KINGDOM AND AGE TO COME.
“Earnestly contend for the Faith, which was once delivered to the Saints.”—Jude
Volume 1—Number 9 (September 1851)
SYNOPSIS OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
“And David said, Blessed be thou the Lord God of Israel our father, for ever and ever. Thine, O Lord is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine: thine is the Kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all. And David said to all the congregation, Now bless the Lord your God. And they did so, and bowed down their heads, and worshipped the Lord and the King. And they made Solomon the Son of David king the second time, and anointed him unto the Lord to be the chief governor, and Zadok to be priest. Then Solomon sat on the throne of the Lord as king; and all Israel obeyed him. And the Lord magnified Solomon exceedingly in the sight of all Israel; and bestowed upon him such royal majesty as had not been on any king before him in Israel.”—1 Chronicles 29: 10-25. Hence the kingdom of Israel is God’s kingdom.
TERRITORY OF THE KINGDOM.
“The land from the river of Egypt (the Nile) unto the great river, the river Euphrates.”—Genesis 15: 18. The contents of the land between these two rivers promised to Abraham and Christ (Galatians 3: 16.) for the kingdom, are indicated by the names of the tribes inhabiting it at the time the promise was made. Its frontiers are given in Ezekiel 47: 13-21; Deuteronomy 1: 7-8; 11: 24. “The land is mine,” saith the Lord—Leviticus 25: 23.
THE NATION, OR SUBJECTS OF THE KINGDOM.
“And God called Jacob’s name Israel: and said unto him, nations, even a company of nations, (goyi u-kehal goyim) shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins; and the Land which I gave Abraham, and Isaac, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed after thee (zara, seed, in the singular.) will I give the land.”—Genesis 35: 11-12. This “company of nations” is the nation of the Twelve Tribes, to whom God said at Horeb, “ye shall be unto me a holy nation;” therefore he styles them in the scriptures his nation, saying “hearken and give ear to me, O my nation.”—Isaiah 51: 4. “Remember me, O Lord,” says the Psalmist, “that I may rejoice in the gladness of thy nation,”—106: 5.
CONSTITUTION OF THE KINGDOM.
A nation requires religion, laws, and Government for its well-being. Israel being God’s nation, he only could of right confer them sovereignly upon it. He gave the Tribes their religion, their civil institutions, and their governors, which he constituted by a Covenant, styled the Old Covenant, because he intended to supersede it by an amended Covenant, called the New. The New Covenant grows out of the promises made to Abraham concerning the everlasting possession of the land by the nation under Christ. The things of this Covenant are matters of faith and hope to Israel, and “the called,” from Abraham, till Christ shall reign over the Twelve Tribes in the land for ever, when they will become matters of fact. The things of the Abrahamic Covenant were peculiarly, and in a few years after him, exclusively the Hope of the descendants of Jacob, among whom, when in Egypt, transgressions began to prevail. They served the gods of Egypt, and did evil—Joshua 25: 14. Because of these transgressions, the Mosaic Law was added (Galatians 3: 19.) to “the Hope of the Covenant,” and sacrifice; which Covenant was of no practical force in national affairs, because the MEDIATORIAL TESTATOR had not come and had not died—Hebrews 9: 16-17. The Mosaic Law or Covenant, was designed for the instruction of the nation in the things pertaining to its hope, as well for the organization and regulation of its affairs as the kingdom of God. The law was their schoolmaster until Christ, the promised Seed of the Covenant, came—Galatians 3: 24; and contained “within it the form or representation of the knowledge and of the truth”—Romans 2: 20. When the time comes to place the nation of Israel under the New Covenant of the Kingdom, the representative things will have been removed, and “the knowledge and the truth” will alone remain.
“COVENANT” DEFINED.
A Covenant is a system of government indicative of God’s chosen, selected, and determined plan or purpose, fixed by his absolute and sovereign will, and imposed on the people without the slightest consultation between them as to its expediency, fitness, or propriety. Jehovah is the testator; the people or Tribes of Israel, are the legatees. Hence, his covenants, testaments, or wills to the nation, require the death of the testator, because they are of no force while he lives. But Jehovah is a deathless being. He never died, nor can he die—1 Timothy 6: 15. His Covenants, therefore, are “ordained in the hands of mediators subject to death”—Galatians 3: 19. A Mediator is Jehovah’s substitute, who represents Him in all his dealings with his nation. Moses was the mediator of the Old Will, which was dedicated by sacrifice consumed by fire from heaven, and only partially carried out for forty years in the wilderness; but came into full force after his death, when Joshua gave the nation a rest, representative of a future sabbatism for it in the same land under the Christ for 1000 years. Jesus is the mediator of the New Will; which was confirmed in the consuming of Abraham’s sacrifices by fire—(Genesis 15: 17; Galatians 3: 15-18.) It cannot, therefore, be disannulled. For forty generations between Abraham and Christ, this confirmed Will was of no force at all. But when Jesus, the mediatorial testator of the Will, died, it acquired force; and became partially effective to the impartation of remission of sins, and a title to eternal life in the kingdom to all who believed in the things covenanted or bequeathed, and in Jesus, both Jews and Gentiles. It has not yet come into full force. It is destined, however, to become fully developed in all its efficiency, when Jesus shall come again and save the Twelve Tribes from their enemies, and from the power of all that hate them; and to perform the mercy promised to their fathers, even the holy covenant, the oath which God sware to their father Abraham, that he would grant unto them, that being delivered out of the hand of their enemies, they might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of their life—Luke 1: 69-75.
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OLD COVENANT OF THE KINGDOM.
The Mosaic code was the covenant of God for 1617 years, exclusive of the 70 years in Babylon. The Twelve Tribes received it under the Levitical Priesthood, (Hebrews 7: 11.) which was imperfect, and therefore destined to be changed at some future period. Hence this change would necessitate also a change of the Covenant—verse 12.
THE LEVITICAL PRIESTHOOD.
This was constituted after the law of a carnal commandment. Aaron was called of God to be the first High Priest of the nation; and the office was perpetuated in his family so long as the Mosaic covenant should continue the constitution of the kingdom. The office was held for life; but the service of the ordinary priests only for a term of years. The Levitical Priesthood was changeable, being left of one to another. Hence, it is said to be, with father, with mother, and with pedigree, having beginning of days and end of life.
THE SERVICE.
The High Priest was at the head of all religious affairs, and was the ordinary judge of all difficulties thereto belonging, and even of the general justice and judgment of the nation. He only had the privilege of entering the Most Holy apartment of the Temple once a year, on the day of solemn expiation, to make atonement for the sins of the whole nation.
The priests of the House of Aaron served immediately at the altar, killed, skinned, and offered the sacrifices. They kept up a perpetual fire on the altar of burnt sacrifices, and in the lamps of the golden candlestick in the holy apartment of the Temple. They kneaded the loaves of show-bread, baked them, offered them on the golden table, and changed them every Sabbath day. Every day, night and morning, a priest appointed by casting of lots at the beginning of the week, brought into the holy place a smoking censer of incense, and set it on the golden altar, called the altar of incense.
A principle employment of the priests next to attending the sacrifices, and the temple service, was the instruction of the people, and the deciding of controversies. “For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth; for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts”—Malachi 2: 7. In time of war their duty was to carry the ark of the covenant, to consult the Lord, to sound the holy trumpets, and to encourage the army.
The priests who officiated at the altar, and in the Holy, and Most Holy, were Aaron and his sons, or their descendants. The rest of the Levites were employed in the lower services in the temple by which they were distinguished from the priests. They obeyed the Aaronites or higher officials in the ministrations of the temple, and sung and played on instruments in the daily service. They studied the law, and were the ordinary judges of the country; but subordinate to the priests. It was contrary to the law, and punishable with death, for the priests to officiate without washing their hands and their feet in the laver of brass between the altar and temple. These washings were imposed “till the time of emendation.”
SACRIFICES.
Sacrifices are properly victims whose blood has been poured out unto death. The Hebrews strictly speaking had but three kinds of sacrifices:
1. The burnt offering, or holocaust;
2. The sacrifice for sin, or sacrifice for expiation;
3. The pacific sacrifice, or sacrifice of thanks giving.
Besides these were several kinds of offerings, of corn, of meal, of cakes, of wine, of fruits; and one manner of sacrificing, which has no relation to any now mentioned, that is, the setting at liberty one of the two sparrows offered for the purification of leprous persons; also the scape-goat, which was taken to a distant and steep place whence it was thrown. These animals thus left to themselves, were esteemed victims of expiation, loaded with the sins of those who offered them.
In the sacrifices that were offered annually, there was a remembrance of the nation’s sins every year. On this occasion the High Priest went into the Most Holy with blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people. This was transacted on the tenth day of the seventh month every year, which was the great day of national atonement. The burnt offerings and sacrifice were for the nation, and for individuals, to make reconciliation or atonement for them: yet the reconciliation was as imperfect as the priesthood and the sacrifices, the former being changeable, and the latter inefficient to the taking away of sins.
THE ROYAL HOUSE OF THE KINGDOM.
Though the kingdom belonged to Jehovah, “the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords: who only hath deathlessness, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see,”—1 Timothy 6: 15—though He is Israel’s eternal, incorruptible, and invisible King, —1 Timothy 1: 17—yet he had predetermined that his kingdom should be ruled by a visible representative of his majesty. He resolved, however, that the occasion developing his purpose of choosing a Vicegerent, should be a manifestation of their disaffection to himself—1 Samuel 8: 7. He provided for the exigency in the Mosaic Law, saying to Israel, “When thou art come into the possession of the land, and shalt say, ‘I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are about me;’ thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee whom the Lord thy God shall choose: one from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee: thou mayest not set a stranger over thee, who is not thy brother”—Deuteronomy 17: 14. Hence, the law contemplated the establishment of the kingly office, which was at some future period to be inherited by the Seed of Abraham, who is to possess the gate of his enemies; and in whom all the nations of the earth shall be blessed—Genesis 22: 17-18. But neither the covenant confirmed to Abraham, nor the covenant promulgated through Moses, defined the tribe and family whence the person should be manifested as the progenitor or father of the Seed; though it was understood in Israel from the prophecy of Jacob, that He should come of the tribe of Judah, and that there should be “unto him the obedience of the peoples,” or tribes—ve-lo yiquhath amim.
To determine the things, then, which were undefined in the covenant with Abraham, and the superadded covenant of Moses, Jehovah availed himself of the rejection of himself by the nation, to choose for it a king from whom Shiloh should descend to rule the tribes when established under the New Constitution of the kingdom. He gave them a king in his anger, and took him away in his wrath—Hosea 13: 11. He gave them Saul, son of Kish of the tribe of Benjamin; but as he did not do all his will upon the idolatrous tribes around Israel, Jehovah set him aside, and chose a better man. This was David, son of Jesse of the tribe of Judah. He was born in the 29th year of Eli’s judgeship, and was 11 years and 5 months old at the capture of the ark by the Philistines at the battle of Ebenezer. In the 18 years and 7 months, which succeeded, he killed the lion and the bear, smote Goliath, was anointed Jehovah’s king elect to rule his people Israel, and passed through much tribulation that he might inherit the kingdom, if approved. Saul was killed in battle; and David succeeded him, first as king of Judah, and two years afterwards as sole king in Israel. He had long wars with the surrounding nations, which at length ended in their conquest and an enduring peace. In his career as a king raised up to execute Jehovah’s vengeance upon the heathen, he acquitted himself as “a man after God’s own heart;” and with all his faults as one “of whom the world was not worthy;” because he honoured God by devout and earnest faith in “his word, which he has magnified above all his name”—Hebrews 11: 32, 38; Psalm 138: 2; Acts 13: 22.
David being approved as a suitable progenitor of “the seed,” Jehovah made an everlasting covenant with him, which he confirmed with an oath. By this he established the sovereignty of his family over Israel for ever. Henceforth, the House of David was the royal house of the kingdom of God; and to rebel against David, or a descendant of his, lawfully occupying his throne, was to rebel against Jehovah himself to whom the throne and kingdom as certainly belonged as if he had no visible representative in Jerusalem. Hear what the Strength of Israel proclaims—“I have made a covenant with my chosen, I have sworn unto David my servant, saying, Thy seed (zarecha, singular,) will I establish for ever (ad olam) and build up thy throne for all generations (le-dor-vahdor) * * * I have laid help upon one that is mighty; I have exalted one chosen out of the people. I have found David my servant; with my holy oil have I anointed him: with whom my hand (power) shall be established: mine arm shall also strengthen him. * * * In my Name shall his horn be exalted. I will set his power (who bears Jehovah’s name) also in the sea, and his right hand in the rivers. He shall cry unto me, Thou art my Father, my God, and the rock of my salvation. Also I will make him my First-born, higher than the kings of the earth. My mercy will I keep for him for evermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him. His Seed also (zaro, David’s Seed, singular,) will I make to endure for ever, and his throne as the days of heaven. * * * My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that has gone out of my lips. Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David. His Seed (zaro) shall endure for ever, and his throne as the sun before me. It shall be established as the moon, and as a faithful witness in heaven”—Psalm 89. Hear again the word Jehovah sent to David by Nathan concerning his Seed who was to bear Jehovah’s name—“It shall come to pass, when thy days be expired that thou must go to be with thy fathers, that I will raise up thy Seed after thee, who shall be of thy sons: and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build me a temple, and I will establish his throne for ever. I will be his Father, and he shall be my Son. I will settle him in my house (temple) and in my kingdom for ever: and his throne shall be established for evermore”—1 Chronicles 17: 11-14. From this covenant, it is clear as a sunbeam, that David was to have a Seed who should be both Son of David and Son of God; that this Seed should be a king, and heir to all David’s prerogatives; that the throne and kingdom of Israel should be everlasting in David’s family; that his Seed should be raised up from the dead to sit upon his throne; that he should then build a temple; and that he should be settled in that temple forever, that is, should be a priest continually there.
Paul makes it absolutely certain, that “the Seed after David of his Sons” is the Lord Jesus, and not Solomon, by applying the saying in the covenant, “I will be his Father, and he shall be my Son,” to Christ—Hebrews 1: 5. And that David himself so understood it, is obvious from innumerable passages in his writings. David believed the Son here spoken of was to be raised from the dead to sit upon his throne; and that when he sat upon it, he was to be an immortal king, and an undying priest after the order of Melchizedek. Peter declares this; for in reasoning upon what David wrote in the sixteenth psalm, he said, “David being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne: he foreseeing this spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his dead body was not left in the tomb, neither did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus hath God raised up”—Acts 2: 30. Being raised from the dead, and therefore, Son of God according to a holy spiritual nature which he should possess in common with the angels, than whom he was then no longer “lower,” he saw him in possession of his dominion as Jehovah’s king on Zion, the hill of his holiness, with the nations for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession—Psalm 2: 6-8. He discerned also what would be his own character and that of his government; for, says he, concerning him, “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the sceptre of thy kingdom is a righteous sceptre. Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness; therefore, O God, thy God hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness (the Holy Spirit) above thy fellows”—Psalm 45: 6. And when thus sitting upon his throne in Zion, he beheld him with the eye of faith, as one who had subdued his enemies, and become the royal high priest of the kingdom. Speaking of his Son and Lord, he says, “Jehovah shall send the rod of thy strength from Zion: rule thou in the midst of thine enemies. Jehovah hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek”—Psalm 110. Jehovah swore this, when he swore to David, that he would settle him in his house and in his kingdom for ever.
Thus by “the Word of the Oath” was David’s family constituted the Royal House of the kingdom under both constitutions, or covenants, old and new; and the transfer of the priesthood declared from Aaron and his sons, to David’s Son for ever. Hence the carrying out of this purpose necessitated the future abolition of the Covenant of Sinai, and the introduction of a constitution better suited to the case.
ROYAL CITY OF THE KINGDOM.
Moses said to Israel, “When ye go over Jordan, and dwell in the land which the Lord your God giveth you to inherit, and when he giveth you rest from all your enemies round about, so that ye shall dwell in safety; then there shall be a place which the Lord your God shall choose to cause his Name to dwell there; thither shall ye bring all that I command you”—Deuteronomy 12: 5, 16. The time for making choice of this city arrived, when the Lord had given the kingdom to David, and rest from all his wars. David sought out the place, and Jehovah approved it. He “found it in the fields of the wood.” He found it in a manner he did not expect. The Ark of the Covenant had been removed from Obed-edom’s to the City of David on Mount Zion; while the Altar of burnt sacrifice continued at Gibeon. Now David having been moved by Jehovah to number the people who had sinned, seventy thousand of them fell by pestilence in the country parts in three days. At length an angel of the Lord arrived at Jerusalem to destroy it, and as he was destroying, Jehovah said to him, “It is enough, stay now thy hand.” At this crisis David discovered the angel standing near the threshing-floor of Ornan, or Araunah, the Jebusite, between the earth and heaven, having a drawn sword in his hand extended over Jerusalem. David having confessed his sin in numbering the people and prayed that the plague might be stayed, the angel commanded Gad, David’s seer, to tell David to go up and set up an altar to Jehovah in the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite. When David saw the angel, he would have gone to Gibeon where the Mosaic tabernacle was to inquire of God before the altar there; but he was afraid because of the angel’s sword which crossed the way. David must have been greatly relieved, therefore, when Gad delivered the angel’s message to him in the name of Jehovah. Without delay he went to “the fields in the wood,” or district of the forest, where the threshing-floor was situated, and purchased it for six hundred shekels of gold by weight; and built there an altar to Jehovah. When it was finished, he offered burnt-offerings and peace-offerings upon it, and called upon the Lord, who answered him from heaven in consuming the sacrifices by fire from thence, and in commanding the angel to sheathe his sword—1 Chronicles 21.
Ornan’s threshing-floor was on Mount Moriah, where Abraham had offered up Isaac, and through the substitute provided, received him from the dead in a figure. This appears from the testimony that “Solomon began to build the temple of Jehovah at Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the angel appeared unto David his father, in the place that David had prepared in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite”—2 Chronicles 3: 1. The Ark of the Covenant, which is a New Testament name for Jesus, the royal Son of David, was placed in the City of David on Mount Zion, where it remained forty years preceding the building of the temple by Solomon. This long residence of the Ark on Zion, distinguished Zion as the place of the throne of the kingdom; as the building of the altar on Moriah designated it as the place of the Temple. Moriah and Zion are not to be confounded as one city. They are two distinct mountains, and the sites of two cities; though in after times they came to be surrounded by one and the same wall, and to be vernacularly styled Jerusalem. The Temple was in Jerusalem; and the Throne in Zion, the city of David’s house. They are the subjects of distinct prophecies, though oftentimes associated together; and these prophecies relate, not to a visionary mount “beyond the skies;” but to Zion, “the hill of God,” (hor-Elohim, the hill of Gods,) the royal city of David’s kingdom, in 31 degrees 50 minutes north latitude, and 35 degrees 20 minutes east longitude from Greenwich, about 25 miles west of Jordan, and 42 east of the Mediterranean, where David dwelt; “the hill which God (Elohim, Gods,) desireth to dwell in; yea,” in which “the Lord (Jehovah) will dwell for ever”—Psalm 68: 15-16. Of this city “glorious things are spoken;” for “all God’s springs are in her”—Psalm 87.
God has dwelt in Zion in ages past—Psalm 74: 2. He dwelt there when the Ark rested there; for He dwelt between the outstretched wings of the Cherubim representatively by the glory which they sustained—Psalm 80: 1; and in speaking to Moses and the High Priests, caused his voice to be heard as if proceeding from the lid of the ark called “the Mercy Seat,” which was overshadowed by the glory—Numbers 7: 89. The Ark, the Mercy Seat, and the Cherubim of glory, were representative of the Christ; who is therefore termed “the ark of God’s strength,” “the ark of his testament,” “the mercy seat” (hilasterion,) and the bearer of the glory, in the scriptures old and new. When he comes in “the glory of the Father,” he will “build the temple of the Lord, and bear the glory, and sit and rule upon his throne, and be a priest upon his throne”—Zechariah 6: 13. When this comes to pass, Jehovah will dwell in Zion again, and “shine forth” through Jesus there, as the Lion of the Cherubim of his glory; and in speaking to men will cause his voice to proceed from him, as the blood-sprinkled seat of his mercy, divinely overshadowed with the brightness of his majesty.
“When the Lord shall build up Zion, he shall appear in his glory.” “He hath chosen it; he hath desired it for his habitation. This, saith he, is my rest forever; here will I dwell, for I have desired it. I will abundantly bless her provision; I will satisfy her poor with bread. I will also clothe her priests with salvation; and her saints shall shout aloud for joy. THERE will I make the horn (keren, horn, strength, power,) of David to bud; I have ordained a Light for mine anointed. His enemies (the foes of this Light,) will I clothe with shame; but upon Himself shall his crown flourish”—Psalm 132. “The Redeemer shall come to Zion, and make thee glorious; the sons of strangers shall build up thy walls, and their kings shall minister to thee; for the nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted. I will make thee, the place of my feet, glorious. The sons of thine oppressors shall bow down at the soles of thy feet; and they shall call thee THE CITY OF JEHOVAH, ZION, THE HOLY OF ISRAEL—ir Jehovah, Tziyon, kedosh Yisraail. Whereas thou hast been forsaken and hated, so that no man went through thee, I will make thee an eternal excellency, a joy of many generations”—Isaiah 60. This testimony is sufficient to prove that the Royal City of the Kingdom under the Old and New Covenants, is Mount Zion, “the joy of the whole earth,” when “Jehovah shall reign over Israel there from henceforth even for ever”—Micah 4: 7.
ARISTOCRACY OF THE KINGDOM.
By the aristocracy is meant the princes of the state. In the commencement of Jehovah’s kingdom these were Moses, Aaron for the tribe of Levi, and eleven others, one for each tribe. The sons of Aaron also were sacerdotal princes; to whom may be added the Levites of the houses of Kohath, Gershom, and Merari. Besides these, Moses selected the chief of the tribes, wise men, and known, and made them heads over them, captains over thousands, hundreds, fifties, and captains over tens, and officers among their tribes. “And I charged your judges at that time, said he, saying, Hear the causes between your brethren, and judge righteously between every man and his brother, and the stranger that is with him.” These were they who possessed the kingdom. Flesh and blood, mortal and corruptible men. So that Jehovah’s kingdom under its first constitution may be defined a divinely organised system of government in Israel administered by sinful men under sentence of death.
INTERREGNUM.
This is a long period of time, extending from the destruction of the Royal City and Temple by the Romans, A. D. 74, to the return of Jesus to Mount Olivet, to fight against the nations under Gog, which shall then have assembled against Jerusalem to battle; and, having defeated them with a terrible overthrow, to restore the kingdom again to Israel, and become the king over the whole earth—Zechariah 14: 1-9; Ezekiel 38 & 39. This interval will have occupied about 1796 years, calculating the birth of Jesus at 4 years before the Vulgar Era. We style it the interregnum, because it is an interval of time between the kingdom in its past existence under the Mosaic Covenant, and its future existence under the Christian Covenant, called “the New.” During the continuance of the interregnum the kingdom does not exist. “It shall be no more, until He come whose right it is; and I will give it him,” saith Jehovah—Ezekiel 21: 27. The kingdom and throne are in ruins, and the royal city and temple are trodden under foot of the Gentiles, even the worst of them. But, saith the Lord, “I will return, and build again the dwelling of David (eth-succath Daivd, that is, Zion, the city where he dwelt,) AS IN THE DAYS OF OLD”—Amos 9: 11; Acts 15: 15. All things are now tending to this crisis. The present policy of the Gentile powers is working out a result, which will manifest itself in Gog, the Prince of all the Russias, possessing himself of Jerusalem, “the city of the great king.” When the saints see this, let them rejoice greatly; for the interregnum will be about to end in the deliverance of the Holy City, which shall become thenceforth “the throne of the Lord”—Jeremiah 3: 17; and the glorious things spoken of Zion, accomplished facts.
It is very common for sectarian theologists to style this interregnum, “the Christian Age,” “Messiah’s Age,” “the Christian Dispensation,” &c.! But these misnomers belong to the language of Ashdod; and savour of Rome, and not of Jerusalem. The interregnum is a part of “the Times of the Gentiles”—“the Court which is without the Temple of God, cast out away (ekbale exo,) and unmeasured”—who “tread under foot the Holy City,” or “them who worship in the temple”—Revelation 11: 1-2. The christian, or Messiah’s age, or economy, is the Age to Come. The interregnum belongs to Antichrist, as any one may see, who is capable of seeing by the light of truth. It is the time of the ascendancy of that cruel, devilish, and satanic power, which is to prevail against the saints until the Ancient of Days shall come—Daniel 7: 21-22; Revelation 13: 7. They, however, cannot see this, in whom dwells the wisdom that is from beneath; because both they and the power are energised by the same spirit. Woe, helpless and hopeless to the nations, if the Christian Age has no more happiness for them than they have experienced in this! It may have been a millennium of bliss to the earthly, sensual, and devilish rulers of mankind, who have wallowed in lust, and grown fat upon the groans and torments of the people. Emperors and kings, popes and cardinals, “lords spiritual and temporal,” priests and pastors, have revelled in the blessedness of their kingdom, upon which they have blasphemously invoked the name of Christ; but to the saints it is a hated kingdom; a kingdom that oppresses them; a kingdom they desire to see destroyed; and therefore in the interregnum, an age of hypocrisy, diabolism, and sham, they pray to their Father in heaven that his kingdom may come, and break in pieces and consume the power of them that destroy the earth. “Christian Age” indeed! An age which belongs wholly and solely to “the Devil and his angels,” for whom utter destruction is preparing, that the Day of Christ may be introduced.
During forty years preceding this interregnum, the gospel, or glad tidings to Judah and Jerusalem were proclaimed, announcing that David’s throne and kingdom should be re-established under a New and Better Constitution than the Mosaic; and inviting all Jews of whatever class or condition in life, to become the heirs with Christ of the gory, honor, incorruptibility, life, priesthood, power, and majesty of the kingdom, on condition of believing the things of the New Covenant, recognising Jesus as “the Seed” of the Covenants, made with Abraham and David, acknowledging his blood as the blood of the New Covenant, and of becoming the subjects of repentance and remission of sins through his name, being united to it by baptism. This proclamation was made to procure rulers and priests for the kingdom, upon the principle of righteousness imputed on account of faith in the promises of God contained in “the Covenants of promise.” Those who embraced the proclamation became kings and priests elect, although descended neither from Aaron nor David; and received a title to the blessings of the Covenant, to be enjoyed by them in a higher sense than they will be possessed by the Twelve Tribes when it shall be delivered to them as the constitution of the kingdom restored again to Israel. Thus the heirs now elected have now the remission of their past sins, and then possession of the kingdom with everlasting life; whereas the Tribes will then only attain to remission, with great temporal blessings, and the hope of eternal life at the end of 1000 years. The elect are now sanctified by the blood of the Covenant, and in their case there is no further need of sacrifice for sin; they have been washed, and will therefore require to be washed no more. They are complete in Christ with whose blood they have been sprinkled, and in whose name they have been washed. They only need eternal life, and to be like the king and priest of their communion now at God’s right hand, and they will be perfect; and efficient for all the duties they have to perform when promoted to the honor, glory, and offices to be bestowed upon when the kingdom is restored.
But the official necessities of the kingdom are greater than can be supplied by the faithful of Judah and Jerusalem. A sufficient number of Jews have not accepted Jehovah’s invitation to fill his house. He requires more kings and priests for his kingdom than he succeeded in obtaining from Israel by the preaching of his apostles. It became necessary, therefore, to turn to the Gentiles, and to invite them to enter his house, or kingdom, upon the same terms as the Jews. The invitation commenced at the house of Cornelius, and has been sounding out, more or less loudly and extensively, to the present time. We should judge from the little interest that exists in the kingdom of God, that a sufficient number of saints has been obtained to answer all the necessities of the case. We do not know that it is so; but we think it probable, that as many men and women have been procured from Judah and the nations, as the kingdom will have use for in the Age to Come. We hope the best, but fear the worst. We should rejoice in the conviction that thousands would yet embrace the gospel of the kingdom; but we sorrow in the belief that few will do it. They turn a deaf ear to it, and those that hear seem too generally incapable of understanding. There is less faith in the gospel of the kingdom among the Gentiles now, than there was among the Jews when they were “broken off because of unbelief.” The Gentiles stand only by faith in the goodness of God exhibited in the gospel; but if they continue not in his goodness they also shall be cut off. This is their position now. They have become “wise in their own conceits.” Their fulness is almost, if not quite, come in; for they have turned their backs upon Jehovah’s goodness, and are about to fall—Romans 11.
The work of separating men and women from the nations for the purposes of the kingdom by preaching the glad tidings concerning it, has prolonged the interregnum to the present time. It was necessary “to take out from among the Gentiles a people for the Lord’s name;” and therefore time was required to accomplish it. But, we doubt not, that had there been saints enough to administer the affairs of the kingdom, the kingdom would have been restored to Israel at Christ’s resurrection; in which case no Gentiles would have shared it with the Jews; but would have been brought into subjection to it, as they are yet to be in the era of regeneration, or restitution of all things pertaining to the kingdom, and compatible with its existence under the New Covenant. But Judah’s loss was our gain. By their partial and temporary rejection, the Gentile kosmos that believes is reconciled, and become heirs of the kingdom, the gospel of which Judah despised because it was preached in the name of Jesus. But they will not continue always in unbelief; for blindness has only in part happened to Israel until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And then all the Tribes of Israel will be saved. For God will graft them into their own Olive again, and that too on the principle of faith in Jesus, which will be life from the dead to the world. The interregnum will then be brought to a close. The 144,000, the representative number of the saved, will then be complete; and nothing will be wanting but the setting up of
THE KINGDOM UNDER THE NEW COVENANT.
To accomplish this, Jesus Christ, “THE REPAIRER” and “RESTORER,” must return to Jerusalem; the land of Israel must be wrested from the Gentiles; the Twelve Tribes must be resettled in Jehovah’s domain to be expelled no more; and the kings and priests elected for the kingdom must be raised from the dead that they may enter upon the administration of its affairs. The kingdom cannot be re-established before the resurrection of the saints; because from the nature of the priesthood and the ordinances connected with it, none can discharge the functions of it before God, who are not constituted priests “after the power of an endless life,” as the Lord Jesus was before them. The kingdom under the Mosaic Covenant was inherited by flesh and blood. Its kings and priests were all mortal men, men who died and saw corruption. It was “left to other people.” Aaron and his sons, and David, and Solomon, and all who possessed the honor, glory, and power of the kingdom, died and left them to successors. They were physically corrupt, and inherited corruption, or that which was to be abolished. The flesh profited them nothing. For though descended from Israel according to the flesh, though circumcised the eighth day, though priests and kings by hereditary descent, these advantages gave them no right to the eternal priesthood and royalty of the kingdom under the New Covenant, which has been dedicated by the precious blood of its immortal high priest and king. The kingdom under this covenant partakes of the nature of its king whose blood has purified its constitution. It is incorruption—a kingdom which can “never be destroyed,” “an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away.” If the reader understand these things, he will fully comprehend the saying of the apostle, that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither can corruption inherit incorruption.” It is a physical impossibility. Can mortal men possess an everlasting kingdom, the priesthood and royalty of which are not to be left to successors? Men whose lives rarely exceed seventy or eighty years cannot hold office for ever, or even a thousand years. Now the offices, &c., of the kingdom under the New Covenant are inheritable for not less than a thousand years, and some of them for ever. They cannot be possessed for fifty years by one set of men, and then vacated that they may be held by another set for fifty more. No, they who are promoted to them at “the Regeneration,” or Restoration, will possess them always; for the priesthood and royalty are unchangeable; are non-transferable—cannot be left to other people. This being the nature of things, the immortality of the heirs of the kingdom is necessitated. The kingdom cannot exist, the administration of its eternal and foreign affairs cannot be carried on, its ecclesiastical and civil ordinances will continue a theory, an unaccomplished prediction, so long as Christ sits at the right hand of God, and “his fellows,” the “joint-heirs” of his glory and power, the copartners of his “joy,” are sleeping in the sides of the pit wherein is no water, the unconscious, undreaming tenants of the tomb. “Corruption cannot inherit incorruption.” The “heirs of the kingdom” are either now in a state of corruption, or corruptible. So long as they continue thus, they cannot possess the kingdom. It is folly, namby-pamby, trashy absurdity, to affirm they can. None but those “alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them,” would declare it. How can they, however, utter aught else but foolishness, who are ignorant of the nature of the kingdom of God? And is it to be wondered at that the old heathens should have plunged into such unfathomable nonsense about souls and Elysium, seeing that they were intensely dark upon the things of the kingdom of God? The doctrine was the farthest possible remote from their conception, that immortality was life manifested through corporeal incorruptibility, for all those, and those only, who should by faith and practice be accounted worthy of an indestructible kingdom in the land of Israel, that should not be left to successors. They knew nothing of such a divine purpose as this, neither do the heathen of modern times, who eulogise the old philosophy, and approve the speculations of Plato on “the immortality of the soul.” They are ignorant and faithless of the gospel of the kingdom of God, in which the true doctrine of life and incorruptibility has been proclaimed; and being ignorant of this, there is no absurdity so ridiculous they are not liable to embrace.
THE NEW COVENANT OF THE KINGDOM.
“Behold, the days come, saith the Lord that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man, and with the seed of beast.” The “house” here signifies their country, or territory of the kingdom. “And it shall come to pass that like as I have watched over them, to pluck up, and to break down, and to throw down, and to afflict; so will I watch over them, to build, and to plant, saith the Lord.” “If the ordinances of the sun, moon, and stars, depart from before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever. If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the Lord.” The ordinances of the heavenly bodies cannot depart from before Jehovah; heaven cannot be measured; nor the foundations of the earth discovered: therefore, Israel, though widely scattered and peeled, are not cast off for ever; but are certain to be restored, and thenceforth to continue always a nation before God—Jeremiah 31.
Under the Mosaic Covenant the Twelve Tribes were divided into two nations under two distinct kings from the fourth of Rehoboam to the sixth of Hezekiah, being 256 years. But when they shall cease to be cast off, and instead of being called Lo-ammi, shall become a nation before Jehovah, “they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all;” for “thus saith the Lord God, I will take the children of Israel from among the nations (goyim) whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them unto their own land: and I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel, and one king shall be king to them all”—Ezekiel 37: 21-22.
When the two houses of Israel, or the Twelve Tribes, are brought into their own land again, the Law, or New Covenant is delivered to them from Mount Zion by their Lord and king; “for out of Zion is to go forth the law,” by which their organization as a kingdom is to be accomplished. Referring to this time Jehovah saith, some 470 years after David’s decease, “My servant David shall be their prince for ever. And I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my temple (miqudashi) in the midst of them for evermore. My dwelling (mishkani) also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And the nations shall know that I the Lord do sanctify Israel, when my temple shall be in the midst of them for evermore”—Ezekiel 37: 25-28. From this testimony it will be seen, first, that the Covenant is not yet made with Israel and Judah; second, that they are in the Lo-ammi state; and thirdly, that they are not yet sanctified, or made holy: for the declared reason that the temple of Jehovah is not yet in the midst of them—and cannot be there until they are restored, and the Lord returns to build it.
Israel and Judah cannot be sanctified until the temple is rebuilt; for in carrying out the mercy of the New Covenant, when “the Lord will forgive their iniquity, and will remember their sin no more,” a bullock for a sin offering is to be prepared for the prince and for all the people of the land at the celebration of the Passover, when it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God. This appears from the testimony of Ezekiel 45, where it says, that the Prince shall give a meat offering, and a burnt offering, and peace offerings to make reconciliation for the House of Israel; and these must be offered upon the altar when it shall be purged and purified for the purpose, and the temple shall have been reconciled, or expiated.
The everlasting covenant of peace with the Twelve Tribes which Jehovah promises to make, is termed a New Covenant, being an improvement upon the Old. “Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a New Covenant with the House of Israel, and with the House of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, &c.; but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the House of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least unto the greatest of them; for I will forgive their iniquity, and will remember their sin no more”—Jeremiah 31: 31.
The New Covenant is to be made with the two houses of Israel some time subsequently to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldees when the promise was made. It cannot have been made with them yet; for from the time it is made their iniquity will have been forgiven and forgotten. Will any man in his right mind affirm that the sin and iniquity of the house of Judah is forgiven? Can Judah be forgiven their treatment of their King so long as they continue in unbelief? No; the grafting of the Twelve Tribes into their own Olive is predicated on their not continuing in unbelief—Romans 9: 23. The Covenant is not yet made with Israel, or we should behold every Israelite a living tablet of the new law, full of the knowledge of God, and in disposition like their fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The Mosaic Covenant was engraved on stones; but the New is not to be recorded thus; it is to be inscribed upon their hearts by the spirit; for, saith Jehovah, “I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God”—Ezekiel 36: 27. And again, “I will hide my face no more from them; for I have poured out my spirit upon the house of Israel, saith the Lord”—chapter 39: 29. No sophistry can make this applicable to the past. God’s face is now hid from them, and because of the hiding thereof, they are wanderers among the nations, not walking in his statutes, nor observing his judgments to do them.
By the New and everlasting covenant of peace, the Twelve Tribes will be brought into legal possession of their country; Jerusalem will be safely inhabited; it will become the Lord’s throne; and the nation will be constituted holy with an everlasting righteousness in the Lord their king; for “in the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory”—Isaiah 45: 25. They will be justified in the Lord by faith in him, and because they believe in him, they will glory in him. But before they can be justified in him, they must be introduced into him; the nation must put him on as “the Lord its righteousness.” During the interregnum, an individual believer in Jesus and the things of the covenant, is introduced into Jesus as the Christ that he may be “justified in the Lord,” by baptism into his name; so the believing nation will be baptised in the Red Sea into Jesus, as it was before into Moses, when all its sins will be cast into the depths of the sea, and it will come to Zion to receive the law, or Covenant of peace. In proof of this second passage of Israel through the Red Sea see, —Psalm 68: 22; Isaiah 11: 15-16; Zechariah 10: 10-12; and Micah 7: 19. Thus is the nation introduced into the name of the Lord, in which its “new heart and new spirit,” and its faith in Jesus, are granted to it for repentance and remission of sins; and they are accepted. Henceforth, “they shall walk up and down in his name.” They shall be “settled after their old estates.” “Their land that was desolate shall become as the garden of Eden; and the waste, and desolate, and ruined cities, fenced and inhabited.” As for Jerusalem it shall be called “a city of truth,” and “its name from that day shall be JEHOVAH-SHAMMAH, the Lord is there”—Ezekiel 36: 26; Acts 5: 31; Ezekiel 48: 35.
By faith in the promises, belief in Jesus, and baptism into him as its Lord, High Priest, and King, the nation is “saved from its enemies, and from the hand of all that hate them.” Thus saved, it will have become strong and powerful, “serving God without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of its life,” or mortal career. Immortality is yet before it; for it is a nation destined to exist and flourish for ever. Immortality and glory, honor and rank, in the kingdom, are now accessible, and have been for ages past, to individuals of the nation; but they judge themselves unworthy of it. When, therefore, the kingdom comes, they can rejoice only in common with the nation in its territorial, civil, spiritual, and social blessedness. If they would live for ever, they must wait with patience till death shall be abolished from the earth, and “every curse shall cease”—Revelation 21: 4; 22: 3. Then, at the end of the thousand years, all, both Israelites and Gentiles, who shall be accounted worthy of exaltation to the higher, or angelic, nature, will become immortal; and as one nation, subject to Jesus and the saints, will constitute an everlasting kingdom on the earth, when “all things shall be created new,” and “the sea shall be no more.”
In the present interregnum, believers of the Gospel of the Kingdom when justified in the Lord, and so made holy, and saved from their past sins, are still required to offer sacrifice, or to do service to their Father who is in heaven. The doing of service is indispensable so long as human nature is “sinful flesh.” If when believers are justified and sanctified morally and constitutionally, they were also physically cleansed, or purified from that evil principle which brings them into death and corruption, religious service would be unnecessary. When they rise from the dead, they will be free from this evil; nevertheless they will perform religious service; but it will be for nations and individuals subject to this evil and not for themselves. Now the same analogy obtains in regard to the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Although justified in the Lord, and constituted a holy nation, they are still a nation of generations subject to mortality because of the evil in their flesh, which nothing but the creative energy of omnipotence can eradicate. So long therefore as the nation is perpetuated by a succession of generations, there must be a national religious service connected with the memorials of death, and performed for them by a priesthood such as the blood of the covenant of their sanctification demands. When death shall be destroyed, generations will cease to be born and to pass away; and the life of the nation will be sustained, by a generation that shall consist of individuals who shall have all become immortal, or “equal to the angels.” The nation will then be free from the death-principle. It will be intellectually, morally, and physically perfect. Its sin, as well as the sin of the world, will be thoroughly removed; so that no vestige thereof will remain. There will, therefore, be no ground for a service in which gifts and sacrifices are offered for the erring and the ignorant. “The law of sin and death” being extirpated from the nature of man, the good he would do will not be beset by evil. He will not err, nor be the sport of ignorance. “God will be all and in all” as he now is in Christ; so that his will will be as loyally and acceptably performed, as though he were to execute it himself. No service therefore will be needed to remind men of the impurity and mortality of their nature, their inherent sinfulness and ignorance, and that their acceptedness is predicated upon the perfect obedience of another even unto death, whom God had set forth as a propitiatory through faith in his blood. But until this consummation be attained, a service will be necessary memorialising these very things. And this necessity urges us on to the brief consideration of the
PRIESTHOOD OF THE KINGDOM.
This is an order in the State composed of men who shall have become priests “after the power of an endless life,” having been during the interregnum washed in baptism, sanctified by the anointing spirit, and consecrated by the blood of the covenant. These are “priests to God,” who, saith the Lord, “shall enter into my temple, and they shall come near to my table, to minister unto me, and they shall keep my charge”—Ezekiel 44: 16. They are then the priests of Zion clothed with righteousness and salvation—Psalm 132: 9, 16, —the meek whom the Lord hath beautified—Psalm 149: 4. They are representatively styled “the sons of Zadok;” and are kings also as well as priests, and therefore priests “after the order of Melchizedec.” The priesthood of the kingdom is consequently a Royal Priesthood; and as it is “for ever,” its officials are immortal and “equal to the angels.” They are perfect as their Father who is in heaven, having no evil in their flesh, or impurity of character. Such are the priests of the kingdom when the saints shall possess it “under the whole heaven.”
The Royal Priesthood is an order under one chief, who is called High Priest. He is the elder brother of the order, all the rest being “his brethren.” He was once like them in the days of their sinful flesh, “a little lower than the angels;” but being also “made after the power of an endless life,” he enjoys the spiritual, angelic, or higher nature, and sits as high priest for ever on his father David’s throne, and bears the glory. The sons of Zadok, or Jesus and his brethren, are constituted a priest forever by “the word of the oath;” so that the royal priesthood of the kingdom is without predecessor or successor. Its officials do not derive their inheritance from Aaron and his sons; nor from the old covenant of the kingdom. They inherit under the New, which gives them all the privileges and honors they possess. The word of the oath made their Chief, though a son of Judah and of David, High Priest contrary to the Mosaic law which created Aaron; it makes them priests also of the same order by constitution, when in the interregnum they were “made the righteousness of God in him.” Being in him they are “complete in him,” and “joint-heirs” with him of all his titles, honors, and real and personal estate.
Contemporary with this order of priests there will be in the kingdom a class of priests who are not royal, nor priests after the power of an endless life. This inferior class is Levitical. They will be mortal and corruptible men of the tribe of Levi, degraded from their former rank under the old constitution to an inferior station under the new, to minister before the people instead of before the Lord as in the days of old. The reason of this degradation is the misconduct of their order under the Mosaic covenant. When the people turned to the worship of idols, the Aaronic Levites became their ministers, instead of vindicating the honor and institutions of Jehovah; therefore, says he, “they shall even bear their iniquity”—“they shall not come near unto me to do the office of a priest unto me, nor to come near to any of my holy things in the most holy place: but they shall bear their shame, and their abominations which they have committed”—Ezekiel 44: 10, 13. Let the reader give heed to this, and note that these Levitical priests under the old covenant officiated at the altar, entered the Holy Place and burned incense and ate the shew-bread at the Lord’s table, and their chief also passed into the Most Holy with the blood of the atonement. This was coming near to Jehovah, and ministering unto him. But their order had caused the people to serve idols, and had officiated as idol priests. They had done this while the kingdom existed under the Mosaic code, and the punishment of the offence is decreed to fall upon the order in its degradation when the kingdom shall be restored under the New or amended constitution. They may not approach the altar to offer the fat and the blood of the sacrifices, nor enter the Holy and Most Holy to stand before the Lord. In this state of affairs, the High Priesthood is vacated, and the altar and Holy places are devoid of ministers. There are the nations, and the Twelve Tribes, and the ministering Levites, who minister to the worshippers, but cannot approach to the Lord. What is to be done in this case? Does not the reader perceive a vacancy here? A space to be occupied by an order, that may appear before the Lord? That may burn the fat and sprinkle the blood upon the altar, and enter the Holies, and minister for the world as priests to God, and not to the people? The chain is complete when the order is introduced between the people’s priests and Jehovah. Counting the links from the remotest, there is first, the nations; secondly, Israel; thirdly, the Leviticals; fourthly, the sons of Zadok; fifthly, the High Priest, or Prince of Israel; and sixthly, Jehovah. This is the chain that connects the ends of the earth to the throne of the Eternal when the kingdom shall exist in the Age to Come.
It is evident that the sons of Zadok are resurrected men. Ezekiel is testifying things which had not existed previously to his day, could not exist contemporarily with him, and have not existed since. They are at variance with the Mosaic law, and could not therefore exist so long as it continued in force. But they are things foretold while the temple was in smoking ruins, & affirmed of God as certain to come to pass. There is no question therefore but they will be hereafter. The reason given why the sons of Zadok shall burn the fat and sprinkle the blood on the altar, and appear before Jehovah in the Holy place, is, because “they kept the charge of his sanctuary, when the children of Israel went astray from her.” But these faithful men have been dead for ages. It is necessary therefore for them to rise from the dead, that they may perform the service to which they are appointed.
THE TEMPLE.
In the covenant made with David, Jehovah declared, that he would “raise up” one of his sons, who should be also Son of God, and that he should build a temple for his name. While the foundations only of a temple existed in Jerusalem, Jehovah sent Zechariah to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, to say to him, that “the man whose name is THE BRANCH,” which he had said should grow up unto David, “should build the temple of the Lord.” He emphasised this message, saying, “Even He shall build the temple of the Lord.” He also gave him to know, that “the sons of strangers from afar should come and assist in its erection; when the glory of Lebanon, the fir-tree, the pine-tree, and the box, together should be brought” to Jerusalem to beautify the place of the temple—Zechariah 6: 12-15; Isaiah 60: 10, 13. —When the flocks of Kedar, and the rams of Nebaioth should also come up with acceptance on its altar, and the temple itself should be glorified with his glory. When this should come to pass, Zechariah likewise testified that “THE BRANCH should bear the glory, and should sit and rule upon his throne; and be a priest upon his throne.” Zerubbabel, the governor of Judah under the Persians, was at that time rebuilding the temple and finished it in the sixth year of Darius. But Zerubbabel, though a type of Messiah, who was then, so to speak, in his loins, was not named “The Branch;” nor did he ever sit and rule upon a throne, as king or priest; therefore the temple he finished was not the temple referred to. The temple built by Zerubbabel was finally destroyed by the Romans; since which no temple has existed in Jerusalem. The Lord Jesus is admitted on all hands to be “the man whose name is the Branch;” but as yet he hath built no temple to the Lord. It is true, Christ’s mystical body, the church, is styled “a holy temple in the Lord, for a habitation of God through the Spirit.” He also called his natural body “the temple” which he would rebuild in three days; and in the Revelation, it is said, that “the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of the New Jerusalem.” This is all admitted. But what is that temple, and who is the builder of it, even that which Ezekiel describes in his fortieth, forty-first, and forty-second chapters? No such temple, mystical or architectural, has ever existed in Jerusalem, or elsewhere, since men have dwelt upon the earth. The building, in its Courts, and internal compartments, with its furniture, and ordinances, are different from the Tabernacle, and temple built by Solomon and Zerubbabel. It is a structure, then, hereafter to be erected in Jerusalem Restored, not in Jerusalem the New; and the builder of it is the Lord; for, he saith, “I will set my temple in the midst of Israel for evermore”—He will set it there by “The Branch,” whom he hath appointed to build it.
Solomon, Zerubbabel, and “the Branch” are the great temple builders of the kingdom. The third temple which Jesus shall erect on Moriah, will be more magnificent than any building that has yet adorned “the City of the Great King.” It will be renowned throughout all the earth, and will be frequented as “the House of Prayer for all nations,” who shall “flow unto it.” “And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of Jehovah, to the temple of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths; for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem”—Isaiah 2: 3. “Because of his temple in Jerusalem shall kings bring presents unto God”—Psalm 68: 29. St. Peter’s at Rome, St. Paul’s at London, St. Sophia at Constantinople, &c., will all be deserted for the temple of Jehovah in Jerusalem.
Six things are abolished from the future temple which were indispensable to those under the law—these are the Laver, the Branching Light-bearer, the Ark of the Covenant, the Cherubim, the Veil, and Golden Altar of Incense. These are all unnecessary to a service performed by Jesus and his brethren, the sons of Zadok. Having been washed in baptism before their resurrection, they have no use for the Laver like the sons of Aaron under the law. The light bearer of seven branches is superseded by their own anointing. They shine like the sun by the Spirit glory with which they are invested. They are the many light-bearing branches of the Holy Places, which need no artificial illumination in their presence. The Melchisedec high priest is himself the Ark of the New Covenant, and with his brethren, the Cherubim of glory. He is the Mercy Seat, sprinkled with the blood of the New Covenant, which is his own. The law, the manna, and the almond rod is He, the way, the truth, the bread of heaven, the resurrection, and the life. What need has the Most Holy Place of a temple of the Mosaic ark and its contents, with winged Cherubim, in the presence of a personage so august as He, the very substance of those shadowy things! The Veil was rent when his body was broken on the tree. The future temple is neither historical nor typical. It foreshadows no details; but by the building, and “the separate place,” both west of the Most Holy Place, indicates that there is a state beyond the thousand years into which they shall be received, who may be accounted worthy of eternal life when sin and death, and every curse, shall be abolished from the earth. Being no monument of the past, the rent-Veil repaired is seen only in the scarred substance of the Prince of Israel, which it prefigured. He being the antitype of the Veil, the type is excluded from the future temple, which will be illustrated by the presence of his glorious body which can be rent no more. “In every place, from the rising to the setting sun, incense shall be offered to the name of the Lord, even a pure offering”—Malachi 1: 11. The burning of incense, therefore, will not be restricted to the temple, as in the days of old. Prayer is the voice of supplication seeking assistance in times of need. It ascends as incense before the Lord, burned by the necessitous. Prayer will be made for Israel’s king continually, and will ascend as incense in every place. But Christ and his Saints will not be necessitous. They will have no wants unsupplied; for they will possess all things. Praise, not prayer, will ascend from the Holy Place; therefore there will be no golden altar there on which to burn incense before the Lord. Having said enough concerning the future temple of the kingdom for the comprehension of the subject, we shall proceed now to say a few words respecting
THE SERVICE
to be performed within its courts and walls by the “priests to God” and to the people. These, as we have shown, are immortal and mortal men, the sons of Zadok and the sons of Aaron. So long as sin and death are in the world, the Melchisedec service of the Messiah-erected temple will continue; and the sons of Zadok, the Prince, or Just One, members of his immortal flesh and bones, will also with him be sacerdotally regarded as identified with the sins and trespasses of the people. Therefore it is, that the priesthood under the New Covenant of the kingdom is not purely immortal, but of a mixed character. A priesthood composed entirely of resurrection men, of angelic or spiritual nature, in whose flesh there was no sin or evil principle, would not be in harmony with the institution, and therefore unfit to perform a service for the purification of the erring and the ignorant; for priesthood must be sympathetically related to the ignorant who worship through it, having infirmity in itself, that it may offer for itself as well as for the people. The infirmity of the New Covenant priesthood of the kingdom resides not in Zadok and his sons, but in the priests, the Levites, who minister to the people, and perform the humbler duties of the order. Nevertheless, the Just One and his sons are represented in the service as offering their burnt offerings, and peace offerings; not for themselves as individuals and sinners, but only in their priestly capacity as part of a priesthood of mixed character, which partakes of Christ’s mortal flesh, as well as his immortal nature, in reckoning the mortal descendants of Levi and Aaron among its constituents.
It would be discordant with the fitness of things that the priesthood should be wholly mortal, or entirely constituted of immortals, seeing that the kingdom itself is a mixed institution the subjects thereof being Israelites in flesh and blood; and its higher order of kings or rulers, incorruptible men. The Twelve Tribes will then be obedient, and keep the covenant of Jehovah, and be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” This is said of Israel in flesh and blood subsisting. They will be the secondary kings and priests over the nations; the intermediate order between these and Zadok and his sons, the kings and priests to God over them and all the earth. The kingdom and priesthood under the Mosaic law was of an unmixed character, the members of its civil and ecclesiastical orders being all of them subject to death. Not so, however, with the kingdom and its orders in the Age to Come. Its subjects and inheritors are an intermingling of flesh and spirit, until the kingdom shall be surrendered to the Father at “The End;” when the people, and all their superiors worthy of exaltation, shall be all spirits, or incorruptible men; and priesthood and priestly service, but not the royalty, will be done away.
Israel and the nations subjected to them will bring of the flocks and herds of Kedar, and of the rams of Nebaioth, and present them for sin offerings, and burnt offerings, and thank offerings at the north gate of the inner court of the temple; and present them to the Levites of Aaron’s seed. These, who are not permitted to approach the altar, nor to minister before the Lord in the temple, will have the “charge at the gates of the house, and minister to the house” “for all the service thereof, and for all that shall be done therein.” They will therefore take charge of the people’s gifts; and “they shall slay the burnt offering and the sacrifice for the people, and they shall stand before them to minister unto them.” They will slay the sacrifices, namely, “the burnt offering, and the sin offering, and the trespass offerings,” upon the eight tables of hewn stone in the porch of the north gate, and at the right and left side of the north entrance without. They will then wash them in the place appointed at this gate; and divide a portion to the people, and reserve that devoted to the Lord. The people’s part of the sacrifices they will boil in the corner courts of the paved outer court of the sanctuary; but “the most holy things,” or parts of the sacrifices and offerings dedicated to the Lord, of the meat offering, the sin offering, and the trespass offering, will be boiled and baked in “the holy chambers of the priests” on the two sides west of the inner court, and eaten there by the sons of Zadok, “the priests that approach unto the Lord.” After this arrangement will “all they that sacrifice come and take of the pots of the Lord’s house, and seethe therein”—Zechariah 14: 21.
While the Levites are slaying the sacrifices and passing to and fro in the inner court, they are to wear linen garments that perspiration may not be produced. But they are not to go forth into the outer court with these upon them; but to put them off “and lay them in the holy chambers, and put on other garments:” and the reason given is, that “they shall not sanctify the people in their garments.” It will be their duty after washing the sacrifices, to transfer the fat and the blood to the sons of Zadok, who on the Eighth Day, which is our First Day of the week, and the Sabbath of the Age to Come, instead of the Seventh, as under Moses’ law—on the Eighth, shall they burn the fat upon the altar, and sprinkle the blood upon it. This is the duty of Zadok’s seed. They are privileged to approach the altar and to enter into the temple, and stand before the Lord; but not the Levites, the people’s priests. They are ministers of death to the sacrifices before the people; but the sons of Zadok, everliving ministers, salvation-clothed, before the Lord. The former slay the unblemished yearling lamb for the daily morning offering by fire, the voluntary offerings of the Prince, and the things devoted of the people; while the latter cause their rich odour to ascend in clouds from Hah ariail haharail, the Altar, or Lion of the Mountain of God.
The service of the temple will be daily, weekly, and annual. For further details of the weekly service the reader can consult Ezekiel for himself. We proceed to remark, that before the edifice is opened for public worship, the altar has to be “purged and purified,” the house reconciled, and the glory of the God of Israel to make His august entry by the eastern gate. The cleansing of the altar and reconciling the house, which are synchronous, commences on the 1st day of Abib, (sometimes called Nisan, the First month of the Jewish ecclesiastical year, and answering to part of March and April,) and continues for seven days. This is a grand and important national event, for it is nothing less than reconciling the House of Israel itself, as appears from these words—“And the priest shall take the blood of the sin offering and put it upon the posts of the house, and upon the four corners of the settle of the altar, and upon the posts of the gate of the inner court. And so thou shalt do the seventh day of the month for every one that erreth, and for him that is simple: so shall ye reconcile the house.” This event will complete the reconciliation of the House of Israel in form as well as in principle. The reconciling of the temple, altar, and inner court, will be the formal memorial celebration of the reconciling of the Tribes of Israel, when, having believed in Jesus and been baptised into him, Jehovah shall have “cast all their sins into the depths of the sea”—Psalm 68: 22; Micah 7: 19; Zechariah 10: 10-11. Then will Jesus, who is the glory of God, attended by the 144,000 redeemed from among men as the First-Fruits unto God and himself, with a voice like the noise of many waters, and as the sound of a great thunder, ascend into the hill of the Lord, escorted thus into the holy place. They will sing the new song before the throne, even the song of Moses and the Lamb. By the eye of faith we see them approaching “the temple by the way of the gate whose prospect is towards the east,” Mount Olivet, long since in sunder cleft, and all the region round, shining with the glory; we hear them exclaim with loud hosannas, “Blessed be He that comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed be the kingdom of our father David, that cometh in the name of Jehovah. Hosanna in the highest!” We behold the glorious multitude demand admission for “the mighty God,” the Conqueror of the World, within the walls of the city where he intends to dwell “in the midst of the children of Israel for ever.” “Lift up your heads, O ye gates,” say they; “and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors: and the King of Glory shall come in!” Ah! now how still the crowd! How hushed is every voice! “Who is this King of glory?” is the only sound, echoing from Salem’s walls, that vibrates on the ear. The answer to this bursts forth as the roar of many waters proclaiming him to be “The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle:” and followed by a renewal of the demand for admission, saying, “Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors: and the king of glory shall come in. Who is this king of glory?” do ye ask? Jesus, “the Lord of armies, He is the king of glory.”
The dedication of the house, the reconciliation of Israel, and the return of the glory of God to the temple for the first time since its departure in the reign of Zedekiah, being accomplished, the next thing is the celebration of the fulfilment of the Passover, nationally, in the kingdom of God. The reader will remember what the High Priest in the days of his flesh said to his brethren upon this subject. “I will not any more eat of this Passover,” said he, “until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” By the time the temple is opened as the house of prayer for all nations, it will have been fulfilled in their worse than Egyptian overthrow, and in the deliverance and restoration of the Tribes of Israel. The kingdom being restored to them, the Passover is revived, and the Lord Jesus “eats and drinks at his table in his kingdom” with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, all the prophets, and the apostles, &c., according to the ordinance contained in Ezekiel 45: 21-24. —“In the first month, in the 14th day of the month, ye shall have the Passover, a feast of seven days; unleavened bread shall be eaten. And upon that day shall the Prince prepare for himself, and all the people of the land, a bullock for a sin offering,” &c.
The feast of Pentecost, fifty days after the Passover, is not celebrated in the temple service of the kingdom. It was primarily fulfilled in the events of the fiftieth day after the crucifixion; and will be secondarily or nationally, in the latter rain of the spirit on Israel when restored previously to the building of the temple by “the man whose name is The Branch.” The two wave loaves of that feast, made of fine flour, represented “the First Fruits unto the Lord.” The sons of Zadok being the substance of that representation, as Jesus himself was of the wave sheaf, waved before the Lord by the Aaronic priest on his resurrection day, the shadow will not be reproduced hereafter in the service. Christ and his brethren, the First Fruits, being there in person, the representation would cease to be in place.
Neither will there be “a memorial of blowing of trumpets” on the first day of the seventh month, as under the Mosaic law. The thing represented by the “memorial” will have been altogether accomplished before the dedication of the temple to be built by Jesus. It began to be fulfilled by the proclamation of the gospel of the kingdom by apostles; and will be wholly completed when the “everlasting gospel” shall be preached by “the angel flying through the midst of heaven”—Revelation 14: 6-7. There can be no type when the thing typified has come to pass in full. It has then answered its purpose and is abolished.
The day of Atonement on the 10th of the seventh month forms no part of the amended service for the same reason. It was a type, and will be secondarily or nationally, and therefore, entirely fulfilled in the reconciliation of the house of Israel. The Mosaic atonement primarily prefigured the reconciliation of those who, believing “the word of reconciliation” ministered by the apostles, should have their sins and iniquities borne away by Jesus when resurrected, as represented by the bearing away of the sins of Israel by the scape-goat. The iniquity of all believers was laid upon him when crucified. He was then “the goat for the Lord;” but when raised from the dead, he became “the scape-goat presented alive before the Lord to make an atonement.” Being raised, his relations were changed. He then became the High Priest destined to enter alone into the Most Holy to make an atonement “for his own household” with his own blood. He is there now; and will remain there, until all who shall constitute “his house” shall have come in and been reconciled. Till then no man can be where he is. When he shall have finished making atonement for his household, “He will come out,” and “make an atonement for all the congregation of Israel.” “His house are we, if we hold fast the confidence, and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.” The household of the Lord Jesus appears in the temple of the kingdom, “holy, unblameable, and unreproveable,” as the sons of Zadok, performing service before the Lord as his priests.
But when the household of the Lord Jesus shall be reconciled, their judgment or acceptance, still remains to be pronounced, and the secondary reconciliation for the nation of Israel effected. These particulars of the Mosaic typical atonement are yet unaccomplished. Some of us who believe the gospel of the kingdom are looking for him. We are anxiously waiting for him to come out of the Most Holy place that we may be clothed with salvation, and enter the kingdom with him. “After death the judgment.” Judgment on the members of the king’s household; and judgment on the nations. Will the dead in Christ—will the living in him—be accepted, or shall we not? That remains to be seen. Who but God’s High Priest can tell; for He only knows whose names are written in the Book of Life.
Until He come out of the Most Holy, the consummation of the reconciliation of the faithful dead, the living believers, and the Twelve Tribes, will be in abeyance. But when He appears in his kingdom, the first will rise, the next be changed, and reconciliation be made for the whole house of Israel, as described above, in the purging and purifying the altar, and the reconciling of the house, in the first seven days of the first month. When this is accomplished, the Mosaic representative atonement will be lost in the substance. There will be no more remembrance of sins once a year. Therefore the atonement on the tenth day of the seventh month forms no part of the annual service of the temple in the Age to Come.
The Mosaic Feast of Tabernacles was “the Greatest of the Feasts.” It was celebrated during seven days, beginning on the 15th of the seventh month of the ecclesiastical year, which is the first of the civil year, which in its antitype is “the acceptable year of the Lord.” This year of civil or national acceptance under the new covenant, begins with the first day of the month, when the temple, altar, inner court, and nation, are reconciled by Messiah the Prince. Like the rest of the Mosaic Feasts, the Feast of Tabernacles represents “the knowledge and the truth,” first in relation to Christ’s Household, and secondly, in relation to his nation, the Twelve Tribes. The members of his household are “strangers before the Lord, and sojourners; their days on earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding.” Like Israel, as it were, during the interregnum, they “sojourn in Meshech, and dwell in the tents of Kedar;” passing the time of their sojourning there, rejoicing in fear and trembling. But when their elder brother, the High Priest of the covenant, shall come out from the Royal Presence to bless them, they will be pilgrims no longer; but permanent dwellers in their Father’s house, partaking of “the joy.” They will have passed through the primary signification of the Feast, and have attained perfection.
The Feast of Tabernacles was the celebration of the ingathering of the harvest. As a type, this had a two fold signification, namely, the ingathering of the Royal Household of the kingdom, when Christ shall “gather his wheat into his garner” at their resurrection; and the ingathering of the Twelve Tribes, when at that crisis they shall be gathered “from the outmost part of heaven,” and replanted in their own land. They now sojourn literally in Meshech, and dwell in the tents of Kedar; but when the kingdom is restored to them under the New Covenant they will dwell in their own habitations, and the nations will come up to Jerusalem to worship their king, and occupy the booths. But the antitype of the feast, which is, “a feast of fat things for all nations,” is not fully completed till the wheat harvest of the Age to Come shall be entirely in-gathered at its expiration, when “death shall be swallowed up in victory,” and the earth shall lie under the curse no longer. The feast of tabernacles, therefore, continues to be celebrated in the temple service, for this temple is “the holy of the tabernacles of the Most High;” wherefore its posts and walls will be adorned with palm trees, the branches of which, with those of other goodly trees, the Israelites carried on the first day of the feast, as the emblems of the joy that awaits the nation, when it shall have obtained the victory over all its enemies on the establishment of the kingdom of God. Therefore “in the seventh month, in the fifteenth day of the month, shall the Prince do the like in the feast of the seven days, according to the sin offering, &c.” —Ezekiel 45: 25; Leviticus 23; Zechariah 14 &c.
THE ROYAL FAMILY OF THE KINGDOM.
The members of the Royal Family are in the aggregate styled “Christ’s House” in the New Testament. They are “the sons of Zadok,” the children of the promise, who, in Christ, are counted for the seed of Abraham and David. It will be a numerous family; though as compared with the totality of the sons of Adam from among whom they will have been redeemed, they will be but a “little flock,” the few who find eternal life out of the many who seek to enter in. They are the “144,000 redeemed from the earth;” not that there are only so many thousands. This is a representative number; a definite for an indefinite. They are “the meek” who “shall inherit the earth;” “the poor in spirit,” to whom pertains “the kingdom of God.” None will be of this number, who do not believe in this kingdom; for it is he that believes the gospel and is baptised shall be saved; “he that believes not shall be condemned;” and the subject-matter of the gospel consists of “the things of the kingdom, and name of Jesus.” “According to your faith be it unto you.” Hence, he whose “faith” embraces what God has not promised, gets nothing but confusion of face; while he who believes the promises will realise them if he faint not. The poor in this world, rich in faith, are the heirs of the gospel kingdom. They become inheritors when they rise from the dead. Then “they possess the kingdom under the whole heaven;” and “rule on earth” as kings and priests to God with Christ for thousand years. This is the testimony of Daniel and John; and he that does not believe it has no right to be regarded as a believer of the gospel. He is faithless of “the testimony of God.”
These, the saints, are the aristocracy of the kingdom under the New Covenant. Being immortal, they possess it forever; for it is “not to be left to other people,” that is, to successors. There are inferior civil orders in the kingdom, as well as ecclesiastical, which stand between them and the peoples. These inferior officials are styled “the Prince’s servants,” while the immortals are styled “his Sons.” When the Prince of Israel bestows a gift upon the former, they can only possess it till “the year of liberty;” but if he present a gift to any of the latter, it continues his for ever. Though his brethren, they become his “sons,” as the children whom God shall have given him, when he shall raise them from the dead; for being the substitutionary testator of the Will, thus standing in the Father’s place, who has appointed him to raise the First Fruits from the dead, he can then say to them, “Ye are my Sons, this day have I begotten you” from the dead. “God,” says Paul, “will raise us up by Jesus;” so shall we be the Prince’s Sons of whom Ezekiel speaks.
THE EMPIRE OF THE KINGDOM.
A kingdom and empire, though often connected, are not the same. The dominion of a king over a particular nation and country is a kingdom. This is sufficiently definite for the purpose. But when in addition to this, his sovereignty extends over several nations, kingdoms, and countries, this secondary and extended dominion constitutes the empire. The British dominion is imperial by act of Parliament, and consists of the United Kingdom and Empire; the former comprehending Great Britain and Ireland; and the latter, the East and West Indies, Canadas, &c. The kingdom is the first dominion; the empire, the second and subordinate.
The same distinction obtains in the sovereignty of Jesus Christ. “The first dominion shall come to Zion; and the kingdom to the daughter of Jerusalem.” These are the same. The first dominion is limited to the land promised to Abraham, lying between the Euphrates and Mediterranean; while the second dominion or empire, extends over all people, nations, and languages, to the ends of the earth. “He shall have the heathen for his inheritance; and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession;” “All kings shall fall down before him;” “All nations shall serve him.” How many rival and independent governments will there be over the nations then? Not one; for “the kingdoms of this world,” not kingdoms beyond the skies, “shall become the kingdoms of Jehovah and of his Christ;” so that then “there shall be one king over all the earth;” and He “the Son of God, the King of Israel.” This is the testimony of God, and we doubt not will, in the life-time of this generation, assuredly come to pass. Such, then, is the kingdom we advocate as the subject-matter of the gospel, and the great fact of the Age to Come. Kingdoms in the skies and beyond the skies belong to other intelligences, not to man. The earth is good enough for him, as other planets are for them. This our orb is man’s abode for ever. “The earth hath Jehovah given to the sons of men.” Let us therefore be content with what God hath promised; and not thanklessly repudiate his gift, and hope for things to which we shall never attain. But we must close this synopsis of the kingdom, which when understood cannot fail, we think, to eradicate from the reader’s mind all faith in, and even respect for, the superstitions and gospels of the day.
EDITOR.
* * *
OUR VISIT TO BRITAIN.
(Continued from page 252.)
The illness of our friend Mr. Bell (and we believe he is still our friend though domiciled in the camp of the aliens) was a passing cloud over our field of vision for the time. It was an opportunity lost for his permanent illumination. We had thought, that a man occupying his position in society would be able to command a respectful attention to the truth, and be the means of introducing it among the higher classes of the community. We were therefore the more anxious that he should come to a precise and comprehensive understanding of it. But it seems that this was not to be. The truth was not to present itself to the people of Newark under the patronage of the Manager of the Bank, an office that answers, as it were, to that of a priest in the house of Mammon. It is not the wise, the noble, and the rich of this world whom God employs in calling out a people for his name. He hath conferred this honor upon the unschooled, the weak, the ignoble, and the despised. Neither does he condescend to seek patronage for his truth. It will patronise all men who will heartily accept it; but asks patronage of none. Professors are too apt to court the favor of the influential under the impression that by their aid its progress would be more rapid and abiding. This, however, is a mistake. Proselytes would be made to the influence, which would control all things; while the truth would be practically acknowledged by the many only as a vehicle for its diffusion to the glorification o “Us,” rather than of God. This patronage-seeking spirit has been the ruin of many a good cause. Let us avoid it. We dislike to see a greater anxiety to convert a learned or wealthy man, than one of humbler station and attainments. We have often noticed it. It is generally labor uselessly expended; for the Lord’s people are rarely to be found among that class. “He hath chosen the poor in this world, rich in faith, to be the heirs of his kingdom”—James 2: 5. Let us bestow our labor upon these. If there be any of “the high-minded” standing by as spectators of our work, if God has any people among them, they will recognise the voice, and seek admission among the flock, to which, it is God’s pleasure, to give the kingdom. Though we regretted Mr. Bell’s sickness as the suffering of a friend, we felt very much as we have expressed ourselves in relation to his influence on the people. He hath dishonoured himself by entering the communion of the State-Church, which is the pride, pomp, and vanity of the world incarnate; but the gospel of the kingdom still lives in Newark. He was “the church,” as it were, while an elder in “this reformation.” As he has gone over to Satan, “the church” must therefore have gone with him. And this is probably the case; for we believe that nothing is left of “Campbellism” in Newark, since the gospel of the kingdom and Elpis Israel have pitched their tabernacle there. We produced no confusion in the church; nor was any excited; for there was no bigot among them, having more zeal than knowledge, to disturb the peace. We simply showed them the light; and they opened their eyes, and saw it, as will appear from the following note:
Newark, July 23, 1850.
Bro. Thomas:
Dear Sir, —I have been over to Nottingham. In conversation with Mr. Thomas Wallis, * and his lady, they informed me that they did not attend the evening meetings at Barker-Gate in consequence of their having nothing but baptism for remission of sins, of which they were completely tired. I asked them, why the brethren did not instruct each other in the Prophets and the Psalms? He said the Old Testament had been too much neglected. I am glad they are beginning to find it out. I am positive that the elucidation of Holy Writ as displayed in Elpis Israel will work in time a mighty reform. We are about changing our meeting room for one more eligible, lately occupied by a portion of the Baptists, who have agreed to smother their differences. It is more commodious and easy of access; and we having received lately a great accession of knowledge in the scriptures, feel greater confidence in standing before the people. We have now something to offer to their notice which they can comprehend; something tangible that they can lay hold of; and although at first it sounds strange in their ears, the public pay more attention than hitherto.
With kind regards from the brethren and myself, I remain,
Yours faithfully,
JOHN HAGE.
* Brother to the Editor. —Ed.
While we were at Nottingham subsequent to our visit to Lincoln, we were informed by a friend that it was the intention of Mr. J. Wallis and his confederates to make an attack upon us at a convention of church delegates to be held in September, at Glasgow. Some resolutions were to be got up by which we were to be put under a sort of ban or interdict. We considered we had this information from good authority, as it afterwards proved to be. Were we to allow a body of men, from various parts of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, to assemble in Glasgow, where we were then at work, and to sit in judgment and pass decrees upon us, and have no right to open our mouth in defence of our position and the truth? We did not think it expedient to give Satan this advantage over us. We wished to have the right to speak if attacked. If nothing were said concerning us, we should take no part in the proceedings, as the establishment and extension of Campbellism in Britain was not at all in accordance with our views of the public good. The church at Lincoln was on the printed roll of the denomination. It stood fair with the leaders, who had till recently been venerated by them as saints of the calendar after a certain sort. This church did not intend to send a delegate to the convention on account of the expense; otherwise they would. We were aware of this before we left Lincoln. Now, being in good odour there, we concluded to offer our services as their representative without any cost to them. If they accepted them, they were to forward our credentials to Glasgow in time for us to take our seat. The offer was readily agreed to, and we were accredited by the following letter addressed:
“To the meeting of Delegates of the Churches of the Disciples convened at Glasgow by notice in the ‘Harbinger’ and ‘Gospel Banner.’
Dear Brethren, —We being a congregation of believers in ‘the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,’ into whom we have been immersed, desire to be represented in your meeting, which we understand is convened for the purpose of promoting the best interests of the Congregations of Disciples in Great Britain and Ireland. We do therefore hereby appoint our esteemed brother John Thomas, from the United States of America, as the delegate of the church in Lincoln, that he may unite with you in consultation upon the best measures to be adopted in promoting the object for which the meeting is convened. We know of no one more interested and competent than he. We have unanimously received him into our fellowship. 1s.t—On the ground of his well known writings in the Christian Messenger, and of the high commendation which has therein been given of him. 2nd. —His admission to fellowship by the church in London. 3rd. —Of letters from America in his favour from brethren with whom some of us are well acquainted. 4th. —Of the general approbation of those who have been favoured by hearing him since his arrival in this country; and lastly, on the ground of our personal acquaintance; and we having heard him ourselves. We hope, therefore, brethren, you will cordially receive him as our representative in your council.”
Praying that you may abound in that wisdom which cometh from above, which is pure, peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and of good fruits, without partiality, &c. Thus may your deliberations be conducted in the letter and spirit of the truth, as in the presence and devout reverence of Him who is immortal, invisible, the only wise God; to whom be glory and dominion throughout all ages. —Amen. Signed on behalf of the church,
William Scott, Elder,
James Jackson,
John Turney,
Henry Clarke.
Lincoln, September 18th, 1848.”
Accompanying the above was the letter below expressive of the views of the church in respect to certain “items” published by Mr. Wallis as topics of deliberation for the delegates.
Dear Brother Thomas:
We have been requested by the brethren to express to you something of our views respecting the subjects to be mooted at the ensuing meeting. Mr. James Wallis enumerated eleven items. We have nothing to advance on the first six. The 7th is, that “the reports of the evangelists, and Campbell funds be considered and passed.” It has been reported that there is a surplus of the “Campbell fund” after defraying the expenses of Messrs. Campbell and Henshall. Should it be proposed that this surplus be paid over to Bethany College, with an understanding that young men should in return be sent over to Great Britain and Ireland, we should decidedly negative such a proposition as being circuitous, expensive, and as not promising any real speedy advantage.
We by no means approve the arrangements of the Edinburgh meeting in 1842. At which meeting a committee was chosen, and monies extracted from the congregations, and expended so as to yield but little advantage in speaking the truth generally amongst the churches. We think much may be done if mutual confidence can be established, and those churches possessing the means would give help and encouragement to these congregations which may need assistance, especially to those which may have one or more persons among them qualified for local, and in some instances, extensive evangelisation. Churches might thus be visited that have need of help. Churches might be planted, and the word of the Lord thus run and be glorified.
We are decidedly adverse to the adoption of any system deputing individuals as a committee, invested with irresponsible authority, to whose custody all surplus monies of the churches are to be confided, thus constituting them “Lords over God’s heritage.” There is no such example among the apostolic churches. Until the churches become so purified, and disinterested, that mutual confidence be established, there never will be any good impression made upon the public mind.
Respecting our own church our number is about as given in the Harbinger. During the past year we have lost two by death, and four by removal. This number has been nearly made up by others uniting with us. We have during the summer immersed five: but have not increased by them on account of distance. They are probably united elsewhere.
The brethren are all well, and rejoice to hear of your success at Glasgow. They all desire to be kindly remembered to you; and subscribe ourselves in their behalf,
Yours faithfully,
WILLIAM SCOTT,
JAMES JACKSON.
Lincoln, September 25, 1848.
Such were our credentials and instructions, by virtue of which we proposed to take our seat among the “Reformers,” and to speak, if need be, on “the promotion of the best interests” of their churches, and in defence of our own position if assailed. It will be seen that every thing was perfectly regular. The church was on the list of “sister churches,” and in good standing. Mr. William Scott, a descendant of the orthodox writer of Scott’s Commentary, an elder, and formerly an evangelist, and colabourer with Mr. Wallis, our doctrine well searched into and approved; and freely welcomed to the table they had provided for all baptised persons who were willing to celebrate the death of Christ on their own responsibility. There seemed to be no flaw; no ground of cavil in our case. But in this we were reckoning without mine host.
The morning after our departure from Nottingham we left Derby for Scotland. We took the six o’clock train that we might reach Edinburgh that night; but a little adventure detained us much longer on the way. The train was standing about a hundred yards in advance of the Darfield station, and not being aware of the uncertain results of leaving the cars after they had passed the platform, we got out for an infinitely shorter time than it proved to be. Perceiving that the train was moving, we hastened to resume our place, which from the ground was not so easily gained as we imagined. We made a spring to reach the step and at the same time to grasp a hand extended to assist us; but the onward motion threw us from our feet, and rolled us from the ledge to the ground. In recovering our hat, we cogitated a second attempt. We found, however, that locomotiveness is quicker than thought incumbered by action. The train had acquired so much speed by the time we were ready for another attempt, and being about to enter the tunnel, we perceived that the attempt was both hopeless and dangerous. Fortunately for our baggage, the conductor saw the accident, but could not stop the train, as when once in motion, there is no halt between the stations. The situation was most unpromising for the fulfilment of an appointment in Glasgow on the morrow at half past seven P.M., distance 290 miles. The next station was Barnsley some four miles ahead. We pushed on thither as fast as running and walking alternately would advance us, in hope of arriving soon enough to telegraph the station-master at Normanton to take possession of our baggage. Normanton is ten miles from Barnsley, and a point at which th