KINGDOM AND AGE
TO COME.
“And in their days, even of those kings, the God of heaven shall set up A KINGDOM which shall never perish, and A DOMINION that shall not be left to another people. It shall grind to powder and bring to an end all these kingdoms, and itself shall stand for ever.”—DANIEL.
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Mr. B. C. Carillon, minister of the
Jewish Synagogue at St. Thomas’, in a letter to the Occident, in which he
repudiates the divine authority of the Talmud, and contends for the supremacy
of the Law and the Prophets, says, ‘The divine, pure, and perfect code of
Moses is destined to be at a future period the code of all mankind.’ He
concludes his letter to the editor by ‘Hoping that the God of our fathers will
soon reunite us with our blessed
There is more truth than fiction in Mr. Carillon’s prediction concerning the Mosaic Law. The Feast of Tabernacles and Levitical Sacrifices are enjoined by the code of Moses; and Zechariah testifies that—
‘Every one that is left of all the nations, which
came against Jerusalem, shall even go up from year to year to worship the King,
the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. * * * And they that
sacrifice shall come and take of them, and seethe therein’—Zechariah
The Mosaic Law amended so as to harmonise with the truth in Jesus, but not the entire original statutes, will become the code of all nations, in the time when ‘it (the Law) shall go forth from Zion, and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem.’
The conclusion to his letter is one in which every one can heartily join who believes the Gospel of the Kingdom. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are his ‘fathers,’ in a higher sense than Mr. Carillon, as a natural Jew, can claim. Palestine is the land of the true believer’s adoption, and he longs to be united to it, not simply to be ‘under the sway’ as a mere subject, but to be associated with Messiah in his kingly and priestly offices, as joint-rulers with him of Israel and the nations of the earth.
EDITOR.
* * *
ROMISH IDOLATRY DEFINED.
‘The images of Christ, and of the Virgin Mother of God, and of other Saints,’ saith the Council of Trent, ‘are to be kept and continued in temples especially, and due honour and homage paid to them. Not that it should be believed there is any divinity or virtue in them for which they should be worshipped, or that any thing is to be sought from them, or that trust is to be placed in them, as was formerly done by the pagans who put their hope in idols; but because the honour shown them is referred to the prototypes whom they represent: so that we adore Christ through the images which we kiss, and before which we uncover the head and kneel, and pay homage to the Saints whose similitude they bear.’
Such is the way in which the Council endeavours to relieve Papists of the charge of idolatry. But they may refine as much as they please about the distinction that exists between their views and the ideas of Pagans in the adoration of images, the acts still remain. Papists and Pagans, brethren of the same great synagogue, namely Satan’s, both ‘kiss,’ ‘uncover the head, and kneel’ to idols. These are acts of adoration before the senseless stocks they hallow; and by these acts they constitute themselves idolaters—payers of honour and homage to ‘statues of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood; which can neither see, nor hear, nor walk,’ which are due to God alone. The law which convicts them of idolatry is,
“Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto
thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or
that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them,
nor serve them.’
Papists do all this. They have ‘other gods,’ they make graven images; and they make likenesses of Christ, of the Virgin, and of ‘Saints,’ whose ghosts they say are in heaven above. They bow down to them, and serve them in divers ways, celebrating days to their honour, making votive offerings on the shrines, and ‘saying prayers’ to them: and more besotted and stupid than the old pagans themselves, they do honour and homage to worm-eaten skull bones and shins of the dead! The ghosts of their deceased patrons are the ‘other gods before Jehovah’ whom they honour with worshipful fanaticism far above him.
Such
is the idolatry, the soul-debasing superstition, blasphemously styled
Christianity, against which a word is forbidden to be published by the
Jesuitical friends of ‘Order and Religion,’ as it is called, in the dark places
of the earth! Even ‘enlightened protestant
EDITOR.
* * *
It is not after all an unwholesome discipline which forces the supporters of new facts and opinions, in proportion as they are startling, to put forth their energies to battle against stubborn opposition, and to demonstrate repeatedly, and under all possible disadvantages, the truth of the things which they believe. Argue the matter as we may, in proportion to the strangeness of a set of statements will always be the incredulity with which they are received.
* * *
ARGUMENT FOR ETERNAL TORTURE.
BY ALEXANDER
CAMPBELL.
President
of
A Campbellite paper intitled the ‘Christian Intelligencer,’ is republishing the speculations of the Reverend Alexander Campbell, issued some years ago in a pamphlet called an ‘Extra’ to the Millennial Harbinger. The title of it was ‘Life and Death.’ It exhibited his opinions on ‘Eternal Punishment;’ and his ‘arguments’ against ‘Everlasting Destruction,’ which he prefers to call annihilation; and in favour of the dogma of Eternal Life in Torment by Fire for all ‘Spirits’ continuing impenitent till their separation from their bodies at death. Thus in effect he defines the eternal punishment spoken of in scripture: and in his essay endeavours to prove that it is the ‘Death’ which awaits those who do not attain to the ‘Life’ promised to the righteous; and hence the title of his pamphlet, ‘Life and Death.’ Our obliging friend says, he wrote it in honour of our theory—‘I honoured his theory,’ says he, ‘by an Extra on Life and Death, which as far as I know he has not attempted to answer.’ I quote from memory, not having his paper at hand. He professes to think it an unanswerable performance; and it is so accepted by the 300,000 disciples, whose supervisor he claims to be. Seeing, then, that it is being reproduced in the columns of the Intelligencer, I have thought it might not be altogether unprofitable to present our readers with a specimen of this wonderful treatise—this chef d’oeuvre of logic and criticism, with which its author plumes himself so fantastically, to the admiration of a multitude that cannot think, and will not learn.
He says, ‘it is assumed by some of the advocates of destructionism that an annihilation of personal existence IS misery.’ For myself, I have never read or heard of such an assumption being entertained by any advocate of what Mr. C. styles ‘destructionism.’ Misery implies consciousness; and is defined, ‘Great unhappiness; extreme pain of body or mind.’ Now, I cannot think, that any ‘advocate’ would use the word misery as descriptive of the state of a person whom he regards, when annihilated, as nonentity—mere dust without consciousness. The assumption attributed to such advocates is convertible into the proposition that, When persons are reduced to dust, and cease to know any thing, they are very unhappy, and suffer extreme pain of body and mind. This is the assumption Mr. C. imputes to ‘some of the advocates of destructionism!’ But in this, he is too willing a witness against them, and renders his testimony incredible. He impeaches his own veracity by stultifying his own statements. In stating the views of his opponents, or of those from whom he differs, he is not worthy of belief. The assertion that destructionists assume any such thing, is so palpably false and ridiculous, that Mr. C. is at once convicted of untruth. Look at it! To make destructionists affirm that ‘an annihilation of present existence is misery,’ is equivalent to saying that annihilation is torment, which is the punishment contended for by tormentists, which destructionists deny. If Mr. C. say that destructionists affirm that, ‘the prospect of an annihilation of personal existence is misery,’ he is correct. They do affirm this. But Mr. C’s words will not admit of this construction, though the context seems to intimate it. That ‘an annihilation is misery,’ is tantamount to, misery is an annihilation of existence, or ‘the state of not being is misery.’ ‘An annihilation of personal existence’ is the subject proposed; ‘misery’ is the predicate affirmed of this subject; and ‘is,’ which is a verb indicating a state of being, or what exists, is the copula: hence, being in misery is an annihilation of personal existence, is the unambiguous assumption charged upon some destructionists by Mr. C., which if justly affirmed of them would prove them to be fools; and if not, their accuser any thing but a reputable opponent.
Mr. C’s policy in argument is to impute something to his adversary palpably absurd, as above; and then to argue against the assumption as if he were reasoning against the real thing believed by his opponent, but not expressed or contained in the imputation. This diabolical procedure excites a prejudice against the adverse party, which in itself establishes a sympathy between the prejudicants and himself, which is half the victory, where the debate is to be decided by a vote. He proceeds in this ad captandum vulgus fashion, so peculiarly congenial to his phrenology, in the paper before us, where having uttered the imputation to prejudice the reader, he goes on to argue against the prospect of annihilation being misery, which all (not some only, but all,) destructionists believe. By sophistry, which with him is logic, he makes the prospect happiness rather than misery! He works out this conclusion upon the principle that the prospect of falling down dead without warning is perfect enjoyment to the expectation of being skinned alive; so that a relative negation of suffering with him is positive enjoyment and felicity!
Having then presented the assumption to the reader, we may now introduce Mr. C., that he may speak to him in his own person. He proceeds as follows:
“In the fourth place, I argue against this assumption from the fact that it amounts to an annihilation of the sanctions of the gospel, and directly contradicts the positive declarations of the Saviour concerning eternal punishment. With destructionists there can be no eternal punishment, for with them there is no eternal fire.
“This is truly a very grave charge against any system of doctrine, and requires to be well sustained. What, then, let me inquire, is indicated by the term punishment? It is not mere animal suffering; for then the lamb would be punished for its innocence, and the dove for its meekness. Both these frequently endure great animal sufferings. There must, then, be some other pain than animal sufferings to constitute punishment. There is mental pain as well as physical pain. The martyr at the stake, though enduring much animal pain, suffers no mental agony. There must always be consciousness of guilt, or a sense of crime committed, in order to punishment.
“Punishment, it appears, begins and ends with the feeling of pain inflicted for the commission of crime. If, then, at any time consciousness of guilt, or the feeling of pain, mental or physical, because of sin, should cease, that moment punishment ceases. Punishment begins and ends with the consciousness of pain inflicted because of guilt contracted through the violation of law or the neglect of duty. Now as the destructionists assign an end to the endurance of pain because of sin, they of course incontrovertibly deny ‘everlasting punishment.’ But Jesus Christ says, ‘The wicked,’ at the final judgment, ‘shall go away into everlasting punishment,’ and the righteous ‘into life eternal.’ The same word, aioonios, everlasting, ascertains the continuance of the punishment and of the life. Can any thing, then, be more evident that the destructionists have formed a direct issue with Jesus Christ on the subject of eternal punishment? The Messiah says it is everlasting; the destructionists say it will come to an end at the second death.
“For the sake of a few mere pretenders to sound argumentative discrimination and great logical acumen, I shall give this argument the regular form, that any one disposed to attack it may immediately perceive what he has to encounter! Logically expressed it stands thus: —
“No one dispossessed of conscious guilt can be punished. But persons annihilated are dispossessed of conscious guilt; therefore, no one annihilated can be punished.
“Annihilation,
or personal extinction, may, indeed, be an end of punishment, but never the
beginning of it. This single argument, unless fairly met and refuted,
annihilates the whole theory of destructionism. We build this argument upon no
ambiguous premises. We have the word of the Saviour and Judge of the world for
it. In giving an account of the final judgment, he says all on his left hand shall
depart ‘into everlasting punishment.’ He uses the word kolasis to
indicate what sort of punishment he means. The word occurs but twice in the New
Testament. In a passage found, 1 John
“It is worthy of remark that eternal life, as the reward of the righteous, is the contrast with eternal punishment, the reward of the wicked: and that this is infinitely greater than death, we learn from another passage, which we ought to regard as a distinct argument or evidence of the doctrine of everlasting punishment.”
* * *
ENDLESS TORMENT REFUTED, AND “EVERLASTING PUNISHMENT” EXPLAINED.
The preceding ‘argument’ is quite a flourish of trumpets; a very windy blast, full of uncertain sound, having no scriptural significancy. If our valiant friend would talk less about logic and be more logical, he would pass for a better logician than he appears to be from his argument; but pluming himself so much upon his fancied proficiency in the syllogistic art, he tempts one to a scrutiny of his pretensions, to ascertain if it be all gold that glitters in his sentences! The odour of the extract before us is very redolent of that species of logic styled sophistry by the professed. Its argument seems to be founded on a fallacy of that class styled ‘material,’ or non-logical, where the conclusion, indeed, follows from the premises, which, however, ought not to have been assumed.
Strange as it may appear, it is nevertheless manifest, that Mr. C. errs, not knowing what the word punishment imports. No man can reason correctly if he do not understand the signification of the terms he employs. These must be correctly defined, so that an accurate idea may be formed of what a man is talking about. The thing in dispute is that represented by ‘punishment,’ or kolasis. In what sense are these words used in English? A man who aspires to the renown of having given to his contemporaries a faithful and thorough translation of the scriptures, ought to be able to answer this question. It is evident, however, from the above, that Mr. C. is not. He ‘errs not knowing the scriptures,’ nor the words he employs; therefore his logic is but a non-logical fallacy, as I shall show.
He
is evidently very partial to ‘eternal fire,’ and to eternal consciousness
as indispensable elements of the thing represented by the word ‘punishment.’
Because, these ideas haunt his imagination like ghosts, or like the remembrance
of the shade he saw when a dyspeptic student, that told him all that should
befall him to the end, he therefore conceits they were as certainly a part of
the Lord’s mind when he spoke of ‘eternal punishment!’ But with our experience
of Mr. C., we cannot admit that his mind and the Lord’s are one upon a single
important particular. A great change must come over us before we can admit
that, to reject Mr. C’s opinions is to ‘annihilate the sanctions of the gospel,
and directly to contradict the positive declarations of the Saviour concerning
eternal punishment.’ With Mr. C. there can be no eternal punishment unless fire
co-exist; if then it should turn out that the fire is not eternal, he denies
eternal punishment, and therefore the doctrine of the Lord. Thus we throw back
his ‘very grave charge’ against ‘destructionists’ upon himself; and in opposing
assertion to mere assertion, we affirm that a co-eternal fire is not
necessary to eternal punishment such as it is represented to be in the scriptures
of truth.
Mr. C. undertakes to sustain well the ‘truly very grave charge’ he has made against those who reject his speculations. We like to see a thing ‘well sustained;’ and when we read his intimation to sustain his charge well, we were all on the qui vive to see how well he would do it! To accomplish this, the first thing he very properly inquires is, What is indicated by the term punishment? He asserts that it is not mere animal suffering. I, for one who believe in destruction, never imagined that it did. There is no dispute between Mr. C. and myself here. I believe with him that punishment is not mere animal suffering. Next he says, there is mental pain as well as physical pain in punishment. Here again we are agreed in part. There is, provided the offender be of sound mind and have time for reflection; but it is quite conceivable that, a man may have inadvertently transgressed a law, and suffer instant death before he had time to reflect upon the penalty he had incurred by the act. In this case there would be punishment without either physical or mental pain. The case of Uzzah is in point here. He stretched forth his hand to steady the Ark with the seemingly good intention of preventing its fall. But it was contrary to law for any one to touch the Ark but a priest, under penalty of death. This was the law-punishment, which in Uzzah’s case took instant effect. He sinned inadvertently, thinking, doubtless, of nothing less than the law and its penalty, and the punishment of death followed as a flash of lightning.
Again, a fool, idiot, or madman, may transgress a law whose penalty is death, but in their case commuted into imprisonment for life. Instead of suffering mental pain because deprived of liberty, they would probably enjoy themselves very much; and might conceit themselves to be kings and princes in a palace. Cases of this sort are numerous in asylums. They would be suffering the punishment of the law, being in the passive voice, but without pain of any sort, unless they should happen to fall sick of a painful disease; but in this case the pain would be no part of the legal infliction, but consequent upon the infraction of a law of health. These are obvious truths, and form the exception to our full acquiescence in the idea that there is always mental pain in punishment. It is self-evident that there is not.
But, I admit there may be mental pain sometimes. Thus, if a conscientious, or a conscious, person know the law, and the punishment which is sure to follow its neglect or transgression, and nevertheless violate it, then his punishment begins with the transgression. He may be free from physical pain, but be crucified with mental agony by ‘a certain looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.’ And when he comes to appear in that judgment, his anguish of mind will increase, not from apprehension of physical pain only, but from ‘seeing Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and he himself cast out.’ This will cause ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth,’ evincing great mental suffering. This is punishment, but not all the punishment. Physical pain follows mental, and for a time co-exists with it, until both end in death and corruption. But of this hereafter; the points admitted are, that punishment is not mere animal suffering, or bodily pain; nor is it exclusively mental pain; nor always mental and physical pain combined, though it is sometimes; but it may exist without either. And this harmonises with the meaning of the word ‘punishment’ as given in the dictionary, though not with Mr. C’s theory. It is defined by lexicographers as ‘Anything inflicted on a person for a crime or offence, by the authority to which the offender is subject, either by the constitution of God, or of civil society.’ The person in this case is a sufferer, because he is in the passive voice, being a person acted upon. His being a sufferer does not necessitate that he should be conscious of what he is undergoing. Criminals have been hanged in unconsciousness from fainting; they were nevertheless sufferers in the true import of the term, and are therefore said to have ‘suffered death,’ or the punishment inflicted by the law they had transgressed. We use the word ‘punishment’ in the received sense, which Mr. C. and his brethren, the eternal-tormentists, do not. They say, ‘there must always be consciousness of guilt, or a sense of crime committed, in order to punishment.’ We have seen in the case of Uzzah that no such necessity exists—there may be punishment, and no co-existent consciousness.
From what has been said it is evident, that our friend Campbell is like a mariner who has lost his course, completely out of his reckoning in saying, that ‘punishment begins and ends with the feeling of pain inflicted for the commission of crime;’ so that any time the feeling of mental or physical pain should cease that moment punishment ceases! No pain no punishment, is the dogma of tormentists—a tradition of their fathers, so manifestly false and ridiculous that, if it were not for the extraordinary kind of admiration we have for their brother Campbell, so ‘profoundly skilled in analytic,’ we should be tempted to class them among those ‘foolish men’ whose ‘ignorance,’ the learned Paul commanded his son Timothy to ‘send to Coventry!’
Presuming that no pain no punishment is good logic, and a first principle of the oracles of God, but which I have shown to be a mere conceit, Mr. C. turns upon the ‘destructionists,’ and charges them with incontrovertibly denying the everlasting punishment taught by Jesus in rejecting his dogma! This is certainly quite presumptuous. Destructionists believe what Jesus says about punishment; but they do not believe the tormentists-interpretation of what he said on the subject: nor are they convinced that the opinions of the fire-and-brimstone men are entitled to the same respect as His teaching. In denying the no pain no punishment theory, they do not deny that the ‘these’ referred to ‘shall go away into everlasting punishment’—Matthew 25: 46. They believe they will; and that the punishment will be as permanent as the ‘everlasting destruction’—2 Thessalonians 1: 9, and ‘second death’—2 Corinthians 2: 15-16; Revelation 20: 14; 21: 8, threatened by Paul and John.
But to return to our logician. When shall we get him to stick to the text? He quotes Jesus as saying, ‘the wicked’ (at the final judgment) ‘shall go away into everlasting punishment.’ We beg leave to remark that Jesus says no such thing. His words are, ‘these shall depart into everlasting punishment.’ Mr. C. has substituted ‘the wicked’ for ‘these,’ and thrown in parenthetic words fixing the time of going away into punishment at what he calls ‘the final judgment.’ By the wicked is generally understood all who are not righteous. Though the wicked are unquestionably unrighteous; yet all that are not in a justified state, are not styled wicked in scripture. The ‘these’ referred to by Jesus are doubtless wicked persons; but they are not ‘the wicked’ in the popular Gentile sense of all mankind who are not righteous. Hence, the Lord Jesus was not speaking off the punishment of all ‘the wicked,’ or unrighteous; but only of those who sustain a relation to him in being in some way related to his disciples, whom they allow to suffer from hunger, thirst, desolateness, nakedness, sickness and imprisonment, without attempting to relieve them. They are in fact the ‘many who shall say, in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied (or preached) in thy name? And in thy name have cast out devils? And in thy name done many wonderful works? And then I will profess unto them, I never knew you: Depart from me’—Matthew 7: 22. —Where to? Into the fire mentioned in the twenty-fifth chapter, ‘prepared for the devil and his angels;’ and why? Because ‘ye work iniquity.’ These are they who depart into the punishment; and not all the sons of Adam who die in sin, or being sinners.
But some one will say, ‘if the ‘these’ be unrighteous professors only, all ‘the wicked’ in the Gentile sense are certainly comprehended with ‘the Devil and his angels’ who suffer in the same fire?’ I answer, not so. ‘The Devil and his Angels’ are powers on earth, incarnated in the goat-nations on the King’s left hand. They are ‘the Beast with the False Prophet, and the Kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war’ with Him—Revelation 19: 19-20. Turn to this passage. The reader will there see, that the powers represented by the symbols of ‘the Beast’ and ‘False Prophet,’ are to be cast into the same place as ‘the Devil and his Angels’—eis teen limneen tou pyros teen kaiomeneen, ‘into the lake of the fire being inflamed with brimstone.’ That region of the earth where the Powers assemble to contend with the King in war, is the territory which will be converted into a fiery lake by the warfare which is to rage there until the Powers be consumed, with the armies that strengthen them. The Nations from which those armies are drawn, though subject to many calamities, will not be destroyed—Zechariah 14: 16. They will be subdued, when their kings can no more raise armies out of them for battle; and when their conquest is complete, they will joyfully accept the law off the victor, and become blessed in Abraham and his Seed. The horrors of the contest in the lake of fire, the great battle-field of the age—AION—will be awful. The fiery indignation of the Lord, by pestilence and famine, fire and sword—Isaiah 66: 15-16; Zechariah 14: 12, will there devour the adversaries; and thither, to share in ‘the terror of the Lord,’ will the cursed professors, but not doers, of the word, previously awakened from the dust of the earth, be exiled, and overwhelmed in the torment of the crisis.
The Eternal-tormentists err in assigning the period of the departure into the punishment into what they term ‘the final judgment.’ By this they mean, a judgment to occur when Jesus comes with all the ghosts of the righteous, to reunite them with their bodies; also to rejoin the hell-bound spirits with their bodies, and to send them back to fire and brimstone to burn in pain, physical and mental, without end; and to conflagrate the earth and all the wicked upon it, immediately after he has separated the living righteous from among them, and added them to the newly embodied ghosts he brought with him from the skies: —a judgment which, when perfected, will have been a work of destruction of one of the fairest planets of the universe, leaving Jesus and his company no more to do with earth, nor earth with them: so that now all things being finished, nothing else remains, but that he should turn his back upon the smoking ruins, and the piercing shrieks of Hell’s burning myriads, and ‘escort his friends to a new paradise of God, in which the tree of life, in all its deathless beauties, shall bloom and fructify for ever!’ O merciful God, what savages must they be who can frame, and earnestly plead for such a crisis of humanity; and how dishonouring to thy character, as thou hast revealed thyself in thy word, to attribute such diabolism to thee! It is the ferocity of wolves superadded to the folly and imbecility of creatures who are wise in their own conceit, and unsubdued to the spirit of thy truth! No wonder their enmity is so fierce against them that believe it.
Such is ‘the final judgment’ elaborated by the thinking of beclouded brains. They don’t pretend to say exactly when it will come to pass; though taking the apocalyptic thousand years as symbolic time, to be estimated on the day for a year principle, some of them say, it may be 360,000 years to come! Precious interpreters are these! Well, whenever it is to be, they assign the scene predicted by the Lord to the epoch of ‘the final judgment;’ so little do they know of any thing to happen before then! Yet this assignment is vastly strange! The Lord himself says, that this going away into punishment and life, is ‘When the Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him.’ And he tells us when this coming is to happen; for he continues, ‘then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory.’ But how do the spiritualisers get along with this? They say, that Jesus ascended to the throne of his glory before the Day of Pentecost, and has been sitting upon the throne of his kingdom for ages! If we grant it, then the ‘these’ he speaks of went away into everlasting punishment then; which, perhaps, even they, who are accustomed to assent to the most fabulous incongruities with implicit credulity, would say is absurd. It is absurd, just as much so as to affirm, that the Son of Man ascended his throne of glory on the day of his ascension to heaven, or that he sits on it at the present time. Let the reader turn to Matthew 25: 31, and study it. He does not go from earth to sit thereon, but He comes in his glory; not alone, but accompanied by his angels; He comes escorted by them to ascend the throne of his glory and to sit on it till, as Paul says, he shall have put down all enemies; for he must reign till he has accomplished that. Jesus was in Israel’s land when he said he would come to sit on the throne of his glory. Mark that, ye sky-kingdomers! This text teaches, that the throne of glory which he is to sit upon is to be a throne in Israel’s land; and that when he comes to sit upon that throne, the context further informs us, that the ‘anathema maranatha,’ the accursed when the Lord comes—1 Corinthians 16: 22 (verse 41,) are exiled from his presence into the age fire, which is, as already explained, the punishment of the age. It is clear, that the judgment referred to in this chapter is not a final judgment; but one introductory of the Kingdom, the preparation of which is then complete. This appears from the thirty-fourth verse, where the Heirs of the Kingdom—James 2: 5—promised them, are told to come and take possession of it—a kingdom prepared for them. But the ‘taking possession of the kingdom, and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven’—Daniel 7: 27, by the Heir and his associates, cannot be effected without judgment. It is therefore written in Daniel, ‘the Ancient of Days came and judgment was given to the Saints of the Most High; and the time came for the Saints to possess the kingdom.’ This is the judgment of which Jesus speaks in the twenty-fifth of Matthew—not a final judgment; but the judgment on THE POWERS represented by Daniel’s Fourth Beast with its Little Horn, and its Eyes and Mouth, and its Ten Horns; summarily designated by the Lord, ‘the Devil and his Angels,’ because what they represent constitutes SIN’S BODY POLITIC; and styled by John, ‘the Beast, the False Prophet, and the Kings of the Earth’—the Little Horn being ‘the Beast;’ the Eyes and Mouth, ‘the False Prophet;’ and the Horns, ‘the Kings of the Earth.’ So long as these Fourth-Beast Powers retain their dominion, ‘the blessed of Christ’s Father’ cannot inherit the kingdom; because its territory and people, the Twelve Tribes, are in their hands. Hence, ‘the judgment’ must first ‘sit, to take away their dominion, to consume and to destroy it to the end.’ When this is accomplished as represented by John—Revelation 19: 11-21; 20: 2-3, ‘the Father’s blessed Ones’ are in possession of the kingdom, and thenceforth ‘reign with Christ a thousand years’ without any further change. In consuming Sin’s Body Politic, and destroying it out of the way, scope is afforded for the punishment of individuals, who will be raised for this purpose. The rapidly approaching judgment which introduces the Age to Come, is ‘a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation to that same time’—Daniel 12: 1. When it is manifested, it will be ‘the everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels,’ in the lake or territory of the Fourth Beast. At this crisis, three things occur of joyful interest to the believer—Michael, who is Jesus, stands up for Israel; Israel is delivered; and many of the dead awake. Not all of them, but ‘many;’ they are the dead once constituted righteous, some of whom continued ‘faithful unto death;’ while others, who began to run well, were hindered; and returned like ‘dogs to their vomit, and like washed hogs to their wallowing in the mire:’ the former ‘some,’ awake from the dust in which they are sleeping, to everlasting life; while the latter, arise to be exiled from the King’s presence with shame and contempt, to share in the punishment of the age.
The final judgment, scripturally considered, is the last to which the inhabitants of earth will ever be subjected. It occurs a thousand years after the judgment treated of in the twenty-fifth of Matthew. The territory on which the decision will be determined will be the arena of the pre-millennial judgment; for ‘the devil’ of that crisis, is to find his destruction where the Beast and the False Prophet encountered their’s a thousand years before. The final judgment is the epoch of the destruction of the last enemy, death; so that thenceforth there shall be no more death upon the earth. The destruction of death is represented in the symbolographic sentence saying, that ‘Death and the Grave were cast into the lake of fire,’ that is, ‘the rest of the dead’ to be raised, but who had no part in the resurrection of the First Fruits, with the unjust who died during the thousand years, these at the end of them are awaked, and driven into exile where they come to their end with the devil, who seduced from their allegiance the millennial nations at the end of that age. ‘This is the second death.’
The words in which Matthew’s Greek translators record the expression used by Jesus are eis kolasin aionion. Mr. C. says, ‘the word aioonios, everlasting, ascertains the continuance of the punishment, and of the life.’ This is as much as we could expect from one who is ignorant of the gospel of THE AIOON, or glad tidings concerning the blessedness of the nations in the Age to Come. I object, that it does not define the continuance of either; but indicates the epoch of the punishment and the life. The mind of Jesus, the apostles, and of the Jewish nation, was full of the Future Age, styled Aioon Mellon in the Greek. They were of one mind on this subject. Referring to the future Aioon, the prophet styles Messiah AVI AD, the Father or founder of the AD or age—Isaiah 9: 6. Hence, when they wrote ‘for ever and ever,’ they expressed it by LE-OLAHM WAH-ED, or a long time even to the Age. If the words are affirmed of these things before the age, the long time is terminated at the age; but if of things established at its introduction, the long time ends at the introduction of the next, or succeeding age, which is an Ad, comprehending Ages of Ages without limitation. When Jesus offered to wash Peter’s feet, he declined, and said, in the words of the English version, ‘thou shalt never wash my feet.’ But this is not the translation of Peter’s words as recorded in the text. He said ‘Ou mee nipsees tous podas mou EIS TON AIOONA’—John 13: 8, thou mayest not have washed my feet unto the age. The age in this instance was the limit of Peter’s ‘never.’ Again, the psalmist speaking of the continuance of the throne of the Mighty One says to him prophetically, kisakah elohim olahm wah-ed—‘thy throne of the gods is a long time even to the age.’ Paul applies this to Jesus and his brethren. The signification of it is, ‘Thy throne, O mighty God, is a throne of the gods, thy brethren, a long time until the Ages of Ages,’ which Paul styles ‘the end, when the Son shall deliver up the kingdom to the Father, that God may be all in all’—Psalm 45: 6; 1 Corinthians 15: 24.
The Lord Jesus was well aware that he was to be the Founder of that Age; that all his glory pertained to it; and all the good things promised to man in the gospel were inseparable from it. Even the gifts of the Spirit bestowed in the apostles’ day Paul styles dynameis mellontos aioonos, ‘powers of the Future Age’—an earnest of the powers the saints shall then possess. Hence, Jesus said to Peter that a man who made sacrifices ‘for the kingdom of God’s sake, should receive in the Age to Come age-life’ (en too aiooni too erchomenoo zooeen aioonion.) Thus, it was Age-life and Age-punishment at the introduction of the Age to Come of which he treated in his discourse to the people.
AIOONIOS,
I have said, indicates the epoch of the substantive, not its
continuance. In addition to what has been said illustrative of this, I may cite
the words evanghelion aionion, in the English version rendered everlasting
gospel. Now, it is not to be conceived that aionion expresses
continuance here. The proclamation called gospel is not to be an everlasting
proclamation; for when it is rejected it will cease to be proclaimed; and when
the kingdom of which it treats is set up, it will have ceased to be a matter of
faith; it will be an accomplished fact, and consequently there will be no more
good news to announce for faith concerning it. The ainoonian gospel is
THE GOSPEL OF THE AIOON, or the Age-Gospel—the glad tidings of the coming Age,
of which Jesus is the founder. The life promised to believers belongs to this
age; it is therefore aioonian. It does not belong to the Mosaic Age, nor
to the Times of the Gentiles; so that men dying under the Law, and under the
reign of Antichrist, even if they had ‘spirits’ capable of a disembodied
existence, could not enter into the promised life at death. It belongs to the
Age treated of in the gospel, and cannot be obtained till then; for it is not
till the introducing of that Age that the dead are raised. It is the Age-Life
of the Age-Gospel, and therefore ainoonian.
But, while I deny that aioonios indicates the continuance of punishment, I admit that there are other words which note persistence in connexion with it. I adduce the following passage as an example.
‘If any worship the Beast and his Image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb; and the smoke of their torment ascendeth for ever and ever; and they have no rest day nor night’—Revelation 14: 9-10.
Thus the passage stands in the English version. It is parallel with the text in Matthew which speaks of the Devil and his Angels, and giving us additional information respecting those who are to suffer with them in the torment. The first eleven verses of this chapter of Revelation enumerate the events in the order of their development, for which those ‘who keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus,’ are waiting with all the patience they can exercise. First, the Lord appears in Zion with his angels, and resurrected brethren; next, a proclamation of the Gospel of the Age is made to the nations and their governments, the effect of which is to divide them into sheep-nations and goat-nations; thirdly, the Goat-nations having rejected it, their Great City Babylon, or Rome, is overthrown; and fourthly, the Goat-nations having prepared for battle, march against the Lamb and his army—Revelation 19: 11-21, by whom they are met at the seat of war and in this way they come into ‘the presence of the holy angels, and the Lamb.’ This seat of war is the place of their torment, which begins and ends with the war. The Goat-nation confederacy is represented by ‘the Beast and the False Prophet.’ As I have said before, these are powers, or dominions. They are the Imperial and Pontifical sovereignties, which exercise civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction over those nations which do reverence to the emperor and the pope. These nations are characterised by a sign, or ‘charagma,’ impressed or signed upon them. Few individuals belonging to them are without the sign. Perhaps none. It is ‘the Sign of the Cross,’ or accursed tree, * which is signed upon the forehead of every subject of the Beast and his Image when he is sprinkled, or ‘baptised,’ as they absurdly style it; and upon the palm of the right hand of those of them, who may be afterwards ordained priests to buy and sell in the Bazaars of the Patron-Saints, or Mahuzzim, of their superstition. These are ‘the goats,’ who, in their civil and ecclesiastical organization, are symbolised by ‘the Beast and his Image,’ ‘the Beast and the False Prophet,’ or by ‘the Devil and his Angels.’ The resurrected who are driven from the Lord’s presence, commingle with the goats, and share with them in the torment prepared.
* Papists call it “Holy Cross;” but how can that be holy which makes him accursed who hangs upon it! See Galatians 3: 13.
The armies of the goat-nations being gathered before Him, their torment (basanismos, not kolasis) begins. They are permitted to have no rest, or truce, day nor night. The war having commenced, is carried on unceasingly; so that no overtures of peace are listened to, and none will be granted, until the powers that threw down the gauntlet are exterminated. Finding every avenue closed, the conflict becomes, with them, the resistance of despair. Hail, pestilence, fire, and sword, inflict the ‘physical pain,’ or torment, of the kolasis or punishment. The ‘mental pain’ can more easily be imagined than described. It will be torment of mind and body to the goats and the exiles among them, unassuageable by art or man’s device; and will continue till the war is ended by the extermination of them all, when death and corruption will have consummated their fate; for so it is written, ‘He that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption’—Galatians 6: 8; which is made by the apostle, in the same text, the contrary to ‘life everlasting.’ Here is the passage complete.
‘Whatsoever
a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of
the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the
Spirit reap life everlasting.’
Here is age-life opposed to corruption; and vice versa. If then, the tormentists will have aioonios to indicate continuance without end, here is corruption contrasted with endless life. I admit the age-life is endless; because it is life manifested through incorruptible body. The tormentists also claim that the punishment is as endless as the life, because aioonios is associated with it as well as with life. Granted. What then? That the corruption is endless, and the subjects of it, consequently, mere dust for ever; for a resolution into dust is the consummation off the corrupting process. This is punishment everlasting in its effects.
But when does the torment of the age-punishment terminate? We have said at the end of the premillennial war. But it may be asked, when is that? When the Beast shall have been slain, and his body consumed by the burning flame; a memorial of which is predicted to continue in these words off the text before us—Ho kapnos tou basanismou autoon anabainei eis aioonas aioonoon; ‘the smoke of their torment ascends to ages of ages.’ Now, previous to the commencement of the tormenting war, we have seen that Rome falls into the abyss like a millstone into the sea. In other words, she sinks like Sodom into the fiery chasm beneath her. This is a cause of great rejoicing to the resurrected apostles and prophets, and other saints; because it is God’s avengement of them upon her—Revelation 18: 20-21, 24; 19: 2. They are represented as praising God on account of her overthrow, saying ‘Alleluia!’ It is then added, ho kapnos autees anabainei eis tous aioonas toon aioonoon—‘the smoke of her ascends to the ages of the ages.’ Hence, I conclude, that the volcanic smoke mounting from the abyss in which Rome, the holy city of the goats, shall have been engulfed, is thenceforth regarded as the memorial of their judgment, as the Dead Sea has been hitherto of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the other cities of the plain. Rome’s volcanic smoke is the smoke-memorial of their torment. The reader will observe that, it is not the torment that is said to continue to the ages of the ages, but the smoke thereof. The torment ceases with the war: but the memorial of it continues to the end of the Age; that is, for a thousand years, at the termination of which the ages of the ages will be introduced.
To
this it may be objected that, in the twentieth of the Apocalypse it is said, ‘they
shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever;’ and that this
continuance is affirmed of the tormenting, and not of smoke.’ True. But the
text does not refer to the same event. It relates to what is to happen a
thousand years after Rome’s destruction, and the judgment of the goat-nations.
It has reference to the time, called ‘a little season,’ during which
SIN exalts itself among the nations. The text affirms concerning the fate of
the Sin-Power and its adherents, summarily styled ‘the devil,’
and says that, ‘the devil who deceived them was cast into the lake of fire
and brimstone, where the Beast and the False Prophet (were destroyed,) and
they (the deceived) shall be tormented day and night to the ages of the
ages.’ From this we learn, that the last war that earth will ever know, is
to be waged on the same territory, where the premillennial ‘devil and his
angels’ encountered their fate; secondly, that the tormenting of the
postmillennial devil and adherents, is to be concurrent with the
alternations of day and night; thirdly, that it is to continue during ‘the
little season,’ which terminates at the epoch when the nightless Ages of
the ages begin. This postmillennial torment will probably be shorter than
the premillennial one. The sulphurous fumes of Rome’s catastrophe commingle
with the torment of the postmillennial insurgents; and disappear in the same
consummation. The ‘rest of the dead’ awake to life and judgment in the ‘little
season;’ and they who deserve the fate share in its torment; while the
righteous inherit the renovated earth during ‘the ages of the ages,’ which
begin when the torment ends, and are interminable. This ‘little-season’
judgment is the final judgment of scripture, and has nothing to do with the
Age-punishment of Matthew twenty-fifth. It is the end of the Day of Christ
which begins with the establishment of the ‘great white throne,’ and
terminates in bringing forth from the grave the sleeping dead whose names are
not written in the Book of Life, and casting them into the lake of fire where
the devil is destroyed—Hebrews 2: 14. The Age-punishment binds him; the
final judgment annihilates him, and by consequence death.
Mr. C. remarks that the Lord in using the word kolasis indicated what sort of punishment he meant. This may be granted so far as this, that the punishment was not to be taken in the sense of paideia, which is the chastisement of a father for the correction and improvement of his children. There is no Age-paideia; paideia is now—the discipline God’s accepted children are subjected to in the times of the Gentiles. They are not subjected to kolasis; because kolasis is for dogs, and swine, and goats, not to reform them, but to exterminate them. There is nothing reformatory in kolasis, because it is punishment unto death by violence, the apprehension of which is called kolasis in 1 John 4: 18, as well as the punishment itself.
But, the radical idea of kolasis is not torment, though so rendered in English in the text just quoted. It is repression, keeping within bounds, checking, curbing, restraining; as, archei tou harmatos kai koladzei tas toon hippoon hormas, ‘he guides the chariot and curbs the impetuosity of the horses.’ The Age-punishment is to repress the wickedness of the nations, and bind the Sin-Power; a process which affords scope for the recompensing of resurrected evil doers according to their deeds. If the Lord had said, ‘ these shall go away into endless basanismos,’ that would have been delivering them over to eternal pain, or torment; and have implied their conscious existence in torment without end. But kolasis does not. The kolasis may even be endless, but consciousness is not therefore necessarily implied; because, as we have seen in Uzzah’s case, there was punishment without probably the least bodily, or mental pain.
We learn, then, the peculiar fate of the subjects of Age-punishment, as far as it can be learned from a word, not from kolasis, but from basanidzoo, which indicates the kind of kolasis, or punishment, they shall endure. Revelation 14: 10 says, ‘he shall be tormented (basanistheesetai) in fire and brimstone;’ and ‘the smoke of their torment (basanismou) shall ascend.’ These words come from basanos, which signifies ‘a species of stone from Lydia, which being applied to metals was thought to indicate any alloy that might be mixed with them, and therefore used in the trial of metals; hence examination by the Lapis Lydius, or by torture.’ Thus it came to stand for torture, torment, severe pain, &c., and is so used in the New Testament. The basanism of the goats and exiles is the examination of them by torture, so as to make the survivors of the goat-nations confess that Jesus is Lord. —To basanise nations (the verb which signifies to apply a touchstone; to inflict torment; and in the passive voice, to be tormented, pained, &c., by diseases, or anything else) implies great loss of individual life, but not necessarily the extinction of the national polities themselves. This appears from the use of the word in the following text—
‘It was given to the Locusts that they should not kill the men who have not the seal of God in their foreheads, but that they should be tormented (basanisthoosi) five months: and their torment (ho basanismos) was as the torment (basanismos) of a scorpion when he striketh a man. And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it: and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.’ —Revelation 9: 5.
This was kolasis by basanismos, or punishment by torment that lasted ‘five months’ of years without abatement.
Now it is well understood by the best interpreters of prophecy, that the Locusts represent the Saracen invaders of the Greco-Roman territory, styled ‘the earth.’ The history of their career illustrates the torment to which they subjected their enemies. They were not to kill, or extinguish the Greco-Roman dominion; that was reserved for their successors, the Euphratean Cavalry, or Turks; but they were to harass the catholic idolaters—Revelation 9: 20-21—with all the calamities of a fierce tormenting war. —From this use of the word, then, in the Apocalypse, it is evident, that the torments, or basanisms, it predicts before and after the Future Age, with whose terrors the evil-workers who partake in the premillennial and postmillennial resurrections, are to be overwhelmed, are wars of the most terrific and destructive character, in which ‘men shall seek death, and shall not find it,’ until the purposes of God are fully accomplished upon them.
If the reader have read attentively what has gone before, it will be evident to him, that whatever ‘destructionists’ may have done in Mr. C’s estimation, he is decidedly wrong in accusing me of having ‘formed a direct issue with Jesus Christ on the subject of eternal punishment.’—Jesus taught the torment of corruptible persons by war and pestilence, in the Age-punishment to be inflicted by himself and company. I believe this. Mr. C., and most other sectarians teach, the torment by material fire and mental anguish of disembodied ghosts in a spirit-world hell burning with brimstone to be inflicted by an immortal personal Devil eternally. He calls these notions, ‘the sanctions of the gospel;’ and by help of his peculiar logic, would palm them upon his contemporaries as the doctrine of the Bible! ‘Destructionists’ do not believe a word of it; because it is mere pagan foolishness, and opposed to scripture and reason. Mr. C., the great modern champion of eternal ghost-torment, feels his weakness in regard to scripture. Hence, he makes very little use of it. Look at his ‘Life and Death’ speculation, and indeed, at all his writings, and behold what ‘a famine of the word’ they present. They are full of reasonings, but his dialogisms are not scriptural analyses of scripture; but speculations of his brain, styled by Paul, ‘the thinking of the flesh’ (which ‘divines’ say, cannot think; for with them it is what they call ‘the soul,’ that is, ‘the thinking I’ that cogitates;)—the cogitations of a mind, darkened by tradition, and vaunting itself in its logic, philology, and science; so that, ‘not having the Spirit’—‘not knowing the Scriptures’ which exhibit the mind of the Spirit—it brings forth nothing but sophistry and vain conclusions. And the worst of it is, that there is no cure for our unfortunate friend, the supervisor; at least so long as he continues to repudiate ‘Moses and the Prophets’ as a sort of effete almanac of old Jewish times! This is the chief source of all his errors, he is ignorant of the Law and the Testimony; and therefore he cannot speak according to them; and as a necessary consequence, ‘there is no light in him;’ and even that which may be supposed to be in him, becomes mere darkness visible. All the logic, Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, and all the science in the world, will not compensate an expounder of the New Testament for ignorance of the meaning of the Old. He can neither understand the gospel, nor ‘the sanctions of the gospel.’ If Mr. C. would talk rationally about punishment, he must humble himself, and as a little child begin to learn what ‘the Gospel of the Kingdom’ is. There is no getting along in the work of interpretation without this. He is floundering up to his neck in the bogs of old paganism, in which he will be assuredly suffocated, if he accept not the friendly hand extended to him by those ‘Destructionists’ who understand ‘the gospel promised through the prophets in the Holy Scriptures.’ And what we say of Mr. C. we affirm of all eternal ghost-tormentists. We speak of him more particularly, because he is their Magnus Apollo in this country. If we make goose of him, they all become goslings of necessity; for he is the modern incubator of syllogisms for their noisy utterance against what Mr. C. designates, the weak and vicious heads that infer that torments cease in a second death!
Speaking of syllogisms, let us glance at that one Mr. C. has incubated out of his spermology ‘for the sake of a few mere pretenders to sound argumentative discrimination, and great logical acumen!’ How condescending, and how polite! We shall see if Mr. C. is anything else than a ‘mere pretender.’ Hitherto we have seen nothing to the contrary; but rather that his weakness is that of pretending to things which are too high for him. But let this pass. We have got a syllogism here which condenses his argument into ‘regular form;’ and now, says he, look at it, ye Destructionist pretenders to reason; see what ye have got to encounter, and tremble! —Oh! What will become of us!
Behold the redoubtable syllogism:
“No one
dispossessed of conscious guilt can be punished.
But persons
annihilated are dispossessed of conscious guilt;
Therefore, no one
annihilated can be punished.”
The major premiss of this syllogism thrown into an interrogative form, is the question at issue between the eternal-tormentists and their opponents—Can a person dispossessed of conscious guilt be punished? The tormentists take the negative, and say that, no person unconscious of guilt can be punished. This is their syllogistic conclusion, as expressed in the above. Their major premiss and conclusion are ‘No one dispossessed of conscious guilt can be punished; therefore, no omne annihilated can be punished because he is dispossessed of conscious guilt: that is, no thing can be; therefore nothing can be, because it can not be. This is all that can be extracted from the major premiss and conclusion; that is, they are mere assertion which previous argument has failed to prove. The minor premiss affirms a truth admitted by ‘destructionists’ and eternal-tormentists, that ‘persons annihilated are dispossessed of conscious guilt:’ and, if there were no fallacy in the major premiss, they would be bound to admit the conclusion; which would involve them in the guilt of denying all punishment, which Mr. C. desires to convict them of.
But as I have abundantly proved in this article, there is an egregious and ridiculous fallacy in the major premiss. I have shown that, persons dispossessed of conscious guilt can be punished by whatever law. This having been proved, Mr. C’s syllogism is converted into moonshine, or rather into visible darkness; and a better ‘regular form’ takes the place of it; thus:
Any one
dispossessed of conscious guilt can be punished;
Persons
annihilated are dispossessed of conscious guilt:
Therefore, any
one annihilated by law is punished.
The ridiculousness of the fallacy which converts Mr. C’s logic into sophistry, will be seen from the conversion of his syllogism into the following forms:
No one is
punished who is dispossessed of conscious guilt;
Uzzah, when
breached upon, was dispossessed of conscious guilt;
Therefore, though
Uzzah was struck dead for transgressing the Law, he was not punished!
Again,
No one is punished
who is dispossessed of conscious guilt;
When a man is
hanged he is dispossessed of conscious guilt:
Therefore,
hanging is no punishment!
But, whence comes it that so great a logician as my friend C. should be guilty of such an absurdity as to teach, in effect, that hanging is no punishment; or perhaps therefore, a very agreeable thing! —What crotchet has he got into his head that has so perverted his intellect! That makes him contend for eternal consciousness of guilt and pain as the ‘everlasting punishment’ of scripture? The crotchet that perverts him and all eternal tormentists is, the supposition that the ‘natural man’ is a compound of a mortal body and an immortal soul. They teach that this soul is the sinner, who lives after the body dies in heaven or hell; or according to certain, in some intermediate places in ‘the spirit-world,’ where it is happy or miserable short of the full degree it is capable of, according to the deeds it made the body do! They say that the gospel-salvation and damnation is for this soul; hence, assuming that it is immortal, they convert the ‘everlasting life’ of the gospel into eternal blessedness; and its ‘everlasting punishment’ into eternal torment. As they have assumed the existence of this sort of a soul in man; and assumed also that the good things of the scriptures whatever they be, are for that soul—they have soulised the words and sayings of God, and his messengers. Hence, they have converted ‘death’ into life in misery; ‘destruction’ into always destroying; ‘perished’ into coming to nothing but never arriving there; ‘everlasting punishment’ into eternally punishing, &c.; for the obvious reason that if death, destruction, perished, torment, &c., be affirmed of a thing which is essentially deathless, and indestructible, they can mean nothing else. It is this canker-eating assumption that is the crotchet of their bewitchment. While they hold on to this fiction of the flesh they can never understand the Bible, which is silent as the grave on the existence of an hereditary immortal soul in mortal man. The most logical immortal-soulists know they cannot prove its existence from the Bible. Hence, they fall to speculating upon their own consciousness, or fly for proof to animal magnetism! There, on the sensoria of clairvoyants are mesmerically reproduced, the thought-images of their own brains; and this is the highest evidence they can obtain. It is upon this shade of animal magnetism called ‘the soul,’ first observed by the idolaters of old Egypt, that the superstitions and theologies of our age are founded. Expunge this fleshly conceit from the mind, and priestcraft with all its fooleries, against which the advocates of the punishment, the life, and Kingdom of the approaching Age, contend, become the contempt of him, whom the gospel has dispossessed, and endued with a hale and sober mind.
As the ‘everlasting punishment’ is supposed to be for ‘an immortal soul,’ eternal-tormentists can see nothing of it till after death. But this does not accord with the Lord’s teaching. The ‘these’ of whom he was speaking were persons who had risen from the dead, and who were corporeal existences. They had been dead for ages, and from their own showing do not appear to have known their fate till they attempted to justify themselves in his presence. During all that time previous to their resurrection, it is clear, they had not been in a state of punishment; but being sentenced, they are commanded to ‘go away into age-punishment.’ Now, as Jesus comes to Israel’s land, and is there at the resurrection, when he shall say, ‘Depart from me, ye cursed, into the Age-fire,’ ‘go away into Age-punishment,’ they are driven out of the country to a region afar off. This is termed in another place, being cast out of the Kingdom, into outer darkness which is a cause of ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’—Matthew 8: 12; Luke 13: 28. The ‘punishment’ occupies the interval between the resurrection and the commencement of the thousand years, a period of some forty years; and is the judicial torment of living men for the evil of their doings. It has nothing to do with ghosts, or ‘separate spirits,’ or ‘disembodied souls;’ but with men, flesh and blood, like ourselves. It is the appearing before the judgment seat of Christ, and the receiving bodily the things threatened for evil doing—2 Corinthians 5: 10.
Such is ‘the Terror of the Lord’—resurrection to torment by hunger, thirst, pestilence, fire, and sword, until payment is made of all that is due—Matthew 18: 34. The tormentors (basanistai) who are the Lord’s messengers—Matthew 13: 41, will know how to execute judgment with due severity. The guilty rise from the dead full grown men and women, as Adam and Eve when they first breathed the vital air, with a life of forty years before them; to receive just such a retribution as they would have experienced had their offences when committed been immediately followed by the penalty due. The covetous, for example, though idolaters, are not punished before death. The day of their calamity is when they rise from the dead. Being rich at death, they are ‘sent empty away’ into the country of the Beast and False Prophet; and as beggars there, suffer all the torments of poverty, and disease amid social disruption and distress, with all anguish of mind on account of their cursed folly in sacrificing life and glory, and honour in the Kingdom for the sake of their fleshly lusts; and with no prospect before them but unmitigated evil and death eternal. Men are horror stricken when such calamities seem to threaten them in the present state, and do all in their power to avoid them, or obtain deliverance. But now they have hope. —Then, however, the covetous wretch is hopeless. Though he worshipped his wealth, and looked upon the necessities of his brethren without sympathy, before his death; at his resurrection, he finds society in dismay, and himself unknown, uncared for, a homeless outcast, cursed of God and man, with the words ever echoing in his ears,
‘No covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God’—Ephesians 5: 5; 1 Corinthians 6: 9.
He will seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, but death will flee from him, until he has paid the last mite. Thus, while Lazarus and his friends are comforted in the kingdom, he is tormented—Luke 16: 25—with the worshippers of the Beast.
But enough for the present. Who is there among the eternal tormentists, that assume the custody of the public conscience, dare publish this article in any of their papers for the information of their readers? The exposition is new to this generation; but amply sustained by scripture. Its novelty should command attention, as that is the attractive principle of the age; and its scripturality a minute examination. Will our friend, the supervisor, venture to republish it, and treat it to a reply! It will be pastime, surely, for so magical a logician to parade its fallacies, and prove our logic mere pretence! Come, ye ‘wise and prudent,’ take up the pen and try!
EDITOR.
* * *
UNFAITHFUL SHEPHERDS REBUKED.
Dear and Respected Brother:
Many thanks to you. I trust I may yet have it in my power to prove my attachment and love to you, as having been the means of showing me the way of life: and above all, as being champion of the faith. Every day I feel stronger in the conviction that ours is the ‘one faith’—‘the truth,’ which, when understood and believed in, makes a man ‘free indeed:’ free from all the superstition and priestcraft, doctrines of devils, &c., which enshroud in darkness and mystery the poor deluded creatures, who hope to inherit they know not what.
When I read some of the ‘commentaries’ on the scripture—‘explanatory notes’ of those who set themselves up as teachers and pastors, I am filled with something akin to indignation, seeing the manner in which the plain word of God is wrested, spiritualised, and made void, in order to suit their theories. Zeal for the truth, I trust it is, which causes this feeling to arise. ‘The meek shall inherit the land,’ says our blessed Redeemer. He means any thing else but what he says, the learned commentator would have you to believe. Oh, I believe they will have much to answer for this on this score. I do not believe, but that in studying the scriptures, time and again, their judgment and conscience have protested against their so wilfully perverting the word of God to suit the doctrine they held and taught: and I am satisfied this is the secret of their abhorrence of controversy. They know their weakness; learned in the wisdom of this world as they may be.
I can imagine how that one who ‘knows and understands the Law and the Testimony’ would ‘use them up,’ if they would dare to try the rotten wooden swords of ‘the fathers’ and ‘tradition,’ with ‘the two-edged sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.’ Catch them at it! Their ideas of ‘earnestly contending for the faith,’ seem to consist in denouncing every thing as heretical, soul-destroying, and awful doctrine, which clashes, or is opposed to, their theories; instead of proving them to be such from scripture.
You would be much pleased to read some portions of a book by Dr. Candlish, the great Presbyterian Free Church preacher of Edinburgh, on the Book of Genesis. It is wonderful how clear he is about ‘the inheritance promised to Abraham.’ If I thought he had never seen Elpis Israel, I would mail him a copy of it. Oh! That absurd, and vain conceit, immortal-soulism, what bright minds and noble intellects has it overshadowed and darkened! Were it not for this, how many would quickly see the truth! I am led to exclaim thus, when I perceive how the mind of Candlish is spoiled by this vain philosophical notion. The subjoined extracts I hope will please you if you can manage to decipher them, my only excuse for their hieroglyphical appearance being extreme haste—stolen time in fact.
Next Lord’s day Mrs. H—becomes obedient to the faith. I believe I am to be privileged to assist her. I conceive it to be the duty, as well as a privilege, for a baptised believer of the gospel of the kingdom to assist another in rendering this indispensable obedience. Nor is it necessary, I judge, that a person should be ‘set apart’ by any body of believers, and retained as a minister, in order to qualify, or privilege, him to baptise.
Hoping soon to hear from you, I remain yours sincerely and affectionately for the truth’s sake, as well as your own,
J. R. L.
Halifax, Nova Scotia, August 17, 1852.
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“THE INHERITANCE PROMISED TO ABRAHAM.”
BY ROBERT S.
CANDLISH, D. D.
“The Lord appears to Abraham, and makes him expressly the Heir of the Land; saying,
‘Lift up now
thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art, northward and southward,
eastward and westward; for all the land which thou seeth; to thee will I
give it, and to thy Seed FOR EVER.’
And again still more pointedly,
‘Arise, walk through the land in the length of it, and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee.’—
He is, we may say, enfeoffed in the land. It can scarcely be doubted that there is something more here than the promise of the earthly Canaan to Abraham’s Seed after the flesh. Twice the Lord repeats the express personal assurance to Abraham individually—‘To thee will I give it.’ That the hope of an inheritance for himself individually did actually form a part of the faith of Abraham, as also of the faith of Isaac and Jacob, the apostle Paul most expressly testifies. ‘He looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God;’ and this was the promise of which he was the heir. And the same is said of Isaac and Jacob, of Sarah and of all the ‘strangers and pilgrims’ of that olden time. Such a city, and such a country, the apostle Paul distinctly assures us, Abraham looked for and desired at a time when, as Stephen says, ‘God gave him none inheritance in Canaan, no, not so much as to set his foot on.’ He died in the faith of that city and country being his. It is plain, therefore, from the apostle’s statement, that Abraham had promises given to him of a country and a city, since he died in the faith of these promises. But no such promises are on record in the Old Testament, unless we hold such an assurance as this. Nowhere does Abraham receive any promise whatever of future good, or of a future inheritance for himself, if it be not in the announcement, ‘I will give thee this land.’ That this announcement does convey such a promise, may be argued from an expression used by the apostle when speaking of Abraham’s call, he says, ‘he was to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance;’ for it is to be remarked, the apostle makes no reference in this whole passage to Abraham’s posterity as inheriting the land: he speaks throughout of Abraham as an individual. Abraham ‘sojourned,’ as he says, ‘in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles as did Isaac and Jacob;’ but it was in the land of promise still. He had been called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance; and this was that place. He knew and recognised it as such. On this ground alone he had to rest his personal and individual hope for eternity. This was his warrant for expecting and looking for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. (The kingdom which the God of heaven shall set up in the land. —Editor.) Thus we learn to connect the promise of a heavenly city and a heavenly country, which Abraham undoubtedly had, with the declaration respecting the place to which he was called to go out, that it was the very place which he should afterwards receive for an inheritance. And with this inspired commentary, we cannot now hesitate to understand the words, ‘I will give thee this land,’ as conveying to himself, personally, the promise of a country and a city.
“Still further, the apostle’s reasoning would lead us to place the fulfilment of the promise now before us after the resurrection: for he says, ‘Wherefore,’ by reason, or in consequence of this promise, ‘God is not ashamed to be called their God.’ When he consents and condescends to be called ‘their God,’ it is because he has some great things in store for them—something worthy of himself to bestow, something corresponding to so near a connection as is implied in his being ‘their God,’ and their being his people, his sons, and therefore, his heirs. But according to our Lord, this same title, ‘God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob,’ conveys also a promise of the resurrection. It is only of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, not dead, but living, that he is, or can be, the God. The promise, or preparation of a city, in respect of which he alone assumes that title, was secured to them, not as disembodied spirits, but as living men in the body. It was with Abraham in the body, that God graciously dealt in the way of becoming his God. Whatever privilege or whatever promise that relation or title implies, belongs to Abraham in the body: and hence, if the Lord is still his God, it must be with reference to his living again in the body; since ‘God is not the God of the dead,’ he never assumed this name, or gave any of the pledges or promises which it implies, in relation to the dead or disembodied spirits. ‘He is the God of the living;’ it is with the living, with men alive in the body, that he has to do. Such is the import of our Lord’s argument. God was not merely the God of Abraham while he sojourned as a pilgrim upon the land; he is his God still. But this cannot mean that he is the God of Abraham’s disembodied soul only; for he never constituted himself the God of Abraham in that sense. It was of Abraham in the body that he condescended to become the God; that is, of Abraham in the body that he is the God still; and it is to Abraham in the body, that he is pledged to make good all that that name denotes. Abraham must therefore yet live in the body to receive the fulfilment of the promise which God gave him in the body, and in respect of which God says not I was, but ‘I am the God of Abraham.’”
Dr. Candlish concludes thus, “there may be a risk of making the eternal state, in one conception of it, too gross and material; but there is danger also in the dreamy and ideal spiritualising which would refine away all matter, and which ultimately comes very near the notion of absorption into the infinite spirit. The personal reality of hope, as well as the personal responsibility of sense, is turned into a dim abstraction. But the resurrection of the body, and the renewal of the earth, realised as events still to come, stamp a present value and importance upon both: and the reflection that the very body I now wear is to rise again, and the very earth on which I tread, is to be my habitation hereafter, arrests me when I am tempted to make my body the instrument, or the earth the scene of aught that would but ill accord with the glorious fashion of the one, or the renewed face of the other.”
After reading this it might be inquired, ‘what place is there in Dr. Candlish’s system for immortal-soulism?’ It is probable he would reply ‘the intermediate state’—or, that soul-existence which is supposed to be mediate between the death of the body and its resurrection to life eternal. Hiss reasoning, however, which is excellent, leads to the conclusion that God, on the supposition of Abraham’s disembodied existence, in the spirit-world, is not now his God; and that consequently Abraham has been living ‘without God’ since he died, and will continue to do so, till he lives again in the body. Dr. Candlish truly says, It is only of Abraham living in the body that God is or can be God. And again, He never assumed the name, ‘God of Abraham,’ or gave any of the pledges or promises it implies, in relation to disembodied spirits. It is clear then, that between God, and the ghosts called Abraham and so-forth, by immortal-soulists, there exists no affinity or relationship whatever. Dr. Candlish’s adhesion, therefore to Platonism serves not to assist him in his interpretations, but rather to preserve his orthodoxy from being mobbed by craftsmen, whose zeal for their inventions is inflamed in proportion to the intensity of the selfism jeopardised by the prevalence of the truth.
EDITOR.
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THINGS IN THE ANGLO-BETHANIAN JERUSALEM.
Dear Brother:
I am glad I can address you as such, in hope of a reunion in the general assembly of the saints, if not before. I cannot feel sufficiently thankful to you for your honest endeavours to enlighten us in the truly glorious things of the Spirit of God. I can say in sincerity with your other correspondent from this country, ‘you hold a place in our hearts none else can ever occupy.’ Thankful am I you ever came to England to proclaim ‘the Gospel of the Kingdom.’ It has not, nor will it be in vain. I delight to meditate on the glorious things spoken of Zion in the word, and to give myself wholly to them.
Many have read Elpis Israel, but by not studying it with the scripture references, and watching passing events, they often mistake your meaning. I am satisfied, however, it is the right exposition of the prophetic word in relation to the nations of the Latter Days. The Heralds are most interesting indeed. We devour them here with great avidity, and generally at one meal. Permit me to thank you for the ‘Synopsis of the Kingdom,’ and your replies to queries respecting the ‘Restoration of Sacrifices,’ &c., in the previous volume. ‘Study the word,’ was your parting advice to me on leaving England. Yes, dear sir, the word is worth studying. I have found it so. The king, rulers, subjects, territory, throne, and service of the kingdom, are topics of the deepest interest; and the testimony of God abounds concerning them.
I hope the liberality of the friends of truth and independence will enable you to carry on the war through the Herald. It is, as you say, pastime to hew Agag in pieces; and it ought to be done. It is an honour to bear the burden and heat of the battle; but it is an honour which the soldiers of the faith should be careful to see shared by them all, and not monopolised by one. If they be poor in houses and lands, they must be rich in faith, bearing fruit unto eternal life. But there are scarcely any of them so poor, but they can contribute something to sustain the advocacy of that truth through which alone they can inherit the kingdom of God. It is a good work, and affords them an opportunity of proving, in helping to sustain it, what they would do if the Lord himself were present and in need of their support as in the days of old.
Since you left here we have had some changes, as you know. The word, I think, has purged out nearly all the old leaven, and made us a new lump. Some have been made partakers of God’s promise in Christ by the gospel. We number from twenty to thirty; and meet every Lord’s day to read, and to endeavour to understand, and explain the scriptures. It has been proved to a great extent among us, that the truth can only dwell with those of an honest and good heart.
Madame Bethany’s daughter in this place has some trouble. A division has taken place at Barker Gate. About thirty off the members refused to submit to Mr. Wallis’ tyranny. Some time since, a coloured evangelist came over from America (Wonder if his name was Geary?) with anti-slavery ideas. He found an opponent in James Wallis, which resulted in a division; the split-offs declaring they would not fellowship slave owners. So much for peace and union in “this reformation.”
I perceive you have noticed Alexander the Great’s attack upon you. Really he is scarcely worth noticing. It is sickening to read his libels, they are so mean and contemptible. He does not attack Elpis Israel in a fair and legitimate way, because he feels he cannot. There are some writers who copy after him in the British Millennial Harbinger. The editor of the periodical has got the titbit about David’s throne and the ‘big head’ in his pages, as a matter of course. Any slander against Dr. Thomas, or the Hope of Israel, is most acceptable to this gentleman. Like his patron in America, he can denounce us as materialists, teaching soul-withering speculations; but, sir, he cannot reason. He declares that the Hope of Israel is all a humbug. He was very hot when he said this. But ‘let God be true, and every man a liar,’ says the apostle; and his sons and daughters may yet live to say, ‘Surely our fathers inherited lies.’ Mr. W. can find abundance of room for all sorts of vain speculation on Demonology, the Devil a fallen angel, Coronation of Christ in heaven, and so-forth; but for any soberminded exposition off the divine testimony, he has no place. These are subjects on which Mr. Campbell’s imagination runs riot. Had he not better write a few essays on the sayings as well as the acts of the Apostles. The Bethanists might then learn something beneficial. Philip preached the things of the kingdom; let Alexander tell his disciples what these are.
But I must conclude in offering you my best wishes; and in expressing the hope, that it may be our happiness to sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of God.
WILLIAM OWEN.
Nottingham, England, May 1852.
I am quite in the dark in regard to the onslaughts in the British Millennial Harbinger upon Elpis Israel and myself. I have not seen a number of the periodical since I left England. It is characteristic of the Knights of the Wooden Sword, that they flourish their weapon most stoutly when they imagine the enemy is out of sight! This is signally the case with the Knight-Commander, and Knight-Lieutenant of the Order. We like a little relaxation occasionally from more serious work; so that if we could only catch a glimpse of them now and then, when they were most valiantly hacking and hewing, and thrusting, the air; or doing the wonderful against windmills and flocks of sheep—we might just step in and, by way of recreation, run them off the field. Our knightly braves are desperate cowards when they see double-edged steel glancing in heaven’s light. They have no armour that will stand it. Cloud-caps are their head gear; filthy rags their breasting; a flimsy gauze-stretching their shield; and a worm-eaten sap-stick their weapon for a fight! Surely poor fellows were never in worse plight for combat with the truth. They know it, and feel keenly what they know. Hence they take care never to let us see what they say or do. Some of our friends, however, might just send us word when they are in plukken by transmitting their manifests; and we would do them the honour of a cut up for the simples, by way of illustrating the impregnability of our position, and the foolhardiness of those who after them would venture an attack.
EDITOR.
* * *
ANALECTA EPISTOLARIA.
ELPIS ISRAEL APPRECIATED.
Dear Brother:
I want you to send me another copy of Elpis Israel as I have parted with the one I had to a mutual friend. Do not unnecessarily delay sending it, as I feel quite at a loss without it. I prize it far more than gold or silver. I want to take the Herald of the Kingdom as long as I live and can raise two dollars to pay for it. I am a poor man, but if I had the funds your writings should never be suspended for want of means. Though you have many difficulties to contend with, I hope the truth in your hands will gain the day, and bring all its enemies and yours to naught. It is mighty and will prevail sooner or later; therefore you need not fear. I am single-handed here, but I hope I shall not stand so much longer; for Elpis Israel is gone out, and is able to confound, confute, and convert many. It will go into the hands of some of the learned, as they are esteemed. But I think after they have read that valuable book, if they would act according to honest conviction, they would give up their vain theories, or perversions which they preach for gospel.
I remain yours truly in Israel’s Hope,
J. D. DRAKE.
Sturgeonville, Virginia, September 1, 1852.
* * *
ELPIS ISRAEL AMONG THE DOCTORS.
Dear Brother:
My copy of Elpis Israel has been circulating nearly all the time since I received it several months ago. Not a few of the clergy here have had the perusal of it. It is not to be expected that Presbyterian, Baptist, and Methodist, preachers could read it, and have no objections to its contents. ‘It is a smart work,’ say they; or, ‘on the whole an interesting book; but the Sabbath,’ or ‘the Devil,’ or some other minor objection is suggested; all agree, however, that it is ‘a most interesting work;’ and several of them have got Dr. D—, of the First Presbyterian church, to send to Baltimore for one after reading mine. This gentleman has left this country for a year on a visit to Europe and the Holy Land. He is a whole-souled Millenarian, and correct as far as a Presbyterian can be. I have frequent intercourse with him. He was much delighted with your letter to Kossuth. He sent for me to come and see him; and gave me a manuscript copy of a letter he addressed to the great Magyar about the same time. He was astonished at the similarity of sentiment. We have had a Baptist preacher here for the last year or more, who has read my Elpis Israel twice. He has, for the time I mention, boldly and eloquently advocated the appearing of the Lord, and various other matters very much as Elpis Israel exhibits them. I supplied him with the Herald as I read it. He has gone to Hamilton, C. W. Go on brother Thomas. Care nothing about Mr. Campbell’s spitefulness. He can’t write so excellent a book. The spirit of blind party zeal unfits him for the enterprise. Notwithstanding the injustice of himself and friends, who condemn without reading, which is disgraceful, Elpis Israel is, and will be, a blessing to the world. A bitter party spirit is the spirit of Campbellism. As in Bethany, so it is in Detroit. The Campbellite disciple is like his master. Would that they knew the truth, and what a glorious thing it is to the impracticable and selfish schemes which distract and divert their attention from the word!
The last number of the Herald is most interesting, both as regards the Devil and Spirits. I feel anxious to see the next. Your views of Satan and the Devil, I think, are correct. Your articles on ‘Odology’ are splendid. They kill Spirit-Rappings completely; and explain many passages of scripture not easily understood. So say several that have read my Herald. The view of the book of life is grand. A gentleman who read the article on returning the paper said, ‘I never read anything that pleased me more; it is first rate.’ I hope you will elaborate the subject still more, as bearing on Spirit-Rappings, Swedenborgianism, &c, &c. Your exposition is the best, or rather, it is the antidote to these old delusions newly revived.
That your valuable life may be long spared to advocate the whole truth, and to correct public sentiment wherever it tends to make it of none effect; and that the truth’s friends may do themselves the honour, and gladly avail themselves of the privilege of keeping the pen in your hand, by according to you the ‘material aid’ necessary to carry on the great and important work in which you are engaged—is the earnest prayer of your brother in the hope of the Kingdom.
J. DONALDSON.
Detroit, Michigan, August 22, 1852.
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ELPIS ISRAEL LUCIFEROUS.
Dear Sir:
Last April I left England on a visit to this country, where I have found Elpis Israel. I have began to study it, and am fully convinced of that which I have studied.
I may be called home any day, so I write to ask if you will give me the address of some believer residing in Liverpool, of whom I may enquire concerning things I may not understand; because when I return, I shall have none to teach me, but all will be against me.
Previous to coming out here, I was a member of the Church of England; but thanks be to God that light has come in upon me, even the light of life.
Thinking you may desire to know something of my character before introducing me to any one I subjoin the copy of a letter I bear from my former pastor.
He writes—“I have much pleasure in certifying for the satisfaction of all whom it may concern, and especially any of the clergy in foreign parts, that Mr. James Whitehead, of this place, who is leaving England for America, is a young man of most exemplary character, a regular attendant and communicant at the parish church, and well reported of by his late employers, the Messrs. Akroyd & Son, the largest manufacturers in this large and populous parish—and that he carries with him the good opinion and best wishes of all with whom he has to do.
Signed. “Charles Musgrave, D. D.
“Vicar of Halifax and Archdeacon of Craven.”
Halifax Vicarage, April 5, 1852.
A reply as soon as convenient will much oblige, as I may have to return to England in a few days.
I remain, yours truly,
JAMES WHITEHEAD.
Geneva, Illinois, August 16, 1852.
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ELPIS ISRAEL AMONG THE DIGGINGS.
Dear Sir:
I have Elpis Israel with me here in the mountains of California. I have read it, and claim to be one of its greatest and most devoted admirers. A person’s realisation of my attachment to the work, would be to him a sure commendation in its author’s behalf, with the expressed wish that all, or many at least, might be no less favoured than with the benefit it helps to bring in their way. Others may delight in what seems to them, ‘good light reading,’ but let me indulge in the substantial. This being only a slip I have not room for detail. What I have suggested is sufficient, I trust, to assure you of my hearty cooperation in the promulgation of that only good so much needed among mankind. I hope my friend and agent will send you full means to cover the expense of the volumes of the Herald for the past and future, &c., as also sufficient to prepay postage for some time to come, as I cannot leave California yet.
In conclusion allow me to say, that from the first of my acquaintance with your teachings, I was captivated with their coincidence with ‘the word,’ and especially with the subject of ‘the Future Age.’ This is to me of all absorbing interest; and engages my attention more than all other subjects whatever. You will hear from me again. In hope of the restitution of all things, spoken of by the prophets since Moses, I remain yours,
ALBERT H. OTIS.
Centreville, Grass Valley, California.
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THE SIMPLE MADE WISE IN THE WORD BY ELPIS ISRAEL.
Dear Brother:
I feel it my duty to return to you my thanks for the much trouble and pains you took in answering my inquiries concerning ‘the gospel of the kingdom’ in our February Herald. The pamphlet you sent me intitled ‘The Wisdom of the Clergy proved to be Folly,’ answered my purpose. I discovered as soon as I read it, that I had understood the gospel, and had been contending for it with the preachers here for twelve or eighteen months. I am happy to inform you, that I have not only understood and believed it, but I have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which has been delivered to me; and am now rejoicing in the hope, that when the Lord Jesus appears in power and great glory to re-establish Israel’s kingdom, and ascend the throne of his father David, and in Mount Zion and Jerusalem to reign before his ancients gloriously—he will raise me from the dead, (for I have no expectation of living to witness his descent, as I am old and very infirm) give me a body incorruptible and immortal, ‘equal to the angels,’ and honour me with a share in the kingdom, that I may live and reign with him a thousand years over the nations of the earth.
You intimate the probability of the Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come being discontinued unless those who believe it advocates the truth sustain it better than they did last year. This will never do. We can’t begin to think of its discontinuance so long as it sheds such a flood of light on the divine testimony of the Prophets and Apostles. I am not able to do as much as brother Lemon; but I will give ten dollars.
As for Elpis Israel, I do not know what estimate to place upon it. It is valuable indeed; for since I have understood the gospel, and read Elpis Israel, the Bible is like another book; the prophecies of the old, and parables of the new, scriptures that were formerly mysterious and unintelligible, are now plain to me.
Old friend-----is getting along in the faith of the kingdom. I think he will get straight after a while. I applied to him to immerse me. He sent out, and convened his brethren, and spoke beautifully on the Restoration of the Kingdom to Israel, a