THE

APOCALYPSE FULFILLED

IN THE

CONSUMMATION OF THE MOSAIC ECONOMY

AND

THE COMING OF THE SON OF MAN

An Answer

TO THE

"APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES" AND "THE END," BY DR. CUMMING

BY THE

REV. P. S. DESPREZ, B.D.

CURATE OF EMMANUEL, CAMBERWELL

"Woe to them that are with child, and to them that give suck IN THOSE DAYS.... for IN
THOSE DAYS shall be affliction such as was not from the beginning of the creation.... and except
that the Lord had shortened THOSE DAYS, no flesh should be saved; .... but IN THOSE DAYS, after
that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars
of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken, and THEN shall they see
the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory, and THEN shall he send his
angels and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the
earth to the uttermost part of heaven"
Mark xiii, 17-27

THIRD EDITION

LONDON

LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGMAN, AND ROBERTS

PREFACE

ΤΟ

THE THIRD EDITION.

ORE than six years have now elapsed since the Author applied himself to establish the point that no discrepancy existed between the visions of the Apocalypse and the predictions of our Lord and his Apostles, and that this hitherto mysterious book was a symbolical representation of the events connected with the Second Advent of Christ. He then gave expression to his convictions with fear and trembling, shrinking into himself with alarm at the solitariness of his position and the singularity of his opinions. In the years which have intervened he has had time for reflection, and, had he been so persuaded, for change of sentiment; but he has neither been refuted by his own re-consideration of the subject, nor have his arguments been met by others. In presenting his views once more to the public, he has the satisfaction of knowing that his conclusions are now more or less shared by those whose literary attainments give worth and weight to their opinions, and he thankfully avails himself of the shelter of their names, as well to strengthen himself in his own judgment, as to encourage independence of thought in others.

Mr. Maurice says, in his recently published Lectures on the Apocalypse, "The words 'Verily, verily, I say unto you, this generation shall not pass away till all these things be fulfilled,' are words which I have accepted throughout these Lectures in their literal force." "I can never be thankful enough (he says in his preface) for having arrived at the conviction that the words The kingdom of heaven is at hand,' were used by the Evangelists in their strictest sense." In a bolder strain, and with less of mysticism, Dr. Rowland Williams (Essays and Reviews, p. 84) makes his author say, "The Apocalypse, if taken as a series of poetical visions which represent the outpouring of the vials. of wrath upon the city where the Lord was slain, ceases to be a riddle. Its horizon answers to that of Jerusalem, already threatened by the legions of Vespasian, and its language is partly adapted from the older prophets, and partly a repetition of our Lord's warnings." And with a still more gratifying and personal acceptance of his view of Apocalyptic interpretation, the late lamented Dr. Donaldson thus writes in