LECTURE VI.

REV. i. 1.

The Revelation of Jesus Christ.

Ir is my purpose on the present occasion to state to you what appears to me to be the true view of the plan of the Apocalypse; and to illustrate it by an Expository Comment, which will be continued in subsequent Discourses.

What is the design of the Apocalypse?

This, I am aware, is a difficult question, and one on which very different opinions have been entertained by Interpreters of great learning and ability; and it is, therefore, far from my intention to pronounce a confident judgment upon it. The result of my inquiries is offered, with due deference, for your consideration, and with a deep sense of the need of caution and sobriety, and of prayer for spiritual illumination, in the treatment of this solemn subject.

Let me premise a few words concerning the subsidiary means for the Exposition of the Apocalypse.

* Delivered at St. Mary's Church, Cambridge, Oct. 1, 1848.

M

I. The first place must be here assigned to the Apocalypse itself. It is its own best Interpreter. Every sentence of this Book is pregnant with meaning. The more it is studied, the more will this be found to be the case. Not a word ought to pass unnoticed. There are indeed many passages in it which at first appear obscure; but there is scarcely one which, after careful examination, will not be seen to be explained by other portions or phrases in this same Book.

Here I would earnestly exhort you, my younger hearers, not to content yourselves with the English Version of the Apocalypse, but to have constantly before your eyes the Original Greek, in some good critical Edition, where the Various Readings are carefully noted,-as, for instance, in that of Griesbacht or of Scholz ‡. It would be invidious to specify the numerous errors which have been committed by modern Expositors, through neglect of this necessary precaution. Any one who undertakes to expound the Apocalypse from our English Version alone, will deceive himself, and mislead others.

It is no disparagement to our Authorized Version

*The learned Henry More says very truly, (Book v. 15,) "There never was any book penned with that artifice as this of the Apocalypse, as if every word were weighed in a balance before it was set down."

† 2 vols. 8vo. Lond. 1786.

2 vols. 4to. Lips. 1830-6; from which the Greek text is reprinted in the present Work, vol. ii.

of the Apocalypse to say, that it admits of considerable improvement*. This may be easily accounted for from the nature of the case. The Apocalypse, from its peculiar character, is more difficult to render accurately than any other Book of the New Testament: and from the circumstance of its not being publicly read in the Church of England, our Translators appear to have been less familiar with it than with the rest of the Sacred Volume. Besides this, fewer Manuscripts of it exist than of any other Book of the New Testament; and very few of these Manuscripts † had been collated ‡, and hence the Text was not so well settled, when our Translation was made.

II. Next in order for interpreting the Apocalypse

* In the HARMONY of the APOCALYPSE, and in the Notes to it, in vol. ii., the passages are noted which appear to require revision. †The Complutensian Editor had only one MS. of the Apocalypse; Erasmus had only one, and that a mutilated one; R. Stephens had only two, and they were of a very inferior character, and were not accurately collated: so that the "Lectio recepta, quæ ab Erasmianis editionibus profluxit, admodum infirmo nitatur tibicine;" and from this our Translation was made. See Wetstein, Proleg. ad Apocalypsim. The Greek text, as now exhibited by Scholz, is founded on a collation of upwards of ninety MSS.

Hence, when Dr. Bentley published a specimen of his new edition of the Greek Testament, (which, it is deeply to be regretted, was never completed,) he selected for this purpose the last chapter of the Apocalypse. See his "Proposals," in Bentley's Works, ed. Dyce, iii. 475–496. Bp. Monk's Life of Bentley, ii. 122.

-must be placed the ancient Hebrew Prophets, especially as read in the Septuagint Version, which was used by all the Churches to which St. John

wrote.

You, my younger friends, will be surprised and charmed with the light which they reflect on the Apocalypse *. Let them be your Commentators. You will perceive how St. John the Divine adopts their glowing imagery: how he takes up the prophecies of David, Joel, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and Zechariah, and of other Hebrew Seers, as if they were earlier chapters of his own Apocalypse: how he adds his prophecy as a sequel and continuation to theirs; or rather, to speak more correctly, how the same DIVINE SPIRIT, Who spake by the Prophets in the Old Testament, completes His own work by the Book of Revelation in the New.

Let me exhort you thus to obey St. Paul's precept: Compare spiritual things with spiritual. Let this be your Rule of Interpretation, Compare the Apocalypse with itself, and with the Hebrew Prophets; and you will be taught by God to understand His own language. In His light you will see light ‡.

III. To speak now of human Interpreters. The Apocalypse has employed the pens of learned and able Expositors in every age of the Church. It has been illustrated by the pious labours of ancient Bishops,

* See "Parallela Apocalyptica," p. 886, of Mr. Grinfield's Scholia Hellenistica; Pars Altera.

† 1 Cor. ii. 13.

Ps. xxxvi. 9.

Martyrs, and Doctors*-Irenæus, Victorinus, Jerome, Augustine, Primasius, Andreas, Arethas, Haymo :— it has been elucidated by the learning and acumen of Bede and Aquinas; and by the erudition and intelligence of later Commentators, who are too numerous to be specified. But I cannot forbear to notice the elaborate Comment of Campegius Vitringa, distinguished alike by solid learning and Christian moderation f. And in this our own University, we are forcibly reminded of the illustrious names of Mede, More, Lightfoot, and Newton, which will ever be honourably associated with the history of Apocalyptic interpretation. Many distinguished names of contemporaneous Expositors will occur to your own minds; and of their labours Posterity will judge.

These various Interpreters may be distributed into two classes: one consisting of those who have employed the figurative mode of Interpretation; the other composed of those who have preferred the literal. The Ancient Expositors belong, for the most part, to the former class; the Modern, to the latter. Each class has its peculiar uses, and may serve as supplementary and corrective to the other. I cannot disguise my opinion that in recent times

* A brief notice of the Ancient Commentators on the Apocalypse will be found in Note A in the Second Volume of the present Work.

The title of Vitringa's work is "Anacrisis Apocalypseos." The edition to which I refer is the third, Leucopetræ, 1721.