But the old belief in prophecy as prediction was too strong for
him, and we find him applying his great powers to the relation of
the details given by the prophets and in the Apocalypse to the
history of mankind since unrolled, and tracing from every
statement in prophetic literature its exact fulfilment even in
the most minute particulars.
By the beginning of the eighteenth century the structure of
scriptural interpretation had become enormous. It seemed destined
to hide forever the real character of our sacred literature and
to obscure the great light which Christianity had brought into
the world. The Church, Eastern and Western, Catholic and
Protestant, was content to sit in its shadow, and the great
divines of all branches of the Church reared every sort of
fantastic buttress to strengthen or adorn it. It seemed to be
founded for eternity; and yet, at this very time when it
appeared the strongest, a current of thought was rapidly
dissolving away its foundations, and preparing that wreck and
ruin of the whole fabric which is now, at the close of the
nineteenth century, going on so rapidly.
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