an event this which could not have happened till Jerusalem's destruction, some four years after the commencement of Nero's persecution; and did not in fact take place till some years after. "But in an Epopee, like the Apocalypse," says Stuart, " we are surely not bound to the rigid rules of a book of Annals !"2

Thus then we come to consider Apoc. xiii, the Chapter on the Beast; and, connectedly with it, (for it does not need to enter on the intervening chapters,)3 the further explanatory symbolizations about the Beast in Apoc. xvii.

Behold us then now before the very citadel of the German Præterists! "And see," they say, "how impregnable it is! For not only is the Woman that rides the Beast expressly stated to be the seven-hilled imperial city Rome, so that the Beast ridden must be the persecuting Roman Empire; but the time intended is also fixed. For it is said that the Beast's seven heads, besides meaning seven hills, meant also seven kings, or rather eight: of whom five had fallen at the time of the vision; which must be the five first Emperors, Julius, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius; and one, the sixth, was; which of course must be the next after Claudius, i. e. Nero. Nay, to make the thing clearer, the Beast's name and number 666 are specified; or, as some copies read, 616. And so it is that in Hebrew, Neron Cesar, has the value in numbers of 666, which is one frequent Rabbinical way of writing Nero's name; or, if the Hebrew be that of Nero Cæsar, without the final n, then it gives the number 616."4

For the Christians only came to resettle at Jerusalem by degrees, and in small numbers, after its destruction. It was, I believe, several years before Simeon fixt his Episcopate there. 2 Ib. ii. 251.

The figurations between Apoc. xiii and xviii are thus explained by Professor Stuart. In Apoc. xiv the visions of the 144,000 on Mount Zion, of the three flying Angels, and of the Harvest and Vintage, are mere general anticipative intimations, or pledges and tokens" (ii. 304) by way of encouragement, of results of triumph to the Church, that would be depicted more fully afterwards. Also in the Vials outpouring Apoc. xvi, where one might surely have expected to find specific prophecy of fact, all is still mere generalization: notwithstanding the Professor's singular preliminary remark, that St. John does here not only "by the variety in his composition satisfy aesthetics," (p. 309,) but, what is better, communicate also " a sketch (qu. historic sketch ?) corresponding in good degree to the state of facts. Save indeed that the seventh vial, that under which the air is affected, and a third part of the great city seen to fall," is construed to signify that the power of the Beast is paralyzed, or persecution arrested when Nero dies." (ibid.)

* So Moses Stuart and Dr. Davidson, after Benary. See the Excursus iv. p. 457 in

No doubt the numeral coincidence is worthy of note, and the whole case, so put, quite plausible enough to call for examination. It is indeed obvious to say as to the name and numeral, that a Greek solution would be preferable to one in Hebrew; and a single name to a double one: principles these recognized, as we have seen, by Irenæus, and all the other early fathers that commented on the topic. But in this there is of course nothing decisive. A graver objection seems to me however to lie against the suggested numeral solution, in that a part of the name being official, I mean the word Casar, this agnomen, though fitly applicable to Nero while the reigning Emperor, would hardly be applicable to him when resuscitated after his death-wound, and so become the Beast of Apoc. xiii of whom the name was predicated. But this involves inquiry into the Beast's heads; to which inquiry, as the decisive one, let us now therefore at once pass on.

The heads then, as they assert, meant certain individual kings. This is not surely according to the precedent of Daniel vii. 6, where the third Beast's four heads would seem from Dan. viii. 8. to have signified the monarchical successions that governed the four kingdoms into which Alexander's empire was divided at his death.-But, not to stop at this, the decisive question next recurs, What the eighth head of the Beast, on this hypothesis of the Præterists: Nero being the sixth; and, as they generally say, Galba, who reigned but a short time, the seventh? It is admitted (and common sense itself forces the admission) that this eighth head is the same which is said in Apoc. xiii. 3, 12, 14, “to have had a wound with a sword and to have revived:" and it is this revived head, or Beast under it, (let the Reader well mark this,2) that is the subject of all the prophecy concerning the first Beast in Apoc. xiii, and all concerning the Beast ridden by the Woman in Apoc. xvii. What then, we ask, this eighth head of the Beast? And, in reply, first Eichhorn, and then his copyists Stuart and Davidson, all three refer us to a rumour prevalent in Nero's time, and believed by many, that after suffering some reverse, he would return again to power: a rumour Professor Stuart's 2nd Volume.-Eichhorn, ii. 134, gives Irenæus' old solution See my Vol. iii. p. 97.

Λατεινος,

For it is said in xvii. 8; "The Beast which thou sawest (i. e. ridden by the woman) was not, and is to rise from the abyss :" and in verse 11, "The Beast which was, and is not, he is the eighth, and is of the seven." Professor Stuart in his Excursus iii (Vol. ii. p. 434) admits the identity of the 8th head in Apoc. xvii, and revived head of the Beast in Apoc. xiii.

which after his death took the form that he would revive again, and reappear, and retake the empire. Such is their explanation. The eighth head of the Beast is the imaginary revived Nero.-But do they not explain the Beast (the revived Beast) in Apoc. xiii, and his blasphemies, and persecution of the saints, and predicated continuance 42 months, of the real original Nero, and his blasphemies, and his three or four years' persecution of the Christians, begun November 64, A.D. and ended with Nero's death, June 9. A.D. 68? Such indeed is the case; and by this palpable self-contradiction, (one which however they cannot do without,) they give to their own solution its death-wound as much its death-wound, I may say, as that of the Beast itself to which the solution relates.

So that really, as regards the truth of the solution concerned, it is needless to go further: nor shall I stop to expose sundry other absurdities that might easily be shown to attach to it.2 But I cannot feel it right to conclude my critical examination of the system without a remark as to something on this head far graver, and more to be reprobated, than any mere expository error, however gross or obvious. The reader will have observed that as well Prof. Stuart and Dr. Davidson, as the German Eichhorn, explain the repeated direct statements, The Beast had a wound with the sword, and lived," "The Beast that thou sawest is not, and shall be, and is to ascend from the abyss,” &c, &c, to be simply allusions to a rumour current in Nero's time, but which in fact was an altogether false rumour. That is, they make St. John tell a direct lie: and tell it, with all the most flagrant aggravation that fancy itself can suppose to attach to a lie; viz. under the form of a solemn prophecy received from heaven! Now of Eichhorn, and others of the same German rationalistic school of theology, we must admit that they are here at least open and consistent. Their declared view of the Apocalypse, is of a mere uninspired poem by an uninspired poet. It was but a recognized poetical license in St. John to tell the falsehood. But

1 Eichhorn, ii. pp. 209-221; Stuart, ii. Excursus 3; Davidson, ap. Kitto p. 621. 2 E. g. The second Beast, with the lamb-skin covering, is made by these expositors (as well Stuart, ii. 283, and Davidson in Kitto p. 624, as Eichhorn) to be "the heathen idolatrous priesthood:" how unscripturally I have shown at p. 495 suprà.

Stuart adds that John in Apoc. xvii, xviii, insensibly passes from the specific to the generic, from Nero to the Roman Pagan persecuting power; which after Nero's death rose up again from the abyss, and renewed the contest till Constantine. ii. 309, 351.

that men professing belief in the Christian faith, and in the inspiration as well as apostolic origin of this holy Book, should so represent the matter, is surely as surprising as lamentable. It is but in fact the topstone-crowning to that explaining away of the prophetic symbols and statements, as mere epopee, of which I spoke before as characteristic of the system. And how does it show the danger of Christian men indulging in long and friendly familiarity with infidel writings! For not only are the Scriptural expository principles and views of Christian men and Neologists so essentially different, that it is impossible for their new wine to be put into our old bottles, without the bottles bursting; but the receiver himself is led too often heedlessly to sip of the poison, and bethinks him not that death is in the cup.2

§ 3. EXAMINATION OF THE FUTURISTS' APOCALYPTIC SCHEME.

The Futurists' is the second or rather third grand anti-Protestant Apocalyptic Scheme. I might perhaps have thought it sufficient to refer the reader to Mr. Birks' masterly Work in refutation of it,3 but for the consideration that my own Work would be incomplete without some such examination of this futurist Scheme, as of the Schemes preceding moreover that on more than one point (chiefly as regards 1 P. 502.

:

2 Let me beg the reader to observe that I have in my examination of the German Præterist Scheme, here concluded, tested it simply by Apocalyptic evidence, and shown how little it will bear that testing. The proof is only the stronger against it, if we add the additional tests of the cognate prophecy in Daniel. For the identity of Daniel's Little Horn of the fourth of his four Beasts, with the last head of the Apocalyptic Beast, is a point clear and irrefragable. And it is on its destruction that Messiah's universal and everlasting kingdom is declared to be established; and that “ the kingdom and dominion and greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven is given to the people of the saints of the Most High." A prophetic declaration which is indeed repeated in the Apocalyptic figurations: but which, on their own mode of reasoning, the Præterists must, I think, find it more difficult to escape from, than even from those to the same effect in the Apocalypse. I have not spoken in this Section of the day-day principle of explaining the Apocalyptic chronological periods; a principle of course espoused by, and essential to, this class of interpreters. In my Chapter on the year-day (Vol. iii. Part iv. Chap. ix) I have, I hope, sufficiently vindicated that principle. An additional remark or two, with reference to any later assailants of it, is reserved for the Section following.

3 The Work referred to at p. 486, 487 suprà.

the 6th Seal and the Apocalyptic Beast) Mr. Birks' own views, of some of which more in the next Section, must necessarily, in my mind, have prevented his doing full justice to the argument.-Besides which there is otherwise abundantly sufficient difference between us to prevent all appearance of my trenching on his ground.-It may be right to add that the main part of the present Section formed the conclusion of my Chapter on the Year-day in the former Edition : 1 which Edition, though published after Mr. Birks' work, was, up to the end of Part V, including the Chapter spoken of, printed some considerable time before it; and indeed, in that incomplete state, was in Mr. Birks' hands, as well as Mr. Bickersteth's, while the former was engaged in writing his book.2

The futurist Scheme, as I have elsewhere stated,3 was first, or nearly first, propounded about the year 1590 by the Jesuit Ribera ; as the fittest one whereby to turn aside the Protestant application of the Apocalyptic prophecy from the Church of Rome. In England and Ireland of late years it has been brought into vogue chiefly by Mr. Maitland and Mr. Burgh; followed by Mr. Newman, in some of the Oxford Tracts on Antichrist. Its general characteristic is to view the whole Apocalypse, at least from after the Epistles of the Seven Churches, as a representation of the events of the consummation and second advent, all still future: the Israel depicted in it being the literal Israel; the days in the chronological periods literal days; and the Antichrist, or Apocalyptic Beast under his last head, a personal infidel Antichrist, to reign and triumph over the saints for just 34 years, until Christ's coming shall destroy him: of which advent, moreover, the symbols of the 6th Seal in particular are supposed to be a clear and decisive prefiguration. Thus, while agreeing fully with the Præterists on the day-day principle, and partly with them as to the literal Israel's place in the prophecy, they are the direct antipodes of the Præterists in their view of the time to which the main part of the Apocalypse relates, and the person or power answering to the symbol of the Apocalyptic Beast: the one assigning all to the long

1 From p. 982 to p. 1007 of that Edition.

2 Mr. Birks however made a point, as he has told me, of not reading that particular Chapter; in order that his testimony and statement might be altogether indeSee p. 456 suprà. pendent of mine.

Mr. Burgh's peculiar way of stating this will be noted presently.