HERALD

 

OF THE

 

KINGDOM AND AGE TO COME:

 

A Periodical,

 

DEVOTED TO THE INTERPRETATION

 

OF THE

 

“LAW AND THE TESTIMONY,”

 

AND TO THE DEFENCE OF THE

 

“FAITH ONCE DELIVERED TO THE SAINTS.”

 

 

BY JOHN THOMAS, M.D.

 

“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.

 

 

NEW YORK:

 

PUBLISHED BY THE EDITOR, 526 BROADWAY.

 

1853.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HERALD

 

OF THE

 

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.

 

 

JOHN THOMAS, Editor.  NEW YORK,    January, 1853—

  Volume 3—No. 1

 

JEWISH OBJECTIONS TO JESUS CONSIDERED.

 

            In The Occident, an Israelitish periodical, there is a series of letters written by a Mr. Dias, the maternal grandfather of Miss Grace Aguilar, a distinguished daughter of Israel, against the authenticity and infallibility of the New Testament, and against the claims of Jesus of Nazareth to the Messiahship. In one of his epistles he remarks: “Until the Jews admit the divine authority of the New Testament, nothing can be urged from it for their conversion: for in controversies, neither party can, with the least shadow of reason, make use of any authority which is not admitted, or granted by the other. A Mohammedan as consistently urge the authority of the Koran for the conviction of the Christian, as a Christian make use of or urge anything from the New Testament for the conviction of the Jew.” Though there is some truth in this, it is not free from fallacy. Mr. Dias says—“Nothing can be urged from it.” He might as well object, that nothing can be urged for the conviction of a modern Chinese of the existence of Alfred the Great, and of his right to the throne of England, until he admitted the divine authority of the testimony of those who had seen Alfred, and who chronicled the events of his life and reign. The narratives known by the names of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, are evidently worthy of all reception as authentic history; and rest upon at least as good a foundation as any other history extant, that of Moses not excepted. Whatever argument can be adduced to prove the genuineness of the facts reported in Moses’ writing, is equally available to prove the authenticity off the facts concerning Jesus as related in the four testimonies, call them by whatever name you will. The Old and New Testament stand or fall together, as far as what is called the “external evidence” is concerned, a less amount of which would seem to be necessary to establish the historical accuracy of the New, seeing that it is so much more modern or nearer our own times in its details, than the Old. It is too late in the day for our Jewish friends to call in question the validity of the New Testament history. It is quite competent for them to dispute its doctrine; but to deny its facts is to convict themselves of illiteracy and unreasonableness, for there is no contrary testimony extant, calculated to cast a shadow of doubt upon the facts and events narrated in either the Old or New writings of the Jews.

 

            Mr. Benjamin Dias and others labour unnecessarily to set aside the authority of Councils in the settling of the canon of the New Testament. The Christian receives nothing upon their authority, though Catholics and Protestants may. The oracles of God, styled the Old Testament, were committed to Judah, from whom we received them; the Jewish writings of the New, were received by the apostolic congregations of believers from sources satisfactory to them, and carefully preserved and handed down to the times of Huss, Wickliffe, and Luther, by those “who kept the commandments of God, and had the testimony of Jesus Christ”—Revelation 12: 17, called the Two Witnesses. They had the testimony, and preserved it from destruction and mutilation by both pagans and papists. The genuine Christian accepts it from them, as modern Israelites receive the book of the Law and the Prophets from their co-religionists of past ages. Papists and their Councils in all times are the enemies of the Old and New scriptures, which they have ever sought to suppress and mutilate. Hence their decrees in favour of the canonicalness of the scripture books, is the extorted approving testimony of the adversary, extorted by the influence of the Witnesses, in whose presence they dared not venture to do contrary.

 

            The New Testament, then, being genuine history—and, in a Christian’s esteem, divine doctrine too—no further confession need be required of a Jew in the controversy between him and the Nazarenes. If he deny so much as this, there can be no discussion with him on the claims of Jesus to the Messiahship; for it is tantamount to denying that Jesus ever existed at all; for, with the exception of the testimony of Josephus, their own historian of the destruction of Jerusalem, which some of them affect to doubt, there is none extant to prove the existence of Jesus, save the testimony of contemporaries, many of them once bitter enemies, but converted into his warmest friends and adherents, by the power of the evidence current before their eyes. If the Jew admit the existence of Jesus, the genealogies of Matthew and Luke taken from his own scriptures, the miracles Jesus exhibited, his crucifixion, and resurrection, he admits no more than what thousands of Jews believed in the days of Pilate without admitting the Messiahship of Jesus or embracing the faith. These were undeniable things. Even the resurrection was believed; for the rulers bribed the soldiers to lie it into doubtfulness.

 

            But, the grounds upon which Jews found their objections to Jesus as their king, differ in the first century and in the nineteenth. Annas, Caiaphas, and their brethren would not acknowledge Jesus, because they perceived that if he ascended the throne of David they would have no share in the government, as promotion to the honour and glory of the kingdom was predicated by Him on righteousness, which, he declared, they did not possess: for he said,

“Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of the heavens. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the land. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for the kingdom of the heavens is theirs. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in the heavens.”

“They which be first shall be last, and the last shall be first.”

Had Jesus been a man of like disposition with themselves, they would doubtless, if they had deemed it safe, have been willing to cooperate with Him in re-establishing the throne of David. But he was not. He announced the glory, honour, incorruptibility, and life of the kingdom to the poor. He consorted with publicans and sinners; while the self-righteous respectables of the age he turned over to the judgment of Hinnom’s Vale. Hence it was a class enmity that grew up against him, arising, indeed out of the natural enmity of the human mind to the things which be of God, and fostered and matured by the pride of life, which rejoices in wealth, and power, and a vain show.

 

            But the circumstances of the Jewish people now and for ages past, no longer admit of objection to Jesus, because of his humble, afflicted, and poverty-stricken condition, as contrasted with the nobility of the nation. Rulers and people have been trodden into the dust. The ignorant, superstitious, and cruel Gentiles have trampled them like mire in the streets. They are “a people scattered and peeled,” humbled, persecuted, and, in most countries, miserably poor. The despised Nazarene, though fed and clothed by the contributions of his friends, and without any certain habitation, or place to rest his head, was not so miserable, so enduringly wretched, as his countrymen in that same Jerusalem where he was put to death. A fraternity of woe has been established for ages between the Jews and Him who claims to be their King. Hence, the national fortunes being changed, the case is changed. An objection to him now is, in the words of Mr. Isaac Leeser, that “an only son of God could not exist by any possibility. We reject the idea,” says he, “of God’s parting with any part of himself to constitute a personage to whom the name of his son could with any propriety be applied. We do not recognise any division in the Godhead.” This objection has grown out of the crude and vain speculations of Athanasius. But the New Testament nowhere teaches a division of the to Theion, or Divine Nature. Paul taught “one Lord,” that is, Jesus Christ; and “one God,” who is “the Father of all, above all, through all, and in all:” so that he styles him, “the Father of our Lord Jesus the Messiah,” and the Father of the children, both Jews and Gentiles, whom he gives to Jesus to be his brethren. He dwelt in Jesus by his Holy Spirit, as he will hereafter dwell in all his brethren, that he may be all things in all. He did not “part with any part of himself” in the begettal of Jesus, any more than in the begettal of Adam, who is styled “Son of God,” as well as Jesus. The difference between Adam and Jesus in the origin of their humanity is, that God formed Adam by his Spirit out of the dust, while he formed Jesus by the same Spirit out of the substance of David’s daughter, who is styled in the Psalms, Jehovah’s handmaid, and her offspring, “the Son of thine handmaid”—Psalm 86: 16; 116: 16, which is equivalent to “Son of God.” He is Son of God also by his begettal from death to life as His first-born from the dead; as it is written in the second Psalm, “Yehovah ahmar aly, Beni ahtah ani hyyom yelidtikah”—“Jehovah hath said to me, My Son thou art; I this day have begotten thee;” i.e., the day of his resurrection. The particles of the Greek New Testament rendered as they ought to be, make the expressions of Paul concerning Jesus in perfect harmony with what is affirmed concerning the lord Jesus in all passages of the Old Testament. Hence, the Jewish objection to Jesus derived from Athanasian foolishness, is as baseless as its origin. The New Testament and the Old altogether agree as to the nature of the relationship subsisting between Jehovah and his Messiah, as the Father and the Son.

 

            Another objection to Jesus being the Messiah is founded likewise on Gentile ignorance and unbelief of Moses and the Prophets. The writings of these personages are almost entirely disregarded by professors of Christianity, and but little understood even by those who profess to study them. They are treated as mere Jewish annals—once prophecies, but now fulfilled in Jesus, and consequently a mere matter of history; to use the words of a certain divine esteemed “great” by people unlearned in the word, a sort of “old Jewish almanac!” Hence, professors of Gentilism say, that “the New Testament is their only and sufficient rule of faith and practice.” This is tantamount to saying, that “all the prophecies concerning the Messiah are fulfilled in Jesus, and therefore recorded in the New Testament;” for if this be not the case, then there are things to be believed concerning the Messiah which are not there, and the New Testament is not the sufficient rule of faith. Assuming, however, that the Gentile notion is a true statement in relation to Jesus, it is taken as a ground of objection to his claims as King of the Jews and Redeemer of Israel. “We,” say the Jews to the Gentiles, “agree with you, that there is but one personal advent of the Christ. Jesus appeared once in our country; and his biography has been sketched by four of his contemporaries, which, you say, is a record of all that need be expected to happen in regard to him upon earth. Now this being so, with what we know is actually on record in the holy prophets, concerning the office and character of Messiah, and which no one will pretend to say has ever been fulfilled in, by, or through Jesus, we cannot recognise in him the personage of whom Moses did write in the law.” “Only prove to us that all the prophecies concerning the Messiah were fulfilled in Jesus,” says Mr. Benjamin Dias; “the Jews will then be converted; for they require nothing else.”

 

            If the assailants be professors of Gentilism, who deny the second personal appearing of Jesus, the restoration of Israel, and the establishment of David’s throne and kingdom in the Holy Land, this position of the Jews is impregnable. All things spoken concerning the Messiah by the prophets were not fulfilled in Jesus; yet he says, that all things spoken there must be fulfilled. The truth is, that comparatively few things spoken there were fulfilled in him. The Messiah’s mission is prophetic, sacrificial, sacerdotal, military, regal, and imperial. Jesus came as a prophet, suffered as a sacrifice; and now performs the functions of a High Priest in the Most Holy, but to those only who believe the gospel and are united to his name. He has yet to appear as High Priest of the Twelve Tribes, as a conquering hero, reigning king of Israel and Emperor of the world. But more of this anon.

EDITOR.

 

* * *

 

MEDIATORSHIP.

 

BY THE EDITOR

 

            “THE LAW” is a term applied in the Scriptures to that system of things enjoined by Jehovah upon the Twelve Tribes of Israel through Moses. “The Law was given through Moses”—John 1: 17, and hence it is styled “the Law of Moses;” not because it originated from him as the French code did from Napoleon, or certain laws of Greece from Draco and Solon; but because it was transmitted through him as the medium of communication between the lord of the Universe and the descendants of Abraham in the chosen line of Isaac and Jacob, whom He surnamed Israel, of whom He condescended to become the King. “He gave them a fiery law”—Deuteronomy 33: 2, which he caused to be delivered to Moses for promulgation. He did not leave his throne in the light to commune with Moses in his own proper person; for “no man shall see Him and live”—Exodus 33: 20; 1 Timothy 6: 16: but he imparted his will to the angels of his presence, “who do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word;” and these, as faithful ministers of his pleasure—Psalm 103: 20-21, handed to Moses his high, and holy, and just decrees, with all the sanctions of Sinai recorded in “the Book.” Thus “the law was ordained by angels in the hands of a Mediator”—Galatians 3: 19, who was Moses, occupying middle ground between Israel and their King. Terrified with the thunder-tones in which the Decalogue was delivered, which made even Moses quake with fear, they besought Jehovah to speak to them only through the medium of their brother. In making this request they proposed a Mediatorship, and suggested the appointment of Moses to the office. They had acknowledged themselves Jehovah’s nation, and now they wished that the communication between them should be through an intermediate person with whom they could confer without terror. The proposal pleased Jehovah, who said “they had well spoken what they had spoken,” and their request was consequently complied with. From this time the Mediatorship became an ordinance in Israel. Moses was the first that held the office, in which he officiated as a priest, prophet, legislator and king. After the nation was planted in Canaan, the high priests acted in the character of mediators, being Jehovah’s supreme magistrates over the people, for the pontificate was always above the kingly office, though many of the kings treated the high priests with indignity. Moses was the only complete representative of a mediator that has yet appeared in Israel. He was Jehovah’s representative in all his relations to the nation. David and Solomon shared the mediatorship with Zadoc the high priest, but it was only as kingly, not priestly and legislative, representatives of Jehovah. They were mediatorial administrators of Moses’ law; and representative men in the offices they sustained—Jehovah’s representatives, individually representative in their historical outlines of the mediator like unto Moses, who shall hereafter appear as king in Jeshurun.

 

            No other nation besides Israel has received a law “ordained in the hand of a mediator.” The constitutions and laws of the nations have been given to them by evil men who have subdued them; or by men no holier, whom they may have chosen to rule over them. Hence their organizations are evil, and the spirit which actuates them, satanic. The supreme power is one, and the people is another, and there is no mediator—“no daysman betwixt them that might lay his hand upon them both.” Their laws and institutions being human, purely so, or rather devilish, they have no intercourse with God; for if they spoke to him and he should answer, seeing that they have no mediator, they would be as terror-stricken as Israel of old, and cry out, “Let not God speak with us, lest we die!” Never did a people before hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire and live; nor besides Israel has any nation heard him speak at all. Jehovah speaks only to Israel, in Israel, and through them; and if the nations are addressed, it is through the mediation of the tribes; for what Moses was to them, so are they to the world at large.

 

            Mediation being an Israelitish institution, and there being no other between Jehovah and the population of the earth; and it being admitted that no man can come to God save through a mediator approved of Him; it follows, that both individuals and nations can obtain access to “the throne of the Majesty in the heavens” only through the mediation which pertains to Israel. Now this mediation is in no way practicable on the old basis, that is, through the Mosaic law. Obviously so; because according to that law there is no acceptance except through sacrifice offered in Jerusalem by the priesthood of Levi. So long as Jerusalem is trodden under foot of the Gentiles, this is impossible; Israel therefore, like the rest of the nations, although they trust in Moses, is as destitute of mediation as though the mediatorship pertained to the Chinese and not to them. If blindness had not happened to them, they would certainly see this; for it is written in Moses,

“Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things written in the book of the law to do them.”

But what one thing, not to mention all things, do they observe in the letter or spirit of it that is written therein? They practice circumcision. But that is not of the law; yet by the practice they become debtors to do the whole law. By offending in the least they are guilty of the whole; for Moses curses every Israelite who continueth not in all. Cursed, then, are they of Moses in whom they trust; yet were they ever so willing to obey him, they are circumstantially prevented. The Turks possess their holy city and land, and by the sword are prepared to suppress every attempt to re-establish the Mosaic commonwealth. Alas for Israel! They are “without a king, without a prince, without a sacrifice, without an image, without an ephod, and without teraphim”—Hosea 3: 4, and the king, prince, sacrifice, image of the invisible God, they will not receive! But, if Israel’s case is forlorn, that of the nations is worse; for while Israel refuses Him who speaks from the right hand of God, the Gentiles, who profess to acknowledge him, pay no regard to what he says. Redemption awaits Israel—Daniel 12: 1—but anger and wrath, and sore distress, to all the world besides. How shall this trouble be eschewed?

 

            Escape there is none save for those who obey the truth. The door is not yet shut. “He that believes and is baptised shall be saved;” but mark the words which follow—“He that believes not shall be condemned.” What is that thing which when not believed brings condemnation to a man? The context answers this question in two words—“THE GOSPEL”—Mark 16: 15-16; Romans 1: 16. So that you see, you may even be baptised, or rather immersed, but if you believe not “the gospel,” you cannot be saved. That gospel announces to every man, both Jew and Gentile who believes it, access to Jehovah and his restored kingdom through his son Jesus, on his accession to the mediatorship in Israel. The law of Moses was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator. But that law as originally ordained has been impaired by the manifestation of some of its antitypes; and being therefore no longer an exact representation of the knowledge of the truth, and incompatible with the nature of things as modified by the appearance of the prophet like unto Moses, —it needs to be amended. This emendation is ordained by Jehovah in the hand of a mediator, as well as the original promulgation of the law. Moses received it from the angels as the ministers of God; but Jesus, who is greater than Moses, “being a son over his own house,” in which Moses was only a servant—Hebrews 3: 5-6, receives the amended law direct from Jehovah; for says God,

“I will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them (Israel) all that I shall command him; and whosoever will not hearken to my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.”

Angels brought the words of God to Sinai, and there delivered them to Moses for him to speak to Israel; but the Holy Spirit, in the form of a dove, descended from before the throne, and abode on Jesus. He needed no angels to tell him what to speak, for the Father dwelt in Him by his spirit, and moved his tongue to utterance.

“The Father is in Me. I speak not of myself; the Father dwelling in me doth the works.”

Though that Spirit forsook him when he yielded up his life upon the cross—Matthew 27: 46, 50; Luke 23: 46, it was only till he rose again by its life-imparting energy—Romans 8: 11. The fullness of the Godhead now dwelleth bodily in him; and of that “fullness have we all,” says an apostle, “received, even gift for the sake of gift—charin anti charitos”—Colossians 2: 9; John 1: 16. When he shall depart from “holy ground” to revisit the arena of suffering and reproach, angels will escort him to his kingdom, full of Jehovah’s words of truth and mercy to his people; for—

“He shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but He will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel. So shall they know that He is the Lord their God dwelling in Zion his holy mountain: Jerusalem shall then be holy, and strangers shall pass through her no more”—Joel 3: 16-17.

 

            Thus will he utter his archangel voice from Zion, amid the echoes of Jehovah’s trumpet sending forth its blasts as on Sinai in the days of old. That trump will awake the dead—1 Thessalonians 4: 16; 2 Thessalonians 1: 7-8. And where will be his foes? Though gathered together to battle against Jerusalem a mighty host, of what account will they be, when the crashing thunder of that dead-awakening shout, rattling through the flaming heavens, shall boom upon their ears? Madness will seize upon them, and upon their horses blindness and astonishment. The burden of Jerusalem will be heavy upon them, and a cup of trembling to them all—Zechariah 12: 1-7; 14: 1-21. But drink it to the dregs they must; for their wickedness will be great—Joel 3: 13. Jehovah’s first interview with his nation at Sinai was attended by a terrific demonstration preceded by the overthrow of Israel’s enemies. Under the sanction of this display of power and glory he presented Moses to the people as his representative over them. But the time is not very remote, when the crisis that is now forming will necessitate a second interview between Jehovah and the Tribes. They have to be delivered from those that hate them; and to be impressed with a spirit of prompt obedience and submission to the Moses-like prophet, who is to be the mediatorial representative of Jehovah in their midst for a thousand years to come. Nothing short of a Sinaitic demonstration will accomplish this; for Israel is as stiff-necked a people today as thirty-four centuries ago. The battle of Armageddon and the war which it inducts, with all the attendant manifestations of power and great glory, will inaugurate, with all-subduing majesty, Jehovah’s king in Zion, the hill of His holiness. The mediatorship will then have reappeared in Israel under the new covenant, dedicated upwards of eighteen centuries before by the blood of the Mediator, who speaks the words commanded of the Father in sending forth the amended law from Zion, and the word of Jehovah from Jerusalem—Isaiah 2: 3; not to Israel only, but to the residue of men who then seek after the Lord, and to all the nations called by his name—Acts 15: 17. Great, glorious, and free, will Israel then be in the midst of enlightened, obedient, and happy nations. The Kingdom of God, for which Jesus taught his apostle to pray, will have come to Zion, and his Father’s will performed on earth as it is in heaven. As the woman’s seed he will have bruised the serpent’s head, and have delivered his brethren from evil, because the kingdom is his, the power and the glory for ever, amen.

 

            Thus then will the amended law be ordained by Jehovah in the hand of Jesus, the Mediator of the New Covenant, —even the law initiated by Moses for a single nation; but perfected and adapted to a consociation of all nations, by the prophet like unto him, the future king and lord of all the earth—Zechariah 14: 9. When that which is perfect hath come, the ordering of things terrestrial will have obtained the permanency of a thousand years, as exhibited in the following descending series: —

 

JEHOVAH,

 

Lord of the boundless universe;

Dwelling in unapproachable light;

Whom no man hath seen, or can see and live:

 

JESUS,

 

Jehovah’s High Priest and King over all the

Earth on David’s Throne in Zion:

 

THE SAINTS,

 

Associates with Jesus in the enlightenment

And government of the world:

 

LEVITICAL PRIESTHOOD,

 

Priests to Israel and the Gentiles who come

Up to worship Jehovah at the Temple in

Jerusalem:

 

 

 

 

TWELVE TRIBES OF ISRAEL,

 

The Kingdom of God, or Jehovah’s First

Born of the many nations constituted His

Sons in Abraham, their federal paternal

Chief:

 

THE NATIONS,

 

The Inheritance of Jehovah’s king to the

Ends of the earth.

 

* * *

 

“THE ANGELICAL SOCIETY.”

 

(A Society for the transformation of the “immortal souls” of babies into

“guardian angels” in Sky-kingdomia.) —Editor

 

            And now, the better to understand “Romanism as it is,” let us look at the way in which it expends its pecuniary resources in places where it is free from the control of Protestantism, and the restraints of the general spirit of the age. In the Chinese missions, Perrocheau, vicar apostolic of Su-tchuen, under date September 4th, 1848, writes to the conductors of the society for the propagation of the faith at Rome, in the following terms:

 

            “In spite of the obstacles which the mandarins throw in the way of the conversion of the infidels, we have received as catechumens 1,280 neophytes, and baptised 888 adults in the year. God be praised. But our angelical society it is which gives us the greatest consolation. The number of the children of the infidels baptised in danger of death continues constantly to increase; this year it amounts to 84,416, about two-thirds of whom, already in possession of unutterable felicity, will love and praise God eternally. The more we receive aid from Europe, the more will this work extend its benefits. We have opened in several cities, small shops where Christian (catholic) physicians gratuitously distribute pills for young persons who are sick, and generously give attentions of all kinds to the children brought to them. This work produces marvellous effects, causes a very large number to be baptised, and singularly pleases the heathen. In order to explain the prodigious success of our angelical work, you must be informed that all China is covered with poor persons, reduced to the last degree of wretchedness, and burdened with numerous families. Their children lack everything: no food, no clothes, almost no shelter. The mothers die of hunger and cold; the infants they support perish with them. It is these nurses which give an abundant harvest to our baptisers, who seek those poor wretches in preference to others, accost them with kind words, testify a warm interest in their young families, give pills, and sometimes add alms; they are therefore regarded as angels descended from heaven, and are easily allowed to baptise the perishing little ones. Some of our physicians have often effected wonderful cures, and though their skill is small, enjoy extraordinary repute. Hippocrates was not lauded so much. Sponges are here unknown. We fell upon the idea of getting some from Macao, as more convenient than cotton for baptising. The pagans admire these sponges, and regard them as an infallible remedy. They are delighted at seeing the foreheads of their sick children laved with so marvellous an instrument. We hope that next year the number of our baptised infants will reach a hundred thousand; by-and-by it may amount to two hundred thousand a year, if you send us good support. In no other part of the world can your money achieve the salvation of so many souls. After the conversion of China, which contains more than three hundred millions of inhabitants, you may compute the multitude of little Chinese which every year ascend to heaven. In Europe, perhaps, surprise will be felt at so great a disposal of pills in China. But the astonishment will cease as soon as it is known that the Chinese have a taste for medicine just as Europeans have for tea and coffee.”

 

            Lamentable superstition! Children sent direct to heaven by baptism procured by pills! Such is sacramentalism in its full growth. Such maudlin and degrading formalism to be represented as the religion of the Saviour of the world: and to be substituted here and in all protestant lands for the vital practical faith of Cranmer, Leighton, Jeremy Taylor, Barrow, Locke, and Howard! How little do these Romish fatuities differ from fetishism! A venerated pill, and a miraculous sponge, as means of effecting Christian conversions! Other resources of the same unworthy kind are employed. Thus in the missions of Tong-King, the Romish bishop and vicar apostolic, Retord, after reporting the baptisms, during the year 1849, of 9,649 infants of the infidels, states as among the causes of this success the following: —

 

            “A collection is made, and a small capital acquired. This capital is employed in trade, or laid out in the purchase of a piece of land. With the income we purchase boards to make coffins, and religious and funeral tokens; then, when the children of the pagans die, the society gives them a solemn interment, with music, and a drum and a troop of little children of both sexes who follow the procession. The heathens are ravished with this pomp; so that when one of their children falls sick, they, of their own accord, intreat us to go and baptise it. There is in the mission at present a great zeal for this work: but to sustain this ardour, I must get many books, images, and chaplets made. All the objects of the kind you have sent me are used for the purpose. But they are not enough. I am getting made here many chaplets for this purpose. Nevertheless, we shall never reach the number of baptisms in China, for the people here are very fond of their children.”

 

            The dumb show of a funeral parade a means of conversion! A drum and fife beating up for infant recruits in the army of Christ! Images in place of the primer! Chaplets over a tomb instead off the word of the living God in the heart! Yet only comparative success; for the parents “love their children” and, hence it would seem, are anxious to save them from this parade and mummery. And in China the saved souls are so numerous because parents do not love their children! In other words, they care not what becomes of them; and therefore let them fall into the hands of the Romanists. No matter, being in those hands, and being baptised by those hands, they pass at once from earth to heaven! This is sacramentalism in all its destructiveness. No! there is no qualification in the absurdity. Witness the words which follow, and which proceeded from another missionary bishop and vicar apostolic, “Miche, bishop of Dansare:”—

 

            “When on the point of separating from these savages, I perceived a woman carelessly stretched on a mat, and near her lay an infant which was at her breast. This poor creature, about a year old, was nothing but skin and bone. A part of its body, devoured by scrofula, was a prey to putrefaction, and exhaled a fetid odour. I told the mother that I could do her child good, and begged her to take it into her arms. Then I baptised that poor little one, of its tribe the first-born for heaven. May that child, predestined for celestial bliss, when once in possession of eternal happiness, intercede with Jesus Christ in favour of his countrymen, and become the guardian angel of his nation.”

 

This poor, wretched, dying child “the guardian angel of his nation!” Well, he might be as fit and render services as good as many others who hold the same post in the Romish hierarchy of heaven. St. George, the guardian angel of England, should be worshipped blindfold, if he is to have worshippers at all. In this particular of guardian angels we find that pagan element which so largely enters into Romanism; and both pervades and pollutes the whole system. Repeatedly does it present itself in the instructions offered to the people in the works which lie before us. In the catechism, entitled Dottrina Cristiana breve, originally composed by Bellarmin at the command of Clement VIII., and in 1839 newly edited and published at Rome, in answer to the question, “Do you not fly for refuge to the other saints besides Mary?” this reply is given by the scholar, “I fly for aid to all the saints, and especially to the saints of my own name, and to my guardian angel.”—Journal of Sacred Literature, pp. 23-25.

 

            The writer of the above thinks it is a lamentable superstition that sends children direct to heaven by baptism procured by pills. And so it is. It is a blasphemous superstition that sends ghosts, adult or juvenile, to heaven, direct or indirect, by baptism or rhantism procured in any way. But paidorhantist protestants admit the validity of such baptisms, and would not repeat them; for the Romish, they say, is a true church, only corrupt. Its ordinances are therefore valid. If this were denied, it would play havoc with the Christianity of the Reformers; for Luther, Melanethon, Calvin, Knox, &c., had no other than Romish baptisms to constitute them baptised. The baptism being esteemed valid, what boots it how it is procured! Whether “by pills,” or by indoctrinating the parents with superstitious notions about infant-soul-damnation to the flames of hell? The procuration is a mere question of relative absurdity. Pill-procuration, and funeral drum-and-fife parade, are harmless absurdities; and quite as rational an introduction of infant ghosts to the spirit-world as any protestant invention extant. Romanists will not admit unrhantised infants to funeral honours, and sepulture in consecrated ground; neither will the Church of England Protestants; and both classes believe in the angelisation of their “Immortal Souls!” The Chinese have faith in the pills, because they sometimes cure, but none in their religion; the “outside barbarians” think everything of this; and thereby convict themselves of less sagacity than the Celestials, in re Superstition versus Common Sense. Before ignorant pagans are consigned to eternal torment without one ray of hope, let intelligent professors off the faiths of Antichrist’s dominion, styled “Christendom” by misnomer, ask themselves how they can possibly escape.

 

            What stupid ideas mankind have got into their heads about angels! Angels made out of infant ghosts! And the process, too, of angel manufacture, how thaumaturgical and instantaneous! The following is the receipt: —Let a priest or clergyman take a pagan or outside barbarian of eight days old, and then, dipping his hand, or a sponge, or a piece of cotton, into water, shake or squeeze the same over the face, and sign its forehead with the sign of a cross, repeating the words, “I baptise thee, &c.” After this, it may be pill-poisoned, cast into the Tiber, Thames, or Ganges, &c., or disposed of in any other way resulting in the separating of soul and body, and its immaterial spirit regenerated by the holy water, will fly on the down of an angel’s wing to glory, and expand into an angel there! And this is “the true faith of a Christian,” which qualifies for a seat in the orthodox Parliament of Britain, made up of papists, protestants, and infidels, of all shades of delinquency, to the exclusion of the more rational and conscientious sons of Israel. O, Gentilism, by whatever name expressed, how long shalt thou hoodwink the nations, and betatter the wise and prudent with thy filthy rags! That thy destruction may soon come as a whirlwind from the east, be the effectual and fervent prayer of all who love the truth, and hate hypocrisy and sin.

EDITOR.

* * *

THE EARTH THE FUTURE DWELLING-PLACE OF THE REDEEMED.

 

BY R. S. CANDLISH, D. D.

 

            “Let it be well remembered and considered, that the only hope connected with the future world, which Abraham had, was bound up in the promise that he was himself personally to inherit the land. When he went out, at the call of God, not knowing whither he went, it was upon the faith of his receiving an inheritance. When he came into Canaan, he was expressly told that this was the country destined to be his inheritance. But he was also informed that while his descendants, four hundred years after, would possess the land, he was to have no inheritance in it on this side of the grave.

‘He was to go to his fathers in peace, and be buried in a good old age’— Genesis 15: 15.

Still he had the outstanding promise that he himself personally was to inherit the land. He believed, and continued to believe, the promise. But he learned to interpret it as a promise to be fulfilled, not in the life that now is, but in the life that is to come. For he knew that though he was to die before he obtained possession of the land, —and so far God might seem to fail in fulfilling the promise, on the faith of which he had called him out of Charran, —still that God was able to raise him from the dead, and to fulfil the promise in the resurrection state, or, in other words, in the world to come. He acquiesced in that arrangement. He was reconciled to it. He reposed in it. He would willingly consent to the postponement of the promise, so that he should have his inheritance in the new heavens and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness, rather than in this earthly Canaan, as it now subsists, where, at the very best, all is vanity.

 

            “Still, let it be observed, it is the promise of that very earthly Canaan which alone is the foundation of Abraham’s hope for eternity. There is no trace, no hint, in all the patriarch’s history, of any other promise whatever, relating to the world to come. It is scarcely possible to entertain a doubt on this point. What Abraham was taught to expect was the inheritance of the very soil on which he trod, for so many long years of pilgrimage, as a mere stranger and sojourner. It was to be his at last.

 

            “Nor was it to belong to him in any remote and indirect sense merely, —and as he might be held to be represented by a nation that after all never got full and absolute possession of it. For the Israelites, at the best, were but tenants in the land—tenants at will upon their good behaviour, as God expressly testifies, using the very expression:

‘The land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me’—

Leviticus 25: 23.

It was to himself personally that the land was to be given as an inheritance—to himself, as an individual believer, and as it were in his own right. That very land was to be his inheritance. But when? Not in this state of being, in which man is himself mortal, and the ground is cursed for man’s sake. But in that other state of being, in which this mortal has put on immortality, and the face of the earth is renewed. *

 

* There is confusion of ideas in Dr. Candlish’s mind here. The curse is not removed until a thousand years after Abraham and the righteous have put on immortality. “The state of being,” or the present, is scripturally contrasted with “that other state of being” which obtains in the Millennium, or world to come. —Editor Herald of the Kingdom.

 

 

            “Yes! It is when death is swallowed up in victory—it is when the dead in Christ are raised—it is when this globe, already baptised with water, has undergone its final baptism of fire—it is then that the patriarch is to possess the land. * And then at last in the possession of it, —being himself raised incorruptible, and receiving his portion in the renovated earth—receiving it, moreover, for an everlasting inheritance, —then is he to reap the reward of all his work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope here below, in God’s open acknowledgment of him as a son, and therefore an heir—an heir of God and joint-heir with Christ, —as well as in the full enjoyment of God throughout the ages of eternity.

 

            “Such, as it would seem, was Abraham’s high and heavenly hope—a hope heavenly, in one sense, as having respect to the world to come—the heavenly or resurrection state; but yet, in another sense, having a substantial local habitation in the new earth, in which, as well as in the new heavens, righteousness is to dwell. * *

 

            “And now, does not this hope give a peculiar and precious meaning to Abraham’s determination that Sarah shall not be buried in a strange, or in a hired, or even in a lent or gifted tomb, but in a sepulchre, most strictly and absolutely his own. He is taking infeftment in his inheritance. It belongs not to him living. But it belongs to him, and to his, when dead: While he is alive in this world, he has no interest in the land, but to walk in it as a stranger and pilgrim—to ‘walk before God, and be perfect.’ But death gives to him, and to his, a title to it; and he will vindicate that title for his dead. Living, he can but use it as the strange country of his pilgrimage; but when dead, he claims all proprietor’s right in it, and his kindred dust is entitled to repose in it as a home.”

 

*  This is an error. The globe is not to be baptised with fire at the appearing of Christ, though the goat-nations are—that is, with a baptism of fiery indignation manifested through war, pestilence, desolation, and famine. The “final baptism of fire” is at the epoch of the removal of the curse, and the destruction of the devil, who shall have been previously bound for a thousand years.

 

* * A new heavens and a new earth is a phrase signifying a new civil, ecclesiastical, and spiritual constitution of Israel and the nations. It continues 1,000 years, and is then succeeded by another which is unchangeable.

Editor Herald of Kingdom.

 

* * *

 

A WORD FITLY SPOKEN.

 

“There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes,

and yet is not washed from their filthiness.”—Proverbs.

 

Dear Brother, —May I be permitted through you, to express a few thoughts to our fellow-believers of the glorious gospel of salvation.

 

The close of one year and the commencement of another, are generally regarded by persons of every class with some feeling of interest. The children of this world mark the season according to their different dispositions—the gay with increased gaiety, the devout with increased devotion; shall we then, the children of light, suffer such a period to pass unnoticed, we to whom every year is fraught with things of the deepest interest seeing that our relationship is not merely with such things as are “passing away,” but that we are so closely allied with the invisible and eternal? The past year, to many of us, has been one of trial and of change. Some dear ones have been hidden from our eyes in the dark cold grave—some have been stricken, but not unto death: yet we are called upon to give thanks alike for those who are fallen asleep in Jesus, and for such of us as are yet spared to improve the talents wherewith we are entrusted. Doubtless, the future year will bring its individual trials and sorrows, but may we not look for something more? The death-like calm that has, for some time, seemed to hush the vast sea of nations, cannot be expected to last much longer. Peace may smile on the opening year, but is it not a false and a fleeting smile? May we not, ere its close, see the sword unsheathed wherewith the Lord will subdue all things unto himself? Will not the storm have begun which must rage in unremitting fury, till every high thing shall be uprooted and extinguished that exalts itself in opposition to Jehovah? In view of these probabilities, doth it not become such as are enlightened with the knowledge of God, to look to their own position? “Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments”—much need have we to wrap them tightly about us when we see the storm clouds gathering in the distance. “Look to yourselves that ye lose not those things which ye have wrought, but that ye receive a full reward,” seems a word in season to all the saints of God. “The time is short,” so that we all need to do at once whatever we can to improve our talents, thus increasing our honours. What we can do for the truth should be done now, lest the time pass by and find us in the position of “the unprofitable servant.” I would, dear brother, say to all who are in Christ Jesus, let us not, for lack of exertion, run the risk of losing that bright destiny which awaits the faithful. And, truly, what a destiny is ours! To be exalted to the high places of the earth—to take our part as princely potentates in the grand and universal empire of David’s Son and Lord, which is soon to supersede the pigmy and unstable governments now existent. “Behold I come quickly,” saith our unseen and beloved Lord. Do not our hearts respond, “Even so come, Lord Jesus?” Blessed, thrice blessed, the heart whose breathings are thus in unison with the Lord’s own mind and will. But, dear brother, I greatly fear that all who believe and know the truth cannot thus “look for, and haste unto the coming of the day of God.” I speak of such as profess to believe the one true gospel, yet have not obeyed it. Their conduct is to me perfectly incomprehensible. If they believe it to be the truth, wherefore linger in obedience? We cannot address them in the words of Elijah, “How long halt ye between two opinions?” seeing their opinion is, decidedly, that the gospel of the kingdom is the one gospel, concerning which an apostle saith, “If we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel, let him be accursed!” They acknowledge, also, that the baptism into the name of Jesus of one who believes this gospel, is the only way to obtain remission of sins. In opinion they hesitate not to express themselves on the Lord’s side, but wherefore enlist they not under the banner of our salvation? We may, indeed, say to them as Ananias to Paul, “Why tarry? Arise and be baptised, and wash away your sins, invoking the name of the Lord.” Believers of the glorious gospel of God, yet disobedient thereto! Is it so light a matter to rest under the condemnation of the Most High? Are ye so in love with your sins that ye remain content therein? Wherefore do ye not hasten to put on Christ Jesus? Grovelling, indeed, would ye think the beggar clad in filthy rags who would refuse to change them for clean and wholesome clothing, and behold what a garment is suffering to lie neglected by you, even that name which is above every name, with all its attributes and privileges! Ye know that He comes to take vengeance on them that OBEY not the Gospel, and yet do ye linger from day to day, and month to month, yea some even from year to year, knowing but not doing. What sort of love for the Lord Jesus is shown in remaining disunited from him? Is the sense of reconciliation with God, and the answer of a good conscience so small a boon? Oh, surely the closing year may see an end to such delay! Surely many weeks of the new one may not pass ere all who believe the truth may be found clothed with it! I am sure that you, dear brother, who labour so much in the Lord, would join in the above words of expostulation to the apparently faint-hearted and lukewarm, and I feel convinced that you and all our brethren and sisters in the Lord would rejoice to see an end to such unaccountable conduct. In conclusion, I desire to say to all who are in Christ Jesus—Let us continually rejoice in the Lord—let us see that we abide in Him, “for we are made partakers of Christ if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.” Scattered we may be, and are, even to the four winds of heaven, but our hearts are one in Him, and whether our lot be cast in the crowded scenes of civilised life or in the new and enterprising regions of the south and the far west, we know that it is our own fault if our path be not “as the shining light which shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” And to you, dear brother, in congratulating you on having been the means of usefulness to so many, allow me to express my earnest prayer and desire, that you may be the honoured instrument of adding more jewels to the diadem of your Lord, so that they may be to you a joy in the day of His appearing. You have much to contend with and many trials, but “He that now goeth forth and weepeth bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again, with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.” Trusting that you and all of us called to be saints, may, in the storm that is about to burst, be hidden in the hollow of Jehovah’s hand, until He again shall “make the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof be still,” and that then we may enter abundantly into the joy of our Lord.

 

I remain, yours in Christ Jesus,

ARISTOBULUS.

ENGLAND, December 10, 1852.

 

* * *

 

OUR FUTURE POST-OFFICE.

 

MOTT HAVEN, WESTCHESTER, NEW YORK.

 

            MOTT HAVEN is a suburb of New York city at the termini of the Third and Fourth Avenues, and divided from Manhattan Island (the whole of which is subject to that municipality) by the Harlem River. It is about eight miles from the City Hall, which can be traversed by omnibus to Harlem bridge, less than a mile distant from the village; or by rail every half-hour from the city station on the Bowery. An hour and a half is about the time occupied in going to and from the city to Mott Haven, which is quite a pleasant locality on the New York and New Haven Railroad.

 

            It is at this suburban village that I have found a domicil, where it is my present intention to reside, if spared, until the Lord comes, which, from the signs of the times, cannot be a very distant event. When “at home,” then, as the phrase is, I am at Cottage-street, Mott Haven, Westchester, New York. After the receipt of this number of the Herald, all letters and papers for the editor must be sent post-paid to that address. They are no longer to be sent to 234 Wooster-street, which is six miles off, but to Mott Haven as above. Owing to the cheap, frequent, and rapid communication established by omnibus and rail with the city, I shall be enabled, when at home, to cooperate with the friends of the Kingdom’s gospel there. Though few feeble as yet, they have deemed it a duty and privilege to do what is possible in bringing the word before the public. To accomplish this they have taken a hall, and announced their purpose in the city papers to their fellow-citizens in the following words: —

 

            “Israel’s Hope, or the Kingdom and Age to Come. —Chelsea Hall, 186 West Eighteenth-street, will be opened on Lord’s day, December 19, for the weekly exposition of this great subject, and as a place of worship for those who believe therein. The mornings will be occupied from half-past ten to half-past twelve in scripture reading and interpretation, “breaking of bread,” and prayers; the afternoons, from three till five, in the exhibition of “the things of the Kingdom of God, and the Name of Jesus Christ,” (Acts 8: 12,) usually by Dr. John Thomas, (late of Virginia,) the well-known author of Elpis Israel, and editor of the Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come; and the evenings from half-past seven till nine for the investigation of important scriptural questions. To these several meetings that portion of the public is respectfully invited which is of a Berean mind, and desires to know what must be believed and done to the obtaining of eternal life.” In addition to this they have struck off the following bill for circulation in the vicinity of the hall:

 

“Salvation is of the Jews.”

John 4: 22.

ISRAEL’S HOPE—Acts 28: 20.

Or the

Kingdom and Age to Come, Glad Tidings

To all that are heavy laden and oppressed.

 

* * *

 

            That portion of the public interested in the Holy Scriptures, and desirous to know what they reveal concerning the destiny of Man and the Earth he inhabits, is respectfully informed that

CHELSEA HALL,

186 West-Eighteenth-street,

has been engaged as a place of worship and instruction where inquirers can be accommodated every Sunday, and addressed on their important and wonderful contents. Jesus Christ, who is “KING OF THE JEWS,” in saying that salvation is of that people, has indorsed Israel’s hope as true. Now Paul saith there is “One hope of the calling”—Ephesians 4: 4, and defines that calling or invitation to be to God’s Kingdom and Glory—1 Thessalonians 2: 12. Israel’s hope is therefore the “one hope” exhibited in the Bible—the only one, in fact, that in its manifestation can redeem the believer from the power of death, and cause the nations to sing for joy. How important, then, that it should be understood; for “without faith,” which “is the substance of things hoped for”—Hebrews 11: 1, no man can please the Lord.

 

            The meetings commence at half-past ten in the morning; three in the afternoon; and half-past seven at night. In the afternoon Dr. J. Thomas (late of Virginia) will usually speak. The evening meetings will be devoted to the free investigation of important scriptural subjects.

NEW YORK, December 18, 1852.

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

SCRIPTURE INVESTIGATION MEETING.

 

“Prove all things, and hold fast that which is good.”—Paul.

 

            In accordance with the above notice meeting was held thrice at Chelsea Hall for the first time on December 19. In the afternoon I addressed about sixty people there on the 19th of Luke, dwelling principally upon salvation coming to the house of Zaccheus “forasmuch as he was a son of Abraham;” and upon the partial accomplishment of Zechariah 9: 9-11, in the entrance of Jesus, Zion’s king, into Jerusalem, “riding upon a colt the foal of an ass.”

 

            In the evening I spoke to them on the fearful consequences of ignorance, and the blessed effects of the right use of the knowledge of God’s truth. This was demonstrated by reference to the passage read at the beginning, in which Paul tells the Thessalonian disciples that “he would not have them ignorant,” and exhorts them to “prove all things;” and for the reason given in his letter to the Ephesians, namely, because that a darkened understanding alienates from the life of God, and hardens the heart against all that he approves. Eschew ignorance of the truth, then, as a man in love with life would avoid death. “Buy the truth,” therefore, if it can be procured in no other way, and seize on every opportunity Providence presents of making it your own. “If the gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost.” This is tantamount to saying that the ignorant are lost if they continue ignorant, for if the gospel be hid from a man he is ignorant of it. He does not believe it, and therefore cannot be saved, as the Lord Jesus has affirmed. How perilous and damnable a thing is ignorance! When voluntary it is punishable, when helpless it is pitiable, but still alienating from the life of God. This is the natural condition of all the sons of Adam. Ignorant of that system of truth which the Bible teaches, they are all heirs of death interminable. “In the congregation of the dead they shall remain.” Ignorance is degrading—it is soul-degrading; it is a horrible, an awful thing. Look at savage men on the isles afar off. Nay, look at the savages at home—in the purlieus of this city, and then say if ignorance of the knowledge of God be not the great brutaliser of the human heart. What rational man, then, would continue ignorant when knowledge is brought to his very door? It is offered to you. You are invited to come to this place every Sunday night, and in a free and friendly manner to examine what the Scriptures teach, to make you “wise unto salvation.”

 

            Thus we spoke with respect to ignorance and its consequences. I then presented the brighter view unfolded by the Scripture testimony concerning knowledge, and its divine results when rightly used.

“This is eternal life, to know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.”

“Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and they are they which testify of me.”

These were the Scriptures of Moses and the prophets; for when Jesus spake the words there was no New Testament extant. Of these same Scriptures Paul said to Timothy,

“Thou hast known them from a child, and they are able to make thee wise unto salvation through the faith which is in Christ Jesus.”

The knowledge they reveal is wonderful in its nature and in its influence upon the heart of man. It is miracle-working. It can slay the old Adam, and compel one to put him off with his deeds; and create a new man instead after the image of God who hath revealed it. The Colossians were at one time mere children of the flesh, subject to the thinking of the flesh, and doers of its deeds. But Paul carried the Kingdom’s gospel to them. They believed it, and obeyed it too; and so put on the second Adam, becoming new men in him, as saith the apostle,

“Ye have put off the old man with his deeds; and have put on the new, which is renewed by knowledge after the image of him that created him.”

Thus they became “partakers of the divine nature.” Not by the belief of mere facts, for they will renew no man. This is manifest from daily observation. The wretched papist who worships dead men’s ghosts and bones, and saint-idols, believes, or rather credits the word of his priest, who tells him that one Jesus lived in the days of a certain Pontius Pilate, the Son of God by the blessed Virgin, who was crucified, dead and buried, and rose again on the third day, and then ascended to the right hand of God, where he has been ever since. But this credence has no renewing effect upon his heart any more than it hath upon the hearts of Protestants who luxuriate in all earthly things, and enjoy a pious siesta in “the dim religious light” of some fashionable conventicle once a week. The renewing knowledge of God propounds something more heart-renovating than “sacred history;” it plants within us full assurance of faith in the exceeding great and precious promises he has made in regard to his kingdom and glory. “By these”—by faith in these, the apostle Peter avers it is, that men become partakers of the divine nature—not by the breathing of a particle of the divine essence into a babe’s nostrils, but by a rational and intelligent man’s hearty belief in the covenants of promise, that a goodness of disposition is elaborated such as was in the man Christ Jesus, the image of the invisible God, whose nature was strikingly displayed in his character before the eyes of men. Who, then, that aspires to the dignity of divine manhood would continue in ignorance of the exceeding great and precious promises of God? Who would neglect to search the Scriptures where they may be found? Far be it from any listening to my voice this night. Rather let us assemble here with all diligence, and help one another and ourselves to understand the words of God, and he will aid us; for God helps those who help themselves. The book of his testimony is in our hands. The leaders off the people are confessedly unable to expound or interpret it. Shall we perish for lack of knowledge because of their incompetency? Nay, my friends, if they be content to dream away their lives in the strong delusion of ignorance, let us be up and doing. You are invited, be ye Papist, Protestant, Infidel, or Jew, to meet here every Sunday evening at half-past seven to examine the Scriptures. Not to dispute about theories, or to propound crotchets; but to search into God’s knowledge that you may come to understand the truth and be saved by it.

 

            Will you accept the invitation? Can you find it in your hearts to refuse a call so beneficial to yourselves? While many are running to and fro, and knowledge is increasing on every side, a feature so characteristic of the times in which we live, denoting that “the time of the end” is come, can you consent to stand still, and to remain without understanding in “the deep things of God,” which every one must do who contents himself with the pulpit oratory of the day, and does not search the Scriptures with a Berean mind? What extraordinary encouragement is set before us to become wise!

“The wise shall inherit glory.”

“They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.”

As we have seen, “the Scriptures,” that is, Moses and the prophets, elucidated in part by the writings of the apostles, “are able to make us wise,” if we will study them, and it is written that “the wise shall understand.”

 

            Now, to afford you such facilities to this end as we can command, or place at your disposal, we have taken this hall. Compared with the palatial temples of this city, it is a very humble and insignificant place. It is, however, the best accommodation we can offer you at present. It is water-tight, capable of being well warmed, and is well lighted by day and night. The truth resides not in palaces and stately mansions, and its friends have been for the most part less comfortably and conveniently housed than in this room. We think it will answer the present purpose, and prove no obstacle to the acquisition of the truth.

 

            Next Lord’s day evening, then, we propose to meet here to commence our free and friendly examination of the Holy Scriptures. The chair will be taken precisely at half-past seven by one appointed by the society which has rented the hall. The members will sing a hymn, and one whom the chair shall invite will offer prayer to God for a blessing upon our endeavours to understand his word. After this the Scripture investigation meeting will be considered as opened. The chairman will then read the portion of Scripture to be examined, upon which he will invite any one present, who believes that the Bible is a true and faithful record of the past, and an infallible exponent of God’s purposes in regard to the future, to favour the audience with what appears to him to be the obvious meaning of the passage. He may occupy as much time as he pleases not exceeding fifteen minutes; at the expiration of which he will give place to another, who will conform to the same regulation. Speakers will be careful to expound, not to dispute. They will be expected to explain the passage read as they best can without criticising the expositions of those who have preceded them, for they must remember that the meeting is an assembly of learners, not of teachers—the only teacher recognised being the word itself. This is the only doctrinal authority admissible; hence every exposition to be convincing must be sustained in all its points by a “thus it is written,” and a “thus saith the Lord,” in the plain, grammatical, parallel, and contextual signification of the words. After the passage has been sufficiently handled, the chairman will then present his understanding of the matter, which will close the subject for the evening. He will then notify the audience what will be the topic or passage for consideration at the next meeting, that individuals may think over it during the week, so that they may not rise to speak without reflection. The members will then sing, and the meeting will be dismissed with thanks to God through the Lord Jesus Christ for his word, and the privilege enjoyed of thus publicly investigating it in security and peace.

 

            Having spoken to this effect, we announced the first chapter of Genesis as the portion to be examined at our next meeting. We then sang a hymn, and having supplicated the blessing of God, dispersed to our several abodes, very well satisfied with the commencement we had made in this great heart of the American Union.

EDITOR.

MOTT HAVEN, WESTCHESTER, N. Y., December, 1852.

 

* * *

 

THE FRENCH EMPIRE.

 

“SPIRITS OF DEMONS DOING WONDERS.”

 

BY THE EDITOR.

 

            The text at the head of this article occurs in Revelation 16: 14, and signifies the same thing as “unclean spirits” in the preceding verse. An unclean spirit is a power, or political jurisdiction or influence paramount in a country. I do not mean to say that “unclean spirit” would be correctly defined thus in all texts where it occurs; but this I do say, that when the phrase occurs in a prophecy which treats of things political, it signifies a potential influence belonging to some particular government.

 

            This use of the phrase is manifest in Zechariah’s prophecy of the deliverance of Israel’s land from the desolating abomination at the time when Judah “shall look on him whom they have pierced and mourn for Him”—Zechariah 13: 2. His words are—

“And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord of hosts, that I shall cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they shall no more be remembered: and also I will cause the prophets and the Unclean Spirit to pass out of the land.”

It is clear that this still refers to the future, seeing that “the names of the idols” are yet remembered in Israel’s land. The “images of the saints” are still worshipped or remembered there by Catholics, Latin, Greek and Armenian. Their prophets pervade the land, “speaking lies in the name of the Lord,” and the “Unclean Spirit” protects them in their ministrations from destruction by each other’s hands. This is the present condition of Palestine, but as the prophet teaches, not its final one. The Ottoman, nor the power destined to supersede him for a short time, is not always to reign lord paramount there. It is to “pass out of the land,” and to defile it no more for ever.

 

            The answer to the question then, “What is the unclean spirit now in Israel’s land?” is that it is the Ottoman power’s, which power is for the time being answerable to the Dragon, out of whose “mouth,” or government, an unclean spirit is seen by John to go forth. Three unclean spirits are three political emanations or policies proceeding from those several governments exercising jurisdiction over the territory off the Great City, known in history as the Roman Empire. Rome, Constantinople, and Vienna, are the seats or thrones of these dominions, symbolised by the Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet. Their heads, or chiefs, are the daemons, (not devils) who enunciate the “spirits” characterised as “unclean.” They are evil demons because the spirits that issue from them are unclean, and consequently unholy. The Emperor of Turkey, the Emperor of Austria, and the Pope, are the genii or demons, who preside over the utterances of the symbols indicated; and if the reader have been observant of old-world affairs for the last four years, he will not have failed to remark, that their “spirits,” or several policies, have been and continue to be, originated and shaped by the movements of the French nation, the symbol of which I have before shown to be THREE FROGS. For this reason John styles them, like to Frogs—policies, Turkish, Austrian, and Papal, adopted in consequence of events in France.

 

            These three Frog-like Spirits of Demons are said by the apostle to be miracle-workers; that is, poiounta semeia, demon-spirits, effecting prodigies. In Revelation 13:13, the Two-Horned Beast is said to “do great wonders,” (seemeia,) which in the next verse are termed “those miracles which (ta seemeia ha) he had power to do in the presence of the Beast” with ten horns. This power of the two-horned dominion to work prodigies was manifested in its “causing fire to descend from the heaven,” by which it compelled the dwellers upon the earth out of which it arose, to set up an Image of the Sixth or Imperial Head of the ten-horned dominion; which image it so energised by its power as to enable it to speak, and cause to kill the rebellious. History shows that this was effected by prodigious wars—the fire descending from the heaven; which is the apocalyptic mode of representing war originating from the powers that be. Paul refers to seemeia of this kind in speaking of the appearing of the lawless power, when he says its coming is according to the energy of the Satan in all authority, (dynameis,) and prodigies, (seemeia,) and false miracles, (terasi pseudous;”)—political authority, wars, and falsehood of every kind, emanating from the civil and ecclesiastical Satan, or adversary of the saints, are the well-known historic energy which has established the two-horned and image, or Little-Horn-of-the-West, dominion existing upon the earth, or Holy Roman territory, at this day.

 

            The middle-age image of the old pagan Roman imperiality being set up and vitalised, it becomes a worker of prodigies in its turn. In Revelation 16 and 19 its mouth is styled “the False Prophet,” and is, in the latter text, said to “have worked the prodigies in the presence of the Beast” with two horns; that is, by its policy it has involved the two-horned dominion in wars with other powers, ultimating in great changes, and them with it.

 

            The mission of the three Frog-excited spirits is warlike. They are to “go forth to the kings of the earth and of the whole habitable (tees oikoumenees holees,) to gather them together for the war (eis polemon) of that great day of the Almighty God.” Their sending thus defined presents them with an arena coextensive with the Turkish, Austrian, and French empires, together with the kingdom and principalities of papal and protestant Europe. An imbroglio will be formed from which no European state will be exempt. Its results will be politically wonderful, the earnest of which is found in the rapid and extraordinary resurrection of the Napoleon empire. The Frog-power has proved itself wonder-working in the development of its own imperiality; we need not therefore be incredulous or surprised at the idea of future and greater wonders being manifested as the result of its policy antagonised by the daemons of Constantinople, Vienna, and Rome.

 

            Wonder-working is characteristic of the times. The revolutions of 1848 were extraordinary. They proposed results which have remarkably and signally failed in every instance. After the shaking the thrones experienced, the triumphs of absolutism must astonish even the tyrants themselves. The people have accomplished nothing they desired, and the governments have succeeded beyond their most sanguine expectations: the purpose of God alone has progressed in the confusion of the times. That purpose has been the re-establishment of the French Empire, which, as I have already shown, is the democracy armed and imperialised. L’empire c’est la paix—“the empire is peace”—is the mission proclaimed for it by its chief. But this, like all the public professions of Louis Napoleon, is unworthy of belief. The empire is war and not peace. “There is no peace for the wicked, saith God.” He hath revived it in his providence as his sword, which he is about to bathe in the blood of nations. The time has come to gather their armies against Jerusalem, and the resuscitation of this empire, which was never peace, is the preparation initiative of that tumult of the world whose uproar will at length encompass the holy city.

 

            But the end is not immediately. The map of Europe must be first politically changed. That is, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Sardinia, Naples, Switzerland, the States of the Church, the Italian States and Principalities, and Greece, are to be distributed temporarily among three imperial rivals. The treaties of 1815 will be repudiated, and the old Roman territory subdivided into three parts. This is deducible from the saying which is written, “And the Great City was divided into three parts.” Peace cannot effect this. Wars, and they desolating ones too, must supervene. The policy of the new empire will disturb everything, and leave nothing settled but the purpose of God. Already the shadow of coming events may be discerned. Since writing our article on the Tripartite Division of the Great City, its territory acknowledges the sway of three emperors. His Highness the Sultan of the Sublime Porte has changed his title to that of Emperor of Turkey; and the President of the imperial republic has assumed the style of Emperor of the French. So that, with the Emperor of Austria, there are now three to claim imperial sovereignty over the rest of Europe. In the coming strife, however, the Sultan will doubtless give place to the autocrat of Russia, whose manifest destiny is to overshadow and eclipse the glory of the other two. The shock of embattled hosts must be fearful ere this conclusion can be arrived at. But it is inevitable. No peace policy can be devised by the powers to avert this war. It must come. God has not prospered Louis Napoleon’s policy for the advantage of Napoleon the Third; but for the execution of that purpose represented in the going forth of the unclean spirits like frogs to the kings of the earth.

 

            The French Empire, then, is not to be regarded as an olive branch, but as a great sword, with which the angels of God (to whom is subjected the present world, and whose administration is His providence) are about to advance him in affairs another stage toward the fulfilment of the times of the Gentiles. French intrigues in Belgium, Sardinia, and Constantinople are bringing the hands of the world’s rulers to their swords’ grasp, by which they are in motion towards the preparation of that war to which they are exhorted by the prophet Joel—Joel 3: 9-17—a war which is begun by the policy of the Frog-power, and terminated by the King of Israel and the saints, whose hope he is, as well as the strength of Israel’s tribes. The French Empire is a meteor. It will blaze forth with dazzling lustre to be extinguished in the blackness of darkness for ever. Its mission accomplished, and it will perish to rise no more. When “the cities of the nations fall,” its overthrow will be imminent, and its “mountain” a dissolving view.

 

            There are some expecting the appearing of the Lord, and the resurrection of the dead in 1853. They will find this expectation as fallacious as that of 1843. They err, not knowing the Scriptures concerning “the time of the end.” The event is not far off, but it is not so near as we would have it. The work of dividing the great city into three parts will take time. Host will encounter host, and many battles fought and victories won, ere such a subdivision will be acquiesced in by the powers that be. After this the fall of the nations’ cities supervenes, by which the formation of the Feet of Nebuchadnezzar’s Image is effected, and the Toes attached to them. The seat of war is then transferred to Israel’s land, and Jerusalem is besieged and taken by the army of the Goat-nations confederated under Gog. When these predicted events have become history, there will then be reason in the expectation of the immediate, the daily, appearing of the Son of Man in power and great glory. The great thing for the believer to attend to now is preparation for appearance in his august presence. No one, however pious, is fit to stand there who has not obeyed “the gospel of the kingdom,” as well as believed it. Put on the wedding garment and keep it clean, if you would be approved when the Lord comes. How readest thou the wholesome words of Jesus? Is there such a passage in the book of God as be immersed and believe the gospel, or “He that is immersed and believeth shall be saved?” No. Faith in the kingdom’s gospel must precede immersion if you would be invested with God’s robe; styled in his word—

“The righteousness of God witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God which is through faith of Jesus Christ to all and upon all that believe”—Romans 3: 21-22.

Blessed are such who watch, having garments to cover them when the Lord appears. Being wise, they will understand and discern these portentous times aright.

 

MOTT HAVEN, N. Y., December 28, 1852.

 

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ELPIS ISRAEL’S WANDERING STAR.

 

            The Bethanian Professor of “Sacred History”—Divinity says, that “the Wandering Star of ‘Elpis Israel,’” has had “administered to him his second or third baptism;” and predicts that the administrator “may yet dispense to him another into repentance of all his day-dreams about a returning Lord to the ruins of the old Temple.”

 

            We quote the above from the Millennial Harbinger for September, which has fallen accidentally into our hands. It is another specimen of its sly hits at Elpis Israel, which being invincible, vexes its editor as a prick in his eye, and a thorn in his side. Hopeless of effecting anything against it argumentatively, he shoots his unpointed arrows at its author with the most convenient secrecy. We have given him a copy of the work, and sent him the Herald for six years, being equal to fourteen dollars, yet we cannot obtain from him even a copy of a number in which he unbends his bow with full intent to slay us. Such warfare as this is unfair, and unworthy the pretensions of Mr. Campbell to superior sanctity and intrepidity.

 

            “The wandering star of Elpis Israel,” as he styles us, has been immersed twice, not three times, as he insinuates; and has no intention of being immersed again, though the administrator of his second immersion should sell himself to Bethany for a mess of pottage! For what purpose has Mr. Campbell, in former years, re-immersed persons who applied to him? Why was Mr. Walter Scott, his colleague and former leader, immersed a second time? To speak of more honourable men, why were the twelve Ephesians re-immersed by Paul? Why, but for the simple and obvious reason that they had not believed “the truth” when first immersed. Mr. Campbell has said that “the popular immersion is no better than a Jewish ablution;” and that “the popular preachers preach another baptism.” (Chr. Bapt., page 656.) Will Mr. C. say that the believers of such a gospel and the subjects of such a baptism should be content when they come afterwards to believe the true gospel? That they should not be immersed a second time? That belief of the truth after such an immersion will react upon it, and make that effective which was worthless before? This is too absurd even for him to affirm; on the contrary, in his better days, when he believed in “the Lord’s return to the ruins of the old Temple,” he has said, “The truth to be believed is one thing, and the belief of the truth another. Both are pre-requisites to immersion. The truth must be known and believed before we can be benefited by it—Ibid, page 446. This is precisely what we contend for. When ignorant of “the truth,” we were immersed into what we now see was mere Scotto-Campbellism; but when we came to understand Moses and the prophets, and, by consequence, the writings of the apostles, we attained to the belief also of “the gospel of the kingdom” promised in the Old Testament, and preached in the New. Enlightened by this, we perceived that the Campbellite gospel and baptism administered by their inventor, Mr. Walter Scott, were as much “another gospel and another baptism” as any administered by “the popular preachers;” and believing with Mr. Campbell, that “the truth must be known and believed before we can be benefited by it,” we determined to renounce his baptism as worthless; and to be immersed a second time, that we might be benefited by the gospel of the kingdom then as now assuredly believed. As we have said elsewhere, we repudiate the repetition of an immersion on any other ground than this. If a man have believed “the truth,” that is, the gospel of the kingdom in the name of Jesus as its covenant, priest, and king, before immersion, he should never be immersed again; but if he “understand not the word of the kingdom,” immersion endlessly repeated, will leave him unbaptised, dead in trespasses and sins, and without any scriptural hope of resurrection to eternal life. If such an immersed man come to understand and believe the truth after his immersion in his ignorance, let not such an one deceive himself by supposing his immersion is any better than a Jewish ablution. It is no better. It is utterly worthless; and being convinced of this, we were immersed a second time by one who had been re-immersed, and who declared to us he believed the gospel off the kingdom we desired to obey. We permitted him to do nothing but pronounce the words of Christ, and, having put us under the water, to raise us up again. We confessed to God before we went down into the water, and with our own voice called upon his name. We accepted neither prayer nor exhortation from him; but confined him strictly to the act defined. It is certain, for many reasons, he will never dispense to us in any form or shape again. He is in the hands of him who will deal with him according to his deeds; and there we leave him, being well assured that whatever may become of him, truth will be vindicated, and malice put to shame.

 

            Mr. C.’s supposition of a third immersion into repentance of all our “day-dreams” detailed in Elpis Israel and the Herald, is childish and vain. If our “day-dreams” were to vanish as the morning dew, whither should we turn? Scripture, reason, and experience, all concur in testifying the absurdity of the Bethanian system. We could not, therefore, turn to that as a vision of peace and righteousness. Nor could we turn to any other form of sectarianism, for they are all vanity alike. There is then for us but one alternative—the gospel off the kingdom in Jesus’ name, or infidelity. The latter has no charms for us. Twenty years’ study of Moses and the prophets, &c., and a constant advocacy of their testimony, have made faith an essential part of our inner man. The gospel promised to Abraham, and preached by Jesus and his apostles, is the bright particular star of our voyage through life. The longitude of our faith is always 55 degrees east from Ferro, where Abraham and his seed sojourned in hope of an everlasting possession there. We dream of this by day. It is a pleasing and a truthful dream; and will not, we trust, vanish from our heart’s tablet until its foreshadowed reality shall bless the sight of all the sons of God. Let Mr. Campbell, then, and all other friends of the present world, use their pleasure in blaspheming the Lord’s truth, and in heaping injustice and calumny on his brethren who believe it—their time is short: we hold on to Israel’s hope, for “Salvation is of the Jews.”

EDITOR.

 

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ANALECTA EPISTOLARIA.

 

AN ASSERTION VERIFIED

 

            Dear Brother, —The three volumes of Elpis Israel arrived safely. We are all exceedingly pleased with the work. C. says he would not take a hundred dollars for his if he could not replace it. He values it higher than all other books, save the Bible, which it renders so intelligible. Oh, how grateful should we be to you for the precious instruction we have received from you by word and writing? But for your instrumentality we should probably have been groping our way along in profound sectarian darkness, looking and praying for the time when no man could say to his neighbour, “Know the Lord;” when the stone “cut out of the mountains without hands” should “fill the whole earth,” and grind the nations to powder, by moral suasion; and in so doing would convert them all, and render them fit subjects for the Messiah’s kingdom! When, lo! utter destruction would have come upon us at unawares! But, we trust, we have seen the truth more perfectly than this; and pray that we may, if not alive at the glorious appearing of the Son of God, have a part in the first resurrection, over whose children “the Second Death hath no power.”

 

            We have great faith in your exposition of the future development of mundane affairs. Well do we recollect your assertion in 1848, contrary to all expectation, that the French Republic would not stand more than four or five years; and how truly have we seen it verified. This, with other indications, have very forcibly impressed us.

 

            May the good Lord guide us, and preserve us all to the glorious appearing of his immaculate Son! And that we may have a part in the resurrection to life, and enjoy his presence as the Light of the New Jerusalem for ever, is the fervent prayer of yours most affectionately in the “One Hope of the calling.”

JOHN OATMAN, SEN.

BASTROP, Texas, March, 1852.

 

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A WORD OF ENCOURAGEMENT.

 

My Dear Brother, —There is no post-delivery that gives me so much pleasure as that which puts me in possession of your unrivalled periodical. But it grieves me greatly to perceive how inefficient is the patronage it receives. I feel, however, self-condemned that I have myself done no better than hitherto. I request you, therefore, now to forward me three copies of the past volume, being one for each of my children. There are articles in them whose value is far above gold. I have been delighted with them, and have, by their means, apparently enlightened the minds of others. But there it rests at present. Alas for prejudice! You have, however, brought more to the acknowledgment of the truth, than honest old Noah, who, after preaching righteousness a hundred and twenty years, could number only six adherents besides his wife. May we not inquire with Jesus in respect of the gospel of the kingdom, “When the Son of Man comes shall he find faith on the earth?” I have had many disputations, and silenced many disputers of this world, expecting that some fruit would follow; but none appears as yet. As a Baptist who went to Australia from this place some two or three years since, says, in a recent letter concerning the aborigines, that he despaired of their conversion till the Lord came; so may I say of the natives of Linlithgow, of Scotland, yea, of all Britain. They seem all gospel-proof; and the words of Paul are alike applicable to protestant as to papist—

“Because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved; for this cause God will send them Strong Delusion that they should believe a lie. That all might be condemned who believe not the truth, but have pleasure in unrighteousness.”

 

            Your letter to Kossuth is admirable, and well-timed; but it will not prevent the noble and patriotic Magyar from pursuing his course, any more than your clear elucidation of the gospel of the kingdom will turn men from their false and superstitious notions. But your unwearied and self-denying endeavours must be a great source of satisfaction to your inward man; and, having sowed the good seed, we must wait in hope. Perhaps some great change may take place soon; and I pray you may be spared to see much fruit from your labours ripening for the kingdom. The doctrine you teach is quite new to this generation, whose rust it will take much friction to polish off, that the light of truth may be reflected, although you and I think it so plain and easy to be understood.

 

            I have had a short outline of the gospel of the kingdom sketched out with a view to its publication as a tract. Life is very uncertain, and I have a great desire to leave behind me some mark or demonstration of my attachment to the truth as taught by the prophets and apostles. Many thanks to your writings for directing me to the word of God, by which my mind has been divested of the human tradition which obscured and oppressed it. The title I propose to give is, “The Gospel, or Glad Tidings of the Kingdom of God, briefly exhibited from the statute book of heaven.” I have commenced it in this way—

 

“Matthew 4: 21. Jesus went about all Galilee teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the Kingdom.”

“Luke 8: 1. And it came to pass afterwards, that he went throughout every city and village, preaching and showing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God, and the twelve were with him.”

“Luke 9: 2. And he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick. * * * And they departed and went throughout the towns preaching the gospel, and healing everywhere.”