LECTURES ON THE APOCALYPSE

OR

BOOK OF THE REVELATION OF ST. JOHN.

THE DIYINE

BT

FREDERICK DENISON A.URICE, M.A.

SECOND EDITION

01tbon
MACMILLAN AND CO.
1885

Frederick Denison
Maurice

iitbrar}2 of tbe Dtbtnit)l .$cf)ool.

Bought w-ith money
GIVBN

BY

THE SOCIETY
FOB PROllOTINO

THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION.

Received

I
I

LECTURES ON THE APOCALYPSE

CK.1B.LS8 DICK.lfS AlfD JIVAl'fB,

CBY8T.1L PALACB P&B88.

PREFACE.
THESE Lectures are not controversial or learned.
They do not demand of the reader any acquaintance
with the theories respecting the Apocalypse which
have prevailed in earlier times or in later times, in
England or elsewhere.

If he has adopted any one of

those theories, I trust my words may give him some

help in testing it by the letter and the general purpose
of the book from which it has been derived.

If he

has been hovering between a number of these theories,

I trust my Lectures may enable him to do them all
justice, to gain hints from them all, and to find the
words of the Prophet more satisfactory and more
intelligible than all.
Neither do I ask that the reader should bring with
him that extensive knowledge of ancient or modern
history which he ought to possess if he is to judge of
most modern commentaries on Prophecy.

The more

vi

PREFACE.

acquaintance he has with the facts of history-the

more honestly he has sought for that acquaintance
from the writers who have least desired to make out a
case for the Christian Church, even from those who
have been utterly sceptical about its worth-the Jllore,
I believe, will the Revelations of St. John assisli

in

explaining those facts, and in harmonizing his own

thoughts respecting the government of God in the
world.

But my plan precludes me from the attempt

to detect any minute parallels between particular sen

tences in the book and particular events that have
happened or that are hereafter to happen in one peri od
or another.

The principal historical allusions in these

Lectures are to the state of the Roman world during

the years preceding the fall of Jerusalem.

These, I

should like my reader to test by the Histories of Taci

tus; as he will, of course, turn to Josephus for
the
records of the crimes and calamities of the J
ew1s
. h
people.
The method which I have adopted i s, I b l'
e ieve, a
very simple one. But I do not t,herefore prete
nd that
I discovered it for myself. 'l'he first hiut
of 1't Was
given me by a revered friend, a clergym
an of the
scho ol of Cecil and Venn, who had devot d
e
much of
.
his life to the study of Propbecy, and who
o
'm re than

PREFACE.

vii

twenty yea.rs ago, was permitted to leave the school in

which he had been learning, for the home in which
his spirit had long dwelt. He is not answerable for
any of the special conclusions to which I have been
led.

But I ca.n never be thankful _enough for having

arrived, through his teaching, at the conviction that

the words, " The kingdom of heaven is at hand," were
used by the Evangelists n the strictest sense; that
the Apostles were not wrong in believing that the end
of an age was approaching ; that they had no
exaggerated anticipations respecting the age which
was to succeed it; that if we accepted their state
ments simply, we should understand far better in
what state we are living; what are our responsi
bilities; what a.re our sins; what we have a right to
hope for.
I have called these discourses Lectures, because
they a.re not lessons deduced from separate texts.
But they were delivered from the pulpit, like ordinary
sermons. They were addressed to what I thought
were the wants of a congregation with which I had
been connected for fourteen years, and to which,
during all those years, I had been speaking often
on the subject of Prophecy. I have had no heart
to remove from them allusions to passing events,

PBEFAOE.

viii

and the days on which they were delivered.

even

I ha.va

ventured to give them a mo re pastoral and

personal character by adding to them a. sermon on

the la.st verse in the Apocalypse, which was written
less as an

exposition of it, than as the expression of

my wishes for a society from which I was about to

part.

I should not have introduced it if I had not

thoug ht
Lectures,

that it illustrated the subject of

as well as gave me

an

these

opportunity of

tes tifying ]'.)'.ly continued regard an d affection for those

to whom I preached them.
LoNnoN, December, 1860.