Notes on the book of Revelations/Introduction
INTRODUCTION.
The following pages pretend to be nothing more whatsoever than what is presented in the title. There is no attempt at a general exposition of this most instructive and important book : and those who seek for an exciting application to surrounding and past events will not find it here. The writer has noted down in reading, what struck him in the text (often, he believes, overlooked in the framing of some general theory), and he has published what has struck his own mind for the purpose of drawing attention to the book itself. He has added some notes containing more the expression of the light thus elicited from the text; and in these and in the commencement, as he was writing really for the use of Christian brethren, he has not been afraid to communicate freely what thus struck him, desiring it to be as freely weighed, by this and other Scriptures, before the Lord. In teaching, he would feel it wrong to teach any thing which (however still fallible) he could not affirm was the Lord’s mind, without doubt in his own. Here, he has not exactly restricted himself to this, because he does not present himself as a teacher, but merely as seeking to help on others who are enquiring with him: at the same time he has stated nothing he believes unweighed; nor, where a difficulty presented itself connected with any statement, has he allowed the statement to stand without the difficulty being solved. Many very simple statements have, in this way been connected with much enquiry throughout Scripture; though neither the difficulty nor the solution appear, perhaps, in what follows: but he has found abundant instruction and enlargement of judgment in Scripture in the research occasioned by it. He believes that the book in the body of it, views the Church as either mystically, according to Eph. ii., or really according to 1 Thess. iv. 17, in heavenly places, and that the want of observing this has much obscured the study of it. He conceives that the scriptural estimate of Eph. ii. has justified an application of it to past events; though on ground of which those who so applied the prophecy were, in the wisdom of God, scarcely conscious, an application which had its force in a period now nearly, though not quite, passed away; while the application of it, consequent on 1 Thess. iv. 17., clearly has, as to the substance of it, to begin. I say, the substance of it, because, in tracing the evils to their sources, and developing the various subjects, there are many connecting links, with antecedent facts and events; and this not only in the more hidden sources, but, while the dispensation of judgment is quite distinct from the dispensation of patience, the tares which are judged in the one, are often to be spiritually discerned in the other: and hence it is that the book is given to the Church. The judgment of God in power, supplies force to the conduct and judgment of the Church in patience. It seems to me, then, that they are both alike practically wrong, who have slightingly rejected the one or the other, and thus respectively, deprived the Church of each.
A difficulty may perhaps present itself to some. It will be found, that many points, familiar to modern students of the prophetic words, are taken for granted; as, for example, the idea of a personal Anti-Christ is assumed to be just. The answer to such an objection, if these papers should be subjected to such, is that they are not written to demonstrate truths already elementary to those to whom they could be interesting. The writer is presenting what has occupied his own mind to those who, with him, stand on such points as admitted, and seek to make progress. It is possible some inconsistencies may be found. The writer has found his own mind grow clearer, and make progress in the research occasioned by the study of the book, and it is possible that some immature idea, assumed unconsciously, but not stated in the word, may be found; he is not aware, however, of any. He has found, disencumbering himself of his own or others’ assumptions, a main point of progress. Finally, he would say, that there are certain great outlines and truths of a definite character in the word of prophecy—safeguards in every research. If in any details, he has erred against these, he trusts any such idea may be at once rejected. He commends what he has written to the blessing of God, whose the Church is, and who loves it; and to the thoughts and enquiries of those brethren who are led by the Spirit of God, to search into and be instructed in these things.