The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 3

II. Futurist Burgh-Contends Antichrist Still Future

WILLIAM BURGH, alterward De Burgh (1800-1866), Irish Futurist, was educated at Trinity College, in the University of Dublin. He was Donnellan lecturer at Trinity College in 1853 and 1862. As a writer on prophecy he produced a treatise on Antichrist (1829), then The Apocalypse Unfulfilled (1832), and Lectures on the Second Advent (1832). This last work was an answer to Hugh M’Neile. Burgh states that about 1820 he espoused the premillennial view of the advent, and the Historical view of Interpretation, when äs yet practically no publications h ad appeared on it in Ireland. So in 1821 he published a tract titled A Discourse on the Coming of the Day of God, in connection with the First Resurrection ³ But soon afterward he became persuaded of the Futurist concept of a personal antichrist that would he revealed before the Lord’s coming. He also expressed “unfeigned gratification” over Maitland’s Futurist Attempt. to Elucidate the Prophecies Concerning Antichrist (1830) ⁴ PFF3 658.3

1. CONTENDS POPE Is NOT MAN OF SIN.

Burgh’s basic contention was that the antichrist is an individual, not a system. He expressly states: PFF3 659.1

“First that ‘THE MAN OK SIN’ is not popery appears from the necessity that this chapter be understood of an individuell, and not of a power 01 office vested in numbers or held by succcssion ⁵ PFF3 659.2

“I would say that an individual is intended- one person whose pre-intentions live and die with himself. ⁶ PFF3 659.3

“Secondly, the nature of these same arts and pretensions prove that the ‘man of sin” is not the Pope ⁷ PFF3 659.4

Burgh holds that it is clear that the Man of Sin is “yet to be revealed ⁸ PFF3 659.5

2. HOI.DS SEALS ARE YET FUTURE

At the very outset of his treatise on the Apocalypse, Burgh declares that “the Book of the Revelation consists of two great parts,” the things which are and the things which shall be hereafter ⁹ He asserts “these seals are yet unopened” and “these prophecies are yet unfulfilled ¹⁰ The full implications of Futurism run all through his Apocalypse Unfulfilled. PFF3 659.6