Joel, Haggai, Zechariah
Tats prophecy the apostle Peter quotes in his sermon on the day of Pentecost, and as Mr Brown remarks, “gives it as the true explanation of what had taken place that day.”* I have no desire to explain away or “distort this whole passage,” as Mr Brown intimates that millennarians do. We take it as we find it. We do not say, as Mr Brown does, in another part of his work regarding a passage in Isaiah (quoted by Paul, and applied by him to the resurrection,) that the meaning attached to it by an inspired apostle is not its “primary” meaning, or that “the one direct and immediate object of the whole prediction”? is totally different from what the apostle says it is. We
have no wish to “drag the passage out of its proper
- connection.”{ Far from it. We admit that the “one
direct and immediate object of the whole prediction”
* P2228. PP 206. BP 207.
must just be what the apostle says it is. We are not
going either to distort the passage, or to destroy its —
connection. We seek simply to discover its natural meaning. Nor do we need, in order to save a theory, to depart from the general opinion of sound commentators. We find that, in regard to the sense of this passage, we are at one with most. Nor do we very well understand why Mr Brown should use such strong language, and accuse us of “distorting” Scripture, when there is hardly any difference here between us and anti-millennarian interpreters. Calvin, for example, remarks, ‘‘the prophet includes the whole kingdom of Christ from the beginning to the end; and this is well understood; and in other places we have stated that the prophets commonly speak in this manner; for when the discourse is concerning Christ’s kingdom, they sometimes refer to its commencement only, and sometimes they speak of its termination; but they often mark out by one delineation the whole course of the kingdom of Christ from its beginning to its end, and such is the case here.”* Again, in commenting on the apostle Peter’s quotation of this passage, he says, “in my judgment the prophet comprehendeth the whole kingdom of Christ;
‘
and so he calleth it the great day,.... he be- ’
* Calvin on Joel.
ginning this day at the first preaching of the gospel, and he extendeth the same unto the last resurrection.”* Take as another example the following paragraph from Howe: “It is plain that he (the apostle Peter) did not intend that the completion of that prophecy was confined to that point of time, so that all that was intended in that prophecy is not fulfilled till God has done calling; and many other Scriptures seem to intimate that there shall be a time of far more general calling than hath been hitherto.”+
We need quote no others. These are enough to show what the general opinion of sound commentators is. From several expressions of these we may differ, but in substance we agree with them. We hold that, the fulfilment of the prophecy began on the day of Pentecost, and extends over the whole period onwards to the second coming of Christ. We believe that the scene on Pentecost was the most signal fulfilment that it has yet received; but still that it has been fulfilling ever since, that it is fulfilling in every soul that is saved, and specially in every revival that takes place; and that it shall yet receive a most glorious fulfilment in the latter day. Believing this along with all sound commentators, we cannot understand Mr Brown’s
* Calvin on the Acts of the Apostles. + Howe on the Work of the Holy Spirit. Sermon v.
strong language in reference to an “inchoate fulfilment.” He seems resolved not to agree with us in any point, and asks in reference to the word “inchoate sense,” with an indignation of which we do not comprehend the reason, “is this tolerable?” We affirm that it is not only “tolerable,” but right and true. We affirm that it is the very thing which sound interpreters hold. We affirm that Mr Brown himself holds this very “inchoate fulfilment” which he so violently rejects. Indeed, he seems to have felt this, for in the 240th page, he admits that if we do not look for “new revelations” we are not so far wrong. Yet though he knew that the expectation of new revelations is confined to very few; though he has expressly stated this himself in a note, yet he accuses the whole body of millennarians of distorting Scripture, for holding an opinion which has been, and is held by all sound expositors of the Word. Let us hear his own statement, that our readers may judge of its fairness : —
“Pre-millennialists, however, distort the whole passage, and bring out of it most unseriptural conclusions, by representing it as, in respect of the effusion of the Spirit, 7 the main unfulfilled — fulfilled only in an
inchoate sense. If this be correct, it must clearly —
extend to all the three things predicted. In particular, the ‘deliverance’ or ‘ salvation,’ as proclaimed by
Peter on the day of Pentecost, was only in that case, an inchoate fulfilment of what the prediction intended. Ls that tolerable? It will not do to say, that you speak only of the extent to which the Spirit was then received, and the salvation proclaimed and then embraced, as being far more limited than we have reason, from the prophecy itself, to look for. That does not make the prophecy to have received, on the day of Pentecost, but. an inchoate fulfilment. We may say, for example, of a prediction relating to the universal spread of the gospel — which might have been rapidly, but, in point of fact, has been slowly, and even yet very partially, fulfilled — of such a prediction we may say, that it received, in the apostolic age, but an inchoate fulfilment. But to say of a prophecy which announces the dispensation, at a particular time, of a certain gift to the church, but the benefit of which gift could not, in the nature of things, be actually experienced by all for whom it was designed, at the time when the gift was conferred, nor for ages afterwards, — to say of such a prophecy, that it did not receive more than an inchoate fulfilment at the time when the gift was conferred, is an abuse of words.*
* T do not quite understand Mr Brown’s meaning here; but in so far as I do, I can see no “abuse of words” in our view; nothing “unscriptural,” nothing “distorting,” nothing “intolerable,” nothing leading to conclusions of “the most sweeping
This’ indeed, would be of small consequence, if the intended meaning were clearly brought out by those who use it; but so far from this, it is made the starting point of conclusions of the most sweeping and dangerous character, utterly foreign to the above sense of their language, if that be really what they mean, and proving, therefore, that that is not what they mean. We refer here to the expectation of an ‘increase of revelation ’ — revelations of the Spirit accompanying the personal advent of our Lord,’ which are held to be ‘distinctly intimated,’ if in no other place, ‘in at least this one passage.’”*
Mr Brown seems to have some peculiar theory of his own as to the fulfilment of this prophecy on Pentecost. We do not fully understand him. His lanand dangerous character”; nothing essentially different from the common view of the passage.
* Pp. 239-40. In the concluding sentence of our quotation, it is plain that Mr Brown is speaking of millennariané in general, as the whole paragraph shows. He accuses them of looking for new revelations, and makes this the reason for denouncing their “inchoate sense.’’ But let our readers contrast this sweeping censure upon all millennarians with the following statement : —
“This pamphlet had not appeared when, at p. 86, we said we had found no Scotchman prepared to face the prospect ‘of anew revelation,’ else, of course, we should have modified the statement. We had conversed, however, some months before with one whom Mr Wood would hold to be a good representative of Scotch pre-millennialism, and who emphatically disclaimed the expectation
of any new revelation; nor had we met with one of a different mind.” P. 196 (note).
es guage is certainly unusual, and would indicate that he had some special and new idea to develope; and yet, we confess, that we are unable to lay hold of it. It is either just the common idea dressed out in different phraseology, or it is the notion advanced by a modern sect, that the Spirit was given to the church at Pentecost, and needs not to be given again.* We shall
* This curious notion we extract from a small anonymous publication entitled The Spirit grieved, and the Lord dishonoured, addressed to the Reformers of the Nineteenth Century. — “This immutable word, which tells us of the immutability of Him with whom we have to do, at once casts us on the inquiry — ‘ Has the Spirit been given to the church? We look to the church for an answer; we call upon the recipient of the gift. And what do we find? In many, a positive denial of it; in all, a practical denial. The outcry of the most faithful of the Lord’s servants, is the negative to it that presses most deeply on our hearts. They pray for the outpouring of the Spirit! While some are content to inyoke its influence, these meet together to agonize in prayer, that for all the luke-warmness in the church, there may be a corrective in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Has the day of Pentecost been forgotten? Has the record of the sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and of the disciples being filled with the Holy Ghost, fallen like a fairy tale on our ear? Or, has the gift of the Spirit been repented of 2? And oh, when such of the children of God, as are impressed more than others with the sense of their need, have meetings to pray for the outpouring of the Spirit, is it not this that they practically affirm? Are they not looking to their own prayers to accomplish what the prayer of Jesus has failed to accomplish? Might they not as well meet to pray that the sun might be given for a light of day, the moon for a light by night?” Such are the conclusions drawn by a modern sect from the dogma, that the Holy Spirit.was given at Pentecost and needs not to be given again. Is it a startling and somewhat cite the passage at length that we may not misrepresent him: —
“The fulfilment which the prophecy received on the day of Pentecost, was the proper and only intended Fulfilment of it. We are not to take the shower that fell that day as, by itself, the thing intended. It is rather the character in which the Spirit was then given — by the newly-ascended Saviour, conferred upon himself immediately on his ascension, in reward of what he had done upon earth — and as sweh, dispensed by him, immediately on the reception of it, upon the church. What was not withheld from the church before, though given in anticipation of the work of Christ, was, now that that work was over, formally and openly conferred. It is in this light that the gift bestowed on the day of Pentecost is always spoken of in Scripture. ‘Tarry ye,’ said Jesus, ‘in the city of Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high.’ He ‘commanded them (says Luke) that they should wait at Jerusalem for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me.’ ‘The Holy Ghost was not given, (says John,) in the days of his flesh, ‘ because that Jesus was not yet glorified.’ ‘Ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days
perilous dogma? Has Mr Brown duly considered its tendency before promulgating it?
hence,’ said the Saviour just before his ascension, This continual tying of the gift of the Spirit, as bestowed on the day of Pentecost, to the ascension and glorification of Christ, makes it perfectly evident that we are not to measure the gift that day vouchsafed to the church by the actual extent of what the men then constituting the church experienced. It was the whole fulness of ‘ the seven spirits of God’ in the hand of the glorified Mediator, with which the church was that day enriched. Hence the gospel dispensation is called ‘ the ministraton of the Spirit, now set free, as never before, to conduct the whole application of Christ’s work in saving souls. If this be the scriptural view of that which the church received on the day of Pentecost, it follows, of course, that Joel’s prophecy received on the day of Pentecost, all the fulfilment which it will ever receive.” *
Here then Mr Brown tells us, that “Joel’s prophecy received on the day of Pentecost ALL THE FULFILMENT WHICH IT WILL EVER RECEIVE”! Yet he immediately afterwards tells us that it “runs on through all tune till the whole endowment becomes matter of actual experience.”*t And, again, though he rejects so strongly the expression, “inchoate sense,” as applied to the Pentecostal fulfilment of this prophecy, he does
not hesitate to use the words “generic fulfilment” !.
* Pp, 240, 241. + P. 242, We cannot help thinking that inchoate is a far more intelligible word than generic. If the latter has any meaning at all, itincludes the former. It must mean inchoate, progressive, and ultimate. If it does not mean this, it isa mere metaphysical abstract expression which requires some farther elucidation. We should like much to know in plain words, what Mr Brown means by saying, that “the Pentecostal effusion was the formal donation of the Spirit for all time.”* We can understand how when Christ ascended he received the gift of the Spirit for all time — how there was a formal donation of the Spirit to Him; but how the pouring out of the Spirit upon the multitudes on the day of Pentecost was the formal donation of the Spirit to ali time, we do not comprehend. It was no doubt a pledge of future donations, and a specimen of them; but to speak of it as the “formal donation,” is either to use a mere vague figure, or to make the church in Jerusalem on the - day of Pentecost the vessel into which the Spirit was poured for all ages.
But let us direct a little attention to Mr Brown’s interpretation of the 31st verse regarding “the great and terrible day of the Lord.” He commences with telling us that “it is perfectly evident that the day
Sap aden here spoken of refers to the destruction of Jerusalem.”* As we, in company with many sound commentators, do not think this so “perfectly evident” as Mr Brown does, we shall endeavour to give our reasons for thinking that the great and terrible day is the second coming of the Lord. It is curious that Calvin, in his exposition of the words, makes a mere passing allusion to the destruction of Jerusalem as one of the ways in which this verse might be said to be fulfilled, He would have it refer to all the tribulations of the world from age to age, terminating in the arrival of the Judge “at the end of the world.” Had Mr Brown’s view been so perfectly evident, Calvin would not have missed it so completely. Grotius, on the other hand, takes Mr Brown’s view of the passage quite decisively. So does Kuttner, a neologian. But let us examine the passage itself. The prophet tells us that there were to be “wonders in heaven and earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke;” that “the sun was to be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come.” We would just ask, how or when all these things took place before the destruction of Jerusalem. Grotius, indeed, who tries to be consistent, tells us that this fire, and smoke, and blood, &c. referred to P, 247.
‘
the devastation of the Roman army before they advanced upon the city, and that the “wonders” were fulfilled in the slaughters which took place, and in the burning villages whose smoke obscured the sun. But can this satisfy any one? Will it satisfy Mr Brown? We think not. Yet whyshouldit not? If the destruction of Jerusalem be the great and terrible day of the Lord, why should not the destruction of the land and its villages be the fulfilment of the previous calamities. It is very remarkable that Mr Brown carefully avoids all mention of this difficulty. He spends a good many pages upon the passage, but he does not once allude to the preceding “wonders in heaven and earth,” the “blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.” Why this silence, if the passage is so perfectly evident? He may have his own explanation, but we wish it had been stated. For the difficulty is not slight. It is not a difficulty which can be surmounted by referring to the horrors of the siege; for
it refers to what was to take place before, not at nor after the great and terrible day of the Lord. We may ask what wonders were done in heaven and earth before the destruction of the city?’ When, or where, or how was the blood seen, and the fire, and the pillars of smoke? When or how was the sun turned into darkness and
the moon into blood. Take the words either literally
fe en ee ee ee eee or figuratively, — when, or where, or how did the fulfilment take place ?*:
Mr Brown here introduces again his theory of the judgement of systems not persons. He tells us, with reference to the destruction of Jerusalem, that it was not the temporal and bodily extermination of the persons in whom that party stood represented in the Jewish church. “It is the total excision of a corrupt and faithless church from its previous standing in the kingdom of God.” If Mr Brown had said, that by means of the temporal and bodily extermination of the persons, God expressed his judgment upon a faithless church, we could have understood his meaning. As it stands, his statement appears to us incorrect, — scripturally, historically, and theologically. It was
certainly persons who fell under the sword of Rome.
* Athanase Coquerel, a modern French Unitarian of the philosophic school, remarks in the same strain: ‘‘ Figurative language prevails to such an extent in the Holy Scriptures, that almost every page contains examples. It is especially important to remark the intensity of this metaphorical language, which differs much more widely from the cold precision of our modern phraseology, than is obvious even to those who bestow a minute and careful attention upon the subject. Thus the striking phenomena and elemental convulsions of nature are used to represent great political, moral, and religious revolutions. St Peter announces the foundation of the Christian church to the people of Jerusalem, in these terms, ‘ this is that which is spoken by the prophet Joel, &c. This merely signified that the spiritual reign of Jesus had commenced.” — Christiantty, its perfect adaptation to the mortat, moral, and spiritual nature of man, p. 480.
290 WHEN WAS THE JEWISH °
It was persons whose blood flowed through and around Jerusalem. It was persons, not systems, that were carried captive by the Roman conquerors. Yet he ventures to affirm that “the destruction of Jerusalem as a piece of Divine procedure, is never spoken of, nor designed to be judged of, as a mere calamity, however due, but as a judicial breaking up of the whole church-state and standing of Israel, — their public excision in that character.”* If Mr Brown meant merely to say that the destruction of Jerusalem is always spoken of in connection with God’s wrath against Israel, we agree with him. If he means to say that the destruction of Jerusalem was truly the final casting off of the Jews, we have no fault to find. But to say that it is “never spoken of as a mere calamity, but always as the breaking up of the church-state of Israel,” is an assertion entirely void of proof. We just ask for one passage in which the destruction of that city is spoken of as the breaking up of the church-state of Israel. If Mr Brown had given this statement as an inference of his own, we should not have called attention to it. But it seems strange to assert that that fearful stroke of vengeance is never spoken of as a mere calamity, but always as the breaking-up of the church-state of Israel! Their church-state was surely broken up long
P29;
before that day. The kingdom of God was taken from them long before their city and temple were laid in ruins. The Pentecostal effusion was the supplanting of Judaism. When the apostle Paul wrote to the Romans, many years before Jerusalem was destroyed, the branches were broken off the olive tree, — blindness had come over Israel, — and God’s ancient church had been cast away.:
-/ We would only add that Mr Brown’s continual effort to unpersonate everything, — to transmute the individual into the abstract and systematic, — appears to us full of danger. It enables one to sweep away texts by hundreds. It cuts out the very heart and core of Divine warnings as well as promises. It enables individuals to throw aside responsibility, and to delude themselves with the idea that the judgments of God are directed against systems, not against persons. And as it enables Mr Brown to get rid of all personal judgments up to the last judgment, so it will enable less scrupulous commentators to get rid of a personal judgment at last. For if all previous judgments have been abstract judgments upon systems, why not the last? Ifno personal judge is admissible before the millennium, it will be hard to prove that he shall appear at the close of all. And if the terrible vengeance
to be taken on Antichrist, be upon systems, not on’
persons, it will be easy to demonstrate that the punishments of hell are inflictions upon systems, not upon sinners. Yet Mr Brown’s whole book proceeds upon this perilous assumption — an assumption which, had it been found in the pages of a German critic, would have been énough to discredit him as unsound. This is the hammer with which Mr B. traverses the whole Word of God, breaking in pieces all literality of interpretation. Take this assumption, this false principle out of his work, and almost every argument it contains
crumbles into sand.
§ 2. Haeeatr i. 7, 21, 22, IN CONNECTION WITH Hes. xii. 26.
Mr Brown affirms that the shaking of the heavens and earth is a past event, yet he does not tell us to what it specifically refers, whether to the birth of Christ, or to the death of Christ, or to Pentecost, or to the destruction of Jerusalem. We should like to understand specifically to which of these past events he fixes it. Commentators, we mean those who take the words figuratively, range over these four different events, some fastening it on one, some on another of them. Clarius, a reformation divine, expounds the
words as alluding to the nativity, referring to the star in the east, as one of the signs. Grotius explains them of the fe of Christ, referring God’s “speaking from heaven,” to Christ’s ruling the winds and waves. Jerome expounds them of the crucifixion, referring to the darkening of the sun and the rending of the rocks. Augustine makes them to have been only fulfilled in part at the first advent, in the angelic annunciation, and in the preaching of the gospel. The remainder he thinks will be fulfilled at the second advent, de novissumo expectatur adventu.* Thomas Scott refers to a great variety of circumstances, sacred and secular, as their fulfilment. Dr Guyse is confused and contradictory, as the following extracts will show. In the text, he paraphrases the passage thus, “I will also shake down the civil and ecclesiastical state of the Jews, which was to be fulfilled in the destruction of the city and temple of Jerusalem.” But in his note on the passage he says, “the earth might be said to be shaken, as there were great commotions in the earth at the birth of Christ, and by the miracles he wrought, and the earthquake that attended his resurrection: The heavens also were shaken, when the star appeared to the wise men of the East, and a multitude of the heavenly host celebrated the praises of his birth, and when the heavens were opened, and the Holy Ghost descended.” Boehme, a neologian, labours * De Civilate Dei, Book 18, ch. 35. 49.
hard to explain away this “promise,” as, along with other neologians, he understands the passage to refer to the downfall of the Jewish polity.* Tholuck also, who maintains that the words of the apostle point to the great shaking which took place at the establishment of the new covenant, does not allow that the apostle is really interpreting the prophet’s words; “the passage in Haggai presents itself conveniently for connecting this thought,... There is no historical exposition of the Old Testament passage in our author, (z. e. the apostle,) but merely a linking on of his own thought to the words of Scripture, ... hence the freedom with which he has modified the text of the LXX, .... he has laid an emphasis on the once more, notwithstanding these words are not an accurate rendering of the Hebrew.”+ Here is Tholuck maintaining downright neology, rather than allow that the whole passage refers to what is future, and is to be literally taken. Bloomfieldy tells us that “it is agreed on by the best commentators, that the highly jigurative language of the prophet must be understood as predictive of that total alteration, and thorough reformation in religion by the promulgation of the gospel, and which was brought to pass in that very age.”
* On the Epistle to the Hebrews, pp. 726, 727. + Comm. on the Heb. in loc. £ Recensio Synoptica, vol. vill. p. 560.
These best Poaiecniaters to whom he refers are Peerce, Whitby, Rosenmiiller! He tells us that, according to these commentators, the heavens and earth which are shaken are “the Mosaic economy.” From Tholuck we learn that others considered “heaven and earth” to mean Jews and Gentiles! Matthew Henry makes the shaking in the 8th verse of Haggai to be past, and yet the shaking in the 22d verse to be still future, and refers to the earthquakes, &c., predicted in the Apocalypse. So that these expositors are at wide variance with each other, being only intent on proying that the scene cannot point to a future convulsion of heaven and earth. Lastly, we give Mr Brown’s interpretation, “Theapostle’s application of ‘ the things which cannot be shaken,’ to the immoveable kingdom of Christ, fixes it to mean just the removal of that provisional state of the church, upon the one hand, which was established at Sinai — the abolition of the - temporary economy of Moses — and, on the other hand, such revolutions in the political earth as would pre- - pare the way for the peaceful establishment and triumphant progress of Christ’s kingdom, to which all political systems were made, and are destined in every age of the gospel to become, subservient.” This exposition seems to us as unsatisfactory as the others, The whole of these together (which we give merely as a few specimens) furnish us with as singular a mass of vague and opposing affirmations as we can well conceive. Yet we must submit to all this, rather than believe that the shaking is future !*
But the “shaking” here predicted is something very definite and prominent — something not easily mistaken; and it seems strange that they should not be able to say which of these events it refers to, if they are so certain that it refers to one of them. As Mr Brown maintains that it was already past in the apostle’s day, he cannot refer it to the overthrow of
* Coquerel, the Unitarian, remarks on this passage, “The Epistle to the Hebrews quotes and comments after this fashion, upon a prophecy of Haggai... the things that are shaken z. é. the Mosaic system... that those things which cannot be shaken, 7. ¢. the Christian law, may remain”! p. 450. There is a remark of this author on the general point of the second coming of Christ, which may be noticed here. ‘The coming of Christ,” says he, “presents perhaps the most formidable stone of stumbling, on which both knowledge and faith make shipwreck. All these difficulties spring from that false criticism which has so long prevailed, and taken its stand upon a foundation which is vmpossible, — absolute inspiration. The difficulties disappear before the principle of relative inspiration — inspiration bestowed as far as was necessary, leaving the sacred writers to speak their own language,” p. 462. This he attempts to illustrate by reference to the Jewish notions, It is plain that this Unitarian felt literality the great barrier in his way; but he did not feel at liberty to discard literality unless he could also set aside “absolute inspiration,” and substitute “relative,” by which he was enabled to make the Bible speak just what he pleased, and to turn every thing like personality in Scripture into mere philosophical abstractions..
Jerusalem. And yet he tells us in another place,* that it was the destruction of that city that was “the judicial breaking up of the whole church-state and standing of Israel.” And he tells us also,t+ in expounding the present passage, that the shaking of heaven and earth means “the abolition of the temporary economy of Moses,” which (we gather) he supposes, took place at that overthrow. Yet he exclaims, “is it not amazing that the whole should be viewed as Suture?’ Surely not so very amazing, when so many of those commentators to whom he refers with commendation, find its accomplishment in the breaking up of the Jewish polity when Jerusalem fell. These expositors must have held: it to be future; for the Epistle to the Hebrews was written many years before the ruin of that city. If so, Mr B. must be mistaken in saying, that “all commentators understand the apostle explicitly to state” that it was past. He repeats this statement about the unanimity of commentators. Of course, he could not mean millennarian ones, for they hold the opposite. But even his own friends desert him here, though he does not seem aware of it. Dr Urwick, in his work against millennarianism, already referred to, speaks thus: “The statements in Hebrews xu. 25-29, are comhts Fee oH Pye monly explained as intending the change of dispensation from Judaism to Christianity. The expression, ‘whose voice then shook the earth,’ seems to refer to the quaking of the earth at the giving of the law; indeed, the terms ‘ earth’ and ‘ heaven,’ as used in that connexion, seem rather to require a literal than a figurative meaning. As to the promise, ‘ Yet once more I shake not the earth only but also heaven,’ it answers the context better to explain it of the convulsion of the mundane system at the last day, than of a change of dispensation. The permanence which is ascribed to the state of things consequent upon the shaking of the earth and heaven, cannot in strictness be predicated of the Christian economy of the church, because, though that economy continues longer than the Jewish, it is not the everlasting state. The designation ‘kingdom that cannot be moved,’ will apply with much greater propriety to the ultimate, than it will to the present condition of the church,.”* M‘Laurin remarks, “the words of this prediction (Haggai) taken in their full latitude, denote the downfall not only of the Persian but of the other universal monarchies whose downfall as foretold in Daniel as subsequent to the establishment of the everlasting divine kingdom of the Messiah.”+ Hopkins * P. 239, “t+ On the Prophecies, ch. v. § 9.
also maintains that the shakings so mentioned by Haggai are still future, and are identical with the battle of the great day of God Almighty.* Iam glad, also, to find that Storr and Flatt, in their Biblical Theology, do not hesitate to refer the passage to the Lord’s second coming, when he will “transform heaven and earth into a state in which they shall be immutable.’+
But let us look into the prophet’s words. The disputed expressions occur twice in the same chapter, and the 22d verse is evidently an enlargement and illustration of the 6th and 7th. In the 21st the prophet repeats the prediction, “I will shake the heavens and the earth;” and then he adds, “I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms, and J wll destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the nEATHEN; and I will overthrow the chariots and those that ride in them; and the horses and riders shall come down, every one by the sword of his brother.” We have looked in vain for any consistent interpretation of this passage. Mr Brown never alludes to it at all, We should like to know to what events he affixes it; and how it can possibly refer it to the breaking up of the Jewish economy, either political or sacred. The prophet foretells a destruction of the kingdoms of the heathen, with
their chariots and horses; but, on the contrary, he pro- * On the Millennium, p. 142. + Book iii. sect. 65.
mises blessing to Israel. How could the invasion of the Roman armies, and their sack of Jerusalem, with the slaughter of two millions of Jews, be “destroying the strength of the kingdom of the heathen”? Or did this take place before the birth of Christ? No. That was pre-eminently a time of peace. The temple of Janus was shut. The earth was at rest. The tumult of the nations had died into repose. Chariot and
horse, spear and sword, were idle.
“© No war or battle’s sound
Was heard the world around.’’ — M1nxTon.
None of the scenes which the prophet describes took place at the first advent; but they are the very scenes so often predicted as to take place at the second. May we not conclude, then, that it is to the latter, not the former, that the prophet was pointing?
Then, as to the apostle’s quotation of the passage, we must say that Mr Wood’s statements seem obvious to us, and his reasoning unanswerable, notwithstanding Mr Brown’s counter affirmations. To us it appears impossible to attach any other meaning to the apostle’s words, than that he looked upon the prediction as still unfulfilled. The expression, ‘‘now he. hath promised,” viv 6 érfyyeAros, seems explicitly to declare this, and nothing else. ‘They tell of the apostle’s expectation — an expectation founded upon a promise. It was, no doubt, to Haggai that the promise
was made, as Mr Brown says; but it was upon the
certainty of that promise that the apostle rested his hope of that future shaking that was to establish every
thing immoveably and for ever.,
From these statements we gather the following particulars —
1. That add commentators do mot understand the apostle to say that the event here prophesied of was past.
2. That anti-millennarian expositors are at utter variance with each other, as to the meaning of the passage.
3. That several of these take it in the same sense as millennarians do.
4, That Mr Brown, though telling us that the events were declared by the apostle to be past, yet refers the passage to the destruction of J erusalem, which did not take place for ten years after the apostle wrote.
5. That shakings of heathen kingdoms cannot mean
judgments upon the Jewish church, and the overthrow of heathen thrones cannot mean the overthrow of the Jewish polity.
§ 3. Zecu. xiv.
This is a passage of some importance; and I rather wonder that Mr Brown should have passed over it so slightly; especially, as it is often referred to in the controversy. He adverts to it briefly in a note,* and, describing it as determining nothing on either side, he gives the following as the key to its meaning: “Those who wish to inquire further, I would direct to Rev. xvii. 14, and xix. 14, which, I think, are quite parallel, both in time and in action, to this of Zechariah, and all three referring to the appearance that will be made for Christ’s interest against the antichristian confederacy before its final overthrow — the called, and chosen, and faithful’ band who shall be found ‘ with the Lamb, or on his side, fighting under his captaincy his own battle of the faith against their common enemy. Of this mode of representation, we have an undoubted example in Rev. xil., where, after the war between Michael and the dragon had been re-. presented, v. 7 — 10, on the celestial arena, it is in ver. — 11 brought down and translated into plain flesh-andblood action, and seen to mean just the triumph which the primitive Christians obtained over their pagan
* Pp, 44, enemy ‘by the blood of the Lamb’ — the power of their faith in Jesus — ‘ by the word of their testimony’ — the boldness of their witness for him — and their ‘ loving not their lives unto the death’ — resisting even unto blood for his blessed name.”*
Into the peculiar discussion raised in the remaining part of the note, I shall not enter; but cannot help saying that this is by far too summary a way of disposing of so important a passage, and provokes the suspicion that anti-millennarians feel it to be too much for them. In fact, it is no explanation at all. It leaves the chapter still untouched. Let us look at the prophecy.
It begins by foretelling the “day of the Lord.” It then, at the second verse, makes mention of a siege of Jerusalem, which it describes in detail, — a siege which must be still future, inasmuch as it does not answer in any one particular to the siege by the Romans. Just in the midst of the siege, the Lord appears for the deliverance of Israel. “Then shall the Lord go forth and fight against these nations, as when he fought in the day of battle.” Lest there should be any doubt as to the personality of this advent, and the literality of the scene, it is added, “His feet shall stand in that
* Pp. 44, 45, day upon the Mount of Olives.”* Lest there should be any doubt as to whether this is the literal mount of that name, it is said in explanation, “which is before Jerusalem on the east.” Then, in entire accordance with the literality of the picture, it is further predicted, that “the Mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof towards the east, and towards the west, a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.”*+ Then the flight of the inhabitants of Jerusalem is predicted: — “Ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains,” which valley, it is added, “shall reach unto Azal;” and this flight shall be like that “from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah, king of Judah.” What can be more obviously literal than all this? Is there any difficulty about it? Is there any absurdity involved in accepting the literal sense? And, besides, how can it be spiritualized? What is
the spiritual meaning of “gathering the nations
* It is evident that Dr Chalmers took this passage literally. See Seript. Readings, vol. iii. pp. 51, 69, 326.
+ So incontestible does the literality of this chapter appear, even to anti-millennarians, that M‘Laurin does not hesitate to affirm that “‘ what is said in verse 4th, about cleaving the Mount of Olives may be rendered more credible, even in the most literal meaning, by what Josephus relates concerning the cleaving of the same mountain by an earthquake in the days of Uzziah.”’- — On the Prophecies, ch, v. p. 100.
against Jerusalem to battle?’ How can we spiritualize the taking of the city, the rifling of the houses, the ravishing of the women; the captivity of the one half, and the preservation of the other half? How are his feet to stand spiritually upon the Mount of
Olives, or what is the spiritual meaning of that mountain, or the spiritual meaning of its being “before Jerusalem on the east”? What is the spiritual meaning of the Mount of Olives being cloven in the midst from east to west; of the very great valley; of the removing of the mountain half to the north, and half to the south? What is the spiritual meaning of fleeing to the valley of the mountains, or of the valley which is to reach unto Azal?
- We may give one or two specimens of the ways in which this passage has been spiritualized by anti-millennarians, Our first is old Jerome. “When he shall stand, he shall not stand in a valley, or on low places, but on a mountain, and one not covered with unfruitful trees, but where the olives grow by which the eternal light is fed, sicknesses healed, and rest given to the weary. This Mount of Olives is over against Jerusalem and the east, where the Sun of Righteousness arises; and it is planted with these olive trees of which it is ‘said, ‘Thy children are as olive-plants around thy
table.” Its middle is cleft towards the east, in which os trees are planted from those nations of which one speaks, ‘I ama green olive tree in the house of God.’ Another partis divided towards the west and the great sea, which refers to the people of the circumcision,.... whom the Lord called a shady olive tree. .... After the Mount of Olives shall have been separated to the east and west by the calling of the Gentiles, and the casting away of the Jews, there shall be another division ot the north and south; the north shall be joined to the west, the south to the east; at the left shall stand the circumcision; at the right, Christians. Of these two words, the Church speaks, ‘ Arise, O north wind, and come thou south.’ The cold north wind — which is the devil — retiring, the warm south wind comes. Then whoever is holy shall flee to the valley of the mountains of God, viz. the hill of the temple, and the hill of Zion, %. ¢. the two Testaments. The valley shall reach to Azal, that is, to the house of God, which is hard by paradise and the heavenly Jerusalem, and the holy mountain, on which is the temple.”*
Scott thinks that the chapter begins with the siege of Jerusalem under Titus. The first part of the second verse he makes to be literally fulfilled in the sack of Jerusalem; but on the expression, “The residue of the people shall not be cut off from the
* Com. on Zech. Works, vol. v. p. 269.
city,” he remarks, “Numbers having been converted to Christianity, became citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem, and were thus not cut off from the city of God”! Then, as to the Lord fighting against these nations, he remarks, that “the Romans, after having been thus made the executioners of Divine vengeance on the Jewish nation, never prospered as they had done before; the Lord evidently fought against them, and all the nations which composed their overgrown empire’! Then, as to the division of the mountain, he tells us that it refers to “the removal of the ceremonial law, by which the peculiar privileges that Jerusalem had enjoyed, of which the pleasant and fruitful Mount of Olives was an apt emblem, were taken from her, and divided among the heathen na-
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tions”! Azal, he thinks, may mean “the place to which the Jewish converts fled, to separate themselves from their unbelieving countrymen, when the Roman armies were about to encompass Jerusalem”! He then adds, — * The above seems the most satisfactory
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interpretation”! In what way it is satisfactory, he
does not tell us. Dr Urwick thus states his view: “Understand by ‘ Jerusalem’ spoken of, ‘the heavenly Jerusalem,’ ‘the Jerusalem which is above- — the
Gospel Church : — The first and second verses answer to’the persecution of the church described by the war made upon the witnesses, and their being overcome and slain. From the third to the fifth verses regard the divine interposition, either in the resurrection of the witnesses, described Rev. xi. 11 — 13; or, in the convulsions at the final overthrow of the powers that had been confederate with the mystical Babylon. The Lord coming down on the Mount of Olives, which formed the creat barrier to Jerusalem, and that mountain dividing part towards the north, and part towards the south, seems to signify the removal of obstacles that vmpeded approach to the church.* The way is prepared also for the Almighty to approach — ‘ the Lord my God. shall come, and all thy saints with thee, — an expression not free from difficulty, but which seems naturally to identify itself with Rev. xix. 11, 14~-symbolizing the coming of Christ in his providence, to avenge the wrongs of his church, and establish her in great prosperity, power, and glory. The sixth and seventh verses’set forth the general prevalence of knowledge
which will then exist, so that all parts of the world
+ John Bunyan is very hard upon the spiritualizers here. When quoting the words “his feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives,” he tells us that this is the day of his second coming, and “where is the Mount of Olives? Not within thee! But that which is without Jerusalem, before it, on the east side.” — Vindic. of Gospel Truths, Works, vol. v, p. 486.
shall be blessed with the light of life. The eighth verse describes the wide-spreading and constant diffusion of the privileges of grace from the church, answering to the statement by Isaiah and Moab, ‘Out of Zion shall go forth the law.’ The tenth and eleventh verses indicate the peace and happiness which men will enjoy under Christ’s millennial reign.”
Can any unbiassed mind be satisfied with any of the above interpretations? They are all in substance the same. And though Jerome’s looks most fanciful, yet it is based on the same principles, and expresses the same general views. In him, we meet with the plain avowal that he prefers these views, because thus he takes the passage out of the hands of the Judaizers. But is this dealing honestly with the Word of God? Still we thank the old anti-chiliast for the admission thus made. His object was to get rid of chiliasm. He preferred those perversions of Scripture to the literalities of chiliasm! He saw that there was no middle course, and he avowed it. Will our opponents now acknowledge, that but for millennarianism, they would interpret literally as we do?
After the minute description thus given in these first five verses of this chapter, of the scenes to be witnessed at Jerusalem in the day of the Lord, it is added, THE LorD My God SHALL COME, AND ALL THE SAINTS with THEE. And then follows what even Dr Urwick and Mr Scott admit to be a picture of millennial times. If so, then these millennial times are to be ushered in by the “coming of the Lord with all his saints’?* And what reason can be given for saying that this is not the literal coming of the Lord with all his saints, save that were this admitted, the pre-millennial advent is established beyond a doubt? But is it lawful to reason thus? Would it not be better to concede millennarianism, than turn aside from the simple
sense of Scripture? +
* Robert Hall remarks “that it seems to him probable from Zechariah that a supernatural interposition of the Messiah will take place in their favour.” Works, vol. iv. p. 404.
+ Mr Brown speaks of several of his expositions as bringing out the more “glorious and delightful sense;” but an American writer gets beyond him here, for in reference to the figurative view of the above passage in Zechariah, he affirms that it is “immeasurably the grander and more glorious view.” — Bibliotheca Sacra, August 1847, p. 481. In another place, he denies the restoration of the Jews, affirming that Ezekiel “when rightly and carefully viewed,” does not favour it. This reviewer not merely spiritualizes the temple and city of Ezekiel, but every thing else pertaining to Israel.
MATTHEW AND ACTS. ole