Appendix II, Note C: The Continuous Historical System of Prophetic Interpretation

The historical interpreters of prophecy have grasped a principle the importance of which is abundantly proved by the striking parallelisms between the visions of the Apoca-

* It depends on the meaning of the word yeyovdrog in the passage, whether the eighteenth or nineteenth year be intended. The narrative, as a whole, points to the nineteenth year. Cf Lewin’s Fasté Sacri, pp. lvi. and 92.

t Josephus, Avt., xv. 11, 27.

lypse and the events of the history of Christendom, But not content with this, they have on the one hand brought discredit on prophetic study by wild and arrogant predictions about the end of the world, and on the other, they have reduced their principle of interpretation to a system, and then degraded it to a Aobdy. The result is fortunate in this respect, that the evil cannot fail to cure itself, and the time cannot be far distant when the “continuous historical interpretation,” in the form and manner in which its champions have propounded it, will be regarded as a vagary of the past. The events of the first half of the present century produced on the minds of Christians such an impression in its favour, that it bid fair to gain general acceptance. But the late Mr. Elliott’s great work has thoroughly exposed its weaknesses. A perusal of the first five chapters of the fore Apocalyptice cannot fail to impress the reader with a sense of the genuineness and importance of the writer’s scheme, nor will he fail to appreciate the erudition displayed, and the sobriety with which it is used. But when he passes from the commentary upon the first five seals, to the account of the sixth seal, he must experience a revulsion of feeling which will be strong just in proportion to his apprehension of the zvweness and solemnity of Holy Writ. Let any one read the last six verses of the sixth chapter of Revelation, a passage the awful solemnity of which has scarcely a parallel in Scripture, and with what feelings will he turn to Mr. Elliott’s book to find that the words are nothing more than a prediction of the downfall of paganism in the fourth century (see p. 138, ante).

The words of the Apocalyptic vision in relation to the great day of Divine wrath (Rev. vi. 17), are the language of Isaiah (xiii. 9, 10) respecting ‘“‘the day of the Lord,” and again of Joel’s prophecy (Joel ii. 1, 30, 31), quoted by St. Peter on the day of Pentecost (Acts ii. 16-20). Nor is this all. The twenty-fourth chapter of St. Matthew is a Divine commentary upon the visions of the sixth chapter of Revelation, and each of the seals has its counterpart in the Lord’s predictions of events preceding His second advent, ending with the mention of these same terrible convulsions of nature here described. Therefore, even if the mind be “educated” up to the point of accepting such an interpretation of the vision of the sixth seal, these other Scriptures remain to be accounted for.

Many other points in Mr. Elliott’s scheme might be cited as equally faulty. Take for example the laboured essay on the subject of the two witnesses, culminating in the amazing anti-climax that their ascent to heaven (Rev. xi. 12) was fulfilled when Protestants obtained “an advancement to political dignity and power.” (Hore Ap., ii., 410). Still more wild and reckless is his exposition of Rev. xii. 5. “It seems clear” (he says) ‘‘ that whatever the woman’s hope in her travail, the lesser consummation was the one figured in the man-child’s birth and assumption, viz., the elevation of the Christians, first to recognition as a body politic, then very quickly to the supremacy of the throne in the Roman Empire” (vol. iii, 12). The reference to Wilberforce in connection with Rev. xv. is almost grotesque (vol. iii, 430). And finally he drifts upon the rock on which every man who follows this false system must inevitably be wrecked — the chronology of prophecy: proving by cumulative evidence that the year 1865 would usher in the millennium, or if not 1865, then 1877 or 1882 (vol. iii., 256-266).

“An apocalyptic commentary which explains everything is self-convicted of error.” This dictum of Dean Alford’s (Gr. Zest.: Rev. xi. 2) applies with full force to Mr. Elliott’s book. Maintaining as he does that these visions have received their absolute and final fulfilment, he is bound “to explain everything;” and as the result these lucubrations mar a work which if recast by some intelligent student of prophecy would be of the highest value. In days like these, when we have to contend for the very words of Scripture, we cannot afford to dismiss them as harmless puerilities. They have given an impetus to the scepticism of the age, and have encouraged Christian men to treat the most solemn warnings of coming wrath as mere stage thunder.

Mr. Elliott’s mantle appears now to have fallen upon the author of the Approaching End of the Age. Mr. Grattan Guinness’s treatise upon lunisolar cycles and epacts will be deemed by many the most interesting and valuable portion of the work. The study of it has confirmed an impression I have long entertained, that in some mystic interpretation of the prophetic periods of Daniel, the chronology of Gentile supremacy and of the Christian dispensation lies concealed. Professor Birks, however, justly remarks, that it is “very doubtful whether much of the speciality on which Mr, Guinness founds this part of his theory is not due to a partial selection unconsciously made of some epact numbers out of many, and that the special relations of the epacts to the numbers 6, 7, 8, 13, would probably disappear on a comprehensive examination of all the epact numbers” (Zhoughis

nm Sacred Prophecy, p. 64).

It might also be remarked that with the latitude obtained by reckoning sometimes in lunar years, sometimes in lunisolar years, and sometimes in ordinary Julian years, the list of seeming chronological coincidences and parallelisms might be still further increased. The period from the

TE Neh ee Pe ane ae eee ae Ree eee Bagh: co, Council of Nice (a.D. 325) to the death of Gregory XIII. (1585) was 1,260 years. From the edict of Justinian (533) to the French Revolution was 1,260 years; and again from A.D. 606, when the Emperor Phocas conferred the title of Pope on Boniface III, to the overthrow of the temporal power (1866-1870), was also 1,260 years. If these facts prove anything, they prove, not that the periods mentioned are the fulfilment of Daniel’s visions, for Daniel’s visions relate to the history of Judah, with which these events have nothing to do, but that the chronology of such events is marked by cycles composed of multiples of seventy. Therefore, they greatly strengthen the griord presumption that this is a general characteristic of “the times and seasons” as divinely planned, and that the visions will, hereafter, be literally fulfilled. In a word, such proofs prove far too much for the cause they are intended to support.

I have already noticed the transparent fallacy of sup —

posing that the ten-horned beast and the Babylon of the Apocalypse can doth be typical of Rome (p. 134, anée). In the Approaching End of the Age this fallacy is accepted apparently without suspicion or misgiving, for the writer neither adopts nor improves upon the pleasing romance by which Mr, Elliott attempts to conceal the absurdity of such a view.

As the Harlot comes to her doom by the agency of the Beast, it is absolutely certain that they are not identical;

and every proof these writers urge to establish that the —

Church of Rome is Babylon, is equally conclusive to prove that the Papacy is not the Beast, the Man of Sin. Their whole system is like a house of cards which falls to pieces the moment it is tried. As such books are read by many who are unyersed in history it may be well to repeat once more, that the division of the Roman earth into ten kingdoms has never yet taken place. That it has been partitioned is plain matter of history and of fact: that it has ever been divided into ten is a mere conceit of writers of this school.*

Of Dan. ix. 24-27 Mr. Guinness writes, “From the then approaching command to restore and to build again Jerusalem, to the coming of Messiah the Prince, was to be seventy weeks” (p. 417). This is a typical instance of the looseness of the historical school in dealing with Scripture, The words of the prophecy are, “From the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks and threescore and two weeks.” + As this error underlies his entire exposition of the prophecy which forms the special subject of these pages, it is needless to discuss it. He follows Prideaux in computing the weeks from the seventh year of Artaxerxes (see p. 62, ante).

Again, in common with almost all commentators he confounds the seventy years of Judah’s servitude with the seventy years of the desolations of Jerusalem. The pro-

* See p. 39, au/e, Elliott’s list of the ten kingdomsis the following: — The Anglo-Saxons, Franks, Allmans, Burgundians, Visigoths, Suevi, Vandals, Ostrogoths, Bavarians, and Lombards. If any one can read the seventh chapter of Daniel and the thirteenth chapter of Revelation and accept such an interpretation, there is really no common ground on which to discuss the matter,

+ I deprecate the idea that my object is to review this or any other book, Were such my intention I could point out other similar errors. Ex. gr., in Pt. IIL, chap. 1, the writer enumerates five points of identity between the Harlot and the Church of Rome, and of these five the two last are sheer blunders, viz., ‘‘ The minister of the harlot makes fire to descend from heaven,” “And the Aarlot requires all to receive her mark.” (Comp. Rev. xiii. 13, 16.)

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phecy he quotes from Jer. xxv. (p. 414) was given in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, whereas the servitude began in his third year; and it foretold a judgment which fell seventeen years later (see p. 240, ante). It would seem ungracious to notice minor inaccuracies, such as that of confounding Belshazzar with Nabonidus, the last king of Babylon (see p. 221, anfe).

Such a book is useful in so far as it deals positively with the historical fulfilment as a primary and partial realization of the prophecies; and as a full and fearless indictment of the Church of Rome it is most valuable. But in the dogmatic negation of a literal fulfilment, in the blind and obstinate determination to establish, no matter at what cost to Scripture, that the Apocalypse has been “FULFILLED in the events of the Christian era,” such a work cannot fail to be dangerous and mischievous. The real question at issue here is the character and value of the Bible. If the views of these writers be just, the language of Holy Writ in such passages as the close of the sixth chapter of Revelation is the most utter bombast. And if wild exaggeration characterize one portion of the Scriptures, what confidence can we have in any part? If the Great Day of Divine wrath, described in terms of unsurpassed solemnity, were nothing but a brief crisis in the history of a campaign now long past, the words which tell of the joy of the blessed and the doom of the impenitent may after all be mere hyperbole, - and the Christian’s faith may be mere credulity,