Vindiciae Horariae; Or, Twelve Letters to the Rev. Dr. Keith, in Reply to ...

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Part I. Pagb

LETTERS I— IV. Review op Dr. Keith's Signs op Times.

I. Introduction 1

II. Review op Dr. Keith's Seals .... 6 III Seventh Seal and Trumpets 28

IV Temple-Measurement, Witnesses' Death, Dragon, and Seven-headed Beast 46

Part II

LETTERS V— XII. Defence of the Hor^.

V. First Seal, as in the HoRiS - - - - 69

VI. Second Seal 117

VII. Third Seal 145

VIII. Fourth Seal 162

IX. Fifth and Sixth Seals 183

X. Sealing and Palm-bearing Visions - - - F99 XL Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of the two

XII. Conclusion 265

Appendix

1. first seal, the horse ---.-- 275

2. nerva's cretensic medal - - - 280

3. second seal, "another horse" ... 282

5. fourth SEAL, "super aUATUOR PARTES TERR-fi " - 285

7. IN "the GREAT CITY " - - 287

8. RAINBOW - CROWNED ANGEL VISION, AND TEMPLE-MEA-

SURING - -- 288

Letter I

Reverend Sir, The Strictures on my Horse Apocalypticse, published under your name, reached me at Lausanne some two or three months after their publication; and when I say that the perusal was attended with mingled feelings of indignation, surprise, and pain, I only say what you must have anticipated. But I must beg you to understand, that while the indignation excited had regard only to the Strictures themselves, — to the unfairness of most of the criticisms, and injustice of the aspersions with which the Book was filled against me, — the pain and the surprise had reference, in no little measure, to the individual himself who had thus bitterly and unworthily assailed me. For, though personally unknown to you, I had yet for some years fancied myself acquainted with your character ; and taken pleasure in thinking of you as an honoured friend and brother in the Christian cause and ministry. Your Book on the Evidence of Prophecy, through which I^was first brought into acquaintance with your name as an author, had been read by me with warm feelings of interest.^ Nor had your later work of the Signs of the Times in any material measure affected my esteem for its writer, though quite unable to regard it as a satisfactory or correct exposition of the Apocalypse. I had subsequently followed you in spirit throughout your missionary tour to the Holy Land, as related in the Report published by the Deputa-

^ The unfavourable criticisms of the Quarterly Review on this work, though not altogether unfounded in &ct, seemed to me in considerable measure unfair, as well as unkind. *

B

2 INTRODUCTION. [iNTROD.

tion of which you were a member. And very sincere, I can assure you, had been my feelings of sympathy on hearing through private sources of your illness in the journey homeward ;' and very sincere my gratification in hearing at the same time how God's kind providence had seemed to watch with special care over his servant, provided him friends in that hour of need in a far distant land, and made all his bed in his sickness. With sentiments of this kind long cherished in my mind towards Dr. Keith, and an impression of his character as that of an earnest single-minded Christian minister, elevated above petty and selfish thoughts, and full of Christian kindliness and benevolence, how could it be but that surprise and pain should mingle in my feelings, when reading the Strictures on my Horae that bear the name of Dr, Keith as their author ? For surely if ever Book were stamped with the spirit of uncharitableness, I might almost say of personal enmity and malice, this must be admitted to' be so : — misrepresenting me, as it does, in a manner and to an extent that might seem to indicate a set purpose in the misrepresentation ; exaggerating mistakes systematically wherever really to be faund, inventing them where they are not; giving in dubious cases the most imfavourable construction, and imputing the worst motives : a mere inadvertence on the part of the writer of the Horse, or slight inaccuracy of expression, being treated as sufficient ground for charging him with intentional deception and falsehood; insomuch that the insinuation of his resemblance to the traitor-disciple who betrayed Christ with a kiss, (an insinuation which occurs towards the close of the Strictures,)^ is but a fit sample of the spirit which characterizes the whole. It is not the feelings of a Christian only which one might have expected would have shrunk from such a style of thinking and wfiting, but those too of a gentleman. The established courtesies of society proscribe it. As to the affectation of Christian charity, " the largest" Christian charity ^ towards him whom the Strictures assail, it of course only makes the case worse. Again and again I found myself exclaiming as I read them, " And can this be Dr.Keithr

Thus it will not surprize you to hear that I laid down the Book in disgust,* some time before I had completed its perusal ; and that I was glad to have the excuse with myself, first of somewhat pressing home engagements, and then of the engagements of a long journey

^ I see it alluded to in your Vol. ii. p. 377. p. ccx*icii. ^ p. Ix. &c. ■* I use your own word, ii. 90.

LETTER I.] INTRODUCTION. 3

into Italy, for leaving it to sleep undisturbed on my shelves or in my portmanteau. In the interval however a thought occurred to me which, hypothetically at least, put the thing in quite a new and dif-' ferent point of view. Have there not been cases, I thought, in which writers and speakers, not the most reputable, have assumed disguises, and written and spoken under false names and characters? Have not Jesuits for example, as in the time of Queen Elizabeth, "disguised themselves as Protestants," the better "to sow their false doctrine ? " ^ And might it not be some such person, perhaps some Jesuit in disguise, that with equal enmity to yourself and me may have borrowed your hitherto respected name, and under cover of it made this attack upon the Horse ? — ^The 'idea once suggested, various considerations occurred to my mind which might be regarded as making it plausible, if not probable. Let me mention three.

1st, and as regards myself, it might seem to suit this hypothesis that when mentioning at p. Ix the fact of my being ** personally unknown to you," the writer should have omitted to observe, so as you surely might naturally have done, that by correspondence you were not altogether unacquainted with me ; and moreover that I was known to you in such a manner, as to leave proof in your mind, not to be forgotten, of the peculiar improbability of my ever intentionally misrepresenting historic fact, in order to strengthen my case and bear out my prophetic theory. For what my object in that correspondence, but the authentication of what the writer of the Strictures would call *' a most positive affirmation" ^ about Alexander the Great's armorial ensign, made by you in the three then published editions of the Signs of the Times,^ and which, on every account, I should have been glad to have found true and to have adopted ; but which I abandoned, however reluctantly, on finding that historic evidence for it was altogether wanting ? And the same indeed in regard to that other mistaken statement of yours about the date of Thogrul Beg's inauguration, to which I see allusion is made in your last Edition :^ a statement which I should have been as glad as yourself to have authenticated ; but rejected, as you know, when on careful investigation it was found to have nothing but a typographical error to rest upon. I need

' Strype's Annals of Elizabeth, p. 485. He observes that " in their commissions they had several names, three or four, in case they should be discovered." * Strictures, p. Ixvii. ® "^ leopard which had four wings ; — the identical emblem which was actually engraved on the shield of Alexander.'*— Signs of Times i. 15. GrJ ed.

4 INTRODUCTION. [iNTROD.

hardly say that you must have seen m the Horse abounding evidence to the same effect, in the siftings of many other statements that it would have well suited me to receive, but which I would not without authentication.^

2ndly, and as regards yourself ^ it might seem to suit this hypothesis that the writer of the Strictures should have not only in a more general way challenged investigation into the evidence of your Apocalyptic Exposition, in direct contrast to that of the Horse, — "Let any man show if he can that the following Treatise [sc. the * Signs of the Times '] is a creation of the writer's own fancy, a theory which would read scripture backward, and pervert history for its purposes, that can overleap mountains, magnify mole-heaps .into their size, and foist them in their place ; . . . a theory foimded on a presumption, and resting for its sustaining evidence on arguments which, as imsubstantiated by facts, cannot be of God ;" ^ — ^I say that he should have not only in a general way challenged inquiry into your Book in respect of these testing-points, on all which you who know the Book can scarce fail to be aware that it can by no means bear the testing ; but that, in regard of certain particular passages of history. Apocalyptically though differently applied alike by me and by yourself,^ he should, in condemning my application of them, have made assertions, and laid down rules, abundantly more condemnatory, as we shall soon see, of you than of me. Surely an enemy might be thought to have done this.

3rdly, in our critic's notice at p. ccxli of the Anglican Protestant ^Church, I observe the self-same groundless insinuation of Henry the 8th's having been its originator, the self-same depreciation of its martyrs under the bloody Mary, and moreover much the same general bitterness of heart against it, which one is accustomed to meet with in the writings of Jesuits and other Romish controversial-

* Perhaps I may be allowed to recal one example to your mind ; that of the celebrated extract from the Chronicle of the Abbey of Corvey, noted in my Vol. ii. p. 336, abont sectaries from Italy that were said to have visited the Abbey at the beginning of the twelfth Century ; which, if authentic, would have much strengthened and illustrated my view of a continuous line of witnesses for Christian truth through the middle ages. Though cited and adopted as true by Planta, Hallam, Giesler, as well as by certain writers on prophecy and the Witnesses, I could not be satisfied to receive it without authentication ; and after no little time and trouble of research, both in England and abroad, found at last that I must reject it as a forgery. ' p. ccxlvi.

* I refer particularly to the Roman history of the second and third centuries ; explained by me with reference to the Apocalyptic seals, by you with reference to the commencing verses of Apoc. viii. The contrast on this head between our critic of the Strictures and yourself will be set forth fully in the sequel.

LETTER I.] INTRODUCTION. 5

ists. To yourself it must surely be well known that those Articles of Faith, on which our Church rests as its basis, are due under Grod, not to the wicked Henry, but to his eminently pious son Edward the 6th. And surely too it must be your habit and delight, when casting a retrospect on the bloody reign of Mary, to dweU not on the feiithless and apostatizers from the Enghsh Protestant Church, but rather on the faithful witnesses then furnished by her. Indeed, in the Signs of the Times I see that you do pointedly include them among ** the saints and witnesses of Jesus, who loved not their Hves unto the death."^ And can it be then that you entertain bitterness and enmity against a Church thus associated with martyrs for the faith ; and which the Romanists still regard and hate as one of the strongest bulwarks of evangehc Protestantism ?

On the whole these reasons, and others such as these, seemed quite sufficient to give plausibility at least to my hypothesis. So you will not wonder that I gladly yielded myself to it ; and determined to regard it as true, until I should have its contradiction (which I hope I may not,) from yourself. It was the rather gratifying to me to have lighted upon it, because I saw that through adopting it I could deal with the writer of the Strictures and his statements, without that constant sense of uncomfortableness that must needs have attended me, had I been dealing on such a subject directly with yourself. Thus then I shall address myself in my Reply as to an anonymous assailant. Its main subject-matter of course will be the objections that he has urged against the Horse. And you may depend upon it that none of those objections shall be slurred over by me, but sifted thoroughly and to the bottom. Besides this, however, I am forced by the writer to a critical examination of your own Apocalyptic Exposition, or at least to whatever is most peculiar and characteristic in it ; contrasting it, as he does, so continually, whether in irony or in earnest, with that given in my Book. I purpose then to occupy myself with this critical examination of your Signs of the Times in the next ensuing or first Part of the present Pamphlet : reserving my defence of the Horse to its second and latter Part.

And here I close my preliminary and brief Letter of introduction ; and am.

Rev. Sir,

Yours, &c.

E. B. E.

^ Signs of Times, Vol. ii. p. 111.

[part I.

PART L

LETTERS II~IV.

EXAMINATION OF DR. KEITH'S APOCALYPTIC THEORY.

LETTER n.

examination of dr. keith s seals.

Rev*. Sir,

My purpose in the three Letters of this the first Part of my Treatise is the examination of your Apocalyptic theory ; or at least of such parts of it as may seem to be most peculiar and characteristic. These you will readily admit, I presume, to be your explanations severally of the Seals, the temple-measuring, and the Dragon and seven-headed ten-horned Beast, And these then will constitute the main subjects of my examination ; though I must not overlook altogether certain points also in your view of tlie Trumpets, whereby the Seals and the temple-measuring vision are connected together.^ — ^The subject of my present Letter is your Apocalyptic Seals.

As regards these Seals then, your general view of the four first, is, that they depict four religions that were successively to appear in our world ; the Christian, the Mahommedan, the Papal, the InfideL The fifth Seal, if I rightly understand you, exhibits a retrospective view of the persecutions and martyrdoms of Christ's saints during the long antecedent times of the dominancy of Paganism and then of Popery : a view supposed to be given or taken chronologically at some epoch subsequent to the manifestation of dominant Infidelity ;

* A Tabular Scheme is appended, in order to make my observations more intelligible. It seems a pity that no such Tabular Scheme was appended by yourself to your Commentary.

LETTER U.] EXAMINATION OF DR. KEITH* S SEALS. 7

though the exact epoch does not seem stated with any precision.* The sia^th Seal depicts " the great final catastrophe," " the great day of the wrath of the Lamb," or ** day of his coming : " ^ an event and time still future. The holding of the winds in the Sealing Vision, which next follows, is ** the marvellously prolonged restraint from war " from the Peace of Paris to the present time ; a ** suspension or delay " of some coming " universal war previous to the last great catastrophe," in order to ** the partial and simultaneous conversion of many Israelites : " ^ after which, the palm-bearing Vision opens the still future prospect of the heavenly blessedness of the saints, as it is to be realized in the ages to come.^ — So as to the six first Seals ; their object being the development of the foreseen spiritual history of the world. The seventh Seal, comprehending the seven Trumpets, you regard as unfolding its foreseen earthly and political history .5

On this your view of the Seals, it is evident that you look with peculiar complacency and confidence. " It seems remarkable," is one of your comments upon it, '* that it should ever have been doubted that such an obvious interpretation, so clear, consistent, and comprehensive, shows the true import of the Seals." ^ Our critic, whether in irony or in truth, echoes the eulogy.^ Excuse my saying that it appears to me in the light in which I have ever viewed it, since first my more careful thought was directed to its consideration, as the most contrary to clear, the most contrary to consistent ; and, in fact, so contradicted by almost every test of truth, as, like many other rashly propounded Apocalyptic schemes, to have really no locus standi.

Consider the scheme in the first instance generally, in two or three of its more obvious points of view. — Were the four horses, or the four composite symbols of the horses and their riders, meant of four religions simply, (that is four schemes of religious doctrine in the abstract,) so as you sometimes seem to represent the matter,^ I

* I shall have to notice this want of clearness and precision when I come to the more particalar examination of your exposition of this Seal.

* Signs of Times, p. 220. Compare our critic's Strictures, p. clii.

^ So on the second Seal, page 186 ; ** If one horse represent the Christian religion^ another horse must in like manner . . . represent another rdigion.'*'' So again p. 192 ; " Some form of faith or of religious opinions . . . perfected into a system : " and also pp. 205, 214, &c.

8 EXAMINATION OF DR. KEITH's SEALS. [PART I.

should of course have to ask your scriptural authority for such an interpretation of such a symbol. But you elsewhere explain yourself as meaning not four religions in the abstract, but rehgions as embodied and impersonated in their respective chiefs and constituencies ; ^ so furnishing ground for that more particular and detailed examination^ on which I shall enter presently.

But, waiving this then, let me beg to ask, were these four the only reUgions that were to be seen, and to mark the spiritual state of man upon the earth, from and after the time of St. John ? Or were the three last of them the only three that were thenceforward to conflict with and assail that Christian religion, which you would have to be symbolized in the first Apocalyptic Seal ? ^ Methinks history tells us something, and the pages of the Signs of the Times tell us something>^ of a false religion called Paganism, whose " hostile form assaulted Christianity " at and after St. John's time ; and this not for a brief ten years, or so, like your 4th Seal's InfideUty, but for above 200 years. Wherefore this strange exclusion of it from your Ust ? Moreover as regards the nature of your third religion at least, i. e. the Papacy, and the spiritual state of the world under it. there is surely much more told us in Apoc. xi, xiii, according to your own interpretation of the chapters, than here ; that is, more where the world's spiritual state was not the express subject, than where it was. — Look we next to dates and chronology. The revealing angel says, '* Come and I win shew thee what is to happen hereafter ; a chronological indication strongly insisted on by yourself elsewhere.^ Yet, according to the Signs of the Times, the vision next instantly following depicts " primitive Christianity " going forth, '* white as the unsunned snow : " * an event which, as I read history, and you indeed state the matter, occurred at the epoch of Christ's own ministration, and

* So of the rider and the wbxU horse^ on the 1st Seal, p. 181 ; ^ emhlems of Christ and his Church : " i. e. his true Church. See pp. 179—181, &c.

* *' The first six Seals seem to give a representation, in a general view, of the Church of Christ, and of the various forms of false faith by which it was to be assailed, till the great day of the wrath of the Lamb." lb. pp. 220, 206.

* For example, I read in the Signs of the Times, ii. 128; " No sooner was the faith of Jesus preached, than the Roman empire, holding the world in subjection, and supporting wi:th all its authority a pompous Paganism, was prepared like a furious monster to devour the infiEint Church."

* lb. i. 225 : " The voice said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee the things which must be hereafter.^' This is cited as that with which the happy reigns of Nerva and his four successors exactly agreed in respect of chronology ; it being ** the history of the world immediately subsequent to ike date of the Apocalypse,*^

LETTER II.] EXAMINATION OF DR. KEITh's SEALS. 9

the apostles' first missionary labors ; ^ i.e. above sixty years before St. John's vision in Fatmos. So soon does your Signs of the Times begin " to read Scripture backward." — ^And how long did this primitive Christianity continue to shew itself " white as the unsunned snow," in the Church professing it ? Not surely even to the date of Constantine : much less beyond that time ; when, as you are fond of inculcating, *' many joined themselves to it with flatteries." 2 Comparing which date with that of the rise of Mahommedanism, the declared subject of your second Seal, there is found an interval of not less than 300 years between the one and the other. Our critic exclaims at the supposed unrepresented interval of 15 or even of 6 years, between the first and second Seals in the Horse.* What will he say to your unrepresented interval of above 20 times 15 years ? — ^Again, still keeping to the chronological test, we find Mahommedanism taking precedence, in your Seals, of Popery ; the former being the subject of your 2nd, the latter of your 3rd Seal. Yet what the commencing date of the 1260 years' delivery of the Church into the hands of the Papal Antichrist, as given in your own Book } It is A. D. 529 or 533.^ And what the date of the rise of Mahommedanism ? a. d. 612 or 622 ; near 100 years later !— Yet further what the duration of your fourth dominant " religion," as you oddly designate the profest infidelity, or no-religion of revolutionary France ? ^ Just ten years and no more, as a publicly profest and dominant religion ; viz., until the public re-establishment of Popery in France under Bonaparte's Consulate. — I pass over the epoch of your 5th Seal, because I cannot quite make it out. It will recur later. But can I pass your monstrous and glaring anachronism in making the first part of the figuration of the 6th Seal to depict the still future judgment-day ; and yet its later part, or holding of the winds and sealing vision, to depict the thirty years' tranquillity of Europe, and cotemporarily accomplished or expected conversion of certain of the Jews, since the last Peace of Paris ? ^ — So much as to the chronology of your Seals, considered generally, and in their relation one to the other. Nor does geography fail to exclaim at the outset against them, as weU as chronology. What is ** the earth " in

* " He went forth conquering. When his gospel wba first preached, Christ was believed on in the world : &c." lb. p. 184. * lb. pp. 78, 80, &c.

« pp. Ixix, Ixxix, &c. * lb. ii. 161.

* Compare i. 192 ; The horse ** must denote some form of religion,'* with p. 206 ; " In modem times [i. e. during your fourth seal or the French Revolution] all forms of religion have been abandoned." • lb, i. 218, ii. 168, 169.

10 EXAMINATION 0|! DR. KBITH's SEALS. [PART I.

your second seal and elsewhere ? The territory of the Roman Empire. ^ And what the earth in your fourth seal ? It is the whole mundane glohe on which we tread, with its usually assigned four continents : the fourth of the earth specified in that particular prophecy being* the European continent.

But let us now turn from generals to particulars, I have observed that in your first Seal, instead of supposing the Christian religion, or abstract system of its reHgious doctrine, to be the thing intended, you designate it to be the Christian religion as embodied and impersonated in its head and its constituency : the white horse symbolizing Christ's church of all true behevers, and its rider Christ himself. ^ So again the rider of the red horse is Mahomet, or rather Mahomet and his successors in the headship of Mahommedanism : ^ while the rider of the black is the Pope ; and the Papal Church, or constituency of that Church's members, answers to the black horse.* Hence the occasion for looking into the matter a little more in detail ; and seeing whether your Exposition offers either a self-consistent view of the symbols, or one agreeing with historic fact.

The 1st Seal, — ^The rider, as I observed, you make to be Christ, the horse Christ's Church. In proof that Christ is the rider, you rest on the white colour of the horse ; and refer to the figurations which depict him as riding forth to victory, in Psalm xlv, Habakkuk iii, and Apoc. xix.^ But surely the horse's white colour by itself is indecisive. If in Rev. xix Christ rides on a white horse, neither in the Psalm nor in Habakkuk is his horse's colour specified. Again, you know, in the vision of Zech. i. 8, we read of horses red, speckled, and white, being exhibited with their riders before the prophet : and it is on a red horse, not white, that Christ then appears. We must look therefore to the other distinctives and accompaniments of the rider. And in each of the three above-cited cases how different these from that in the text ! In the two first of them mark the divine name attached to, and the divine majesty described as attending on, the rider ; * of neither of which, in the case before us, is there a descriptive word or hint. More especially as to the figura-

^ lb, ii. 146 ; " The Beast rose out of (he earth, as the Roman empire itself is repeatedly denominated in the previous visions." So again on the fourth Seal, i. 212 ; though with this added, to save the character of your fourth Seal ; *' In modem times, to which the prediction refers, the four quarters of the globe is a division of the earth universally known. Over owe of these, &c." * lb. i. 181, &c,

^ lb. 187 ; and compare our critic's just comments, i. clxxxi, elxxxii.

JLETTEE II.] EXAMINATION OF DR. KEITH*S SEALS. 1 1

tion in Apoc. xix, which may be considered as furnishing you with the nearest parallel for your purpose, let but the comparison be fairly made« and I think you will find the case against, strongly against, not for you. That I may not understate your argument let me give your view of the thing in your own words. " The same person/' you say, " under the same symbol, who was seen going forth conquering and to conquer, is seen again after the warfare is accomphshed,^ triumphant over all that opposed him : and he who had at first a crown given him, is seen at last with many added diadems or coronets ; still united to his Church, which he does not leave in his triumph, after he has led it on to victory." ^ The same person, under the same symbol / Really it surprises me how you could have so written. To say " the same person," is to take for granted the thing that is to be proved. And then as to symbol, consider, I pray you, the marked dififerences in the two cases. In the one it is simply a rider on a white horse, without a single declared attribute, name, or emblem of divinity, bearing in his hand a bow, receiving a crown, and with the simple destiny of conquering on the earth, (so as any human conqueror might do,) and that he should conquer. In the other it is One with eyes like a flame of fire, and on his head many diadems, and with his vesture dyed in blood, and the incomprehensible name, the Word op God, written on him, and in his hand a sword, (not a bow,) and his point of egress not earth, (whereon your theory would require him to have been progressing victoriously, ever since his first outgoing,) but heaven. Surely the difierences in the symbol are abundantly greater and more important, than the one and only, apparent point of agreement, viz. that of the whiteness of the horses ridden. — Nay, and even here too we shall find on consideration a point of difference, not agreement. For in the 1st Seal the white horse is supposed by you to symbolize Christ's true Church, or body of real believers : whereas in the vision of Apoc. xix even you pretend not that the white horse ridden by the conquering Saviour has any such emblematical signification : the Church, or body of Christ's saints, being expressly noted as present on the scene under a quite different symbol ; viz. that of the hosts that followed Christ, riding on white horses. — : You may object perhaps the different points of time to which these two visions respectively refer on your hypothesis, as accounting for the differences of symbol. But I cannot at all admit the explanation or