The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 3

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CHAPTER EIGHT: Seventeenth-Century Positions and Transitions

I. Summary of Predominant Seventeenth-Century Exposition

After listening to the detailed witness of the colonial expositors of the seventeenth century, let us pause to recapitulate their prophetic faith before passing over the line into the eighteenth century. Leading voices, eminently representing the different religious groups in America-secular leaders of life and thought as well as clerics-all joined in enunciating certain basic beliefs. This unity of witness upon essentials constitutes the dominant prophetic faith of our colonial American forefathers. PFF3 138.1

Of the twenty-five prominent writers on prophecy between 1639 and the close of the seventeenth century, virtually every one is pre-millennialist in belief. And every one who referred to Antichrist applied the dread epithet to the Papacy, as well as the various prophetic symbols of Little Horn, Beast, Man of Sin, Babylon, and Harlot. Half of these writers referred to one or more of the various prophetic time periods, and explicitly applied the year-day principle to them. The remainder did not attempt to discuss the time feature. Conscious of living in the divided-kingdom state that followed the fourth, or Roman, empire, they awaited the everlasting, world-filling kingdom of God, represented by the stone as the climax of the prophetic outlines and of all human history. PFF3 138.2

Daniel’s seventy weeks of years was recognized as applying to the Jews and as leading directly to the first advent of the Messiah. And John’s Turkish power in Revelation 9, with its special time period of 391 year-days, was referred to by several. Even the tenth part of the papal “city,” that was to fall away from Babylon, or Catholic Christendom, is likewise mentioned. And the Witnesses, in sackcloth for the 1260 years, were under stood to parallel the Beast’s persecution of the church. Even their death for the three and a half year-days, at the close of the long period, is noted. PFF3 138.3

The dragon of Revelation 12 is applied to pagan Rome, identified as the “let” or hindrance, and the woman in white is recognized as the true church under persecution. The Beast of Revelation 13 is universally acclaimed the Papacy, arid even the 666, as either the name or years of the papal power, is men tioned by two or three. The seven vials of Revelation 16 are believed to involve the Papacy and the Turk under the symbols of the “seat of the Beast” and the Euphrates. The Babylon and harlot of Revelation 17 are likewise applied to the Papacy, and separation therefrom is called for. The seven heads of the Beast, involving the seven hills of Rome, were applied to the Roman power, with the emperors as the “sixth” head and the popes as the “seventh.” And the ten horns were declared to be the generally designated divisions of Rome. PFF3 139.1

With the exception of two early adherents to the Augustinian position, which placed the millennium back in the Middle Ages, all colonial writers who touched upon the millennium held it to be introduced by the second personal advent of Christ and the literal resurrection of the righteous. With this they united the destruction of the Papacy and the Turk. And the second resurrection they placed at its close, with the reign of the righteous commonly understood as following. PFF3 139.2

Such is the composite, panoramic picture of the prophetic belief of the seventeenth century in America. Postmillennialism was as yet unknown, for Whitbyanism had not yet been loosed upon England and the world. And Futurism had not yet made any headway outside of papal circles, for it was not until the third decade of the nineteenth century that this papal counter-interpretation was first adopted by any Protestant, And to the individual writers is to be added the representative group statement of 1680 on the Papacy as the Antichrist of prophecy. Nothing could be clearer or more universal as a belief. The simple Historical School of interpretation of the Reformers was still in tact and thriving in the New World. PFF3 139.3

With this overall background of the seventeenth century before us, we are now prepared to note the slow but steady encroachment of profound changes in the beliefs of the church after we enter the eighteenth century. These involve a revolutionary concept of the millennium. This will unfold before us as we progress. But before we cross the century line let us note a few general features in retrospect. PFF3 140.1