Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Prophecies of Daniel and the Revelations of St. John: Viewed in Their Mutual Relation, With an Exposition of the Principal Passages
However, the converse holds equally true, and is of even greater importance. The answer we give to the question of criticism depends on our general views of prophecy and escha tology. The real source, from which the present mode of treating Daniel and the Apocalypse Springs, is, that the critic is not in possession of the key, which opens a deeper understanding of prophecy, and, consequently, he divests the sacred books of everything which, in divine sublimity, transcends his own horizon, of the fulness of its superhuman contents, in order to bring it within the narrow circle of traditional or self-invented conceptions and presuppositions. As soon as dogmatic shall attain a clearer insight into eschatology, criticism will view the apocalyptic books of both Testaments in a different light. At present, they are misunderstood and divested of their real meaning and majesty, but then they will be exalted and seen in the dignity which they possess, and in the unique place which they occupy in the Holy Scriptures as revelations given by God to be a guide and light to His faithful people. We do not, however, blame in this instance Rationalism exclu sively. At an early period the Church began to see only indi stinctly the view which the Bible gives of the kingdom, and she lost it in proportion as she conformed to the world.
The Reformation brought indeed truths of Scripture to light, which, if followed out consistently, furnish us with the key to prophecy; but the Reformation period did not proceed to this logical deduction. Of a theology, moreover, which has its vital roots in the world (1 John iv. And is akin to it according to its distinctive peculiarity, we cannot expect it otherwise, but that it will be perfectly incompetent to enter into the depth, and height, and breadth, of the divine plan of the kingdom. Such a theology finds it necessary to assume the ungenuineness of Daniel but let it not be denied or ignored, this necessity is not a historical, but a dogmatic one. Once adopt - this supposition of criticism, and you must of necessity adopt an exegesis, dilut ing the text and divesting it of all strength and meaning; the arbitrary and untenable character of which we shall endeavour to Show in our remarks on the second, seventh, and ninth chap ters of our prophet. The manner in which modern critics have treated this book, furnishes us with a striking specimen and il lustration of that unevangelical relation in which these theolo gians stand to Holy Scripture, and which we may regard as the very central seat of the disease of our Protestant theology Next to this, and in connection with it, we place the funda mental views of our dogmatic, which are formed from the cur rent opinions of the day: Starting from such principles, the books of Holy Scripture are subjected to criticism, and thus the critic proceeds, and only at this stage, to the exegesis of the text, and, of course, cannot and dare not, find in the word of God anything beyond what the dogmatics of our schools and criticism have left and apportioned to it.
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