Rome, but an individual yet to come. As it is agreed nearly on all hands that it is the same awful and apostate power that is prefigured alike in Dan. vii., 2 Thess. ii., and Apoc. xiii. xvii., it is of course essential to the scheme to adjust to it whatever is stated respecting, and in connexion with, this person or power, in each of the above-mentioned prophecies, as well as in the epistles of St. John. Accordingly, we find it set forth generally by this class of expositors, that the Antichrist is someway to arise (like Daniel's little horn) from the midst of some decuple division of the old Roman imperial territory,—a division yet to come:--that, being the head of a blasphemous if not atheistic apostacy, denying both God the Father and God the Son, he is to show himself as God, or as Messiah, in the rebuilt temple at Jerusalem, (rebuilt by Jews, they say, returning thither in expectancy of the Messiah, but, as regards the Lord Jesus, in a state of unbelief,) and there to set up his image for worship; this being the abomination of desolation spoken of in Dan. xii. 11, and indeed also in Matt. xxiv. 15-that he is thus to achieve the success of a universal empire, both Gentiles and Jews submitting, for the famous prophetic period of 3 years, or 1260 days, taken literally; the only opposition of any effectiveness being that of the two apocalyptic witnesses, robed in sackcloth, whether Elijah and Moses, or Elijah and Enoch. To account for his change of seat from Rome, or the Roman empire, out of which he was to spring, to Jerusalem, a part of the famous prophecy in Dan. ix. of the seventy weeks, or hebdomads, is appealed to. For there the last hebdomad, it is said, is markedly separated from the rest, and allotted (so they argue) to the doings, not of Titus, but of another "Prince yet to come," and "to destroy the city and the sanctuary," which is Antichrist. * And having deceived, and in consequence entered into friendly covenant with, the returned Jews, expectant of their Messiah, he is for the first 3 years to keep his covenant; then in the midst of the hebdomad to break it; whence, apparently, the terrible siege and capture of Jerusalem predicted in Zech. xiv. 2-5, and the Jews' great final tribulation predicted in Dan. xii. 1, from which Christ's coming with his saints is to deliver them;-that same bright and glorious coming which, according to Daniel, St. Paul, and St. John, is to be the destruction of Antichrist.† If the question be asked, But where, then, in the prophetic. word are we to find a sketch of popery, and all the wonderful history connectedly with it of professing Christendom since the fall *So Burgh, Molyneux, Trotter, &c. + Mr. Burgh, in his "Lectures on the Second Advent," advances here a peculiar chronological theory. From the first decree for rebuilding Jerusalem to Messiah's first coming, he says, is sixty-two hebdomads 434 years. From the se cond expected command for rebuilding it again to Messiah's second coming will be seven hebdomads=49 years. Then the last hebdomad will remain for Antichrist. (pp. 148-153. 1st edition.) So Christ's second coming, according to Mr. B. here, is to precede Antichrist!! of the old Roman empire in the fifth and sixth centuries?—the general answer is, Nowhere. For the Jew, they say, is the key of prophecy. And as to all that might pass between the time of the Jews' rejection, and destruction of their city and temple by Titus, to the time of the rebuilding of their temple, preparatorily to their re-adoption as God's people, it is but a Gentile parenthesis, unnoticed in prophecy. Hence a chronological gap very possibly, in the symbolic statue (Dan. ii.) seen by Nebuchadnezzar, between the iron legs, figuring the old Roman empire, and the iron and clay feet and toes figuring the empire of Antichrist. Hence in the Apocalypse, after its sketch of the seven Asiatic churches as existing at the time of St. John's exile in Patmos, an unprefigured gap of some eighteen centuries:*-the subsequent prophecy of things to come," from chapter iv. to the end of the book, commencing only with events of the consummation, at which time are to begin Israel's final afflictions and restoration. For the Israel of the Apocalyptic prophecy, they all affirm, is the literal Israel; its city, in which the two witnesses are represented as prophesying, the literal city of Jerusalem; its temple (that same which the Evangelist was told to measure with his rod) the Jewish temple, there rebuilt by returning Jews. Now, supposing the old Roman empiret to have become extinct in the fifth or sixth centuries, (and an historic fact more notorious and indisputable we can scarcely conceive,) the inquirer who would really test the truth of the futurist prophetic scheme must, as a primary consideration, reflect seriously on the partially admitted chronological gap just hinted at, of some twelve or thirteen hundred years which it implies between what the iron legs in Daniel's prefigurative image symbolized, viz., the Roman empire, and the feet and toes of mixed iron and clay, symbolic of the yet So S. R. Maitland, J. Kelly, Burgh, Molyneux, &c. Indeed Dr. S. Maitland and Mr. Kelly would translate, "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's-day," (Apoc. i. 10,) "I was transported by the Spirit into the day of the Lord,"-a translation which, we need hardly say, the Greek cannot bear and so lay a ground for Mr. K.'s curious idea of the seven churches being Jewish churches of the last days. Mr. Trotter, on the other hand, feeling the force of the objection on this head against the futurist system, endeavours to find in the epistles to the seven Asiatic churches a predictive sketch of the varying phases of the Christian professing church in successive ages, from St. John's time to near the consummation. After which he would have to begin in chap. iv. the prophecy of the events of the consummation. But the attempt is unsuccessful. Take, e.g, Mr. T.'s strongest case of future kingdoms that are to be subject to the (expected) coming individual Antichrist. For, unless we imagine the feet to have appeared broken off at the ankle, and the feet dangling by a thread far below, the vast chronological gap must have been unrepresented; and, consequently, the unbroken continuity in the image between ankles and feet hardly less, we may surely say, than a lie. And much the same in regard of the futurist view of the apocalyptic prophecy. For in the words (Apoc. iv. 1), "Come up, and I will show thee the things which are to happen after these things," viz., after the things previously told respecting the then existing state of the seven Asiatic churches,* if the revealing angel had meant only, "I will show certain events which are to happen some two thousand years hence, in the times of the great consummation," it would have been to St. John something, we cannot but think, like mockery and delusion. As to the reason assigned, as we saw, by Futurists for such a vast unrepresented gap of time, viz. that "the Jew is the key of prophecy," and prophecy silent consequently as to the events of the times of Israel's rejection, it seems to us altogether gratuitous, and without a particle of warrant in holy scripture. Is Christ's church less dear to him than the Abrahamic people; or his Providence less interested, and less to be magnified, in the earthly fortunes of the former than of the latter? In Christ's promise, that the Holy Spirit would show the disciples things to come, is the promise restricted to revelations about the Jews? Did not He himself often tell of what would from early days befal his church; as, for example, in that never-to-be-forgotten parable of the wheat and tares, of which what St. Paul and St. John predicted afterwards concerning the coming apostasy and Antichrist was but the expansion? The chronological unprefigured gap which it implies is, we repeat, in itself, on every account, a strong argument against prophetic futurism. And then, further, we would urge the earnest inquirer after prophetic truth (and what Christian ought not to be thus earnest ?) to apply to each and every futurist scheme brought before him the test of its own internal evidence; and, by a chronological table of its main points, carefully drawn out, to see whether by possibility it can be made consistent with itself. In this table the apocalyptic seals (including very particularly the sealing and the palm-bearing visions) will occupy one column; the trumpets, unless viewed (rightly so viewed, we think) as the evolution of the seventh seal, another. Most especially, what is set forth as to Antichrist's 3 years of supremacy (a period already begun, as appears from Apoc. xi. under the sixth trumpet) will furnish most valuable matter for testing; whether identified with *See note, p. 47, suprà, on the untenability of Mr. Trotter's idea of the Epistles to the seven Asiatic churches figuring the successive states of the professing church till the immediately imminent times of the consummation. infrà. See the skeleton schedule, p. 50, ́ the two sackcloth-robed witnesses, 3 years of prophesying, or made to succeed it. If expounded as the same, which seems to us the natural, if not absolutely necessary hypothesis, and which, as such, is adopted by Burgh, Molyneux, and other futurists, as well as by historical expositors generally, then comes the question, How can the angel's direction to measure the temple (the Jewish rebuilt temple) and altar-court as God's, casting out only the outer-court and city as given to the Gentiles, consist with the idea of Antichrist's being all this time seated in the same Jewish temple, and showing himself there as God? This of itself seems fatal to the system. Nor, if the witnesses' 3 years be made to come first, so as they are by Mr. Trotter, (a strange idea, surely, as the witnesses' office is evidently to protest for Christ's truth against antichristian error and Antichrist,) can similar self-refuting inconsistency even then be avoided. For Antichrist is expressly said to make war against them, and this probably a war of some length, ("wearing out the saints," as it is said Dan. vii. 25,) ere he kill them. And thus a part at least of his 3 years must coincide with a part of theirs; and the absurdity respecting the inner temple as kept sacred to God, and yet occupied by Antichrist, so far as regards this common part of the prophetic period, still apply. Moreover, in this case, why should the Gentile adherents of Antichrist occupy the outer court and city only during the first 3 years; and not during the latter 3 years, when Antichrist their master is most supreme? Yet another excellent criterion for testing occurs from compa. rison of Antichrist's doings at Jerusalem, and in its restored temple, during these 3 years, according to the Futurists, with what they put forth prominently in their teaching respecting the final siege and desolation of Jerusalem, and the Jews' consequent great tribulation, as predicted in Dan. ix. 21, Dan. xi. 45, Zech. xiv. 2-5. For both Antichrist's 3 years of triumph, and the Jews' great tribulation, are to be ended by the brightness of Christ's coming; and consequently must be, in part at least, synchronical. But who is to lead "all the nations" against Jerusalem? He surely to whom all nations (Apoc. xiii. 3, 8) are subject. Accordingly Mr. Molyneux, and at first Mr. Trotter also, have so represented it; thus making Antichrist from without to be besieging Antichrist within!!* Again, in Dan. ix. 21, the prince to come, whom they consider Antichrist, is said to destroy both city and sanctuary. And yet during this 3 years, or (if they so please) a part of the two 3 years, the * Mr. Trotter has subsequently preferred, while making the King of the North of Dan. xi. 40 the besieger, to distinguish him from Antichrist. But, then, how is it that Antichrist can have Vol. 59.-No. 265. the whole world at his feet, and worshipping him in Jerusalem, while this King of the North enters with such an host into the glorious land of Judæa and Jerusalem ? H Gentiles of Antichrist occupy the city, and Antichrist sits and is worshipped in the temple!! reason. Now, as the points which we have thus shewn to be self-refuted constitute the very heart and core of the system, we trust that we have shewn, to our more intelligent readers' satisfaction, that the whole system of Prophetic Futurism is untrue. We have entered on it at a length which, we almost fear, may have wearied them. But let them not think that we have thus dwelt on it without Prophecy is a subject now specially of immense importance. And it is one the different opinions on which are at the present time tending to divide christian brethren, (especially brethren in the ministry,) who alike love the gospel. Nor is it a little evil in the Futurist system that, wherever embraced, it leads Christians aside, from that which, both by our reformers, and by all the great doctors subsequently of our English church, has been ever held as the Protestant and true doctrine about Antichrist, to that which is held by papists. If this part of our paper serve to open the eyes of some to their mistake, it will not have been written in vain.* *It will be found of real use, as before intimated, by the less experienced inquirer, if, on having any Apocalyptic exposition with Futurist views presented to him, he will test its possible consistency with itself by drawing a simple chrono logical schedule, like that which we here subjoin; and marking under its several columns the ideas (especially those concerning Jerusalem and its supposed rebuilt temple) propounded by the writer: Era just preceding Daniel's last heb-time of Antichrist's domad. Seals. Trumpets. Two Witnesses. Woman (Apoc. xii.) and Dragon. Beast from Sea and from Abyss. Babylon. Israel and |