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.
CHAPTER III.
EXAMINATION AND REFUTATION OF DR. ARNOLD’S PROPHETIC INTERPRETATIVE PRINCIPLE.
IN the two foregoing Chapters I have, I believe, considered all the main counter-systems of Apocalyptic Interpretation that have been actually drawn out, and that have attached to them any considerable number of adherents. It only remains to add a word or two on a fifth and different view from any of these, as well as from that given by me in the Horę: in view not drawn up into detailed exposition, and which cannot consequently be said to advance pretensions to being regarded as an Apocalyptic system; but which, as directly affecting the most prominent point perhaps of all in the figurations of our prophecy, I mean the Apocalyptic Beast and Babylon, and as having had for its advocates names of no inconsiderable authority,- among others that of Tholuck in Germany, [1] and in England, that of the late admirable though surely sometimes rash and speculative Dr. Arnold, [2] - it might seem unwise and wrong to pass over altogether without notice.
The prophetic interpretative principle asserted by these writers, and the declared grounds of it, are, as expounded by Dr. Arnold, to the effect following: - that there attaches uniformly to Prophecy a lower historical sense, and a higher spiritual sense, the latter only being its full and adequate accomplishment; [3] insomuch that “it is a very misleading notion to regard Prophecy as an anticipation of History:” [4] the proof of this arising out of the fact of many prophecies of promise, spoken in the first instance apparently of the national Israel, or of some one of its kings or prophets, e.g. David being in the New Testament appropriated to Christ and his believing people, as their truest and chief owners; [5] also of certain prophecies of judgment, for example those on Amalek, Edom, Moab, and the Chaldean Babylon, appearing from history to have been but inadequately fulfilled in the fortunes of those nations [6] and persons, prophecy deals with the idea itself and principle of good and evil; which in either case is represented but imperfectly in any individual man or nation. [7] Hence that, although a nation or individual man may be imperfectly the subject of prophetic promise or denunciation, as being imperfectly the representative of the idea, the only adequate fulfillment of prophetic promise is in Christ, who was the perfect personification of good: (albeit embracing his true people, as being in Him, for his worthiness-sake, not their own:) [8] while the only full and adequate accomplishment of the threatened judgments of prophecy is to be in the final destruction of the world, as opposed to the Church: for “the utter extremity of suffering, which belongs to God’s enemy, must be mitigated for those earthly evil-doers, whom God till the last great day has not yet wholly ceased to regard as his creatures.” [9] - This interpretative principle embraces of course the Apocalypse, as well as other prophecy. And, with respect to Papal Rome, since its character is “not one of such unmixt and intense evil,” Dr. A. considers, “as to answer to the features of the mystic Babylon of the Revelation,” [10] he concludes that, as the ancient Chaldean Babylon was only partially the subject of the anti-Babylonish Old Testament denunciations of prophecy in the first instance, so Rome (Papal Rome) is only partially the subject of the Apocalyptic in the second instance; “as other places may be, and I believe are,” adds Dr. Arnold, “in the third instance:” “so that the prophecies will, as I believe, go on continually with the typical and imperfect fulfillment till the time of the end; when they will all be fulfilled finally and completely in the destruction of the true prophetical Babylon, the world as opposed to the Church.” [11]
It is to be observed that this prophetic view is put forward, not as one true only in certain cases, and of which the application, or non-application, is to be decided in each instance by the particular circumstances of the case; but as the “uniform” [12] and only true general interpretative principle or “great law of prophecy:” [13] insomuch that (notwithstanding certain admissions made here and there which might seem somewhat inconsistent with the statement [14] ) Dr. Arnold declares “the tracing out of an historical fulfillment of the language of prophecy, with regard to various nations, to be a thing impossible;” [15] and argues from it, (as well as from the supposed reason of it,) even as from an undoubted and established principle, to prophecies such as that concerning the Apocalyptic Babylon, of the primary and national fulfillment of which the time is even yet future. - This premised, let us proceed to test the soundness of his general prophetic law, and of its application; its application, 1st, to prophecies of promise; 2ndly, to prophecies of judgment: the one asserted reason for it being of course a prominent point for consideration; and then the bearing of the whole on the particular case with which we are ourselves more immediately concerned, of the Apocalyptic Babylon.
And surely, with reference to his prophetic law, or principle, it must already have occurred to the more considerate of my readers, that the data from which so important and large an induction has been drawn are quite inadequate. In order to its justification, essentially considering how startling its nature, and how contrary to many literal and apparently express declarations of Scripture, it were clearly requisite that the mass of Scripture prophecy, or at least of its national and personal predictions, should have been brought under review; or nearly all: also, in the cases of exception, the cause of exception in such case should be proved such as not to affect the law. Instead of which, we have scarce any prophecies of a more general character set forth, but almost alone such as are directly prophecies of promise, or of judgment: and of the former those only concerning Israel, David, or some other of the prophets, of the latter those respecting Amalek, Moab, Edom, Egypt, the Chaldean Babylon, and Jerusalem; examples of which I shall have to speak presently, as exhibiting on the whole much more, I think, of exception to Dr. Arnold’s law than of exemplification. As to more general prophecies about things, persons, or nations, let but the reader note down such as occur in most of the Books of Scripture, - for example those in Genesis or in Daniel, [16] - and he will, I think, need nothing more to convince him that in the majority of examples the literal historical fulfillment, instead of being inadequate and partial, is the one and only fulfillment meant by the divine composing or indicting Spirit; and that that which disregards them can by no right be called a “law of prophecy,” fit to be applied to the solution of predictions as yet confessedly and altogether unfulfilled.
But let us turn to those more direct prophecies of promise, or of judgment, to which Dr. A.’s theory chiefly refers.
And no doubt, as regards the former, in not a few instances where Israel, or David, or some Old Testament saint is the subject of prophetic promise, (whether promise simple and unmixt, or promise associated with the expression of the saints’ present suffering or spiritual breathings,) in many such cases there is a higher as well as lower sense; and with reference to some that would more adequately answer to the character of good than the nation Israel, or the individual David: yet not so, surely, as altogether to fall in with and exemplify his prophetic theory; but rather with such peculiarities in his best examples, and exceptions otherwise so obvious, as to show that even here his supposed universal solvent fails, and that other principles of explanation are needed also. Take the case of prophecies that pass onward in their meaning from a prophet or saint like David to Christ. Very true, and very beautiful, is much that Dr. Arnold has written on this head. [17] But if, (to exemplify from the 22nd Psalm,) “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me,” might be both primarily said in one of his distresses by David, [18] who was a more perfect representative of human suffering, - if too in the same Psalm the hopeful cry, “I will declare thy name unto my brethren, for thou hast not despised and affliction of the afflicted, &c.,” might be the language of David, in sure prophetic anticipation of his deliverance, as well as that of Christ’s afterwards, - yet what of the associated exclamations under suffering. “They pierced my hands and my feet, I may tell all my bones; they parted my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture;” or the triumphant anticipation of “all the end of the world turning to the Lord,” as the result of the deliverance? It is of course admitted by Dr. A. that this, and yet more in the Psalm, so exclusively applies to Christ, that the Psalmist was “in his words by the power of God’s Spirit enabled to be, so to speak, as Christ himself:” [19] - that is, that there exist certain prophecies of the class now spoken of wherein the prophet is not the imperfect type of the perfect antitype, but his impersonation; prophecies to which the spiritual and higher meaning alone attaches, and which consequently are not embraced by his law. This exceptional class is one very important to observe: not merely from its having a somewhat wide range, and including prophecies in Isaiah and Zechariah, [20] as well as in David’s Psalms; but yet more from its setting aside even here that essential point in Dr. Arnold’s prophetic theory, that it is because of his being but imperfectly the representative of the idea of good, with which prophetic promise deals, that the promise or prediction attaches but imperfectly to the historic type or person. The prophet, we see, is here no historic type: the promise, or prediction, no extension of what primarily and partially belonged to him; but applicable in kind, solely and only, to one greater: and the needlessness of Dr. A.’s singular suggestion as to the ez abundanti character of the most specific of the prophetic details in this Psalm made, I think, very evident. [21] .
Pass we now to the cases where Isaiah is the subject of Scripture promise. And here, as before said, I of course admit that there is often a higher sense in the promised blessing than ever attached to the ancient historic Israel. But for what purpose? In great part no doubt, as says Dr. Arnold, to the fact of the ancient Israel having but very imperfectly answered to the idea which it should have represented, viz. of the people of God; and the fullness of the highest promise having reference to the spiritual blessings of those who (as accepted to the Beloved) more truly represented that idea, viz. God’s spiritual and true Israel. This distinction indeed, as all know, is strongly laid down in Scripture. So, in regard of the ancient Jews, by St. Paul. So, in regard of the Christian Church, (which under the New Testament dispensation very much took the place of the ancient Jewish people,) in the Apocalypse. [22] - Nor let it be forgotten that there seems to have been announced from the very first this double Abrahamic covenant, of higher and of lower blessing, the spiritual and the temporal, due to Abraham’s spiritual and natural seed respectively; which centering both alike in his grandson Jacob, surnamed Israel, were through him transmitted, each and either, to the two lines of Israelites severally interested in them. [23] In the further prophetical development of which there is strong intimation, if I mistake not, of the ultimate and fullest fulfillment of both the one and the other chronologically coinciding together; as they also chronologically coincided in the date of their commencement. [24] In which case, the full specific national accomplishment being effected of the specific national promises to the national converted and restored Israel, all argument from Israel’s case in favor of Dr. Arnold’s “prophetic law” will be set aside: [25] a law which lays down that, however specifically appropriate may be a prophetic promise to any nation or race, the fulfillment is not to be regarded as tied down to that race or nation, but only to the idea which it very imperfectly typified. More especially, when applied to scriptural prophecies of judgment, it is plain that the supposed law must be left to its own independent evidence in that application to bear it out; above all when applied to the exemption of Papal Rome from all proper and peculiar interest in the symbolization of, and the judgments denounced on, the Apocalyptic Babylon.
Pass we next then, as proposed, to this second class of prophecies, the prophecies of judgment.
And let me here first justify the passing opinion expressed under my former head, to the effect that the very cases selected by Dr. Arnold in proof of his prophetic theory, seem to me rather to disprove it. For, turning to the two most circumstantial of these prophecies, and those consequently which may best serve as tests, the prophecy concerning the Chaldean Babylon’s destruction, and that concerning Jerusalem’s what find we? That the predicted circumstantials concerning Babylon’s fall were with most remarkable particularity historically and nationally accomplished: - her river dried up from its channel, to give the enemy entrance; her gates of brass opened; the time that of a festival night’s carousal and drunkenness; the manner a surprise; the instruments the Medes and Persians; the period that of Israel’s preparation for returning from captivity; the result, first Babylon’s utter and final overthrow from her imperial supremacy, next that of her becoming a desolation, and heap, and burnt mountain, and the river-waters coming up and stagnating upon her, and wild beasts becoming her only inhabitants. [26] All which Dr. Arnold allows; though most strangely he would have us regard it as fulfillment altogether ex abundanti, [27] and which might have been dispensed with; the simple fact of Babylon’s fall from supremacy being sufficient to satisfy the requirements of the prophecy. And against it all what has he to expect? Only this, that the fulfillment of the latter part of the prediction was delayed for centuries, after other races had mingled among her inhabitants, [28] though then at last accomplished: an exception in regard of which let it be remembered that the time of the completeness of Babylon’s desolation was not a thing predicted. - And so too as to Jerusalem’s predicted destruction, how striking the fulfillment! The Roman eagles gathered round her, as to the carcass of prey; the abomination of heathen idolatrous standards planted in her holy precincts outside the city, in meet response to the abomination of sin within; the trench cast about her; the fencing her in on every side; the fearful tribulation of the siege; the overthrow of the glorious temple, one stone not left upon another; the dispersion of the Jews into all nations; and Jerusalem having been subsequently (as Christ said it would be until the return of the Jewish captivity, an event as yet unaccomplished) -- not a desolation like Babylon, but a place trodden by Gentiles, a Gentile city. Against all which, if we ask again what Dr. Arnold has to except, - the answer is simply what Origen more early said: [29] - viz. that there had appeared few false Christs’ up to his time, though some had, he admits; (and indeed the indisputable authority of Josephus assures us of the fact; [30] that few false prophets had so far risen up in the Church; (whereas the apostles assure us that many had even in their time; [31] and that the gospel had not even then been preached in all the world; i.e. taking the word world in its largest sense: a sense by no means requisite; and in regard of which, construed as elsewhere to mean the Roman world, St. Paul is our witness that the prophecy had had its fulfillment even in his time, [32] and so before the fall of Jerusalem. In a noble passage, which I take pleasure in subjoining, Dr. A. argues the fact of Christ’s passing from the particular prediction of the judgment on Jerusalem into the prediction of the world’s greater judgment. [33] But, instead of this helping Dr. Arnold’s prophetic theory, it needs, I think, but attention to two things to see that it has no bearing whatever upon it. The first is the fact of a twofold question having been put to Christ by the disciples, as he sate with them on Mount Olivet overlooking Jerusalem: viz. 1st, “When shall these things be?” 2ndly, “What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?” Questions these about events which they supposed to synchronize, but which Christ knew to be separated by a large interval of time: though, for reasons elsewhere enlarged on by me [34] he would not on this point undeceive them. The second is St. Luke’s distinct separation of Christ’s answers to the two questions; [35] by his statement of “Jerusalem’s being trodden down by the nations till the times of the Gentiles were fulfilled,” as what would mark the interval between the judgment on Jerusalem, and that on the world at his second coming. Of course, if this be correct, and the two parts of the prophecy be thus distinct, the case has no bearing on Dr Arnold’s prophetic theory: the essence of which consists in the supposition of the same prediction having a lower historical or national sense, and a higher spiritual one.
It is as being imperfect representatives of certain idea of evil, says Dr. A., that the nation on whom judgments are denounced, are imperfectly and partially to suffer those judgments. Such is his assigned reason for their partial inclusion in the denunciations. Accordingly, let me observe in passing, he seeks out the particular idea of evil attaching to each of these nations; though not without difficulty, as might be expected. “In the case of Babylon,” he says, “it is easy to perceive the prophetical idea of which the historical Babylon is made the representative.” [36] I presume he means that of the opposing and persecuting of the profest people of God. In the cases of Amalek and Edom he deems it to be that of offending one of Christ’s little ones: [37] in that of Egypt, to be the idea of “the world in a milder sense; needing God’s grace, but not resisting or opposing it.” [38] All which surely is very fanciful. - But I pass from it to something more important. It is because of the nations having so imperfectly represented the idea of evil, to which idea, pure and unmixt, the perfection of the judgments alone attaches, that Dr. Arnold judges an imperfect and mitigated national fulfillment of judgment to be in each case alone admissible: and for the same reason the notion to be inadmissible of any perpetual curse attaching to the locality and soil of the nation’s habitation. [39] Let us then consider, what the bearing of this on the past, and what on the future. - - And first the past. Man fell under Satan’s strong temptation in Paradise; and we read, the ground was cursed for his sake. Would not Dr. A’s theory require the fact of man’s inexperience and strong temptation to be taken into account? But perhaps, notwithstanding, he might say that there was here pure and unmixt evil. Let us then go on. Before the flood, man’s wickedness was great. But was it pure and unmixt evil? Was there at the time no admixture at all of servants of God? nothing of the more amiable and kindly affections in any of the world’s myriads? nothing of any mitigating circumstance? but evil only, and evil pure and unmixt, as in Satan’s own breast? I know not what Dr. A. would have replied. So it was, however, that there followed no imperfect fulfillment of the judgment predicted through Noah. The world, so soon as Noah and his family had been provided for, was overwhelmed with a flood of waters; and the very earth’s crust bears still over it the impress of the diluvial judgment. So yet again in the case of Sodom and the cities of the plain; which, one and all, remain to this day covered by the sulphurous waters of the Dead Sea. Surely these past facts do raise no dubious voice of protest against the reasoning in Dr. Arnold’s theory. - And then as regards the future. Says our expositor; “These several prophecies of judgment are to go on, meeting only a typical and imperfect fulfillment till the time of the end; when they will be fulfilled finally and completely in the destruction of the true prophetical Babylon (and true apostate Jerusalem also), [40] the world as opposed to the Church.” [41] And will the world then, i.e. this our earth’s inhabitants, be at that time of a character of evil altogether worse than that which any evil people have ever yet exhibited in the world; so as to be no longer imperfectly the representatives of the idea of evil, but its representatives (even as Satan himself might be) purely and perfectly? I know no Scripture warrant for so supposing; but the contrary. [42] And if mankind are likely to be then very much what we have already seen them, in respect of their devotedness to evil, and moreover then as now to have a seed of true believers among them, it seems to me that they will still be imperfectly the representatives of the idea of evil; and, by consequence, such as should only imperfectly (according to Dr. A.’s theory) suffer God’s judgment. A conclusion this which, it is evident from these very sermons, Dr. Arnold himself would have repudiated: and yet I know not how he could have escaped it, as a necessary inference from his prophetic theory.
After the observations just made on the general theory, it will not, I think, be deemed necessary that much should be added in refutation of his particular application of it to the case of Papal Rome, the Apocalyptic Babylon. “Grant that Rome is in some sense, and in some degree, the Babylon of Christ’s prophecy, yet who that knows the history of the Roman Church can pretend that its character is of such unmixt or intense evil as to answer to the features of the mystic Babylon of Revelation?” [43] So he concludes, as we saw long since, that Rome’s part in the Apocalyptically-prefigured judgment is to be only a partial, imperfect, and typical one; partial, because of other places as well as Rome, being equally included; and typical, that is, of the final judgment. [44] A word then on Papal Rome’s asserted mere partial and typical concern in the judgment: a word too on the reason for it; viz. its freedom from the intense evil which might alone justify the full judgment.
And 1st. let me observe, that, as if purposely to prevent the prophecy being applied to anything but Papal Rome, Rome is not itself exhibited, as if perhaps a symbol of something else: but this expressly explained by the Angel to mean Rome only. So that Dr. A. has to deal not with a symbol, but with the Angel’s explanation of a symbol. And if the very thing that a prophetic symbol is explained by an Angel to mean be itself expounded to mean, principally at least, something quite different, then there is really an end to all certainty, I might almost say to all truth, in Scripture. As well might it be said that the seven years of plenty and of famine, which the seven fat and lean kine seen by Pharaoh were declared to signify, was only the symbol’s lowest sense, and that something quite different was chiefly meant by it, that the three baskets and three vine branches, seen by Pharaoh’s butler and baker, meant mainly something altogether different from the explanation assigned to them by Joseph; and the golden head of the symbolic statue, in the highest sense, something quite other than what Daniel explained it to mean, viz. Nebuchadnezzar’s empire of the Euphratean Babylon.
2ndly, and with reference to the ground of Dr. Arnold’s thus excepting Papal Rome from the curse assigned to the Apocalyptic Babylon, viz. that the intense evil attached to that Babylon cannot be deemed to have attached to the Romish Church, the question must be asked, Does Dr. A. refer in this his plea of mitigation to the system as less evil in itself; or to there being many individuals of a different spirit from the system, professedly, included in it? If to the system, I think I may say that I have shown from the recognized and most authoritative exponents of Papal doctrine, - its Papal Bulls, Canon Law, Decrees of Councils, - doctrine not proclaimed in idle theory only, but practically acted out, that the system is one marked, so as no other professedly religious system ever has been, by that which must needs be of all things the most hateful to God; I mean the commixture of the foulest corruption of Christ’s religion, and blasphemy of Christ himself, with the most systematized hypocrisy. - If, on the other hand, it be because of individuals professedly belonging to antichristian Rome who yet partake not of an antichristian spirit, the very voice of the Angel, “Come out of her, my people,” just before the destruction of the Apocalyptic Babylon, shows that up to the very eve of her destruction there would also be in what was meant by the Apocalyptic Babylon, just similarly, some of a different spirit, some of God’s people. So that the characteristic is one to fit the symbol to, not to separate it from, Papal Rome.
No! the existence of some of his own people in a guilty nation may make the Lord spare it for a while for their sake. But at length their very presence and protest, by life at least, if not profession, but all vainly, will be judged by Him to be only an aggravation. And while He will know how to deliver those godly ones from the judgment, yet it will not then any longer prevent the fate of the guilty people. So it was in the case of the old world, when the destroying flood came, as predicted. So in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah. So again in that of Jerusalem. And so too (may we not undoubtedly anticipate, the only proper antitype, to the Apocalyptic Babylon. For, as the symbol has been so tied to it by God’s infinite wisdom, that no human ingenuity can ever put them asunder, so most surely the fate predicted on the same Apocalyptic Babylon shall in Papal Rome have its fulfillment. Nor can I see any reason to alter my expressed conviction, that even when a better state of this earth shall have succeeded to the present, the ruined site of that antichristian city and empire will remain a monument to the future inhabitants of our planet of the most astonishing system of human ingratitude, and perversion of God’s best gift, that the old world ever saw: resting like an ulcer, agreeably with Isaiah’s awful prophecy, on the face of the new creation. [45]
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Since the above was written I have read Dr. Arnold’s very interesting “Life and Correspondence” by Dr. Stanley; and am thankful to learn from it that on the subject last touched on by me, viz. the measure of evil in the Apocalyptic Babylon, or Romish Church, that that great and good man was by no means consistent with himself in at all extenuating it.
With regard to the nature of the apostasy, of which the man of sin predicted by St. Paul was to be the head, he in the strongest terms, as appears from that Biography, again and again declares it to be just that system of priestcraft which was perfected in Popery. [46] The difficulties felt by him in the way of his fully carrying out the Papal application of the prophecy, alike as regards the time of the heading of the apostasy, and the measure of its universality when dominant, as if (in the old Protestant view) embracing all but the Waldensian witnesses, [47] were founded on entire mistake. [48] And whereas, in his Sermons on Prophecy, he had argued that in the Romish Church there “is not such unmixt or intense evil as to answer to the features of the mystic Babylon of the Apocalypse,” yet in his Correspondence we find him declaring that he cannot imagine to himself anything more wicked than the Papal system, at least as exhibited at Rome and in Italy. [49]
I therefore rejoice to appeal on this point from Dr. Arnold to Dr. A. himself; from Arnold under misapprehension to Arnold self-corrected: and to regard him as in reality much more a witness for, than against, the great Protestant view advocated in these Lectures, after Bishop Warburton and all the fathers of the English Reformation; to the effect that the Pope of Rome is distinctively the Antichrist of prophecy, and Papal Rome the Apocalyptic Babylon.
[1] So Dr. Arnold, p. 8; referring to Tholuck’s first Appendix to his Edition of the Epistle to the Hebrews.
[2] I refer to his “Two Sermons on the Interpretation of Prophecy.” The references in the Notes that follow are to the Second Edition of the Pamphlet.
[3] So p. 7; “The general principle of interpretation here maintained, that of a uniform historical or lower, and also of a spiritual or higher sense,” &c.: - where mark the word uniform So again, pp. 42, 70, &c. At p. 31 he compares St. Peter’s declaration, 2 Pet. i. 20, 21, as probably of the same purport; “Knowing that all Scripture prophecy ediav epilusewv ou giretai, is not of private interpretation:” i.e. says he, not private, as if relating exclusively or principally to the historic subject; was but the imperfect representative.
[4] p. 11
[5] .pp. 3, 22, 28.
[6] pp. 49-62
[7] pp. 12, 13, 19.
[8] Ib. pp. 27, 28.
[9] p. 14.
[10] pp. 21, 22.
[11] p. 32.
[12] See the extract Note 2505, p. 312.
[13] So p. 79.
[14] So p. 33; “I am by no means denying the literal and historical sense of the Prophecies relating to the different cities or nations, but only contending that the historical sense is not the highest sense: and that generally the language of the prophecy will be found to be hyperbolical as far as regards its historical subject; and only corresponding with the truth exactly, if we substitute for the historical subject the idea of which it is the representative.” Again, p. 51: “Nay, if it be edifying to believe that they have in some instances their minute and literal, as well as their large and substantial, fulfillment, this too I do not deny, but fully allow: only it seems to me dangerous to rest on them as on the great fulfillment of Prophecy.” They are, he adds, to be regarded as fulfillments “ex abundanti.” On which ex abundanti more presently.
[15] pp. 19, 20.
[16] In Genesis I may specify the predictions to Noah, first of the flood; then, after the flood, of summer and winter, &c., being ever assured to man during the world’s continuance, and no second destruction occurring by water; also his own predictions concerning Shem, Ham, and Jepheth; the promise to Sarah of a son; and to Abraham of his natural seed, after 400 years of sojourning and suffering, being established in Canaan; the prophecies of Joseph about his parents and brethren bowing down to him, and about the seven successive years occurring of plenty, and then of famine; and, once more, those of Jacob respecting the twelve tribes. In Daniel there are the prophecies about the fated succession of four great earthly empires; which, except as regards the concluding prediction of the destruction of the last of those empires in its last state can scarcely be called either prophecies of promise or of judgment, but rather merely of fact.
[17] I gladly refer to the beautiful Note 2 in his Pamphlet, pp. 37-41.
[18] This circumstance of Christ’s relationship to David, as his father after the flesh, is scarce alluded to by Dr. Arnold: but it ought never to be forgotten as one reason of David’s so Christologizing, if I may use the word. So St. Peter, (Acts ii. 30, “Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne;”). Hence too, alike in Isaiah and other prophets who lived after David, Christ is sometimes prophesied of under the name of David. E.g. Isa. lv. 3, 4, “Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. 4: Behold, I have given him for a witness to the people, a leader and commander to the people. ”
[19] p. 80.
[20] In Isaiah the many and large passages where the prophet speaks in Messiah’s person, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me;” “I am found of them that sought me not;” &c. &c. In Zechariah, “And I said, If ye think good give me my price: and they weighted for my price thirty pieces of silver.”
In Heb. ii. 11-13 there occur three applications to Christ of citations from the Old Testament Scriptures, of each of which the character seems different and peculiar. The apostle’s subject is Christ’s true human nature. In illustration of this he thus speaks: - “For both he that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren: saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren; in the midst of the Church will I sing praise unto thee: and again; I will put my trust in Him; and again; Behold I and the children which God hath given me.” I may, I think, illustrate our subject to notice them severally, more especially the last.
The 2nd then of these citations is from Ps. xviii. 2, which is David’s song of deliverance from all his enemies; but, at the end of which, He hath made me to be the head of the heathen, shows that David passes into a king of symbolic impersonation of the greater King David, his son according to the flesh. And the expression, I will put my trust in him, when applied to Christ, must necessarily be understood as meant by him of the repose with which his human nature, in its weakness and trials, fell back for rest on the Deity. - The 1st is from Ps. xxii. 22, which seems a Psalm in which David speaks almost altogether as a symbolic man and impersonation of the greater King David: for such an expression as They pierced my hands and my feet, &c., can have no application whatsoever to the primary David; as observed in my text just above.
As to the 3rd, it is an example very remarkable, and of which a consistent account seems to me to have not yet been given by expositors. It is taken from Isaiah viii. 18; a passage which we must connect, for the history, with all the context preceding, from Isa. vii. 1. It seems the two kings of Syria and Israel had then confederated against Judah. Judah was in consternation. Would God destroy it utterly, and of for ever? Isaiah goes to king Ahaz: and first taken his son Shearjashub with him; meaning, The remnant shall return. On Ahaz asking no sign, in proof of these confederate kings not executing their intended destroying work on Jerusalem, Isaiah, as from God himself, gives a sign; “Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, Emmanuel.” That was, in fact, the great primary promise concerning the seed of the woman that was to bruise the serpent’s head, for which Jerusalem must be spared. So to overthrow them the Assyrian king was prepared; though Judęa too would suffer. Then Isaiah takes with him a second son, named Maher-shal-al-hash-baz, in further confirmation; signifying, In making speed to the spoil he hasteneth to the prey. And then he uses the words cited by St. Paul, “Behold I, and the children whom the Lord hath given me, are for signs and for wonders in Israel, from the Lord of hosts which dwellelth in Zion.” By wonders is meant Mophihim, or figurative symbolic men. On this I have already spoken in my Vol. i. pp. 301-303. But how were Isaiah and his two children, so as here reported of and described, figurative of Christ, and his children, under the gospel dispensation? Perhaps thus, First, Isaiah himself was a man figurative of the whole line of prophets downwards, till it ended in Christ, the greatest of prophets, who all, one after another, preached to the Jews, but in vain: till, on the great Prophet and his apostles preaching still in vain, the Jews that so hearing heard not, but had their ears dull of hearing, &c., were rejected of God; their city destroyed; and, as said in Isa. vi. 11, “the houses left without men, and the land utterly desolate.” But would it ever be so? No! As Isaiah, the symbolic head of that long prophetic line, had children, so Christ, the great Prophet symbolized, had his redeemed ones for children too. Again, as Isaiah’s children were by their very names symbolic of a remnant returning, and in God’s time of there being a hastening to the spoil and to the prey, by some who should inflict vengeance on Judah’s enemies, - so (may we not say?) Christ’s redeemed children too under the gospel are a sign that mercy shall at last attend the house of Judah; its enemies be destroyed, its remnant return, and recognize and own the Lord their Savior. For, says St. Paul, “have they stumbled that they should (finally) fall? God forbid! But rather, through their fall, salvation is come to the Gentiles, to provoke them to jealousy:” - “and so all Israel shall be saved.”
[21] At p. 48 Dr. A. quotes that verse from Ps. xxii., “They parted my garments among them, &c.,” as an instance of the “ex abundanti” exactitude of fulfillment. “Because there were persons who would be more struck by such a minute fulfillment, than by that general fulfillment which to us seems so far more satisfactory, therefore God was pleased they should have the satisfaction; and, over and above the great and substantial fulfillment of the prophecy, provided also those instances of minute agreement.”
[22] I cannot but remark on the accordance of Dr. Arnold’s language, as well as views, on this point with the Apocalypse sketch. It was the result, not of his prophetic theory, but of the spiritual discernment of his own spiritual mind. “Twice has God willed to mark out here the guests to the Lamb’s marriage supper; that all who belonged to his Church on earth, all who were circumcised, all who were baptized, should [might?] be the heirs of the promises of Prophecy. But twice man’s sin rendered this impossible. The seal of baptism has proved no surer mark than the seal of circumcision: again have the people whom he brought our to Egypt corrupted themselves. Still there is, and ever has been, a remnant; still there are those whom Christ owns now, and will own for ever. Theirs are the promises in all their fullness: not because their righteousness is proportioned to such blessings; but because they are Christ’s and Christ is God’s.” p. 27.
[23] See in this Volume pp 81-83 suprą.
[24] Ibid., with the sequel.
[25] “Take these promises (viz. of Deut. xxx.) in their historical sense, as addressed to the historical Israel. They are as yet, it is said, unfulfilled, but they will be fulfilled hereafter. But it seems to me that they have been fulfilled already, as for as it was possible that they could be fulfilled to the historical Israel.” So p. 45. At p. 47 he adds, that “if any one urge a lower fulfillment again to the historic Israel, on its turning to the Lord, he will not attempt to deny it; provided it be allowed that such a fulfillment is by no means necessary to the truth of the prophecy, but given ex abundanti.”
[26] See especially (Jer. li. 1, “Thus saith the LORD; Behold, I will raise up against Babylon, and against them that dwell in the midst of them that rise up against me, a destroying wind;”); and Bishop Newton’s historical explanation.
[27] p. 56.
[28] Ib. p. 54.
[29] Ib. pp. 82, 83.
[30] See Bishop Newton generally.
[31] 1 John iv. 1, “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.”.
[32] Col. i. 6, “Which is come unto you, as it is in all the world; and bringeth forth fruit, as it doth also in you, since the day ye heard of it, and knew the grace of God in truth:”
[33] It cannot be doubted that it (the prophecy) proceeds from an immediate historical occasion; and speaks of the approaching siege and destruction of Jerusalem. Nor yet can it be doubted that it does not rest long within the narrow limits of its historical subject: that the language rises almost immediately, and the vision magnifies; that the outward and historical framework bursts, as it were, and perishes, while the living spirit which it contained alone supplies its place; that Jerusalem and the Romans become the whole human race, and God’s true heavenly ministers of judgment; that the time fixed definitely for the fulfillment of the historical sense of the prophecy melts away, and becomes an ineffable mystery, when it would in fact be no other than the date of time’s being swallowed up in eternity; that the coming of the Son of Man, imperfectly shadowed forth in the power which visited Jerusalem with destruction, is in its full verity the end of all prophecy, which can only find its accomplishment when prophecy shall ease.” p. 82.
[34] Vol. iii. p. 265.
[35] Luke xxi. 24, “And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.”
[36] p. 32.
[37] pp. 32, 58.
[38] p. 59.
[39] pp. 17, 49.
[40] p. 85
[41] p. 32.
[42] e.g. compare Matt. xxiv. 38, 39, “ 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, 39: And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.”, xxv. 10, “And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut.”.
[43] pp. 21, 22.
[44] p. 32.
[45] See my Vol. iv. pp. 221, 222.
[46] “So far as Popery is priestcraft, I do believe it to be the very mystery of iniquity. But then it began in the 1st century; and had no more to do with Rome in the outset than with Alexandria, Antioch, Carthage.” So in November , 1836. Life and Correspondence, ii. 61.
Again; - “There is no battle in which I so entirely sympathize as in this against the priestcraft - Antichrist.” So December, 1837, about the troubles from the Archbishop of Cologne. Ibid. p. 99.
Again, in January, 1838; “This spirit of priestcraft, the root of anarchy, fraud, and idolatry, is the mainspring of all Popery, whether Romish or Oxonian.” Ib. 105.
Again, October, 1839; “I see the Tractarians laboring to enthrone the very mystery of falsehood and iniquity in that neglected and dishonored temple, the Church of God.” p. 172.
Again, January, 1840; “In one point I think Antichrist was in the Church from the 1st century: yet God forbid that we call the Church Antichrist. Newmanism is the development of that system which in the early Church existed only in the bud; and which, as being directly opposed to Christ’s religion, [we see that Dr. A., had not attended to the peculiar force of the word anticritov, ] I call Antichrist.” p. 183.
Again, June 1841; “That the great enemy should have turned his very defeat into his greatest victory, and converted the spiritual self-sacrifice, in which each was his own priest, into the carnal and lying sacrifice of the mass, is to my mind, more than anything else, the exact fulfillment of the apostolic language concerning Antichrist.” p. 260.
[47] “But then it (the priestcraft system) began in the 1st century.” so in the primary citation given in my notes above. Again; “To talk of Popery as the great Apostasy, and of the Christian Church as the Vaudois, is absurd.” So June, 1831. Vol. i. p. 395.
[48] In fact, what St. Paul’s prophecy marks is a clearly gradually self-unfolding evil: first existing in the bud, as Dr. A. says; then increasing more and more into a general apostasy; then, when so advanced, to be headed by the man of sin, or Antichrist. So that the Roman Bishop, if the Antichrist meant, had then only, according to the prophecy, to take his part in the fulfillment.
As to God’s Church of the true-hearted it is represented as hidden in the wilderness, during Antichrist’s reign, know to God, but (collectively) not visible by man. Only certain direct witnesses for God’s truth, few in number, were to be visible and active on the scene. See Apoc. xii. 17, and my Comment on in, Vol. iii. p. 68. The Vaudois we look on as some only of those witnesses.
[49] In Italy it is just the old heathenism; and, I should think, a worse system of deceit.” So October, 1825, while in Italy. Life i. 74.
“I saw these two lines painted on the wall in the street to-day, near an image of the Virgin:
Chi vuole in morte aver Gesu per padre,
Onuri in vita in sun santa madre.
I declare I do not know what name of abhorrence can be too strong for a religion which, holding the very bread of life in its hands, thus feeds the people with poison.” So May, 1827, at Rome. Ibid. 279
Again, at p. 385, we find him applying to a statue of the Virgin in the Tyrol, the tales told about it, as the deliverer of the people from the French, and the worship paid it, what Herodotus might narrate of a statue of Minerva alexikakov.
Yet once more, this is the statement of his final opinion on the subject, and made very shortly before his death; “Undoubtedly I think worse of Roman Catholicism, in itself, than I did some years ago.” So October, 1841. Life ii. 287