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The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 3 - Contents
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    III. Conflicting Positions Over Closing Events

    Throughout those decades there was much conflict of view and much debate over the opposing positions. One group held that the terminus of the 2300 years, about 1843, 1844, or 1847, would mark the close of prophetic time, and that tremendous events would follow thereafter. The other and larger group just as firmly held that 1843, 1844, or 1847 marked the terminus of the 2300 years. But they taught that the 1290- and 1335-year periods, beginning synchronously with the 1260 years, would extend, respectively, thirty and seventy-live years beyond their close.PFF3 277.2

    To such, the end of the 2300 years was simply a milestone, with the climactic and final events to follow more than two decades later. Thus their eyes became increasingly fixed upon those future events, with relatively little heed to the nearer prophetic way mark of the close of the 2300 years. It was there fore left to the expositors of the Western World to clarify and unify these intriguing time periods.PFF3 277.3

    1. VARYING VIEWPOINTS ON SEALS, TRUMPETS, AND WIT NESSES

    In our attempt to obtain an over-all outline picture, let us note other differences that had a marked bearing on the fortunes of prophetic interpretation in this period. Faber, Cuninghame, and Frere were unquestionably the three most prominent expositors in Britain in the early part of the nineteenth century. These all began their writings on prophecy after the fury of the French Revolution had passed, and all three believed that the early vials of the seven last plagues had been poured out in the Revolution.PFF3 277.4

    Faber saw the seven trumpets as an outgrowth of the seventh seal, just as he believed the seven vials were an outgrowth of the seventh trumpet. 27This harks back to the position of Joseph Mede. See Prophetic Faith, Volume 2. Thus, for him, the first six seals reached only to Constantine and the overthrow of heathenism in the fourth century. Then the first six trumpets were fulfilled in the successive desolations of the Goths, Saracens, and Turks-and on to the French Revolution. And the climactic power of the seventh head of the beast, as the willful king of Daniel 11, he considered to be infidelic or atheistic. The “little book” he thought to be a supplemental prophecy forming chapters 10-14 of Revelation.PFF3 279.1

    On the other hand, to Cuninghame the seals and trumpets were chronologically parallel, that is, beginning together, and each reaching from John’s day to the great earthquake, ending together in the seventh seal and seventh trumpet, immediately before the great consummation-the seals prefiguring the history of the church, with the trumpets as the history of the secular Roman Empire in both West and East, much as Faber held them.PFF3 279.2

    Frere, in disagreement with both, held that the seals depict the history of the Western secular Roman Empire, from John’s day to the earthquake of the consummation, and the trumpets, in parallel chronology, that of the Eastern Empire, while the little book of Revelation 10 portrays the history of the church in chapters 10-14, likewise chronologically paralleling the for mer. To Frere, the seventh head of the beast was Napoleon, while the Two Witnesses were clearly the Old and the New Testament, their death and resurrection being fulfilled in the French Revolution, from 1793 to 1797.PFF3 279.3

    Sharp differences between these three leading expositors extended to other points 28Faber held the Two Witnesses to be the Waldenses and Albigenses, with their banishment from the valleys and their glorious return. Cuninghame believed them to be the Protestants against papal superstition, while Frere thought they were the two Testaments. little wonder that students of prophecy should be perplexed by such discord. As a result, some came to distrust not only these expositors but the general positions and principles of the Historical School of Prophetic Interpretation.PFF3 280.1

    2. BASIC CLASH OVER MILLENNIAL VIEWS

    In and through the play and counter-play of lesser differences among the heralds of the second, advent near, there ran a deeper current of conflict with nominal Protestantism at large. It was the issue of evangelical pre-millennialism versus Whitbyan postmillennialism. 29Carefully covered in Prophetic Faith, Volume 2. Against this more recent view of the postponement of the advent they presented an essentially united front 30While Faber held the Whitbyan view, Cuninghame and Frere, and virtually all other advent heralds, were stanch pre-millennialists. ere was a clash of antagonistic expositional philosophies that was fundamental, for the two concepts were mutually exclusive. In fact, most of the opposition encountered by the preachers of the imminent advent was from advocates of this popular thousand-years-of-world-betterment theory now in ascendancy in the churches of the Old World as well as in those of the New.PFF3 280.2

    A real battle developed in England over this millennial question, and over the general Protestant historical principles of interpretation 31E. B. Elliott, Hora Apocalyptica (5th ed.), vol. 4, pp. 551, 552. When Irving translated the treatise of Lacunza into English and began fervently to preach Christ’s premillennial advent, he found himself “painfully insulated” from most of his brethren in the ministry. But soon a great revival of pre-millennialism swept over Britain, which will be unfolded later in these pages.PFF3 280.3

    3. RETURN OF THE JEWS PROMINENT

    Meantime, the re organization of the Society to Promote Christianity Among the Jews brought the concept of the restoration and conversion of the Jews sharply to the forefront, and for a time its warmest advocates were the pre-millennialists of Britain and the Continent-including such men as Way, Marsh, M’Neile, Pym, and Noel. In fact, this was one of the most prominent characteristics of the entire group of British expositors.PFF3 280.4

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