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.
§ 2. ON CERTAIN MODIFIED FUTURIST COUNTER-SCHEMES
There is something so monstrous in the Futurist’s primary and fundamental idea, as described in my preceding Section, of the Apocalyptic prophecy overleaping at once near 2000 years from St. John’s time, and plunging instantly, and without notice, into the distant future of the consummation, - something so contrary alike to the general rule of God’s peophetic revelations, and to the natural meaning of the revealing Angel’s own words to St. John about the commencing chronology of those of the Apocalypse, - that it could hardly be but that some at least among them should seek out for a way of softening the monstrosity. Moreover, if themselves really of Protestant feeling, the idea of its total overleaping of the great Papal apostasy, without forewarning against or notice of the divine wrath and judgment impending on it, has been a part of the theory painful even to themselves; and from which, if possible, they would fain set it free. So here and there the attempt has been made. Some ten or twelve years ago an imperfectly devolped Scheme, patially to that effect, appeared in the Christian Examiner, written by R. D., a well-known and much-respected correspondent of the Journal; which, however, as being but partially developed, it may seem unfair to criticise. [1] Besides this I may mention the scheme of modification propounded by the Rev. W. G. Baker, in a Letter printed in 1850 in the Quarterly Journal of Prophecy; [2] and another, with its own marked peculiarities, published quite recently by Mr. W. Kelly, of Guernsey. [3] Of each of these I now proceed to offer a brief notice.
1. Mr. Barker.
Mr. B.’s Paper, which is written in a kindly spirit, is entitled, “An Apology for Modern Futurism.” After stating at the outset his persuasion that the number of prophetic students who held moderate Futurist views is greatly on the increase, (a persuasion in which I suspect him to be mistaken,) he proceeds to express a hope that they who hold the “Protestant view will be constained to admit that moderate Futurist views may be maintained together with the most consistent Protestantism: and may even be reconciled with a modified admission of the cherished views of the historical interpreters.” And then, and in evidence of this, he lays down the following several points on which, in a certain way, the Protestant Futurist and historical expositors have agreement: - viz. 1. in supposing that we are now near the time of the consummation; - 2. in supposing the Apocalyptic Babylon to mean the Papacy; - 3. in holding Daniel’s four great empires to be those of Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome; - 4. in expecting a national restoration of the Jews to their own land; - besides that, in the 5th place, Moderate Futurists are inclined to admit that the Apocalyptic figures may have been so ordered as to have a resemblance to the various historic realities that historic interpreters have variously applied to them; insomuch that these realities may have been in a manner shadows of a more perfect fulfillment yet to come. - Together with the notices of which several points of agreement, there is insinuated on each topic a notice of the superior strength of the Futurists, where the two schools differ. - It is with the 2nd and 5th of these notices that I am alone directly concerned in this present Paper. On the others however, in consequence of the above-mentioned insinuation, I think it right to add a few remarks in the Note subjointed. [4]
1. Now on Mr. B.’s attempt at Protestantizing, in a manner, the Futurist views of the Apocalyptic prophecy, there needs but very brief reply to show its futility. Says he; “Both parties admit that the Apoclyptic Babylon signifies the Papacy. If they (the Historicals) think the Woman has mounted the Beast, we believe the Woman wll mount the Beast: so we can both agree that the curse of God rests on that false system of religion.” But no! Not so. According to the Futurists (albeit in most manifest contradiciton to Scripture prophecy) [5] the Beast Antichrist’s religion (if I may use such a misnomer) is to be open avowed infidelity. And, while in such close alliance with Antichrist as the Apocalyptic figure of the Woman sitting on the Beast implies, we cannot suppose her avowed religion different: especially since Antichrist, according to all the Futurists, will allow no alternative but that of receiving his mark and worshipping his image, or death. Which being so, Babylon, on the Futurist view, must at the time depicted be professedly infidel: and this indeed not of compulsion, but heartily, and as herself a prime agent in the matter; since, whatever the false religion, she is herself the one to drug the nations with its philtre cup, (Brit. a love potion) and this even to the last. [6] Now it is specially for Babylon’s sins committed during the time depicted in the Apocalyptic vision, of her riding the Beast, that God’s judgment is pronounced on her: [7] - i.e. (still on the Futurist hypothesis) for her final avowed infidelity, not for any other previously cherished sins. Whence it results that for Rome’s Papal errors there is no special judgment from God. And if so, and that there is not even a note of Apocalyptic protest or warning on God’s part against Rome’s previous Papal religion, simply and distinctively, what can be the inference but that, after all, in God’s eye, Popery is not a thing so very bad? - Thus I find myself forced to regard Mr. Barker’s attempt at Protestantizing the Futurist Apocalyptic Scheme as an utter failure. And let me futher add on this head, that I think it ought to be viewed as a little suspicious in that system by every really Protestant eye, that three of its chief peculiarities, viz. that of making the Antichrist a single individual infidel man of 3 1/2 literal years’ duration, that of regarding Rome’s primary empire as still unended, and that of making the city of the two witnesses’ death to be Jerusalem , - are all points borrowed (however vainly, thank God! and ineffectively) from some of the chief Romish antagonists of Protestant prophetic interpretations; - from Ribera, Bellarmine, Malvenda.
2. As to Mr. B.’s plan for mitigating the monstrosity of the Futurists’ imagined Apocalyptic instant plunge into the distant future of the consummation, viz. by supposing that the prophetic imagery may have been purposely so ordered as to bear a resemblance, though but imperfct, to the various historic facts to which historic expositors have variously applied them, and so, and by these imperfect foreshadowings, not to leave wholly unrepresented the long interval between St. John and the consummation, it must surely be obvious to all intelligent persons that with such particularity in the prophecy’s multitudinous details, and order too in their arrangement, it is nothing less than impossible for the scheme to be true. What! the most opposite and different events to be all alike foreshadowed by these various and peculiar symbols! There is evidently satire in the very suggestion. No! there can only be one true fulfillment; and that one reaching from John’s time to the consummation. - As to what that fulfillment is, is another question. But until I see it overthrown I must believe the one given in the Horæ to be the true one. Mr. B. himself has already tried to break it down; but with what results? What, for example, has come of his attempted refutation of my exposition of the Seals? I have made a point of exhibiting whatever has appeared to me of force in Mr. B.’s as well as in other critics’ objections: and the reader has before him in this present edition a notification of them, and of the answers. Let him judge for himself. But, if unrefuted, can those various and most particular coincidences of fact and symbol shown by me, in regard of the horse, crown, (contradistinguished from diadem,) bow, sword-bearing, balance, notification about wheat, barley, wine, oil, and the price of the two former, with the horse’s significant successive colors of the white, red, black, and livid, and yet much more following, - I say, can all this be the mere effect of chance? Or, again, can there be any human probability of such and so particular a fulfillment ever again occurring; and this in some small fraction of the Futurists’ imagined 3 1/2 years of the last crisis, or a little more, just before Christ’s coming? [8]
So much as to the two points before us. - I observe in his Paper that Mr. B. sagaciously deprecates Futurists conjecturing too particularly about things future; and so exposing themselves to the charge of discrepancies between members of their own body, and other pointed attacks, from “the skillful arrows of their prophetic antagonists.” But is it only in regard of conjectures about the future that there have been manifested such discrepancies among Futurists? Is the question whether the Roman empire, once ruled by Augustus and Constantine, has yet come to an ending, or not, a question of the coming future, or the past? Or, again, whether the 70 weeks of Daniel are to be taken as weeks of years or days: and, and further, whether the 70 were all fulfilled about the time of Christ’s first coming, or with the 70th (as Mr. B. in fact supposes) still left for fulfillment? And so too of sundry other questions. - While however thus deprecating conjectures about fulfillments of prophecies that are yet future, Mr. B. tells that there is one thing that he seems to himself really “to know.” Well! let us test our Futurist on this his own chosen ground. “All I know about the Seals is that they seem to foretell God’s four sore judgments, with persecution of his people, and his coming to judgment.” But how (as I asked in my preceding Section) the 3rd Seal figure famine with barley at 7 1/2d per 5lb, and wine and oil in abundance, so as is intimated in the Seal? Again, if the 6th Seal of Christ’s coming to judgment, where is there a single clear sign of it, supposing the elemental convulsions to be taken otherwise then literally? And, if they be taken literally, and the earth have been literally struck by stars falling from heaven, how in the very next following scene, under the same Seal, comes the earth to have its inhabitants upon it, just as before? - Mr. B. must have been perfectly aware of these objections when he wrote his Paper; for I have urged both the one and the other upon him myself? [9] And what his reply? On the former point has only replied by dead silence. On the latter his reply is that, though consecutive in arrangement, yet the second part of the 6th Seal must be considered prior in point of time to what precedes it; albeit without a single notification, or sign of any kind, that such is the case. Thus in regard of the former point he virtually allows judgment to go against him by default. In regard of the other he virtually confesses that, unless downright violence be permitted him in dealing with the Apocalyptic context, the Futurist Scheme in his own, as in other hands, must fall.
A Tabular Schedule is added on the following page, in illustration of his Scheme, so far as I have been able to make it out; he himself having declined to make one. For indeed such Schedules are most illustrative, and most necessary, in case of Futuristic Schemes, as well as of Historical. [Editor: Baker‘s Modified Futurist Apocalyptic Scheme is in a Separate TIF. File]
2. W. Kelly.
As regards Mr. Barker, in 1851, the manner in which he would apply his modifications to the older Maitlandic and Burghite Scheme of Futurism “pure et simple,” is altogether vague and indefinite. But not so,
2ndly, with his modern successor, Mr. W. Kelly, of Guernsey. Distinctly and expressly, and moreover in a certain way authoritatively, as if speaking as the organ of a not unimportant party in the Christian Church, [10] he declares his belief that the protracted Protestant scheme has in it a certain measure of truth: [11] that, in this scheme the seven Trumpets are the evolution of the 7th Trumpet: [12] that in the general outline of the prophecy, so considered, God intended that his people should gather light from it in regard of the then future destinies of the Western and Eastern Empire, first in its hostile Pagan state, next in its outwardly Christian profession and revolt against God in opposing Christ in his priestly character: [13] - more particularly, that he does not identify the meaning of the earlier Seals with the details of Christ’s prophecy in Matt. xxiv., but would rather explain them of some successive providential judgments, such as the conquests of some hostile conqueror, then a time of bloody warfare, then of dearth, then of pestilence and God’s other three sore judgments: (how fulfilled in past history Mr. K. does not say:) [14] - that, as regards the 6th Seal, he entirely repudiates the idea of its figuring the coming of Christ in judgment, or great day of the Lord, at the end of the present dispensation; [15] but rather views it as some great political revolution, involving the overthrow of existing governmental authorities, such as in fact that of the overthrow of Heathenism in the Roman Empire, at the great Constantinian Revolution: [16] and that, as regards the four first Trumpets, he judges them to refer first to the Gothic invasions of Alaric and Rhadagaisus; secondly, to the depredations of Genseric and the Vandals; thirdly, to those of Attila and his Huns; fourthly, to “the memorable era of the extinction of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century.” [17] Moreover “he doubts not that the common application of the locusts in the 5th Trumpet to the Saracens, and of the Euphratean horsemen of the sixth to the Turks, is well founded; [18] nor is disposed to question the general application of the subsequent vision of the light-bearing Angel of Apoc. x., to “that wonderful divine intervention, the Reformation.” [19] - Yet, again, he sees not why the two Witnesses, Apoc. xi., may not symbolize many; [20] is inclined to admit a reference in one of the Beasts of Apoc. xiii. to Popery, regarding the great Antichrist of Prophecy as figured in the second Beast from the earth, or False Prophet: [21] as regards this Antichrist agrees with me that “bare infidelity would be a meager conception of his character, position, and doings;” [22] and, once more, is ready to admit the applicability of the year-day scale in the great Apocalyptic periods, when considered thus historically. [23]
It is to be observed, further, that Mr. W. K., like his friend Mr. Trotter of York, explains the seven Epistles to the seven Churches, not only as pictures of the actual state of those Asiatic Churches as existing in St. John’s day, but also (though certainly not very successful in answering my objections to Mr. T.’s specific view) as figuring the successive most characteristic
phases of the Christian Church from Apostolic times to the consummation. [24]
In order to the application of which theory of the prophecy in this historical sense to the history of the Church, and of the world as connected with it, there is required of course the use of human learning. And thus Mr. W. K. must be understood as utterly repudiating the axiom so often vaunted, and so much dwelt upon by the earlier Futurists, that human learning is altogether out of place in Apocalyptic interpretation; and that “Scripture is only to be judged of by comparison with Scripture.” [25]
But how then, it will be asked, can Mr. W. K. be a Futurist at all? It is by the theory of a most curious double view; such a double view as, I must say, like as in physical cases of double-sight, seems to me to imply a somewhat notable imperfection of sobriety, clear-headedness in the expositor.
It seems to be a settled point in Mr. W. Kelly’s creed, and is continually referred to as such throughout the book, that there is to be some certain considerable interval of time between the rapture of the saints, to meet Christ in the air, and his descent with them, after the closing judgments of the consummation, in the brightness of the New Jerusalem. [26] It is this interval of time that he supposes to be most specially referred to in the heavenly vision represented in Apoc. iv. and v. The 24 crowned elders round the throne, being a complete number, taken from the 24 courses of the Jewish Priesthood, must figure, he considers, the whole company of the redeemed in their state of glorification [27] after the resurrection; at least most properly so. But how then will this suit with what goes before in the seven Epistles to the Churches, and what comes after in the judgments, as successively unfolded of the seven-sealed book? In this way. 1st, the seven Epistles, regarded in their primary sense, as picturing the seven Asiatic Churches in St. John’s seeing the visions in Patmos: and consequently imply that as the stand-point of time in the heavenly vision of the Divine throne and the elders of chapters iv. and v. immediately following. For so it is said in the 1st verse of chap. iv.; “Come up, and I will now show thee what must happen after these things.” And, as seen from this point of time, the figurations subsequently evolved of the seven-sealed book depicted the subsequent history of the Church, and of the world, according to the more usual Protestant historical view, and very much as in the Horæ Apocalypticæ. [28] But his only imperfectly: indeed with imperfections such as to show that some more perfect interpretation was further intended by the Divine Author of the Book. [29] Which more perfect interpretation, 2ndly, is thus obtainable, in consistency with the other view of the seven Epistles advocated by Mr. K. as depicting the successive æras and phases of the Christian Church from St. John’s time to the consummation; - viz. by now regarding the stand-point of time indicated by the opening verse of chap. iv., “Come up, and I will show thee what must happen after these things,” as the epoch of the ending of the Christian Church’s history and existence on earth: [30] in other words, the epoch of the rapture of the saints constituting it, and their enthronization in all the Church’s completeness, as figured in the 24 crowned elders before the throne of God and of the Lamb. For, viewed from this point, all the subsequent visions will depict simply and solely the judgments and other events of the great “day of the Lord,” at the close of the present dispensation.
A double view truly marvelous! And of which surely my more intelligent readers will think that the simple statement is a sufficient refutation. To make the matter clearer I have endeavored to represent this double view of a Tubular Apocalyptic scheme. It is very obvious, even à priori, and sufficiently illustrated in Mr. W. K.’s Commentary, that the sacred figurations must, from the very nature of things, mean something each one quite different in the one view from what they mean in the other. And is this credible in Scripture prophecy? in Scripture prophecy, let me add, so full of particularity and detail, and stamped too with such marks of order as that of the Apocalypse? In fine, we may, I think, safely conclude to receive Mr. W. Kelly’s judgment, so far as it goes, in favor of the Protestant historical view of the Apocalyptic prophecy, as that forced upon a person originally altogether prejudiced against it; and, in regard of his very original modification of the Apocalyptic Futurism, as an additional and very notable illustration of the impossibility of any such modification.
I should add that Mr. W. Kelly, like his friend Mr. Trotter, and like Mr. Molyneux and most other Futurists, explains the last of Daniel’s seventy hebdomads as the time of these judgments of consummation; and thereby complicates yet further his modified Futuristic system. So it will appear in the Schedule on the opposite page. [Editor: Kelly’s Schedule-Scheme is in a Separate TIF. File.]
ADDENDUM
In the course of his Work Mr. W. K. has from time to time made sundry strong animadversions, criticisms on certain points in my Apocalyptic Exposition, by no means altogether in that spirit of fairness and candor which might have been anticipated from the courteous notice of myself and my Commentary in his Introduction. The chief of these it seems to me a duty not to pass over in silence; as he speaks very positively and dogmatically on them, and has moreover made my whole Book evidently a subject of careful study. I may fitly arrange them under the two heads; - 1st, of my asserted errors in the adoption of certain wrong readings of the Apocalyptic Greek Text, or readings of quite insufficient authority; 2ndly, of asserted errors in certain of my rendering of the Greek, and of my historical applications of the prophecy.
I. Asserted erroneous readings of the Greek text preferred in the Horæ. - Of these there are four that seem chiefly to call for specification, as animadverted upon by Mr. Kelly; each having an important bearing on the interpretation, the two last specified most especially.
1. “In 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.”), Mr. E. repeatedly, but incorrectly, of course through oversight, represents the reading in the critical editions as epi thv plateiav thv polewv thv megalhv ” (contradistinctively, I presume, to pl pol thv meg.,without the thv). So Mr. K., p. 198; referring specially to the H. A. Vol. ii. p. 396, and Vol. iv. p. 543. [31] He seems (if I rightly understand him) to regard this as unduly adding weight to the idea of Rome being pointed at as the fated city of the Witnesses’ death, not Jerusalem.
In reply, I have simply to state that the text is as I give it in four out of the six critical Editions which I possess: viz. in Heinrichs, Tregelles (Ed. 1844), Wordsworth, and Alford. In Griesbach (Ed. 1818) and Scholz, the thv is wanting before polewv. Bishop Middleton, as I have observed Vol. ii. p. 433, speaks of the Greek as grammatically requiring the thv prefix. [Editor: The Wescott and Hort Greek Text reads as Elliott’s rendering of his Greek text.]
2. At page 203 Mr. K. animadverts on my preferring the reading, hnoigh o naov tu qeu en ty orany, 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.”), to hnoigh o naov tu Q. o en ty ur., which he regards as that of best MS authority. In reply to which charge I have to say that what I prefer is the reading of Griesbach, Scholz, Heinrichs, Tregelles, Alford; Wordsworth alone of the critical editors by me preferring the other reading. [Editor: The Wescott and Hort reads: “ hvoigh o naov tou qeou o en ty ourany”]
And was opened up the divine habitation of the God the (one) in the heaven”
The importance of this reading, which arises primarily from the fact that the absence of the article precludes the idea of a second and heavenly temple being here indicated, different from the spoken of (xi. 1, 2, “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. 2: But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.”), and elsewhere previously, is doubled by its parallelism (as so given) with the clause in (Apoc. xv. 5, “And after that I looked, and, behold, the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened”); kai hnoigh o naov thv skhvhv to marturio en ty orany: where the text, as I have just written it, is given in all the critical editions, alike by Griesbach, Heinrichs, Tregelles, Scholz, Wordsworth, Alford. Mr. Kelly, indeed, would here too read o en ty orany; for he gives, as the English, “the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened;” not “was opened in heaven.” But altogether, so far as I know, without authority. And why? It seems to be only because of its suiting his peculiar interpretation of the passage and idea of the Apocalyptic scenery; the very fault he has so often and wrongly, ascribed to me. [Editor: Below is a rendering of the Greek text discussed taken from the Wescott and Hort Translation.]
[ kai hnoigh o naov thv skhnhv tou marturiou en ty ourany
and was opened up the divine habitation of the tent of the witness in the heaven.
3rdly, comes my adoption in the fourth Seal (H. A., Vol. i. p. 189, 4th Ed., or, in this 5th Ed., p. 201) of a reading correspondent with Jerome’s well-known Latin translation in the Vulgate, super quatuor partes terræ, “on the four parts of the earth;” instead of that found in our Greek MSS. all but universally, epi to tetarton thv ghv, “on the fourth part of the earth.” In justification of this, in addition to what I have urged in my discussion of the subject in loc., [32] let me refer to Mr. W. K.’s own principle of applying considerations of internal evidence in deciding between doubtful readings, e.g. at his p. 91 [33] and elsewhere; and then remind my reader of the strong considerations of internal evidence which have led me to adopt Jerome’s in the verse in question: premising, however, that Jerome does not stand quite alone in this matter; but that other Latin versions, independent of the Vulgate, represent by the same translation the same Greek reading. [34] - 1st, then, no expositor has ever yet, on any system of Apocalyptic interpretation, been able to suggest any at all plausible reason for the limitation of this judgment of the 4th Seal, agreeably with the text of the Greek MSS., to the 4th part of the earth: it being an evidently more aggravated judgment than those of the two Seals preceding, which had attached to them no such local limitation; [35] and, moreover, analogous to that spoken of in the proof-text of )Ezek. xiv. 21, “For thus saith the Lord GOD; How much more when I send my four sore judgments upon Jerusalem, the sword, and the famine, and the noisome beast, and the pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast?”), where no such local limitation attaches to the selfsame four sore judgments of God. [36] - 2ndly, this argument from internal evidence acquires double force, if that be admitted for which I contend, that the horse in the four first Seals figures the Roman Empire, and its colors the Empire’s successive phases, correspondent with the state depicted in the Seal; seeing that in the 4th, just as in the three preceding Seals, the color of the whole horse is seen to be that of the livid pallor of death. And against the strength of the evidence for the truth of this symbolization Mr. K.’s assertions and réchauffée [Ed. excessively refined] of objections, borrowed from other and earlier critics, is really worthless. - 3rdly, there is the evidence, from comparison of history and prophecy, that the indication in Jerome’s reading, when superadded to the 12 or 13 of the preceding Seals, completes, in respect of a very remarkable particular, a most exact and philosophic picturing of the successive phases and fortunes of the Roman Empire in the two centuries intervening between St. John and Diocletian: - and this, 4thly, in perfect consistency with what goes after, as well as with that which goes before, inclusive of that notice of a subsequent tripartition of the Empire which is set forth so prominently in the Trumpets; springing as that which was meant by the latter did, (in Mr. K.’s judgment as well as my own,) out of the previous quadripartition under Diocletian.
In line, with Jerome’s reading all is, on my historic system of interpretation, explicable, consistent, harmonious: while, on the other hand, with the usual Greek reading all is inexplicable on any system of interpretation. Have I not then sufficient warrant for adopting it?
4. There is noticed by Mr. K. “the flagrant proof of my proneness to prefer a manifestly spurious reading where my hypothesis requires,” in my preference of epi to qhrion to kai to qhr. in (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.”.) So W. K., p. 304. And no doubt the evidence of Greek MSS. is very strong in favor of the kai. Moreover, I have, in the course of this last revision of my book, found that I was mistaken in supposing that the early Greek Father Hippolytus read epi in common with the early Latin Father Tertullian, and also probably with Jerome; [37] being misled by the Latin translation of Hippolytus’ “De Christo et Antichristo.” Hence my confidence in so decidedly preferring the epi is less strong than before. But, admitting this, let me beg to apply considerations of internal evidence to the explanation of the passage with the alternative of either reading, on the two counter-systems, the historical and the futuristic respectively. It is as clear, I think, as anything well can be, and absolutely forced upon our minds by the vivid and prolonged vision of Apoc. xviii., that the ultimate destruction of the Apocalyptic Babylon, or (as Mr. K. and I both agree) Rome, is to be by direct judgment from Heaven: - a judgment like that of Sodom and Gomorrah, the smoke of which is to go up for ever and ever. This being so, it is equally evident that her destruction and desolation by the human agency specified in Apoc. xvii. 16, must have been only temporary; whether that of the Beast’s ten horns alone, as the epi might rather seem to imply, or that too of the Beast or Beast’s last ruling head, so as the kai would imply, as an ally and co-operator. Mr. K. himself virtually admits this. [38] Now, then, let us, agreeably with Mr. K.’s judgment, suppose the kai to be the reading adopted; in other words, that the Beast, or its last ruling head, that is, as we are also agreed, the great Antichrist, (whether the Roman Pope who long has been, or a personal Antichrist yet to come,) is to be an assisting party in the desolation of Rome, predicted in Apoc. xvii. 16. Then it is necessary that, in order to have become the flourishing city which is described as the object of God’s final judgment in Apoc. xviii., Rome must have been in a marvelous manner resuscitated, and restored to her ancient power and glory, in the interval between the said Antichrist’s rise, with his supposed still future ten subject kings, and the final judgment from God. But, on Mr. K.’s and the Futurists’ system, this interval can be only about 3 1/2 years. And really the idea of such a resuscitation in such an interval of time seems to me nothing less than an immense absurdity. On the other hand, even though receiving the reading kai, let me beg my readers to understand that it is by no means, so as Mr. K. and the Futurists argue, inconsistent with that historical explanation which refers back the judgment of xvii. 16, to the times of the Gothic and Vandal desolations in the 5th and 6th centuries. In so far as the old heathen religion and political rule of ancient Imperial Rome were concerned, the Papal Antichrist, who in the 5th and 6th centuries gradually rose up as the city’s residentiary governor, did take part in its desolation. [39] After which, in the long 1260 years, assigned in Daniel and the Apocalypse, on the historic year-day system, Rome had abundant time for resuscitation: and, in fact, became again mother and mistress of the kingdoms and Churches of the Romano-Gothic world in its proud character of the seat of GOD’S VICE-GERENT ON EARTH; Antichrist being, as Hippolytus so strikingly anticipated, its great restorer. [40] To which character it still raises its pretension, even at this present time; albeit after the primary though imperfect ending of the 1260 years in 1790, and consequent passing away of much of its actual power: and doubtless will continue so to do, not without the ten horns’ continued recognition of it in these its spiritual pretensions, [41] even to the consummation. So with the reading kai. With the reading epi the prophecy was of course yet more exactly suited to the history.
In fine, with either reading the historic explanation is justified, consistently with the prefiguration in Apoc. xviii.: with neither reading does the Futurists’ seem possible.
II. My asserted errors in certain renderings of the Greek, and historical applications of the prophecy.
1 Says Mr. Kelly, “Mr. E. contends for the strangest possible version of eiv as = after, or at the expiration of , the aggregated period of the hour, day, month, and year in (Apoc. ix. 15, “And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men.”)” So p. 150. - When Mr. K. has shown that the same Greek preposition placed before a time, times, and half a time in Dan. xii., as well as before the 1335 days in a verse immediately following, does not mean before, or at the expiration of, those aggregated periods, [42] he will be in a better position for so expressing himself about my rendering of the clause in Apoc. ix. 15. But, though he had these parallel passages before his eyes in my Commentary, as very mainly my justification in the rendering of Apoc. ix. 15, Mr. K. makes no allusion to them. Nor does he make the slightest allusion to the extraordinary historical fact of the period hence resulting, when measured from the well-marked epoch of the Turks being loosed from Bagdad on the Euphrates, to make invasion of the Greek Empire, ending precisely at that fortieth day of the siege of Constantinople by Mahomet, on which Gibbon says that all hope of saving either city or empire was abandoned. This is just one specimen, out of innumerable others, of the unfairness with which objectors have been too apt to dwell on the supposed objectionable point in a question of large evidence; suppressing all notice of the evidence in favor, however remarkable. A plan of proceeding so directly contrary to that of the summing up of evidence by an English Judge, which ought in every such case to be the model remembered and followed by Christian critics.
2. “I utterly reject Mr. E.’s statement that ‘at one and the same time’ is the true rendering of the Greek phrase in Apoc. xvii., of mian wran meta to qhriou. It should be, he says, for the same time; marking duration, not epoch or occasion. - So Mr. K., p. 300. But, as in the preceding case, so here let me say, when Mr. K. has succeeded in setting aside the parallels of John iv. 52, “Then enquired he of them the hour when he began to amend. And they said unto him, Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.”, and again, Acts x. 3, “He saw in a vision evidently about the ninth hour of the day an angel of God coming in to him, and saying unto him, Cornelius.”, and further, Rev. iii. 3, “Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee.”, adduced by me in loc., where the accusative of time is unquestionably in the sense of epoch at which, it will be time enough to reply to him further on this point.
3. “In Apoc. x., it is a monstrous proposition that the seven thunders, which spoke in St. John’s ear, and which he was forbidden to write, should be explained as the voice of the Papal Antichrist from Rome’s seven hills, not as the voice of Christ. So Mr. K., p. 171. Yet does he expressly shrink from denying that the whole vision of the rainbow-vested Angel in Apoc. x. has an historic reference to the great Protestant Reformation; [43] and moreover once, and again, and again admits that at each point of time prefigured St. John is to be regarded on the Apocalyptic scene as a representative man. [44] In which character he would necessarily be the chief Apostle or Prophet of the Reformation, in all that prefiguration of Apoc. x. Which admitted by way of premise, every indication both in the prophecy and in the history (the fittings are not less than ten or twelve) fixes the meaning of the seven thunders to be such as I have state. Explained as Mr. K. would explain them, all would be vague and valueless that is said about them.
4. “When they shall have perfected their testimony, &c.” - Admitted that the proof in justification of this rendering of otan teleswsi thn marturian autwn, in Apoc. xi. 7, was in my former editions unsatisfactory, and, as Mr. K. says p. 197, fairly liable to objection, it will not I trust be found so any longer in the present edition. If I mistake not, the rendering is established on a firm basis. See my Vol. ii. pp. 411–420
5. On Apoc. xi. 19, Mr. K. speaks of it as extraordinary that I should say that naov, or temple, is sometimes used more largely of the whole, including the altar-court; stranger still that I should cite (Apoc. xi. 1, 2, which reads: “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. 2: But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.”) - in proof, seeing that the altar and the outer court are so expressly distinguished there,” i.e. from naov. Much more extraordinary surely is it that Mr. K. in so writing should have identified the temple’s altar-court with the Gentile outer-court; and overlooked the fact that in Apoc. xi. 1, 2, referred to by me, all that is within the naov is expressly spoken of as measured including the altar and altar-court, while the Gentile court alone is excluded as without the naov.
6. At p. 287, objecting against my statement in reference to (Apoc. xvi. 13, “And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.”), that three frogs, were the old arms of France, Mr. K. says that “natural history comes in as an awkward witness against my statement; the fact being that the arms of France were, according to the Encyclop. Metropolitana, three toads, not three frogs.” Now the extract from the Encyclop. Metropolitana, which Mr. K. here cites from my book to justify his objurgation, that is, he denounced harshly, is only one out of six explanatory and justificatory authorities. In the other four the device is spoken of as a frog, or three frogs. So Typotius, Upton, Schott, Garencières. Says the last, in explanation of the line, “Roi, rétirant à la rane et à l’aigle,” “By the eagle he means the Emperor, by the frog the King of France: - for, before he took the flower de luce, the French bore three frogs.” Elsewhere, I find, (agreeably with the double generic value of the Latin rana,) it is described indifferently as a frog, or toad. [45] It is only Court de Gebelin and the Encyclop. Metropol. that speak distinctively of the device as a toad or crapaud. [46]
7. At p. 246, Mr. K. insists on the right translation of enesthken in (2 Thess. ii. 2, “That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.”) being “is present;” not as in our English authorized version, and as in the Horæ, “is at hand.” At p. 92 of my Vol. iii., in this Edition, my readers will find the point more fully argued out than before; and the latter rendering of the word, I may unhesitatingly say, on the grounds of Greek criticism fully justified. Let me only here ask Mr. K. the question how he supposes the Thessalonian Christians could have believed that the day of the Lord was then actually present, when putting together the two facts, 1st, that they knew from St. Paul’s former Epistle that the primary event of the day of the Lord would be the gathering of Christ’s saints, both the dead and the living, to meet Christ in the air; 2ndly, that neither themselves nor even St. Paul had thus far been made the subjects of that promised blessed rapture? Will Mr. K. be agitated by the idea of the day of Christ having begun, so long as he is conscious that neither on himself, nor any of his most honored Christian friends, has the change taken place?
[1] The proposed Scheme is developed in a Series of Letters in the Christian Examiner for 1839. It opens by a statement of the opinion of the little book in the hand of the rainbow-crowned Angel, in Apoc. x., includes in it all the remainder of the Apocalypse, and that it has for its subject the ultimate restoration of the Jewish people. For in Apoc. xi. John’s temple-measuring answers to the prefigurative measuring of Jerusalem, as in the latter day, in (Zech. ii. 2, “Then said I, Whither goest thou? And he said unto me, To measure Jerusalem, to see what is the breadth thereof, and what is the length thereof. ”): and the two witnesses for Christ, whom R. D. hesitates to designate specifically, (witnesses however sent more particularly to the Jews,) are killed, after completing their testimony, in the place where Christ was crucified, i.e. the literal Jerusalem, by the Beast from the abyss, or Antichrist. So Antichrist’s seat is fixed to that holy city: a local designation previously intimated by the statement as to the Gentiles treading the holy city for 42 months. This Beast is the same with the Beast of Apoc. xiii. and xvii; also with Daniel’s little horn of the 4th great Beast; also with St. Paul’s Man of Sin. He unites the Roman power with all that may remain of that of the other three prophetic monarchies, in a great Gentile confederacy against the restoration of God’s Israel: so making war with the saints, i.e. with the holy nation of Israel, as for 3 1/2 years he treads their city; of whom however R. D. supposes the great mass, indeed all but the 144,000, or remnant of the election of grace, to be as yet unconverted. The second Beast, attending the first, he expounds to be a priesthood supporting him, from out of the apostate Church of Rome.
And what then of the woman Babylon who rides the Beast? It is the idolatrous Church of Rome, then in intimate alliance with the “infidel” Beast Antichrist, against the restoration of Israel: for which cause specially, (though not without some reference also to her former sins, for the Romish Church is the apostasy of St. Paul’s prophecy, though its Popes are not the Man of Sin, or Antichrist,) there is denounced against her, and presently executed , the doom of utter destruction by kings from the East. As to the Beast seven heads, R. D. professes to have no distinct idea; and none moreover about the Beast’s ten horns. - So first Rome is destroyed: then in the Jewish battle-field of Armageddon the Antichrist and his associate powers. And then the millennial reign with Christ of the faithful Jewish martyrs, killed in Antichrist’s persecution, will begin: a new heaven and earth having been created, fit for the risen saints to inhabit; and the New Jerusalem descending from heaven as the glorious city for the inhabitation, not of risen saints, but of the restored and now converted Jews. In fact, this is the same as the city of glory described in Isa. liv.; while, as between Ezekiel’s temple and the New Jerusalem of the Apocalypse there is this difference, that Ezekiel’s temple is to be that of the restored Jews before their conversion; the Apocalyptic Jerusalem, where there is no temple, the habitation of the Jews after.
Of course, in reference to this, such questions as the following will suggest themselves to the intelligent reader. 1. How could the Apocalyptic temple-measuring, in which the outer part was cast out as given to the Gentiles, and moreover the holy city given to be trod by the Gentiles for 42 weeks, correspond with the measuring of the city in Zechariah, to the intent and effect of Jerusalem being inhabited as towns without walls by the restored Jews: of which it is said, “for I, saith the Lord, will be unto her a wall of fire round about?” - 2. How could the Beast be a Roman power, as R. D. admits it to be, and with a local fixation to the Roman site, by reason of its seven heads signifying the seven hills of Rome, and yet have its seat at Jerusalem? - 3. How, if the apostasy of 2 Thess. ii. be the Roman Papacy, such as for ages it has been developed, can the official heads of this apostasy, i.e. the Roman Popes, after manifestation before the world in that character, fail of answering to St. Paul’s Man of Sin; or how this Man of Sin be meant of a chief not directly heading the apostasy, but only closely allied with its head? - 4. How, as regards Ezekiel’s temple and city, could that appertain to the Jews when restored but not converted, and when indeed (according to R. D.) Antichrist is to occupy Jerusalem and its temple as his seat, and yet have for its name and title, “the Lord is there?” - 5. How can the New Jerusalem of Apoc. xxi. be the city simply of the restored Jewish nation, when its name is declared to be written on the faithful of Gentile Asiatic Churches, such as that of Philadelphia, (Apoc. iii. 12, “Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.”)?
But, as before said, the Scheme is evidently not digested. - I observe with pleasure, as well as surprise, one point of agreement between us; viz. in that R. D. has anticipated me in making the great while throne of (Apoc. xx. 11, “And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.”) - synchronize, at its first setting up, with the commencement, not the end, of the millennium. When I drew out my argument on that point (see p. 108, supra) I was not aware that the idea had been entertained by any previous expositor. R. D. only states the idea. He does not argue it.
[2] No VII. for April, 1850.
[3] In my 4th Edition of the Horæ, I took Mr. C. Maitland’s “Apocalyptical School of Prophetic Interpretation,” for my second example of modified Futuristic exposition. And, if any of my readers wish to see it fully examined into and criticized, they may there find what they wish. As it is, considering that the Book and its suggested views have now probably past into oblivion, and moreover that I have had occasion again and again to show up Mr. C. M.’s inaccuracies in my History of Apocalyptic Interpretation, (see suprà pp. 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 147, 149, 150, 151, 153, 156, 157, 167, 171, 176, 179, 183, 184, 202, 203, 206, 213, 257,) I think it better to take Mr. W. Kelly’s more recent book as my second specimen of modified Futurism; especially as I imagine it to give the views of a large Section of “the Brethren” (originally called “Plymouth Brethren”) on the Apocalyptic prophecy.
[4] As regards Mr. B.’s 1st supposed point of agreement between the historical interpreters and the moderate Futurists, viz. as to the present nearness of the consummation, the following extract from Mr. C. Maitland’s book (p. 404), who is to be classed among the latter, may suffice to show Mr. B.’s error: - “Of the yet remaining length of Rome’s career we know nothing certain from prophecy: it may be that the sorceress has still before her long ages of iniquity; or it may be that we are now resisting her latest arts.” - And certainly, on Futurist principles, Mr. C. M. appears to me to have all the reason on his side, as against Mr. Barker. For putting aside, as Mr. B. does, all evidence derivable from the near expiration of certain long chronological periods, commencing from known historic epochs, and reaching to the consummation, from what can he draw his conclusion but from the now existing signs of the times? And are those signs so decisive and distinctive of themselves, especially when compared with what have been in past ages, as to furnish a sufficient warrant for it? For example, one marked sign of the approaching consummation that the Futurists theory requires is the disruption and division of the Roman empire (hitherto most marvelously supposed by them to be unbroken and undivided) into ten contemporary kingdoms. Compare then the evidence on this head now presented to Mr. Barker’s eye, with the corresponding evidence about it, that presented itself to the affrighted eye of Jerome, at the opening of the 5th century: - then when the Roman empire was inundated by a flood of barbarous nations, among whom he marked and enumerated ten, as chief and most eminent, [See my p. 158, 159, and p. 243 Note 2024 suprà ]-- God’s prepared instruments apparently for breaking up and then dividing the empire among them: and with every circumstance attendant that could make men’s hearts fail for fear, and from looking on the things that were coming on the earth. Which, I ask, from the mere evidence of the signs of the times had the greater reason for affirming the nearness of the consummation, Jerome or Mr. Barker? Surely the former. And yet we know that near it certainly then was not. [Compare my remarks in Vol. iii. pp. 264-267, on the almost absolute necessity of long chronological periods (albeit with certain ambiguities attendant) in order, concurrently with the signs of the times, to give the warning intended of the near approach of the consummation; and moreover the fact of this being accordant with the precedent of the evidence given by God of the near approach of Christ‘s first coming: which last point will be found illustrated very fully in my concluding Chapter in this Appendix.]
2. “Both parties,” says Mr. B., “agree that the vision of Daniel’s great image has its fulfillment in the four great empires of Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome:” adding, with reference to the fact of some Futurists (e.g. Drs. Maitland and Todd) disputing the last, that Moderate Futurists do not dispute it; “neither is it at all necessary to the consistency of Futurism that they should.”
Is it necessary? Let us consider the case as between these moderates of the school, and what Mr. B would designate as the extreme Futurists. It is of course essential to the Futurist system to regard its expected, and still future, Antichrist’s empire as the last of the great mundane empires, and to assign it a place in Daniel’s image accordingly. Shall it be then the whole of the iron legs and feet, or only the feet and toes? Say Drs. M. and T., the whole of the iron and legs. But then Mr. B. and his moderates shrink back (and no wonder) from the idea of that long vacant unrepresented interval which this involves; and of the legs of the image dangling correspondingly by a long thread, as I stated in my Chapter on the year-day, Vol. iii. p 298. It is only the feet and toes, exclaim the Moderates; or, as Mr. B. himself seems to prefer, the toes themselves only: all the rest, legs and feet, being that Roman empire which began long before Christ’s first coming, and is still (they say) not yet ended. But how? The iron legs represent alike the old Roman empire of Augustus, and the Papal empire of the middle age and modern times, as if all one and the same empire, continued uninterrupted and in undivided for, even until now? Surely, observes Dr. S. R. Maitland, on Antichrist, p. 6, it is clear that the old Roman empire, “the empire ruled by Augustus and Constantine,” has long ceased to exist: and that nothing but the “exigency of system” can make Antichrist’s empire, which he would have to be the strongest as well as most universal that the world has ever seen, to be represented, not by iron feet wrought into greater density and strength than the common iron of the legs above, but by feet part of iron and part of clay, partly strong and partly brittle, and thus less strong and united than the iron legs of the Roman empire above them!
Mr. Barker passes over these obvious and fatal objectives without notice. But, by way of compensation, he calls in the doctrine of arithmetical proportion, as allied with him against the historical expositors. “What disproportionate toes,” he argues, “that have to symbolize in their length some 1300 years, while the joint legs and feet of the image have but to symbolize some 700 or less? Mr. B. dates Rome’s supremacy from B.C. 197, when Macedon yielded to the ascendant of Rome; whence to the breaking up of the Roman empire on the Gothic invasion, A.D. 476, would be near 700 years. There seems some misprint in Mr. B.’s own numerals. On the other hand, how just the proportion and scale, if we suppose the ten kings that are to be the future Antichrist’s contemporaries and subjects, during the destined 3 1/2 years of his reign, to be figured by the statue’s ten toes!” I have here comprest, and altered with a view to compression, Mr. B.’s words. Now chronological proportion was evidently no object in the prophetic figuration, as appears from comparing the chronological lengths of the three first empires with the parts of the image symbolizing them; but only a representation of the succession of the great empires. But, as Mr. B. will construct an argument from it, let us see how the argument really stands. We may perhaps reckon five toe-lengths for the foot, and between two and three foot-lengths from the foot upward to the knee. Thus the proportionate length of the toe to the conjoined leg and foot may be roughly reckoned at a twelfth. So that if, chronologically applied, the toe represents 3 1/2 years, so as Mr. B. makes it do, then the leg and foot together ought proportionally to represent 3 1/2 x 12 = 42 years. Instead of which, however, they are, according to Mr. Barker’s scheme, to represent the period from B.C.197 to A.D. 1850, at the very least; or about 2050 years, i.e. (Dan. ii. 33, “His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay.”, 41, “And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters' clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay.”), that not the toes of the image only, but the feet, part iron, part clay, in which the toes centered, were the intended symbol of the 4th or Roman empire after its division; just as, in the parallel Apocalyptic figuration of Antichrist’s decem-regal empire the Beast’s head was a part of the figuring symbol, as well as the ten horns that grew out of the head. A view this which is further illustrated by the statement that the stone smooth the image on the feet, not on the toes, at the epoch of its final destruction. Which being so, the disproportion on Mr. B.’s futurist view is vastly greater; being that of the foot to figure the 3 1/2 years, and scarce 2 1/2 foot-lengths, or from the knee-joint of the image to the ankle, to figure the 2050 years! On the other hand, on the historic principle, we have from the knee to the ankle to correspond with the 700 years of the old Roman empire; and from the ankle to the end of the toe to correspond with the 1300 years of the Romano-Gothic Papal empire. A chronological proportion was not the object. But in this case it would be a disproportion, comparing figure and fact, of only 1 to 4, or 5; whereas in Mr. Barker’s scheme it is as 1 to above 200!!
3. Says Mr. B., “Both parties agree in expecting a national restoration of the Jews to their own land. But the historical interpreters, while admitting the Israel of the Old Testament prophecy to be the literal Israel, and its participation in the glories of the reign of the coming Messiah, do yet in the Apocalypse find no place for the Jew. They say, It is a Gentile prophecy.” Again I slightly alter Mr. B.’s phraseology, with a view to brevity.
In this statement, and the idea of the Jew being “utterly and entirely past over” by historical expositors of the Apocalypse, Mr. B. is incorrect. At the precise epoch, to which he makes special reference, of Messiah’s assumption of the kingdom, and bridal, I have myself only followed in the wake of many previous expositors of the same school, in supposing the converted Jews’ participation and prominency in the song of welcome and joy to be probably indicated by the Hebraic terminology for the song, Hallelujah. See pp. 25-27 suprà. But with regard to Mr. B.’s requirement of the twelve tribes of Israel mentioned in Apoc. vii. being recognized as “the restored tribes of the literal Israel.” Mr. B., is very well aware of, though he does not notice, the argument (the decisive argument, I may say) against any such allowance; viz. from the Christian meaning, as primarily declared by Christ himself, and to a considerable extent admitted by the Futurists themselves, of the chief Jewish types and figures in the Apocalypse. On this point I have entered fully in my previous Section. [See pp. 288, 289 suprà.] And it is an argument which I am persuaded not all the ingenuity of all the Futurists that exist now, or hereafter may exist, will ever be able to overcome. And its effect, even were it by itself, is to leave the whole scheme of Futurism (alike that of the Moderates and the Extremists) a hopeless ruin.
[5] See my p. 294 et seq. suprà. Let my readers well mark that up to the moment of his final destruction, instead of being depicted as an avowed infidel power, the Apocalyptic Beast, Antichrist, has the lamb-like two-horned Beast, the symbol of a false-professing Christian Hierarchy and priesthood, with him, as his attendant and prime minister.
[6] I beg my readers to mark this; and how in Apoc. xvii., xviii., at the epoch immediately before her destruction, she is depicted, not as a subordinate, but an all-dominant queen.
[7] Her judgment is in (Apoc. 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.”) where she is declared to be because of her having committed fornication with the kings of the earth, (evidently those associated with the Beast,) as well as having with her philtre cup made drunk all the nations.
[8] This will be found illustrated in my Review of Mr. W. Kelly, next following.
[9] I have urged these points alike in my Vindiciæ Horariæ, in my published Letters in the British Magazine, and in discussions printed, or private, with Mr. Barker.
[10] He uses the word “we” (e.g. Intr. p. ix.) sufficiently often, as before observed, to leave this impression. If so it is the view of a section of the body calling themselves “The Brethren,” once the Plymouth Brethren.
[11] Introd. p. viii.
[12] Ibid. viii., ix.
[13] Ibid..
[14] Lect. p. 108.
[15] Compare the positive affirmations of Dr. R. S. Maitland on this point pp. 285-287 suprà.
[16] pp. 115, 116, compared with Introd. ix.
[17] p. 143
[18] p. 153.
[19] p.169
[20] p. 185.
[21] Introd. p. x.
[22] Ibid.
[23] Ibid. ix.
[24] Introd. p. ii. - On Mr. Trotter’s view, and my objections to it, especially by reference to his application of the central Epistle, addressed to the Church at Thyatira, to Christ’s true Church in the midst of the Popery of the dark middle ages, see pp. 77, 78 of my 1st Vol. “Mr. T., by means of what is really nothing less than mutilation - [Not “intentional” mutilation; as Mr. W. K. very unwarrantably represents me as saying. I had, and have, too much regard to Mr. T. to entertain such an idea.] -- explains it to represent the Church’s state under the all-dominant Popery of the dark ages, when irreligion prevailed everywhere, and the very witness for Christ was all but extinguished; whereas, the Epistle depicts a high state of piety as prevalent in the general professing body at Thyatira; and with the power in their hands, which it was their grand fault not duly to exercise, of interdicting and stopping the teaching of the woman Jezebel. Mr. T.’s eye has been on the exception Jezebel, not on the Church Thyatira. This is the 4th and central Epistle of the seven. And, if the center of his Scheme of the Epistles be thus broken, Mr. T. will hardly, I think, be careful to contend for the rest.”
How does Mr. W. K. attempt to answer this? By saying that, as the Epistles primarily depicted the actual state of the seven Churches, as existing in St. John’s time, and only secondarily the successive states of the Christian Church from that time to the consummation, what I say of the strength of the Christian element in the Thyatiran Church, as depicted in the Epistle, must be viewed as applicable only in the primary sense of the Epistles, not the secondary. So pp. iv., v. of his Introduction. This seems to me an admission of what I contended for as against Mr. T.; viz. the impossibility of fairly making out the applicability of the seven Epistles as pictures of the seven chief successive æras and phases of the Christian Church from St. John’s time to the consummation.
[25] So Burgh, &c.
[26] So, first, in the Introd. pp. vi. - viii.
[27] Ibid., and Lect. p. 74.
[28] See Mr. W. K.’s Comment throughout for this.
[29] So, first, Introd. p. iv., where he intimates his impression that I would myself be ready to make this admission; which certainly I am not.
[30] So, first, Introd. p. vii.
[31] H. A. 4th Ed. - In my present Edition the references will be to Vol. ii. p. 433, and Vol. iv. p. 580. In my citations from Mr. K. I here and there a little abbreviate.
[32] See my Vol. i. pp. 200, 201.
[33] In the question between the reading autwv and hmav, &c., in Apoc. v. 10, says Mr. K. p. 91, “The internal considerations I believe to be very weighty in favor of the omission of hmav. ” - In fact, it would be as absurd, as it would all but unprecedented, for any judicious expositor to overlook internal evidence.
[34] E. g. Ansbert’s Please see p. 170, Note 1390.suprà.
[35] Take e.g. W. K.’s own account of this and the two or rather three (as he would have it) preceding Seals’ judgments. “We know (i.e. from this prophecy) that there is a time of conquest coming; - then of bloody warfare; - then of dearth; - and lastly of the outpouring of God’s four sore plagues.” p. 108. Not one word, observe, on the fourth part.
[36] “How much more when I send my four sore judgments on Jerusalem;” or vv. 15, 17, 19, which read:. “If I cause noisome beasts to pass through the land, and they spoil it, so that it be desolate, that no man may pass through because of the beasts”, and verse 17. “Or if I bring a sword upon that land, and say, Sword, go through the land; so that I cut off man and beast from it: ” and verse 19. “Or if I send a pestilence into that land, and pour out my fury upon it in blood, to cut off from it man and beast:” on “the land.”
[37] I say probably with Jerome; because, though by far the most numerous MSS. of the Vulgate read “in Bestià,” in copy in the Laurentian Library reads (not, observe, “et Bestia,” but) “et Bestiam.”
[38] So p. 309. “The case of Babylon strikingly illustrates how a judgment said to be God’s may yet be executed by men. In Chap. xvii. we see that God will make use of the ten horns, . . and the Beast, or power that binds together those otherwise broken parts, for inflicting his judgment on Babylon. . But in Chap. xviii. not a word of this occurs. And the difference is so obvious and great at first sight that some have laid it down with decision that the judgment of Chap. xvii. is previous to that in Chap. xviii.; and the destruction of Babylon in the former merely a human one; the latter subsequent, and directly from God. I would not dogmatize as to that explanation,” &c.
[39] So Irenæus, as to Imperial Rome’s idolatrous religion, “idola seponens.” Other of the early Fathers’ declared expectations referred more to the way in which Antichrist would exalt himself over every sebasma, the Emperors specially.
[40] Compare on all this my copious illustrations of the whole subject, Vol. iii.
[41] See my Vol. i. pp. 517-527.
[42] ´' '' '' ''
[43] So at p. 169.
[44] So pp. 85, 118, and elsewhere.
[45] So Jubinal, sur les anciennes Tapisseries. “Sur les bannières Francaises, de mème que sur ia casaque de Clovis, on voit pour armories des crapauds, ou des Grenouilles. - Cette dernière circonstance demande une explication. On sait que, selon nos anciens chroniqueurs, avant que les fieurs de lys eussent été apportées du ciel à Clovis, trois crapaude étaient les armes de nos ancetres. Voilà pourquoi Nostredamos appelle le roi de France l’héritier des crapouds; et pourquoi Jean Naucler a éerit que Clovis portait dans son écusson de trois grenouilles de sinople en champ d’argent.”
[46] I observe that Dr. Hales in his Chronology, though not giving authorities for it like myself, speaks of the old French device as three frogs, just as I do. So in his Vol. ii. p. 169 and Vol. iii. p. 625.