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The Coming Prince
INTRODUCTORY
To living men no time can be so solemn as "the living
present," whatever its characteristics; and that solemnity is immensely
deepened in an age of progress unparalleled in the history of the world.
But the question arises whether these days of ours are momentous beyond
comparison, by reason of their being in the strictest sense the last?
Is the world's history about to close? The sands of its destiny, are they
almost run out, and is the crash of all things near at hand?
Earnest thinkers will not allow the wild utterances of alarmists, or the
vagaries of prophecy-mongers, to divert them from an inquiry at once so
solemn and so reasonable. It is only the infidel who doubts that there
is a destined limit to the course of "this present evil world." That God
will one day put forth His power to ensure the triumph of the good, is
in some sense a matter of course. The mystery of revelation is not that
He will do this, but that He delays to do it. Judged by
the public facts around us, He is an indifferent spectator of the unequal
struggle between good and evil upon earth.
- "I considered all the oppressions that
are done under the sun; and, behold, the tears of the oppressed, and
they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was
power, but they had no comforter." (Ecclesiastes 4:1)
And how can such things be, if indeed the God who rules
above is almighty and all-good? Vice and godlessness and violence and
wrong are rampant upon every side, and yet the heavens above keep silence.
The infidel appeals to the fact in proof that the Christian's God is but
a myth. [1]
1. According to Mill, the course of the world gives
proof that both the power and the goodness of God are limited. His Essays
on Religion clearly show that skepticism is an attitude of mind
which it is practically impossible to maintain. Even with a reasoner
so clear and able as Mill, it inevitably degenerates to a degrading
form of faith." The rational attitude of a thinking mind towards
the supernatural" (he declares) "is that of skepticism, as distinguished
from belief on the one hand, and from atheism on the other;" and
yet he immediately proceeds to formulate a creed. It is not that there
is a God, for that is only probable, but that if there be a God He is
not almighty, and His goodness toward man is limited. (Essays,
etc., pp. 242, 243.) He does not prove his creed, of course.
Its truth is obvious to a "thinking mind." It is equally obvious that
the sun moves round the earth. A man only needs to be as ignorant of
astronomy as the infidel is of Christianity, and he will find the most
indisputable proof of the fact every time he surveys the heavens!
The Christian finds in it a further proof that the God he
worships is patient and longsuffering– "patient because He is eternal,"
longsuffering because He is almighty, for wrath is a last resource with
power. But the day is coming when
- "our God shall come and shall not
keep silence." (Psalm 1:3)
This is not a matter of opinion, but of faith. He who questions
it has no claim whatever to the name of Christian, for it is as essentially
a truth of Christianity as is the record of the life and death of the Son
of God. The old Scriptures teem with it, and of all the writers of the New
Testament there is not so much as one who does not expressly speak of it.
It was the burden of the first prophetic utterance which Holy Writ records;
(Jude 14) and the closing book of the sacred Canon, from the first chapter
to the last, confirms and amplifies the testimony.
The only inquiry, therefore, which concerns us relates to the nature of
the crisis and the time of its fulfillment. And the key to this inquiry
is the Prophet Daniel's vision of the seventy weeks. Not that a right understanding
of the prophecy will enable us to prophesy. That is not the purpose for
which it was given.[2]
2. Prophecy is not given to enable us to prophesy,
but as a witness to God when the time comes." – PUSEY, Daniel,
p. 80.
But it will prove a sufficient safeguard against error in
the study. Notably it will save us from the follies into which false systems
of prophetic chronology inevitably lead those who follow them. It is not
in our time only that the end of the world has been predicted. It was looked
for far more confidently at the beginning of the sixth century. All Europe
rang with it in the days of Pope Gregory the Great. And at the end of the
tenth century the apprehension of it amounted to a general panic. "It was
then frequently preached on, and by breathless crowds listened to; the subject
of every one's thoughts, every one's conversation." "Under this impression,
multitudes innumerable," says Mosheim, "having given their property to monasteries
or churches, traveled to Palestine, where they expected Christ to descend
to judgment. Others bound themselves by solemn oaths to be serfs to churches
or to priests, in hopes of a milder sentence on them as being servants of
Christ's servants. In many places buildings were let go to decay, as that
of which there would be no need in future. And on occasions of eclipses
of sun or moon, the people fled in multitudes for refuge to the caverns
and the rocks."[3]
3. Elliott, Horae Apoc. (3rd Ed.), 1., 446:
and see also ch. 3, pp. 362-376.
And so in recent years, one date after another has been confidently
named for the supreme crisis; but still the world goes on. A.D. 581 was
one of the first years fixed for the event,[4] 1881 is among the last. These
pages are not designed to perpetuate the folly of such predictions, but
to endeavor in a humble way to elucidate the meaning of a prophecy which
ought to deliver us from all such errors and to rescue the study from the
discredit they bring upon it.
4. Elliott, 1., 373. Hippolytus predicted A. D. 500.
No words ought to be necessary to enforce the importance
of the subject, and yet the neglect of the prophetic Scriptures, by those
even who profess to believe all Scripture to be inspired, is proverbial.
Putting the matter on the lowest ground, it might be urged that if a knowledge
of the past be important, a knowledge of the future must be of far higher
value still, in enlarging the mind and raising it above the littlenesses
produced by a narrow and unenlightened contemplation of the present. If
God has vouchsafed a revelation to men, the study of it is surely fitted
to excite enthusiastic interest, and to command the exercise of every talent
which can be brought to bear upon it.
And this suggests another ground on which, in our own day especially, prophetic
study claims peculiar prominence; namely, the testimony it affords to the
Divine character and origin of the Scriptures. Though infidelity was as
open-mouthed in former times, it had its own banner and its own camp, and
it shocked the mass of mankind, who, though ignorant of the spiritual power
of religion, clung nevertheless with dull tenacity to its dogmas. But the
special feature of the present age – well fitted to cause anxiety
and alarm to all thoughtful men – is the growth of what may be termed
religious skepticism, a Christianity which denies revelation – a form
of godliness which denies that which is the power of godliness. (2 Timothy
3:5)
Faith is not the normal attitude of the human mind towards things Divine,
the earnest doubter, therefore, is entitled to respect and sympathy. But
what judgment shall be meted out to those who delight to proclaim themselves
doubters, while claiming to be ministers of a religion of which FAITH is
the essential characteristic?
There are not a few in our day whose belief in the Bible is all the more
deep and unfaltering just because they have shared in the general revolt
against priestcraft and superstition; and such men are scarcely prepared
to take sides in the struggle between free thought and the thraldom of creeds
and clerics. But in the conflict between faith and skepticism within the
pale, their sympathies are less divided. On the one side there may be narrowness,
but at least there is honesty; and in such a case surely the moral element
is to be considered before a claim to mental vigor and independence can
be listened to. Moreover any claim of the kind needs looking into. The man
who asserts his freedom to receive and teach what he deems truth, howsoever
reached, and wheresoever found, is not to be lightly accused of vanity or
self-will. His motives may be true, and right, and praiseworthy. But if
he has subscribed to a creed, he ought to be careful in taking any such
ground. It is not on the side of vagueness that the creeds of our British
Churches are in fault, and men who boast of being freethinkers would deserve
more respect if they showed their independence by refusing to subscribe,
than by undermining the doctrines they are both pledged and subsidized to
defend and teach.
But what concerns us here is the indisputable fact that rationalism in this
its most subtle phase is leavening society. The universities are its chief
seminaries. The pulpit is its platform. Some of the most popular religious
leaders are amongst its apostles. No class is safe from its influence. And
if even the present could be stereotyped, it were well; but we are entered
on a downward path, and they must indeed be blind who cannot see where it
is leading. If the authority of the Scriptures be unshaken, vital truths
may be lost by one generation, and recovered by the next; but if that be
touched, the foundation of all truth is undermined, and all power of recovery
is gone. The Christianized skeptic of today will soon give place to the
Christianized infidel, whose disciples and successors in their turn will
be infidels without any gloss of Christianity about them. Some, doubtless,
will escape; but as for the many, Rome will be the only refuge for those
who dread the goal to which society is hastening. Thus the forces are marshaling
for the great predicted struggle of the future between the apostasy of a
false religion and the apostasy of open infidelity.[5]
5. I cannot refrain from giving the following extract
from an article by Professor Goldwin Smith, in Macmillian's Magazine
for February 1878:
"The denial of the existence of God and of the future state, in a word,
is the dethronement of conscience; and society will pass, to say the
least, through a dangerous interval before social science can fill the
vacant throne…But in the meantime mankind, or some portions of
it, may be in danger of an anarchy of self-interest, compressed, for
the purpose of political order, by a despotism of force.
"That science and criticism, acting – thanks to the liberty of
opinion won by political effort – with a freedom never known before,
have delivered us from a mass of dark and degrading superstitions, we
own with heartfelt thankfulness to the deliverers, and in the firm conviction
that the removal of false beliefs, and of the authorities or institutions
founded on them, cannot prove in the end anything but a blessing to
mankind. But at the same time the foundations of general morality have
inevitably been shaken, and a crisis has been brought on, the gravity
of which nobody can fail to see, and nobody but a fanatic of materialism
can see without the most serious misgiving.
"There has been nothing in the history of man like the present situation.
The decadence of the ancient mythologies is very far from affording
a parallel…The Reformation was a tremendous earthquake: it shook
down the fabric of mediaeval religion, and as a consequence of the disturbance
in the religious sphere, filled the world with revolutions and wars.
But it left the authority of the Bible unshaken, and men might feel
that the destructive process had its limit, and that adamant was still
beneath their feet. But a world which is intellectual and keenly alive
to the significance of these questions, reading all that is written
about them with almost passionate avidity, finds itself brought to a
crisis the character of which any one may realize by distinctly presenting
to himself the idea of existence without a God."
Is the Bible a revelation from God? This is now become the
greatest and most pressing of all questions. We may at once dismiss the
quibble that the Scriptures admittedly contain a revelation. Is the
sacred volume no better than a lottery bag from which blanks and prizes
are to be drawn at random, with no power of distinguishing between them
till the day when the discovery must come too late! And in the present phase
of the question it is no less a quibble to urge that passages, and even
books, may have been added in error to the Canon. We refuse to surrender
Holy Writ to the tender mercies of those who approach it with the ignorance
of pagans and the animus of apostates. But for the purpose of the present
controversy we might consent to strike out everything on which enlightened
criticism has cast the shadow of a doubt. This, however, would only clear
the way for the real question at issue, which is not as to the authenticity
of one portion or another, but as to the character and value of what is
admittedly authentic. We are now far beyond discussing rival theories of
inspiration; what concerns us is to consider whether the holy writings are
what they claim to be, "the oracles of God."[6]
6. ta logia tou theou (Romans 3:2). The old Hebrew
Scriptures were thus regarded by those who were the divinely-appointed
custodians of them (ib.) Not only by the devout among the Jews,
but, as Josephus testifies, by all, they "were justly believed to be
Divine," so that men were willing to endure tortures of all kinds rather
than speak against them, and even "willingly to die for them" (Josephus,
Apion, 1., 8). This fact is of immense importance in relation
to the Lord's own teaching on the subject. Dealing with a people who
believed in the sanctity and value of every word of Scripture, He never
missed an opportunity to confirm them in that belief. The New Testament
affords abundant proof how unreservedly He enforced it upon His disciples.
(As regards the limits and date of closing of the Canon of Scripture,
see Pusey, Daniel, p. 294, etc.)
In the midst of error and confusion and uncertainty, increasing
on every side, can earnest and devout souls turn to an open Bible, and find
there "words of eternal life"? "The rational attitude of a thinking mind
towards the supernatural is that of skepticism."[7]
7. Mill, Essays on Religion.
Reason may bow before the shibboleths and tricks of priestcraft–
"the voice of the Church," as it is called; but this is sheer credulity.
But if GOD speaks, then skepticism gives place to faith. Nor is this
a mere begging of the question. The proof that the voice is really Divine
must be absolute and conclusive. In such circumstances, skepticism betokens
mental or moral degradation, and faith is not the abnegation of reason,
but the highest act of reason. To maintain that such proof is impossible,
is equivalent to asserting that the God who made us cannot so speak to us
that the voice shall carry with it the conviction that it is from Him; and
this is not skepticism at all, but disbelief and atheism. "It pleased God
to reveal His Son in me," was St. Paul's account of his conversion. The
grounds of his faith were subjective, and could not be produced. In proof
to others of their reality he could only appeal to the facts of his life;
though these were entirely the result, and in no sense or degree the basis,
of his conviction. Nor was his case exceptional. St. Peter was one of the
favored three who witnessed every miracle, including the transfiguration,
and yet his faith was not the result of these, but sprang from a revelation
to himself. In response to his confession,
"Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,"
the Lord declared,
- "Flesh and blood hath not revealed
it unto thee, but my Father who is in heaven." (Matthew 16:17)
Nor, again, was this a special grace accorded
only to apostles.
- "To them that have obtained like precious
faith with us," (2 Peter 1:1)
was St. Peter's address to the faithful generally. He
describes them as "born again by the Word of God." So also St. John speaks
of such as
- "born, not of blood, nor of the will
of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." (John 1:13)
"Of His own will begat He us with the word of truth"
is the kindred statement of St. James. (James 1:18).
Whatever be the meaning of such words, they must mean something more than
arriving at a sound conclusion from sufficient premises, or accepting
facts upon sufficient evidence. Nor will it avail to urge that this birth
was merely the mental or moral change naturally caused by the truth thus
attained by natural means. The language of the Scripture is unequivocal
that the power of the testimony to produce this change depended on the
presence and operation of God. Pages might be filled with quotations to
prove this, but two may surface. St. Peter declares they preached the
Gospel
- "with the Holy Ghost sent down from
heaven;" (1 Peter 1:12)
and St. Paul's words are still more definite. "Our Gospel
came not: unto you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Ghost."[8]
8. alla kai en dunamei kai en pneumati agio (1 Thessalonians
1:5.) "But also in power, even in the Holy Ghost." There is no contrast
intended between God on the one hand, and power on the other, nor yet
between different sorts of power. To object that this referred to miracles
which accompanied the preaching is to betray ignorance of Scripture.
Acts 17 represents the preaching to which the Apostle was alluding.
That miraculous power existed in Gentile Churches is clear from 1 Corinthians
12 but the question is, did the gospel which produced those Churches
appeal to miracles to confirm it? Can any one read the first four chapters
of 1 Corinthians and retain a doubt as to the answer?
And if the new birth and the faith of Christianity were thus
produced in the case of persons who received the Gospel immediately from
the Apostles, nothing less will avail with us who are separated by eighteen
centuries from the witnesses and their testimony. God is with His people
still. And He speaks to men's hearts, now, as really as He did in early
times; not indeed through inspired Apostles, and still less by dreams or
visions, but through the Holy Writings which He Himself inspired;[9] and
as the result believers are "born of God," and obtain the knowledge of forgiveness
of sins and of eternal life. The phenomenon is not a natural one, resulting
from the study of the evidences; it is supernatural altogether. "Thinking
minds," regarding it objectively, may, if they please, maintain towards
it what they deem "a rational attitude;" but at least let them own the fact
that there are thousands of credible people who can testify to the reality
of the experience here spoken of, and further let them recognize that it
is entirely in accordance with the teaching of the New Testament.
9. God is omnipresent; but there is a real sense in
which the Father and the Son are not on earth but in heaven, and in
that same sense the Holy Spirit is not in heaven but on earth.
And such persons have transcendental proof of the truth of
Christianity. Their faith rests, not on the phenomena of their own experience,
but on the great objective truths of revelation. Yet their primary conviction
that these are Divine truths does not depend on the "evidences" which
skepticism delights to criticize, but on something which skepticism takes
no account of.[10]
10. Such faith is inseparably connected with salvation,
and salvation is the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8). Hence the solemn words
of Christ, "I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because
Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed
them unto babes" (Matthew 11:25).
"No book can be written in behalf of the Bible like the Bible
itself. Man's defenses are man's word; they may help to beat off attacks,
they may draw out some portion of its meaning. The Bible is God's word,
and through it God the Holy Ghost, who spake it, speaks to the soul which
closes not itself against it."[11]
11. Pusey, Daniel, Pref. p. 25.
But more than this, the well-instructed believer will find
within it inexhaustible stores of proof that it is from God. The Bible is
far more than a textbook of theology and morals, or even than a guide to
heaven. It is the record of the progressive revelation God has vouchsafed
to man, and the Divine history of our race in connection with that revelation.
Ignorance may fail to see in it anything more than the religious literature
of the Hebrew race, and of the Church in Apostolic times; but the intelligent
student who can read between the lines will find there mapped out, sometimes
in clear bold outline, sometimes dimly, but yet always discernible by the
patient and devout inquirer, the great scheme of God's counsels and workings
in and for this world of ours from eternity to eternity.
And the study of prophecy, rightly understood, has a range no narrower than
this. Its chief value is not to bring us a knowledge of "things to come,"
regarded as isolated events, important though this may be; but to enable
us to link the future with the past as part of God's great purpose and plan
revealed in Holy Writ. The facts of the life and death of Christ were an
overwhelming proof of the inspiration of the Old Testament. When, after
His resurrection, He sought to confirm the disciples' faith,
- "beginning at Moses, and all the prophets,
He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself."
(Luke 24:27)
But many a promise had been given, and many a prophecy recorded,
which seemed to be lost in the darkness of Israel's national extinction
and Judah's apostasy. The fulfillment of them all depended on Messiah; but
now Messiah was rejected, and His people were about to be cast away, that
Gentiles might be taken up for blessing. Are we to conclude then that the
past is wiped out for ever, and that God's great purposes for earth have
collapsed through human sin? As men now judge of revelation, Christianity
dwindles down to be nothing but a "plan of salvation" for individuals, and
if St. John's Gospel and a few of the Epistles be left them they are content.
How different was the attitude of mind and heart displayed by St. Paul!
In the Apostle's view the crisis which seemed the catastrophe of everything
the old prophets had foretold of God's purposes for earth, opened up a wider
and more glorious purpose still, which should include the fulfillment of
them all; and rapt in the contemplation, he exclaimed,
- "Oh the depth of the riches both of
the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgments,
and His ways past finding out!" (Romans 11:33)
True prophetic study is an inquiry into these unsearchable
counsels, these deep riches of Divine wisdom and knowledge. Beneath the
light it gives, the Scriptures are no longer a heterogeneous compilation
of religious books, but one harmonious whole, from which no part could
be omitted without destroying the completeness of the revelation. And
yet the study is disparaged in the Churches as being of no practical importance.
If the Churches are leavened with skepticism at this moment, their neglect
of prophetic study in this its true and broader aspect has done more than
all the rationalism of Germany to promote the evil. Skeptics may boast
of learned Professors and Doctors of Divinity among their ranks, but we
may challenge them to name a single one of the number who has given proof
that he knows anything whatever of these deeper mysteries of revelation.
The attempt to put back the rising tide of skepticism is hopeless. Indeed
the movement is but one of many phases of the intense mental activity
which marks the age. The reign of creeds is past. The days are gone for
ever when men will believe what their fathers believed, without a question.
Rome, in some phase of its development, has a strange charm for minds
of a certain caste, and rationalism is fascinating to not a few; but orthodoxy
in the old sense is dead, and if any are to be delivered it must be by
a deeper and more thorough knowledge of the Scriptures.
These pages are but a humble effort to this end; but if they avail in
any measure to promote the study of Holy Writ their chief purpose will
be fulfilled. The reader therefore may expect to find the accuracy of
the Bible vindicated on points which may seem of trifling value. When
David reached the throne of Israel and came to choose his generals, he
named for the chief commands the men who had made themselves conspicuous
by feats of prowess or of valor. Among the foremost three was one of whom
the record states that he defended a tract of lentiles, and drove away
a troop of the Philistines. (2 Samuel 23:11, 12)? To others it may have
seemed little better than a patch of weeds, and not worth fighting for,
but it was precious to the Israelite as a portion of the divinely-given
inheritance, and moreover the enemy might have used it as a rallying ground
from which to capture strongholds. So is it with the Bible. It is all
of intrinsic value if indeed it be from God; and moreover, the statement
which is assailed, and which may seem of no importance, may prove to be
a link in the chain of truth on which we are depending for eternal life.
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