Naw, man... people were *distinguishing* between the point-in-time of "our Rapture [IN THE AIR]" and Christ's Second Coming
to the earth,
well before Darby in the late 1800s. The following is just
one puny example... but there are certainly more...
Consider:
https://www.pre-trib.org/articles/r...llowing-titles-millennium-last-novelties/read
"Two Academical Exercises on Subjects Bearing the following Titles; Millennium, Last-Novelties" - Morgan Edwards (1700s)
Morgan Edwards first published these
in 1744, and then published it
again in 1788...
...
the below quoted texts are excerpted from
pages 7, 21, 24, 25 (note: the site says the spelling of Edwards has been modernized)... not
exactly how we describe "
pre-trib" today,
but certainly he is *distinguishing* the point-in-time of "our
episynagoges[/I] unto Him" and His Second Coming
to the earth / His 'MANIFESTATION' / 'OPENLY MANIFEST' (
as we "pre-tribbers" also see *distinguished* in Scripture):
[pg 7]
"II. The distance between the first and second resurrection will be somewhat more than a thousand years.
"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); and this will be about three years and a half before the millennium, as we shall see hereafter: but 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. The design of this retreat and disappearing will be to judge the risen and changed saints; for "now the time is come that judgment must begin," and that will be at the house of God" (1 Pet. iv. 17). . ."
[pg 21]
"5. Another event previous to the Millennium will be the appearing of the son of man in the clouds, coming to raise the dead saints and change the living, and to catch them up to himself, and then withdrawing with them, and observed before, This event will come to pass when Antichrist be arrived at Jerusalem in his conquest of the world; and about three years and a half before his killing the witnesses, and assumption of godhead. . . . "
[pg 24]
"8.The last event, and the event that will usher in the millennium, will be, the coming of Christ from paradise to earth, with all the saints he had taken up thither (about three years and a half before. . . ."
[pg 25]
"Millions and millions of saints will have been on earth from the days of the first Adam, to the coming of the second Adam.
All these will Christ bring with him. The place where they will alight is the "mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east." Zech. Xiv, 4."
[end quoting; underline mine]
[
caveat: his views differ slightly with mine, as you know...
]