private opinions, or uncertain traditions. This is what might have been expected ; for it is not ordinarily the course of Divine Providence to interpret prophecy before the event. What the Apostles disclosed concerning the future, war, for the most part disclosed by them in private, to individuals not committed to writing, not intended for the edifying of the body of Christ, and was soon lost. Thus, in a few verses after the text, St. Paul says, “Remember ye not, that when I was yet with you, I told you these things?” and he writes by hints and allusions, not speaking out. And it shows how little care was taken to discriminate and authenticate his prophetical intimations, that the Thessalonians had taken up an opinion, that he had said what he had not said that the Day of Christ was immediately at hand.
Yet, though the Fathers do not convey to us the interpretation of prophecy with the same certainty as they convey doctrine, yet in proportion to their agreement, their personal character, and the general reception at the time, or the authority of the sources of the opinions they are stating, they are to be read with deference ; for, to say the least, they are as likely to be right as commentators now ; in some respects more so, because the interpretation of prophecy has become in these times a matter of controversy and party. And passion and prejudice have so interfered with soundness of judgment, that it is difficult to say who is to be trusted in it, or whether a private Christian may not be as good an expositor as those by whom the office has been assumed.
1. Now to turn to the passage in question, which I shall examine by arguments drawn from Scripture, without being solicitous to agree, or to say why I disagree, from modern commentators : “That Day shall not come, except there come a falling away first.” Here it is said that a certain frightful apostasy, and the appearing of the Man of sin, the son of perdition, i. e. as is commonly called, Antichrist, shall precede the coming of Christ. Our Saviour seems to add, that it will immediately precede Him, or that His coming will follow close upon it ; for, after speaking of “false prophets” and “false Christs,” “showing signs and wonders,” “iniquity abounding,” and “love waxing cold,”
