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OF JOHN'S REVELATION,

SHOWING THAT

CHAPTERS I-XI. CHIEFLY DESCRIBE

THE APOSTASY,

AND

CHAPTERS XII-XXII. THE TRUE CHURCH..

BY THE

REV. R. GASCOYNE, M.A.,

BATH.

Third Edition—Corrected and Enlarged.

LONDON:

JAMES NISBET & CO., 21 BERNERS STREET.

1875.

101. i. 282.

EDINBURGII:

PRINTED BY DUNCAN GRANT AND COMPANY.

FORREST ROAD.

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.

Not long after I had published my Solution of the Apocalypse, I saw reason for modifying the conclusions at which I had arrived, and the change made the work more consistent with itself. This led me to examine again very carefully such symbols in Holy Scripture as are confessedly fulfilled or explained, in order to determine whether prophecy has its own language and laws, and I came at length to the conclusion that there are determinate laws in prophetic science, by regarding which we may hope to travel in the right path, whilst deviation from them will leave us the dupes of conjecture or a prey to our own ingenious and fond imaginations. The result of this inquiry are the canons here laid down.

CANON 1.

Though symbols and symbolical scenes are scattered over almost every part of the Bible, yet some books, as Zechariah, Daniel, and John's Apocalypse, hardly contain anything else. By symbols and symbolical

scenes or groups of symbols, are meant things which were not intended to be taken literally, as the seven good and seven bad ears, the seven fat and seven lean kine, which denote nothing else but famine and abundance.* When Jeremiah went about with yokes upon his neck, the Jews understood by that significant action that the nations mentioned would be subject to Nebuchadnezzar's sway.† Peter's vision, wherein he was commanded to eat unclean beasts and creeping things, was wholly unintelligible to him, till he received the communication of the messengers, when he saw that it required him to rejoice in converted uncircumcised Gentiles, and to regard them as equally clean and acceptable to God as converted Jews. + A type, on the other hand, besides its figurative, has also a literal meaning, its groundwork being an occurrence, real or imagined, whilst its other meaning is an adaptation of it by comparison or analogy to something else, viz., to the antitype. The brief mention of Melchizedec and Jonah describes a real transaction, whilst their application, found in other parts of Holy Scripture, is an additional or new meaning. A type, then, conveys two meanings, a symbol but

one.

No one ought to be surprised that symbols were from the beginning made use of in the revelation of the Divine will. They were indeed the sole organs of communication. Symbols, by sound or action, endlessly varied, express the feelings and thoughts of animals. Man also conforms to the same law,

* Gen. xli. 25-32.

Jer. xxvii. 2, 3.

Acts x. 15.

symbols being his only medium of communication, for language is symbolical throughout. Written words and articulate sounds are conventional terms, and may be varied without end. The sound or written word "cow" has no likeness whatever to the creature it denotes, and the conventional use of it for that purpose alone makes it intelligible. But this is not all. The things which the word and sound denote are often also themselves symbolical, being arbitrarily used to signify something additional. In the prophecy, "I will put enmity between thee (the serpent) and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel;" the serpent here signifies the devil, and his offspring the wicked, as when Christ said to the Jews, "Ye are of your father the devil," + and the seed of the woman does not here intend the natural descendants of Eve, but the people of God and Christ their head. The sacrifice that Abel offered to God had no literal meaning, but was a symbol of the sacrifice and atonement which Christ made upon the cross for our pardon and restoration to God. The sheaves, the sun, moon, and stars which Joseph dreamt of were rightly interpreted by his angry brethren to foretell his future elevation over them as their head or lord. ‡ The Shechinah, the pillar, and cloud were not God, but symbols only of His presence. Thus not only is language symbolical, but the things which it denotes have also sometimes a further symbolical meaning.

* Gen. iii. 15.

John viii. 44.

Gen. xl. 12-19.

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