken literally or figuratively, of physical and elemental, or only of political change? For a direct, straightforward answer to this question I look into Mr. Burgh in vain. In one place he seems to assign a literal meaning to the 6th Seal. ^[27] But, judging from the sequel, this can hardly be. For he considers the Sealing Vision 7th Seal, Trumpets, &c., all chronologically to carry on the subject. ^[28] And as he makes the Sealing Vision depict the sealing of a Jewish remnant, to be saved from the judgments threatened by the tempest-angels on the godless of the nation, and the other visions similarly to refer to the earth as still existing, and men dwelling on it, I infer that he cannot suppose any physical changes to have been intended by the sixth Seal’s vision, such as to have destroyed earth, and sky, and earth’s inhabitants. The rather since I observe, that he explains the palm-bearing vision next following, as only, at that point of advance in the sacred drama, an anticipative, prospective representation of the heavenly blessedness of the saints; and infer consequently that their translation, and therefore Christ’s second coming, will not, in Mr. Burgh’s opinion, even at this epoch (an epoch subsequent to the sixth Seal), have yet taken place: nay that at a much later epoch, that of Apoc. x. 7, the consummation will not have occurred; “judgment having followed on judgment, but the end not being yet.” ^[29] Hence it seems evident that Mr. Burgh, like myself, must construe the symbols of the sixth Seal figuratively; and if figuratively, then, according as the figure is elsewhere used in Scripture prophecy, of mere political or politico-religious change and revolution. In which case all argument for having anything to do with Christ’s second advent vanishes; and together therewith all aid from it, (if aid it could give,) as well as from the Seals preceding it, to the Futurists’ Apocalypse Scheme.

III. AS TO THE FUTURISTS’ LITERAL CONSTRUCTION OF THE APOCALYPTIC ISRAEL

A point this quite essential to their system, just as much as to the Præterists’; for it is thereby that they identify, and link on, much of this prophecy with those in the Old Testament respecting the ultimate restoration and conversion of the Jews: insomuch, I believe, that if the Apocalyptic Israel were proved not to be the literal Israel, there is not a Futurist but would admit that their cause was lost.

“The Jew,” says Mr. Burgh, emphatically, (p. 432,) “is the key to prophecy.” And again (p. 165) on the same Apoc. vii.; “I can understand (though I do not think an undoubted instance of it exists) how the name Israel may be supposed to be figuratively applied to the Gentile Church in Scripture: but to suppose that not merely the name of Israel is so applied, but that the names of every one of the twelve tribes have also a spiritual meaning, and apply to the Gentile Church,” this he would have to be incredible indeed. Again, on Apoc. xi. 1, “Rise and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein, but the court without, measure not, for it is given to the Gentiles, and they shall tread under foot the holy city forty and two months,” he remarks to the effect that every word marks to an unprejudiced reader that the passage concerns the Jewish nation; and that it is matter for astonishment that it should have been so allegorized by most of the English Protestant expositors, as to exclude all reference to the Jewish people. ^[30] And so too Maitland, Todd, ^[31] and, I believe, all the chief writers of this school. Now in my Chapter on the Præterists’ ^[32] I showed, 1st, that a figurative explanation of the Jewish Apocalyptic symbols was not only accordant with St. Paul’s application of them to the Christian Church, but accordant also with our Lord’s own express explanation of the Apocalyptic figure of seven candlesticks, in what seemed like the holy place of the Jewish temple, to signify the seven Asiatic Christian churches: 2ndly, and in objection to their literal system of explanation of these Jewish symbols, that the Præterists are forced by it into inconsistency; explaining the temple symbol, as they do, and its adjuncts elsewhere in the Apocalyptic drama, to signify things Christian. Just so it is also with the Futurists. - Let me turn to Mr. Burgh, as before, for illustration. And as regards the Jewish temple, and temple-worshippers on the Apocalyptic scene, I observe, first, that he makes “all the saints” that offered incense there in (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.”) - to be “the Lord’s people:” not unconverted Jews at all; nor even converted Jews alone, but only in part. ^[33] Next in (Apoc. 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.”) - he explains the temple, and altar, and them that worship in it, to designate a “converted” remnant of the Jewish nation; ^[34] that is, mark, a Christianized remnant; and whose worship consequently will not be Jewish, ^[35] but Christian. Further, with regard to the twelve tribes of Israel, he makes the New Jerusalem of Apoc. xxi., - that same city “which had twelve gates, and the names written thereon of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel,” viz. of Judah, Reuben, Gad, &c., the very same that were noted in Apoc. vii. originally, and that are there re-mentioned just as fully and as specifically, - he makes it mean- what? “No doubt,” thinks the reader perhaps, “the blessed and glorious state of the Jewish nation in the millennium.” Nothing of the kind: (Mr. Burgh well knew certain stringent reasons, of various kinds, against this: ^[36] ) but the polity of the Christian Church, completed and beatified: “that same,” he observes, “which St. Paul meant in that magnificent passage addressed to the Hebrew Christians, ‘Ye are come unto Mount Zion, and the general assembly, and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven.’ I view it,” says he, ^[37] “as identical with the final consummated blessedness of the whole Church.” I doubt not he is here perfectly correct. But what an astounding exemplification of the inconsistency of the Futurists! Of course, if under the names of the twelve tribes of Israel, written respectively on the gates of the New Jerusalem, there be meant the true Christian Church in its heavenly completeness and beatification, then the 144,000 sealed ones on earth out of all the tribes of Israel must surely mean the completeness of any particular period of God’s own Israel, or true Church on earth; and the holy city and the temple still the same mystical body, in regard of its polity and of its worship, respectively. ^[38] - Such is the general Protestant view. And on it all seems harmonious; as well as all accordant with Christ’s own most illustrative explanation of the Jewish symbol of the candlesticks, at the beginning of the Apocalypse. Whereas, on the other hand, enough, I think, has been said to show that in the Futurists’ system, let the advocate be able as he may, this its essential characteristic will prove on real examination to involve confusion, inconsistency, and self-contradiction.

IV. As to the FUTURISTS’ SUPPOSED YET FUTURE ANTICHRIST.

Under this head I shall have to remark on the difficulties which beset their theory, and the contrast between it and the Scriptural statements, with reference, 1st, to Antichrist’s time of reign and local seat of empire; 2ndly, to his religious profession.

1. Now then, as to the time of Antichrist’s rising, ^[39] it was defined as following speedily after the breaking up of the old Roman empire. For, forasmuch as the let, or hindrance, which in St. Paul’s time prevented, and was still for some certain time after to continue to prevent, Antichrist’s manifestation, was understood by the early Church to be the then regnant Roman empire and emperors, ^[40] (and for the correctness of this its understanding of the point, as of one avowedly revealed, there was almost apostolic voucher, ^[41] ) the inference might seem sure, and to be depended on, that Antichrist would be a power elevated on their falling. - Again, next, as to Antichrist’s local and political relations, his Roman political origin and local connection is a fact, as I have elsewhere more than once had occasion to observe, strongly and in various ways set forth in prophecy. First, if elevated on the old empire’s dissolution, as of that which before hindered his rising, then surely the probability might seem to be that he would rise in its place, as well as on its fall. Secondly, the fourth Beast of Daniel, from whose head in its last or ten-horned state the little horn of Antichrist was seen to sprout, could only (according either to the facts of history, or the declared judgment alike of the best classical writers and chief of the early Fathers) be construed of the Roman empire. ^[42] Thirdly, the city of Antichrist, Apocalyptically called the great city and Babylon, and which he was depicted as supporting and upbearing, was by the indubitable marks of a seven-hilled locality, and a supremacy in St. John’s time over the kings of the earth, signified to be Rome; and moreover its transfer marked as all but immediate, from being the seat or capital of Paganism, to being that of Antichrist. ^[43] Such, I say, was the triple Scriptural foreshadowing of Antichrist’s political relations and local connection with Rome, from his first rise on the old Roman empire’s falling.

But what when the theory of a still future Antichrist (in opposition to that of the Papal Antichrist) is held at the present time? There is nothing, I think, that can more strikingly show the extent and insuperability of the difficulties with which these various prophecies encompass it, than the attempt of him who, of all others of the literalist school, has set himself most fully and elaborately to meet them; and to whom Mr. Burgh refers with satisfaction, as furnishing important corroboration to his Scheme; ^[44] - I mean the Oxford Tractator of the Four Sermons on Antichrist. ^[45] It may be well to exhibit this at some little length.

To begin then with the Thessalonian prophecy, and the difficulty from the fact of its let (which with the Fathers he feels constrained to interpret of the Roman empire) ^[46] having full 13 centuries ago past away, and so too the time for Antichrist’s manifestation, ^[47] our Tractator’s confident answer in his first Sermon is this, - that, whatever the apparent historic fact, in the eye of prophecy the Roman empire is regarded as not past away, but still existing, and the let with it; viz. in its predicted ten horns or kingdoms, the Romano-Gothic constituency of modern Western Christendom. ^[48] But scarce has he made the answer than he contradicts it, forced by the strong facts of history: confessing in his third Sermon that the self-same breaking up of the Roman empire that was foretold did take place, at the time of the Gothic irruptions. ^[49]

Which however being admitted by him, and the admission also made, as we have seen, and must well remark, of the ten Romano-Gothic kingdoms of modern Western Christendom answering to the ten horns of Daniel’s and the Apocalyptic prophecy, - not only does the first difficulty from the Thessalonian Epistle remain unanswered, but a new one rises out of these other prophecies before him. For nothing can be clearer from them than that Antichrist was to be a power contemporary with the ten horns of the symbolic Beast: - like a little horn (of rapid enlargement) ruffling it, as Mede says, among the ten; or a common head supporting, and furnishing a center of union to them: - that is, according to these admissions, a power contemporary with the Western kingdoms of the middle and the modern age. Our author seems to feel the difficulty; and, reckless of the new contradictions that it involves, casts away both the one and the other of these previously-made admissions: asserts, - on the ground of the Romano-Gothic kingdoms of the 5th and 6th centuries not having been clearly and exactly ten, ^[50] - that the real decuple division intended by prophecy did not then take place, but is yet future; ^[51] and further, as to the breaking up of the empire, that it was not then really effected, but only had a bare beginning: - the commencement of a long process of dissolution which has in fact been ever since going on; and which, after full thirteen centuries, is not yet completed. ^[52] - Is this a thing credible?

And then there is yet another difficulty that here meets him. For both Daniel’s and the Apocalyptic symbol depict the Roman empire as a bestial monster, as well until the precise predicted division into ten, as under the ten and Antichrist afterwards. And thus his interpretation seems to involve the consequence of Papal Rome (the object in no slight degree of this esteem, and reverence) having been a Beast, or impious and persecuting Empire, in the view of inspired prophecy, even though not under Antichrist, throughout the long and (as he would have it) ^[53] still uncompleted period before the grand predicted decem-regal division. As if to get rid of this difficulty, he cites the two Apocalyptic notices of the Beast in its last or antichristian form, as “the Beast that was and is not and yet is,” and as that which had “received a deadly wound but revived:” intimating that it is the very interval of the “is not,” - the very death-state of the Beast from the deadly wound of the Gothic sword, - that has been filled up by Papacy and its contemporary subject-kingdoms of Western Christendom; the bestial Roman Empire (I presume he means its bestial principle) being all the while torpid, prostate, dying; ^[54] and the long, long protracted parenthesis of Papal rule one in character not bestial but Christian. ^[55] In answer to any objections that might be raised as to the credibility of this torpor of the Beast’s dying , or death, or death, extending through so many ages, he adds that it was the opinion of the early Church that the monster would lie torpid for centuries, and not revive or wake up again till near the end of the world. ^[56] But what the authority of the early Church, unsupported by Scripture? And where moreover the early patristic authority to any such effect? Instead of patristic opinions on the matter being such as he has represented, the reader may sufficiently see, by reference to notices on the subject in other and earlier parts of this work, ^[57] that, although the primitive Fathers slightly differed among themselves as to the nearness of Antichrist and the consummation, - some few thinking it a century distant, or perhaps two centuries, the rest much closer and even at the doors, - yet that, as to the idea of any long interval occurring, between the expected breaking up of the old Roman Empire and Antichrist’s revelation, during which the Roman Beast was to be torpid, - the thought seems never to have entered their imagination. ^[58] And certainly just as little did they anticipate two breakings up of the Roman Empire before Antichrist’s coming: the first of their own imperial Rome into something very like ten kingdoms; the other, ages afterwards, of those long-established decen-regal kingdoms into ten other kingdoms still more exactly defined. - As to Scripture prophecy, forasmuch as in Daniel the bestial character of the fourth Wild Beast, or Roman Empire, is represented symbolically as continuing uninterrupted even to the time of its destruction, and in the Apocalypse the transition-period between the empire in its Pagan draconic form and the empire in its anti-christian and bestial, (i.e. between the Beast as it “was,” and the Beast as it “is,”) is both declared to be brief, ^[59] and also described as all filled up by the Pagan Dragon’s still persecuting the woman the Church, (albeit that he was then fallen,) in active hostility, and so driving her into the wilderness, ^[60] - it is evident that the Tractator’s hypothesis meets from it a negative altogether decisive, and one from which there can be no appeal.

Yet once more the difficulty meets him of Babylon the Great, the city of the seven hills, being the predicted seal of Antichrist: - which local connection of Antichrist with Rome, as his capital, constitutes of course a most strong and palpable corroboration of the Protestant view of the Roman Pope’s being Antichrist. And what then our Tractator’s escape from it? Overlooking altogether the decisive fact of the woman sitting on the Beast when in its last and antichristian form, ^[61] he first alludes to the circumstance of the Angel’s describing the woman-city symbolized to be one that it was simply Rome Pagan to which the guilt attached of the harlotry spoken of, and of being drunk with the blood of the saints, ^[62] - albeit declared a bloody harlot continuously from St. John’s time even to the very end of her career; ^[63] and then passes to the Angel’s other statement about the ten kings hating and burning her with fire, ^[64] as direct evidence that Rome could not be the city of Antichrist: the order of things being this, (so he states the prophecy,) that the ten kings were fated to rise first, and, after rising, to destroy Rome; then Antichrist to appear, and supercede or subdue the ten kings; and so Rome to have fallen before Antichrist’s manifestation. ^[65] - But how could Antichrist be altogether posterior to the ten kings, when they are declared, as the Tractator admits, ^[66] to receive their power at one and the same time with the Beast Antichrist; and indeed depicted as rising together in the symbolization of (Apoc. xiii. 1, “And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.”?) Again, how could Antichrist be the restorer of the Roman empire, which the Tractator also confesses him to be, and bearer too of the Roman appellative Latinos, ^[67] if locally altogether unconnected with Rome, and only rising after Rome’s final destruction? In fact, he admits, a little after, both that Rome was  to be his local seat; ^[68] and, as to its final and total destruction, that it would not be by the ten kings’ agency, but according both to Scripture prophecy and the expectation of the Fathers, through the agency of earthquakes, lightnings, and the fury of the elements: ^[69] - an admission based on prophetic truth; ^[70] and in which he furnishes his own refutation of his own argument.

Thus, look where he may to escape from the difficulties of his prophetic theory, and substitution of a personal Antichrist yet future for the Papal Antichrist of the old Protestant interpreters, the prophecy meets, and stops, and proves too strong for him. At last, in the spirit of the ancient Academy, he takes refuge in doubt and skepticism. Perhaps, he says, after all it may be that not Rome literally is intended in the prophecy, but rather the world, or some other great and wicked city: ^[71] - or perhaps, if Rome be the city intended, her sufferings from the Goths, &c., in time past may be considered sufficient punishment; or the Church within her may prove her preservative, and so the final threatened judgments be averted. ^[72] Again, he regards Antichrist, and Antichrist’s persecution of the saints, Perhaps we may have been wrong in supposing such things to have been foretold; and they may, after all, never arise. ^[73] - Such I say is the conclusion of the writer; - a not unfit conclusion to a Treatise so marked by inconsistency and self-contradiction. Now it is mainly doubtless to the insuperable difficulties of the Tractator’s anti-protestant futurist theory about Antichrist, that these inconsistencies and self-contradictions with reference to Antichrist’s predicted time of rise after the old Roman Empire’s breaking up, and local Roman connection afterwards, are to be attributed; ^[74] - a fact evidenced by the similar or equal inconsistencies, and self-contradictions, of all other expositors of the same school on the same point. ^[75] And it is in this point of view that I have felt it my duty thus at length to exhibit them. At the same time, considering that it is no vulgar or inferior hand of the Tractarian school that has penned the Tract, and that the palpable failure of his attempt at diverting the prophecies respecting Antichrist from application to the Roman Papacy involves it in the most conclusive disproval and condemnation of the general Tractarian system of religious doctrine, - allied as it is so closely to that of Rome, - must not the thought also force itself on the mind, Is this the logic, this the theology, that half Oxford of late has been wondering after? ^[76]

2ndly, as to the Antichrist’s profest religion.

The triple Scriptural evidence in proof of the predicted Antichrist being a great professor of Christianity, - viz. that of his unrighteous system being defined as the deceivableness of unrighteousness, that of his chief agent and minister being figured as a lamb-like false prophet, and that of his designation by the name of a Vice-Christ, (in his own profession, of course, as if of Christ’s appointment,) - is what my readers must now be familiar with.

But the Futurists’ representations on this head are altogether different from what we might thus have inferred from Scripture. According to them Antichrist’s profession is to be that of a downright open atheist: - a theory this all but necessary indeed to their system; for why, except on account of some such different and more horrid kind of irreligion, overlook the Papacy, and judge Antichrist? So Maitland; “The blasphemy of the Little Horn seems . . to be downright barefaced infidelity: something more like what was exhibited in France during the Revolution, than like anything ever seen in the Church of Rome.” ^[77] Also Dr. Todd; “We are to look for an individual Antichrist; . . a power openly and avowedly professing atheism; and blaspheming the very name and semblance of Christianity.” ^[78] And so too others. ^[79] But then what explanation do they give of the passage just referred to, as indicating something so different in the Antichrist’s religious profession? In Dr. Maitland I observe no reference to them. As regards Dr. Todd, while overlooking that most striking symbol of the lamb-like two-horned Beast, that was prophetically set forth as Antichrist’s attendant and prime minister, ^[80] and this down even to Antichrist’s last war against the gospel, and consequent destruction by Christ, ^[81] he however notices, and seeks to set aside, the other two. St. Paul’s expression about the deceivableness of unrighteousness he explains away, as if meaning merely the deceivableness of false miracles, externally supporting the iniquitous moral system; ^[82] though surely the expression seems to imply a deceivableness by great pretensions to religion in the moral system itself. Again, as to the designative term Antichrist, though quoting a criticism of Mr. Gresswell which explains the force of the word almost exactly as I have done, viz. as meaning “another Christ, a Vice-Christ, a pretender to the name of Christ,” . . appears to be, and sets himself up as, the counterpart of the true,” - I say, though he thus quotes Mr. Gresswell, ^[83] defining the term so as to set aside, by the very force of it, all idea of the predicted Antichrist’s being an avowed atheist, yea, and confesses that “this is indeed it by simply saying, “It is plain that John applied the name in the looser sense of enemies to Christ by false doctrine.” But how so? The statement in 1 John ii. 22, “He is Antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son,” is the one grand New Testament passage on which his atheist counter-theory rests. But mark how the next verse, “He that denieth the Son hath not the Father,” shows that the denial of God the Father meant by St. John was only by denying Christ. And how denying Christ? surely in Paul’s language, “While professing to know God, in works denying him.” The Gnostic application fixes this meaning on it. And so in truth the Oxford Tractator confesses; ^[84] and gives it an alternative explanation. How fully an apostle might apply the phrase to professedly Christian teachers appears from (Jude 4, “For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.”) - Here he speaks of false teachers, who had come into the Christian body privily, “denying the only Master and Lord Jesus Christ:” men who were “spots in the Christians’ feasts of charity.” And so too 2 Pet. ii. 1; “There shall be false teachers among you, who shall privily [conspiratorially, secretly,] bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them.” ^[85]

The same general notion about Antichrist that makes the Futurist paint him as an avowed infidel and atheist, leads them to paint him also as an open avowed anti-moralist: legalizing, and indeed enforcing, men’s renunciation of the obligations and restraints of marriage; agreeably, they say, with St. Paul’s prophetic notice to Timothy about the apostatizers in the last days, (for they explain this as meant in the way of a universal prohibition,) “forbidding to marry.” ^[86] The anti-moral excesses and outrages at the first outbreak of the French Revolution are referred to by way of illustration. So Dr. Maitland: - “The plain language of Scripture warrants us to expect . . that the same apostate power shall forbid to marry: and they who have any acquaintance with the real doctrines of apostates from Christianity, whether French philosophers, German illuminati, or liberal infidels of England, will require no proof that such a law may be expected, if an infidel apostasy should become dominant.” ^[87] So too Dr. Maitland’s faithful follower, Dr. Todd: “This much seems beyond a doubt, that a total prohibition of marriage in itself, and not a restriction imposed upon some particular class or order of men, must be intended in the words.” ^[88] And so again the Oxford Tractator. ^[89]

Now the whole force of this argument, as corroborative of their own Futurist views of an individual Antichrist, and subversive of the common Protestant view explaining it of the Papacy, arises out of the idea just noticed of the predicted prohibition being one of universal application. But, to show the utter incorrectness of this idea, notwithstanding the learned Dublin Doctor’s declaration of its indubitableness, two considerations will, I believe, suffice: the one a probable argument drawn from the context of the prediction: the other an ex-absurdo  proof drawn from the supposed thing predicted.

First then, and as regards the context which immediately precedes the verse in question, ^[90] what find we to have been there St. Paul’s subject and argument? We find nearly the whole preceding Chapter occupied with the Apostle’s directions to Timothy as to what would be fitting, and should be required, in bishops and deacons: - including the remarkable particular, respecting both bishops and deacon, that each should be the husband of one wife; ^[91] and also a reference to wine, as that which neither bishop nor deacon should use to excess: ^[92] it being implied that in moderation they might both lawfully and properly use it; as he said to Timothy himself a little later, ^[93] “Let the deacons be husbands of one wife, &c.,” that St. Paul digresses momentarily to intimate the necessity of his thus instructing Timothy by letter, (having been prevented from personal conference,) how he ought to act in his responsible office of a presiding bishop in the Church of God; that whose high object it was, like a pillar erect on its basement, to hold up and exhibit the great gospel truth of the mystery of godliness, of which that a and w was God manifest in the flesh: and this the rather because of Spirit told expressly of a coming apostasy from the faith, in which there would be another rule of life and godliness; with forbidding to marry, and enjoining of abstinence from meats, though God had given them as his good creatures for man’s use. This noted he then resumes the thread of his general directions at verse 6; “Suggesting these things to the brethren, (viz. all that he had previously enjoined,) thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ.” - Such, I say, is the connection and context of this brief but memorable prophecy; and thus does it intervene parenthetically in the course of St. Paul’s instructions to Timothy about ministers of the Church; including that of their being husbands of one wife, and not using wine in excess. All which being so, would it be reasonable to suppose that St. Paul digressed to a prophecy in no wise specially connected with his ministerial subject, but concerning alike all men; or, rather, to one closely connected with it and having regard specially to ministers and functionaries in the visible Church? Surely the latter. In which case, and considering the far-famed Papal injunction of celibacy on the priesthood, (not to add also on the monastic orders,) and that of the forbidding of meats also, wine inclusive to multitudinous ascetic orders, the prophecy becomes, just as Mede in the main expounded it, ^[94] a prophecy that had most signal fulfillment in the Popedom; and so, instead of an argument for Futurists, furnishes an argument strong against them. ^[95]

Secondly, I should be glad to know, where there truth in Drs. Maitland and Todd’s universal anti-marriage theory respecting Antichrist, how it could consist with Christ’s own prophetic declaration in Matt. xxiv. 38, “For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,”?) For, according to these learned Doctors, the yet future Antichrist’s empire over the world is to be universal; and his power such that whosoever refuses to receive the mark, and obey his injunctions, is to be slain. ^[96] Of course this must apply to the injunction about not marrying and not eating meats, just as well as to other injunctions. And since Antichrist’s reign is, as they rightly hold, to be only ended by Christ’s coming, this injunction must needs be in force, and acted on, even until then. Yet, behold, Christ tells us that, “as in the days before the flood men were eating and drinking, marrying, and giving in marriage, until the day when Noe entered into the ark, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be.” - Just accordant with which is the further fact that on the tremendous destruction of Antichrist’s own city, the seven-hilled Babylon, by volcanic earthquake and fire, so as described in Apoc. xviii., among the things mentioned as only then ceasing in Babylon is “the voice of the bridegroom and bride.”

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And here I might fitly conclude this part of my critique, since on the only other great point of difference about Antichrist, viz. the year-day question, involving that of Antichrist’s duration, I have written very fully in my Chapter on it in the 3rd Volume. ^[97] - But I think it well, ere concluding, to add a few remarks in correction of certain representations by Futurists respecting the Papacy on the one hand, and the Antichrist on the other, on points which bear on my last head, and seem to me too important to pass in silence.

The first is Dr. M.’s representation of celibacy under the Popedom as if, first, it extended only to the parochial Clergy, and affected one sex only; - secondly, as if it was only enforced on the Clergy from the view (perhaps mistaken view, he says) of their so better performing their clerical functions. - This is not the way that Ranke speaks of it, in his History of Popes. ^[98] And assuredly that was not the master-motive which induced the Papal determinate enforcement of it at all hazards. In the view of making use of profest religion to subserve both irreligion and worldly policy, it was one of his measures the most characteristic, and most extraordinary. Extending not merely to the parochial clergy of Western Europe, but to the numberless communities of monks and nuns, its first effect was to consecrate, at the same time that with the strong arm of power it enforced upon them, that rule of celibacy which, under the semblance of purity and holiness, opened wide the way, and almost precipitated them into it, of licentiousness. ^[99] And, when direct Papal rule was established over the convent, (not to speak of the priesthood,) then in those innumerable monasteries, male and female, - containing within their walls members from most of the high and considerable families in the several Western kingdoms, and absorbing in their domains no small proportion of the national territory, the accumulated result, it was said, of the piety, or rather of the superstition of successive generations, - I say in these monasteries, thus as an act of religion endowed, and thus as an act of religion peopled with devotees, it was found that he had formed, and held in his grasp, so many almost inexpugnable fortresses, filled with hostages for its fidelity, in the heart of each kingdom of Western Christendom. ^[100] Was there ever such a “forbidding to marry,” in any other Church, or Sect, that Dr. M. has put forward for comparison on this head? - Nor must I omit to except strongly against what Dr. M. says of the abstinence in our own Church, good and praiseworthy. ^[101] By the English Church the doctrine of justification through faith in Christ alone is laid down as its very foundation-stone. With the Roman Church the rule of fasting, as of celibacy, is laid down as a principle of merit and self-justification, in opposition to the gospel of Christ.

Next, and with reference to Dr. Todd ^[102] and other Futurists’ view of Antichrist’s religious or rather anti-religious profession, as that of an open avowed atheist, anti-religionist, and anti-moralist, let me express my deep conviction, that it is not merely

unaccordant with the Apocalyptic and the other cognate prophecies of Antichrist, but appears, even intellectually speaking, a mere rude and common-place conception of Satan’s predicted master-piece of opposition to Christ, compared with what has been actually realized and exhibited in the Papacy. My opinion of the Pope’s being Antichrist is not indeed founded on any such à priori notion of the thing; but on the complete identification of the one and the other, after a rigid comparison of the Papal history, seat, character, doctrine, and doings with those of the Antichrist of prophecy. Having however shown this, let me now explain and justify the superadded sentiment just expressed respecting the Papal system; as being, beyond anything that the Futurists have imagined, or ever can imagine, the very perfection of anti-christianism. And I will do it by simply putting a case in point. Which then, I ask, Reader, would you view with deeper amazement and abhorrence: - an avowed open desperate enemy, sworn against your life, family, friends, property: - or one, that, while professing the utmost friendship, were by some strange impersonation of you, in your absence, to insinuate himself into your place in the family; seize your estate, seduce your wife to be as his wife, ^[103] your children to look to him as their father; and, if yours be a king’s dignity, to seize your kingdom for himself; then to make use of his opportunities to train them (wife, children, and subjects) into unfaithfulness and rebellion against all your solemn and cherished wishes and commands; falsifying your letters and forging your handwriting, in order the more effectually to carry out his plan; and even at length framing an image, and breathing voice into it, and by magic art and strong delusion making men believe that it was your own self-speaking, in expression of perfect approval of his proceedings, as those of your chief friend, plenipotentiary, and chosen substitute? - Such is somewhat of the view of Antichrist, sketched in Scripture prophecy: such, what has been realized in the Popes and Popedom. And, horrid as was the atheism of the French Revolution, yet must I beg leave to doubt whether in God’s view it was as horrid and abomination, even at its worst, as the blasphemous hypocrisies and betrayal of Christ in the polished Court and Church Councils of his usurping Vicar and impersonator at Rome. Sharp as were the thorns and nails and spear of the Pagan soldiery, they were surely less painful to the Savior than the kiss of Judas. ^[104]

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