Exposition here offered, but is more and more convinced of its truth. The way in which it originally suggested itself to his mind was from a comparison of the best known modern writers on the Apocalypse-including Mede, Bp. Newton, Faber, Frere, Cunninghame, Fry, and (the most recent at that date) Irving-whose systems he abstracted and digested in the parallel columns of a Prophetical Chart: when he was at once struck, on the review of them all, with the surprising fact (thus made more conspicuous than it otherwise might have been) of the wide discrepancy between them. The principle on which they proceeded was that it is to be explained by the history, political and ecclesiastical, of a long period, extending over many centuries, and therefore to be understood only by the learned reader, whose alone, it further follows, is the Blessing on him who "reads" and "keeps" the sayings of this Book. The principle which their disagreement suggested to him was that Scripture is its own interpreter:—and, therefore, that this Book is intelligible to every diligent and prayerful student of the Sacred Volume who takes for his comment not "the words which man's isdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teach1, comparing spiritual things with spiritual :" e principle of the present Exposition, confirmed by the works which have since followed in the train of those just mentioned, for which additional columns were added to his Prophetic Chart only to exhibit so many additional varieties of fulfil ment. He was not then aware (in 1832, the date of the first Edition), that the result at which he had thus arrived had in substance the sanction of the unanimous consent of the Fathers of the early Church, whose writings were then less studied than now; and, therefore, the Work appeared at first under the serious disadvantage of appearing to propound a new theory. But this fact has been since abundantly elucidated in works to which he gladly acknowledges his obligation, and among which he would especially name Dr. Todd's 'Discourses on the Prophecies relating to Anti-Christ in the Apocalypse of St. John,' preached before the University of Dublin at the Donnellan Lecture in 1841, and published with numerous notes in 1846; and the Apostolic School of Prophetic Interpretation,' by Maitland (C.) 1849: which prove that so far from being new, it is but the revival of the old and primitive Interpretation. Extracts from this evidence will be found, among other matter, in the Appendix, which was added for the first time to the Fourth Edition, and to which the Reader is requested to turn when referred to. The Principle is, however, now no longer on its trial, as proved by the numerous publications, large and small, that have of late appeared, taking the same view of the Prophecies, in which the author is thankful to see the signs of revived attention to this Book, and, with it, of the revived expectation in the Church of the Saviour's Second Advent, and of the making ready a people prepared for the Lord at His coming. |