unto all nations, which is now taking place, between the conclusion of the Papal period of 1260 years, and the great Gentile judgment of Armageddon. I own, that when I read this and other passages of Mr Irving's work, I felt very considerable surprise at the similarity, I may almost say identity, of his ideas and language with the many parts of my own writings, and the more so, as it does not appear that Mr. Irving has seen any thing that I have written. Having thus stated the important matters in which there is almost an entire identity of sentiment between Mr. Irving and myself, I proceed now to particularize those main points of prophetic interpretation wherein I conceive him to have erred. 1st. In this scheme of the Apocalypse, following Mr. Frere, he divides it into three distinct parts, viz. a Revelation, under the name of Seven Seals; another, under the name of Seven Trumpets; and a third, under the name of the Little Book.* I conceive this division to be wholly imaginary and contrary to truth. 2d. He maintains the Beast of Rev. xiii. to be different from the Beast in chap. xvii. The one he terms the Beast of the Sea, representing the Papal Roman empire during the 1260 years;† the other the Beast of the bottomless pit, representing Infidelity embodied first in Infidel France, and Irving's Discourse, vol. I. p. 179. + Ibid. vol. I. p. 144. in the person of Napoleon Bonaparte, at present in a state of death, and hereafter to revive in another individual.* 3d. He maintains that the number, which, in our English version of Daniel, is written Two thousand three hundred, ought, on the alleged authority of the Seventy, to be read Two thousand four hundred.t 4th. He endeavours to prove, that the One hundred and forty-four thousand sealed saints in Rev. vii. and xiv. and also the Harpers in Rev. xv. are emblems of the British Nation.+ 5th. He affirms the witnesses in Rev. xi. to be the Old and New Testaments, and to have been slain in France during the period of the Revolution, and to have risen in the same country, after a period of three years and a half.§ 6th. He applies the prophecy in Dan. xi. from verse 20, downwards, to the late Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of France. In all the above particulars of prophetic interpretation, I feel myself constrained entirely to dissent from the views of Mr. Irving, and I shall proceed to state my reasons for thinking he has erred in the whole of them. There are other points besides those above noticed, with respect to which, Mr. Irving's arguments have made no impression on my mind. I † Ibid. vol. I. p. 259. § Ibid. vol. I. p. 121-139. Irving's Discourse, vol. I. p. 273-288. am altogether unconvinced by what he and Mr. Frere have offered on the supposed prophecy of Esdras, and altogether sceptical as to the supposed future tyrannical rule of Austria and Italy. It does indeed appear to me very possible, that some person may arise with the title of King of Rome, and may head the confederacy of the empire; but not that Rome should ever again be constituted the efficient head of the body politic of the western empire, since both Italy and Rome seem, as to intrinsical physical force, to be in the extreme decrepitude of age. It is not, however, my intention to enter upon the discussion of these points and some others, (though I have thought it right to record my dissent from Mr. Irving's views,) as I wish not to swell this tract to an inconvenient size. CHAP. II. The System of Apocalyptic Arrangement of Mr. Irving and Mr Frere inconsistent with the internal structure of the Apocalypse. IN examining the scheme of Apocalyptical arrangement, which Mr. Irving has adopted from Mr. Frere, I shall first treat of the internal evidence from the book itself, which proves the arrangement of these writers to be erroneous. When the Apostle first saw the book in the right hand of Him who sat upon the throne, it exhibited itself to his eyes as a book sealed with seven seals.* Now, I need not inform the reader who is at all conversant with prophetic inquiries, that the number seven is of mystical import, signifying completeness, perfection, and even infinity. In this case it shows, on the one hand, that the book was so completely closed as to be entirely inaccessible to the inspection of every creature ;—"No man in heaven, nor in earth, neither under the earth, "was able to open the book, neither to look there"on." But it imports, on the other hand, that if any one were found worthy to open the seven seals, each of which, we afterwards learn, contained a distinct roll or chapter, this very act would in clude in it a complete revelation and discovery of the whole hidden purposes of God towards the church and world. Hence it is, that the heavenly worshippers, in their song of praise, ascribe it to the Lamb as one of the high rewards of his humiliation unto death, "Thou art worthy to take "the book, and to open the seals thereof, for thou "wast slain," &c. To affirm, therefore, that the trumpets are a distinct prophecy or another revelation than the seals, and that the little book is a third revelation, is in effect to contradict and render vain the peculiar words of this song of praise, by supposing, that, when the Lamb had prevailed to take the book and open the seven seals, a very small part of the work was done, for there yet remained two other and more important revelations behind, which were contained in none of the seven seals. We must therefore lay it down as an Apocalyptic axiom, or first principle, in the interpretation of the Apocalypse, that the book with seven seals is in all and every respect a complete prophecy, needing no appendix or supplement, and that it necessarily includes within itself the whole of the Apocalyptic visions from chap. vi. to the end.* Every part, therefore, of the prophecy must, by the consistent interpreter, be arranged within one or other of the seven seals. Consequently, the hypothesis * In the Plate or Diagram prefixed to the second Edition of my work on the Apocalypse, the reader will find this first principle strictly adhered to. |