PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

Ir is remarkable, that the occasion on which our blessed Lord cautioned His disciples against the leaven of the Pharisees (i.e., hypocrisy)-affecting the praise or censure of men, while professing to serve God, is emphatically noted in the Sacred Text. It was "when there were gathered together an innumerable multitude of people, insomuch that they trode one upon another" (Luke xii. 1). Hereby, the lesson seems conveyed to us, that to consult for the pleasing of the many, is a temptation incident to the Preacher, and may we not also add-to the Author. From the imputation of yielding to this temptation, the Author of the following pages will no doubt be exempted; his sentiments so obviously conflict with the estimate of "the Apocalypse," now so popular in the Church. But it may be, that he will be thought obnoxious to the other extreme of irreverence, towards the labours of the approved Evangelical writers of the day, especially the Rev. E. B. Elliott, who has been so much commended in various quarters, as the successful expositor of this portion of the Word. On this head, the Author will only say that respect for the truth of God itself, must be allowed to have the precedence of respect for even its most imposing expounders. And he has deeply felt that by Mr. Elliott's system of interpretation, the Book of "the Revelation" has been sadly overlaid by irrelevant learning and ingenuity, so as in fact to be perverted from its grand use-that of "a light shining in a dark place till the day dawn."

With this strong conviction, he will perhaps be excused by Mr. Elliott and his admirers for the forcible tone of his remarks. Nor will it, he hopes, provoke Mr. Elliott to observe, that his humble censor on this occasion has not assayed to go forth in the cumbrous

armour of human learning, which he confesses he has not proved (others have put on this, and not without effect)—but simply with "the sling and stone" of Scripture, with which, in his pastoral occupation, he is more familiar.

It is possible, if adequate leisure be enjoyed by the writer of these pages-God vouchsafing His blessed guidance that they may be followed up by a continuous exposition of "the Apocalypse," on the same principles.*

LONDON, 1847.

* Such exposition has since been published, reaching to the end of the sixteenth chapter, entitled: "The Apocalypse Interpreted in the Light of the Day of the Lord." Some copies are still to be had of the Publisher, Elliot Stock.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

IT T is now nearly forty years since this pamphlet was first published, and the occasion still existing, as valued brethren have pressed on me, for calling attention to the true principles of Apocalyptic Interpretation therein mooted, I at length respond to their judgment in issuing another edition, and enlarging it by an Appendix meeting the only criticisms, so far as I am aware, to which my views were subjected.

To the Historic or Præterist line of Interpretation which it impugns as making the greater part of this grand series of prophecies already fulfilled, the late Rev. E. B. Elliott arrested much attention by his learned "Hora Apocalyptica;" and the late Dr. Cumming, with considerable ability, popularised Mr. Elliott's interpretations. But Dr. Cumming rashly ventured, as all must now admit, to educe from those Interpretations a precise date for the winding up of the present dispensation by the Second Coming of our Lord; and the failure of Dr. Cumming's calculations being taken (whether rightly or wrongly) as a test of the adopted principle of Interpretation, has deprived it of its prestige; nor has it been recovered by the labours since of the excellent Mr. Grattan Guinness in his selection of another line of ex post facto fulfilments.

As to Mr. Guinness's à priori argument in his subsequent pamphlet, that "the Futurist system leaves unrevealed the events affecting the Church of God for these last eighteen centuries, and deprives our holy faith of the marvellous and matchless support which, at this stage of the dispensation, it receives from the fulfilment of prophecy," the simple answer to this is, that the evidential support of Christianity (if this be what Mr. Guinness means) is not the main design of Prophecy; nor have we a right to postulate that while the seed of Abraham are disorganised and off the stage as a Nation, the Prophetic word must treat of Gentile affairs.

In fact Israel's calling was earthly; and, therefore, the record of

the Divine dealings with them, whether in History or Prophecy, of which Old Testament Scriptures mainly consist, of necessity involved the recital of earthly transactions. But the calling of the Church is heavenly, and her progress, even unto the end, dispenses with such recital altogether. Accordingly, by analogy, as this is the time of Israel's disorganisation from being the radiating centre of earthly arrangements-and the Church in this respect comes not into Israel's place-a hiatus in prophetic details concerning the earth should be expected.

The main disability, let me here repeat, which attends this School of writers is, that (as they admit) the events they assign to the various prophecies as their fulfilments were not discerned beforehand by the Church of God unto their deriving enlightenment from them; whilst only as fulfilled, i.e., turned into history, are they held to be now profitable to us. Indeed, it is remarkable that these fulfilments are wont to be remembered by those who take up with them as having been attached to the prophecies in question by Commentators, rather than suggested by the Prophecies themselves. For example, no less a man than the late eminent Dr. Chalmers, in his "Scripture Readings," coming to the 8th chapter of the Apocalypse, naively writes as follows:

"This silence of half-an-hour in heaven has long struck me as one of the highest sublimities of Scripture. I forget the explanation, as, indeed, I do of almost all the various and particular Prophecies, for which I have no memory whatever, though I very recently read Elliot's 'Hora Apocalypticæ,' and consider it as one of the ablest expositions I know of this part of Scripture. I shall not, therefore, attempt any interpretation of the unfulfilled prophecy here; but there is enough of the obviously good and impressive to furnish materials for instructive reflection."*

Thus Dr. Chalmers' impression of the import of this Prophecy, (not revived even by the terms of it) was that of a mere remembered assent to Mr. Elliott's explanation, to whom he referred as an able expositor! How significant is this ingenuous admission of a great and candid mind!

Be it observed, further, in regard to the Book of the Apocalypse, that after the introductory vision seen by John, of the Stars and the Candlesticks, with the Son of Man walking in their midst, these symbols respectively of the Seven Churches and their Angels, seem to have been dissolved from before the Seer; as in the scene

"Sabbath Scripture Readings," Vol. I., P. 411.