Have you heard about the post-trib minister who advertised an offer of $500 to anyone who could prove a pre-trib rapture was seen before Darby began to popularize in the 1840s? He had to pay the challenge when someone showed him the writtings of Rev. Morgan Edwards (1742). Anyhow, here is the quotation: "I say, somewhat more; because the dead saints will be raised, and the living changed at Christ's " appearing in the air" (1 Thes. iv, 17)[...] will he and they abide in the air all that time? No: they will ascend to paradise, or to some one of those many " mansions in the father's house of God" (John xiv: 2), and to disappear during the foresaid period of time".
Very good. Now, do you know the context and reason for those remarks that Edwards originally made as a seminary student?
Technically true. Darby borrowed the idea from Edward Irving. The Irving/Darby invention was independent of the speculation in Morgan Edwards' student thesis.
He had to pay the challenge when someone showed him the writtings of Rev. Morgan Edwards (1742).
I'm not sure how the gentleman in question phrased his challenge, but I would not have paid based on the Edwards' statement.
Morgan Edwards wrote those comments as an exercise given to him by his professor when he was about 20 years old. The exercise involved trying to apply a “literal” interpretation to the Bible. There is no evidence of any widespread distribution of these thoughts (I would not call them “teachings” since there is no evidence he ever taught them to anyone). He finally published this material 44 years later. There is no evidence that anyone ever interacted with the material in any way.
In commenting on Edwards' statement, Tommy Ice in The Shout Heard Around the World Overview of the Rapture makes a number of unwarranted observations:
“Morgan Edwards, an important early American Baptist scholar, clearly taught some form of pre-tribulationism.”There is no evidence that Edwards taught these ideas, or that his professors encouraged him at all in this “literal” method.“It is clear from the above comment that Edwards was taught literal interpretation by his teachers, but they did not apply it consistently throughout the whole Bible.”
Edwards titled his book “Two Academical Exercises” perhaps indicating it was not something for general, serious consumption.
In analyzing Edwards' work, Tim Warner reminds us:
Pre-tribbers may be disappointed to discover that while Morgan Edwards' conclusions regarding the Millennium were based on literal interpretation, he gave no (literal) biblical reason for separating the rapture from the second coming. His only justification for this separation was his belief that it provided a necessary interval for the judgment of believers.Edwards believed that the raptured saints would spend three and a half years at the judgment seat of Christ. That was the only reason(Morgan Edwards and the Pre-Trib Rapture)
Warner continues:
"Let me tell thee, gentle reader, that the tutor's advice was taken by the composer of the Millennium; and that it has undergone several alterations and corrections since the protograph was exhibited in the said desk. Let me tell thee further, that the other advice, or rather command of the tutor was attended to; and a discourse delivered in the same desk, on the New Heaven and New Earth. A copy of which follows under the title, Last Novelties. And if thou like it half as well as I do, thou wilt not begrudge the eleven-penny bit it cost thee."If appears he got those last ideas from applying the same “literal” method to interpreting the Bible.It seems Morgan's work was published partly for its novelty and entertainment value rather than its weight as a theological discourse! And, one is not disappointed with the second section, where Morgan speculated that the lake of fire is in the moon, and that all the other planets in our solar system are inhabited!
The 56-page book is full of such raw speculation.