V ^v OF PRiNcTr^ £55 LECTURES •l^f THE BOOK OF REVELATION. <5^^UV OF FRI..,^^, WILLIAM KELLY. NEW EDITION. LONDON : W. H. BROOM, 28, PATEENOSTER ROW. 187L .^lGi juim 1883 PREFACE. The Lectures here presented to the reader were delivered about fifteen years ago, taken in shorthand, and printed in 1858-9 in a periodical form, with additions or retrenchments throughout. In 1861 a new and corrected edition appeared, preceded in 1860 by a critical edition of the Greek text with a close English translation and a full statement of the authorities (MSS., versions, and early citations) and various readings in the notes. In 1868 a new edition in the periodical form was issued, and the following year again in the collected form. I trust that, in spite of many hindrances to such a revision as one might desire, the present edition will be found not only enlarged but more accurate, though few are likely to be so sensible of its defects as myself May the gracious Lord, who deigned to use it for the good of souls, even when certainly encumbered with greater drawbacks, bless its fresh circulation to the refreshment of His own and the warning of the careless or even the scornful among such as know Him not ! K* INTRODUCTION. That the day in which we live is serious and fraught with change of the gravest character is doubted by no thoughtful mind. A sage of this world has issued his Latter-day Pamphlets. For near a century the air has been full of revolution. Men take pleasure, especially in experimental science, which has yielded not a few brilliant results, and some of them eminently prac- tical in facilitating the intercourse of men and minds. Hence a tendency to glorify success, especially in material things, and to look more than ever for progress in the future. The past is either slighted utterly or condoned patronisingly and with pity. All things are made matters of question. The age prepares to put the most venerable authority on its trial speculatively as it will in fact ere long. But it essays a more audacious flight ; it already counts itself wiser than God's word, and will soon accept a man as God Himself in His temple. Has the Holy Spirit wrought after no special sort in presence of Satan's activity and new wiles ? As it is according to God to work invariably for His own glory but in ways admirably adapted to the dangers and wants of His own, so has He proved in our day. He has recalled His children far and wide to Christ's person and work, to the Spirit and His presence, to their own forgotten privileges as Christians and the church now, as well as to the hope of His coming shortly. Hence if on one side the world's restless love of change has imperilled the solid hold of what is good and of God, on the other side grace has disabused many of prejudices, detected faulty or imperfect views, and opened hearts to truths stored in a VI INTRODUCTION. scripture but in vain till the Holy Ghost made them living. To this the powerful conviction that the Lord is at hand contributed largely, as it raised in hearts and consciences the solemn question of the church's state and of our own as individuals. Thus for good as for evil it does not satisfy to cite the ways and thoughts of men in the last few centuries. Some doubtless drench themselves with the dregs of the dark ages ; others go back to the impressions of the first four centuries after Christ, and think they have done much when they find themselves coinciding with the Greek or Latin ecclesiastics of those days. But not a few there are, I thank the God and Father of the Lord Jesus, who have been taught of Him to confide only in the scriptures by the Spirit — not in testimony since the apostles, but in their divinely- inspired writings. If the spirit of revolution or of superstition slight the work which God effected by the labours of the reformers, faith values indeed and gives God thanks for what He did then, but goes straight up to the fresh fountains of revealed truth, and owns these to be the needed, sweet, and sure resource of divine grace for an hour when evil men and seducers wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. It appears to me then that, while it is wanton to reject the work of the Lord's servants either at the Eeformation or in days before or since, it is not the wisdom which befits the believer at any time, least of all in face of our increasing snares and perils, to stop short of the sources which are as accessible to us as to those who originally received them, which only unbelief prompted men to forsake, to the grief of the Spirit and their own irre- parable loss. It is good to respect Luther, Calvin, Bucer, Cran- mer, Jewell; it is better — yea, a bounden duty to test what these said and others, respectable indeed but inferior to them, — to test their thoughts by the living and abiding word of God. Why swear to the words of an earthly master, or of a school which sprung later from his words, when God has vouchsafed His own, and given us the Spirit who abides in us for ever ? Rationalism can find not a little material and an apparent sanction for its own bolder impiety from the unguarded words of the greatest of reformers. Pious Protestanta cherish the INTRODUCTION. VU memory of their works, and hang on their words as articles of faith and hope. But there is no need for the Christian to be a Protestant, no excuse for becoming a rationalist. Why not take the whole written word and trust the Holy Spirit to give us all the truth suited to the exigencies of to-day, as He was pleased to strengthen others yesterday? The word of God as such claims our homage as the sole rule, and this too as a whole, not that measure only which was blessed to and in others who have passed before us. The Keformation is not Christianity, nor are Luther and his fellows the apostle Paul and the other apostles. I am thoroughly convinced that the admirable men of the Eeformation, though greatly beyond those who followed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, were no more spiritually fit to traverse safely the field of prophecy than their descendants at the present time. It is a thing as unknown among Protes- tants as among Eomanists to meet with souls consciously dead to sin and law, standing fast in the liberty wherewith Christ makes free. Still less do they apprehend aright the union of saints with Christ by the Spirit, and the character of the as- sembly of God as the body of Christ or even as the house of God. Unacquainted with these truths, as little emancipated individually from every hindrance and bond as their systems are from the Popish leaven of a consecrated caste with its efficacious rites, they habitually gravitate toward Judaism, and this in a prophetic scheme quite as much as in doctrine and walk. The grounds of this judgment the reader may find too abun- dantly, if otherwise he himself knows it not, in these lectures. It is useless, save for party purposes, to meet the charge by peremptory denial and haughty contempt, I am sure I love the reformers with a hearty affection in the Lord, as I do those who adopt their views as a standard in our day; but I believe that it is no disparagement to either if we, profiting it may be by their footsteps, seek to go on to know the word of the Lord more fully. The reader will see that there is frequent reference in these pages to Mr. E. B. Elliott's Horae Apocalypticae. I meant this a 2 VUl INTKODUCTION. as an act of sincere respect to him and his elaborate commen- tary, the best representative of the Protestant school. It is with regret that one observes a. ruffled tone in his notice of my criticisms.* His answers I shall here review in the hope that he may be convinced of oversight at least in some important details, if not in grave first principles. And first I must say that it is not fairly put (i. p. 18) to assert that I, whom he is pleased to classify " on the Futurist side," have distinctly renounced many of the chief dogmas of the original " Futurist school." I might have let this pass, though in my opinion likely to produce the erroneous impression that I had put forth futurism once and since "renounced" many of its chief dogmas ; but taken along with his still stronger language in the same direction (iv. p. 644), it seemed due both to Mr. Elliott and to his readers to correct the error. " In fine (says he), we may, I think, safely conclude to receive Mr. W. Kelly's judgment, so far as it goes, in favour of the Protestant Historical view of the Apocalyptic prophecy, as that forced upon a person originally altogether prejudiced against it." Mr. E. has not the least warrant for these last words. I am sorry to occupy space about a personal matter. It is more important to state that, years before the first edition of the Home A^wcalyjHicae appeared in 1844, there were Christians who waited for Christ and looked for the personal Antichrist, with the many momen- tous consequences of both views, yet held the general application of the Apocalypse to the saints and the world since the time of St. John, as stated in my lectures. Nor ought ]\Ir. Elliott to have forgotten this (as I doubt not he did); for I have so told him orally and given him a work by a friend of mine to that effect, which was publiished in 1839. He should not therefore have spoken of "renouncing" futurist dogmas once entertained, any more than of "a person originally altogether opposed to the Protestant view." On another point too I am surprised that such a man should • Thus his note 3 to p. 643 is a groat exaggeration of anything I expected, which was, not that ho would abandon liis general scheme (no such exorbitant thought V)eing ever anticipated), but that ho might sec how incorrect wore some of his positions, not only in detailed points, but oven in the structural division of Rev. xxi. INTRODUCTION. ix SO gravely misunderstand. He contrasts with Mr. Barker's vague and indefinite views my writing " distinctly and expressly, and moreover in a certain way authoritatively, as if speaking as the organ of a not unimportant party in the Christian Church" — this because of my using the word "we" sufficiently often to leave this impression, {e.g. Introd. p. ix.) Let me say in few words that I am simply comparing the thoughts of such as like myself admit a partial application of the Revelation to the past, but believe that the grand and close fulfilment of its central prophetic visions — vi. to xvi. — will be after the trans- lation of those set forth by the elders or glorified saints, and in order to their appearing with Christ in glory. I am not alone in these convictions, which are shared by many intelligent persons, both Anglican and Nonconformist, besides those who like myself refuse to take a sectarian place in the present chaos of Christen- dom. Whatever of "authoritativeness" was in my words is due solely to my firm conviction of the divine word, not in the least to being the organ of a party important or not, a thing as far from the fact as foreign to my own feeling and judgment of what is due to the Lord and the church. The first and main difference which severs Mr. E. and my- self as interpreting the book is his denial of that which to me is certain, that the epistles to the seven Asiatic churches were intended to give more than the actual state in St. John's day, and to figure successively the most characteristic phases of the church from apostolic times to the consummation. Mr. E. in a periodical long since defunct had urged some objections to the late Mr. Trotter's statement of similar convictions in his well- known Plain Papers. It seemed to Mr. E. inconsistent with the analogy of scripture prophecy and with plain fact.* My answer was that it is in vain to appeal to Dan. ii. vii. xi. or other such prophecies, which have no analogy with the addresses of the Lord Jesus to these Christian assemblies. These are manifestly sui generis and have no connexion with the fortunes of the world, or the successive rising and setting of its powers. Supposing such quasi -prophetic sketches to * I cite the substance of the remarks that follow from the Introduction of the same edition, pp. iv. - vi. X INTRODUCTION. have been intended of God, the intermingling of the chief changes of civil government among men would be to my mind an incongruous mixture, instead of being a necessary element of consistency. Next it is said to be contrary to plain fact ; because in more than one of the epistles the prominent characteristics of the church addressed disagree utterly from the state of the Christian church at the assigned era. So, for example, very specially in that to Thyatira, where nothing less than an unintentional* muti- lation is charged on the effort to make out a case at all plausible for applying it to the dominion of Popery in the dark ages, the eye being fixed on the exception Jezebel, not on the church in Thyatira. Whereas, instead of prevalent irreligion and the almost complete extinction of testimony for Christ, the epistle depicts a high state of piety in the general professing body there: and with the power in their hands, which it was their grand fault not duly to exercise, of interdicting and stopping the teaching of the woman Jezebel. Such is a full statement of this objection ; but it has no real force. For it must be borne in mind that our [i.e. Mr. T.'s and my] hypothesis assumes a twofold application, and therefore ♦ In the H.A., iv. 642, note, Mr. E. says "Not ' iyitentionaV mutilation; as Mr. W. K. very unwarrantably represents mo as saying. I had, and have, too much regard for Mr. T. to entertain such an idea." This somewhat startled me, as I had certainly written as Mr. E. said K«intentional ; and so it was in all the copies* of my book that I could see. Accordingly I wrote to Mr. E. asking whether it was the fact that his copy of my book made me represent him as saying " inten- tional" where I had really written the precise reverse, as he said himself. It was possible of course that in his particular copy the printer might, by some singular accident if not intention, have thrown out the important prefix "un" which had led him to so strong and rash a charge against me, who certainly would not on any account misrepresent any man. INIr. E. wrote immediately a private acknowledgment that it was his mistake, not my misrepresentation. I under- stood from him that he had been troubled before he wrote his critique with an attack of a complaint which often leads men to see things in a wrong light. Any one is liable to a mistake, particularly if he writes a rejoinder, when it is not a case of the "double sight" he imputes metaphorically to mc in the same page, but under the influence of such a malady (not morally, but physically) not quite passed away. But I humbly think that ho owed it to the Lord, his readers, and himself, to have publicly corrected so gross and groundless an insinuation, instead of leaving it to mo now nine years after it was disseminated to all the world. INTRODUCTION. xi necessarily shuts out a rigid facsimile, which supposes a single set of circumstances wherein it can be verified. The churches are addressed as such, that is, as standing on the footing on which Christ had set the church, though the evils that were come or coming in are notified to those churches as thus respon- sible. The address is not to Balaam or Jezebel, but to assem- blies where the germs of those symbolic forms of iniquity were found, and therein to those who had the consciousness of the Christian profession. Plainly therefore it is the character, not necessarily the extent, of the evil (or of the state, whatever it might be), which is or could be noticed here. If it was general deadness, such is the state indicated, and that in a particular order ; if the seductions of false teachers were aimed at, this is also found ; but in no case is there an attempt to define the extent of the sphere which might be thus leavened. Hence I do not see in Thyatira a broken centre in the array of evidence, but rather an unmistakably strong and conspicuous front. The solemn principle that appears in it is that even there the church was then the birthplace of children born to Jezebel in adultery. The point is not the number of her chil- dren ; but that, up to the Lord's warning, the saints accepted this condition of things. There might be ever so abundant works and service, faith and love. Still the evil of Jezebel was allowed. The good was no doubt far more prominent in the primitive Christian assembly, the evil no longer an exception winked at, but infinitely more developed and systematized in mediaeval Christendom ; though I am far from thinking that, in these dark ages, there may not have been an amount of loving though unintelligent devotedness, of which it becomes not men of the present hour to speak too lightly. In short the epistle applied literally to Thyatira in St. John's days, while for him who has ears to hear there is much to intimate a further reference to a time when Jezebel and her children might have the upper hand, a faithful remnant be defined most strikingly, and faith called to look onward to the Lord's coming as the only solace. It is quite the mistake of Mr. E. that this view implies that Protestants are "the synagogue of Satan." For I agree with many, living as well as dead, that Protestantism is set forth by XU INTRODUCTION. Sardis. The other most sweeping sentence of the Holy Ghost prefigured those who msist on a traditional religion of sacramen- talism and succession, the modern Judaizers, who have put forth such painfully successful efforts to revive a system of doctrine and rites, which, nipped in the bud by apostolic vigilance, especially by St. Paul, afterwards expanded into gigantic pro- portions in the catholic days of early Christendom, even before the empire had renounced Paganism, and of course long before the full-blown Popery of Eome. (Compare Rev. ii. 9 with chap, iii. 9.) Can anything more exactly describe them, though good men, like a Barnabas of old, may be ensnared in it for a while ? The argument drawn from the agreement or from the discord of commentators, Mr. E. probably knows I do not consider entitled to much attention. But, from the days of Abbot Joachim at least till our own, it is impossible to deny that some of the most godly and thoughtful students of the book have embraced the view of a prophetic as well as historical sense of these epistles. Brightman, Forbes, Mede, More, Gill, Sir I. Newton, Vitringa, and Cuninghame, are among the names of departed writers, who might well claim respectful attention, especially from their companions of the Protestant school. Shades of difference there are between these and others ; but all agree in the common principle of a continuous and periodistic force appertaining to the seven epistles. And so far is this from being a peculiarity of those who look for a future personal Antichrist, that on the contrary mere futurism is opposed to it as decidedly as praeterism. In short I do not affirm that the seven epistles to the Asiatic churches are strictly prophetic, like " the things which must be after these," which are the prophecies of the book. But I do hold that, just as Daniel iii.-vi. gives us historical facts divinely selected, as is ever the case with inspiration, and in strict keeping as prophetic types with the formal visions of the prophet, so is it with the mystery of the seven golden candlesticks. They had, like the incidents recorded of the kings in Babylon, a bearing deeper than the history, and like them also they pave the way for the predictions which follow. As with all types or parables, it is only a cavil to insist on a technical minuteness of appli- INTRODUCTION. xiii cation in order to throw overboard the profound lessons of truth they convey to the circumcised ear. The objection of Mr. E, is the less reasonable in the instance of Thyatira, because in types every one familiar with them knows that the woman typically represents a given state, good or evil, the man rather activity in good or evil. On the other hand, it was important to guard against the notion that God sanctioned so frightful a state of Popery, which was but an enormous falling away from the truth, the real witnesses in His eyes being now " the rest" or " remnant," who were then first defined in this typico-historic sketch of Christendom. For myself, though I may fail to con- vince those who are strongly committed to a denial of the protracted view of " the things that are," I cannot see how, if the Spirit had designed such a view, the elements for it could have been otherwise so admirably disposed to that end without destroying its past use. What Mr. E. taunts as " a most curious double view" is really characteristic of scripture in general ; and of all the inspired writers, he who is at once the deepest and the most sober is tlie one who most frequently initiates us into this use of Old Testament facts and persons. That it should be employed in a more orderly method and a more complete measure in the Eevelation than in preceding books of prophecy is exactly in harmony with what is true in all other respects of that book as compared with the prophets who went before St. John. Why should deep-reaching perfectness be incredible in his eyes ? Ample reasons have been given for so interpreting these epistles, besides answering his objections in a way satis- factory to many unbiassed men. _N"or does Mr. E. attempt fairly to grapple with the vision of the twenty-four crowned elders in Rev. iv. v., corroborated by their position throughout the book, as proving the translation of the saints after the seven churches are closed and before the proper prophetic action begins. "A double view truly marvel- lous !" (p. 648) is a feeble reply to a plain fact which I urge afresh on Mr. E., and which neither he nor any other historicalist has ever fairly faced. There is scarce more difficulty in the mode of the twofold application here than in the ordinary difference of the type and its antitype (p. 644), Such a difference is credible XIV INTRODUCTION. to Mr. E. in the high priest literally and typically; nor is there a whit more of particularity in the Apocalypse than in Leviticus. The order and accuracy in detail are divinely perfect throughout scripture, though Dr. Fairbairn in his Typology is as slow to believe in the figures of the law as Mr. E. in those of the Apocalypse. I am sure that " my more intelligent readers " will agree with me that this is little to the credit of two men who have undertaken a task to which they prove themselves some- what unequal, and that such reasoning and pleasantry, or what- ever it may be best designated, will be acceptable to such only as feebly know the scriptures and the power of God. Thus was the case put in my former Introduction : "In passing it may here be asked, What satisfactory reason can historicalists offer for the occurrence of such scenes [as Eev. iv. v.] at this point ? It is easy to make remarks on the heavenly company and the Apocalyptic scenery; that is, particular points in the vision ; but why and how have we such a vision here at all ? There is no serious attempt that I know of to account for the disappearance of churches on earth thenceforward, nor for the fact that tlie full company of the royal priesthood, or at least the representative heads of all the courses, are then seen in heaven. What event was there in Mr. E.'s view, immediately before the reign of Nerva, which could call out the special joy and worship of heaven, or the new action with wliich God and the Lamb begin to occupy themselves ? If that wondrous change, the removal to heaven of the saints now glorified, be supposed to have taken place, all is explained. A turning point is reached in the application of the ways of God, who, having gathered to Himself His heavenly redeemed from the beginning to that epoch, then proceeds to reveal the process of His providence for accomplishing His earthly purposes to His own glory and that of Christ; that is. His future dealings, not as now with the one body wherein is neither Jew nor Gentile, but expressly with Israel and the nations, remnants of whom will be raised up to bear a testimony to the plans which God will have in hand. Not that He will not have His saints and witnesses among them both ; but they are so foreshown in the character of their experiences Godward and manward, and the attitude of God INTRODUCTION. XV Himself toward them and men generally is so described, as to evince a condition essentially different from that which subsists now; and all most confirmatory of the idea that the rapture of the saints will then be an accomplished fact. Nothing simpler, if the church state, ' the things which are,' continue no longer, the risen saints be gone to meet the Lord in the air, and the eve of the great crisis of the earth come. Not a hint is dropped that the crowned and enthroned elders are disembodied spirits, but the contrary is implied in all that is said of them. When souls are meant, they are so specified, as in Eev. vi. and xx. Moreover the elders are a complete symbol. Whatever the special portion in glory assigned to subsequent sufferers, the elders remain a definite company from chap, iv, to xix., and receive no addition to their number. Their complement is made up from the first presentation above, and that figure only vanishes when the marriage of the Lamb is come, and a new symbol is needed to convey the new circumstances of the saints already transfigured and taken to heaven. "On the protracted Protestant scheme, which I believe to have a certain measure of truth, the vision may be regarded vaguely as a sort of pictured pledge, or perhaps anticipation, of the church's heavenly glory, while the providential actings of God toward the world are afterwards unfolded. But when we raise the question of exact and full interpretation, I see no reason to doubt that these chapters reveal the position of the glorified saints above, after churches are no longer spoken of on earth, and Ijefore the Lord and His armies emerge from heaven for the war witli the beast and the reign over the earth. It is properly a scene in heaven after the actual ecclesiastical state is closed, and before the millennium commences — a scene which inaugurates the very momentous interval between the two, when it becomes a question of judicial inflictions from God, and new classes of saints, invested with a testimony most appreciably distinct from the church, are called to glorify Him in the midst of the fires." If Mr. E. thinks he has truth, and cares for many who believe him utterly wrong as to this which I am convinced is the key to the just and full understanding of the Apocalypse, he would XVI INTRODUCTION. do well to put forth all he can in meeting the brief statement now repeated with the detailed proofs which are continually referred to as evidence presents itself through my lectures on the Eevelation. If I am right, the closer his examination the less he will have to regret it ; if he can shew me wrong, I trust I shall be truly grateful for his serving the Lord in correcting me and those swayed by my statements. In his tabular scheme given of the Apocalyptic plan according to my thoughts (p. 645), I have only to remark that it is tlie coming Eoman prince who breaks covenant with the Jews, veiy likely in concert with the Antichrist or wilful king in the holy land; that is, the beast from the sea in all probability along with the second beast (from the earth or land), if we speak in the symbolic language of Eev. xiii. As they are thus of one mind and policy, the confusion of these two practically is of little moment. Not so if (as I understand Mr. E.'s vi.) he makes me teach that the Assyrian is the last head of the re-united Eoman empire. The Assyrian may be identified, as I judge, with the king of the north (Dan. xi.), but he is certainly not the Apocalyptic beast from the abyss, any more than he is the king in the holy land with whom he wages war at the time of the end. I wonder that an intelligent man like the author of ^. -4. could so misconstrue some of the main points of my book, whereon I have strongly objected to the muddle of ancients and moderns. Here Mr. E. seems to make me just like the rest where I stand firmly opposed. So again I do not understand his representing my thought thus at the close of all — " Great white Throne. 1000 days." Can any reader divine ? It crossed me that he perhaps meant 1000 years ; but he knows well that I consider hh putting the great white throne before, instead of after, the thousand years and the short space that follows, a blunder of the greatest mag- nitude, though he is not quite alone : two writers at least had preceded him in so flagrant a perversion of the chapter. But 1000 days or years are alike wrongly imputed to me ; for I judge that eternity (the new heaven and earth in the most absolute sense) is the one and only thing that follows the resurrection INTRODUCTION. XVll and judgment of the wicked dead, who have their portion in the lake of fire. In his "Addendum" (pp. 644-653) Mr. E. complains of sundry strong animadversions of mine on certain points of his Apoca- lyptic Exposition "by no means altogether in that spirit of fairness and candour which might have been anticipated from the courteous notice of myself and my Commentary in his Introduction." He has certainly overrated the careful study I had given to the H. A., though it is true that I bore in review the book as a whole in revising the reports of my lectures for the press. These he arranges under two heads as follows : — 1st, Mr. E.'s asserted errors in the adoption of certain wrong readings of the Apocalyptic Greek Text, as readings of quite insufficient authority ; 2ndly, asserted errors in certain of his renderings of the Greek, and of his historical applications of the prophecy. " 1. Asserted erroneous readings of the Greek text preferred in the Horae." Of these Mr. E. selects four, which he seems to think most important. " 1. In Apoc. xi. 8, Mr. E. repeatedly but incorrectly, of course through oversight, represents the reading in the critical editions [he says now] ctti rqs TrXaruas ttjs rrokews rrjs /AcyaAiyy (contradis- tinctively, I presume, to ttX. ttoA. tt/s /^ey., without the tyjs). So Mr. K., p. 198." The reader will be surprised, and I doubt not Mr. E. himself, to hear that I do nothing of the kind ; and that Mr. E. not only misunderstood but misquotes me is the whole point of the matter. What I really say is, " Were the reading such as Mr. E. repeatedly represents it (of course through oversight), 7rAaT£ta rrjs ir. ttjs fji- (H. A., [4th ed.] vol. ii. p. 396, note 4, and yet more incorrectly in vol. iv. p. 543, note 2), there had been no room for this rendering ['the great street of the city'], which some very competent judges prefer." Eeally it is beyond measure careless to add a fresh series of blunders now. The fact is, though it was always in my eyes a point of no moment, Mr. E. misquoted the Greek text from the New Testament in his fourth edition, and misquotes me in his fifth, and has evidently not seen that all this is exclusively and inexcusably his own mistake, which strongly illustrates my accusation of the great want of critical knowledge and tact, not XVm INTRODUCTION. only a conspicuous feature in a man of his general ability, and acquirements, but most injurious to a commentator on a book which from its wretched state in the received text demands these qualities more than any other in the New Testament. Here then I reiterate to the letter my statement, which Mr. E. must see, if instead of trying to defend himself from a charge of nothing more than oversight, he will kindly compare the two references to his fourth edition according to my note. I did not object to the rrjs, for it is my own reading, as it is that of every critical editor of the Revelation, save Griesbach and Scholz. But in that fourth edition he misquoted TrXaTcta for 7r\aT€ias, the unquestionable reading of all jNISS.; but on the second occasion referred to he says ev ry TrXaTcto, rqs TroXcwy Tqs fieyakrjs, which differs in the first three words from every known copy and edition. Had Mr E. taken the trouble to read his own quotations with my remark, comparing both with any Greek Testament whatever (not to speak of a critical edition), he would have seen that I was simply correcting two misquotations of his, the last much the worst, which last is repeated once more with its three first words quite wrong in the 5th edition, iv. 579, note 1 — not p. 580, which contains no such reference. "What Mr. E. deduces at the end of the paragraph of course therefore falls to the ground. The whole case is no bad example of the extreme looseness of citation in the H. A. Had he looked into my Greek text, he would have seen that I read as all save the two already named, who seem to have neglected entirely their own evidence, as well as much since better known. Bishop Middleton is quite right in what he says that the article is required before TToXeois. Even the Complutensian edition is correct, and though Erasmus introduced the error into the first published edition and all those which followed, it is now known that it was his own error, not the bad reading of his manuscrij^t ; for Codex Reuch- lini exhibits tVi Ttjs ttX. Trjt ir. "2. At page 203 Mr. K. animadverts on my preferring the reading rjvoiyrj 6 vaoj Tov 0eou ev to) ovpavio, in Apoc. xi. 19, to rjvoiyr] 6 vaos TOV 0. 6 €v TO) ovp., which he regards as that of best MS. autho- rity. In reply to which charge I have to say that what I prefer is the reading of Griesbach, Scholz, Heinrichs, Tregelles, Alford; INTRODUCTION. XIX Wordsworth alone of the critical editors by me prefening the other reading." What I do say in my page 203 makes Mr. E.'s present state- ment just cited more serious than the former one, and is to my mind unaccountable in a careful scholar. "The true reading is probably 6 cv tw oipavw (i.e. which is in heaven). At any rate, so the Alexandrian and the Paris rescript, the Leicester, a Vati- can cursive (579), the Middlehill, the Montfort, and one of the Parham (17) manuscripts say, not to speak of the Cod. Coislin. of Andreas and Victorinus. Mr. E. is also quite wrong in saying that ' according to Tregelles this is a mistake.' It is true that in his first edition, he omits this various reading, though long before noted by Walton, Mill, Bengel (Wetstein probably [I now add certainly]), and even adopted without question in the text, not of Wordsworth only, but of Lachmann and Tischendorf, as it appears to be by Tregelles, judging from the new edition of 1859 [which gave the English only, not the Greek]. How it was that Mr. E. did not find it in the critical editions of Griesbach and of Scholz, it is not for me to say ; but there it unquestionably may be found by any who examine them. In Hahn's manual one could not rightly expect such a thing." Such was my notice of Mr. E.'s note 5, page 478, vol. ii., fourth edition, where he had the temerity to say "Words- worth reads 6 vaos rov ©eov 6 ev TO) ovpavio, with the article 6 : as if in A and C. [! !] But according to Tregelles this is a mistake. Nor do I find it in any of the critical editions, whether Gries- bach, Scholz, Hahn, Tregelles, or Heinrichs. And in the parallel passage, Apoc. xv. 5, Wordsworth, as well as all the others, read rjvotyr] 6 vaos . . . ev Tpav ivdrrjv, and so it is edited by Alford, Lachmann, Tregelles, as well as Tischen- dorf in his most recent (8th) edition. There remains only Rev. iii. 4, which is strange indeed either to misunderstand in itself or to compare with the phrase in debate. The reason for the accusative is even more obvious and closer than in John iv. 52, though similar in principle. It depends on the yvoSr just before : oi fxij yi/aJs iroiav wpav r}$o> €7ri crt. If the construction were filled up, it would be rrjv wpav ttoux wfx/.. As far as grammar is concerned therefore, it was open to omit either the accusative or the dative, as both would be cumbrous and uncalled fn'. So in JNTatt. xxiv. 42 we have ovk otSart ttoi^ INTEODUCTION. xxvii wpa, in our passage we have yvwy iroiav wpav. But to infer from this that, where no such reason occurs for a compendious mixed construction, the accusative can be used for a point of time or the dative for duration, or that the radical difference does not always really abide underneath such an ellipse, is contrary to every just thought of language.* We are not at liberty to reason from these peculiar instances to others wholly different; it is as illogical as can be. I have in my lectures shewn tlie importance of the true force of the accusative in Eev. xvii. 12. Like " at," it supposes the same starting-point for the beast and the ten horns; but it adds the other, and this the main and intended, information that they receive authority as kings for one hour with the beast : not the Roman empire as once without the kings, nor the kings as afterwards without the empire, but both together, the revived * Such has alwaj's been my conviction, as any one can see in the earliest edition. But I thought it might be more satisfactory to others, perhaps to Mr. E., if I submitted the point of grammar to the learned author of the latest and most elaborate work of the kind which has emanated from Oxford. The following is the reply: — "I have no doubt but that in the two passages, John iv. 52, Rev, iii. 3, the accusative depends upon the verb. In the latter the full construction would be noia ijv &pa iv y, or more briefly and simply uifiav kv y (or 7) alone) K.T.X. ; and the relative is attracted to the accusative and prefixed to it, just like ov TpoTTov, ov xpovov, &c. In the former (John iv. 53) this full construc- tion does occur, the attraction being prevented by the insertion of sv before the relative. In Acts x. 3, the accusative is used, just as it would be with a Trspl for an indefinite and general notion of time ; and I have no doubt but that the writer followed the analogy of ntpi, though he chose to express the notion by wati [that is, even according to the common text, without Tripi]. Moreover, where time is indefinitely expressed, it is in reality a space of time and not a point, and its construction would follow the analogy of the expression for a space of time (accusative) rather than that of the expression for a point of time (dative). "When you say, 'about three o'clock,' there is no definite point presented to the mind, but a space extending (say) from ten minutes before to ten minutes after. This seems to be the philosophy of the accusative after nspi in such expressions. To my mind then neither of the three passages justify the taking fiiav w/^av (Rev. xvii. 12) as a point of time. I am happy to say that I have no theological or mystical bias one way or the other; I really do not know which of the various Apocalyptical parties I am favouring when I say that to my mind, looking at it grammatically, the words can only mean ' one and the same space of time with the beast,' not ' one and the same point of time.' My answer would have been sent sooner, had I not been from home, so that the letter was some time in reaching me. I am, dear sir, yours faithfully, W. E. Jelf." XXVm INTRODUCTION. empire in its place, the kings in theirs, enduring for the same space till they all perish together at the appearing of Jesus. 3. It is the question of the seven thunders ; but inasmuch as Mr. E. adds nothing, we can dismiss it without farther notice. 4. Here, as Mr. E. admits that the rendering of Rev. xi. 9 in his former editions was unsatisfactory, I am happy to say little. It seems to me plain, however, from the context, that the sense is not merely that their testimony was perfected but finished when the beast slays them. In 5 and 6 we have the questions whether the vaos includes the court sometimes, and whether toads and frogs are inter- changeable, both of which Mr. E. answers affirmatively, which I doubt. His 7 calls for a fuller notice. "At p. 246 Mr. K. insists on the right translation of cveaTr^Kcv in 2 Thess. ii. 2 being 'is present;' not as in our English authorized version, and as in the Hm^ae, 'is at hand.' At p. 92 of my vol. iii., in this edition, my readers will find the point more fully argued out than before ; and the latter rendering of the word, I may unhesitatingly say, on the grounds of Greek criticism, fully justified. Let me only here ask Mr. K. the question how he supposes the Thessalonian Christians could have believed that the day of the Lord was then actually present, when putting together the two facts — first, that they knew from St. Paul's former epistles that the primary event of the day of the Lord would be the gathering of Christ's saints, both the dead and the living, to meet Christ in the air ; secondly, that neither themselves nor even St. Paul had thus far been made the subjects of that promised blessed rapture ? Will Mr. K. be agitated by the idea of the day of Christ having begun, so long as he is conscious that neither on himself nor on any of his most honoured Christian friends has any change taken place?" The reader will find in the text and note, pp. 299-304, a tolerably complete refutation of what I judge to be mistaken in Mr. E.'s argument. He starts with the common error* of confounding • The want of light that prevails among commentators in general on tlio subject of propliecy affects their criticism seriously. Thus assuming, as they almost all do with excessive vagueness, that the coming of the Lord to gather INTRODUCTION. XXIX the presence of the Lord to gather His saints with the day of the Lord to execute judgment on His enemies. This necessarily vitiates all that follows, as it misses wholly the force and even sense of the apostle's opening entreaty. For where would be the wisdom of entreating them for the sake of the same thing as that in respect of which he was going to disabuse their mind ? The apostle is guilty of no such slip or paralogism. He begs them by reason, or for the sake, of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together unto Him that they be not soon shaken in mind [or literally "from their mind," though it is hardly English], as that the day of the Lord is present. This to my thinking is not only intelligible but plain and conclusive for the object in hand when we distinguish according to the lisfht given in 1 Thess. iv. and v., where these two things, the presence and the day of the Lord, are both discussed and distinguished as here. It was the false teachers who brought in confusion, and, instead of holding up the bright hope of Christ's coming to receive His own to Himself as the apostle did and does everywhere, sought to fill and alarm them with the terrors of the day of the Lord — that term of solemn judicial dealing which abounds in Old Testament prophecy. It His saints is the theme ahout which the apostle is about to give instruction in the verses which follow, many were influenced to translate wTrep here as nearly equivalent to Trspi, whereas this is hardly the case with verbs of prayer, beseeching, &c., like ipioTOLoj. Each has its own appropriated force, as any intelligent man can verify with a Greek Concordance. Had these writers seen that he entreats the saints on account of their own bright hope not to be alarmed by the false rumour that the day of the world's judgment was arrived, they would have avoided an error singularly gross and grave, not so much lexically, though certainly phraseologically (for tpojTau) virep means, "I beg, not concerning or with regard to, but on account of, by reason of, by or for the sake of"), but mainly because of the contextual fact that he urges the one as a motive of com- fort against the uneasiness inspired by the mistake as to the other, instead of treating of one and the same thing throughout. Dan. ii. 18; Kom. ix. 27; 2 Cor. V. 12, vii. 4, -^aii. 23, ix. 3 ; Phil. i. 7; 2 Thess. i. 4, on which Mr. E. leans with Rosenmiiller, Macknight, Whitby, &c., are beside the mark ; they none of them follow a verb of entreaty. It is true that both vnkp and ncpi may often be translated "for," and virkp sometimes even "concerning;" but there are limits to such approximations of meaning as a scholar knows, instead of vaguely catching at a possible sense and applying it to suit a purpose. Words of entreaty, as far as I have noticed, exclude such a sense when joined with vnsp and require 7rt|0('. It is absurd to identify them at random. XXX INTRODUCTION. is well known that it Las there an incipient application to such a frightful judgment as befel Babylon, Egypt, or other earthly states. In some such way the misleaders at Thessalonica seem to have interpreted the trouble through which, we can see from the first epistle, the saints there were then passing. They pre- tended, like many since their time, that the dread day was come, pretending to the Spirit's revelation of it, teaching it, and even led on by the enemy to allege a letter purporting to be from the apostle to that effect. If they so misimderstood the first epistle, as Jerome throws out and Mr. E, doubts not, it is certainly not the meaning of St' iirLo-ToXrjs ws 8t rjixCiv. I know what Paley says ; but, j5ace tanti viri, the apostle here means a sup- posititious letter falsely bearing his name, not his own epistle : yet this is the only basis they have for the thought. Mr. E. contends (ii. 92) for "partly" some forged words or letter ascribed to St. Paul, and "partly too" misconstruction of words which he had really written in his first epistle about Christ's coming again to gather to Himself His saints both quick and dead. But this is utterly baseless. There is but one clause for the inference, and the Greek phrase cannot possibly mean both. It is only laxity of mind or negligence which could seriously think of extracting partly the one thing and partly the other from words wliich can bear but one unequivocal meaning. Had the apostle intended his own epistle, he would have so expressed it. He might have said (as he does later in this very chapter, where such is his intention) St' eTrto-roX^s rjfxuiv, or rather, as he would in that case have referred to his previously existing letter, Sta t^j tTrtorroA^s, with or without t7/awv. But to convey such an idea, he could not have Avritten as he does St* iTTUTToXrjs u)s St' rjfjiwv, which can only signify a letter falsely inofessing to come through the apostle and his companions. Hence says Theodoret, /x^/re et Trpoo-TroioivTO XPV^H-^^fi^v koI 7rporj- revttv; tovto yap Aeyci, M^re Sia Trvev/xaTOs' fxrjTt. d TrXao-dfj.€voL u)s i$ avTov ypat^ticrav tTnaToXrjv irpocjiepouv, pnqn (I dypd