Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub

and further, the significancy of the institution, and its appropriateness as a type of that long period of the "times of the Gentiles," which, when fulfilled, according to the declaration of our Lord, Jerusalem shall no longer be trodden underfoot of them, and he will then perceive that to suppose that this wonderful coincidence between the typical institution, and its historical fulfilment, thus found ready formed, is the result of accident or chance, would be as reasonable, and not a morsel more so, to use the illustration of Paley, than to suppose that such a work of art as a watch, if found accidentally upon the road, perfect in every part, and having these several parts artificially connected with each other, and the whole combination evidently calculated in the highest degree to produce a certain useful result, might be considered not as a reality, the work of an intelligent being, but as the result of chance, and formed by the fortuitous concurrence of the atoms constituting its several parts.

The understanding revolts at once from such a supposition in the instance adduced, but it is equally impossible to suppose that the construction of the Jubilean system, with the perfection of each of its component parts, and its various adaptations and coincidences can be accidental. The illustration of Paley, which may be considered as an argument founded on the doctrine of chances, and given in the form of a "reductio ad absurdum," appears indeed peculiarly applicable to the present subject; for if in the watch you have an artificial combination of circles, in that of the Jubilean period you have an equally artificial combination of squares. If in the watch, again, you have the artificially constructed main-chain, communicating the motion from one part of the system to another; in the Jubilean periods, typical and antitypical, you have the equally artificially constructed and sacred number 7, (the sum, as I have shown in my theory of sacred numbers, of the series of geometrical progression, 1, 2, 4,) connecting, by multiplication, the roots of the type 7, 5, and 1, with the roots of the antitype 49, 35,

and 7. And lastly, you have in each the important ultimate object of the mechanism; in the watch, the indication of the time of the day; and in the Jubilean period, the indication of the approaching dawn, when symptoms of the dispersion of that moral darkness which has so long overshadowed the kingdoms of this world will first begin to appear, and the dayspring from on high will begin to visit the earth; the desired period of the restoration of the Jews to their own land, the cleansing of their sanctuary now trodden underfoot of the Mahometan Gentiles, and at the same time the crisis of all nations.

2, Poets' Corner, Westminster,

July 15, 1845.

JAMES HATLEY FRERE.

Extract from a paper "On the Interpretation of Fulfilled and Unfulfilled Prophecies," dated in January, 1846, and reprinted from the Prophetic Herald of that period.

THERE has been another peculiarity in the way in which my interpretations have been given, which distinguishes them from anything which has been hitherto brought before the Church, namely, that when it pleased God, in answer, as I have always believed, to an earnest prayer that I might in some way or other be made serviceable to his Church, to open my mind in a remarkable manner to the understanding of the prophetic scriptures, it was my custom and delight (having then indeed leisure for little more) to consider the scriptural text itself thoroughly and to fix the interpretation in my mind, as far as this examination enabled me to give it, before I referred to history for the facts which should fulfil the conditions of the prophecy thus previously ascertained, from which practice I learnt several facts from prophecy alone, without the aid of history. And out of various instances of the kind, I will mention one on account of the peculiar circumstances attending it; it was this, that in 1814, in giving my interpretation of Dan. xi., I published as a past fact in the life of Napoleon Buonaparte, of which, however, I could find no historical record, the following circumstance, namely, that on his repulse from Egypt and return to France, in 1798, "grieved" and indignant at having had his plans of Eastern conquest baffled by the maritime superiority of Great Britain, he had communication and intelligence with the traitors to the British government. The reason I was thus obliged, in

1814, to publish this interpretation as unconfirmed by history was, that although a past event it had not become an historical event, nor did I know it as such till several years afterwards when Buonaparte during his captivity mentioned the circumstance in conversation to Las Cases, who made it known in a work entitled "Conversations at St. Helena." As a single instance is enough to illustrate my meaning, I will not multiply them, as I might easily do; nor need any one consider it as incredible that such an anticipation of history should be made on this occasion, who will refer to the passage in question, Daniel xi. 30,* being aware at the same time that the whole of the preceding prophecy, from verse 21 to 30, where this passage occurs, had been already found by me to contain indisputably a clear and chronological narrative of the preceding actions of Napoleon Buonaparte, from the commencement of his first successful campaign in Italy, in the year 1796, leading to the overthrow of the Papal Government at the memorable epoch 1798. As the subsequent verses, 31 to 39, carry on his history throughout the whole of his successful career to the year 1812, as an appointed scourge to all the papal nations; and who is aware also (as is witnessed by all the prophetic writings) that the Protestant British nation now stands in this latter Gentile dispensation in the place occupied under the Jewish dispensation by that nation itself, elected from amongst all others to peculiar favours and privileges; but chiefly to this, that unto them was committed (as in these latter times has been providentially committed to the British nation) the oracles of God, Rom. iii. 2, whence the term "the Holy Covenant," which in a prophecy relating to the former dispensation would designate the Jewish nation, will, in a prophecy relating to these latter times, designate that nation which, until the appointed period for the restoration of the Jews shall arrive,

"For the ships of Chittim shall come against him; therefore he shall be grieved and return, and have indignation against the Holy Covenant. So shall he do; he shall even return, and have intelligence with them that forsake the Holy Covenant."

is now surrogated in its room, and enjoying its peculiar privileges.

Nor will the intelligent reader fail farther to remark the most curious and interesting connection which exists between the two first clauses of this verse, in which we find that the principal subject of this prophecy having had his plans frustrated by the navy of the chief maritime power of these latter days, designated "the ships of Chittim," therefore returns discomfited, and has indignation against "the Holy Covenant," or the nation now peculiarly favoured with the light of divine truth; and as he who commits the offence must undoubtedly be the object also of the indignation excited by it, we have, in the double designation of "the ships of Chittim," and "the Holy Covenant," a double mark by which to identify the object of Napoleon's wrath; and none can fail to see how remarkably these two characteristics meet, and meet alone, in Great Britain, the chief maritime power of the day, and at the same time the only Protestant kingdom of the ten which constitute the divided Western Roman Empire. It was no wonder then, his inveterate and universal hostility to Great Britain being also notorious, and all his former actions exactly agreeing with the preceding text, that I was enabled to add, deriving my knowledge of the fact from prophecy alone, unsupported by any historical evidence then to be obtained, that on his return from Egypt, in 1798, he (Napoleon Buonaparte) had intelligence and communication with the traitors to the British government.

Neither, in consequence of the clearness of the prophetic writings, has there been anything more marvellous or more out of a natural course in the circumstance that my anticipations of events in prophecy before they became historical, have embraced, in like manner, all those which took place between the year 1813, when I first became generally acquainted with the subject, and the year 1823, when, on the expiration of the 1290 years of Daniel, a pause of long duration occurred in prophetic history; which series of anticipated events may be particularized as follows,

G

« FöregåendeFortsätt »