II. Special Scope of This Second Volume

Contemporary recognition of each major event and epoch of history that has fulfilled prophecy is one of the remarkable characteristics of the centuries. Always there have been men—not one or two, but a group, widely scattered over different lands and speaking various languages who have sensed the prophetic significance of their own times, and have left the record of their understanding for all mankind.PFF2 12.2

Thrice during the Christian Era have interest and emphasis in prophetic interpretation been ascendant: first in the early centuries; then in the Reformation and post-Reformation periods; and finally in the nineteenth-century Advent Awakening. Volume I covers the early emphasis the recognition of imperial Rome as the predicted fourth world power of prophecy; next, the contemporary recognition of its prophesied breakup; and lastly, the growing perception in the Middle Ages of the identity of the Antichrist, prophesied under various terms and symbols by Daniel, Paul, and John. This was traced both within and without the dominant church of the period.PFF2 12.3

Here in Volume II, picking up the line of testimony with the Renaissance, we continue our quest. The preaching of this growing conviction concerning Antichrist, based on the great outline prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse, and their prophetic time periods, ^{1By the term outline prophecies, prophetic outlines like Daniel 2 and 7 are meant, which carry us across the centuries through Babylonia, Medo-Persia, Grecia, and Rome, and Rome’s divisions, on to the end; or, like the seven churches, the seven seals, and the seven trumpets of the Revelation, which similarly traverse the centuries of the Christian Era. By the term time prophecies, is indicated the prophetic time periods of Daniel and the Revelation, such as the 70 weeks, the 1260 days, the 1290, 1335, and 2300 days of Daniel, and similar periods recorded in the Apocalypse.} had a tremendous effect upon the whole nations. It was tied inseparably into the great Protestant Reformation. The violent Catholic reaction to this Antichrist thesis, and the opposing systems of interpretation marking the Counter Reformation, form the next segment in the narrative.PFF2 12.4

These two antagonistic and opposite schools of prophetic interpretation reach their climax in the seventeenth century. They begin to wane, however, in the eighteenth century, when the Whitbyan postmillennial theory enters the picture. The dramatic events of the French Revolution at the close of the century again sharply revive the serious study of prophecy now gripping the New World as well as the Old. At this point the dramatic close of the great 1260-year prophetic time period, pertaining to Antichrist’s dominance, was heralded by a fresh cluster of scholarly men in various lands on both sides of the Atlantic.PFF2 13.1

Such, in brief, is the scope of this volume in the series. Volume II therefore compasses the second great period of the predominance of prophetic study and exposition, the third appearing in the early decades of the nineteenth century, which is the field reserved for Volumes III and IV.PFF2 13.2