LECTURE III. THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST, AS NOW EXISTING, ACTS xiii. 32, 33. AND WE DECLARE UNTO YOU GLAD TIDINGS, HOW THAT THE PROMISE WHICH WAS MADE UNTO THE FATHERS, GOD HATH FULFILLED-ἐκπεπλήρωκε-THE SAME UNTO US THEIR CHILDREN, IN THAT HE HATH RAISED UP JESUS AGAIN; AS IT IS ALSO WRITTEN IN THE SECOND PSALM, THOU ART MY SON, THIS DAY HAVE I BEGOTTEN THEE. It is the expectation of many, that in the last days, the house of Israel having been restored to their own land, and being in peril of destruction by the assault of the assembled nations, Messiah shall, at the hour of their greatest need, personally appear as their mighty deliverer,-shall convert them to himself,—and shall then, making them an universal blessing to mankind, reign over them in Mount Zion and at Jerusalem gloriously. Then, say they, and not till then, shall that promise be L. III. THE PRE-MILLENNARIAN RULE 81 fulfilled, "The Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end"." We shall, I think, be able to prove to you in subsequent Lectures, that any personal reign of Christ upon earth is,-if we read the New Testament aright when it treats of the ingathering and glorification of the Church, the judgment of quick and dead, and the eternal state',-a Scriptural impossibility. Meanwhile, (viewing the question simply as one of Old Testament exegesis,) there are, we think, at least two strong a priori objections to that principle of universal literalism in the interpretation of prophecy, upon which these expectations are based. The one is, that it entirely destroys that generally ænigmatical character, which seems necessary even to sacred prophecy, if it is not to interfere with the free agency and responsibility of those who at once have the custody of its documents, and are providentially designed to be the executioners, and in some instances the guilty executioners, of its decrees". • Luke i. 32, 33. Brooks, Elements, p. 279-284. Kelly, Prophetical Lectures, p. 203-206. Molyneux, Israel's Future, passim. West Street Chapel Lent Lectures, 1841, Lectures X, XI. Bloomsbury Lent Lectures, 1846, Lectures VII, VIII, IX, X, XI. Lecture IV. c Lecture V. d Lecture VI. * The following remarks cited by Bishop Hurd "have G 82 OF AN UNIVERSAL LITERALISM L. III. The other is, that it as entirely destroys that completeness and continuity of subject, which marks the Old Testament predictions up to the time of Christ's first advent. It destroys the continuity of prophecy,-for, having conducted us step by step up to the first coming of the Messias, it abruptly terminates its disclosures, and only resumes the thread of its information after the lapse of at least eighteen centuries'. And thus also it weight," if taken with such qualifications as those which are suggested above. For it is obvious that the same ends could be attained by different means; as, for example, by the providential concealment of prophetic documents from those who are designed to carry out their decrees. That even this was the case in the instances of Josiah, 2 Kings xxiii. 15, 16. and Cyrus, Isaiah xliv. 28. and xlv. 1-4, may be very reasonably questioned. But then there is this important fact to be noticed, that their acts, even if done in direct obedience to known predictions, were morally right: whereas the deeds of the Jews, even though strictly according to the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, were morally wrong. Acts ii. 23. "It has been observed, that as the completion of prophecy is left, for the most part, to the instrumentality of free agents, if the circumstances of the event were predicted with the utmost precision either human liberty must be restrained, or human obstinacy might be tempted to form the absurd indeed but criminal purpose, of counteracting the prediction. On the contrary, by throwing some part of the predicted event into shade, the moral faculties of the agent have their proper play, and the guilt of an intended opposition to the will of heaven is avoided." Introduction to the Study of the Prophecies, vol. i. p. 55. f Thus, for example, Mr. Molyneux is not content with Apocalyptic Futurism: he is a Futurist also with regard to L. III. IN THE INTERPRETATION OF PROPHECY 83 destroys the completeness of the prophetic subject, -for having depicted, with an exact appreciation of the relative importance of every other part of the series, the person, the offices, and the work of Messiah himself, it leaves that next greatest, that complementary phænomenon, the rise and progress of the Holy Church throughout the world, entirely unrepresented on the prophetic pages. Nor is the principle in question corroborated by the New Testament usage of the proper names to which it is mostly applied. Indeed it might, I am well persuaded, be shewn, that even in the Old Testament there are instances of the words David, Israel, and Jerusalem, being used in a figurative sense. Leaving this however for the present, there can be no doubt of the fact, that in the New Testament the contrary principle of a spiritual Old Testament Prophecy. "All attempts," he says, "to apply prophecy to the history of the last eighteen centuries, or to the period since the destruction of Jerusalem, must be vain and visionary." Israel's Future, p. 97. Practically his PreMillennarian brethren, though in general they differ from him as to the Apocalypse, approximate to him very nearly with regard to the books of Isaiah and the other Israelitish seers. For they claim almost every thing choice in Old Testament prophecy on behalf of the Jewish people, and the Millennial age, leaving scarcely any present prophetic blessing for Gospel times. See, for more upon the design and structure of Old Testament prophecy, Lecture VIII. of this volume. h See Lecture VIII. 84 NOT SANCTIONED BY THE AUTHORITY L. III. interpretation is plainly affirmed, when the Holy Ghost in the Gospels and Epistles speaks of "Israelites indeed',"-of "the Israel of God","of "Jerusalem which is above1;" and when, in the Apocalypse, He makes the Jew again and again to be the symbol of the Christian". But we have grounds surer even than these. On many occasions the Apostles stood forth as the expositors of Old Testament prophecy. In that capacity they certainly did give what is called a spiritual interpretation to some even of those very predictions upon which literalists most confidently rely, when they bid us expect this personal reign of Messias upon earth. This leads me at once to the subject which I propose, according to my promise, to bring before you to day. That subject is, the true meaning of the prophecies which are said to require that Jesus k Gal vi. 16. 1 Gal. iv. 26. i John i. 47. m Rev. ii. 9. iii. 9. "Quemadmodum enim initio, Theatrum Visionum seu Consessum Apocalypticum pro veteris Synagoge imagine statuque descriptum vidimus, magnaque pars hujus libri typorum eodem spectat, adeo ut etiam Pseudo-Christiani in Epistolis ad Ecclesias eâ de causâ Pseudo-Judæi audiant; ita quoque hîc Ecclesia gentium catholica, sigillo Dei munienda, figuratur typo Israelis; duodecim illius Apostolis totidem hujus Patriarchis commode respondentibus. Nec id quidem immerito fit, cum alias ob causas, tum maxime quod Ecclesia, quæ inde a rejectione Judæorum hucusque ex Gentibus colligitur, in Israelis vicem successerit, sitque, ut ita loquar, surrogatus Israel." Mede, Comment. Apocalypt. Pars I. De Sigillis. Works, p. 563. |