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it to be one of my own coining, It briefly expressed my meaning; and, as I first introduced it with an apologizing if I may use the expression*, I had hoped it might have escaped censure. The idea however which it conveys is by no means a conceit of my own. Mr. Whitaker will find in Pole's synopsis a variety of attempts to shew how the Pope was in one sense the seventh king and in another sense the eighth; so that, although there were apparently eight kings, there were really only seven. Nay even be himself will excite an idea in the mind of the reader not very dissimilar by his scheme of making the Dictatorship and the Papacy jointly only one bead: for, if his Dictatorio-Papal head be not a septimo-octave king, what is it but a quinto-octave king?

4. The last of the four points, on which Mr. Whitaker says my hypothesis rests, is, that on the sounding of the seventh trumpet the French revolution broke out--This statement is extremely inaccurate. I never said, that the French revolution broke out at the sounding of the seventh trumpet: but on the contrary, that it broke out, when the great earthquake, which overthrew the tenth part of the Latin city, took place; and that, shortly after, agreeably to the prediction, the third woe sounded, and the undisguised reign of open anarchy and impiety commenced. Mr. Whitaker thinks, that it would undoubtedly appear a most ridiculous attempt to set about persuading men, that the last trumpet has not yet sounded. I fully agree with him, and beg that he will save himself any such unnecessary

Dissert. Vol. II. p. 179. + Letter, p. 58.

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trouble. I would only remind him, that it has not been my fate, at least to the best of my recollection, to meet with any expositor* before himself, who fancied that the third woe-trumpet was the same as the last trump mentioned by St. Paul. He says, that, "as I seem not to have considered in this light the trumpet mentioned in the passage above "cited, the proof of that might be no sound 66 answer to me". If Mr. Whitaker could prove his point, it would be the very soundest answer that he could give me: but, as the identity of the third woe-trumpet and the last trump at the day of judgment is merely one of Mr. Whitaker's assumptions, which I have shewn to be wholly unfounded, any argument built upon such an assumption of course falls to the ground. Whether Dr. Ogilvie will think me already answered, as Mr. Whitaker promises himself, I presume not to say; because I know not whether he has adopted the opinion of his friend, that the third woe is the same as the last trump mentioned by St. Paul: for myself, I shall proceed to notice the only argument by which my opponent says he shall prove his point. It is this: that the whole period of the 1260 years will be over when the witnesses are slain, or at most when their bodies have lain three days and a half in the street

* At least no protestant expositor. The Jesuit Cornelius à Lapide indeed seems to have adopted a notion relative to the seventh trumpet something similar to Mr. Whitaker's; and tells us, that Andreas, Aretas, Beda, Primasius, Albertus, Ribera, Viegas, and others, thought with him. Comment. in Apoc.

in loc.

+ Mr. Whitaker, for some reason or another which he does not explain, allows only three days. (Letter, p. 59. 1. 1.) The prophecy says three days and a half.

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of the great city; because the beast is not to be understood as slaying them until the end of that period. But by my own account that period commenced in the year 606. Hence the witnesses cannot be slain and risen again, because the 1260 years are not yet expired: and hence, as it is specifically declared, that their death and resurrection will be before the seventh trumpet shall be sounded, that trumpet cannot yet have sounded, and therefore can have no connection with the French Revolution. Mr. Whitaker adds in a note, by way of corollary, that, since the testimony of the witnesses is finished by their death, the beast could not make war against them after it was closed. And he triumphantly sums up the whole by informing his readers, that such is the dread potency of this single argument, that "all the extensive structure I have raised on "this ground sinks in undistinguished ruin". I am not in the habit of hastening to such very rapid conclusions as Mr. Whitaker. The whole argument, which is to effect these wonders of demolition, is entirely founded upon another of my opponent's assumptions. Grant him only his premises; and his conclusion will be indisputable. But those premises are the very thing which I deny. How does Mr. Whitaker prove, that the beast is not to be understood as slaying the witnesses till the end of the 1260 years; and that those years will be over, either when the witnesses are slain, or at most when their bodies have lain three days and a half in the street of the great city? "I read it not in the bond". The whole is a mere groundless assumption of his own: yet upon this unproved assumption he builds an argument, which is to crush me to atoms.

According

According to the prophecy, the beast is to slay the witnesses, not when they have finished their testimony (which would make St. John contradict himself, by representing them as undergoing a remarkable persecution after the close of that very period, to which he had previously limited their persecuted state); but (as Mr. Mede rightly observes) when they are drawing near to the close of their testimony, or in other words when they are drawing near to the close of the 1260 years; for their prophesying in sackcloth and the 1260 years terminate together. Hence it is manifest, that they are to be slain by the beast some time during the lapse of the 1260 years, and consequently that the three years and a half during which they lie emburied are a certain portion of the 1260 years: that is to say, their political death is to take place, not when their testimony is finished*, but during the period that they are bearing their testimony. At what particular point of their prophesying, in other words at what particular point of the 1260 years, they are to experience this political death, is no where definitely said: we are only told in general terms, that it shall be when they draw near to the close of their testimony. Hence the three years and a half may either be the very last term of the

* "Since their testimony is to be finished by their death”, says Mr. Whitaker, just as if that position could not be doubted; whereas it is the very thing which I deny. Where does Mr. Whitaker learn, that their testimony is to be finished by their death; for, this death being at once a partial one and a political one, it by no means follows that the witnesses in the other streets of the great city should not continue to prophesy in sackcloth after their political death and revival in one particular street of it?

1260 years, or not the very last term, for any thing that appears to the contrary. They may either be slain three years and a half previous to the expiration of the 1260 years, and revive exactly at the expiration of the 1260 years: or they may be slain 50, 60, 100, or 200 years previous to the expiration of the 1260 years, and consequently revive long before the expiration of those years. All that we learn from the prophecy is, that they are to be slain when their testimony, which is commensurate with the 1260 years, is drawing to a close: and, when we consider the length of the whole period, since great and small are mere relative terms, any thing that happens two or even three centuries before its expiration may comparatively be said to happen when it is drawing near to its end. The war between the beast and the witnesses is entirely local: it is altogether confined to a particular street or district of the great Latin city. The ascension of the witnesses therefore to heaven in that particular street, or their admission into the political heaven of civil power in some one particular country, does not prove that their general prophesying in sackcloth is at an end, or that the 1260 years terminate with their political death and resurrection in the particular country in question, whatever that country may be. Suppose it were said, that the British parliament passed such or such a bill when they were drawing near to the close of their session; would this indeterminate expression authorize us to build any argument upon the assumption that the passing of that bill was their very last act? It might either be absolutely the very last, or not the very last: the expression itself would authorize us to conclude no

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