KINGDOM AND AGE TO COME.
“Earnestly contend for the Faith, which was once delivered to the Saints.”—Jude
Volume 1—Number 7 (July 1851)
OBJECTIONS.
Alabama, 1850.
Dear Sir:
I agree with you that so far as the word of God teaches you are correct in regard to the questions of Immortality, and the destiny of the wicked.
In reference to the second coming of Christ, I am inclined to believe that you overlook the facts predicated on his appearance at, or contemporary with, the overthrow of the Jewish Theocracy, and the introduction of Christianity. You will not, you cannot deny, but that Christ predicted his coming in that generation as plainly as his coming is foretold by the prophets in “the latter days.” I believe and teach that he did come in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory when his apostles had accomplished the work of preaching the gospel of the kingdom to all nations. Then did the end come in relation to some things you now hold and teach, such as Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, &c. At that time we believe that the Kingdom of heaven was introduced, and every true believer entered into his rest, became a partaker of its blessings, received remission of sins, and sanctification through the operation of the Spirit, and belief of the truth.
Hence I reject the ordinance of water baptism as belonging to a past dispensation, and hold only the baptism of the Spirit, as christian baptism. On this point I am satisfied, and cannot yield assent to any man’s ipse dixit. Having put on Christ, received the cleansing from sin by the baptism of Christ, the believer has no need of circumcision of the flesh, of baptismal waters, and divers carnal ordinances, which all had their use before the introduction of the christian dispensation, but in “the last days” were all done away by “the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit.”
Desiring to know what the truth is in all its bearings, I remain your’s in the Hope, —N. P.
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED.
THE COMING OF THE SON OF MAN—THE END—THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN NOT INTRODUCED AT THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM—WHEN? —“CARNAL ORDINANCES”—CHRISTIAN BAPTISM A SPIRITUAL ORDINANCE—DEFINED.
We do not by any means overlook the coming of the Son of Man to overthrow the Jewish State. There is no question, or rather no room to question, but that Jesus predicted his coming as Son of Man, but not as King, in the forty-second generation, that is, the one contemporary with himself. His words are these in speaking to his apostles, “Verily, I say unto you, ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel till the Son of Man be come.”—Matthew 10: 23. Here is a plain declaration that he would come in some sense before the apostles had preached the gospel of the kingdom in all the cities of Israel. He told them that in fulfilling their mission they would be grievously maltreated, but that if they endured to THE END they should be saved. Hence “the End” was in the life-time of those who “endured;” who were not overcome by the persecutions that should beset them. The End was at the termination, not at the beginning of their ministry; as it is written, “This Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the habitable for a witness to all the nations; and afterwards shall the End come.”—Matthew 24: 14. Whatever then the End refers to, it did not come at Pentecost, nor at Peter’s visit to Cornelius; but after the preaching of the Gospel to all the nations of the Roman world or empire, called the inhabited earth. Now this proclamation was accomplished in the life-time of the apostles: for Paul says, “the Hope of the Gospel (the Kingdom) was preached to every creature under the heaven.”—Colossians 1: 23. He wrote this about thirty years after the resurrection of Jesus; that is, about six or eight years before the destruction of the City and the Sanctuary by the people of the Prince who should come. —Daniel 9: 26. James who wrote about the same time, exhorted those Israelites he wrote to, to “be patient (under their persecutions) to the coming of the Lord, for,” says he, “the coming of the Lord draweth nigh:” “ the Judge standeth at the door.” “Behold we count them happy who endure”—James 5: 7-9, that is, “to the end.” James’ exhortation was in effect, “bear up under the persecutions inflicted upon you by the rulers of our nation, and be not faint-hearted; the Son of Man who is to judge them is at Israel’s door, and with his people will soon invade the country, and in overthrowing their power, save or deliver you.” Peter also wrote about the same time to the same class of persons, to believing Israelites who were suffering reproach for the name of Christ, and exhorted them to rejoice in their tribulation as partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that when his glory should be revealed they might be glad with exceeding joy. But he knew well that the glory of Christ could not be revealed till the law of Moses was set aside; for Jesus could not sit and rule as a priest upon David’s throne and bear the glory—Zechariah 6: 12-13—so long as the Mosaic code was the constitution of the nation. Therefore, said he, “THE END of all things is at hand”—1 Peter 4: 7—the end of all things constituted by the Mosaic law, which having “decayed and waxed old was about to vanish away.”—Hebrews 8: 13. The Prince’s people were to come, and make an end of all things connected with the city and temple. These people were they whose power is represented by the Little Horn of the Goat, which waxed so exceedingly great that it overtopped the royalty of Israel. When the end came this power abolished the daily sacrifice and cast down the place where it was offered. This was Jehovah’s doing; for he gave the army against the daily because of Israel’s transgression; and it cast down the truth, or the Law, to the ground; and afterwards practised and prospered for a long time. —Daniel 8: 9-12.
The Roman armies were the Prince’s people, or the Lord’s armies, to abolish the Mosaic kingdom on the same principle that the Medes and Persians were Jehovah’s “sanctified ones” for the subversion of the Chaldean Dynasty. —Isaiah 13: 3. The armies being employed being employed by the King of Israel they are called “his armies,” and being under the direction of his Son in the conduct of the war, they are styled “the Prince’s people,” that is, the people of Messiah the Prince. The reader will find this idea embodied in one of our Lord’s parables illustrative of the things of the kingdom of the heavens. The marriage of the king’s son is supposed to be ready for celebration. His servants are sent out to call them that were bidden to partake in it; but they made light of the invitation, and even slew the king’s servants. Now when the King heard of this he was wroth: “and,” says Jesus, “he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city.”—Matthew 22: 7. These armies were the devastating abomination spoken of by Daniel in the places referred to, standing in the holy land; and represented in the twenty-fourth of Matthew by their standards, the eagles of the legions. They were the birds of prey gathered together by the Son of Man to devour the body politic, or carcase of Judah. Even as Moses had predicted, saying, “The Lord shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, swift as the eagle flieth; a nation whose language thou shalt not understand. A nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old, nor show favor to the young. He shall besiege thee in thy gates (or cities) until thy high and fenced walls come down in which thou trustedst.” “And thy carcase shall be meat unto all the fowls of the air,” &c. —Deuteronomy 28: 49, 26; Daniel 8: 23. This nation of a fierce countenance is styled by Daniel “a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences,” that is, a language unintelligible to Israel. Now, the Lord was to bring this fierce power of the west against Jerusalem; and the Son of Man is that Lord. If then he bring it against the city did he not come? Certainly he came with his armies although he was not visible. His armies were mighty, “but not by their own power.” Titus confessed that if God had not cooperated with the Romans they could not have taken the city. But the Son of Man being with them, they destroyed wonderfully, even the mighty and the holy people. Thus, the coming of the Romans, “the people of the Prince,” was also the coming of the Son of Man in power, but not in great glory; for he does not appear in his glory until he comes accompanied by his holy angels. —Matthew 25: 31; 2 Thessalonians 1: 7-8. “When the Lord shall build up Zion, he shall appear in his glory”—Psalm 102: 16, and not when he destroys her. His coming was to take the nation at unawares. It was to be quick as the lightning, or “swift as the eagle flieth;” “FOR wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together.” So was the coming of the Son of Man, by a rapid and overwhelming invasion of the country, and the unexpected encompassment of Jerusalem by the armies of Rome.
This was “the End” “in the End of the world;” or the end of the Jewish State in the end of the dispensation constituted by the Mosaic law. It was the End contemporary with the scoffers of “the last days,” walking after their own lusts, and taunting the disciples of Christ with the sceptical inquiry, “Where is the (fulfilment of the) promise of his coming?” It was the End in which the Mosaic Heavens and Earth were about to be shaken—Haggai 2: 6; Hebrews 12: 26-27, that all things incompatible with the Kingdom under the New Covenant to be made with Israel and Judah—Jeremiah 31: 31, might be dissolved. It was the End in which the day of the Lord came upon Judah as a thief in the night; and in which the elements—Galatians 4: 3, 9; Colossians 2: 8, 20, or rudiments of their world, or dispensation, were abolished in the fervency of the indignation which judged and destroyed the ungodly rulers of Israel and their adherents. It was the End, lastly in which the day of God was manifested upon the nation, and by the fire of whose wrath their “land and the works that were therein,” their towns and villages, their cities and public buildings, their temple, their synagogues, farms, and villas, were “burned up” and utterly destroyed. —2 Peter 3.
This was the end of “the Jewish Theocracy” for a time, but it was not contemporary with the introduction of Christianity,” as our correspondent seems to think; unless he make the end a period of years beginning with Pentecost and ending with the conflagration of the temple. Then indeed, the introduction of christianity was at the beginning of the end, and the overthrow of the Theocracy about 40 years after, at the conclusion of the end. The overthrow was the end of the Mosaic kingdom; but the introduction and beginning of nothing. It is true, the power of the Hebrew oppressor and scoffer was broken, but that of the equally savage Gentile remained, and exercised itself with great cruelty both on Jew and christian. The true believer had no rest, save from the evil works he used to practise in his unconverted state.
Our correspondent is led into the mistake that when the State of Judea was subverted the Kingdom of heaven was introduced, by the saying, “Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father,” which follows immediately after the verse which speaks of the perdition of the ungodly men of Israel in the Jerusalem-furnace and Zion-fire. “The Son of Man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all scandals, and them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine,” &c. —Matthew 13: 41. the paraphrase of this is, “The Son of man shall send forth his armies, and they shall gather out of his land (though unwittingly) all things and persons causing to offend, and them who do iniquity; and they shall surround them, and drive them back, and cause them to enter Jerusalem for refuge, which shall become a fiery furnace; and there they shall wail and gnash their teeth. Afterwards shall the righteous shine,” &c. —but when?
To gather, or to drive out of a kingdom is to expel from the territory of that kingdom. To gather out of Victoria’s kingdom of all papists who scandalise her government would be to collect them together and either put them to death, or to exile them to some foreign land. It is precisely the same thing to gather out of the Son of Man’s kingdom all scandals, and them that do iniquity. He collected them together in groups, or “bundles,” some in one part of the country, and some in others, but the largest aggregation of them in Jerusalem. This was effected through the Romans during the war, in which he caused them to be slain by hundreds of thousands, and to be “led away captive into all nations.” In this way he ejected them from his kingdom to have no more national occupancy of the land “until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.” “Then shall the righteous shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.”
This shining of the righteous as the sun, is shown in Daniel to be subsequent to the resurrection from the dead. In the twelfth chapter it is revealed that the times of the Gentiles, or “the time, times, and a half,” will end with a time of trouble such as there has not been since there was a nation even to that same time; that the power of the Holy People will no longer be scattered, for at that time their deliverance will be effected; and that many sleeping in the dust of the earth will awake to everlasting life, and shine as the brightness of the firmament, i.e. “as the sun,” for ever and ever.
The word “then” beginning a verse does not import that the things spoken of are immediately to follow what has gone before. It implies sequence or succession, but this may be immediate or remote. This is well illustrated in the prophecy on Mount Olivet. The sequence of events is laid down there as follows: first, the gathering of the eagles; “immediately after,” or secondly, the overthrow of the State; “and then,” or thirdly, the appearance of the sign of the Son of Man in the heaven; “and then,” or fourthly, the mourning of the Twelve Tribes. Now these four things were not, and did not occur at the destruction of Jerusalem. They are all things pertaining to the nation of Israel; but the prophets show that the third and fourth items are many hundreds of years remote from the second. The heavens and earth of the Mosaic kingdom were made to pass away as the immediate consequence of the war; and the next event of great significance in relation to Israel will be the appearance of the sign of the Son of Man in the heaven—in the political heaven; even the Russo-Assyrian head of Nebuchadnezzar’s Image encamped in his palatial tents with a cloud of warriors between the seas in the glorious holy mountain. —Daniel 11: 45. This we apprehend is “the sign.” When this is seen, then know that the Son of Man is about to be revealed with power and great glory. The time then will have arrived when he will bend Judah as his bow, and fill it with Ephraim, and raise up the sons of Zion against the sons of Greece, and make them as the sword of a mighty man. And the Lord shall be seen over them, and his arrow (Ephraim) shall go forth as the lightning; and the Lord God shall blow the trumpet, and shall go with whirlwinds of the south. The Lord of hosts shall defend them; and they shall devour, and subdue with sling stones. And they shall be as mighty men, who tread down their enemies as mire in the streets in the battle; and they shall fight because the Lord is with them, and the riders on horses shall be confounded. And I will strengthen the house of Judah, and I will save the house of Joseph, and I will bring them again to place them; and they shall be as though I had not cast them off: for I am the Lord their God and will hear them. —Zechariah 9: 13; 10: 5.
And who is the Lord their God that will be seen over them? Even the Son of Man whom the nation pierced. They will find that to him who was wounded in the house of his friends, they owe their deliverance from the enemy who had come in upon their land like a flood. This discovery will cut them to the heart, and superinduce a mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning for Josiah at Hadadrimmon, in the Valley of Megiddo. Then will the tribes of the land mourn, all the families that remain, every family apart, and their wives apart—Zechariah 12: 10; 13: 6, when they shall see the crucified one in power and great glory.
Being thus revealed to Israel, but not to the world at large, he proceeds to set up “the kingdom of the heavens;” that is, to restore the kingdom again to Israel by re-establishing the kingdom and throne of David “as in the days of old;” and subduing the nations so as to take possession of their “heavens,” or kingdoms for himself and the Saints of the Most High. A kingdom ruling over all kingdoms is the kingdom of the heavens, vulgarly termed, “the kingdom of heaven.” Was such a kingdom introduced at the destruction of Jerusalem, or even on the day of Pentecost? By no means. But such a monarchy will be established when the lord comes in glory; then the conclusion is that the righteous did not shine as the sun in their Father’s kingdom at the conflagration of the city and temple; but will do so hereafter literally when they shall be “raised in glory.”
From the foregoing exposition it must be evident that “the end” spoken of by Jesus in the words “then shall the end come,” was an end to the world, age, dispensation, or kingdom under the Mosaic law, and not as our worthy correspondent supposes, an end to baptism, the Lord’s supper, &c. The end of the Mosaic covenant did not at all change the state or condition of the Gentile believers for better or worse; or set aside the things previously required of them. It was an epoch of destruction; not of building up, and of rest. But even on the supposition of the kingdom being introduced, and true believers entering on its rest, this entering could only affect believers contemporary with its introduction. It could have no regard even to the succeeding generation much less to us at this remote period. But the kingdom of the heavens was not introduced. The kingdoms of this world did not then, nor have they ever yet become, the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. Had the kingdom of heaven then been introduced, the Twelve Tribes would all have been gathered home to Palestine, Jesus would have become their acknowledged head, and wars would have ceased till now.
Christian baptism was no part of the Mosaic dispensation, or economy. It is nowhere enjoined upon Jew or Gentiles as an ordinance of the Sinaitic code. This must, we think, be evident to every one who reflects upon the nature of christian baptism. Christian baptism is not mere water baptism. Even the washings or bathings under the law were not mere baptisms in water. Something else had to be done for the subject before the bathing of himself at even would “sanctify to the purifying of his flesh.” The priest had to dip a bunch of hyssop into a solution of burnt-heifer ashes, called “ a water of separation,” or “a purification for sin,” and to sprinkle it upon the unclean person or thing on the third day. This was the first stage of the cleansing process. He was then to be sprinkled again on the seventh day. This was the second stage of the purifying. Lastly, he was to wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and he was pronounced clean according to the law “at even.”—Numbers 19. This was “the putting away of the filth of the flesh” by a “carnal ordinance imposed on Israel until the time of emendation”—diorthosis not metanoia; and which could no perfect the subject of it, as pertaining to the conscience. —1 Peter 3: 21; Hebrews 9: 9-10.
“The filth of the flesh” was defilement contracted by touching any thing forbidden to be touched, or pronounced unclean by the law. To touch a dead body, a bone, or a grave was legal contamination of the flesh, which could not be got quit of under any circumstances in less than seven days; and if the unclean person neglected the carnal ordinance appointed in the law for the cleansing of such as he, he was to be cut off from Israel.
“A cardinal ordinance” was an institution for the cleansing of the flesh contaminated as before mentioned. It had nothing to do with the conscience; for when the man was cleansed from the defilement of a bone, he might still be troubled in conscience for having coveted his neighbor’s goods. Now christian baptism is not a carnal ordinance although the body is bathed in water. It was not appointed for the putting away of the filth of the flesh; for since “the emendation” of the law, it is not that which toucheth or entereth into an Israelite that defiles him, but that which proceedeth out of his heart. Filth of the flesh cannot be legally contracted now. There is no legal defilement to be put away by carnal ordinances, therefore carnal ordinances have been long since abolished; and were never imposed upon Gentiles unless they became citizens of the Mosaic kingdom.
Mosaic baptisms and christian baptism are essentially different; the former having regard to the flesh; the latter to the spirit or conscience. The sprinkling of the heart must precede the bathing of the body; for it is the sprinkling of the heart from an evil conscience by the blood of sprinkling which speaks better things than the blood of Abel, that makes a purification for sin to the believer in the gospel of the kingdom whose body is bathed in water into the holy name. —Hebrews 10: 22; 12: 24. A man of unsprinkled heart, of an unsanctified disposition, whose head is full of theory but his heart untouched, though dipped with all the parade and circumstance of speech, prayer, baptistry and song, is in the predicament of the Jew who would bathe himself on the seventh day without having been previously sprinkled with the water of separation on the third. He would be cut off from Israel. Fifty immersions would avail nothing to the Gentile or Jew who was previously ignorant of the gospel of the kingdom; for it is “he who believes the gospel and is baptised shall be saved;” and not, “he that is bathed in water first, and believes the gospel afterwards.”
Christian baptism, then, is a spiritual, and not a carnal, ordinance; and may be defined as Immersion in water into the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, of a man of Abrahamic disposition, who believes the things of the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ; by which sprinkling of heart and immersion of body he is united to the name of Jesus, and in being so united his belief of the truth is counted to him for righteousness or remission of sins, and his disposition, for repentance unto life, in, by, and through the name thus named upon him in the formula prescribed. Surely our correspondent will not say this is a carnal ordinance; and abolished at the overthrow of the Jewish Theocracy! It is not the popular baptism, but the New Testament institution. Abolish such an immersion into the Lord’s name, and you leave the believer without any means of formal union to it, so that he is cut off from receiving repentance and remission of sins which come only through the name of Jesus. Christian baptism as defined above is “the washing of regeneration” predicated on “the renewing of the Holy Spirit” through the truth believed.
EDITOR
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DEFEAT AND DOWNFALL OF THE VATICAN.
Fellow Countrymen, —In the history of the struggle between the Pope’s agents on the one hand, and the British parliament on the other, nothing appears to me more remarkable than the weak and credulous part played by those who style themselves philosophers. Little do these speculative gentlemen seem to know of the real character of Romanism. While they are babbling of civil and religious liberty the Brummagem Wolsey and his associates are moving earth and hell to get possession of sufficient funds wherewith to forge the instruments of persecution and oppression. Sometimes they haunt the death-beds of aged and tottering misers, and by fierce and relentless threats of damnation extort from them, for the use of the Propagand, their hard-earned riches; sometimes they encompass with their arts, their sophistry, their glozing, and their falsehoods a young woman whose intellect has been degraded and enfeebled by the application of Popish discipline; but the motive is invariably the same: the advancement of Romish despotism over the minds and consciences of mankind, the multiplication of conventual prisons and brothels, and the exaltation of the sacerdotal caste through the corruption and debasement of the laity.
You will have seen by the accounts transmitted from Rome that the Vatican begins at length to suspect the existence of a volcanic crater beneath it. Even its habitual friends now confess that the Popish church is upheld in the capital of Italy only by the French and Austrian bayonets. That wretched old man, Pio Nono, who began his career as a reformer, and will end it as a despised and humiliated dotard, looks with unutterable dismay at the tempest arising in Great Britain, the skirts of which may reach the seven hills, and scatter irremediable destruction among his black and tonsured legions who spread themselves like locusts over Europe—devouring, defacing, and defecting whatever they alight on.
To think of countenancing vermin like these is not philosophy, but imbecility. As far as regarded them, the Sophists of the eighteenth century were right. No plague that ever affected mankind is to be compared, for destructiveness and duration, to the plague of priestcraft, which leaves the seeds of dissolution in the mind, which weakens where it cannot kill, which infects and poisons without being perceived, and which transmits from generation to generation the pernicious and noisome virus. In the case of Mathurin Carre you have beheld an example of the cold-blooded cupidity of priests. In the case of Miss Augustus Talbot you have seen this vile feeling, connecting itself with audacious and systematic lying. You must feel, therefore, that while these sacerdotal reptiles are permitted to crawl about in English society, diffusing their moral venom into the minds of weak, ignorant, and superstitious women, neither your wives nor your daughters, your religion nor your morals, your freedom nor your property, can be said to be safe.
It would not, of course, be becoming, in an age of enlarged and liberal philosophy, to counsel legal persecution; but, without resorting to this, society has it in its power to counteract very much of the mischief perpetrated in families by priests. To begin. These should be sedulously excluded from Protestant society—not as ministers of religion, but as systematic seducers of the young and inexperienced. It should be part of every child’s education to look upon them as inculcators of falsehood—as glozing hypocrites—as corruptors of the scriptures, and as the implacable enemies of liberty. The history of Europe is filled to overflowing with instances of their rapacity, fraud, cruelty, and relentless bigotry. No crime has ever been deemed too atrocious to be perpetrated in the service of the church. They have poisoned the sacramental wine. They have committed assassination. They have seduced wives into the betrayal of their husbands, children into the betrayal of their husbands, children into the betrayal of their parents, and parents into the desertion and ruin of their children. They have been apologists of theft—of fraudulent bankruptcies—of torture, duelling, assassination, and whatever else is most hateful and execrable in human guilt.
Let those among you who doubt this read the “Provincial Letters of Pascal,” a man of most religious and blameless life—a man full of truth and sincerity—a man full of truth and sincerity—a man who may be said to have fallen a martyr to his love of goodness. In that work he unmasks, with incomparable wit, boldness, and learning, the infamous doctrines of the Jesuits, who then, as now, were aiming at the total subjugation of the mind of Christendom to the Pope, at the extinction of civil freedom, and at a boundless monopoly of wealth and power for themselves. Read, also, the letter of Jean Jacques Rousseau to Beaumont, Archbishop of Paris, and Voltaire’s “Essay on the Manners and Spirit of Nations,” Michelet’s “Priests, Women and Families,” and Lasteyrie’s “History of the Confessional.” From these pass on to events which have just taken place before your eyes—the trial of the priest Gothland, in France; and the achievements of the priests Holdstock, Doyle, and Hendren in this country.
But why point to particular transactions? The history of Romanism has been from the beginning the history of imposture, vice, and corruption. An unmarried clergy must inevitably be a libertine clergy; and monastic orders, merging the spirit of the individual in the corporation, must, with equal certainty, be reckless and unscrupulous in the attainment of riches and power. I would not be understood to maintain that there have not been among the Roman Catholic clergy and monks many men of pious character and exemplary lives. God forbid I should be so unjust; but all history will bear testimony to the fact that such men form the exception, not the rule; that they have been virtuous in spite of Romanism, and not in consequence of its influence; and that the majority have been what I describe them—selfish, sensual, grasping, slaves to falsehood and uncleanness, converting the church into a means of aggrandisement, waging incessant war against the intellect of the laity, haters of freedom, backbiters, slanderers, —in one word, unmitigated scourges of society, which should reject and cast them out as incorrigible enemies.
But your parliament has for once done its duty by passing a measure to restrain papal aggression. The Grahams and the Gladstones, the Howards, and the Palmers, may sophisticate and declaim as they please about the inefficiency of the measure, supposing anything of the kind to be required. You will believe the Vatican to be a better judge of the force and tendency of the bill, and by the terror which it inspired at Rome you may perceive that it is regarded there as anything but inefficacious. On the contrary, it is felt to be a death-blow to the hopes of Romanism in England. It is in vain that mountains of bank notes flow into the treasury of imposture in Golden square—that the new converts exhaust their fortunes in the cause of the superstition they have adopted—that the hereditary and traditional Papists are roused into a spasmodic generosity by the example of these proselytes—parliament has set its ban on the new apostles of popery; the press has brought to bear its still more formidable power against the foundations of the Vatican, and the entire structure is fast tottering towards its fall. In Rome itself the papacy would not endure a day, but for the overwhelming force of foreigners maintained there to keep down the people. Protestantism has a spontaneous propaganda in Italy, because it is felt that all hopes of the republic depend on the reformed religion; for the mind cannot freely exert or develop itself in politics unless it be first emancipated from the baneful influence of the sacerdotal order.
Catholicism and liberty are things incompatible, and this conviction is so fast gaining ground in Italy that all men are there preparing to pass through the portals of Protestantism into the republic, and this, be it remarked, is the greatest glory of the reformed religion; that it emancipates men’s souls and bodies at the same time—that it sets up truth as the standard of a man’s life—that it denounces priestcraft—while it inculcates piety—and that it is impossible men should adopt it without making some progress towards national prosperity and happiness.
I repeat, then, that all who love liberty must inevitably look upon Romish priests as their worst enemies—enemies to their public importance and to their domestic peace—enemies to be guarded against by education and by laws—enemies never to be despised; but men to be suspected when weak, and attacked when strong. The shoals of them recently imported from Rome should be regarded and treated as the priests of Isis were in the ancient republic, that is to say, as systematic corrupters of youth, and foes to morals and genuine religion. The virtues they teach deserve nothing but contempt and scorn, consisting in abstinence from beef on Fridays, in eating herrings during Lent, in substituting eggs for mutton, and abjuring plumb pudding on certain days! These are the mighty means by which they profess to regenerate mankind! These are the steps by which they say we are to ascend to heaven! But while they accomplish the apotheosis of stock-fish; while they encompass salt cod with glory; while they are more vehement than Brahmins in denouncing the flesh of bulls and cows, they are slily thrusting their hands into the pockets of their dupes, and extracting, now ten and now eighty thousand pounds!
These are the meek apostles of poverty—these are the humble teachers of self-denial, and abstinence, and retirement from the world, these are the laudators of raw carrots, of sackcloth shirts, and frosty matins in winter! They are the lineal descendants of the scribes and pharisees, who opposed the truth in the first age of Christianity, who devour widows’ houses, and, in recompense, make long prayers. Their downfall, thank God! is approaching. Europe is awakening from the trance of the middle ages, and the revolutionary spirit, if it accomplish no other good, will obtain the blessings of posterity for this; that it must strike down the papal government, and along with it that filthy system of superstition by which so large a portion of Christendom has been degraded for fifteen centuries.
Meanwhile, watch carefully over your children; keep them out of the reach of priests, and of those credulous philosophers who would play into the hands of these priests. True philosophy is wisdom and the greatest wisdom of which you can obtain possession is that of keeping wide as the poles from superstition and priestcraft. Religion is the reverse of everything taught by the Romanists. Religion forms the basis of human liberty—develops and enlarges human intelligence—ennobles the human character—reveals to man his true destiny—fits him for self-government—teaches the doctrine of equality—denounces the pomps and vanities of the world—levels all distinctions, and, by inspiring the holy feeling of brotherhood, humanises and softens society. The Romish superstition is the reverse of this—encouraging despotism—upholding social inequalities—consecrating privilege—and debasing and enervating the mind by inculcating the servile idolatry of priests. You will and must rejoice that this odious superstition has received a mortal wound—that the whole Continent is awakening, and that the advent of truth will herald in the advent of liberty. Be diligent, therefore, in the diffusion of education. Teach your children, that they may avoid the snares of priestcraft, which only desires to make an impression on the mind that it may enrich itself, and riot in boundless luxury, as it did in former years.
GREVILLE BROOKE.
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JESUS AND THE PASSOVER.
On the 12th of the First month, chodesh ha-a-viv, the month Abib, or Nisan, corresponding with our March and partly with April, the Lord Jesus, being 35 years and 3 months old, spoke the words contained in Matthew the twenty-fifth. At that time he remarked that “after two days,” that is, on the 14th day of the month was the Passover which he would eat with the apostles in Jerusalem. —Matthew 26: 1-2, 18. The 14th was the Feast-day on which the Passover was to be killed at even—Exodus 12: 6, 8; Leviticus 23: 5—and eaten in the night; so that “when the even was come, he sat down with the Twelve,” and “they did eat.” There was to be nothing to be left of it until the morning of the 15th day of the month. It was to be all eaten in the previous night; but if not entirely consumed, the fragments were to be burned with fire when morning came. —Exodus 12: 10. The eating of unleavened bread began with the eating of the paschal lamb, on the 14th day of the first month at even—Exodus 12: 18; so that this is also called hee protee toon azymoon, “the first of the unleavened.”—Matthew 26: 17. The unleavened continued for seven days, that is, from the 14th at even to the 21st at even. During this time, Israel was to eat nothing that had leaven in it, nor to give it place in their dwellings. The 15th day was the first day of the feast of the unleavened week. It was a great day, because it was a day of holy assembly, and rest from all manner of work. The seventh was like unto it, being the last, and sanctified by the same law.
On the 14th day at even Jesus eat his last Passover with his disciples, and said he would eat of it no more with them “until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God;” when they should eat and drink at his table in his kingdom, and sit on twelve thrones judging, or ruling over, the twelve tribes of Israel. —Luke 22: 16, 30. The Passover can only be eaten once a year, and that eating must occur in Jerusalem. There is no testimony to show that Jesus ate of it afterwards with the Twelve before the destruction of that city by the Romans. No one therefore can believe that he did. The Passover has not been celebrated in Jerusalem since its overthrow; therefore Jesus has not eaten it there since the siege. But he says he will eat it again, and that too with the Twelve, at a time when they shall rule over Israel as kings. Hence to accomplish his word these things must come to pass—first, he must return to Jerusalem; secondly, he must set up his kingdom there, and the twelve thrones of the House of David; thirdly, he must raise the apostles from the dead to die no more; fourthly, he must give them possession of the thrones; and fifthly, He must restore the Passover. —Ezekiel 14: 21-24. To realise these things was the hope of the apostles, and the recompense of reward promised to them for forsaking all their means of life, and following Jesus as their teacher, lord, and king. —Matthew 19: 27-30.
Jesus predicted his betrayal and crucifixion at the epoch of the Passover. The rulers, however, did not dare to apprehend him on the 14th day, before the Passover was eaten at even, “lest there should be an uproar among the people.” There was a traitor among the Twelve with whom they consulted, and covenanted for his delivery into their hands when the people should be at rest. This was Judas Iscariot, who sold God’s Lamb to them for thirty pieces of silver that they might kill him and eat him between the first and second evenings of the unleavened; that is, between the 14th day at even, and the 15th day at even, which was the paschal day, or Holy Convocation—the Day of Preparation for and of the slaying of Messiah the Prince.
It was at Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, that Jesus was anointed for his burial. —Matthew 26: 6-16. This was “before the feast of the Passover.” It was a fit and proper place for this anointing, as it was Simon’s son that was to betray him. —John 13: 2. This supper was an interesting occasion; for not only was he anointed with precious ointment, but he washed the feet of his disciples, revealed to them the treachery of Judas, and delivered that interesting address to them which has been recorded by John in his testimony from the thirty-first verse of the thirteenth chapter to the end of the sixteenth. At the supper in the house of Iscariot’s father, he presented to him the sop as the token to the others that it was Judas who would betray him. On receiving it the satanic spirit burned within him. Perceiving that his character was well understood by Jesus, and that he could no longer disguise it, he determined to be revenged. Jesus had charged him before all with having a devil, and not being able to deny it, he became his enemy and adversary even unto death. These ideas are expressed by the words, “after the sop Satan entered into him;” and Jesus perceiving it said, “What thou doest, do quickly.”
Between this supper at his father’s and the eating of the Passover at even on the 14th of the month, Judas had his interviews with the Chief Priests, and bargained for the sale of his master’s blood. That it was not after the eating of the Passover that Judas went to covenant with the priests appears from the fact that when Jesus said “what thou doest do quickly,” some of the disciples thought it was because Judas had the bag, that Jesus meant him to go, and buy those things that they had need of against the feast. —John 13; 29-30. The supper at Bethany was on the 11th or 13th of the month, “before the Passover.” “It was night;” not the night of his arrest, but the night of consultation at the palace of the High Priest, where it was determined to take Jesus by subtlety and to kill him.
While eating the Passover the betrayal became again the subject of conversation. Judas, although he knew that the matter was all arranged between himself and the priests, had the hardihood to say to Jesus “Master, is it I?” He was answered in the affirmative; and it is probable, that on receiving this answer, he withdrew from the feast, and went to the Chief Priests and pharisees. After he was departed, Jesus took the bread and wine, and blessed in the words of the seventeenth of John. Hence it is styled “the cup of blessing,” and with the bread is the common union of all the faithful, who, though many, are one bread, or one body. The body of Jesus was about to be shed for them all, and his blood to be shed for them all; and as they are all sprinkled by that blood by faith in it, when together they partake of the cup, it is to them “the communion of the blood of Christ.”—1 Corinthians 10: 16-17.
When Jesus had finished the blessing, and they had sung a psalm, they all withdrew to the garden of Gethsemane. They were not there very long before their retirement was invaded by a crowd with lanterns, and torches, and weapons, following Judas. A few words having passed, Jesus was arrested and “led” to the house of the High Priest where he remained in custody the rest of the night, and suffered much indignity at the hands of his guards. During this time Peter denied him thrice, and the cock crew. “As soon as it was day”—Luke 22: 66 Jesus was led from the hall of the palace into the presence of the elders, chief priests, and scribes in council assembled. He was not detained there long. The question was put by the High Priest “Art thou the Anointed? Art thou the Son of God?” “If I tell you,” said Jesus, “ye will not believe.” “Thou hast said; and hereafter shall ye see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.” Upon hearing this they charged him with blasphemy, and pronounced him “guilty of death.”
But though they said he ought to die, it was not in their power to put him to death. They therefore bound him, and led him away from the High Priest’s palace, and delivered him to Pontius Pilate the governor. —Matthew 27: 1-2. The indictment runs thus—“We found this man perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that he himself is anointed a King.” Upon this Pilate asked him “Art thou the King of the Jews?” This question elicited “the good confession” from the mouth of Jesus. —1 Timothy 6: 13. “I am a King,” said he; “to this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.”—John 18: 37. Pilate finding no fault in him sent him to Herod who was then in Jerusalem. He also put him to the question, but could elicit nothing worthy of blame. He therefore sent him back to Pilate; who again examined him, and treated him cruelly, but nevertheless sought to release him. This, however, he found impossible, without exposing himself to the charge of disaffection to his imperial master. He therefore yielded to the clamor excited by the enemies of Jesus, and delivered him to their will.
It was now the third hour, or nine A.M. of the Passover-preparation day, that is, the 15th day of the month, or day before the Sabbath. The Jews for some reason or other which does not appear, seem not to have eaten the paschal lamb till the evening after it was killed; for they would not enter into Pilate’s Hall of Judgment early on the morning of the 15th, lest they should contract defilement, and so be prevented from eating of the Passover. —John 18: 28. Mark says they crucified Jesus at the third hour—Mark 15: 25; but John says it was the sixth. —John 19: 14. On referring to the Greek, the marginal reading is found to be the same as Mark, being tritee instead of hektee, which Griesbach says is “a reading equal if not preferable to that in the text.” From the time of arrest till nine in the morning was ample time for the transaction of all that is narrated by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, concerning the examinations of Jesus before the Council, Pilate, and Herod. This would allow about thirteen hours from the arrest to the crucifixion.
Jesus was suspended from the third to the ninth hour, that is, six hours from nine till three in the afternoon. From the sixth to the ninth hour, or from twelve till three, there was a darkness over all the land; and the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst. Then it was that Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!” And yielded up his breath.
Between three P.M. and sun set on Friday evening, which was the beginning of the Sabbath, Jesus was taken from the cross and deposited in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. There he lay all that night, all the next day, and all the following night until the early dawn of Sunday morning the 17th of Abib, and the third day from his crucifixion. Indeed it was three entire Jewish days from his interment to his resurrection, counting the evening and the morning for one day.
EDITOR
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From the Voice of Israel.
JOSEPHUS’S TESTIMONY TO JESUS OF NAZARETH.
We have seen the article in The Occident relating to the famous passage in Josephus, (Antiquities, Book 18, chapter 3, section 3,) to which a correspondent refers in our last number, and shall present our readers with a few observations respecting the testimony which that celebrated historian has borne to the character of Jesus of Nazareth. We shall first, however, dispose of the questions put by the Editor of that periodical, which are, “Whether there are any copies of Josephus in which the paragraph does not appear? When it was probably interpolated?” and “Whether the works of Josephus were known to the Talmudic doctors and the Rabbis of the middle ages up to modern times?” To these questions we reply, that not a single copy of Josephus has ever been discovered in which the passage in question does not occur; nor is there a shadow of evidence which can be adduced in support of the surmise that it is an interpolation. It is difficult even to imagine how any such general interpolation of all the copies which have come down to us could have been effected, seeing the author’s works were, on their publication, well known at Rome, and must, from the reputation in which they are held have been early and extensively circulated.
The passage seems to be alluded to by Tacitus in his Annals, Lib. xv. Cap. 44, about A.D. 110; * by Justin Martyr in his Dialogue with Trypho, page 234, about A.D. 147; and by Origen in the early part of the third century, in his Commentary on Matthew, page 230, and his work Against Celsus, Lib. i. page 35-36. It is quoted in full by Eusebius, in his Demonstratio Evangelica, Lib. iii. P. 124, which is supposed to have been written about A.D. 324. It is worthy of remark, that he does not adduce the passage as a newly discovered testimony, but as what was known to be in the copies of Josephus antecedently to the time in which he wrote. From his time down to the sixteenth century, we find it cited by the most eminent writers without the least suspicion as to its being genuine. That the works of Josephus were known to the Talmudic doctors and Rabbis, there is, we think, little ground to doubt; for his testimony to the character of Jesus seems to have been the principle reason which induced the Jews to reject his genuine history, and to substitute in its place a spurious work supposed to have been written by Josephus Ben Gorion.
The passage in Josephus, is as follows: ”Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, # if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, —a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again on the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold; these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.”
It cannot be objected to this paragraph, that the style is different from that of Josephus; for Daubuz, in his work entitled Pro Testimoniis Flavii Josephi de Jesu Christo, shows, in the most satisfactory manner that nothing can be more unlike. Of this he affords undeniable evidence, by examining every phrase, and almost every word; and showing that there is nothing introduced in this passage, for which we have not good authority in other parts of the same author. To every sentence, and part of a sentence, he produces parallel passages in the same acceptation, and perfectly analogous; by which he makes it manifest, almost to a demonstration, that the whole was written by the same hand.
* Josephus’s History of the Jewish War was published about A.D. 75, and his Antiquities eighteen years later, in the 13th year of Domitian, A.D. 93. The former of his works was held in great repute at Rome, and recommended by the Emperors Vespasian and Titus. Tacitus, the Roman historian, appears to have drawn largely from them in treating of Jewish affairs, &c.
# Josephus observes, Antiq. xx. 22. “They—the Jews—give him the testimony of being a wise man who is fully acquainted with our laws, and is able to interpret their meaning.”
It is, however, objected, that the testimony which is here given to Jesus, is such as could only be given by one who was a Christian, which Josephus certainly was not. This objection originates in wrong ideas which have been formed of the people and the times of which the historian writes, in not considering that thousands of Jews at that time believed every thing which is here said, and would have afforded the same evidence, if required, as Josephus has done. The objectors do not seem to admit of any medium between a zealous disciple and a determined adversary. In this they do not make a just estimate of persons and things, but dwell too much on the extremes. There was a middle party among the Jews, who saw the sanctity of Jesus’ manners, the excellency of his doctrines, and were astonished at his miracles. We read, John 7: 46, that the officers who were sent to apprehend him, returned struck with admiration of his wisdom, saying, “never man spake like this man;” and yet we do not find that they were converts. How often do we read, that “the people were astonished at his doctrine.” See Matthew 7: 28 & 22: 33; Mark 1: 22 & 11: 18; Luke 4: 32. It is not, however, said that the people were his disciples. It may, therefore, fairly be allowed Josephus, though not a Christian, to mention Jesus as “a teacher of such men as gladly receive the truth.”
As it respects his miracles, they were universally believed by the Jews. Even the Pharisees, his most bitter enemies, acknowledged them. Nor, long after, were they disputed by either Celsus, Porphyry, or Julian. Moreover, multitudes of the Jews perceived that many of the predictions of the prophets were accomplished in Jesus. Those who had seen the miracle of the loaves and fishes, said “This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world.” (John 6: 14, and chapter 7: 40.) Thus, they showed how strongly they were convinced that many of the prophecies were fulfilled in him. See, also, John 7: 31. And although Josephus, who believed in the prophets, could not bring himself to believe that Jesus was the Messiah, he might very easily see that the Scriptures in many places pointed out such a person as Jesus appeared to be, and readily allow, that the prophecies foretold the wonderful works which he did.
It has been justly observed, that, of all persons who have ever appeared in the world, pretending to work miracles, or really working miracles in proof of a divine mission, Jesus alone, could appeal to a body of recorded prophecy delivered many hundred years before he came into the world, and say, “In these ancient oracles it is predicted that One appearing among you at a time defined by certain signs and characters, shall be known by his working—not miracles generally—but such and such specific miracles. At a time distinguished by these signs and characters, I come; these specific works I do; and I exhibit the character of the person delineated in these prophecies.” Hence, when John the Baptist sent his disciples to inquire of Jesus, if he was that person spoken of by the prophets, or whether they were to look for another, Jesus made them eye-witnesses of many of those miracles which were a literal completion of the prophecies, and bade them go back and tell John what they had heard and seen. (Luke 7: 19-22.) “Go and tell John, that you have seen me restore the paralytic; you have seen me cleanse the leper, cure the lame, the blind, the deaf, and the dumb; you have seen me liberate the possessed; you have seen me raise the dead; and you have heard me preach good tidings to the poor. He will connect these things with the prophecies that have gone before concerning me, and will tell you what conclusion you must draw.” It was this kind of evidence that presented itself to those who gave utterance to their convictions, and said, “He hath done all things well (i.e. he hath done all things according to the predictions of the prophets;) he maketh both the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak.” (Mark 7: 37. So that, it need be no matter of wonder, that Josephus should say, the divine prophets had foretold many wonderful things which were accomplished in him.
The principal objection to the genuineness of the passage under consideration, is drawn from the expression, “He was the Christ.” The meaning which the objectors attach to these words of Josephus is, that he esteemed Jesus as the Messiah. This, however, is not what was intended to be conveyed by the expression; but, that this Jesus was distinguished from other persons of the same name, of which Josephus himself mentions not a few, by the additional name of Christ; or that this person was he who was generally known by the name of Jesus Christ. That this is the author’s meaning appears from another passage of his work (Antiq. xx. 9, 1,) in which he mentions James, who was put to death by Herod, and styles him “The brother of Jesus who was called Christ.” And in this sense all the ancient authors who have cited this testimony of Josephus, seem to have understood the original words, translated “He was the Christ.”
It is, moreover, alleged to be impossible that the testimony which is here given to the resurrection of Jesus, could have proceeded from one who was not a Christian. This difficulty arises from not duly considering the situation of the historian, the age in which he wrote, and the people whom he addressed. We are persuaded there were many not of the Christian community, who, if called on, would have given a similar testimony, on this point, to that of Josephus. There can be little doubt that many of the chief priests believed that Jesus was raised from the dead. The soldiers who guarded his sepulchre certainly did, yet it is not said that they became proselytes. They gave their testimony to this great event; and it was believed by many others; and why not by Josephus? In short, there is nothing in this whole passage, which we might not expect to meet with in a writer of such candour and veracity as Josephus, of whom a high authority has declared, that “he is the most diligent and the greatest lover of truth of all writers. Nor are we afraid to affirm of him, that it is more safe to believe him, not only in the affairs of the Jews, but also as to those that are foreign to them, than all the Greek and Latin writers; and this because his fidelity and his compass of learning are every where conspicuous.”
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In matters of great concern and which must be done, there is no surer argument of a weak mind than irresolution: to be undetermined where the case is so plain, and the necessity so urgent. To be always intending to live a new life, but never to find time to set about it, this is as if a man should put off eating, and drinking, and sleeping, from one day and night to another, till he is starved and destroyed.
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OUR VISIT TO BRITAIN.
(Continued from page 155.)
The letter with which we concluded our last seemed to be an extinguisher; for they neither “made their mind on this matter public,” nor did they “announce that our fellowship with them was obtained by misrepresentation.” There was no room for them to do this; and had they done it, they would have proved themselves utterly regardless of the truth. Thus far the serpent-policy of the adversary proved abortive for mischief; and we concluded, that the Ellstree brotherhood had discovered that they were being victimised by their “evangelist” on the altar of his envy and cupidity—of his envy, we say; for when “the lights” of Campbellism in Britain were congregated in Glasgow to convert the natives to the kingdom set up on Pentecost, they could scarcely bring together 150 persons all told; while the “heretic of no soul-memory,” the “rather plausible sophist,” the denounced and proscribed of their supervisor and his British and American satellites, was discoursing to 6000 people in the City Hall on the things of the Kingdom of God and the Age to Come. We concluded, we repeat, that the Ellstreans had penetrated the imposition being practised upon them, and therefore determined to let the matter drop. We were indeed strengthened in this conclusion by the rejoinder of one of their members about February 1850, of whom we inquired the fate of the agitation against us? “Oh,” said he, “the brethren found that they were going too fast.”
But though the snake was scotched, he was not killed. He was bruised and lay for a long time inanimate; but the hand that struck him being about to be withdrawn, he began to show signs of life again. To resume the literal, what was our surprise to find that after a dormancy of one year and three-fourths, Messrs. Black and King reappeared against us as large as life. “What was our surprise to find that after a dormancy of one year and three-fourths, Messrs. Black and King reappeared against us as large as life. What could have been the cause of this revival of their malevolence? We answer, that Mr. Wallis was not satisfied with what they had done. He wanted something from them on the subject for his paper. He had got “a tit-bit” against the Banner from A. Campbell, and he wanted something equally relishing against us, that he might serve them up to his readers side by side on the very eve of our departure from Britain! The extraordinary impression made by Elpis Israel, and our 250 addresses on reformers and others, was painfully distressing to his unhallowed heart. He desired therefore to shoot another arrow from his bow in the hope of wounding us to death. This arrow he drew from the Ellstree quiver, and dipped in the poison of his own malevolence. But like Paul in Malta, we shake off with dignified unconcern this power of the enemy, as at this day.
When we arrived at Liverpool, where we sojourned a few days under the hospitable roof of bro, Tickel, we found the October number of the Harbinger. On looking into it we found two articles on the 476th page; one headed “the Gospel Banner and Biblical Treasury;” and the other, “John Thomas, M.D., and his Visit to England.” The former from the pen of A.C. has appeared in No.2, page 37, of the Herald; the latter, is from Mr. Wallis, and has not been noticed by us before; nor would it be now only that it pertains to the narrative of “our visit to Britain.” The article occupies three columns of the size of the Herald. It commences thus: “The necessity that exists for inserting the following facts respecting Dr. Thomas and his coadjutors may not appear so obvious to all our readers, as it does to ourselves and those whom we have consulted on the subject.” He then proceeds to notice our acquaintance with the Ellstree church, and says “we were received a member amongst them.” This is not correct; we were simply a visitor and occasional communicant at their table; we are member of only one church, namely, at Richmond. He says, we “subsequently delivered several discourses.” We only spoke twice; on “the coming Kingdom of God and the Hope of Israel.” He then recalls attention to a notice he published concerning us two years ago, which reads as follows: “We affirm, on the testimony of the “Herald of the Future Age,” that Mr. John Thomas, in the month of March, 1847, publicly abjured not only all connection with the Reformation, but also all that he had learnt whilst in connection with its churches—asserting that the leading men of the Reformation held damnable heresy—were ignorant of the true hope of the Gospel, and, consequently, blind leaders of the blind. Now, we have no right to question, or to interfere, with this abjuration—regarding it as emanating from the firm conviction of the confessor’s mind—but still the position occupied by John Thomas ought to be known to all the disciples; and that his object, in visiting this country, is not to build-up and enlarge the churches already planted, but to proselyte as many members out of them to his own spirit and theory as he possibly can, and that, too, without any compromise whatever.”
He tells the reader that it was this notice in the Harbinger that caused the Ellstreans to demand his authority, and that in consequence he sent that part of the Herald containing our “Confession and Abjuration.” This statement, however, we believe to be untrue when he was writing it. The above notice appeared in the Harbinger for October 1848. Now on September 27th he met D. King, the delegate of Ellstree, in Glasgow, where he was distributing a reprint of the “Confession” among the initiated. Instead of the Ellstreans sending for his authority, we doubt not it was very officiously conveyed to them from Glasgow.
In the next paragraph he presents us with a piece of pious rhodomontade about his dislike of pious craftiness, hatred of hypocrisy, and love of righteousness; which by implication he would have his readers believe was contrary to our nature and practice! He also avows his dislike of what his master at Bethany styles “untaught questions;” which he says are “pestilential, engendering strife, contention, and every evil work.” Of course Mr. James Wallis, Dealer in Ready-made Clothes, 12 Peck Lane, Nottingham, a calling to which he has devoted the energies of his past life, is a capital and infallible judge of questions! For our own part, we would rather trust his judgment as to the quality of a piece of cloth, or the fit of a nether garment, than the existence of this or that question as a part of the divine testimony! What! Trust the judgment of a man who says, that “a student will certainly be confounded if he commence with unfulfilled prophecy,” when the Lord Jesus says “seek first the kingdom of God,” which is all a matter of promise, or prophecy unfulfilled! Mr. Wallis errs in measuring the intellect of others by his own. It is quite possible, that a thousand questions may be taught in the word of God, and yet both he and A.C. be ignorant of their existence there. But nothing is so “pestilential” to ignorance and presumption as a demand for light where darkness only reigns.
But to return to the Ellstreans. After reading the foregoing correspondence the reader will know how to appreciate these lines from Mr. Wallis. “On receiving the printed document, the brethren in London called on J.T. to reconcile his private statements to them with his printed declaration published in the United States previously to leaving for England. This he declined doing, for the best of all reasons, and never afterwards met with that congregation. But let us hear “bro. Black” in reference to what took place at that time:
“Having called upon John Thomas to explain his conduct toward us, or to renounce his abjuration of the churches of the Reformation—(of the existence of which fact we had no idea when we received him into the church)—but not obtaining any thing more satisfactory from him than that he held fellowship with all the disciples who would receive him upon the same principle that the Lord did Judas! And perceiving that with his state of mind he could only desire connection with the brethren in England for the purpose of creating separations and confusion among them, the church in London, at a large assembly, with only two objectors in it passed the following resolution:
“Resolved—That as we, the disciples of Christ, are commanded to mark those who cause divisions, and to avoid them; and as John Thomas teaches, by direct implication, that all who are in our position are yet in their sins, unless baptised into what he calls the hope of Israel, we must avoid him, except he has renounced, or until he does renounce, his printed abjuration against our brethren in the Lord.
John Black, Pastor.
David King, Preacher of the Gospel.”
Mr. Wallis tells his readers that he had this precious resolution before the meeting held in Glasgow in 1849. We do not recollect the month of the meeting. He must have kept it back for a year or more. He says he had reasons for not mentioning it at that meeting, nor publishing it in his paper. No doubt he had. We were in the country, and in possession of correspondence and facts which, if published would have placed him and his satellites in a worse position than before. If your purpose is evil, it is always safer to attack a man in his absence, than before his face when he is present to defend himself. This was Mr. W’s policy; a policy, however, which defeats itself, being manifestly cowardly and base.
As to Mr. Black’s declaration that we went to England for the purpose of creating separations and confusion among their churches, it is utterly false. The congregations in Edinburgh and Glasgow can testify to the contrary of this. That difficulties might possibly ensue was not improbable; for when was “the sure word of prophecy” ever caused to shine into a dark place without either dispelling the darkness, or being itself expelled? These results are never accomplished without a struggle. Luther advocated justification by faith without the works of Romanism. This was scriptural ground; but look at “the separations and confusion” that followed! Who was to blame for these; was Luther or the truth? Or should Luther have suppressed the truth for fear of what should happen? By no means. Now we went to Britain to call men’s attention to “the Gospel of the Kingdom.” In this work we were no respecter of persons. We were invited to speak to the Ellstreans and to worship at their house. We accepted the invitation, and spoke much to the satisfaction of those who heard us. We said nothing about fellowship or re-immersion. We produced no separation nor confusion there; and but for Messrs. Wallis, Black and King, there would have been no trouble there at all. But the wicked flee when no man pursueth. So it was with them. Ignorance and fear possessed them; and not knowing what might come to pass, they raised a light-darkening cloud of dust; and, shaded by its obscuration, sought protection within the barred doors of their conventicle! And there we propose to leave them till doomsday.
From what has been submitted the reader will have discerned the kind of opposition that was brought to bear against us in England. We are happy, however, in being able to record its total failure upon every point. Mr. Wallis had evoked a party spirit which he was unable to control. He had offended the Millerites in Nottingham, and stirred them up against himself; and though they were a small and waning sect, they were not entirely to be despised. They professed themselves earnestly desirous to hear us in proportion to the anxiety of their opponent to prevent it. Our course was simple and straightforward; for without pledging ourselves to the opinions or partyism of any, we were prepared to lay “the testimony of God” before all. Millerism in Nottingham has proved itself to be as rotten and corrupt as Campbellism there. The latter still exists, and after the same fashion might continue to exist like an Egyptian mummy for 2000 years. The elements of its body are preserved from disintegration and putrefaction by the antiseptic influence of worldly interest. It is a society constituted of masters and their workmen, whose subjection to their employers is well known to be absolute and helpless, to all who are acquainted with the working of things in England. The Millerite body was free from this kind of lordship. It was composed of persons all of whom in some way or other were under authority foreign to the members of the church. They had no “masters” among them, and were independent of one another in pecuniary or worldly affairs; so that there were no bands of iron and brass to keep them from falling asunder. As long as they believed Mr. Miller’s crudities heartily they were united and firm; but when these were shaken, they began to waver, to break their ranks, and retire. Out of a hundred members about twenty only can be found who are united in the truth. This is the last news that has reached us from Nottingham. There is nothing makes manifest so effectually as the truth. If a congregation have a name to live, but are either dead, or were never alive, just introduce the gospel of the kingdom in the name of Jesus among them, and their real condition will soon become apparent. We accepted their pressing and cordial invitation to visit them in Nottingham, and laid the truth before them. It disclosed the absurdities of Millerism, and caused them to perceive that their house was built upon the sand, and certainly about to fall. Though convinced of this, and of the necessity of flight, they had neither wisdom nor knowledge enough to direct their course aright. They saw they were in error, but they did not see into the truth. The natural consequence was that they became the helpless victims of the fowler who might feel disposed to ensnare them. About twenty of them were entrapped by the Mormons, whose earthly and sensual dogmas suited their natures best. Others dropped off on various pleas until by the subsequent accession of a small party their numbers stood at sixty. This was their numerical force when we left them in the possession of the Assembly Room. Their course, however, since has thinned their numbers still more. In the small party that joined them were one or two believers in modern miracles. One of them in fact mesmerised another and cured her, and absurdly imagined that the spirit of God had performed the cure through him miraculously in answer to prayer. There was another similar case in the same town. A Mormon priest mesmerised a female to produce lactation, which had failed her with all her children. He succeeded, and assured her that it was the work of the spirit in answer to his prayers. She and her husband believed him, and though better things might have been expected, they became devoted Mormons, and prepared for any absurdity that might be propounded. The former miracle-worker and his patient did not become Mormons, though their proceedings led to their exclusion. What crotchets they profess as proved by their miracles we have not heard, though we are told they have become bitter enemies to the truth they once declared themselves attached to. Be it so. The truth can only flourish in honest and good hearts; and the sooner the sons of evil manifest themselves the better. Thus Millerism has divided and subdivided until, as we are informed by a dearly beloved friend in Derby, there remain only twenty of them who have rejected human folly and tradition, and have embraced the gospel of the kingdom of God. If this be so, then the truth has not only overturned Millerism, and defeated the machinations of Campbellism, but has maintained its own in Nottingham, and “turned” twenty of “the Gentiles from darkness to light and from the power of satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in Jesus.” We trust that these believers, who have all our sympathy, will keep the great principles of the gospel before them, as the anchor of their souls both sure and steadfast within the veil. Let them beware of crotchets, or the magnification of things unimportant in themselves; and let all things be brought to the Law and the Testimony. Dwell upon the promises of God, and upon the obvious teaching of his word. Let this be the polar star and no mariner need make shipwreck of the faith.
But before Millerism fell into ruins it was useful in obtaining for the truth a large and attentive hearing. We addressed the people in the Assembly Room frequently through its management. On Sunday night they were literally packed together, so that we had to edge and squeeze along to obtain our place upon the platform. It is calculated that about 2000 people were assembled. We spoke on the subject of Jesus Christ the Heir of the Kingdom and Throne of David. The audience listened with great attention, and judging from the following note received the next day from two principals in the Scotch Baptist church in the neighbourhood, they must have been deeply interested.
New Basford, August 7, 1848
Dear Sir:
The very able and instructive discourse delivered by you in the Assembly Room on last evening has elicited in us a particular desire that the same should be published, not in part only, but if possible as a whole, that not only those who heard may be able to consider at leisure the subject, the issue of which is so vastly important; but that others who were not so favoured may have the same opportunity. We think the publishing of that discourse would be a means of helping forward the object you have in view, and of informing the minds of those less informed upon those great truths so eloquently advocated by you.
Yours very respectfully,
Signed—THOMAS ROBINSON & JOHN SISLING. —To Dr. J. Thomas.
Reporters from the several journals issued in the town, attended the lectures and published an outline of them in their respective papers, though with many vexatious typographical errors. In this our first tour we spoke about thirteen times at Nottingham, yet Mr. Wallis, who volunteered his services to enlighten the public in regard to our heresies, was present only at one of them!
Millerism in Nottingham introduced us to Millerism in Derby, Birmingham, and Plymouth. We visited derby on the 9th August. Application had been made to the Mayor for the Town Hall. He referred the request to the Bench of Magistrates, which, it is probable would have granted it, had not one of them reminded his brethren that there had been a man there from America some time ago, named Dealtry, who had created a great excitement among the people: and therefore he counselled them not to grant it to another from the same country. Being denied the use of the Hall, though granted to the Chartists, the Mechanics’ Institute was engaged for three successive nights. We desired to secure it for Sunday also; but the librarian stated that he could only let it during the week nights, the committee of the institute having reserved to themselves the letting it for that day. Though Derby is one of the darkest and most bigoted of towns in England, a disposition to hear was at first manifested to some extent. Our audiences were, it was thought, about 1000. A physician who heard us inquired if we were not a Mohammedan! What others may have thought we know not. The impression, however, does not appear to have been promotive of our popularity in “the heavenlies.” For on applying to the committee for the continued use of the institute they refused to let us have it, on the ground that the magistrates had forbid it. This was ascertained about 10 o’clock on Friday night. We were determined, however, not to be foiled by Satan, if we could help it. We succeeded in obtaining the old Assembly Room, and in getting out some bills and placards. One being pasted on a board was suspended on a boy’s back, who was sent about the town as “a walking advertisement” from 4 P.M. till night. They would not allow us to put a bill on the board before the Institute advertising the people of a change of place, although we had given out, that we should meet there if no obstacle were thrown in the way. To remove this difficulty we stationed a man at the gate to direct the people who might come, to the Assembly Room. This incident diminished our congregation considerably, though at night the room was filled. The Derbyshire Chronicle intimated that a report of our lectures would appear in its columns; but Satan was at work with the press also, so that it failed to see the light. The Mayor of Derby, who is an “infidel,” inconsistently enough declared that we spoke blasphemy? An excellent judge doubtless is he. Our blasphemy, we suppose, was against “the powers that be,” in showing that the time was fast approaching when all civil and ecclesiastical authority and power would be transferred from “the wicked spirits in the heavenlies” who were now “the rulers of the darkness of this world,” to Jesus, the King of Israel, and the Saints. Should “His Worship” be living then, and officiating as the Mayor of Derby, he will find this blasphemy of such a practical character that he would rather be a breaker of stones upon the road than rendered conspicuous by office in the service of the town.
While at Nottingham the kindness of some friends afforded us some recreation in a visit to Newstead Abbey, a beautiful estate formerly belonging to the celebrated Byron, of poetic, eccentric, and unfortunate memory. It is now in the possession of Col. Wildman, an old Waterloo soldier, who permits the public to perambulate his grounds, and inspect whatever of interest his mansion affords. From Derby we visited Keddleston Hall, the seat of Lord Scaresboro, with another party of friends. This estate abounds with deer, hundreds of which may at any time be seen grazing in the park. The interior of the Hall of entrance is quite magnificent and pagan. It is from twenty to thirty feet from the floor to the ceiling, sixty long, and forty wide. This apartment is called “the hall,” and is entered directly from without. There are some ten or more columns of the Corinthian style, with niches in the wall in which are placed statues of the mythic deities of Greece and Rome. It only required an altar, and the Keddleston priest to make every thing complete for a pagan temple. The former lord was evidently a sensualist. His statues and paintings illustrate in their selection the character of the man. If we had entered his mansion not knowing we were in a country called “christian,” we should have imagined ourselves in the domicile of an old licentious pagan of more money than wit. The grounds are fine, as indeed are all the parks of the nobility and gentry in Britain—an island where art has dressed off nature to perfection, and subdued its wildness so completely, that to a great extent the eye becomes weary of beauty, and longs for the alpine boldness and deep-delled ruggedness of rocks and mountains untouched by the hand of man. Derby shire is celebrated for its romantic scenery. Matlock and Dovedale, which we also visited, partake somewhat of the sublime and beautiful combined. Rocky precipices, caverns, and mountain hills, will always make these places the resort of the admirers of the works of God. It was quite an inspiration the contemplation of them. Eternal power and divinity were reflected from all around, and made us feel our nothingness in comparison of Him who created them, and weighed them in scales and balances.
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Chetwood says, the Archbishop of Paris would not allow Moliere to be buried in consecrated ground. Louis remonstrated with him for some time but in vain. At last he asked him “How many feet deep the consecrated ground went?” The archbishop replied, “About eight.” “Well, then,” said the King, “let the grave be dug twelve feet deep, and that will be four below your consecrated ground, and there I insist on his being buried.” The account given in the life of Moliere seems more probable, that the archbishop being well informed of the religion and probity of Moliere, permitted him to be buried in consecrated ground, which privilege his profession as an actor deprived him of.
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HERALD
OF THE
KINGDOM AND AGE TO COME.
RICHMOND, VA., JULY, 1851.
BELIEF IN HOPE NECESSARY TO JUSTIFICATION.
We are glad to find that however shy the Bethanian echoes of this country are of the Hope of Israel, this politic coyness does not extend to the “Gospel Banner” published in Nottingham, England. The impartiality of that paper has procured for it both friends and subscribers in the United States; and we trust that in Britain it will be patronised as it deserves. The Hope of Israel, or the Kingdom of God, is the leading topic of the several numbers on the desk before us; as indeed it ought to be in a periodical styled “the Gospel Banner,” for where this is not discussed “the gospel” is a word and nought beside.
One of the writers argues that the knowledge of the Hope of the Gospel is not indispensable to justification and future salvation; but that the apprehension of it, like faith and love, is a gradual work, it not being attained fully at first. This notion he deduces from Paul’s prayer contained in the first of Ephesians from the seventeenth verse. In that place the apostle prays, that the Ephesian saints and faithful in Christ Jesus “might know what is the Hope of God’s calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance among the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenlies, far above all principality, and power, and might, and lordship, and above every name that is named, not only in this age (en to aioni) but also in the future (en to mellonti).” He argues that if Paul prayed that saints already in Christ Jesus “might know the hope of God’s calling,” they must have been ignorant of it at the time of the prayer, and consequently when they were immersed into Christ. He does not forget that these saints were “called with one hope of the calling,” (en mia elpidi tes kleseos,) which thus became their calling (hymon of you;) for he quotes it. But he strangely forgets, that if a man be called with a certain calling he must intellectually know what the calling is to which he is called, at the time of the call, or he could not answer to it, and accept it. If a man be called to a feast he knows where it is, and what it is, though he does not experimentally know either, until he has been to the place and eaten of the things provided. So with the saints in Ephesus. They had been called to “a feast of fat things,” which became their hope. They knew where the things of their earnest expectation were provided, and what they consisted in. For the apostle says to them, “God has made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he hath purposed in himself.” And this is his secret will which he has purposed, and made known to them, namely, “That in the Economy (oikonomia) of the fullness of the times he would reduce under one head (anakephalaiosasthai) all things under Christ, both the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth, under him.”—Ephesians 1: 9-10. Now the plain English of this is, that God’s purpose is, in the Economy to be introduced when the times of the Gentiles shall be fulfilled, to reduce all things under Jesus Christ, both the things which are in the heavens, such as the principalities, powers, lordships, and thrones of the world, and the things which are upon the earth, or the peoples, nations, and languages at present subject to their dominion, even to reduce them all under him. —Daniel 7: 13-14, 18, 21-22, 25, 27. This is the purpose of God in regard to the nations and governments of the world; and as mankind must still be governed in the age or dispensation to come, and as one single man is not sufficient to answer the demands of so extensive and magnificent a dominion, God has called or invited in the publication of this good news, both Jews and Gentiles without distinction of birth or race, to become on certain clearly defined conditions, associate kings and priests, co-rulers and joint inheritors, with his royal and divine Son whom he hath appointed to rule the world in righteousness, whereof he has given assurance to all in raising him from the dead for this very purpose. The Ephesians understood these matters well; for the eyes of their understanding were enlightened when they heard these things as set forth in “the word of truth, the gospel of their salvation,” which Paul spake boldly in the synagogue for three months, and in the school of Tyrannus daily for two years, when “he disputed and persuaded the things concerning the kingdom of God”—Acts 19: 8; so that all they who dwelt in (the province of) Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks. When he sent for the Ephesian elders to come to him at Miletus, he reminded them how he had “gone among them preaching the kingdom of God;” and that in doing so he had not shunned to declare unto them “all the counsel of God.” Now, the gospel was preached to unbelievers, not to those who were already the subjects of “repentance toward God, and faith toward their Lord Jesus Christ.”—Acts 20: 17, 20-21, and 24-27. This repentance and faith was the result of believing “all the counsel of God,” which “he made known” in Paul’s preaching—a result, so little to be observed in these times, for the very reason that “the counsel, or purpose of God” (boule tou theou) is preached neither in whole nor in part by those who pretend to preach the gospel. The kingdom of God is the Hope of the gospel—the will which he has predetermined (proetheto) to carry into effect, let who will oppose or disbelieve it. This kingdom is that which is to be restored again to Israel—Acts 1: 6—at the restitution of all things—Acts 3: 21—spoken of by Moses—Deuteronomy 30: 1-10—and all the prophets; and is therefore the Hope of Israel. Now the Christ is also the Hope of Israel—Jeremiah 14: 8; and he is such because he will save Israel from their present dispersion, raising up the tribes, and restoring the desolations of their land and commonwealth; for He is “The Repairer of the breach, The Restorer of the paths to dwell in.”—Isaiah 49: 5-6, 8; 57: 12. The idea of the Christ and the kingdom are inseparable. The Christ, or the Anointed, is Israel’s Hope, because through him “the Hope of the promise made of God to their fathers,” Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, will be an accomplished fact. Jesus, whom we believe to be that Christ, is our hope, and formed in us the hope of glory, the hope of honor, the hope of the kingdom, the hope of life and incorruptibility, because without his appearing in his kingdom, we can have none of these things which constitute our salvation. The kingdom was Israel’s Hope as well as the gospel hope; for without the kingdom there would be, they well knew, neither king, saviour, nor redemption. They are inseparable.
The kingdom, the Christ, and Jesus were the burden of the gospel, or good news, wherever preached to Jew or Gentile. To omit one of these is to mutilate the gospel, and to make it of none effect. No man can be saved by the belief of a mutilated or perverted gospel. —Galatians 1: 6-9; 2 Corinthians 11: 4. Paul preached the gospel in its faith, hope, and love, and kept nothing back from the Ephesians that was profitable; and surely “the hope” was profitable seeing it is the subject of the “exceeding great and precious promises by faith of which we become partakers of the divine nature.” No man “believes on God” in the scripture sense who is ignorant and consequently faithless of his promises. Abraham, who is the model of them who are justified by faith, knew what God had promised, and did not stagger at what he knew. He knew that he was to possess the world as the federal father of the nations, when they should all be blessed in his Seed. He believed this when he was an old man and childless, and to all human probability would remain so. But “against hope he believed in hope.” He had no doubts or misgivings in his faith; but was “fully persuaded, that what God had promised, he was able also to perform. And THEREFORE it was imputed to him for righteousness.” The Ephesians attained to righteousness on precisely the same principles. They “believed in hope.” Hope was an ingredient of their faith; for “we are saved by the hope.” A faith that embraces merely the belief of a few facts in the life of Jesus, and an isolated doctrine predicated on those facts, has not within him the Abrahamic faith that justifies. “It was not written for Abraham’s sake alone, that his faith was imputed to him for righteousness; but for our sake’s also, to whom faith shall be imputed if we believe on God, who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead:”—Romans 4—If we know and believe what God has promised, as Abraham did; if we do not, we may believe that God exists, but we do not “believe on him;” that is, we believe not the mystery of his will which he has made known.
But, in the apostle’s prayer for the saints at Ephesus he prayed that they might know the hope experimentally which they already knew intellectually. This is manifest from the wording of the prayer both in English and Greek. He first prays that they might have bestowed upon them “the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God.” This was the gift of the spirit, from the possession of which he argued in his letter to the saints at Rome, that God who raised up Christ from the dead would also make alive their mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelt in them. —Romans 8: 11. He prayed that the same result from the indwelling of the spirit might happen to them at Ephesus. For having reminded them of their enlightenment, he goes on to pray, “that they might know (eis to eidenai) what is the Hope of God’s calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance among the saints.” But how were they to attain to this knowledge? By knowing “what is the exceeding greatness of His power (tes dynameous autou) according to the energy of the force of his might (kata ten energeian tou kratous tes ischyos autou) which he wrought in the Christ, awaking him from among the dead.” And how were the saints at Ephesus to know the greatness of this power in such energy? The only answer that can be given is, by themselves awaking from the dead.
Eis to eidenai hymas and eis to gnonai hymas are both rendered into English by the phrase that ye may know. “Eidenai” is used in the prayer before quoted; gnonai, in another contained in Ephesians 3: 19. These two words do not signify exactly the same thing. The former from eideo signifies to see, that is, to discern with the eyes; to experience, and to know in the sense of being the subject of; the latter from ginosko, to perceive mentally, to have a knowledge of, &c. “We walk by faith, and not by sight.” Faith takes mental cognisance of the hope, and riches of the glory; but sight, sensual appreciation of them. Paul prayed that they who walked by faith might attain to sight; or that eidos or vision might supersede their gnosis, or doctrine they had received.
We conclude then, that the said writer’s proposition derives no support from the prayer in question. Gospel is good news; but what is the news about? About the things contained in the Hope. It is these things that constitute the good news, the glad tidings of great joy to all people, that all nations shall be blessed in Abraham and the Christ. In what does this blessedness consist? In their all being aggregated into one dominion under a righteous government; when peace and prosperity, justice and equity, wisdom and knowledge, security and happiness, virtue, temperance, and good-will, shall pervade the earth from the rising to the setting sun. But this righteous government, who shall be its chief and who the princes of his house? Here the hope becomes a personal affair. They shall constitute this government who believe the things of the hope and the things concerning Jesus Christ; and are the subjects of repentance and remission of sins in his name, provided they walk henceforth worthy of the hope and be not moved away from it—Colossians 1: 22-23. No hope, no gospel. Search and see if any where it can be found that a man is recognised as a saint in Christ Jesus, and therefore justified, whose faith was deficient of the hope when he was united by baptism to his name. Since the Day of Pentecost such a case cannot be produced from the sacred scriptures; for the faith which justifies is “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen.”—Hebrews 11: 1. The “Banner” will perhaps reproduce this article in its sheet.
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THE EDITOR IN HANOVER.
During the last month we visited this county for the purpose of showing the glad tidings to the people concerning the kingdom of God. The appointment in Hanover was an old colonial house called “the Fork Church.” When we arrived we found the doors locked and barred, and the windows nailed down to prevent the ingress of the people to hear us. This was done by the Episcopalian parson, vestry, or their agents. It was certainly an act of great assurance on their part to shut their fellow-citizens out of a house that belongs to the people by the double right of conquest and gratuity. When Church-of-Englandism, the Baptist-persecuting, harlot-daughte